Sarasate - Zigeunerweisen (Gypsy Airs) For Violin And Orchestra

A few years ago I purchased an inexpensive violin with the intent of learning to play it. Not expecting any kind of virtuosity, I thought I could learn enough to perhaps play in an amateur string quartet or something like that. I knew it would take time and be a lot of work, but I've been playing the piano for a long time and figured a different instrument would be a good change of pace.  The sounds that I produced would be accompanied by caterwauling from the stray cats in the neighborhood,  my fingers ached from pushing on the strings, my arm just didn't work very well as I tried to play on one string at a time.  While I'm not a quitter by any means, common sense told me I was not cut out to play the violin. But all was not lost. The violin hangs above my piano, next to a copy of a Renoir painting. It looks very nice there, and except taking it down for an occasional dusting, there it shall stay.

But there was also an added bonus from my attempts to play the fiddle. I can really appreciate how difficult it is to play the instrument after trying (in vain) to coax out more than a squawk from it myself. When I hear a piece like the Sarasate Gypsy Airs played by a virtuoso (and no one other than a virtuoso could come close to doing it justice) I marvel at the agility, reflexes, musical ear, talent and hard work that is required.

Sarasate was one of the top violin virtuosos of his time, and composed his Gypsy Airs in 1878 and premiered the piece the same year.   It is based on the music of the Roma, or Gypsy people. Many composers wrote pieces based on this type of music including Liszt, Brahms and Dvořák.

Zigeunerweisen is in one movement, and consists of two dance melodies preceded by an introduction. There are four tempo changes in the piece:
I.  Moderato - A dramatic, slow introduction begins with the orchestra with the violin entering. The violin restates the opening, with virtuosic flourishes.
II. Lento - The first theme is a sad, highly decorated tune played while the orchestra gently accompanies.
III. Un poco più lento - The muted violin continues to play the same sad melody.
IV. Allegro molto vivace - The tempo suddenly increases dramatically along with the volume with the beginning of the second theme  The violin crackles with energy as Sarasate has the violin play a manic friss, the rapid section of the traditional Csárdás dance.

Hummel - Piano Concerto In A minor

Johann Nepomuk Hummel was born in 1778 and died in 1837 and is acknowledged to be one of the composers of transition from the Classical model of music represented by Mozart to the beginnings of the Romantic movement.  His musical education was achieved by studying with teachers that included Haydn, Clementi,  Mozart and Beethoven. He was one of the great piano virtuosos of his time, as well as a composer and teacher.  Among his students were Mendelssohn, Henselt and other notable composers and pianists.

Hummel's music had a lasting effect on his contemporaries. Chopin had two of Hummel's piano concertos in his repertoire, and used them as models for his own piano concertos.  Schumann was also influenced by Hummel's second piano concerto. It was the first concerto Schumann studied with his teacher Friedrich Wieck (father of the piano virtuoso and future wife of Schumann, Clara). Schumann used the concerto as a model for his own Piano Concerto in A Minor.

There's not a better way to illustrate Hummel's shift in style of composition than to compare his early attempts at concerto writing with his 2nd in A minor. The Piano Concertino in G, written in 1799 (a transcription of an earlier concerto for mandolin), is generally reminiscent of Mozart's concertos in style and content. The 2nd concerto is more dramatic, has a form more like Beethoven with a more complex part for orchestra. The piano writing for the second concerto is strictly for the virtuoso, with brilliant runs, trills and passages in thirds for both hands.  The 2nd Piano concert is in the traditional three movements:


I. Allegro moderato - The orchestral introduction is Beethoven-like in length,  and Hummel shows his mastery of orchestral writing throughout. The piano enters and dazzles with piano writing that shows how great a virtuoso Hummel was, as he premiered this concerto in Vienna shortly after its composition in 1816.

 II. Larghetto - A short movement, the forerunner of the great slow movements to come in the Chopin concertos. The piano plays a sweet, tastefully decorated nocturne-like melody while the orchestra gently accompanies.

 III. Rondo: Allegro moderato -  The piano is the star of the finale, with glittering finger work the increases in complexity as melodies are tossed about between orchestra and piano until the work closes with a rousing flourish.

It is quite ironic that a composer such as Hummel, a harbinger of the Romantic movement that was so influential for so many composers, was for many years subject to gross neglect. At the end of his life he was considered somewhat old-fashioned by the leaders of the "New Music". Such is the fate of some who have led the way, only to be bypassed by the rapid change in taste and convention.  For whatever the reasons,  Hummel's music is now beginning to be heard more often, at least in recordings. It deserves to be heard, if nothing else as a break from the 'warhorses' of the repertoire. The relative handful of concertos that are played most often  most assuredly deserve their place in the repertoire, but music such as Hummel's can give them a needed rest on occasion.

Franz Liszt - Prometheus

Prometheus is an ancient Greek myth that had its first telling as early as the 8th century BC.  In short, the myth of Prometheus tells of him being a Titan that had not only created man from clay, but stole fire from Zeus and gave it to man. As punishment, Prometheus is chained to a rock where every day an eagle comes and eats his liver. His liver grows back every day, and the eagle returns every day to consume it once again.

