New York Philharmonic – Leonard Bernstein, conductor (CBS Records)
ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
Come on, it’s good – it’s just another one of those ‘Greatest Hits” packages from the vaults – not quite sure why I filed this one under ‘B’ – I suppose for Samuel Barber.
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (uncredited):
Although four of the five works presented here were written in the twentieth century, it is not incorrect to entitle this album “Romantic Favorites.”
(A correction is perhaps due because the full orchestra, and not just strings, performs the Fantasia on ‘Greensleeves.’)
The lush string lines and harmonic and melodic fluidity in many ways fall well within the flavor of the Romantic era, and certainly each work has long been popular with concert audiences.
Composed in 1936 by Samuel Barber (1910-1981), originally as a slow movement of a string quartet, the “Adagio” is built on a single lyric subject stated at the outset of the movement. Canonic treatment follows, leading to a fortissimo climax and tranquil close.
This piece was chosen by Arturo Toscanini for its first performance in 1938 and again for programs during a South American tour, the only American work to be so favored by the Maestro.
Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) completed his First String Quartet in D Majorin February 1871, and it was premiered that month in Moscow. The second movement, “Andante cantabile,” was the main reason for its great popularity and was Tchaikovsky’s first composition which incurred wide success outside of Russia.
In 1876, a special concert was held at the Moscow Conservatory to honor Tolstoy, who was moved to tears by the movement.
The “Andante cantabile” is in three-part form and is based on the Russian folk tune “Vanya Sat on the Divan” that Tchaikovsky obtained from a carpenter in Kamenka, Russia.
Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) completed his five-movement Fifth Symphony in 1902. The brief fourth movement “Adagietto” (only 103 bars long), marked Sehr langsam (very slowly), is scored for strings and harp. It is in great contrast to the more turbulent music heard before it in the Symphony.
After its premiere in Cologne in October 1904, Mahler wrote to his wife, Alma, “Performance excellent! Audience immensely interested and attentive – despite all their puzzlement in the early movements! After the Scherzoeven a few hisses! Adagiettoand Rondoseem to have won the day.” The “Adagietto”is perhaps the most immediately accessible of all movements from Mahler’s symphonies.
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) wrong Fantasia on “Greensleeves”in 1929 for his opera Sir John with Love, based on Shakespeare’sThe Merry Wives of Windsor.
“Greensleeves”was a hit song of the late 1570s, and Shakespeare mentioned it more than once in his plays. It was even rumored to have been written by Henry VIII, a composer of many similar tunes. The Fantasiaalso incorporates as a middle section another English folk tune, “Lovely Joan.”
Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis:Thomas Tallis (1505-1585) was one of the most distinguished of early English musicians, a predecessor both of William Byrd and John Wilbye.
Tallis wrote a set of eight tunes (found in the Metrical Psalter of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury), one on each of the ecclesiastical modes. These date from 1567. The theme utilized by Vaughan Williams is the third in the sequence, in the Phrygian mode.
According to Vaughan Williams’s wife, Ursula: “He took this tune as a theme for a fantasia, using the strings of the orchestra grouped as a solo quartet, a small string band, and a larger body of players: with the Norman grandeurs of Gloucester Cathedral in mind and the strange quality of the resonance of stone, the echo idea of three different groups of instruments was well judged… The audience in the Cathedral that September evening had come to hear Elgar conduct Gerontius, but before that work Ralph stood in front of them, looking taller than ever on the high platform, dark haired, serious, inwardly extremely nervous, and the grave splendour of the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis was heard for the first time.”
TRACK LISTING:
1: Samuel Barber: Adagio for Strings, Op. 11 [9:56]
2: Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis [18:12]
3: Ralph Vaughan Williams: Fantasia on “Greensleeves” [4:56]
4: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: “Andante Cantabile” from String Quartet No. 1, Op. 11 [9:24]
5: Gustav Mahler: “Adagietto” from Symphony No. 5 in C-Sharp Minor [11:05]
FINAL THOUGHT:
This is indeed one of those lights-down-glass-of-wine (or four) discs that we all love to play once or twice a year.
This is one of those Enhanced CDs from the early 1990s that was supposed to be interactive (by letting you follow the score as the music plays on your computer) but, in reality, did nothing but take up your time while you searched for Drivers that still couldn’t play the disc. (And, for some reason, I didn’t throw it away.)
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by Drs. Lyn and Lawrence Schenbeck):
Johann Sebastian Bach was born March 21, 1685, in Eisenach, Germany. During his 65 years, he wrote over 200 sacred cantatas (some of which were also lost); five masses; two magnificats; six passions; six motets (or seven, depending on whom you ask); 518 chorales, sacred songs and arias; 215 keyboard works, including many toccatas and fugues; five pieces for lute; 37 chamber sonatas and 30 orchestral works, including several suites, violin concertos and the six Brandenburg Concertos.
Bach came from a large musical family. While most Bachs were instrumentalists, only a few composed. His early years were spent in Eisenach, where he entered the Latin School in the spring of 1692. By the age of 17, both of his parents had died, so he briefly lived with his older brother Johann Christoph.
In 1703, Bach was appointed organist of the New Church in Arnstadt. Unfortunately, not all went well. On August 29, 1705, he was disciplined for calling a student a “Zippelfagottist” (a “nanny-goat bassoonist”) and was told to behave better with the students. (The Bach Reader, David and Mendel, eds.)
The following year, Bach was reproved for other matters, as excerpted from the Proceedings of the Arnstadt Consitory:
February 21, 1706: The organist Bach had previously played rather too long, but, after his attention had been called to it by the Superintendent, he had, at once, fallen into the other extreme and had made it too short. Reprove him for having hitherto, made many curious “variations” in the chorale and mingled many strange tunes in it and for the fact that the Congregation has been confused by it.
November 11, 1706: “If he considers it no disgrace to be be connected with the Church and to accept his salary, he must not be ashamed to make music with the students assigned to do so, until other instructions are given… [Bach is told to] declare himself in writing concerning this matter. [He shall then] be asked further by what right he recently caused the strange maiden [probably his first wife and cousin Maria Barbara Bach, whom he married in 1707] to be invited into the choir loft and let her make music there.
Bach later held positions in other cities. After leaving Arnstadt, he was an organist in Muhlhausen (1707-08). According to the Proceedings of st. Blasius’ Church Parish meetings, he received 85 gulden in salary, plus the following in-kind emoluments:
54 bushels of grain; two cords of wood [one beech and the other oak or aspen]; and six times three-score fagots delivered to the door instead of acreage. (The Bach Reader, 55)
Six of Bach’s children were born during his stay in Weimar (1708-17). Also, many of his keyboard works were written there, including the famous organ toccatas, and some of the popular Brandenburg Concertos.
Bach’s illustrious career continued in Cothen (1717-23), where he served as capellmeister. Prince Leopold, whom Bach served, loved music and wanted the chapel instruments to be in excellent condition. Bach supervised the repair of the chapel organ and personally fixed the prince’s harpsichords.
Several important events in Bach’s life happened in Cothen. The first involved the marriage of his second wife, Anna Magdalena, December 3, 1721. In addition to being his wife, she was a fine court singer. According to an excerpt from the Accounts of the Cothen Capelle, both were paid for their musical services to the prince.
Also that same year, the Brandenburg Concertos were published. This lively set of six concertos was dedicated to Lord Christian Ludwig, the elector of Brandenburg.
Lastly, in 1722, the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection of 24 preludes and fugues, was composed. “Clavier” is Germany for “keyboard,” but, during Bach’s day, it referred only to the harpsichord and clavichord.
The last 27 years of Bach’s life were spent in Leipzig, where he was cantor and music director of the St. Thomas Church. In reality, he was music director of the entire city. His first production at St. Thomas was May 30, 1723.
Bach’s writing flourished in Leipzig. All his major vocal works – the B Minor Mass, St John and St. Matthew Passions, six (or seven) motets, two magnificats and many of the 200 sacred cantatas – were composed there. During this time, Bach wrote many instructional works for his pupils, including The Art of the Fugueand numerous canons.
In the 1740s, Bach’s eyesight began to fail due to cataracts. In 1750, he was twice operated on by John Taylor, a British eye specialist. Both were unsuccessful.
Sick and virtually blind, Bach spent the last year of his life fighting the perennial battle of music teacher against city hall. He engaged in heated correspondence with the headmaster in Freiberg, Herr Bidermann, who opposed the “cultivation of music in schools.” Bach felt his moral obligation was to write vehement letters against Bidermann’s position.
By the summer of 1750, Bach’s health had seriously declined. In July, he suffered a stroke and, six days later, died on the 28th.
TRACK LISTING:
1: Toccata and Fugue [8:10]
2: Orchestral Suite No. 3 – Air for the “G” String [3:15]
3: Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 – Allegro [6:50]
4: Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring [3:51]
5: Orchestral Suite No. 2 – Minuet and Badinerie [2:44]
6: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 – Allegro [9:54]
FINAL THOUGHT:
While, in general, this is a pretty worthless disc (basically six of Bach’s “greatest hits” performed very studiously), the biographical notes are very concise and give a good amount of information. For that reason, I hope this little write up was worth your time.
Recorded December 19-20 & 23, 1992 at the Performing Arts Center, SUNY, Purchase, NY (Musical Heritage Society)
ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
It doesn’t get any more authentic than this boring ass shit (that’s a joke – lighten up).
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by Harris Goldsmith):
“Weimer,” “Cothen” and “Leipzig”: These three locations can be used to neatly divide the towering musical legacy of J.S. Bach – an arrangement analogous to the “Early,” “Middle” and “Late” groupings habitually bestowed upon Beethoven’s output. The tryptych approach for both of these musical geniuses has undeniable utility but can sometimes be misleading.
