Ravel, "Valses nobles et sentimentales"

Although it was already known in Mozart's time, the musical genre of ternary rhythm known as waltz had in Europe its apogee and greater development in the XIX century. But, at the beginning of the 20th century, in a world that had long abandoned romanticism, it did not show signs of losing vigor. During the first decades of the new century, serious composers, and less serious ones too, kept on composing waltzes, danceable or not, thus showing its perennial and powerful presence.

Noble, and also sentimental
Maurice Ravel, who in 1928 would give the world his masterpiece, the famous Bolero, was no stranger to the trend. In 1906 he began to glimpse the sketches of La Valse, a work described as "the apotheosis of the waltz", and whose final version would be published in 1919. In the meantime, the author worked on a set of short pieces for piano that he titled Valses nobles et sentimentales in homage to Franz Schubert, who almost a hundred years ago had written two series of waltzes: the Valses sentimentales, of 1823, and the Valses nobles, in 1826.

Maurice Ravel, in 1925
(1875 - 1937)

The premiere, and the riddle
The work was privately premiered by the pianist Louis Aubert (to whom it is dedicated) on May 8, 1911, in Paris, in one of the recitals sponsored by the Société Musicale Indépendent to promote the most daring composers of the time. To that effect, the authors were not identified during the concert, thus forcing the audience to guess who the works belonged to. On the occasion, it is said that only Debussy, in attending there, was able to recognize in the Waltzes... the pen of the master Ravel.

The seven waltzes
The set is composed of seven waltzes plus an epilogue, marked as follows:

00       Modéré - très franc
01:52  Assez lent - avec une expression intense
04:03  Modéré
05:26  Assez animé
06:32  Presque lent - dans un sentiment intime
07:22  Very vivid
08:05  Moins vif ("the most characteristic of all", according to Ravel, foreshadowing the appearance of La Valse)
10:44  Epilogue: lent

Neither so noble nor less sentimental
Unlike Schubert's waltzes, nothing makes Ravel's waltzes seem "noble", and even less "sentimental". Harmonically complex and full of unresolved dissonances, the waltzes are not easy on the ear, although in Ravel's opinion everything is very simple: "it is always counted in three beats".
The year after its premiere, Ravel published an orchestral version, intended to accompany a ballet. Presented here is the original piano version by the Polish maestro Krystian Zimerman.

Cesar Franck, piano Quintet in F minor

As the renowned French pedagogue and composer Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) once remarked, no piece of music contains a greater profusion of pianissimos and fortissimos than the Piano Quintet in F minor by the Belgian composer César Franck. The work was composed in the winter of 1878-79, when the composer, in his late sixties, was showing a somewhat unseemly interest in one of his female students. This highly expressive work (as demonstrated by the profusion of ppp and fff) has led some biographers to venture that it may have been inspired by that winter passion.

A repeated story
The one who had no doubts was Eugénie Desmousseaux, Franck's wife, who by then had given him four children (survived two). Eugénie openly declared that the piece was not to her liking. But why make it public? Perhaps she noticed unusual behavior in her husband, a state of mind that she could easily identify... Eugénie had also been his pupil. 

Cesar Frank (1822 - 1890)

A masterpiece
In any case, the work marked César Franck's return to chamber music after more than 35 years. And he did so with a masterpiece, which from its premiere in Paris in January 1880 won the applause of audiences and critics, with the notable exception of its performer for the occasion, Camille Saint-Säens. Despite being the dedicatée of the work, Camille left the stage at the completion of the piece annoyed by the incessant modulations that Franck's language demanded. The future French master thus joined Eugénie's disaffection, with as much or less justice.

Movements:
00       Molto moderato quasi lento - begins with a dramatic tone which then develops into a powerful and passionate discourse.
15:00  Lento, con molto sentimento - is presented as a long aria where the piano dialogues with the string quartet.
26:35  Allegro non troppo, ma con fuoco - takes up the themes exposed in the preceding movements in a fiery atmosphere, creating a kind of musical drama. 

The rendition is by the French ensemble Quatour Ébéne and the Russian pianist Vyacheslav Gryaznov.

J.L. Dussek, Sonata "Élégie Harmonique"

Dussek, the first pianist to sit at the piano the way we do nowadays
As is common knowledge, in the recitals and concerts of our times, the piano is placed on the stage with its longest axis across the width of the stage so that the raised lid acts as a sounding board sending the sound directly to the audience. Thus arranged the instrument, when the pianist takes a seat in front of it, shows his or her profile to the audience, the right profile, for greater rigour... But it was not always like that.

The new concert hall
Before public concerts began, keyboardists and harpsichords, or clavichords, were arranged in any way in relation to the audience because those were intimate evenings in the small space of a room or salon of a nobility member. But when the public piano recital became popular, it was necessary to decide how the instrument (and the pianist) should be arranged in front of those new listeners. The emerging bourgeoisie, comfortably seated in the chairs of a concert hall, was eager to participate avidly in what nobility, aristocracy and clergy had been enjoying for a long time.

