Mozart - Symphony No. 25 In G Minor K. 183/173dB

Wolfgang Mozart was only seventeen years old when he wrote his 25th Symphony in G minor. Not only had he written 25 symphonies by then, he had written about 175 other compositions as well.

Mozart and his father Leopold had traveled to Vienna in the summer of 1773 and while there the young composer heard many works from contemporary composers. While he was influenced by many, he was especially influenced by the works of Joseph Haydn and the now almost forgotten Czech composer Johann Wanhal. The 25th Symphony In G Minor is in the Sturm und Drang style of Haydn's symphonies of the time, and is one of only tw osymphonies in minor keys written by Mozart, with the other being Symphony No. 40, also written in G minor. To differentiate between the two works Symphony No. 25 is sometimes referred to a the Little G Minor Symphony.

Mozart composed the work in the fall of 1773 in Salzburg

It is Mozart's earliest symphony that found a place in the active concert repertoire. It is scored for two oboes, two bassoons, four horns, and the usual strings. It is in four movements:

I. Allegro con brio -  The movement begins with a short 4-bar section that appears to be an introduction but is actually part of the first theme. The violins and violas play a syncopated figure across the bar lines while the basses play on the beat which creates tension while the oboes play the outline of the beginning of the theme in whole notes. The first theme continues with an upward arpeggiated G minor chord in the style of a Mannheim Rocket:

The theme is repeated and slightly varied as a solo oboe plays the whole note outline while the strings play an accompaniment that is not syncopated. After a short transition, a second theme is played by the violins in the key of B-flat major:

A transition section of arpeggiated chords in tremolo strings leads to a third theme in the strings and also in B-flat major:

Another transition section of arpeggiated chords in tremolo is played by the strings and the exposition is repeated. The short development section continues the arpeggiated chords and tremolos until the opening outline of the theme in whole notes played by the oboe alternate with outbursts from the orchestra. The horns signal the end of the development as the recapitulation begins with the first theme. The second theme modulates to the home key of G minor, as does the third theme. A short coda brings back the first theme and expands the syncopated section until the viol;ins play a figure in running 16th notes as the horns lead to the end.

II. Andante -  A simple theme in E-flat major is heard in the strings and echoed in the bassoons.  The music is relatively tension free and is a a short respite from the tension and stress of the other three movements.

III. Menuetto & Trio -  Mozart goes back to the home key with a minuet that has a subtle hint of tension brought about by dymanic attacks of forte-piano (loud then suddenly soft). The trio is in G major and is written for the woodwinds and horns.

IV. Allegro -  Written in sonata form, the tension of the first movement returns with all four horns, syncopations and a first theme firmly in G minor. A second theme flirts with B-flat major. A short development section creates further tension and leads to the recapitulation. All the themes are repeated in the home key of G minor. The horns play a prominent part, a dramatic string part is added upon the repeat of the first theme by the horns. A short coda brings the symphony to a close.

Balakirev - Piano Concerto No.2

Mily Balakirev (1837 - 1910) was a Russian pianist, conductor and composer. He was instrumental in creating a sense of musical nationalism in Russia in the 19th century.  He promoted the music of Tchaikovsky and was the leader of the Russian group of musicians known as The Five.

As a composer he had the habit of beginning a composition but not finishing it until years later. He began his first symphony in 1864 but did not complete it until 1897.  His influence on Russian composers is not as obvious because of this. One piece that he did start and complete in  1869 was  Islamey ,an oriental fantasy for solo piano that was highly advanced technically. 

Balakirev was exposed to much music in his youth, but had no formal training in composition, harmony, or counterpoint. His musical talents were recognized early on and he had opportunity to study piano and attend many concerts. his natural musicality and keen mind allowed him to begin composing early on.
Balakirev urged the composers he knew to learn the art of composition by composing without wasting a lot of time on formal study of music theory. Rimsky-Koraskov, one of  The Five, came to thses conclusions about his former mentor:

"Balakirev, who had never had any systematic course in harmony and counterpoint and had not even superficially applied himself to them, evidently thought such studies quite unnecessary.... An excellent pianist, a superior sight reader of music, a splendid improvisor, endowed by nature with a sense of correct harmony and part-writing, he possessed a technique partly native and partly acquired through a vast musical erudition, with the help of an extraordinary memory, keen and retentive, which means so much in steering a critical course in musical literature. Then, too, he was a marvelous critic, especially a technical critic. He instantly felt every technical imperfection or error, he grasped a defect in form at once."

Balakirev suffered what has been called a nervous breakdown in 1871. After a few years of practically no music activity, he began to recover and slowly return to musical life in Russia. But he was never quite the same, and he demanded that his close associates be in complete artistic agreement with him or he would sever the relationship.  He reverted to a strict following of Russian Orthodoxy and became a rabid antisemite.

