Author: VRS
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PROGRAM NOTES: STEVEN ISSERLIS & ROBERT LEVIN PERFORMANCE 1
Ludwig van Beethoven 12 Variations on a Theme from Handel’s Judas Maccabaeus Wo0 45 In 1796 Beethoven paid a visit to the court of King Friedrich Wilhelm II in Berlin, and cellists the world over are glad that he did. From this visit resulted a number of works for cello and piano that set the…
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PROGRAM NOTES: BENJAMIN GROSVENOR
Jean-Philippe Rameau Gavotte and Variations in A minor The modern pianist seeking to play the Baroque harpsichord repertoire faces many obstacles, starting with the friendly fire of his own trusty Steinway itself, so different in sound from the perky little plucked-string sound box for which this music was originally written. A note on the harpsichord…
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PROGRAM NOTES: SIR ANDRÁS SCHIFF
Franz Joseph Haydn Sonata No. 60 in C major Hob. XV1:50 Haydn’s last three piano sonatas, Nos. 60 to 62 (Hob. XVI:50-52), were written during the composer’s second trip to London of 1794-1795. All three were composed with a specific dedicatee in mind: the female keyboard virtuoso Therese Jansen Bartolozzi (1770-1843), a student of Clementi…
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PROGRAM NOTES: STEVEN OSBORNE
Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata in E minor, Op. 90 The use of the piano sonata in marriage counselling has not found wide adoption in the profession since Beethoven first introduced the practice with his Sonata in E minor Op. 90. The curious story associated this sonata is as follows. Beethoven’s biographer Anton Schindler relates that…
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PROGRAM NOTES: EMANUEL AX
Georges Bizet Variations Chromatiques de concert For those that like to feather-dust humming the habanera from Carmen with a rose clenched between their teeth might be surprised to learn that Georges Bizet was not only an opera composer, but also a pianist. Anecdotal accounts of the period reveal that the keyboard skills of Georges Bizet…
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PROGRAM NOTES: DORIC STRING QUARTET
FRANZ JOSEPH HAYDN String Quartet in D minor, Op. 76, No. 2 Those of us wondering in our spare moments what a happy retirement consists of might do well to consider the case of one Franz Joseph Haydn, whose life in the years 1796-97, when his collection of six string quartets Op. 76 was written,…
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PROGRAM NOTES: PAVEL KOLESNIKOV
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Fantasy in C minor K. 475 The year 1785 was a good one for Mozart. In the words of musicologist John Irving, he had become something of a ‘hot property’ in Vienna, enjoying considerable success both as a published composer and as a performing musician. But Mozart had also acquired a reputation…
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PROGRAM NOTES: THE VERTAVO STRING QUARTET & PAUL LEWIS
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Piano Concerto No. 12 in A major K. 414 Mozart’s twelfth piano concerto was one of three composed in 1782 for sale to the Viennese public by advance subscription, the 18th-century equivalent of ‘crowd-sourcing’. A major selling point of these ‘subscription’ concertos (K. 413, 414 & 415) was that they were composed…
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PROGRAM NOTES: LUCA PISARONI & WOLFRAM RIEGER
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Four Songs The earliest German lieder we have in the concert repertoire come from the more than 30 works that Mozart wrote between 1768 (at the age of twelve!) and his death in 1791. His mature songs reflect his skill as an opera composer in their sensitive treatment of the text, bolstered by…
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DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR VERY FIRST MUSICAL MEMORY?
When I was a boy my father would sing me to sleep every night. And when he went away on business trips, my mother sang to me at night instead. Now, my mother, whom I love dearly (98 and going strong!) has many wonderful traits and abilities, including playing the piano. But singing perfectly in…