F. Kalkbrenner, "aborted" Chopin's master

Musicologists aside, if any music lover today remembers Friedrich Kalkbrenner, it is for his inordinate claim to become the teacher of his namesake, Frédéric Chopin, when the latter showed up in Paris in 1831 and visited him to ask for tutoring. Maestro Kalkbrenner offered him three years of lessons. Chopin was enthusiastic, writing to his parents that "the best pianist in Europe" was going to take him under his wing and make him a great virtuoso. Frederic, a 21-year-old provincial boy, believed in his magic. It was not necessary. And the rapture was short-lived. After a year he gave up his lessons.

A talented pianist
Kalkbrenner certainly could play the piano and did so very well. He had given his first public concert at the age of five, in his native Germany. He soon came to study at the Paris Conservatory, where he graduated at thirteen. He lived in London for ten years, captivating the nobility of England with his prestissimo octaves and the passion he brought to specific passages. He caused a similar commotion in Paris, where he settled in 1824 as a virtuoso pianist and sought-after teacher. It was there that Chopin met him.

F; Kalkbrenner (1785 - 1849)

A composer too, but a forgotten one
Kalkbrenner composed everything: operas, sonatas, and piano concertos. But none of it has survived. It is highly unlikely that a single piece by the composer was heard in concert halls during the entire twentieth century. However, around the eighties, some enthusiasm was kindled in the record labels (the "rescue" fashion) and some of his music has been recorded ever since. At first, the short pieces, his Nocturnes, for example.

Lyricism for all tastes
Far removed from Chopin's Nocturnes (perhaps also from Field's), the works will nevertheless have moved the audiences of their time. He will be surpassed, on the piano, by far, by Chopin and Liszt. But Kalkbrenner would have cared little. Financially comfortable as a result of his successful career as a pianist and teacher, in his later years, he became a partner in the piano house Pleyel. Maestro Kalkbrenner would die rich.

Les Soupirs de la Harpe Eolienne

In a rendition by Dutch pianist Bart von Oort, presented here is the Nocturne in A flat major, opus 121 No 1, subtitled Les Soupirs de la Harpe Eolienne, recorded on an Erard piano of 1837.

Mozart, first trip to Italy / Divertimento in E-flat

Between 1769 and 1773, Mozart made three visits to Italy, accompanied by his father Leopold on all three occasions. The first trip was the most extensive. And also the most profitable if we only consider the number of commissions received by the young fourteen-year-old composer in the many cities they visited. They left Salzburg on December 13, 1769. After 15 months of sharing with the Italian nobility and the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries – for whom Wolfgang played the harpsichord and conducted orchestras –, father and son returned to Salzburg in March 1771, inebriated with Italian music and art.

Return to Milan
The successful tour soon reached the Imperial Palace in Vienna. And then it was decided to invite Wolfgang to write an opera to be performed in Milan in October 1771 to celebrate the betrothal of Archduke Ferdinand (son of Maria Theresa of Austria and brother of poor Marie Antoinette, who would later meet the guillotine) and Princess Beatrice of Modena. So a few months after returning home, the Mozart family had to leave again, this time for Milan, where they stayed for three months. The opera (Ascanio in Alba) was a resounding success, for Mozart was able to count on the best singers and the most outstanding instrumentalists who were delighted to take part in a work by the young Austrian genius.

The clarinet

Connected with those musicians, Mozart became aware of the preponderance in the Italian orchestras of an instrument that, apparently, the Austrian musicians did not recognize properly: the clarinet. And he set to work to correct the omission.

During his brief stay in Milan, Mozart composed two divertimenti in the style of the famous Italian divertimento. In both (in E-flat and B-flat), a pair of clarinets have outstanding participation, dialoguing, almost comically, with the English horns, the horns, or the bassoon.

Divertimento in E-flat major, K. 113
There are two versions of the work. One, dated Milan, November 1771, for two clarinets, two horns, and strings. The other, for wind ensemble only, excluding the clarinet, bears no date or place of composition. It is presumed that the first one obeys the Italian taste, written for the Milanese. The second is for his fellow countrymen since Mozart would not have had clarinets at his disposal in Salzburg. The discussion is ongoing. 

The first version is presented here, performed by the German C.P.E. Bach Orchestra, conducted by Hartmut Haenchen.

Movements:
0:00  Allegro
3:17  Andante
6:20  Menuetto
7:51  Trio - Allegro

Johann C. Bach, Sonata for two pianos

Johann Christian Bach was the youngest son of Johann Sebastian. After spending some time in Italy, he settled in London in 1764 having obtained the post of music master to Sophie Charlotte, the German duchess who had come to England to become queen consort to George III. They made a good match. At least they could chat in German when they felt like it. Johann Christian became so successfully integrated there that he was called "the Bach of London".

The new instrument

When he had the good fortune to meet Mozart (the opposite is not untrue), the piano had only recently been invented to replace the harpsichord for good. The story goes that it was the then 30-year-old Bach in London who introduced the little eight-year-old musician from Salzburg to the new instrument. After all, it was Johann Christian who had introduced the new instrument to London.

