Europe – Page 2

Ludwig van Beethoven | Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61

“Ideas for the Violin Concerto (1806) can be found in the same notebook that Ludwig van Beethoven was using for the Fifth Symphony,” (Nashville Symphony). “While the latter required several years to be hammered into being, he produced the concerto in a matter of months, in 1806. But Beethoven did keep his soloist, a friend named Franz Joseph Clement who had been a former prodigy, waiting until the very last minute; he completed the score barely in time for the premiere two days before Christmas.

Beethoven had written his piano concertos up to this time for himself as soloist, but here he tailored this piece to the musical personality of Clement, who was acclaimed for the delicacy and tender refinement of his style—aspects that Beethoven highlights throughout the piece. But for all the celebrity of the soloist, the work did not catch on right away. While not as outwardly radical as the Eroica, the Violin Concerto was path-breaking in its own way and may have disappointed concertgoers expecting a mere display piece. There are few documented performances over the next three decades or so, and the Violin Concerto had to wait for such advocates as Joseph Joachim.”

After beginning in D major, the orchestra shifts with a sudden burst of increased volume (1:02) to D minor. Many more shifts occur throughout, but this one takes place before the violin soloist’s part even begins. This frequently-programmed piece is quickly recognizable — even from this introductory section alone.

Damiano David | Born With a Broken Heart

“Damiano David’s … second solo single (is) ‘Born With a Broken Heart’ (2024). A soaring, synth-pop tinged offering, the new track follows ‘Silverlines’ – Damiano’s first release independent of the Eurovision-winning band (Måneskin),” (DIY Mag). “‘When I wrote this song I was getting out of a very dark place, I was feeling emotionless and I was afraid that I had lost my ability to feel things, either good or bad,’ the Italian star has shared. ‘This was happening while I was starting the most meaningful relationship of my life and the fear of not being capable or ready was big. I think the song was a way to make myself make sense of what I was feeling and look at it from a less scary prospective. I’m happy to say that today I don’t feel like this, but I think a lot of people can relate with the feeling of not being good enough.”

The track hit top 100 status in several dozen countries, but climbed to the top 5 in Belgium, the Czech Republic, Finland, Japan, Poland, and Spain. Built primarily in B major, the tune shifts up a whole step to C# major at 2:39 after a post-bridge grand pause.

B+B Project | Cheremshyna

“B+B Project” is a Ukrainian ensemble named for its instrumentation (button accordion and bandura, an instrument which combines qualities of the zither and the lute). “The bandura is a traditional Ukrainian instrument … the B+B Project is bringing back the popularity of this fine instrument!” (EthnoCloud). “The group was created (in) 2015. They play a diverse repertoire: original songs, cover versions, rock, classical music, dubstep, Ukrainian music, and many others … The collective has toured extensively in Ukraine and around the world.” The B&B Project is now one of the most famous instrumental groups in Ukraine.

The group released “Cheremshyna” in 2022. After beginning in A minor, there’s a shift up a full step to B minor at 1:53. At 2:27, the tune returns to the original key.

Propaganda | The Murder of Love

“Alongside house orchestra Art of Noise and … Frankie Goes to Hollywood, the German confection (Propaganda) added a pitch-black seductiveness to Trevor Horn and Paul Morley’s label ZTT,” (BBC). “Their debut album, A Secret Wish … (1985) remains a fascinating addition to the clumsy, clattering canon of 80s electronica. Powered by the vocal mystery of Claudia Brücken, the sweetness of Susanne Freytag and the engine room of Michael Mertens and Ralf Dörper, the group was able to sate the European fantasies of the label. Here, it had its Kraftwerk, its Boney M. and its ABBA.

Employing about every Weimar Republic and Wagnerian reference in the book, ZTT created something as grand and illusory as anything they had put together. The concept was so high, the music they assembled could have been almost incidental were it not so inventive, and at times brilliant.”

