May 11th 2009
Liszt was reluctant to share the stage with orchestras. When he did, he liked to steal their thunder — by, for example, following their playing of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique with his own solo version, outdoing their effects. It was not until he retired from touring that he wrote his first concerto, in which soloist and orchestra compete on equal terms. Continue Reading »
May 11th 2009
On some temples in India, every square centimetre of wall- surface is covered with erotic carvings: people and animals coupling in every conceivable position, a monument to the exuberance and ecstasy of sex. Continue Reading »
May 8th 2009
Rachmaninov wrote this piece when he was nineteen, and sold it to a publisher, outright, for a handful of roubles. He then introduced it at a piano recital, and it made a sensation. Continue Reading »
May 8th 2009
Ravel always said that he gave this piece its title, ‘Pavane for a Dead Infanta’, simply because he liked the sound of the words. He wrote it originally for piano, then arranged it for orchestra, and it made his name. Continue Reading »
April 3rd 2009
Even experts need to practise, and Ravel spent years promising himself the luxury of trying some experiments in orchestration as soon as he had time. His chance came when the dancer Ida Rubinstein asked him to orchestrate some piano music by the Spanish composer Albéniz. Ravel couldn’t get the rights, and offered instead to write Rubinstein an original piece in Spanish style. Continue Reading »
March 3rd 2009
Audivi vocem is the eighth respond (a chant or anthem) to be sung during Matins on All Saints Day. Responds or responsories were part of daily service at the Chapel Royal and consisted of alternating sections for soloists and choir. This setting of Audivi vocem was one of thirty-four Cantiones Sacrae, or Sacred Songs, published in 1575 by Thomas Tallis and his pupil, the composer William Byrd. Continue Reading »
February 23rd 2009
Beethoven himself labelled this sonata “Pathetique,” not, as was often the case with descriptive titles, the publisher. The title clearly refers to the music’s turbulent moods of pathos and suffering. From the opening moments of the first movement, thundering minor chords alternate with dramatic downward runs. After a short, singing adagio, the finale returns to something of the first movement’s revolutionary temperament. Continue Reading »
February 20th 2009
Following the success of Schubert’s song “Die Forelle” (The Trout), the composer agreed to write a set of variations on the melody at the request of an enthusiastic amateur musician and friend, Sylvester Paumgartner. He started composing the piece while he was on holiday in Upper Austria during April 1819, and the final result was his five-movement Trout Quintet. Continue Reading »
February 18th 2009
The Napoleonic Wars triggered a wave of Russian patriotism at the start of the nineteenth century, and music soon began to reflect nationalist preoccupations. Glinka started the Russian nationalist tradition in music with his operas Russian and Ludmilla and The Life of the Tsar, and the seminal fantasy on two Russian themes, Kamarinskaya. Other composers soon followed suit. Continue Reading »
February 17th 2009
It was fashionable during the eighteenth century for composers, of whatever nationality, to write their operas in Italian, probably because the most skilful and popular singers at the time were Italian. Handel, Gluck and Haydn all used Italian librettos, as did Mozart, but Mozart was one of the last non-Italian composers to do so (and even he used German librettos for some of his operas). Continue Reading »
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