Charles Gounod: Funeral March of a Marionette

A reflection on the brevity and toils of life, even when you are a puppet

French composer Charles Gounod entered the Paris Conservatoire at 18, and by 21 he was on his way to Rome as a prizewinner of the coveted Prix de Rome. There he focused on 16th-century sacred music with such intensity that he considered becoming a priest. But in the end, music won out.

On his return to Paris, the composer met the mezzo-soprano Pauline Viardot, a renowned diva in the artistic circles, who secured the commission for his first opera, Sapho, from the Paris Opera. It was the beginning of his career as a composer of operas, with Faust and Romeo and Juliet, the most outstanding and for which he is remembered today, in addition to the most famous of the Ave Maria, the one built on the first prelude of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.

But the war was to come. Between 1870 and 1874 (well past age 50) Gounod lived in England, fleeing the upheavals of the Franco-Prussian war. While there, he composed a lot of music, mainly religious. But he also took the time to compose a short piece for piano, light natured, although, curiously, it is a funeral march.
In 1872, Gounod had begun writing a piano suite which he called Suite Burlesque, a satirical work intended to mock the personality of a music critic of the time. Gounod wrote the first piece, Funeral March of a Marionette, but the critic died, and Gounod abandoned the suite.

Charles Gounod cartoon, 1879
(1818 - 1893)

The revival, through Hitchcock
Later, aware of its popularity, Gounod orchestrated it in 1879. Others made arrangements of it for various instruments. In the first half of the 20th century, it was recorded many times, incorporated into the cinema, and used as a musical curtain in several radio programs, and later, on television.
According to Alfred Hitchcock, he heard it for the first time in a 1927 film. He loved it, and thirty years later, he incorporated it as a theme song in his television series "Alfred Hitchcock Presents", which began in 1955. From that appearance, the little work acquired great popularity, although no one could identify its author, a similar experience to the overture to Rossini's Guglielmo Tell, made known to the general public by the series "The Lone Ranger".

Funeral March for a Marionette
The little piece, barely five minutes in length, has never lost its charm, and also tells a story:
The marionette has died in a duel held with another member of the puppet troupe, and the funeral procession begins in the direction of the cemetery, in a march rhythm, of course. As the piece progresses, the music takes on a more cheerful character because some members of the procession, exhausted by the march, seek relief at an inn on the road where they have a drink, commenting on the many virtues of the deceased. After a while, they rejoin the procession, which is already entering the cemetery, once again in marching time. The final closing of the gates, later, invites a reflection on the brevity and toils of life, even when you are a puppet.

The performance is by the Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias, conducted by Óliver Díaz.

Remembering Glenn Gould - Bach's Goldberg Variations

 
According to one of Bach's first biographers, one autumn day in 1740, the Russian diplomat Count Karl von Keyserling appeared at Bach's house in Leipzig on a surprise visit. He was accompanied by his young personal keyboardist, a fourteen-year-old boy named Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, whom he intended to leave there to be instructed by the master. The count told Bach that he was ill and suffered from insomnia. Goldberg, who lived in the count's house, was to spend the night in the antechamber so that he would play for him if he woke up in the middle of the night after having fallen asleep listening to him. The Count also hinted that he could use some very varied variations, some quiet and calm, others a little more vivid. They would certainly alleviate his long sleepless nights.

Johann Sebastian accepted the commission, for which he was generously compensated: a golden cup full of gold louis, one hundred, to be exact. (To give us an idea of the amount, one hundred years later, one gold louis will be equivalent to twenty francs, the sum Chopin charged for his piano lessons).

The count never tired of the variations and took to calling them my variations. Following the aforementioned biographer, every sleepless night meant only one thing to young Goldberg: that the count's request reached his ears, "Dear Goldberg, please play one of my variations for me."

The Variations, in modern times
As with many of Bach's works, the Goldberg Variations were forgotten for almost two centuries. They were first performed in modern times by the Polish harpsichordist Wanda Landowska in 1933. From then on, the versions multiplied and, despite their high technical demands, in the second half of the 20th century they were part of the discography of a good number of pianists of our time.

A legendary recording was made in 1955 by the Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, a challenge he took up again in 1981. His versions, splendid, were never free of controversy because Gould was a brilliant pianist as well as controversial and somewhat extravagant ideas.

Glenn Gould (1932 - 1982)

Gould, an enfant terrible
Gould was born in Toronto in 1932. First, his mother taught him, then came the Royal Conservatory, and when he began to give concerts he did so as a complete and integral artist. His repertoire was somewhat particular, he could include Beethoven, of course (his last sonatas), but from there he would jump to Berg and Webern. He thought Chopin had not been a good composer, nor did he like Mozart. He claimed to have "a gap of a century bounded by The Art of Fugue on the one hand and Tristan and Isolde on the other; everything in between is a cause more for admiration than love."

