Vivaldi "Spring"

I feel like I need to write about Baroque music. But Baroque music is hard to write about. (Yeah, like who knew?) I was going to write a post about this Bach French Suite that I played last spring, but I hated it. I love Bach, I truly do. I think he's a genius. Everyone thinks he's a genius. But I think that particular piece is cursed. I never could play it well. A graduate friend of mine played the piece for her master's recital, and had to restart the piece three times over. It's that bad. So I'm not going to write about French Suites. At least not today. I'm going to write about Vivaldi instead.

In 1773, Vivaldi wrote a set of four concerti entitled The Four Seasons. (Auto-spelling is telling me that I misspelled "concerti." Good grief.) Besides being wonderful works of music, these pieces really started to set the standard concerto form. The form of each "season" consists of two relatively fast movements broken up by a slower movement. The pieces are written for solo violin and string quartet, with a basso continuo. This isn't exactly what one thinks of as a concerto, but this was more like a modern concerto than anything which was written before. More interesting though, at least to me, is that these pieces are the first known examples of program music.

Program music is art music, essentially. It might be easier to describe in terms of its opposite, which would be absolute music. Absolute music is music which is intended to be non-representational. Taken at face value, in a sense. Program music is referenced. It is meant to evoke certain images of the outside world. One of the most famous examples of program music is Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique, which is essentially a programmatic acid trip. (And yes, that is as fun as it sounds. I'll write about it at some point.)

Back to Vivaldi. "Spring" is the most well-known of the concerti from The Four Seasons. If nothing else, it's worth listening to for the incredibly virtuoso violin playing. Vivaldi was a renowned violinist, and many of the techniques which he employed in his compositions have become standard. He really was revolutionary in that sense as well. Anyway, for each of the "seasons", Vivaldi composed a sonnet which was intended to describe the music (hence why it's called program music). This is the sonnet for "Spring."

Allegro
Springtime is upon us.
The birds celebrate her return with festive song,
and murmuring streams are softly caressed by the breezes.
Thunderstorms, those heralds of Spring, roar, casting their dark mantle over heaven,
Then they die away to silence, and the birds take up their charming songs once more.

Largo
On the flower-strewn meadow, with leafy branches rustling overhead, the goat-herd sleeps, his faithful dog beside him.

Allegro
Led by the festive sound of rustic bagpipes, nymphs and shepherds lightly dance beneath the brilliant canopy of spring.

Oh my goodness, I just feel all warm and flowery now, visions of softly caressing breezes and rustic bagpipes dancing in my head! Listen to the song here. Honestly, the sonnet describes the piece better than I could. That's really why I chose the piece, it talks about itself. A few things to note, though. At about 1:40 in the video comes the "Thunderstorms, those heralds of spring..." The piece modulates to a lower register of the instruments, then to a minor key, fitting of a thunderstorm. Also, the violin is amazing here. I think it's imitating lightning, and it sounds incredibly tumultuous. The last movement, the Allegro, is so charming. It does sound like a light, lilting waltz. It's a bit plaintive, but lovely all the same.

Lang Lang

I hear so many university professors rip on Lang Lang. It's a near-constant diatribe against him. "Lang Lang is a hack." "Lang Lang is a showman and nothing else." "Lang Lang is as unclassy as pianists come." All of this is true. BUT he's also doing something that no pianist has been able to do in a very long time.

I promised myself that I wouldn't be a music critic. I'm not normally assertive enough to criticize well, but I am very adamant about this. I'll try to keep it brief.

To begin, let me say that I whole-heartedly approve of what Lang Lang is trying to do. He's a young pianist (27 years old) with a very hip appearance. He has done a very good job of bringing classical music to people who normally pay no attention whatsoever to what they would consider to be a very stuffy genre of music. He is a pop culture pianist. He is absolutely a showman. But doesn't he have to be? To draw the average person into the world of classical music, a pianist has to be a bit over-the-top. He has to cancel out the stereotype of "boring classical music." And Lang Lang does a fantastic job of this. Watch him here, here, and here. Is he fun to watch, or is he fun to watch? He's fun to watch, right? I saw him play Chopin's Piano Concerto #2 with the Houston Symphony a while back, and was blown away by how utterly ridiculous he is. And I know that there are better pianists out there. The point here is, though, that most people don't know that there are better pianists out there. However, Lang Lang is opening an unknown world to those people, who then may discover legitimate, respectable pianists--Emanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Andras Schiff, etc., etc. In all honesty, what's the worst that could happen? People see a riveting (if not very classy) performance by a true showman. He won't singlehandedly ruin the world of classical music. I promise.

