Vivaldi - Bassoon Concerto In E Minor RV 484

Antonio Vivaldi was one of the composers of the Baroque era that changed the form of the concerto from the Concerto Grosso to the Solo Concerto. The Concerto Grosso divided the instrumental group into two sections; the concertino, a small group of soloists and the ripieno, the rest of the orchestra. The concertino would take turns playing musical material as soloists and play together as a small group while the ripieno played between episodes of the concertino.

Arcangelo Corelli brought the form of Concerto Grosso to its peak early in the 18th century, and many composers continued to use the form.  While Corelli usually used two violins and cello as the concertino and a string orchestra as the ripieno (as did Handel),  the six Brandenburg Concertos of J.S. Bach saw many different combinations of both concertino and ripieno.

As composers are as much evolutionary as revolutionary, the concerto grosso began to go out of fashion and something new was beginning. The newest form of concerto was the Solo Concerto in which a single solo instrument played musical material to the accompaniment of the orchestra. Antonio Vivaldi was a composer that became famous for his solo concertos (although he continued to write concerto grossi for various combinations).  His music influenced Bach, Handel and other composers to write in the form. Vivaldi wrote over 500 solo concertos, with about half of them for his instrument, the violin. But he wrote for most instruments in the orchestra.  No one knows who the bassoonist was that he wrote his 39 bassoon concertos for, but whoever it was must have been very good for Vivaldi does not spare the soloist difficulties.

The Bassoon Concerto In E Minor RV 484 is one of Vivaldi's most recognizable. It is in the usual three movements:
I. Allegro poco - A serious mood is set immediately by the string orchestra as they begin the movement. The bassoon enters and gives its take on the theme. The orchestra and soloist alternate as was the usual practice of the ritornello form Vivaldi used, and the theme is developed and changed in the dialogue between soloist and orchestra. Vivaldi has the soloist play rapid arpeggios that are similar to what a solo violin would do in a violin concerto.

II. Andante - A serious introduction is given by the strings. When the bassoon enters the mood is softened as the bassoon sings mellow music. The short movement ends with the strings.

III. Allegro - Vivaldi returns to the quick music style of the first movement. The string orchestra part leads the bassoon to some rapid music and difficult figurations.

The bassoon has the reputation of being the clown of the orchestra, or at the very least of being an awkward, slow to speak member of the bass section, but Vivaldi's writing for the instrument shows that it is capable of much more.

Weber - Konzertstück In F Minor For Piano And Orchestra

Carl Maria von Weber's works for the stage are considered to be the first German nationalist operas and as such they influenced composers of the next generation, especially in Germany. His early development of the lietmotif influenced Wagner to use the technique also. His orchestrations were studied by Berlioz and used them for examples in his Treatise On Instrumentation .   Liszt, Mendelssohn and Chopin were influenced by his works for piano and orchestra, and 20th century composer Igor Stravinsky admitted that Weber was a model for his Cappriccio For Piano And Orchestra, written over 100 years after Weber's death.

The Konzertstück In F Minor was especially influential, not only for Weber's use of the orchestra, musical content and form (it is in 4 sections played without break), but for its extra-musical content. Weber had composed two piano concertos and when he had begun writing his third he wrote the following in a letter to music critic Johann Rochlitz:

I have an F minor piano concerto planned. But as concertos in the minor without definite, evocative ideas seldom work with the public, I have instinctively inserted into the whole thing a kind of story whose thread will connect and define its character - moreover, one so detailed and at the same time dramatic that I found myself obliged to give it the following headings: Allegro, Parting. Adagio, Lament. Finale, Profoundest misery, consolation, reunion, jubilation.

 Weber was taken up with work on other compositions and didn't get back to the third concerto, which he had renamed Konzertstück, until 1821. In fact, on the morning of the premiere of his opera Der Freischütz he finished the  Konzertstück. It was premiered a week later to (in Weber's words) "monstrous acclaim", and the work has been a popular concert piece ever since.

Weber himself played the piece for his wife and Julius Benedict, a German composer and conductor. According to Benedict the composer gave a running commentary as he played the piece, which shall be quoted below:

Larghetto affetuoso -  Beginning in F minor, the sad and reflective music has a story Weber described as he played :
A lady sits alone on her balcony, gazing off in the distance. Her knight has gone on a Crusade to the Holy Land. Years have passed, battles have been fought; is he still alive? Will she ever see him again?