The chair, a legend
The stool he used was a chair, which left him in front of the piano with his chin almost at keyboard height, and the one he moved to all his concerts. He liked to pout while he played, kept the beat with his free hand and hummed the melody, while balancing on his chair that allowed him to sit exactly fourteen inches off the floor. How much of that was genuine and how much was aimed at publicity purposes is unknown. By the same token, he had fanatical admirers as well as determined detractors.

Bach, a new approach
What is unquestionable is the expression of his outstanding musical personality. His recordings were a revelation to many. Gould exhibited a combination of personality, delicacy, charming rhythm and technical assurance that signified a new approach to Bach interpretation. His ability to separate contrapuntal lines and give each its proper weight was extraordinary. With Gould, you hear everything.

However, his concert career lasted only nine years. When he retired from the stage, Gould turned to recording. A heart attack cut short his new path. He died in 1982. He was only fifty years old.

Goldberg Variations, in G - BWV 988
This is one of the few works published during Bach's lifetime, in 1741. It consists of an aria and a set of 30 variations. As stated on the original title page, it is "exercises for keyboard consisting of an aria and several variations for harpsichord for two manual keyboards". (Let us note that on the piano, with its single keyboard, the work becomes somewhat more difficult). ) In live performances it is customary to reprise the initial aria at the end, in a shorter version, as if to remind the listener of where it all came from, although the variations do not rest on the initial melodic theme (a sarabande, in 3/4 rhythm) but on the bass line and the harmonic progression.

Theme and five variations
The complete work lasts ninety minutes if all repetitions are observed. The version presented here contains the aria and variations 1 to 5, from the 1981 recording, which was also Gould's last recording.

Béla Bartók, Piano Concerto No 3

 "It is a pity that I have to leave with a full suitcase" 

The last of the three piano concertos by the Hungarian composer Béla Bartók was composed in 1945 in New York, where he had arrived in October 1940, fleeing the Nazi barbarism in the company of his wife, Ditta Pasztory. The Concerto is dedicated to her as a birthday present. On the last page of the score, the composer noted, in Hungarian, the word vége (end). It was the last thing he wrote. That same night he was taken from his apartment on 57th Street to a hospital on the west side of Manhattan, where he died four days later, on September 26, 1945. He was 64.

In the States
The last five years of his life were spent in the United States. They were not particularly productive years. Nor were they happy ones. The first two years he wrote nothing and from 1942 onwards his health suddenly weakened, then worsened and the maestro seemed unable to recover. But in May 1943, a Russian conductor's commission of a Concerto for Orchestra brought him back to life. The music flowed again, until 1945, the year that marked a high point. Unfortunately, there was little time left.

Béla Barók (1881 - 1945)

Saying goodbye with a full suitcase
For the first time in years, Bartók worked on two significant pieces simultaneously: the Viola Concerto and the Third Piano Concerto. And when he left his apartment for the last time he had a new string quartet in draft form and was considering a commission for a concerto for two pianos requested by a pair of pianists.
This resurgence of such activity was likely motivated by an awareness of his failing health. It is said that when he arrived at the hospital he would have said: "It is a pity that I have to leave with a full suitcase".

Piano Concerto No. 3, in E major
Unlike his two previous concertos, Concerto No. 3 does not demand of the performer superb virtuosity. Nor does it exhibit a notorious modernism but rather a strong adherence to traditional models and forms. Even the Hungarian melodic and rhythmic elements, while present, are less pronounced than in the previous concertos.
A warm, melodic, and popularly appealing work.
It premiered on February 8, 1946, with György Sándor at the piano accompanied by the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy.

Movements:
00:00  Allegretto
08:10  Adagio religioso
17:40  Allegro vivace

The performance is by the Hungarian pianist András Schiff, accompanied by the Hallé Orchestra (Manchester-based symphony orchestra) conducted by Sir Mark Elder.

Albéniz: "Evocación", from Iberia Suite

The little pianist who once toured the world

In 1893, Isaac Albéniz had long since stopped partying and had finally settled down. Settled in Paris, he enjoyed the sympathy of the Parisians and was a close friend of Dukas and Fauré. It was then that he stopped playing the piano in front of an audience. At the end of his life, he had composed a handful of interesting pieces, and a hundred or so pleasant and beautiful "salon pieces", but most of them today are forgotten. But in the last four years of his life, he devoted himself to work on a series of highly complex and significant piano pieces that assured him immortality. They were published in four notebooks under the title "Iberia".

Born in 1860 in a town in Catalonia, Isaac Albéniz made his debut as a pianist at the age of four. Three years later, he was writing his first compositions. With such an astonishing start, it should not be surprising that at the age of nine, he was playing for the audience of the Casino de El Escorial. The occasion arose from one of his typical escapades from the family home. He took a train in any direction, and on the way he met the manager of the Casino who, curious, invited him to play for his guests, but the next day the manager left him sitting on another train with the commitment to return home. Isaac left the train two stations further and took another one in the opposite direction.

