a veritable Schubertiade, X
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Tag: Beethoven
May 8, 2024
a veritable Schubertiade, IX
by the time of his Piano Sonata in G major,
D 894, October, 1826, Schubert would’ve
known he was about to die, he was 29,
he would die two years later, November,
1828, you can hear it, his encounter with
Heaven
this is not merely entertainment, this is
contemplation, a description of what he’s
seen at the Celestial Gates, you can
actually hear the stars twinkle in their
great expanse of infinity from the very
first movement
later, dance rhythms suggest an embrace,
an embrace as a symbol of acknowledgment,
acquiescence, acceptance, welcome, into
the Beyond, whatever you might want to
call it
Beethoven confronts God, Schubert describes
his personal death experience
but that’s not one, but a couple of other stories
meanwhile, listen
R ! chard
May 5, 2024
a veritable Schubertiade, VIII
“Ladies Concert at the Philharmonic Hall” (1782)
Francesco Guardi
_________
Schubert’s Piano Sonata in B major, D. 575
is an early work, he was twenty, still under
the influence of Mozart, which is to say,
tonality, tempo and repetition, but impacted,
decidedly, by Beethoven, who’d just
transformed Classicism, the art of the
courts, see above, into Romanticism, the
art of the people, music had to now not
only entertain, but matter
listen, enjoy
R ! chard
April 23, 2024
a veritable Schubertiade, VI
by this time, in his Piano Sonata in A minor,
D 845, Schubert has accumulated so much
Beethoven that his Beethoven is beginning
to shine through in his own compositions,
Beethoven was a forefather, still present,
it’s often difficult to tell one, indeed, from
the other, even here
Beethoven, see above, punched through
Classicism – Mozart, Haydn – its artificiality,
delivering emotion, instinctively, from the
very start, from which he nearly
single-handedly delivered to the world no
less than Romanticism, like delivering the
recalibration of time and space after
Einstein essentially, so profound a
cultural metaphysical reorganization
Schubert remains ever more courteous,
more beholden to the upper crust that
supports him, and that he ever wants to
court, you can hear it, listen, there is no
confrontation here, just, dare I say,
entertainment
Schubert was not a revolutionary
R ! chard
April 9, 2024
a veritable Schubertiade, III
“Impression, Sunrise“ (1872)
Claude Monet
________
what struck me most about Schubert’s Piano
Sonata no. 17 in D major, his D850, was, more
than its emotional impact, its technical
wizardry, from the start Schubert dazzles with
his prestidigitation, his manual dexterity, the
notes fly
there’s a lot of Beethoven in this composition,
working against the beat, apart from the fourth
movement, the rondo, Schubert is being
unequivocally Beethoven
the fourth movement is, incidentally, utter
Mozart, you can tell from the preponderance
of trills
texture, meanwhile, overcoming melody,
in, most notably, the third movement, is
right out of Chopin, his “Winter Winds“
for instance, an inspired combination
of both melody and texture, where is
the supremacy of either, listen, you tell
me, do the “Winds“ conquer the groans,
the tribulations, of the underlying melody,
the left hand, the low notes, the chthonic,
the earth, or does the dexterousness of
the right hand, the ephemeral, the
transitory, win the day
texture will overcome melody eventually,
as the century moves along, Impressionism
will prioritize perspective over emotion, the
head over the heart, Debussy, among
others, Renoir, Monet, Pissaro, will
dominate, see above, but that’s another
story
meanwhile Schubert
listen
R ! chard
April 5, 2024
a veritable Schubertiade
“Una melodia de Schubert” (c.1896)
___________
in May, the recital society of my city is featuring
an internationally famous pianist doing several
Schubert sonatas, twelve of them, spread out
across four evenings, a veritable Schubertiade,
I’ve got tickets for all of them
maybe you’d like to join me
I always do my research before attending any
cultural event, much like reading up on Italy,
for instance, before going there
the program seems to be more or less
chronological, the first night featuring
earlier Schubert sonatas
his D568, his Seventh, composed in 1817,
is, to my mind, enchanting, but not yet
reaching the heights of his later
transcendental productions, more of
which later, should you stick around
Schubert always sounds a lot like Beethoven,
but with more civility, less confrontation,
Schubert is still chamber music, and, in this
outing, I find he sounds a lot like Mozart even,
dexterous, delightful, but fundamentally
frivolous
it’s the difference between dessert and food
that will sustain you, that’ll speak to your soul,
more about which later, should you stick
around
meanwhile, D568, enjoy
R ! chard
January 31, 2024
sonatas, continued (“String Quartet, Op. 76 no. 1” – Haydn)
“The Flute Player“ (c.1660)
Adriaen van Ostade
___________
o, I said, when my flute teacher, an art I’d taken up
