Friends of Chamber Music
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
Inon Barnaton, piano; Stephen Taylor, oboe; David Shiffrin, clarinet; Peter Kolkay, bassoon; Stewart Rose, horn
Francis Poulenc: Trio for Oboe, Bassoon and Piano
Wolfgang Mozart: Piano Quintet in E flat major, K. 452 (3/5/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the new season of the Friends of Chamber Music.
Johann Sebastian Bach: Excerpts from English Suite No. 5 in E minor, BWV 810
Murray Perahia, piano
Sony 60277 16-21 15:16
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791): Piano Quintet in E flat major, K.452
Largo--Allegro moderato
[Larghetto]
Rondo: Allegretto
Mozart finished the Piano Quintet on March 30, 1784. In April, he wrote a letter to his father: "Please don't be vexed that I haven't written to you for so long. Surely you realise how much I have had to do in the meantime! I have done myself great credit with my three subscription concerts, and the concert I gave in the theater was most successful. I composed two grand concertos (K.450 and 451) and then a quintet (K.452), which called forth the very greatest applause; I myself consider it to be the best work I have ever composed….How I wish you could have heard it! And how beautifully it was performed! Well, to tell the truth I was really worn out in the end after playing so mucy--and it is greatly to my credit that my listeners never got tired."
Mozart's view that the quintet was "the best work I havge ever composed" is not to be taken lightly. The editor of the third edition of the Köchel catalogue of Mozart's works, Alfred Einstein, remarks that "there must have been some grounds for such an opinion. Beethoven, at any rate, considered it worth while to try to surpass this work in his Piano Quintet, Op.16, although he did not succeed in doing so. For the delicacy of feeling with which Mozart touches the boundaries of the concertante field without overstepping them can only be admired, not surprassed; and the particular charm of this work consists in its feeling for the tonal character of each of the four wind instruments, of which none is disproportionatley prominent--not even the clarinet…and in the fact that none of the instruments is subordinated--not even the horn."
Instrumentation: piano, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Monday September 21, 2009
St. Martin’s Chamber Choir
Timothy J. Krueger, conductor; Matthew Dane, viola
John Ferguson: Christus 25:41 (4/3/09)
David Rutherford talks with the Mountain Music Duo and composer Marcia Marchesi.
Marcia Marchesi: Ciranda
Mountain Music Duo (Tenly Williams, oboe; James Cline, guitar)
KVOD Performance Studio 101708 MS
Also, Charley anticipates harpsichordist Elizabeth Farr's recital at CU Boulder tomorrow.
William Byrd: "My Ladye Nevells Grownde" from My Ladye Nevells Booke
Elizabeth Farr, harpsichord
Naxos 8.570139-41 CD 1 Track 1 6:37
Timothy J. Krueger, conductor; Matthew Dane, viola
John Ferguson: Christus 25:41 (4/3/09)
David Rutherford talks with the Mountain Music Duo and composer Marcia Marchesi.
Marcia Marchesi: Ciranda
Mountain Music Duo (Tenly Williams, oboe; James Cline, guitar)
KVOD Performance Studio 101708 MS
Also, Charley anticipates harpsichordist Elizabeth Farr's recital at CU Boulder tomorrow.
William Byrd: "My Ladye Nevells Grownde" from My Ladye Nevells Booke
Elizabeth Farr, harpsichord
Naxos 8.570139-41 CD 1 Track 1 6:37
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Friday September 18, 2009
Monika Vischer talks with CSO soloist Chris Thile, who demonstrates themes from his Mandolin Concerto.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Corrente" (2nd movement) from Solo Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
Chris Thile, mandolin
KVOD Performance Studio 9/17/09 MS
Colorado Music Festival Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Op.60 35:19 (7/10/08)
Also, Charley talks with CSO timpanist and composer William Hill.
William Hill: Four Moments Musical
Colorado Symphony Brass & Percussion Ensemble/ William Hill
NCA 11:05
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Opus 60
I. Adagio; Allegro vivace
II. Adagio
III. Allegro vivace
IV. Allegro ma non troppo
Beethoven had already begun his C minor Symphony (No. 5) when he and his patron, Prince Franz Lichnowsky, visited Count Franz von Oppersdorf at his castle in Silesia. The Count's private orchestra played Beethoven's Second Symphony for the guests. The host then commissioned a new symphony from the composer.
