August 9, 2010

Sorabji and Ibert. Two very different composers were born on August 15, 2010: Kaikhosru Sorabji and Jacques Ibert. Sorabji, a British composer of Indian descent, was born in 1892. He wrote extraordinarily long and difficult piano pieces. His work Opus Clavicembalisticum, was once listed in the Guinness book of records as the longest piano piece ever composed: the complete performance runs about four hours. Not very many pianists attempt to play Sorabji; among the well-known recordings are those of the late John Ogdon. Marc-André Hamelin and Fredrik Ullén also play Sorabji. It’s interesting to note that Ullén also recorded George Flynn’s piece Trinity, which runs for about an hour and 10 minutes (in our library we have a recording made by the composer). Sorabji, incidentally, was one of the composers who influenced George Flynn. We included Sorabji’s Pastiche on Habanera from "Carmen" by Bizet, brilliantly played by Nikolai Choubine. Not to worry, this one runs less than 6 minutes.

The Frenchman Jacques Ibert, born in 1890, was a very different composer altogether: optimistic, joyful, witty and often brief – everything that Sorabji was not. We have a short exerpt, Allegro con moto, from Concertino Da Camera played by the virtuoso saxophonist Ashu. To listen to the playlist, click here.

August 2, 2010

Beatrice Berrut is a young talented pianist from Switzerland. She was born in Geneva; studied in Zurich with Ester Yellin at the Heinrich Neuhaus Foundation, and then at the Hanns Eisler Music Academy in Berlin, with Galina Iwanzowa. Since then Beatrice has developed an active career, playing numerous concerts throughout Europe and the US. In addition to giving solo performances, she enjoys collaborating with other musicians. Gidon Kremer, who calls her “a wonderfully talented and musical pianist,” invited her to play several concerts at his festival in Basel. She also often plays with the violinist Viviane Hagner. We’ll hear two large, technically challenging and very different works: Franz Liszt’s Après une Lecture de Dante (Fantasia quasi Sonata) and Robert Schumann’s Piano Sonata, Op.11. We think you’ll enjoy them. We also have the recording of Brahms’ Klavierstücke op.118 and Rachmaninov’s Etude-Tableau op.39 no. 2. To listen to Liszt and Schumann, click here.

July 26, 2010

Arpeggione. Some music can only be performed on the instrument it was written for: think of Beethoven’s piano sonatas or Chopin’s etudes. Bach, on the other hand, loved to take a good piece and use it in very different arrangements. For example, music historians think that his famous Harpsichord Concerto I in d minor, BWV 1052 was based on a lost violin concerto. That concerto, in turn, was arranged by Bach as an organ concerto. And of course nowadays, we usually hear it performed on a modern concert piano – and, when played by someone like Glenn Gould, to an amazing effect.

Franz Schubert wrote a sonata for an arpeggione, a string instrument invented in Vienna around the 1820s. Arpeggiones went out of vogue very soon thereafter, so the sonata got arranged for a number of instruments. It is usually performed on a viola, but we have three different transcriptions: Noah Turner Rogoff plays it on a Cello, Nicholas Santangelo Schwartz – on the Double Bass (!), and Kristin Figard on the Viola. Enjoy!

July 19, 2010

Early Music. We continue our collaboration with Millennium of Music, an early music series created by Robert Aubrey Davis. We recently expanded our collection with three programs about the French-Flemish school. The period, which began in the late 15^th century and stretched through the 16^th, was one of the most productive in the history of early classical music: its notables include Josquin des Prez, Orlando di Lasso and Jacob Obrecht, to name just a few. These composers were born in what is now the Netherlands but traveled all over Europe, settling in Italy, France, and Spain, absorbing the local styles but also strongly influencing the further development of music. The period is also remarkable for its newly discovered sense of self-awareness: there was a general sentiment that these composers were of a very high order and deserved to be celebrated and preserved. Publishers, such as Ottaviano Petrucci (who is believed to have produced the first book of sheet music) and Tielman Susato, were selecting famous pieces and creating anthologies for the benefit of musicians and the listening public alike. Music from these collections is presented in three programs entitled “Music from the Lowlands.” To listen, click here.

July 12, 2010

Recent Piano uploads. The young Israeli pianist Einav Yarden has performed extensively in recitals and as a soloist with many well-known orchestras such as the Israel Philharmonic and the Minnesota Symphony, among others. She has also won a number of prizes in international competitions. Einav studied at the Peabody Conservatory with Leon Fleisher. You can hear her perform Stravinsky’s piano Sonata. The German pianist Michael Krücker studied in Rotterdam and Düsseldorf with such masters as Paul Badura-Skoda and György Sándor. Michael has an active performing career, playing in many European festivals and concert halls. We’ll hear a rarely performed Sonate mélancolique by Ignaz Moscheles. It is played on an 1844 Erard pianoforte. The pianist Sophia Agranovich is a native of Ukraine where she studied with Alexander Edelman. She then moved to the US and continued at the Juilliard with Sascha Gorodnitzki, also a former Ukrainian, being one of her teachers. We’ll hear Sophia play Liszt’s Liebestraum No.3. Our library contains many more recordings of these pianists, so please browse. To listen to the selected pieces click here.

July 5, 2010

Gustav Mahler. The great Austrian composer was born 150 years ago this week, on July 7, 1860, but his music sounds as raw and tragic today as the day it was written. Nobody ever projected naked emotions with such force. His music is vulnerable, flawed, sometimes sentimental and at the same time noble. He managed to combine the low, even vulgar, and the angelic into one enormous but coherent whole. Mahler was ahead of his time even despite never accepting atonal music. He influenced many composers of the 20^th century, from Schoenberg, Webern and Berg to (especially) Shostakovich. A Jew in anti-Semitic Vienna, he converted to Catholicism to get a position with the Vienna Court Opera but was still abused in the press. Superstitious, he was afraid of writing the 9^th symphony, trying to deceive faith by not calling Das Lied von der Erde a symphony. But he still died at the age of 50 with exactly nine completed symphonies.

We’re grateful to the Peabody Conservatory for allowing us to present two of Mahler’s symphonies: No. 3 and No. 5. Symphony No. 3 runs for approximately 103 minutes, and the version you hear on our site is probably the longest streaming performance on the Web. You can also listen to the famous Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony as played by the Texas Festival Orchestra.