“The Murder of Love,” a track from the German band’s album A Secret Wish, begins with an F minor verse (1:24) after an initially percussion-only intro. From 1:58 – 2:14, a chorus alternates between Bb minor and Bb major, the tonality obscured at times by angular tensions in the vocal melody. At 2:15, a brief interlude falls back into F minor with a huge crash, featuring the sole lyric “plead for mercy.” None is forthcoming just yet: the entire cycle starts again with another verse at 2:23. But surprisingly, 3:23 brings a jazz-infused guitar solo, followed by some new keyboard patterns leading into the chorus-based outro — all of them lighter in feel than anything up to that point.

Camille Saint-Saens | Africa (op. 89)

French composer “Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) was left bereft at the death of his mother in December 1888, and the cold winter winds in Paris persuaded him that perhaps a warmer climate might better suit him,” (Interlude.hk). “Accordingly, he left Paris for Algiers where he stayed until May 1889 – walking, reading, listening, but not composing. Finally, in late 1889, he went first to Cadiz, Spain, and then to Las Palmas to take a winter holiday in the Canary Islands. There, he took a hotel room not in his well-known name but under the same of Charles Sannois, businessman, locked himself in his room, and started to work.

… The resulting work, Africa, Op. 89, was the result of the time he spent in Algeria and Egypt, and, at the final climax, uses the melody Salam al-Bey, then the Tunisian national anthem … In addition to this version for piano and orchestra, Saint-Saëns also created a solo piano version which is extremely difficult as both the originally challenging piano part and the orchestra parts are resolved in the solo pianist’s part.”

Sticking to the orchestral version: after beginning in G minor, the piece shifts to Eb major during an animated cadenza section in or around the 1:58 mark.

Levi Schechtmann | Asturias

“Levi Schechtmann, born in 1999, is a German pianist renowned for blending classical music with modern genres like hip-hop, creating a unique fusion that has captured a global audience,” (artist website). “He began piano lessons at age seven and has since developed a reputation as an innovative performer. Levi is active on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where he has gained nearly 600.000 followers in total, showcasing his reinterpretations of classical pieces by composers such as Bach, Liszt, and Chopin, but also his own arrangements and improvisations.

Schechtmann’s approach involves merging classical styles with elements of modern genres like hip-hop and house, a combination that has earned him numerous accolades. He has won awards at prestigious competitions, including the Steinway Competition and Hamburg Instrumental Competition, and has performed at renowned venues like Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle in Hamburg and Flagey in Belgium. His popularity is driven by his ability to bridge musical genres, making classical music accessible and appealing to younger audiences through a modern, rhythm-heavy style.”

“Asturias,” released in August 2025, is built in E minor overall. At 2:05 (after a dreamy contrasting section unmarked by the unrelenting energy of the majority of the piece) there’s a shift to the relative G major just before the ending. Anyone who guesses that Schechtman might be a studio creation should also check the live version (posted below).

Many thanks to our contributor Mark B. for this distinctive submission to MotD — his third!

@levi.sct
Let’s see who can count the notes 😜 🎶Levi.Sct – Asturias 🎶 – #viral #piano #classical #asturias #yeah
♬ Originalton – Levi 🪐

Clara Schumann | Piano Trio in G Minor, op. 17

“Thanks to her constant touring, which almost always included performances of her own music, Clara was probably a better-known composer than Robert when they married,” (LA Philharmonic). “The Four Polonaises of her Op. 1 (not her actual first compositions) had been published when she was 11 years old, to be followed by numerous other solo piano pieces and her Concerto.

After her marriage, Clara turned to larger forms, studying jointly with Robert through all of his enthusiasms. Their influences were mutual – composed in 1846, Clara’s Piano Trio in G minor, Op. 17, was a direct influence on Robert’s Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 63, written the following year. (Robert’s own G-minor Piano Trio would be composed in 1851.) After Robert wrote his trios, Clara lost confidence in hers, but Brahms was one of many others who also played the work.”

While the Trio’s first movement, Allegro Moderato, begins in G minor, one of several harmonic shifts begins early (1:18) as a change in emphasis to the relative Bb major takes root.

