Ravel: Piano Concerto in G major

Joseph-Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was a French composer and pianist, of Basque origins.

Always deemed a composer of the Impressionist era by traditional musicology, Ravel was much more than an impressionist. Actually, his style defies any attempt of classification. He remains, to this day, ungraspable. His music, at most, may be defined as 'hovering' between Impressionism and Modernism.

In his style, one notices tinges of the Romanticism of Beethoven and Wagner, XVIII century French classicism, the XIX aura of Fauré and Chabrier, Liszt, Chopin, Debussy, and American jazz, amongst other influences.

The features of Ravel's music include:
1) Innovation, without following the contemporary trend towards atonality as pioneered by Schönberg. In his case, it relied on the use of modal melodies instead of diatonic scales (major or minor) for their predominant harmonic language;
2) Extended harmonies and intricate modulations;
3) In his music, one shall be able to notice his predilection for nineth and eleventh chords and unresolved appoggiaturas, with the effect of provoking more tension;
4) As suggested by his famous Boléro, Ravel was very influenced by dances and movement. His favourite was the minuet. There were others, like the passacaglia, the waltz, the forlane, the czardas and the Cuban habanera.

Some of Ravel's piano works are found to be amongst the most complex in terms of technical difficulty, but always based on musically perfectly logical concepts. Not only are they technically perfect, but they also require from the performer the right expression.

In the following piece, notice how exquisitely Ravel juxtaposes the melodic lines over trills, instead of weaving it over a progression of chords. Also notice how the composer explores the full extension of the instrument, apart from the lovely tinge of American jazz.

A classical performance, by Mme. Martha Argerich and the Dutoit Orchestre National de France. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bq1ueeJucA8

César Franck: Symphonic Variations (Part I)

César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert-Frank (1822-1890) was a Belgian composer, pianist, organist and music teacher of the late Romantic Era.

Franck was a very influencial composer in Western music. He helped renew and reinvigorate chamber music and developed the use of cyclic form - later employed by Debussy and Ravel, although under different concepts of music.

In spite of being a composer of much importance and reputation, Franck's fame resides on a small number of compositions written in his later years, particularly his Symphony in D minor (1886-88), the Symphonic Variations for piano and orchestra (1885), the Prelude, Chorale and Fugue for piano solo (1884), the Sonata for Violin and Piano in A major (1886), the Piano Quintet in F minor (1879) and the symphonic poem Le Chasseur maudit (1883).

Franck's use of complex counterpoint - with a harmonic language typically late Romantic, with influences from Liszt and Wagner - , and his graceful modulations of key (often achieved through a pivot chord or through an inflection of a melodic phrase) arriving at harmonically remote keys (quite a unique modulatory style) are his most remarkable traits.

Notice, in the following video, the typically Romantic theme weaved by Franck, 'sung' by the piano as well as all sections in the orchestra. Observe, also, the composer's style of building modulations through elegant inflections of melodic phrases.

On piano, the legendary Nelson Freire. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFgc1hZxPXs&feature=related

Erik Satie: Gnossiènne 2

Today we shall revisit a composer who has not received even a fraction of the attention that his other classical contemporaneous composers have been assured of: Erik Satie. Some atribute this fact that to the composer's very personal style and his lack of allegiance to any aesthetic. Therefore, being born in the era of the Impressionists, he is not strictly deemed an Impressionist.

Éric Alfred Leslie Satie (1866-1925; signed his name Erik Satie after 1884), born in Normandy, France, was also a pianist. Considered by many 'the father of ragtime', Satie was an important composer who influenced both Debussy and Ravel, and was the exponent of a number of twentieth-century trends such as minimalism, repetitive music and Theatre of Absurd.

Some have viewed certain of his stylistic traits as components of Impressionism, but his harmonies and melodies have relatively very little in common with the characteristics of that school. A revolutionary, ahead of his own time, he contended against the fact that a composer should spend so much time writing long pieces and depriving themselves of their contact with the public - so his pieces were usually short, and direct. His melodies were often melancholy, and his moods exotic, a dry wit being always the hallmark of his style.

In the 1890's, his works were very academic; in this period, he composed the first pieces in a compositional system of his own making:  (Fête donnée par des Chevaliers Normands en l'honneur d'une jeune demoiselle), provided incidental music to a chivalric esoteric play (two Prélude du Nazaréen), had his first hoax published (announcing the première of Le bâtard de Tristan, an anti-Wagnerian opera he probably never composed), and launched his Uspud project, a ballet in collaboration with Contamine de Latour.

Satie's Vexations, likewise, were produced in those years. We shall return to the Vexations later.

The early 20th century witnessed the return of the composer to his musical studies; in 1905, Satie enrolled in Vincent d'Indy's Schola Cantorum de Paris to study classical counterpoint. With the new century also came Satie's height of success, more evidently after 1910, when his new humourous, sarcastic miniatures for piano, with odd titles - such as 'Dried up Embryos' and 'Three Real Flabby Preludes (For a Dog)' were premièred. Those were the pieces which very much attracted the attention of the avant-garde parisiènne youth who attended the famous Chat Noir, where Cocteau, Picasso and other cubists (not to mention the dadaists) gathered.

