In 1898 Claude Debussy's economic situation was by no means the most comfortable. Nor was his sentimental life going through a good time. That year he broke up with Gabrielle Dupont, his "green-eyed Gaby", the muse whom he lived with for ten years, although he soon overcame this situation by marrying at the end of 1899 a beautiful brunette, Rosalie Teixir, called Lily in the working environment of her job as a mannequin in a haute couture house.
Monsieur Croche In order to cope comfortably with this new scenario, he had to accept a "nourishing" job, as he used to call them. Thus, in 1901 he began to write musical chronicles for the art magazine La Revue Blanche, where he invented a somewhat ambiguous and at times irritating character, Monsieur Croche (Mr. Quaver), with whom he would fantastically dialogue, and from whom he took advantage to air what until then he had reserved for his intimate environment:
"...Musicians listen only to music written by dexterous hands; never to that which is inscribed in nature. To see the day being born is more useful than listening to the Pastoral Symphony. Discipline must be sought in freedom. Do not listen to anyone's advice, but only to the passing wind that narrates the history of the world".
These are the words of "Monsieur Croche", taken from a long article of July 1, 1901.
Debussy remained a contributor to the magazine until December of that same year, when the work on his only opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, began to fully involve him.
Pour le piano
Published in 1901, the work is a piano suite in only three movements that Debussy had begun around 1894. A first version of the central movement was already part of his Images inedites of that year, and its final movement was probably composed in 1896. Dedicated to two of his students and to a friend – one movement for each of them – the work, very brief, is a reflection of the definitive transfer of his original musical language to the piano.
Movements:
00 Prelude. At once familiar and exotic, with reminiscences of Rameau and Javanese gamelan. (I venture to guess that Gershwin paid close attention at minute 1:32).
04:49Sarabande. In Debussy's words, a "conversation with the piano," or rather, a conversation with Satie, from whose 1887 sarabandes he borrows something.
09:35Toccata. The most solid of the three sections, highly demanding, and simultaneously extroverted and graceful.
The rendition is by Italian pianist and composer Bruno Canino.
From a very young age, Erik Satie showed his bold irreverence and flamboyant sense of humor by casually assigning the name "Opus 62" to his first publication, when he was 19 years old. This was followed by an irrepressible inclination to title his works in a non-traditional way, as shown by the "Three Pear-shaped Pieces", the "Bureaucratic Sonatina", "The True Skinny Preludes", or the "Automatic Descriptions", just to mention a few among an extensive and bulky accumulation of nonsensical and comical titles with which he liked to mock the formality that usually surrounds the practice of academic music.
And of course, regarding his well-known Gnossiennes and Gymnopédies, he did not give much information either, except that the former has something to do with the philosophy of the Gnostics, and the latter with the Greek education of young people. On the other hand, together with a couple of French colleagues, he is also the creator of a curious "furniture music", intended to be listened to while engaged in other business. And as he was no stranger to some mystical tendency, in 1890, at the age of 23, he founded with a friend the sect called "Eglise Metropolitaine de Jesus Conducteur". 66-25
In his old age But by 1919 Satie had changed. The previous year his friend Debussy had died, without having recomposed the relations that at some point began to cool down for no good reason. It was Debussy who "discovered" Satie in a Paris café in 1891 and it was Debussy who later orchestrated the Gymnopédies, but he had to leave this world unhappy with Erik. In his old age, Satie would deeply regret that things had gone so wrong.
Erik Satie (1866 - 1925
Five Nocturnes
For all this, and perhaps what else, the Five Nocturnes constitute an absolutely serious work by Satie, with no playful title or amusing extra-musical texts added to the score. Composed between August and November 1919, they are his last works for solo piano, apart from a small piece from 1920.
They originally numbered six, but Satie either failed to complete the last one or simply abandoned the task. However, the video presents here a sixth piece, in the form of a "work in progress", inserted by its editor, and which, for the same reason, ends abruptly. These nocturnes are a clear sign that Satie's musical language had changed by the end of the First War, and although none of them has the features of those of Chopin, or Field, the spirit of the form is certainly evident in them.
Very short, three of them have an initial indication of tempo, austere, with no hint of playfulness:
00 I Doux et calme
02:35 II Simplement
04:32 III Un peu movement
07:21 IV
10:02 V
12:00 VI
The rendition, audio-only, is by the French pianist Jean Yves Thibaudet.
Although by that time he had been dealing with increasing deafness for about a decade, between 1808 and 1811 Beethoven did complete a stream of compositions that, if his life had stopped at the end of that period, would have been enough to secure him a prominent place in the history of music. The composition of the Fifthand SixthSymphonies, the piano concertos No. 4 and No.5, the violin concerto, the opera Fidelio, and the piano sonatas Waldstein, Appassionata, and Les Adieux belong to this period.
The three patrons These were also the years of the signing of the "pact" by which his main patron and pupil, Archduke Rudolph, together with his peers Princes Lobkowitz and Kinski, agreed to give Beethoven financial supportof no less than 4000 florins per year. Due to fateful circumstances, only Archduke Rudolph was able to fulfill the agreement, paying the maestro his share faithfully year after year. It is no coincidence then that the archduke was the recipient of fourteen of the master's compositions.
