Liszt, Rondeau fantastique

We know Franz Liszt was the "inventor" of the piano recital. But, what does it mean really?
Well, in other words, he was the first pianist to perform alone on stage, playing all the "numbers" himself. It was 1840 and from then on "collective" concerts went down in history, which along with soloists could include ensembles of the most diverse instruments, as well as a couple of arias performed by the divas of the moment so as not to bore the audience with so much instrumental timbre.

The transcriptions
For this, the artist needed a vast repertoire. Hopefully, of well-known melodies. Then came the piano transcriptions of orchestral works, fantasies on opera themes, and variations on popular motifs.
Liszt, the mass artist of the 19th century, would play them all, always taking care to reserve as a grand finale a piece that would drive the ladies present even madder, ladies and young ladies who might come to blows for the handkerchief thrown to the audience by the charming twenty-nine-year-old artist.
A "bravura" fantasy on a famous Spanish air never failed him.

Rondeau fantastique sur un théme espagnol (A Fantastic Rondo on a Spanish Theme)
This is its original title. And the Spanish theme is the famous pole Yo que soy contrabandista, one of the musical numbers of El poeta calculista, a work by the tenor and composer Manuel García premiered in Madrid in 1805. Liszt composed the rondo in 1836, and was published the following year simultaneously in Leipzig, Milan, and Paris.

Three years earlier, Chopin had dedicated to Liszt the Etudes of Opus 10. He could have reciprocated with this dedication, but the Hungarian master must have considered that one thing was not compatible with the other. It is dedicated, then, to George Sand, who will become Chopin's "friend" only the following year.

The intricacies
Its technical difficulties are grandiose, and the number of pianists who have dared to record it, let alone perform it in public, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The Russian concert pianist Mikhail Pletnev tried it, but ended up giving up when he saw that the piece was "untouchable," as he put it. Of course, it is also possible that the technical paraphernalia alone has failed to excite many performers of recognized virtuosity.

Courageous Valentina
There are live versions on Youtube in formal settings (Bruni, Howard), but we have preferred to show here the very informal performance, very democratic and far from any divism, that the Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa decided to offer in a London train station, on an upright piano somewhat out of tune and which apparently has a key that doesn't work. Bravo for the audacity.

Ottorino Respighi: Pines of Rome

It is no exaggeration to say that Italy's role in contemporary music was not as brilliant and influential as in other periods. However, from the generation of the eighties of the 19th century onwards, Italian music did indeed participate in the renewal of musical language and, thanks to the knowledge of its past (which is no small thing), musicians were able to break new ground in the search for new paths. Among these composers – contemporaries of the French musicians who reacted against Germanic post-romanticism (Debussy, Satie, Ravel, to name a few) – Ottorino Respighi stands out as the most famous worldwide among his Italian colleagues.

The "Roman" trilogy

In his early thirties, Respighi settled in Rome after taking over, in 1913, the post of teacher of composition at the Accademia Santa Cecilia. The academy would soon become the Conservatory of Rome, and Ottorino would be appointed director of the prestigious institution in 1924. Seduced by the Roman musical life and the remarkable landscape of the city, he decided, during the first year of his administration, to resume his tribute to the eternal city with the composition of the tone poem Pines of Rome, a tribute that had begun in 1916 with Fontana di Roma, and that would culminate with Feste Romane, in 1928.

Ottorino Respighi, in 1935
1879 - 1936

Pini di Roma
Although in close competition with Fontana... it is the most popular work of the trilogy, and certainly the one that arouses the greatest enthusiasm of the orchestral ensembles of the world. It had its premiere, not without a few setbacks, on December 14, 1924, in Rome.

The theater was packed, but Respighi sensed that the audience would soon be disappointed in the first movement. And indeed there was a considerable whistling at the end of the first section, not at all surprising since the trumpets insist with clatter on a discordant note, completely alien to the tonality in progress [minute 2:31 and later]. In the second movement, the orchestra calmed down, and so did the audience, although it remained intrigued by the development of the work. A resounding ovation greeted the end of the piece.

Movements

Aware that Italian audiences have always been more inclined to opera than to instrumental music, the author included some "explanatory" notes in the hand program, for each of the sections. The following is a synopsis:

00 I Pini di Villa Borghese

Children play around the pines of the Villa Borghese [the opulent mansion of the conspicuous 17th-century Roman family]; they dance in circles, they play at being soldiers, marching and fighting, they come and go in flocks. Suddenly, the scene changes and...

2:50  Pini presso una Catacomba
... we see the shadows of the pine trees framing the entrance to a catacomb. From the depths emerges the sound of a funeral psalm, floating in the air like a solemn hymn, which gradually and mysteriously begins to dissipate.

9:94  I Pini del Gianicolo
The air shivers: The pines of the Gianicolo [Rome's hill from which the best views of the city are enjoyed] can be seen outlined by the clear light of the full moon. A nightingale sings... [The score calls for the inclusion of birdsong, real, recorded... innovation that became prophetic].

18:27  I Pini della Via Appia
Misty dawn on the Via Appia: the solitary pines are guardians of the magical landscape; the insistent rhythm of countless footsteps can be heard. The poet has a fantastic vision of past glories: trumpets sound and, in the brightness of the new radiant sun, a consular army is gradually approaching the sacred Via, heading triumphantly towards the Capitol...

Critics have often called Respighi ultra-conservative, among other less-than-warm epithets. But audiences love it. That's what ultimately matters.

