All notes are copyright Graeme Steele Johnson and reprintable only with permission from the author.
Beethoven: Clarinet Trio in E-flat major, Op. 38
At once rustic and quasi-symphonic in timbre, the rub of winds against strings in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Septet bespeaks the composer’s invocation of the serenade tradition, a genre he inherited from Mozart and other 18th-century models of music for outdoor entertainment. That open air setting surely accounts for the work’s overall ebullient nature, which feels far removed from the scowling late Beethoven that posterity emphasizes.
READ FULL TEXT
At once rustic and quasi-symphonic in timbre, the rub of winds against strings in Ludwig van Beethoven’s Septet bespeaks the composer’s invocation of the serenade tradition, a genre he inherited from Mozart and other 18th-century models of music for outdoor entertainment. That open air setting surely accounts for the work’s overall ebullient nature, which feels far removed from the scowling late Beethoven that posterity emphasizes.
READ FULL TEXT
Beethoven: String Quartet in C minor, Op. 18, No. 4
Virtuosic gypsy fiddling dominates the Finale while the other voices trade vernacular witticisms below. Amid the scorching flames of this devilish Allegro, we might catch a glimmer of C major that passes before we can be sure we heard it — but Beethoven never shows his hand, ending with a wink by including only the notes shared between C major and C minor.
READ FULL TEXT
Virtuosic gypsy fiddling dominates the Finale while the other voices trade vernacular witticisms below. Amid the scorching flames of this devilish Allegro, we might catch a glimmer of C major that passes before we can be sure we heard it — but Beethoven never shows his hand, ending with a wink by including only the notes shared between C major and C minor.
READ FULL TEXT
Brahms: Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120
The clarinet croons what is hardly a melody at all — basically a decorated, falling scale — accompanied by the naked, heartbeat metronome of the piano, and the movement circles itself in poetic simplicity. The tender E-flat Sonata, one of Brahms’ very last pieces of chamber music, also takes up this kind of summative quality. Like fading embers, it glows with an introspective, generous — if melancholic — spirit, which is perhaps best captured in the weeping coda that ends the Allegro amabile. That the clarinet provides the bass note that supports the movement’s final chord seems a poignant metaphor for the weight of a long life.
READ FULL TEXT
The clarinet croons what is hardly a melody at all — basically a decorated, falling scale — accompanied by the naked, heartbeat metronome of the piano, and the movement circles itself in poetic simplicity. The tender E-flat Sonata, one of Brahms’ very last pieces of chamber music, also takes up this kind of summative quality. Like fading embers, it glows with an introspective, generous — if melancholic — spirit, which is perhaps best captured in the weeping coda that ends the Allegro amabile. That the clarinet provides the bass note that supports the movement’s final chord seems a poignant metaphor for the weight of a long life.
READ FULL TEXT
Brahms: Clarinet Trio in A minor, Op. 114
Like Mozart and Schubert before him and Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Poulenc and Nielsen after, Brahms came to the clarinet late in life, having intended to put down his pen after the triumph of the great G major Viola Quintet, Op. 111. It was only upon hearing the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld — in a performance of works by Mozart and Weber — that Brahms was inspired to come out of retirement expressly to write for the clarinet. It is therefore to Mühlfeld that we owe those crowning masterpieces from Brahms’ twilight years, the glowing embers of his mature genius: not just the four sublime clarinet works (the present Trio for clarinet, cello and piano, Op. 114, the Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115, and two Sonatas, Op. 120), but the treasured piano music, Chorale Preludes and Four Serious Songs written in those years as well.
READ FULL TEXT
Like Mozart and Schubert before him and Saint-Saëns, Debussy, Poulenc and Nielsen after, Brahms came to the clarinet late in life, having intended to put down his pen after the triumph of the great G major Viola Quintet, Op. 111. It was only upon hearing the clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld — in a performance of works by Mozart and Weber — that Brahms was inspired to come out of retirement expressly to write for the clarinet. It is therefore to Mühlfeld that we owe those crowning masterpieces from Brahms’ twilight years, the glowing embers of his mature genius: not just the four sublime clarinet works (the present Trio for clarinet, cello and piano, Op. 114, the Clarinet Quintet, Op. 115, and two Sonatas, Op. 120), but the treasured piano music, Chorale Preludes and Four Serious Songs written in those years as well.
READ FULL TEXT
Brahms: Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115
The final variation’s collision with reprised music from the first movement signifies a sort of communion, a coming full circle that seems to acknowledge this material as the bookends of a unified story.
READ FULL TEXT
The final variation’s collision with reprised music from the first movement signifies a sort of communion, a coming full circle that seems to acknowledge this material as the bookends of a unified story.
READ FULL TEXT
Brahms: Two Songs for Viola, Voice and Piano, Op. 91
Brahms paints the twilight yearning of the poetry in his characteristic dusky timbres, with murmuring arpeggios deep in the piano while the viola croons in velvet tones. Atop this carpet of viola and piano, the low female voice glows like the opening lines it pronounces: “Bathed in golden evening glow, / How solemnly the forests stand!”
READ FULL TEXT
Brahms paints the twilight yearning of the poetry in his characteristic dusky timbres, with murmuring arpeggios deep in the piano while the viola croons in velvet tones. Atop this carpet of viola and piano, the low female voice glows like the opening lines it pronounces: “Bathed in golden evening glow, / How solemnly the forests stand!”
READ FULL TEXT
Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in E major [arr. Eisler, Stein, Rankl]
When, in the final bars of the symphony, the Finale’s first theme returns atop echoes of its first movement ancestor, it is easy to imagine this coda as a musical representation of Wagner’s legacy resonating for eternity after his death. In this reading, Bruckner’s Finale projects a dichotomous program: a tragic lament of Wagner’s death coupled with a triumphant eulogy celebrating his arrival in heaven and the longevity of his legacy on earth.
