Antonin Dvorak, Four Romantic Pieces

Antonin Leopold Dvorak was born in a village near Prague on September 8, 1841, and at the age of eight he would show already the skills of a notable musician, accompanying the church choir with his little violin in the afternoons when he would take a rest from his uncommon inclination, the pigeon fancy. He was the eldest of a butcher and innkeeper's children, who did not glimpse for his son another future business than dismembering animals, a craft for which it was essential to know the German language.

In order to learn the language, the butcher sent him to a neighboring city where, fortunately, the young Antonin met a music teacher who after a long and sustained effort finally managed to convince the musician's father to send him to Prague, to study the violin.

Conductor and composer

Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904)

It was a wise decision, as Antonin would show an unbeatable musical talent. Although he did not stand out as a great performer, he nevertheless became a great conductor and composer claimed by the big orchestral groups from all over Europe and even from the USA, being invited in 1891 to take over the New York National Conservatory of Music, where he stayed for two years. From that time dates his most famous composition, the New World Symphony.

A quiet and affable musician
Antonin was a simple musician. He felt upset when, on the top of his fame, the audience applauded more than enough, to the point of leaving the stage even if the theater collapsed clapping. His maxim, according to some scholars, indicated that art should stimulate the desire to enjoy existence. Following this line of thought, he spent his last years teaching at the Prague Conservatory, enjoying a small farm nearby, wherein the summer he used to work in the garden and took care of his beloved pigeons.

"Four romantic pieces"
This group of four small pieces were originally written as a trio for viola and two violins, in January 1887. Dvorak called them "Miniatures." Shortly after, he rewrote them for violin and piano, renaming them "Four Romantic Pieces." Today is a custom replace the violin for a cello, which, in my modest opinion, adds solemnity to these four simple pieces, mainly to the last movement, slow, larghetto, the most beautiful of all (beginning in the minute 9:10). There is speculation that Dvorak was planning to add a fifth movement, since ending a composition with a slow movement was, and remains, unusual.
(A curious note: A video game released in 2010, Civilization 5, contains part of the Larguetto in its soundtrack).

At the piano: Viacheslav Poprugin. Cello: Natalia Gutman.

Domenico Scarlatti, sonata in D minor

The same year that JS Bach and GF Haendel came to the world, in 1685, the Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti was born in Naples, a son of the opera composer Antonio Scarlatti, and the most prominent of ten brothers, all of them musicians. As expected, it was his father who guided his first steps in music and by 1701, still a teenager, he would be named organist at the royal chapel in Naples.

As an adult, while serving as a teacher of the Julia Chapel, in the Vatican, he does sporadic work for the Portuguese embassy, ​​a job that is not quite clear to us but we suppose related to "events" the embassy carried out, which required the participation of musicians – an extra income.

As a result of this sort of "casual works", Domenico and the Portuguese ambassador forged a close union that led Scarlatti to settle in Lisbon, as the cathedral's chapel master, in the court of Juan V of Portugal. He also had a role as the music teacher of Juan's children, including the charming María Bárbara de Braganza, aged tender eight years, who will show remarkable talent for music and stand out in her maturity as patroness of the arts.

Domenico Scarlatti (1685 - 1757)

In Spain
Ten years later, at eighteen, Maria Barbara will marry the prince of Asturias, who will later become Ferdinand VI, and thus, María Bárbara will become queen consort of Spain.
The close ties forged between Maria and Domenico prevented the future queen from abandoning her harpsichord teacher and for that reason she took him to Spain, first to Seville and later to Madrid, after her husband was crowned. For long years, Domenico Scarlatti will continue to be the harpsichord teacher of Queen Maria Barbara.

The "exercises"
Nowadays, Domenico Scarlatti is remembered mostly for his short sonatas written for harpsichord, intended for the recreation of the royal family. Around 550 sonatas, single movement, also called "exercises", wrote Domenico throughout his life. An Italian style predominates in some of them, although the Portuguese air and others remembering a Spanish-style are also recognized.

