Berlioz, "Symphonie Fantastique"

 
The financial support that Hector Berlioz received from his father to study medicine in Paris was withheld several times. This was always the case each time his father learned he had left medicine aside to further his knowledge of music at the Paris Conservatory. The father, a highly cultivated physician, only gave his approval to his son's willing vocation when the latter premiered in 1825 a Mass that was an impressive success with audiences and critics. But he set one condition: Hector had to compete for the coveted Prix de Rome every year until he won it.

Harriet Smithson
in the role of Ophelia

The Muse
From the following year, Berlioz focused all his efforts on winning the famous prize that assured him a scholarship in Italy for two years. He would achieve it five years later, in 1830, with a lyric drama.
But before that, an innocent visit to the theater to watch a Shakespearean drama will leave him in a mess. Hector Berlioz would fall at the feet of Harriet Smithson, a small-time Irish actress who at the time – September 1827 –, she played Ophelia one day and Juliet the other. The composer, a glamorous romantic 24 years old, will fall in love first with the characters and then with the one who embodies them.

Hector Berlioz (1802 -  1869)
Portrait made in Rome, 1832

Episode in the life of an artist

But Harriet, three years older, refused him. Bizet's letters to her failed to enthuse her. The composer was forced to capitulate. But in the pain of unrequited love, he found the inspiration for a symphony that had occupied his thoughts ever since he met the actress. And so that there can be no doubt about its genesis, he will entitle it: "Episode in the life of an artist". Only in the subtitle, he will add the form: Symphonie fantastique... en cinq parties.
Premiered on December 5, 1830 – the same year he won the scholarship –, it was warmly received by the Parisian fans.

Movements
Regarded as the first successful example of "psychological music", its "five parts" (its movements, subtitled) move in a progression towards the catharsis of the protagonist, who is none other than the young Berlioz:

1. Daydreams and Passions
2. A ball  15:06
3. Scene in the country  21:29
4. March to the scaffold  43:16
5. Dream of a witches' Sabbath  46:33

The rendition is by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by South Korean conductor and pianist, Myung-whun Chung.

Epilogue: Berlioz had to fulfill the prize commitment, so he resided in Rome until May 1832. Upon his return, the Symphonie Fantastique reaped more triumphs, and Harriet learned that the muse was her. They married in October 1833, but the union was not a happy one. They broke up in 1840. So much effort for so little.

Webern, Variations for piano Op 27

A member of the Second Viennese School, a follower of Schoenberg, and one of the best known exponents of dodecaphonism, Austrian composer Anton Webern lived an extremely modest life and died an unfortunate death.
And while his influence and stature are now widely recognized, he left almost no followers, nor did he add many works to the standard repertoire.

Born in Vienna in 1883, he met Schoenberg at the beginning of the new century and worked with him for six years. Around that time he also became intimate with Alban Berg, who would be his great friend and atonalist colleague for many years. To earn a living after finishing his traditional studies, he began a career as a conductor in various and varied Austrian theaters, an activity that would be interrupted throughout the First War.

Interwar

In 1918 he took up the baton again, dedicating himself also to teaching while composing music that was never performed. In 1923 he took over the direction of a choral ensemble of Viennese workers, which lasted until 1934 when the association was banned by the Nazi authorities.

Black years begin for the composer who, married and with children, must work as a proofreader for music publishers.

World War II is on the horizon.

Anton Webern (1883 - 1945)

The fatality

At the age of sixty, he was mobilized. But he saved his life... until the war ended.

On September 15, 1945, at the home of one of his daughters, near Salzburg, he went out to smoke a cigarette, half an hour before curfew began. An American soldier shot and killed him by mistake.

Variations for piano op. 27

A considerable part of his work is devoted to voice and choirs, but he also wrote music for various instrumental groups or solo instruments. A work of special importance is his Variations for piano op. 27, composed in 1935-36, where his predilection for short forms is evident.

The work, constructed strictly according to twelve-tone procedures, consists of three minimal movements (just six minutes in total) in which, moreover, Webern dispensed completely with crescendos and diminuendos, marking the dynamic contrasts with frank and rough oppositions of forte and piano, the hallmark of almost all his work.

The rendition is by maestro Maurizio Pollini.

Brahms, Piano Concerto No 2

When he was about to turn forty and had become a renowned musician, Johannes Brahms – who did not feel comfortable with the "war of the romantics" led by Liszt, propelling the German romantic avant-garde – decided to settle permanently in Vienna, in 1872, far from the controversy. After a long search, he found two rooms for rent at No. 4 Karlsgasse. While there, he directed the most important music association of the city as well as made concert tours throughout Europe.

He also visited Italy on pleasure trips. In love with its landscapes, between 1878 and 1893 he made nine trips to the peninsula. After the first of them, he began the sketches of a second piano concerto, twenty-four years after the first, a youthful work composed at the age of 21. But he soon put it aside for the Violin Concerto of 1878. The piano concerto would be left for later.

Piano Concerto No 2

He would finish it three years later, in July 1881. A few months later, during the rehearsal of a different repertoire, he took the opportunity to play it with the orchestra of the pianist and conductor Hans von Büllow, the former son-in-law of Franz Liszt. The conductor sent the score to the seventy-year-old Hungarian celebrity asking for his opinion. Liszt, generous, replied directly to Brahms – who thirty years earlier had declined the invitation to join the romantic avant-garde – in the following terms:

Brahms (1833 -1897) by the time
of the 2nd concerto premiere

"At first reading, the work seemed a bit gray to me. But gradually I have come to understand it better. the work possesses the pregnant character of a distinguished work of art, in which thought and feeling move in noble harmony."