READ FULL TEXT
When, in the final bars of the symphony, the Finale’s first theme returns atop echoes of its first movement ancestor, it is easy to imagine this coda as a musical representation of Wagner’s legacy resonating for eternity after his death. In this reading, Bruckner’s Finale projects a dichotomous program: a tragic lament of Wagner’s death coupled with a triumphant eulogy celebrating his arrival in heaven and the longevity of his legacy on earth.
READ FULL TEXT
Clarke: Viola Sonata
The first movement, Impetuoso, achieves its namesake in no small part via another Debussian technique: a dynamic process of quick crescendos followed by sudden drops to piano, yielding a breathless, surging quality. The piano introduces the second theme, a slinking chromatic subject shadowed by glassy eighth notes above. Here again, the shape of the theme, Clarke’s interest in half-step relationships, and the smoky rolled-chords that bloom beneath the melody point unmistakably to Debussy.
READ FULL TEXT
The first movement, Impetuoso, achieves its namesake in no small part via another Debussian technique: a dynamic process of quick crescendos followed by sudden drops to piano, yielding a breathless, surging quality. The piano introduces the second theme, a slinking chromatic subject shadowed by glassy eighth notes above. Here again, the shape of the theme, Clarke’s interest in half-step relationships, and the smoky rolled-chords that bloom beneath the melody point unmistakably to Debussy.
READ FULL TEXT
Debussy: Cello Sonata
Horrified by the carnage of World War One and losing his own battle with cancer, a world-weary Debussy began work on a set of six sonatas for various instruments, though he would only finish three of these before his death cut short his plans in 1918. Ironically, the Cello Sonata from 1915, the first of the set, brims with life and energy from its first declamatory fanfare to its percussive finishing blows.
READ FULL TEXT
Horrified by the carnage of World War One and losing his own battle with cancer, a world-weary Debussy began work on a set of six sonatas for various instruments, though he would only finish three of these before his death cut short his plans in 1918. Ironically, the Cello Sonata from 1915, the first of the set, brims with life and energy from its first declamatory fanfare to its percussive finishing blows.
READ FULL TEXT
Debussy: Images, Book One
The first piece from Book One of Debussy’s Images, “Reflets dans l’eau,” returns to a favorite subject of his for his impressionistic musical paintings: water. Rising and falling pianissimo sixteenth notes trace gentle arcs across the opening Andantino, their circular motion perhaps suggesting the rhythmic lapping of tidewater against a bank. A pebble shatters the water’s unstained surface, and Debussy paints the ensuing ripples in a shimmering, quasi cadenza cascade of 32nd notes. The increasingly more agitated swells that follow spill over into a mighty fortissimo climax, a wave that crashes just as quickly as it rose, and subsides in a sinking, faraway coda, marked Lent.
READ FULL TEXT
The first piece from Book One of Debussy’s Images, “Reflets dans l’eau,” returns to a favorite subject of his for his impressionistic musical paintings: water. Rising and falling pianissimo sixteenth notes trace gentle arcs across the opening Andantino, their circular motion perhaps suggesting the rhythmic lapping of tidewater against a bank. A pebble shatters the water’s unstained surface, and Debussy paints the ensuing ripples in a shimmering, quasi cadenza cascade of 32nd notes. The increasingly more agitated swells that follow spill over into a mighty fortissimo climax, a wave that crashes just as quickly as it rose, and subsides in a sinking, faraway coda, marked Lent.
READ FULL TEXT
Debussy: Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun [arr. Graeme Steele Johnson]
...Debussy’s music takes a more passive approach by relishing this fundamental, Freudian division of the self. Instead of trying to reconcile its tonal and chromatic poles, it basks in them, like a faun in the afternoon. Half-asleep, half-man–half-goat, half charging into the 20th century and half hanging onto the glitter of yesteryear, it balances precariously but deliciously at the dawn of a new era.
READ FULL TEXT
...Debussy’s music takes a more passive approach by relishing this fundamental, Freudian division of the self. Instead of trying to reconcile its tonal and chromatic poles, it basks in them, like a faun in the afternoon. Half-asleep, half-man–half-goat, half charging into the 20th century and half hanging onto the glitter of yesteryear, it balances precariously but deliciously at the dawn of a new era.
READ FULL TEXT
Debussy: Première Rhapsodie
Debussy marks the Rhapsodie “rêveusement lent” (dreamily slow), and so the piano paints the opening dreamscape with three sparse droplets of octave F’s and a triplet that drips into the clarinet’s entrance. The clarinet murmurs under its breath three evaporative notes of its own, simple and directionless, politely vanishing in time for the piano to repeat itself. Then, the same: drops of F, the clarinet whispers, but isn’t finished. With a flurry of notes and a crescendo it spills over into a splash of color — sunburst. The clarinet’s faux-improvisatory soliloquy that follows recycles its opening three notes, then raises them by a step before finally yielding to the piano, and the piece seems to begin anew. The piano lays a carpet of luxuriant harmony and gently lapping syncopations so that when the clarinet croons its faraway melody (starting with its seminal three-note motive in reverse order), it emanates from deep within the wash of piano, “soft and penetrating.”
