George Frideric Handel was born a German and died a naturalized British subject. Accordingly, his long and varied career as a baroque composer took him throughout Europe, and his music shows influences from English as well as German and Italian traditions. This concerto grosso is one of twelve which constitute Handel's Op. 6. It was first published in 1739, at the beginning of the final phase of Handel's career. Prior to
this, he had found great success as an opera composer; however, the market became strained and Handel, who by this time had become a household name, began composing what we remember him most for today: his English-language oratorios.
The concerti grossi, few of which exceed fifteen minutes in length, were intended as interludes for concerts which mainly featured Handel's oratorios. Stylistically, they follow in the vein of Corelli's multi-movement concerti, scored for a concertino of two violins and one cello, along with ripieno strings and continuo - winds would have been included depending on availability, during this era.
The first movement has a stately tone of solemn majesty, featuring descending sighing lines which alternate with more sustained passages from the solo concertino. The second movement is a brisker Allegro, consisting mostly of variations and transformations upon the material introduced in the first two bars. The third movement, the only segment not focused on the G Major tonality, is set in the relative E minor. The fourth movement is largely fugal, but has a playful humor, including a surprise quiet ending. The concerto concludes with a spirited, vivacious gigue.
The chamber orchestra at my school performed this last october, and it was one of my favorite things that they did all semester. We also performed it with the addition of two oboes, which very well might have been done back in the day. The piece is not too long and has just the right amount of vivacity and stateliness.
there are some words that simply carry more heft when you see them in a tempo marking, and "giocoso" is definitely one of them. this is the only movement which is actually inclined towards virtuosic display.
milstein video for your viewing pleasure.
this is pretty standard rondo form, or sonata-rondo form if you prefer. A section those jolly double stops at the opening; this will be the refrain.
0:58 B section - crazy arpeggios, slurred, spiccato, followed by ascending octaves. this first time it hints the entire time at A major, though it never actually resolves into it. the refrain of the A section comes at 2:12.
2:27 transition begins to a C section which starts proper at about 2:48. this is more lyrical, though no less technical for it. this section starts to feel a bit developmental; the lyrical theme is taken into several key areas, revving up around 3:30 and dovetailing into the ascending octaves from the B section right at 3:43. this a bit of a recap; the B section is now in a different key and cadences in D.
an F-sharp minor statement of the A section brings us up to speed for a lead-up to a cadenza section which includes thrilling ascending chords and octave leaps.
5:18 is a remarkable section - completely new material, fresh and songlike, very much Bach-inspired. this only lasts a short while though, before a series of trills ramps it up again and brings it to the dominant chord needed to set up a short cadenza full of arpeggios.
6:31 the final statement of the main theme except now in a galloping 6/8. this adds a romping quality which is broken briefly by a section of virtuosic play on the latter half of that theme, only to return to the triplet rhythms and loud orchestral tutti descending arpeggios leading us to the wrong place a couple times (note the weird e-flat major chord at 7:15) allowing for just a bit more play on the original theme before a final declamatory statement of brilliance in the 6/8 rhythm, which sets off the coda at 7:28. from there on the movement seems to wind down before finally throwing the last surprise, three triumphant chords to finish.
sarasate famously refused to play this concerto because he did not want to stand idly by while the oboe played the "only tune" in the second movement. but what a tune! and it's not as if the violin doesn't get to play it.
heifetz/reiner.
soloist enters at 2:14 with a variation on the oboe's melody. it is a simple melody, and the violin part merely adds endless ornamentations onto it.
a shift at around 3:08 has us landing in the faraway key of g-flat major. this is the beginning of a development which is really more like a rhapsodic interlude; a passionate outburst at 3:50 brings out a whole new melody which is angst-filled and reaches new heights of melancholy which are explored in the rest of this middle section. this middle section is characterized by seemingly aimless meandering by the violin part alternating with returns of the passion demonstrated at 3:50. the violin part gets ever higher until the shimmering high d at 5:13. after reaching this apex, all holds still for just a moment, and then violin begins a set of downward octaves which is actually the recap: you can hear the oboe playing an abbreviated version of the exposition melody as the violin descends.
he winds up this melody to a more passionate climax this time: building it up beginning around 6:08, he uses the horn to nudge the violin up to ever-higher heights, until it ends on a high C and, after holding the harmony almost unbearably, has no choice but to wind down.
the coda is short and quiet, but listen to the diminished d chord that pops out of nowhere at 7:47 to intensify the final V7-I cadence.
ok for me blogging this piece is a monumental task because of the status it claims in my personal musical tastes. i am quite sorely tempted to merely post up several different recordings from youtube and compare them as a violinist, but as i will be learning it this summer from a conductor's perspective, i shall try to take a more musicological tack on it.
brahms wrote very few concerti: two piano, one violin, and one violin/cello. unfortunately he never got around to writing the cello concerto which we brahms aficionados will always long for. but this violin concerto, written in 1878, is definitely one of the greatest of the greatest.
