Louis Spohr, Fantasy for harp, in C minor

In 1805, at twenty-one, the German violin virtuoso Louis Spohr became music director at the court of Gotha, a small town in central Germany. Soon after arriving, he heard a beautiful eighteen-year-old harpist girl, Dorette Scheidler, daughter of a court singer, play "a very demanding fantasia". Louis immediately decided to write a sonata for her, for harp and violin. The work presented some demands, so its preparation required many rehearsals. They ended up in love and married in February 1806.

That same year they began, as a duo, extensive tours of cities in the rest of Europe, to which they returned every year until 1822, when Dorette, a woman of her time, decided to abandon the tours, the duo and the harp, to be with her children who, now grown up, could not accompany the couple on their endless tours. But they were happy until Dorette's death 28 years later.

Violinist and conductor
Louis Spohr was also a fine painter and skilled chess player born in northern Germany in 1784. He showed an early talent for the violin. At 15, was already a member of the duke's orchestra in his hometown. He remained in Gotha until 1812. Later, he would be a prominent violinist and conductor at the courts of several German and Austrian cities until shortly before he died in Kassel in 1859

Louis Spohr (1784 - 1859)
Self-portrait

The works
Little of his music survives today in the standard repertoire, although the composer has to his credit about 300 works, covering all genres, including opera. He wrote nine symphonies (let us say, by the way, that he was a friend of Beethoven), eight violin concertos, four clarinet concertos, and extensive chamber music. Among the miscellaneous works, the pieces written for harp stand out, most of them composed in the first half of the author's career.

Fantasy for harp, in C minor
It was composed in 1807, while the author was at the court of Gotha, a year after marrying Dorette and, we suppose, to feed his wife's solo repertoire.

A little classical gem of ten minutes duration.

The performance is by German artist Serafina Jaffe, born in Berlin in 1998. The location is the Lichtenau Palace in Potsdam.

According to her own account, the video results from her participation in the German competition "Jugend Musiziert", where she won first prize.

Chopin Impromptus - Impromptu No 3

 
Four impromptus Chopin wrote during his lifetime. The most famous by far is No. 4, with which Julian Fontana – Chopin's friend, colleague, and factotum – took two liberties: he called it Fantasie Impromptu and published it posthumously, disregarding the will of the Polish master, who at the time did not consider it worthy of publication. Let us note, by the way, that it bears the No. 4 precisely because of its posthumous publication, but it was the first that Chopin tackled, almost recently arrived in Paris in 1834, initiating with it the series of four.

Chopin would write three more in the following years, which would soon be published, dedicated to some countess, except the second, which simply does not bear a dedication. Curiously, none of them will come even remotely close to the later popularity of the Fantasia Impromptu. However, they are as perfectly accomplished pieces as it. (Let us speculate that Julian Fontana will have thought the same of it but in reverse). Especially Impromptus No 3, which, in the opinion of scholars, is the most perfect piece of the four.

Improvisations?
Etymologically, yes. The term was of recent appearance, not before 1817, in the works of Kalkbrenner, or Schubert. They are improvisations, at first, but then painstakingly worked out, although, as the musicologist and pianist Alfred Cortot rightly pointed out, "the music must seem to be born from the performer's hands". Ultimately, then, in an impromptu, the performer must "improvise" if not the notes, then the emotional content.
Their form is simple. They respond to the A-B-A scheme, a central theme flanked by two similar episodes, perhaps twins if it were not for the essential coda in the repetition.

Impromptu No 3, in G-flat major, opus 51
It is the last one he wrote, of course. It was composed in 1842 and published in February of the following year, with a dedication to Countess Esterházy, a pupil of the master, one of the many highborn pupils that George Sand used to call his "magnificent countesses."
Although without any concession to gratuitous virtuosity, the first section is marked vivace giusto, lively and light but without rubatos. In the opinion of scholars, this is music "shaken with confessions, filled with impulses and intoxicating ecstasy." Double notes characterize the right hand's eagerness in the second section.

The brilliant performance is by the American pianist Kate Liu, born in Singapore in 1994.