An eccentric, Eric Satie made strange remarks in his piano scores, meant for the performers. Such odd instructions included, for example, the one in Vexations, which carries in its score the following admonition: 'To play this motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities'....

Notice Satie's use of innovative new scales, bitony and diminished triads in Gnossiènne 2. Also observe the simplistic, direct style of his approach.

'Avec étonnement!', he instructs... Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VKkACPvpNA

Marlos Nobre: 4 Momentos for Piano

Marlos Nobre (1939- ). Internationally acclaimed Brazilian composer, pianist and conductor, and certainly the most important among our contemporary composers.

Contemporary classical music is characterized by many 'isms'; in following posts, we shall look into expressionist and neoclassicist contemporary composers. Nobre, influenced by composers such as Aaron Copland (USA, 1900-1990), is deemed a nationalist contemporary composer.

Nationalism had been a feature of the music of the Romantic Era, and continued to be a strong musical influence in the first half of last century. In contemporary music, it has been enriched by the study of folk songs.

Nobre got his diploma cum laude in Harmony and Counterpoint in 1959, and studied with composers Camargo Guarnieri in Brazil and Aaron Copland in the U.S. Nobre is considered a genious, all over the world.

Here are a few snatches of press reviews about him that most moved me: "Marlos Nobre travaille le son en sculpteur, par larges plans, dessinant des arêtes vives, opposant des masses compactes; la matière s´étire et se contracte, la couleur est franche ou sombre, rarement en demi-teinte; pas de traquenard, on sait où l´on va, même dans les chemins secrets de l´aléatoire" (André Schaeffer, Revue Scherzo, Paris, December 1971); "Nobre´s music is a remarkable fusion of a variety of styles. The result is surprisingly individual and distinctive: heady, evocative, sensual at times, yet always controlled within a finely imaginative and experienced framework by a fastidious creative mind".(Robert Matthew-Walker, Music and Musicians International, London, April 1988).

For more information on Nobre and his works, see http://marlosnobre.sites.uol.com.br/index1_i.html

Notice the nationalist tone and exuberance of Nobre's 4 Momentos for Piano. Performed by the composer himself. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwIV43DXtzM

Bach's Aria, from the Goldberg Variations BWV 988

Let us analyse Bach's Aria, from the Goldberg Variations BWV 988.

Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March 1685 – 28 July 1750),  Baroque era German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist is considered by many musicologists as the 'father of counterpoint' (a very typical feature of Baroque music, meaning the relationship between voices that are harmonically interdependent - i.e. polyphony - but independent in rhythm and contour).

His contribution to the music of the period also resides in his use of harmonic and motivic organisation, and adaptation of rhythms, forms and textures from other countries (particularly from France and Italy)

Bach is remembered for his Branderburg Concertos, the Mass in B minor, The Well-Tempered Clavier and his partitas, passions, chorales, cantatas and works for organ ; his music is revered for its technical complexity and its beauty, and he is not only regarded as one of the main composers of the Baroque period, but also as one of the great composers of all time.

It is a feature of the Baroque era the composers' construction of a general framework which interpreters were supposed to embellish with ornaments of their own elaboration. Unlike most composers of his time, though, Bach notated most or all of the details of his melodic lines, leaving little freedom for the interference of performers. In this resides his control over the dense contrapunctual textures that he favoured, and decreased leeway for spontaneous variation of melodic lines.

Notice, in the Aria from the Goldberg Variations, the very fine weaving of a contrapuntual texture between  two harmonic lines, and the beautiful, precise embellishments created by the composer. Also observe the very logical harmonic organisation.

The following is a classical performance, by great pianist and specialist in Bach for piano, Glenn Gould. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lR2rlq-ALw

Beethoven's Piano Sonata Op.57 No. 23 in F minor (Appassionata)

Ludwig van Beethoven's Piano Sonata Op.57  No. 23 in F minor  (Appassionata) is classified as a piece belonging to his middle, Romantic period.

Composed during 1804 and 1805, and perhaps 1806, the Appassionata was considered by the composer himself to be his most tempestuous sonata until the Hammerklavier. A piece of breathtaking beauty, it is an intense display of music and emotion.

The Op. 57 No.23 is divided in three movements: Allegro assai, Andante con moto and Allegro ma non troppo.

1st mvtm:

This first movement is very dramatic and passionate. This effect is achieved by the use of sudden changes in tone and dynamics - very much the composer's style. The rhythm of its main theme is inspired by the Scottish folk song On the Banks of Allen Water (Beethoven, like Haydn, wrote many arrangements for British publishers).

Here, the coda (passage that brings a piece or a movement to a conclusion; technically, it is an expanded cadence, ocurring at the end of a composition and bringing it to a convincing conclusion) is unusually long, comprising quasi-improvisional arpeggios. Beethoven's choice of the F minor key for the achievement of a dramatical effect becomes logical when one notices the use of the deep, dark tone of the lowest F on the piano, which was the lowest note available to Beethoven at the time.