it's very difficult and (despite lots of input from his friend joachim) not especially violinistic, and most folks attribute this to the fact that he was a pianist by nature and perhaps not as capable of writing idiomatic stuff as, say, wieniawski (who actually called this concerto "unplayable." his violin concerti are ridiculously difficult as well, but very much in the violin idiom). but the counterargument goes that he wasn't trying to produce a virtuoso showpiece (which IS what wieniawski specialized in), but rather a symphonic concerto, which is supported by the fact that originally he had wanted there to be a fourth movement (a scherzo as third movement). apparently his original two middle movements both "fell through," but he instead "substituted a feeble adagio," what we know of as his second movement. anyway, when you remember this "symphonic" characterization, think of his second piano concerto, which he completed three years later in 1881.
there is absolutely no doubt that there are at least ten fantastic recordings by the best violinists on youtube, so pick your favorite. this is milstein/jochum, 1975, totally stunning, not often heard.
the fact that this concerto was in so many ways an homage to beethoven is evidenced mainly in this first movement, with the long, long orchestral introduction which actually goes quite a ways into developmental material before circling back and allowing the violin to enter, at around 2:37.
the first subject, the rising third followed by the falling triad, is moved around until finally the violin is able to play it with the full songfulness it deserves, at 4:05. even then, the violin continues winding its way up and down arpeggios, sixths, thirds, around and over the actual melody in a very brahmsian way.
one program note writer says that there are two "markers" which provide some structural decipherability: one is the descending woodwind fourths at 6:10, which herald the entrance of the more feminine, lovely second subject. this is given in a major/minor, with the transformative modulation being quite subtle and under the radar - actually for a while the second subject sounds like it is still in d. the second subject includes a very typical brahms hemiola at 6:59, followed by a very mournful descent into a reflective lament which seems to bring the music to a standstill.
this is abruptly interrupted by the second "marker," the more aggressive, dramatic chords at 7:49. this brings the music back to its original turbulent opening (of the violin solo), and concludes the exposition, in the dominant key.
the development is all over the tonal map as usual. it opens with a bit of new material - dark, mournful chords, which soon evolve into flighty series of halfsteps, followed by aggressive trills and a very dramatic section in which wide intervals are split all over the fingerboard. an orchestral crescendo builds into a huge d major cadence at 1:32 of the second vid. this is the recap, though it doesn't act like one; actually you can hear the horns trumpeting the main theme behind all the strings' arpeggiating sixteenths. but it dovetails into material exactly from the exposition, 1:56 being analogous to 4:44 of the first vid, except now in d minor. he goes on to state the rest of the first theme as well as all of the second in the correct key, leading us up to the cadenza spot.
the coda after the cadenza is one of my favorite two minutes in all of music. it starts off dreamily, allowing the orchestra to just sneak back in hovering after the cadenza, but as the harmonic and dynamic intensity increase and the violin's arpeggios get up into the stratosphere there are some truly sublime moments, especially the one that finally brings it over the edge into a celebratory set of chords (that is incidentally probably the most difficult section in the entire movement outside the cadenza...)
and now we've finally reached day.
this movement is in C major, and essentially a rondo with the opening bombast as the refrain. note the riotous timpani, and affirmation of the key.
1:50 begins the B section. It is light and playful, reminiscent of the first nachtmusik (but wittier and more playful) as well as the fifth movement of the fifth symphony.
2:45 return of the A section, except in a sort of different meter, with the strings playing an eigth-note variation on the original. it is also spliced and diced with itself. the true return doesn't come until 3:57, with the return of the theme in the trumpets and the clarinet.
4:57: a sort of C section, in a bit broader tempo, marchlike, but not aggressive - in fact it almost immediately makes its way into a sort of boisterous country-sounding theme in the violins with lots of dotted rhythms (then incorporating snatches of the music from 2:45).
6:00 A section again, a half step up. this is c-sharp instead of c.
6:41 the theme almost immediately sinks back in to a C" section, with the slower rhythm, featuring a number of really fantastic violin and wind solos. it broadens to the strings, and slows to a sort of wistful dance that is rudely interrupted a few times by odd brass fanfares, e.g. 7:46 (after which it immediately turns around and goes back to the same old, as if ignoring it).
the second attempt succeeds, though, and the music is accelerated back to the tempo primo, quickly spiraling out of control in a sort of mad whirl which the trumpets call back into order. i have trouble making sense of this movement past this point; it seems to want to be everything at once. at 9:13 after a long ritardando, you get another trumpet call which seems to imply that the movement will soon be over, but not even close.
the beginning of the second video features a return of the B section, with ever more chromatic plays on the trills in the rustic theme. a unique section here features a bunch of fluttertongue as well as saltando bowing from the strings.
the next return of the A section at 1:28 seems to dead-end quickly, and we get another of the same whirling climaxes around minute 8. instead of being interrupted, it slows to a halt, and then segues into C music, almost opposite of the way it ended the last time.
this movement has posed the most trouble for musicologists, historians, and myself as well. writing this entry i can't help but just feel like i am merely pointing out the musics of different sections, only if one were to map them all this movement would have like 20 sections. however, the conclusion is brilliant and exciting, and exceptionally satisfying, one of mahler's best i think (especially the way bernstein does it ;) not everyone has that horn slide...)
