Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich ( 1906 - 1975) was a modernist Russian composer and pianist , and perhaps the most notable symphonicist of 20th century music. Despite being broadly deemed a Neoclassical composer, Shostakovich had a style of his own, which incorporated influences of other schools.
Both life and works of Shostakovich are subject to much controversy – be it on specialized scholars’ critique or reviews and criticism by composers and conductors. Shostakovich’s intriguing psyche is almost as hard to decypher as his symphonies, chamber music and piano works.
According to Haas, Shostakovich was “the greatest of eclectics”[1] .His works combine extremes such as conservatory, tonal Romantic academicism on the one hand , and on the other hand avant-garde, experimental progressivism – translated in the use of brash harmonies; chromaticisms; atonalism; tone rows[2]; and quotations[3] and motifs[4] (after Alban Berg’s fashion, and which added a bleak, gloomy tinge to them). In addition, he drew extensively on folk tunes and popular themes.
Shostakovich's works are also renowned for their acid irony and sarcasm, and elements of grotesque. They comprise a series of fifteen symphonies and fifteen string quartets, two string octets, cello and violin concerti, three operas, several song cycles, ballets, as well as film scores. His pianistic works are, most importantly, two solo sonatas, two piano trios, a piano quintet , an early set of preludes, a later set of 24 preludes and fugues, and two piano concerti .
The composer’s biography and music were deeply affected by the “Great Terror” of Stalin’s tenure – which overtly imposed constraints on his symphonies and operas. Many of those works were censored and banned from being performed from 1936 (year of Stalin’s ascention to power and of Shostakovich’s first accusation, precisely due to his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District ) to 1953 (as of Stalin’s death), and from 1960 until his own death, in 1975.
Shostakovich started his piano studies with his mother, at the age of nine. His first composition – a funeral march in honour of two leaders of the Kadet party murdered by Bolchevik militants - dates from when the composer was twelve.
At the age of thirteen, he entered the Petrograd Conservatory. There, he studied piano with Elena Rozanova and Leonid Nikolayev, composition with Maximilian Steinberg , counterpoint with Nikolay Sokolov and classical music history with Alexander Ossovsky. In those years at the Conservatory, Shostakovich started to reveal the major influences on his early works – Stravinsky and Prokofiev. He wrote his First Symphony in 1926 - at the age of nineteen - as a graduation piece. The work was an immediate success – premiering in Berlin in that same year, a U.S. premiere in Philadelphia followed.
The year of 1927 brought his Second Symphony – parallel with the composition of the composer’s first opera, a satirical piece named The Nose – to which the Third Symphony followed. Due to the experimental nature of those two symphonies , they were not much acclaimed by the Soviet critics.
In that same year, Shostakovich was introduced to the works of Mahler. The Fourth Symphony, with its late Romantic hues, came as a consequence of the latter’s influence over the composer. This influence would endure for all his works thereafter.
The year 1936 was marked by the ascension of Stalin to power and the beginning of the “Great Terror” and strict censorship on the outputs of Soviet artists. In Shostakovich’s case, the piece which triggered governmental attacks on him – coming in the form of an article published in Pravda[5] - was the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District , premiered in 1934. The article called the piece “muddle instead of music,” condemning it for being “formalist” and for going against the dictates of the new political rule - which prescribed a paradigm for what Russian music should sound like. The Pravda article also included a threat against his life ("this is playing with nonsensical things, which could end very badly."). From that day on, Shostakovich’s life would be marked by the fear of arrest and execution.
This had the effect of causing a turning point in the composer’s creative process and compositional method. The time of the accusation coincided with the period in which Shostakovich was writing the Fourth Symphony. All the terror, intimidation and threats on Shostakovich coming from the government forces ended up causing him to work harder on the piece, so as to conceal or camouflage the messages he wished to convey to his audience – which would become from then on subliminal ones. The avant-garde characteristics would remain, yet protected and dissimutated by a late Romantic façade – which was woven in conformance with the Russian nationalist tradition.
Even having its idiom reformed, Shostakovich made the decision of withdrawing the Fourth Symphony, for reasons that remain obscure – thus keeping it from premiering until 1961, well after Stalin’s death.
Meantime between this last piece and the Fifth Symphony, Shostakovich decided to compose film music – a “safer” genre – so as to keep a low profile and stand clear of governmental attention.
After finally premiering in 1937, the Fifth turned out to be a huge success, being acclaimed by critics and government alike, as well as those who had accused him of “formalism”. It would then be said that the composer eventually” learned” by his past “mistakes”.