Liszt's original work was written for the celebration of the 100th birthday of the poet/philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. It consisted of an overture and  eight choruses with orchestral accompaniment and used Herder's Prometheus Unbound, a work in 13 scenes.  This work was written in 1850, a time when Liszt was yet able to orchestrate his works himself. With instructions on instrumentation from Liszt, it was left to Joachim Raff to complete the work, but the score was incomprehensible to many due to Liszt's use of dissonance, plus the choruses were not well integrated in the work. Liszt later orchestrated the work himself in 1855 and turned the overture into a tone poem and the choruses into a work for the concert stage.

Prometheus begins with harsh, dissonant chords from the orchestra that represent the harsh sentence given to Prometheus for his crimes. Sadness is contained within the ensuing music, a lament for the fallen Titan.
This almost key less introduction leads to the passionate first theme which represents Prometheus' struggle and suffering.  The second theme arrives via the cellos and represents hope,  in spite of Prometheus' suffering.  Then a fugue begins that is strictly worked out and possibly represents a struggle against adversity. At the end of the fugue, the lament begins again and the two opening themes are heard again.  After the recapitulation of the two opening themes there is a coda consisting of the fugue tune and the theme of hope that combine into an ending of triumph.

It is well to remember that Liszt's music was heralded as the 'new music' of its time and thus garnered its share of negativity, such as the review of Prometheus from a music periodical of 1860:

Liszt's artistic intentions seem to be disembodied and only infrequently do they condense melodic, rhythmic, and self-contained creations. Their main strength predominantly lies in orchestral color,  while the melodic line is barely indicated, indeed, must often be guessed at.  The manifold, rhapsodic nature of the form, the rhythmic freedom the composer has brought forth in many parts of this work,  and the hasty modulatory change make understanding all the more difficult. 

Many of Liszt's tone poems still meet with rather limited popularity. Some of them are quite experimental in nature considering the time they were written in, and Liszt can on occasion be rightfully accused with over-writing a composition.  But he also stretched the limits of sonata form as with tone poems like Prometheus and wrote other compositions that may have seemed rhapsodic to detractors years ago, but are actually well-thought out and well structured compositions.  

Cab Calloway - Minnie The Moocher

Cab Calloway was an American original,  a versatile musician, singer and entertainer that saw his greatest popularity in the 1930's and 1940's.  He was born in Rochester, New York in 1907  and lived to be 86 years old. He continued to perform  up to the time of his death.  He was one of the main attractions at The Cotton Club, the premiere jazz club of the 1930's, and went on to perform in movies as well as having his voice used in cartoons done by Max Fleisher, an animator that had developed a way to capture the dance moves of Calloway and animate them on the screen.

Minnie The Moocher is a jazz song first recorded by Calloway in 1931. It was adapted from other jazz songs of the time, and sold over a million copies. The song is a call and response type common in jazz at the time. After each verse, Calloway would skat sing a 'call', and the audience (or band members) would respond by repeating it. Skat singing is s style of vocalization where the voice becomes more like a solo musical instrument as emphasis is put on the sound and tone of the voice rather than the words being sung. The 'words' of skat singing are usually nonsense words, and Calloway would make the call more complicated as the song progressed until the audience couldn't repeat it.

Minnie The Moocher's lyrics are the jive talk of the times, with references to cocaine and opium use as well as Minnie's profession of prostitution:

 Folks, now here's the story 'bout Minnie the Moocher,
 She was a red-hot hootchie-cootcher,
 She was the roughest, toughest frail,
 But Minnie had a heart as big as a whale.

  (call and response)
  Hi-de-hi-de-hi-di-hi!
  Ho-de-ho-de-ho-de-ho!
  He-de-he-de-he-de-he!
  Ho-de-ho-de-ho!

 Now, she messed around with a bloke named Smoky,
 She loved him though he was cokie,
 He took her down to Chinatown,
 He showed her how to kick the gong around.

  (call and response)

 Now, she had a dream about the king of Sweden,
 He gave her things that she was needin',
 He gave her a home built of gold and steel,
A diamond car with a platinum wheel

  (call and response)

 Now, he gave her his townhouse and his racing horses,
 Each meal she ate was a dozen courses;
 She had a million dollars worth of nickels and dimes,
 And she sat around and counted them all a billion times.
 Poor Min, poor Min, poor Min. 

A great example of the moves as well as the voice of Calloway in this video from the 1950's:


An example of Calloway's ability to skat sing:



And finally, a version of Minnie The Moocher done in the 1980's. He's still the got the voice and the moves, even at 81 years of age.:

Bruckner - Ave Maria in F Major (WAB 6)

Bruckner was a composer that formally studied his craft of music until he was forty years old. He had already composed a considerable number of choral pieces by the time he began his studies with Simon Sechter, a noted teacher and composer in 1855. Sechter was a taskmaster as a teacher, and commanded Bruckner to do no composing while he was studying with him. Bruckner took lessons by correspondence and in person in Vienna. Bruckner took his lessons very seriously, so much that Sechter had to warn Bruckner against overwork.

