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Brandenburg #5

 

The fifth Brandenburg Concerto finally features an instrument other than the violin. Here we meet for the first time Bach’s favorite “modern” instrument, the harpsichord. During his time, the harpsichord was so rare that Bach had to special order it from the original manufacturer. The date that the harpsichord arrived aligns very closely with what music historians believe to be a flurry of harpsichord compositions.

This concerto showcases yet again Bach’s amazing ability to blend his native German style with the Italian concerto grosso style that he so admired. We see again the existence of multiple solo instruments (including, for the first time, the harpsichord) and a constant “continuo” from the rest of the orchestra.

However, the fifth concerto shows us a Bach that is taking more liberties than usual. He gives the soloists more to do. He gives the harpsichord the daunting task of maintaining the running line, even when most of the other restaurants are grinding to a halt. He creates miniature ensembles within the orchestra that carry on internal conversations throughout the piece. Most notably, he experiments for the first time in history with an unprecedented freedom of solo function. In other words, no one had ever created a free-flowing solo line the way Bach did with the harpsichord in this concerto. Listen for the remarkable liberty that the harpsichord has (and the other instruments do not have) to stretch the tempo. 

You will hear one theme in particular throughout all of the movements (particularly the first and last movement). Its continual reappearance is Bach’s way of grounding the concerto and providing it with a home base. This repeated theme is called the “ritornello.” See if you can identify how many times it appears in the first movement!

Enjoy,

T

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Brandenburg #4

 

We are over half-way through the Brandenburg concerti!

The fourth concerto continues our journey through the orchestra by featuring flutes as two of the three solo instruments. As you will see in the video, Bach is referring to a Baroque flute rather than the modern flutes that we see in today’s orchestras. This flute was a type of flageolet, or tin-whistle, that was used during that time to teach pet birds how to sing. It has a very shrill and high-pitched sound that is usually at least one octave above the rest of the orchestra. Most ensembles today utilize the recorder as the closest approximation of its sound.

Despite the increased role given to the flutes, this is technically still a violin concerto. You will often hear the flutes echoing the violin solo line, which is the most difficult of all of the Brandenburg concerti. The violin will occasionally respond back, but most of the time it is leading the charge rather than following. The one exception to this is in the slower second movement, where the two flutes carry the melody for most of the movement. It is thought that the prevalence of the violin in these concerti reflects Bach’s perception of it as the closest approximation of the human voice.

Enjoy!

T

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Just For Fun

Hello all,

I thought we would take a break from our series on the Brandenburg concerti and enjoy a lighthearted encore by the Finish violinist Pekka Kuusisto. The performance itself needs very little explanation, so I thought I would provide you with a bit of background on the artist himself. As you’ll see, this performance showcases an unbelievable combination of instrumental and vocal talent.

Mr. Kuusisto is a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to musical performance. One night he will play a concerto that has only existed for a few days, and the next night he can perform 16th-century compositions just as well. While this ability may be hard to appreciate without doing it, suffice it to say that this is somewhat similar to having the ability to dance a ballet one day and play in the NFL the next. As the video showcases, he is also a gifted improviser and singer. One fact about Kuusisto that I thought was particularly interesting in light of our recent study of the Brandenburg concerti is his fascination with the music of J.S. Bach. This is reflected in many ways, most notably in his composition of a series of rock and roll concerti based on several Bach sonatas.

Enjoy!

T

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Brandenburg #3

 

The first two Brandenburg concerti have shown us that Bach is not afraid to embrace new styles (such as the Italian concerto grosso format) and is a master creating texture (remember the strange assortment of solo instruments in the second concerto?). As we will see, he will continue this exploration of new styles and sounds throughout the rest of the concerti.

Brandenburg #3 is no exception. Bach returns again to the concerto grosso format, but this time he does so without featuring a soloist. Is every instrument a soloist? Are none of them soloists? We’re not really sure, but we do know that the structure of the piece is unmistakably similar to concerti written by Antonio Vivaldi only a few years earlier. In Bach’s Germany, where the concerto format was seen as a remote and distasteful musical style, his embrace of it would have been very controversial.

Bach must have really loved controversy, because he didn’t just stop with his use of the concerto format. He also added a cadenza, another musical convention that was almost unheard of at this time. A cadenza is an opportunity for the solo instrumentalist to impress the crowd by improvising on top of the composition’s main themes. In this concerto, the cadenza replaces the middle movement and is played by the lead violinist.

Enjoy!

T

 

 

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Brandenburg #2

Hello all!

Welcome back to our series on the Brandenburg concertos. This week will be hearing the second concerto, which features the trumpet, recorder, oboe, and violin as solo voices. This strange conglomeration of solo instruments becomes a delightful ensemble in Bach’s masterful hands. He expertly balances their different sonorities by including the most detailed dynamic markings in the entire set of six concerti. He also includes conversational elements with the entire orchestra to ensure that no one instrument overpowers the others (although in the final Allegro movement, it seems that he can’t help but let the trumpet loose at full strength for at least a few bars 🙂 .