He would then direct his hidden “subversion” to chamber music – a less public genre, in which he could express his ideas more freely and return to experimentalism. That was the time in which the composer wrote his first string quartet.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Shostakovich gave his contribution to Russia by premiering the Seventh Symphony – which was officially a patriotic piece in honour of the people of Leningrad, who had bravely resisted German invasion.
By the time the Eighth Symphony came out, a triumphant Red Army expected a new and bright, optimistic piece. Instead, Shostakovich presented perhaps his most sombre and violent work, overtly suggesting tragedy. Criticism inevitably followed, and the piece was interpreted as representative of the composer’s “fascist” inclinations. However unofficial, a ban was imposed until 1956.
In 1945, as Stalin was expecting a celebratory hymn of victory, Shostakovich produced an ironic Nineth Symphony – which was understood as a mockery of Soviet Union’s victory.
The year 1948 brought the second accusation – the so-called “Zhdanov Affair” – after the condemnatory “Zhdanov decree”. Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Khachaturian (among others) were thereby denounced for “formalist perversion”[6]and accused of writing inappropriate music . The decree was part of a government purge aimed at rooting out any musical influences from the West or openly anti-Russian ones. The decree that followed was an admonition meant for all Russian composers, who should then on compose “proletarian music”.
The punishment received by the “formalists” was a harsh one. As a result, Shostakovich was one of the composers who had to apologize for his works in public. Moreover, the bulk of his works were banned, he and his family had their rights withdrawn, he was dismissed from the Conservatory and nearly lost all his money.
Consequently, the works of the following years would be divided in three different kinds, aimed at different purposes. He would write film scores to pay the rent and to appease the government, “official” pieces for his “rehabilitation”, and finally those regarded “serious works” – the Violin Concerto No. 1 among them.
From 1949 to 1953, official pressure on the composer was eased. However , this also had a price; he was put through a set of humiliating situations – such as delivering a prepared speech as a representative of the Russian artistic class at a New York press conference in 1949. Later, publicly asked by Nabokov if he agreed with the RSFSR denunciation of Stravinsky - whose works had always cast a great influence on him and for whom he nurtured a profound admiration – Shostakovich had no choice but to answer in the affirmative (he never forgave Nabokov for the episode). Another ordeal the composer had to go through was having to comply with Stalin’s demand of a composition in which the government’s leader was depicted as “a great gardner”. Shostakovich then produced a cantata entitled Song of the Forest.
Shostakovich’s path back to being a creative artist started in 1953 – year of Stalin’s death ; its landmark was the composition of the Tenth Symphony, characterized by the use of music quotations and codes – the so-called “DSCH motif”[7] being the most important of them, and whose meaning remains a subject of debate amongst scholars. This year was also marked by the premiere of the afore-mentioned “serious works” – the Festive Overture Op. 96 , the Violin Concerto No.1 and the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry.
The year 1960 brought another turning point in Shostakovich’s career. Those were the times of Nikita Krushev tenure, and the government wanted to appoint the composer as General Secretary of the Composer’s Union. A condition was, however, imposed – Shostakovich would have to join the Communist Party. And so he did.
This attitude was condemned by many as an act of commitment to the political status quo and of utter cowardice. Under the personal crisis this caused –leading the composer to feel suicidal – he finally wrote the Twelveth Symphony – which portrayed the Bolshevik revolution and was dedicated to Lenin.
As an expression of his state of mind on those days, he wrote the Eighth String Quartet - subtitled "To the victims of fascism and war"[8], overtly in memory of the Dresden fire bombing of 1945. In the same manner of the Tenth Symphony, the quartet features quotations of several of his past works, apart from his “signature”, so to speak - the musical monogram DSCH.
That year also witnessed the composer's return to the theme of anti-semitism, whose outcome was the Thirteenth Symphony – subtitled Babi Yar.
The later works were marked by a concern with Shostakovich’s own mortality , as a result of his fragile health condition - including a polio diagnose and a few heart attacks. Instances of these were his last quartets, the Fourteenth and the Fifteenth Symphony.
Shostakovich died of lung cancer on August 9 1975.
Since his death, many attempts have been made to semantically unravel the composer’s ‘Aesopian’ language - which became an inalienable part of his musical language.
