Bruckner - Symphony In D Minor

In the somewhat confusing world of Anton Bruckner (1824 - 1896) and the numbering of his symphonies, this Symphony  in D Minor is actually the third symphony he wrote.  The first symphony he wrote was as an assignment for his composition teacher in 1863.  Bruckner rejected this work by calling it 'school work', but he did not destroy it. It is in F minor.

The next symphony Bruckner wrote was the 'official' Symphony No.1, called by Bruckner 'the saucy maid' (whatever that may mean). Then it was the Symphony in D minor that was written in 1869.  Bruckner rejected this symphony after some harsh criticism'.

After all that, why bother with an early symphony that the composer himself rejected when he wrote so many more? Bruckner was known to be influenced a great deal by the opinions of others, especially early on. To my mind, if Bruckner would've wanted the world to never hear of this symphony he would have destroyed it. And it's a good thing he did not destroy it, for the symphony already shows his mature style and the music is very good.  A composer's earlier works are always interesting, if for no other reason than it shows where they came from and how they evolved when compared to later works.  Bruckner almost from the beginning had different ideas that grew into his mature style. Deryck Cooke writes about the Bruckner Symphony:

"Despite its general debt to Beethoven and Wagner, the "Bruckner Symphony" is a unique conception, not only because of the individuality of its spirit and its materials, but even more because of the absolute originality of its formal processes. At first, these processes seemed so strange and unprecedented that they were taken as evidence of sheer incompetence.... Now it is recognized that Bruckner's unorthodox structural methods were inevitable.... Bruckner created a new and monumental type of symphonic organism, which abjured the tense, dynamic continuity of Beethoven, and the broad, fluid continuity of Wagner, in order to express something profoundly different from either composer, something elemental and metaphysical."

Clara Rockmore/Saint Saens - The Swan

Clara Rockmore (1911 - 1998) was a virtuoso player of the theremin, an electronic instrument. The theremin was invented and named by a Russian, Leon Theremin. The instrument was patented in 1928 and consists of two antennas connected to oscillators, a horizontal antenna used to control volume and a vertical antenna used to control pitch. The closer or farther away a hand was placed to these antenna determined the pitch and volume.  The antennas are not actually touched at all.  The widest use of the theremin has been for science fiction movies of the 1950's and 1960's, but there has been a resurgence of the instrument in rock music and avant garde music.

Clara Rockmore was a child prodigy on the violin and began studying at the St. Petersburg conservatory  at the age of five.  But due to malnutrition, she developed serious bone problems that prevented her from continuing her studies and playing the violin.
She discovered the theremin and worked with the inventor to make it a more precise instrument.  She developed an entire technique for the instrument, using her fingers to 'finger' the notes in the air.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 - 1921) was a French composer. he composed Carnival Of The Animals, a suite of pieces originally for a chamber group of instruments (a full orchestra version also exists) that musically depicts an assortment of creatures. It was composed in 1886 but Saint Saëns thought it might be too trivial and hurt his reputation as a serious composer.  He allowed only one of the vignettes to be published in his lifetime, The Swan.  The entire collection was published in 1922 after his death and remains a very popular composition.  The Swan is a melancholy song originally written for cello that depicts the legend that when a swan dies  it sings its sweetest song.  Clara Rockmore shows that the theremin can be an instrument of great expression and nuance, but it's a mystery to me how in the world she coaxes such sweet, ethereal music out if thin air.  It's magical.

Saint Saëns The Swan played by Clara Rockmore

Ketèlbey - In A Persian Market

Albert Ketèlbey (1875 - 1959) wrote many popular songs and instrumental numbers, some of them miniature tone poems.  He specialized in musical representations of differing cultures,  highly idealized representations as they fell well within the realm of western music harmony and forms. Ketèlbey could crank out a pretty good tune and he was an imaginative orchestrator, no doubt aided by the tremendous working knowledge he had through his talent for being able to play all the instruments of the orchestra.

In A Persian Market is one of those idealized miniature tone poems. It was written in 1920 and has been played by many orchestras and arranged for many different ensembles. The music speaks through the 'ears' of a English musician known for his works that were written in an intentionally popular style. Authentic Persian  (modern day Iran) music it is not, but it has a certain period charm to it.

Ketèlbey's In A Persian Market:

Rubinstein - Piano Concerto No. 4 in D minor

Anton Rubinstein (1829 - 1894) was a Russian pianist, conductor and composer. He was part of the tradition of the 19th century virtuoso performer/composers such as Franz Liszt. Although his compositions are seldom heard now, at one time he was equally valued as a composer as a performer.

He toured Europe as a virtuoso pianist and even toured the United States during the 1872-73 concert season. He gave over 200 concerts in 239 days. The Steinway piano company financed this tour, and he received $200 per concert plus expenses. Rubinstein said of this tour: "May Heaven preserve us from such slavery! Under these conditions there is no chance for art—one simply grows into an automaton, performing mechanical work; no dignity remains to the artist; he is lost.... The receipts and the success were invariably gratifying, but it was all so tedious that I began to despise myself and my art. So profound was my dissatisfaction that when several years later I was asked to repeat my American tour, I refused pointblank..."  The fact that he earned enough from this tour alone to never have to worry about money  no doubt helped him make the decision to not do it again.

