Rachmaninoff - Five Preludes For Piano

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943)  was one of the greatest piano virtuosos of the 20th century.  He had a phenomenal memory, learned new pieces exceedingly fast, and had technique to spare. As if that wasn't enough, he was also a top-notch conductor and composer.

A lot of his output was music for the piano. Among some of his best compositions are the preludes for solo piano. His first prelude was in a set of five pieces called Morceaux de Fantaisie (French for Fantasy Pieces) composed when he was fresh out of the Conservatory at age nineteen.

The Prelude in C-sharp Minor, the second piece in this Opus 3 set, is the infamous prelude that was so immensely popular that Rachmaninoff had to play it at almost every concert he gave. He came to detest the piece, not least of all because when it was published copyright laws at the time didn't provide the composer with any royalties. The fact that this piece grew to be so popular and was played so many times without the payment of any royalties always stuck in Rachmaninoff's craw. He composed another set of ten preludes, Opus 23, in 1903 and another set of thirteen, Opus 32 in 1910 to complete the set of twenty four.

Rachmaninoff's preludes are fascinating pieces, each one a masterwork. They are full of technical difficulties, fistfuls of notes, large chords for both hands sometimes written over 4 music staves. But they are more than tests of a pianist's technique and endurance. They are also a test of the pianist's musicality.

As with all sets of pieces like this, people always have their favorites. I have chosen the five preludes out of the set that I like the best. But they are surely all worth listening to. The ones in the video are:

Prelude in B-flat Major - Maestoso - Opus 23, No.2
Prelude in D minor - Tempo di Menuett - Opus 23, No.3
Prelude in G Minor - Alla Marcia - Opus 23, No.5
Prelude in B Minor - Lento - Opus 32, No.10
Prelude in G-sharp Minor - Allegro - Opus 32, No.12:

Franck - Le Chasseur Maudit (The Accursed Hunter)

Cesar Franck (1822 - 1890) wrote this brilliantly orchestrated tone poem in 1882.  The title is taken from a poem written by the German poet Gottfried August Bürger that was titled Der Wilde Jäger. The tone poem, while written in one continuous movement, is in four distinct sections:

• Sunday Morning Call To Worship
• The Hunt
• The Curse
• The Demon's Chase

The story synopsis:

The church bells call the faithful to worship on a bright and sunny Sunday morning, but an arrogant German count decided he will go hunting instead. He ignored the church bells and the chants, mounted his horse as he blew his hunting horn to begin the hunt, and whipped the peasants that got in his way.  After he got into the woods and hunted for a while, he realized he was lost.  A mysterious voice speaks to him and tells him that he is cursed to be chased forever by demons in the forest for his blasphemy.  Through night and day the wild ride goes on, and doesn't stop when the hunter and his horse fall into the abyss. They are lifted airborne with the demons still hot in their pursuit. 

Franck's Le Chasseur Maudit (The Accursed Hunter):

Arensky - Fantasia On Russian Folk Songs For Piano And Orchestra

Anton Arensky (1861 - 1906) was a Russian composer, pianist and teacher. Arensky as a child was musically precocious and had composed many songs and pieces for the piano by the age of nine.  He studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and was a student of Rimsky-Korsakov. After his graduation he became a professor at the Moscow Conservatory where one of his students was Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Arensky is best known for his chamber music, especially the Piano Trio in D minor, but he composed music in many other forms. His Fantasia On Russian Folk Songs For Piano And Orchestra is based on two songs from a collection of Russian folk songs compiled by the ethno-musicologist Ivan Ryabinin.  The first theme is in E minor. Tchaikovsky's music was a large influence on Arensky as his treatment of the first theme is rhapsodic. The second theme is like a march, and while it too is in a minor key, it is of a different character than the first.

After the second theme is played through, the first them returns and is varied. The gradually lightens in texture and grows quiet. The piano by itself utters the first theme one more time, and the piece ends quietly with the piano and a pizzicato chord by the low strings.

Arensky was somewhat of an enigmatic man. He never married, had few friends and struggled with alcoholism most of his life. He was also a compulsive gambler. He died of tuberculosis when he was 44 years old.

Tartini - Violin Sonata in G Minor 'Devil's Trill'

Giuseppe Tartini (1692 - 1770) was an Italian composer and violinist. He was an influential violin teacher as well as player and composer. He started a very popular violin school that attracted students from all over Europe. He is also one of the first persons known to have owned a violin made by Stradivarius.

He composed almost exclusively for the violin with over 135 violin concertos and many violin sonatas. By far his best known work is the Sonata in G minor for Violin and Basso Continuo, known as 'The Devil's Trill' because of the double stop trills used in the work.  Tartini himself told the story about falling asleep one night and being visited by the Devil:

"One night, in the year 1713 I dreamed I had made a pact with the devil for my soul. Everything went as I wished: my new servant anticipated my every desire. Among other things, I gave him my violin to see if he could play. How great was my astonishment on hearing a sonata so wonderful and so beautiful, played with such great art and intelligence, as I had never even conceived in my boldest flights of fantasy. I felt enraptured, transported, enchanted: my breath failed me, and - I awoke. I immediately grasped my violin in order to retain, in part at least, the impression of my dream. In vain! The music which I at this time composed is indeed the best that I ever wrote, and I still call it the "Devil's Trill", but the difference between it and that which so moved me is so great that I would have destroyed my instrument and have said farewell to music forever if it had been possible for me to live without the enjoyment it affords me."


