September 21, 2015.  Shostakovich and Rameau.  Several composes were born this week, among them the English composer Gustav Holst, the Polish Andrzej Panufnik and the ever-popular George Gershwin.  We owe it to the devotees of English music to dedicate an entry to Holst, as we’ve never done so before, but this time we’ll write about Dmitry Shostakovich instead, who was born on September 25^th of 1906, and Jean-Philippe Rameau, born on the same day in 1683.  We acknowledge the tremendous talent of Shostakovich, even if we do have problems with his politics and esthetics.  We’re not going to analyze the reasons why the music of Shostakovich became so much a part of musical Social Realism: whether he did it out of fear, as a way to adapt and survive or whether he had a sincere and natural affinity for the musical tastes of the era.  (Testimony by Solomon Volkov might be one place to go for a comprehensive, if somewhat one-sided, discussion).  Suffice it to say that some of his music is difficult to listen to, so blatantly “communist” it sounds (just try his Festive Overture, the essential music of any Soviet parade).  Many of his symphonies suffer from the same; on the other hand, much of his chamber music is quite “apolitical,” his great quartets being in that category.  Shostakovich wrote quartets most of his creative life.  His String Quartet no. 1 was composed in 1938, when Shostakovich was 32. It was written during a difficult and turbulent time: on the one hand, it followed the triumphal premier of his Symphony no. 5, on the other, Shostakovich felt compelled to withdraw his Fourth symphony after the criticism of the Lady Makbeth of Mtsensk; also, his patron, Marshall Tukhachevsky, had recently been arrested on trumped-up charges and shot.  The Quartet no. 1 (here) has none of the bombast of the 5^th Symphony; it’s a contemplative work, which Shostakovich himself said visualizes childhood scenes.  His last quartet, no. 15, was completed in May of 1974, a year before his death.  We’ll hear Quartet no. 8 from 1960.  It starts with Shostakovich’s musical signature, DSCH: D, Es, C, H in German musical notation, or D, E flat, C, B natural in commonly accepted American notation.  The Quartet, which runs for about 30 minutes, consists of five movements.  In each of them Shostakovich quotes from his other compositions, from the Cello concerto no. 1 to Lady Makbeth.  It’s performed, here by the Emerson Quartet.

Here’s what we wrote about Rameau a couple years ago: Jean-Philippe Rameau was born on September 25th, 1683, when Louis XIV, the Sun King ruled France, but he didn’t come to age as a composer till the 1720s during the reign of Louis XV.  Rameau was approaching 50 when he wrote his first opera, but once he started, he wouldn’t write anything else.  He wrote more than 30, and in toto they represent a major development in music history of the 18^th century.  His very first opera Hippolyte et Aricie, written in 1733, was premiered at the Palais-Royal, his second, Samson, had none other than Voltaire as the librettist.  (Unfortunately, it was never performed, even though it went into rehearsals, and its score has been lost).  The third opera, Les Indes galantes, was a big success.  A curious historical anecdote relates to this opera.  In 1725 the French settlers convinced several Indian chiefs, Agapit Chicagou among them, to go to Paris.  Many Indian chiefs decided to travel to France, but as they were about to board the ship, it sunk; after the accident, most of the chiefs returned home.  Apparently the ones who went had a good time in Paris and eventually were brought to Fontainebleau, were they met with the King.  The chiefs pledged allegiance to the French crown, and later performed ritual dances at the Theatre Italien.  Rameau was inspired by this event; the fourth act (entrées) of Les Indes galantes is called Les Sauvages and tells the story of a daughter of an Indian chief being pursued by a Spaniard and a Frenchmen.

Here’s the famous aria Tristes apprêts from Rameau’s 1737 opera Castor & Pollux.  The soprano is Agnès Mellon; William Christie leads the ensemble Les Arts Florissants.

September 14, 2015.  Recent birthdays and uploads.  From one of the recent uploads, here’s Robert Schumann’s Kinderszenen, op. 15 in a sensitive and intelligent performance by Tanya Gabrielian, live from the Dame Myra Hess concert in June of 2015.  Born in the United States in 1983, Ms. Gabrielian began playing the piano at the age of three and studied in the Preparatory Division of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.  At the age of sixteen, she was admitted to Harvard University as a National Merit Scholar to study biomedical engineering.  Instead, she chose a career in music, and in 2000 moved to London, where she received a Master’s degrees from the Royal Academy of Music. Upon graduation, she also received “DipRAM,” the highest performing award of the Royal Academy of Music.  In 2009, Ms. Gabrielian moved to New York to enter the Juilliard School’s Artist Diploma program.  Tanya Gabrielian has performed across North America, Europe, and Asia, in venues including Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall in New York, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Wigmore Hall in London. She has played with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New London Sinfonia, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and other orchestras.  Ms. Gabrielian is also active in the National Alliance on Mental Illness, in programs featuring composers with mental illnesses.

