The music of Antonio Salieri began to fade in popularity many years before his death. He was an influential composer in 18th century opera. There were no new operas by him after 1804, but he was a sought-after teacher in his later years and taught composers such as Beethoven, Schubert and Liszt.
Salieri's name once again became known from the dramatization of Mozart's life in the play and movie Amadeus. The popularity of the play did nothing for Salieri's reputation, which was harmed by the whispered gossip that he caused Mozart's death. That is not true, history has shown that he had nothing to do with it, but the gossip did make for high drama. But the play did create a certain amount of curiosity about Salieri's music, and it is much more available in performance and recordings because of it.
The opera Les Danaïdes is a French language opera (Salieri wrote operas in three different languages) that was originally supposed to be written by Gluck, one of the innovators of classical era operas, but he suffered a stroke and was unable to compose the opera so he gave it to his young friend Salieri. The opera is based on a Greek tragedy based on the mythological characters Danaus and Hypermnestra. The Danaïdes (some fifty in number) are the daughters of Danaus. The opera is in five acts, with the usual plot twists and turns of love and betrayal. The end of the opera sees all of the Danaïdes sent to hell, where they see their father chained to a rock with a vulture eating his entrails. Whatever transpired during the play for all of this to happen must have been pretty crazy, but that's the world of opera.
The opera premiered in 1784 to great success, and was still being performed in the 1820's in France. This was the opera that influenced Berlioz to turn away from the study of medicine to the study of music. <
br />
Hans von Bülow, the great pianist/conductor of the 19th century was the originator of the phrase the Three B's of music, Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Each of the three were highly gifted composers who composed in the music forms of their times. Each can be considered to be the culmination of their eras of their musical eras; Bach of the Baroque, Beethoven of the Classical and Brahms of the Romantic. Such is the way humans try to categorize and make sense out of things, and it makes sense, as far as it goes. But looking upon any of the three as a representative of their respective eras can overlook the very traits of their music that helped create the styles of music that came after them.
One of J.S. Bach's contributions to the 'new style' are the six Violin and Harpsichord Sonatas. To be sure, there were sonatas composed for solo instrument and keyboard before these pieces, but these sonatas specify the keyboard instrument 'harpsichord' instead of the usual 'basso continuo' or figured bass designation of the Baroque era. A sonata for violin and basso continuo would be written in two staves, one in the treble clef for violin and the other in the bass clef. The bass clef would be played by a keyboard instrument that could fill in the harmonies according to a kind of musical shorthand consisting of numbers and symbols over the note heads. The actual single notes of the figured bass could also be played by a bass instrument such as a cello or other bass instrument.
Sonata for solo instrument and figured bass (or basso continuo)
This gave a certain amount of freedom to the keyboard player to fill in the harmonies, not only according to guidelines and harmonic rules but also according to their individual skill and taste. Bach's sonatas for violin and harpsichord do away with the figured bass. The keyboard part is written out in full.
J.S. Bach Sonata for violin and harpsichord
Many times these three completely written out parts form a type of trio sonata played by two instrumentalists, and with Bach's contrapuntal skill there are sections where there are more than three independent parts.
Bach's Sonata For Violin And Harpsichord No. 3 in E Major is in 4 movements and is in the 4 movement form of the sonata de chiesaof the time:
I. Adagio - A slow, contemplative, lightly ornamented melody is gently accompanied by the harpsichord. II. Allegro -A bright, cheerful melody is first uttered by the harpsichord and is taken up by the violin. The two instruments have a happy, short conversation punctuated by the bass in the harpsichord. III. Adagio ma non tanto -This is a short passacaglia with the violin and right hand of the harpsichord weaving in and out over the repeated four-measure bass. IV. Allegro -This movement has the first theme being in running sixteenth notes, the type of tune that seems to accompany itself as notes are heard at the top of the melody while the other repeated notes are lower in pitch. The second theme is in triplets and shortly gives way to the initial theme. The music runs itself out in a short span of time and the sonata ends.
Charles Valentine Alkan's music reflects his remarkable virtuosity on the piano. His mastery of the piano was equal to one of the greatest pianists that ever lived, Franz Liszt. And while there is very little (if any) of Liszt's piano music that can be called 'easy', it applies even more dramatically to Alkan's. The Alkan specialist Ronald Smith called the '12 Etudes In The Minor Keys Opus 39' Alkan's Frankenstein Monster because it grew into a set of monstrously difficult pieces both technically and musically.
