Arensky - Piano Concerto In F Minor

Anton Arensky wrote his piano concerto when he was a 20 year old student in his final year at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1881.  He was taught composition by Rimsky-Korsakov and upon graduating he took a position as professor of harmony and counterpoint at the Moscow Conservatory where he taught Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. He returned to St. Petersburg after a few years as director of the Imperial Chapel. He retired from there after six years.

His composing became sporadic in his last few years as he suffered from tuberculosis that was aggravated by his addiction to alcohol and gambling. His old teach Rimsky-Korsakov said this about his student:

In his youth Arensky did not escape some influence from me; later the influence came from Tchaikovsky. He will quickly be forgotten.

Arensky's music is not altogether forgotten, but the piano concerto comes close as it is seldom performed. It is in three movements:

I. Allegro maestoso -  The orchestra begins the movement with a loud statement followed immediately by the soloist. After the preliminaries the piano states the first theme, a not overly complicated theme but one suitable for the different guises it wears.  There are other short snatches of material that lead up to the lyrical second main theme played by the piano. The tone of the second theme changes from lyrical to strong and forthright, and after a short exchange between piano and orchestra the development section begins. The second theme appears at the end of the development and leads to a short cadenza. Both themes are repeated in the recapitulation, and a short coda ends the movement.

II. Andante con moto -  An introduction leads to the poetic main theme played by the piano.  A middle section is more dramatic and passionate, and after flourishes by the piano the poetic theme returns. The movement ends gently.

III. Scherzo - Finale: Allegro -  Arensky had a liking for odd time signatures, and he uses 5/4 time in this movement. There are two main themes in this sonata form movement, but Arensky doesn't develop them to any great extent. They show up near the end of the movement and the concerto ends with a simple cadence.

While he is more well known forhis chamber music, especially the Piano Trio No. 1, Arensky's piano concerto is an engaging work that mirrors the composers that inspired it, mainly Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky and a smidgen of Grieg. It doesn't plumb the depths of emotion but it is well written, especially for a 20 year old student.

Vivaldi - Oboe Concerto In A Minor RV 461

Despite being one of the few Baroque composers that had an international reputation during his lifetime, Antonio Vivaldi's music was hardly known by anyone outside of musicologists and scholars until the 20th century.  Vivaldi had received commissions for music from European royalty and had twelve volumes of works published. These published works, such as the opus 3 set of violin concertos titled L'Estro Armonico published in 1711 helped establish his international career and influenced composers such as J.S. Bach.  Vivaldi ceased publishing his works strictly for monetary reasons. He made more money from handwritten copies than the printed ones.

Towards the end of his life his instrumental music had gone out of style in his native Venice. He concentrated on opera and traveled to Vienna in hopes of staging them, but the patron he counted on for a living until his operas could be performed died. Vivaldi was destitute when he died in Vienna at the age of 63 in 1741, and his music was promptly forgotten.

Vivaldi was almost unknown from his death in 1741 until 1926 when a boarding school run by Salesian Fathers in Piedmont, Italy discovered a large collection of music manuscripts in their archives. It was decided to sell the manuscripts to aid the school, and they called upon the National Library in Turin to determine their worth. A scholar at the University Of Turin asked for the manuscripts to be sent to him for inspection, the scholar determined that they were manuscripts of Vivaldi's music.

It took many years of work and extended research to catalog the manuscripts as well as track down some of the missing pages, with the work being delayed by the Second World War. But at the end of the war Vivaldi's music was being printed in a new edition that was distributed throughout the music loving world, and the Vivaldi revival had begun and research is still going on to identify and discover more of his music.

While many of Vivaldi's over 500 concertos were for violin, he also wrote for many different instruments and instrument combinations. His concertos for wind instruments are notable, and he wrote more than twenty for solo oboe. The oboe was a popular instrument in the Baroque era as it was an instrument used in the orchestras of Bach and Handel as well as in concertos.

The date of composition isn't known for the Oboe Concerto RV 461.  It is in three movements:

I. Allegro non molto - Vivaldi begins with the strings playing the initial statement. The oboe plays between statements of the ritornello. This concerto is slightly different in that the ritornello played by the strings is somewhat shorter than usual while the oboes solos are slightly longer.

