how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, Vl
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Category: Franz Schubert
April 13, 2019
allegros – Mozart / Schubert quintets
“Trout and Reflected Tree“ (1985)
Neil Welliver
________
allegros are ubiquitous in the repertory,
you can find them everywhere, so I won’t
say much about them but that they’re
the next step up from andante, therefore
sprightly, energized, they’ll often start,
or end, sonatas, and their derivatives,
string quartets, concertos, symphonies,
et cetera, engaging listeners, at first,
then wishing them a cheery farewell,
after an often melancholy middle spell,
they’re here again in the two following
quintets, not unexpectedly, at the
beginning of each, and at their end
Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in A major,
KV 581
l – Allegro
ll – Larghetto
lll – Menuetto
lV – Allegretto con Variazioni
allegretto is slightly slower than
allegro
larghetto, meanwhile, is slightly faster
than largo, largo is slower even than
adagio, so that larghetto is somewhere
between the two, you’ll melt, believe
me, at this one
Schubert’s Piano Quintet, also in
A major, D 667, “The Trout”
l – Allegro vivace
ll – Andante
lll – Scherzo (Presto)
lV – Theme and Variations (Andantino)
V – Allegro giusto
thirty years have elapsed between
them, from 1789 to 1819, listen for
the Classical Period becoming the
Romantic Era
a clue, you can sing along with the
Mozart, you can’t anymore with the
Romantics
a quintet, incidentally, was usually
comprised of a string quartet,
however varied these strings, note,
might have been, with whichever
instrument would make up a fifth,
according to which the quintet was
identified, thus a clarinet quintet was
a clarinet with a string quartet, a piano
quintet, a string quartet plus a piano
other variants will follow
enjoy
R ! chard
psst: the theme in the fourth movement
variations of “The Trout“ is from a
lied, or song, Schubert had earlier
composed around a poem of
Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart,
hence the quintet‘s nickname
March 21, 2019
adagios
“Adagio“ (1899)
Tom Roberts
_______
for my mom
my mom, the other day, said she’d
looked up adagio in the dictionary,
after having read a recent post I’d
submitted, as well, andante, and
allegro
well, that took long enough, I
thought, but concluded that we all
get the information we need in our
own good time, and it’s never, ever,
too late
they’re all tempi, of course, adagio
is slow, from ad agio in Italian, in
English, at ease, the other two are
incrementally faster
the adagio doesn’t usually stand
alone, it is too somber a pace to
immediately attract attention, it
therefore mostly fits into other
compositions that have a more
vigorous, a more engaging,
introduction, usually as its
second movement
but here’s Albinoni’s Adagio in G
minor, a work of only one segment,
which indeed would’ve been part
of a trio sonata, purportedly, had
Albinoni lived to complete it
the rule is not fast, Beethoven
starts his “Moonlight” Sonata with
an adagio, for instance, boldly and
unforgettably, indeed immortally
here’s the adagio that always
stops my breath, from Schubert’s
masterpiece for string quintet, his
D956
listen
R ! chard
September 26, 2018
Piano Concerto no 1 in D minor, opus 15 – Brahms
“The Wanderer above the Sea of Fog“ (1818)
_____________
if Beethoven built the Church, along
with Goethe maybe, of Romanticism,
and be assured Romanticism is an
ideology, a moral outlook, a
motivational perspective, much like
the economy is nowadays,
supplanting any more humanistic
imperatives, Brahms put up one of its
Cathedrals, just listen, the First Piano
Concerto is a monument, as mighty
as the Cologne Cathedral musically,
right next to Bonn, incidentally,
Brahms‘ birthplace
with the disintegration of the
supremacy of the Catholic deity
at the onset of the Protestant
Reformation, Luther, Calvin,
Henry Vlll and all that, bolstered
by new discoveries in scientific
speculation, that the earth wasn’t
flat, for instance, that it revolved
around the sun rather than the
other way around, contradictory,
though convincing, voices began
to abound, excite question
in the 18th Century, the Age of
Reason, the Christian Deity fell,
never effectively to be put back
together again, see for Its final
sundering, Nietzsche
in France, after the Revolution,
the Church was officially removed
from political consideration,
countermanding its centuries of
morally heinous depredations,
the United States had already at