But amid the difficulty lies a depth of musical feeling and expression that is Romantic to its core. They are true etudes in the Chopin sense in that they are expressions of a very talented, musical mind. The complexities are part of the effect of the music, not an end in themselves. That not every musician can 'bring off' Alkan's compositions is no doubt true. No musician can do justice to all composers. But the pianist that has a virtuoso's technique that is used for the sake of music expression, can reveal to the listener a composer of great power, tenderness and originality.
The 'Overture' of Opus 39 is the eleventh etude. Like etudes 4-7 (the 'Symphony For Piano Solo') and etudes 8-10 (The 'Concerto For Piano Solo') number eleven is orchestral in feeling and writing. It begins with rapid minor chords in both hands with the bass punctuating the tonality in octaves. There is a slight slackening of the intensity, and the rapid chords come forth once again. The music winds down to winds down to a pensive calmness. Once more the rumbling octaves in the bass quietly remind the listener of the beginning, then a section of very tender melody in the major comes to the fore and is expanded and varied. The next section is impassioned music that vaguely reminds my ear of the opening in feeling. It segues into a rippling statement of octaves in the right hand. This sections ends with chords and octaves up and down the keyboard until the music turns more quiet and ominous, then builds back to the octaves and chords. It alternates between the two until it reaches the last statement of the quiet and ominous. This leads to the coda, a brilliant theme in the major that rounds off the work.
Jack Gibbons
The pianist that wishes to tackle this piece is met with difficulties galore. Rapid octaves, leaps, chords that are a handful of notes, a dynamic range from a roar to a whisper and back again. Any pianist that can play this piece with musical expression is more than a virtuoso pianist, they are also a master musician. The pianist in the accompanying video is Jack Gibbons, and English pianist of the highest order. He began playing Alkan early in his career, and was the first pianist to record the entire Opus 39 set digitally in 1995. He was also the first pianist to perform all twelve of the etudes in the set in a live concert, a practically superhuman feat. Gibbons also plays other composers, notably Chopin and Gershwin , and is a composer in his own right.
Gibbons was involved in a near fatal auto accident in 2001 with a subsequent long recovery. There was some question whether he would be able to play the piano again, but he returned to piano playing and gave the first performance in Carnegie Hall of Alkan's Symphony For Piano Solo in 2007. He continues to give recitals and appears as soloist with orchestras, along with composing. He is one of my favorite pianists, and his recovery from his accident is an inspirational story.
Aaron Copland spent a few years studying in Paris in the early 1920's with renown teacher Nadia Boulanger, a female teacher of higher music instruction. Not only was it rare for a female to be a teacher of advanced music, but Copland found that she had an encyclopedic knowledge of music from Bach to Stravinsky. She was also a fine composer in her own right and one of the very few (if not the first) females to conduct major orchestras. Copland thrived under her tutelage, and extended his studies with her to three years instead of the one year he originally planned.
Nosferatu
Grohg, Ballet In One Act is a product of his early compositions in Paris and the first work that he orchestrated. Boulanger suggested Copland write a ballet because of the popularity of Stravinsky's ballets commissioned by Sergei Diaghilev for his Ballet Russe. Copland took as his inspiration the German silent movie Nosferatu, a vampire film based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Copland asked the writer-director Harold Clurman to write a scenario for the ballet. Clurman's scenario deals with a sorcerer that brings corpses to life to dance for his pleasure.
Copland went on to temper his early dissonant writing in his later popular ballets Billy The Kid, Rodeo, and Appalachian Spring, but Grohg has dissonance and elements of American jazz, keeping with Copland's earlier style. As Copland was not commissioned to write the work, the only performance it got was a four-handed piano version privately played by Copland and Boulanger. The score was revised in 1932, but remained unperformed until the 1932 revision was found in the Library of Congress. The work was first performed in 1992.
The work is played without pause but is divided into six sections:
1) Introduction, Cortège and Entrance of Grohg - A slow introduction, followed by the bearers of coffins. Copland brings the dance of the coffin bearers to a climax as Grohg the Sorcerer enters and the dancers pay homage to the sorcerer.
2) Dance Of The Adolescent -Grohg revives the corpse of an adolescent who becomes terrified by Grohg. The adolescent is struck down by the sorcerer.
