Arthur Rubinstein - Chopin Piano Sonata No. 2

Arthur Rubinstein (1887 - 1982) was a Polish pianist and one of the great virtuosos of the 20th century. He was declared a child prodigy at the age of four and had perfect pitch. By the age of thirteen he had already made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic.

He toured all over the world during his long life. There may have been other pianists that could play a certain piece or composer with more insight, but everything Rubinstein played was rock-solid in interpretation and technique. His tone was golden, he was incapable of producing a harsh tone from the piano. His repertoire was huge. For example, he could perform in short notice 27 different piano concertos.  He was also an excellent chamber music musician.

He made recordings from 1928 to about 1976, with most of his recordings being done for RCA. all of his RCA recordings have been issued on music CD, the entire set contains 94 CD's and runs to 106 hours. He concertized until his eyesight failed him and he retired in 1976 at age eighty-nine. His last concert was in Wigmore Hall in London where he had first played nearly seventy years previously.

Rubinstein is most well known for his Chopin performances. Rubinstein was one of the first pianists early in the 20th century to play Chopin as the music was written. That's not to say he played it coldly and analytically, but Rubinstein purposefully rid himself of the excesses in performance and interpretation that had become somewhat of a tradition in Chopin's music.  There is no better player of Chopin's 2nd sonata than Rubinstein. He plays with expression and passion that totally serves the music.

Chopin's 2nd sonata confused music lovers when it was first published in 1837.  Schumann said it lacked cohesion and Chopin "simply bound together four of his most unruly children."   The sonata is in 4 movements and follows the layout of Beethoven's  Piano Sonata #12, which was one of Chopin's favorite Beethoven sonatas. The sonata opens with what some have called a tribute to Beethoven, as it is very similar to Beethoven's opening of his final piano sonata, Opus 111 in C minor, another favorite of Chopin.  The second movement is a scherzo, the third movement is the famous Funeral March. The enigmatic final Presto movement has been subject to many interpretations. In the preface to the American edition of the sonatas James Huneker  quotes from Karol Mikuli,  the editor of the sonatas and one of Chopin's pupils, that Chopin said of this movement, "The left hand and right hand are gossiping after the March". Arthur Rubinstein himself said of the movement that, "One  hears the winds of night sweeping over churchyard graves, the dust blowing and the dust that remains."

Tchaikovsky - Piano Trio 'In Memory Of A Great Artist'

Pyotr Tchaikovsky (1840 -1893)  refused to write a piano trio for his benefactor Nadezhda von Meck, saying in a letter to her in 1880,  "You ask why I have never written a trio. Forgive me, dear friend; I would do anything to give you pleasure, but this is beyond me ... I simply cannot endure the combination of piano with violin or cello. To my mind the timbre of these instruments will not blend..."

But upon the death of close friend and mentor Nicolai Rubinstein who had died in March of 1881, Tchaikovsky seems to have had a change of heart. He ended up writing a piano trio and subtitling it 'In Memory Of A Great Artist' in tribute to his friend.  It was the only piano trio he ever wrote.

The work went through several versions with the final version being completed in February 1882.  A private performance was held at the Moscow Conservatory on March 23, 1882, the one year anniversary of Nicolai Rubinstein's death, but Tchaikovsky was in Italy.  he heard the trio in another private performance in April, after which he made some revisions to the work.

The trio is in two proper movements, although the 2nd movement contains two distinct sections. For a chamber work it is rather long and takes about three quarters of an hour to perform. The piano part is some of the most difficult music Tchaikovsky wrote for the piano, including the piano concertos.

The first movement is full of dark, funereal music. The second movement is a set of variations that segues into a Finale that is some of the most tragic, emotional music ever written by Tchaikovsky, and for a composer known for his emotionally-charged music, that is saying quite a lot.

Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio in A Minor ' In Memory Of A Great Artist ' :

Parry - Piano Concerto in F-sharp Major

Hubert Parry (1848 -1918) was an English composer, teacher and music historian.  He came from an upper middle class family and as such went to school at Eton.  Although he excelled in music while at Eton (as well as sports) his father demanded that he study for a different career, so when he went to Oxford he didn't study music but law and history.

He worked as an insurance underwriter at Lloyd's of London from 1870 to 1877, all the while continuing his studies in music. He tried to obtain lessons from Brahms, but he was not available. Parry ended up taking lessons from Edward Dannreuther , a pianist and writer. Parry's compositions began to be known by the public and he was also hired on as a music scholar in 1875 by George Grove as an assistant editor for the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians to which he contributed 123 articles.   He was appointed professor of composition and musical history at  the Royal College of Music in 1883. He became director of the  College in 1900 and worked in that capacity until his death.

The Piano Concerto in F-sharp Major was one of Parry's first major works. He began the work in 1878 and completed it in 1879.  It was premiered in 1880 with his own teacher Dannreuther as soloist.  It got rave reviews but some considered it avante garde.  Parry went on to write much vocal music, five symphonies and other pieces, plus books on music and music history.

Parry thought that German music and traditions to be the standard, so with the oncoming World War he felt confident that the English and Germans would not fight each other. Of course he was sadly wrong, and had to watch his musical world become yet another victim of the war. Parry had suffered from heart disease for many years and when he contracted the Spanish flu during the 1918 pandemic, it took his life.

Parry wrote only one piano concerto. It is an interesting piece, not least of all to think that it was at one time considered avante garde.  It is very well written, with a piano part that calls for the skill of a virtuoso.  It is one of the many neglected pieces in the repertoire that could use an occasional hearing.

Boismortier - Bassoon Concerto

Joseph Bodin de Boismortier was a French musician who was one of the first composers who had no patrons. In a time where a composer had to rely on the service of a royal court or church to make a living. Boismortier not only didn't have a patron, but he became wealthy on the sales of his published works. He obtained a royal license to engrave music in 1724, and went on to publish over 100 pieces of music.

Boismortier got his education from a composer of motets that lived in the area of France he grew up in. In adult life he married the daughter of a rich goldsmith and moved to Paris with his wife in to compose and engrave music.  He was the first French composer to write a concerto for solo instrument, and wrote in many different forms for instruments and voices.  Later in life he became a theorist and wrote instruction manuals for the flute and viola.

He had a knack for composing works thgat pleased the public thus he became a very popular composer. His compositions for voice alone sold enough copies to make him a wealthy man. That he was as much criticized as applauded is evident by what was written by Jean-Benjamin de la Borde, a music theorist and Boismortier contemporary. From his Essay On Ancient And Modern Music (1780):

"Boismortier lived in a time when people wanted music to be easy and pleasant to listen to. This skillful musician made the most of this fashionable taste and composed a multitude of airs and duos for flute, violin, oboe, musette, hurdy gurdy... He was very successful in this, but unfortunately he wasted too many harmonies, some of which were peppered with pleasant outbursts.  He so abused his talent and numerous  clients that one of them once said:

"Happy is he, Good Sir Boismortier, whose prolific quill,

Each month with almost no pain conceives a new ditty at will"

In reply to his critics, Boismortier would say, "I'm earning money". This musician was pleasant, ingenious and good company." 

The Bassoon Concerto is in D major and was included in a collection of 5 sonatas. In all 6 works in the collection the solo instrument can be either cello, viola da gamba or bassoon, an example of how music in his time was written to be multi-purpose, something that Boismortier was more than happy to do as it would increase his sales. The concerto is in three movements: 

Boismortier knew the current trends and what was popular and didn't much care what his critics had to say as long as the public kept buying his music. He may not have been a composer that plumbed the depths of emotion in his works, but he was something of a trailblazer, a free lance musician in a time when that was unheard of.   

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.