too late in life, presented me with a piece I should
learn to play, the second movement of Haydn’s
Opus 76, no. 1, an adagio sostenuto
adagios always remind me of John, I’d read, at
a modest ceremony of remembrance for him,
from a text I’d prepared, which prophetically,
transcendentally, connected me with a
cornucopia of adagios, I’d sought them out,
been consoled, repaired, eventually inspired,
by them, Haydn’s Opus 76, no.1, movement
two, had been a total shoe-in
Haydn is where the history of string quartets
starts in the West, they existed before, but
not formally as a musical format, became
thereafter, however, an identifiable category,
and consequently, imitated
the string quartet, a piece of music written
for four instruments, all string traditionally,
two violins, a viola, and a cello, playing
more than one segment of music,
Classically three, then becoming four,
became a structure that has not even
nowadays lost its appeal, though the
individual combinations might’ve
significantly, since, been altered
Haydn wrote 68 string quartets, which
established him as their spiritual father,
all string quartets devolve from him,
including Beethoven‘s, those of
Shostakovich, and Messiaen
marvel
R ! chard
December 24, 2023
sonatas, continued (Messiaen – “Quartet for the End of Time”)
“Red Quartet“
Raoul Dufy
_____
if a trio is a sonata written for three instruments,
a sonata, a piece of music consisting of more
than one segment, or movement, written for
four instruments, is called a quartet
a quartet is also what we call the group itself
of four players
quartets can play more than just quartets, they
can also play waltzes, nocturnes, rhapsodies,
for instance, just as trios, groups of three, can
play more than just trios
but quartets, the form, have had a long and
glorious history, from Mozart and Haydn,
the Classicists, through Beethoven, an
ardent Romantic, to the more political
Shostakovich, enemy, for a time, of his
repressive Soviet state, and on to
Messiaen, who composed his own
Quartet for the End of Time, in a Nazi
concentration camp
let me start with the Messiaen, now that I’ve
whetted your appetite, and work our way back
to Mozart to see where we came from, and
how
there are seven movements in Quartet for
the End of Time, not the Classical three or
four, atonality abounds, discordant, not
unexpectedly, progressions, repetition also
takes its punches, not easily identifiable
throughout, but tempo, the third pillar of
Western music, more or less holds its
own, keeping the tradition, however
precariously, together, listen
it’s 1941, we’re in a concentration camp,
Messiaen is caught between hope and
despair, give the guy a break, he hasn’t
many absolutes to hold onto, tempo
might be one of them, the heartbeat,
pulse, perseverance, an actual human
pace, a rhythmic instinct, by which
eventually, hopefully, meaning
transpires
hope is in one’s creativity, he says, each
individual answer can be a tribute to
one’s own tribulations, our responses
can be poetry, lessons rather than
invectives, epiphanies rather than
agonies, may the Force, in other words,
be with you, in the face of even the most
trying difficulties, honour can supplant
trials, he concludes, given grace and
integrity
Beethoven says pretty much the same
thing in his last piano sonata, remember,
his Opus 111, listen, a not not impressive
corroboration
R ! chard
November 19, 2023
November / Month of the Sonata – 19
“Over the Town“ (1918)
Marc Chagall
________
Johannes Brahms is pretty well the last of
the great Romantics, 1833 – 1897, he wrote
his Piano Sonata no 3, in F minor, Opus 5,
when he was not quite twenty, with the
same bravura as Beethoven, let me point
out, his sonata has five movements, a sign,
as I’ve said before, of bristling confidence
as a form grows from its original, pristine,
shape, it can only grow by evolving,
becoming something, eventually, that it
wasn’t, by dint of breaking all the rules,
transgressing
style becomes the manner in which a
work is transformed from its integral
state into something more decorated,
more intricately designed, like adding
lace to a perfectly adequate collar, or
making a soufflé out of an egg
but who wouldn’t, won’t
a point is reached where style overcomes
substance then, and becomes the focus
of the entertainment, one watches the
bravura
to my mind, this, however wondrous,
sonata, hasn’t the emotional appeal
that I’d heard in the earlier Romantics,
that would keep me rapt to the end,
the draw for me is the prestidigitation,
the manual dexterity, which is like
watching someone fly through the
air with the greatest of ease, but be
not otherwise moved, see above
but that’s me, and that’s to my mind
incidentally, since this is Brahms’
last sonata, he only wrote three,
this is probably the last of the
great Romantic sonatas, after
which Impressionism
R ! chard
November 18, 2023
November / Month of the Sonata – 18
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