Allegro passionato -  In a state of panic (and still in the key of F minor), Weber described her state of mind:
Her excited imagination summons a vision of her noble husband lying wounded and forsaken on the battlefield. Could she not fly to his side and die with him? She falls back, unconscious. Then from the distance comes the sound of a trumpet (represented by a solo bassoon). There in the forest something flashes in the sunlight as it comes nearer and nearer.

Tempo di marcia -  The music has now changed to C major in a wave of celebration:
Knights and squires, with the Crusaders' cross and banners waving, are acclaimed by the crowd. And there her husband is among them! She sinks into his arms (represented by an octave glissando on the keyboard)

Presto giocoso - The solo piano erupts in rapid scales and figures, the music modulates to F major as the soloist plays brilliant passages, including two more grand glissandos as Weber concluded his story:
Happiness without end! The woods and waves sing a song of love, while a thousand voices proclaim its victory.

Weber's  Konzertstück is the quintessential early Romantic work for piano and orchestra. It is no surprise that Liszt played it many times in his career and even wrote his own version of the piano part. Liszt (as well as other composers) used the connected movement form of it for their own works for piano with and without orchestra.

Haydn - Trumpet Concerto In E-flat Major

The trumpet was probably first used as a method to convey signals and directions to armies in battle, with its loudness helping it to be heard over the din of war. The metal trumpet was known at least as early as 1500 BC and examples have been found in many different locations in the world.  The trumpet was also used for religious and civic ceremonies, such as heralding the arrival of important people such as kings.

These ancient metal trumpets were usually in one long straight section. it wasn't until around the 13th century that the tubing was folded back on itself one or more times to make the instrument compact. These natural instruments (as they had no valves) were limited in the notes they could play, as the length of tubing determined the key of the instrument. Different notes within the harmonic series were sounded by the

Natural trumpet

player using lip tension and breath pressure. The range of notes in the lower range of the instrument were further limited to a major chord, thus when the trumpet became part of the symphony orchestra they were restricted to the notes of the home key. Different lengths of tubing were devised that could be exchanged on the instrument to lengthen or shorten the tube so that other keys could be played.

In the upper register of the instrument more notes are available and a scale of the home key can be played. Some players became so skilled in these difficult high notes that they could play melodies of great complexity on the natural trumpet, which led composers of the Baroque era such as Vivaldi and Bach to write highly decorated and florid solo parts for these trumpet virtuosos.

Keyed trumpet

Haydn used the trumpet in the orchestra as most composers did in his time, mainly as a support for the home key and for fanfares. When he was approached by Anton Weidinger, a trumpeter in the Vienna Court Orchestra, for a trumpet concerto, the offer tweaked Haydn's curiosity and he accepted. But Haydn was not commissioned to write a concerto for a natural trumpet, but for a keyed trumpet of Weidinger's design.  This trumpet was capable of playing the notes of the scale throughout its range and made the trumpet a melody instrument which led Weidinger to tour Europe and play his keyed trumpet to much acclaim.

Haydn was a very prolific composer, as his known compositions number about 1,000 with probably many more unknown and lost works, but he wrote only 17 concertos. Haydn was a very competent pianist and violinist, but he didn't begin his career in music as a virtuoso performer. Mozart and Beethoven wrote concertos mostly for their own use before the public, especially Mozart who wrote 26 piano concertos alone.  Haydn's reputation as a musician was based on his composition abilities as well as his handling of his musical duties while he was Kappelmeister to the Esterházy family, which is one reason for the low number of concertos he wrote.  Haydn wrote the work in 1795 or 1796, and the concerto was performed by Weidinger in 1800. It is in 3 movements:

I. Allegro - The concerto begins with the presentation of motives by the orchestra. Haydn doesn't always have markedly different themes in his sonata movements, and this section is dominated by a martial theme that is punctuated by timpani and trumpets. When the solo trumpet enters it repeats the opening motive, and Haydn exploits the expanded compass of Weidinger's keyed trumpet with notes that would not be possible on a natural trumpet. The soloist expands upon the opening motives and enters into a dialogue with the orchestra in the development section, but the soloist remains in the spotlight. The recapitulation repeats the opening motive by the soloist until Haydn gives a fermata rest for the orchestra while the soloist plays a cadenza.  The orchestra returns and brings the movement to a close.

II. Andante -  Again Haydn exploits the keyed trumpet by giving it a gentle melody to play with the orchestra in this short movement.

III. Allegro -  Haydn writes an energetic rondo as the final movement. The soloist plays rapid repeated notes, trills, and other dazzling figurations throughout the rondo. The entire compass of the trumpet from the bottom to the top is used to good effect throughout.