II. Larghetto - The slow movements of Vivaldi's concertos vary in tempo and length. This slow movement is in a major key, short in length and provides a slight contrast to the two outer movements.

III. Allegro -  The music returns to A minor and the tempo quickens as oboe and strings play off one another.

Wieniawski - Légende For Violin And Orchestra

Henryk Wieniawski was one of the most famous of the 19th century violin virtuosos, and like many virtuosos of the time he composed music for his own use. While he spent some years as a teacher, Wieniawski lived the life of a traveling virtuoso for most of his life, which was not the most conducive style of life for composing as he has only 24 opus numbers to his credit, but some of those pieces are staples of the literature for the violin.

He composed his Légende For Violin And Orchestra in Leipzig before he accepted an invitation from Anton Rubinstein to come to St. Petersburg to perform and teach. The story behind the composition is a romantic one. Wieniawski wanted to marry Isabella Hampton, but her parents did not think marrying a traveling musician would be good for their daughter and made their disapproval known. Isabella's parents heard Wieniawski play the piece in concert and as a result the beauty and heart-felt emotion of the piece changed their minds. Wieniawski and Isabella were married in 1860 with the parent's blessing.

The work is in ternary form with the first section in the key of G minor. Playing andante, two bassoons begin the work in a mood of tense motion, playing in tandem a 6th apart.  The soloist enters and plays a melancholy theme while the orchestra lightly accompanies with fragments of the tense motive first played by the bassoons. The bassoons return and the first section repeats itself until the soloist takes up the tense motion of the bassoons which leads to the second section of the work. This middle section is in two beats to the bar, the key changes to G major and the tempo changes to allegro moderato.  The mood of the music has changed as the orchestra plays in a march-like rhythm while the soloist outlines a new theme in double stops and chords. This new theme continues until it reaches a climax in the orchestra. After a chromatic downward scale for the soloist and short transitional material, the music reverts back to three in a bar, G minor and andante tempo as the first section is repeated.  The soloist once again plays the tense motive of the bassoons which leads to the orchestra playing a soft accompaniment while the soloist plays gentle arpeggios. Everything slows as the soloist reaches a G high in the stratosphere of the violin's range, and the music softly ends.

Draeseke - Piano Concerto In E-flat Major

While Felix Draeseke was a student at the Leipzig Conservatory his ardent admiration of the music of Richard Wagner shook up the conservative establishment of the school. He ended up leaving the conservatory in 1855 and in 1857 wrote essays on the symphonic poems of Franz Liszt. Draeseke defended Liszt's music with fervor and courage, but his was not merely an empty advocacy. He addressed many of the charges against Liszt directly with the knowledge and ability that a modern musicologist would. His essays about Liszt and his music are some of the most definitive ones ever written until the 20th century. Liszt met him, took an interest in his music and expressed his gratitude for the essays. They remained friends until Liszt's death in 1886.

Draeseke's admiration for Wagner evidently was not reciprocated by Wagner, who detested Draeseke's music. Wagner did spend some time with Draeseke (at the request of Liszt) and came to like him as a man while still disliking his music. After Draeseke moved to Dresden in 1876 he slowly lost interest in the New Music of Wagner. Before that he had already disapproved strongly to Wagner the man after Wagner and Liszt's daughter Cosima began living together (she was still married to Hans von Bülow at the time).  Draeseke  gradually became more conservative while in Dresden, so much so that after Liszt heard some of his current compositions remarked that "It seems our lion has turned into a rabbit." His only piano concerto was written in 1885-1886. It was premiered in June of 1886 with Liszt attending. It was the last time the two friends would meet as Liszt died six weeks later.

The concerto has the traditional three movement structure:

I. Allegro moderato -  The main theme of the movement is played straight away by the orchestra. The soloist interrupts the theme with octave runs up the keyboard. The soloist then plays a short cadenza. The theme returns in the orchestra, as well as the soloist's octave runs followed by another short cadenza. This theme accounts for much of the movement's material, as Draeseke uses Liszt's thematic transformation technique.  Orchestra and soloist explore the theme at length until a brilliant coda ends the movement.