Sonata in D minor, K 141
The brevity of these compositions forces them to be executed only as "encores" by the musicians of our time. The pianist Martha Argerich offers us such a possibility by playing the Sonata in D minor at the end of a concert, in 2008, in Turin.
Two of Scarlatti's main innovations on the keyboard are clearly recognizable here: rapid repetitions of notes and hand crossover.
(Scarlatti's work was compiled by American harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick, hence the letter K in the catalog).

Agustín Barrios, Alms for the love of God

Despite having been the greatest guitarist-composer of the last century's first half, after his death in 1944, Agustín Barrios-Mangoré and his music went practically forgotten and for at least two decades the composer and his work were ignored. His purpose perhaps was overshadowed by the omnipresence of two great facilitators of the time's repertoire for classical guitar: Andrés Segovia in Spain with his transcriptions from the Renaissance vihuela and the baroque lute, and Villa-Lobos in Brazil, with his novel compositions of ethnic roots.

All this was happening despite the widespread academic opinion that indicated the undeniable superiority in emotionality, virtuosity and technical quality that Barrios' work entails in comparison with the contributions of the other two great contemporary masters already named – understood Villa-Lobos in his contribution to guitar.
In the 70s, great guitarists such as John Williams or David Russell began incorporating him into their repertoire, making him known for the second time to the world, if that can be said.

Agustín Barrios-Mangoré (1885 - 1944)

The famous tremolo known by its numerous names (The last tremolo, The last song, etc.), among them the highly sentimental Una limosna por amor de Dios (Alms for the love of God), was composed at the end of his life and, in all likelihood, is his last written work. In this piece, as beautiful as it is brief, Barrios shows his great mastery in tremolo technique, the melody entrusted to the soprano voice while a rhythmic motif in ostinato in charge of the middle voice does not rest throughout the piece (hence his name, ostinato).

The impeccable rendition is by the Scottish guitarist, David Russell.

Chopin in Marseille, Scherzo No 3

Severe and prolonged was the nosebleed Chopin suffered on his return trip from Mallorca. In the company of George Sand and her two children, they were returning from a frustrated vacation started in November 1838, scheduled to escape the French winter. But the holliday lasted only three months because the weather, extremely favorable at the beginning ("the sky is like turquoise, sea like azure, mountains like emerald, air like heaven") changed dramatically in January causing a substantial deterioration in Frédérick's fragile health.

The homecoming
In a modest boat that also carried as passengers – in the cargo compartment, of course – a herd of pigs that growled day and night, they set off on their return to Barcelona in February 1839. Chopin is still bleeding from the nose, and Sand is on the verge of despair. Eight days after his arrival in the city, George sighs a French warship in the harbor and decides to talk with the captain, getting the doctor on board to see Frédérick and, good news, taking them all to Marseille. After 36 hours of stoic rocking, the four passengers arrived at the French port on February 25, 1839, the hemorrhage stopped thanks to the solicitous doctor, "and the endless care of my angel", Chopin notes – alluding George, we want to believe.

"Marseille is ugly" says Chopin. "All the literary mob chases George and the musical mob follows me. It's an old city though not ancient, and we are a little bored." As for Sand, she does not seem very happy in "this city of merchants and shopkeepers ...":

"We moved from one inn to another. Apart from the mistral we have a pretty good time. Chopin must not breathe cold air. The windy mistral days we stay at home and work each in his own ... Our existence is highly innocent and simple, almost primitive... "

On May 22 they return, not to Paris but to Nohant where the cozy summer house of Sand is located. Finally at home! exclaims Chopin, with some ease.

