Beethoven, "Diabelli Variations"

Born in 1781 near Salzburg, Anton Diabelli was a musician of limited creativity but with great skills as an impresario. As a young man, he also pursued ecclesiastical studies which he did not complete due to unmanageable circumstances, such as Napoleon's handing over to the State the monasteries where he intended to study. Thus it was that in 1803 he settled in Vienna intending to pursue a career in music, for he had already composed, after all, half a dozen masses. In the capital of the empire, he taught piano and guitar and composed simple pieces for the delight of the rising bourgeoisie, but his main source of income was his work as a copyist and proofreader for local publishing houses.

Capri & Diabelli Publishers
By 1817 he had set up his own company, and the following year he formed a partnership with Pietro Cappi, a well-known art dealer, and engraver. The lusty firm Capri & Diabelli made its first publication in December 1818; before long it was known as a purveyor of folk dances and arrangements of opera pieces for the amateur market. In order to balance the catalog and reach a wider market, in 1819 Diabelli began to send a waltz of his own to the most prominent Austrian composers for them to devise a variation based on it. The compilation was to be published for the benefit of the families of soldiers who had fallen in the recent wars.

Anton Diabelli (1781 - 1858)

By 1823, fifty composers had sent the publisher their contribution. Among them, to name but a few, were Schubert, Moscheles, Kalkbrenner, Hummel, Czerny (including the latter's eleven-year-old pupil Franz Liszt, thanks to the good offices of his teacher). One variation per composer, with the exception of Beethoven who sent thirty-three.

At the time he received the waltz, Beethoven was working on the composition of the Missa Solemnis... and was not very interested. But after a while, the idea of an encyclopedic work on the technique of the variations aroused his enthusiasm. When the Mass was finished in 1822, he completed the formidable set of variations and sent them to Diabelli, who published them as the master's Opus 120, also forming the first volume of the compilation for profit. The remaining fifty authors were grouped in Volume II.

The Diabelli Waltz
Initially, Beethoven not only disapproved of the piece but described it as being as musical as a "cobbler's patch". To some scholars, the qualification seems appropriate if one looks at its structure of "musical sequences repeated one after the other, each time modulated at similar intervals." This is undoubtedly true, but opinions on the musical value of this sequence vary over a wide range. For the most benevolent, this is a wholesome, graceful piece, devoid of any affectation or sentimentality. At the other extreme, there is nothing here but banality, a "beer hall waltz"... To form your own opinion, nothing better to pay full attention to the theme, in the video below.

33 Variations on a Waltz by Diabelli, C Major, Opus 120
Here, however, there are no two opinions. The experts are unanimous in their enthusiasm for the work's grandeur. Hans von Büllow called it "a microcosm of Beethoven's genius". Another sees in it a mixture of "heavenly serenity, wild passion and noble majesty". It has also been compared to the Goldberg Variations for its grandeur, depth and stylistic and emotional calibre.
However, for the ordinary listener, this inspired mastery has proved difficult to assimilate. Its sheer length requires extreme concentration sustained over time, hence publishers and even performers have tried to rearrange or manipulate the work in order to make it "lighter" to the ear. But such lightness would only succeed in weakening a masterpiece which, in any case, is the result of an enormous effort of the intellect, considering the extreme simplicity of the original theme.

Published in Vienna in 1823 by Capri & Diabelli, the work is dedicated to Antonie Brentano, once noted as one of the probable "Immortal Beloved" of an earlier period in the master's life. The complete work lasts about an hour.

The rendition is by the young Mexican maestro Gavin Arturo Gamboa.

 

Saint-Saëns, "Bacchanal", from Samson and Delilah

Camille Saint-Saëns, composer, pianist, organist, inspired teacher, and promoter of the music of his contemporaries, was also a seasoned traveler and talented writer. To all this, he also added a zealous dedication to various disciplines such as astronomy, archeology, philosophy, and even the occult sciences. However, when in 1867, in his thirties, he presented to a small group of listeners the project for his second opera (the first, then still unperformed), the small audience refused to believe that the maestro could successfully bring to the stage a subject of an openly biblical nature.