Musicologist David Fanning, on the esprit of Shostakovich’s music, contends: "Amid the conflicting pressures of official requirements, the mass suffering of his fellow countrymen, and his personal ideals of humanitarian and public service, he succeeded in forging a musical language of colossal emotional power." [9]
The piece that follows is the Piano Sonata Op. 61 no.2, in B minor (mvmt 1 and 2 of 3) – acknowledged by many as the composer most significant work for piano. Notice the presence of the DSCH motif hidden under the rethoric and forms of Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky and Mahler.
Performed by Valentina Lisitsa.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2NYLQnjSCI
______________________________________________________________________________
[1] David Haas. "Shostakovich's Eighth: C minor Symphony against the
Grain", in BARTLETT, Rosamund. Shostakovich in Context . Oxford and New
York, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 125.
[2] A tone row is a
non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch classes (each pitch class is a
set consisting of a certain note reproduced in a number of higher and
lower octaves; these notes, in a tone row, may be any of the twelve
notes of a chromatic scale).
[3] A quotation is the practice
of alluding either to a work by the same composer (self-referential) or
to a piece by another composer (appropriation).
[4] A motif
is a musical idea, the smallest unity carrying a thematic identity. A
motif stands out from the rest of a composition, generally easily
noticed.
[5] Pravda was a Russian political paper linked to the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
[6] Dmitri Shostakovich, “Biography”, in allmusic.com http://www.allmusic.com/artist/dmitry-shostakovich-mn0001517893
[7]
The “DSCH motif” is a musical cryptogram by which Shostakovich
indicated his presence. It consists of the notes D, E flat, C, B natural
(D, Es, C, H in German notation). Therefore, it stood for the
composer’s initials in German: D.Sch.
[8] BLOKKER, Roy and DEARLING, Robert. Shostakovich: The Symphonies, p.37. Tantivy Press, 1979.
[9]
"Dmitri Shostakovich". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians.Ed. Stanley Sadie . London, Macmillan Publishers, 2001, p.
280.
References
1. Books
Roy BLOKKER, Roy and DEARLING, Robert. Shostakovich: The Symphonies. Tantivy Press, 1979.
WILSON, Elizabeth. Shostakovich: A Life Remembered. Princeton University Press, 1994.
2. Articles and entries
David Haas. "Shostakovich's Eighth:C minor Symphony against the Grain", in BARTLETT, Rosamund. Shostakovich in Context . Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 125.
Fanning, David and Fay, Laurel. "Dmitri Shostakovich". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Ed. Stanley Sadie. London, Macmillan Publishers, 2001.
3. Websites
allmusic.com. “ Dmitri Shostakovich: Biography”,http://www.allmusic.com/artist/dmitry-shostakovich-mn0001517893
New World Enciclopedia, “Dmitri Shostakovich” http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Dmitri_Shostakovich
Russia Beyond the Headlines, “Paying Tribute to Shostakovich”. http://rbth.ru/articles/2012/10/20/paying_tribute_to_shostakovich_19291.html
Saturday, 26 January 2013
Monday, 7 January 2013
Henrique Oswald - Piano Concerto Opus 10 (1/2)
Henrique Oswald (1852-1931) was a Romantic Brazilian composer and one of the most influencial in the second half of the XIX century and early XX century. In spite of having composed mainly for the piano, he is renowned for his large contribution to the country’s chamber music – which consisted of a number of trios, quartets and quintets. He also wrote for other genres – namely symphonic music, songs for voice and piano, solo pieces for violin and violoncello, operas and a large production of church music.
Oswald started his piano studies with his mother, a piano teacher. By the age of seven, he had already performed in public with much success, and this led him to continue his studies with French piano teacher Gabriel Giraldon.
In 1868 Oswald moved to Italy. Settling in Florence, he studied counterpoint, harmony, composition and piano at the Moriani Institute, taking lessons with Maglioni, Grazini, Henry Ketten and Giuseppe Buonamici. There, he absorbed to a great extent the influence of the Romantic tradition of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Brahms.
In 1902, the composer enrolled in the Composition Competition promoted by Le Figaro, which took place in Paris. Enrolling under the humorous nom de plume "Figaro, qui, Figaro llà, Figaro giù, Figaro su" and enchanting a jury that included Saint-Saëns, Fauré and Diémer, his piano composition Il neige won over 600 competitors. The jury, taking the mysterious composer for a Frenchman – and figuring he could be either Ducasse, or Ravel, or even Debussy – was surprised to learn the winner was a Brazilian.
