Beethoven First Piano Sonata, Opus 2 No 1

In 1793, at the age of 23, Beethoven left Bonn to settle definitively in Vienna with the desire to expand his knowledge under the guidance of the most conspicuous masters of the time. Among them stood out Joseph Haydn who, passing through Bonn, had offered to accept the young genius as a pupil in the capital of the empire if he ever happened to be there.

Haydn's pupil
But the Esterházy musician and Beethoven did not get along. Their temperaments were completely opposite. The old master acknowledged that the young Beethoven had genius, but suggested that perhaps he could do better with an education of the spirit than a musical one. On hearing his first works, he would have said to him:

"You are very talented, and will progress further in the future. You possess great inspiration and will never sacrifice a beautiful thought to a tyrannical rule, which seems reasonable to me; but you will sacrifice rules to your fantasy, for it seems to me that you are a man who has several heads, several hearts, several souls. I believe that one will always discover in your works something unexpected, unusual, somber, because you yourself are a little somber and strange, and the musician's style always reveals the man."

A young Beethoven, in 1803

Beethoven, a pupil of Socrates and Jesus Christ

A cold, if sharp analysis of Beethoven's personality. In the face of Haydn's simplicity, Beethoven's passionate and sometimes violent temperament was bound to clash. The young composer was then forced to look for other teachers. He had several (Salieri, among them), although later, when asked from what sources he had drawn, he used to answer, a little proudly: "I am a pupil of Socrates and Jesus Christ".

Sonata Opus 2 No 1

However, the first three piano sonatas, grouped in Opus 2, are dedicated to the first teacher he had in Vienna, Joseph Haydn.
And with them, the surprising cycle of the 32 piano sonatas that he would write during his lifetime is inaugurated.

Published in 1796, Sonata No. 1 of Opus 2, in F minor, was probably composed years earlier, while the master was still in Bonn. It is clearly an early piece, influenced – and somewhat more – by Mozart and Haydn. It is his first piano sonata.

Movements

In the complete cycle of his 32 sonatas, Beethoven did not always follow the Vivaldian three-movement structure. There are those with four movements (12 sonatas), three (13) and with two (7). It is therefore not surprising that this first sonata is in four movements:

00       Allegro  - The opening theme is apparently taken from the finale of Mozart's Symphony No. 40.

04:18  Adagio  - The first theme is derived from the slow movement of a quartet, by Beethoven himself.

09:54  Menuetto: Allegretto  - This is the movement that Beethoven has added to the Vivaldian structure, a minuet marked allegretto.

13:41  Prestissimo  - With a very energetic initial theme, it clearly marks the movement as the most "Beethovenian" of all. 

The rendition is by Daniel Barenboim, during his performance of the complete Beethoven sonatas at the Berlin Staatsoper in June and July 2006.

Borodin, "In the Steppes of Central Asia"

One year before he was assassinated by a bomb thrown at his feet, Tsar Alexander II decided to celebrate his twenty-five years at the head of the Russian Empire with a great event. For this purpose, several Russian musicians were summoned to provide the music for several short dramas that were to be staged in front of the Tsar and his court. Apparently, the only musician who responded to the summons was the composer and scientist Alexander Borodin, a musician member of The Five Group and holder of the chair of chemistry at the Russian Medical and Surgical Academy. The composer joined the celebrations with a short symphonic poem entitled "In Central Asia".

An immediate success
The great event envisaged by the Tsar never took place (the political situation was not the best, as can be inferred). But Borodin's work, first performed in St. Petersburg in April 1880 under the baton of Rimsky-Korsakov, became famous in its own right almost immediately. It was applauded in Russia and also in the rest of Europe, where it became known under the title " In the Steppes of Central Asia ".

The symphonic work is dedicated "with veneration" to the master of the symphonic poem, Franz Liszt, whom Borodin had met shortly before, in Weimar, to where he departed during a professional visit to Jena in his capacity as a man of science.

Alexander Borodin (1833 - 1887)

Crossing the steppes
Openly programmatic, the work illustrates the crossing of the steppes of Central Asia by a caravan of Asian merchants escorted by Russian soldiers, a frequent image, we imagine, after the eastward expansion of the Russian Empire by the assassinated Tsar.
Nothing could be more appropriate than Borodin's own words to describe the atmosphere evoked by the score, a scenario marked by an idyllic collaboration between conquerors and conquered —a politically correct review if it was meant to pay homage to the Tsar:

"In the silence of the monotonous steppes of Central Asia is heard the unfamiliar sound of a peaceful Russian song. From the distance, we hear the approach of horses and camels and the bizarre and melancholy notes of an oriental melody. A caravan approaches, escorted by Russian soldiers, and continues safely on its way through the immense desert. It disappears slowly. The notes of the Russian and Asiatic melodies join in a common harmony, which dies away as the caravan disappears in the distance."

The work lasts less than eight minutes.
The performance is by the Laurel Wind Orchestra conducted by Yoo Sejong.

Manuel de Falla: "Nights in Spanish Gardens"

Interestingly, to become the most successful and famous composer of Spanish music in the 20th century, Manuel de Falla had to leave Spain to study in Paris. After trying in vain to stage in Madrid his first opera, La vida breve, Falla took the opportunity a mime troupe offered him as an accompanying pianist to go on tour with them and visit some European cities, Paris included, of course. And Falla settled there, at the end of the tour. It was 1907, and the author was 31 years old.