Last week we mentioned Henry Purcell, probably the greatest English-born composer of all time, who died tragically young at the zenith of his career, aged 36.  Purcell was born on September 10th, 1659.   Just to situate him historically: Corelli was born in 1653 and Alessandro Scarlatti – in 1660.  Purcell’s family was musical: both his father and uncle, an important figure in Henry’s life, were singers, and his younger brother Daniel, a composer (he finished Purcell’s opera Indian Queen after Henry’s untimely death).  The family lived next to Westminster Abbey, a slum during that time.  As a boy, Henry was a chorister in the Royal Chapel.  He’s said to have started composing at the age of nine.  He studied with two important composers, John Blow and Matthew Locke.  Upon Locke’s death in 1677 Purcell became the composer for the King’s violins, the so-called Four and Twenty Violins of Charles II, modeled after the famous 24 Violins of the French court.  Two years later, upon the resignation of John Blow, he became the organist at the Westminster Abbey.  Later he was appointed organist of the Chapel Royal.  During that period he was writing mostly sacred music but in 1688 he composed the opera Dido and Aeneas (before that Purcell had composed music for several plays, but Dido was a real sung opera).  Dido, while not the first one, is clearly the finest English baroque opera.  Here’s the aria “When I am laid in earth” from Dido sung by Jessye Norman.  Purcell continued to write incidental music to stage plays, songs and odes for the court.  In 1694 he wrote Te Deum and Jubilate Deo.  One of his last compositions (and the last court ode) was Who can from joy refrain, a brief "Birthday ode for the Duke of Gloucester" (here).  The soprano Julie Hassler is accompanied by the ensemble La Rêveuse.

September 7, 2015.  Chopin’s Nocturnes, part II.  On this holiday weekend we’ll skip several important anniversaries (Antonin Dvořák; one of our all-time favorites Henry Purcell; William Boyce, another wonderful English composer; and Arvo Pärt – we’ll write about them at another time) and turn to the nocturnes by Frédéric Chopin.   This is the second part of an article, which we started on July 13^th.  It is a testament to the changing musical tastes that we’ll have to compliment the performances by the young pianists from our library (Krystian Tkaczewski and Gabriel Escudero) with those of the masters (Pollini, Rubinstein, Richter, Barenboim, and Horowitz), borrowed from YouTube.  Not that long ago Chopin’s nocturnes were among the most often played pieces in all of the piano repertory.  Not that anybody today doubts that these are works of genius – they’re just not performed as often.  In some sense it’s even better, as they sound fresher that way.  ♫

2 Nocturnes, op. 37

The two nocturnes published as op. 37 form a marvelous pair of contrasting major/minor key pieces. Published in 1840, they were also composed around that time. The latter of the two, that in G major, with its barcarolle rhythms, is believed to have been composed the previous year when Chopin accompanied George Sand to the island of Majorca. At one time, these two works were highly praised. Robert Schumann considered them the finest nocturnes Chopin composed describing them as “of that nobler kind under which poetic ideality gleams more transparently (than the earlier Nocturnes).” However, since the twentieth century, this praise has somewhat waned.

The first of the op. 37 nocturnes is in G minor (here). Its lugubrious melody is modestly ornamented and unfolds expressively over a chordal accompaniment in steady quarter notes. It is immediately restated, with some further ornamentation, but greatly intensified as the dynamic is raised from piano to forte, and even reaches fortissimo. Yet, Chopin reigns in the melody’s emotional outpouring with a softer dynamic at the start of its second strain, leaving it to carry on in hushed torment until its conclusion. From a closing cadence in the tonic key, Chopin modulates with ease into the key of E-flat major for the consoling middle portion. This entire episode takes on the character of a simple, pious choral, which some commentators interpret as an expression of Chopin’s faith in religion. With the exception of a few grace notes, the quarter note rhythm is undisturbed, carrying the music along with unshakeable surety. Indeed, there is an effortless serenity here in Chopin’s music. During its last measures, the chorale is broken up by pauses, and subtle changes in harmony lead to reestablishment of the key of G minor. The opening melody is then reprised and is virtually unchanged, albeit shortened, and its final measures are altered to bring about an effective close on the tonic major chord.  (Continue reading here).

August 27, 2015.  Bruckner, Cage and many more.  Several great – or at least interesting – composers were born this week: Johann Pachelbel, Pietro Locatelli, Anton Bruckner, Darius Milhaud, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Amy Beach and John Cage.  Anton Bruckner, who was born on September 4^th, 1824, clearly belongs to the former category, and even though we’ve  wrotten about him extensively before, we cannot neglect his anniversary.  This time we’ll present his Symphony no. 4 in its entirety (when we wrote about Bruckner three years ago, we played just the third movement, Scherzo).  Bruckner created many versions of this symphony: he wrote the first version in 1874, then in 1878, after completing the Fifth symphony, he returned to the Fourth, revised the first two movements and completely rewrote the finale.  He continued tinkering with it for several more years, and then significantly revised it again in 1887.  One year later he made more changes – altogether there are seven versions, of which three are considered “principal.”  We’ll hear the second of these.  Claudio Abbado leads the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.