its own Revolution separated it
from State
Romanticism was an answer to
a world wherein there might not
be a God, a world with, however,
a spiritual dimension, to respond
to the clockwork universe
envisioned by the earlier epoch,
the Enlightenment, a world where
everything could be categorized,
analyzed, predicted
Romanticism called for the
inclusion of inspiration in the mix,
there are more things in heaven
and earth, Horatio, than are
dreamt of in your philosophy,
as Shakespeare would, for
instance, have it – “Hamlet”,
1.5.167-8
poets became prophets thereby,
if they could manage it, very
oracles, the world was blessed
with, at that very moment,
Beethoven, far outstripping the
likes of, later, for example, Billy
Graham, or other such, however
galvanizing, proselytizers,
whose messages would’ve been
too, to my mind, literal
for music cannot lie, obfuscate,
prevaricate, music cannot be
fake
and then there was Schubert,
and Chopin, Tolstoy, Dickens,
Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
Robert, her husband,
Tchaikovsky, Caspar David
Friedrich, the Johann Strausses,
Byron, Shelley, Keats, whose
artworks, all, are as profoundly
in our blood, our cultural system,
as, if not more so than, our
present information about the
details of our Christian myths,
despite a superfluity of them
even, throughout the long
indeed Middle Ages, and right
up to, and including, the still
fervent then Renaissance, for
better or for worse still, for us
what Romanticism did, and
specifically through the work
of these seminal artists, was
give each of us a chance,
show us how to come
through trial and tribulation,
what a faith does, any faith
it said, here, this is my dilemma,
and this is how I deal with it
for me, Beethoven’s 32nd
Piano Sonata is, soundly, the
epitome of that, but listen to
Brahms put a stamp on it
with undaunted authority
we might be ultimately of no
consequence in an indifferent
universe, they say, but, hey,
this is what we can do, and
do gloriously, while we are
at it
Woody Allen picks up the
purpose in our own recent
20th Century, following in
the earnest footsteps of his
Existential mentor, the much
too dour, I think, Ingmar
Bergman
but that’s another story
entirely
meanwhile, listen
also watch, the conductor here,
a complete delight, is right out
of “Alice in Wonderland“, I
promise you’ll love it
R ! chard
September 7, 2018
“Grand Piano Sonata” in G major, opus 37 – Tchaikovsky
“Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass with a Book“ (1888)
__________
if Tchaikovsky’s 2nd Piano Sonata hasn’t
remained in the canon, if it isn’t one of
the pieces you’ve heard if only through
the grapevine, it’s, I suspect, cause it’s
essentially not an advance on other more
prescient works in the form, other more
oracular compositions
Beethoven had paved the way for the
Romantic Period, nearly invented it,
established incontrovertibly the
dimensions of the sonata, notably its
purpose, its structure, Schubert had,
however belatedly, confirmed it, with
works equal to his, and even, here
and there, superior, listen
but having reached the summit of
what a sonata could say, the form
little by little withered in its several
Romantic permutations, Tchaikovsky
here, for example, and became mere
elaborations upon a waning theme
rather than exciting, and revelatory,
productions
the sonata would survive, but
transformed by another era,
Impressionism, Tchaikovsky would
as well, of course, but not through
his sonatas
his Second, however, is not not
worth a listen, would you pass,
for instance, on a less celebrated,
perhaps, van Gogh, see above
Tchaikovsky’s, therefore, Second
R ! chard
May 18, 2018
Beethoven / Schubert piano trios
“Newborn Baby on Hands“ (1927)
_________
once I learned to read music, which
is to say, to pay attention when I was
listening – the line of the melody, its
development, the counter melody,
its development, the recapitulation,
of either, or both, the changes in
volume, tonality, the changes in
pace, rhythm – the grammar of
composition began to make itself
evident, felt, like the work of verbs,
nouns, adjectives in sentences
the particularities of the composer
then, much like the colours on a
painter’s palette, made themselves
manifest, the trick is there are no
words in either of these arts, one
must understand them with the
senses
two stories
I’d had an aneurysm, my sister
was there each day to hold my
hand, as I lay silently, patiently,
recovering, any noise was
painful, even excruciating