Paris, before the war
The years before the First War were the last years of the Belle Époque, and Paris still allowed itself to enjoy an intense musical life. Isaac Albéniz was living there, working busily on his Iberia Suite. Debussy was doing the same with his triptych Images, and Ravel was busy composing the Spanish Rhapsody. Falla knew all of them, Paul Dukas included, who offered to guide him in his orchestration studies; a commendable attitude, although in private he called him le petit Espagnol tout noir, with all affection, we imagine.

On the way back

But financially, the little Spaniard dressed all in black had a hard time. He could barely survive a frugal existence based on lessons, various accompaniments, and translations. However, his stay in Paris prepared him for his transformation into the mature composer he was to become on his return to Madrid in 1914. He had under his arm the drafts of a set of "nocturnes" for solo piano, which he would finally complete as a work for piano and orchestra, as suggested by his fellow countryman, the pianist Ricardo Viñes, and which he would call Noches en los Jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain).

De Falla in Paris, 1910
(1876 - 1946)

The work

Conceived in 1909 as a nocturnal composition, the symphonic work was completed a year after his return to Madrid, in 1915. Dedicated to Ricardo Viñes, it was first performed at the Teatro Real in Madrid on April 9, 1916. The premiere was attended by the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, who later confessed to having fallen in love with the piece, which he soon incorporated into his repertoire, seduced by this nostalgic triptych for piano and orchestra, considered one of the composer's works closest to Impressionism, as well as one of his most brilliant.

Movements

The work is in three movements or sections, with the second and third joined without pause.

00:00   En el Generalife

10:52   Danza Lejana

16:00   En los jardines de la Sierra de Córdoba

The performance is by Daniel Barenboim, accompanied by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Plácido Domingo.

Franz Schubert, Musical Moment No 3

With the disappearance of the princes, church lords, and various patrons who had previously ensured their subsistence, Romantic musicians had to fend for themselves in the XIX century, which had a true impact on the universe of genres and compositions of the new era. The salon of the rising bourgeoisie and decadent aristocracy will take an important turn in the character of its social activities, adding to the political reflection and literary novelties, an increasing interest in art and music. The piano, in addition to being a status symbol, became a guest of honor in the salons, a sign of good taste. And for this instrument, composers would feel called upon to write short pieces for the enjoyment and pleasure of the new class.

Thus, nocturnes, preludes, impromptus, and musical moments flooded the musical universe of the early 19th century. Sometimes their publication would generate revenues that, for this new musician, deprived of patronage, could get him out of a financial quagmire, even though, as is obvious, the biggest slice remained in the hands of the publisher. It was in this way that Franz Schubert managed, for example, to get some breathing space with the Impromptus Opus 90, in 1827.

Musical Moments

The following year, suffering from illness but still in high spirits, Schubert sent to his publisher, for similar purposes, a series of six short pieces to be published as a set, though without indicating how the work was to be titled. Four of them were of recent creation; the third and last, from 1823 and 1824, respectively.

Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)
by W.A. Rieder, 1825

The "French" title
The Viennese editor, following the tradition that considered it glamorous to speak and write in French, titled them pretentiously in that language, ascribing them to the genre "musical moments". But where it should have said "Moments," he wrote "momens", and where it should have said "Musicaux" he wrote "musicals". And so they were published, in July 1828, when Schubert was not in a position to ask for corrections of any kind, for by then the little master was only fighting for his life, which would finally end in November of that year.

Musical Moment No. 3 in F minor - 5 virtuosos
Composed in 1823, as already noted, it has become the most popular of the series, perhaps because of the display of a certain oriental flavor that encouraged the publisher to add the subtitle "Air Russe", this time correctly written.

Marked allegro moderato, it is presented here in a version by five piano masters, since it lasts less than two minutes. The masters are Seong Jin Cho, Yulianna Avdeeva, Vladimir Horowitz, Natasha Stojanovska, and Kit Armstrong.

Tchaikovsky, First Quartet for Strings - Andante

In 1871, a 31-year-old Tchaikovsky had been teaching harmony for five years at the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society, which would later become the Moscow Conservatory. He had come to that position following an invitation extended by his friend Nicholas Rubinstein, who at the time was serving as director of the school. But the salary was rather meager, and Tchaikovsky was forced to write articles of music criticism to increase his income, thus taking precious time away from composition.

The Quartet No. 1 - Premiere

In these circumstances, five years before the appearance on the scene of Madame von Meck and the six thousand rubles a year that came with her, the young master resolved to stage a concert with his own works and for his own benefit, which took place in March 1871. The concert included the contribution of his friend Rubinstein who accompanied some ladies of the nobility on the piano in a couple of songs, and ended in style with the First Quartet for Strings written by Tchaikovsky, composed just a month before, and which on the occasion was performed by professors of the Russian Musical Society.

Tolstoy and the Andante

The evening was a success, even financially, and constituted an important first step in the composer's career. During the rest of his life, Tchaikovsky would write only two other string quartets, and although according to connoisseurs the third is the best of them all, none is as popular as this one, No. 1, due, especially to its famous second movement, Andante. According the maestro himself recounts in his Diary, it once made Leo Tolstoy weep:

"I believe that never, in all my existence as a musician, have I ever felt so flattered and moved as the moment when Tolstoy, seated next to me, began to sob on hearing my First Quartet."

Quartet No. 1 in D major, opus 11 - Andante cantabile
It is in the usual four movements. Presented here is the second, Andante cantabile, in a performance by the Russian Borodin Quartet. It opens with a simple folk melody that Tchaikovsky would have once heard sung by a carpenter. The second theme is original, and is introduced by the first violin, at 2:29. Numerous arrangements for string orchestra and various other instrumental combinations have contributed to the movement's popularity.