It was in 1713, during his employ as organist to the Duke of Weimar, that Bach first encountered the then new Italian music of Antonio Vivaldi, TomasoAlbinoni, ArcangeloCorelli and the other violinist-composers.
The Duke’s young nephew, Prince Johann Ernst, had developed a passionate fondness for this fare and had brought some of these concerti (recently published in the Netherlands) back with him as additions to his uncle’s library.
Bach had a favorable impression, particularly so in Vivaldi’s case – for he thought sufficiently well of the latter’s music to arrange six of his Concerti Grossifor solo keyboard. And in some of his subsequent original works (the F major Concerto in the Italian Manner, BWV 971, springs immediately to mind), Bach assimilated the style in all its specifics and immeasurably transcended it – an observation that, likewise, applies to several of the compositions heard on this recording.
In 1719, Bach moved to Cothen where he served as Kapellmeister and Director of Chamber Music. The court of Cothen, according to Bach’s biographer Spitta, was “held on a modest scale.” “It had never possessed a theatre and the Reformed (Calvinist) services did not encourage music.” But Bach’s employer, Leopold did. He was, in the composer’s words, “an amiable prince who knew and loved music.”
Indeed, Leopold was an accomplished player of three instruments – the clavier, the violin and the viola da gamba – and it was under his aegis that Bach spent what was reputably the happiest part of his life and certainly – at least in terms of purely instrument music – the most productive. During this period, he penned the six suites for unaccompanied cello, the sonatas and partitas for violin, the concertos for violin (all but three of which are lost), all six Brandenburgsand Book One of the Well Tempered Clavier – all in all, a pretty fair accomplishment.
All good things must come to an end and, unfortunately, the good prince too him self a spouse who didn’t share his affection for music and, moreover, resented her noble husband’s consorting with one of his servants (by then, a close friendship had developed between Bach, who was already a musical celebrity, and the much younger prince). In fact, the good (?) woman was instrumental in hastening Bach’s departure to St. Thomas and it was in Leipzig where he stayed to his dying day.
Bach began his tenure as Cantor at St. Thomas in 1723. He was the third choice for the position, hired only after Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) and Christoph Graupner (1683-1760) had declined the offer. His duties were primarily ecclesiastical and although he had, until then, composed relatively little church music, he was now required to produce cantatas every Sunday, and for major church holidays as well.
By 1729, he had composed four complete cycles, each numbering about sixty cantatas, and he had composed two Passionsin addition. But he felt disillusioned because there was little support or enthusiasm for his efforts.
This lack of gratitude led to his seeking an additional outlet and incentive for his creativity and he thus became director of the Collegium Musicum, an organization of university students that had been established by Telemann in 1702, when he was studying law in Leipzig. Meeting at Zimmermann’s coffee house – and, during the summer months, outdoors – this amiable assemblage performed a wide variety of secular vocal and instrumental music.
With so much music to compose, it is little wonder that Bach was not above occasionally recycling an earlier work or two for reuse. For his Cantata No. 156, for instance, he devised its Sinfoniaby transposing the slow movement of his Cothen period Harpsichord Concerto in F Minor, BWV 1056 downward from A flat Major to F Major. Or, more correctly, this lovely movement for oboe solo is a borrowed item from a lost concerto for either violin or oboe (of which the Harpsichord version is a subsequent arrangement).
Similarly, the Concerto for Oboe and Violin, BWV 1060 is a bit of speculative guesswork: a reconstruction of a Cothen period concerto, either for two violins or (more probably) for oboe and violin, that was among the aforementioned lost works from that epoch.
Again, the concerto’s musical material survives by way of the composer’s later arrangement for two harpsichords. To my ears, it sounds far more agreeable in its presumed original instrumentation, and the aural superiority is particularly striking when one compares the central Adagio– angular and earth-bound in its dual-keyboard form, but flowing “on wings of song” when intoned by oboe and violin. In its three movement, fast-slow-fast format, and its subtle alternation of solo instruments alongside (but sometimes in juxtaposition with) the tutti strings and continuo, BWV 1060 – in whichever form – is recognizably “to the Italian taste.”
So, too, is the Fifth– and arguably grandest – of the immortal Brandenburg Concertos. Dating from circa 1719 (it is all but impossible to ascertain definite vintage dates for most of Bach’s output), the concerto was probably composed to inaugurate the new harpsichord that Bach had brought back from Berlin. Probably the last of the six, the Fifth Brandenburg, like its brethren, shows how Bach had assimilated all the stylistic prerequisites of Italian style but, with his genius for innovation, far transcended the “role model” in terms of structural dimensions and spiritual profundity.
On a purely subjective plane, confluence of the solo concerto and the concerto grosso – with its gigantic written-out first movement cadenza – the work is unmistakably a harpsichord concerto, and one that paved the way to, if not Liszt and Rachmaninoff, certainly to Beethoven.
Conversely, and heart-stoppingly so in its central unaccompanied Affetuoso, the spirit of intimate chamber music – a memorable three-way conversation between the harpsichord (now subdued where it was, just a movement earlier, explosively public), violin and flute. Incidentally, this is the first time Bach wrote specifically for the flauto traverso, or transverse flute, rather than (as in the Fourth Brandenburg) for a pair of recorders. In the final Allegro, Bach repeatedly uses a sprinting figure indicated in conventional baroque notation wherein the upbeat is written as a sixteenth note rather than as the third of a triplet (which is almost certainly the way it was intended to sound).
Bach’s four orchestral suites (sometimes called Ouvertures) are in the French rather than the Italian style. Two of them (No. 1 in C, BWV 1066, and No. 4 in D, BWV 1069) were composed at Cothen, the others (No. 3 in D, BWV 1068 and the present No. 3 in B Minor, BWV 1067) at Leipzig.
The B minor Suite, despite its misleading designation as “No. 2,” was the last, with a vintage date from the 1730s. Unlike the clarion trumpet and tympani-laden D major works and the relatively more subdued but still strongly oboe-permeated C major, the B minor Suite projects a grave persona, sternly-but tenderly set forth by a solo flute against a backdrop of strings and continuo. Its eponymous Ouverturefulfills its role as a throat-clearing call to order without violating the work’s essential intimacy. It somewhat reminds this listener of the opening Sinfonia of the C minor Partita for keyboard, BWV 826(but unlike that work, returns to the slower-moving opening material).
A series of contrasted dances follows: First a Rondeau, then a Sarabanda, a pair of Bourrees, a Polonaiseand its double variant, a Menuetand, finally, a Badinerie– Bach’s only know use of this bantering plaisanterie (“Badinerie” or “Badinage” can be translated to mean jest, trifle or piece of fun).
TRACK LISTING:
1-3: Concerto in C Minor for Oboe, Violin, Strings and Basso Continuo, BWV 1060
4-6: Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 for Flute, Violin, Obbligato Harpsichord, Strings and Basso Continuo, BWV 1050
7: Sinfonia in F Major “Ich steh’ mit einem Fulz im Grabe” for Oboe, Strings, and Basso Continuo, BWV 156
8-14: Suite in B Minor for Flute, Strings, and Basso Continuo, BWV 1067
FINAL THOUGHT:
And “piece of fun” it is because once you go Bach you never go back! (Hey, what do you want from me?! I’ve been listening to nothing but Bach for the past week!)
Vladimir Feltsman, Pianist & Conductor – The Orchestra of St. Luke’s. Recorded July 12, 13, and 14, 1993 at the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters (Musical Heritage Society)
ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
Smooth, clean and by the book, Vladimir Feltsman does a very workmanlike job on the “Keyboard Concertos” (originally written for violin or oboe) of J.S. Bach – though the ghost of Gould lingers.
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by Tim Page):
Styles change, and it is a relief for those of us who have always enjoyed listening to – and playing – Bach’s music on the piano not to have to make any more apologies for our taste.
I acknowledge that the piano many not have been the instrument for which Bach wrote these pieces – for that matter, the concertos on this disc were not originally intended for keyboard at all – but, in an era where there are any number of “authentic” recordings on clavichord or harpsichord available, why shouldn’t we explore the multiplicity of colors, textures and dynamics intrinsic in Bach’s music that can only be made accessible by a pianist?
As the late Glenn Gould once observed, back in the days when musicological dogma was at its most rigid, if you take the notion of authenticity too far, about the only thing a conscientious musician would be able to play proudly on a modern piano was Rachmaninoff – and even that would have to be played on a turn-of-the-century Bosendorfer or German Steinway!
All of Bach’s keyboard concertos were originally scored for small orchestra and solo violin or oboe. Perhaps the greatest self-transcriber of all time, Bach blithely recycled this music for other pieces (for example, two movements of the Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052, are also to be found in the cantata “Wir muessen durth viel Treubsal,” BWV 146) and then, working at what seems to have been unusual haste even for the man who regularly churned out a cantata each week, he wrote down all of his keyboard concertos in a single manuscript volume, apparently sometime around 1735.
The Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052, is a vast, panoramic structure in three large movements that prefigures the romantic piano concerto to a remarkable degree (indeed, Felix Mendelssohn, who did so much to revive Bach’s reputation in the early 19th century, loved to perform this work).
The violin concerto from which this was presumably transcribed has not survived, but an early version for keyboard does exist; curiously, this was probably arranged not by Bach but by one of his sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.
The opening movement, in particular, is one of Bach’s grandest conceptions – an extended tutti in unison leads directly to a flowing, meditative passage for the piano; throughout, Bach seems to be straining against formal strictures even as he is fulfilling them flawlessly.