Setting aside the Fifth, Beethoven started a new symphony in B flat major. Most of the work was done in the autumn of 1806. By November, the Symphony--now known as the Fourth--was finished. Beethoven wrote to his publishers: ``I cannot give you the promised symphony yet--because a gentleman of quality has taken it from me.'' In fact, Beethoven never sent the score to Count Oppersdorf. All he ever received was the dedication to the published edition.
The first performance of the Fourth Symphony probably took place at the Viennese palace of another Beethoven patron, Prince Franz Joseph Lobkowitz. Two all-Beethoven concerts were given there during March of 1807. The programs included the first four symphonies, the Coriolan Overture, excerpts from Fidelio and a piano concerto. One review noted that ``richness of ideas, bold originality and fullness of power, which are the particular merits of Beethoven's muse, were very much in evidence to everyone at these concerts; yet many found fault with the lack of a noble simplicity and the all too fruitful accumulation of ideas which on account of their number were not always adequately worked out and blended, thereby creating the effect more often of rough diamonds.'' Another critic noted the new Beethoven symphony ``which has pleased, at most his fanatical admirers.''
Carl Maria von Weber, then a rash twenty-year-old, wrote an article on Beethoven's Fourth Symphony that he would later regret. In it, he portrayed the violin complaining of having to ``caper about like a wild goat'' in order to ``execute the no-ideas of Mr. Composer.''
Referring to its place between the mighty Eroica (No. 3) and Fifth Symphonies, Robert Schumann called the Fourth ``a slender Greek maiden between two Norse giants.'' Hector Berlioz found the Fourth ``generally lively, nimble, joyous, or of a heavenly sweetness.''
Berlioz loved this symphony. After the seminal slow introduction, he writes, ``the first movement is almost entirely given up to joyfulness....As far as the Adagio--it escapes analysis. It is so pure in form, the melodic expression is so angelic and of such irresistible tenderness, that the prodigious art of the workmanship disappears completely.''
Sir Donald Francis Tovey found great fun in the last two movements. Towards the end of the third, he says, ``the two horns blow the whole movement away.'' The last movement contains what he calls ``The Great Bassoon Joke,'' when the solo bassoon clowns the return of the main theme.
The Symphony is scored for flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
Johann Sebastian Bach: "Corrente" (2nd movement) from Solo Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
Chris Thile, mandolin
KVOD Performance Studio 9/17/09 MS
Colorado Music Festival Orchestra
Michael Christie, conductor
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Op.60 35:19 (7/10/08)
Also, Charley talks with CSO timpanist and composer William Hill.
William Hill: Four Moments Musical
Colorado Symphony Brass & Percussion Ensemble/ William Hill
NCA 11:05
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Symphony No. 4 in B flat major, Opus 60
I. Adagio; Allegro vivace
II. Adagio
III. Allegro vivace
IV. Allegro ma non troppo
Beethoven had already begun his C minor Symphony (No. 5) when he and his patron, Prince Franz Lichnowsky, visited Count Franz von Oppersdorf at his castle in Silesia. The Count's private orchestra played Beethoven's Second Symphony for the guests. The host then commissioned a new symphony from the composer.
Setting aside the Fifth, Beethoven started a new symphony in B flat major. Most of the work was done in the autumn of 1806. By November, the Symphony--now known as the Fourth--was finished. Beethoven wrote to his publishers: ``I cannot give you the promised symphony yet--because a gentleman of quality has taken it from me.'' In fact, Beethoven never sent the score to Count Oppersdorf. All he ever received was the dedication to the published edition.
The first performance of the Fourth Symphony probably took place at the Viennese palace of another Beethoven patron, Prince Franz Joseph Lobkowitz. Two all-Beethoven concerts were given there during March of 1807. The programs included the first four symphonies, the Coriolan Overture, excerpts from Fidelio and a piano concerto. One review noted that ``richness of ideas, bold originality and fullness of power, which are the particular merits of Beethoven's muse, were very much in evidence to everyone at these concerts; yet many found fault with the lack of a noble simplicity and the all too fruitful accumulation of ideas which on account of their number were not always adequately worked out and blended, thereby creating the effect more often of rough diamonds.'' Another critic noted the new Beethoven symphony ``which has pleased, at most his fanatical admirers.''
