Rossini, William Tell Overture

In 1829, at the age of 37, Gioachino Rossini, until then the most successful composer of operas in all of Europe, abandoned the stage and retired to Passy, his estate on the outskirts of Paris, to cultivate the land and become better at his second passion, gastronomy.
William Tell was his last opera, out of a total of 39 written in the incredible span of nineteen years. Written in French, the work was commissioned by the Paris Opera, and premiered in its halls in August 1829, although with some cutting, as its original length, almost five hours, was considered excessive for the tastes of the time... and for ours, too.

The plot
Set in the 13th century, the opera Guillaume Tell is based on poems by Schiller and tells the story of a Swiss patriot, that is, Tell, who fights against the Austrian troops who have conquered his country. He is imprisoned with his son Jemmy and subjected to the famous challenge of aiming his bow and arrows at an apple that has been placed over Jemmy's head. Guillaume shoots his arrow through the apple, leaving his son unharmed, but makes the mistake of telling his captor that if he had wounded Jemmy, the next arrow would be aimed at him. He is arrested, but manages to escape, later leading a victorious revolt against the Austrian army.

A popular overture
Nowadays, the opera is rarely, if ever, performed. It is rather a rarity. But its overture is by no means so. On the contrary, it has become one of the most familiar pieces to the ear for the common people, able to recognize it immediately even if they do not know its author, let alone know that it belongs to an opera. The popular piece has had the luck, the good luck, of the Waltz of Zwanilde, by Léo Delibes (Coppelia), or the Dance of the Hours, by Ponchielli (Gioconda). Melodies that we can hum instantly, even if the names of Ponchielli or Delibes do not appear in our records.

The Lone Ranger and the March of the Soldiers
We have heard the piece in countless television commercials, various movies, and even in the elevator, but its popularity is mainly due to the television series The Lone Ranger, very popular a few decades ago, from where it began to gallop through the history of commercials, always being present in chases of all kinds.

The complete overture lasts approximately twelve minutes and is made up of four sections. The last of these, Finale, or March of the Swiss Soldiers, attempts to represent (we can see how well it did) a cavalry charge, announced at minute 8:27 by horns and trumpets.

The Santa Monica High School Symphony Orchestra, led by conductor Joni Swenson, performs this version.

Debussy, "La Plus que Lente", waltz

At the beginning of the twentieth century, a particular way of composing waltzes became popular in Paris, constituting a genre in its own right. It was called "slow waltz" and, as you might expect, it was played very slowly. Acclaimed by the public and preferred by the interpreters, the slow waltz swept the Parisian ballrooms and cafes in versions of simple musical groups, which Claude Debussy must have heard more than once, taking the idea somewhat sarcastically, to compose a waltz slower than any other.

Molto rubato con morbidezza
But Debussy's irony in relation to tempo only went as far as the title. The waltz La plus que lente, which could be roughly translated as "the even slower waltz", is a piece for piano (there is an orchestral version by Debussy himself) that should be played at normal speed, in no case with extreme slowness. And this is clear from the tempo indication that Debussy himself marked for the piece: molto rubato con morbidezza, that is, something like "very free and with tenderness", without highlighting any "speed". The title was only humorous, perhaps in an attempt to emulate his former friend Erik Satie.

C. Debussy (1862 - 1918)

The little work, lasting no more than five minutes (considering the obstinate interpreters of the title... there are some) appeared shortly after the publication of Book I of The Preludes, in 1910. By that time, the master had already composed his major works, which he would complete with Book II of the Preludes, in 1912, and the Twelve Etudes, in 1915.

Three years later, colon cancer will end the life of the French composer, in March 1918, at the age of 55, in the middle of the aerial bombardment of Paris, four days after the beginning of the German Spring Offensive. A miserable cortege would accompany the coffin through the deserted streets of a besieged city.

The rendition is by South Korean pianist Seong-jin Cho, winner of the First Prize at the International Chopin Competition, Warsaw, 2015.

John C. Adams: "Short Ride in a Fast Machine", a fanfare

To give a name to a musical work, the title is unusual, no doubt: "Short ride on a fast machine". What exactly does it mean? The question has been asked before. When its author, the American composer John Adams, was asked about the reason for such an unusual title for this exultant fanfare full of rhythm, he did not dwell on it and simply answered with another question: do you know what happens when someone invites you to race in a magnificent sports car and then you regret it?
There is no better answer.

John Coolidge Adams (1947 -)

John Coolidge Adams, born in Massachusetts in 1947, is the author of the famous and controversial opera Nixon in China, from 1987, which brought contemporary history to the opera, thus opening a new genre. In the same line, in the postmodern musical drama, the author has ventured into content such as the life and work of the inventor of the atomic bomb or the terrorist attacks of the last twenty years.

Initially a minimalist composer, the composer has also tackled chamber, orchestral and concertante music. Today, still active, Adams is still in demand by the most important orchestral ensembles as a provider of symphonic material.

