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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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
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 … Continue reading
The Art of Fugue Fugue is the Rubik’s cube of compositional genres. It’s the sort of thing that only the ‘brainiest’ of modern composers, one with a bent for antiquarian curiosities, would attempt. And yet in its golden age in … Continue reading
By Christian Gerhaher This programme of poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe set to music by Franz Schubert and Wolfgang Rihm was conceived as a tribute to the eight great poetic hymns written during the poet’s Sturm und Drang period … Continue reading
Eugène Ysaÿe Sonata for solo violin in G minor, Op. 27, No. 1 Belgian violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe stands as a bridge figure between the late Romantic era of virtuoso violinists such as Henri Vieuxtemps and Henryk Wieniawski (he studied … Continue reading
Franz Schubert Impromptus Op. 90, Nos. 1-4 The impromptu is just one of a number of small-scale instrumental genres arising in the early 19th century, known under the collective title of “character pieces”. Cultivated by composers of the Romantic … Continue reading
Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata for cello & piano in C major, Op. 102, No. 1 Those who think of sonata form as a well-organized dinner plate – with the red meat in one corner, the mashed potatoes stationed opposite, and … Continue reading
Franz Schubert Sonatina for violin & piano in A minor D. 385 It humbles me to think, paraphrasing Tom Lehrer, that when Schubert was my age, he had already been dead for several decades. Lest I forget, there are his … Continue reading