J.L. Dussek (1760 - 1812)

The profile of the beautiful Dussek
How to sit? with your back to the audience? facing the front? or sideways? Although not so obvious, there was a pianist who solved this question once and for all. He has a face and a name. Jan Ladislav Dussek is remembered as the first great virtuoso who sat at the piano showing his right side to the public, for the first time in history.
Born in Cáslav, Bohemia, in 1760, the very graceful Dussek (the Parisian public called him le beau Dussek) exhibited his beautiful profile at the age of twenty before ecstatic audiences in Europe, as he was also the first concert pianist to go on tour.

Dussek, composer
A great virtuoso of the instrument, he was also a fruitful composer. His more notable works include several large-scale solo piano pieces, 34 piano sonatas, many piano concertos, sonatas for violin and piano, and various works of chamber music.
He was a close friend of the prince and amateur pianist Ludwig Ferdinand of Prussia. Upon his death – in a battle against the Napoleonic troops in 1806 – he composed a sonata in his memory, which he entitled "Élégie Harmonique".

After the death of his friend and protector, the life of the beautiful Dussek became somewhat messy. He died obese and alcoholic in St. Germain-en-Laye on March 20, 1812.

Sonata in F sharp minor, opus 61, "Élégie Harmonique."
The piece has only two movements:

00:00   Lento patetico - Tempo agitato
07:58   Tempo vivace e con fuoco quasi presto

It is presented here in a solo audio version by American pianist and teacher Constance Keene.

Chopin, Étude Opus 10 No 6 - the practice of legato

Although the creation of the set was almost simultaneous over an extended period, Chopin's 24 Etudes were grouped into two opuses, Opus No. 10 dedicated to his friend Franz Liszt, and Opus 25, dedicated to the Countess d'Agoult, Franz's partner at the time. Published in Paris in 1833, the twelve studies that make up Opus 10 are of long standing. Some of them were composed in Warsaw when Chopin was almost a teenager.

By its publication, Chopin had been settled in a politically turbulent Paris for two years. But his music aroused interest in the newspapers and his presence in the salons was greatly admired. Dressed with the utmost elegance, he appeared for dinner at the homes of ambassadors, barons, and various lords. And while he accompanied the Countess Potocka in her singing, he could also hear Marie d'Agoult commenting to the audience that his Etudes were "prodigious".

Étude in E-flat minor, Opus 10 No 6
Prodigious perhaps, but by no means spectacular. Lasting a little less than four minutes, this Étude exudes an atmosphere that mimics a nocturne by Chopin himself. At the same time, it gives the listener the feeling that the technical demands are less demanding. But its difficulty is of another kind, not very visible: it lies in demanding from the performer a remarkable ability to play legato and legatissimo, with both hands, while simultaneously making the inner voices sound clear and distinct.

The performance is by the talented Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa.

Brahms, Ballades from Op 10, Nos 1 & 2

The four ballads of the opus 10 were written by Brahms shortly after he met the Schumann family in Düsseldorf, which at that time, 1853, consisted of Robert, Clara, and seven children. On the occasion, the good-natured Schumann openly praised the talented 20-year-old. Clara was not far behind, and recorded in her diary that Brahms "seemed to have been sent to them directly by God".

Johannes and Clara

Brahms was trying to make a career, and Robert Schumann would become his mentor, although only for a short time, for Robert would die only three years later. In the meantime, Johannes and Clara will establish a communion of ideas and interests very close to a sentimental relationship, although Brahms would have liked to go further. Three months before Robert's death, in 1856, while Robert was bedridden in an asylum for the mentally ill, Brahms wrote to Clara:

My Beloved Clara,

I wish I could write to you as tenderly as I love you and tell you all the good things that I wish you. You are so infinitely dear to me, dearer than I can say. I should like to spend the whole day calling you endearing names and paying you compliments without ever being satisfied. ...If only things could go further than they are right now... If only I could live in the same city with you and my parents... write me a beautiful letter soon. Your letters are like kisses.

One would think that Brahms was definitely in love. Clara responded, we believe, as far as respect for the memory of her beloved Robert allowed. The epistolary relationship would continue until their deaths, which occurred, barely a year apart, forty years later.

Johannes Brahms, in his twenties
(1833 - 1897)

The Ballades from Opus 10

It is said that they were composed eager to show the musical world (including Robert and Clara) the progress achieved in his mastery of the piano up to that moment -remember that Clara was an extraordinary pianist. The composer is 21 years old and has only composed works in which the piano is the mainstay (solo, voice, and piano, also a trio with piano). The ballades, four short pieces that form a unit, will prepare him mentally for the approach of major works. Brahms would not take up this form, the ballad, until very late, in the third of his Six Piano Pieces of 1892, dedicated, by the way, to Clara Schumann.

The first of these four pieces, Ballad No. 1 in D minor, is inspired by a Scottish poem, "Edward", of no little dramatic content as it deals with a patricide, committed by that very Edward. It is the only piece of the set with a "programmatic" character. In keeping with the nature of the tragedy, the piece ends in the greatest stillness, but in the key of D major. It is in this key that Ballade No. 2 will come to life.

Dated 1854, the set is dedicated to his friend composer and conductor Julius Otto Grimm.

The performance is by the highly talented Chinese pianist Yuja Wang.