Back in Brazil in May 1903, Oswald was appointed Director of the National Music Institute ( Instituto Nacional de Música) in Rio de Janeiro. Later, he started his teaching activities, having Luciano Gallet, Fructuoso Vianna and Lorenzo Fernandez among his pupils.
In 1909, he performed his Concert for Piano and Orchestra, conducted by Alberto Nepomuceno. In this period, he writes his Symphony Op.43, and was invited to assume a position as Chair Professor at the National Institute.
Throughout his life, the compositor met a large number of famous musicians and composers, establishing close friendship with many among them. Those included Rebikoff, Gabriel Fauré, Louis Diémer, Gabriel Pierné, Izidor Philipp, Maurice Dusmenil and Moritz Moskowsky. In Brazil, apart from his friendship with contemporaries Alberto Nepomuceno, Barroso Netto, Glauco Velasquez, the young Villa-Lobos, Alexandry Levy and Leopoldo Miguez, he became a close friend of Francisco Braga. He also met pianists Brailowski and Artur Rubinstein – who called him ‘the Brazilian Fauré’.
With the 1920’s came his recognition and triumpth. In 1920, Oswald was awarded the Médaille du Roi Albert (avec ruban striié d'une rayure) by the Belgian government. It was also during the twenties that he commited mainly to teaching. Abstaining from getting involved with modernist trends, he nonetheless encouraged his pupils to search for new alternatives.
After learning of his son Alfredo’s choice to become a priest, the composer wrote many masses and religious chants. As of his 79th birthday, he was awarded the title of Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the French ambassador in Brazil.
Oswald died in 1931 in Rio de Janeiro, from natural causes.
A large number of the compositor’s piano pieces remain unpublished. The original manuscripts may be found at the Music Department at the University of Sao Paulo (Universidade de São Paulo – USP), at the National Archives in Rio de Janeiro and at the National Library in Rio de Janeiro (Biblioteca Nacional do Rio de Janeiro).
In Henrique Oswald - Piano Concerto Opus 10 (1 mvmt) notice the typical traits of Romanticism in the use of the full extension of instruments and exploration of its possibilities, apart from the harmonic colour palette, and the deep expression of emotion and drama. Also observe the clear influence of great European Romantic composers, especially Tchaikovsky.
Performed by renowned specialist in Oswald, pianist José Eduardo Martins, and the Rubio Quartet.
Enjoy!
References:
1. Books:
GROUT, Donald. A History of Western Music, W.W.Norton, New York 1980;
ULRICH, Homer. Symphonic Music, Columbia Press , 1952.
2. Websites:
Henrique Oswald.
http://www.oswald.com.br/site2010/index.htm
Henrique Oswald.Bio, albums, pictures
http://www.naxos.com/person/Henrique_Oswald/22822.htm
Henrique Oswald (1988). Brasil Memória das Artes.
http://www.funarte.gov.br/brasilmemoriadasartes/acervo/discos-pro-memus/henrique-oswald-1988/
Henrique Oswald. Musica Brasilis.
http://www.musicabrasilis.org.br/node/86
Thursday, 27 December 2012
Granados: Quejas, o la maja y el ruiseñor/The Maiden and the Nightingale (from the piano suite Goyescas)
Enric Granados Campiña (Lérida, 1867- English Channel 1916) was a late nineteenth century and early twentieth century Catalan Spanish composer, piano virtuoso and acknowledged piano teacher. A contemporary of composers Albéniz, Malats and Saint-Saëns and cello virtuoso Pablo Casals - and born about ten years earlier than De Falla – opinion is divided between deeming him as a late-Romantic or a neo-Romantic composer, once he was the creator of a very personal Romantic style. One way or another, Granados - considered by Aaron Clark the ‘poet of the piano’[1] - is renowned as an expoent of Spanish nationalism – along with Albéniz and De Falla.
Having spent his first years in Lérida, Granados moved to Barcelona in 1874, where he enrolled in piano classes with Francesc Xavier Jurnet at the Escolonía de La Mercé and in composition classes with Pedrell, soon becoming a prodigy. Later, he would take classes with Joan Baptista Pujol - who had studied with Mallorcan pianist Pere Tintorer (former student of Lizst) and was considered the greatest piano instructor in Barcelona – at the Pujol Academy. The Academy was renowned as the forge of Catalan pianists, where Albéniz and Malats (teacher of Mompou) were also students.