You will notice right away that this concerto is much more virtuosic than the first concerto. Bach wastes no time in making sure we experience the power and range of the trumpet, whose part regularly soars above the accompanying orchestra during the first movement. The trumpet backs off, however, in the second movement, which features that same melancholy sighing theme that we heard in the first concerto. We also hear a fragment of the first concerto in the final movement of this concerto, which is structured as a fugue.

I found it interesting that Bach was writing the six Brandenburg Concertos at the same time he was writing his famous six solo sonatas for violin. He also wrote six miniatures for solo piano (much lesser known) and six sonatas for solo cello. This numerical pattern is typical of Bach, who was fascinated with numerology and was constantly experimenting with representations of numbers in his music.

Enjoy!

T

 

 

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Brandenburg #1

 

Welcome to a new series! Over the next six weeks, we will be hearing the six Brandenburg Concertos by J.S. Bach. These are some of the most well-known pieces of classical music ever written.

Despite their popularity, these concertos were not very popular during Bach’s lifetime. Even Bach himself did not think that they were worth very much – he intended them merely as his resume for a new job. Apparently, the Duke that he was working for at the time had recently remarried, and his new wife is not a fan of classical music. Faced with an increasingly shrinking role, Bach decided to seek employment elsewhere. Ironically, he was rejected by the job that he applied for using these six concertos, leading snarky scholars everywhere to title them “the most successful failed job application of all time.”

The first concerto, which we will hear today, is the only one of the six that does not follow the convention of a concerto grosso. This is a format that features two or more solo instruments accompanied by a small orchestral ensemble. It usually includes a fast movement at the beginning and the end and a slow movement in the middle, but this one has four movements. This format was made popular by Antonio Vivaldi, composer of the very famous Four Seasons, and much of the first concerto reflects characteristics of his style. For instance, Bach incorporates a violin piccolo, a tiny instrument played only in Italy and almost never heard in his native Germany. Bach also utilizes wind instruments to create a sound color more often associated with the Italian music of that time than the German music. However, he does not fail to provide his usual sampling of counterpoint genius, as well as the sound of hunting horns throughout the piece. See if you can pick them out! Another thing to listen for it is the sad, almost-weeping voice that occasionally is featured any violin and woodwind parts; this voice is repeated and the subsequent Brandenburg Concertos as well.

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Haydn String Quartet

One of the most influential people in my life is violin teacher Eva Gruesser. I studied with her from 2007 to 2012, and her instruction made it possible for me to achieve more than I ever imagined. During my time with her, she was the concertmaster of several orchestras around the world. However, she had previously spent 12 years as the first violinist of the world-renowned Lark Quartet. Her time with the Lark included first prizes at multiple international chamber music competitions, as well as regular performances all around the world.

I recently heard that the Lark Quartet will be disbanding at the end of this year. It appears that this decision is simply because a number of factors – job searching, family commitments, etc. – have made it clear that this is the best course of action for the instrumentalists. In honor of their legacy, I thought it would be fitting for us to hear Haydn’s “Lark” Quartet, as played by the Lark Quartet.

The “Lark” was a product of the peak of Haydn’s career in the 1790s. One of his wealthy benefactors had recently passed away and have left him a significant sum of money. He was therefore able to create his own orchestra and develop more time to composing. This quartet was  written or for Joseph Tost, the principal second violinist in his new orchestra. Tost was apparently quite a creative and virtuosic musician, and Haydn wanted to replicate some of his energy and the vivacity in this quartet.

The first movement opens with the song of the lark itself. You will hear this song in the first violin part as the other instrumentalists accompany the theme. The second movement is simply an extension of the first, with the first violin carrying the lark’s song. Historians have suggested that’s Haydn disliked writing these slower movements and used a basic template for them in almost every one of his compositions so that he didn’t have to do as much work. The third movement (based on a German folk tune) is the typical Trio movement, and you will hear the cello and viola starting to take over more of the melodic material. The fourth and final movement, in true Haydn form, is a hornpipe that accentuates sharp rhythms and flying runs. (For you music nerds out there, listen for the switch to D minor for the fugal section in the middle, then up to A major – the dominant key – and back home to D major for the ending. All he is doing is running around the circle of fifths via the dominant and sub-dominant).

One of the distinctive features of Haydn quartets is the constant stream of witty surprises that jump out at the listener. For instance, you might expect the first movement, with its exposition of the lark’s song, to revolve around the first violin part. However, the first violin is constantly being held down by the depth and structure of the cello and viola parts, which provide grounding and an occasional retort. Another example is found in the ending of the first movement; rather than finish with a flourish like his contemporaries would have, Haydn lets the accompaniment instruments finish the piece and tags on the first violin’s lark song as an afterthought.

