A. Salieri: Concerto for flute and oboe

At the age of 16, the Italian composer Antonio Salieri was "discovered" in Venice by Florian L. Gassman, then court composer at the court of Vienna. Pleasantly impressed by his talent, he promptly took him to the Austrian capital to give him composition lessons and, incidentally, introduce him to the court of Joseph II.
Two years later, in 1768, Salieri composed his first opera, La Vestale, perhaps not a great success and now lost. The deserved recognition would come later with his opera Armida, of 1771, a great success, which survives to this day, and which had the virtue of making him, from then on, one of the most important opera composers of the time.

Instrumental music
But Salieri did not only write music for the stage. The composer has an important but modest catalog of purely instrumental music, somewhat forgotten today (with the exception, perhaps, of his Piano Concerto in C major), although much of it remained unpublished for many years. This is the case of the Concerto for flute, oboe, and orchestra in C major, written in 1774 and published only in the 60s of the last century, to the disgrace and regret of every oboist or flutist who has passed through this world since the last quarter of the eighteenth century.

Antonio Salieri (1750 - 1825)

Kapellmeister in Vienna
The work was composed at the age of 24, after the composer took up the post of Kapellmeister at the Italian Opera in Vienna, following the death of his mentor Gassman. Thus, the young Salieri held at an early age a position for which Mozart, six years younger, would perhaps have given his life, around the same time.

In Salieri's defense
Let us note here that Constanza Mozart, wife of the genius par excellence, took Salieri as a teacher for her son Franz Xavier, after the death of the genius. Furthermore, that year, in 1791, Mozart and Salieri attended together at least once to see The Magic Flute performed.

Concerto for flute, oboe, and orchestra in C major
Accompanied by the Chernihiv Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the Ukrainian maestro Nikolai Sukach, Alexander Popov (flute), and Artyom Alekseenko (oboe), perform the work.

Movements:
The usual ones of the baroque concerto:
00       Allegro
08:38  Largo
16:16  Allegretto

Isaac Albéniz, "Spanish Rhapsody"

The extraordinary Spanish pianist and composer Isaac Albéniz's great thirst for adventure led him to tour Spain and then America before the age of thirteen. He gave performances, first as a child prodigy at the age of eight, and then as a promising young pianist comparable to Liszt or Thalberg.

This was helped by his father's job as a customs official, constantly moving from city to city. His life story – including a mystical stage, similar to that of Liszt –  led the musical circles of his time to call him simply "the Spanish Liszt". However, unlike the Hungarian master, the adolescent Albéniz had to work on anything during his travels when the reality was below expectations, which often happened because the little master "went on tour" in the direction in which he was turned.

Leipzig
At the age of fourteen, he seemed to settle down. After performing in New York and San Francisco, he entered the Leipzig Conservatory in order to improve his skills, but it didn't last long. He was there for only nine months. He had run out of money, so he had to return to Spain.

Brussels
A patron then intervened and obtained his admission to the prestigious Brussels Conservatory of Music thanks to a royal grant. There he proved to be the youngest and most brilliant pupil, which was crowned by obtaining the first prize of the Conservatory in 1879. But he only stayed there for three years.

Isaac Albéniz, at 22
(1860 - 1909)

Barcelona
After meeting Liszt and joining the tours of the great Hungarian master with other young people who followed him everywhere, he returned to Spain and decided to settle in Barcelona. There he married in 1883 and started a family. Albéniz had now settled down.

Spanish Rhapsody, for piano and orchestra
Unfortunately, unlike the other pieces of the same name by Ravel, Chabrier, or Liszt, in our days Albéniz's Rhapsody is not heard in auditoriums as regularly as its composer, who held it in high esteem, would have liked.
Originally written for piano and completed in 1886, the composer successfully premiered it in Madrid on March 21, 1887.
The version generally heard today is the 1911 version for piano and orchestra by Georges Enescu.

Work in one movement, its parts, or sections, rich in the purest Spanish tradition, are as follows:

00        Allegretto
03:59  "Petenera de Mariani" (Mariani's Petenera)
07:24  "Jota"
09:52  "Malagueña of Juan Breva"
16:28  "Estudiantina"

The performance is by Russian pianist Lubov Timofeyeva, accompanied by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Ziva.

Chopin, Nocturne Opus 32 No 1

In 1837, after meeting in Dresden and sharing pleasantly for fifteen days, Frederick and Maria Wodzinska – the young Polish woman with whom he had thought to lead a life together – saw their relationship coming to an end. That summer Chopin waited in vain for an invitation to spend the season again with the Wodzinski family, but the offer never came. What did arrive but to the mother's ears, was the rumor about Chopin's incurable illness.

The favored
But in Paris life went on. And some of his colleagues, Franz Liszt, for example, were having a wonderful time. That same year Cosima Liszt was born, the fruit of Liszt's relationship with Countess Marie d'Agoult. (Many years later, Cosima would marry Richard Wagner, after leaving her husband, the conductor Hans von Büllow, but that is another story).

Chopin, a water-color painting,
by Maria Wodzinska

The unfavored
And those who were not having a good time, faced the definitive end. It's the case of the Irish pianist and composer John Field, "inventor" of the nocturne form, who died that year in Moscow, on January 23, at the age of 55. Creator of short pieces, sort of reveries or meditations, he liked to accompany his rather tender melodic lines with arpeggios, or broken chords of the left hand. Chopin was inspired by them, of course, and will give soul, heart, and life to this new form, somewhat weak at first, devised by Field.