A. Stradella, a stabbed-to-death composer. "Symphony" No 7

Alessandro Stradella, an outstanding composer of the Italian Baroque of the mid-17th century, is one of the earliest members of the ominous elite of musicians who did not live to be forty years old. In his case, he also added a quota of "sensationalism" to his early death. His career today appears dazzling and avant-garde, and he is considered a leading figure of his generation and one of the most versatile composers of the time. Precursor of the concerto grosso and with more than three hundred works to his credit, including oratorios, cantatas, operas, and a variety of instrumental music, it is surprising that he could have achieved such great success while leading an unholy life, dodging the persecution of deceitful noble husbands and escaping justice through untimely trips to end up stabbed to death in a square in Genoa.

Born in Rome, probably in 1644, into a noble family, by the age of twenty he had already made a name for himself as a composer of works at the request of Queen Christina of Sweden (at the time, serving in Rome). He was later joined by other Roman noblemen for whom Stradella provided motets, preludes, and intermezzi. He never needed music to survive, nor any other trade. However, in 1669 he tried unsuccessfully to defraud the Catholic Church in collusion with a fellow violinist and the abbot of a monastery. He had to leave Rome in haste. But the following year was back, fully dedicated to the composition of sacred music.

Alejandro Stradella (1644 - 1682)

An elusive life
Several setbacks with the Roman Church led him to leave Rome, this time compulsively, in 1677. He decided to settle in Venice, where he was hired as a musical tutor to the mistress of a wealthy nobleman named Contarini. It did not take Stradella long to seduce the mistress and escape with her. The powerful Contarini family put a price on his head. After saving his life from an assault, the composer left Venice and settled in Genoa.

The end
There he enjoyed the regular presentation of his works in the Genoese theaters and seemed to have settled down, in the company of a noble maiden. But a series of scandalous infidelities unleashed the wrath of the Lomellini family, the maiden's cradle. On February 25, 1682, Stradella was stabbed to death in Piazza Banchi by a henchman of the Lomellini family. Despite his singular trajectory, the master's remains rest in a Catholic basilica in Genoa.

Symphony No. 7 in G major
Let us note that Stradella's "symphonies" (and those of the other baroque composers of his time) have little to do with the concept we use today, that is, the one that designates a great work in three or four movements for a large orchestra. In the Baroque period, the word symphony simply designated any type of music that required a variable number of instruments. Responding to the secular ambiguity of musical terms, it could also have been called, simply, sonata, or, better still, "sonata for orchestra".

The piece, just over four minutes long, is written for two violins, cello, and organ or harpsichord (the basso continuo), and is part of the thirty or so instrumental works composed by the author.

The performance is by the Italian Ensemble Giardino di Delizie, formed by four ladies, two of them Italian and two Polish.

Joseph Haydn´s trips to London / "London" Symphony

Of the 104 symphonies definitely written by Joseph Haydn, twelve were composed in London, but only the last of them will be known as the "London" Symphony. The work also turned out to be the symphony with which he ended all his production in the genre.

The maestro visited the island twice. The first time, in 1791, was invited by the German violinist and conductor Johann Peter Salomon, who had settled in London ten years earlier and had since become a successful music entrepreneur. Salomon was on the continent when he learned of the death of Haydn's patron, Prince Nicholas Esterházy, and the prince's son's lack of interest in maintaining the family's musical tradition. Without missing a second, Salomon left for Vienna. On a visit to the master's house, he told him all about London.

First trip: 1791 - 1792
On New Year's Day, January 1, 1791, Haydn landed at Dover. It was the first time he had set foot on foreign soil. Salomon was right: the maestro could not refuse his offer. The impresario offered a thousand pounds for an opera, six symphonies, and a couple of miscellaneous pieces, guaranteeing two hundred more for a benefit concert. The maestro remained in England for a year and a half, reaping successes and receiving tributes. He heard his music performed everywhere. He was invited to the Queen's birthday ball. The University of Oxford named him doctor honoris causa.