Bruckner, while a composer of genius, was sometimes verbose and repetitive.  It’s difficult to imagine somebody more different than our next composer, John Cage, who is famous (or infamous, in the eyes of some) for his 4’33’’, which is “performed” without a note being played.  (It’s often assumed that the point of this piece is four minutes and 33 seconds of silence; Cage was actually interested in the ambient sounds of the concert hall).  John Cage was born on September 5^th of 1912 in Los Angeles.  He studied composition with Henry Cowell and later, in 1934, with Arnold Schoenberg.  During the following 15 years he composed mostly in the 12-tone mode, writing music for different percussion ensembles (much of it in collaboration with his friend, the choreographer Merce Cunningham) and, eventually, the prepared piano (the piano is “prepared” by placing different objects between the strings, thus changing its sound).  In 1949 he traveled to Europe and met Olivier Messiaen and the young Pierre Boulez who became a good friend.  Six Melodies for violin and electronic piano (here) written in 1950 are from the end of that period.  In the early 1950s, Cage, together with Morton Feldman, embarked on a completely new path: they introduced chance, or randomness, into the process of composing.  Cage first employed it in the Concerto for Prepared Piano and orchestra: he created a set of sonorities for both the piano and the orchestra, but the sequencing of these sets were completely random and up to the musicians.  To support the chance technique, Cage had to come up with his own notational principles.  Some of them involved transparencies that could be mixed and matched to create the final score.  The majority of the public was not convinced, and even some of the modernist composers, such as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen heavily criticized this approach.  Iannis Xenakis called it an abuse of (musical) language and an abrogation of the composer's function.  Nonetheless, Cage’s influence, and even fame, were spreading, both in the US and even more so in Europe.  His work with the popular Cunningham Dance Company helped in this respect.  Cage continued his chance-based composition using more and more unusual instruments: one of them directed performers to mount and play 88 tape loops on several tape recorders.  Cage is probably an acquired taste, but he was very influential as a composer who altered our approach to sound and modern definition of music itself.  Cage continued to compose and experiment almost to the end of his life.  He died in New York on August 12^th of 1992.

And now as a respite from Cages’ musical experiments, something much more conventional: music by Pietro Locatelli, who was born on September 3^rd of 1695 in Bergamo.  An Italian Baroque composer and violinist, he wrote a number of very pleasing, if not necessarily revolutionary, compositions.  Here’s one of them, his Violin Concerto in C minor op. 3.  Luca Fanfoni is the soloist with the Reale Concerto.

August 24, 2015.  A concert at the Steans.  The 2015 season at the Ravinia’s Steans Music Institute is over, and we’ve uploaded some of the recordings made at their concerts.  Every year the Steans, which is Ravinia’s summer conservatory, brings to this Chicago suburb a group of talented young musicians.  They study with some of the most renowned teachers, and also perform: the Steans concerts are the highlight of the season.  The students play solo recitals and make music together, in ad hoc trios, quartets, and even octets – some of these temporary ensembles achieve very high level of musicianship (it goes without saying that technically all of them play at a very high level).  And that’s how the first concert of the 2015 season was programmed: Leonardo Hilsdorf, a young Brazilian pianist, played Domenico Scarlatti’s Sonata in F Minor, K. 466 and five string players performed Mozart’s String quintet no. 4.  But the most interesting and in a way quite unique part of the program was the set of Twelve Caprices for viola solo by Atar Arad.  Mr. Arad, who is 70, is a world-renowned viola player; he taught at the Steans for a number of years.  He was born in Tel-Aviv and started out as a violinist before switching to the viola in 1971.  As a youngster he won several international competitions and made a number of highly praised recordings.  In 1980 he moved to the US and joined the Cleveland Quartet.  He’s also collaborated with the leading musicians of our time, among them the pianists Eugene Istomin and Emanuel Ax, violist Jaime Laredo and the cellists Yo-Yo Ma and Mstislav Rostropovich.  He started composing rather late, publishing his first work in 1992 (Solo Sonata for Viola).  His Twelve Caprices for viola solo were composed in 2003.  During the first Steans concert, several violists took turns playing all twelve.  Mr. Arad played one of them.  Here’s the First caprice, performed by the Russian violist Georgy Kovalev.  The Third Caprice is played by Mr. Arad, and Caprice no. 11 – by Dana Kelley (here).

For those who would rather listen to something more traditional, here’s the above-mentioned Sonata by Domenico Scaralli, and hear – the Mozart.