Haydn Hob. XVI:23

My ambitious number of summer projects includes spending a lot of quality time with Mozart's piano concerto (K. 284). I haven't played any Classical Era music in what feels like forever. So, I'm digging up some old sonatas and such that I've played over the last few years, and reacquainting myself with the genre. This is the first piece that I found and looked through, a late-ish Haydn sonata. I worked through it during my freshman year at Baylor.

Let it be known that I love Haydn. The poor guy is incredibly underrated, particularly among casual listeners of classical music. I can't figure out for the life of me why this is. Because of his compositional style, his music is very accessible to those not familiar with classical music. This is true for the following two reasons:

1. He would often take just one theme, and develop that one theme throughout a piece (as opposed to, say, Beethoven, who would introduce and develop several themes in just one movement of a piano sonata). It's one "Haydnisitic" characteristic that I really enjoy. Incidentally, that is an easy way to distinguish Haydn's music from that of Mozart. (I will admit that they often do sound similar! And Haydn and Mozart were like BFFs, totally. So it makes sense.) Mozart used the several-theme approach to sonata composition. Haydn did not. Voila!

2. His music is light. It's well-known that Haydn was an excessively cheerful person. This is secretly why I love him so much. We are kindred spirits. I am, in fact, also BFFs with Haydn. This also makes me pretty tight with Mozart, and I'm hoping that will help in regards to the aforementioned concerto. Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that his music is happy, plain and simple. It is also well-known that Haydn had a natural propensity for practical jokes. There's a might-be-fable about Haydn getting kicked out of a choir when he was younger because he cut off a fellow chorister's pigtail.

The first movement of the sonata is a wonderful example of Haydn's basic thematic approach. Listen here. The first two measures, that pseudo-arpeggiated sequence, is developed through the entire first movement. The development of the sonata begins with that exact same theme, in a different key. And the recapitulation begins with that exact same theme, in the same key. Even besides that, the entire movement is riddled with little variations of this theme, some which are obvious and some which are harder to find. I think that it's really just a game that Haydn plays.

The second movement is a bit more pensive. Listen here. In fact, it sounds a bit Romantic Era in nature. There's a continual chord arpeggiation in the bass, played under a gorgeous melody in the treble. In spite of the yearning sort of quality, I think that it's still very true to Haydn's character. It strikes me as being earnest, and honest. Almost child-like.

Listen to the third movement here and try to find the theme of the movement over and over again. This might be my favorite movement of the three. It's so witty and teasing. It's like Haydn's sticking out his tongue at the listener, threatening to chop off someone's pigtail. A lot of that mischievous feel comes from what he does in the main theme. In the main theme, there's a two-note slur that ends on a strong beat, and opposed to an off-beat. Two-note slurs, technically speaking, are supposed to end on weak beats. Haydn is, in fact, breaking a pretty solid musical rule, and doing it fairly often throughout the movement.

Chopin op. 26 no. 1

Another piece I played this last semester, an early Chopin polonaise. I'm stretching my limbs here with pieces that I know really well.

I have to give background on the polonaise as a musical genre before I go into this particular composition. So bear with me. The polonaise originated in Poland, sometime during the late 18th century, I believe. Like so many genres in which Chopin dabbled, the polonaise has its roots in simple Polish folk dances. It is a dance, always in 3/4 time, and always with a modest rhythmic structure, characterized by this rhythm in particular. In the 17th century the Polish nobility got a hold of it and decided to make it all sophisticated and stately and whatnot. Of course, through this "refinement" of the genre, the polonaise also became more elaborate, mostly because the Baroques couldn't leave anything alone. Ornamentation was, after all, a composer's best friend! It did, however, retain that characteristic rhythm which, incidentally, can have either a militaristic or a patriotic sort of tone, depending on how one wants to listen. During the late 18th century, Poland was dealing with quite a bit of political upheaval, and almost disappeared from the maps. Because of this, there was a surge of Polish nationalistic music being composed. The polonaise had always been Polish music, and Polish composers took full advantage of their native music. As a result, the genre began to assume a very emotional quality, with the music being both majestic and melancholy. During this time,Prince Michal Kleofas Oginski (whom no one has ever heard of, but who has a really amazing name) began to compose polonaises for the salon, which in turn made the piece generally even more flowery. The polonaise eventually degenerated into a virtuostic piano work, which is where Chopin comes in! Finally!