Sechter was a very skilled contrapuntalist and is reported to have written over 5,000 fugues in his life. Sechter gave Bruckner the final polish he needed and began to compose immediately after he graduated from Sechter's class.  The Ave Maria in F Major WAB 6 ( WAB numbers stand for Werkverzeichnis Anton Bruckner -Works Of Anton Bruckner,compiled by Renata Grasberger)  was composed shortly after his studies and was the second setting of the Ave Maria from the Catholic Mass. Bruckner was a very devout Catholic and wrote many works for accompanied and unaccompanied choir.  This Ave Maria is acapella, in seven parts, with a single soprano part while the alto, tenor and bass all have two parts.

In the first part of the work Bruckner contrasts the three-part women's choir with the four-part men's choir. In the second part of the work all seven parts join together in a proclamation of faith and the asking for mercy.

Bruckner was an Austrian that was a life-long bachelor that fell in love with young women even into his old age.  He liked drinking beer and playing the organ. He became a teacher in his own right at the Vienna Conservatory as he took up his old teacher's position as music professor upon Sechter's death in 1868.  He was a complex, intelligent, socially awkward man who never gave up his peasant ways.  He worked very hard all of his life and created some of the most inspired moments in western music, and all the while kept his child-like devotion and faith to his beloved Catholic church.

Sibelius - Finlandia

The history of Finland has seen the country dominated by Sweden early on and Russia in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries.  With the coming of the nationalist movement in the early 20th century,  Russia used every means to halt the progress of freedom for the Finnish people. Censorship of the theater and concerts was heavy, and it was in this atmosphere that Sibelius wrote his tone poem Finlandia.

It was originally written as part of a set of pieces that accompanied a visual presentation of Finnish history.  The original version was written in 1899 and Sibelius revised it into its final form in 1900. The piece served as a rallying cry for the Finnish people, much as La Marseillaise was for the French. To prevent the Russian censors from prohibiting the performance of Finlandia, the piece would be renamed before the programs for the concert were printed.

The music opens with heavy brass chords, and music that depicts the human struggle for freedom of the Finns.  The great hymn tune that follows the bombast has all the makings of a folk tune, but in fact there are no folk tunes in Finlandia. All of the music is original with Sibelius. The hymn tune was arranged by Sibelius as a separate piece to be sung as a hymn, and is in many Christian churches hymnals as the hymn titled 'Be Still My Soul'.

Evidently Sibelius came to detest Finlandia as it became his most popular composition at the expense of other more substantial works. But it has everything in it to appeal to a broad audience; brilliant and colorful orchestration, a grand tune that can be sung, and a message of hope and freedom that is universal.

Chausson - Concerto For Piano, Violin and String Quartet

What identifies the genre of a classical music piece is not always dependent on the number of performers. For example, concertos for solo piano exist that were written by Bach and Alkan, compositions that were called 'concertos' on account of their style of composition, a style that attempts to portray an accompaniment and a more florid solo part all with the same instrument, sometimes at the same time.

So while the number of instruments for the Concerto For Piano, Violin and String Quartet is six, Chausson didn't call it a sextet, but a concerto. And rightly so, for the piano and solo violin parts are written in a different style than the string quartet.  Their parts are more solo in nature while the quartet is more accompaniment in nature. A small thing perhaps, and perhaps splitting hairs, but Chausson was nothing if not a meticulous composer. He felt the distinction was important enough to name his piece the way he did, and it does give the listener a heads up to the originality and quality of the music about to be heard.

Ernest Chausson was born into a comfortable middle class family in France and studied music with the French  opera composer Jules Massenet. He was influenced by Massenet in his early compositions and by Cesar Franck in his later ones. He was not a prolific composer, leaving only 39 opus numbered compositions. Writing was long and painful for him, but the quality  of his compositions was always high.  He  was killed instantly at the age of 44 in 1899 after he struck a brick wall while riding his bicycle.

The concerto is in 4 movements:
I. Décidé  - The tempo designation of the first movement can be translated from the French as decide, make a choice.  The movement begins with a three note motive stated by the piano alone,  D,A,E. This small germ of an idea is the core of the entire composition.  Motives are built from these three tones in differing textures in the first movement. The movement grows like an exotic plant around the roots of the three tones.
II. Sicilienne - Based on the first movement's theme, this is Chausson's variation on an Italian dance form.
III. Grave -  A solemn and serious movement.
IV.Très animé  - A very lively and animated movement that is in stark contrast to the preceding one.

Chausson was an original. He managed to live long enough to give the world a handful of masterpieces. He is a composer that will probably never be mainstream or performed as much as other composers that lived longer and composed more pieces, but what we do have are gems to be treasured and enjoyed.