Béla Bartók, Piano Concerto No 1, with Yuja Wang

Recognized as a remarkable pianist as well as composer, the Hungarian Béla Bartók composed three concertos for piano and orchestra during his lifetime. The first one was written between August and November 1926 and premiered in Frankfurt on July 1, 1927, with the composer as the soloist.

With Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra, Bartók intended to showcase his mastery as a composer as well as his skills as a virtuoso pianist. And he did just that. The work features great technical difficulties not only for the pianist but also a challenge for the orchestra... and the audience. In Bartók's own words:

"My first concerto [...] I consider it a successful work, although its style is up to a point difficult, perhaps even very difficult for the orchestra and the public."

A new language
Bartók thus initiated the exploration of a new language, dressing the piano in the garb of percussion instruments. Considered the apotheosis of the cluster (a cluster of adjacent notes played simultaneously) and dissonant counterpoint, the work received a lukewarm response in Germany, which was nevertheless not unaware of its agitated syncopation, its fiery percussion and "primitive" rhythm reminiscent of Stravinsky.

Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945)

In the US
Enthusiastic, the author soon set off on a tour of the United States. But the American critics didn't like the concert at all (neither, we suppose, did the public). One bloodthirsty critic even wrote that he had just heard... "one of the most appalling avalanches of bombastic nonsense and blunders ever perpetrated before an audience."

Pure bravura
But none of this bothered Bartók. What's more, the composer would not give up the new style. Nevertheless, due in part to its enormous difficulties, Concerto No. 1 has remained the least attended and listened to of the three he composed. And the truth is that the effort is worth it. And well worth it. It is pure concentrated bravura.

Movements

00:00  Allegro moderato - Allegro: Intense but calm beginning with the orchestra in the lower registers, the piano makes its entrance without greater virtuoso demand, attacking a single note, which then goes in octaves, for greater percussive emphasis. Soon, glissandos and dissonances follow. The movement ends with a sort of orchestral whiplash.

10:00  Andante - attacca (attacca: indicates that there is no pause between the second and third movements): Desolation best describes this section, perhaps because the strings are not involved. At times, the piano only accompanies the percussion.

18:08  Allegro molto: It is initiated by drums and trombone glissandos. The piano joins in instantly with its own extended glissando and then becomes a percussion instrument. Or almost, for there are clusters everywhere (for example min 21:25), three-octave glissandos (min 24:24), and jumps at incredible speeds. All this, in permanent syncopation with the orchestra. The movement ends abruptly as if the sound mass had crashed against a wall.

The performance is by Yuja Wang, superb, at the piano. The outstanding artist is accompanied by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by the Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. 

The concert lasts 25 minutes. The rest is applause, in fruitless expectation that the charming Miss Wang would give an encore, which she did not do, presumably because in the piano literature there is no short piece that after this performance would not be a nonsense purpose.

Beethoven, Piano Sonata Op 2 No 3

Ludwig van Beethoven's date of birth is often given as December 16, 1770. But the only thing that is documented is his baptism date, December 17, 252 years ago.
Beethoven may well have been born the day before. In those days it was customary to perform the baptism a few days later, due to the strong religiosity of the time, and because the infant could die, as well. But, we've read somewhere that – with all due respect –  it is highly unlikely that the parents of little Ludwig decided to baptize him the day after his birth if we remember that Johann, the father, already in those years drowned his sorrows with alcohol and greeted the good times in the same way. So if he did celebrate the birth as usual he was not in a position to celebrate the sacrament the following day.

In short, we are still determining when Beethoven was born. This blog pays tribute to him today on the day he was baptized, in Bonn, in 1770.

Sonatas from Opus 2, dedicated to Haydn
After settling permanently in Vienna in 1792, Beethoven took composition lessons with Maestro Franz Joseph Haydn, then a sixty-year-old celebrity based in London, who from time to time appeared in the capital of the Habsburg empire, to give lessons and visit his friends. But they did not get along well, and after two years Beethoven left his teacher. Later he would take lessons with Antonio Salieri, but he would never forget the old Haydn, to whom the first three piano sonatas, grouped in Opus 2, would be dedicated.

