Wagner: Wedding March, from Lohengrin

It took Wagner almost a decade to gestate the opera Lohengrin, his third masterpiece after The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser. His first encounter with the medieval German myth had been in 1841 but it took him five years to figure out how to bring it to the stage. Then, two years later, in 1848, he finished composing the score.

Lohengrin
The story takes place in the tenth century and tells the vicissitudes of Elsa, unjustly accused of making her brother – then a child but a future duke – disappear. An enigmatic knight will arrive to protect her and eventually take her in marriage, as long as he never asks for her name. The knight, naturally, is Lohengrin, who like all knights of the Holy Grail, must remain anonymous while performing his good deeds. Lohengrin arrives in a boat, towed by a swan. In that same boat he will leave when Elsa, curious, asks for his name, thus ending the enchantment.

Richard Wagner (1813 - 1893)

The author in exile

Wagner was 35 years old when he finished the work. For some time he had begun to embrace political positions close to the left and a little more, going so far as to invite the renowned Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin to his home. Things did not go well, especially after the rebellion known as the Dresden Uprising in 1849, and as a result, Wagner had to go into exile.
Before leaving Dresden, he asked his friend Franz Liszt (whose daughter Cosima would later marry Richard, 24 years older) to ensure that Lohengrin was performed in his absence. So Liszt did, conducting the premiere of the work in Weimar, in August 1850.

Prelude to Act III - The Wedding March

The opera, a romantic piece and the closest to the author's "Italian opera", with a script in German by Wagner himself – like all his masterpieces –, is set in three acts and lasts no more and no less than four hours. The famous wedding march, performed at every wedding in the Western world, also called the Bridal Chorus and known in the English-speaking world with the colloquial title of Here Comes the Bride, marks the beginning of Act III, when Elsa and her anonymous knight, called by the chorus, enter the bridal chamber.

The rendition is by the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra and Choirs, conducted by Janos Kovacs, at the Palace of Arts in Budapest.

Brahms, Rhapsody Op 79 No 2

Brahms and the ladies he met

In love affairs, not everything was Clara Schumann for Brahms, 
Following, a brief recount of the ladies he was interested in.

Agatha
When he was 25 years old (two years after Schumann's death and Clara was alone and had to be supported) he was attracted by the beautiful voice of a singer, Agata von Siebold. He wrote some songs for her, they began to see each other frequently and their friends were already predicting an early courtship when the relationship ended in an unforeseen cooling off.

Julie
Thirty years later, his assiduous presence at Clara Schumann's house naturally led him to fix his eyes on her daughter Julie, which annoyed Clara. But Julie married someone else and Brahms found nothing better than to write her a wedding song, which annoyed Clara again.

Elisabeth

A little more mature, in 1863, the thirty-year-old composer met a girl in Vienna who wanted to take lessons from him. Elisabeth Stockhausen was her name, and such was her disturbing beauty that Brahms could not thread a simple phrase in her presence. Much less could he give lessons to her. Therefore, he referred her to a colleague, Julius Epstein, who reportedly suffered the same drawbacks.

Ten years later Elisabeth had married, precisely to a composer, and was now called Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, and had become a remarkable pianist and composer.

Rhapsodies opus 79

Johannes Brahms, in 1879

To this remarkable pianist, Brahms would send a couple of short piano works composed during a stay in Pörtschach in the summer of 1879. As soon as he finished them, he sent the manuscript to Elisabeth, who in an encouraging letter by return mail recommended a new and fairer title for them: Rhapsodies should be called Rhapsodies and not simply Klavierstücke (piano pieces) as Brahms had titled them.

If it was difficult to talk to Elisabeth, it was even more difficult to contradict her, so despite not being fully convinced of the change the author did not disregard her advice, and so they were published the following year: Two Rhapsodies for piano, opus 79, dedicated, as could be foreseen, to Elisabeth von Herzogenberg.

Rhapsody No 2

Both pieces, in one movement, are composed in the form of a mini-sonata. Presented here is Rhapsody No. 2, in G minor, marked Molto passionato, ma non troppo allegro, Elisabeth's favorite, as she herself told Brahms.

The performance is by the German pianist Ragna Schirmer.

Chopin, Waltz Op 34 No 3

By 1838 Chopin had been settled in Paris for seven years and was already a celebrity among the Parisian aristocracy and the exiled Polish nobility. On February 25 of that year, he was invited to play at the Tuileries Palace for the delight of King Louis-Philippe and his court. Frédéric did not attend very willingly, as the king was not his devotee, but Louis-Philippe was delighted with the evening and repaid Chopin's effort with a personal gift. Three weeks later he appeared twice before a large audience, in Rouen and  Paris. In Rouen, the performance of his Concerto in E minor earned him a laudatory commentary in the Gazette Musicale, which ends with the following words:

"... And if from now on it is still asked who is the greatest pianist in the world, greater than Thalberg and Liszt, those who heard you will answer to the whole world: Chopin!"

The year 1838 is the year of Chopin's departure for Majorca, the ill-fated trip he made with George Sand and her children, in October of that year. But before embarking on the voyage he would send for publication the four mazurkas of opus 33 and the three waltzes of opus 34. By that stage of his life, at the age of 28, Chopin had written, but not published, eight of his fourteen waltzes.