the second nachtmusik, this one is in f major, and gives much more the impression of a romantic evening; with the addition of classical guitar and a mandolin and unique writing for the harp, the movement takes on a leisurely songful serenading mood full of atmosphere.
this was apparently schoenberg's favorite movement, the one he went to in his defense of the symphony.
note the trills by the mandolin, sustained notes that pop out from the texture.
about 5:20 the music takes a sudden drop, adding undercurrents of dissatisfaction and a lot more dissonance until suddenly, the graceful music of the nocturne bursts out again.
the second theme is given by a solo cello at about 6:26. it's more song than dance, lyrical instead of lilting. later on, it alternates with snatches of the more playful music, which is usually accompanied by the plucking of the mandolin. but gradually becoming more saturated with heavy emotion until it hits a stride.
there are a few moments of stillness; everyone sighs in relief and repose. but then the violins burst in with the emotionally-laden recap.
2:22 is a hardcore throwback to one of the climaxes in mahler 5 adagietto, if you know that movement well.
almost immediately he steps back and begins a climb to a frenzied sort of buildup which is more active than any of the music we've heard in this movement so far. he seems to change his mind almost immediately, though, returning to the initial mood.
4:08 coda; we hit a glistening fmajor chord in the strings, and the high f seems to stutter for a moment, throwing in a bit of uncertainty to the wind utterances, in terms of key and tonality. with some hesitation, the music gradually revolves around the right center, and comes to a gentle halt.
this is a pretty self explanatory movement, but fascinating to listen to. it's in d minor, but shifts around spookily, dropping out into different keys, turning everywhere. one music critic described it as a "most morbid and sarcastic mockery of the Viennese waltz." the movement is full of things that go "bump" in the night, weird shrieks from the winds and shadowy flautando scales from the strings. there are a variety of effects such as what we've come to know as the bartok pizz (pizzing so hard that the string hits the wood),
3:17 begins a little more lilting but still somewhat grim middle trio section; this only lasts a couple minutes, but swoops and slides forward and backward with sudden intrusions of fast in a melody that keeps trying to be stately but can never manage it. note the prominent viola solos.
5:10 theme comes back.
5:48 sudden halt with a bang of the timpani; music gradually restarts again, but understated and spooky. it gradually adds layers until it builds up to another climax.
movement ends with a timpani and pluck out of nowhere.
this movement is in c minor but floats in between that and c major so often that it wouldn't be completely wrong to say it was in c major.
the first of two "nachtmusik"s, this is the spookier one; a bit darker, having the mood of a quiet march (he described it as a depiction of an evening patrol).
we begin with a horn call which rises majestically like the moon over winds giving swirling bird calls and more crawling figures which might depict some of the other things moving about in the night. eventually the horns get to state a full sentence of their theme, one of the best, i think, that mahler ever wrote. i really like how it switches back and forth on a dime, between minor and major. the tattoo that gets iterated underneath it is quiet but very marchlike, true to the image.
3:49 marks the second theme in a-flat major, a sudden departure into a fast waltz like melody and lyricism which occasionally throws in some of the heavily dotted figures from the march, but overall maintains the broadness and loveliness of some of his most pastoral work. at 5:35 he brings an extended, improvisatory sounding version of the opening horn call, and even throws the cowbells in here for good measure.
at 6:35, the opening horn melody comes back, and we repeat some of the exposition before departing into a development of sorts. with a pluck of the harp and strings and some swirling trills in the winds, the oboe introduces a wistfully dancelike c minoir figure which dominates this middle section; this gets woven in with lots of motifs from the opening, until it climaxes like the chattering of night creatures reaching its apex. it spills over and seems also to disappear into nothing.
with that, we return to the wistful figures of the beginning of the development, but now transformed into a duet for two celli. this is one of my favorite moments of the entire symphony.
two plucks of the harp bring us to a standstill and then we begin a climb back to the recapitulation, which blooms at 1:45.
3:33 is the equivalent of the waltzlike second theme. except here he turns it into a sort of carnival feeling atmosphere, throwing in xylophone and cowbell. around 5:15 this becomes meshed into the march.
the movement ends quietly, with a smattering of pizz and a g harmonic from celli and harp, leaving it ambiguous as to whether it concludes in major or minor.
this symphony was written from 1904-5, but didn't get premiered until 1908 in prague. in the meantime a lot of changes had happened in his life; he had resigned as conductor of vienna, his daughter had died, and he had learned of his own incurable heart condition. a lot of musicologists cite this as the basis of a lot of the darkening revisions he made to the symphony during those three years.
the whole symphony clocks in at somewhere between 80 and 90 minutes. it can't be said to be in one key, because it opens in e minor which becomes b minor in the first movement; goes to c minor in the second movement, d minor in the third, f major in the fourth, and c major in the last. this is a concept known as "progressive tonality" (where the piece doesn't bother to cycle back to a supposed "home" key but instead moves and ends in an altogether different one).
the symphony was well received but not tremendously popular, and has more puzzled critics afterwards than anything else. it's worth noting, though, that this was the symphony that won schoenberg over to mahler's support, and he wrote mahler after hearing the first performance, saying that it was a great treat to hear the symphony and he didn't know why he hadn't seen the value in mahler's music up until that point.