READ FULL TEXT
Debussy marks the Rhapsodie “rêveusement lent” (dreamily slow), and so the piano paints the opening dreamscape with three sparse droplets of octave F’s and a triplet that drips into the clarinet’s entrance. The clarinet murmurs under its breath three evaporative notes of its own, simple and directionless, politely vanishing in time for the piano to repeat itself. Then, the same: drops of F, the clarinet whispers, but isn’t finished. With a flurry of notes and a crescendo it spills over into a splash of color — sunburst. The clarinet’s faux-improvisatory soliloquy that follows recycles its opening three notes, then raises them by a step before finally yielding to the piano, and the piece seems to begin anew. The piano lays a carpet of luxuriant harmony and gently lapping syncopations so that when the clarinet croons its faraway melody (starting with its seminal three-note motive in reverse order), it emanates from deep within the wash of piano, “soft and penetrating.”
READ FULL TEXT
Dvořák: Terzetto, Op. 74
The hemiolic Scherzo proper dances in and out of the written triple meter with Bohemian angularity, but shirks its duple obstinance in the slower, more graceful Trio. Here, the augmentation of the original Scherzo figure to better suit the meter feels like a sleepier recasting of the same character, rather than a contrasting theme as is traditional.
READ FULL TEXT
The hemiolic Scherzo proper dances in and out of the written triple meter with Bohemian angularity, but shirks its duple obstinance in the slower, more graceful Trio. Here, the augmentation of the original Scherzo figure to better suit the meter feels like a sleepier recasting of the same character, rather than a contrasting theme as is traditional.
READ FULL TEXT
Franck: Symphony in D minor
Beethoven’s influence infects other areas of this rogue symphony as well. Franck’s resurrection in his finale of themes from earlier movements and his layering them atop a tireless bass ostinato undeniably recalls the ubiquitous Ninth Symphony, also in D minor. But Franck’s musical language in his symphony, with its tertian key relationships and heavy chromaticism, its lush textures and web of recurring motives, points unabashedly to Wagner.
READ FULL TEXT
Beethoven’s influence infects other areas of this rogue symphony as well. Franck’s resurrection in his finale of themes from earlier movements and his layering them atop a tireless bass ostinato undeniably recalls the ubiquitous Ninth Symphony, also in D minor. But Franck’s musical language in his symphony, with its tertian key relationships and heavy chromaticism, its lush textures and web of recurring motives, points unabashedly to Wagner.
READ FULL TEXT
Harbison: Twilight Music
Just as John Harbison imagines the unlikely pair of horn and violin “meeting best under cover of dusk,” Twilight Music cloaks its abstract architecture beneath the warmer veneer of lyric chromaticism.
READ FULL TEXT
Just as John Harbison imagines the unlikely pair of horn and violin “meeting best under cover of dusk,” Twilight Music cloaks its abstract architecture beneath the warmer veneer of lyric chromaticism.
READ FULL TEXT
Haydn: Piano Trio in G major, "Gypsy" HOB V/25
Perhaps Haydn’s most popular contribution to the genre, the G major Trio represents one of the earliest examples of a classical composer parroting the Hungarian folk idiom, and prefigured the 19th-century fascination with gypsy music seen in the works of Brahms and Liszt.
READ FULL TEXT
Perhaps Haydn’s most popular contribution to the genre, the G major Trio represents one of the earliest examples of a classical composer parroting the Hungarian folk idiom, and prefigured the 19th-century fascination with gypsy music seen in the works of Brahms and Liszt.
READ FULL TEXT
Haydn: String Quartet in C major, Op 20, No. 2
Haydn’s landmark Opus 20 quartets represent a laboratory of sorts in which coalesced the techniques and relationships that would govern string quartet writing for centuries to come. The scholar Ron Drummond asserts, “This cannot be overstated: the six string quartets of Opus 20 are as important in the history of music, and had as radically a transforming effect on the very field of musical possibility itself, as Beethoven's Third Symphony would 33 years later.” And Sir Donald Tovey concurs: "Every page of the six quartets of op. 20 is of historic and aesthetic importance... there is perhaps no single or sextuple opus in the history of instrumental music which has achieved so much.”
READ FULL TEXT
Haydn’s landmark Opus 20 quartets represent a laboratory of sorts in which coalesced the techniques and relationships that would govern string quartet writing for centuries to come. The scholar Ron Drummond asserts, “This cannot be overstated: the six string quartets of Opus 20 are as important in the history of music, and had as radically a transforming effect on the very field of musical possibility itself, as Beethoven's Third Symphony would 33 years later.” And Sir Donald Tovey concurs: "Every page of the six quartets of op. 20 is of historic and aesthetic importance... there is perhaps no single or sextuple opus in the history of instrumental music which has achieved so much.”
READ FULL TEXT
Haydn: String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 50, No. 1
Haydn’s String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 50, No. 1 opens curiously with unflinching, repeated B-flats in the cello before Haydn sprinkles terse melodic fragments from the higher strings on top: a measure-long, fleeting breath of lyricism in conversation with nimble triplet figures. The rest of the spirited first movement unfolds like an exercise in compositional virtuosity as Haydn deftly threads together these meager slivers of melody into a cohesive whole. Along the way, Haydn’s impish chromaticism and breathless deceptive cadences bespeak an unmistakable dialogue with the younger composer’s [Mozart] style.
READ FULL TEXT
Haydn’s String Quartet in B-flat major, Op. 50, No. 1 opens curiously with unflinching, repeated B-flats in the cello before Haydn sprinkles terse melodic fragments from the higher strings on top: a measure-long, fleeting breath of lyricism in conversation with nimble triplet figures. The rest of the spirited first movement unfolds like an exercise in compositional virtuosity as Haydn deftly threads together these meager slivers of melody into a cohesive whole. Along the way, Haydn’s impish chromaticism and breathless deceptive cadences bespeak an unmistakable dialogue with the younger composer’s [Mozart] style.
