classical – Page 2

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.

Mily Balakirev | Islamey (Boris W. Berezovsky, piano)

“Reputed to be the hardest work for piano, Balakirev’s 1869 work Islamey saved many a pianist’s weary wrists when it was orchestrated in 1907 by Alfredo Casella,” (Interlude.hk). “Its reputation ensured that both Rubinstein and Liszt had the piano work in their concert repertoire.

… The work as a piano piece is important in Russian musical history because it was the first Russian work to become established in the mainstream repertoire other than as a salon piece. Putting it on the European stage under the fingers of Franz Liszt made the work one of the stars of the new exoticism coming out of Russia. Making it into an orchestral piece extended its reach … Islamey, taking its themes from the Caucasus and Armenia, again brings the remote reaches of Russia back to its main cities. The dedicatee of the piano work, Nikolai Rubinstein, gave the premiere of the work in St. Petersburg in late 1869.”

This landmark composition undergoes many changes in key. But perhaps the most profound occurs at 7:44, when the modulation is also accompanied by a transition in both tempo and time signature — from a frantic 12/16 to to a luxurious Andantino in 6/8.

Camille Saint-Saëns | Danse Macabre, Op. 40

“Camille Saint-Saëns was many things. Also a scholar and writer of wide-ranging interests and an equally wide-ranging traveler, he was a multifaceted musician who excelled as a keyboardist, composer, conductor, teacher, and editor,” (LAPhil.com). “He lived to scorn the work of Debussy and Stravinsky (among others) and is often regarded as a conservative – if not reactionary – composer. But in the early and middle years of his career Saint-Saëns championed the most progressive wing of contemporary music (including Schumann, Wagner, and Liszt) and his own music was often highly original in form and orchestration.

‘Danse Macabre’ (1874) is a case in point. It is one of four tone poems Saint-Saëns composed in the 1870s, all inspired to some degree by examples from Franz Liszt (whose own ‘Totentanz’ dates from 1849) and exploring both Liszt’s thematic transformation concept and novel instrumentation … The piece caused some predictable consternation on its premiere … but it also quickly became a popular hit. Liszt himself arranged it for piano not long after the premiere, and it soon found other keyboard transcriptions, including piano four hands and organ.”

The piece, originally written by the French composer for orchestra, is adapted here for guitar quartet and performed by the Quatuor Eclisses, an ensemble which formed at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris in the early 2010s. After an intro which briefly visits D major, the piece shifts to G minor for the first statement of its main theme (0:32). At 3:05, a middle section transitions into B major, growing more turbulent until 5:29, when the original theme (and primary key of G minor) return. (NOTE: The video embed looks like it won’t play, but it does!)

for Maurice

Sergei Prokofiev | Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor

“Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor begins with a lonely, lamenting statement in the solo violin,” (The Listeners Club). “It’s a strangely solitary voice which opens the door to an unsettling drama filled with chilly anxiety and occasional raw terror. In his program notes, the American violinist Stefan Jackiw … provides the following descriptive analysis of this opening:

‘Prokofiev puts the listener ill at ease right from the start. The piece opens with the solo violin alone, playing a foreboding melody in G minor that is based on a 5‐beat motive. We are used to hearing musical ideas that fall neatly into 2, 3, 4, or 6‐beat patterns. Five beats don’t feel comfortable. Furthermore, since the violin is alone, the orchestra gives the listener no additional context to find his bearings. When the orchestra finally comes in several bars later, it enters in a completely different tonality, further throwing the listener off balance and compounding the sense of unease. The movement closes with one of the most nihilistic statements in music I know: two short, dry pizzicati thuds from the entire orchestra, like a falling guillotine.’

Prokofiev wrote this music in 1935 as he was preparing to resettle in his native Russia after years abroad in Paris and the United States. In order to be repatriated, he needed to appease Stalin and his restrictive artistic ideals of ‘Soviet Realism.’ For Prokofiev, this meant abandoning the “decadent formalism” of his earlier enfant terrible years.”

Beginning in G minor, the first movement progresses through several phrases before shifting to C# minor at 0:57. Many other shifts in tonality follow, as this score-based video shows!

Yo-Yo Ma & Alison Krauss | Simple Gifts

The 1848 Shaker song “Simple Gifts” rose to prominence after American composer Aaron Copland borrowed its melody for his composition Appalachian Spring, which he wrote to accompany a ballet choreographed by Martha Graham. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma covered the tune on his 2001 album Classic Yo-Yo with vocalist Alison Krauss.

The track begins with a cello introduction in Bb and shifts down a fifth to Eb when Krauss enters at 0:46.

Ludwig van Beethoven | Symphony #5 (2nd movement, Andante con Moto)

“In his epochal review of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor (1808), Op. 67, E. T. A. Hoffman praised it as ‘one of the most important works of the time.’ … Beethoven started to sketch the Fifth Symphony in 1804, almost immediately following the completion of Symphony No. 3, Eroica … During the long four-year period of composition, Beethoven broke convention on several aspects,” (esm.rochester.edu). “Most particularly, it was the first symphony that Beethoven wrote in a minor key—C minor. Minor-keyed symphonies were not unheard of, but were not the norm at the time.”

