May 16, 2016.  Wagner and more.  Richard Wagner was born on May 22^nd of 1813.  Last year we wrote about his life around the time he created Tannhäuser.  The premier of Lohengrin, the third of his so-called Romantic operas, followed five years later in 1850, although Wagner had started working on it several years earlier, in the mid-1840s.  Wagner was still living and working in Dresden, where he was the Kapellmeister at the court of the King of Saxony.  Before writing the libretto of Lohengrin, Wagner immersed himself in the old German epics, Parzival, by Wolfram von Eschenbach and Lohengrin; both written in the 13^th century (the study of Parzival resulted, some 30 years later, in Wagner writing an idiosyncratic libretto for his last opera, Parsifal).  The protagonist, Lohengrin, is the son of Parzival/Parsifal, one of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table.  Lohengrin is sent to rescue a certain maiden, and he undertakes the journey in a boat pulled by swans.  The legend, used by Eschenbach to write his epics, originated around the time of the Crusades, so the great Minnesingers, born around 1160, worked with what may be considered “fresh material.”  Wagner was still working on the opera when the 1848 insurrections in Paris and Vienna were followed by disturbances in all major cities of Europe.  A year later, the left-leaning Wagner became politically active during the troubles in Dresden.  As Prussian troops took over the city in May of 1849, Wagner fled to Weimar where he was sheltered for a while by Franz Liszt and then left for Zurich.  He stayed out of Germany till 1860.  It was Liszt, his future father-in-law, who directed the premier of Lohengrin in Weimar in August of 1850.  The opera was a huge success, and not just in Germany – Riga, Vienna, Paris, St.-Petersburg premiers followed during the next several years.  Unfortunately, 1850 was also the year when Wagner wrote his infamous article, Das Judenthum in der Musik (Jewishness in Music, often translated as Judaism in Music).  Antisemitic and unfair (the article denigrates both Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn) it’s an utter embarrassment, especially considering the influence it had on the murderous anti-Semites of the following years.  But going back to the music – Lohengrin, despite its usual Wagnerian length (at about 3 ½ hours, it’s actually among his shortest), is a wonderful opera.  Here is the prelude to Act 1, performed by the Berlin Philharmonic, Herbert von Karajan conducting.

And now to a somewhat disappointing discovery.  Maria Theresia von Paradis was born on May 15^th of 1759.  We always thought that she was famous for three things: being blind but creative in the age when that was so difficult; for Mozart writing a concerto for her, and the Sicilienne, a wonderful little piece, especially as played by Jacqueline du Pré (here).  Unfortunately, the Groves Dictionary suggests that it was not Paradis who was the author of the piece but the purported “discoverer,” the violinist Samuel Dushkin, who arranged the music based on the violin sonata by Carl Maria von Weber and called it Sicilienne.   And indeed, if you listen to the second movement of Weber’s Sonata op. 10 no. 1 (here, as played by Leonid Kogan and Grigory Ginsburg), there cannot be any doubt as to the source of the music.  Dushkin, a wonderful violinist who worked extensively with Stravinsky and created a number of arrangement, is known to be an author of at least one other “musical hoax”: the so-called Grave for violin and orchestra by Johann Georg Benda, which had nothing to do with the 18^th century Bohemian violinist and composer.