Archduke Rudolph of Austria 1788 - 1831
Sonata No. 26, in E flat major, "Les Adieux" On May 12, 1809, for the second time in a decade, Napoleonic forces seized Vienna. The imperial family was forced to leave the capital of the Empire. A week before the occupation, Archduke Rudolph had also left the city, although to return soon. But he had to wait until January 30, 1810. Upon his arrival in Vienna, he was offered the dedication of Sonata No. 26 composed by Beethoven in the preceding months, not by commission, but to mark the departure, absence, and return of his most faithful patron and friend.
The sonata was first published in London by Muzio Clementi, who translated Beethoven's original subtitles into French for market reasons. The dedication reads: "On the departure of His Imperial Highness, Archduke Rudolph, with admiration".
Movements:
00 Les Adieux: Adagio - Allegro (1:54)
07:14 L'Absence: Andante espressivo - Links without pause to the third movement, at:
10:50 Le Retour: Vivacissimamente - A technically demanding movement, it is supposed to express the rejoicing at the return of the friend and protector to whom the work is dedicated.
The performance is by the Chilean maestro Claudio Arrau, in a solo Beethoven recital. Berlin, April 10, 1970.
Born in 1844 in Pamplona, the city of the famous running of the bulls for the San Fermin festival, the Spanish violinist and composer Pablo Martin Melton Sarasate y Navascuez, better known as Pablo de Sarasate, made his public debut at the age of eight. At twelve entered the Paris Conservatory thanks to a scholarship kindly granted by Queen Isabel II of Spain, after he dazzled the court in Madrid with his talent. Five years later, he won first prize for violin at the Conservatory.
A virtuoso concert pianist It was the beginning of a long and successful career as a concert pianist that took him all over Europe and the United States in an almost non-stop tour that lasted three decades. Possessing a delicate touch and a virtuosity without boasting, a good number of the most significant works of contemporary composers were dedicated to him — Lalo's Spanish Symphony, Saint-Saëns' Introduction and Rondo capriccioso and Max Bruch's Concerto No. 2 are among them.
Pablo de Sarasate (1844 - 1908)
Sarasate, the composer Pablo de Sarasate is the author of nearly 50 pieces for violin and orchestra (or violin and piano), which were part of his sought-after repertoire. Among the most popular are Aires Gitanos, from 1878, and the Carmen-Fantasie op. 25, composed in 1883 when the opera had already won the public's favor after its failed premiere in 1875. As he had already done with Don Giovanni and La Forza del Destino, Sarasate thought it was time to make an arrangement for violin and orchestra of Bizet's work, which was gaining more and more followers day by day, although its author had died convinced of its failure.
Fantasia - Sections Following, the opera pieces from which Sarasate built his Fantasia:
00 Preludio - intermission adaptation introducing Act IV (Aragonesa).
02:56 Habanera, from Act I.
05:36 From Act I, episode in which Carmen mocks the officer of the guard.
08:00 Seguidilla, from Act I.
09:53 Baile Gitano, from Act II.
The performance is by Hilary Hahn, accompanied by hr-Sinfonieorchester – Frankfurt Radio Symphony, conducted by Andrés Orozco.
In the late 1840s, with more than a dozen operas to his credit – including the highly successful Nabucco – Giuseppe Verdi was not yet rich, but he was close to it. By then he enjoyed the most complete financial independence and, lover of the countryside as he was, in 1849 he decided to buy a farm near Busetto, the town that had seen him grow as a musician. And there he took Giuseppina Strepponi, a singer he had met in the distant days of his first operas, and with whom he had become engaged after a chance meeting in Paris two years before.
Giuseppe and Giussepina, in Buseto The people of Busetto were not amused by the return of Verdi, now victorious and famous, to live among them with a woman who was not his wife, and a singer as well. Verdi, in addition, was a widower. His first wife, Margherita, daughter of his first protector, Antonio Barezzi, had died in 1840. Barezzi was no stranger to gossip either, and when Verdi learned of his former father-in-law's disapproval, he replied with an indelicate letter. A year later, Verdi began composing La Traviata, which tells the tragic story of Violetta Valery who must renounce her love for Alfredo so as not to tarnish the good name of a family.
Giuseppe Verdi, in 1843 (1813 - 1901)
Duet "Dite alla giovine" In Act II, Violetta and Alfredo have already fallen in love and live together in the house she owns in the countryside, the fruit of her courtesan life. In the absence of her beloved, Violetta receives a visit from Alfredo's father, Giorgio, who has come to ask Violetta to end her relationship with his son, since his sinful behavior will only damage his family's reputation, especially now that his daughter, Alfredo's sister, is about to get married as God intended.
Violetta refuses at first, arguing that Alfredo is her first and only love, but Giorgio eventually convinces her. Violetta then sings Dite alla giovine, announcing "to the young girl" her renunciation of life with her beloved Alfredo, a sacrifice she fears will lead to her death. Giorgio then steps in to thank her for the merciful act.
In a performance by the Opéra National de Paris, Violetta: the Albanian soprano Ermonella Jaho; Giorgio: the Russian baritone Dimitri Hvorostovsky.