Johann Christian Bach
(1735 - 1782)

The society of his time

Johann Christian excelled in opera, the genre in which he achieved his greatest successes. And if he did not reach the heights of his father at the keyboard, it was not due to a lack of talent, but to the way in which his life as a musician took shape. Cuthbert Girdlestone, a modern British musicologist, puts it aptly:

"His public asks him for the music that amuses them..... His music is a succession of graceful and refined melodies. His allegros are pleasant, carefree. His andantes, tender and sometimes languid and idyllic, reflect the bucolic dream that enchanted the society of the eighties of the 18th century; his prestos are not lacking in vigor, but the whole is covered by a mask of smiling impersonality that expresses the superficial side of the society for which he wrote..."

Sonata for two pianos Opus 15 No 5

As was becoming customary, the writing for piano for four hands or two pianos responded to the demand for music for the family, intended to be performed at home, in the homes of an incipient middle class increasingly enthusiastic about art, particularly music.

Published in 1778, the sonata for two pianos in G major consists of only two Movements:

00:00  Allegro

06:20  Tempo di minuetto

The performance (audio only) is by the acclaimed duo of Bulgarian pianists Aglika Genova and Liuben Dimitrov. The imprint that JC Bach is going to leave on Mozart is obvious. So in all fairness it can also be said that in 1764 it was Mozart who was the lucky one.

Franz Schubert, Military March No. 1

Along with the "Serenade" and the "Ave Maria", Military March No. 1 is probably one of Franz Schubert's most famous melodies. Popularly known by the simple title "Schubert's military march", it is the first of the series of Three Military Marches for piano four hands published in 1826, as opus 51, by Anton Diabelli in Vienna.

They are assumed to have been written at Szeliz Castle, about 150 km from Vienna, where Schubert spent the summers of 1818 and 1819, engaged as a musical preceptor to the daughters of Count Johann Esterházy, cousin of Haydn's protector.

The girls, Carolina and Maria 

There were two girls: Carolina, 13 years old, and Maria, 15 years old. With Maria, the lessons were more interesting as she showed a more advanced level than her sister, but by the second summer, the little Schubert began to take a sentimental interest in Carolina, who, of course, was now fourteen. But his proverbial shyness did not allow him to go any further. Nevertheless, his letters of the time to his friends in Vienna are brimming with optimism: "I am perfectly alive and composing like a god [...]", he writes in one of them.

The four-hand piano

As the teacher of two sisters, the compositions – written like a God – that could be of most immediate benefit to him were, of course, the four-hand pieces. So the military marches must have been heard more than once in the palace, Schubert accompanying one of the girls or, perhaps, leaning back in an armchair, listening to his pupils with an attentive ear, ready to correct, although with his eyes fixed on Caroline, I suspect.

Military March No. 1

Countless arrangements and versions have been made of the Military March No. 1 (catalogued today as D.733, together with the other two marches). It has been used in multiple TV and film formats. Among the most serious rewritings, stand out for their importance, the Grand paraphrase de concert by Liszt, and the "quote" of Stravinski in Circus Polka (ballet choreographed for dancers and elephants).

Marked allegro vivace and written in the key of D major, the piece presents the traditional ternary structure A-B-A, its final section a frank repetition of the beginning. It lasts about 5 min.

Presented here is the original version for piano four hands by the pianist duo Salim & Sivan.

Liszt, Rondeau fantastique

We know Franz Liszt was the "inventor" of the piano recital. But, what does it mean really?
Well, in other words, he was the first pianist to perform alone on stage, playing all the "numbers" himself. It was 1840 and from then on "collective" concerts went down in history, which along with soloists could include ensembles of the most diverse instruments, as well as a couple of arias performed by the divas of the moment so as not to bore the audience with so much instrumental timbre.

The transcriptions
For this, the artist needed a vast repertoire. Hopefully, of well-known melodies. Then came the piano transcriptions of orchestral works, fantasies on opera themes, and variations on popular motifs.
Liszt, the mass artist of the 19th century, would play them all, always taking care to reserve as a grand finale a piece that would drive the ladies present even madder, ladies and young ladies who might come to blows for the handkerchief thrown to the audience by the charming twenty-nine-year-old artist.
A "bravura" fantasy on a famous Spanish air never failed him.

Rondeau fantastique sur un théme espagnol (A Fantastic Rondo on a Spanish Theme)
This is its original title. And the Spanish theme is the famous pole Yo que soy contrabandista, one of the musical numbers of El poeta calculista, a work by the tenor and composer Manuel García premiered in Madrid in 1805. Liszt composed the rondo in 1836, and was published the following year simultaneously in Leipzig, Milan, and Paris.

Three years earlier, Chopin had dedicated to Liszt the Etudes of Opus 10. He could have reciprocated with this dedication, but the Hungarian master must have considered that one thing was not compatible with the other. It is dedicated, then, to George Sand, who will become Chopin's "friend" only the following year.

The intricacies
Its technical difficulties are grandiose, and the number of pianists who have dared to record it, let alone perform it in public, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The Russian concert pianist Mikhail Pletnev tried it, but ended up giving up when he saw that the piece was "untouchable," as he put it. Of course, it is also possible that the technical paraphernalia alone has failed to excite many performers of recognized virtuosity.

Courageous Valentina
There are live versions on Youtube in formal settings (Bruni, Howard), but we have preferred to show here the very informal performance, very democratic and far from any divism, that the Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa decided to offer in a London train station, on an upright piano somewhat out of tune and which apparently has a key that doesn't work. Bravo for the audacity.