Salieri - Variations On 'La Follia'

Antonio Salieri (1750 - 1825) was an Italian composer most known for his operas. His 50+ operas played a large part in the development of late 18th century opera along with his hundreds of religious works. Although born in Italy near Venice, he was taken to Vienna at a young age after the death of his parents.  He was a very cosmopolitan composer as he wrote operas in three languages.

When he retired from writing and staging opera he remained a large influence on contemporary composers through his teaching.  He taught vocal composition to Beethoven, Liszt, Schubert and others. He also worked with many prominent singers. all but the most wealthiest of students got their lessons for free, Salieri's way of repaying kindnesses shown to him when he was a young student.

Salieri composed very little instrumental music. A few concertos, three symphonies and a handful of other compositions. One of this handful was also one of his last compositions, the Variations on La Follia.  It is for orchestra and is a culmination of everything Salieri had learned about orchestration over the years.  Why he wrote it is not known, as it was written in 1815 long after he retired. Perhaps he just liked the Follia tune,  maybe he was just inspired to do so. In any case, the music remains in the minor mode practically throughout and is rather somber.  The Follia tune is always very recognizable in each of the 24 variations. It is the instrumental coloration of the orchestra and soloists that provides the variety.  This piece remained the most monumental set of variations for orchestra until Brahms wrote his Variations On A Theme By Haydn in 1873.

As for the often repeated rumors that Salieri murdered Mozart (dramatized in the play and movie Amadeus) allow me to quote Chad Hille from his blog entry Antonio Salieri : Truth or Fiction on his blog Classy Classical:

"There is indeed no evidence to support the idea that Salieri killed Mozart. In Salieri’s last years, he suffered a physical and mental breakdown. He was admitted to the Vienna general hospital and the rumor spread that Salieri accused himself of killing Mozart. However, there was no concrete evidence of this. It would have been very unreasonable to think that Salieri killed Mozart. For during the times that the two great composers were both alive they were, for the most part, friends. Of course, there were times when the two did not see eye to eye. This was only natural as Salieri and Mozart came from different musical traditions and wrote in very different styles. On the whole, they got along with one another fine. It was even reported that Salieri came to visit Mozart on his deathbed. It is also reported that Salieri was one of the few who attended Mozart’s funeral. It is now widely accepted that Mozart’s cause of death was rheumatic inflammatory fever."

And that settles that, as far as I'm concerned.

Salieri's Variations on La Follia :

Dvořák - Symphony No. 6

Antonín Dvořák (1841- 1904) wrote nine symphonies, and it was with the 6th Symphony that he started to get international attention. It was written for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Hans Richter, but they did not play the symphony for 2 seasons because of the orchestra's prejudice against Czech composers.

Dvořák had contact with many of the composers of that time. He played viola in the orchestra that played under Wagner as conductor in Prague. He applied for a stipend from the Austrian State and he came to the attention of Johannes Brahms who was on the panel. Brahms and Dvořák became friends and Brahms helped him get his first compositions published.  He was influenced by the trends of the day, but developed his own style as all true geniuses do.

He finished the symphony in 1880 and the premiere was in 1881 by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra.  The symphony has 4 movements:

I. Allegro non tanto - The first movement is in sonata form with the first theme slowly expanding with dance-like rhythms. The cellos and horns begin the second theme, a more expressive tune than the first. The development starts after the exposition repeat and Dvořák explores some of the possibilites of his two themes and brings the end of the section with a climax on a part of the first theme that fades into the recapitulation. The movement ends with a short coda.

II. Adagio - Gentle music in the beginning that grows more turbulent as the main theme is repeated in different instrument configurations. The movement ends gently, as it began.

III. Scherzo - Furiant, Presto - This movement is a Furiant, a Czech dance. Cross rhythms (2 notesd against 3 notes) gives a syncopated feeling to the scherzo. This was the type of nationalistic music that Dvořák had published in his Slavocian Dances for piano, later transcribed for orchestra. The slower, more laid-back trio contrasts the scherzo. At the end of the trio the scherzo is repeated.

IV. Finale - Allegro con spirito -  This movement is also in sonata form. The first theme of this movement is somewhat similair to the first theme of the first movement. The end of the recapitulation section is notable for a coda that treats  the first theme of the movement fugally. The symphony ends in in a triumphant mood with the brass contributing depth and weight.

