how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, X
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Tag: Mozart
March 2, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, IX
“The Spanish Guitarist” (1897)
____________
just as I was about to relegate the trill
to Mozart and the Classical Period, I
inadvertently came upon something
wonderful by Joaquín Rodrigo, a
Spanish composer, 1901 – 1999, a
concerto for guitar
the trill had been decorative, meant to
appeal to aristocrats frequenting
salons
then the French Revolution happened,
and the growth of the Middle Class,
and consequently popular avenues
of entertainment for the liberated,
concert halls, for instance, looked
for a more emotionally powerful
experience, arpeggios took care of
that
the trill died
but in 1939, nearly two centuries
later, Rodrigo wrote his Concierto
de Aranjuez, a descendent pays
homage to an elder, trills abound
it should be stated that a guitar can
play only one note at a time, it might
be that trills lend themselves better
to such an instrument than an
arpeggio would
then again, I’ve found that Spanish
music, the tango, the tarantella, for
instance, see above, has held more
rigidly to the imperatives of Western
music I’ve spoken of here before,
tempo, tonality, repetition, it is not
Debussy, Ravel, it is not even
Chopin, it is peripheral, maybe, to
the cultural establishment, but
potent, steeped in blood and
tradition
here’s Rodrigo giving you Mozart
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
October 7, 2018
Piano Concertos 2, 3, 4 – Beethoven
“Liberty Leading the People“ (1830)
_________
for everyone, with great gratitude,
who reads me, I mean only to
bring poetry, which is to say,
light
though I’d considered leaving the
Romantic Piano Concertos behind
to explore other areas of the period
in this survey, it seemed unfair,
indeed remiss of me, not to include
the three among my top ten that I
haven’t yet highlighted, Beethoven’s
2nd, 3rd, and 4th Piano Concertos,
Opuses 19, 37, and 58 respectively,
after all, these are where the spirit
of the age, the Zeitgeist, was
constructed, like a building, with
walls, windows, a hearth, all of
which would become a church,
then a Church, and by the time of
Brahms, a very Romantic Cathedral
the foundation had already been laid
by Mozart with his 27, but music had
not yet become anything other than
an entertainment by then, or
alternatively, an accessory to
ceremonial pomp and circumstance,
see Handel and England for this, or
liturgical stuff, see, among many
others here, Bach
but with the turn towards
independence of thought as the
Enlightenment progressed, cultural
power devolved from the prelates,
and their reverent representations,
to the nobles, who wanted their own
art, music, which is to say, something
secular, therefore the Classical
Period, 1750 – 1800, in round figures
then in the middle of all that, 1789,
the French Revolution happened,
and the field was ripe for prophets,
anyone with a message of hope,
and a metaphysical direction, midst
all the existential disarray – the Age
of Reason had set the way,
theoretically, for the possibility of a
world without God, something, or
Something, was needed to replace
the The Trinity, the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost, Who had been
seeing Their supremacy contested
since already the Reformation
Beethoven turned out to be just
our man, don’t take my, but history‘s
authentification of it, see the very
Romantic Period for corroboration
in a word, Beethoven established a
Faith, a Vision, not to mention the
appropriate tools to instal this new
perspective, a sound, however
inherited, musical structure – his
Piano Concertos Two, Three, and
Four, for instance, are paramount
amongst a host of others of his
transcendental revelations
briefly, the initial voice, I am here, in
the first movement, is declamatory,
even imperious, but ever
compositionally solid, and proven,
tempo, tonality, recapitulation, the
materials haven’t changed from the
earlier Classical epoch, just the
design, the interior, the
metaphysical conception
his construction is masterfully
direct, the line of music is
throughout ever clear and concise,
despite flights of, often, ethereal,
even magical, speculation, you
don’t feel the music in your body
as you would in a dance, as in the
earlier era, of minuets, but follow
it, rather, with your intellect, you,
nearly irresistibly, read it
but the adagio, the slow movement,
the middle one Classically, is always,
for me, the clincher, the movement
that delivers the incontrovertible
humanity that gave power to the
Romantic poet, who touched you
where you live
Beethoven says life is difficult, and
eventually, at the end of his Early,
Middle and Late Periods, life may
even have no meaning
but should there be someone, he
says, who is listening, Someone –
though implicit is that one may be
speaking to merely the wind – this
is what I can do, this is who I am
and while I am here, however
briefly, I am not insignificant, I
