J. Strauss, Tales from the Vienna Woods

Around 1860, at the age of thirty-five, Johann Strauss Jr. envisioned that the Viennese waltz, the famous dance that captivated the Viennese at that time, could gain acceptance and recognition among an international audience. If, in addition, he managed to transfer to that new audience part of the spirit and charm of the land from which he came, so much the better. With this in mind, he set about composing music that would reflect the magic and enchantment of the forests surrounding 19th-century imperial Vienna.

Strauss Jr. (1825 - 1899)

Tales from the Vienna Woods
And he was right. The waltz Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald is, indisputably, after the unsurpassed Blue Danube, one of Johann Strauss Jr.'s most recognized waltzes worldwide.
It is a concert piece, no doubt. Its complete version lasts about fifteen minutes, although we usually hear reduced versions, with uneven results, as the conductor in charge omits the repetitions or even one or two complete pieces. Brazilian conductor and composer Fabio Costa is an exception. He is also an exception in a broader sense, as he usually addresses a few words to the audience at each concert.

Violins, in absence of a zither
The work, composed in 1868 (one year after the Blue D...) originally included a virtuoso zither part. Since today, at least in the Western world, there are no "zitherists" or zither players around the corner, it is customary to replace it with a quartet of violins, or a couple of them if the orchestra is not very large. This is precisely the case with the version we present here. The sections originally commissioned to the zither correspond here to minutes 2:12 to 2:39, and 14:08 to 14:43. And the waltz proper begins at minute 3:01.

Fabio Costa conducts the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra.

Beethoven, Sonata No 15, "Pastorale"

Although his deafness had already begun to trouble him seriously, the thirty-year-old Beethoven entered the new century, the nineteenth, in high spirits. With his financial problems practically solved, he was encouraged to write to his friend and physician Franz Wegeler: "I can have six or seven publishers or more for every piece, if I choose; they no longer bargain with me—I demand, and they pay—so you see this is a very good thing". But in the same letter, later on, he comes clean about his health: "...my hearing during the last three years has become gradually worse... my ears are buzzing and ringing perpetually, day and night" ... "I lead a hermit's life". 

1801, four sonatas
All in all, it is a golden period and a highly fruitful one. If we only consider his sonata production, the year 1801 saw the birth of no less than four sonatas: the one from opus 26, the two "quasi una fantasia" sonatas from opus 27 (the popular "Moonlight", one of them) and the sonata from opus 28 in D major, called "Pastorale" not by Beethoven but by his publisher, as was customary. (It is still seven years before the symphony of the same name appears, which in this case, it seems, was so titled by Beethoven himself).

Beethoven in 1803

Sonata No 15 opus 28 in D major, called "Pastoral" - the return to the old canons
Dedicated to Count Joseph von Sonnenfels, an "Illuminati" who was Mozart's friend and patron, the piece is usually received with some disdain by audiences and performers. With very little justice, indeed. A weak motivation may lie in its manifest return to the old canons in comparison with the sort of formal liberation that the three preceding sonatas represented.

It turns out that the maestro still had something left to tell us in the four-movement formal scheme of his early sonatas. He did not always have to be an iconoclast. He could also show himself as a creator of simple beauty, calm and quiet, except for the finale, the only truly "virtuosic" movement.

Movements:
00        Allegro: A pedal note on the tonic D will accompany the first 24 measures. And in one                form or another, this sustained bass figure will be maintained throughout the piece.
11:51   Andante
19:57   Scherzo - Allegro vivace
22:39   Rondo - Allegro ma non troppo

The performance is by Daniel Barenboim. The cycle of the 32 sonatas, Berlin, 2005.

Friedrich Kuhlau, Sonatina Opus 20 No 1

After slipping on the icy streets of Lüneburg in northern Germany, the future German composer and teacher Friedrich Kuhlau went blind in one eye when he was only seven years old.
The family had only been there for a short time and was forced to move to a new place of residence from time to time because the father, a musician in a military band, had to follow his garrison when it was relocated.

A remarkable pianist

Born in 1786 in Uelzen, near Hanover, he finished his schooling in Brunswick at fourteen. But it was in Hamburg that he began to study piano and composition. There he composed his first works: some songs and chamber music.

And despite his early disability, by 1804 he had become a remarkable performer on the piano. Six years later, he would earn his living by giving recitals in Copenhagen, where he had fled from the Napoleonic troops that ravaged part of northern Germany in those years. He lived there until his early death in 1832.