While Weidinger's  trumpet allowed the player to hit notes not possible on the natural trumpet, his  keyed system proved to be very difficult to learn and play. The keyed trumpet was eventually replaced by the valved trumpet in the 19th century, an instrument more versatile than the keyed version.

Liszt - Mephisto Waltz No. 2

Franz Liszt was quite taken with the Faust legend, as were many artists of the Romantic era. He composed a Faust Symphony based on Goethe's version of the legend, but the 4 Mephisto Waltzes were inspired by Nikolaus Lenau, an Austrian poet that also wrote a version of the Faust legend.

Liszt wrote two works for orchestra that were inspired by Lenau, collectively called Episodes From Lenau’s “Faust.” One of these pieces is the famous The Dance in the Village Inn, also known as Mephisto Waltz No. 1.  Liszt also wrote a version of the first waltz for piano four hands and a version for solo piano which has enough changes in it from the other versions that it is considered an independent work.

It took Liszt twenty years to revisit Lenau's version of the legend and he wrote the Mephisto Waltz No. 2 between 1880 and 1881. The original version was for orchestra, and like the first waltz Liszt made versions for piano four hands and solo piano, with the solo version being substantially different from the other ones.

The work was dedicated to the French composer Camille Saint-Saëns, a composer that Liszt knew very well. Liszt had transcribed Saint-Saëns' tone poem Danse Macabre for piano a few years earlier which perhaps had inspired Liszt to write another Mephisto Waltz. Liszt was 70 years old and was in his last productive period as a composer.

Nickolaus Lenau

The beginning of Liszt's waltz uses the interval of the tritone, which since medieval times has been considered a dissonance and was avoided by composers. It grated on the ears of earlier composers so much that it was called diabolus in musica, or the devil in music. Late in the Romantic era, the tritone was used by composers to represent evil and, in Liszt's case, Mephistopheles. Saint-Saëns had used the interval of the tritone in his tone poem also by instructing the concertmaster to tune his violin so that the open strings would play a tritone. Modern music has pretty much removed the stigma from the interval and it no longer has the same strong effect it had on earlier audiences. But it is still a restless interval that if used too much can grow tiresome on the ear.

Liszt loosely follows the program he used in his first waltz as the opening can be thought of as Mephisto tuning his violin. After the introduction, the music turns into an intense dance that is sprinkled with dissonance. The character of this waltz is more aggressive and more violent than the first waltz.  There is new material introduced roughly half way through the piece that is more quiet and reflective, but still there remains an underlying tension. Passion builds until the dance of the beginning returns. The dance grows more hectic until the entire piece collapses into the interval of the tritone as in the beginning. The ending of the piece is written in E-flat major, but builds to an unresolved ending on the interval of the tritone B-F. The piece actually doesn't end so much as stops on bare B natural octaves.

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Stravinsky - Symphony In Three Movements

A composer's creative process while undertaking a new work can take a different course than originally planned. Igor Stravinsky's Symphony In Three Movements is a good example. Shortly after Stravinsky's immigration to the U.S., he received a commission for a new work from the New York Philharmonic in 1942.  Stravinsky used material originally conceived as a sound track for a motion picture, as well as material from an incomplete piano concerto. He rewrote and added new music to create his symphony, which was not completed until 1945. It is the first major work Stravinsky completed after his cane to the U.S.

Stravinsky was also working on a re-scoring of his ballet The Rite Of Spring during this time. While he eventually abandoned the re-scoring, the rhythmic and harmonic style of the new symphony was influenced by the earlier work.  The symphony was premiered in 1946 by the New York Philharmonic conducted by the composer.

I. Overture; Allegro -  Stravinsky referred to this work as his War Symphony and in the book Dialogues And A Diary gave his explanation of the events that gave inspiration for the first movement:

The first movement was likewise inspired by a war film, this time a documentary of scorched-earth tactics in China. The middle part of the movement, the music for clarinet, piano, and strings, which mounts in intensity and volume until the explosion of the three chords was conceived as a series of instrumental conversations to accompany a cinematographic scene showing the Chinese people scratching and digging in their fields.

The first movement begins with loud and strident chords and octaves. As this movement was derived from music that was originally for a piano concerto, the piano plays a prominent part in the movement. Among the booming of timpani, the dynamics of the music gradually subsides and the movement comes to a middle section that has the woodwinds play duets in pairs with the piano and strings. The nervous and edgy music from the beginning returns and rumbles its way to the end of the movement, a mysterious chord quietly played by the orchestra over the chattering of the bass clarinet.

