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Beethoven’s 9th

Our music for this week is the famous Ninth Symphony by Beethoven.

We’ve all heard this piece before. It is on the Mount Rushmore of classical music. It is as familiar as Vivaldi’s Four Seasons or Bach’s Ave Maria. I would even venture to guess that we all have similar images in our head when we hear its themes. We see the dark portrait of an angry-looking Beethoven glaring at the viewer; we picture a massive choir filling a cathedral with the sounds of “Ode to Joy”; or perhaps we picture Leonard Bernstein conducting it in Berlin as the Berlin Wall came crashing down. Although we’ve heard it time and again, I think there are a few nuances worth mentioning that could make our understanding of it more complete.

As you can imagine, the Ninth Symphony was Beethoven’s greatest struggle. Faced with near-complete deafness and a receding circle of friends, he was wracked by despair and loneliness throughout many of the months he spent composing this piece. The sheer size of the symphony is mind-blowing, but what is perhaps even more impressive is the fact that it is based entirely on a simple German folk tune. “Ode to Joy” was nothing more than a popular countryside poem before Beethoven catapulted it into posterity.

Listening to the entire symphony in one sitting is highly recommended. It is a complete journey in and of itself. Although we can see these types of journeys in Beethoven’s earlier symphonies, none are as developed as the Ninth Symphony. Beethoven takes us with him on his journey from darkness to light, and we begin to see his gradual acceptance of his deafness as well as his constant struggle to remain relevant. None of Beethoven’s compositions have such a strong sense of fate and destiny, and given that this was Beethoven’s final symphony, we can easily conclude that he knew his life was nearing its end. These new and powerful themes, however, cannot displace the elements of Beethoven that are so characteristic of his works. For instance, the second movement showcases his typical explosion of furious energy, but the third movement reminds us of his uncanny ability to reduce a simple theme to an even more simple prayer. Over all of this complexity reigns the unmistakable and incredible “Ode to Joy,” unmatched in both its glorious power and its youthful serenity.

Enjoy!

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A repeat!

Hello all!

Our music for this week is one of the all-time classics, and its one of the few repeats we’ve had over the past few years. There is so much amazing music out there that it is only worth sending a repeat if it is a truly foundational composition, and this piece qualifies as one such piece. It is the Holberg Suite by Edvard Grieg.

 

A few thoughts for your listening pleasure:

– Notice that it is written for a strings-only orchestra, giving it an almost Baroque feel at times. This is also reflected in the fact that this Suite is sometimes known by the title of “Suite in the Olden Style.”

– Grieg originally wrote the Holberg Suite for the piano, since he was dedicating it to a playwright friend of his who was a pianist. Later on, however, he is told to have thrown away the piano music in disgust and rearranged the entire work for a string orchestra

– This composition is one of the hallmarks of neoclassicism, which was a musical movement that blended stylistic elements of both the late Romantic/Eduardian era and the early Classical/late Baroque eras.

– It is interesting to note that, aside from his piano concerto and a few of his operas, Grieg is best known for works like the Holberg Suite, which feature an assortment of small dances. This is the exact opposite of most of his contemporaries, who were renowned for their massive four and five-movement symphonies.

– I like to think of this work in the same vein as Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, which we heard last week. It puts aside the Romantic style and harkens back to the Classical era with an almost Mozartian lightness.

– Notice the names of the movements – Praeludium, Gavotte, Air, Rigaudon. All of these names are also the names of the French dance styles that Bach and Handel used in their compositions. This is yet another way that Grieg is paying homage to his predecessors in the Classical era.

Enjoy!

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Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

Our music for today comes from Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. This song is a soprano solo titled Katerina’s Aria, and it is sung by Galina Vishnevskaya.

This opera was based on a Russian folk story about a young woman who falls in love but is shunned by the object of her affections. This rejection later drives her to madness and, eventually, murder. However, Shostakovich was not interested in the story itself; rather, he was interested in exploring all of the possibilities of the soprano voice. The opera is almost entirely focused on glittering soprano solo lines, and even the oft-powerful tenor line is noticeably absent. Shostakovich even changed the folk story so that he could give the soprano more of a solo presence. The aria that you hear this recording is one in which the main character, Katerina, sings of the guilt and remorse that have resulted from her murderous actions.

Shostakovich which was not only interested in displaying the soprano voice through a dark and tragic story. He also wanted to paint a new and different conception of what love could be. As he wrote about the opera, “I dedicated Lady Macbeth to my bride, my future wife, so naturally the opera is about love, too, but not only love. It’s also about how love could have been if the world weren’t full of vile things.”