Enjoy!

T

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Brahms on the Cello

Hello all,

Our music for this week is the Sonata No. 1 for cello and piano by Johannes Brahms, performed by Jean-Guihen Queyras on the cello and Alexandre Tharaud on the piano.

If you have been with us for a while now, you have probably picked up on the importance of J.S. Bach in the world of classical music. Many consider him to be the father of Western music, and almost every single composer has written at least one composition in homage to him. Brahms is no exception. This cello sonata was written in honor of J.S. Bach, and we can see very tangible evidence of this in the fugue that Brahms includes in the first movement.

Brahms, however, also did his fair share of trailblazing. As an accomplished pianist, he was not a fan of the accompaniment role so often given to the piano in sonatas. He therefore wrote in the front of the manuscript that the piano “should be a partner – often a leading, often a watchful and considerate partner – but it should under no circumstances assume a purely accompanying role.” He also titled the work, “Sonata for Piano and Cello,” which, by listing the piano first, implies that the cello is the accompanying voice. It is also telling that the sonata was written for a man named Joseph Gansbacher, an amateur cellist who reportedly lacked the ability to project an adequately robust sound into a concert hall. During the first rehearsal, with Brahms at the piano and Gansbacher at the cello, Gansbacher had to stop mid-phrase because the piano was so loud he couldn’t even hear himself play. When he complained to Brahms about this predicament, the composer growled, “Lucky for you,” and thundered on.

A few things for you to listen for:

  • The first movement is where you will hear the fugal structure that is reminiscent of Bach’s music. It can be a bit difficult to pick out the cello line at times because of the deep and dark colors that Brahms assigns it.
  • Listen for a Baroque dance in the second movement, another reference to Bach.
  • The fugue returns in the third movement, but this time it is assigned to both instruments. Again, however, Brahms makes sure that the piano is the dominant voice; in fact, it carries three out of the four voices in the fugue.
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Souvenir de Florence

Our music for this week is the Souvenir de Florence by Tchaikovsky.

This string sextet was composed during a time in Tchaikovsky’s life that was devoid of inspiration. Historians have found journal entries from this time in his life that evoke despair and depression. In several of them, Tchaikovsky doubts his ability to compose at all. It is therefore surprising that this cheerful and upbeat composition is the result of such a time in Tchaikovsky’s life.

The composition is structurally very easy to understand. As a rule of thumb, every theme is presented by a single instrument family. In other words, the exposition of a theme will begin in the two violins, progress to the two violas, and end in the two cellos. Although these voices will of course be independent of each other at times, they always resolve in their original pairs.

We are very fortunate to have some of Tchaikovsky’s letters to his colleagues about the piece. We know from these letters that the first movement needs to be played with “great fire and passion.” Similarly, we know that he wanted the slow second movement to reflect a summer thunderstorm with muted lightning in the distance. Tchaikovsky also ventured into relatively uncharted territory by incorporating a fugue format into the third movement. This is a structural and stylistic marker that was much more common 200 years before Tchaikovsky’s time. However, he bravely builds the entire third movement around a fugal system in which the pairs of instruments continuously add and subtract identical thematic material above and beneath each other.

Enjoy!

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Zoltan Kodaly – Sonata for solo cello

Our music for this week is the Sonata for solo cello by Zoltan Kodály. It is performed by Janos Starker.

After the composition and discovery of JS Bach’s six cello suites, no great solo works were written for the cello for almost 200 years. Kodály, although not a cellist himself, composed this sonata in 1915 in homage to the genius of Bach. Ironically, the performance of this suite was delayed in a manner similar to the performance of Bach’s suites because of World War I.

Kodály was fascinated by the music of Claude Debussy and Béla Bartók, both of home he had encountered while studying composition in Paris many years earlier. He and Bartok eventually became two of the most well-known Hungarian composers in history. In fact, the two of them made several trips around the Hungarian countryside for the sole purpose of collecting folk tunes. You can therefore hear Hungarian folk and influences in this music at many different points.

The link above only contains the first movement of the Sonata, but you’re welcome to listen to the other movements at your leisure. This first movement is the grandiose exposition of the sonata. Kodály uses this movement to explore all of the main themes that he wants to develop throughout the rest of the sonata. The second movement simply takes one of these themes and meanders through it with a melancholy and introspective attitude. The third movement is a rollicking folk tune that Kodály transcribed entirely from a rural village musician.

Kodály was extremely confident that this sonata would become very popular. He even predicted that, within 25 years of its composition, every serious cellist would want to play it. Posterity has been friendly to him; almost every single international cello competition now requires a performance of this sonata if the cellist hopes to advance to the final rounds.

Enjoy!