years later, all I could do, she said,
was hold your hand
all you could do, I retorted,
utterly confounded, there was
everything in your hand, your
love, your prayers, your attention
and devotion, all of those things,
I said, are what kept me alive
later, I extrapolated that that must
be how a newborn baby understands,
through the senses, like we do music
and paintings
another
when many years later I was
volunteering at the local palliative
care unit, I was asked to sit with
a mother whose family would
meanwhile take their lunch
together, the mother, incoherent
and distraught, was all ajitter
in her bed
I sat by her, put a hand on her
arm, gently, and began to chant
a mantra I’d recently taken up in
meditation, something repetitive
and calming
little by little her tremors slowed,
stopped, and then she began to
sing, to mumble, to murmur, to
intone, row, row, row your boat,
over and over again, in a
corroborating rhythm,
acknowledging, mystically,
magically, our transcendent
connection
here’s some Beethoven
here’s some Schubert
try to tell them apart
R ! chard
May 11, 2018
Mozart / Haydn piano sonatas
Princess Friederike Luise of Prussia (1714-1784), Margravine of Brandenburg
____________
if you had trouble distinguishing your
Schubert from your Beethoven, you’ll
probably have trouble as well telling
your Mozart from your Haydn, though
you won’t find it difficult, if you listen,
to tell the earlier two from the latter
both the Haydn here, and the Mozart,
were written in 1789, the year of the
French Revolution, something akin
to our 9/11, the world changed from
one moment to the next
the first two were still doing parties,
which is to say, salon music, stuff
for elites, you can hear it, frivolities,
with, however magical, elaborations
– Liberace, I thought – nothing ever
as confessional as the two later
composers, who, with the new
fervour around individual opinion,
in the wake of questions even about
the validity of God, would create the
very Romantic Era
Mozart and Haydn explore songs,
ditties, Beethoven and Schubert
investigate very fundamental
musical constructions, they’re
down to the very essence of
tonal possibilities, something
that happened to the pictorial
arts in the 1950’s, as artists
probed the cerebral implications
of colour, see for instance,
Rothko
their probe itself becomes more
powerful than their apparent
subject, the tune, though the
melody proves to be, ever, the
cement that keeps the meditation
together
what it says, what they say, is
that confronting our destiny,
we remain the only arbiter, its
outcome will be as beautiful
as we make it, for better or for
worse, the creation of
something beautiful, a work
that can be so beautiful, much
like a life, seems to be a reply
that can somewhat, at least,
existentially satisfy a sense
of purpose
what, otherwise
R ! chard
psst: Mozart’s piano sonata was written
for Princess Friederike Luise of
Prussia, pictured above
May 7, 2018
what’s up in Frankfurt – Piano Sonata in F minor, “Appassionata” – Beethoven
“The conversation of Napoleon and Francois II“ (1808)
________
it’s 1804, Beethoven has entered his
Middle Period, left the more formal
constraints of the Classical Period,
Mozart and Haydn, behind, though
perhaps not essentially, the
structure remains, hardwired, but
its spirit is entirely different,
revolutionarily different, thanks to
Napoleon
and Beethoven is as opinionated
as the revolutionaries, boisterous,
adamant, peremptory even, he is
Zeus, and not undeservedly, at
the top of Olympus’ musical
mountain, where, incidentally,
he still prevails, harmony’s very
Homer
by his Opus 57, the “Appassionata”
– a name not of his own invention,
but, however discriminately, ascribed
later – he isn’t as metaphysical as
Schubert is in that later poet’s D960,
Beethoven is still writing descriptive
texts, torrid novels, however
masterfully illustrated, more than
the philosophical stuff he’ll later
undertake, even topping, when that
takes place, Schubert’s, ever,
nevertheless, transcendental D960,
if you can believe it
but Schubert remained a stripling,
Beethoven, his elder, was given the
grace to probe longer his humanity,
however might it have been equally
cruelly benighted, and to stretch his
speculative reach into previously
unimagined dimensions, beyond
the limited temporal scope of the
surely shriven since Schubert
all of whose wonders have defied
the harsh indignities of time, and
continue still to profoundly and
indelibly reverberate
R ! chard
May 5, 2018