The Opus 34

The waltzes of opus 34, released by their publisher as Three Brilliant Waltzes, moved Robert Schumann to refer to them as "waltzes for souls, rather than for bodies", which today may seem a truism since Chopin's waltzes were never written to be danced, this being said with the utmost respect for the good-natured Schumann.

Waltz No. 3 in F major
Opus 34 is made up of the Brilliant Waltz No. 1 in A flat major (the only "brilliant" one in our opinion), Waltz No. 2 in A minor (Chopin's favorite according to connoisseurs, and which the film The Pianist featured on its soundtrack), and the one presented here, Waltz No. 3 in F major, just over two minutes long, and nicknamed by some, somewhat syrupily, as the waltz "of the cat" because of the notes of the opening passage that could well illustrate the tricks that such a pet usually does for the amusement of his master.

The outstanding performance is by the Korean pianist Seong Jin Cho.

Franz Liszt, Transcendental Etudes, No 4 - "Mazeppa"

Franz Liszt's commitment to composing a cycle of twelve studies for piano took him a long time, about 26 years. It is true that he began quite young since his first approach dates from the time when he had as a pupil the Countess Carolyne de Saint-Cricq, his first and failed love. Liszt was then 15 years old, and decided to imitate the serial studies that were common in those days. In them, despite their simplicity, we can see the seed of his later production.

A second version
A revision of the original twelve etudes dates from 1837. Liszt was at the height of his fame as a piano virtuoso, and as such, the pieces show a significant intensification of technical difficulties, to the extent that his colleague Robert Schumann noted that only a handful of pianists would be able to perform them in a satisfactory manner.

A third version
The third and last version was published in Paris as Études d'Exécution Transcendante, in 1852, and dedicated to his teacher Carl Czerny. Perhaps moved by Schumann's perception, in this version the maestro decided to lighten the virtuosic demands a little, freeing the Études from the excessive pyrotechnics of the 1837 version, and adding, to his advantage, more musical values.
This is the version that is performed today and, of course, the twelve pieces continue to be an enormous challenge for the performers. 

Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886)

Étude No. 4 in D minor, "Mazeppa"
Étude No. 4, one of the most demanding, is inspired by a poem by Victor Hugo, Mazeppa. The poem tells the story of Ivan Mazeppa, a Cossack nobleman who seduces a noblewoman, also noble, but Polish. As punishment, he is tied naked to a wild horse that takes him to Ukraine, where he miraculously arrives alive. After being freed by his Cossack peers, he is named their monarch, in recognition of such a feat.

The work, which attempts to musically reflect the horse's unbridled gallop and the ensuing suffering of the daring Mazeppa, adds to its technical demands an unusual fingering proposed by Liszt, with the pointed purpose of achieving either the required staccato or precise legato.
Later, in 1851, Liszt will recreate the story again, with the same title, but this time as part of his cycle of thirteen tone poems, composed during his stay in Weimar.

The rendition is by the brilliant French pianist Emmanuel Despax.

Bach, Passion according to St. Matthew

Johann Sebastian Bach, the father of harmony, was primarily a church musician, who was aware that church music was primarily vocal music. That is why his oeuvre is punctuated by compositions to be sung, even when he was primarily concerned with the orchestra or solo instruments. From 1723 on, after being appointed Kantor in Leipzig, his dedication to ecclesiastical music became more intense, since his main responsibility was to compose the music to be sung in the divine offices.

The Passions
Cantatas were Bach's daily bread and butter. Not so the Passions, conceived as long works on biblical themes, told the story of Christ's crucifixion according to the gospels and were sung only on Good Friday, in the Lutheran tradition. In the Passions, the historical characters and the evangelist (who leads the narration) are performed by soloists, and the flow of the story rests on recitatives, arias, and choral parts.

Passion according to St. Matthew

As far as we know, Bach would have composed at least five Passions, of which only two are preserved, the Passion according to St. John and the Passion according to St. Matthew. The latter, probably composed in 1729, was first performed on Good Friday of that year in the Thomasschule Church in Leipzig under Bach's baton.

The work, whose text is mainly based on chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew, is written for solo voices, a double orchestra, and two choirs, the latter intended to carry the voice of the believers, on the one hand, and those who ask for blood, on the other, each accompanied by its own orchestral group, hence the "double orchestra".

The oblivion, and Mendelssohn

Like almost all of Bach's works, the St. Matthew Passion fell into oblivion after its author's death in 1750. It was not until 1829 that it was heard again, thanks to a very young Felix Mendelssohn who brought it to the stage in Berlin in an abridged version. Its representation encouraged the interest in knowing the complete work of the father of modern music.

The great final chorus

In our days, Martin Scorsese's film Casino (1995) made an important contribution in favor of the ordinary public by including in the opening credits and in the final scene, the great chorus with which the play ends. It is the cry of the believers before the tomb of the dead Christ: Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder ("We prostrate ourselves weeping"), one of the most moving fragments of the work, and whose texts belong to the German poet and librettist Chrystian Friedrich Henrici, also known as Picander.

The performance is by the orchestra and choirs of the Belgian group Collegium Vocale Gent, conducted by Philippe Herreweghe, its founder.