The opera enjoyed spectacular success until early 1936, when it was the object of a sudden and shockingly harsh reprimand by the ruling Communist Party. This denunciation was, for the time being, a death knell for this opera. Sadly, it became well known later on largely because of its history of censorship.

The singer you will hear is Galina Vishnevskaya, who was honored as a People’s Artist of Russia in 1966. As a child prodigy growing up under the guidance of the renowned Moscow Conservatory, she rose to fame at a young age and performed most of the world’s most popular Sopranos lines before the age of 30. She was married to the world famous cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, and the two of them where best friends with Shostakovich himself. It is therefore quite likely that Shostakovich wrote this soprano line with Galina’s voice in mind.

Enjoy!

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Ernest Chausson – Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet

Our music for this week is the Concert for Violin, Piano and String Quartet by Ernest Chausson.

This is a bizarre piece of music. There are six instrumentalists, but it is not called a sextet. There is a solo violin part, but it is not called a concerto. It is named in the fashion of 16th-century dances, but the composer was adamant that it should not be danced to. In other words, we really aren’t sure what this piece is.

Chausson was a lawyer who also studied at the Paris Conservatory. His tragically short lifetime was packed with musical and non-musical endeavors. For instance, he spent years helping to rebuild the city of Paris in the 1850s while also managing a writers group, opening a salon, practicing law, exhibiting his art work at multiple Paris galleries, and composing music. And all this was before he age of 44, when he was killed in a bicycle accident while on vacation in the French countryside.

His compositional style is on full display in this piece. Those of you who are musicians may recognize stylistic elements similar to those of Cesar Franck, with whom Chausson happen to study with at the Paris Conservatory. Chausson, like Franck, is all about creating drama.  You will hear the thematic material being traded back and forth between the solo violin and the underlying piano part. At the same time, you will hear the string quartet building on that same theme in its own separate chromatic progression. Throughout the entire piece, Chausson continues to make references to the 16th-century dance forms that he sought to model this piece off of. The second movement, for instance, is a Baroque Sicilienne (a form of royal dance from French courts).

Chausson dedicated this piece to the famous Belgian violinist Eugene Ysaye, who gave the peace its first performance in Brussels. After the premiere, Chausson was overheard to say that the composition was an utter failure. Perhaps our taking the time to listen to it today is enough to prove him wrong.

Enjoy!

T

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Elgar – violin concerto

Our music for this week is third movement of the Elgar violin concerto, as performed by the former concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Joseph Silverstein. We have listened to another interpretation of the Elgar concerto before, but it was not nearly as good as this one (it was mine 😉

This performance is worth listening to because of the soloist’s ability to create a unique and memorable sound. This may sound simple, but it is the hardest thing in the world to do. Most violinists out there could play this concerto, but very few of them could make it sound as if they were improvising the notes on the spot. This performance shows an uncanny ability and an incredible giftedness that is hard to find. I want to take a few sentences to highlight some of the ways that this performer stands head and shoulders above most other performers you will hear today.

First of all, the sound is unbelievable. It has an amazing richness and fullness that is so hard to create without adding tension to the body. At the same time, however, the sound is amazingly lyrical and sensitive.

Secondly, the sounds never ends. Silverstein has mastered the art of the bow stroke to such a level that even when he is playing sharper notes or faster passages he is able to connect the sound. This is particularly effective in a romantic era composition like the Elgar concerto, because a connected sound is a more lyrical sound.

Third, Silverstein has a wonderfully smooth and continuous vibrato that sounds as natural as the human voice. Again, this is incredibly hard to do. He uses this vibrato to further create an impression that his sound never ends.

Fourth, he is technically on point. His intonation and execution are impeccable. Well those elements are not necessarily the determining factors for a great performance, his combination of perfect execution and a seemingly endless sound makes his performance all the more impressive.

Fifth and finally, you’ll notice that he is not throwing himself all over the stage like many of today’s musicians do. He has the maturity, composure, and concentration to let the music speak for itself without interposing a gymnastics performance on the audience as a compensation prize. Any musician who moves in that manner is compensating for something that he or she does not have. Silverstein, however, is as close to a complete mastery of the violin as I have ever seen.

Enjoy!

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Tchaikovsky – String Quartet No. 1 in D Major

Our music for this week is the String Quartet No. 1 in D Major by Tchaikovsky, performed by the Borodin Quartet.