Carl Maria von Weber, then a rash twenty-year-old, wrote an article on Beethoven's Fourth Symphony that he would later regret. In it, he portrayed the violin complaining of having to ``caper about like a wild goat'' in order to ``execute the no-ideas of Mr. Composer.''
Referring to its place between the mighty Eroica (No. 3) and Fifth Symphonies, Robert Schumann called the Fourth ``a slender Greek maiden between two Norse giants.'' Hector Berlioz found the Fourth ``generally lively, nimble, joyous, or of a heavenly sweetness.''
Berlioz loved this symphony. After the seminal slow introduction, he writes, ``the first movement is almost entirely given up to joyfulness....As far as the Adagio--it escapes analysis. It is so pure in form, the melodic expression is so angelic and of such irresistible tenderness, that the prodigious art of the workmanship disappears completely.''
Sir Donald Francis Tovey found great fun in the last two movements. Towards the end of the third, he says, ``the two horns blow the whole movement away.'' The last movement contains what he calls ``The Great Bassoon Joke,'' when the solo bassoon clowns the return of the main theme.
The Symphony is scored for flute, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
Thursday September 17, 2009
Baroque Chamber Orchestra of Colorado
Frank Nowell & Cynthia Miller Freivogel, co-leaders;
St. John’s Schola Cantorum/ Stephen Tappe
Claudio Monteverdi: Dixit Dominus I 11:05
Claudio Monteverdi: Christe redemptor omnes 4:06
Jesse O’Shell, tenor; Timothy Krueger, baritone; David Farwig, bass
Giovanni Gabrieli: Sonata for Three Violins 3:55
Cynthia Miller Freivogel, Stacey Brady, Tekla Cunningham, violins
Andrea Gabrieli: Toccata in the First Tone 1:54
Frank Nowell, organ
Claudio Monteverdi: Beatus Vir I 8:22 (4/22/07)
Antonio Vivaldi: Recorder Concerto in A minor, RV 108 8:32
Linda Lunbeck, recorder
Antonio Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in D minor, RV 242 9:44
Cynthia Miller Freivogel, violin (4/22/07)
Also, Charley anticipates the Denver Lyric Opera Guild's event tomorrow.
Albert Roussel: Poeme de Ronsard, Op.26 No.2
Martile Rowland, soprano; Marina Piccinini, flute
Colorado College Summer Music Festival (6/26/01)
Frank Nowell & Cynthia Miller Freivogel, co-leaders;
St. John’s Schola Cantorum/ Stephen Tappe
Claudio Monteverdi: Dixit Dominus I 11:05
Claudio Monteverdi: Christe redemptor omnes 4:06
Jesse O’Shell, tenor; Timothy Krueger, baritone; David Farwig, bass
Giovanni Gabrieli: Sonata for Three Violins 3:55
Cynthia Miller Freivogel, Stacey Brady, Tekla Cunningham, violins
Andrea Gabrieli: Toccata in the First Tone 1:54
Frank Nowell, organ
Claudio Monteverdi: Beatus Vir I 8:22 (4/22/07)
Antonio Vivaldi: Recorder Concerto in A minor, RV 108 8:32
Linda Lunbeck, recorder
Antonio Vivaldi: Violin Concerto in D minor, RV 242 9:44
Cynthia Miller Freivogel, violin (4/22/07)
Also, Charley anticipates the Denver Lyric Opera Guild's event tomorrow.
Albert Roussel: Poeme de Ronsard, Op.26 No.2
Martile Rowland, soprano; Marina Piccinini, flute
Colorado College Summer Music Festival (6/26/01)
Wednesday September 16, 2009
Charley talks with CSO timpanist and composer William Hill.
William Hill: Four Moments Musical
Colorado Symphony Brass & Percussion Ensemble/ William Hill
NCA 11:05
Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Scott O’Neil, conductor; Daniel Mueller-Schott, cello
Hector Berlioz: The Corsair Overture, Opus 21
Camille Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Opus 33 (4/17-18/09)
Also, Charley talks with artistic director of the Front Range Chamber Players David Brussell, who also plays horn with the CSO.