2nd mvmt:

This movement, in contrast, is a rather quiet, tranquil one. It consists of  a set of four variations in D flat major, on a theme remarkable for its almost crude simplicity.

3rd mvmt:

The final movement has much in common with the first movement, such as several written-out cadenzas (an improvised or written-out ornamental passage played or sung by a soloist, usually in a free rhythmic style, and often allowing for virtuosic display; it is usually placed over a final or next-to-last note in a piece or important cadence, and the accompaniment rests or sustains a note or chord). The movement climaxes with a faster coda introducing a new theme, which in turn leads into an extended final cadence in F minor.

Enjoy a classical interpretation by legendary pianist Claudio Arrau.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tdg-DT8rTUQ

Federico Mompou, 'Jeunes Filles au Jardin', from 'Scenes d'Enfants'

Notice the minimalism and occasional atonalism in this charming, enchanting piece by Mompou.

Federico Mompou, Catalan composer and pianist born in Barcelona in 1893 (passed away in 1987), from a French mother was very influenced by the French impressionism of Debussy and Satie. Mompou was a modest, quietly spoken, and thoughtful person, and this is reflected in his music.

He wrote no operas, concertos or symphonies, and some choral works are as close as he got to producing large-scale works. He was predominantly a composer of lyric songs and piano miniatures. The music is imbued with the colours, sounds and images of his beloved Catalonia, the style ranging from elegantly impressionistic to simplistic and minimal. Here we see the influence of Satie in Mompou's usage of the utmost economy of means, doing away with key signatures and bar lines.

As a young man, Mompou worked briefly in a bell factory, and the sound of bells can be heard throughout his works. For Mompou, less is more, and one needs a finely attuned ear and a responsive state of mind to properly appreciate his music.

In the following video, outstanding Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire performs 'Jeunes Filles au Jardin' live at the Vienna Konzerthaus' in 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0kP8DSlkXs&feature=related

Chopin's Mazurka Op. 17 no. 4 in A minor

Let us listen attentively today to Romantic Era composer Frédéric Chopin's Mazurka Op. 17 no. 4.

Romanticism is very noticeable here in the way Chopin weaves his ornamentations inbetween the beautiful chromaticisms (the use of raised or lowered notes instead of the normal degrees of the scale; chromaticism often serves to heighten the emotional tension of music).

The increased use of dissonance (tones sounding simoutaneously are said to be dissonant if they produce an 'unpleasant' effect; among other intervals, seconds and sevenths are dissonant) and extended use of chromaticism were important features of the Romantic Era.

Another feature of the era is the composers' will to explore the full potential of classical instruments, adding colour to their works. Interpreters are given more freedom to leave their personal imprint in their performances.

Enjoy the Op. 17 no. 4 in a classical performance, by Horowitz.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmLvpJySb50

Rachmaninoff: Suite pour Deux Pianos Op. 1 No.5

Rachmaninoff's Suite pour Deux Pianos Op.1 no.5 is most certainly a unique piece - peculiar, to say the least. Very 'Rachmaninoff-like'.

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff ( April   1873 – 28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. In Music History, he is classified as a representative of Romanticism in Russian classical music -though his music is of near-Impressionist style.  Early influences of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and other Russian composers led him to a thoroughly personal idiom that comprised an acute lyricism and the use of a tonal palette of rich colours. Piano music is prominant in Rachmaninoff's work.

Rachmaninoff had full command of counterpoint technique, especially of chromatic counterpoint, and this is very noticeable in this beautiful piece for two pianos. Also noticeable are its sumptuous harmonies - another feature of the composer's works.

The Op. 1 no.5  is a very intriguing piece. Enchanting. Unexpected crescendos and decrescendos create a mysterious atmosphere.

Performed by D'Oria-Nicolas and Kobrin.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am2QdQstw-Q

Celebrating 150 years of Debussy among us: video

And this is an interpretation of one of Debussy's most famous pieces, Clair de Lune, from the Suite Bergamasque.

Notice how clear Impressionist era's characteristics are made in this piece. The title, to begin with,  evokes an image and directs the sensitivity of the listener not only to sounds, but also to images - a remarkable characteristic of the Impressionist movement in other arts.

Observe the avoidance of a traditional musical form in Debussy, especially in harmonic terms. Notice the occasional existance of atonalities.

Right after the very beggining of the piece, when it starts building up tension, notice the appearance of a surface ornamentation that actually does not come in the form of ornaments in itself, but obscures and substitutes for the main melody.

Finally, I make a last observation directed to the unprepared modulation - i.e., a change of tone without any harmonic bridge - also a characteristic of Impressionist composers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdc0WfQYrbs

Celebrating 150 years of Debussy among us

Since last month, we have been celebrating 150 years of the birth of impressionist composer Claude Debussy.

Claude-Achilli Debussy (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions. A crucial figure in the transition to the modern era in Western music, he remains one of the most famous and influential of all composers.

His music is noted for its sensory component and for not often forming around one key or pitch. Often Debussy's work reflected the activities or turbulence in his own life. In French literary circles, the style of this period was known as symbolism, a movement that directly inspired Debussy both as a composer and as an active cultural participant.