Beethoven - String Quartet No. 1

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) composed his first string quartets, six of them comprising his opus 18, between 1798 and 1800.  The first quartet in F major wasn't the first one composed, but Beethoven placed it as the first one, perhaps because he thought it was the best of the six. Beethoven had given the original quartet to a friend, but two years later he did a thorough revision of the work.

Beethoven wrote these first six quartets while Joseph Haydn was still alive.  Haydn was the acknowledged master of the string quartet, and along with Mozart he had taken the form to a new level. Beethoven was flexing his musical muscle and showing with his first quartet that the form still had possibilities.

The quartet begins with a statement of the first movement's major theme in unison by all four instruments. The theme goes through some dramatic development in the middle section of the movement. The second movement has been compared to the tomb scene in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. some say Beethoven himself did the comparison, some say the friend that he gave the first version of the quartet to said it. Regardless of who said it, the movement is a passionate, dramatic one. The Scherzo and Finale are both short movements and help to balance out the first two long movements.

Beethoven went on to compose a total of sixteen string quartets over a span of 26 years.  He became a master of the form and used it for some of his most profound and beautiful music.

Howlin' Wolf Sings The Blues

Howlin' Wolf  a.k.a. Chester Arthur Burnett (1910 -1976) was an influential blues singer, harmonica and guitar player. Born in Mississippi, he farmed and learned guitar and harmonica from other musicians in the area. After he served in the Army during the Second World War, he became a local celebrity in the south, playing with various other blues men. He was finally signed to a recording contract by Chess Records in 1951 and moved to Chicago, IL.

One of his biggest hits in the 1950's was Smokestack Lightnin', here being sung by the Wolf while on a blues tour of Britian in 1964:


At Chess Records, Willie Dixon wrote songs for Wolf that turned out to be some of his most popular. "Back Door Man" was one of these songs:




Wolf continued touring and recording throughout the 1950's and 1960's with his own band and his long-time lead guitarist Hubert Sumlin.  Here they are with Sunnyland Slim in a video taken from the American Folk Blues tour of 1964 with Wolf singing the song "Shake For Me":




In the late 1960's and early 1970's Wolf's health declined. He had several heart attacks and his kidneys were badly damaged in an auto accident in 1970. He succumbed to kidney failure in 1976.

In his prime Howlin' Wolf was a huge man, 6' 6", over 300 hundred pounds and his voice was just as big.  Sam Phillips was the first to sign Wolf to a contract and he commented,  "When I heard him, I said, 'This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies'. He was about six foot six, with the biggest feet I've ever seen on a human being. Big Foot Chester is one name they used to call him. He would sit there with those feet planted wide apart, playing nothing but the French harp, and I tell you, the greatest show you could see today would be Chester Burnett doing one of those sessions in my studio. God, what would it be worth to see the fervor in that man's face when he sang. His eyes would light up and you'd see the veins on his neck, and buddy, there was nothing on his mind but that song. He sang with his damn soul."

Howlin' Wolf singing and Hubert Sumlin on lead guitar Moving from one of his last albums in the 1970's:

Froberger - Suite No. 26 In B Minor

Johann Jakob Froberger (1616 - 1667) was a German composer, keyboard and organ virtuoso.  He helped to develop the keyboard suite of dances and influenced many composers, including J.S. Bach.

Froberger's father was Kapellmeister  of the court in Württemberg. He got his first instruction in music from his father who also had a large (for the time) library of music with over 100 pieces in it. Young Froberger had this music at his disposal growing up, as did three other brothers who all became musicians.

Froberger became court organist in Vienna, Austria in 1637. While there, he received leave to go to Rome to study with Frescobaldi. He stayed for three years in Italy, went back to Vienna and made several trips back and forth. He also traveled widely in Europe, visiting London, Paris, Brussels and other areas. Because of these travels, he was able to absorb different styles of music in different parts of Europe and incorporated them in his music.