August Klughardt: "Allegro non troppo" (1st movement) from Wind Quintet, Op.79
Crystal 250 Track 1 7:21
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): The Corsair Overture, Opus 21
The Corsair Overture was composed, revised, renamed, and generally fiddled with for a period of twenty years, from 1831 to 1851. At various times it was called The Tower of Nice, The Red Corsair and finally The Corsair. The last title has prompted some to imagine that Berlioz was inspired by Lord Byron's poem of the same name. After all, in 1834 he had written a symphony for viola and orchestra based on Byron's Harold in Italy. But this Berlioz Overture actually has more to do with James Fenimore Cooper's The Red Rover than anything by Byron.
In the 1830s Berlioz was desperately in love with a young pianist named Marie Moke. Upon learning from her mother that she planned to marry another, Berlioz flew into a rage and left for Paris, bent on murdering both mother and daughter. He was in Rome at the time, having finally won the ``Prix de Rome.'' On the way to Paris, he attempted suicide in Genoa. Failing at suicide, he thought better of murder and decided to rest up at Nice.
Nearby was a ruined tower, where Berlioz could ``watch at my ease the approach of distant ships.'' He began sketching what would later become The Corsair Overture, which he was then calling The Tower of Nice Overture.
Thirteen years later, in 1844, Berlioz returned to Nice, under doctor's orders to rest, and revisited his beloved tower. He also resumed work on his Overture, which was performed in 1845 as The Tower of Nice.
But Berlioz was still not satisfied. In 1851 he revised the score, renaming it The Red Corsair, after Cooper's novel, in which a tower on a cliff figures prominently. Ultimately Berlioz assumed--correctly--that few had read the novel, and so changed the name to The Corsair.
After the sudden attack of the two opening chords, strings and winds alternate in a wild chase. A lyrical second theme intervenes, only to be trounced by the fiery first theme. The lyrical theme is developed a bit, but soon enough the headlong rush of the opening measures prevails until the end. Biographer D. Kern Holoman says that Berlioz here ``gives up thematic interest for rhythmic ploy and contrapuntal device.''
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 cornets, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921): Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Opus 33
I. Allegro non troppo
II. Allegretto con moto
III. Allegro non troppo; Un peu moins vite
``Not so very long ago,'' wrote Saint-Saëns in the early 1870s, ``a French composer who was daring enough to venture on to the terrain of instrumental music had no other means of getting his work performed than to give a concert himself and invite his friends and the critics. As for the general public, it was hopeless even to think about them. The name of a composer who was French and still alive had only to appear on a poster to frighten everybody away.''
In an attempt to remedy the situation, Saint-Saëns and other musicians, including César Franck, Gabriel Fauré and Édouard Lalo, founded the National Society of Music on February 25, 1871. The purposes of the Society were to ``favor the production and diffusion of all serious musical works, published or unpublished, by French composers; and to encourage and bring to light, so far as lies in its power, all musical experiments, whatever their form may be, provided they reveal high and artistic ambitions on the part of the composer.''
One measure of the success of the organization is the case of Saint-Saëns' First Cello Concerto. The work was introduced, not at a National Society of Music concert, but at the Paris Conservatory, usually a bastion of programs by long-dead composers. August Tolbecque, the principal cellist of the Conservatory Orchestra, was the soloist at the première, on January 19, 1873.
Sir Donald Francis Tovey wrote: ``The worldly wisdom of Saint-Saëns is at its best and kindliest in the opusculum, which is pure and brilliant without putting on chastity as a garment, and without calling attention to its jewellery at a banquet of poor relations. Here, for once, is a cello concerto in which the solo instrument displays every register throughout its compass without the slightest difficulty in penetrating the orchestral accompaniment. All the adroitness of Saint-Saëns is shown herein, and also in the compact form of the work.''
The Concerto is scored for solo cello, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
William Hill: Four Moments Musical
Colorado Symphony Brass & Percussion Ensemble/ William Hill
NCA 11:05
Colorado Symphony Orchestra
Scott O’Neil, conductor; Daniel Mueller-Schott, cello
Hector Berlioz: The Corsair Overture, Opus 21
Camille Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Opus 33 (4/17-18/09)
Also, Charley talks with artistic director of the Front Range Chamber Players David Brussell, who also plays horn with the CSO.