In appearance, Rubinstein favored Beethoven so much that rumors had him as Beethoven's illegitimate son. Liszt called him 'Van II'. He had hands that were more like paws with a broad palm,  short, thick fingers that were broad and square at the finger tip. He could make the piano roar, or have it speak in a whisper. He was a master of the pedal, and said of it that, "The pedal is the soul of the piano."

Rubinstein's life was music and he contributed greatly to music education in Russia by founding the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music in 1862.  He continued to compose, conduct, and give recitals all of his life until his death from heart disease.

His Piano Concerto No. 4 was  once highly esteemed and was part of the repertoire of such virtuoso pianists as Rachmaninoff and Paderewski.  It was composed in 1864, revised twice and the final version was published in 1872. It follows the typical Romantic piano concerto structure and is in 3 movements:

I. Moderato assai - The main theme is stated by orchestra alone, the piano enters alone then joins with the orchestra in the main theme. The movement is in sonata form with a cadenza added towards the end. The movement ends with another statement of the main theme and a coda.
II. Andante -  Serene music that begins in D minor and progresses to F major. Some of the most beautiful music Rubinstein ever composed.
III. Allegro- An exuberant rondo in the style of a Russian peasant dance. After the orchestra and piano take turns yelling and stamping, the movement ends with piano pyrotechnics.

Brüll - Konzertstuck For Piano and Orchestra

Ignaz Brüll (1846 - 1907) was an Austrian pianist and composer that was born into a Jewish merchant family. The family moved to Vienna in 1850 with Brüll destined to take over the family business. When he showed amazing musical aptitude and after a glowing assessment from Anton Rubinstein the family embraced his decision to become a musician.

He began composing early on. He began to compose his first piano concerto in 1860 when he was 15 years old. It was premiered in 1861 in Vienna by his teacher Julius Epstein.  He also wrote for solo piano, chamber music, opera and lieder. He bacame a friend to many of the musicians in Vienna of the time, most notably Johannes Brahms and Gustav Mahler.

Brüll wrote two piano concertos, both works of his youth. The Konzertstück was written later in his life, in 1902.  Brüll remained a conservative composer and never embraced any of the experimentation of the turn of the 20th century.  Some of what a critic that attended the premiere of the piece had to say about the work:

"In the beautiful Andante, full of gentle orchestra color, we wander among the German pine forests, several times hearing the ominous rustle of cedars of Lebanon from distant times. The composer celebrates his morning worship alone until the cheerful Allegro leads him back to the bustle of happy people."

Brüll - Kozertstück For Piano and Orchestra

G.H. Matos Rodríguez - Tango 'La Cumparsita'

Gerardo Matos Rodríguez (1897 - 1948) was an Uruguayan musician and composer. He studied architecture but the lure of music was too strong. His father owned a cabaret in Montevideo. He wrote many tangos plus music for theatrical plays that opened in Buenos Aires, and  he also led his own tango orchestra for a time.

The tango as a dance evolved from different dances brought to Argentina and Uruguay from European and African immigrants.  Early tangos were played by immigrants in Buenos Aires which is considered the birth place of the tango.  The tango was originally associated with the lower classes, and could be heard in bordellos and other seamy places, very similar to the history of American ragtime.  It eventually became a main-stream entertainment and attained world-wide popularity after WW I.  Read more about the history of the tango here.

Rodríguez composed La Cumparsita when he was 18 years old, in 1916.  It is the most recognized tango ever written. The title translates to 'little parade' and it was originally written as an instrumental for solo piano as a Uruguayan carnival march. Different sets of words were written for the music later, with the most popular set beginning, "The little parade of endless miseries..."

Liszt - Symphonic Poem 'Les Préludes'

Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886)  wrote Les Préludes,  his third symphonic poem in 1856. It was derived from pieces he wrote as early as 1844 for chorus and piano.  although it was the third of his symphonic poems, it was the first to be heard and the first to be called a symphonic poem.

The full title of the work is Les Préludes (d'aprés Lamartine) references a poem written by the French poet Alphonse de Lamartine.  The first printing of the score also had a short essay printed with it, although this was not by the poet:

"What else is our life but a series of preludes to that unknown Hymn, the first and solemn note of which is intoned by Death?—Love is the glowing dawn of all existence; but what is the fate where the first delights of happiness are not interrupted by some storm, the mortal blast of which dissipates its fine illusions, the fatal lightning of which consumes its altar; and where is the cruelly wounded soul which, on issuing from one of these tempests, does not endeavour to rest his recollection in the calm serenity of life in the fields? Nevertheless man hardly gives himself up for long to the enjoyment of the beneficent stillness which at first he has shared in Nature's bosom, and when "the trumpet sounds the alarm", he hastens, to the dangerous post, whatever the war may be, which calls him to its ranks, in order at last to recover in the combat full consciousness of himself and entire possession of his energy."

There is also evidence in a letter written by Liszt that explained the work was only a prelude to his method of composing.  There has been quite a lot of research done on the naming of this symphonic poem that can be read here.


Les Préludes by Franz Liszt: