Bruckner - Symphony No. 7 In E Major

Anton Bruckner labored long and hard before he got much recognition as a composer, studying compulsively for many years. He composed many choral pieces for the church in the beginning of his career, and finally settled on being a composer of symphonies.   

He struggled to find an audience for his compositions, but the case was different with his organ playing. He was one of the most skilled organists of his time and was a master improviser on the instrument. That Bruckner created no great works for solo organ while being a recognized virtuoso is but one of the paradoxes of the man. But if  his style of composition and orchestration for the orchestra is examined, he uses the orchestra itself like a huge organ,  using combinations and mixtures like an organist uses the ranks of pipes to express what he hears in his head.

He finally received some recognition with his 4th Symphony written in 1874. But the man could get immersed in refinement of a work (or taking too much advice on how to make the work more pleasing to the public) for he revised most of his symphonies numerous times, including the 4th. This has lead to mass confusion of which version by which editor to use in performance.  But even that has not stopped his music from becoming more and more popular and played more often in the concert hall.

Many biographers have commented on Bruckner's 'provincial' personality, his social awkwardness, and how nothing of the man is revealed in his music and nothing of his music is revealed in the man. He was trained to be a school teacher as his ancestors, and he was most of his life. But music eventually took over even this vocation as he became a professor at the Vienna Conservatory of Music.

His music aesthetic probably accounted for his lack of an audience early on. He remained original on the one hand, though out of step with his contemporaries, even the ones that he admired and followed. His hero was Wagner, but Bruckner wrote no operas, didn't even know what the stories of Wagner's operas were, but he knew Wagner's music intimately.  Bruckner and Brahms were caught up in a musical-political fiasco not of their doing, as the sides were drawn for the 'keepers of the purity of musical tradition' on one side and the 'composers of the new music' on the other. The ridiculous notion that hearers needed to pledge their allegiance to one side while condemning the music of the other was kept going by music reviewers and others, some who cared little about art and everything about drama and intrigue.  Bruckner had no head for this type of thing, and the members of the 'new music' group used him to his own detriment.

Through it all, Bruckner went on composing and finally had his largest success with his 7th Symphony written in 1881-1883.  The premiere was in 1884, given by the Gewandhaus Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Nikisch.  The work has been linked to Wagner for two reasons. Bruckner uses Wagner Tubas in movements two and four, and the second movement which has been called a tribute to Wagner.

I. Allegro moderato - The symphony opens with  string tremolos, a mystical start of some other of his symphonies as well. The first theme has a range of two octaves and is first heard in the cellos and horn solo. Oboes and clarinets bring forth the the second theme, and a crescendo leads to the third theme, a theme that seems to walk at its leisure up to another crescendo and slight climax. The third theme continues its walk until the end of the exposition. Interspersed in this exposition of main themes there are other motifs that are played, as well as variants of the themes themselves.  

The development section begins gently in the woodwinds and horns. The three main themes are sometimes restated in inversions of themselves. The brass leads a section that starts loud and gives the impression of leading to a climax, but it doesn't quite get there as the first theme returns and goes through some variants until it reaches a version akin to the opening of the movement, which signals the beginning of the recapitulation.

Themes are repeated, but not verbatim as Bruckner continues to expand on them. To be sure, Bruckner's first movements are in sonata form, but Bruckner's handling of the form is unique. After another crescendo and missed climax, the music begins a massive coda where the music builds in volume in the brass as the strings play tremoloes. And then the movement ends. 

Wagner tuba

II. Adagio: Sehr feierlich und sehr langsam - Bruckner was known for his adagio movements, and this is one of his finest. Bruckner had known of his idol Richard Wagner's serious illness with heart disease, and with the feeling that Wagner would soon die, he was inspired to write this movement. The inclusion of 4 Wagner tubas is one of the ways Bruckner gave tribute to his master. The music ebbs and flows, and makes its way to a climax in the brass. This soon fades back into the flow of the movement in tender music. The opening music of the movement returns and slowly builds in intensity and power until it reaches a bona fide climax punctuated by a cymbal crash. The music grows quiet with traces of the main theme heard. The brass slowly bring the movement to a quietly contemplative ending with the main theme. The addition of the cymbal crash and triangle in the climax of this movement is thought by some musicologists to have not originated with Bruckner, but that the conductor  Nikisch persuaded Bruckner to add them for effect.  

III. Scherzo: Sehr schnell - Trio: Etwas langsamer - The third movement is a scherzo that is typical Bruckner; driving rhythms and a gentle trio section that is in marked contrast to the rest of the movement. The strings begin the movement with a figure that ushers in  a trumpet playing a motif that Bruckner supposedly called "The crowing of the cock."  The trumpet motif is repeated while the orchestra helps to build the scherzo to a climax. The trio is a gentler affair with the trumpet playing a part in it as well. The scherzo is repeated. 

IV. Finale: Bewegt, doch nicht schnell - The finale rounds out the work, again in Bruckner's personal use of sonata form, complete with Bruckner's stylistic habit of stopping a theme without a bridge to the next, a few lesser climaxes before he unleashes the orchestra in a shortened version of the very first theme of the first movement that leads to a grand roaring from the orchestra that suddenly ends, along with the symphony.

Chopin - Piano Concerto No. 1 In E Minor

The natural gifts of any musician need to be formed around a solid technique. The very few who are extremely gifted in composition also need plenty of room to develop their personal voice. Chopin was one of the few that was born with genius, and he also had the good fortune of having as his first professional piano teacher a man that understood his pupil's gift straight away. Wojciech Żywny was a Czech pianist, violinist and teacher that guided Chopin through the basics of music and piano practice but also gave the young boy plenty of opportunity to learn for himself and develop his already unique talents according to his own desires.  The boy soon passed the teacher in skill and knowledge as he absorbed everything rapidly.

Chopin studied at home until he was thirteen and then entered the Warsaw Lyceum, but he continued to study piano under Zywny until 1826. Chopin never forgot his first teacher and was ever grateful for not only what he had taught him, but what he didn't teach him.  In 1826 Chopin began a three year course of study with Józef Elsner, another teacher that recognized Chopin's gifts and allowed him to develop in his own way.  With the guidance and teaching of these two selfless men, Chopin was acknowledged as the best pianist in Warsaw by the time he was 15 and developed into who many musicians think is the greatest piano composer that ever lived.

Under Elsner's tutelage, Chopin composed two piano concertos when he was about 20 years old. The concerto in E minor was actually the second one written but it was the first one published, hence the designation as Concerto No. 1.  Chopin had already made his brilliant debut in Vienna in 1829 only three weeks after graduating from the Warsaw Conservatory when he premiered his Piano Concerto No.2   in Warsaw later that same year, and the premiere of  Piano Concerto No.1 in 1830 in Warsaw during a farewell concert.

The star of both Chopin's concertos is quite naturally the piano.  Despite a long-held tradition that Chopin was not much of a composer for the orchestra, keeping in mind Chopin's spot-lighting the piano, the orchestration is neither too much nor too little. Chopin has the orchestra support the piano where it needs it, gently accompany it when it needs it, and be silent altogether when it doesn't need it.  The concertos, like any work of genius, are best judged within the confines of their own content and technique. Chopin was not trying to be formally perfect or heaven-storming like Beethoven. He was trying to express himself as best he could within his own genius. And in that task he was completely successful.

The first concerto is in three movements:

I. Allegro maestoso - Chopin always used the confines of sonata form in his own unique way. He has been criticized for his lack of skill in using the form, but he more than makes up for it by his sheer imagination and creativity. He uses unexpected modulations in this first movement and while this goes against 'classic' sonata form, it does make for interesting listening.   

II. Romance - Larghetto -  Chopin himself explained this movement in a letter to a friend:

“The Adagio of my new concerto is in E major. It is not meant to create a powerful effect; it is rather a Romance, calm and melancholy, giving the impression of someone looking gently towards a spot that calls to mind a thousand happy memories. It is a kind of reverie in the moonlight on a beautiful spring evening.”

III. Rondo - Vivace - This movement is a tuneful Polish dance set in the traditional rondo form.

Chopin is one of the most original and unique composers that ever lived. That needs to be taken into consideration when listening to the piano concertos. His two piano teachers recognized his genius and did all they could to allow that genius to develop in its own way. The music that Chopin wrote serves as proof that his teachers knew what they were doing.

Mendelssohn - String Symphony No. 10 In B Minor

Felix Mendelssohn's natural musical abilities were recognized early.  He began piano lessons with his mother at age six, and learned so quickly that he had his first public appearance at age nine. Felix began composition and counterpoint lessons with the esteemed teacher Carl Friedrich Zelter in Berlin about 1819. His teacher was an advocate of the J.S. Bach tradition and gave his student a thorough grounding in the works of the older master and other composers of the Baroque and Classical eras.

Mendelssohn's earliest surviving compositions date from 1820, and in 1821 he composed the first six of what was to become a total of twelve symphonies for strings. These were written as composition exercises for his teacher, and the completed the set in 1823 when he was 14 years old. The string symphonies were thought lost for many years but they turned up in a library in Berlin after World War Two. These dozen string symphonies quickly led to Mendelssohn's early masterpieces the String Octet written at age sixteen and the Overture To A Midsummer Night's Dream written a year later.

Carl Zelter

The first six string symphonies are written in 3 movements with the later ones in 4 movements with the exception of No. 10 In B Minor which has one movement, and No. 11 In F Major which has 5 movements. No. 10 In B Minor may have had at least two more movements but they are lost.  The work was written when Mendelssohn was 14 years old. There are three tempo designations in the work:

Adagio -  A slow introduction begins this work with a nod to the music of J.S. Bach in feeling if not in construction. Towards the end the music lightens in mood and pays homage to Haydn and Mozart.

Allegro -  The beginning of the movement proper is a sudden shift in tempo and mood that reflects C.P.E. Bach's empfindsamer Stil with the first theme in early Haydn's Sturm und Drang style. The second theme has a rapid and busy quality that became a trademark of Mendelssohn's style. A third section adds additional material that leads up to the traditional repeat of the exposition. The development section repeats the two themes in various guises with few real surprises but a deftness in handling the material that is amazing for a composer of but 14 years.  The recapitulation begins with the first theme, and after a short section of transition the second theme returns in the home key of B minor.

Piu presto - The music increases in tempo and rushes breathlessly in a short coda that ends the work.

Shostakovich - Piano Trio No. 2 In E Minor Opus 67

Dmitri Shostakovich was refining his technique and losing some of his more radical avant garde style before the official denouncement of 1936, but  the denouncement forced him to try and write works that would curry public and more importantly Stalin's favor.  It was a life or death situation for the composer, and he knew it.

The 5th Symphony was written and titled An artist's creative response to just criticism. The work was a great success officially and with the public and Shostakovich had at least temporarily dodged the literal bullet, even though he put some subtle hints in the work that suggest it wasn't as heartfelt a rehabilitation as it appeared on the surface.  But Shostakovich had learned his lesson well. Stalin and his cronies were not men to be crossed, so Shostakovich wrote music to please Stalin, (all the while inserting subtle nose-thumbing) along with music that he wrote to please himself. He called these "works for the drawer", compositions that he could experiment with out of the public view. Many of these compositions remained in his desk drawer until the death of Stalin.

Shostakovich and Sollertinsky

Shostakovich was one of the great composers of string quartets of the 20th century, as he wrote 15 of them. They stand far and away as the form that he wrote most of his chamber music in.  He wrote the 2nd Piano Trio in 1944 during World War Two when he was 38 years old.  Shostakovich had come to international attention with the writing of his 7th Symphony earlier in the war, and as the 7th Symphony has been called a requiem for the 25 million Russians who perished in the war,  the 2nd Piano Trio can also be thought of as a requiem; this time for his good friend Ivan Sollertinsky, a critic and musicologist that suddenly died of a heart attack.

  The trio is in 4 movements:

I. Andante -  The work begins with the solo cello playing a theme in high, eerie harmonics. The violin enters, and the piano enters as all three instruments participate in a fugue that acts as an introduction to the rest of the movement.  Part of the fugue theme is incorporated into the first theme of the movement proper. Other themes are presented and the tempo varies as Shostakovich develops them all in the spirit of a folk tune, but with an edge. The movement ends quietly.

II. Allegro con brio -  The scherzo has Shostakovich sarcastically thumbing his nose as notes are repeated and tossed back and forth between the three instruments. The music never settles into anything more than a frenzied dance, and soon ends.

III. Largo -  The piano begins the movement with heavy chords. The violin enters with a sad theme as the piano chords continue to plod underneath. The cello enters and sings the lament as the violin plays a counter melody. This music is in the form of a chaconne, a set of variations over a ground bass played by the piano. The music remains slow and mournful throughout the movement, and ends with a quiet whimper from the strings.

IV. Allegretto -  The last movement begins with a Shostakovian dance tune, a theme that has the feeling of Jewish folk music,  first heard in the pizzicati violin, and then in the piano while both strings play pizzicato. The material of the march is developed at length. The theme from the first movement introduction returns, the dance music interrupts at length until the chords from the third movement chaconne appear out of nowhere. The Jewish dance tune briefly returns, slowly played in the strings, and the movement quietly ends in E major with the strings playing pizzicato over a piano chord.

Liszt - Fantasy On Motifs From Beethoven's Ruins Of Athens

Liszt was a tireless champion of Beethoven and his music. He was the first pianist to play the late piano sonatas, he gave a series of concerts where all the proceeds went to the cost to erect the Beethoven commemorative statue in Beethoven's birthplace of Bonn. Liszt did this with many other composers besides Beethoven.  His arrangements of other composers works runs the spectrum of literal transcriptions such as the Beethoven symphonies and Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, to the 'paraphrases'  other composers operas where he would use a tune or a theme from the work as the basis of his original thoughts.  The ruins Of Athens Fantasy on the incidental music that Beethoven wrote for the play of the same name by playwright August von Kotzebue.  Beethoven's work was written in 1811 in Pest, Hungary for the dedication of a new theater there.

Beethoven's original music was comprised of eleven musical numbers interspersed throughout the play.  Liszt uses three of these numbers for his fantasy. Liszt wrote three versions of this fantasy, for piano solo, for two pianos, and for piano and orchestra. It is the version for piano and orchestra that is heard on the video.

Liszt begins the fantasy with an introduction that uses material from a March and Chorus section from the original music. The introduction is for orchestra only, and is brief. The second part begins with the solo piano loudly making an entrance and the theme of the first part is replaced by the whirling dervish music of the original. After the initial statement of this theme, the orchestra joins the piano. The third part is the Turkish March taken from the original. It is slowly introduced by piano and various instruments before it is given full voice. There is a short return of the preceding themes, and the work ends.

Liszt was one of the best sight-readers ever known. He could take a piece of music he had never seen and play it perfectly, in tempo, at sight. He could reduce orchestral scores to the essence of the music and play the most complicated music from sight. It was also said that the only time Liszt could play a piece of music and be faithful to what was printed on the page was the first time. After that, he began to change things in the score to suit him, at least with the new composers of the time. He was forever tinkering with other composer's music as well as his own. This musical tinkering no doubt lead to his many transcriptions, and lead to things like the Ruins Of Athens Fantasy.  But it also must be remembered that piano versions of great works were sometimes what made the work well known. The expense of an orchestra has always been great, no less so in Liszt's time,  and to be able to hear a new orchestral work was a luxury many listeners did not have. Liszt himself made Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique more well known when he would play his piano solo version of it in recital.  As it had been many years since Beethoven's original music had been heard, Liszt no doubt wanted to expose the listener to what he considered some of the best parts of it.  Liszt was a man inspired by other composers music in many ways. The use of another composer's tunes can be a sign of respect, and with Liszt's known regard for Beethoven's music, he no doubt meant it as such.

Mozart - Fantasia In D Minor For Piano

For any piece of music, there is only so much that can be notated on the page. It is of course the same way with language in a stage play. Stage direction can take it only so far, and to merely recite the words without the proper inflection or emotion would make for a pretty boring evening at the theater or concert hall. Of course that's where the skill, art and experience of the interpreter or performer of a piece comes into play. Within the directions given by the author or composer there exists an interpretive leeway that can make or break a performance.

There has been a slow and steady trend in music by composers to be very specific as to their intentions. Whether this is an all together good thing or not depends on the music in question and of course the listener's taste. But the music of history could be very sparse as to performing directions. Even the most basic tempo directions can be very sparse in the music of Bach. And here is one of the mysteries of Mozart's Fantasia in D Minor; It has very little performing directions outside of tempo indications, and the last ten bars are missing. Mozart evidently never got around to writing out the ending of the work or to notate more detailed dynamics or phrasing. Scholars believe that someone else besides Mozart wrote the last few bars of the work. 

The piece has three unbarred cadenzas, numerous fermatas, and changes tempo often. The name Fantasia does mean a certain amount of freedom in performance, and with the lack of direction in the piece it assures a variety of performances will happen. And they have. But to the player that is also a scholar, there are indications as to a proper performance by the time period it was written in, the composer who wrote it, and the traditions of the time.

The circumstances that have made freedom of expression so prevalent for this piece have also added to the degree of difficulty of it. If the performer doesn't have the ability to blend the sections into a whole, the seams can be heard and it becomes a string of loosely connected musical ideas that no matter how attractive some of them may be by themselves, the overall piece will suffer from sectionalization. The notes themselves are not difficult. Bringing them together and making music with them is. But that can be said for many of Mozart's works. But this particular piece is somewhat of an enigma, and remains an interpretive challenge for any pianist who chooses to tackle it.

For a more in depth analysis of the piece, I recommend the essay: W. A. Mozart: Fantasia in D minor for Piano - Paradoxes of Style and Interpretation or Fantasies about the Fantasia;by Sophia Gorlin. The essay can be found at her website.

Mozart

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Beethoven - Symphony No. 1 In C Major Opus 21

Beethoven approached the composition of his first symphony with caution, as the symphonies of Mozart and Haydn were still in the ears of music lovers, and he knew that much would be expected of his first effort in the form.  The earliest documented evidence of when Beethoven began to compose his 1st Symphony dates from 1795.  Beethoven completed its composition and it was first performed in April of 1800 in Vienna. 

Beethoven kept within the traditions of the two older masters, but also included his own style to the mix. The1st Symphony shows Beethoven's already strong penchant for the unusual. With extremes of dynamics, strong accents on and off the beat and harmonic peculiarities, Beethoven kept his contemporary audiences guessing. As the years progressed Beethoven continued to evolve and grow as a composer. In the 1st Symphony Beethoven pays homage to symphonic tradition while at the same time announcing to Vienna, the city of both Mozart and Haydn, that he had arrived.

I. Adagio molto – Allegro con brio –  Beethoven begins his debut symphony in tonal ambiguity. No doubt the experienced listener of his time expected something much different than what Beethoven gives them; an introduction that begins with a chord progression in the wrong key. The twelve-bar introduction leads to the first theme of the movement in the home key of C major. The second theme is in the expected key of G major, but Beethoven also throws in snippets of other themes in the exposition before he sticks with tradition and repeats the exposition. The development deals with the first theme. The recapitulation repeats the exposition with the obligatory key change of the second theme. The coda harks back to the first theme and rounds off the movement with repeated C major chords.

II. Andante cantabile con moto -  Written in F major, the second movement is also in sonata form. The first theme is played by the violins and repeated by the other strings contrapuntally. The second theme is a little lighter in feeling. After the development section deals with two themes, the recapitulation plays the music of the beginning of the movement with a few differences.  A coda develops the first theme slightly, after which the woodwinds have a short dialog with the strings and the movement ends.

III. Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace - Although Beethoven calls this movement a minuet, the material and the tempo show this to be a scherzo. Beethoven uses passages of scales, syncopations and sudden changes in dynamics in this movement that doesn't have much in the way of genuine thematic material. But he makes good use of short motives and accents to convey a sense of rapidity and wit.

IV. Adagio – Allegro molto e vivace - In another surprise, Beethoven begins with a loud G played across the instruments of the orchestra, which is followed by snippets of a scale climbing upward in a slow adagio. This all is by way of an introduction to this finale which is also in sonata form. The scale passages end on a fermata and the first theme of the movement bursts onto the scene. The second theme by contrast is a dancing theme.  The finale emulates many of Haydn's rapid and witty symphony finales but is underlined by Beethoven's style (what some of the time would call excesses) of dynamic, rhythmic and harmonic variety.