performed by Dame Mitsuko Uchida and the English Chamber Orchestra under Sir Jeffrey Tate (cover image by John McCann) This work is the farthest along we’ve gotten in any of Mozart’s works in any form (with the exception of the … Continue reading Mozart Piano Concerto no. 11 in F, K. 413
performed by Jenő Jandó, Dénes Várjon, pianos, and the Concentus Hungaricus under Mátyás Antal, or as below, with Alfred Brendel, Imogen Cooper and the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields under Sir Neville Marriner (cover image by Nicolas Gras) I’ve always thought that so many … Continue reading Mozart Piano Concerto no. 10 in E-flat, K. 365
performed by Dame Mitsuko Uchida (cover image by Aaron Burden) We jump ahead a few years, around where we were last week, in 1777, although this work wasn’t published until 1782. The ninth sonata was composed in Augsburg and Mannheim … Continue reading Mozart Piano Sonata no. 9 in D, K. 311
performed by the Amadeus Quartet (cover image by Brooke Lark) So we, uh… jump back a few important years to the tenth quartet, written in 1773. The middle of this decade is clearly a time when the composer advances noticeably … Continue reading Mozart String Quartet no. 10 in C, K. 170
performed by Dame Mitsuko Uchida second and third movements One gets the feeling, listening to the Sonata in A minor, that Mozart had been stocking up on minor mode drama for some time when he wrote it. Its stormy music is a … Continue reading Mozart Piano Sonata no. 8 in Am, K. 310
performed by Fazıl Say, or below by Dame Mitsuko Uchida (cover image by Chris Barbalis) Mozart’s seventh piano sonata dates from 1777, a full two and a half years after the sixth. It was composed during a trip to Mannheim and … Continue reading Mozart Piano Sonata no. 7 in C, K. 309
performed by Dame Mitsuko Uchida and the English Chamber Orchestra under Sir Jeffrey Tate (cover image by Leonard Cotte) Mozart’s ninth piano concerto is actually his fifth original concerto for the piano (after the first four, which were more or … Continue reading Mozart Piano Concerto no. 9 in E-flat, K. 271, ‘Jenamy’
performed by the Amadeus Quartet, or below by the Festetics Quartet (cover image by Irina Blok) Mozart’s ninth string quartet, the second of the set of six called the ‘Viennese quartets,’ was composed in (August of) 1773. (Apparently, according to … Continue reading Mozart String Quartet no. 9 in A, K. 169
performed by the Quatuor Diotima, or below by the Lasalle Quartet (cover image by Dhruv Weaver) Webern’s string quartet, the only work to be so labeled by him (even though he composed other things for four strings), is also his … Continue reading Webern String Quartet, op. 28
performed by Mitsuko Uchida, or below by Krystian Zimerman, or Pollini w/ the score (cover image by Mitch Lensink) Of all forms and structures of music, the variation form may be the easiest to understand: a theme… with variations, or … Continue reading Webern: Variations for Piano, op. 27
performed by Roland Pöntinen, or below by Eduard Steuermann (cover image by h-e-n-g-s-t-r-e-a-m) It may sound like a cliche, but Schoenberg’s earlier (by a little over a decade) opus 11 really was a watershed moment for the composer in dealing … Continue reading Schoenberg: Fünf Stücke, op. 23
performed by the Amadeus Quartet, or below by the Festetics Quartet (cover image by Rachel Lynette French) Well, here we are again, continuing to slog away at Mozart’s enormous catalogue of works. Just kidding; it’s not a chore. It’s just … Continue reading Mozart String Quartet no. 8 in F, K. 168
performed by the Amadeus Quartet, or below by the Festetics Quartet (cover image by Brenda Godinez) The seventh quartet of W. A. Mozart is the last of the so-called ‘Milanese quartets,’ written while the young composer was in Italy, and showing … Continue reading Mozart String Quartet no. 7 in E flat, K. 160
performed by the Amadeus Quartet, or below by the Festetics Quartet (cover image by Rodion Kutsaev) Mozart’s sixth string quartet dates from 1773, again very early in his output, as evidenced by the low catalogue number. As part of the … Continue reading Mozart String Quartet no. 6 in B flat, K. 159
performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado There had to come a day when we could hear how a chord of eight tones really sounds in the brasses! (cover image by Tara Evans) Earlier in the week, we had Schoenberg’s op. 16, … Continue reading Berg: Three Pieces for Orchestra, op. 6
performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Boulez, or below with the London Symphony under Robert Craft The conductor need not try to polish sounds which seem unbalanced, but watch that every instrumentalist plays accurately the prescribed dynamic, according … Continue reading Schoenberg: Five Pieces for Orchestra, op. 16
performed by Isaac Stern and Charles Rosen, or below by Kyung Wha Chung and Kevin Kenner It is always over before it starts… Webern’s father, about op. 7 (cover image by Glen Carrie) He wasn’t wrong. One of Webern’s early works, … Continue reading Webern: 4 Stücke für Geige und Klavier, op. 7
performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Carl Maria Giulini (cover image by Tao Wen) 600 Well, here we are, my 600th music post. For my long-time readers, I’m sure you’re both tired of hearing me explain how not ALL … Continue reading Mahler Symphony no. 9
performed by the Beaux Arts Trio, or below by the people credited in this video (cover image by Joanna Kosinska) Erich Wolfgang Korngold was born on May 29, 1897 in Brünn, Austria-Hungary, which is nowadays Brno, in what is apparently … Continue reading Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Piano trio in D, op. 1
performed by the RSO Berlin, Dunn, Fassbaender, Baur, Hollweg, and Schmidt under Riccardo Chailly, or below by The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and lots of people under Sir Simon Rattle (cover image by Roman Mavrin) We got around to … Continue reading Mahler: Das klagende Lied
performed by Thomas Hampson and David Lutz, piano (cover image by Joanna Kosinska) These three songs are Mahler’s earliest surviving works, dating from 1880. They were originally to be part of a set of five songs, but work on this … Continue reading Mahler: Three Lieder
Fugue for Thought 