The 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
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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
Program Notes: Winterlude – Suite Saturday with Jean-Guihen Queyras
Posted onA Bit of History Few scholars doubt that Western music was better off for the release of a certain “Bach, Johann Sebastian” from the county jail in Weimar where he had languished, in unsuitable company, for the better part of … Continue reading
Program Notes: Joyce DiDonato with Il Pomo d’Oro Chamber Orchestra ‘In War & Peace: Harmony Through Music’
Posted onWAR, PEACE and BAROQUE OPERA The lust for war, the longing for peace: emotions such as these lie at the extremes of human experience. What better place to explore them than in the luridly violent, yet touchingly pathos- filled world … Continue reading
Program Notes: Behzod Abduraimov
Posted onAntonio Vivaldi Siciliana in D minor (arr. J. S. Bach and Alfred Cortot) Nothing could be more Baroque than an arrangement of an arrangement. The Baroque was a period in music history in which music travelled freely between instruments … Continue reading
Program Notes: Anna Fedorova
Posted onWolfgang Amadeus Mozart Fantasia in D minor K. 397 Mozart’s D minor Fantasia is a bundle of mysteries; an intriguing sound-puzzle for the listener but a labyrinthine minefield of interpretive choices for the pianist. Mere slavish attention to the details of … Continue reading