Herz - Piano Concerto No. 1

Henri Herz (1803 - 1888) was born in Vienna but lived most of his life in France. He was a virtuoso pianist and composer, one of the most popular composers of his day.  He published over 200 compositions, eight piano concertos, and the rest mostly for piano and sold more pieces than any other composer for a twelve year period in the 1820's and 1830's.

He was derided in his day by no less of a composer than Schumann for his shallow and showy style of playing and composing. As Herz was selling his music at as much as four times the price of other composers (including Schumann) there was no doubt a hint of jealousy and hurt pride in the criticism. Not that some of the criticism isn't warranted. Herz's music doesn't plumb the depths of emotion, nor is it overly serious. Herz was all about writing music to entertain, and he seems to have done that quite well for his era.

He was on a world tour in 1846-1850  that included South America, Mexico, Russia and was the first major pianist to tour the United States, traveling all the way to San Francisco. He wrote a book about his American tour, My Travels in America.  Between his compositions and his touring, Herz became a very rich man. He built a concert hall in Paris and started a piano manufacturing company.  Herz was also a private piano teacher and taught at the Paris Conservatory after his traveling virtuoso days were over.

Popularity can be a fleeting thing as Herz discovered. The man himself outlasted his music and when Herz died in 1888 his music had been relegated to the back shelf. It wasn't until fairly recently that Herz has been given his due as a composer.  He himself knew he wasn't a Schumann or Chopin, but he did know how to write music that is easy to listen to and enjoy.  And the solo parts of his piano concertos do show that he was a virtuoso with a fine, light touch and critics of his day (at least the ones without bias) also said as much.

The first piano concerto in A major, written in 1828, is  a typical example of Herz's composing style. The first movement has an orchestral exposition and the soloist enters with a flurry of notes. While this music may not challenge the listener, it most assuredly can impress with the virtuosity demanded from the soloist. The second movement is a slow melody first heard in the horns and then delicately picked up by the soloist. The third movement is full of yet more piano fireworks as Herz  sprays notes and runs all through the movement.

Herz - Piano Concerto No. 1

C.P.E. Bach - Symphony For Strings In B Minor Wq. 182/5

Mozart said of C.P.E. Bach, "He is the father, we are the children", high praise indeed from Mozart who didn't have much nice to say about most composers.  Haydn also held him in high regard, and once C.P.E.'s music is heard we can understand why.

His music is full of originality, wit, depth of feeling and craftsmanship. He was also influential as a keyboard teacher and his Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments was used by Beethoven for his students and is still in print today.  Bach lived in a time of great change in musical style, from the learned fugue and counterpoint that his father J.S. Bach was master of, to a style more accessible, simple and tuneful, the Style Galante.  Bach wrote over 800 pieces in many different forms, including the symphony.

Bach's symphonies are written in the Italianate style, that is they are in three movements and alternate fast-slow-fast, and are descended from overtures to operas.  His other stylistic factor is that he does not follow style galante nearly as much as he follows empfindsamer Stil, or the sensitive style of composition. Bach's symphonies are the forerunners of the Romantic style in that they have more of a depth of feeling to them and are full of sudden changes of mood between the movements.

There's some question as to how many symphonies Bach wrote, but we do know that the Symphony in B Minor For Strings was fifth in a set of six string symphonies he wrote for Baron Gottfried van Swieten. Upon talking to Bach about the commission for the symphonies, the Baron told Bach to not be concerned about writing difficult music to perform. Evidently the Baron had a good orchestra at his disposal. The Baron was also a patron of three other great composers, Haydn, Mozart, and the young Beethoven.

The symphony is typical of Bach, with a first movement that flirts with the major and minor scales, is full of runs for the violins and outbursts for the entire ensemble. The second movement is a gently rocking larghetto that leads into the third movement presto with the orchestra scampering out a theme amid the outbursts from the high strings.

Tcherepnin - Ten Bagatelles For Piano

Alexander Tcherepnin ( 1899 - 1977 ) was Russian-born pianist and composer whose father Nicolas was a professor at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and also a composer. Alexander's  son and grandsons are also composers. His father also conducted the orchestra for the famed Ballet Russe so young Alexander got to meet many leading musicians and artists of the day that were guests in their home.

Tcherepnin learned the basics of music from his mother before he was five years old. By the time he began his studies in harmony and composition in his teen years he had already composed over one hundred compositions. During the Russian Revolution of 1917 the family moved to Tbilisi, Georgia where Alexander continued his studies. By this time Tcherepnin had composed over two hundred pieces, including the Bagatelles for piano. The turmoil in Russia eventually boiled over into Georgia and the family once again moved, making Paris their home. Alexander completed his studies there and embarked on a career that saw him traveling extensively around the world as a performer and composer.  