The three sonatas were composed around 1794, almost simultaneously, and premiered in the autumn of 1795 in the salons of one of his noble friends, Prince Carl von Lichnowski, in an evening attended by Joseph Haydn. They were published in March of the following year by Artaria, the Viennese publishing house of Haydn himself.

Sonata Opus 2 No. 3 in C major - Movements

Beethoven borrowed here material from a work of his youth, the Piano Quartet No. 3. Like its opus 2 counterparts, the sonata is broadly conceived, with four movements instead of three, this time adding a brief scherzo as the third movement.

00       Allegro con brio

11:33  Adagio Surprising in its simplicity, one of Beethoven's most beautiful slow movements.

20:23  Scherzo - allegro

23:28  Allegro assai

The performance is by Chilean maestro, Claudio Arrau. Beethovenfest, Bonn, 1977.

G. Rossini: "La calunnia", bass aria from "Il Barbiere di Siviglia"

The popular aria "La calunnia", which has taken, as usual, its title from its first verse "La calunnia è un venticello", is an aria belonging to the first act of Rossini's 1816 opera buffa The Barber of Seville, based on Beaumarchais' work. It has also been present in the versions of Giovanni Paisiello and other authors – with another melody, naturally – but the one that has become famous is Rossini's.

It is one of the many pieces for bass voice written throughout the history of opera. It has been used to portray the most diverse characters, be they venerable elders, priests, great lords, rulers of all kinds, laughable veterans, or sinister ones. These are the roles that are destined for this deep, tremendously dark voice, which can also be comic, and of course, amazingly beautiful.

Common bass voice register

The contrivance of a calumny

The character who sings Rossini's La calunnia belongs to the category of sinister old man. The text, shameless, should be sung by a villain, even in a buffo tone. The chosen one is Don Basilio, musical tutor of the young and beautiful orphan Rosina, to whom her preceptor, Don Bartolo, pretends despite the age difference.

But the girl has fallen in love with the Count of Almaviva, who goes around prowling for her. Don Basilio then recommends the invention of a slander, a great slander, which eventually will irremissibly damage Almaviva, driving him away from Bartolo's domain.

The words

Superbly enhanced by Rossini's music through its applauded crescendos, the words describe from its beginning the unseemly process of slander: a little wind that barely moves until its transformation into the thunderous firing of a cannon, without even hiding the disastrous consequences for the poor slandered wretch.

Premiere
The bass who premiered it, on February 20, 1816 at the Teatro Argentina in Rome, was the Italian Zenobio Vitarelli. Since then, countless famous basses have played it, among them the legendary Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin.

Originally written in D major, in modern times there has been a tendency to transpose the aria to C major. This is the case of the version presented here, by British artist Robert Lloyd.

Don Bartolo (Carlos Feller), present in the scene, listens suspiciously to the infamous recommendation.

JS Bach, on his way to infinity, today. Brandenburg Concerto No. 2

Of the historical-musical fact surrounding the sending of six instrumental concertos to the Margrave of Brandenburg, only a couple of things are known with certainty: the date, March 24, 1771, noted by Bach in the dedication; the copy of the manuscripts was made by Bach himself; and that he accompanied the material with a very delicate dedication that today would make the most submissive and humble of servants pale... if servants would exist today...

After that, only remain diverse inquiries: if the Margrave acknowledged receipt; if in what place and time they were written; and the most ominous of all conjectures: if the noble dedicatee, Christian Ludwig, ever had them performed by the musicians of his court.

In the scenario of the presumptions, they were composed in Köthen, mostly. But not necessarily for the Margrave. Bach may have taken earlier works or passages of them to make up the set of six concertos in order to fulfill the commitment he had made to the nobleman several years ago. However, there are some certainties following the offering. The manuscripts were found among the belongings of the Margrave's heirs, and the complete work was published for the first time in Leipzig in 1850, in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of its author's death. And rather more modernly, let us note that the Voyager 1 space probe, which at this very moment continues unperturbed on its voyage to the stars, has engraved on its gold disc its calling card, the first movement of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2.

The extraterrestrial listener will not be disappointed. Let us point out that the concertos are written for different instruments, and this one, No. 2, is remarkable for its unusual combination of soloists. The melody is carried at one moment by the trumpet, at others by the violin, or by the oboe. And of course, the trumpet, as a rule, sounds louder than the other instruments. That is why this concerto has been jokingly called Concerto for Trumpet and Any Other Instrument.