The Borodin Quartet was a product of the very influential Russian School of music. It was originally led by the renowned violinist Mikael Kopelman, who is now a professor at Eastman Conservatory. Although most of the original members are no longer part of the quartet, the group’s legacy is continued through the efforts of a younger generation of Russian musicians.

This quartet is the first of three quartets that Tchaikovsky wrote. It is by far the most popular work of chamber music by Tchaikovsky, due in large part to the unforgettable second movement. Tchaikovsky based the melody of this movement on a folk song that he heard while visiting his sister in the Russian countryside. It is said that Leo Tolstoy, upon first hearing this melody, immediately burst into tears. At its first performance, the quartet was warmly received by the public and became an immediate favorite of that era’s Russian nobility.

In the first movement, listen for the very rich and dense melody that the violins introduce in the first few bars. In the second movement, listen not only for the famous first melody but also the secondary melody that you will hear in the cello and first violin’s conversation later on in the piece. In the third movement, listen for the dance theme that is introduced in the Trio section about halfway through the movement. Finally, in the fourth movement, listen for a re-exploration of two themes from earlier in the quartet. Tchaikovsky places both themes in new and different tonalities, forcing the listener to hear these familiar melodies in a new light.

Enjoy!

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Rachmaninoff – Symphony No. 2

Hello all,

Our music for this week is the Symphony No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff. The Mariinsky Orchestra performs this symphony under the guidance of renowned conductor Valery Gergiev. The performance took place in Russia in 1992.

 

 

After his first symphony was met with a wave of public disapproval in 1896, Rachmaninoff decided that he would never write another symphony and focus solely on piano music. Over the course of the next few years, he composed some of his most popular and beloved works, such as the second piano concerto. However, by 1906, Rachmaninoff found himself again trying to ignore the impulse to write for a full orchestra. For two straight years, he labored day and night over his second symphony, plunging in and out of depression on a regular basis and (reportedly) even hiring a personal hypnotist to help him remain stable. At its first performance, Rachmaninoff was overcome with relief to hear the audience’s widespread approval and embarked on a spree of symphonic writing that eventually garnered him the coveted Glinka Prize for the Arts. Unfortunately, Rachmaninoff was so afraid of this symphony’s possible failure that he never published a set of program notes with it, so we have no knowledge of his thoughts while composing this symphony.

There are four movements, and I thought it might be helpful to offer you something to listen for in each of them.

(1) The first movement is a dense, dark, mysterious Largo. You can listen for two themes – a magical, ethereal melody at the very opening and an agitated, stormy melody soon afterwards.

(2) The second movement, a Scherzo, is an exercise in contradictions. The form and melodic material for the movement are upbeat and active, but the thematic material ironically comes from the traditional Roman Catholic mass for the dead, Dies Irae. (This theme, by the way, must have had some sort of extraordinary significance for Rachmaninoff, for scholars have identified elements of it in every single one of his compositions).

(3) The third movement is an Adagio, and here you should listen for the very opening theme, a slowly descending and marvelously delicate melody in the violins and cellos. If you listen carefully, you will hear the strings pass this melody off to the clarinet. The clarinet then passes it to the oboe, who, by the end of the piece, then passes it back to the strings.

(4) The fourth movement, an Allegro, is where Rachmaninoff finally seems to come out of his melancholy mood. I would encourage you to listen particularly well at the end, which is where Rachmaninoff brings back the themes that he laid out at the beginning of the first movement. However, he incorporates them into the jubilant atmosphere of the fourth movement and masterfully weaves them into a furious coda (or finale).

Enjoy!

 

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Rimsky-Korsakov – Scheherazade

Hello all,

Our music for this week is the famous Scheherazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

 

This composition is based on a story about a storyteller. Scheherazade is the name of a young bride of a murderous Sultan who threatens to have her executed. In order to escape death, she captivates the Sultan by telling him fascinating stories. He is so amazed by the stories that he is unable to kill her for fear of never hearing the end of the story. After 1,001 nights of story-telling, the Sultan finally has a change of heart and decides to let her live.