II. Andante; Interlude: L'istesso tempo - The relative quiet of this movement is in contrast to what has preceded, although the harmonies are still somewhat nervous. The harp plays a prominent role in this movement and lends a feeling of tenuous calm to the movement. There is no break between this movement and the last.

III. Con moto -  Harsh, swelling chords erupt into the beginning of the last movement. Stravinsky flits from motive to motive until a fugue is heard that is scored for piano, trombone and harp. Again, Stravinsky describes what inspired the music:

The third movement actually contains the genesis of a war plot, though I recognized it as such only after completing the composition. The beginning of that movement is partly, and in some to me wholly inexplicable way, a musical reaction to the newsreels and documentaries that I had seen of goose-stepping soldiers. The square march-beat, the brass band instrumentation, the grotesque crescendo in the tuba these are all related to those repellent pictures.

In spite of contrasting episodes, such as the canon for bassoons, the march music is predominant until the fugue, which is the stasis and the turning point. The immobility at the beginning of the fugue is comic, I think and so, to me, was the over- turned arrogance of the Germans when their machine failed. The exposition of the fugue and the end of the Symphony are associated in my plot with the rise of the Allies, and perhaps the final, albeit rather too commercial, D-flat sixth chord. 

Stravinsky was a composer that usually had nothing to say about the inspiration for his music, so after he uncharacteristically said so much about the symphony (more than quoted here), it is consistent with his personality that he would add the following disclaimer:

But enough of this. In spite of what I have said, the Symphony is not programmatic. Composers combine notes. That is all. How and in what form the things of this world are impressed upon their music is not for them to say.

Dvořák - Piano Trio No. 3 In F Minor, Op. 65

The year 1882 was full of emotional and professional turmoil for Antonín Dvořák.  He was being pulled in two directions in his career as a composer. He was a passionate ethnic Czech that imbued his music with the spirit of dances and folksong of his native land as a way to show his solidarity with his fellow countryman in their struggle to win independence from the Austrian Empire. But he was also being encouraged by his friend and benefactor Johannes Brahms to move to Vienna and write music more in tune with the Austrian/German tradition.  Brahms also informed him that if Dvořák was willing to write operas to German language librettos he would most assuredly be offered well paid commissions for such work.

Added to that was the death of his adored mother in late December of 1882.  Adding to his stress level was the birth of a son in early 1883 that despite the joy the child brought, also served as a reminder of his desire to provide for his family.  He took a break from composing for a short time after the death of his mother, and began anew in February of 1883 with the Piano Trio No. 3 In F Minor.

Contrary to Dvořák's usual time of two to three weeks for a chamber music composition to be completed, he took nearly two months with the 3rd piano trio. The music of the trio is a mixture of passion, sorrow, frustration with a few instances of brightness.  The work is symphonically dense in places and threatens to split the seams of a work for three instruments.

The 3rd Piano Trio is in 4 movements:
I. Allegro ma non troppo - The first theme begins straight away in the strings. Although it begins quietly, a certain tension is brought to the theme with its F minor tonality and dotted rhythm. The piano joins in after a few measures and the theme is replayed and developed over some 50 bars. After a few bars of transition, a second theme is introduced by the cello in A-flat major. This theme gives an initial impression of being more gentle, but chromatic alterations continue a feeling of unrest. After the second theme plays itself out there is a short episode in the major mode that brings back the dotted rhythm in material of a more confident and defiant nature. This episode leads directly to the development, there is no repeat of the exposition. The development brings the working out of the two main themes in tremendous shifts of mood and tonality. The two main themes are intensified in the recapitulation.  When the second theme returns, its tonality has shifted to F major, but the feeling of unrest continues. The short section of defiance is repeated, also in F major. A few bars of transition brings the first theme back in F minor where it undergoes another short development until the tempo suddenly speeds up. The tension builds until there is a short ritard where the piano is silent as the strings play. A sudden resumption of tempo leads to the final bar in F minor.

II. Allegretto grazioso -  The movement is in C-sharp minor. Dvořák uses music in the style of a Czech dance for the scherzo movement. A rhythmic trick is played by Dvořák as the strings begin the movement playing in triplets, a feeling of three beats in a bar, but when the piano enters it plays in two beats in the bar as the 2/4 time signature designates. To further confuse the listener, accents in the piano part are given on the offbeat. This gives a momentary shock to the ear:

 After a few bars of this cross rhythm, the listener's ear adjusts enough to feel the actual 2 in a bar meter, but the cross rhythm and off beat accents continue to give a restless feel. The tune of the dance goes through harmonic changes that add to the restlessness.  The trio begins in D-flat major, but goes through harmonic changes and rhythmic diversities. The dance returns and is repeated exactly as the first time.