In 1887 Granados moved to Paris, and during two very influencial years he took classes with famous Parisian pianist and teacher Charles de Bériot. Those were years of direct contact with the main French composers of the time – Ravel, Debussy, Fauré, d’Indy and Dukas – and in which the composer established a close relationship with Camille Saint-Saëns.
Back in Barcelona in 1890, Granados would spend the next ten years focused on building a solid career as pianist and composer. During this period he formed a very successful trio with the young Casals and famous Belgian violinist Crickboom. In 1898 he produced his first opera, Maria del Carmen – which was very well received. Two more operas were composed in the following five years. It was also during those years that Granados wrote the Serenade for Two Violins, the Trio for Violin, Cello and Piano, the Carta D’Amor (dedicated to his wife Empar), the suite Poetic Waltzes (which he dedicated to Malats) and maybe his most famous work for piano, the suite Goyescas (inspired by the paintings of Goya). In the face of Goyescas’s universal success, Granados’ friend Ernest Schelling suggested he should compose an operatic version of the work – which he would complete only in 1913.
In 1900 Granados founded the Society of Classical Concerts (Sociedad de Conciertos Clásicos) which soon gave him confidence to establish his own piano school (the Granados Academy, or Academia Granados), to which he would dedicate substantial part of his time until his death. With the Academy, Granados became renowned – together with Albéniz – as the founder of the Catalan school of piano. After 1916 the Academy would be headed by the composer’s son Eduard, followed by Granados’ pupil Franck Marshall (when it became known as the Marshall Academy).
In 1914 the outbreak of the First World War (1914-1918) hampered the plans for the Parisian première of the Goyescas. A deal was closed, then, with the Metropolitan Opera House in New York, for the opera to première in 1916. On Granados’ journey back to Europe in 1916, the vessel in which he and Empar travelled – the Sussex – was torpedoed by a German U-boat crossing the English channel.
The composer is best remembered for his expressive solo piano works. His main pieces for piano include the 12 danzas españolas (1890), the Escenas románticas (1903), the Goyescas suíte (1911), the Valses Poéticos and the 6 Estudios expresivos.
As seen above, not only did Granados write for piano solo but he also composed chamber music, an orchestral tone poem based on Dante’s Divine Comedy and songs for piano and voice – apart from his operistic works, which were an important contribution to the Spanish zarzuela[2].
Granados compositional style finds its centre on the Romantic influence of Chopin, Schumann, Lizst and Schubert. On a typically Romantic structure, Granados then grafted a Spanish folk idiom.
In Quejas, o la maja y el ruiseñor (from the Goyescas) notice the hues of the Romantic era and the sentimental character of the piece – made more intense by the Spanish folk music tinge.
To perform Granados, no one better than Alicia de Larrocha – an authority in the composer, having herself been a student at the Marshall Academy.
Enjoy!
References:
1.Books:
Enrique Granados, in The New Grove
Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie. 20 vol. London,
Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1980.
2.Websites:
Enrique Granados – Albums, Pictures – Naxos Classical Music http://www.naxos.com/person/Enrique_Granados/26077.htm
Enrique
Granados: Music Biography, Credits and Discography: AllMusic http://www.allmusic.com/artist/enriqu%C3%A9-granados-mn0000189898
Gaudi
and Art Nouveau in Catalonia
Monday, 17 December 2012
Esther Scliar: Piano Sonata - I Movement
Esther
Scliar (1926-1978) was a modernist Brazilian pianist, composer and
conductor . She was born in the southern state of Porto Alegre. Her early years
were spent in Uruguay, but due to her mother’s being deported from the
country for political reasons, the Scliars moved back to Brazil, in 1931. In
the same year, her mother deserts the family – a loss from which the then
five-year-old Esther would never recover, and which partially accounts for her
melancholy mood throughout her life. She and her sister were then given
to their uncle to raise them. This was during a period of political upheaval in
Brazil – i.e. under the dictatorial phase (1937-1945) of President
Getúlio Vargas tenure (1930-1945). The new household nurtured a very musical
environment, and there Esther prematurely let show her musical traits. She
started her piano classes in 1934, with Eva Kotlhar. In 1945, she graduated
from the Institute of Fine Arts of Porto Alegre (Instituto de Belas Artes de
Porto Alegre).
After graduating, Scliar taught
piano and started studying composition. Later, she studied harmonics,
counterpoint and composition in Rio de Janeiro with H.J. Koellreuter and in
Venice with H.Scherchen. In her trip to Italy, she meets a group of young
Brazilian composers comprised by Eunice Katunda, Geny Marcondes and Sonia
Born. There, she starts conducting. In Milan, she attends a course in
Dodecaphonic Composition[1].She
also attended the Congress on Dodecaphonic Music in Switzerland.