Only two of his pieces were published in his lifetime, but he became famous because of hand written copies of his music that circulated  He not only wrote keyboard suites, but pieces for organ and highly personal programmatic pieces. He actually did not originate the keyboard Suite of dances, as dances had been organized into suites in France long before him. What he did do was develop this form and the standards for it.

The Suite #26 in B Minor consists of 4 dances. There is still some question as to the order of the dances, sbut in the recording attached the four dances in order are:

Allemande -  The allemande originated in the 16th century as a duple metre dance of moderate tempo, derived from dances supposed to be favored in Germany at the time. It was usually the first movement in the suite.
Gigue - A lively baroque dance originating from the British jig. Many times it is the final movement in the suite, but here it is placed 2nd.
Courante - n a Baroque dance suite, an Italian or French courante typically comes between the allemande and the sarabande, making it the second or third movement.
Sarabande - A dance in triple metre. The second and third beats of each measure are often tied, giving the dance a distinctive rhythm of quarter notes and eighth notes in alternation. The quarters are said to corresponded with dragging steps in the dance.

Froberger's Suite In B Minor : 

Jacob Gade - Tango 'Jalousie'

Jacob Gade (1879 - 1963) was a Danish violinist and composer of orchestral popular music. He's remembered for only one composition, Tango Jalousie, (or Jealousy ).  He was appointed the conductor of a large theater orchestra in 1921 that accompanied silent movies. He wrote the tango in 1925 to accompany a movie titled , "Don Q, Son Of Zorro".  It was a popular song, but it wasn't until  Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops Orchestra made the first recording of it in 1935 when it became an international hit.  Gade was able to retire on the royalties and compose music as he chose, although Arthur Fieldler said that Gade showed him a symphony that he wrote and Fiedler said it was one of the worst pieces of music he ever saw.

Jalousie has been used in over 100 movies and is still a popular tango today. The piece earns a sizable amount of royalties which are used to fund the Jacob Gade prize awarded to the most promising young musician in Denmark.

Gade's Tango Jalousie:

Rossini - Overture To ' La Cenerentola' (Cinderella)

Gioachino Rossini (1792- 1868)  had his first big opera 'hit' with The Barber Of Seville in 1816.  It ended up being his most successful and popular opera of his career.  He followed up on this success with the writing of La Cenerentola (Cinderella) the following year. It was as big of a success as 'Barber' had been, and Rossini was an international star from then on.

Rossini met Beethoven in 1822 in Vienna. Beethoven by that time was deaf and somewhat of a recluse. Beethoven told Rossini, " Ah, Rossini. So you’re the composer of The Barber of Seville. I congratulate you. It will be played as long as Italian opera exists. Never try to write anything else but opera buffa; any other style would do violence to your nature.”

He wrote a total of 20 operas between the years 1815-1823 and he wrote his 38th and final opera , William Tell, in 1829 when he was 38 years old.  He was known to write very fast and was not above 'borrowing' music from his other operas to use in a new one.  He wrote the entire opera La Cenerentola in three weeks, he bragged he wrote The Barber Of Seville in twelve days. After his retirement from writing opera, he continued to compose sporadically and collected these odd compositions in volumes he called 'Sins Of My Old Age'.

The Overture To La Cenerentola  follows Rossini's usual practice and of course includes his trademark crescendo for full orchestra. Rossini used this so often in his overtures that contemporaries gave him the nickname 'Signor Crescendo'.

Rossini's Overture To La Cenerentola (Cinderella)

Cziffra Plays Liszt

Georges Cziffra (1921 - 1994) was a Hungarian virtuoso pianist.  His father was a cimbalom player that played in cafes and cabarets in the Paris area. He was a child prodigy and first learned to play the piano by watching his sister take lessons.  He would learn songs by ear after his parents would whistle or sing the music to him.

By the time he was five he had attracted the attention of a traveling circus which hired him to improvise and play tunes suggested by the audience. He did this for only a few weeks, but this association with the circus caused some critics to question his musical upbringing.  But Cziffra had a well-rounded musical education as he was admitted to the Franz Liszt Academy at the age of nine, the youngest student ever admitted in the history of the institution. He was also allowed to take part in master classes that were usually reserved for older students.