August Klughardt: "Allegro non troppo" (1st movement) from Wind Quintet, Op.79
Crystal 250 Track 1 7:21
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869): The Corsair Overture, Opus 21
The Corsair Overture was composed, revised, renamed, and generally fiddled with for a period of twenty years, from 1831 to 1851. At various times it was called The Tower of Nice, The Red Corsair and finally The Corsair. The last title has prompted some to imagine that Berlioz was inspired by Lord Byron's poem of the same name. After all, in 1834 he had written a symphony for viola and orchestra based on Byron's Harold in Italy. But this Berlioz Overture actually has more to do with James Fenimore Cooper's The Red Rover than anything by Byron.
In the 1830s Berlioz was desperately in love with a young pianist named Marie Moke. Upon learning from her mother that she planned to marry another, Berlioz flew into a rage and left for Paris, bent on murdering both mother and daughter. He was in Rome at the time, having finally won the ``Prix de Rome.'' On the way to Paris, he attempted suicide in Genoa. Failing at suicide, he thought better of murder and decided to rest up at Nice.
Nearby was a ruined tower, where Berlioz could ``watch at my ease the approach of distant ships.'' He began sketching what would later become The Corsair Overture, which he was then calling The Tower of Nice Overture.
Thirteen years later, in 1844, Berlioz returned to Nice, under doctor's orders to rest, and revisited his beloved tower. He also resumed work on his Overture, which was performed in 1845 as The Tower of Nice.
But Berlioz was still not satisfied. In 1851 he revised the score, renaming it The Red Corsair, after Cooper's novel, in which a tower on a cliff figures prominently. Ultimately Berlioz assumed--correctly--that few had read the novel, and so changed the name to The Corsair.
After the sudden attack of the two opening chords, strings and winds alternate in a wild chase. A lyrical second theme intervenes, only to be trounced by the fiery first theme. The lyrical theme is developed a bit, but soon enough the headlong rush of the opening measures prevails until the end. Biographer D. Kern Holoman says that Berlioz here ``gives up thematic interest for rhythmic ploy and contrapuntal device.''
The score calls for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 cornets, 2 trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921): Cello Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Opus 33
I. Allegro non troppo
II. Allegretto con moto
III. Allegro non troppo; Un peu moins vite
``Not so very long ago,'' wrote Saint-Saëns in the early 1870s, ``a French composer who was daring enough to venture on to the terrain of instrumental music had no other means of getting his work performed than to give a concert himself and invite his friends and the critics. As for the general public, it was hopeless even to think about them. The name of a composer who was French and still alive had only to appear on a poster to frighten everybody away.''
In an attempt to remedy the situation, Saint-Saëns and other musicians, including César Franck, Gabriel Fauré and Édouard Lalo, founded the National Society of Music on February 25, 1871. The purposes of the Society were to ``favor the production and diffusion of all serious musical works, published or unpublished, by French composers; and to encourage and bring to light, so far as lies in its power, all musical experiments, whatever their form may be, provided they reveal high and artistic ambitions on the part of the composer.''
One measure of the success of the organization is the case of Saint-Saëns' First Cello Concerto. The work was introduced, not at a National Society of Music concert, but at the Paris Conservatory, usually a bastion of programs by long-dead composers. August Tolbecque, the principal cellist of the Conservatory Orchestra, was the soloist at the première, on January 19, 1873.
Sir Donald Francis Tovey wrote: ``The worldly wisdom of Saint-Saëns is at its best and kindliest in the opusculum, which is pure and brilliant without putting on chastity as a garment, and without calling attention to its jewellery at a banquet of poor relations. Here, for once, is a cello concerto in which the solo instrument displays every register throughout its compass without the slightest difficulty in penetrating the orchestral accompaniment. All the adroitness of Saint-Saëns is shown herein, and also in the compact form of the work.''
The Concerto is scored for solo cello, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
Tuesday September 15, 2009
Friends of Chamber Music
Trio con Brio Copenhagen
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Trio in D major, Op.70 No. 1 (Ghost)
Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op.67 (4/23/08)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Piano Trio No. 4 in D major,
Op.70 No. 1 (Ghost)
I. Allegro vivace con brio
II. Largo assai et espressivo
III. Presto
During the fall of 1808 Beethoven was staying with his friend Countess Maria von Erdödy. The two Opus 70 piano trios, composed at this time, were dedicated to her. The works were first played at a private recital in her salon that Christmas. Beethoven himself played the piano part, with violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh and cellist Joseph Linke.