Back in
Brazil in 1949, she worked as a pianist and started a career as musical theory,
harmony and composition teacher at the Villa-Lobos Instutute (Instituto
Villa-Lobos). In 1950, she enters a state of emotional fragility and attempts
suicide for the first time.
Throughout
her career as composer, Scliar writes music for choir, voice and piano, piano
pieces, movie and theatre soundtracks, music on the works of many poets and
some chamber music (including the Movimento de Quarteto for
string quartet and the Imbricata for flute, oboe and piano). In 1978 she
prematurely dies, committing suicide at the age of 51.
In the
Piano Sonata (1977) - I Movement, notice the influence of dodecaphonic
serialism and Brazilian themes.
Performed
by Fanni Lowenkron. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpE7L8TdrLM
References:
1.Articles:
HOLANDA,
Joana Cunha de Holanda and GERLING, Cristina Capparelli. 'Eunice Katunda e
Esther Scliar no contexto do Modernismo Musical Brasileiro'. Revista UFG,
vol.6 no.2. Goiânia, Editora Universidade Federal de Goiás, 2006.
2. Websites: Esther Scliar - Madrigal Nova Harmonia (http://www.madrigalnovaharmonia.com.br)
[1] Dodecaphony (or twelve-tone
technique, or twelve-tone serialism) is a compositional technique devised by
composer Arnold Schoenberg. It is deemed as a type of serialism (see post of
October 21, 2012) derived from integral serialism. In this method, all 12 notes
of the chromatic scale are sounded as often as one another in a single work,
through the use of tone rows (ordering of the 12 pitches). Therefore, the
pieces are composed in a way that prevents them from being in a certain key.
Dodecaphonism was an influencial trend followed by numerous composers in the XX
century.
Sunday, 2 December 2012
Moszkowski: Étude Op.72 no.6 in F major
Moritz Moszkowski (1854-1925) was a Prussian-Jewish (was born in Breslau, Prussia - what is now Wroclaw, Poland) composer, pianist and devoted piano professor of the Romantic Era. He studied with great piano teacher Theodor Kullak, and received education in composition from Friedrich Kiel. Later, Moszkovski would become professor at the Neue Akademie der Tonkunst, founded by Kullak. He composed a piano quintet at the age of thirteen, and at nineteen played his début concert.
Moszkowski is best known for his piano works (he composed over two hundred piano pieces), but also composed large-scale works such as the Piano Concerto in E major, Op.59, three orchestral suites (Opp.39, 47 and 79), a symphonic poem (Jeanne d’Arc, Op.19) and an opera (Boabdil der letze Maurenkönig, Op.49).
He was quite prolific as far as his piano works are concerned. Among his main piano compositions are the world famous Serenade (Op. 15a Serenata, for piano duet - after Op. 15/1) , his set of Spanische Tänze (Spanish Dances) Op.12 [5] for piano duet, and the Études de Virtuosité Op.72 (comprising 15 studies), a rather showy collection of pieces written for virtuoso pianists. Other well known piano pieces are the brilliant Étincelles (Sparks).
Moszkowski’s compositional style finds its roots in the early Romanticism of Chopin, Mendelssohn and Schumann. His melodic shapes have gradually evolved into more imaginative, clearly-defined, striking and beautiful melodies. In his best piano works, his harmonic motion is controlled so as to place ‘harmonic surprises’ at melodic crisis spots – reason why his music is many times deemed ‘piquant’. He composed in a way that exploited the full possibilities of the piano keyboard – which suggests he was an outstanding improvisor.
His studies are not only designed to address especific technical problems; they are also designed to express a dramatic situation or a poetic sentiment, exploring the lyrical and singing qualities of the piano. Therefore, they are aimed at achieving the instrument’s full expressive potential.
Other features of Moszkowski’s pianistic works are the use of diatonic/chromatic scale patterns, repeated notes, double notes, octaves and broken and arpeggiated chords.
In the Étude displayed below – the Op.72 no.6 in F major – Moszkowski graciously weaves both diatonic and chromatic scale patterns, whilst the piece sets off the singing qualities of the piano. Arpeggiated chords are also noticeable throughout the piece, played alternatively by left hand and right hand.
Performed by great Vladimir Horowitz. Enjoy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K78vuNYXzS4
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