II. Adagio -  The piano plays an extended solo that begins with a long theme that resembles a hymn. An interlude follows for muted strings. The piano then begins a set of variations on the hymn theme as the cellos and double basses add a very subtle accompaniment. The second variation is marked scherzando as cellos and basses play pizzicato along with occasional coloring by the woodwinds. The third variation has the orchestra play the theme with interrupting comments by the soloist. There is then a section for soloist and orchestra that is more of an interlude than a variation which leads to an extended interlude for solo piano. This leads to the next variation proper of the theme, again by the piano playing solo. The orchestra enters and continues playing this variation as the piano plays a rippling accompaniment. The piano plays a short lead in to the next variation where Draeseke shows his orchestrating skill and feeling for tonal color as he  divides first and second violins and has them play the theme and light contrapuntal accompaniment while the piano plays pianissimo three note figures high in the piano's register. This variation proceeds with magical effect until the piano plays a short cadenza that leads to the peaceful close of the movement. 

III. Allegro molto vivace -  A loud, powerful outburst from the orchestra and soloist begins the final movement. After the piano plays a short solo, the orchestra joins the piano in the initial statement of the main theme. The second theme that maintains the dance-like atmosphere is heard in the piano and taken up by the orchestra. These two themes also adhere to the thematic transformation technique as they are thoroughly explored in the movement. The feeling of constant movement, sometimes to the point of  massive rushing, is finally resolved in a brilliant ending that is drenched in the home key of E-flat major.

Draeseke's music was popular during his lifetime and at one point he was held as an equal to Brahms as a symphonist.  He composed for the rest of his life. He had ongoing serious ear infections for most of his life and spent the last two years of his life almost totally deaf. He died in 1913 at the age of 77.

Bach - Violin Concerto In E Major BWV 1042

Johann Sebastian Bach spent 6 years as Kapellmeister at the court of Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen, which was a small town in Northern Germany. Despite the small backwater location, Bach's employer was a music lover of the first order who collected first-rate musicians for his band. The prince was mostly interested in secular music so many of Bach's instrumental works may have been written while he was there.

Bach was an eternal student and studied the works of many different composers by copying their works out for his own use. It was a method he had used since he was a child and copied out other composer's music by moonlight from a book of his brothers. Bach got in hot water for the deed as his brother had forbade him access to the book, but Bach's curiosity trumped his brother's orders.Bach had been an admirer of Vivaldi's music before he went to Cöthen, but while he was there he wrote concertos in the Italian model of three movements versus the old concerto grosso form of four movements.

There are only two concertos for violin that can be authenticated, and one concerto for two violins. Scholars believe he wrote more than that, and that most of his harpsichord concertos were arrangements of what were originally written as violin concertos.  There is no positive indication that Bach himself played his violin concertos as soloist, but it is known that he could play the violin, as his son C.P.E. Bach wrote:

As the greatest expert and judge of harmony, he liked best to play the viola, with appropriate loudness and softness. In his youth, and until the approach of old age, he played the violin cleanly and penetratingly, and thus kept the orchestra in better order than he could have done with the harpsichord. He understood to perfection the possibilities of all stringed instruments.

 Violin Concerto In  E Major BWV was composed sometime between 1721-1723 and is in three movements:

I. Allegro - Bach begins the work by drenching the music in E major, as the first measure has each of its

Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen

three beats play the notes of the E major triad.  Bach has the soloist play almost continually, either playing the same notes as the first violins or as soloist. Bach follows the ritornello form of a Vivaldi concerto in general, but Bach has a few surprises for the listener. Many time a concerto movement in ritornello form has the tutti and soloist alternate in playing material, but Bach interlaces the two as he expands the material heard at the beginning. After the material has been worked out in a type of development section, there is a short cadenza for the soloist, after which the entire first section of the movement is repeated, thus making the first movement a hybrid form of  da capo aria and ritornello.