The opening of the piece represents the burly, gruff Sultan. However, the solo violin line (played by the concertmaster) enters soon afterward, representing Scheherazade’s weaving, winding stories. It is introduced by the hypnotic striking of three chords by the harp, signaling the entry into a new world of fantasy and story-telling. The first story is hard to miss – The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship. You will hear the rolling waves and pounding surf right away. The second movement is called the “Tale of the Kalendar Prince,” and the woodwinds create a very exotic atmosphere of foreign mystique. The third movement is the best of all, for it is a love story – “The Young Prince and Young Princess.” This movement is simple yet lyrical, innocent yet emotional. The love story is abruptly ended by a crashing cymbal strike, which leads to the final movement, “The Festival at Baghdad,” in which the Sultan urges Scheherazade to finish the story and eventually decides to spare her life.

Enjoy!

 

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Richter #4

 

Our music for this week is a performance of 2 preludes by Shostakovich with Sviatoslav Richter at the keyboard. The first is the A Major Prelude and the second is the A Minor Prelude. This recording was made in 1956.

I wanted to leave this for our last email on Richter because Shostakovich was Richter’s personal favorite. He performed one of Shostakovich’s preludes at almost everyone of his recitals.

There are 24 preludes, one for each of the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale (a scale that ascends by half-steps, not whole-steps). Every one of them has two parts – a prelude and a fugue. Each fugue has between two and five voices interweaving with each other. They proceed in relative major/minor pairs; for instance, C major and A minor go together, G major and E minor go together, etc. It is widely believed that the inspiration for these preludes comes from J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, which also revolves around the circle of fifths. Shostakovich appears to reference Bach at multiple points through the preludes. For instance, he opens several of the preludes with the exact same notes that Bach uses in his preludes. You will hear in the A Minor fugue (the second piece) that the fugue has an almost identical opening theme to Bach’s A minor fugue. The A minor prelude is also written so that the pianist never leaves the hand position he starts in – this is also something Bach commonly did.

The inspiration for these preludes is worth mentioning. Shostakovich was a devoted member of the ruling Soviet Party, so – unlike Richter – he was treated with respect and admiration by the government. Shostakovich was sent abroad for ambassdor-type missions while Richter wasn’t allowed to leave Moscow. On one of these trips, he judged a Bach competition in Leipzig and listened, over the course of the few days of performances, to many renditions of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. This inspired him to write his 24 preludes.

The first piece (A major) is a three-voice fugue. Listen for a bass, a tenor, and a soprano voice. All three of them get their moment to shine, but listen for an abrupt shift to the bass voice right after the climax of the movement – this is his way of highlighted the oft-ignored pedal tone.

The second piece (A minor) is so similar to Bach’s style that it is hard to believe it was written by a 20th-century Russian. It is completely melodic – in other words, there are no dissonances whatsoever.

Enjoy!

 

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Richter #3

Hello all,

Our music for this week is the Piano Sonata No. 2 in D Minor by Sergei Prokofiev, performed by Sviatoslav Richter.

Unlike many other musicians (we won’t mention any names…such as Joshua Bell or Sarah Chang), Richter did not rest on his laurels. Instead, he worked constantly to expand his repertoire and learn new music. Almost every one of his performances included a recent composition by one of his fellow Russians – Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and others. Over time, these contemporary Russian works became his signature.

One of the most incredible stories of Richter stems from his voracious appetite for new music and concerns the seventh piano sonata by Prokofiev. Prokofiev dedicated the sonata to Richter and asked him to premiere it. Richter agreed, and Prokofiev very reasonably assumed that the concert would be in several months. However, Richter confidently stated that he would play the entire thing from memory at his next recital in three days’ time. Not only did he successfully premier the work, but Prokofiev was heard to have wondered at how Richter’s interpretation of his music was better than his own!

This sonata was Prokofiev’s first experiment in what would become his very distinctive compositional style. Many of Prokofiev’s earlier compositions contain noticeable Romantic-era structures, but in his second Piano Sonata, Prokofiev began to leave those conventions behind and focus on the very unique harmonic sense that he is now known for. The brief first movement contains two themes. The first one should be easy to pick out, since it occurs at the very start of the piece and descends to a crashing halt. The second theme mimics the descending nature of the first theme but is more ethereal and less imposing. The third movement is the highlight of the piece. Dark, sombre, pulsating lines in the left hand coincide with a wandering line in the right hand as we hear the harmonic genius of Prokofiev come to life. Richter does a masterful job of creating long lines and phrases despite the disjointed nature of the notes. The phrasing feels so natural that we accept it immediately, but we must be careful not to take this for granted. The skill and emotional intelligence that it takes to create such natural phrasing amidst such difficult music is something that select few people have ever been able to do, and Richter is undeniably one of those few.

Enjoy!