Premiere and diffusion
The public premiere took place in Budapest on November 27, 1881, to great success. Regarded as one of the two or three most difficult concertos in the piano repertoire, Brahms would obtain enormous satisfaction with it in the European cities where he made it known, usually in the company of von Büllow and his orchestra.

The rendition is by the outstanding Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini, accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado, also Italian, very young, both of them. Abbado is no longer in this world. Pollini, fortunately, still is.

Movements:

The work is in four movements. Brahms added a scherzo to the usual tripartite form:

00        Allegro non troppo - A lone horn calls out a simple eight-note melody, answered by the piano rising quietly from the lowest depths. An ensuing cadenza encompasses the entire keyboard.

17:40  Allegro appassionato (Scherzo) - It is the movement added to the usual three of the time. The reason Brahms gave was mere that the allegro was "too simple". And he was right because without it the lovely calm of the Andante would not have acted as an adequate contrast to the first movement.

26:40  Andante. The movement is initiated by the cello, the protagonist of an extended theme. Brahms will later use it to create a song.

39:20  Allegretto grazioso - Ebullient elegance and charm mark the finale’s main theme.

Boieldieu, Harp Concerto in C major

There have been minor composers in all ages. We call them so because their work has not lasted and only a tiny part of it has reached us. But in their time they were outstanding musicians who managed to make a living from their craft thanks to a good share of talent. They knew also celebrity and prestige. The Frenchman François-Adrien Boieldieu, a contemporary of Beethoven, was one of them.

Born in Rouen in 1775, at the age of eighteen he wrote his first opera. Later he specialized in "opéra comique", composing no less than 38 operas, earning him the place of the main French opera composer of the first quarter of the 19th century.

In 1804, he moved to St. Petersburg as a composer for the Tsar's court, with a commitment to produce three operas a year. He did not live up to such a high expectation but in the seven years he stayed there he managed to compose ten.

François-Adrien Boieldieu
(1775 - 1834)

Back in Paris, it was not difficult for him to win back the Parisian audience, but from 1823, when Gioachino Rossini settled there, something changed in the Parisian taste and he had to start dealing with the Rossinian crescendo. True to his style, Boieldieu wrote in response his masterpiece, the Dame Blanche, with enormous success in France and even internationally, as it remained in the European repertoire for decades.

Harp Concerto in C major, op 77

Boieldieu's instrumental repertoire is somewhat meager, although as a young man he wrote some pieces for piano. Having befriended Sebastian Erard, inventor of a new type of harp, he also wrote for this instrument. His concerto in C major, from 1801, is a striking and melodious work that retains to this day a central place in the standard repertoire.

Movements:

00       Allegro brillante

11:25  Largo

15:21  (atacca subito) Allegro agitato

The brilliant rendition is by Mexican harpist Baltazar Juárez, accompanied by the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, conducted by Rafael Payare.

Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No 3

The magnificent reception in 1901 of his Piano Concerto No. 2, together with the many merits gathered up to then by Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff as a conductor, led to the 29-year-old Russian pianist and composer being offered in 1904 the musical direction of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. There he remained until 1906 when, due to the social tension that was shaking Russian life in all areas, he was forced to resign after an escalation of resignations of a good number of his collaborators, for political reasons.

Natalia and Sergei, around 1920

The good years
They were, however, the best years of Sergei Vasiliévich. In 1902 he had finally succeeded in marrying a cousin, an audacious idea that, among other obstacles, meant obtaining the permission of the tsar. In the company of Natalia Alexandrovna Natina, the composer and magnificent pianist began a long journey that took the happy couple to Italy and Dresden, waiting for events in Russia to normalize. This was followed by performances in England, Germany, and Holland. In the meantime, he completed two operas. At the peak of his career, Rachmaninoff had no doubt that the New World would one day claim his presence.

Trip to New York

The family's summer residence, "Ivanovka", served the couple as a bucolic rest between tours. Faced with the idyllic setting, Natalia feared that the maestro, who showed a certain tendency to sluggishness, would not work hard enough. On the contrary, with his eyes set on the prescient tournée, the composer did work intensively, and when in 1909 he was finally invited to New York, Rachmaninoff traveled there with his Third Piano Concerto entirely completed. With the composer as soloist, the concerto premiered on November 28 of that year, followed by successful tours of Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston. In January 1910 Rachmaninoff made another appearance, this time accompanied by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Gustav Mahler.

The definitive departure

On his return to his homeland, the Russian stages dressed up every time the famous musician appeared as a piano player or conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic. But the Russian people were about to shake the world, and the First World War only precipitated the events. Sergei Rachmaninoff, a member of the Russian bourgeoisie, saw his way of life inevitably altered, and on December 22, 1917, taking advantage of a providential invitation, he got on a sleigh, with his wife and children, toward Helsinki. From there, the Rachmaninoffs would leave for the USA in October of the following year, never to return.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 3 in D minor

Fairly considered as the most remarkable of his works for piano and orchestra, it was at the same time resisted by many performers due to its almost insurmountable technical difficulties, as well as by the public who maintained their preference for the more melodious and compact Concerto No. 2. Rachmaninoff himself eliminated certain passages from the work to make it more "suitable for concert performances", although it has recently been performed again in its original version, which lasts about 40 minutes.

Movements:
00:00  Allegro ma non-tanto - Constructed in sonata-allegro form.
17:30  Intermezzo: Adagio: Theme and variations. It moves into the last movement, without pause, in:
29:02  Finale: Alla breve - Quick and vigorous, in sonata-allegro form.

The rendition is by Yuja Wang, accompanied by the Vienna Philarmonic conducted by Colombian maestro Andrés Orozco-Estrada.