Chopin's Scherzos
Chopin had already managed to unlink the prelude from the fugue. He would soon separate the scherzo from the symphony and the sonata, particularly that of his closest model, the beethovenian, a playful or graceful scherzo, existing at least in the symphonies prior to the fifth, and whose purpose was to separate the allegro from the adagio or this one from the end of the work. Chopin would build with its metric four individual pieces, of a ternary nature, that is, first theme, second theme and return to the first theme, or structure A-B-A. The rhythm is in 3/4 and its speed is presto.

Scherzo No. 3 op 39 in C sharp minor
The Scherzo No 3 was composed or completed in 1839, in Mallorca, and published in 1840. It is dedicated to one of his closest pupils, Adolphe Gutmann.
Of stormy beginning, it then links up with a cantabile theme that is accompanied by descending arpeggios; finally a coda will lead to the high brilliant conclusion, with a "Picardy third", that is, a major chord when the piece is in a minor key, as it's the case.

The rendition is by the Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva, awarded with the first prize at the 2010 International Chopin Contest, in Warsaw.

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Bizet, "Habanera", from Carmen

To cover the expenses of his innumerable wars and his lavish palaces, Louis XIV increased taxes on peasants in the middle of the second half of the 17th century. It seems perverse but it was the only way to relieve state finances because the nobility and clergy did not pay taxes. But not for that reason we are going to label the Sun King an infamous monarch. Lover of the arts, the Prix de Rome was created under his reign, in 1663. The award would distinguish young artists with a four-year stay at the Academy of France, in Rome, an internship liberally covered by the king or, rather, covered by the French servants.

Prix ​​de Rome for musicians 
A century and a half later, in 1803, Napoleon Bonaparte expanded the universe of beneficiaries to include musicians. The French musician Georges Bizet, an outstanding student of the Paris Conservatoire who had entered at age ten not without difficulties because he was under the age to be admitted, applied in 1857 to the coveted Prix de Rome. He won it on second vote. The award involved a five-year scholarship (usually 4), and the only requirement was to submit an original work each year to the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris.

Surviving in Paris
Georges, whose mother was a pianist, became, in turn, an exceptional pianist, but his musical vocation was oriented to drama. It was not a good choice, because he had to get used to accepting scarcely encouraging criticism. The year his mother died, he returned definitively to Paris and delivered a comic opera to the Academy, his last commitment to the Prix de Rome.
From that moment on, the struggle to survive in the French musical world began. He composes operettas that later destroys, gives lessons and publishes small pieces for piano and songs, also makes transcriptions of famous operas for the piano.

The post mortem success

Georges Bizet (1838 - 1875)

After composing in 1872 another work poorly received by the public, he decided to stage the opera Carmen, mainly for overcoming depression than for another motive. The work dated from 1845 but had never been released for fear that his subjects of treason and murder could irritate the audience. The heroine, to make matters worse, was a licentious seducer and not a virtuous woman. As expected, its premiere in March 1875 was a failure. However, seven months later it was performed in Vienna to great acclaim of both public and critics. But Bizet had already died, in June of that year, shortly before his 37th birthday. Carmen is considered today a work of universal category, but Bizet never got to know.

All the above notwithstanding, Georges Bizet definitely transformed the genre of the French Opera Comique (somewhat light and with musical numbers separated by dialogue) and accelerated the cult of realism helping to forge the Italian post-Romantic operatic tradition that will later be known as verismo (Leoncavallo, Puccini).

Carmen
It is an opera in four acts, based on a novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée. Set in Seville, it is starring Carmen, a beautiful and fiery gipsy woman ("if you do not love me, I love you; if you love me, be careful", are words from the Habanera) who seduces an inexperienced soldier in matters of the heart who out of love for her rejects his former beloved. Regrettably, Carmen will later choose another male as the object of her love, a bullfighter. In jealousy, the soldier will be going to kill Carmencita.

In act I, Carmen shares her philosophy of love by singing the famous Habanera, at the exit of the tobacco factory, right next to the soldiers' barracks.

The rendition is by the Latvian-born mezzo-soprano, Elina Garança, in a performance at the New York Met.

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