J.S. Bach - Harpsichord Concerto No. 5 In F Minor

From radio stations playing 'golden oldies' to the museum-like quality of the classical music concert hall, the modern day musical world is as much to do with the music of the recent and distant past as of the present. Audiences of Bach's time would not have understood this trend, as music was a daily commodity. Every Sunday worship service saw the congregation expecting new music, opera goers expected new operas, concert hall listeners expected new compositions.  The musical world of Bach's time was teeming with new music, or at the least previously heard music in the new 'clothes' of transcription and arrangement for other ensembles.

Bach, Handel and many other lesser composers recycled their own music and the music of others via transcriptions and arrangement. When the workday and responsibilities of a Kappelmeister such as Bach are looked at with choirs to train and rehearse, instrumentalists to train and rehearse,  and music to be prepared for every church service in many different churches (with each demanding their own music), it is no wonder that even Bach himself had the inspiration to write new music worked right out of him.

Add to all of that, beginning in 1729 Bach was appointed director of the weekly Collegium Musicum concerts in Liepzig, which also demanded new or refurbished music for each concert. It was for these concerts that Bach reused some of his music, pouring them into new forms and instruments. The Harpsichord concerto No. 5 is one of those hybrid pieces.  Bach used the outer movements of a violin concerto and a movement from an oboe concerto for the second movement. He also used the second movement melody in a cantata.

The concerto is in three movements:
I. Allegro moderato - The first movement is in ritornello form and is full of rhythmic energy and seriousness.
II. Largo - A cantabile song that almost seems endless. Bach seems to have been quite fond of this melody considering how many times he used it.
III. Presto - The feelings and mood of the first movement return along with some echo effects between soloist and orchestra.

Bach may have reused his music, but his genius and creativity always added something to the original that makes the transcription worth hearing. In the keyboard transcriptions of his violin concertos and other works Bach gives a new independence to the left hand that used to be relegated with doubling the bass instrument and filling in the harmonies. For that and other innovations, Bach stands at the beginning of the formation of the standard keyboard concerto as practiced by Beethoven and Mozart. Bach was so skillful in his transcriptions that it can be very difficult to think that the music wasn't originally written for the instrument. Bach was a genius by most stretches of the imagination, but he was also a master craftsman.

Schumann - Piano Concerto In A Minor

Robert Schumann was a multi-talented man who was not only a fine composer and pianist, but a writer and poet as well. He began studying law but soon dropped it in favor of pursuing a career as a concert pianist.  He used some sort of a contraption that spread his fingers that was supposed to give him more of a span and better finger strength and agility, but it did the opposite and gave him a permanent hand injury.  At least that's how the story has come down. His teacher Friedrich Wieck told him he had the talent to become the greatest virtuoso in Europe,  but modern scholarship has thrown doubt as to Schumann's actual desire to be a concert pianist. Whether the injury was real, imagined, or a story devised by Schumann to forgo the arduous training and devote his energies to composing instead, is open to conjecture.

Schumann's compositional output in the beginning was for the piano exclusively until about 1840.  In his early works he composed pieces that were some of the first examples of program music, music that was inspired and influenced by literary or other outside forces. He also became a music critic and was instrumental in promoting the music of Chopin, Brahms and other composers.

Schumann eventually ventured into composing for orchestra, chamber music and voice. He wrote many songs, four symphonies and a few pieces for piano and orchestra, of which his only piano concerto, in A minor, is the most notable. This concerto influenced many composers, from Brahms to Grieg, and remains one of Schumann's most popular and well-written pieces. It was premiered in 1846 with his wife Clara as soloist and his friend (and dedicatee) Ferdinand Hiller conducting.

The work is in three movements:
I. Allegro affetuoso - After a call to order by the orchestra and the piano, the first theme is heard in the oboe and winds. This theme (and pieces of it) is played through different guises throughout the movement. The piano plays a cadenza near the end and the movement draws to an exciting finish.
II.Intermezzo: Andantino grazioso - This is the movement that in some ways foreshadows Brahms and influenced him greatly. Near the end of this gentle song there is a reference to the theme from the first movement, and the second movement segues directly into the last movement.
III. Allegro vivace - The theme of this movement is first heard in the piano after a rushing run for the strings. It is one of Schumann's most successful pieces of music as it is full of variety and orchestral color.

Schumann is in many ways the ultimate Romantic. He did help usher in the Romantic era with his compositions and musical critiques. His life was one that was filled with mental brilliance offset by periods of mental imbalance and depression. He would compose at white-hot inspiration at times and have difficulty composing anything at others. His life was a life of excess, a life of fantasy, a life of creativity and ultimately a life that ended in an insane asylum when he was but 46 years old.  But he left a legacy of fine compositions, of which the piano concerto is arguably the best of them all.