3) Dance Of The Opium Eater -Grohg next revives the corpse of an opium addict. The addict dances to a jazzy tune, and Grohg has pity on the addict and removes the magic that brought him back to life.
4) Dance Of The Streetwalker -The corpse of a streetwalker is revived and she does a dance that impassions Grohg. He tries to embrace her, there is a struggle. 5) Grohg Imagines The Corpses Are Mocking Him -Grohg begins to hallucinate and imagines the corpses are mocking him. He joins in the dance of the corpses. Chaos ensues, and Grohg hoists the Streetwalker over his head and throws her into the crowd.
6) Illumination And Disappearance of Grohg -The stage turns dark save for a light focused on Grohg's head, and he slowly disappears to music that echos back to the beginning.
Paganini began making his reputation as early as 1813 before he toured Europe. His reputation was made in tours of his native country of Italy. His First Violin Concerto was the only one of his own that he performed until he made serious plans to tour Europe in the 1820's. He rapidly composed two more violin concertos for his planned tour, Number Two in B minor and Number Three in E Major.
Paganini began his European tour in Vienna in 1828 and performed these three concertos to great acclaim. Paganini would distribute the orchestral parts of the concertos only at the last minute and always played his solo part from memory. In those days before copyright, music was constantly being 'pirated' by music publishers with the composer getting nothing in return for their work. Paganini amassed a large fortune from his concert tours, not least of all because he was so secretive with his music.
All three of these concertos follow the same general plan of three movements, as do contemporary works of the genre. These concertos are Italianate in style, like the music of Paganini's countrymen Rossini and Donizetti. The middle slow movements of the concertos are like short operatic scenes for violin and orchestra, while the first and last movements are more involved. As Paganini was the violin virtuoso of his age, the solo violin parts ask for a brilliant technique that covers all aspects of violin playing. They are still demanding works to play nearly 200 years after their composition, so it's no wonder that Paganini caused such a furor with his playing of them. The music world had never seen or heard the likes of Paganini before.
Violin Concerto No. Three begins with an introduction for orchestra, as do the first two concertos. The orchestra then proceeds with the exposition of the first movement. Paganini's orchestration is colorful, straightforward and competent, but with a difference in timbre perhaps caused by Paganini using the guitar as his preferred instrument for composing. Berlioz also played the guitar, and his orchestrations have a slightly different sound also. The violin enters and immediately takes center stage as the orchestra takes its role as accompaniment. The solo violin expands on the themes earlier stated by the orchestra until a place for a cadenza is reached, after which the orchestra brings the movement to a close.
The 2nd movement is a sweet aria for violin and pizzicato strings with the woodwinds adding pastel colors.
The 3rd movement is a Rondo in the tempo of a polonaise, a Polish dance. The violin dialogues with the orchestra in different episodes between repeats of the main theme. Paganini uses left-hand pizzicati, flying bow work, double stops, harmonics, the whole gamut of pyrotechnics for the violin until the work comes to a close.
Mahler was most well-known in his lifetime as a conductor of opera and orchestral works. He did most of his compositional work on his summer holidays from his conducting duties. All of his symphonies show an intimate knowledge of the orchestra gained by his experience as a conductor.
Mahler's 2nd Symphony was his most popular work in his lifetime, and was a favorite of Mahler himself. It remains his most popular work to this day. It is written for a huge orchestra (parts of which play offstage) with a large percussion section, two soloists, a mixed choir and organ. It premiered in 1895 in Berlin and was conducted by the composer. It is in five movements: 1st Movement - Allegro maestoso
The first movement of Mahler's 2nd Symphony was originally intended as a symphonic poem written in 1888 entitled Totenfeier (Funeral Rites) and reflects Mahler's life-long struggle with the meaning of life and the mysteries of death. When Mahler played the piano score of the work to Hans von Bülow his mentor, he labeled it as incomprehensible. Mahler set the work aside until 1893 when he completed the middle movements on his summer vacation from his conducting duties, but the finale continued to give him problems until the death of von Bülow in 1894. When Mahler attended the funeral of von Bülow he was inspired by a choral work sung at the services and finished the symphony shortly after.
Hans von Bülow
While the funeral march in the third movement of his first symphony is a sardonic parody of the tune Frère Jacques (also known as Brüder Martin in German and Are You Sleeping? in English), the funeral music in the first movement of the 2nd Symphony very different. It is brutal in places, tender and longing in others, and has a different feeling to it all together.