The work of dissent, Samson and Delilah, an opera in three acts, is indeed based on an episode from the Old Testament, specifically chapters 13 to 16 of the Book of Judges, which tells the story of a conflict between the Hebrews and the Philistines, taking place in Gaza, no less.
Saint-Saëns' original idea was to create an oratorio. It was his librettist, very occasional by the way (the young husband of "a relative of mine" who wrote verse) who convinced him of its theatrical potential.

But the idea had to wait, until 1875, when the maestro presented the First Act in a concert that excited no one. Franz Liszt, a fervent admirer of the project, declared his public support, and Saint-Saëns finally managed to finish it in 1876. Thanks to the good offices of the Hungarian master, the complete work could be premiered in Weimar the following year. But until then, the Parisians remained cold and distant. It was not until 1892 that the Paris Opera staged the complete show, which gradually won its audience until it became the longest-lived of the thirteen operas composed by the master.

The Bacchanal
The bawdy celebration with origin in the festivities in honor of the god Bacchus (or Dionysus) is located at the beginning of Act Three. In the temple, the Philistines prepare a celebration in gratitude for the capture of the Hebrew leader, who is none other than Samson, whose hair, the source of his power, has been cut off by the sensual Delilah. The Philistines indulge in a frenzied dance, unaware that Samson's hair is growing back, so he will soon regain his power and finally destroy the temple with his arms. But in the meantime, the Philistines celebrate, and dance.
Sinuous melodic lines of an "oriental", or "exotic" character, accompanied by lush percussion, drive the dance, which lasts just under seven minutes.

The performance is by the Orquesta Sinfónica Juvenil de Caracas, under the baton of Venezuelan conductor Dietrich Paredes.

Brahms, "Tragic Overture", Op 81

In the Austrian countryside, "melodies spring up everywhere and one must be careful not to step on them when walking", Johannes Brahms once remarked. It must be true, because most of his best works were composed during his summer vacations, in the Austrian Alps or in the forests around Vienna. He spent the summer of 1880 in Bad Ischl, a fashionable bathing resort of the time, where the Viennese musical and intellectual elite went to escape from the hustle and bustle of the time – if there was one –, while at the same time rubbing shoulders with the nobility.

But that summer the weather was not kind to Johannes, who by then was approaching fifty. It was a freezing and rainy summer. An ear infection made matters worse. Fearful of going deaf, like Beethoven, the composer left for Vienna for a few days to visit an ear specialist and made a full recovery. A few days later, he was back in Bad Ischl.

Despite all the unforeseen events and distractions, he succeeded in finishing there the composition of his only two orchestral overtures: the jovial Academic Festival, and the less festive but not fatal Tragic Overture, despite its title.

Johannes Brahms, c. 1880
(1833 - 1897)

A joke?
Even today, scholars still disagree about the tragedy – personal or drawn from literature – that would have led the composer to title the work that way. In a letter to his publisher, Brahms suggests the words "dramatic", "tragic," or "tragedy," but adds that none of these adjectives satisfies him. It seems a matter of marketing. Moreover, the composer himself is known to have pointed out more than once that the work had no connection to tragedy. That would be the end of the story, but with Brahms, you never know whether he is serious or joking. Let's put our faith in him this time.

As for Bad Ischl, the spa town that witnessed his creation, let us add that Brahms returned to it on two more occasions, in the summers of 1882 and 1889. In the latter year, the daughter of Johann Strauss II approached him asking him to sign her fan. Brahms scrawled on it the opening bars of The Blue Danube waltz, adding the words "Unfortunately, not by yours truly, Johannes Brahms."

Tragic Overture, in D minor, opus 81

Just over 13 minutes long, it premiered at the Vienna Musikverein on December 26, 1880, with Hans Richter conducting the Vienna Philharmonic.

The performance is by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, conducted by the Italian maestro Daniele Gatti.