The c-sharp minor polonaise was composed in 1836, and is one of Chopin's earliest composed polonaises. In his earlier compositions of this genre, he was heavily influenced by the bombastic, showy polonaises of Liszt (who, incidentally, was an expert in the field of bombastic and showy). It's obvious, too. You can listen to recordings here, here, and here. One has to listen to no more than the first 15 seconds of the song to be immediately captivated. Maybe that's why I enjoyed this piece so much. I literally cannot be ignored when playing this piece. I'm fairly certain that it's actually impossible. It's just so loud. The entire first half of the piece is that way, more or less. There is great Polish pride pouring forth from every note. It quite literally makes me angry at my ancestors for being Czech instead of Polish (though we do lay claim to Dvorak, whom I will write about a later time).

Then, all of the sudden, halfway through the piece, there's this sudden, dramatic change in mood, due largely to the very abrupt modulation to D-flat Major. This grand, militaristic march-like music is reduced to something tender, emotional, and full of heart-felt yearning. This very much alludes to my previous statement about the polonaise being both "majestic and melancholy." My particularly favorite part of this is the section where the left hand takes the melody. I can imagine it as a cello line, and a beautiful one at that. And of course, Chopin, through compositional genius, is able to link these two very separate musical ideas of patriotism and pride through rhythm, the characteristic steady beat being felt and heard throughout the piece.

All of that being said, the thing is just gorgeous. It's also a real beast to play. But worth it. So worth it.

Shosti Op. 34

I played three of these preludes for my piano jury/audition for the performance program. Shostakovich has always been a favorite of mine. I had an odd childhood in that I was exposed to an eclectic mix of music. My maternal grandfather has always loved Shostakovich, ergo dear little Shosti was part of the mix.

I can't say that I enjoyed #21. For one, I didn't truly understand the character of the piece until two days before I was supposed to perform it. The piece is something like a very confused march/waltz. It's in 5/4 time, with shifts between 2+3 and 3+2. I couldn't find this on Youtube, so find a recording for the full effect. At first, I thought it was a charming parody of a schmaltzy Viennese waltz. Like if Strauss had gotten totally smashed before he had composed "On the Beautiful Blue Danube." Though, the more I listened and played, the more "off" it started to sound to me. In reality, it's almost macabre. It reminds me of a circus freak show. One is supposed to laugh at the incredible weirdness of it all, but doesn't really want to do so. It's uncomfortable. The meter is constantly shifting, and there are several places where the melody becomes very chromatic and slinky, and it's all mushed under the pedal, per the request of Shostakovich. It's sort of disgusting, actually.

#22 I enjoyed more, one reason being that I understood the character. Listen here. I don't have anything to say about it, really. It's just sad. It's tension, contracting and uncontracting, over and over, what feels like a million times over the course of the two pages. (One quick thing--listen to the four chords around 2:00. It's one of the coolest progressions I've ever heard.) The beginning few lines are particularly lovely, beautiful contrapuntal melodies. Then the bass takes the melody in what would be a gorgeous cello line, if played on a cello. The whole piece is a nice contrast to the previous prelude, if only because I like this one and not the other.

My professor assigned me #14 towards the middle of the semester. He had decided that I needed one more to play for my audition. Listen here. The prelude is one page long, literally six lines of music. It's also the most emotionally exhausting piece I've ever played. More than ever, I am convinced that no person can convey despair like a Russian. This piece is the musical equivalent of Anna Karenina desperately throwing herself under a moving train in Tolstoy's novel. It's literally a waltz/dirge. Except that it's played at such a slow tempo, you can hardly hear the 3/4 time. The piece is marked "pesante" in the beginning, which translated means "heavy." It more conveys a tone of voice at the piano. Or rather, a lack of voicing. The opening chords are sort of dropped into the bass register with no regard for how ugly the sound is when one plays in that way. Then the accented E-flats come in, wailing away. By the time the climax of the piece is reached, there's no regard for inflection, even. One just bangs out the music until the end, where it decrescendos to something akin to soft sobbing.

I'm terribly ambitious

I need this to get myself started, or else I won't do it. I want to write about music. I love music, and I love writing, and it seems an obvious choice. I'm a piano performance major at Baylor University. I recently changed my major from piano pedagogy. One reason being that I do not have the gratuitous amount of patience required to teach small children. The other reason being that I want to write about classical music. Unless I can communicate my personal musical ideas effectively, I won't be able to understand the musical ideas of others. Or that's what I'm telling my parents. I want to immerse myself in this very mystical world of performing and attempts public communication of emotion.

In effect, this is a space for me to write about what I hear, and have others read it. Or not, as the case may be.