Robert Schumann Arabesque, Op. 18 In the autumn of 1838 Robert Schumann made a career decision. He would move from his native Leipzig to Vienna to find a publisher and a sympathetic public for his piano compositions. The public he … Continue reading
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PROGRAM NOTES: JAVIER PERIANES
Posted onFranz Schubert Piano Sonata in A Major D 664 The salubrious effects of country air on the mind and spirits of the vacationing composer are well known. Witness Schubert’s wonderfully relaxed and lyrical Sonata in A Major D 664 composed … Continue reading
PROGRAM NOTES: MURRAY PERAHIA
Posted onJohann Sebastian Bach French Suite No. 6 in E Major BWV 817 The spirit of the dance can be felt across a wide range of Bach’s works, from the fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier to the Mass in B minor. … Continue reading
PROGRAM NOTES: PAUL LEWIS
Posted onJohann Sebastian Bach Partita No. 1 in B flat major BWV 825 The partita, in late Baroque parlance, was just another name for a dance suite, a multi-movement work made up of the four canonical dance forms—allemande, courante, sarabande & … Continue reading
PROGRAM NOTES: FLORIAN BOESCH AND MIAH PERSSON
Posted onThe Songs of Robert Schumann Robert Schumann was a composer steeped in literature. His compositions bear the dual imprint of both German musical and literary Romanticism. Literature was the family business, one might say, as his father, August Schumann, was … Continue reading
PROGRAM NOTES: HARRIET KRIJGH, CELLO & MAGDA AMARA, PIANO
Posted onFelix Mendelssohn Cello Sonata No. 2 Op. 58 Mendelssohn’s second sonata for cello and piano reveals him as the Classical-Romantic hybrid that he was. An effortless practitioner of Classical etiquette in the construction of symmetrically balanced phrases, he eagerly took … Continue reading
Program Notes: Benjamin Beilman, violin with Yekwon Sunwoo, piano
Posted onFranz Schubert Sonata in A major D574 The adolescent Schubert was a busy young man indeed. Fresh from single-handedly inventing the 19th-century German art song (the Lied) at the tender age of 17, he subsequently developed a teenage crush on … Continue reading
Program Notes: Dover Quartet with Avi Avital
Posted onSulkhan Tsintsadze Six Miniatures for String Quartet and Mandolin (arr. Ohan Ben-Ari) The Soviets promoted the ideal of music rooted in the traditions of their native soil and in this regard it would be hard to find a composer more … Continue reading
Program Notes: Winterlude – Super Sunday with Jean-Guihen Queyras & Alexander Melnikov
Posted onRobert Schumann Fünf Stücke im Volkston Op. 102 The late 1840s saw Schumann take up “house music” in a big way. This does not mean that he began to DJ at raves, playing dance music with repetitive drum tracks and … Continue reading
Program Notes: Winterlude – Super Sunday with Alexander Melnikov
Posted onSergei Rachmaninoff Variations on a Theme of Chopin Op. 22 Chopin’s funereal, passacaglia-like Prelude in C minor from his collection of 24 Preludes Op. 28 provides the theme for Rachmaninoff’s first large-scale work for solo piano, his Variations on a … Continue reading