1850s

Johannes Brahms | Piano Quartet #3 in C Minor, Op. 60

“The Brahms Third Piano Quartet offers plenty of interpretive temptations. A young Brahms began the piece during Robert Schumann’s last illness, when Brahms was torn between despair for his friend and love for his friend’s wife,” (LAPhil.com). “He then tabled the project for nearly two decades before picking it up again and making thorough revisions (including lowering the key a half step), resulting in the current work. An older Brahms confessed to his publisher in characteristically sarcastic terms, ‘On the cover you must have a picture, namely a head with a pistol to it. Now you can form some conception of the music! I’ll send you my photograph for the purpose. Since you seem to like color printing, you can use blue coat, yellow breeches, and top-boots.'”

“It was a tongue in cheek reference to Goethe’s 1774 epistolary novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther, in which the Romantic hero commits suicide after falling in love with a married woman whose husband he admires,” (The Listeners’ Club). “Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor was the last to be published of Brahms’ contributions to the genre. Yet, its first version, which preceded the other two quartets, was completed in 1856 at a time when the 23-year-old composer had become devoted to Clara Schumann. While Robert Schumann spent his final years languishing in an asylum amid deteriorating mental health, Brahms assisted Clara in taking care of the Schumann household. Obvious parallels can be drawn between Brahms’ deep affection for Clara and the emotional tumult of the fictional Werther.”

Beginning in C minor and touching briefly on several other keys, the piece clearly shifts to the relative Eb major at 2:13, starting with a piano solo section which is joined by the string trio at 2:27. Many other shifts in tonality follow.

Hector Berlioz | Les Troyens

“Unappreciated and misunderstood in his lifetime (1803-1869), today the French composer’s music is instantly recognizable – and for a variety of reasons,” (CurtainGoingUp). “First for their coloristic elements (i.e., an exceptionally high quotient of woodwind, brass, choral and percussive effects), along with their originality, ingenuity and character. His output of operas and large-scale concert works – from the trailblazing The Damnation of Faust and Benvenuto Cellini, to his choral-symphonic Roméo et Juliette and comedic Beatrice and Benedict, as well as the reverent L’Enfance du Christ (“The Childhood of Christ”) and the massive Requiem – have all enjoyed a modern resurgence, with a handful or so belatedly joining the standard repertory, a most welcome inclusion.”

The Berlioz opera Les Troyens (The Trojans) is a five-hour epic in five acts. The performance here, “Chasse Royale et Orage,” is merely an orchestral excerpt. “Written between 1856 to 1858 and revised up to 1863, Les Troyens was Berlioz’s largest and most ambitious work, and the summation of his entire artistic career,” (HBerlioz.com). “Its origins go back to his childhood and his reading of Virgil’s Aeneid under his father’s instruction, as he recalls in his memoirs. Thereafter Virgil was never far from his thoughts – citations from the Roman poet abound throughout his writings …”

After a harmonically restless journey throughout, perhaps the clearest modulations in this section of the work shift from a brass feature in Bb major (5:29) to a more string-centric G minor (5:49) before a big fortissimo leap into Eb major at 6:26.

Franz Liszt | Sonata in B minor

“Franz Liszt’s Sonata in B minor (1854) is arguably his finest composition and one of the greatest piano sonatas ever written,” (PianoStreet). “Many place it alongside Schumann’s Fantasy Op. 17 as “the two 19th-century masterpieces” of the piano literature.

Although Liszt performed it for his enthusiastic disciples in Weimar, the work failed to impress Brahms or Clara Schumann. Robert Schumann, to whom it was dedicated, was already incarcerated in the asylum in Endenich by the time of the Sonata´s arrival in his home in Düsseldorf. The Sonata drew an enthusiastic compliment from Richard Wagner … It has now been more than 150 years after the Sonata’s public premiere and no musicologist, music theorist or classical music fan can deny its influence, craft, and original power. The work also represents one of the most successful solutions of the problems of the sonata form to come out of the 19th century.”

The four movements of the Sonata are blurred together; between the first and second movements, a chord is sustained over the bar line, or the nominal demarcation between the movements, followed by a very unexpected chord progression. The transition to a surprising new key center is the result, starting around the 12:00 mark in the first video below. The second video, by Polychoron Productions, provides a detailed discussion of the modulation.

Franz Liszt | Nocturne #3 (“Liebestraum”)

Franz Liszt‘s Nocturne #3 (“Liebestraum,” 1850) begins in Ab major and jumps to B major at 1:28. At 1:45, it begins a rapid cycle through other keys, starting with C major. Pianist Matyas Novac delivers this Romantic period gem with such mastery and reverence!

But don’t take our word for it: Pianotv has produced an insanely detailed description of the piece (second video) — by request, no less!