Meeting Beethoven

Seven years earlier, in 1825, he had had the opportunity to meet Beethoven in Vienna. A great admirer of the master, after befriending him, he devoted himself to the task of making a good part of his work known in the musical circles of Copenhagen. The maestro must have been very grateful, presumably, first of all, because Beethoven was already old and had only two years left to live.

Friedrich Kuhlau (1786 - 1832)

Sonatinas, the pedagogical work

Kuhlau was a prolific composer, mainly of operas, chamber music and works for flute (the latter demanded by the economic contingency – in every house there would be a flute, we presume). Nevertheless, today he is mostly remembered for his piano works, which are highly pedagogical in value, including a concerto for the instrument. His sonatinas are the most recorded, and what we can most successfully listen to in encores. Not very demanding, they are an excellent ground for preparing the major challenge of the great sonatas, those of the maestro he admired, for example.

In a rendition by the Japanese pianist Mitsuro Nagai, the Sonatina No. 1 from opus 20, in C major, is presented here. Its eight minutes duration includes three sections: Allegro - Andante - Rondo (allegro).

Antonin Dvorak, Serenade for Strings

 
Like Mozart in his time (and some other composer that escapes me), the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak fell in love with a beautiful girl but ended up marrying her sister, the younger one, for the sake of coincidence. The union with Anna Cermakova was a happy one (so was Mozart, with Constanze). The couple had nine children, although three of them died in infancy.

Organist at St. Adalbert
The composer had met the Cermakova girls while he was teaching piano lessons. But after his marriage (Antonin was 31, Anna 19) he abandoned the lessons because his former organ teacher got him a permanent position as organist at St. Adalbert's Church in Prague. There he remained from 1874 to 1877. The salary was miserable but it had the advantage of arriving punctually every month. For the young couple it was an invaluable help.

Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904)

The scholarship for talented subjects
Despite the circumstances, Dvorak managed to write a number of important works around this time. And it wasn't all bad either. In 1874 he applied for an annual state scholarship awarded by the Austro-Hungarian Empire for its talented and needy subjects, and Antonin earned it that year and the one that followed.

In 1875 his first son was born, and also his Fifth Symphony, the Quintet for Strings No. 2, and the Serenade for Strings in E major. The latter, one of his most frequently performed works and for whose composition the young master needed no more than two weeks.

Serenade for strings in E major, opus 22
Composed between May 3 and 14, 1875, its premiere took place in Prague on December 10, 1876, with an overwhelming success, which reaffirmed the high esteem in which the composer held the piece. Idyllic and peaceful in character, its music flows easily and naturally through its five brief movements.

Movements:
00        Moderato
05:08  Tempo di Valse
12:14  Scherzo: Vivace
17:56  Larghetto
24:03  Finale: Allegro vivace

The performance is by the string ensemble of the Royal Northern College of Music, Great Britain.

Clementi, Sonatina Op 36 No 5 / Yuja Wang

The remarkable Italian pianist, composer, pedagogue, publisher, and piano maker Muzio Clementi published his "Progressive" Sonatinas opus 36 in 1797, at the age of 45, when he had been living in London for thirty years.
They are one of his most famous works as a pedagogue and were published, of course, with a pedagogical purpose, intended for young bourgeois piano lovers. It was an extraordinary contribution. And it still is, two hundred and twenty years later.
This is the author's great merit. There is no classical piano student today who has not studied and chosen at least one of Maestro Clementi's "progressive" sonatinas for an exam.

The Opus 36
Over the course of his life, the master composed no less than 110 piano sonatas. He called a group of them – the earliest and simplest – "progressive", because their difficulty increases from the first to the last. Six of them make up Opus 36. And if No. 1 does not demand much from the left hand, the last one requires great skill to play complex rhythms, as well as exquisite phrasing.

Muzio Clementi (1752 - 1832)

The Art of Playing the Pianoforte
In general terms, the complete work emphasizes the basic skills in learning the piano: dynamic control, even touch, and melodic phrasing. In a new edition of 1803, published as a supplement to yet another of his pedagogical contributions (Introduction to the Art of Playing the Pianoforte), Clementi included specific instructions on ornamentation and arpeggios. As in 1797, the work was an immediate success. It was the fate of the master, who died rich in 1832.

The six Sonatinas have different characters, but in all of them, grace and charming melodies are present.

Sonatina No. 5 from Opus 36, in G major - Movements
It is in 3 movements and is the longest of the whole set, lasting just over seven minutes. Its second movement is a "Swiss air", made up of unusual six-bar phrases.

00       Presto

02:20  Air Suisse. Allegro moderato

04:02  Rondo. Allegro di molto

The performance is by the remarkable Chinese pianist Yuja Wang, when she was nine years old.