III. Poco adagio - A plaintive theme in A-flat major that successfully bridges the gap between sorrow and love, perhaps in memory of his departed mother. This movement's few rays of light get but little chance to peek through the darkness. It is the emotional center of the trio, and adds to the despondency of work.

IV. Allegro con brio - The music returns to F minor in the final movement that is in a hybrid sonata/rondo form,  Dvořák's main theme, a type of Czech dance called the furiant keeps turning up through the movement. The second theme is a variant of the main theme in the form of a waltz.  The music continues on its way until the first theme of the first movement appears in a short episode, after which the main theme of the last movement goes through one more variation which leads to a ritard and key change to F major as the music speeds up and ends in F major.

Brahms - Symphony No. 3 In F Major

Johannes Brahms is often held up as an example of a composer who wrote absolute music, music that does not represent anything or is not about anything,  music purely for the sake of music. There was an ongoing debate about the idea of absolute music that began in the late 17th century and continues to this day.  In Brahms' time the debate was especially strong, as Wagner and Liszt (leaders of the new music movement) were proponents of program music; with Wagner's operas and Liszt's symphonic poems, while Brahms was used as the figurehead for absolute music by the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick who wrote:

Music has no subject beyond the combinations of notes we hear, for music speaks not only by means of sounds, it speaks nothing but sound.

 Whether a particular piece of music can be considered absolute or programmatic is not so easy to determine.  Is there such a thing as music that is purely absolute, with no reference within it to anything more than sound? When Beethoven referred to the theme that began his 5th Symphony as 'fate knocking at the door', the composer himself put a non-musical meaning to the theme and perhaps the entire symphony. This doesn't make it a work with a program like a Liszt symphonic poem,  but then again it is not a piece of absolute music in the strict sense.  The argument between absolute versus program music is an attempt to pigeon-hole works into one or the other, and at least in the late 19th century, a way to try and make one kind of music superior to the other. In that regard the whole discussion (and historical arguments) about absolute music are moot points.

Brahms was a highly private man and very rarely gave a clue to any outside meanings in his music, but that doesn't mean there weren't any.  Some of his close friends were able to determine what the meaning of certain pieces may have been,  and so it was with his friend Clara Schumann, widow of the composer Robert Schumann. Brahms was a devoted friend to her after her husband died, some think to the point that his friendship went beyond the platonic. Brahms valued her musical opinion very much and would send his new compositions to her. Clara noticed that the notes F-Aflat -F were the top notes of the three chords that open the 3rd Symphony. These three notes are the first letters of Brahms'  motto, in German Frei aber froh which translates to Free but happy.  Brahms had adopted the motto in response to the motto of his friend Joseph Joachim Frei aber einsam which translates to Free but lonely. Brahms used his three note motto in all four movements in different guises.

Symphony No. 3 In F Major is in 4 movements:
I. Allegro con brio - The three note motto begins the movement and is found throughout, sometimes in the treble, sometimes as a bass line. This motto is full of conflict from the start as the A-flat sandwiched between the two F's shifts the music off of F major (A is natural, not flat), to F minor,  where the A is flat. This conflict occurs on and off through the movement. The second theme is in A-flat major, and is of a more gentle nature.  The music works its way through different material to the repeat of the exposition. The development section continues the interplay between major and minor, especially when the gentle second theme is changed to minor mode with increased tension and drama. The recapitulation plays through the themes and in the coda it gradually winds down and the music ends with a gentle repeat of the opening motto.

II. Andante -  Within the theme of this movement in C major is the three note motto. After the initial theme is played through, a second more passionate theme emerges.  The motto keeps appearing throughout the movement, but the gentle nature of the music doesn't allow it any of the drama that the listener already knows it is capable of.  The movement ends with the initial theme played very quietly.

III. Poco allegretto - In C minor, the music is in scherzo form, but is not a scherzo in mood. The melody is a sad, gentle dance. The three note motto is to be found in the accompaniment.  There is a brief middle section in A-flat major that is lighter in mood. The dance begins again and progresses to a short coda. The movement ends quietly with string chords played pizzicato over woodwind accompaniment.

 IV. Allegro -  The last movement renews the passion and drama of the first as the shifting between major and minor mode resumes.  Brahms uses his own style of sonata form to present and develop themes that lead to the coda that contains some of the most beautiful music Brahms ever wrote.  With muted strings in the background, woodwinds and brass gently move the music to a final unwinding as the three note motto is played one last time.