Mozart, piano concertos producer... // Piano Concerto No 22, in E flat major

When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart settled in Vienna in 1781, he had already written six piano concertos, plus a bunch of arrangements for piano and orchestra derived from movements by other composers. So, his goal of making a name for himself there as a pianist and composer offered no major difficulties. But the following year, he will marry Constance, and start a family.
This new twenty-five-year-old Mozart provider would have to support a wife and children. So at the same time as he saw his recognition as a performer grow, the production of concerts, sold by subscription, had to increase substantially.

During the 1782-83 season he composed three concertos for piano and orchestra. The following year, 1784, public demand led him to write no less than six, the highest point in his output for the format. In 1785 and 1786 he was still able to write three each year. But thereafter, Mozart ceased to be the artist of the year. In 1787 he wrote none, and only one in 1788. And there he stopped, until a final achievement in early 1791, the year of his death. This simple statistic may seem trivial but we think it somewhat sums up Mozart's career in Vienna as a pianist.

Concerto No. 22 in E flat major, KV 482
Mozart's personal catalog (his unique "Catalogue of all my works") lists December 16, 1785 as the completion date of the work, written simultaneously with The Marriage of Figaro (which will have its premiere in May of the following year). It is the last of the three concertos written that year. It is preceded by Concerto No. 20 in D minor and Concerto No. 21 in C major, two of his most brilliant works in the genre, requested and performed with such frequency that No. 22 has been, in fact, unjustly overshadowed. Perhaps without realizing it, Mozart himself set the bar very high for himself, although in the opinion of one scholar "of all his concertos, this is the greatest".

Movements:
00:00  Allegro
13:03  Andante
21:49  Allegro

While it is difficult to express a preference for one movement or another, the Andante seems to have struck a chord with the audience on its first hearing, as it is said to have been encored. This first performance is reported on December 23, 1785. Curiously for our days, it was played during the intermissions of an oratorio by Carl von Dittersdorf, the Austrian composer.

The rendition is by the Austrian maestro Rudolf Buchbinder, performing as pianist and conductor, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

Arcangelo Corelli, Concerto grosso op 6 - 4

In Arcangelo Corelli's time, the life of an independent musician in Rome was no doubt precarious. Musical activity, largely private, was reduced to that which wealthy patrons could finance. But Corelli turned out to be a man of good fortune. From the time he emerged in Bologna at the age of seventeen, the composer always remained under the protection of wealthy and influential patrons. Two cardinals and a queen (Christina of Sweden) watched over him for a lifetime, requesting his music, which they rewarded generously.

The blessed Italian composer is one of those authors whose work, not very extensive, could nevertheless reach great significance and influence in the history of music. During his successful career, he published four collections of trio sonatas and a collection of sonatas for violin and bass. In 1714, a year after his death, an Amsterdam publisher, famous for publishing Handel "under the table", managed to rescue a collection of twelve concertos, some of which he reconstituted on the basis of movements written by Corelli in the recent or distant past. They are his famous Concerti Grossi from Opus 6.

A. Corelli (1653 - 1713)

The baroque concerto grosso
They are supposed to have been composed from 1708 onwards, after the composer, at the age of 55, decided to abandon public performances. They are works written for a small number of "soloist" instruments "accompanied" by a much larger ensemble. It is the baroque concerto grosso. The small group is called concertino and the larger group, ripieno, or tutti. The concertino of the first eleven concertos of the series consists of two violins and a cello. The last of the series features a solo violin as concertmaster, foreshadowing the future "classical" concerto.

Concerto No. 4 in D major, Op 6
Of the twelve concertos of Opus 6, the first eight are recognized as concerti da chiesa (or church concertos). The remaining ones are concerti da camera. The distinction, in the tradition of the sonata da chiesa or da camera, lies in the number of movements they exhibit, generally greater in the concerti da chiesa (four or six). In this case, there are four, in alternating slow-fast sequence.

Movements:
00:00  Adagio - allegro
03:31  Adagio
05:08  Vivace
06:12  Allegro - giga: presto

The performance is by the early music ensemble Voices of Music, featuring period instruments.