Basia | Third Time Lucky

“In the 1980s and ’90s, a style of pop that certainly cannot be described as ‘rock’ brought many very talented individuals and bands to the spotlight, if only for a brief time, although their work has continued to shine and gain avid devotees in the decades after those initial spurts of airplay and publicity,” (GarryBerman.Medium.com). “Some have described one particular style as ‘lounge jazz’ — but not always as a compliment. Others classify it as ‘Cool Jazz,’ ‘Smooth Jazz,’ ‘Adult Contemporary,’ ‘MOR (Middle of the Road),’ even ‘Sophisti-pop.'”

“Basia Trzetrzelewska, born in Poland and based in the UK, is long-beloved for her global fusion of jazz, pop, Brazilian and Latin rhythms seasoned with R&B and rock,” (BasiaSongs.com). “Her albums Time and Tide, London Warsaw New York, The Sweetest Illusion and It’s That Girl Again were worldwide hits, with Time and Tide and London Warsaw New York going platinum in the US.”

Basia’s track “Third Time Lucky,” a single from 1994’s The Sweetest Illusion, makes key changes more the rule than the exception. Nods to Brazilian music appear at every turn, woven around the saturated walls of sound that are Basia’s trademark DIY multi-layer backing vocals. The first of many key changes appears at 0:34 at the top of the second verse.

Many thanks to frequent contributor Ari S. for this submission!

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart | Piano Quartet #2 in E-flat Major, K. 493: I. Allegro

In 1786, early in the era of the pianoforte, “Mozart wrote his two piano quartets for an ensemble essentially as new as the piano,” (Earsense.org). “But for a few random and now obscure composers before him, Mozart became the first to claim a genre that would captivate composers from Mendelssohn and Schumann onwards … Mozart’s “piano” quartets are considered the first in the genre not because they are historically the first, but because they are the historically the first great ones.

When he wrote them, Mozart was at the zenith of his fame as a performing concert pianist as well as a confirmed master of chamber music. The quartets are superbly balanced chamber works with all the craft and intimacy that implies, but they are also magnificent showcases for piano — in essence, chamber concertos, a kinship emphasized by their three-movement designs.”

The first movement’s opening section is in Eb major, but by 1:40 we’ve clearly shifted to Bb major after several hints and feints. The movement eventually concludes in its original key as well, but not before some more delightful harmonic meanderings!

Ace of Base | The Sign

“Within the grand narrative of global pop music, the Swedish quartet Ace of Base were a blip, a one-album wonder who came and went,” (Stereogum). “Between 1993 and 1994, Ace of Base essentially conquered the world, and their hits from that album will always work as strange, anachronistic reminders of a very specific early-Clinton moment. AoB themselves were not terribly important, but the group’s short-lived success stands as a kind of proof of concept. In Sweden, a certain form of sleek, shiny, bulletproof computer-pop music was just starting to come into existence, and that sound would rule the pop charts in the century to come. AoB gave some indication that this new hybrid style could work.

… Ace of Base emerged just shortly after the heyday of Roxette, a duo who were, in their time, the most successful Swedish group in the history of the American pop charts. Roxette’s astonishing four #1 hits were defined by a certain cheerful inanity — colossal hooks, absurdist lyrics, slick textures, hard riffs. AoB essentially did the same thing, though they sounded nothing like Roxette. The sound of American pop music had shifted since Roxette’s run, and AoB reflected that. ‘The Sign,’ AoB’s one American chart-topper, is a strange and hypnotic combination of sounds and ideas — chirpy and effervescent bubblegum melodies over deep digital-reggae beats. This particular mad-scientist crossbreed should not exist, and yet it resonates.

After “The Sign” (1994) completes its instrumental intro in G minor, 0:39 brings a verse in the parallel key of G major. At 1:21, an instrumental interlude mirroring the intro takes us back into G minor. subsequent verses switch back to major. The pattern continues throughout as off-beat synth-reggae keyboards propel it all relentlessly forward — at least for the single’s short run time of just barely over three minutes!