Weber - Symphony No. 1 In C Major

Carl Maria von Weber is more well known for being a composer of operas, but he did indeed write two symphonies.  The first symphony was written in 1806-1807, shortly after the premiere of Beethoven's 3rd Symphony, 'Eroica'. Beethoven set the symphonic world upside down with the Eroica, and his 4th Symphony followed close behind.  The two symphonies of Weber, while interesting and tuneful, were written rather true to form in the classical style. They were overshadowed in the beginning by the developments of Beethoven and were pretty much neglected until their revival in the 20th century.

Weber had just begun a visit to the music-loving Duke of Württemberg-Öls, whose palace was in a forest and boasted a small orchestra that the Duke liked to play the oboe in. Weber wrote both of his symphonies for this small orchestra which consisted of one flute, two oboes,  two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings, with no clarinets.

The first movement is in sonata form, and shows how much Weber already understood the orchestra. His gift for melody shines throughout the movement. But it is with the second movement Andante that shows Weber's flair for the dramatic, even when writing for instruments alone. It is a short movement (as all the movements of the symphony are, the entire symphony takes only about 25 minutes) but it has a darkness of instrumental color that makes it the most unique movement in the symphony. The third movement is a Scherzo with a prominent oboe part. The finale is a high-spirited movement in sonata form that brings the symphony to a rousing finish.

Weber's first symphony is not the best music he ever wrote. Weber himself acknowledged as much in a letter to a friend when he expressed how he could have worked things out better in the symphony. But it is still a very enjoyable piece of music and has flashes of the talent that was to make Weber one of the founders of the Romantic movement in music.

Bruckner - Symphony No. 8

As with most of his other symphonies, Bruckner rewrote the 8th on the advice of Hermann Levi, the conductor that was to premiere the work.   The first version of the symphony was completed in 1888 and sent to Levi and after reading through it and giving his opinion, the conductor told Bruckner that he could not "make the symphony his own".  After giving it some thought, Bruckner agreed and completed his revisions of the work in 1890.

The work was supposed to be premiered in Munich, but by the time the revisions were done Levi was unavailable and the conductor he recommended to take his place kept postponing the premiere, evidently due to lack of rehearsal time to adequately prepare the symphony. Bruckner then changed the premiere city to Vienna and Hans Richer finally conducted the premiere in 1892.

The symphony is in the usual 4 movements and begins with a reminiscence of Beethoven's 9th Symphony with tremolos in the high strings and the first theme stated in the low strings. There are three themes in the first movement, one of Bruckner's innovations to standard sonata form, and the second theme is stated by the full orchestra in the so-called Bruckner rhythm of two quarter notes followed by a quarter triplet. This movement is also notable because it ends quietly, and is the only example of this in any first movement of a Bruckner symphony. Bruckner himself alluded to the quietness of the ending as representing death.

The second movement is the Scherzo, which often times was the third movement in a Bruckner symphony. The opening kind of reminds me of Wagner's style in a way, but the further it goes the more Brucknerian it gets. It is also the longest scherzo of any Bruckner symphony.

The third movement is an expansive Adagio, is pure Bruckner, and has some exquisite writing for horns. the orchestration in general is lush. The orchestra builds to a shattering climax and then slowly winds down with the horns and strings singing together. This movement runs over twenty minutes usually but it is pure Bruckner as the music transcends time.

Bruckner uses recollections of the other themes in the symphony in the finale. I say recollections because he doesn't always give a direct quote of the theme but he uses the rhythm or a piece of the melody. This gives a kind of déjà vu effect to the movement, as the themes seem familiar but not quite recognizable.  Bruckner does give a quote of the scherzo theme near the end of the movement, and it ends in a blaze of Brucknerian glory.

Franck - Organ Chorale No. 3 in A Minor

In the summer of 1890, Cesar Franck was riding in a cab when it was struck by a horse-drawn trolley. He suffered a fainting spell and a slight head injury, but he thought it wasn't serious enough to warrant treatment and went on his way. Soon it became difficult for him to walk and he had to give up his teaching at the Conservatoire and went on vacation to try and recuperate.  He went back to the Conservatoire in the fall of 1890 but contracted an upper respiratory ailment that soon changed to pneumonia. He died November 8, 1890.

It was during this vacation that he completed the three Chorales For Organ.  They are considered very important pieces in the organ repertoire, and bear the imprint of Francks later compositional style.

The Chorale No. 3 in A Minor begins as a toccata and has a contrasting second theme before it goes into a new theme played adagio. The finale of the piece hears the toccata return and the weaving in and out of the other themes heard in the piece.

