Bernstein, Dance at the Gym ("Mambo") / Orquesta Sinfónica Infantil de Venezuela

Throughout his career, Leonard Bernstein had to sustain a constant struggle to achieve and maintain a healthy balance between all his extended talents as a conductor, composer, pianist, classical music popularizer, and well-known media personality. It would seem that his task as a composer could have been affected by such a workload, but he managed to leave us, at his death in 1990, a huge catalog especially rich in symphonic works and works for the musical stage. Among the latter, the musical West Side Story, a 1957 Broadway production that was made into a film with spectacular success only four years later, in 1961, stands out luminously.

The Story
The play was originally called East Side Story. It loosely told the timeless story of Romeo and Juliet and was set, of course, on New York's East Side, with a large Jewish population. But soon it was felt that a story reflecting the conflicts of rival teenage gangs, with Latino immigrants playing a prominent role, was a better fit with the times. The location was changed to the Upper West Side. It was a hit. The story of young love, with a spectacular choreographic backdrop and brilliant ad-hoc music, forever earned a prominent place in the heart of American culture.

Leonard Bernstein, in 1975
(1918 - 1990)

Dance at the Gym
Its musical highlights include the romantic ballad Maria, the mixed meter song America, Something is Coming for tenor, Tonight, the "balcony scene", and others of lesser prominence. A special place is occupied by the first act number Dance at the Gym, a Cuban-inspired, highly rhythmic mambo. In the heat of the mambo, rival gangs, the Jets (white Americans) and the Sharks (Puerto Rican Americans) fire up the engines for that night's fight.
The dance has become an autonomous piece, also an essential encore when paying tribute to Latin rhythms with the means of a symphonic orchestra.

Venezuelan Children's Symphony Orchestra
The version we are featuring is by the amazingly professional Orquesta Sinfónica Infantil de Venezuela, conducted by the English maestro and conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, Simon Rattle, during the Venezuelan orchestra's participation in the Salzburg Festival in 2013.
On that occasion, 1,400 young Venezuelan musicians attended the festival, marking a historic milestone. Eight ensembles forged in the National System of Orchestras and Youth and Children's Choirs of Venezuela, offered, in just over three weeks, fifteen concerts. The one mentioned here was one of them.
The musicians we hear here are between eight and fourteen years old. Prior to Bernstein's mambo, these little artists delivered their version of Mahler's First Symphony.

El Sistema
The Venezuelan organization, also known as El Sistema, is a music education program whose mission is to systematize the instruction and collective and individual practice of music through symphony orchestras and choirs, as instruments of social organization and human development. Its beginnings date back to 1975, inspired by the Venezuelan maestro José Antonio Abreu. Its fruits are in sight, or, if one could say, "in earshot".

But, most unfortunately –and I can't explain it– the video can only be watched on YouTube.
I'm so sorry!

Schumann, "Noveletten", for piano, No 8

 
In February 1838, in the midst of the struggle to keep the complicated courtship alive, Robert Schumann sent Clara Wieck an enthusiastic letter telling her of his latest compositional progress. By this time, nineteen-year-old Clara was touring Europe giving recitals as a concert pianist. Robert, on the other hand, had abandoned the idea of developing a similar career, and was focused on music criticism and composition:

"In the last few weeks, I have written for you a frightening number of pieces: there are cheerful ones, various stories, family scenes, a wedding... To make a long story short, kind affairs. I've given the whole play a name, Novelleten, because they call you Clara, but 'Wiecketen' doesn't quite fit."

Clara Wieck, from an 1835 lithograph

Novelleten, a curious title, but even more curious is the explanation that goes with it.
First, it may be necessary to remember that Robert Schumann loved literature, language, words, and... wordplay. Schumann explained in the same letter that the series of eight pieces, or "kind affairs," could also be considered little stories, or adventures. That is, little novels. First point. 

Second. Schumann had been very impressed by the artistry of a great soprano of that time, Clara Novello, whom he had recently heard. Naturally, Clara Wieck also knew of her. And perhaps, here we are allowed to speculate, and profusely: Clara might have been jealous of the Novello (who was also called Clara). And then, Robert adds the explanation. He is saying: they are meant for you, Clara Wieck, no doubt about it, but they cannot be called Wiecketen because it doesn't sound right.