Balakirev's 1st Piano concerto was written when he was a teenager in 1856. It is in only one movement and it is a composition Balakirev never returned to. He preformed the one movement with orchestra in 1856.  The 2nd Piano concerto was begun in 1861 and is in the key of E flat. His influences for this concerto were Liszt's First Concerto in the same key, Rubinstein's Second Concerto and Litolff's Fourth Concerto.  By the end of 1862 he had completed the first movement and played through the second movement for his colleagues.  After that, Balakirev didn't resume work on the concerto until 1906 and by the time of his death in 1910 he still hadn't finished it.  His close associate Sergei Liapunov knew as well as anyone how Balakirev wanted the concerto to be finished so he completed the work.

The Concerto is full of spirit, dynamism and artistry and deserves to be heard more often than it is .

Balakirev Piano Concertos

Rossini - Overture To ' La Gazza Ladra'

Gioachino Rossini (1792 - 1868) was an Italian composer most well known for his operas and their overtures.  He was a child prodigy and composed his first works, six sonatas for strings, when he was twelve years old.  His father was a horn player in the orchestra while his mother was an opera singer. He wrote his first opera at the age of fourteen.

He could play the horn, harpsichord and organ, and cello. The first performance of an opera he composed happened when he was eighteen, and by the age of twenty he was an internationally known composer.  By the time of his retirement in 1829 he had written 38 operas and was 38 years old. He wrote very little music after 1829 except for a set of pieces he called 'Sins of my old age' that were pieces for solo piano, a few songs and pieces for chamber ensemble. Attempts to explain Rossini's retirement from writing opera and practically all other music have mentioned physical and mental illness, which he did have both. But it could have simply been a case that he peaked very early in his career and simply was 'written out'.

The Overture to La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie)  is one of Rossini's most popular. After the middle of the 19th century the opera wasn't staged again until its revival in 1941.  The overture is a good example of the 'Rossini Crescendo', a trait of many of Rossini's overtures. The orchestra plays a tune or theme over and over, each time the music gets louder and louder until it reaches a climax.  A Rossini crescendo is most difficult to do. To keep the orchestra together, beginning quietly and gradually leading it up to full volume without increasing the tempo and having enough force left in the orchestra to reach the climax is a test of the players and the conductor. When done as it should be, it leaves an indelible impression on the ear. It is a force of nature.

Legend has it that the day before the premiere of this opera the producer had Rossini locked into a room with music paper and pen and told him he wouldn't let him out until he wrote the overture! Rossini would pass each completed sheet out the window for the copyists. What a first performance that must have been with practically no rehearsal, even no rehearsal at all1 Things have changed in the opera house and concert hall over the years.

Overture To La Gazza Ladra (The Thieving Magpie):

J. C. Bach - Keyboard Sonata Opus 5 No. 2

Johann Christian Bach (1735 - 1782) was the last child born to Johann Sebastian Bach. He studied with his father until his father's death in 1750. He then studied with his older brother C.P.E. Bach who was at the time considered one of the most influential composers in Europe. 

J.C. Bach spent some time in Italy studying and playing the organ. He went to England for the premiere of three of his operas there and secured his reputation so well he became Musicmaster to the Queen and spent the rest of his life in London. He is known as the English or London Bach because of this. He composed operas, orchestral works, concertos and works for keyboard. When Mozart was still a child he met J.C. Bach who influenced Mozart's concerto style.

He wrote many sonatas for keyboard, and the sonata Opus 5 Number 2 is in D major. It is written in the galant style,  simpler music in the style of melody with accompaniment with less ornamentation and counterpoint.  In Bach's day the piano had not yet taken over from the harpsichord so his sonatas can be played on either instrument, and have even been played on the clavichord.  the sonata is in three movements.

Salieri - Variations On 'La Follia'

Antonio Salieri (1750 - 1825) was an Italian composer most known for his operas. His 50+ operas played a large part in the development of late 18th century opera along with his hundreds of religious works. Although born in Italy near Venice, he was taken to Vienna at a young age after the death of his parents.  He was a very cosmopolitan composer as he wrote operas in three languages.

When he retired from writing and staging opera he remained a large influence on contemporary composers through his teaching.  He taught vocal composition to Beethoven, Liszt, Schubert and others. He also worked with many prominent singers. all but the most wealthiest of students got their lessons for free, Salieri's way of repaying kindnesses shown to him when he was a young student.

Salieri composed very little instrumental music. A few concertos, three symphonies and a handful of other compositions. One of this handful was also one of his last compositions, the Variations on La Follia.  It is for orchestra and is a culmination of everything Salieri had learned about orchestration over the years.  Why he wrote it is not known, as it was written in 1815 long after he retired. Perhaps he just liked the Follia tune,  maybe he was just inspired to do so. In any case, the music remains in the minor mode practically throughout and is rather somber.  The Follia tune is always very recognizable in each of the 24 variations. It is the instrumental coloration of the orchestra and soloists that provides the variety.  This piece remained the most monumental set of variations for orchestra until Brahms wrote his Variations On A Theme By Haydn in 1873.