READ FULL TEXT
Haydn: String Quartet in D major, Op. 71, No. 2
Back in Vienna, Haydn fashioned his Opus 71 quartets specifically for public performance in preparation for his return to London, likely explaining the jolting chords of the D major quartet’s slow introduction and the brilliant passagework for all four players that follows. That slow introduction itself, while brief, is unique to Haydn’s mature quartets, and its octave drops in the first violin portend the falling octaves that will cascade across all four parts in the first theme of the Allegro.
READ FULL TEXT
Back in Vienna, Haydn fashioned his Opus 71 quartets specifically for public performance in preparation for his return to London, likely explaining the jolting chords of the D major quartet’s slow introduction and the brilliant passagework for all four players that follows. That slow introduction itself, while brief, is unique to Haydn’s mature quartets, and its octave drops in the first violin portend the falling octaves that will cascade across all four parts in the first theme of the Allegro.
READ FULL TEXT
Hindemith: Viola Sonata, Op. 11, No. 4
Completed in June 1919, the year Hindemith returned from the service, the Sonata’s international style seems to reflect the composer’s wartime epiphany: Brahmsian warmth mixes with quasi-Dvořákian folksong, all occasionally refracted through the iridescence of Debussy’s harmonic language.
READ FULL TEXT
Completed in June 1919, the year Hindemith returned from the service, the Sonata’s international style seems to reflect the composer’s wartime epiphany: Brahmsian warmth mixes with quasi-Dvořákian folksong, all occasionally refracted through the iridescence of Debussy’s harmonic language.
READ FULL TEXT
Janáček: Mládí
Janáček’s musical depiction of the prosody of the Czech language — “speech melody,” as he called it — explains the inflection of the opening oboe melody, which is said to enunciate the words “Mládí, zlaté mládí!” (“Youth, golden youth!”). The boisterous gaiety of the outer movements contrasts the second movement’s folksy, sometimes melancholic variations, and the third movement trades a perky piccolo theme from Janáček’s time in the Old Brno Monastery with a lilting oboe melody that possesses a curious sort of Viennese grace.
READ FULL TEXT
Janáček’s musical depiction of the prosody of the Czech language — “speech melody,” as he called it — explains the inflection of the opening oboe melody, which is said to enunciate the words “Mládí, zlaté mládí!” (“Youth, golden youth!”). The boisterous gaiety of the outer movements contrasts the second movement’s folksy, sometimes melancholic variations, and the third movement trades a perky piccolo theme from Janáček’s time in the Old Brno Monastery with a lilting oboe melody that possesses a curious sort of Viennese grace.
READ FULL TEXT
Küffner: Introduction, Theme, and Variations for Clarinet and Strings in B-flat Major
The fruits of Carl Maria von Weber’s well-documented relationship with the clarinetist Heinrich Baermann include several operatic, virtuosic works for the instrument in chamber and concerto genres. Thus, it is understandable that the Introduction, Theme, and Variations for Clarinet and Strings in B-flat Major, a work of questionable authorship whose elysian, Mozartian aria prefaces a buoyant theme and its spry elaborations, has traditionally been attributed to Weber.
READ FULL TEXT
The fruits of Carl Maria von Weber’s well-documented relationship with the clarinetist Heinrich Baermann include several operatic, virtuosic works for the instrument in chamber and concerto genres. Thus, it is understandable that the Introduction, Theme, and Variations for Clarinet and Strings in B-flat Major, a work of questionable authorship whose elysian, Mozartian aria prefaces a buoyant theme and its spry elaborations, has traditionally been attributed to Weber.
READ FULL TEXT
Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 in A minor
Unconventional for featuring only one instrument, Liszt’s solo “soliloquies,” as he first called them, provoked hysterical enthusiasm from audiences, as women clambered for torn pieces of his clothing, hair or piano strings, and cast their own clothes onto the stage. Ever the showman, Liszt leaned into this “Lisztomania” with his own seductively dramatic piano showpieces, replete with dazzling fireworks of dexterity.
READ FULL TEXT
Unconventional for featuring only one instrument, Liszt’s solo “soliloquies,” as he first called them, provoked hysterical enthusiasm from audiences, as women clambered for torn pieces of his clothing, hair or piano strings, and cast their own clothes onto the stage. Ever the showman, Liszt leaned into this “Lisztomania” with his own seductively dramatic piano showpieces, replete with dazzling fireworks of dexterity.
READ FULL TEXT
Mahler: Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor
It is true that Mahler confined his Fifth Symphony to the purely instrumental canvas, whereas his earlier works in the genre announce their meanings in words — whether actually sung in performance, or alluded to through musical quotation. But with his vivid web of cross-movement relationships, Mahler achieves in the Fifth Symphony such a clear sense of a linear progression over the course of the work as to suggest an inner drama of its own. For the Mahler scholar Donald Mitchell, it is not that the programmatic symphony has vanished, “it has gone underground, rather, or inside.”
READ FULL TEXT
It is true that Mahler confined his Fifth Symphony to the purely instrumental canvas, whereas his earlier works in the genre announce their meanings in words — whether actually sung in performance, or alluded to through musical quotation. But with his vivid web of cross-movement relationships, Mahler achieves in the Fifth Symphony such a clear sense of a linear progression over the course of the work as to suggest an inner drama of its own. For the Mahler scholar Donald Mitchell, it is not that the programmatic symphony has vanished, “it has gone underground, rather, or inside.”
READ FULL TEXT
Mahler: Symphony No. 9 in D major
For all of its grand, symphonic scope, its all-encompassing summation of the past and its prophetic look toward the future, Das Lied von der Erde was still bound to the individual experience by the personal vessel of song. To give voice to the general human condition itself, Mahler had to abandon the voice altogether and take up instead the more universal language of the instrumental cosmos. The symphony is more than autobiographical, and the failing heart of the opening isn’t just Mahler’s. It signifies a farewell to tonality — to music as Mahler knew it — and maybe also an instinctual farewell to society, written on the eve of the political traumas that would plague the 20th century.
READ FULL TEXT
For all of its grand, symphonic scope, its all-encompassing summation of the past and its prophetic look toward the future, Das Lied von der Erde was still bound to the individual experience by the personal vessel of song. To give voice to the general human condition itself, Mahler had to abandon the voice altogether and take up instead the more universal language of the instrumental cosmos. The symphony is more than autobiographical, and the failing heart of the opening isn’t just Mahler’s. It signifies a farewell to tonality — to music as Mahler knew it — and maybe also an instinctual farewell to society, written on the eve of the political traumas that would plague the 20th century.
READ FULL TEXT
Mendelssohn: Concert Piece No. 2 in D minor, Op. 114
Felix Mendelssohn shared with father and son clarinetists Heinrich and Carl Baermann a friendship based not only on common musical interests, but on culinary delights as well; in addition to their instrumental prowess, the Baermanns were evidently formidable dumpling chefs.
READ FULL TEXT
Felix Mendelssohn shared with father and son clarinetists Heinrich and Carl Baermann a friendship based not only on common musical interests, but on culinary delights as well; in addition to their instrumental prowess, the Baermanns were evidently formidable dumpling chefs.
READ FULL TEXT
Mendelssohn: String Quartet in E-flat major, Op. 44, No. 3
Finished days after his 29th birthday in February the following year, the E-flat major quartet, the third of the set, shares its key and its youthful zest with the celebrated Octet of his teenage years. But the richly vivacious E-flat major quartet sees a more experienced Mendelssohn painting with the limited palette of only four players, savoring the natural intimacy of the quartet in its delicate passages, while relishing the challenge of creating outsized exuberance and full textures with smaller forces.
READ FULL TEXT
Finished days after his 29th birthday in February the following year, the E-flat major quartet, the third of the set, shares its key and its youthful zest with the celebrated Octet of his teenage years. But the richly vivacious E-flat major quartet sees a more experienced Mendelssohn painting with the limited palette of only four players, savoring the natural intimacy of the quartet in its delicate passages, while relishing the challenge of creating outsized exuberance and full textures with smaller forces.
READ FULL TEXT
Messiaen: Quartet for the End of Time
It is curious that Messiaen’s movement for a lone clarinet, the only instrument of the group bound to a single line without the ability to provide harmony or accompany itself, would become the piece’s longest (if one is to take Messiaen’s written tempos to heart). But the instrument’s limited ability to keep time for itself makes it ideally-suited to destroy the listener’s sense of time, its unfeeling crooning instead mapping a desolate, boundaryless void, and its inexorable crescendos on single notes leaving listeners with volume as the only metric to measure the passage of time.
READ FULL TEXT
It is curious that Messiaen’s movement for a lone clarinet, the only instrument of the group bound to a single line without the ability to provide harmony or accompany itself, would become the piece’s longest (if one is to take Messiaen’s written tempos to heart). But the instrument’s limited ability to keep time for itself makes it ideally-suited to destroy the listener’s sense of time, its unfeeling crooning instead mapping a desolate, boundaryless void, and its inexorable crescendos on single notes leaving listeners with volume as the only metric to measure the passage of time.
READ FULL TEXT
Mozart: Allegro in B-flat major for Clarinet and String Quartet, K. 516c
Mozart’s share of the compositional labor likely dates from 1787, the same year that also bore Don Giovanni as well as the two Viola Quintets in C major and G minor, and the clarinet quintet fragment shares with with those contemporaneous works the proto-Romantic harmonic daring of a mature Mozart. But unlike the inconsolable G minor Viola Quintet, this buoyant, sun-specked Allegro oozes a degree of wonder and levity rare even for Mozart’s overall joyous clarinet catalog.
READ FULL TEXT
Mozart’s share of the compositional labor likely dates from 1787, the same year that also bore Don Giovanni as well as the two Viola Quintets in C major and G minor, and the clarinet quintet fragment shares with with those contemporaneous works the proto-Romantic harmonic daring of a mature Mozart. But unlike the inconsolable G minor Viola Quintet, this buoyant, sun-specked Allegro oozes a degree of wonder and levity rare even for Mozart’s overall joyous clarinet catalog.
READ FULL TEXT
Mozart: Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622
Finished just two months before his death, the Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622 was Mozart’s last major completed work, and thus is conventionally regarded as his swan song. But considered in the context of the entirely new language that emerged in Mozart’s other twilight works (the Concerto shares with The Magic Flute a remarkable blend of simplicity and gravitas), the Clarinet Concerto represents as much a new beginning, albeit tragically curtailed, as a final destination.
READ FULL TEXT
Finished just two months before his death, the Clarinet Concerto in A major, K. 622 was Mozart’s last major completed work, and thus is conventionally regarded as his swan song. But considered in the context of the entirely new language that emerged in Mozart’s other twilight works (the Concerto shares with The Magic Flute a remarkable blend of simplicity and gravitas), the Clarinet Concerto represents as much a new beginning, albeit tragically curtailed, as a final destination.
READ FULL TEXT
Mozart: Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285
In spite of his purported distaste for the flute, Mozart fashioned a delightfully buoyant Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285, whose sparkling outer movements sandwich a slow movement of remarkable poignancy.
READ FULL TEXT
In spite of his purported distaste for the flute, Mozart fashioned a delightfully buoyant Flute Quartet in D major, K. 285, whose sparkling outer movements sandwich a slow movement of remarkable poignancy.
READ FULL TEXT
Mozart: Marriage of Figaro Overture [arr. Czerny for piano six-hands]
Rightfully wide-eyed but inevitably futile attempts to pin down Mozart’s genius typically take the form of variations on the theme of “perfection.” The musical canon has readily acknowledged the genius of many master composers, but Mozart’s brilliance somehow stands apart from even the most celebrated voices. Mozart’s music glows with a transcendent otherworldliness that puts to shame attempts to capture it in words, but it is its paradoxical self-evidence — as inevitable and fundamentally part of this world as nature itself — that really makes it elude explanation. Mozart’s grace lies in his music’s effortless, unlikely cohabitation of opposites. It is at once scintillatingly fresh and deeply familiar, simple but not simplistic, and, in the words of Scott Burnham, “somehow both unerring and human…untouchable and touching.”
READ FULL TEXT
Rightfully wide-eyed but inevitably futile attempts to pin down Mozart’s genius typically take the form of variations on the theme of “perfection.” The musical canon has readily acknowledged the genius of many master composers, but Mozart’s brilliance somehow stands apart from even the most celebrated voices. Mozart’s music glows with a transcendent otherworldliness that puts to shame attempts to capture it in words, but it is its paradoxical self-evidence — as inevitable and fundamentally part of this world as nature itself — that really makes it elude explanation. Mozart’s grace lies in his music’s effortless, unlikely cohabitation of opposites. It is at once scintillatingly fresh and deeply familiar, simple but not simplistic, and, in the words of Scott Burnham, “somehow both unerring and human…untouchable and touching.”
READ FULL TEXT
Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 23 in A major, K. 488
Trading oboes for clarinets and dispensing with the popular trumpet and timpani fixtures of contemporary orchestras, Mozart designed a darker, mellower orchestration that reflects this concerto’s inward, lyrical quality. Indeed, the 23rd concerto is generous and personal, and seems to sing to itself rather than declaiming from a stage as in Mozart’s hallmark operatic style found in so many of the other concerti.
READ FULL TEXT
Trading oboes for clarinets and dispensing with the popular trumpet and timpani fixtures of contemporary orchestras, Mozart designed a darker, mellower orchestration that reflects this concerto’s inward, lyrical quality. Indeed, the 23rd concerto is generous and personal, and seems to sing to itself rather than declaiming from a stage as in Mozart’s hallmark operatic style found in so many of the other concerti.
READ FULL TEXT
Mozart: Piano Trio in B-flat major, K. 502
In the trios, Mozart achieved an unprecedented independence of voices that was far ahead of the “accompanied sonata” -style piano trios of his time, elevating the role of the string instruments and laying the groundwork for Beethoven’s work in the genre. But in Mozart’s mystifying, paradoxical fashion, he somehow marries the newfound importance of the strings with brilliant, concerto-style piano writing and still preserves his crystalline melodic clarity.
READ FULL TEXT
In the trios, Mozart achieved an unprecedented independence of voices that was far ahead of the “accompanied sonata” -style piano trios of his time, elevating the role of the string instruments and laying the groundwork for Beethoven’s work in the genre. But in Mozart’s mystifying, paradoxical fashion, he somehow marries the newfound importance of the strings with brilliant, concerto-style piano writing and still preserves his crystalline melodic clarity.
READ FULL TEXT
Mozart: Serenade No. 10 for winds in B-flat major, K. 361, "Gran Partita"
The nearly 50-minute piece for 13 instruments dwarfs the modest proportions of the genre’s earlier, lighter works, and even exceeds the length and ensemble size of Mozart’s other two great Viennese wind serenades in E-flat and C minor. Moreover, the Gran Partita achieves in its seven movements — particularly in the miraculous Adagio — an emotional profundity and compositional sincerity previously foreign to wind ensemble music.
READ FULL TEXT
The nearly 50-minute piece for 13 instruments dwarfs the modest proportions of the genre’s earlier, lighter works, and even exceeds the length and ensemble size of Mozart’s other two great Viennese wind serenades in E-flat and C minor. Moreover, the Gran Partita achieves in its seven movements — particularly in the miraculous Adagio — an emotional profundity and compositional sincerity previously foreign to wind ensemble music.
READ FULL TEXT
Mozart: String Quintet in G minor, K. 516
When, on the heels of the previous breathtaking slow movement, throbbing eighth notes reveal another Adagio, the effect is poetic and disorienting. The first violin laments a mournful aria in G minor, its unending phrases ridding us of delusions that a sunnier Allegro will ever chase away these dark clouds — until it does. Somehow, though, the Allegro respite seems contained, less raucous than Mozart’s more celebratory movements, as if tempered by the more sentient reality presented in the rest of the piece.
READ FULL TEXT
When, on the heels of the previous breathtaking slow movement, throbbing eighth notes reveal another Adagio, the effect is poetic and disorienting. The first violin laments a mournful aria in G minor, its unending phrases ridding us of delusions that a sunnier Allegro will ever chase away these dark clouds — until it does. Somehow, though, the Allegro respite seems contained, less raucous than Mozart’s more celebratory movements, as if tempered by the more sentient reality presented in the rest of the piece.
READ FULL TEXT
Musical Legacy of the Clarinet
That the clarinet has become inextricably linked with such an impressive variety of styles and that it captured the hearts of so many master composers in its relatively short lifespan must be a testament to the instrument’s chameleon versatility, if not also to some universal appeal of its fundamental voice. It was, in fact, the instrument that most closely resembled the human voice according to Mozart, who himself can be said to have invented the soul of the clarinet. With his miraculous Concerto and chamber music, Mozart liberated the clarinet from its early-Classical trumpet-like role, and realized for the first time its lyrical, cantabile potential, its agility, and the vocal, operatic qualities inherent in the contrast between its registers.
READ FULL TEXT
That the clarinet has become inextricably linked with such an impressive variety of styles and that it captured the hearts of so many master composers in its relatively short lifespan must be a testament to the instrument’s chameleon versatility, if not also to some universal appeal of its fundamental voice. It was, in fact, the instrument that most closely resembled the human voice according to Mozart, who himself can be said to have invented the soul of the clarinet. With his miraculous Concerto and chamber music, Mozart liberated the clarinet from its early-Classical trumpet-like role, and realized for the first time its lyrical, cantabile potential, its agility, and the vocal, operatic qualities inherent in the contrast between its registers.
READ FULL TEXT
Penderecki: String Quartet No. 3, “Leaves of an unwritten diary”
The chilling Grave introduction sets the tone for this dark work, full of Penderecki’s characteristic bleakness and mechanical rage. A rabid, seemingly unrelenting waltz follows, but pregnant silences stop the hell-bent waltz dead in its tracks, and the dance grows more demented with each reiteration.
READ FULL TEXT
The chilling Grave introduction sets the tone for this dark work, full of Penderecki’s characteristic bleakness and mechanical rage. A rabid, seemingly unrelenting waltz follows, but pregnant silences stop the hell-bent waltz dead in its tracks, and the dance grows more demented with each reiteration.
READ FULL TEXT
Poulenc: Clarinet Sonata
The odor of popular music does indeed permeate Poulenc’s Clarinet Sonata, with its percussive opening, its cool, wistful monotones, and its rambunctious wit. Finally, Poulenc declared, “the music hall was invading Art with a capital A.”
READ FULL TEXT
The odor of popular music does indeed permeate Poulenc’s Clarinet Sonata, with its percussive opening, its cool, wistful monotones, and its rambunctious wit. Finally, Poulenc declared, “the music hall was invading Art with a capital A.”
READ FULL TEXT
Poulenc: Mouvements perpétuels
In his maturity, Poulenc predicted, “if people are still listening to my music in 50 years’ time it will be for my Stabat Mater rather than the Mouvements perpétuels.” As it turns out, Poulenc is celebrated today for both sides of his musical persona — “half monk and half naughty boy,” as one critic described him — and the present work, lighthearted as it may be, remains one of the composer’s most popular. The piece has an overall circular quality dressed in the urban charm of the early-century salons of Erik Satie (Poulenc’s teacher) and the Paris intelligentsia — all clever irony and understated beauty.
READ FULL TEXT
In his maturity, Poulenc predicted, “if people are still listening to my music in 50 years’ time it will be for my Stabat Mater rather than the Mouvements perpétuels.” As it turns out, Poulenc is celebrated today for both sides of his musical persona — “half monk and half naughty boy,” as one critic described him — and the present work, lighthearted as it may be, remains one of the composer’s most popular. The piece has an overall circular quality dressed in the urban charm of the early-century salons of Erik Satie (Poulenc’s teacher) and the Paris intelligentsia — all clever irony and understated beauty.
READ FULL TEXT
Ravel: Mother Goose Suite
Ravel’s sparing but characterful piano writing bespeaks a musical scope that reflects the delicate innocence of childhood; these brief vignettes flirt curiously with fantasy, but their time runs out just before anything too serious can happen.
READ FULL TEXT
Ravel’s sparing but characterful piano writing bespeaks a musical scope that reflects the delicate innocence of childhood; these brief vignettes flirt curiously with fantasy, but their time runs out just before anything too serious can happen.
READ FULL TEXT
Respighi: Il tramanto
Respighi’s creation is intensely expressive, but bound up in the delicate intimacy of chamber music and perfumed with fleeting chromaticism — in this respect a far cry from the larger-than-life scale and more aggressive brand of harmony of Wagner. A crepuscular tenderness enswathes Il tramanto and seems a faithful realization of its affective essence: chamber music instead of opera, poetry instead of dramatic libretto.
READ FULL TEXT
Respighi’s creation is intensely expressive, but bound up in the delicate intimacy of chamber music and perfumed with fleeting chromaticism — in this respect a far cry from the larger-than-life scale and more aggressive brand of harmony of Wagner. A crepuscular tenderness enswathes Il tramanto and seems a faithful realization of its affective essence: chamber music instead of opera, poetry instead of dramatic libretto.
READ FULL TEXT
Rorem: Ariel for soprano, clarinet and piano
The slashing dissonances that paint the opening “Axes” cue a general affective zone that Rorem will return to in all three of the cycle’s odd-numbered songs, a volatile sound-world of angular melodic writing, dissonant clusters and rather schizophrenic clarinet lines. By contrast, the second and fourth songs, Poppies in July and Poppies in October, represent hallucinatory oases, daydreams of narcotic dullness told with chilling detachment between the violent episodes that surround them.
READ FULL TEXT
The slashing dissonances that paint the opening “Axes” cue a general affective zone that Rorem will return to in all three of the cycle’s odd-numbered songs, a volatile sound-world of angular melodic writing, dissonant clusters and rather schizophrenic clarinet lines. By contrast, the second and fourth songs, Poppies in July and Poppies in October, represent hallucinatory oases, daydreams of narcotic dullness told with chilling detachment between the violent episodes that surround them.
READ FULL TEXT
Schoenberg: Quartet No. 2 in F-sharp minor for String Quartet and Soprano
In many ways, the piece represents a delicate, unsustainable balance of opposing poles — at once forging ahead into the anxiety of modernism but with one foot in the tradition of old-world folk songs, Viennese waltzes and the like, all in the context of the storied musical capital of Vienna.
READ FULL TEXT
In many ways, the piece represents a delicate, unsustainable balance of opposing poles — at once forging ahead into the anxiety of modernism but with one foot in the tradition of old-world folk songs, Viennese waltzes and the like, all in the context of the storied musical capital of Vienna.
READ FULL TEXT
Schubert: Octet for Winds and Strings in F major, D. 803, Op. 166
Schubert’s landmark Octet for Winds and Strings in F major, D. 803, Op. 166 dates from 1824, the same year that produced the bleak “Rosamunde” and “Death and the Maiden” Quartets, and a miserable period of declining health and happiness for the composer. It is remarkable then, if counterintuitive, that Schubert left behind a work of such sustained verve and character in the midst of his own suffering.
READ FULL TEXT
Schubert’s landmark Octet for Winds and Strings in F major, D. 803, Op. 166 dates from 1824, the same year that produced the bleak “Rosamunde” and “Death and the Maiden” Quartets, and a miserable period of declining health and happiness for the composer. It is remarkable then, if counterintuitive, that Schubert left behind a work of such sustained verve and character in the midst of his own suffering.
READ FULL TEXT
Schubert: Quartettsatz in C minor, D. 703
The present movement deals in promises of hope, short-lived, dangling carrots that fool us into turning a blind eye to the dark, C minor clouds of Fate. The music opens practically themeless, a mess of uneasy, quivering sixteenth notes without preamble, seeming to have begun in the middle of things — as if our fate has already been predetermined.
READ FULL TEXT
The present movement deals in promises of hope, short-lived, dangling carrots that fool us into turning a blind eye to the dark, C minor clouds of Fate. The music opens practically themeless, a mess of uneasy, quivering sixteenth notes without preamble, seeming to have begun in the middle of things — as if our fate has already been predetermined.
READ FULL TEXT
Schubert: String Quartet No. 13 in A minor, D. 804, "Rosamunde"
The theme’s dactylic rhythmic profile seems a clear nod to the hypnotic dirge of the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. But whereas that funereal movement in Beethoven represents a solemn turn in the midst of an overall exuberant work, Schubert inverts that affective paradigm by tempering his second movement’s reprieve with the grief of the surrounding music.
READ FULL TEXT
The theme’s dactylic rhythmic profile seems a clear nod to the hypnotic dirge of the second movement of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. But whereas that funereal movement in Beethoven represents a solemn turn in the midst of an overall exuberant work, Schubert inverts that affective paradigm by tempering his second movement’s reprieve with the grief of the surrounding music.
READ FULL TEXT
Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D. 810, "Death and the Maiden"
Schubert’s String Quartet in D Minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden” takes its name from the ceaseless tolling of that same death knell from the earlier song, now droning inexorably throughout the second movement’s variations. This unrelenting sense of dread infects all four movements—all in the minor mode—from the alternately snarling and trembling Allegro, to the angular, disturbed Scherzo, to the panicked, galloping tarantella of the finale.
READ FULL TEXT
Schubert’s String Quartet in D Minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden” takes its name from the ceaseless tolling of that same death knell from the earlier song, now droning inexorably throughout the second movement’s variations. This unrelenting sense of dread infects all four movements—all in the minor mode—from the alternately snarling and trembling Allegro, to the angular, disturbed Scherzo, to the panicked, galloping tarantella of the finale.
READ FULL TEXT
Schumann, Clara: Scherzo No. 2 in C minor, Op. 14
While the C minor Scherzo exhibits the flash of her earlier concert programs, its middle section is imbued with a mature lyricism that rivals that of her Romantic admirers.
READ FULL TEXT
While the C minor Scherzo exhibits the flash of her earlier concert programs, its middle section is imbued with a mature lyricism that rivals that of her Romantic admirers.
READ FULL TEXT
Strauss: Four Last Songs
The four-song collection neatly frames Strauss’ lifelong relationship with the voice, beginning with the first song he wrote at age six, and ending in the elegiac farewell of the Four Last Songs.
READ FULL TEXT
The four-song collection neatly frames Strauss’ lifelong relationship with the voice, beginning with the first song he wrote at age six, and ending in the elegiac farewell of the Four Last Songs.
READ FULL TEXT
Stravinsky: The Firebird Suite (1919)
Stravinsky responded by concocting a hybrid between the folk influences and orchestration techniques he inherited from his Russian predecessors, and the piquant colors being explored by French modernists. To borrow an apt metaphor from the composer Constant Lambert, Stravinsky “applied the rejuvenating influence of Debussy’s impressionism to the by now somewhat faded Russian fairytale tradition in much the same way that one pours a glass of port into a Stilton.”
READ FULL TEXT
Stravinsky responded by concocting a hybrid between the folk influences and orchestration techniques he inherited from his Russian predecessors, and the piquant colors being explored by French modernists. To borrow an apt metaphor from the composer Constant Lambert, Stravinsky “applied the rejuvenating influence of Debussy’s impressionism to the by now somewhat faded Russian fairytale tradition in much the same way that one pours a glass of port into a Stilton.”
READ FULL TEXT
Stravinsky: Octet for Winds
As one of Stravinsky’s early forays into neoclassicism, the 1923 Octet sounds strikingly buttoned-up next to the primitivism of The Rite of Spring from the previous decade, but its angular melodic lines and hobbling pulse betray Stravinsky’s sardonic take on past forms.
READ FULL TEXT
As one of Stravinsky’s early forays into neoclassicism, the 1923 Octet sounds strikingly buttoned-up next to the primitivism of The Rite of Spring from the previous decade, but its angular melodic lines and hobbling pulse betray Stravinsky’s sardonic take on past forms.
READ FULL TEXT