But not only did it not sound good. Calling them Wiecketen was such a declaration of love that it would have added fuel to the fire, unleashing the wrath of Leipzig's most renowned pedagogue, the teacher Friedrich Wieck, Clara's father.

Noveletten Op 21 - No 8
It represents one of Schumann's most ambitious piano series, not only for its length but also for its technical demands. (Let us note that Franz Liszt added it to his repertoire as soon as he could).
As already mentioned, the work is made up of eight pieces extending over about 45 minutes, which were to be played as complete work. That was at least Schumann's original intention. But nowadays it is more common to take one or two pieces and present them as an encore. Usually, the opening piece, or the last of the series, is chosen.

We here present the last one, No. 8, in F sharp minor. It comprises two large sections, with a lyrical interlude connecting them. The second section includes a "quotation" to a nocturne written by Clara in 1836.

The rendition is by the German pianist Adrian Brendle.

Dittersdorf: Concerto for harp and strings

A famed composer in his time, on a par with Haydn or Mozart, the German Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf never wrote a harp concerto. But he did write five keyboard concertos. To the good fortune of hundreds of harp players worldwide, he took one of these concertos and transcribed it for harp. To this day, they thank him for it. It is their favorite. Certainly, because concertos for the instrument are not very common. Mozart made incursions into them, but with the flute sharing the leading role. There are known transcriptions of Haendel's organ works. For solo harp, stand out one by the French Boieldieu, another by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and another by Villa-Lobos. One per musician. And Dittersdorf was the pioneer – through transcription – in the 18th century. 

 
Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf was born in Vienna in 1739, when Haydn was seven years old. By birth, he was tersely named Karl Ditters, but the twists and turns of life earned him a well-deserved title. He began his career as a violin virtuoso, and in that capacity, he strolled (that's putting it mildly) through the courts of half of Europe. In some, he served as chapel master, but unlike his contemporary Haydn, he never succeeded in gaining regular patronage in a showy court.
However, one of his lowly patrons, who once feared his departure, had to charm him with honors and titles to keep him. Thus, in 1772 Ditters became a nobleman and added the appendix "von Dittersdorf" to his surname. Despite this, he would die in poverty twenty-seven years later.

 Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf
(1739 - 1799)

A prolific composer
Dittersdorf was a prolific author of chamber music, symphonies (more than 120), and concertos, to which he added no less than 32 operas. His most creative period seems to be the one he spent with the patron prodigal in honors, to the point that he was close to entering the court of Joseph II as chapel master (hence the fears). 
In the mid-eighties (in the seventeen hundreds, of course) several of his numerous compositions became known in the most prestigious circles. In 1786 his greatest operatic success was premiered in Vienna, the singspiel "The Pharmacist and the Doctor", which was soon performed on stages all over Europe. He spent his last years writing his autobiography.

Concerto for harp and strings, in A major
The date of composition of the original keyboard concerto, the one that was transcribed for harp, is completely unknown. Even less is known about the transcription. We only know that the idea was brilliant if we remember that pianos contain in their interior a large piece that houses all their strings. That piece is called "harp". The transcription made perfect sense. One could only expect an increase in the flow of musicality, given the halo of lyricism and dreaminess that surrounds the instrument.

Movements:
In the "Vivaldian" style, a central, slow movement, is flanked by two more lively movements.

00:00  Allegro
07:22  Larghetto
16:35  Rondo - allegretto

The performance is by Spanish harpist Rosa Díaz Cotán, accompanied by the Neubrandenburger Philharmonie, conducted by the Russian conductor Daniel Stratiesvsky.

Mozart, "Dissonance Quartet", in C major

"... Mr. Joseph Haydn and the two Barons Tinti visited us on Saturday. We heard the new quartets, but only the three most recent ones, the ones he composed in addition to the other three we already have; they are indeed a little 'easier,' or 'lighter,' but splendidly composed. Mr. Haydn told me: 'I tell you before God, and give you my word of honor, that your son is the greatest composer I have ever known, personally, or in name. He has a taste and a great talent for composition...".

