a veritable Schubertiade, X
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Tag: Haydn
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
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 2, 2023
November / Month of the Sonata – 3
“Mona Lisa“ ( c.1503 – c.1519)
Leonardo da Vinci
__________
the next sonata, Beethoven’s “Piano Sonata
No 8 in C minor, Op 13, the ‘Pathétique’“,
is one that everyone’s heard, if only ever in
fragments, right up there with “Jingle Bells”
in our musical repertory, in our cultural DNA,
or, for that matter, Beethoven’s, also, other
iconic piece, the “Moonlight Sonata“, the
“Mona Lisa“, nearly, see above, of music
the initial chords are peremptory, have
resonated, echoed, reverberated,
throughout the ages
this is not, however, the way one should
be addressing the aristocracy, Beethoven
was speaking for the growing Middle
Classes, who, hungering for the status
and refinement of the elite, the French
Revolution having just happened, were
crowding the burgeoning concert and
recital halls cashing in on that interest
the artist was now the main attraction,
where earlier the performer had been
merely decorative, the sponsored
employee of an, however benevolent,
aristocrat, see Mozart, see Haydn
listen to Beethoven strutting, for the
ages, his revolutionary stuff, thumbing
his nose at convention, demanding
attention
enjoy
R ! chard
February 7, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, Vl
“The Potato Eaters” (1885)
Vincent van Gogh
___________
where do you start with Chopin, he is
in our Western cultural bloodstream,
as identifiable in music as, say, van
Gogh is in painting, you don’t need
to be interested in any kind of art to
have not been given even only a
whiff of these iconic artists
nearly anything I might present here
of Chopin you’ve probably already
heard somewhere before, if only in
bits
of van Gogh, well, he goes back in
the public imagination to at least
Vincent, 1971, the song, no one
doesn’t know about him, when I
heard it playing in Amsterdam at
the museum, with the first piece I
saw, The Potato Eaters, dominating
the first wall, insisting on van Gogh’s
vision, his prophecy, his profound
compassion, I cried, I understood
what art is, see above
Chopin exerts a different kind of,
however equally potent, magic
Mozart might sound like Haydn,
Beethoven might sound like
Schubert, all of the Impressionists
sound like all of the Impressionists,
be they Ravel, Debussy, Satie, or
Saint-Saëns, to the untrained ear
but no one sounds like Chopin,
he’s, culturally, a North Star
here’s one of his nocturnes, the
moonlit one, in E flat major
here’s a polonaise, here’s an étude,
in English, a study, a finger exercise,
an iconic, here, prestidigitation
here’s an impromptu, his very,
indeed, Fantaisie-Impromptu, just
to get your categories going
consider its construction, having
some information already about
fantasias, a work of the imagination,
open to any experimentation within
the confines of one movement, with
an impromptu, something purported
to have been created on the spot,
also in one movement
the answer requires you to sharpen
your aesthetic pencil, always a
delight – an impromptu, a
spontaneous invention, a fantaisie,
a work of the imagination, how do
they differ, which part is a fantaisie,
which an impromptu, how do they
nevertheless coalesce
this exercise is the first step in
listening
enjoy
R ! chard
September 2, 2018
Piano Sonata in C# minor, opus 80 – Tchaikovsky
___________
for Sarah and Rachel, the daughters
of the son of a dear cousin, after a
belated lunch recently, two young
girls, 14, 16, in bloom, as Proust
would say, who speak not only
music, but French and English,
fluently, I checked – perhaps
even German, their Oma
lives with them – they also
play the flute, the piano,
and sing, what could be
I ask you, more beautiful,
two young girls in bloom,
indeed in very blossom
or am I being too French
the form of the sonata had been established
decisively during the Classical Period, out
of the rudiments of Bach’s own such pieces,
Mozart and Haydn had given the concept its
final shape, its structure, three or four
contrasting movements, by definition all
entertainments
Beethoven kicked the entertainment part
right out of the ball park, made his show
into a veritable transcendental meditation,
rather than to merely applaud, audiences
gasped, were meant to be awed, as I still
ever am by his musical speculations
but by definition as well, a sonata is a
piece for a single instrument, therefore
inherently introspective, whether the
player has an audience or not, soloists,
note, play easily on their own
even an accompanied sonata, as violin
sonatas often are, for instance, or this
one for two pianos, would lose the
intimacy of a solo piece, for having
someone playing, however compatibly,
over one’s shoulder
in other words, a piano sonata is, by
definition, a monologue, a soliloquy,
where notes tell the story that words
would intimately, even confessionally,
in poetry, convey
the emotions that are elicited from
a piece are as real as they would
be from any literary alternative,
except that they’re quickened, like
aromas, through the senses, rather
than through divisive, by definition
confrontational, logic
rosemary reminds me always, for
instance, of one of my departed
aunts, like the taste of a madeleine
dipped in tea opened the door for
Proust to an entire earlier epoch,
the seed, the subject, of his
disquisition on Time, “À la
recherche du temps perdu“, “An
Exploration into Elapsed Time“,
my own translation, none of the
published proffered titles
having rendered the subtlety
of the shimmering original
rosemary, in other words, speaks,
if even only to me
listen to Tchaikovsky’s First Piano