Rimsky-Korsakov - Piano Concerto In C-sharp Minor

Nicolai Rimsky - Korsakov  was a master of orchestration and was recognized as such early in his career. Despite his lack of formal education in music theory and harmony, he was appointed professor of Composition and Orchestration at the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music in 1871.   To prepare himself and stay one step ahead of his pupils he ceased to compose for three years, studied textbooks at home and followed a strict regimen of writing exercises in counterpoint and fugue. Rimsky-Koraskov wrote that while teaching he became "possibly the best pupil of the conservatory judging by the quality of the information it gave me!"

He wrote his only piano concerto in 1883-1884 at the urging of Balakirev.  Despite not being a pianist, Rimsky-Korsakov wrote:

 It must be said that it sounded beautiful and proved entirely satisfactory in the sense of piano technique and style; this greatly astonished Balakirev, who found my concerto to his liking. He had by no means expected that I ... should know how to compose anything entirely pianistic.

The piece is much better known in Russia and influenced other composers such as Rachmaninoff.  Rimsky-Korsakov used the concertos of Franz Liszt as his model  and acknowledged this by dedicating the work to Liszt. The concerto is very short, only about 15 minutes in duration, and is in three contrasting sections played without pause:

Moderato - Allegretto quasi polacca -  An introduction starts off the concerto that introduces the Russian folksong that the composer used in the work. It is the only theme of the concerto and Rimsky-Korsakov uses the Lisztian technique of thematic metamorphosis on it throughout, which makes the concerto a type of theme and variation movement. This introduction is followed by a polonaise treatment given to the theme. The next section is marked:
Andante mosso -  The accompaniment played by the piano is based on the first part of the folksong while the treble is based on the second part. The solo part gets more complex and erupts directly into the final section:
Allegro - The theme continues its metamorphosis as the piano part grows more brilliant with bravura passages. The concerto ends with a final flourish.

Bruckner - Symphony In D Minor

In the somewhat confusing world of Anton Bruckner (1824 - 1896) and the numbering of his symphonies, this Symphony  in D Minor is actually the third symphony he wrote.  The first symphony he wrote was as an assignment for his composition teacher in 1863.  Bruckner rejected this work by calling it 'school work', but he did not destroy it. It is in F minor.

The next symphony Bruckner wrote was the 'official' Symphony No.1, called by Bruckner 'the saucy maid' (whatever that may mean). Then it was the Symphony in D minor that was written in 1869.  Bruckner rejected this symphony after some harsh criticism'.

After all that, why bother with an early symphony that the composer himself rejected when he wrote so many more? Bruckner was known to be influenced a great deal by the opinions of others, especially early on. To my mind, if Bruckner would've wanted the world to never hear of this symphony he would have destroyed it. And it's a good thing he did not destroy it, for the symphony already shows his mature style and the music is very good.  A composer's earlier works are always interesting, if for no other reason than it shows where they came from and how they evolved when compared to later works.  Bruckner almost from the beginning had different ideas that grew into his mature style. Deryck Cooke writes about the Bruckner Symphony:

"Despite its general debt to Beethoven and Wagner, the "Bruckner Symphony" is a unique conception, not only because of the individuality of its spirit and its materials, but even more because of the absolute originality of its formal processes. At first, these processes seemed so strange and unprecedented that they were taken as evidence of sheer incompetence.... Now it is recognized that Bruckner's unorthodox structural methods were inevitable.... Bruckner created a new and monumental type of symphonic organism, which abjured the tense, dynamic continuity of Beethoven, and the broad, fluid continuity of Wagner, in order to express something profoundly different from either composer, something elemental and metaphysical."

Clara Rockmore/Saint Saens - The Swan

Clara Rockmore (1911 - 1998) was a virtuoso player of the theremin, an electronic instrument. The theremin was invented and named by a Russian, Leon Theremin. The instrument was patented in 1928 and consists of two antennas connected to oscillators, a horizontal antenna used to control volume and a vertical antenna used to control pitch. The closer or farther away a hand was placed to these antenna determined the pitch and volume.  The antennas are not actually touched at all.  The widest use of the theremin has been for science fiction movies of the 1950's and 1960's, but there has been a resurgence of the instrument in rock music and avant garde music.