 Very seldom has there been a composer of the importance of Franck that has left such a relatively small output of compositions.  Franck began his career as a virtuoso pianist and composer, but he ceased to compose anything of any import until the last twelve years of his life.  With a handful of compositions, including the Three Chorales For Organ, Franck's place in music history is assured.

Bartók - Concerto For Orchestra

When his native Hungary went to the side of Nazi Germany as an ally, Béla Bartók left the country and came to New York.  He was a fine pianist, and he and his wife made ends meet by giving concerts and working on translating old Hungarian books into English for Columbia University and also got a grant from the University to work on a large collection of Serbian and Croatian folk songs.

There was little interest in Bartók's compositions in the U.S. and he had difficulty composing. When his health turned bad with what was eventually diagnosed as leukemia, he no longer could make his living giving concerts and doing research and had to depend on his friends to support him.  When Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Bartók for a piece for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, his inspiration returned and he composed the Concerto For Orchestra. 

Bartók said that he called it a concerto for orchestra rather than a symphony because he treated the instruments in each section of the orchestra in a virtuosic way. It is cast in 5 movements:

I. Introduzione. Andante non troppo - Allegro vivace -  Bartók was fond of writing what he called 'night music' as this movement begins with. It then goes through various fugal treatments of themes and it is cast in sonata form.
II. Giuoco Delle Coppie. Allegretto scherzando - The so-called 'game of pairs' begins with the side drum tapping out a rhythm and then each section of the orchestra has 2 instruments play in different intervals, bassoons are a minor sixth apart, oboes are in minor thirds, clarinets in minor sevenths, flutes in fifths and muted trumpets in major seconds.
III. Elegia. Andante non troppo - Another example of  Bartók's 'night music', this movement is based on themes first heard in the first movement.
IV. Intermezzo Interrotto. Allegretto - This movement has a melody that is interrupted by Bartók's parody of the march theme from the 7th Symphony 'Leningrad' of Shostakovich. This symphony had been secreted out of Russia on microfilm and a subsequent competition by conductors as to who would conduct the American premiere. The symphony was played over the radio when Bartók heard it.
V. Finale. Presto - This is written in sonata form, and also has some fugal moments along with snippets of folk songs added for good measure.

The Concerto For Orchestra is Bartók's most popular composition but Bartók didn't live long enough to see how popular it became. It is written in a more traditional style than many of his other works. After writing a Sonata For Solo Violin and the Piano Concerto No. 3,  Bartók succumbed to leukemia in 1945.

Liszt - St. Francis of Assisi Preaching To The Birds

Franz Liszt was a complex man.  He was a member of the musical and social avant-garde of his time, thus thought nothing of living with women and having children without being married, yet he was a very religious man of traditional Catholicism. How Liszt managed to account for his behavior within his strict religious views are a marvel. But there was always a priestly side to Liszt. Early in his life he had given serious thought to becoming a priest, only to cast aside the thought in favor of the life of a traveling piano virtuoso with everything that went with it. Liszt began drinking and smoking early in his life. No one really knows when his sexual exploits began, but if that was anything like the rest of his young life it started early too.

All of the travel, cavorting, drinking and such finally caught up with Liszt and he retired from the concert platform in 1847 at the age of 35.  He had by this time left the mother of his three children, Countess Marie d'Agoult for another royal lady Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein,the wife of a Russian Prince.  Both Liszt and the Princess wanted to marry, but the Princess' husband (not to mention the Pope himself) would not grant her a divorce. The two never did marry, and while Liszt remained involved with her until her death,  they no longer lived together after 1863 when Liszt began living in a small apartment near Rome.   When Liszt's son died in 1859 and his youngest daughter died in 1862, it had a profound affect on Liszt. He declared to his friends that he would live a solitary existence from then on. He took minor orders and was occasionally called the Abbé Liszt.  From then on, he divided his time between Rome, Budapest and Wiemar and composed, taught and participated in music festivals.

It was about this same time that Liszt wrote St. Francis of Assisi Preaching To The Birds for piano. The piece was one of a pair of what Liszt called Legends.  This piece hears the piano in imitation of birdsong with chains of trills and tremolos until St. Francis himself begins to preach to them and the birds that are in the trees silence their singing and listen to him and the birds on the ground walk up to the saint and circle him to listen. According to the legend, St. Francis preaches to the birds that they have much to be thankful to God for and that they should sing their praises to Him every day.

The music is one of Liszt's greatest works. Gone is the Liszt of technical fireworks and brilliant passage work. Replacing it is a Liszt that has the technique serve the musical idea with the result being a gentle, spiritual piece of musical story telling.

The pianist playing the piece in the video is Wilhelm Kempff, not the first name a music lover might think of in the music of Liszt. But Kempff plays with the gentleness and poetry this piece needs.