classical – Page 5

Ludwig van Beethoven | Piano Sonata 5, Op. 10 #1, Third Movement

“Beethoven was a classical musician. He used the same grammar rules that you can find in Haydn’s works,” (Jaime Kardontchik, “Modulation in Beethoven’s Sonatas“). “So why does his keyboard music sound so vastly different from Haydn’s or Mozart’s music? For one thing, he was a son of the French Revolution with its Republican ideas of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality. He was an eighteen year old teenager when in 1789 the French Revolution shattered the pillars of the old monarchical world and he enthusiastically embraced these new ideas.

But what made in the end his keyboard music so distinctive is that papa Haydn and the younger Mozart grew up with and perfected the technique of playing and composing for the 4.5-octave harpsichord … Mozart died prematurely in 1791. The young Beethoven grew up together with this new and different keyboard instrument, the forte-piano. He extracted from the forte-piano every new sound possible as the piano makers were improving the instrument and expanding its range up to the present 7.5-octave piano as it is known today. Beethoven loved its sound, however imperfect the instrument was in his time; he understood the almost unlimited possibilities it opened for the expression of new musical ideas, took the risk, and bet on it. And two hundred years later, we are happy he did so. But historical circumstances and technical developments are clearly not enough to explain the individual and his contribution: he was simply Beethoven.”

After a start in C minor, a modulation into the relative major key (Eb) is in effect between 0:33 – 1:11). The 1798 sonata’s sprightly prestissimo movement continues to transition between the two relative keys throughout, passing through other keys (C major included) in the process.

Antonin Dvořák | String Quartet in F Major (Op. 96, B. 179, “American”), movement I: Allegro ma non troppo (Dover Quartet)

“In 1892, the American philanthropist Jeanette Thurber persuaded Czech composer Antonin Dvořák to head her newly formed National Conservatory of Music in New York City for three years, (MusicProgramNotes.com) … “Within a year, Dvořák had composed his Symphony in E-Minor ‘from the New World,’ … Directly after composing the ‘New World’ Symphony, Dvořák took a long summer holiday in 1893 in Spillville, Iowa … Amidst nature and his countrymen, Dvořák overflowed with musical ideas. Within three days he sketched out his entire String Quartet No. 12, later nicknamed the ‘American‘ … There is no movement without a gorgeous melody, and equally enticing are their delightful accompaniments … The American is unreservedly a masterpiece and crowd pleaser.”

The Guardian, placing Dvořák in his overall historic context: “As well as raising American consciousness of its Native American and African American traditions – a stance seen by some as vindicated by the emergence of jazz – Dvořák influenced a new generation of Czech composers, whose work was even more implicitly nationalistic. He befriended the young Janáček, who would eventually develop his music differently, but his mentor’s example was crucial. Dvořák also influenced his violinist and composer son-in-law, Josef Suk, who in turn briefly taught Bohuslav Martinů. Martinů’s assessment of Dvořák said it best: ‘If anyone expressed a healthy and happy relationship with life, it was he.’”

The quartet’s first movement begins in F major and features many side-steps into other keys, but an A major section starting at 1:38 is particularly striking.

Johannes Brahms | Tragic Overture, Op. 81

“In the summer of 1880, Brahms … composed two concert overtures. ‘One weeps, the other laughs,’ he commented to his biographer, Max Kalbeck,” (IndianapolisSymphony.org). “The laughing piece referred to his rollicking Academic Festival Overture, Opus 80, filled with light-hearted student songs, written to acknowledge his doctoral degree bestowed by the University of Breslau, introduced by soft trombone chords. The weeping piece was his Tragic Overture, Opus 81, and a heavy counterpoise to the first. Brahms explained his motivation saying, ‘I (simply) could not refuse my melancholy nature the satisfaction of composing an overture for tragedy.’

Though it was not written for any specific tragedy, speculation has suggested Tragic Overture was possibly written in contemplation of a commission to write incidental music for Goethe’s Faust. (This did not materialize.) Another possibility is that the composer had read Nietzsche’s work The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, published in 1872. This Overture is dramatic commentary on the spirit of tragedy in human life.

Tragic Overture begins with two slashing chords, which preface the solemn main theme, orchestrated within low strings and low winds in D minor. Trombones and tuba build a bridge to a contrasting F major theme, but relief is short. A third main subject stemming earlier sketches is also introduced. Writing in sonata form, the composer moves directly into a convulsive development. Brahms scholar Walter Niemann wrote, ‘The fleeting touches of thrilling, individual emotion in this overture are not to be found in conflict and storm, but in the crushing loneliness of terrifying and unearthly silences in what have been called dead places.‘ Themes surge and spin in a tempest of emotion. A traditional recapitulation, introduced by two fortissimo chords, summarizes the main ideas with certain alterations. Opus 81 premiered on December 20, 1880 in Vienna …”

A half-step key change, partially camouflaged by extensive chromaticism, takes place at 8:07. At 10:59, the piece reverts to its original key of D minor.