from some things mahler hinted at, we know basically that he thought of this whole symphony as a sort of night transforming into day. the first movement sets a foundation for the entire thing, hence all of his rapid switches between moods and interruptions of lines. the middle movements are three night songs, which depict night in a variety of ways (the second and fourth are called nocturnes; the third is a creepier rendition). and the last movement, in his own words, are "broad day."
the first movement begins in b minor, ending in e major. it's in sonata form, though so long that you might not even recognize it. because it's so long i am not going to give a blow by blow, but just point out some interesting things.
the introductory melody is played by an instrument we know as the baritone horn, but mahler wrote "tenorhorn" in his scores. the rhythm that the strings play muttering underneath it will come back several times; as ever, mahler is great at introducing disparate themes and then mashing them up later in quite ear-catching ways. one thing i think that comes out in particular in this symphony, especially this movement, is the use of augmented intervals, or intervals that are just one half or whole step larger than you would predict them to be. when ascending they produce the stretches that guide him into a different key, and when they are descending they make the bottom drop out of the music.
2:56 is when the music morphs into a sort of militaristic march/dance that dominates the movement. this is the allegro "risoluto." it is a bit amorphous, grotesque, then darkening.
6:00 is a slow second theme, almost honeyed but still taking some surprising whirls out into a space you don't expect. we are brought back to the march to close the exposition.
this second vid is basically the development. you hear the opening solo of the tenorhorn again, but then we almost immediately spin into a weird mishmash of all the themes up to this point.
notable in the development are several points where everything seems to just stand still. one such is at 3:10, where the stillness is interrupted by a faraway trumpet fanfare and some birdcall like gestures in the winds, which sort of recall the march from the beginning. the harp b major gliss transforms the world into an idyllic vision before a long journey back to the recap around 6:20. the basses rudely interrupt with the falling figure from the beginning, and brass gradually incorporate some of the martial themes from the exposition into a huge B major climax in which all the strings come in. it seems like it's going to be affirmative, but then suddenly falls into a crunching b minor. throughout this section we always get the sense that the music is trying to rise into the major, but keeps being pushed down or turned in the wrong direction.
finally we reach the big e major, and this is more or less where the rest of the movement will stay, with the exception of a brief idyll in g major (around 2:00), the equivalent to the slow theme in the first half.
one set of program notes i found for this movement describes the march at the end of this movement as curiously bittersweet. i think this comes from the destabilization of keys. marches are usually affirmative, stable, and this is not, even though the end is triumphant enough to at least imply how the symphony itself will end.
if you have never heard of this guy, his first name is engelbert. engelbert humperdinck.
this was an opera written in about 1893, receiving its first performance under the baton of none other than richard strauss. humperdinck wrote a number of operas, almost all based on fairy tales. this is by far the most successful and well remembered (in fact, i really can't off the top of my head think of any other compositions by him =/) he did most of his writing for vocal works, both solo and choral. his operatic writing was a nice counterpart to the seriousness and darkness of contemporary Wagner, though a lot of their musical vocabulary is very similar.
the overture doesn't really relate as tightly to the characters in the opera as wagner's do, but everyone knows the story of hansel and gretel anyway so i'll avoid recapping here. the overture does deal with a sort of mood setting for the opera, evoking both a dreamy idyllic atmosphere as well as a middle section of slightly more ominous music perhaps referring to the kids' encounter with the witch. the whole overture, though, definitely maintains a playful, light and catchy tone.
the opening chorale is a really fantastic one - so simple, C major, basic harmonic progressions, but phenomenal in its effect. the music here is also the basis for the more famous "prayer and dream" section in the opera itself.
the development of the material sounds a lot like brahms to me. lush strings, sustained wind solos, and a gentle swell into a rephrase by the oboe and supporting winds.
the trumpet enters with a sprightly motif at 2:50 accompanied by sharp pizzs from the strings, waking the music up and spurring it to a more flowing tempo. the rest of the brass take up this motif until we sense a proverbial curtain raise. (even a pause for applause.)
at 3:38 the strings come with their pastoral melody, the third theme to come in. the counterpart/second theme to this is the wind dance at 4:11, and this material is based to some degree on the trumpet fanfare.
the development begins at about 4:50. we have a return of every theme so far, from the horn chorale to the sprightly winds, and this is taken on a journey through several keys as well as an accelerando. the part with all the string arpeggios is especially fun.
6:05 is a grand arrival of sorts, with all the themes finally coming out in full, particularly the strings. the swing is broad, childish, almost exaggerated. the strings get busier themes over a constantly rising and falling swell of brass.
finally we cadence in a shining C major, and we have a return of the chorale. these chord changes at this section are particularly beautiful and even unexpected.
some pretty light music for today. stay posted, i think some dvorak on the way.
ughhhhhh i have to do double entries for like a week before i catch up.
ok, here is tannhäuser overture(pronounced TAN-hoy-sehr), the opera of which was written by wagner in 1842-43. it was significantly amended through 1846-47 after its initial lukewarm reception, and then again for a Paris performance in 1861. the "paris version" is closest, i think, to the one that gets performed today. by this point he had just done tristan and isolde and was looking to do a big coming out party in paris that would include tristan and lohengrin. unfortunately tannhauser caused the strongest reactions and didn't last long in paris.