The movement is in a modified sonata form and some of the material used in the development section of the movement is used later in the symphony. Mahler's instructions called for a five-minute pause between the first and second movements, but this is seldom done in current performances.
2nd movement - Andante moderato
A German Ländler, a dance popular in Southern Germany and Austria. A much-needed respite from the seriousness of the first movement, but it isn't exactly brimming with sunshine and Tyrolean joy.
3rd Movement - In ruhig fließender Bewegung (With Quietly Flowing movement)
A scherzo in all but name, this movement is an adaption of one of Mahler's songs, St. Anthony Preaches To The Fishes set to the folk poem collection Das Knaben WunderhornNear the end of the movment there is a climax for orchestra that Mahler called a death shriek. 4th Movement - Urlicht (Primeval Light)
Another movement originally written to a Das Knaben Wunderhorn poem, scored for Alto voice and orchestra. There are no less than 15 time signature changes in the short movement, which to my ears lends a restlessness to the music that serves as an introduction to the huge final movement. The poem as translated from The Knaben Wunderhorn:
Primeval Light
O red rose!
Man lies in greatest need!
Man lies in greatest pain!
How I would rather be in heaven.
There came I upon a broad path
when came a little angel and wanted to turn me away.
Ah no! I would not let myself be turned away!
I am from God and shall return to God!
The loving God will grant me a little light,
Which will light me into that eternal blissful life!
5th Movement - Im Tempo des Scherzos (In the tempo of the scherzo)
A sprawling movement that last roughly thirty minutes and is in two sections, the first section for orchestra alone, the second for chorus, soloists and orchestra.. The first section begins with a restating of the 'death shriek' heard at the climax of the third movement. A procession of time changes, key changes and mood swings, plus music played by horns and percussion that are off stage, leads to what amounts to the development section of this first part, which is in a very free type of sonata form. This development section begins with two tremendous percussion crescendos that lead to what Mahler called 'The March Of The Dead'. The orchestra is answered by the offstage brass, themes bound in and out of the frantic march until the choral section of the movement begins quietly.
Tee rest of the movement is guided by the text sung by soloists (alto and soprano) and chorus. The music grows in intensity and volume, with bells and organ joining the chorus and orchestra full strength for the final 'resurrection' of the dead that have gone before. Ecstatic and almost overwhelmed, the orchestra ends in a glory of sound and emotion. Mahler himself said of the ending "The increasing tension, working up to the final climax, is so tremendous that I don’t know myself, now that it is over, how I ever came to write it."
The text for the final section by Friedrich Klopstock the German poet, and Mahler himself.
CHORUS AND SOPRANO
Rise again, yea,
thou wilt rise again,
My dust, after a short rest!
Immortal life! Immortal life
He who called thee will grant thee.
To bloom again thou art sown!
The Lord of the Harvest goes
And gathers in, like sheaves,
Us who died. -Friedrich Klopstock
ALTO
Oh believe, my heart, oh believe:
Nothing is lost with thee!
Thine is what thou hast desired,
What thou hast loved for,
what thou hast fought for!
SOPRANO
Oh believe, thou were not born in vain!
Hast not lived in vain, suffered in vain!
CHORUS
What has come into being must perish,
What perished must rise again.
CHORUS AND ALTO
Cease from trembling!
Prepare thyself to live!
SOPRANO AND ALTO
Oh Pain, thou piercer of all things,
From thee have I been wrested!
Oh Death, thou master of all things,
Now art thou mastered!
With wings which I have won,
In love's fierce striving,
I shall soar upwards
To the light to which no eye has soared.
CHORUS
With wings, which I have won,
I shall soar upwards
I shall die, to live!
CHORUS, SOPRANO AND ALTO
Rise again, yea,
thou wilt rise again,
My heart, in the twinkling of an eye!
What thou hast fought for
Shall lead thee to God! -Gustav Mahler
When Mahler was asked about the negativity generated by his music, he calmly replied "My time will come." Mahler was a bellwether that helped usher in the modern world, for better or worse. Among the deterrents to his music was anti-semitism of the 20th century and the fact that Mahler's music is not 'easy' to perform (or even listen to on occasion). But as with all great music, there is something in it that speaks to many, regardless of their musical education or expertise. He is a composer that was as much a philosopher as anything else. His 'words' are musical notes, his 'books' are his symphonies. His time has indeed come, and shows no sign of slacking off.
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.