A tribute?
Who knows if in 1837 Chopin learned of the death of his "master" in the genre. And who knows whether, if so – although the nocturne is dedicated to a pupil – perhaps Chopin did want to pay tangential homage to Field with this simple piece, a quiet, brief romanza, just as his inspirer warned that the nocturnes should be.

Nocturne Opus 32 No 1 in B major
It's initially marked andante sostenuto and is in 4/4 meter. The piece transitions to adagio in the last two measures, un interruption that, as a foreground Chopin's desire, makes the music speaks, according to some scholars.
The performance is by Dutch pianist Arthur Jussen, at the end of a concert.

Ravel, Piano Concerto for the left hand

Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein, older brother of Ludwig, the philosopher, had a psychological constitution that today we would call very typical of a resilient personality. A very good pianist, he returned from the Russian front during World War I without his right arm. An unfortunate loss, of course. But against all odds, he decided to continue his career at all costs. To this end, he engaged in a sustained campaign asking composers of the time for works to be performed on the piano with only the left hand.

A difficult customer
Wittgenstein, however, was not an easy client to please. For example, he rejected music written by Richard Strauss and Sergei Prokofiev. To the latter, he returned his Fourth Piano Concerto with a note that read something like thank you very much but I do not understand a single note of your concerto and do not intend to play it. Maurice Ravel did not fare so badly. At least Wittgenstein did not reject the work although he claimed that it was necessary to modify to a significant extent the Concerto in D major, requested in the spring of 1929 and completed in nine months. Ravel would not allow it.

Giving in
He could not afford it. Ravel was 55 years old, he was a celebrity in Europe and three years ago he had made a worldwide hit with the brilliant Bolero, which, by the way, had the curious virtue of surprising the composer himself.

So Wittgenstein, somewhat reluctant (he did not like the long cadenza that opens the work), was forced to premiere the Concerto in D major for the left hand just as Ravel had written it. It was the least he could do, to give in. To fulfill the commission from the "handicapped" pianist, Ravel had suspended the creative work on his Concerto in G, a long-standing desire of the composer, although it seems that at times he worked on both simultaneously.

Paul Wittgenstein (1887 - 1961)

The subsequent enthusiasm
Despite Wittgenstein's initial reluctance (perhaps he was not initially enthusiastic about the jazz-like rhythmic and harmonic nods it presents), he eventually "loved" the work. And everyone else too: today it has become the most famous of all compositions ever written for the left hand.

Premiere and musical structure
Its premiere took place in Vienna on January 5, 1932, accompanied by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, conducted not by Ravel but by the French conductor Robert Heger.
With a length of about twenty minutes, opinions about its structure are divided. Some argue that it consists of a single movement. Others say two, but linked. A third claims that as opposed to the usual fast - slow - fast, the concerto shows three sections: slow - fast - slow. The latter is undoubtedly true. It is also true that to dare to play it, one must be a first-rate virtuoso.

The performance is by the French pianist Hélene Tysman, accompanied by the Orchestra of the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar, conducted by Nicolas Pasquet.

With this performance, the pianist passed her graduation exam.

Richard Wagner, "Siegfried Idyll"

 
After three years wandering from one creditor to another, selling and reselling the royalties from his works, Richard Wagner found the peace of mind he so sorely missed thanks to the royal offices of a 19-year-old monarch, Ludwig II of Bavaria, who in 1864 cancelled all the composer's debts and purchased the copyrights to The Ring of the Nibelung. Among other benefits, he installed him in a comfortable villa just a few minutes from the palace.

Hans and Cosima
The conductor Hans von Büllow arrived there, summoned by Wagner to assist him in one more of his ambitious musical projects, which were now coming to life under the auspices of the adolescent king. The famous conductor arrived in the company of his wife Cosima, the natural daughter of Franz Liszt and Countess Marie d'Agoult. The couple and the composer had known each other long before, it was not the first time they had spent time in Wagner's company, but this time it was different.

Cosima and Richard

Richard and Cosima Wagner.
Photograph, 1872

Cosima seemed unhappy in her marriage and soon fell under Richard's sway. After six years of extramarital affairs, Cosima, 32, and Richard, 56, made their holy vows in August 1870. By this time, they had already conceived three children. The last was named Siegfried, born in 1869.

A symphonic gift

On 24 December 1870, Cosima turned 33. The couple had been living in the villa Tribschen on Lake Lucerne since they moved there as a couple in 1866. Wagner decided to greet the birth of his last child and Cosima's first birthday as his legitimate wife in a special way.

A small group of musicians set up on the entrance staircase and woke Cosima up with the first bars of a short chamber piece composed a few weeks earlier, entitled, for the occasion, "Symphonic Birthday Gift". Cosima noted in her diary that new and wonderful music had roused her from her sleep.

The Siegfried Idyll

Originally, the work was not intended for publication, but due to financial difficulties, Wagner was forced to publish it in 1878, under the title Siegfried Idyll. The charming piece, lasting no more than twenty minutes, is one of the composer's few symphonic works. Its themes were, predictably, incorporated into the 1876 opera Siegfried.

The performance is by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Donald Runnicles.