i have to conduct this in a week and half OMG.
i will avoid going through too much of an opera synopsis since this is just the overture. but this being wagner, it's impossible to go through the components of the piece without telling you what they relate to in the opera's scheme, so briefly, the story is about tannhauser (heinrich), a man who disappears from his original life in favor of love from venus and her unearthly pleasures. after staying there for a long time he manages to escape the spell by declaring his salvation lies in mother mary, and he is allowed to return to his home. his love elisabeth has been living in seclusion, but once she hears that tannhauser has returned, looks forward to hearing the song contest of men seeking her love. during the contest tannhauser hotbloodedly reveals his belief in the sensual pleasures due to his journey to see venus, and is threatened by the other men. elisabeth protects him, but he has to make a pilgrimage to seek forgiveness. the third act starts some undefined stretch of time later, during which elisabeth has been seeking news of tannhauser in vain. he finally returns in rags having given up his quest for absolution, saying that the pope's staff would sooner sprout leaves than he be forgiven. tannhauser is about to give everything up and return to venus, but then notices a funeral procession which happens to be carrying elisabeth. he rushes to her and throws himself over her dead body just as he receives the news that the pope's staff has sprouted leaves.
the overture is written in a sort of mirror/sonata form. we open with a chorale which includes bassoons, clarinets, and of course horns. this is the "pilgrim's chorus," which occurs in his journey with the pilgrims. wagner writes "nicht schleppend, gehended Bewegung" which means not dragging; continually flowing. this grows into a massive brassy triumphant song. at 5:16 we hit a brisker tempo and duple meter, beginning with an ascending diminished motif that is introduced by the violas. this is music from the venusburg, venus's mountain (literally). it is the setting of the entire first act which tannhauser spends lounging in her embrace. this section is written in B major, the dominant key (original is in E major). the music is sprightly and suspenseful (literally as well... lots of suspensions :P) he indicates to hold off getting too energetic, because he wants a big build up into the next section. 6:45 is where a new motif comes in; this is the "ode to venus," which tannhauser sings in hotblooded passion after hearing what he feels is a load of crap about love being pure and undisturbed. march-like and triumphant. wagner writes "nicht eilen. breit" which just means unhurried and broad. this theme is woven back into venusburg motifs which dissipate into the next section. at about 8:00 we hit a very slow middle section, the interlude which is actually more music from the venusburg; violins are divided into 8 parts, and there is a mysterious floating clarinet solo above the texture. here he indicates "ruhig," calm and quiet. and now we start progressing backwards through the sections; we have the return of brisker venusburg music which leads us through several weird chromatic shifts until we get back to the ode to venus, which is now in the correct key of e major. from here it's basically a straight shot and accelerando towards the super brassy end.
as with basically all of wagner, super cheesy and still super fun.
this is the other movement i would be expected to conduct if i made it to the third round this weekend.
this movement is classic sonata form. the dotted rhythmic cell introduced by the seconds is something that goes on through almost the whole thing. over that we have a songful primary theme in Eb major introduced by the firsts. this whole phrase is reiterated by the flute (and a wind chorale accompanying it).
there is a bridge which modulates us to the key of the second theme. this bridge features swelling string arpeggios, and the modulation begins after a G7 chord leads us to C minor; then F7 into Bb, the dominant key and key of the second theme. the secondary theme is a stretched out line played by the clarinet over diminished arpeggios rising in the strings. everyone joins in, and a wind chorale voices repeated chords over a river of gentle string notes. but the rhythmic cell which exists this whole time in the basses grows to overtake the entire orchestra, and we cadence back in Eb to begin the development.
the development sounds like the first theme, with some triplet ornamentation. but instead of the winds reiterating this time, we get a gigantic dramatic e-flat minor chord, which sinks and sinks, step by step, diatonically in e-flat minor. at last we end up with a wandering motif in the lonely firsts which is outlined by a D7 chord. where are we going anyway? it turns out after an exchange between violin sections that stretches out this D7 chord forever, we are going to Gb Major, which is rather far away. he teases us with a trace of the opening rhythm and snatches of the opening bar of the main theme, but then with a small alteration of a half step interval, the horns can outline an e-flat chord and pave the way for a flute to rise, bringing us back to the intended wind statement of the theme in e-flat.
this second statement of the main theme of course goes on to "redevelop" the harmony so that the clarinet can put its second theme in the right key this time. all is well right up through the coda, which allows a gentle e-flat major arpeggio to rise up through the winds and to the violins, which rapidly crescendoes into a grandiose end.
i found a szell recording of this on youtube but it was so fast i decided not to post it. here instead is some of one of my favorite conductors ever (who only ever agreed to record/publicly perform very very few works, so it's always great when one finds recordings by him).
you can even watch the little analysis which goes on on the bottom... :P
for today's triple post: a trio of great baroque composers from different corners of europe. fair warning, the posts for the next week will not be great, owing to the audition next weekend... i mean, of course the music will be great, but i will want to avoid doing anything truly dear to me for lack of the time to do a proper entry.