Ludwig von Beethoven | Für Elise

“Beethoven wrote his Bagatelle No. 25 in A minor, better known as ‘Für Elise’, in 1810, but it wasn’t published until 1867, 40 years after his death,” (ClassicFM). “It’s one of the first pieces learner pianists play on the piano; open a little music box, and there’s a good chance you’ll hear it’s charming melody. But although it seems like quite a simple piece, it turns out that ‘Für Elise’ is a actually a really sophisticated piece of music: well, it was written by Beethoven after all. When the music was being transcribed, Beethoven’s handwriting was misread. The text on the manuscript actually read ‘Für Therese’. It is widely acknowledged that Therese was Therese Malfatti, a woman to whom Beethoven proposed in 1810 – the same year he composed ‘Für Elise’.

The piece is in rondo form, where the main theme appears three times, separated by contrasting sections. The shape of the piece in Rondo form can be summarised as ABACA, where A is the main theme, and B and C are the two development sections.”

Starting in A minor, there’s a shift to F major at 1:15 and a return to A minor at 1:44.

Eileen Ivers | Pachelbel’s Frolics

“Eileen Ivers will change the way you think about the violin,” (CapeSymphony.org). “It is a rare and select grade of spectacular artists whose work is so boldly imaginative and clearly virtuosic that it alters the medium. GRAMMY-winning Celtic fiddler Eileen is a nine-time All-Ireland Fiddle Champion and original musical star of Riverdance. The daughter of Irish immigrants, Eileen has played with the London Symphony Orchestra, Sting, and The Chieftains; performed for presidents and royalty; and is hailed as one of the great innovators and pioneers in the Celtic and World music genres. Her recording credits include over 80 contemporary and traditional albums and numerous movie scores, including Martin Scorsese’s Gangs of New York. Billboard magazine called Eileen a ‘sensation’ and The New York Times called her ‘the Jimi Hendrix of the violin.'”

Ivers’ 2021 track “Pachelbel’s Frolics” is based on Johann Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” (written somewhere between 1680 and 1706). The Canon has since become nothing short of omnipresent, gaining fame for its composer as something of a classical music one hit wonder. But by now the Canon, a victim of its own success, is certainly near the top of many “needs a refresh” lists: “Since the 1970s, the Canon has been played at innumerable weddings, and quite a few funerals … been called upon to underscore: a tribute to baseball hero Ted Williams at Boston’s Fenway Park (2002); a tenth anniversary commemoration of the 1992 Los Angeles Riots … (2002); a renewal of vows at a Grand Forks, ND old-age home where the harpist was over 90 and the cumulative years married totaled 735 (2006); and … a yearly ceremony in which medical students at the University of Minnesota paid final respects to the cadavers they had lately finished dissecting in first-year gross anatomy class (1997).” (Prisoners of Pachelbel: An Essay in Post-Canonic Musicology, Robert Fink).

Ivers provides a refreshing renovation to the Canon by including some well-trodden ground while also welcoming sprightly new melodic ideas, tempo changes, and a wide-ranging tour of various fiddle styles into the vocabulary. An even larger departure is the modulation to the parallel minor from 2:21 – 3:10.

Martin Luther | A Mighty Fortress Is Our God (arr. Don Hart + David Wesley)

“No hymn is identified with the Protestant Reformation more than Martin Luther’s ‘A Mighty Fortress,’ (UMCDiscipleship.org). Luther (1483-1546) left a body of congregational songs that both defined the Lutheran confessional tradition and became truly ecumenical in influence … In addition to skills as a writer, translator and preacher, Luther was an amateur musician. His thirty-seven hymns stand alongside his theological writings and his translation of the Bible into German as testaments of his creativity and intellectual ability.

United Methodist Hymnal editor Carlton R. Young summarizes well Luther’s contribution to hymnody: he ‘wrote several original hymns and melodies, revised many Latin hymns to German texts set to adaptations of plainsong and folk melodies, and encouraged the composition of new texts and rhythmic hymn melodies. His 37 hymns and paraphrase are cast in simple, plain, and sometimes rough phrases and striking metaphors, qualities that are for the most part lost in English translations.’ Over 100 English-language versions of Luther’s hymn exist.”

An excellent example of the virtual/online choir trend which grew exponentially during the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the contemporary arrangement for chorus, piano, brass, and percussion shifts up a whole step at 2:56.