Tcherepnin's music thus was influenced from a lot of different sources from the very beginning.  That he composed so much by such a young age shows his natural gifts blossomed early. He grew as a composer and went through many stylistic phases. He was influenced by Georgian folk songs from his student days there,  traveled and taught in the far East, kept a home in Paris and the United States when he wasn't touring. He wrote incredibly complex music, avant garde music (a movement in  one of his symphonies is for unpitched percussion instruments alone), and music that was more accessible to the general public.  

As noted his Bagatelles for piano were pieces written in his youth. They are short (the longest one lasting barely 2 minutes) pithy and dissonant. They are like children themselves. Witty one moment, loud the next, fidgety and barely able to sit still, leaping about and playing.  

The Bagatelles for piano show that from the start, Tcherepnin took the influences he experienced and made of them his own musical language. He was a follower of no 'school' of composition. He made his own way with his own methods, devices and music philosophy. His style and philosophy of composition gave his works such variety that it is impossible to pigeon-hole him as a composer. His music is unique, as was the man.

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 6

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975) was a Russian composer best known for his symphonies. He wrote his first symphony as a student when he was 19 in 1926.  Famous conductors Bruno Walter and Leopold Stokowski both thought the first symphony a work of genius and they conducted it in Berlin and the United States respectively.

Shostakovich had many influences early on, most notably Prokofiev and Stravinsky.  He went through a phase of experimental music which made his 2nd and 3rd symphonies not as popular as his first symphony. He eventually was denounced in 1936 in the soviet newspaper Pravda and after Stalin attended a performance of Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth Of The Mtsensk District (which had premiered in 1934 and was a great success) another newspaper article appeared that condemned the opera for being formalist, coarse, primitive and vulgar.  It was thought that Stalin ordered the article be written, and after it was, Shostakovich's commissions fell along with his income. Critics and officials that had previously praised the opera had to openly change their opinion, for Shostakovich was now a marked man at a time when that meant 'liquidation'.

The story of how Shostakovich managed to live through this denunciation and another later on is not really clear.  But he did change his style and with his 5th symphony he was returned to minimal favor, although things remained shaky for him the rest of his life.

The 6th Symphony was written two years after the 5th,  in 1939 and was first performed the same year.  Shostakovich had originally told officials that his sixth was going to be a huge symphony that was in tribute to Lenin. whether Shostakovich told them that to keep them off his back, or he changed his mind, we don't know for the reality of the symphony was quite different. The symphony has three movements and breaks with tradition because the first movement is a long, slow movement instead of the usual quickly paced first movements of symphonies. The first movement lasts longer than the other two combined, with hardly a break from the melancholy, brooding mood of the movement.  The 2nd movement is lighter in mood, and with the 3rd comes what amounts to a musical carnival compared to the first movement. The 3rd movement begins with the violins playing the 'Shostakovich rhythm', two short notes and a long note that Shostakovich used many times in his works.

The music of Shostakovich is by its very nature somewhat of a political statement. Whether within it is hidden his true feelings for the oppression he felt under Stalin, or whether he honestly praised communism in some of them is still being discussed by musicians. Suffice to say, Shostakovich's music can be very powerful,  well-constructed, and sometimes too repetitious, too loud and too long. His method of composition did not entail a lot of rewriting. He worked on something until it was finished and then went on with the next composition. But there is much in his music to admire. Like all humans, he had his weak points. The music he wrote was full of his humanness, and that makes it more than worthwhile to listen to and study.

Beethoven - Piano Concerto No. 4

Beethoven wrote his 4th piano concerto between 1805-1806. It had its public premiere in December, 1808 in Vienna at the massive concert that also had the premiere of the 5th and 6th symphonies and the Choral Fantasia as well as other pieces.  It was the last time Beethoven appeared as soloist on piano with orchestra.   Most of the newer music heard was not appreciated by many in the audience. Small wonder,  considering  the concert lasted well over 4 hours, there was inadequate rehearsals for all the pieces which lead to much starting and stopping,  and the concert hall it was held in was unheated.

After this performance the 4th piano concerto was neglected for almost thirty years. It was finally revived in 1836 by Felix Mendelssohn.  Young Robert Schumann was at the concert and wrote that he sat there transfixed through the entire work, scarcely moving a muscle or even breathing. That the concerto made a much more positive impression since then and has not left the repertoire hints that the work was far ahead of its time and not understood by the audience in 1808. With the solo piano beginning the work instead of an orchestral exposition is just one of the innovations Beethoven introduced in this concerto. The first movement is far from heaven-storming. The serenity in the dialogue between soloist and orchestra colors the whole first movement with a calm intimacy that makes this opening movement much different than the previous three concertos.