what’s up in Amsterdam – Piano Sonata in B flat major, D.960 – Franz Schubert
“The Doll“ / “Die Puppe“ (1934)
________
should you be concerned about telling
your Schubert from your Beethoven,
don’t fret, I myself, though considered
by some in this area to be omniscient,
however manifestly, as you’ll note here,
erroneously, upon watching a film last
night – the splendid ”Ex Machina”,
about a robot in the form of Alicia
Vikander, viscerally commanding in
neon blue, which is to say, incandescent,
with stainless steel and wires for body
parts – arms, legs, stomach – as part of
her more human, and curvaceous,
attributes – face, chest, and pelvis – who
fears she might be disassembled when
her purpose is served, and a new, and
better robot might not only take her
place, but also her very physical and
metaphysical components, and concocts
to save her life, if that’s what you’d call it,
however convincing, sophisticated, might
be her replication – confused the Schubert
sonata that filtered through the score for
one of Beethoven’s, though can you
blame me, when the sci-fi tale had been
so otherwise gripping
the D960, Schubert’s 23rd and last piano
sonata, was written in 1828, shortly before
he died, it is extraordinary, and entirely
worthy of being compared to Beethoven,
of being held, indeed, in equal
consideration
you’ll note again Schubert’s reserve, his
courtesy, he is philosophical, rather than
combative, his reply to Fate is acquiescent,
though never subordinate, his response to
the challenge of Life is to display the
colours, sounds, and other, however
humble, ephemeral, perhaps even
inconsequential, attributes of his existence,
with the grace of a very flower, whose
essence we still, today, have not ceased
to acknowledge, and to profoundly admire
this is our only answer, he states, our
ever so resplendent, however individual,
humanity, which it is our very salvation
to recount, to relate
Beethoven would surely have agreed,
and applauded
R ! chard
May 1, 2018
a Beethoven / Schubert piano recital
“Charlotte Rothsch, Baroness Anselm De Rothschild“ (1828)
_______
since Beethoven wrote nothing of any
great consequence for four-hand piano,
I thought at first I’d head towards another
kind of pairing, but upon listening to the
complete recital here of the two Jussen
brothers, where Beethoven’s “Variations
on a Theme by Count von Waldstein”,
1792, a trifle, and his later “Waldstein”
Sonata, 1804, for piano solo, an infinitely
more accomplished work of his Middle
Period, both dedicated to the same good
friend and patron, bookend a flurry of
enchanting Schubert compositions,
the contrast between the two composers,
if not starkly evident, is at least
discernable if you listen with some
degree of attention
the difference is in the tone, the intention,
Beethoven is brash, assertive, Schubert
remains ever respectful, even often
courtly
you’ll note that after the fall of Napoleon,
the monarchy was restored in France,
therefore throughout the whole of
Europe, which had resumed its more
genteel pretensions, as had, for instance,
even Chopin himself, you’ll remember, in
very Paris, where he’d relocated from
Poland because of its political unrest
I’ve often said that a distinct characteristic
of Beethoven is that he writes against the
beat, rather than stressing the first note
of the air he is developing, he accentuates
the second, or third, the next still, or the
very last
don’t go, I wish you’d stay here, he, for
example, beseeches, if you transpose
his notes in the last movement of the
Waldstein, the one after the lugubrious
adagio, into words, don’t go, he strikes,
I wish you’d stay, don’t go, I wish you’d
stay here, don’t go, I wish you’d stay, I
wish you’d stay, I wish you’d stay,
accent each time on the stay
in Schubert’s “Fantasie“ for four-hand
piano, written a generation later, in 1828,
and admittedly powerfully influenced by
Beethoven, though no more derivatively
than Mozart would’ve been of Haydn, try,
I hear a bird sing, I hear it sing, I hear it
sing, it sounds so lovely, to the lovely
melody at its very beginning, one
composer is peremptory, the other is
more subservient, confessional
this is what I mean by intention, and the
difference between these two towering
geniuses, who shaped together the
music of their era, however might they
have been otherwise total strangers
they are both musical giants upon
whose shoulders our Western culture
still stands, and swoons, before such
an utterly transcendent legacy
R ! chard
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