Beethoven referred to the Countess as his ``father confessor'' because of her advice on various matters. Johann Reichardt described her as a ``very beautiful, fine little woman who from her first confinement was afflicted with an incurable disease which for ten years has kept her in bed for all but two to three months...whose sole entertainment was found in music, who plays even Beethoven's pieces right well...yet is so merry and friendly and good .'' She is said to have paid Beethoven's servants to stay with him.
After a quarrel with the Countess in 1809, Beethoven asked his publisher to change the dedication to Archduke Rudolph, one of Beethoven's patrons. They were eventually reconciled, but the dedication to the Archduke remained. The Countess later received the dedication to Beethoven's last two cello sonatas, Op.102.
Beethoven had begun an opera on Heinrich von Collin's adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, but left it unfinished after second act ``because it threatened to become too gloomy,'' according to an early biographer. His music for the opening scene of the witches is said to have found its way into the middle movement of the D major trio, especially a repeated motive that John N. Burk describes as ``a weird figure which might be described as a soulless cry..''
Arthur Berger says the overall structure of the D major trio resembles an arch shape. ``The two outside movements are lucid and direct in style,'' he writes, ``the high point of the trio is the middle movement, the foreboding Largo.'' Maynard Solomon agrees. The work, he writes, ``has two unproblematic and relaxed movements flanking a powerful pre-Romantic Largo, whose atmospheric tremolo effects and sudden dynamic contrasts gave rise to the work's nickname.'' He regards the second trio as ``one of the masterpieces of the middle period,'' a delicate balance ``between the traditional Viennese style and Beethoven's own most mature style.''
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Opus 67
I. Andante
II. Allegro con brio
III. Largo
IV. Allegretto
On February 11, 1944, Ivan Sollertinsky, a musicologist and staff lecturer for the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, died. Four days later, in memory of ``my closest and dearest friend,'' Shostakovich began his second piano trio, dedicated to Sollertinsky. ``I owe all my education to him,'' said the composer. ``It will be unbelievably hard for me to live without him.''
In 1944 the Russian people were learning of the Nazi atrocities at Treblinka and other death camps. The news inescapably affected the content of the trio, which Shostakovich completed on August 13, 1944 at the Composers' Collective Farm near Ivanovo, northeast of Moscow.
The work was introduced on November 9, 1944 at the Composers' Club in Moscow. Shostakovich played the piano part, with two members of the Beethoven Quartet, violinist Dmitri Tsiganov and cellist Serge Shirinsky.
In his book Not by Music Alone, Rostislav Dubinsky, the violinist of the Borodin Trio, describes the first performance: ``The music left a devastating impression. People cried openly. The last, the `Jewish Part' of the Trio, by popular acclaim had to be repeated. An embarrassed, nervous Shostakovich repeatedly came onto the stage and bowed awkwardly....After the first performance it was forbidden to play the Trio. Nobody was surprised. The Trio not only expressed music, something else was there, as if it were a truthful interpretation of our reality.''
The Trio has no ``official'' program. However, Dubinsky's thirty-year friendship with the composer emboldens him to comment. ``Its very beginning,'' he writes, ``sounds like an anxious premonition of misfortune. We feel how it overwhelms us without mercy and eventually in the second part of the Scherzo (second movement) there is a burst of fiendish, destructive dance of death. In the third part, the Passacaglia, one hears bloodcurdling piano chords. Is it not the sound of a hammer on a piece of railway line which tells the prisoners of the concentration camp, that `One more day in the life Ivan Denisovich' has started? While this evil sound resounds across the hall as if in a concentration camp, the violin and cello weep, rather pray, for the people who perished.''
In the finale, ``the Jewish motif in it reaches the height of a powerful angry protest....When it seems that all means of expression are exhausted the violin and cello unexpectedly become mute. Then in deathly agony a wail escapes from a throat strangled by an iron hand. The Trio ends with the initial Jewish motif disappearing into a state of non-existence like a question mark about the fate of the whole nation.''