As for the often repeated rumors that Salieri murdered Mozart (dramatized in the play and movie Amadeus) allow me to quote Chad Hille from his blog entry Antonio Salieri : Truth or Fiction on his blog Classy Classical:

"There is indeed no evidence to support the idea that Salieri killed Mozart. In Salieri’s last years, he suffered a physical and mental breakdown. He was admitted to the Vienna general hospital and the rumor spread that Salieri accused himself of killing Mozart. However, there was no concrete evidence of this. It would have been very unreasonable to think that Salieri killed Mozart. For during the times that the two great composers were both alive they were, for the most part, friends. Of course, there were times when the two did not see eye to eye. This was only natural as Salieri and Mozart came from different musical traditions and wrote in very different styles. On the whole, they got along with one another fine. It was even reported that Salieri came to visit Mozart on his deathbed. It is also reported that Salieri was one of the few who attended Mozart’s funeral. It is now widely accepted that Mozart’s cause of death was rheumatic inflammatory fever."

And that settles that, as far as I'm concerned.

Salieri's Variations on La Follia :

Dvořák - Symphony No. 6

Antonín Dvořák (1841- 1904) wrote nine symphonies, and it was with the 6th Symphony that he started to get international attention. It was written for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Hans Richter, but they did not play the symphony for 2 seasons because of the orchestra's prejudice against Czech composers.

Dvořák had contact with many of the composers of that time. He played viola in the orchestra that played under Wagner as conductor in Prague. He applied for a stipend from the Austrian State and he came to the attention of Johannes Brahms who was on the panel. Brahms and Dvořák became friends and Brahms helped him get his first compositions published.  He was influenced by the trends of the day, but developed his own style as all true geniuses do.

He finished the symphony in 1880 and the premiere was in 1881 by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.  The symphony has 4 movements:

I. Allegro non tanto - The first movement is in sonata form with the first theme slowly expanding with dance-like rhythms. The cellos and horns begin the second theme, a more expressive tune than the first. The development starts after the exposition repeat and Dvořák explores some of the possibilites of his two themes and brings the end of the section with a climax on a part of the first theme that fades into the recapitulation. The movement ends with a short coda.

II. Adagio - Gentle music in the beginning that grows more turbulent as the main theme is repeated in different instrument configurations. The movement ends gently, as it began.

III. Scherzo - Furiant, Presto - This movement is a Furiant, a Czech dance. Cross rhythms (2 notesd against 3 notes) gives a syncopated feeling to the scherzo. This was the type of nationalistic music that Dvořák had published in his Slavocian Dances for piano, later transcribed for orchestra. The slower, more laid-back trio contrasts the scherzo. At the end of the trio the scherzo is repeated.

IV. Finale - Allegro con spirito -  This movement is also in sonata form. The first theme of this movement is somewhat similair to the first theme of the first movement. The end of the recapitulation section is notable for a coda that treats  the first theme of the movement fugally. The symphony ends in in a triumphant mood with the brass contributing depth and weight.

Rimsky-Korsakov - Piano Concerto In C-sharp Minor

Nicolai Rimsky - Korsakov  was a master of orchestration and was recognized as such early in his career. Despite his lack of formal education in music theory and harmony, he was appointed professor of Composition and Orchestration at the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music in 1871.   To prepare himself and stay one step ahead of his pupils he ceased to compose for three years, studied textbooks at home and followed a strict regimen of writing exercises in counterpoint and fugue. Rimsky-Koraskov wrote that while teaching he became "possibly the best pupil of the conservatory judging by the quality of the information it gave me!"

He wrote his only piano concerto in 1883-1884 at the urging of Balakirev.  Despite not being a pianist, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote:

 It must be said that it sounded beautiful and proved entirely satisfactory in the sense of piano technique and style; this greatly astonished Balakirev, who found my concerto to his liking. He had by no means expected that I ... should know how to compose anything entirely pianistic.

The piece is much better known in Russia and influenced other composers such as Rachmaninoff.  Rimsky-Korsakov used the concertos of Franz Liszt as his model  and acknowledged this by dedicating the work to Liszt. The concerto is very short, only about 15 minutes in duration, and is in three contrasting sections played without pause:

Moderato - Allegretto quasi polacca -  An introduction starts off the concerto that introduces the Russian folksong that the composer used in the work. It is the only theme of the concerto and Rimsky-Korsakov uses the Lisztian technique of thematic metamorphosis on it throughout, which makes the concerto a type of theme and variation movement. This introduction is followed by a polonaise treatment given to the theme. The next section is marked:
Andante mosso -  The accompaniment played by the piano is based on the first part of the folksong while the treble is based on the second part. The solo part gets more complex and erupts directly into the final section:
Allegro - The theme continues its metamorphosis as the piano part grows more brilliant with bravura passages. The concerto ends with a final flourish.