Schumann Carnaval Op. 9 / Tiffany Poon

"No disapproval will be able to depress me and no praise will make me lose my head." So ended the letter with which twenty-year-old Robert Schumann asked Friedrich Wieck, the most sought-after piano teacher in Leipzig, for tutoring in 1830. 

The following year he was living with Wieck, who had a daughter, Clara, who played the piano beautifully at the tender age of twelve. On the other hand. Ernestine, also a pupil of Wieck, was already around sixteen. And by the time Robert and Ernestine von Fricken, a native of Asch, looked each other in the eyes at length, she was eighteen. The enthusiasm did not last long, but it prompted the creation of one of the most important works in the history of the romantic piano.

Ernestine von Fricken
(1816 - 1844)

Four letters

More precisely, it was the four letters of Ernestine's hometown in German musical notation (A, S, C, H) that stimulated Schumann's imagination. Such notes (A, E flat, C, B), in that order and in one or another convenient rearrangement, are featured at the beginning of most of the 21 miniatures that make up the first of his great works written for the piano, Carnaval, opus 9, from 1834-35, subtitled by the composer, in French, Scènes mignones sur quatre notes.

A romantic mystery

The motif of the four notes had already been used before (in Papillon, around 1830), so the author, in this opportunity, repeats or, as some scholars point out, relies on the laboriousness lavished in a previous experiment. What has never been clear to many is that in the midst of Romanticism, a composer evokes the beloved through the name of the town where she was born. Mysteries of the artistic sensibility of the 19th century.

Clara Wieck (1819 - 1896)

The Characters 

As a whole, the goal of the piece is to make a musical representation of a creative and elaborate masquerade ball held before Lent during carnival season. It features a wide range of real-life and fictitious characters whose names are used in the titles of the miniatures. Naturally, these are the typical and unmistakable elements of the Italian commedia dell'arte popular theater: Pierrot, Arlequin, Pantaleon, and Colombina Additionally, Schumann himself, who was represented by his two alter egos: Eusebio, the dreamer, and Florestan, the realist. A tribute to Paganini and another to Chopin are also included. Moreover, Ernestina (Estrella) could not be absent. Neither could Clara Wieck (the future Clara Schumann), represented with rapture, in "Chiarina".

David's Brotherhood 

The last section, the longest, symbolically portrays the members of the Davidsbünd (David's Brotherhood), a fantasy group Schumann created for the music magazine he founded around the same time. Florestan, Eusebio, Estrella, Chiarina, Chopin, and Paganini are all part of the group, according to Schumann's imagination. They play the lead role in this musical battle against the "philistines" of their time, conservatives in the arts and music. Technically, it is the most difficult section of the entire work, giving it a spectacular ending.

Dedicated to the Polish musician Karol Lipinski, its high technical and imaginative demand made it not easy to be regularly presented in public at the time. Today, on the contrary, this brilliant set of variations on a reduced core of four notes is the most performed piece by Schumann on stages throughout the world.

The excellent rendition is by the noted Hong Kong-born pianist Tiffany Poon.

[Below the video, its sections]

The 21 miniatures
The following is a list of the 21 movements, pieces, sections, or whatever you want to call them. This enumeration, however, is out of the ordinary because it is necessary to point out that Schumann included a section in the score called Sphinxes between Replique and Papillons. In this section, scholars believe that the author reveals the mystery of the three or four notes on which the entire work was organized through three groups of "notes silent." They are rarely played, neither in public nor on a recording, although more than one has dared. Miss Poon doesn't.

00:00  Préambule – quasi maestoso

02:54  Pierrot – moderato

04:09  Arlequin – vivo

05:22  Valse noble – un poco maestoso

06:46  Eusebius – adagio

08:35  Florestan – passionato

09:38  Coquette – vivo

11:19  Réplique – l'intesso tempo

Sphinxes

Breitkopf & Härtel Edition, Leipzig, 1879, p. 11

12:21  Papillons – prestissimo

13:04  Lettres dansantes (A.S.C.H. - S.C.H.A.) – presto

13:51  Chiarina – passionato

14:48  Chopin – agitato

15:58  Estrella – con affetto

16:24  Reconnaissance – animato

18:07  Pantalon et Colombine – presto

19:08  Valse allemande – molto vivace

20:08  Paganini – Intermezzo - presto (a repetition of valse allemande)

21:26  Aveu – passionato

22:40  Promenade – con moto

25:06  Pause – vivo, precipitandosi (yes, rushing into the Marche)

25:23  Marche des "Davidsbundler" contre les Philistins – non allegro

Debussy, "Reverie" for piano

A work Debussy didn´t appreciate

Claude Debussy, the French composer and creator of dreamy atmospheres on the piano, did not hesitate to express his regret when a Parisian editor decided to publish an old manuscript he had found scattered about among the composer's other works. And he sent him a note: "I am very sorry for your decision to publish it... I wrote it long ago, in a hurry, for exclusively commercial purposes." Irritated, he added: "It is an unimportant work and, frankly, I don't think it has any value."

But the author was wrong. Along with the famous Claire de Lune, the short piano piece he titled "Reverie" is today one of his most recognized works, by all audiences.

As the straggling manuscript was forever delayed, the only irrefutable certainty, in terms of dates, is that of its publication, by the intrepid editor, in 1890. But it is supposed to have been composed between 1880 and 1884, that is, when the author was in his early twenties. Reverie must therefore be considered a milestone. It would represent the first known stage in which Debussy makes use of an "impressionistic" musical language. (His also famous Deux Arabesques – which could compete for the label – are dated between 1888-91). Thus, the language that over the years would become the author's personal stamp is present, for the first time, in Reverie.

Reverie, for piano, L. 68

The composer never assigned opus numbers to his works. In 1977, the French musicologist François Lesure created the first catalog of Debussy's works (modified in 2001). Hence, the identifying "L".

The piece begins with an arpeggiated accompaniment that relies on the weak beats of the bar. The melodic singing, on the other hand, is heard, diligently, in the strong beats, thus generating a sensation of instability that will be maintained for several measures, as if the piece could not settle down. The left hand travels widely across the keyboard creating harmonies rich in "retards" (seconds, sevenths, ninths), thus increasing the dreamy atmosphere.

The arrangements
The piece has been transposed to various instruments, arranged in a thousand ways, and used ad nauseam in advertising of all kinds. Debussy was right when he said he composed it for commercial purposes. What he did not know was that the enchantment would last more than a hundred years.

The performance is by a brilliant German pianist who uploads her own recordings to Youtube, identifying herself only as "Strawberrypianist".

Thanks, Strawberry...

Tiffany Poon plays Chopin Variations Brillantes, Op. 12

As far as we know, Chopin never considered writing an opera. However, he was a huge fan of it. He spent many evenings at the Opéra in his early years in Paris. He listened to Meyerbeer, Rossini, and Ferdinand Hérold. The latter was a lesser-known composer but had an impact on the Polish composer. His ardent adoration for the "fioritura" and "thrills" of the era's sopranos, mezzos, tenors, and basses reached a point where, in a statement about his solace at the Parisian opera, he wrote: "...In a word, only here one may know what singing is!".

"Ludovico"
In May 1833, he attended the Opéra Comique for a performance of "Ludovico", the last of numerous comic operas written by Hérold mentioned above. The piece never received widespread praise, then or now. However, one of its arias—the cavatina that starts with the line Je vend des scapulaires—did become famous for a while ("I sell scapulars"). Chopin was drawn to the melody despite being as straightforward and uncomplicated as a few others.
That same year the Polish genius published the Concerto in E minor, finished the three Nocturnes of Opus 9, and completed and released the twelve Etudes of Opus 10. Why bother to work out a little tune for the piano taken from a minor work?

The ebb and flow of fashion

Let's remember that by those years the middle classes had decided that they also wanted to listen to music. Parisian tastes were varied, and public concerts must have reflected them: to the traditional performance of a couple of symphonies or concertos (or part of them, rather) and the appearance of one or more singers amid allegros and scherzos, pianist-composers were added. In between arias and cavatinas, they would embellish the performance with their variations or fantasies on popular operatic pieces. This is what a Liszt, a Thalberg, or Kalkbrenner did. Chopin, a newcomer, had to get into fashion.
Thus, the Polish musician saved Ferdinand Hérold's name from total oblivion. Chopin's Brilliant Variations op. 12, whose original title is somewhat longer, was inspired by the cavatina.

Brilliant Variations on "Vendo escapularios" from the opera "Ludovico" by LJF Hérold, opus 12
The Variations, in B flat major, exhibit the usual form: introduction, theme, and variations, four in this instance. Their qualification as brilliant obeys, once again, the Parisian taste, the fondness for a "brilliant" style (and the Variations certainly are). The work was published a little later, in 1837, perhaps with the cavatina already forgotten and Chopin, unwittingly, in charge of its rescue.

Very short, with an approximate length of 8 to 9 minutes, are its sections (without pause):

00:00 Introduction: Allegro maestoso

01:30 Theme - Allegro moderato

03:19 Scherzo

04:11 Lento

06:09 Scherzo vivace

The rendition is by Hong-Kong born pianist, Tiffany Poon.

Alexander Scriabin, his first and only Piano Concerto

Having just graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, at the age of twenty-four Alexander Scriabin was already touring as a virtuoso pianist throughout Russia and part of Europe. He realized then that the time had come to show his skills as a composer of concertante works to the public. So, in the autumn of 1896, in just a couple of days, he completed his first and only piano concerto. It was his first work involving the orchestra, so its orchestration took him a little longer, but he finished it in May of the following year. A fervent admirer of Chopin in those years, his writing brings to mind the pianistic language established by the Polish genius fifty or more years earlier.

Although the composer, prone to mystical thinking, in his later years was drawn to more sophisticated areas of musical endeavor (including a certain flirtation with dodecaphonism), he never stopped performing his own concerto, which he did quite often. By that time, the concerto had also become a favorite of his former comrade at the Moscow Conservatory, Sergei Rachmaninoff, who conducted it in 1911 with Scriabin at the piano. Later, it would be Rachmaninoff himself who would sit at the piano to play it, in a tribute made in memory of Scriabin, in 1915, a few months after the author's death.

A. Scriabin (1872 - 1915)

Piano Concerto in F sharp minor, opus 20
Premiered on October 23, 1897, with Scriabin at the piano, the concerto is structured in the traditional manner, with three movements in the fast-slow-fast sequence, with a length of just under thirty minutes. As already mentioned, the atmosphere of the work clearly evokes Chopin's pianism, but the orchestral treatment shows a much more active and committed involvement of the orchestra than can be appreciated in the concertos of the Polish romantic master.

Movements
01:34  Allegro - The piano introduces the main theme, and then the orchestra takes over while the piano accompanies in octaves.

09:30  Andante - I's constructed in a novel and poetic form of theme and variations. Although written in major mode, the four variations are imbued with a nostalgic feeling.

18:01  Allegro moderato - More intensely expressive than the previous movements, its main theme is condensed into just the first two bars, to be followed by an extended and highly demanding arpeggio, no small challenge for Scriabin himself, a virtuoso with small hands.

The Slovenian pianist Ana Šinkovec Burstin is accompanied by the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simon Krečič.

Bach, Partita for violin No 2 - "Chaconne"

The celebrated instrumental piece popularly known as Bach's "chaconne in D minor" is the fifth and last movement of the Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004, composed around 1720 while the master, in his thirties, was a chapel master at the modest court of Köthen, where he remained for six years, from 1717 to 1723. Written for solo violin, without accompaniment, the work is one of the most complex, extensive, and demanding ever written for the instrument.

The violin

In Bach's time, the violin, recently invented in the middle of the 16th century, had reached its peak. Composers and instrumentalists such as Arcangelo Corelli and Giuseppe Torelli raised the art of violin music to new heights, supported by instruments from the hands of the master craftsmen Amatti, or Stradivari. Thus, the instrument succeeded in creating the interpreter as well. And together they created a different musical world that involved a new way of composing music for the violin.

Six solos for violin

Of course, Bach was not the first to compose music for solo violin. He was at least preceded by two German composers, J.J. Walther and J.G. Pisendel, the latter considered the greatest violinist of his time and whom Bach had the opportunity to meet in Weimar. But it will be Johann Sebastian who will take the genre to the highest perfection with the three sonatas and three partitas grouped in the Six Solos for Violin, whose autograph pages are preserved until today, pointing out in its title: "Sei solo a violino senza basso acompagnato. Libro Primo da Joh Seb Bach, ao 1720".

Partita No. 2 in D minor - Chaconne

Although the term is Italian, partita is the name by which the suite was known in Germany. The partita No. 2 includes an allemande, a courante, a sarabande, a gigue, and finally the chaconne, a movement with theme and variations that, unusually, Bach has extended to more than half the length of the complete partita. The basic theme consists of only four bars. Increasing the complexity of such a scarce bunch of music, Bach will add 64 variations to build almost fifteen minutes of the most sublime music in history, hailed by countless subsequent composers who have developed arrangements for the most diverse instruments or groups of these.

Brahms' opinion
One hundred and fifty years after its composition, Johannes Brahms wrote:

"The chaconne is in my opinion one of the most wonderful and mysterious works in the history of music. By adapting the technique to a small instrument, a man describes a whole world with the deepest thoughts and the most powerful feelings. If I could imagine myself writing, or even conceiving such a work, I am sure that the extreme excitement and emotional tension would drive me mad."

The rendition is by the late Russian master Nathan Mirounovich Milstein.