II. Adagio - Written in C-sharp minor, the main theme is first heard in the bass at the beginning and continues throughout the movement save for a few short sections. The theme doesn't leave the bass, but there are fragments of it that appear in the solo part.  The music of the solo violin slowly floats its music over the accompaniment in a most beautiful aria.

III. Allegro assai -  The final movement has Bach write in another hybrid type of form that contains elements of ritornello and rondo form. The theme remains in E major and is repeated by the orchestra between contrasting episodes for the soloist.

Handel - Organ Concerto In D Minor, HWV 304

With modern day technology and state of the art communication capabilities, events that happen anywhere can be flashed across the world for all to know as soon as they happen, often times while the event is still happening.  But the speed at which this can happen is a relatively modern thing. Not that many years ago the communication capabilities we now take for granted did not exist. Within my own lifetime the strides in communication technology have been tremendous.  Looking back to the time of the Baroque era composers, a time period that corresponds roughly the years 1600-1750,  it may appear that it was a primitive time, for without modern means of communication the 'world' for most people was the distance they could walk or ride a horse in a day.

But the arrogance of modern times can prevent us from understanding that there was and has been a great deal of communication between different regions of the world for many centuries. Of course one of the main differences between now and then is the time it took to travel or communicate. A trip across the open sea took months (or longer)  in a wind-driven ship, but exploration (most often fueled by commerce) assured that sooner or later the world would be interconnected. 

In Europe in the middle of the 18th century, the dissemination of music was greatly aided by the advances in music printing made in Italy, and soon the music styles of different countries that had evolved were being discovered by musicians. J.S. Bach knew of the latest trends in French and Italian music, and composers such as Vivaldi were having an impact on the music of other countries.  The German composer Georg Philip Telemann's music was also being widely distributed with the printing of his Tafelmusik or Table Music, a multi-volume set of music pieces in most of the genres of the Baroque era; vocal works, sonatas, suites and overtures. As most of these works were for small ensembles (the Baroque orchestra itself seldom had more than eighteen players), tradition had it that they might be performed as background music while the aristocracy dined and entertained.  As Telemann was also a shrewd businessman, he may have used the traditional title with the thought of improving sales.

Georg Telemann

Telemann engraved and published these works himself. They were issued in separate volumes and those that could afford them subscribed to the ongoing series. They were printed in Hamburg, and Telemann had over 250 subscribers to the collection, with many outside of Germany. No doubt the new installments came to the subscribers at a snail's pace, but they did arrive. One of the non-German subscribers lived in London, England; George Handel.

All of which is by way of introduction to the Organ Concerto In D Minor, HWV 304.  Handel used parts of Telemann's Tafelmusik to create this organ concerto. Handel was notorious for cribbing previously written music (sometimes his own, sometimes others) for his new compositions. Music was a fleeting commodity at the time. The public was hungry for new music; music was only good for a single performance in some cases, and Handel was nothing if not a composer for the public. So the dictates of time, and the conventions of the era, led him to borrow and otherwise arrange music for his own use.

Handel's appearance at the organ during intermissions of his operas and oratorios probably sold as many tickets as the operas or oratorios themselves.  He wrote the concerto in 1746 for use with the premiere of his new oratorio Occasional Oratorio (which was put together slap-dash and contained some of Telemann's music, with most of it previously written music by Handel).  Contrary to Handel's usual practice of following the 4-movement concerto grosso form for his organ concertos, this one is in three movements:

Andante - This movement is taken from the opening movement of Telemann's Flute Sonata from Tafelmusik Part One.  The original is in B minor, Handel transcribes his arrangement to D minor.

Organo ad libitum - Fuga -  As the organ concertos were for Handel's own use, there is usually a movement in each that is so marked. In the spirit of the organ concertos, this was the time for Handel to showcase his tremendous organ playing and extemporizing abilities, so stylistically this movement needs to be of a substantial length. Handel would hardly play a few chords to lead up to the next movement. He was more of a showman than that. Handel was inconsistent as to what he wrote out for the organist to play. Sometimes he wrote out a figured bass, sometimes the melody, in some of his personal copies of the concertos he jotted down a few scribbles to help him remember, and sometimes he wrote out nothing. It is up to the player to fill in, and as there was only one Handel, the ad libitum sections in an organ concerto can be something of a problem that is solved by various means. Some players are up to the task to invent what amounts to a cadenza for soloist, while others opt to play other music that Handel wrote.  No single approach is ideal, that is why performances of the organ concertos can vary widely in the approach the organist takes.

