a veritable Schubertiade, X
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Tag: Schubert
April 27, 2024
a veritable Schubertiade, VII
“Birth of a Divinity“ (1960)
Salvador Dali
______
during the third evening of recitals, the
program, to my surprise, starts with a
work even earlier than the earliest
one we’ve heard yet in this
Schubertiade, his D 568, his Seventh
Schubert’s Piano Sonata No. 4 in
A minor, D 537, was written when
he was seventeen, he would’ve
been, and was, steeped in Mozart,
music to amuse musical coteries
but at the start of the second movement,
I heard an air I’d heard somewhere
before, it turned out to be the seed of
a magical part in one of his later
transcendental pieces
Schubert was already imbued with his
divinity, see above, you can hear it,
listen
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, continued
“The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog“ (1818)
Caspar David Friedrich
_____________
if I promised something more transcendental
from Schubert in my last communication,
a second piece which is programmed for the
first of my May Schubert recitals, written in
1823, six years later than his, recently noted,
D568, his D784, fits the bill, by then Schubert
knew he was dying, he would’ve been 26,
you hear it in his intention, he wasn’t any
longer entertaining guests merely,
assembled in the salons of the nobility,
he was writing his testament for posterity
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
November 18, 2023
November / Month of the Sonata – 18
“A Melody of Schubert“ (c.1896)
Francesc Masriera
________
though there are other, and quite significant,
composers who fit into this category,
Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin pretty
much define, all by themselves, the
Romantic Period
Chopin composed only two sonatas of note,
plus one more that is overlooked for being
an early, student effort, not up to the
standard of his later ones, Chopin, rather,
wrote mostly shorter pieces, nocturnes,
études, preludes, polonaises, and more,
that later became the very stuff of his
reputation
Schubert wrote enough sonatas that he
could be compared to Beethoven, indeed
it can be difficult to tell one from the other,
much as it can be difficult to tell Haydn
from Mozart, products in either case of
being both of their respective eras
when I was much younger, a guest among
a group of academics, where I’d been invited
by the host’s wife, a co-worker, what I knew
of Classical music, in the large sense, which
is to say comprising all of the musical periods,
Classicism, Romanticism, Impressionism,
and beyond, was all self-taught
is that Beethoven, I asked the host, about
a piece of music he’d put on
that’s Schubert, he replied, aghast, as
though I’d just farted
I blushed, deep red, confounded
Schubert, having great admiration for
Beethoven, took on many of the older
composer’s lessons, four movements
instead of the Classical three, for
instance, and many of the technical
tricks of his forebear
but there’s an essential component of
their styles that marks one from the
other, an easy way to tell them apart,
Beethoven always composes against
the beat, Schubert following it
listen to the first few notes of Beethoven’s
“Pathétique”, for instance, the beats are
erratic, confrontational, the mark of a
revolutionary, Beethoven was brashly
proclaiming his worth, he had something
to prove
Schubert, who was essentially playing
for friends, just wanted to entertain
them, which he did in spades, without
bombast or bluster
listen to his Piano Sonata in A major,
D959, for example, no swagger, no
ostentation, delivering nevertheless
something quite, and utterly,
enchanting, everything following,
unobtrusively, the beat
enjoy
R ! chard
November 12, 2023
November / Month of the Sonata – 12
“Portrait of the Composer Sergei Rachmaninov“ (1925)
Konstantin Somov
__________
Rachmaninov, late Romantic, early
Impressionist, yanked, despite his
modern bent, Romanticism, solidly,
into the Twentieth Century, we
heard him in movies, and
consequently on TV, back then, on
long-play albums, 78s at the time,
that were flooding the market, first
movement on the one side, the next
two on the other, that’s how we used
to listen
later, we’d hear Sergeant Pepper’s
Lonely Heart’s Club Band doing the
same, in the late ’60s, before discs
Rachmaninov doesn’t sound like
Chopin, Beethoven, Schubert, but
you can hear their roots, their blood
running through his compositions
but here, in his Piano Sonata no. 2,
Opus 36, he elaborates, a sure sign
of Impressionism, intellectual rather
than emotional appeal, something
had become tiresome after half a
century of Romantic dramatization,
how many Anna Karenina‘s can you
take
the culture was returning to objective,
rather than emotional, Charles Dickens,
Victor Hugo, and the like, bleeding-heart,
considerations, and seeking out more
rational answers to our psychological
stresses, consequently Freud, music
had to keep up
later, I’ll tell you a story about how
music changes the world
meanwhile, here’s Rachmaninov’s
Piano Sonata no 2
enjoy
R ! chard
November 9, 2023
November / Month of the Sonata – 9
Jules Delsart
______
at the end of the Romantic Period, 1886, and
encroaching on the upcoming Impressionistic
Era, César Frank wrote his Violin Sonata in
A major, a musical glimpse into a new age,
this is not Chopin, not Beethoven, not
Schubert, despite obvious, if you’re
listening, homages, references
you’ll note the atonality, musical progressions
that seem askew, eccentric, not as harmonious
as those earlier composers, like a neurosis
taking over
tempo, a second essential element of music
in the West, however changeable might it be,
even within the individual movements, is
recognizable
repetition, the third pillar of Western music
is keeping us on track, bringing us back to
the original statement, to the air each
movement presents at their several
introductions
Frank’s sonata was so appreciated by an
accomplished cellist friend, Jules Delsart,
that he asked if he would transcribe it for
cello, their joint Sonata in A major for
Cello and Piano remains to this day a
stalwart on the cello circuit
compare, an exercise in sharpening your
aesthetic pencil, try it, enjoy
R ! chard
April 26, 2023
how to listen to music if you don’t know your Beethoven from your Bach, XII – on rhapsodies
“Rhapsody“ (1958)
_____
if, in my last instalment, I compared iconic
funeral marches, let me do the same for
a couple of iconic rhapsodies, another
musical form that came and went, that’s
come and gone, but not forgotten
what’s a rhapsody
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