Second trip: 1794 - 1795
In July 1792, he returned to Vienna. He gave a few brief lessons to 21-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven, but the relationship was not one of the best. Neither his marriage nor his fourteen-year relationship with the singer Luigia Polzelli was going well. So he was delighted to receive Salomon's proposal to return to London.
The maestro left Vienna on January 19, 1794, and remained in London for another year and a half. During the visit, due to the war against France, Salomon was confronted with some serious difficulties. He was replaced by the violinist and impresario Giovanni Battista Viotti. He had the honor of organizing the premiere of Haydn's last three symphonies: the ones that today take the numbers 102, 103, and 104.

Symphony No. 104, in D major, called "London"
It premiered at the King's Theatre on May 4, 1795. The program featured exclusively music by Haydn, including Symphony No. 100, also called "Military," which had become the biggest London hit of his second visit. "The people were very pleased, and so was I," Haydn noted in his diary, adding, "I earned 4,000 gulden that night. Such a thing only happens in England."

Movements
They are the traditional four. If we discount their dramatic beginning, they are developed following the typical sequence: fast - slow - fast, with the minuet/trio inserted before the closing movement. The andante presents a simple theme that, after its development, becomes moving. The minuet is lively, with amusing syncopations; the trio is sweetly lyrical. For the Finale, the maestro turns to folklore: the main melody is a Croatian song probably once heard in Eisenstadt, where the Esterházy family had their winter palace.

00:00  Adagio - Allegro
09:42  Andante
16:53  Menuetto. Allegro - Trio
21:56  Finale. Spiritoso

The performance is by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the Dutch maestro Bernard Haitink.

Chausson, Poem for Violin and orchestra

The French composer Ernest Chausson was born lucky, but died unlucky. He was the son who survived the early death of his two brothers, a tragedy that does not count, of course, in the inventory of his good fortune. But from those specific events, he became the spoiled son, the "apple of his eye" of his beleaguered but very wealthy parents. His father, called Prosper because fate is perspicacious, was a renowned public works contractor who was there, in Paris, at the time of the Second Empire, when Napoleon III had the idea of redrawing the City of Light, remodeling its buildings, avenues, parks, and gardens.

And so Ernest never needed to work a day in his life. Possessing, since childhood, diverse talents for painting, philosophy, or literature, as a teenager he added music to his vast wealth of interests. When he finally decided on musical composition as a life project, his parents applied the indispensable correction in these cases: they sent him to the university to study law. The young Chausson was sworn in as a lawyer in 1877. But that same year he changed course. The most notable achievement of that year would not be his oath but the composition of his first song, Les Lilas.

Ernst Chausson (1855 - 1899)

At Paris Conservatory
Chausson will never practice the profession. Two years later, in 1879, when he was 24 years old, the lawyer entered the Paris Conservatory to study composition with master Jules Massenet. Later, integrated into the circle that surrounded César Franck, he was encouraged to compose music despite his very late musical initiation.

His lyricism 
He was not a virtuoso composer, but an innate lyricism helped him overcome his technical limitations. With all the time in the world to mature his compositions without being disturbed by any extra-musical occupation, Chausson wrote songs, choral music, some operas, and chamber music. Today he is remembered mainly for two imaginative orchestral works: a Symphony, and the Poem for Violin and Orchestra, from 1896.

The fateful end
He lived in Paris with his wife all his lifetime but every summer the couple would take off to the provinces. In the summer of 1899, while riding a bicycle, he lost control of the vehicle and crashed his head against a wall. He died on the spot.
His funeral was attended by the most conspicuous personalities of French music and arts.

Poem for violin and orchestra, op. 25
Chausson hardly had any reason to be sad during his lifetime. However, much of his music exudes an undeniable melancholy. The Poem for Violin does not evade it, during its 17 minutes of beautiful nostalgia, or "spleen", to use the word Baudelaire invented during those years.

Premiere 
Composed between April and June 1896, the work had its public premiere on December 27 of that year, with the participation as soloist of the Belgian master Eugène Ysaÿe, to whom it is dedicated and who would have been its applicant.

Janine Jansen, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Johannes Gustavsson.