Tag: music

  • PROGRAM NOTES: GEORGE LI

    PROGRAM NOTES: GEORGE LI

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    Franz Joseph Haydn Sonata in B minor Hob. XVI:32 It is not often that you catch the congenial, ever-chipper Haydn writing in
a minor key. But minor keys were all the rage in the 1770s, the age of Sturm und Drang (storm and stress), an age when composers such as C. P. E. Bach sought to…

  • PROGRAM NOTES: ZHANG ZUO

    PROGRAM NOTES: ZHANG ZUO

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    Ludwig van Beethoven 32 Variations in C minor WoO 80 The theme that Beethoven chose for his 32 Variations in C minor (1806) has a Baroque feel to it, with its chaconne-like harmonic pattern in the left hand and sarabande-like second-beat emphasis in the right. This theme, however, is far from the characterless blank canvas…