Tag: Austrian

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Mozart Piano sonata no. 2 in F, KV280

Fugue for Thought

performed by Mitsuko Uchida second movement third movement As with many of the pieces we have discussed in rapid succession, this piece was written soon after yesterday’s sonata. Do remember the statement we made about the clump of the first four piano concertos: with such little space between them, and from such a young composer, I wouldn’t expect to see any large degree of development or advancement from one piece to another. What I do feel like I see, as mentioned with the juvenile orchestrations, is greater confidence. The young Mozart is, perhaps, getting his sea legs, as it were.  … Continue reading Mozart Piano sonata no. 2 in F, KV280

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Mozart Piano sonata no. 1 in C, K279

Fugue for Thought

performed by Mitsuko Uchida second movement third movement   No more concertos for now. Move ahead another year, and our dear composer is now 18 years old. He’d have graduated high school by this time if that’d been a thing, and he finally got around to writing his first full piano sonata. I’m interested as to why it isn’t until now that his first completed piano sonata is composed. That being said, he’d written tons of smaller things in his youth, but his first completed three-movement work for solo piano comes some time after his first opera or concerto or … Continue reading Mozart Piano sonata no. 1 in C, K279

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Haydn Symphony no. 5

Fugue for Thought

Horns. The fifth in A major has its date between 1760 and 1762. Wikipedia refers to it as a sonata da chiesa and states that this is the reason for its four-movement form, unlike its cousin the third. It also says that because of the very high horn parts, this is some of the most difficult writing for the instrument in Haydn’s oeuvre. And yes, they are high. As a kite. It’s the most striking thing about the symphony at first listen. In the past, the winds (of any kind) had only gotten much smaller kind of background parts, but this is the … Continue reading Haydn Symphony no. 5

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Haydn Symphony no. 4

Fugue for Thought

The fourth in D major takes us back perhaps to 1757 up to 1761, as well as back to a three-movement form. Presto, 6/8 Andante in D minor, 2/4 Tempo di Menuetto, 3/8 The finale is marked as a minuet, but in 3/8 not 3/4 and lacks the typical trio section. The first movement sounds somewhat like the contrapuntal passages that stood out in the third symphony, even if this one may have been written earlier. It’s what jumped out about the first movement. It has a darker second subject, but it’s still all relatively crisp and delightful, but there is really … Continue reading Haydn Symphony no. 4

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Haydn Symphony no. 3

Fugue for Thought

The third in G major was written (it is believed) between 1760 and 1762. It shares its orchestration with its predecessors, (two oboes, bassoon, two horns, strings, continuo) but is Haydn’s first symphony to be written in four movements, and one of the earliest in general to do so. The winds in this symphony are also absent from the slow movement, as in the previous symphony. This symphony is more ‘complex’ no only for its four-movement structure, but also for the structure of two of the movements: the minuet is a canon between high and low voices, and the finale … Continue reading Haydn Symphony no. 3

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Haydn Symphony no. 2

Fugue for Thought

Gonna try to keep this one shorter. The second symphony is believed to have been written between 1757 and 1761. It has the same orchestration as number one from yesterday, and is also in three movements. There’s also something kind of… comforting at the possibility that something this brief (a nine minute symphony!) may have taken him four years to write. Not that he devoted every waking hour (or any regular attention) to the piece, but for any aspiring composer, it’s nice to know that speed isn’t necessarily important. The second is also unique in Haydn’s symphonic repertoire in that … Continue reading Haydn Symphony no. 2

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Franz Joseph Haydn: Symphony no. 1

Fugue for Thought

So the thirty-seventh symphony wasn’t the thirty-seventh. The first symphony might also not be. Haydn certainly isn’t the only (or first) composer to switch around the orders of his compositions, or to have begun a piece earlier than another but published it later. As we have also already seen, the cataloguing and numbering and organizing of such a large body of work from so long ago has also proven to be somewhat troublesome. To me, it isn’t terribly important. We’re covering these earliest symphonies together. It’s not like they would be decades apart, so I’m not terribly susceptible to being … Continue reading Franz Joseph Haydn: Symphony no. 1

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Haydn Symphony no. 37

Fugue for Thought

again, and as always, for Haydn’s symphonies, we’ll be using the performances by the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra under Adam Fischer (older brother of the also fantastic Iván Fischer) It’s older than that. As I said in yesterday’s article, there are some cataloguing and numbering issues in Haydn’s works, at least the symphonies. But then again, how could there not be when trying to order and organize works from two and a half centuries ago? Symphony no. 37 is one of the earliest of Haydn’s symphonies, dated 1758, but you might not know it immediately. We’re going to start our more … Continue reading Haydn Symphony no. 37

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Concert Review: NSO- Symphonic Milestone: Bruckner’s Magnum Opus

Fugue for Thought

It’s a lot of music. This concert marks the end.  It was the last completed symphony that Bruckner wrote, and it is the last concert of both the NSO’s season and the last concert of the month, thus beginning a long four-month stretch of no concerts at our National Concert Hall while it gets some renovations or something. I’ll be eager to see it in the fall. I can’t imagine it’s getting a huge makeover or anything, but who knows? It was a large crowd last night. Even from the downstairs entrance I went in to have dinner downstairs beforehand, … Continue reading Concert Review: NSO- Symphonic Milestone: Bruckner’s Magnum Opus

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Schoenberg: Drei Klavierstücke, op. 11

Fugue for Thought

This article has been marked as in need of a revisit. That’s where I feel like I didn’t do the piece justice or have more to say (usually because I didn’t know it nearly well enough or didn’t have the right perspective). I’ll keep the original article for posterity, but publish a new version that will eventually be linked here for my new take on it. performed by Maurizio Pollini That looks intimidating, those three links, but honestly, these pieces aren’t terribly overwhelming. In total, they come to about 13 or 14 minutes of music. Very delicious, important music. While … Continue reading Schoenberg: Drei Klavierstücke, op. 11

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Concert Review: 4.27 男高音湯發凱獨唱會

Fugue for Thought

Tenor vocal recital In case you didn’t know, Austrians are intense people… In my write-ups on concerts, I do my best to address the concert and not the pieces themselves, but that’s hard to do in some ways, especially when you’re not super familiar with said pieces. In any case, last year, I went to see Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder performed by our very fine National Symphony Orchestra. As you dedicated readers will know, it demands some serious forces, and one of those is a tenor. The tenor’s performance (both musically and… acting-ly? dramatically?) was excellent, and I actually ended up making … Continue reading Concert Review: 4.27 男高音湯發凱獨唱會