Allegro - The final movement is taken from 4th movement of the same flute sonata. It is in 9/8 time, and has the character of a gigue, or jig, a typical form used for the end movement of a suite or other multi-movement work in the Baroque era.

Spohr - Violin Concerto No. 8 In A Minor 'In modo di scena cantante'

Although few of his compositions are played today, Louis Spohr was a well respected and highly regarded violinist, conductor and composer in the early 19th century.  He wrote nearly 300 works in all musical genres but what reputation he still has is founded on his works for clarinet and orchestra and the violin concertos.

From 1803 to 1844 Spohr wrote 18 concertos for violin, of which only one is played with spring regularity, the Violin Concerto No. 8 In A Minor.  The subtitle of the concerto is Italian and translates as In the form of an operatic scene. Spohr was a contemporary of Paganini who tried to steer the concerto form away from the glitter and artificial technical display that was overtaking the form early in the century. While Paganini's Violin Concertos were not merely empty display pieces, Paganini did write his share of bravura passages for the soloist in them, thus Spohr made a conscious effort to counter the tendency other violinist composer's had to emulate Paganini. In his later concertos he attempted to create profound and memorable works by other means than empty display.

The 8th Concerto was written for a specific audience in mind, as Spohr was about to embark on a tour of Italy. He made the assumption that since Italy was the land of opera, it would be difficult to keep the attention of the Italian audiences with a more conventional concerto. He wrote the work as if the violin were a singer, and also kept the orchestral accompaniment uncomplicated as he had heard the orchestras in Italy were not as proficient as in France or Germany. The work was premiered at La Scala in Milan, and as Spohr wrote in his autobiography:

Uncertainty about how my playing and my compositions would please the Italians left me somewhat anxious … but with the first measures I noted that the audience was receptive. My anxiety disappeared, and I played without inhibition.

The concerto is in three main sections that are played without a break:

Recitative - Allegro molto - The work begins with a statement by the orchestra which is answered by an operatic-like recitative by the soloist.  The soloist continues to answer statements by the orchestra in this first section until a short transition leads directly to the next section.

Adagio - Recitative: Andante -  The orchestra plays preliminary material that is followed by the soloist's aria that is lightly accompanied. A contrasting section consists of a quickening of the tempo as the soloist plays in the low register of the violin. The aria returns and its closing leads to another recitative for the soloist. The final section follows without a break.

Allegro moderato - A full blooded theme is first presented by the orchestra. A short section of counterpoint leads to other thematic material for the orchestra. The soloist enters with the first theme, after which the second theme that consists of passage work for the soloist is played. The soloist and orchestra explore new thematic material until a recapitulation begins, after which a fragment of the first theme leads to a cadenza for the soloist.  The concerto's loose ends are tied up by the orchestra in a short ending.

Spohr was an important transitional composer who had one foot in the Classical era and the other in the Romantic era. The quite novel and nontraditional form that Spohr used in the 8th violin concerto influenced many later composers. Spohr seems to have been a very happy family man, far removed from the Romantic notion of the suffering artist.  He had a general curiosity about many things and at one time was one of the most popular composers and performers in Europe.

The time in which he lived was a time of upheaval in the arts as well as society. The European Revolutions of 1848 were a direct result of those upheavals, and along with his other interests Spohr was also a liberal believer in democracy and wasn't afraid to voice his disagreement with the repression and brutality that was common in his time.  The fact that he was physically a large man may have helped him be open with his thoughts. In an era when any man six feet tall was considered large, Spohr was six foot six and had large athletic hands that made the violin look small. This no doubt also helped him in his career as a conductor. The sight of him towering over the orchestra when he was on the podium must have been impressive.