K. Szymanowski, Violin Concerto No 1

Karol Szymanowski was born in 1882 in Tymoszówka, then under the tutelage of the Russian Empire, but before that, part of the former kingdom of Poland. Throughout his life, the author strongly supported Polish music, and as a just recognition in 1926, he acceded to the post of director of the Warsaw Conservatory. However, in his last days, he complained bitterly about the neglect and isolation in which Polish cultural circles had kept him, most likely because of his sexual orientation. But, at the same time, he dared to predict that despite all this, his funeral should be magnificent.

The composer died of tuberculosis in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1937 and agreed to not one but two funerals. One in Warsaw, of a "republican" character, and the other in Krakow, where he was buried in a church in the sector destined for distinguished Poles.

Szymanowski was born into a golden cradle. His parents, wealthy landowners, maintained a family environment open to the artistic world. He received his first piano lessons from his father at the age of seven, while his brothers dabbled in painting and poetry. In 1901 he entered the Warsaw Conservatory to study composition. After publishing his first works, he traveled extensively in Europe and beyond, going as far as North Africa, gaining rich life and musical experiences. A brief stay in Paris helped to cement his admiration for Debussy and the French impressionist school. His name was becoming known. Everything was going wonderfully. Until the war came.

Karol Szymanowski
(1882 - 1937)

Working in bad times
The family – the composer included – was forced to remain isolated in their Tymoszówka estate during all those years. The war ended, but there was no respite because then the Bolshevik revolution broke out. The family had to sell their property under disadvantageous conditions, and resettle elsewhere, in a nearby town, which soon fell under Austrian occupation.

Against all odds, in addition to an enormous flow of short pieces, between 1914 and 1918 the composer produced his most important masterpieces, including his Third Symphony, several string quartets, and by the way, the First Violin Concerto.

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No 1, Opus 35
Dated 1916 but not premiered until 1922, the work lasts approximately 25 minutes, delivered in one unbroken breath. It is not a traditional work, certainly, and its single movement signals as much: a canvas of interwoven themes, perhaps in a new but equally fascinating way. It is commendable, indeed, that the author has been able to create such enchantment in dark and highly complex moments.

The performance is by the Scottish violinist Michael Foyle accompanied by the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of the Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare, on the occasion of a violin competition in Holland, where the performer was awarded the First Prize (the video includes the award ceremony).

Mozart, Symphony No 35, "Haffner"

The Mozart family had known the Haffner family for many years, ever since Sigmund Haffner, mayor of Salzburg, had supported the first European tours of the child prodigies Wolfgang and Nannerl. Years later, in 1776, the twenty-year-old Wolfgang thanked the prophetic gesture by writing a serenade for the marriage of one of Sigmund's daughters. Warmly received, the piece became famous as the Haffner Serenade. And that would have been the end of it, had it not been for the fact that in 1782 Sigmund Jr., a friend of Mozart's, was granted a noble title. Nothing better occurred to Leopold Mozart than asking his son, in Vienna at the time and about to marry, to compose a symphony to celebrate the ennoblement of Sigmund Haffner, Jr.

In mid-1782, Mozart was enjoying the success of his last opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio, and was busy writing an arrangement for a wind band "before someone else does it and takes my profits". He was also writing another serenade (in C minor for winds) and preparing for his marriage. He was very busy. But he accomplished everything. Or almost everything. Between July 20 and August 6, the maestro finished the arrangement, the serenade for winds, married Constanza, and sent her father the first movement of a Symphony, a movement that, apparently, arrived just in time for the celebration. The remaining movements arrived, one by one, in each mail.

Music for Lent
Six months later, Mozart was organizing a concert with his music for the Lenten days of 1783. Since the symphony intended for Haffner was probably known only in Salzburg, he asked his father to send him back the manuscripts. When he had them in hand, he wrote to him, "The new Haffner Symphony has pleasantly surprised me, because I had forgotten almost all the notes." However, the maestro decided to redesign the piece, which by then had six movements.

A new piece
He discarded one of the two minuets and the concluding march, then added a pair of flutes and a pair of clarinets to the first and fourth movements, and offered the Viennese a new piece on March 23, 1783, at the Burgtheater in Vienna.

The premiere
Under the leadership of the author, it turned out to be a great success. Wolfgang told his father:

"The theater could not have been more crowded and.... every seat was taken. But what pleased me most of all was that His Majesty the Emperor was present and, heavens! - How delighted he was and how he applauded me! He is in the habit of sending the money to the theater before he arrives. Otherwise, I would have been counting a larger amount. But his rejoicing exceeded all bounds. He sent 25 ducats."

A Hamburg magazine reviewed the concert, noting that the emperor, against his custom, "had attended the entire concert, as had the entire audience." ... The customs of those years.

A rather curious program
As was also the custom, the program of the evening seems to us today somewhat curious, to say the least. It began with the first three movements of the symphony. It was followed by arias, "scenes" from operas, a couple of movements from recent serenades, a piano concerto (K 175), variations on arias; Aloysia Weber (now Lange), Wolfgang's former love, sang one of his rondos, and then Wolfgang improvised a fugue, "because the emperor was present". In the end, the fourth movement of the Haffner Symphony was played. Finally. 

Following are the four movements, one after the other, in just under 20 minutes.

Symphony No. 35 in D major, K 385, "Haffner" - Movements
00:00  Allegro con spirito - Must be played fiercely, Wolfgang pointed out.
05:38  Andante - A respite, after the spirited allegro, soft and beautiful melodies.
10:08  Menuetto - Brilliant change of atmosphere.
13:10  Presto - As fiery as the first, it should be played as fast as possible, the composer pointed out.

The Orchestra of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, Rome, under the baton of the British conductor and pianist Sir Antonio Pappano.

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.