handel wrote a number of concerti grossi for strings and continuo. this is Op. 3/5, the fifth in his first set. (the second set is Op. 6, another set of twelve which is slightly more popular and forms a bit more coherent whole.) this opus was published in 1734, though this particular work dates to 1717-8.
since it's so short i'll just do it in its entirety.
five movements: the largo; a fugue (allegro); adagio; allegro, ma non troppo; and allegro.
when it was published, originally only the first two movements were released, and this might remind some of you of a sort of french overture style. there is quite a lot of content in the fugue movement, which is a three part fugue for oboe and strings.
for him i will gladly do my first repeat-composer entry. this is the last movement of his third symphony, also known as the "scottish" symphony (because it was supposedly inspired by a trip to scotland or some such. the second movement most closely reflects this inspiration, though he doesn't directly steal any material from folk music at all).
the symphony was conceived early - 1829 - but not finished or published until 1842.
this movement is sprightly in a minor-key way. i have read a description that says it is "warlike," but i disagree a bit; it might be a bit grim and marchlike, but i hear no battle sounds. here we've got mariss jansons and the bayerischen rundfunks sinfonieorchester (three times fast please).
the snappy dotted rhythms and catchy tune are immediately accessible and i think that basically the only other thing one needs to understand about the movement to appreciate it is to hear how this super ear-wormy theme dies down after several minutes of development, a pianissimo. this transformation begins to occur around 6:50. the dotted rhythms sink and sink, and then all of a sudden we have no idea where we are anymore, and have to cling to the solo clarinet for guidance. then, suddenly, at 8:30, the uncertainty gives way to a noble hymn that mendelssohn suggested could be sung by a men's chorus. this is a sort of transformation of the tune that opens the whole symphony, and redeems the darkness that has clouded this fairly moody symphony (moody for mendelssohn, anyway).
enjoy! might have some difficulty updating on time tomorrow, we will see.
apparently there is some controversy over what number to call this symphony. the germans call it 7, but sometimes also 8, and then everyone who speaks english call it 9. and then apparently a lot of american orchestras just don't even give it a number and call it the "great" c major. oh well. the story is that it was composed mainly in 1825, scored by 1826, and first played in 1827, but not actually performed publicly until 1829 (schubert died in 1828). it was another ten years before it would see the concert hall again, unearthed by schumann, and performed under the baton of none other than mendelssohn. schumann loved the symphony, even though it took a while to cotton on (it was basically only performed in pieces, even with other lighter music in between movements, to counter what was then considered excessive length and seriousness). but today it's regarded as one of schubert's finest works for orchestra (alongside his unfinished 8th).
this is the second movement of the symphony.
munch and bso
as an andante con moto, this "slow" movement is really not that slow at all but more of a fast almost-march. the instrumentation, rhythm, and mood all remind me of this section of the last movement of mahler 7, about 5 minutes in. the introducing few measures are strings with a firm rhythm, then oboe and clarinet solos singing above that. eventually (around 2 minutes) this softens into some A major tunes.
an F major second theme comes in around 3 minutes in, and finally the strings get to play some warm schubert tunes. ultimately this falls, though, and after a pause, the first, more tragic theme comes back, decorated with little string and wind inserts. the addition of these firm dotted rhythms (which just reinforce the marchlike rhythm) adds an undertone of murky trouble, especially since the horns keep it in the return of the a major section (6:08). it helps a lot to build towards the ultimate climax, the arc of which really begins at 7:58. here we hear almost nonstop diminished chords until the final one, marked FFF, after which there is a huge, loud silence.
the rest of the movement seems to me to be trying to reconcile us with this huge, scary climax. at first we've got a lone cello melody, which grows and flowers into a sort of super decorated reprise of the A major theme. the coda, however, beginning at 10:53, seems to gradually sink back into resignation, tolling brass and pizzicato strings leading us back into the march theme. we venture into some other key areas, but when the singing theme in A comes back, it's in minor, and then we're done.
one of the schubertian techniques on display in this movement is his ability to switch seamlessly between parallel major and minor (e.g. e major/ e minor, a major/ a minor). for the ultimate tour de force in this, check out his posthumous g major string quartet, in which he does this practically every half bar (i actually have a lot of trouble remembering whether this quartet is actually in g major or g minor). in that piece, the victory of major is proven by the end of the last movement, but in this movement, the tragic seems to weigh it down and prevail.
here is the overture from schumann's incidental music to manfred, written in 1849, today one of schumann's most performed works.
byron wrote his poem/drama manfred in 1816-1817, and it subsequently received tons of translations and ended up rather popular in germany (and elsewhere). it's the story of a guy named manfred who is guilty for an undisclosed reason regarding the death of his wife astarte. he summons spirits to try to forget, but they can't help him, so he goes on his merry way flaunting a lot of religious authority, ultimately killing himself and in so doing refusing to submit to the higher powers.
schumann began writing a libretto for an incidental music suite in july 1848, began writing actual music in october, and had finished the overture by the end of the month. the overture was premiered before the rest of the music and generally got better response (then as now).
juuuust to give you an idea of what both the poem and the music were generally like, goethe defended his distaste of the writing by saying that the "gloomy intensity of a boundless, profound despair" was tiresome. the mildly hypochondriac mood of the whole piece was considered overwrought and outdated.