Trio con Brio Copenhagen
Ludwig van Beethoven: Piano Trio in D major, Op.70 No. 1 (Ghost)
Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op.67 (4/23/08)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827): Piano Trio No. 4 in D major,
Op.70 No. 1 (Ghost)
I. Allegro vivace con brio
II. Largo assai et espressivo
III. Presto
During the fall of 1808 Beethoven was staying with his friend Countess Maria von Erdödy. The two Opus 70 piano trios, composed at this time, were dedicated to her. The works were first played at a private recital in her salon that Christmas. Beethoven himself played the piano part, with violinist Ignaz Schuppanzigh and cellist Joseph Linke.
Beethoven referred to the Countess as his ``father confessor'' because of her advice on various matters. Johann Reichardt described her as a ``very beautiful, fine little woman who from her first confinement was afflicted with an incurable disease which for ten years has kept her in bed for all but two to three months...whose sole entertainment was found in music, who plays even Beethoven's pieces right well...yet is so merry and friendly and good .'' She is said to have paid Beethoven's servants to stay with him.
After a quarrel with the Countess in 1809, Beethoven asked his publisher to change the dedication to Archduke Rudolph, one of Beethoven's patrons. They were eventually reconciled, but the dedication to the Archduke remained. The Countess later received the dedication to Beethoven's last two cello sonatas, Op.102.
Beethoven had begun an opera on Heinrich von Collin's adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth, but left it unfinished after second act ``because it threatened to become too gloomy,'' according to an early biographer. His music for the opening scene of the witches is said to have found its way into the middle movement of the D major trio, especially a repeated motive that John N. Burk describes as ``a weird figure which might be described as a soulless cry..''
Arthur Berger says the overall structure of the D major trio resembles an arch shape. ``The two outside movements are lucid and direct in style,'' he writes, ``the high point of the trio is the middle movement, the foreboding Largo.'' Maynard Solomon agrees. The work, he writes, ``has two unproblematic and relaxed movements flanking a powerful pre-Romantic Largo, whose atmospheric tremolo effects and sudden dynamic contrasts gave rise to the work's nickname.'' He regards the second trio as ``one of the masterpieces of the middle period,'' a delicate balance ``between the traditional Viennese style and Beethoven's own most mature style.''
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Opus 67
I. Andante
II. Allegro con brio
III. Largo
IV. Allegretto
On February 11, 1944, Ivan Sollertinsky, a musicologist and staff lecturer for the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, died. Four days later, in memory of ``my closest and dearest friend,'' Shostakovich began his second piano trio, dedicated to Sollertinsky. ``I owe all my education to him,'' said the composer. ``It will be unbelievably hard for me to live without him.''
In 1944 the Russian people were learning of the Nazi atrocities at Treblinka and other death camps. The news inescapably affected the content of the trio, which Shostakovich completed on August 13, 1944 at the Composers' Collective Farm near Ivanovo, northeast of Moscow.
The work was introduced on November 9, 1944 at the Composers' Club in Moscow. Shostakovich played the piano part, with two members of the Beethoven Quartet, violinist Dmitri Tsiganov and cellist Serge Shirinsky.
In his book Not by Music Alone, Rostislav Dubinsky, the violinist of the Borodin Trio, describes the first performance: ``The music left a devastating impression. People cried openly. The last, the `Jewish Part' of the Trio, by popular acclaim had to be repeated. An embarrassed, nervous Shostakovich repeatedly came onto the stage and bowed awkwardly....After the first performance it was forbidden to play the Trio. Nobody was surprised. The Trio not only expressed music, something else was there, as if it were a truthful interpretation of our reality.''
The Trio has no ``official'' program. However, Dubinsky's thirty-year friendship with the composer emboldens him to comment. ``Its very beginning,'' he writes, ``sounds like an anxious premonition of misfortune. We feel how it overwhelms us without mercy and eventually in the second part of the Scherzo (second movement) there is a burst of fiendish, destructive dance of death. In the third part, the Passacaglia, one hears bloodcurdling piano chords. Is it not the sound of a hammer on a piece of railway line which tells the prisoners of the concentration camp, that `One more day in the life Ivan Denisovich' has started? While this evil sound resounds across the hall as if in a concentration camp, the violin and cello weep, rather pray, for the people who perished.''
