Debussy Arabesque No. 2

I burst into giggles every time I hear this piece. Those of you who know me also know that I do that fairly often without much prompting, but it really is that fun, I promise. It's so cute. This is the second of two arabesques that Debussy wrote for piano. The first is well-known. It's standard pedagogical literature. I played both of them my freshman year of college. I played the first one well, but it didn't inspire me the way this one did. I try to put this piece out in the open as much as possible because I think it's just lovely.

Debussy lived in France during the 1800s, and is thought of as a sort of pioneer of Impressionism in music. Critics called his music "impressionistic" from the beginning, even though he hated the term. As much as I love dear Monsieur Debussy, his music does fit the description. I've talked about program music in previous posts. I think of Impressionism as a reaction to that. Rather than telling a story, a piece of music conveys a mood or atmosphere. Une *impression*. Quelle surprise! (I'm using a French composer as an excuse for smatterings of bad French. Don't judge me.) Anyway, whether or not he liked it, Debussy was quite a talented Impressionist.

I really love that he called this piece an Arabesque. Because frankly, "arabesque" is a vague name for a piece of music, and this piece could have been called anything, really. An arabesque (in music) is a piece of music which is highly ornamental. That is quite literally the only criteria. There is a genre of Turkish music known as arabesque music which is highly ornamental. That's where the classical Western composers got the name. The Western arabesque, incidentally, has nothing to do with Turkey or Turkish music. But who cares, right? Most people in 19th century France probably didn't care about Turkish music anyway. But they LOVED Debussy. And that's all that matters. And I'm sure they thought it was very avant-garde of him to name pieces after Turkish music. As I said before though, this piece fits the description of an arabesque as well as anything can fit such a vague description.

The piece itself is lovely, as I said before. It is very ornamental. Listen here. This is Debussy playing his own music! I get really excited about composers playing their own music. It feels very authentic to me. This piece is so impish. It makes me think that Debussy was probably a handful as a child. Incidentally, he was a handful. His music teachers had all kinds of behavioral problems with him. It's also rousing fun to play. It's less difficult than it actually sounds, and your fingers just dance when you can manage to play it that fast. Also, if you have a good ear, you can hear that it changes keys a surprising amount of times over the course of the three minutes. It adds to the mischievous quality, I think. I also particularly like the abrupt ending. It's bubbly and effervescent and frothy and I'm really just describing a glass of champagne but it reminds me of something like that. Like a charming child and a glass of champagne.

Yefim Bronfman

Yefim Bronfman is coming back to the Houston Symphony in September! I. Am. So. Excited. He's playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto 1, and it's going to be beyond amazing. There's no point to this post besides the fact that I'm ecstatic about this.

I'll write something substantial tomorrow.

Berlioz "Symphonie Fantastique"

When I mentioned a few posts back that I would write about Symphonie Fantastique at some point, I meant soon. Very soon. Like now. Because I just listened to it again today and it's as fun as I remember. Also, I'm itching to tell the story behind it. But first, a little background on the Romantic period. One needs to understand the emotional context of this century, and though I touched on it in the last post, Romanticism needs more than a "touch."

The Romantic era was not subtle by any means. Actually, "not subtle" is a gross understatement. Said era was catapulted by Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which was debuted in 1808. People--as in grown adults--would hear this symphony, and leave the theatres fainting, crying, etc. And this was considered normal. Part of me gets that, Beethoven's Fifth is an emotional piece of music. But really? REALLY? Man up. Anyway, for the next 100 years, the vast majority of composers were succumbing to this affected, histrionic sort of atmosphere. To be fair, I'm not saying that all music during this period was like that, but much of it was. It was emotionally charged.

Hector Berlioz was the King of Romantic. Romantic with a capital R. A capital R fifty stories high with flashing neon bulbs. The story behind this massive symphony stays true to his character. The whole thing started (Once upon a time) in 1827. Berlioz happened to see a performance of Othello, and fell ferociously in love with the woman who played the character of Ophelia, Harriet Smithson. (Her name lacks romantic flair, but she was an actress, so we forgive her short-coming.) He started writing her many impassioned love letters, but obviously she had no idea who he was, so the letters went for the most part unanswered. Berlioz, as expected, felt anguish beyond the power of description at his lover's scorn. The fact that he was practically stalking her didn't seem to register. So, in what I believe was a last-ditch effort to win her love, he composed for her a *massive* five-movement programmatic symphony. (As a side note, I think that symphony-writing is a legit route for capturing that ever-elusive lover. It's pretty impressive, and not often attempted. My boyfriend hasn't written me a symphony, just saying.)

On to the actual symphony, and then I'll reveal whether or not it actually won dear little Miss Smithson's heart.

As previously mentioned, this symphony is programmatic. The program notes for all five movements are written out here. The program notes are incredibly specific, so there's not a whole lot for me to say. I'll give a brief overview of each movement, and talk a little bit about the musical idea which is supposed to represent the ideal woman, and how it changes through several of the movements.

The first movement is entitled "Daydreams and Passions." You're on the edge of your seat already, I can sense it. Listen here. A young man (read: angsty musician/Berlioz) falls in love with the beautiful woman of his dreams (read: saucy actress/Smithson). The little melody representing the ideal woman starts at about 6:03, when the violin comes in, and goes to about 6:40-ish. It shows up in every movement, but is changed.