three strong recordings.
this piece has had a lot of musicological analyses done on it which try to tie it to robert schumann's mental/creative decline. for example: the tempo is marked "rasch" (rushed), and this can be seen programmatically - the insistent and pervasive syncopation from the very beginning (you might not know it from listening, but the three initial chords are syncopated) destabilize it. this of course can be related to the plot of the piece - those opening chords are representative of manfred's crime, his spiritual struggle, or his guilt - but historians have pointed to the prevalence of aggressive syncopation, triplets, and three against two as indicators of schumann's tumultuous mental state. at any rate, this isn't a concert overture like the hebrides, but more of a character piece for what's to come, so i think it's alright to take a more programmatic view.
the overture begins with a slow introduction, then speeds up to a sonata-form allegro. in nature it's been compared with some wagner, berlioz, and liszt (and i happen to think the motif at 4:00 sounds really wagnerian), but thematically it has been called the older relative of lots of brahms (check out the syncopation around 3:20).
three wind/brass chords propel the piece into a development at 4:26. there is a recap that is more or less normal, but then the ending is subdued, and doesn't provide a conclusion but leads elsewhere. if you take it as a part of the whole, then maybe it leads to manfred sitting in his study, the opening of the play. but if you take it as a sort of microcosm of the entire work/story, it's a darker-toned implication about the ending of the actual story (the actual incidental music ends in e major requiem, implying a redeemed manfred - this overture, if you read it this way, doesn't whitewash his death).
there's a little cell of material which comes around every once in a while, starting with D-C#-G# (falling, quarter notes) around 2:39. clara schumann called this "astarte's theme," noting how it resurfaces every once in a while as a sort of second theme, then is quickly lost, dissipating almost immediately. you might see this as part of the story itself, and manfred's quest after her, in his guilt.
ok, dark work today. stay tuned for something happier tomorrow!
this piece and its genesis are readily findable on the internet, so i will just do something abbreviated here. to be honest this post is definitely just about my personal enjoyment of this piece, which is one of my favorite short orchestral pieces of all time.
the title of "overture" is kind of misleading, as there is no opera or play to follow it. it's just 10 minutes of "mood-setting" music - an early form of program music which lacks plot, but delves deeply into setting.
mendelssohn had a pretty charmed life - he wrote this in 1830, during travels to england and scotland. he was barely 20 at the time and had already gained fame by conducting a performance of bach's st. matthew passion, and for these few years he basically just traveled all over europe.
this is dedicated to king william iv of prussia. he also conceived bits of the scottish symphony during this trip, but that work took much longer to mature - that would turn out to be his third symphony and didn't get completed until 1842, becoming his op. 56.
here is a pretty awesome furtwangler recording. for some reason it took me a little while to wade through the recordings that are unlabeled and simply come with pretty pictures of said cave, and i almost thought youtube lacked any legitimate recordings of the piece, so i'll post a bunch here for easier access.
but actually these recordings all sound sort of similar to me: this music is so simple, so well-distributed, that it more or less plays itself. this recording is actually pretty idiosyncratic mostly because of the tempi he takes, which are really extreme (the last minute and half are at a blistering speed, while the stretch just before that is really, really slow).
toscanini gets kind of a reedy sound - a lot of modern recordings get a huge wash of sound from the strings, which lends itself well to the swelling seas, but the slides and thinness in this orchestra give a sense of clarity.
ok, and just because this is a cool recording:
video of casals. it has his characteristic unbalanced tempo but he really knows how to extract some conviction from the strings.
any number of the rest of the recordings that come up first on youtube when you type in hebrides will offer you more "standard" takes.
the piece has two motifs. the first is the very opening, which he came up with the day before his visit to the actual cave, and he included this in a letter to his sister fanny:
it is undulating, floats on top of the murmuring sixteenth notes of the strings. the second begins at 1:41 in the furtwangler recording. it's sweeter, in d major, and a bit wistful, swelling up and then receding, like the minor melody.
notice how tension is always built up by the moving sixteenths - you only become conscious of it at certain moments when it bursts into focus, for example around 2:35 with the ascending chromatic bass line, which provides some excellent impetus for the orchestra with its repeated notes.
the other thing to notice is the repeated wind and brass fanfare like figures - tattoos of sixteenths and dotted rhythms.
my favorite moment is 5:16 when the theme from the beginning is transformed into muted staccato notes for the strings. the key changes here are really leading, and the rhythm is compelling when articulated in a way that is completely different from the main melody.
ok, just enjoy this awesome piece. i have to put this in though, which i found courtesy of wikipedia:
ok so i'm putting off mozart another day because today is a very special day! and i'm going to commemorate it with some sappy romantic music that everyone already knows :D and today is bruch's birthday, so this is also a pretty good excuse.
bruch wrote this concerto and, unbeknownst to a lot of violinists, two other ones that apparently he thought were just as good (history has not been kind to these other concerti, unfortunately). this first one was composed first in 1866, premiered, and then revised with help from the famous joachim, who premiered that in 1868. and that's the piece we hear today.