In 1942 he was called up to fight in the Second World War. His unit was sent to the Russian Front under orders of the Nazis and he was captured by Russian partisans and held captive for two years. He eventually escaped, was brought back into the military on the side of the Nazis and became a tank commander.  He was went through denazification and began to play piano in cafes.

Cziffra attempted an escape from Soviet-controlled Hungary and was a prisoner doing forced labor and undergoing torture from 1950-1953.  He finally left the country for a concert in Vienna on the eve of the Hungarian Revolt in 1956 and never went back to Hungary.  He wore a heavy leather wristband on his right forearm to help support ligaments in his right arm that had been injured under torture during his imprisonment.

Cziffra was one of the top virtuoso pianists of the 20th century who was known for his interpretations of Liszt's music. He was not only Hungarian like Liszt, but he was also of Gypsy extraction. There was evidently no technical problems for him at the keyboard. He throws off the most difficult music with ease. Case in point is the following video of his performance of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #6.  In the world of the Hungarian Rhapsodies that is full of technical difficulties, Number 6 stands out for the repeating octaves in the final section of the work which makes keeping tempo increasingly difficult the longer the piece goes.  Cziffra throws the octaves off as easily as if he were playing single notes and seems to actually increase the tempo without losing clarity:



Next Cziffra plays Etude #3 'la Campanella' of Liszt's Paganini Etudes.  This etude was inspired by the third movement theme of Paganini's  Violin Concerto #2

Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor K. 491

Whenever Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote a piece in a minor key, he always had something profound to say. The two symphonies in G minor (No. 25 and No.40), the Piano Quartet in G minor, and the two piano concertos in D minor and C minor are all dramatic works.   The Concerto No. 24 in C minor is one of Mozart's masterpieces. It was admired, studied and possibly performed by Beethoven. Indeed, Beethoven's own 3rd Piano Concerto not only uses the same key, but the opening theme in the first movement resembles Mozart's initial theme.  There is a story that while Beethoven and the pianist J.B. Cramer were listening to this concerto being performed in Vienna, Beethoven said, "We shall never be able to do anything like this!"

Mozart used an orchestra larger than for any of his other piano concertos to that time. The autograph score shows many erasers and corrections, quite uncharacteristic of Mozart as many of his autograph scores were fairly pristine. This concerto was written at the same time Mozart was writing his opera The Marriage Of Figaro. He was the soloist in the first performance of the concerto in 1786, two weeks after he completed it.  The concerto is in 3 movements:

I. Allegro - The first movement opens with a quiet, sinister theme that is developed into a roar carried by the rest of the orchestra and piano. Although the theme is in C minor, Mozart uses all the tones in the chromatic scale in it:

TThere are two secondary themes that help to give some relief to the tension, but the movement is dominated by the opening theme. The drama and tension of most of the movement may lead the listener to be prepared for a stormy end to the movement but the music quietly and abruptly ends.

II. Andante - Music that is in contrast to the turbulence of the previous movement. Mozart was one of the great composers for wind instruments and it shows in this movement as there are extended passages for wind ensemble. There is a feeling to this music akin to what Mozart wrote in some of his serenades, as the piano and winds take turns with the gentle thematic material. The music reverts back to the beginning of the movement and gently winds down to a restful conclusion.

III. Allegro - Presto - Instead of ending the concerto with a movement in the usual rondo form in a lighter mood and a major key, the third movement begins with a theme in C minor that is the basis for a masterful set of variations:

The eight variations contrast one another in mood until the last variation shifts to 6/8 time with an ominous rhythmic lilt that leads to the resounding final chord.

The great French writer André Gide said about Mozart that he speaks in whispers while the public tends to hear only shouts.  Comparing Mozart to Beethoven, that is perhaps true. But the 'whispers' in this concerto are dramatic, prophetic of things to come from other composers.