The second movement, "A Ball", can be listened to here. In this movement, the little ideal woman melody shows up quite a bit. It's supposedly symbolic of the thoughts of this woman constantly disturbing the poor man's thoughts. Even in the midst of this enchanting party, he still sees the face of his beautiful would-be lover. *SIGH*

Movement three! "Scene In the Fields" Part I and Part II. Incidentally, this tends to be everyone's least favorite movement, because it's long and pastoral. And no piece of music should be precocious enough to attempt to be both. It's just rude. Young man (Berlioz) literally "reflects upon his isolation." Oh goodness. This movement is the young man saying, "I'm going to go off into nature and wrestle with my feelings." But it's okay, because the fourth movement makes up for it!

Listen to it here. Its title is "March to the Scaffold." The young man is so overcome by grief that he decides to poison himself with opium, then proceeds to have one of the craziest dreams EVER. It's a drug trip musical! He dreams that he kills his ideal woman, and is led to the scaffold and executed. This is great though, if you listen at 4:15, that loud, sudden chord is his head being chopped off, and then rolling off the scaffold. (I'm going to write what you're thinking, and what I'm thinking--ahahahahahahahaha! Yes, I laugh, every time, I think it's terribly funny.)

Anyway, in the final movement (listen here), titled "Dream of a Witches' Sabbath", the young man dreams that all of these horrid creatures have gathered for his funeral. Including, guess who, the lovely ideal woman, who, incidentally, is not so ideal anymore. She reappears in the form of a witch. If you listen closely, you can hear that original ideal woman melody, though now it's turned into a grotesque sort of folk dance. For those who don't know, the Dies irae was a well-known Gregorian chant. Berlioz took it and turned it into a witches' dance, quite a gutsy thing to do at the time.

I spent almost the entire post teasing Berlioz, but this really is a great piece. Sometimes I just can't help myself. But do listen, because it is a masterpiece of Western music, despite being overly-romanticized. And I suppose Berlioz couldn't help that. By the way, Berlioz did finally get Miss Smithson to marry him, and they had a terribly marriage. They couldn't stand each other, and got divorced nine years later.

Brahms Op. 119 No. 1

In the roughly 6 years of experience that I've had with classical music (which isn't much, I know), Brahms has seemed to be one of the most underrated composers among pianists. I think that much of it has to do with the subtlety of many of his piano works. He was a Romantic composer, and wrote fairly prolifically for piano. The fact of the matter is, when pianists think of Romantic era piano music, they think of Chopin, Beethoven, Liszt, etc. This is totally legit, I do the same thing. I had never given Brahms a second thought until I was forced to learn a pair of impromptus during my freshman year. Actually, "forced" is a strong word. I was more coerced. I obliged begrudgingly. But like so many people, I thought that Brahms was kind of boring. I was so terribly wrong.

The things that I love about Brahms are general, not specific to this one piece. However, I'm going to focus on just the one piece, because I want to give specific examples of the general things that I find absolutely amazing. Before anything else, listen here. (Richter is a great pianist, by the way. So sensitive.) Most people are not blown away by this little impromptu. It's not exactly spectacular. But there are two things in particular which I want to bring to attention--the harmonies and the counterpoint. I chose this particular recording of the piece because Richter takes a slow tempo, so the harmonies can be heard, and because he doesn't use too much pedal, so it's clear enough to hear the counterpoint.

First things first. That oh-so-luscious harmony. One can listen to the piece without much thought, but if one listens carefully, the harmony almost never does what is expected. It sometimes goes unnoticed because Brahms is so good at making all of the music just melt together. It's unconventional, but nothing feels out of place. Here I'm going to delve into some pseudo-technical discussion, for those who can follow what I'm saying. If not, pay attention to those parts in the music and savor the delicious sounds. The first five notes roll out a Bm7 chord, starting at the top and falling to the root. There's a split second to hear all of the notes ring out together before the same thing happens, this time with a DM11 chord. I'm not joking, it's beautiful and amazing and wonderful. This is followed by a GM11 chord, also rolled out from the top in this ambrosial arpeggio. I know I'm getting really heavy with my adjectives, but I love this stuff so much, I can't help it. This is all in just the first three measures. I could go on and ecstatically analyze the whole piece like this, but I won't for the interest of time and space. This is enough to pique interest. Listen also especially towards the end, when the triplets come in, around 2:15.

The counterpoint is equally wonderful. Brahms was a fan of Baroque music and, as a result, used a lot of counterpoint in his works. It's hard to believe that this piece is full of counterpoint. It certainly doesn't sound like Bach. The piece is so liquid-sounding, almost anti-structured. But the counterpoint is there, I promise. Granted, it's hard to pick out the different voices just by listening (it's easier for me because I have a score sitting in front of me right now), but Richter does just about the best job I've ever heard. So listen carefully, and they'll make themselves known. The melody is very simple, almost childishly simple. Just a hint, most notes are not the actual melody, but are rather countermelodies. For example, in the Bm7 chord, only the first note of the arpeggio is actually part of the melody. Also, listen especially to the middle section, which starts around :53. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.