i have always felt that the second movement was *far and away* the best of the three movements. from the warm key to the core melody, the majestic arpeggios, the beautiful climax, it's pretty much all there.
ok i wanted to upload the recording i grew up with - isaac stern with ormandy and the philadelphia orchestra. classic, clear, and never overdone. i love it. but unfortunately it's not on youtube and blogger doesn't have audio hosting services. blah. well if you can find it, give it a go. for now we'll go with...
can't really lose here.
i've always felt that this slow movement is great at being melodic without being shrill, even with the alternating a-bflats in the climax. just listen to the beginning of the movement. it is romantic without really being thick, even though sometimes the movement does get a hair repetitive or cheesy with arpeggios, stretched out chromatic passing tones, etc. this is really quite well mitigated by many violinists though, if they can convey the pathos of these moments without necessarily making them excessive, and also if they can find moments other than the obvious ones to deliver on. it is so easy with romantic concerti to fall into a rote interpretation.
there is pretty much no better example of the ability to convey intensity without excess (yeah, he does this weird open d string thing in the second line or so that just sounds strange, but just listen to the length of his phrases...)
ok i really want to kill blogger right now for its fail youtube search which refuses to give me this video among its search options. but you must watch this! you need to turn the volume up because it's set so low on this video, but it's definitely worth it. Ida Haendel at 77(?) years in 2005
i'm ashamed to admit i didn't even know whether she was still alive, but this video is fascinating. there are a number of orchestral following fails and also fairly common intonation blunders. but this is so amazing by virtue of the fact that she has *so much conviction* it makes me want to back up because of the intensity. i would usually call mistakes in intonation "slips," but after listening to this you will have to agree that nothing she does can be really called a "slip" because through all these 'errors' she is playing with such oomph that you don't even care that the errors are being made anymore. it's like THIS IS THE WAY I'M GONNA DO IT NOW PUT UP OR SHUT UP. lets keep in mind that she's 77, if you or i can play like that at 77 then we can talk about those things.
o my this is so intense.
this movement is one of my favorite of all mahler movements. i get the ending stuck in my head all the time. i don't know how appropriate for beginnings this is, but i decided to get it out of my system because it's been there for several days.
the symphony was composed from 1895-6, and really out of order. the first movement was composed last, and it's basically the first half of a 1.5 hour symphony (the beginning of which is pretty fun if you listen to it with an ear to the last movement of brahms 1).
originally the entire symphony had this big program attached to it and every movement came with a "what the [flowers, animals, man, child, angels, love] tell(s) me" subtitle. (this scherzo was originally "what the cuckoo tells me," then later "what the animals tell me"). the subtitles were dropped later in the typical debate about the value of program - mahler said that the attempt to "provide non-musicians with something to hold on to... the expressive content of the various movements" had failed and "led only to misinterpretations of the most horrendous sort" (Steinberg). so don't take the titles too seriously, basically.
there's an interesting abstractionism even in the original titles, as programmatic as they might be. "what love tells me" (the original subtitle of the sixth and last movement) isn't exactly a plotted storyline. so you might say that having the subtitles couldn't hurt too much. but their lack of specificity is also a double-edged sword: why have them if they provide so little real direction - or worse, if they appear to refer to such platitudes that people can only misinterpret the composer's actual, much more subtle intention? that danger is probably greatest in this movement. "what the animals in the forest tell me" is liable to lend itself to all sorts of kitschy assignments as to what instrument represents which animal's or tree's voice, which sections are indicative of wind rustling leaves, etc. once those sorts of cute assignments get ingrained, one's attention might forever be focused on "oh cool, there is the clarinet cuckoo" rather than whatever more subtle or holistic experience mahler had in mind.
ok, this is actually getting lengthier than i intended, so here are some notes about the actual movement.
it basically rips the entirety of a song he wrote for das knaben wunderhorn, titled Ablösung im Sommer. i'm only linking the video because i don't think it's that important. you can also find the text here. (from this it's readily apparent where the original "cuckoo" subtitle came from, and maybe find a bit of the semi-morbid playfulness, but other than that i'm not convinced the text should really be the lens for this movement).
the melody is simple enough but starting at 2:49 with the addition of the flowery violin descant (if you will) he layers it on and makes it much more chromatic and twisted and difficult to hear the original seed (i like the big chromatic scale at 3:57). big affinity for chromatic downwards twists in the whole movement. also note the tattoo of
in various configurations, throughout, but always with the fifth or octave leap.
there's a really dramatic offstage posthorn solo that comes up twice, probably everyone's favorite moment(s) of the whole piece. starts off with a fanfare of fourths and fifths and octaves and then goes into an extended song.
my personal favorite moment of the piece is at the end of the second posthorn solo, which starts at about 4:35. i like the big compression of the motif depicted above leading into the e-flat minor crash and the big harp flourishes. the subsequent trombone soli is apparently a reference to brass music in the finale of the 2nd symphony.
i don't know why, but i find the last about 20 bars super compelling, i think because of the rhythms, and also because of the use of the c major triad to c-e-aflat (what is that? augmented six in the parallel minor? my theory is out of commission =/).
ok, this took way longer than i wanted it to oops.