The performance is by the Slovenian ensemble, Gimnazija Kranj Symphony Orchestra, conducted by maestro Nejc Bečan.

Chopin, Ballade No 3, in A flat major

Although Chopin never confirmed the source from which he took inspiration for his four ballades, it is customary to affirm that they obey the admiration he had for the work of his friend and Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz, exiled like him in the Paris of the thirties. An enthusiastic supporter of this conjecture was Robert Schumann (dedicatee of Ballade No. 2, with no great rapture on Chopin's part, it must be said). Schumann found Mickiewicz inspirational poems for each of the ballads. For No. 3, he claimed he was inspired by the poem Undine, which tells the tragic story of a water sprite, an undine, who falls in love with a mortal.

The fact is that Chopin never had any interest in music that contained characters or told stories. But neither did he reject these suggestions outright. He simply ignored them, as flippant, perhaps. 
(As for the magical character, he would reappear in one of Ravel's most celebrated compositions in the next century, as the protagonist of the first movement of his 1908 solo piano suite Gaspard de la Nuit).

Teaching wealthy ladies
The third ballade was composed during the years 1840-41, when Chopin had been in Paris for almost ten years. The early days had not been easy. But everything changed after he met the very wealthy Rothschild family, of Jewish origin, through whom Chopin gained access to the noble and aristocratic circles of Paris. The ladies asked him for lessons. The Baroness de Rothschild was the first to enroll. Also Miss Pauline de Noailles, daughter of a prince. Ballade No. 3 is dedicated to her.

Ballade No. 3 in A flat major, opus 47
Less turbulent than the two previous ballads, the third ballad begins with a long introduction that resembles, according to scholars, a conversation, a dialogue between two lovers. It is not until minute 02:11 that the first theme appears, charming and elegant. The seven-minute piece concludes with an abbreviated version of the second theme (03:58), virtuosic but not triumphant, because the infatuation of the undine, following Schumann, has turned out to be more bitter than happy.

The performance, superb, is by the Polish maestro Krystian Zimerman.

Thalberg, Opera Fantasies - Barbieri di Siviglia

In the early 1800s, concertgoers were mostly music professionals or knowledgeable amateurs. But it wasn't long before an emerging middle class moved in that direction. It is a time when music is moving beyond the courts and churches. As a result, specialized magazines and music criticism are emerging, and the publication of printed music is on the rise. The cultural horizon of the middle class widened and, one day, they decided that they also wanted to go to concerts.

New audience, new musicians
And for this new audience, there were also new musicians: pianists of outstanding craftsmanship who were also composers, although their work survives them faintly. In the first half of the 19th century, there were dozens of them.

Sigismund Thalberg
(1812 - 1871)

Sigismund Thalberg, born in Geneva in 1812 (two years after Chopin) was one of them. A pupil of Hummel and Moscheles, and possessing an extraordinary technique, he made his debut in Vienna in 1829 to great acclaim. From then on, taking advantage of his aristocratic and elegant bearing, he built up a good following, primarily women, almost, almost, in the style of Liszt.

Reaping success
A successful musician, he was also a gentle person. It was not unusual for his admirers to honor him with sumptuous gifts. One of them gave him a magnificent mansion in Vienna.
He toured all over Europe and the USA, achieving success everywhere. By the time he retired in 1863, he had earned more money than he could spend. So he went to Italy, where he devoted himself to winemaking. His retirement was for real: there was no piano in his Italian home.

Chopin's approach
And just as he had admiring colleagues (Mendelssohn, Schumann) he also had detractors. Chopin, not much given to praise, left only a sketch of his personality: "...women like him, he is younger than I am and makes potpourris with La Muette [an opera of the time]...".

Fantasies about operas
Indeed, Thalberg specialized in fantasies on operatic themes. He composed around fifty or more, which usually made up a large part of his performances. His music is not particularly ingenious or novel but it is pianistic to a high degree, and often very difficult. But it was short-lived. Today, from time to time some pianist recalls it, perhaps lest we forget that this music once captivated an era and an audience.

Grand Fantasia opus 63 - Variations on themes from The Barber of Seville by Rossini
At the piano, the Ukrainian performer Valentina Lisitsa.

 

Schubert, "Valses Sentimentales", op 50

During his short life, Franz Schubert wrote about one hundred waltzes for piano. The group of 34 miniatures he called Valses Sentimentales, probably composed around 1823, were not conceived as a complete work but as short pieces written at different times that finally interested a Viennese publisher who released them in 1825 grouped together as his Opus 50.

In 1827, a year before his death, he would choose another twelve, which this time he would call Valses Nobles. They would make up a new collection that was published as his Opus 77.

"Valses Sentimentales"
The set of 34 miniatures, whose complete performance lasts no more than twenty-five minutes, contains some of Schubert's most beautiful as well as small masterpieces, for their melodic invention and tenderness, so characteristic of the composer (hence perhaps the title "sentimental"). And, as is the case with most of the Viennese master's oeuvre, these very short pieces are not abundant in virtuosic effects. Nevertheless, the grace and freshness they display are admirable.

Ravel homage
Almost ninety years later, in 1911, Maurice Ravel will publish in Paris one of his most recognized works, the set of seven waltzes plus an epilogue that he titled Valses Nobles et Sentimentales in homage to little Franz.

Guillaume Coppola, French pianist, performs here waltzes Nos. 18, 20, 21 and 23. The four waltzes together do not exceed three minutes in length. They are, in fact, miniatures.