Tag: classical

Camille Saint-Saëns | Mazurka #1, Op. 21 (Geoffrey Burleson)

From Naxos’ liner notes for its release Camille Saint-Saëns Complete Piano Music 4: Dances and Souvenirs:

“There is a long history of composers writing instrumental dances that were and are intended as ‘concert’ works, initially flourishing in the Baroque era. By the late 18th century, the allemandes, courantes and gigues that were once all the rage were all but outmoded, save for the minuet, which appears copiously in works of Haydn, Mozart and in Beethoven’s early period. By the mid-19th century the fast triple metre of the waltz prevailed, along with the wealth of musical variety and contrast composers brought to its manifestations. Chopin codified the waltz as a stand-alone solo piano genre, as well as the much more vernacular, and resolutely Polish mazurkas and polonaises.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) inhabited all of these eras as a composer of concert music in dance genres, even though his first works didn’t see the light of day until the mid-19th century. Among his many formidable musical feats was as a pioneering editor and advocate for French Baroque music, especially works of Lully and Rameau, spearheading the revival of this music in the late 19th century. More famously to the 19th century public, Saint-Saëns was one of the greatest keyboard prodigies of the past 200 years. When he made his piano recital debut at the age of 10 … he announced to the audience that he would be pleased to perform any of Beethoven’s 32 sonatas as an encore. A good deal later, Liszt referred to him as the greatest organist on earth.”

1892’s Mazurka No. 1, Op. 21 starts in G minor. The “B” section (first heard here at 1:02) is in the parallel major. The French composer’s trademark chromaticism softens the lines between these two primary keys throughout. The pianist featured on this recording is Geoffrey Burleson.

J.S. Bach | Sheep May Safely Graze (BWV 208)

This version of J.S. Bach’s “Sheep May Safely Graze,” originally Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd (The lively hunt is all my heart’s desire), part of a larger 15-movement cantata, features an orchestral instrumentation, including modern flutes. But according to Bach Digital, the original score calls for two recorders and continuo (harpsichord and cello or viola de gamba). While a large portion of Bach’s income came from the church, this 1713 work is Bach’s first known secular cantata, composed while he was employed as court organist in Weimar. It is thought to have been intended as a gift from Bach’s employer, William Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Weimar, for one of his neighbors, Duke Christian, who was a keen hunter.

Classical FM explains further: “…sheep may graze safely where there’s a good shepherd who stays awake and where there’s a good nobleman watching over a blissful nation. Why did Bach set such a line? Well, because he was writing this music for the birthday of Duke Christian in 1713 and he knew on which side his bread was buttered. The commission also gives rise to its third name, ‘the Birthday Cantata.'”

This version, featuring an English text, was performed by The Voices of Azusa Pacific University with the Concertante Ensemble of London. Starting in G major, there’s a substantial mid-section from 1:59 – 3:50 (starting in A minor but featuring plenty of pivots) before a return to G major at 3:50.

Jean Berger | The Eyes of All Wait Upon Thee

According to the Milken Archive of Jewish Music, composer Jean Berger was born Arthur Schlossberg in Germany in 1909. After earning a Ph.D. in musicology in 1931, he moved to Paris and changed his name to Jean Berger as the Nazis came to power in Germany. He later moved to the United States, became an American citizen, and enlisted in the US Army in 1942. After the war, he became an arranger for CBS and NBC and toured as a concert accompanist. During the latter part of his career, he taught for decades at several American colleges and universities while continuing to compose.

Choral works were very much the central focus of Berger’s composition. “The Eyes of All Wait Upon Thee” (1959), one of Berger’s best known pieces, is based on text from Psalm 145. This performance, taken from a 2012 collection entitled Worthy to Be Praised, is by the Messiah University Choirs’ Chamber Singers.

After starting in E minor, the piece features a mid-section (0:49 – 1:18) which shifts across several keys. The third section partially mirrors the first, with the substantial difference of closing the piece in E major.

Flash Mob, Turin, Italy | Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus”

Of all the things we’re missing now, the feeling of participating in a flash mob (as a planful participant or an unwitting audience member) might be among the most difficult to recall. This 2013 a cappella performance of Mozart’s “Ave Verum Corpus” (1791), nothing less than a pillar of the choral repertoire, resounds beautifully in the setting of a soaring Italian atrium.

Dr. Jimbob’s Mozart page (written by Dr. James Chi-Shin Liu, an internist with a specialty in performing arts medicine as well as an extensive scholarship of music!) has this to say about the piece: “Mozart’s setting is far from pedestrian or undistinguished…Artur Schnabel famously described as too simple for children and too difficult for adults (after all, simple music like this exposes any lapses of rhythm, intonation, or ensemble). And the music seems to encompass a universe of feeling in forty-six short bars.”

This rendition begins with an extended D major drone as the shoppers gradually figure out that a performance is afoot; the performance itself begins at 2:18. At 3:23, the piece’s dominant key of D major gives way to F major, returning to D major at 3:57. The choir returns to the D major drone, gradually tapering down to nothing and transitioning to applause, before the shoppers go on about their day.