The mood changes with the 2nd movement as unison strings declaim in rugged tones the opening theme of the movement. Franz Liszt was the one who began the tradition of equating this movement with the legend of Orpheus taming the wild beasts with his lyre. It is a fitting description, as the piano slowly increases its voice and domination over the orchestra until it breaks out into trills of triumph. The orchestra is now 'tamed', the piano has the last quiet 'say' as the strings purr quietly in the background.

The 3rd movement Rondo begins without break on the note being held on the strings from the previous movement. The piano enters over the accompaniment of a cello and the finale takes off in music of good humor. Beethoven's sense of humor could be very gruff and crude, even in his music, but this rondo sees him more witty and subtle, as the music has a grand time working its way to the end.

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Liszt - Hungarian Rhapsody No. 17 in D Minor

Among the 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies of Franz Liszt are some of his most popular pieces. Rhapsody #2 is a perennial favorite, and thanks to the treatment it got in the Warner Brothers cartoon Rhapsody Rabbit, the piece was exposed to a wide audience of adults and children, albeit in a less than original form:

Most of the 19 Rhapsodies follow the general idea of what a rhapsody is in music: A piece in one movement, episodic and loose structured but still integrated as a whole piece, improvisatory in nature,  with differing moods and colorations within the piece. With Liszt being one of the great piano virtuoso, his rhapsodies are not at all easy to play. With glittering piano effects, extremes of tempo and feeling, the rhapsodies have sometimes been looked down upon as empty show pieces. They most certainly are show pieces, and for the pianists that can do them justice technically and bring out their musicality, the rhapsodies need not be looked down on as inferior. They are perfect in their own right, wonderfully difficult pieces to play and a delight to listen to. In some basic ways, they are a solid representation of the Romantic era in music.

While Liszt called them 'Hungarian', he heard many of the tunes he used in the rhapsodies from gypsy bands that were not necessarily Hungarian.  While Liszt thought the tunes were folk songs, many were in fact songs written by other Hungarians and the tunes were taken up by the gypsy bands who played them in their own style, a style Liszt emulated in the rhapsodies.

Liszt published the first fifteen rhapsodies in 1851-1853 but many were no doubt written long before they were published. The last four rhapsodies appeared in 1882-1886, and these final four are markedly different. With a leaner texture, different harmonies and musical ambiguities, Liszt is a precursor of things to come. The Rhapsody #17 is a good example. It is a short piece, the music lacks any brightness. Even the rapidly  rolled chords in the middle of the piece that are higher on the keyboard don't ease the tension of the bare octaves and black harmonies of the piece.

Late in life Liszt suffered many physical illnesses and his mental state on occasions brought up the possibility of depression. His late music stands in stark contrast to his former style. The glitter is gone, there is a hard edge to it, almost as if Liszt were looking into the very face of death and writing music that he heard when he did. Liszt went further into the future than any other composer of his generation, including Wagner.

The 17th Rhapsody ends with the hammering of heavy chords in the bass. It doesn't really end, for there's no resolution. It just stops. Perhaps it represents Liszt in his last years, sick and dying, trying to stay active and work as long as he can with no real end, his life just stopped.

Saint-Saëns - Cello Concerto No. 1

Camille Saint-Saëns lived a long life,  (1835 - 1921) long enough to grow from his early years as a musical innovator to a musical conservative. His First Cello concerto was written in 1872 when he was still an innovator that took his lead from the 'modern' composers Liszt and Wagner.

The concerto is written in cyclic form in one continuous movement, but it has three main sections. Unlike other concertos, this one does not have an orchestral exposition before  the entrance of the soloist. Instead, there is one loud chord from the orchestra, then the cello is heard. Throughout the first section, themes are heard in the orchestra, the soloist, sometimes played against each other, sometimes played with each other. The first section is in sonata form sort of, but a rather loose sonata form with very little development of the themes. The first section segues into the second section. The second section is short and in the tempo of a minuet that segues into the third section which recapitulates some of the themes from the first section and then introduces new material before the ending.

The Cello Concerto No. 1 is very technically demanding for the soloist. Saint-Saëns exploits the extreme ranges of the instrument but all the while keeps the balance between soloist and orchestra such that the cello can always be heard. It is a virtuoso work written by a virtuoso composer for a virtuoso cellist, and one of the few cello concertos that have managed to remain in the repertoire.