Tartini's Violin Sonata in G minor 'Devil's Trill'

Beethoven - String Quartet No. 1

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) composed his first string quartets, six of them comprising his opus 18, between 1798 and 1800.  The first quartet in F major wasn't the first one composed, but Beethoven placed it as the first one, perhaps because he thought it was the best of the six. Beethoven had given the original quartet to a friend, but two years later he did a thorough revision of the work.

Beethoven wrote these first six quartets while Joseph Haydn was still alive.  Haydn was the acknowledged master of the string quartet, and along with Mozart he had taken the form to a new level. Beethoven was flexing his musical muscle and showing with his first quartet that the form still had possibilities.

The quartet begins with a statement of the first movement's major theme in unison by all four instruments. The theme goes through some dramatic development in the middle section of the movement. The second movement has been compared to the tomb scene in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. some say Beethoven himself did the comparison, some say the friend that he gave the first version of the quartet to said it. Regardless of who said it, the movement is a passionate, dramatic one. The Scherzo and Finale are both short movements and help to balance out the first two long movements.

Beethoven went on to compose a total of sixteen string quartets over a span of 26 years.  He became a master of the form and used it for some of his most profound and beautiful music.

Howlin' Wolf Sings The Blues

Howlin' Wolf  a.k.a. Chester Arthur Burnett (1910 -1976) was an influential blues singer, harmonica and guitar player. Born in Mississippi, he farmed and learned guitar and harmonica from other musicians in the area. After he served in the Army during the Second World War, he became a local celebrity in the south, playing with various other blues men. He was finally signed to a recording contract by Chess Records in 1951 and moved to Chicago, IL.

One of his biggest hits in the 1950's was Smokestack Lightnin', here being sung by the Wolf while on a blues tour of Britian in 1964:


At Chess Records, Willie Dixon wrote songs for Wolf that turned out to be some of his most popular. "Back Door Man" was one of these songs:




Wolf continued touring and recording throughout the 1950's and 1960's with his own band and his long-time lead guitarist Hubert Sumlin.  Here they are with Sunnyland Slim in a video taken from the American Folk Blues tour of 1964 with Wolf singing the song "Shake For Me":




In the late 1960's and early 1970's Wolf's health declined. He had several heart attacks and his kidneys were badly damaged in an auto accident in 1970. He succumbed to kidney failure in 1976.

In his prime Howlin' Wolf was a huge man, 6' 6", over 300 hundred pounds and his voice was just as big.  Sam Phillips was the first to sign Wolf to a contract and he commented,  "When I heard him, I said, 'This is for me. This is where the soul of man never dies'. He was about six foot six, with the biggest feet I've ever seen on a human being. Big Foot Chester is one name they used to call him. He would sit there with those feet planted wide apart, playing nothing but the French harp, and I tell you, the greatest show you could see today would be Chester Burnett doing one of those sessions in my studio. God, what would it be worth to see the fervor in that man's face when he sang. His eyes would light up and you'd see the veins on his neck, and buddy, there was nothing on his mind but that song. He sang with his damn soul."

Howlin' Wolf singing and Hubert Sumlin on lead guitar Moving from one of his last albums in the 1970's:

Froberger - Suite No. 26 In B Minor

Johann Jakob Froberger (1616 - 1667) was a German composer, keyboard and organ virtuoso.  He helped to develop the keyboard suite of dances and influenced many composers, including J.S. Bach.

Froberger's father was Kapellmeister  of the court in Württemberg. He got his first instruction in music from his father who also had a large (for the time) library of music with over 100 pieces in it. Young Froberger had this music at his disposal growing up, as did three other brothers who all became musicians.

Froberger became court organist in Vienna, Austria in 1637. While there, he received leave to go to Rome to study with Frescobaldi. He stayed for three years in Italy, went back to Vienna and made several trips back and forth. He also traveled widely in Europe, visiting London, Paris, Brussels and other areas. Because of these travels, he was able to absorb different styles of music in different parts of Europe and incorporated them in his music.

Only two of his pieces were published in his lifetime, but he became famous because of hand written copies of his music that circulated  He not only wrote keyboard suites, but pieces for organ and highly personal programmatic pieces. He actually did not originate the keyboard Suite of dances, as dances had been organized into suites in France long before him. What he did do was develop this form and the standards for it.

The Suite #26 in B Minor consists of 4 dances. There is still some question as to the order of the dances, sbut in the recording attached the four dances in order are:

Allemande -  The allemande originated in the 16th century as a duple metre dance of moderate tempo, derived from dances supposed to be favored in Germany at the time. It was usually the first movement in the suite.
Gigue - A lively baroque dance originating from the British jig. Many times it is the final movement in the suite, but here it is placed 2nd.
Courante - n a Baroque dance suite, an Italian or French courante typically comes between the allemande and the sarabande, making it the second or third movement.
Sarabande - A dance in triple metre. The second and third beats of each measure are often tied, giving the dance a distinctive rhythm of quarter notes and eighth notes in alternation. The quarters are said to corresponded with dragging steps in the dance.

Froberger's Suite In B Minor :