Samuel Barber | Summer Music for Woodwind Quintet, Op. 31

In its program notes for a 2004 performance, Chicago Chamber Musicians wrote: “Barber was often described during his lifetime as hopelessly old-fashioned; audiences approved of his music more than critics did. Over time, though, his individuality and depth of emotional expressiveness have won universal admiration and given him a pre-eminent place in the history of American music. With his tendency toward romantic melodiousness, combined with a classicist’s fondness for traditional structures, Barber has sometimes been compared to Brahms, who was also accused of being out of step with his times, but whose works seem to have survived nonetheless. Barber himself commented on the work’s pastoral mood: ‘It’s supposed to be evocative of summer — summer meaning languid, not killing mosquitoes.'” American Music reports that the 1956 piece, Barber’s only chamber composition for wind instruments, has become a staple of the wind-quintet repertory.

The performance here is from the 2013 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the ensemble is from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Starting with a more disjointed mood, the piece is initially built on a series of luxurious features/solos for each of the quintet’s instruments — although no one instrument takes the lead for long. The tonality shifts several times, generally staying in the minor realm. At 2:07, the mood shifts suddenly; the ensemble begins to speak mostly as one as the lines grow more percussive. At 2:44, there’s a shift towards an uncomplicated major tonality as the quintet sprints to the finish line.

Frédéric Chopin | Prelude for Piano #25 in C-sharp minor (Op. 45)

Towards the end of his life, Frédéric Chopin wrote a series of preludes; while there were 26 in all, the piece known as #25 (1841), although published earlier, was actually the final installment of the series to be written.

According the AllMusic, “This last prelude begins with a gentle, melancholy theme, whose mostly ascending accompaniment Chopin deftly works into the gloomy melodic fabric. That is nothing new for him, but here the obsessive and seemingly simple manner of the harmony never becomes tiring, always remains profoundly atmospheric, largely because of the composer’s manipulation of his thematic material, at times allowing sunlight to break in, as when the theme is played for the second time and blossoms into hopeful joy…It is hardly surprising that this masterpiece is one of Chopin’s more popular and widely-played compositions.”

Although we can see from this sheet music-centric video that the key signature never formally shifts, modulations and passing keys-of-the-moment are more the rule than the exception in this piece, calling legions of accidentals into service. AllMusic goes as far as to suggest that “the success of this whole piece rests on the composer’s deft handling of what is essentially threadbare thematic material — there is no middle section here.”

Frédéric Chopin | Prelude in Db Major, Op. 28, #15 (Vladimir Horowitz, piano)

One of Frédéric Chopin‘s most beloved works, his Prelude in Db Major, Op. 28, No. 15 (1838) is often called the “Raindrop” prelude — the repeating patter of Ab/G#3 throughout the piece symbolizing raindrops. The piece is a large-scale ABA form, beginning and ending in Db Major, with the middle section in the parallel C# minor (the change to minor occurs at 1:35; the return to major at 4:05.) This piece has been on my mind over the last few weeks, as I think it presents as an interesting metaphor for the times we are living in: the first A section our lives before lockdown, the B section our darker present, and the final A section the light we will return to, with the incessant repetition of the Ab/G# our unyielding heartbeat, our humanity, staying consistent throughout. Performed here by the unparalleled Vladimir Horowitz.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Fantasia in C Minor (K. 475)

A good example of a common-tone modulation is presented by Mozart’s Fantasia in C Minor, K. 475 (1785). A shift from B major to D major jumps out at 2:32 via a repeated F# in the melody as the accompaniment briefly pauses. French pianist Ismaël Margain, a graduate of Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique in Paris, is at the keyboard.

Gabriel Fauré | Élégie, Op. 24

Gabriel Fauré’s “Élégie”, Op. 24 for cello and piano has held a special place in my heart ever since I was first introduced to it and played it with a close friend in high school. Originally envisioned as the slow movement in an uncompleted cello sonata, Fauré published the piece as stand-alone work in 1883, and later orchestrated it as well.

Fauré scholar Jean-Michel Nectoux wrote that the Élégie was one of the last works in which the French composer allowed himself “such a direct expression of pathos,” noting further that he regards the piece as “one of the last manifestations of French musical Romanticism. From now on Fauré’s music was to be more introverted and discreet.”

A large scale ABA form begins and ends in C minor; Ab major is hinted at in the bass beginning at 2:24 before fully arriving when the piano takes the melody at 2:35. Performed here by Jacqueline du Pré and Gerald Moore, pianist.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Alla Turca, Sonata #11 in A Major (K. 331)

Wolfgang Mozart’s Alla Turca from Sonata #11 in A Major (K. 331) shifts back and forth between A minor and A major throughout. A piano sonata in three movements, the piece was likely written in Vienna or Salzburg around 1783. The first modulations are at 0:48 and 1:02.