Likewise, we do not have the original version of the Concerto in E, BWV 1053, but it, too, seems to have been written for violin. In any event, Bach raided it for subsequent cantatas (this time for BWV 49, “Ich geh’ und suche mit Verlangen,”and BWV 169, “Gott soll allein mein Herze haben”) before turning it into this keyboard concerto.
As James Goodfriend, the former music editor of Stereo Review, once observed: “Bach produced both sacred and secular music on demand and, with the pressure of immutable deadlines, borrowed freely from one for the other with no feeling of sacrilege.”
Happily, in the case of the Concerto in D, BWV 1054, we have Bach’s original on hand; the familiar Violin Concerto in E, BWV 1042, one of the treasures of the string repertory. It is not clear why Bach lowered the concerto a whole tone when he decided to transcribe it for keyboard (perhaps to bring the violin part more fully within the range of the harpsichord); the transcription will surprise – and possibly bother – those listeners with perfect pitch who are used to the original.
Critical consensus tends to favor the violin version of this concerto over the arrangement for keyboard, but I find much to admire in the later version, particularly the bracing muscularity of the outer movements. (Ingmar Bergman made unforgettable use of the central Adagio of the violin concerto in his film Persona.)
“Ultimately, for Bach, the process of composition was an unending one,” the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians has rightly observed. “Dynamic markings and indications of articulation would be inserted as he looked through the parts; he would revise and improve a work when he was copying it out, and when giving further performances would make fresh alterations and improvements. He also inserted corrections, already in print. Throughout his life, Bach was his own severest critic. Even in works which went through two or three difference versions… the ‘final’ version does not represent a definitive one but merely a further state in the search for perfection – the central and ultimate concern of Bach’s method of composition.”
Albert Schweitzer, the organist and humanitarian, loved Bach as have few others. Yet, in his two-volume study of the composer, he had some withering words for the keyboard concertos: “Bach needed clavier concertos when he directed the Telemann Society. The arrangements are often made with quite incredible haste and carelessness; either time was pressing, or he felt no interest in what he was going. Violin effects to which he could easily have given a pianistic turn are not remodeled at all; later on he improves them here and there in the score but leaves them as they are in the clavier part…” “We are under no special obligation to incorporate these transcriptions in our concert programmes,” Schweitzer concluded.
Many of us will disagree and I think this disc can stand as eloquent refutation of the good Doctor’s last statement. It was Bach’s habit to work quickly – this is, after all, a man who was capable of producing a whole cantata every week – and if there are signs of haste in the concertos, it is still the haste of an extraordinarily great musician. Some of the material is recycled, to be sure, but that’s certainly no rarity in Bach (who was loathe to waste a good idea by using it just once and some of the passages are not fleshed out for keyboard in the tidy manner that we associate with more academic composers).
Yet the fact remains that these concertos have proven remarkably durable. They are perhaps more popular today than at any previous time; recordings and performances are proliferating and there is no end in sight.
The Concerto No. 4 in A, BWV 1055, seems to have begun life as either a concerto for violin or for oboe d’amore, in either case probably written during Bach’s tenure in Cothen, around 1720; Bach transcribed it for keyboard (along with the other keyboard concertos) more than a decade later. It is a brisk, buoyant work in three brief movements, smaller in scale than several of the others, yet boasting rather more soloistic filigree for the keyboard than was customary for Bach in these works.
The Largo of the Concerto No. 5 in F Minor, BWV 1056, is far and away the most famous movement in any of Bach’s keyboard concertos – most likely due to its use as the theme for the 1972 film Slaughterhouse Five.
Curiously, some commentators have questioned the concerto’s authenticity (at least one musicologist has suggested that it may have been written by Vivaldi, whose music Bach admired and transcribed). I find this unlikely – there is a distinctly Bach-ian mixture of austerity and drama throughout the work; moreover, Bach had already used the Largo as the introduction for one of his cantatas, “Ich steh’ mit einem Fuss im Grabe,” BWV 156 (where the melody is taken up, quite convincingly, by the oboe). Whether originally fashioned for violin, oboe – or even by some other composer – this is a justly popular piece, with the exquisitely calm and centered Largo providing a calm between two highly stormy outer movements.
Bach lowered his Violin Concerto in E, BWV 1042, a whole tone when he transcribed it for keyboard; seemingly following the same philosophy (which has never been fully explained) he transposed his equally successful Violin Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1041, a whole tone to create the keyboard Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1058.
Most scholars prefer the versions for violin, yet there is something enormously exciting about listening to a world-class pianist (or, for that matter, harpsichordist) dash through this music and the very different character it naturally assumes by being played on a keyboard.
The “Italian Concerto”– or, rather, the “Concerto After the Italian Taste… Composed for Music Lovers, To Refresh Their Spirits” – needs no defense from me or from anybody. A work for solo keyboard, it was immediately recognized for what it is – a successful, varied, highly engaging entertainment.
Indeed, the critic Johann Adolph Scheibe, a contemporary of Bach’s, said it was “arranged in the best possible fashion for this kind of work.” “It will doubtless be familiar to all great composers and experienced clavier players,” he added, “as well as to amateurs of the clavier and music in general. Who is there who will not admit that this clavier concerto is to be regarded as a perfect model of a well-designed solo concerto?”
Who indeed?
[Tim Page is the chief classical music critic for New York and Long Island Newsday and the author, most recently, of “William Kapell” and “Music from the Road: Views and Reviews 1978-1992”.]
TRACK LISTING:
CD No. 1:
1-3: Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052
4-6: Concerto in E Major, BWV 1053
7-9: Concerto in D Major, BWV 1054
CD No. 2:
1-3: Concerto in A Major, BWV 1055
4-6: Concerto in F Minor, BWV 1056
7-9: Concerto in G Minor, BWV 1058
10-12: Concerto Nach Italienischem Gusto
FINAL THOUGHT:
Well, I certainly learned a lot reading those (very long) liner notes. And I must say, how can you not like a Concerto named “Concerto After the Italian Taste – Composed for the Music Lovers, To Refresh Their Spirts”?!
Glenn Gould, Piano – Columbia Symphony Orchestra (Vladimir Golschmann, Conductor). Recorded at 30th Street Studio, New York, 1958 (CBS Records)
ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
Who am I to disagree with Robert Schumann (see below)?
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (uncredited):
In 1837, a noted keyboard virtuoso gave a performance of J.S. Bach’sClavier Concerto No. 1 in D Minor, after which an influential music journalist had the following remarks to make:
“I should like to speak of many thoughts that were awakened in my mind by this noble work… Will it be believed that on the music shelves of the Berlin Singakademie, to which old Zelter bequeathed his library, at least seven such concertos, and a countless number of other Bach compositions, in manuscript, are carefully stowed away? Few persons are aware of it; but they lie there notwithstanding. Is it not time, would it not be useful for the German nation, to publish a perfect edition of the complete works of Bach? The idea should be considered, and the words of a practical expert, who speaks of this undertaking on page 76 of the current volume of the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, would serve as a motto. He says: ‘The publication of the works of Sebastian Bach is an enterprise I hope soon to see in execution – one that delights my heart, which beats wholly for the great and lofty art of this father of harmony.'”
The virtuoso who performed the Concerto was Felix Mendelssohn. The music journalist was Robert Schumann. The “expert” cited was Ludwig Van Beethoven. The quotation was from a letter Beethoven wrote to the music publisher Hofmeister in 1801. So much for establishing the validity and stature of Bach’s clavier concertos as great works of musical art.
To a certain extent, such a validation is necessary for the present-day listener, since Bach’s keyboard concertos differ in many ways from the archetype of the concerto as it was established in the nineteenth century.
To begin with, there is nothing of the heroic drama engendered by the opposition of forces as in the Romantic concerto. In the BrahmsSecond Piano Concerto – to take a random example – the soloist and the orchestra are pitted against each other as adversaries in a titanic struggle.
Not so with Bach. Nor is there, in his keyboard concertos, even much of the opposition and contrast of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century concerto grosso, or for that matter, of the Vivaldi violin concerto. Rather, since the clavier plays even in the orchestral tutti, the works are completely clavier-dominated.
In the worlds of Philipp Spitta, the German music scholar and author of a biography of Bach, “These works are, we may say, clavier compositions, cast in concerto form, that have gained in tone, parts, and color through the cooperation of string instruments.”
In the genesis of Bach’s clavier concertos, we find additional differences. The nineteenth century established originality as a primary standard for judging the artistic merit of a work. But such a standard was, in many ways, foreign to earlier times.
One may see, in early painting and graphics, near-identical layouts of subject material, differing only in the stylistic elements that the artist brought to the execution of the idea (and sometimes not even that).
And in the music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and earlier, thematic ideas and harmonic progressions are to be found floating freely from one composer to another; sometimes whole movements or even whole compositions were adapted and reworked; and, certainly, and most commonly, composers refashioned their own materials to fit new forms or fulfill new functions.
The majority of Bach’s clavier concertos fall into this latter category as rewrites of previously existing concertos, mostly for violin. Herein lies a principal reason for the clavier domination of the works, for the part previously assigned to the solo violin is now given to the keyboard player’s right hand, and the left hand, as if it were another instrument, plays a bass part.
In fact, Bach’s usage of the musical material contained in these works did not stop with the concertos themselves. Movements from them can be found re-worked and re-orchestrated and fulfilling a completely new function in the church cantatas he wrote for later occasions.
No antecedent is known for Concerto No. 4 in A Major,although despite being a bit more keyboard-like in figurational detail than most of the other concertos, it is still presumed to have been based on a violin (perhaps oboe?) original.
Two final points remain to be made about the concertos, the first having to do with the occasions for which they were composed. Bach went to Leipzig to become Cantor of the Thomasschule – a fairly prestigious position and one that involved an enormous amount of labor, all of it devoted to sacred music. Since Bach’s musical interests extended beyond the boundaries of the sacred, it is not altogether surprising that, in 1729, he added to his responsibilities the job of conductor of the Collegium Musicum, a purely secular society.
The Collegium Musicum met one a week, in Zimmermann’s coffee house, or, in summer months, in his garden. For those meetings, Bach supplied secular cantatas and instrumental music, including the seven known complete clavier concertos (there exists a fragment of an eighth).
Personnel for an orchestra was invariably present at these meetings, as was something of an audience. And Herr Zimmermann, perhaps impressed by Bach’s reputation as a virtuoso organist and harpsichordist, purchased for the meetings an exceedingly fine, large, double-manual harpsichord. It was a happy combination of factors, for the concertos played at these meetings were probably the first clavier concertos ever written.
The presence, too, of an audience was significant in the history of music, for it signaled, in its small way, the movement away from the church and the court and toward the public concert as a center of music.
TRACK LISTING:
1-3: Concerto No. 1 for Piano & Orchestra in D Minor, BWV 1052
4-6: Concerto No. 4 for Piano & Orchestra in A Major, BWV 1055
7-9: Concerto No. 5 for Piano & Orchestra in F Minor, BWV 1056
FINAL THOUGHT:
I would have loved to be a fly on the wall during the Leonard Bernstein/Glenn Gould recording sessions. What did they talk about during lunch? Imagine Glenn Gould’s reaction to Lenny’s smoking, drinking and cursing!
More like the “Fart” Of The Fugue! (No, actually this is quite good.)
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (uncredited):
Bach began composing his Art Of The Fugue in 1748 or 1749 and continued to work on it in 1759, the last year of his life. He had finished three-quarters of Fugue No. 15when a severe eye disease obliged him to leave off work on his artistic last will and testament and undergo an operation.
A combination of primitive medical techniques and a blundering doctor proved fatal – within six months of this operation Bach was dead.
He spent his last days in a darkened room, alone with the God he had served and glorified all his life.
When he felt death close upon him, he sent for his son-in-law, the musician Altnikol, and dictated to him not the conclusion of the great B-A-C-H fugue but a chorale fantasia on melody “When We Are In Deepest Need,” telling Altnikol to entitle it “I Draw Near Unto Thy Throne.” In the manuscript we can see all the pauses that the “sick man had to permit himself.”
Albert Schweitzer narrates: “The drying ink becomes more watery from day to day – the notes written in the twilight, with the windows closely curtained, can hardly be deciphered.”
This last composition from Bach’s pen was included in the first edition of the Art Of The Fugue, not because it belongs with that work but as an apologetic compensation to the purchaser for the completeness of the work itself. How incomplete the Art Of The Fugueis we do not know.
The mammoth Fugue No. 15may have been the final one of the series, or Bach may have planned to follow it with a still more grandiose quadruple fugue. The latter contention was Sir Donald Tovey’s and Tovey actually complete the fifteenth fugue and composed, as the sixteenth, a totally invertible fugue with four subjects, to prove that such a feat was possible and that Bach had something of a the sort in mind.
Most performances of the Art Of The Fugue, however, are content to break off where Bach himself broke off, for there is something awesome about this sudden silence just at the point when Bach introduced the letters of his own name for the first time into one of his works.
The most vexing problem, of course, is whether or not Bach intended the Art Of The Fugue to be played at all. He does not once in the entire work indicate a tempo or a dynamic marking. He does not indicate what instrument or instruments should play the work. He writes each of the voices on a separate staff (in so-called “open score”), which is very helpful for the student but anything but helpful for the keyboard player.
This leaves the field open to the arranger, and arrangers have eagerly rushed in. There are multiple versions for orchestra, for string quartet, for two pianos, for organ, for piano solo. Only the musical pedant can find these various realizations a source of annoyances – the genuine music lover will make his own choice or choices and take pleasure in the process.
Whatever choice he makes, the Art Of The Fugueremains massively and imperturbably itself. For though it is devoid neither of humanity nor emotion, the human and the emotional are not its real concern. Like the figure on Keats’ urn, it has passed out of time and accident, and wears the changeless beauty of pure thought.
George Frideric Handel wrote a great deal of music for the harpsichord. Yet, the publication in 1720, of his first book of Suites de pieces de clavecinwas still an extraordinary event. It was the first authorized publication of any of his instrumental works, and it was to remain the only collection of harpsichord suites he issued under his own auspices.
The Suitesare rather unorthodox in form and do not follow the generally established dance sequence of the eighteenth century instrumental suite. Each of the four recorded here follows a difference pattern, and they are best described individually.
No. 1 in A Major – The Prelude for this suite consists primarily of a sequence of chords that invite the performer to invent his own embellishments. Glenn Gould contributed an intricate personal statement composed expressly for this recording. This brilliant Prelude, combining arpeggios and scales, is followed by three dances – Allemande, Courante, and Gigue – that are in Italian style.
No. 2 in F Major – This is not really a suite at all but a sonata de chiesa in the Italian style, of the type often composed for violin and continuo. The movements follow the common pattern: Adagio, Allegro, Adagio, Allegro.
No. 3 in D Minor – Like Bach whose Clavierubung Book IIappeared fifteen years later, Handel here is writing orchestral music for harpsichord. Unlike Bach, Handel later reused some of the pieces in the Concerti Grossi of Op. 3. The first two movements, Prelude and Allegro, are actually a prelude and fugue. Italianate dances, an Allemande and a Courante, are then followed by an Air and Variations and a concluding Presto.
No. 4 in E Minor – The opening Allegro is a fugue, in the style of Italian violin music. The following movements, Allemande, Courante, Sarabande and Gigue, comprise the most, orthodox suite sequence in the entire collection.
While Handel’s harpsichord works may not be the most important segment of his production, the best of them are fully worthy of his genius. Their values in relation to Handel’s better known music are pointed out by the eminent musicologist Paul Henry Lang: “A number of these compositions serve as proving grounds for his dramatic works in them appear certain basic ideas and models that were to follow Handel throughout his career.”
And of all his works, it is probably the first book of suites, along with the Organ Concertos, that provides us with the best picture of Handel as performer-composer.
TRACK LISTING:
1-9: Bach – The Art Of The Fugue, BWV 1080
10-13: Handel – Harpsichord Suite No. 1 in A Major
14-17: Handel – Harpsichord Suite No 2. in F Major
18-22: Handel – Harpsichord Suite No. 3 in D Minor
23-27: Handel – Harpsichord Suite No. 4 in E Minor
FINAL THOUGHT:
Listening to solo organ is not the most pleasant experience (even Bach), but I can imagine how thrilling it would have been to be sitting in a symphonic hall or grand church and listening to Glenn Gould play the Art Of The Fugue. I’m fairly certain that wouldn’t suck.
Named the “Italian” concerto because it was composed in “the Italian style,” this is a great disc of Bach keyboard “hits” and is definitely worth a listen (or two or three).
A little French Suite goes a long way – even with Glenn Gould at the keyboard.
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (uncredited):
The suite occupies a prominent place among Johann Sebastian Bach’s instrumental works. In addition to four for orchestra, he wrote suites for unaccompanied violin, unaccompanied cello, lute, and keyboard (clavichord or harpsichord).
Variously titled Overture, Suite, or Partita, there are nineteen well-known examples from the period of Bach’s full maturity written for the keyboard, composed in sets of six except for the Overture in the French Style, BWV 831.
The French Suiteswere among the first compositions in suite form written by Bach, but their exact chronology is uncertain.
The first four were certainly finished by 1723, for they appear in a manuscript of that date as part of a traditional set of six but in company with two other suites (now known separately as BWV 818-9) instead of those now known as the Fifthand Sixth.
It was Thurston Dart’s supposition that the first four suites were composed over the period of about 1717 to 1723. Surviving bits of evidence suggest that the pieces were revised a number of times, both in their internal content and in their order. The last two of the suites were apparently added somewhat later, and the sequence as we know it does not seem to have been completed until at least 1725.
The purpose of all these revisions is obvious. What had begun merely as a set of pieces in dance styles was transformed by Bach into a unified group, perhaps even to be regarded as one work.
The first three of the suites, seemingly the earliest in order of composition as well, are in minor keys and are of a serious nature, while the last three are in major and show increasingly joyful qualities.
The Firstused the (by then) archaic device of beginning all of the dances with variants on similar musical themes, a seventeenth-century device know as the “variation suite,” while the others are more “progressive” in style. The very number of movements increases from six in the first two suites to seven in the Fourthand Fifth, and to eight in the Sixth.
(Karl Geiringer suggests that the Minuet of the Fourth Suite was a later addition, evidence of another revision aimed at a musical progression.)
And so far as we can determine, the exact ordering of the suites may well conform to their chronology of composition as well as an overall musical plan.
Another indication of Bach’s efforts toward uniformity is found in the Fourth Suite, which was first written with a prelude. The prelude was eliminated, and all six of the suites as they now stand consist of dance movements only.
(An apparent contradiction to this principle, the “Air,” is explained easily; this was actually a French dance, as well as a term for a song.)
The term “French” for these suites is so shrouded in obscurity that the true origin may never be known. The title of the original manuscripts is written in French, but so is that for the English Suites, and neither one mentions “French” or “English” as part of the title.
Bach’s first biographer, Johann Nicolaus Forkel, said the name had been given to these works “because they are written in the French taste,” but that explanation has been discarded along with Forkel’s wrong guess that the English Suites were “made for an Englishman of rank.”
(There is, however, still validity in Forkel’s description of the music: “By design, the composer is here less learned than in his other suites, and has mostly used a pleasing, more prominent melody.”)
Bach biographer Philipp Spitta wrote that “the name ‘French’ was given to them on account of the meager form of their component sections, which, even in external dimensions, adhere as closely as possible to the dance type n which they are founded.” But he admits that “there is no idea of imitating or carrying out any specially French characteristics; none such are to be discerned anywhere in Bach, nor could they be possible except in his very earliest work.”
All we know for certain is that both titles, “English” and “French,” were added after the fact by an unknown hand and that they do make convenient handles.
While much is made of the dance-like qualities of Bach’s music in these suites, there has never been any suggestion that the music was actually used for dancing.
In fact, most of the dance forms used were obsolete when Bach composed. And though it is fine for the performer to bring out the kinetic qualities of the music, particularly in the fast movements, the music was written primarily for expressive purposed – a fact that should be paramount in the minds of performers and listeners alike.
The basic sequence of the dances in the suites (allemande, courante, sarabande, and gigue) was apparently established by German (not French) composers during the mid-seventeenth century.
Additions were allowed between the sarabande and gigue, and Bach made additions in all six of the French Suites. Each of the first three contain two additional movements; the fourth and fifth add three and the sixth adds four.
The allemandes, deliberately given by Bach an introductory quality to compensate for the lack of preludes, are quiet dances.
The couranteis a livelier dance, in triple time.
The sarabandeis a slow, dignified dance, also in triple time.
By Bach’s day, all three of these were outmoded as actual dances, existing only in their stylized forms in instrumental suites.
The movements added by Bach, however, were currently in use in his time. The gavottewas a French dance, in moderate tempo. Its movements are characterized by lifting the feet off the ground, a departure from the shuffling motion of similar earlier dances.
The polonaise(the French name is used even in Poland) was original a primitive folk dance, slow and stately, in three-beat rhythm, most commonly done at weddings. Later it was taken up by the Polish nobility, who maintained much of its original character but enhanced its grandeur.
Bach’spolonaises are of an earlier type than Chopin’s, naturally, but they are already the dances of the nobility – instrumental pieces, rather than the sung polonaises of the peasants.
The bourree, yet another French dance, is said by some experts to have originated in Spanish Biscay. It is a rapid dance, similar to the gavotte except that it has two beats to the bar instead of four. Its phrases begin on the second beat of the measure.
The loure, which appears in Bach’s works only in the fifth French Suite, is a French bagpipe dance, similar to the giguebut slower.
The minuetis too well-known to require much description, but it is interesting to note that despite the derivation of its title (from the French “menu,” small), the dance was characterized by its slow tempo and grace of execution, not necessarily by small steps.
All of the French Suites end with a gigue, derived from the sixteenth-century Irish or English Jib. However, by Bach’s time, the giguehad taken on European characteristics, and those ending the firth and sixth French Suiteshave an obvious Italian flavor.
TRACK LISTING:
1-6: Suite No. 1 in D minor, BWV 812
7-12: Suite No. 2 in C minor, BWV 813
13-18: Suite No. 3 in B minor, BWV 814
19-25: Suite No. 4 in E-flat major, BWV 815
26-32: Suite No. 5 in G major, BWV 816
33-40: Suite No. 6 in E major, BWV 817
FINAL THOUGHT:
I hope you were holding onto your hats and glasses while reading the Liner Note descriptions of all the French dances because it was like a roller coaster of emotion! Seriously, if you made it through those horribly boring LIner Notes, you get extra credit. (And not a word about Glenn Gould! – whatever.) This is a pretty good, minor disc of Bach by Gould – worth a listen but not too carefully. But it’s still Glenn Gould – so it gets a high rating.
Recorded at 30th Street Recording Studios, New York City – May 1981.
ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
Brilliant (but can someone please stop that infernal humming in the background…kidding)
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (uncredited):
In 1955, a young Canadian pianist made his first recording for what was then Columbia Masterworks. At that time he was not well-known to concert audiences and was completely unknown to the record market. But after the recording sessions of June of that year, in Columbia’s famous 30th Street Studios in New York City, and after the release of his first album, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Glenn Gould became world-famous.
His performance of Bach’s 1742 collection of “keyboard exercises” created an international recording sensation and achieved the unique distinction of becoming an album that, from its original release data to the present, was never absent from the active catalog of Masterworks recordings.
In 1970, Glenn Gould completed a recording session at the 30th Street Studios and decided that in the future he would record exclusively in Toronto, where his television and film activities were center. He did not again return to this musically historical building until 1980 when he began making his first digital recordings for CBS Masterworks – the Six Last Sonatas of Haydn and the Goldberg Variations.
Why did Glenn Gould, who seldom records a piece twice, choose to re-record a work that had received a definitive performance at his hands 27 years ago?
Gould has offered only the explanation that new technology plus his own desire to reexamine the work in terms of its “arithmetical correspondence between theme and variation” led him back into the studio for this recording.
Any more complete explanation of this new approach would, according to Gould, entail a complete written analysis, in an almost book-length essay, of the “thirty very interesting but independent-minded pieces” that make up the Variations– a fascinating prospect, to be sure.
Samuel H. Carter, who co-produced the Last Six Sonatas of Haydn, also worked on the new Goldberg Variations. Following are some of his observations of the last recording sessions:
Sometime past midnight on Saturday, May 27, 1981, the doors of CBS’s famous 30th Street Recording Studios in New York closed on the last official recording session to be held there by CBS Masterworks.
Out of those doors walked a man – assuredly only after a “cool down” period and change of shirt – a man whose illustrious recording career began there a little over a quarter century before. With an appropriateness that is usually found only in fiction, the last notes played by Glenn Gould that night were from the same work of Bach – the Goldberg Variations – with which he had first transfixed the music world in the summer of 1955.
Now the Studio, once a kind of mecca for some of the world’s greatest musicians, was to be sold, victim of the changed fortunes of an industry that has become as multinational as any other and as competitive.
For Glenn Gould and for those of us whose association with “Columbia” covers a long span of years, the old church is a place where many ghosts walk in an atmosphere so laden as to be almost claustrophobic, in spite of the soaring reaches of the ceilings.
Glenn Gould may have quietly come out by the same door wherein he entered but while he had been inside he stirred things up more than a little. Pablo Casals once said that Bach is “a volcano,” speaking of course of the emotional content of the music that traditionalists tried so hard for so long to deny.
Gould, too, is something of a volcanic force. He is the embodiment of musical sophistication in that he seems always to know what he intends the music to do. He almost never lets the music happen to him – he happens to it. That is what made many musicians who nominally “knew” the Goldberg Variations feel that they had just discovered them when the 1955 album appeared.
May I suggest that, with this new recording, many additional “discoveries” will be made. The nature of these will doubtless be as many and various as the number of listeners.
I think of Glenn Gould as an artist of strong intentionality. He shapes and molds a musical line in its breadth and in its detail with breathtaking awareness. As he has often told interviewers, he will try to make each performance different, yet this firm intention is always present so that however different the “take” there is never any tentativeness or absence of character.
Having worked extensively in both mediums as performer and producer, Glenn was almost instantly aware, in seeing and hearing a playback, of what takes or portions of takes were suitable for the film and recording and which for the film only. I often felt that he was being excessively nit-picking, only to discover in the intensive listening and editing sessions that followed that he had known precisely the difference he wanted in ever case.
He is a man who is very reluctant to accept anything short of the absolute attainment of his artistic goal.
TRACK LISTING:
1 – Goldberg Variations, BWV 988 [51:00]
https://youtu.be/qo6VfM0PSlQ
FINAL THOUGHT:
“I don’t know know much about classical music – for years I thought the Goldberg Variationswere something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg did on their wedding night.” – Woody Allen (Stardust Memories). Of course this recording gets my highest rating!
Isaac Stern, English Chamber Orchestra – Alexander Schneider, Conductor (CBS Great Performances)
ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
One of the best recordings of J.S. Bach’s music ever made (as long as you ignore all the annoying audience noises in the background).
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (uncredited):
Most of the concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1759) – including the six Brandenburgs– were composed in the years 1717 through 1723, the period of his tenure as court organist and director of the orchestra for Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cothen.
Apart from his prowess as organist and conductor, Bach was an accomplished violinist who had, according Albert Schweitzer, “learned from Vivaldi the perfect violin technique, the art of writing ‘singably’… For him there was really only one style that naturally suggested by the phrasing of the stringed instrument – and all other styles are for him only modifications of this basic style.
In view of Bach’s predilection for the violin, it is all the more disappointing that only three of his works specifically written for the violin have been left to us.
On the often inaccurate basis of stylistic analysis, scholars have postulated that the majority of Bach’sharpsichord concertos are arrangements of concertos originally written for the violin.
True or not, we have to content ourselves with the two Concertos for Violin and Orchestra and with the Double Violin Concerto.
However, this can scarcely be regarded as a hardship. The Double Violin Concerto is a masterpiece, and the two solo violin concertos are like twins divinely blessed.
The very fact that there are only two has worked in their favor. We do not have to contend with the disappointing knowledge that there are some 350 others, equally good and not strikingly dissimilar, vying for our attention – as in the case of Vivaldi, who, legend says, composed violin concertos even during meals.
And it was Vivaldi who was probably the moving force behind Bach’s violin concertos. Bach had already paid the Venetian master the not inconsiderable compliment of transcribing a number of his published concertos for solo keyboard, and, further, he turned a Vivaldi concerto for four violins into a concerto for four harpsichords.
Curiously, all these transcriptions show Bach rethinking idiomatic violin music in terms of the keyboard. When he came to compose his own violin concertos, the harpsichord – with its self-sufficient contrapuntal possibilities and its quick, unsustained brightness – was entirely forgotten.
Bach’s violin concertos are not virtuoso showpieces, as Vivaldi’s tend to be, but are conceived completely in violinistic terms.
In form, Bach takes over Vivaldi’s characteristic three-movement, fast-slow-fast pattern. The final movements of both solo concertos, as with Vivaldi, are giguelike dances. The slow movements are again a favorite Vivaldi device – long candilenas over a recurring ground bass.
Only in his first movements does Bach depart somewhat from the practice of Vivaldi and his fellow composers. The general form is the same.: The orchestra is given a distinctive theme, heard at the beginning and end of the movement and also, in abbreviated form, throughout its course; this orchestral ritornello alternates with passages for solo violin.
But while the solo passages in Vivaldi are often merely brilliant displays of virtuosity with small relationship to the ritornello, in Bach the soloist fully shares the thematic material with the orchestra.
The A-Minor Concerto opens with a playful melody, aerated with well-calculated pauses. In this movement, the solo violin is also lighthearted, moving through a rather conventional series of sequential passages with enviable bounce and aplomb.
The Andanteis an ostinato piece. The ground bass constantly returns to its thrice-repeated low C, giving it an earthbound quality in contrast to the floating solo violin.
The final giguehas a French grace about its endlessly spun-out triplets. The soloist is given real opportunities here in whirling-dervish speedups of the basic rhythm.
The Violin Concerto in E Majoropens with an Allegroin the solid commanding style of the Brandenburgs, with three proclamatory chords that echo persistently throughout the movement. The soloist plays in real dialogue with the orchestra; there is no rigid separation of tutti and solo.
The Adagiobegins and ends with the low strings stating a long, rather melancholy, ostinatobass. Over this, the violin sings a tender song in phrases that seem endless and are virtually devoid of cadential points.
The Allegro assaiis one of Bach’s business-like finales – staid, self-assured, rather “fat” in instrumental texture. The movement, with its alternation of ritornello and solo, comes closer to the Vivaldi ideal of Baroque concerto writing than does the first movement.
The Concerto in D Minor for Two Violins and Orchestra was also written during Bach’s Cothen period when the nature of his appointment forced him to concentrate on instrumental music.
It holds a unique position among the many compositions that he wrote for the Court band of some eighteen pieces, for the possibilities of contrasting two solo instruments removed this work substantially from the customary concerto type.
This is particularly true of the slow movement, in which the discourse of the two violins reduces the orchestra to a very subordinate position.
Back too full advantage of the aptitude of the violin for melodic beauty. He set the two instruments against each other in a veritable dialogue, with the orchestra providing harmonic and rhythmic background.
As in many of Bach’s concertos, the slow movement is the point of gravity of the entire composition, flanked by two fast and more or less conventional sections.
TRACK LISTING:
1-3: Concerto in D MInor for Two Violins and Orchestra, BWV 1043
4-6: Concerto No. 1 in A Minor for Violin and Orchestra, BWV 1041
7-9: Concerto No. 2 in E Major for Violin and Orchestra, BWV 1042
(Sorry, I found no video of the Isaac Stern / Itzhak Perlman recording. Those two hacks above will have to do.)
FINAL THOUGHT:
The “Double Concerto” is featured in one of my favorite movies – Woody Allen’s “Hannah & Her Sisters.” The opening strains of the piece take me immediately to the scene where Sam Waterston is giving Dianne Wiest and Carrie Fisher an architectural tour of New York. This CD is a great workhorse classic and has many of Bach’s “hits” that most people will recognize immediately. It is a well-earned “88” on my piano scale!
London Baroque (Ingrid Seifert – violin; Richard Gwilt – violin, Charles Medlam – cello; Richard Egarr – clavecin) (Harmonia Mundi)
ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
J.S. Bach had 20 children (10 survived to adulthood) – C.P.E. Bach is one of the survivors and he also composed music like his dad, just not quite as good (the chick on the CD cover pretty much says it all).
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by Hans-Gunter Ottenberg – translation by Derek Yeld):
One of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s earliest compositions was a Trio Sonata which has unfortunately been lost. I twas not without a tinge of pride that the remark, “compiled collaboration with Johann Sebastian Bach,” was added to the catalogue of Bach’s posthumously published works (1791).
It cannot be a coincidence that at the beginning of his career as a composer J.S. Bach’s second son had to come to terms with one of the most commonly practiced instrumental forms in Baroque music, considering that the Trio Sonata demanded “that there shall be all the parts, but especially in the upper voices, a steady singing line and a fugal development” (J.A. Scheibe). Moreover, the “concertante” setting-out of the Trio and particularly the techniques of the thorough-bass could be tried out in this, “one of the most difficult forms of composition.”
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach composed a total of twenty-five Trio Sonatas, seven in his Leipzig and Frankfurt periods, and the others in Berlin, mainly around 1747 and 1754.
In the worlds of the Berlin period the technical standards of the composition of the Trio Sonata, as described in a work like Sulzer’sAllgemeine Theorie der Schonen Kunste (1771-1774) had long-since been attained.
It is remarkable how C.P.E. Bach builds the theme of the first movement of the Sonata in F major, W.154/H.576 written in 1747 in the spirit of a gradual opening-up of the sound space. This shaping of the theme can probably be explained, in the first place, from the point of view of performing techniques, since they were played in Berlin by obviously accomplished violinists.
Through the use of different layers Bach achieves greater melodic variety. According to his natural tendency the main theme is kept open, that is, it wants to keep going; in the immediately following development section its motivic substance is treated polyphonically, consequently the second melodic instrument enters at the interval of a fifth.
In the Andantea more expressive mood predominates communicated to the listener by the gesture of a delicately sensitive melodic line.
In the last movement the motivic ideas are of such vitality that there is a change of musical scene in virtually every bar. This constant fluctuation was understood by his contemporaries as the prevalence of a rhetorical principal.
And, in fact, the opening movement of the Sonata in E minor, Wq.155/H.577, also written in 1747, does lead us into a conversational situation in which the alternation of an emotional and a gallant tone results in the domination of a dialogue-like structure.
Sulzer, in a generalization of a peculiarity of the “Berlin Bach’s” keyboard works (“Most of them are so eloquent that one does not think one is hearing tones, but a comprehensive language”), said of the Trio Sonatas that they were “veritable passionate musical conversations.”
In the slow movements, too, Bach occasionally makes use of the galant manner by indicating a faster tempo – here Andante. The concluding Allegrogives the impression of having been inspired by a dance, with its dotted motives and series of triplets arousing a cheerful mood in the listener.
The Sonata in B-flat major, Wq.158/H.584 of 1754, also demonstrates how Bach already introduces disparate expressive values within the theme itself, which then go on to mark the further progress of the movement: four bars of a plaintive motive, and four bars of triplet figures. If one were to seek the general theme of the dialogue suggested here, one could speak of a “fashionably galant expressiveness” (A. Durr).
The slow movement, Largo, con sordini, is the traditional position for a piece of musical Empfindsamkeit. All the activity is focused on the melodic line. Eloquent pauses and sudden exclamation underline the emotionally laden gesture of this movement, which once more bears witness to Bach’s sensitive handling of the variation form, for instance where he changes the direction of the movement of theme.
As in the opening movement, the concluding Allegrois also formed of heterogeneous elements: an introductory phrase that insistently turns around the note and gives rise to octave interval structures in the end phrase. And again they evoke an ambivalent expressiveness.
The manner in which Bach treats the two upper voices of the Sonata in A minor, Wq.156/H.582(1754) shows him on the way to a new understanding of the genre.
The second voice is reduced to a mere accompanying function. It moves along in thirds and sixths beneath the melody of the top voice without intervening in its motivic construction. Occasionally it drums out the same quaver figure as the bass.
Sulzer knew this type of Trio Sonata, which is derived from the symphony and demands “an extremely charming and expressive melody in the upper voice and strange and artful modulations in the scoring.”
There is no ample cantilena, but rather a capricious mood in the highly varied dynamic nuances of the Andantino. Neither does the amusing Tempo di minuetto erect any barriers against the growing number of music-lovers of the second half of the 18th century.
This was also the aim the new chamber music form practiced by Bach in his “Clavier Sonatas with a Violin and Violincello Accompaniment” of 1776 and 1777. Here the thorough bass is finally replaced by the keyboard part. The individually written melodic line is taken up by the treble in the keyboard. The violin and the violincello seem dispensable – but not for long.
In the hands of the Viennese classics and their piano and string trios equal rights would soon be restored to all of the instruments involved.
TRACK LISTING:
1-3: Sonata in A minor, Wq.156 (H.582) [10:17]
4-6: Sonata in F major, Wq.154 (H.576) [13:58]
7-9: Sonata in E minor, Wq.155 (H.577) [15:08]
10-12: Sonata in B-flat major, Wq.158 (H.584) [13:46]
13: Sonata in D minor, Wq.160 (H.590) [8:06]
FINAL THOUGHT:
It’s tough to be the son of a genius. I realize there many music scholars that would through C.P.E. Bach into the genius bucket – but I just don’t get it. C.P.E. Bach is kind of like Frank Sinatra, Jr. to me. Sure, he can carry a tune and even looks like his dad a bit, but when you watch him in some cheesy small room lounge in Las Vegas, you know you’re not seeing the real Ol’ Blue Eyes.
London Philharmonic Orchestra – Malcolm Arnold, conductor (Phoenix)
ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
This recording is all about one little 3:45 piece, Scottish Dance No. 3 – Allegretto(simply beautiful) – the rest of the disc? Meh.
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by Paul Affelder):
If versatility is what is needed for success in the contemporary world of music, then Malcolm Arnold should fill all the requirements most commendably. As a matter of fact, he has made an enormous success of his versatility. Though his may not be a name too familiar to the average listener, that same person may, without knowing it, be humming or whistling one of Arnold’s works.
Arnold was born on October 21, 1921, at Northampton, England. Until he was thirteen, he was educated at various schools in the vicinity; then for the next four years he studied privately.
In 1938 he won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London, where he majored in composition under the guidance of the accomplished composer and orchestrator, Gordon Jacob. Meanwhile, he took trumpet lessons from Ernest Hall, solo trumpeter of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Arnold’s work at the Royal College of Music earned him the Cobbett Composition Prize in 1941. That same year, he began his career as a professional musician, joined the London Philharmonic Orchestra as third trumpeter. By the time another year had gone by, he had graduated to the first chair in the trumpet section.
He was called to military service in 1944, but received a medical discharge the following year, at which time he became second trumpeter of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
In 1946 he returned to the London Philharmonic as first trumpeter, remaining until 1948. Since that time he has devoted his talents principally to composing. While he was still in the Philharmonic, however, he gained considerable help in conducting from Eduard van Beinum who was also one of the first important conductors to give recognition to Arnold’s music.
The music covers an exceptionally broad field. In addition to three symphonies, a sinfonietta and a serenade for orchestra, Arnold has to his credit such well-known works as the English Dances, Scottish Dances, Tam O’Shanterand Beckus the Dandipratt Overtures, and the music he wrote for the Sadler’s Wells – now the Royal – Ballet’sHomage to the Queen.
He has composed concerti for flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, organ, harmonica, and piano solo or duet, also a seranade for guitar and strings, choral music and piano pieces.
He has also been exceptionally active as a composer for the films. Included among his works in this medium are Hobson’s Choice, 1984, The Inn of the Sixth Happiness and the immensely popular Bridge on the River Kwai.
Writing in the London Musical Times, Donald Mitchell had some pertinent and revealing comments to make about Arnold’s music:
That he has, as it were, sat inside an orchestra is very evident from the natural feel of his instrumentation,” wrote Mitchell; “yet throughout his scores it is not only his intimate experience of the potentialities of an orchestra that is explicit, but also the judgment of an unusually discriminating and original ear. The pure sound of Arnold’s music is, to a degree, an expression of his exceptional musical practicality – practicality, that is, raised to the very high level of virtuosity. There is no doubt that Arnold enjoys writing music. The enjoyment he takes in his own skill he communicates to his audiences with a complete lack of inhibition. Arnold, indeed, is probably the most uninhibited of all our contemporary composers, both in what he says and how he says it. His refreshing, immodest freedom of spirit – his high spirits – are well known. It is almost impossible to write about his music without using such adjectives as ‘gay,’ ‘vital,’ ‘breezy,’ ‘humorous,’ ‘witty,’ and so on. They all, in fact, apply…”
Arnold has supplied his own notes for the music recorded here. Of the Four Scottish Dances, he writes: “These dances were composed early in 1957, and are dedicated to the BBC Light Music Festival. They are all based on original melodies but one, the melody of which was composed by Robert Burns.
“The first dance is in the style of a slow strathspey.” (The Harvard Dictionary of Music defines Strathspey as “a slow Scottish dance in 4/4 meter, with many dotted notes, frequently in the inverted arrangement of the Scotch snap. The name, derived from the strath (valley) of the Spey, was originally coterminous with reel; later, the term reel was given to somewhat quicker dances in a more smoothly flowing rhythm, lacking dotted notes.)
“The second, lively reel, begins in the key of E flat and rises a semitone each time it is played until the bassoon plays it, at a greatly reduced speed, in the key of G. The final statement of the dance is at the original speed in the home key of E flat.
“”The third dance is in the style of a Hebridean Song, and the attempts to give an impression of the sea and mountain scenery on a calm summer’s day in the Hebrides.
“The last dance is a lively fling, which makes a great deal of use of the open strings of the violins.”
Of his Symphony No. 3, the composer had this to say: “This symphony, which was composed between 1954 and 1957, is written for normal symphony orchestra without harp or percussion. It is in three movements.
“The first movement has two main subjects, the first of which is played by the violins, violas, flutes and bassoon at the very outset of the piece. Later, the second subject is first stated by the oboe accompanied by violins. Towards the end of the movement the tempo abruptly changes and the same material is developed as a scherzo.
“The second movement, elegiac in character, is a set of variations based on a series of chords more than a melodic theme.
“The last movement is based on three main themes and could be loosely described as a rondo.
“The symphony is dedicated to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society.”
TRACK LISTING:
1: Scottish Dance No. 1 – Pesante [2:26]
2: Scottish Dance No. 2 – Vivace [2:04]
3: Scottish Dance No. 3 – Allegretto [3:45]
4: Scottish Dance No. 4 – Con brio [1:13]
5-7: Symphony No. 3, Op. 63
FINAL THOUGHT:
Malcolm Arnold’s talent was as a film composer (Bridge on the River Kwai, et al) and not as a symphonic composer. There’s not much to love in Symphony No. 3 (or the other eight, in my opinion). I realize some consider his symphonic work his most important – I’m not one of them. The highlight of this CD is the simplest tune of them all – Scottish Dance No. 3 – the Allegretto – a truly gorgeous melody.
Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment – Nicolas Kraemer, Conductor (BBC Music)
Recorded at Studio 1, Maida Vale, London, October 16-17, 1995
ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
Early English Opera – oh, yeah, let’s get this party started right!
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by Jonathan Keates):
Thomas Arne’sAlfred, first produced in 1740 as a masque and later adapted for production as an English opera in 1753, is based on the story of the Saxon king Alfred’s resistance to the invading Danes during the ninth century.
Act 1 opens with the discovery, by the shepherd Corin and his wife Emma, of King Alfred asleep under an oak tree. The king has taken refuge from the Danes, and the pair now offer him shelter in their cottage. Left alone, Alfred despairs of recovering his kingdom and appeals to the ‘genius’ of Britain for help. His wife Eltruda and son Edward enter and the three go into the shepherd’s cottage.
In Act 2 Emma consoles Eltruda for Alfred’s absence by comparing her plight with that of the lovelorn Edith, whose sweetheart has gone to the wars. Alfred returns and promises to take proper care of Eltruda. Spirits arise and address Alfred as ‘father of the state,’ urging him not to despair. Eltruda offers further encouragement to her husband. Alfred and Edward begin their assault on a Danish fort, and a dirge is sung for those who die in the battle.
Act 3 begins with the shepherds celebrating Alfred’s presence among them. Eltruda summons guardian angels to protect her, but news soon arrives of Alfred’s victory. Soldiers parade triumphantly to a ‘March with a side drum’ and the opera ends with the festive odeRule, Britania.
TRACK LISTING:
1: Overture [6:30]
2: The shepherd’s plain life [3:33]
3. Sweet valley say [2:01]
4: Let’s not those who love complain [4:00]
5: Love’s the tyrant of the heart [3:32]
6: From the dawn of early morning [5:44]
7: Hear, Alfred, hear [2:29]
8: Gracious heav’n, O hear me [5:30]
9: Vengeance, O come inspire me! [6:15]
10: There honour comes [2:28]
11: Ah me, what fears oppress… Guardian angels, O descend [3:02]
I love early English opera as much as the next person (there are vocal runs in those operas that would make singers on The Voice say to tone it down), but, Jesus Christ, this was a slog. Thank God for Rule, Britania at the end to liven things up a bit.
Recorded at the Rottenbiller Street Studio, Budapest from January 16 – 22, 1994
ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
Sometimes, even though you wash your hands over and over again, you just can’t get the stink out – that’s how I feel about the Arensky String Quartets – I want them to be clean and smell good but every time I listen to them, I can’t get the stink out. (I realize that should be three sentences but I used dashes instead to preserve my one-sentence format – sorry.)
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by Keith Anderson):
The son of keen amateur musicians, his father a doctor, Anton Arensky was born in Novgorod in 1861. His musical abilities were encouraged by his parents and he had his first piano lessons from his mother.
As a child he had begun to write music and when the family moved to St. Petersburg he was able to take more consistent musical instruction and after some preparation, in 1879 to enter the Conservatory, where his teachers included Rimsky-Korsakov for composition and Johannsen for counterpoint and fugue.
He was entrusted with the preparation of a piano reduction of the former’s opera The Snow Maiden and under Rimsky-Korsakov’s supervision began work on his own first opera A Dream on the Volga, which was later completed, to be staged in Moscow with some success in 1891.
His teacher, however, saw no great future for the works of his pupil, considering any success achieved likely to be transitory. This prediction has not proved true in every respect, since some, at least, of Arensky’s works have maintained a secure if limited place in standard orchestral and piano repertoire.
Arensky completed his studies at the Conservatory in 1882 and at once took up a position at the Moscow Conservatory as a teacher and later as professor of counterpoint and harmony. There his pupils included Rachmaninov, Gliere, Conyus and Scriabin, and there was fruitful contact and friendship with Tchakovsky and Taneyev.
He appeared as a conductor at concerts, notably of the Russian Choral Society, and his connection with church music led to his appointment, on the recommendation of Balakirev, as director of the imperial chapel in St. Petersburg, a position he took up in 1895 and held until 1901.
His final years left him free to follow a career as a composer, pianist and conductor, brought to an end in part through his dissolute way of life. He died of tuberculosis in 1906 at the age of forty-five.
In style and technique Arensky owed much to his teachers. He developed a sure command of harmonic, contrapuntal and structural musical resources, with a lyrical facility.
These elements are at once apparent in his String Quartet No. 1 in G major Opus 11, written in 1988. This shows, from the first bars, an easy understanding of the medium of the string quartet and of the possibilities still inherent in the traditional first movement form.