Clara Rockmore was a child prodigy on the violin and began studying at the St. Petersburg conservatory  at the age of five.  But due to malnutrition, she developed serious bone problems that prevented her from continuing her studies and playing the violin.
She discovered the theremin and worked with the inventor to make it a more precise instrument.  She developed an entire technique for the instrument, using her fingers to 'finger' the notes in the air.

Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 - 1921) was a French composer. he composed Carnival Of The Animals, a suite of pieces originally for a chamber group of instruments (a full orchestra version also exists) that musically depicts an assortment of creatures. It was composed in 1886 but Saint Saëns thought it might be too trivial and hurt his reputation as a serious composer.  He allowed only one of the vignettes to be published in his lifetime, The Swan.  The entire collection was published in 1922 after his death and remains a very popular composition.  The Swan is a melancholy song originally written for cello that depicts the legend that when a swan dies  it sings its sweetest song.  Clara Rockmore shows that the theremin can be an instrument of great expression and nuance, but it's a mystery to me how in the world she coaxes such sweet, ethereal music out if thin air.  It's magical.

Saint Saëns The Swan played by Clara Rockmore

Ketèlbey - In A Persian Market

Albert Ketèlbey (1875 - 1959) wrote many popular songs and instrumental numbers, some of them miniature tone poems.  He specialized in musical representations of differing cultures,  highly idealized representations as they fell well within the realm of western music harmony and forms. Ketèlbey could crank out a pretty good tune and he was an imaginative orchestrator, no doubt aided by the tremendous working knowledge he had through his talent for being able to play all the instruments of the orchestra.

In A Persian Market is one of those idealized miniature tone poems. It was written in 1920 and has been played by many orchestras and arranged for many different ensembles. The music speaks through the 'ears' of a English musician known for his works that were written in an intentionally popular style. Authentic Persian  (modern day Iran) music it is not, but it has a certain period charm to it.

Ketèlbey's In A Persian Market:

Rubinstein - Piano Concerto No. 4 in D minor

Anton Rubinstein (1829 - 1894) was a Russian pianist, conductor and composer. He was part of the tradition of the 19th century virtuoso performer/composers such as Franz Liszt. Although his compositions are seldom heard now, at one time he was equally valued as a composer as a performer.

He toured Europe as a virtuoso pianist and even toured the United States during the 1872-73 concert season. He gave over 200 concerts in 239 days. The Steinway piano company financed this tour, and he received $200 per concert plus expenses. Rubinstein said of this tour: "May Heaven preserve us from such slavery! Under these conditions there is no chance for art—one simply grows into an automaton, performing mechanical work; no dignity remains to the artist; he is lost.... The receipts and the success were invariably gratifying, but it was all so tedious that I began to despise myself and my art. So profound was my dissatisfaction that when several years later I was asked to repeat my American tour, I refused pointblank..."  The fact that he earned enough from this tour alone to never have to worry about money  no doubt helped him make the decision to not do it again.

In appearance, Rubinstein favored Beethoven so much that rumors had him as Beethoven's illegitimate son. Liszt called him 'Van II'. He had hands that were more like paws with a broad palm,  short, thick fingers that were broad and square at the finger tip. He could make the piano roar, or have it speak in a whisper. He was a master of the pedal, and said of it that, "The pedal is the soul of the piano."

Rubinstein's life was music and he contributed greatly to music education in Russia by founding the St. Petersburg Conservatory of Music in 1862.  He continued to compose, conduct, and give recitals all of his life until his death from heart disease.

His Piano Concerto No. 4 was  once highly esteemed and was part of the repertoire of such virtuoso pianists as Rachmaninoff and Paderewski.  It was composed in 1864, revised twice and the final version was published in 1872. It follows the typical Romantic piano concerto structure and is in 3 movements:

I. Moderato assai - The main theme is stated by orchestra alone, the piano enters alone then joins with the orchestra in the main theme. The movement is in sonata form with a cadenza added towards the end. The movement ends with another statement of the main theme and a coda.
II. Andante -  Serene music that begins in D minor and progresses to F major. Some of the most beautiful music Rubinstein ever composed.
III. Allegro- An exuberant rondo in the style of a Russian peasant dance. After the orchestra and piano take turns yelling and stamping, the movement ends with piano pyrotechnics.