Gustav Mahler | Symphony #5, movement 4: “Adagietto”

“The Adagietto is undoubtedly the single best-known piece of Mahler’s music,” (MahlerFoundation.org). “Its popularity skyrocketed primarily as a result of its use as background music for Visconti’s film Death in Venice. There was some controversy, however, about what Mahler intended the adagietto to communicate. Villa Mengelberg, an intimate friend and colleague of Mahler and an early champion of his music, claimed that Alma Mahler had confided to him that Gustav sent a manuscript of the finished work to her as a love letter when they were courting. Certainly, the romantic nature of the music can support this contention … like an orchestral song without words … Mahler’s work orchestration is spare, employing only strings and harp to enhance the music’s lyricism and give it a serenade-like quality … “

The Mahler Foundation continues: “Inner harmonies are subtle and harmonic progressions are frequent for such a short movement … Mahler uses overlapping sustained tones in transition passages … The stream-like atmosphere begins with vague harmonies that lend a sense of weightlessness, and end with a long suspension of sustained chords that very slowly progressed to closure, creating a feeling of endless time.” It’s difficult to overstate the prominence of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony (1902) within the composer’s overall body of work. It’s “sometimes compared with Beethoven’s own of that number,” (The Guardian).

In addition to several transient key-of-the-moment passages, the overall key of F major shifts to C major at 7:47 before reverting at 8:13 to F for the movement’s dramatic ending.

for Marje

Frédéric Chopin | Prelude in C Minor, Opus 28 #20 (“Funeral March”)

“Chopin’s preludes are compositions of an order entirely apart. They are not only, as the title might make one think, pieces destined to be played in the guise of introductions to other pieces; they are poetic preludes, analogous to those of a great contemporary poet, who cradles the soul in golden dreams, and elevates it to the regions of the ideal,” (ChopinMusic.net). In 1841, this high praise was the assessment of Chopin’s contemporary, fellow pianist/composer and close colleague Franz Liszt.

The Prelude in C Minor (Op. 28 #20), published in 1839, moves through many key areas, but begins and ends at the same point. The dense accidentals throughout tell the tale. ChopinMusic.net continues: “It is known that Chopin studied thoroughly the works of Bach before writing his preludes. He admired a lot the perfection of form and harmony in Bach’s music. In spite of this example, however, Chopin created something completely new. Originally the French word prélude means nothing more than ‘introduction,’ but in this form Chopin let the 24 preludes develop into independent pieces of music.”

Gustav Mahler | Symphony #6 in A Minor, Movement 1

From the memoirs of Austro-Bohemian composer Gustav Mahler’s wife Alma (UtahSymphony.org), on the topic of the Sixth Symphony:

“No other work came so directly from [Mahler’s] heart as this one. We both cried . . . So deeply did we feel this music and what it foretold us. The Sixth is his most personal work and is also a prophetic one. In Kindertotenlieder and in the Sixth, he musically anticipated his life. He, too, received three blows from fate, and the last felled him. But at the time, he was cheerful and conscious of the greatness of his work; he was a tree in full leaf and flower.

In this passage from her 1940 memoirs, Alma Mahler suggests that autobiographical meaning informs the content of her husband’s Sixth Symphony, and on many levels, her words ring true. Gustav Mahler did, in fact, suffer “three blows from fate” in 1907: he felt it necessary to resign from his conducting post in Vienna, his eldest child Anna Maria succumbed to scarlet fever, and a doctor discovered the heart defect that would ultimately end the composer’s life. However, none of these incidents had transpired when Mahler penned Symphony no. 6 (in 1906). Alma’s memoirs, therefore, correctly interpret this symphony as something foreshadowing events yet to come.”

After the movement starts in a brooding A minor, 1:53 brings a gentle woodwind chorale, then another wide-ranging section with full orchestra. At 2:54, a surprisingly lighthearted but brief section in F major sounds almost like a passage from a composition for children. The simplicity of the textures doesn’t last, but the tonality does manage to endure for a quite some time before more transitions appear.

Il Divo | Adagio in G Minor

Featured on the classical/pop crossover group Il Divo’s fifth studio album, The Promise (2008), “Adagio in G Minor” is based on a manuscript written by Venetian baroque composer Tomaso Albinoni in the 18th century, which musicologist and Albinoni biographer Remo Giazotto discovered and expanded upon. The piece has been used in many films and TV shows, most recently in the 2018 installment of Ryan Murphy’s anthology series American Crime Story, focused on the assassination of Gianni Versace.

Il Divo’s arrangement begins in C# minor, modulates up to D minor at 2:36, and lands in F# minor at 3:28.