May 9, 2016.  Monteverdi. Claudio Monteverdi, one of the most important composers in the history of European music, who bridged the Renaissance with the nascent Baroque and almost singlehandedly created a new musical form, the opera, was born on this day in 1567 in Cremona, Italy.  We’ve written about Monteverdi in the past (here and here), so we’ll focus on just one, but critical, period in his life – his almost 20 year stay in Mantua at the court of Gonzagas.  The Gonzagas, who ruled Mantua from the early 14^th century till the beginning of the 18^th, were one of the most illustrious and old houses of Italy.  They lived in the famous Palazzo Ducale, which, with its 500 rooms, was one of the largest palaces in the country.  The rule of Duke Vincenzo, from 1587 to 1612, was a high point.  Duke Vincenzo Gonzaga was an extravagant patron of the arts and his court was brilliant.  The Duke surrounded himself with poets (including Torquato Tasso), painters (Peter Paul Rubens was one of his favorites) and musicians – the court orchestra was one of the best, and led by the famous composer Giaches De Wert.  The Duke spent so lavishly that by the end of his rule the Gonzagas ran out of money; historians believe that Vincenzo’s profligacy led to the decline of the Duchy.  Monteverdi moved to Mantua around 1590 when he was 23.  Though he had already established himself as a composer in his native Cremona, at the court he started at the bottom, as one of the court musicians.  The influence of De Vert on his compositions of the period is unmistakable.  Monteverdi’s talents didn’t go unnoticed for long as the Duke drew him into his inner circle.  Monteverdi was one of the few musicians to accompany the Duke on his frequent trips.  On one of such trip in 1600, they went to Florence to join the celebration of the wedding of Maria de’ Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, to the French King Henri IV.  Monteverdi, with the rest of Vincenzo’s retinue, attended the performance of Euridice, an opera by Jacopo Peri, one of the first operas ever written. 

The Gonzagas were very close to the house of Este of the nearby Ferrara (the third wife of Alfonso II d’Este, the Duke of Ferrara at the time, was a Gonzaga).  Alfonso shared Vincenzo’s love of arts and music; his court orchestra was led by Luzzasco Luzzaschi, a noted composer; he also maintained Concerto delle donne, a female vocal ensemble famous for their virtuosity.  Monteverdi’s music was performed in Ferrara almost as often as in Mantua; in 1597 he was about to dedicate a book of madrigals to Duke Alfonso when the Duke died, childless, thus ending the Este’s dynasty in Ferrara.

While in Modena, Monteverdi wrote several books of madrigals (books Three through Five, the first two books were composed while Monteverdi lived in Cremona).  Book Five is considered very significant, as it marks the shift from the polyphonic Renaissance style to a more monodic Baroque. In 1607 he composed his first opera, Orfeo, which firmly established opera as new art form; it’s also the earliest opera that is still being regularly performed.  We’ll hear two madrigals from Book V: T'amo mia vita, performed by the ensemble Artek, under the direction of Gwendolyn Toth (here), and Che dar più vi poss'io, with Il Nuove Musiche conducted by Krijn Koetsveld (here).

May 2, 2016.  Scarlatti, Brahms, Tchaikovsky.  Three famous composers were born this week.  May 2^nd is the birthday of Alessandro Scarlatti, a very important early opera composer and the father of Domenico.  Scarlatti was born in 1660.  Then, on May 7^th comes the unfortunate coupling of Johannes Brahms, born in 1833, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, born in 1840, so very different but both representing the best in their national schools.  Over the years we’ve written extensively about all three of them: here and here about Scarlatti, and of course numerous times about both Brahms and Tchaikovsky.  So on this occasion we’ll celebrate their anniversaries with performances of just one piece each.  We have to admit that we’re absolutely in love with the aria Mentre io godo in dolce oblio (here) from Oratorio La Santissima Vergine del Rosario and consider it on par with the best by Handel.  It helps, of course, that it’s performed by the phenomenal Cecilia Bartoli (with Les Musiciens du Louvre conducted by Marc Minkowski).  To carry the comparison between Scarlatti and Handel a bit further (hopefully not too far!), here’s a historical tidbit.  Scarlatti’s La Santissima Vergine del Rosario was premiered in Rome in 1707.  One of Scarlatti’s patrons during that time was Prince Francesco Maria Ruspoli, and Santissima was premiered on Easter Sunday at the Ruspoli palazzo.  Around that time, the 22-year-old Handel arrived in Rome and almost immediately was hired by Prince Ruspoli as his Kapellmeister.  One year later Handel composed his own oratorio, La Resurrezione.  This one too was staged, lavishly, in the main hall on the ground floor of Ruspoli’s palazzo, and also on Easter Sunday.  It’s safe to assume that Handel was familiar with Scarlatti’s work, although there are no discernable borrowings, except for the general format of the work.