The second movement begins with a lighter mood than its infamous introduction, the symphony’s first movement: ” … (it) begins piano with a noble, restrained theme in A-flat in the lower strings before bursting into a brief forte contrasting C-major militaristic theme, featuring trumpets and timpani.” In this performance by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, this modulation occurs at 1:17; other shifts in tonality follow.

Jon Batiste | Für Elise

“Für Elise” is the first single released singer/songwriter/bandleader Jon Batiste’s solo piano album Beethoven Blues, which will be released next month. Batiste, who cites Stevie Wonder, Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone and Django Reinhardt among his musical influences, has been nominated for 20 Grammy Awards and last year was featured in the documentary American Symphony, which explores his relationship with his wife, Suleika Jaouad, and his debut at Carnegie Hall.

We have featured Für Elise on the site before, but Batiste has a very different take than the version you typically hear at an intermediate piano recital. The piece, which has a rondo ABACA form, starts in A minor and modulates briefly to F major at 1:30 before returning to A minor at 2:14.

J.S. Bach | “Little” Organ Fugue in G Minor (BWV 578)

“This piece is found in many copies from Bach’s day,” (Netherlands Bach Society). “Around 100 years after his death, it was published no fewer than four times in rapid succession. Bach’s pupil Johann Georg Schübler thought the theme was so successful that he made a fugue out of it himself. So it was an immensely popular piece … when organists refer to this piece as the ‘Little’, it is not meant to be denigrating, but is purely to avoid confusion with Bach’s other, longer fugue in G minor, BWV 542, the ‘Great’.”

In the “Little” Fugue (1709), “Bach was able to take the earlier vocal polyphony of the renaissance period and apply it to the organ fugue,” (Understanding Music). “This is regarded as one of Bach’s great achievements.” The piece begins in G minor, shifts to the closely related key of D minor as the second voice enters with the theme (0:20), and continues to unfold from there.

Josep Castanyer Alonso | Never Gonna GiFugue Up

“(Cellist) Josep Castanyer Alonso has been a member of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra since 2019,” (from the Orchestra’s website). “… He has performed in several festivals and attended different academies, such as the Verbier Festival in Switzerland or the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, with mentors such as András Schiff, Lynn Harrell, Ferenc Rados, Gustav Rivinius, Wen-Sinn Yang or Gábor Takács-Nagy.

Performing regularly in different chamber music groups, Alonso has as well been a member of the Alinde Quartett. He is also frequently involved in other chamber music projects with colleagues, from the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, and the vast German and European orchestral scene. He was a student of the RSPO Orchestra Academy and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, and he was the first student of this academy to become a member of the orchestra.”

From Alonso’s description of the video, which bearrs the subtitle A 4-voice fugue, but you got rickrolled: “… the contrapuntal throwback takes us to the ’80s with Rick Astley’s hit ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ — famous in its day and even more popular thanks to Internet meme culture and the “rick-rolling” frenzy of the early 2000s. I’ve developed the irritatingly infectious short initial motive of the tune into a 4-voice fugue, showcasing the structure with motion graphics and light-hearted commentary …” The piece shifts from D major to F# minor from 0:57 – 1:33. Of Alonso’s wonderful piano technique (in addition to his stellar composition chops), our regular contributor JB added, “It’s kind of dumbfounding that piano is just a hobby for him.”

Maurice Ravel | Boléro

“Before he left for a triumphant tour of North America in January 1928, (French composer) Maurice Ravel had agreed to write a Spanish-flavoured ballet score for his friend, the Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein … Ravel had long toyed with the idea of building a composition from a single theme which would grow simply through harmonic and instrumental ingenuity,” (ClassicFM). “Boléro’s famous theme came to him on holiday … He was about to go for a swim when he called a friend over to the piano and, playing the melody with one finger, asked: ‘Don’t you think that has an insistent quality? I’m going to try to repeat it a number of times without any development, gradually increasing the orchestra as best I can.’

… By Ravel’s standards, the piece was completed quickly, in five months – it had to be ready for Rubinstein to choreograph. ‘Once the idea of using only one theme was discovered,’ he asserted, ‘any conservatory student could have done as well.’ The relentless snare-drum underpins the whole of the 15-minute work as Ravel inexorably builds on the simple tune until, with a daring modulation from C major to E major, he finally releases the pent-up tension with a burst of fireworks.” In this live recording from the 2014 BBC Proms, those fireworks arrive at the 13:22 mark, although C major makes a boisteous return shortly thereafter to end the piece.

“Boléro was given its first performance at the Paris Opéra on November 20, 1928. The premiere was acclaimed by a shouting, stamping, cheering audience in the midst of which a woman was heard screaming: ‘Au fou, au fou!’ (‘The madman! The madman!’). When Ravel was told of this, he reportedly replied: ‘That lady … she understood.’ … Although Ravel considered Boléro one of his least important works, it has always been his most popular.”