The second movement opens with a melody of fine contour, before a contrapuntal element is introduced by the cello, followed by the other instruments, and a treatment of the principal melodic material with more elaborately contrapuntal accompaniment.
The mood changes with a light-hearted Menuettoand contrasting Trio.
A Russian element makes its appearance in the Finale, with its variations on a Russian theme. These bring their surprises, not least in the traditional folk texture suggested by the plucked accompaniment in one variation and the later fragmentation of the theme, before a cadenza and the return of the theme in a mood of mounting excitement, leading to an emphatic and vigorous conclusion.
Arensky’sString Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Opus 35, was written in 1895 and in its first movement presents a more somber atmosphere, lightened by secondary material, dramatically developed, but returning to its initial mood.
The theme of the second movement is stated simply, before its elaboration in a series of variations with the theme taken by each instrument in turn, before the possibilities of plucked strings and further textural resources are explored in a spirit that ventures far from the original material, sometimes with the energy of a scherzo, then relaxing into a gentler lyrical and eventually somber mood.
The third movement continues in its opening bars the Russian idiom, already heard in the theme of the second. The introduction is followed by what promises to be a vigorous fugue, on a Russian subject, superseded by a reminiscence of the melancholy of the opening of the quartet and followed by an energetic and triumphant conclusion.
The Piano Quintet in D major, Opus 51, was written in 1900.
The piano starts the first movement, soon joined by the string instruments in a historic opening of a texture that recalls that of Schumann’s Piano Quintet. Here, too, the piano plays a virtuoso part, whether in accompaniment or in the statement of thematic material.
The second movement is again in the form of a theme and variations, the former entrusted first to the strings, before the lyrical intervention of the piano, followed by a turn to the more dramatic, a change of mood to the solemn and then to the lyrical. The piano moves on to a recreation of Chopin, in romantic partnership, and then to music of greater vigor, subsiding into the language of the opening.
The capricious Scherzobreaks in, interrupted in its turn by a peaceful trio that brings momentary serenity here and when it returns after a repetition of the Scherzo, which itself has the last word.
A subject of Baroque contour introduces the last movement fugue, but the rigors of counterpoint are later submerged in a thoroughly romantic conclusion.
TRACK LISTING:
1-4: String Quartet No. 1 in G Major, Op. 11
5-7: String Quartet No. 2 in A Minor, Op. 35
8-11: Piano Quintet in D Major, Op. 51
FINAL THOUGHT:
Look, I’m not going to slam Arensky too much here (he got enough of that in his life from the asshole Rimsky-Korsakov) but considering he was living a pretty wild life away from work (gambling, drinking like a fish, etc. etc.) the String Quartets are pretty boring. I’ll cut the Piano Quinteta little more slack because I just love piano quintets as a genre (for my money, there is nothing much better than the Shostakovich Piano Quintet – which I’ll get to in about two years!). Unfortunately for Arensky and his legacy – these are works you just don’t want to listen to that much.
Recorded at Performing Arts Center, Purchase College, USA – June 1994 (Philips)
ONE-SENTENCE REVIEW:
Dude can write one hell of a gloomy melody – perfect for staring out an icy window at the frozen Moscow River on a miserable Sunday afternoon.
ORIGINAL LINER NOTES (by David Brown):
“In his youth Arensky did not escape some influence from me; later the influence came from Tchaikovsky. He will quickly be forgotten.” Thus Rimsky-Korsakov, not without a touch of pique, delivered his verdict upon his former pupil.
Born in 1861, Arensky had become Rimsky’s composition student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, but on graduating brilliantly with a gold medal in 1882, he had been appointed a professor at the Moscow Conservatory, where he was to teach both Rachmaninoff and Scriabin.
Removal to Russia’s old capital brought Arensky into contact with Tchaikovsky, and the natural creative affinity between the two men fostered mutual friendship. Rimsky’s influence faded, and Tchaikovsky became not only the most potent single force within Arensky’s music but also his staunchest supporter.
After Tchaikovsky’s death Arensky composed his Second String Quartet as a memorial, producing in the string orchestra arrangement he later made of the quarter’s slow movement (Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky) one work that has remained firmly in the repertoire.
Nor has Arensky’sFirst Piano Trio suffered the fate Rimsky had so balefully predicted for his music generally. Composed in 1894, this too was a memorial work, this time for the cellist Karl Davidov, who had also been a kindly director of the St. Petersburg Conservatory during Arensky’s student years.
It is a splendidly accomplished piece – and also eclectic; sometimes, for instance, the first movement of Mendelssohn’sFirst Piano Trio, also in D minor, seems to lurk behind Arensky’s opening Allegro moderato. But where Mendelssohn was urgent, Arensky gives his first theme a gentle and very characteristically elegiac tone, and his inventiveness is powerful enough to ensure that what follows has clear individuality, even though it may lack the sheer personality of a Tchaikovsky – or Rimsky.
Arensky’s craftsmanship and clarity of thought are always impeccable, and this precision is even more evident in the scherzo. Not a note is wasted in this enchanting confection built largely from a little stuttering figure (which later nearly gives birth to a more extended melodic idea), flying scales, and sparkling piano figurations.
The centre betrays the trio’s most explicit debt to earlier music, but this powerful echo from the second movement of Saint-Saens’Second Piano Concerto develops into a kind of lurching waltz very much Arensky’s own. There is careful revision of scoring when the scherzo returns, and a brief coda is added so that the movement may flicker into silence.
The heart of this memorial trio is the slow movement.
Deeply elegiac it certainly is – but not funereal; it parades no formal grief, but rather seems to reflect on precious personal memories. With its tender central section, it is surely as affectionate a tribute as any many could wish for.
Nor does the final movement end with any tone of heavy lamentation. Nevertheless, the more lyrical tune that alternates with the forthright opening music harks back to the main theme of the Elegia, preparing us for the explicit recall of the gentle music from that movement’s centre.
There follows a recollection of the whole trio’s beautiful opening melody, its sadness enhanced by a delicately chromatic harmonization before a vigorous return to the finale’s opening material rounds off the whole work.
In 1895, a year after completing his First Trio, Arensky moved back to St. Petersburg to become director of the Imperial Chapel choir. He remained in the post six years, retiring in 1901 with a pension. He was not free to pursue very successfully his career as pianist and conductor, and to compose at will.
But his lifestyle had long been disorderly; drinking and an addition to gambling had undermined his health, and early in 1906 tuberculosis finally claimed him.
His Second Piano Trio of 1905 was therefore one of his last works. The work’s subsequent fate would seem to substantiate Rimsky’s prediction; in fact, its almost total disappearance from the repertoire has been very much our loss.
It would be facile to label this music autumnal, but thoughtful it certainly is. The clear sectionalism of the D minor Trio’s first movement here gives way to a more continuous, more spacious flow, and the opening five notes of the theme quietly enunciated by the piano become a pervasive presence (and also a motto motif that insinuates itself into the following three movements).
Other motifs are gathered along the way to contribute their part in generating an unobtrusively magisterial movement as fine as any from a Russian of Arensky’s generation.
After such an impressive utterance, the main theme of the Romance might seem to promise something jejune, for all the telling harmonic detail in the accompaniment.
But the scale to which this theme grows confirms that Arensky’s greatest single asset was his melodic gift, and that gift is here confidently deployed to sustain the formidable span of an entire movement, braced the more firmly by the four haunting recurrences of the introductory four bars (the motto motif is heard just before the first theme returns for the last time).
The dazzling scherzo is as fleet and economical in texture as its counterpart in the First Trio, though its centre, with its disarmingly simple melodiousness, is more of a contrast (the motto motif quietly infiltrates this melodic flow at about midpoint).
After a truncated repetition of the scherzo, the finale’s quietly complex theme, with its contrapuntal opening and fastidious harmonic detail, might seem to be intractable material for variation treatment. But Arensky’s resourcefulness is equal to the challenge (especially in the weird valse of the third variation).
Several of the six variations seem deliberately to hard back to kinds of music heard in the preceding movements, and at the end of the grandiose final variation the motto motif builds a bridge to the coda, which returns to the reflective mood in which the movement had opened, drawing this sadly neglected work towards a muted but most satisfying resolution.
TRACK LISTING:
1-4: Piano Trio No. 1 in D Minor, Op. 32
5-14: Piano Trio No. 2 in F minor, Op. 73
FINAL THOUGHT:
Poor Arensky. So good but so flawed. Damn alcohol. Makes me so sad I need a really big drink (maybe at lunch!). But Anton Stepanovich did rate high enough to make it into the lyrics of a Kurt Weill and Ira Gershwin song (Tchaikovsky) and that’s good enough for me!
Romantic Favorites For Strings
(A correction is perhaps due because the full orchestra, and not just strings, performs the Fantasia on ‘Greensleeves.’)
In 1876, a special concert was held at the Moscow Conservatory to honor Tolstoy, who was moved to tears by the movement.
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) wrong Fantasia on “Greensleeves” in 1929 for his opera Sir John with Love, based on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.
According to Vaughan Williams’s wife, Ursula: “He took this tune as a theme for a fantasia, using the strings of the orchestra grouped as a solo quartet, a small string band, and a larger body of players: with the Norman grandeurs of Gloucester Cathedral in mind and the strange quality of the resonance of stone, the echo idea of three different groups of instruments was well judged… The audience in the Cathedral that September evening had come to hear Elgar conduct Gerontius, but before that work Ralph stood in front of them, looking taller than ever on the high platform, dark haired, serious, inwardly extremely nervous, and the grave splendour of the Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis was heard for the first time.”
Emily Sachs – President – Manka Music Group (A division of Manka Bros. Studios – The World’s Largest Media Company)