It is impossible to pick one representative piece by either Brahms or Tchaikovsky, so, with guided randomness, here are two compositions.  A 1886 piano piece Dumka by Tchaikovsky, not to be confused with several “Dumka” compositions by Antonin Dvořák, isn’t played often on the concert scene, but it is very familiar to the Moscow audience: over the years, it has been performed repeatedly in the second round of the Tchaikovsky piano competitions.  Here it is performed by a young Ukrainian pianist Stanislav Khristenko.  The Piano sonata no. 3 written by the 20-year-old Brahms in 1853 isn’t too popular either: it’s long (35 minutes), in unusual five movements, and in parts uneven.  The third piano sonata is also the last one for Brahms, who wrote all three in a span of less than two years.  For all the problems, it’s very much worth listening to, especially when performed well, as it is here, by the young Japanese pianist Misato Yokoyama.

April 25, 2016.  Augusta Read Thomas and Ear Taxi Festival.  Augusta Read Thomas is one of the most interesting contemporary American composers.  Prolific and active, she’s currently serving as the University Professor of Composition at the University of Chicago. To quote the music critic Edward Reichel, "Augusta Read Thomas has secured for herself a permanent place in the pantheon of American composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. She is without question one of the best and most important composers that this country has today. Her music has substance and depth and a sense of purpose. She has a lot to say and she knows how to say it — and say it in a way that is intelligent yet appealing and sophisticated.”  Here are her Angel Musings, performed by the Orion Ensemble.

Ms. Thomas and Stephen Burns, a Chicago-based conductor, trumpeter, composer, and the Artistic Director of the Fulcrum Point New Music Project, are organizing a unique event, the Ear Taxi Festival 2016, a celebration of contemporary music in Chicago.  The festival will feature 300 musicians, 53 world premieres and 4 installations in its six days of concerts, lectures, webcasts and artist receptions.  Explaining the name of the festival, Ms. Thomas says: “We want to take your ears on a wide variety of ‘taxi rides’ through the world of contemporary music.  At every concert, you’ll hear a mix of ensembles and musical styles that reflects the incredible depth and breadth of new music both here in Chicago and beyond.”  The Festival will feature the music of more than 70 composers, from well-established, like Shulamit Ran, Ms. Thomas, Bernard Rands and George Flynn, to young but very promising.  Here’s the list of all composers (with biographies).  The performers are among the best in Chicago: ensembles, like the Avalon Quartet, the Chicago Composers Orchestra, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Fifth House ensemble and many more, as well as a number of individual performers.  The Festival will start on October 5^th and will run till October 10^th of 2016.  The concerts will take place at several venues: the Harris Theater, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Pritzker Pavilion of the Millennium Park, the University of Chicago and several other smaller ones.  Here’s how you can buy tickets to the Festival events.

Please go to the Festival’s web page for more information.   The Festival promises to be a wonderful affair and we hope that you’ll will have a chance to enjoy it.

Aril 18, 2016.  Prokofiev.  Sergei Prokofiev’s 125^th anniversary is on April 23^rd.  One of the greatest composers of the first half of the 20^th century, his life was as tempestuous as the century itself.  He was born in what is now Ukraine, spent his youth in Moscow and St.Petersburg and by the age of 25 was famous as a composer and pianist.  By that time he had already written a ballet for Sergei Diaghilev which made him a name in Paris.  Following the First World War and the October Revolution, he left Russia for the United States but two years later moved to France.  By then he was the composer of several operas, a symphony, two ballets, concertos for piano and the violin, and four piano sonatas.  In the late 1920s he returned to Russia for a series of concerts and after that, while still living in France, became more involved with the Soviet musical establishment.  Then, in 1936, he returned to the Soviet Union – permanently.  He wrote Peter and the Wolf for Natalia Sats’s Children’s theater and collaborated with Sergei Eisenstein on the film Alexander Nevsky, but also was compelled to write “Soviet” music, like the infamous Zdravitsa, written for Stalin’s 60^th birthday and Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution (even though written on texts by Marx and Lenin, it sounded too unconventional for the Soviet musical apparatchiks and wasn’t performed during Prokofiev lifetime). 