Sonata, in C# minor, opus 80, one
of only two of his, what do you
hear, think, feel
R ! chard
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
April 20, 2018
String Quartet in A Major, Opus 18, no 5 – Beethoven
“Adagio“ (1899)
________
for especially Kathy, who,
according to a mutual friend,
needs our prayers
please be generous
from his Opus 18, among which there
are six, according to the Classical
tradition, is still steeped in Classical
conditions, tonality, tempo, and
reiteration, but is revolutionary for
its brashness, its personal
manifestation – hey, it says, I’m the
Pied Piper, I’m not hiding in the
courtly shadows any longer, my
stage is now the concert hall, no
more the aristocratic, however
stately, chamber music, which has
ceded, until now, to propriety and
deference rather than, in a word,
genius, I’m Beethoven, Beethoven
says, watch me
he doesn’t disappoint
his 5th String Quartet, Opus 18, note,
written in 1801, is a very early work of
Beethoven, it’s nearly easy to confuse
incidentally, earlier studied
the era is still extricating itself from the
Classical model, the Classical imperatives
are there, tempo, tonality, and repetition
remain rigid elements of musical
obsessive, though each movement
imprints itself, by constant reiteration,
on our minds, much like pop music
but I miss an adagio, the moral ground,
I think, of a piece of music, the place
where your heart really takes over and
begins to incorporate the work‘s
humanity, I ascribe this unfortunate
omission to Beethoven’s youthful
exuberance, he would’ve been around
30, and setting out, with verve and
ambition, and he would be performing
before general now, rather than
aristocratic, audiences, he had a show
to put on, not just background chamber
music
note that the second movement is a
minuet, a sure sign of the Classical
Period, extinct in only a few further
years
note that the third movement, the
andante cantabile, a leisurely walking
pace, stepped up, rather than down,
to a veritable clippety-clop in some
instances, is a set of variations, to,
incidentally, settle its theme into
one’s very consciousness, I’ve been
humming these movements for the
past several days, not at all
unprofitably
note also that you’ll probably soon
they are utterly captivating, after,
March 17, 2018
English Suite No 3 in G Minor – Bach
“Suite Fibonacci“ (2003)
________
before I say much more about his Cello
Suites, let me point out that Bach has
some French Suites, some English
Suites, on top of similarly structured
Partitas and Toccatas, the French have
their tout de suites, and hotels have,
nowadays, their so named luxury
apartments
musical suites are sets of dance pieces,
by the early 18th Century much stylized,
with an introductory prélude, an allemande,
followed by a courante, which is to say, folk
dances, the first German, the next French,
then a sarabande, Spanish, followed by a
couple of galanteries, court dances,
minuets, gavottes, bourrées, then a final
English gigue
all of the markings are in French, which
leads me to believe that all of these
dances must’ve originated at the court
of Louis XlVth, the Sun King, 1638 to
1715
but the suggestion is that Europe was
becoming an integrated community
all of these dances were eclipsed by
the Classical Period, of Haydn and
Mozart, apart from the minuet, which
more or less defined, nevertheless,
that new era
the minuet will die out by the time of
Beethoven, you’ll note, to be replaced
by the waltz, which had been
considered much too racy until
transformed by Chopin into a work
of ethereal art
the Strausses, father and son, gave it,
only a little later, celebratory potency,
but that’s another story
here’s Bach’s English Suite, the 3rd,
for context, the French ones are a
little too salty, as it were, they do not
quite conform to prescribed suite
notions, however might their
propositions have been, ahem,
sweet
meanwhile, enjoy this one
R ! chard
March 14, 2018
what’s up in Pyeongchang / Bach
“The Cello Player“ (1896)
________
though I’d considered presenting all six
of Bach’s Cello Suites – your one stop
shopping for these extraordinary
compositions – even one only of these
masterpieces floored me each time I
individually listened
why the Suites, cause I couldn’t follow
up on Beethoven’s Opus 5, for cello
and piano accompaniment, without
saying more about the cello, by then
an instrument of some significance,
and who could argue, it’s resonance
thrills you in your bones, in your very
being
Frederick ll, King of Prussia, played it,
earning for him tailored compositions,
however controversial, from both
Mozart and Haydn, but even earlier,
Bach had composed definitive pieces
for it, much as he’d done for the
harpsichord, precursor to the piano,
students of either still go to Bach for
their basics, their intricate, exquisite,
technical proficiency
the cello can play one note only at a
time, which means that, like a voice,
you’re working without harmony,
you need to make your own,
otherwise your performance is
boring, no one else, as far as I know,
has ever written anything else for
unaccompanied cello, not even
Beethoven
I find most performers lend Bach a
more Romantic air, torrid emotion,
excesses of volume, pauses to the
pace, ritardandos, rallentandos,
which aren’t appropriate to the
more genteel Baroque period,
something I usually find
unwelcome
but in this performance, I’m sure
not even Bach would object
I’m offering up first the Sixth Cello
Suite, D major, played by Jian Wang,
someone I’d never heard of, in a
dazzling performance in Pyeongchang,
a place I’d neither ever heard of, until
only very recently
it appears both of these new kids on
the block ought to be on the map
R ! chard
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