Short Ride in a Fast Machine is one of two fanfares for orchestra commissioned from the composer by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 1986.
It is an exuberant work, brilliantly written for a large orchestra, with boundless polyrhythmic energy. Along with the traditional sections of strings, winds and woodwinds, the work includes the participation of synthesizers. And the inescapable timpani are joined by triangles, Chinese box, xylophone, cymbals, bells, snare drum, bass drum, tantan, and tambourine. In short, a festival of percussion. 
If nowadays, one wants to provocatively "open" a program of contemporary music, there is nothing better than to start the show with these four minutes of "fast riding".

The performance is by the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the American conductor and violinist Marin Alsop.

Mozart Piano Concerto 26 - "Coronation" Aimi Kobayashi, aged 11

On the occasion of the coronation of Leopold II as Holy Roman Emperor, Mozart visited Frankfurt am Main in October 1790. More than a year before, he had completed a piano concerto that he had little opportunity to make known. Gone were the days when he composed six or seven concertos a year to present to an eagerly awaiting audience. His popularity had declined in a Vienna of swinging tastes. In the last five years of his life, he composed only two, the penultimate being the one he presented in Frankfurt on October 15, 1790, as part of the festivities that greeted Leopold's coronation. Thus Concerto No. 26 earned its nickname.

The concert is presumed to have been sketched out more than two years earlier, in the spring of 1787, after Mozart returned to Vienna having witnessed live the success of Le Nozze di Figaro in Prague. The new season had to be organized, with eyes set on the Lenten season. Opera, the music par excellence at that time, was forbidden in Vienna during Lent, so this was the time (which, as we know, lasted forty days) when his subscription concerts had to be presented in order to optimize the results.

In a letter to Michael Puchberg, his usual financial helper and fellow mason, Mozart assure him that he will soon pay off the last debt because he is working intensely on a new concerto (he also takes the opportunity to request a new loan). But he did not manage to finish the Concerto for Lent of that year. The concerto was completed in February of the following year, as can be seen in Mozart's private catalog, to which it was added on February 24, 1788.

Piano Concerto No. 26, in D major, K 537, "Coronation"

It is in three movements: a bright, festive allegro; a slow movement, more gentle than lyrical; and a drama-free, almost humorous allegretto. Its simple beauty has made it one of Mozart's most performed concertos on the world's stages.

Movements:

00:00  Allegro

14:30  Larghetto

20:32  Allegretto

The performance is by Japanese pianist Aimi Kobayashi, only eleven years old for the occasion: her orchestral debut, in Moscow, in December 2006. She is accompanied by The Moscow Virtuosi Orchestra conducted by the Russian maestro, violinist, and conductor, Vladimir Spivakov.

Liszt, Piano Concerto No 2, in A major / Khatia Buniatishvili

As with the First Concerto, the initial writing, the necessary revisions, and the final version of the Piano Concerto No. 2 took Liszt a long time. Almost twenty-five years. He started working on it in 1839 and finished a first version (let's say, a first draft that satisfied him) in 1857, that is, eighteen years later. After the necessary revisions, he considered it finally finished in 1861, but its publication would be delayed until 1863.

Franz Liszt, in 1866, at the age of 55
Engraving from a photography

The urgencies of the composers
If we talk about dynamism or fluency for the concertante composition, the distance from his predecessors, let's say the "classics", is wide. And if the comparison is made with Mozart, it is gigantic: let us remember that the genius of Salzburg in his Viennese years came to compose two concertos a month (in February and March 1785, no more and no less than Concertos Nos. 20 and 21). The circumstances of life, of course, are very different. Mozart composed with an eye to his subscription concertos, a vital income. Liszt, instead, would make ends meet, dying with laughter.

Liszt, the concert pianist

It was precisely in 1839 that Franz Liszt began a career as a piano virtuoso that has no parallel in the history of artistic performances in the 19th century. Between 1839 and 1847 his tours as a "concert pianist" ( let's remember that he is the inventor of the "recital", the first pianist to perform alone on stage) took him to - let's take a breath - Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Austria, England, Ireland, Romania, Turkey, and Russia.

Abandoning the stage

In 1849, however, his new companion, Carolyne de Sayn Wittgenstein, suggested his definitive abandonment of the stage and his exclusive dedication to composition. Thus, the concert he had given in Russia in September 1847 became his last paid concert. From then on, the 36-year-old maestro played the piano for charity, making known the compositions of his lesser-known colleagues. He also took time to work on the works he had envisioned ten years earlier.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2, in A major

The concerto is dedicated to Hans von Bronsart, Liszt's pupil, who premiered it in Weimar on January 7, 1857. Like the first concerto, the work is built on a single movement, made up of numerous sections, all of them derived from the same initial melody. So much so that one prominent musicologist felt free to rename the work "Life and Wanderings of a Melody".

A bit disrespectful perhaps, but not so far from reality because throughout the twenty-odd minutes that the piece lasts, the initial melody comes and goes, undergoing variations, transformations, and diverse twists and turns. Very wide glissandos covering the entire keyboard announce a grand finale of breathtaking characteristics.

Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, accompanied by L'Orchestre de Paris, under the direction of Russian conductor Andrey Boreyko, perform this version.