He continued composing during the great Patriotic War, as WWII was called in the Soviet Union, part of which he spent in Almaty, Kazakhstan.  Estranged from his first wife, Lina, since 1941, he married Mira Mendelssohn, 24 years his junior, after the Soviet government officially “annulled” his marriage to Lina.  Lina in the meantime was arrested and sent to the Gulag.  In 1948 Prokofiev himself almost ended up there: he was severely criticized for the 6^th Symphony and the opera The Story of a Real Man, which was staged at the Kirov Theater but then immediately cancelled.  Prokofiev’s health was failing and he moved to his dacha outside of Moscow.  His doctors prohibited any exertion and allowed him to compose for just one hour a day.  He died on March 5^th of 1953, the same day as Stalin.  The Soviet Union descended into an official, utterly hysterical mourning.  Hundreds of people were trampled to death during Stalin’s funeral procession.  Prokofiev’s death wasn’t reported for days, as all periodicals were filled with articles eulogizing Stalin.

We’ll hear his Piano sonata no. 6, op. 82.  Prokofiev stated working on it in 1939 (that year he also started piano sonata nos. 7 and 8 – together they’re known, somewhat inappropriately, as “War Sonatas”). No. 6 was completed in 1940 and premiered by Prokofiev himself in April of that year Prokofiev met the pianist Sviatoslav Richter during that time and Richter became a great champion of this works.  Richter and Emil Gilels, who premiered Sonata no. 8, created a number of classic recording of the “War Sonatas,” and to this day they count among the very best.  Still, there are some very interesting performances made by younger musicians.  Listen to this live recording made by Yuja Wang – the verve and the energy are quite extraordinary, as is the technique.  The portrait of Prokofiev, above, was made by the Russian artist Pyotr Konchalovsky in 1934.

April 11, 2016.  Four Ballades op. 10 by Brahms.  Today we’re publishing Joseph DuBose’s article on one of Johannes Brahms’s youthful compositions, Four Ballades op. 10.  We’ll illustrate them with performances by Sevgi Giles.   ♫

The four Ballades of Brahms’s opus 10 were the first foreshadowing of the eventual direction his output for piano would take. Composed in 1854, they followed the completion of his third and last piano sonata by roughly a year, and were his first foray into the newfound realm of miniatures. Perhaps it was mere curiosity that led the young composer—Brahms was only in his early twenties at the time—from his Classically inspired sonatas to the miniatures born of the Romantic period, yet it would be the latter pieces that would largely come to define his output as composer for the piano. Although nearly a quarter of a century would pass, in which time Brahms championed the large-scale variation form with such works as the Paganini and Haydn Variations, and the Variations and Fugue on a Theme of G.F. Handel, he returned to the miniature in his 8 Klavierstücke, op. 76. This work would, in turn, prove to be only the foundation for the ethereal and introspective pieces to come during the 1890s.

As a musical form, the ballade takes its name from the literary tradition of ballad poetry, which often employed grand themes of heroism or mythology. The ballade became established primarily at the hands of Chopin, who composed four examples between 1831 and 1842. Though it is suggested Chopin’s compositions were inspired by the poetry of Adam Mickiewicz, there is no direct evidence of this from the composer himself. Instead, the term ballade for Chopin seemed to have a similar connotation as the fantasia, a rather free development of ideas with little or no expectation as to formal arrangement, yet also unified with a greater sense of coherence—the development of a musical “narrative,” so to speak. It is natural, then, that Chopin’s ballades borrowed from the established conventions of sonata form, and thereby furthered the weighty discourses found within them.

Perhaps the most significant set of the ballades to follow Chopin’s was that of Brahms, though other notable composers, such as Franz Liszt, would compose their own ballades. Brahms approached the ballade in the same manner as he would many of the piano pieces of his last years—i.e., the three-fold division of the ternary form. Brahms’s ballades in this regard are less expansive as Chopin’s. All four embody some variation of a tripartite form. The first, perhaps, has the closest connection to Chopin. While in ternary form, its middle section, instead of presenting new material, develops upon that of the principal theme. Yet, its monothematicism and abbreviated reprise hardly qualify it as a bona-fide sonata form. The second employs a modified ternary, or, perhaps more appropriately, arch form, while the fourth nearly presents a complete rondo. Only the third is composed in a blatant ternary design. (Continue reading here).