Isaac Albéniz (1860 - 1909)

Touring the world
It was the first of the great adventures of the child genius, the Spanish Rubinstein, as he would later be called. Three years after his foray to the Escorial, he hid on a ship and ended up playing in Puerto Rico. Similar escapades took him to Buenos Aires, Cuba, San Francisco, and New York.

Back in Europe
At the age of thirteen, he returned to Europe and took private lessons in Leipzig. Then a grant from the Spanish government allowed him to enter the Brussels Conservatory, which, as expected, he left soon after. In 1878 he got Liszt to listen to him. He was the teacher with whom he finished his formal studies. After that, it was all about success in half of Europe.

The Iberia Suite
The collection is made up of twelve pieces distributed in four notebooks with three pieces each. The complete work lasts about an hour and a half; each piece (except for the first one) describes a certain region of Spain, and hence its title (it could not be called Spain since there were two recent works with that title –one by Chabrier, from 1883).

The complete work is made up of the following pieces:
Cuaderno 1: Evocación - El Puerto - Corpus en Seville
Cuaderno 2: Rondeña - Almeria - Triana
Cuaderno 3: El Albaicín - El Polo - Lavapies
Cuaderno  4: Málaga - Jerez - Eritaña

Composed between 1904 and 1909 (the year of the composer's death), it is considered the most important work of Spanish piano literature. Enrique Granados did not spare the praise: "...I want everyone to play it, forgive me if many of you burst it, but this is a way to tell you that I like it with delirium", he wrote in a letter to Albéniz.

Suite Iberia - Book I - "Evocación" (Evocation)
Evocación is the first of the three pieces in Book I, a sort of introduction to the complete suite. It does not evoke, then, a particular Spanish region but rather delivers images of the peninsula in general.

Serene and tranquility in the outer sections, a passionate central piece provides the necessary contrast. A delicate exoticism permeates the work throughout.

The rendition is by Spanish pianist Luis Fernando Pérez.

Beethoven, Sonata No. 18, "The Hunt"

A cheerful work before the storm

With the exception of its lively finale, Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 18 is a quiet, rather cheerful work, which does not at all convey bitterness or gloom. Written in 1802, its frolicsome character in no way reveals that a few months later the master would radically change his mood, to sit down and write to his two brothers, sharing with them all his torments in the letter we know today as the famous Heiligenstadt Testament:

"Alas, how could I proclaim the lack of a sense which I should possess in a higher degree than any other? [...] I am estranged from amusement... from the pleasure of conversation, from the effusions of friendship.... [...] Such circumstances have brought me to the verge of despair [...] Patience, so I have been told. This must be my guide. [...]

The letter ends with a heartbreaking plea, "O Providence, grant me at least a single day of sincere joy!"

We know the letter was never sent. It was discovered among his belongings after his death in 1827, together with the letters to the Immortal Beloved.
Of course, Beethoven was deeply affected by his deafness and he was not in Heiligenstadt by chance but on the recommendation of his doctor to "rest his ear". But at the same time, the maestro was aware that he had to embark on a new path, tackling new forms of musical expression. "I am not satisfied with what I have done so far," Beethoven remarked in a letter to a friend shortly before the appearance of the Sonata No. 18, according to Karl Czerny. 

The new paths
In the Sonata, according to Czerny himself, "one can trace the partial fulfillment of his new purpose". Indeed, later would come the portentous Waldstein and Appassionata sonatas (both 1804) to fully implement the master's resolution of 1802.

The sonata was published in 1804 without an opus number. It would later be incorporated into Opus 31. Interestingly, the work was not dedicated to any nobleman, nor was it dedicated to anyone else. The piece has no dedication.

Piano Sonata No. 18, Opus 31 No. 3, in E flat major - "The Hunt"
This is the third and last of the three sonatas of Opus 31 (the second being the most popular, The Tempest sonata, and the first the most "classical" - a characteristic, the latter, not well regarded by some scholars).
It is also known as "The Hunt" because of its last movement, which contains a theme reminiscent of a hunting call by trumpets or horns. The nickname, of course, only applies to this movement (just as "Moonlight" only applies to the first movement of the same moniker's sonata).

As on several previous occasions (six, exactly), Beethoven structured the piece in four movements, opting for a scherzo and a minuet instead of the usual adagio.

Movements:
00:00  Allegro
08:31  Scherzo. Allegretto vivace
13:22  Menuetto: Moderato e grazioso
17:48  Presto con fuoco

The rendition is by the Argentine-Israeli (also Spanish and Palestinian) maestro Daniel Barenboim.