With these words, Leopold Mozart, visiting Vienna, related to his daughter Nannerl in February 1785 the impression that Wolfgang's last three quartets made on Haydn. Together with the three previous ones mentioned by Leopold, Mozart sent them to Haydn on September 1, 1785, offered to him in an affectionate letter in which he transferred to him "all my rights to them".

Known today as the "Haydn quartets", they were composed between 1782, the year of Mozart's arrival in Vienna, and 1785.
The Quartet in C major, popularly called "dissonance quartet", is the last of the series, completed on January 14 of the latter year and, according to Leopold, one of those heard at the evening in Haydn's presence.

Dissonance?
The moniker refers to the opening passages of the first movement and, as usual when it comes to nicknames, has nothing to do with Mozart. Nor does it have anything to do with a harmonic occurrence capable of shattering the listener's ears. The "dissonance" is heard in the first bars of the opening movement and consists of a chord progression over a "pedal note" carried by the cello. It may not have been a popular device at the time but it fully complies with the rules of eighteenth-century harmony.

Haydn's approach
But it is also said that it caused more than one tantrum in one or another distinguished aristocrat, which led him to tear the score into a thousand pieces. Also, some respectable performers returned the work to the publisher with corrections in their own handwriting. However, the very dedicatee of the six quartets, Joseph Haydn, discreetly pointed out that if that was how Mozart had written it, that was how it should be.

What Mozart sets out is simply to create a deliberate sense of ambiguity. He keeps us in the fog, in the dark, the misty, for the first few bars until the familiar C major chord appears, and the soul returns to our bodies.

Quartet No. 19 in C major, K 465, "Dissonance" - Movements
As usual for a string quartet, its movements are four, with two calm movements framed by two allegros.

00:00  Adagio - Allegro
10:00  Andante cantabile
17:30  Menuetto - Allegretto
22:44  Allegro molto

Enrique Granados, "Valses poéticos"

"Youth everywhere is at home," wrote Enrique Granados in his Memoirs, little read but curiously, much quoted. Those were his first days in Paris. He had got lost and a parishioner took him home. The young Catalan pianist, nineteen years old, thus began, in September 1887, his brief but very profitable two-year stay in Paris. A very untimely illness deprived him of entering the Conservatory, but he studied privately with renowned Parisian pianists and music teachers. From those years are his acclaimed "Valses Poéticos" for piano, the first of his mature works.

A generous Spanish patron had brought about the miracle. A year earlier, after his father's death, Granados had found himself in need of a job as a café pianist in Barcelona. For one hundred pesetas a month, the young musician played from "two to four-thirty in the afternoon and nine to eleven-thirty at night" at the Café de las Delicias, later known as "Lion d'Or". But the café, already somewhat outdated, went from bad to worse and the pianist's position was eliminated.

Enrique Granados (11867 - 1916)

Paris and back to Barcelona
It was at that moment that the renowned businessman Eduardo Conde entered the scene, and hired Granados as his children's teacher for a generous salary, making him "the most expensive teacher in Barcelona".  Shortly thereafter, he convinced his mother that the young man should pursue studies in Paris. Two years later, Granados was back in Barcelona, having met the most representative French composers of the time, and consolidating his friendship with his compatriot Isaac Albéniz.

"Poetic waltzes", for piano

Even with what has already been pointed out, there are authors who cite its genesis in a period prior to the author's trip to Paris, when he was seventeen or eighteen years old. In any case, it is a series of seven elegant waltzes, preluded by an introduction, in four-quarter time, and closing with a colorful and ingenious coda that, surprisingly, leads to the literal and complete repetition of the first waltz.

00:00  Introducción

01:32  Melódico

03:25  Tiempo de vals noble

04:50  Tiempo de vals lento

07:02  Allegro humorístico

07:50  Allegretto (Elegante)

09:22  Quasi ad libitum (Sentimental)

11:00  Vivo - Presto

The rendition is by Spanish pianist Luis Fernando Perez. (The video includes information about Goyescas, which we assume the performer played before the Waltzes, data that the videos forgot to remove).