can be worthy, even glorious,
even beautiful, I am no less
consequential, thus, nor
precious, than a flower
for better, of course, or for worse
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
July 27, 2018
“Lament From Epirus” – Christopher King
“Blind Man’s Portion“ (1903)
________
though you’ll have to actively listen
to Christopher King rather than
merely hear him here, as you might
have been doing with many of my
suggested musical pieces, should
you be at all interested in the history
of music, he is fascinating, dates his
investigations back millennia to very
Epirus, Ancient, nearly primordial,
Greece, to mirologia there, ancient
funerary chants
some have survived, and have been
recorded for posterity, one, in 1926,
by a Greek exile fled to New York City,
Alexis Zoumbas, a year later, however
improbably, by an American, a blind
man, his own story inspirational, akin
to that of Epictetus, one of the two
iconic Stoic philosophers, the other,
incidentally, an emperor, though the
blind man here, Willie Johnson, was
never himself a slave, but only, by a
historical whisker, the emancipations
of the American Civil War
Christopher King‘s comparison
of an Epirotic miralogi with an
American one brings up, for me,
the difference between Mozart
and Beethoven, notice how the
Willie Johnson version is more
rhythmic, the cadence is much
more pronounced than in the
Greek one, Johnson would’ve
got that from the musical
traditions Europeans had
brought over from their native
continent, probably also from
Africa, Africans
Beethoven would’ve been
surrounded, meanwhile, by Roma,
perhaps called gypsies then, their
music ever resonant in his culture,
not to mention later Liszt‘s, and
the Johann Strausses’ even, for
that matter, Paganini also seems
to have been imbued with it, it
having come up from Epirus
through, notably, Hungary – not
to mention, later still, that music’s
influence, and I’ll stop there, on
late 19th-Century Brahms
Christopher King, incidentally,
sounds a lot like someone you
already know, I think, from his
eschewing – Gesundheit – cell
phones, for instance, to his
enduring preoccupation with
death, not to mention his
endearing modesty, indeed
his humility, his easy
self-deprecation, despite his,
dare I say, incontestable, and
delightful, erudition
makes one wonder why that
other hasn’t become also
famous yet
what do you think
R ! chard
July 20, 2018
mass appeal, or “Missa Solemnis”, opus 123 – Beethoven
from the centre, the Hofkirche, the Dresden Cathedral, across from the
Augustusbrücke, or Augustus Bridge, extends into the Zwinger, one
of three only palaces in Europe, along with Versailles and Vienna’s
Schönbrunn, distinctly horizontally to the right, not to be confused
with a crook in the Cathedral, an intolerable, were it so, ecclesiastical
gaffe, it ‘s now become one of the most significant art galleries in
Europe, the green rooves, to the right still, are the Semperoper‘s, the
black roof, nestling before it, an unforgettable Italian
restaurant
before it all, majestically, the Elbe
_______
from the very Semperoper in Dresden,
where I’ll ever remember seeing the
worst “Barber of Seville” I’ve ever seen,
first balcony, left of centre, Figaro came
out on a motorcycle, I ask you, it was
downhill after that, my mom, beside
me, was falling even asleep, we left at
intermission, soldiered on to a
restaurant overlooking the Elbe, Italian,
if I remember, but utterly more enjoyable
than the disappointing operatic option,
there might even ‘ve been a moon at our
tableside window, picturesquely
shimmering on the river
but, hey, we both would‘ve stayed,
incontrovertibly, for this performance,
Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis“, a late,
and towering, entry, 1823, in his opus
– second definition of that word, which
is to say, his entire output, all 135
opuses, first definition there, discrete
compositions – plus all his works
without opus – first definition again –
numbers, WoO
the plural of opus, incidentally, can
also be, both meanings, opera, just
to confuse things, I use either
interchangeably, according to my
narrative rhythm
missae solemnes, plural of missa
solemnis, are a particularly Catholic
form of music, going back to the
very Middle Ages, at which point
religious art was all that really
mattered, anything else was entirely
peripheral, of no consequence
but Catholicism, and its Protestant
offshoots, which is to say, their
common Christianity, remained
culturally entrenched during the
process of their slow disintegration
Nietzsche would, later, take care
of that, but that’s another story
Beethoven, Mozart, Catholics, if,
either, only by name, delivered
missae solemnes, while Bach,
Handel, both Protestant,
delivered oratorios, with some
intermingling
about which, later
Catholic, Protestant expression still
find, even strong, exponents at
present, though the form is,
essentially, outdated, our anthems
are national, now, mostly, if even
somewhat, that, halfheartedly, when