Fortunately, for the rest of the soloists, the trumpet does not feature in the second movement, written in a different key, because at that time the instrument was not able to play in any key.

Brandenburg Concerto No 2 in F major, BWV 1047
Its title in the autograph score reads, in Italian, Concerto 2º à 1 Tromba, 1 Flauto, 1 Hautbois, 1 Violino, concertati, è 2 Violini, 1 Viola è Violone in Ripieno col Violoncello è Basso per il Cembalo. That is, the concertino (or group of solo instruments) is made up of the trumpet, the recorder (which in some ways resembles the one required of today's school children), the oboe, and the violin. The ripieno (the remaining instruments) consists of two violins, viola, cello and harpsichord.
The trumpet, indeed, has an outstanding contribution, highly virtuosic, in the first and third movements. In the second, flute, oboe, and violin dialogue intimately.

Movements:
Lasting about twelve minutes, it is structured in the Vivaldian manner: fast - slow - fast movements:
00:18  'Allegro moderato' (the original has no tempo indication, and is sometimes performed a little faster, allegro).
05:14  Andante
08:55  Allegro assai

Claudio Abbado and the Orchestra Mozart perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047 at the Teatro Municipale Valli in Reggio Emilia, Italy (2007).

Beethoven, "Hammerklavier" Sonata / Yuja Wang

For English speakers, the popular title of "Hammerklavier" that Beethoven's sonata No. 29 bears may seem rather rude. That title could suggest the idea of a sonata in which the pounding of the piano is a necessity. Nothing could be further from that.
The title, which the work shares with the preceding sonata, is simply the German word for "pianoforte." Beethoven wanted to thank the English piano builder Broadwood, who had recently sent him a modern piano with swinging strings. It is for this modern piano that the sonata is written: Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier, its full title.

It is a cliché to say that this monumental sonata is the most respected and studied by music lovers, but at the same time, the least loved or liked of the 32 sonatas by the master from Bonn. Regarded as unplayable by many 19th-century pianists (with the remarkable exception of Liszt), it is the first sonata for which Beethoven added metronomic indications, specifying the speed at which it should be played.

The required speed

This requirement, added to those inherent to the craft, has led renowned performers to suggest that the master's metronome must have been damaged because the speed demanded seems unattainable. On the contrary, those who trust in the goodness of the artifact of those years claim that Beethoven simply created a work that is sustainable at a certain speed and no other. We believe that the truth is on the side of the latter.

The length

Lasting about 45 minutes at the required speed, it is the longest sonata written by the master and at the same time the most difficult. As for its structure, Beethoven returned this time to organize the sonata in four movements, which he had not done since 1802 (opus 31 No. 3).

Four movements

The initial allegro is introduced by a few measures whose most relevant characteristic is its rhythmic aspect.
It is followed by a brief scherzo of just under three minutes.
In opposition, the subsequent adagio (which here goes as the third movement and not second as was common) is one of the longest slow movements in all piano literature, about twenty minutes, and one of the most dramatic written by Beethoven: appassionato e con molto sentimento, the master noted.
The last movement is the most ambitious, the one containing the famous fugue, in three voices, whose theme or subject extends for ten bars (min 34:15, in this version) and not the typical two or three of the baroque fugue, thus raising the technical and interpretative demand to incredible extremes.

Dedication

Like so many others, the work is dedicated to Archduke Rudolph of Austria, the highest-ranking aristocrat and the most cultured of Beethoven's noble friends. Composed between the summer of 1817 and the autumn of 1818, it is inserted in the vital period of the master in which deafness is total and hopeless. It is in these circumstances that the master of Bonn will reach the highest point in the piano production of his last period.

Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106

00:00 Allegro

11:24 Scherzo: Assai vivace

14:12 Adagio sostenuto - appassionato e con molto sentimento

31:50 Largo - Allegro - Fuga: Allegro risoluto

The rendition is by the brilliant Chinese pianist Yuja Wang, in a recital on May 14, 2016, at the legendary Carnegie Hall, where not for being in New York the audience does not cough between movements (Yuja didn't find it funny at all).