performed again by Szeryng/Fournier/Kempff, or as below Again, same opus number, same year, same performance dates as yesterday. What’s new is a quiet, serene, classical personality, the “quiet middle child” as expressed in this fantastic article that was an excellent … Continue reading Beethoven Piano Trio no. 2 in G, op. 1, no 2.
performed by Henryk Szeryng, violin; Pierre Fournier, cello; Wilhelm Kempff, piano; or below by the Istomin/Stern/Rose trio That’s a lot of ones. I have a confession to make. This is the first piano trio I’ve ever listened to in full, … Continue reading Beethoven Piano Trio no. 1 in Eb, op. 1. no.1
performed by Mikhail Pletnev … there’s too much music to talk about to separate this stuff into posts. As we did in our treatment of Mozart for the past week (more), we’re going to get through a few early pieces … Continue reading Beethoven: Variations on a March by E.C.Dressler in Cm, WoO 63
performed by Mitsuko Uchida second movement third movement or also this very interesting performance of the first movement by Robert Levin on an actual fortepiano, similar to what Mozart would have played on This third of Mozart’s piano sonatas is … Continue reading Mozart Piano sonata no. 3 in Bb, K281
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
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
performed by the English Chamber Orchestra under Jeffrey Tate, Mitsuko Uchida, piano Finally something original. So it’s been 24 hours since our last Mozart concerto, and a few years since our little composer put his pen to paper for another concerto. This one, however, is original. I’ll make mention that I’m not including the three unnumbered concerti orchestrated from sonatas of J.S. Bach, mostly because they’re not numbered and because I didn’t know they existed (because they aren’t included in any of the box sets I’ve been browsing), mostly the latter. I might get around to them eventually, but then … Continue reading Mozart Piano Concerto no. 5 in D, K175
performed by Philharmonia/Ashkenazy, or below by Perahia/English Chamber Orchestra Maybe I’ve figured out what it is. I would say confident! This piece feels even more confident than the third. I feel better about thinking of that word. Why? Well, think of a composer who changed throughout his career. That shouldn’t be hard. Sibelius comes to mind, for no particular reason. His first two symphonies (taking them as an example) are quite traditional in their Romantic-ness, but then with the third, things change. It’s pared down and almost neo-classical. And then he becomes even more unique, all the way up to … Continue reading Mozart Piano Concerto no. 4 in G, K41
performed by either Ashkenazy/Philharmonia, or below by Perahia/English Chamber Ochestra Number three. The year is (still) 1767, and our little composer is still eleven years old. Everything is the same, except we get trumpets in addition to keyboard, strings, horns and oboes. Again, three movements, but none of which based on Raupach. Wikipedia says: The first movement is based on the initial movement of Honauer’s Op. 2, No. 1. The second on one by Johann Gottfried Eckard (op. 1, no. 4 ), the most famous keyboardist of his day. The third movement is based on C. P. E. Bach‘s piece … Continue reading Mozart Piano Concerto no. 3 in D, K40
by Ashkenazy/Philharmonia or below, as usual, by Perahia/English Chamber Orchestra Yesterday’s piece was K37, and this is K39. It seems the young, ambitious, precocious Mozart took a break from his string of piano concertos for his K38. He wrote an opera. At eleven years old. And then he came back to piano concertos, and that’s where we are today. Following the circle of fifths for flats, we come from F major yesterday to Bb major today. This concerto was written only a few months after yesterday’s K37, and uses the same forces. It is a few minutes shorter, and also … Continue reading Mozart Piano Concerto no. 2 in Bb, K39
performed by The Philharmonia Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy, (or the below with Murray Perahia and the English Chamber Orchestra) As mentioned yesterday, we’re starting a very long stretch of almost-daily posts, with lots of piano works by some very important composers. For future reference, all Mozart concertos will be taken from the above-mentioned Ashkenazy/Philharmonia set. We begin today with the first of five Mozart piano concertos. This one was written when the young composer/pianist was eleven years old. It turns out these works were long considered to be original, but later found to be orchestrations of other German works. A … Continue reading Mozart Piano Concerto no. 1 in F, K37
but piano, this time. My previous efforts with Mozart focused solely on his juvenile symphonies, the ones he wrote before he would have even been old enough to get a driver’s license, had that been a thing then. And it … Continue reading Much More Mozart
It’s all Scriabin and Chopin. And then Islamey. And encores. This is another one of those things I’m terrified of missing out on. If I had to travel some long distance to buy a ticket and attend, that’s one thing, but when it’s within walking distance (sort of), I don’t really have any excuse not to go. It’s also bragging rights, if nothing else. It’s just a nice experience to have, to say I was able to see so-and-so live, even if I didn’t get to meet her. I was a little late in getting around to buying tickets, and … Continue reading Concert Review: Yuja Wang Piano Recital
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
performed by two separate teams:the clarinet and piano duo here or a truly splendid performance by Capucon and Argerich (cello, not clarinet) Welcome to part two of our three (and a half?) part clarinet series. Today’s piece was originally written for clarinet and piano, but it seems that it is more often performed on cello. That isn’t against the composer’s wish, though, as he’d directed that the clarinet part could be played either on violin or cello as well.Schumann is a composer I’m not terribly familiar with, as evidenced by my poor attention to his symphonies I wrote about a … Continue reading Schumann’s Drei Fantasiestücke, op. 73, for clarinet and piano
performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Eugen Jochum, Maurizio Pollini, piano or below, an excellent and entertaining performance with Leonard Bernstein conducting the Vienna Philharmonic from the piano (I’m writing on Substack now, where I feature pieces on hypothetical concert … Continue reading Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 1 in C, op. 15
This week, as you may have seen from yesterday’s post, is going to be a miniature Beethoven week. Actually, I don’t know what’s miniature about it; Beethoven certainly isn’t, and it’s a full seven-day week like any other. Beethoven week. … Continue reading Uchida on Beethoven, Schubert and Vienna
performed by the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin under Riccardo Chailly; Martha Argerich, piano //player.vimeo.com/video/63725542 This is intimidating. I guess everything about this piece is except for listening to it, and sometimes even that. There’s so. much. to. say. about this piece that I almost don’t want to try. There are so many theses, recordings, liner notes, program notes, concert talks and everything else about this piece that it would be ludicrous for me to think I have anything else to add but my own opinion and feelings of the piece, so that’s pretty much all I’m going to share, aside from some basics. For the technical bits … Continue reading Centenniel Music Post: Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 3 in Dm, op. 30
performed by Ashley Wass (per the YouTube video info) The rest of the first movement (Hexameron has apparently not uploaded the second movement…) The third movement (There was another fantastic performance of this piece in its entirety up on YouTube, … Continue reading Frank Bridge: piano sonata, H. 160
performed by Vladimir Ashkenazy 2nd movement 3rd movement 4th movement This is such an impressive piece to be only an opus no. 23. For whatever reason, in my concerted efforts to come to love Scriabin, I gravitated more immediately to … Continue reading Scriabin piano sonata no. 3 in F#m, op. 23
performed by Yefim Bronfman https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/z2EDk2Zsdik&source=uds It’s funny how life is. I’d planned the writing of this piece at least a month ago as a lead-in to another set of works for piano (the actual lead in was last week’s Satie piece, but this one sets up for what is to come later), and it was for a few reasons that now seem… less important than some others that have since surfaced. This piece is perhaps not as exciting to many as his other, later, more substantial works, but in a lot of (perhaps intentional, contrived ways), may have a lot to say about … Continue reading Prokofiev piano sonata no. 1 in Fm, op. 1
Fugue for Thought 