not, paradoxically, searchingly,
hopefully, and maybe even
revolutionarily, again, ideological
imagine “Imagine“ for instance, as
such, just click
R ! chard
May 20, 2018
“Caprices” for Solo Violin – Paganini
“Musical Fête“ (1747)
____________
though by now you must be assuming
that Beethoven had been defining the
entire early Romantic Period all by
himself, 1803, let’s say, to, say, 1810,
when Schubert, 13 by then, started
kicking in, however immaturely, with
his D1 – D1, note, not D960, over a
thousand compositions later, a work
imbued, so early, not unexpectedly,
with the irrepressible spirit of Mozart,
and therefore, by then, incidentally,
audibly outdated – but you would be,
we would be, overlooking the extraordinary
influence of a maverick, a relic of the
earlier Italian domination of the arts,
from the Renaissance, at least, on –
Paganini – the wizard of the
violin, who’d sold his soul, like Faust,
to the devil, it was susurrated, for his
extraordinary gift
Bach had not only changed the course
of musical history, in the early 18th
Century, but shanghaied the very
language of art as oracular expression,
and substituted music as the voice that
spoke for the people, music will define
henceforth, for a time, the period
there is the Italian Baroque, of course,
utterly masterful paintings, sublime
even, see above, but it has been
supplanted in our 21st-Century
popular imagination by the Baroque
of the German nations, their music,
Bach’s, transcendental then, though
ever so intricate, descriptions of his
particular epoch
this dominance will migrate to Paris,
eventually, and back to art, painting,
after over a hundred tumultuous,
and impermeable, years, with the
Impressionists, in the late 19th
Century
meanwhile, Paganini will get in the
way, 1780 – 1840, an exact, more or
less, contemporary of Beethoven,
1770 – 1827, and show off what
Romantics can do, unleashed,
before a newly enfranchised, and
thrilled, as you will surely be,
audience
R ! chard
psst: the “Caprices“ are essentially
cadenzas, the improvised solo
sections in concertos, where
instrumentalists get to show
off their stuff, and riff, however
exponentially, on their subject
Paganini, makes an art form
of that, as do others, whom
I’ll bring up, trust me, later
stay tuned
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 22, 2018
String Quintet in C major, D. 956 – Franz Schubert
a monument of Western culture, it’d be
Sant’Agnese fuori le Mura in Rome,
quartets, I couldn’t not next introduce
their very gold standard
written in 1828, it was composed at
the very height of the Romantic
Period, just a little ahead of Chopin,
1810 – 1849, his other significant
counterpart, apart from the ageing
Beethoven, 1770 – 1827, who still
towered above all, despite his
demise, and was universally
admired
but had Schubert lived longer than
his 31 years, I suspect he might’ve
been Beethoven’s equal, Schubert
died even earlier than Mozart did,
at 35, but of something that wasn’t
spoken of until much later, which
is why we haven’t heard about the
loss of this other musical giant
quite as grievously as we have
about his somewhat more senior
counterpart
but listen
it’s even hard to tell him apart from
Beethoven, the passion, the urgency,
the drama, even composing against
the beat, a signature trait in
Beethoven, like Alfred Hitchcock
showing up in his own movies, or
Woody Allen, always introducing a
work of art
a few things
though the frame is immaculately
Classical, tonality, tempo, and
recapitulation are not at all
unobserved, the mood has changed
from courteous, deferential, and
respectful, to urgent, confessional,
and private, the walls are there, but
the furniture has changed, thanks
and to the times
note that Elizabeth Barrett Browning
then, unfettered love poems to her
famous poet, who was remaining
nevertheless, in his own work, more
emotionally punctilious
I noted as well that the tempo in the
second movement, one of the most
beautiful adagios ever, surely,
lurches into an intemperate rebellion,
a second rhythm, up against the earlier
mournful resignation of the poignant
lament – note, in passing, that its
stress of the dominant note is on the
last beat not the first, like a weight
that becomes, at every inching
forward, intolerable, a very path to a
personal Calvary – before returning
to that very fateful, though luminous,
initial, stricken dirge
the next movement, the scherzo, does
the reverse, fast, then slow, then fast
again, to give the work in its entirety
eight rather than the four traditional
tempi
the piece now has episodes, rather
than merely a clockwork display,
drama has replaced the dance
entirely as the subtext for music
Schubert died two weeks after its
publication, for your info, I think
his soul had been talking
R ! chard
psst: there’s a magical film I associate
production, about several elderly
ladies who get stuck in the
wilderness after their tour bus
breaks down in the middle of
nowhere
you’ll never forget it
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