In the finale, ``the Jewish motif in it reaches the height of a powerful angry protest....When it seems that all means of expression are exhausted the violin and cello unexpectedly become mute. Then in deathly agony a wail escapes from a throat strangled by an iron hand. The Trio ends with the initial Jewish motif disappearing into a state of non-existence like a question mark about the fate of the whole nation.''
Monday September 14, 2009
Colorado College Summer Music Festival
Festival Orchestra
Scott Yoo, conducting
Igor Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments 14:23 (6/22/08) Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10 30:24 (7/1/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Boulder Philharmonic's season opening gala this Saturday.
Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dance No.3
Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger Overture 10:22
Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra
Michael Butterman, conductor (11/4/06)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Opus 10
I. Allegretto--Allegro non troppo
II. Allegro
III. Lento
IV. Allegro molto--Lento--Allegro molto
Shostakovich entered the Leningrad Conservatory at thirteen. To make money, he played piano every afternoon and evening at a drafty movie theater. Somehow, he found the time to work on his First Symphony, which he finished in June, 1925.
He submitted the new work as a graduation exercise at the Conservatory and a performance was scheduled. After the first rehearsal, the young composer exclaimed, ``Everything sounds--everything is all right!''
Nikolai Malko conducted the first performance, in Leningrad on May 12, 1926, just four months before Shostakovich's twentieth birthday. The composer's mother was in the audience. ``All went more than brilliantly--a splendid orchestra and magnificent execution!'' she reported. ``But the greatest success went to Dmitri. The audience listened with enthusiasm and the scherzo had to be played twice. At the end Dmitri was called to the stage over and over again. When our handsome young composer appeared, looking almost like a little boy, the enthusiasm turned into one long thunderous ovation.''
Bruno Walter saw the score and was ``struck at once by this magnificent work, by its true symphonic form.'' He conducted the work in Berlin. Meanwhile, Leopold Stokowksi brought the Symphony to the United States, and Shostakovich's international reputation was launched.
The Symphony begins with a flourish by the muted trumpet. Charles Burr says ``it is Shostakovich `signing in,' as it were.'' James Lyons writes: ``The entire Symphony is to grow out of the material disclosed in this short introduction--a sort of author's preface at once arch, quizzical, cryptic, even philosophical, but beguiling in its deftness and directness of purely musical expression.''
Festival Orchestra
Scott Yoo, conducting
Igor Stravinsky: Symphonies of Wind Instruments 14:23 (6/22/08) Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10 30:24 (7/1/08)
Also, Charley anticipates the Boulder Philharmonic's season opening gala this Saturday.
Johannes Brahms: Hungarian Dance No.3
Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger Overture 10:22
Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra
Michael Butterman, conductor (11/4/06)
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975): Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Opus 10
I. Allegretto--Allegro non troppo
II. Allegro
III. Lento
IV. Allegro molto--Lento--Allegro molto
Shostakovich entered the Leningrad Conservatory at thirteen. To make money, he played piano every afternoon and evening at a drafty movie theater. Somehow, he found the time to work on his First Symphony, which he finished in June, 1925.
He submitted the new work as a graduation exercise at the Conservatory and a performance was scheduled. After the first rehearsal, the young composer exclaimed, ``Everything sounds--everything is all right!''
Nikolai Malko conducted the first performance, in Leningrad on May 12, 1926, just four months before Shostakovich's twentieth birthday. The composer's mother was in the audience. ``All went more than brilliantly--a splendid orchestra and magnificent execution!'' she reported. ``But the greatest success went to Dmitri. The audience listened with enthusiasm and the scherzo had to be played twice. At the end Dmitri was called to the stage over and over again. When our handsome young composer appeared, looking almost like a little boy, the enthusiasm turned into one long thunderous ovation.''
Bruno Walter saw the score and was ``struck at once by this magnificent work, by its true symphonic form.'' He conducted the work in Berlin. Meanwhile, Leopold Stokowksi brought the Symphony to the United States, and Shostakovich's international reputation was launched.
The Symphony begins with a flourish by the muted trumpet. Charles Burr says ``it is Shostakovich `signing in,' as it were.'' James Lyons writes: ``The entire Symphony is to grow out of the material disclosed in this short introduction--a sort of author's preface at once arch, quizzical, cryptic, even philosophical, but beguiling in its deftness and directness of purely musical expression.''
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
