Four Centuries of Great Music May 14, 2023 More Recently Released Classical Music

Sunday May 14, 2023


Today we are continuing our series of new classical music releases.  We open with a performance of Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto.

Written late in his short life, the cello concerto is considered one of Schumann's more enigmatic works due to its structure, the length of the exposition, the transcendental quality of the opening and the intense lyricism of the second movement. On the autograph score, Schumann gave the title Konzertstück (concert piece) rather than Konzert (concerto), which suggested he intended to depart from the traditional conventions of a concerto from the very beginning. It is notable that Schumann's earlier piano concerto in the same key was also originally written as a concert piece.

Consistent with many of Schumann's other works, the concerto utilizes both fully realized and fragmentary thematic material introduced in the first movement, material which is then quoted and developed throughout. Schumann did not like applause between movements so the three movements are played attacca.  Together with the concerto's relatively short, linked movements, the concerto is thus extremely unified both in material and in character, although the work's emotional scope is very wide. Schumann's use of the same themes but in very different contexts and moods lends the cello concerto a strong sense of character development and an extended emotional arc, from its opening measures vacillating between deeply meditative and agitated to the brilliant, affirmative conclusion.

Nicht zu schnell (A minor – A major)
The first movement of the concerto marked Nicht zu schnell begins with a very short orchestral introduction followed by the presentation of the main theme by the soloist, which in turn is followed by a short tutti that leads into additional melodic material that is both new and related to what has preceded it. In this way, the character of the work is one of improvisation and fantasy, although much of the recapitulation follows the exposition fairly closely.

Langsam (F major)
In the brief, intensely melodic second movement, marked langsam,, the soloist occasionally uses double stops. It also features a descending fifth, a gesture used throughout the piece as a signal and homage to his wife, Clara Schumann – this motive was used to the same end in his first piano sonata. Also, the soloist has a duet with the principal cellist with a conversational tone to extend the normal harmonic, dynamic, and expressive range of the solo cello .

Sehr lebhaft (A minor – A major)
The third movement marked, Sehr lebhaft, is a lighter, yet resolute rondo and here Schumann utilizes the timpani for the first time in the work, adding to the main theme's march-like character. At the end of the movement, there is an accompanied in-tempo cadenza, something unprecedented in Schumann's day; this cadenza leads into the final coda.  

ion Tsang , cello & Royal Scottish National Orchestra - Scott Yoo
Cantabile

Robert Schumann:  Concerto in A minor, Op. 129, for Cello and Orchestra 
1.    Nicht zu schnell   [11:19]
2.   Langsam   [04:01]
3.    Sehr lebhaft   [08:09]



We will conclude this first hour of today’s Four Centuries of Great Music featuring new releases with Igor Stravinsky’s Les Noces

Stravinsky - Les noces Pt. 1 - Premier tableau - La tresse.  The Tresses (braiding of her hair)
Stravinsky - Les noces  Pt. 1 - Deuxième tableau - Chez le marié (Live).  At the Groom's House
Stravinsky - Les noces Pt. 1 - Troisième tableau - Le départ de la mariée (Live). The Bride's Send-Off
Stravinsky - Les noces Pt. 2 - Quatrième tableau - Le repas de noces (Live).  The Wedding Feast

Stravinsky conceived of Les Noces, The Wedding, in 1913 as a work for Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe.  By October 1917 he had completed it in short score to a libretto he himself had written using Russian wedding lyrics taken mainly from songs collected by Pyotr Kireevsky and published in 1911. Stravinsky described it in French as "choreographed Russian scenes with singing and music", and it remains known by its French name of Les noces despite being sung in Russian.

During this long gestation its orchestration changed dramatically. Stravinsky at first planned to use forces similar to those of The Rite of Spring. A later idea was to use synchronised roll-operated instruments, but changed his mind when the instruments he needed could not be built in time for a performance.

Stravinsky settled only in 1923, six years after his short score had been completed, on the following forces: soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass vocal soloists; mixed chorus; unpitched percussion; and pitched percussion, notably four pianos. The decision exemplified his growing penchant for stripped down, clear and mechanistic sound-groups in the decade after The Rite (although he was never again to produce such an extreme sonic effect solely with percussion).

The work is in two parts and 4 tableaus.  Part 1 has three tableaus - The Tresses (bride braiding her hair), At the Groom’s House and The Bride’s Send-off and part 2 has the fourth tableau The Wedding Feast

Stravinsky reminisced in 1962: "When I first played The Wedding to Diaghilev … he wept and said it was the most beautiful and most purely Russian creation of our [ballet company]. I think he did love The Wedding more than any other work of mine. That is why it is dedicated to him."

Bela Bartok - Concerto for Orchestra, SZ 116
5 I. Introduzione. Andante non troppo - Allegro vivace - Tempo I
6 II. Presentando le coppie. Allegretto scherzando
7 III. Elegia. Andante, non troppo
8 IV. Intermezzo interrotto. Allegretto
9 V. Finale. Pesante - Presto

Written in the second half of 1943 and 1943". It was premiered on December 1, 1944, in Symphony Hall, Boston, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky.

It is perhaps the best-known of a number of pieces that have the apparently contradictory title Concerto for Orchestra. This is in contrast to the conventional concerto form, which features a solo instrument with orchestral accompaniment. Bartók said that he called the piece a concerto rather than a symphony because of the way each section of instruments is treated in a soloistic and virtuosic way.

Bartok was in hospital, suffering from what would later be discovered to be leukemia, when Serge Koussevitzky visited him to personally inform him of the commission for him to write the work which would become this concerto. As recorded elsewhere, following Koussevitzky's visit, Bartok was so moved to receive this commission that, despite his difficult medical condition, he simply got up and walked out of the hospital, to begin working on his new composition.

The piece is in five movements:
I. Introduzione. Andante non troppo - Allegro vivace - Tempo I
II. Presentando le coppie. Allegretto scherzando

III. Elegia. Andante, non troppo
IV. Intermezzo interrotto. Allegretto
V. Finale. Pesante - Presto

I. Introduzione
The first movement, Introduzione, is a slow introduction of Night music type that gives way to an allegro with numerous fugato passages. This movement is in sonata-allegro form.

II. Presentando le coppie
The second movement is called "Game of Pairs" (but see note below). Its main part consists of five sections, each thematically distinct from the others, with a different pair of instruments playing together in each section.[2] In each passage, a different interval separates the pair—bassoons are a minor sixth apart, oboes are in minor thirds, clarinets in minor sevenths, flutes in fifths, and muted trumpets in major seconds.[3] The movement prominently features a side drum that taps out a rhythm at the beginning and end of this part. In fact this main part is played twice. Careful listening will reveal some small differences when it is played the second time. In between the first and second playing of this part there is a short interlude which to some listeners (including some who write cover notes for recordings of this work) suggests a kind of marriage ceremony. So one can imagine that, when the main part is played a second time, the five couples that appeared earlier are now married.

While the printed score titles the second movement "Giuoco delle coppie" or "Game of the couples", Bartók's manuscript had no title at all for this movement at the time the engraving-copy blueprint was made for the publisher. At some later date, Bartók added the words "Presentando le coppie" or "Presentation of the couples" to the manuscript and the addition of this title was included in the list of corrections to be made to the score. However, in Bartók's file blueprint the final title is found, and because it is believed to have been the composer's later thought, it is retained in the revised edition of the score.

The original 1946 printed score also had an incorrect metronome marking for this movement. This was brought to light by Sir Georg Solti as he was preparing to record the piece with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1980:
When preparing ... for the recording I was determined that the tempi should be exactly as Bartók wrote and this led me to some extraordinary discoveries, chief of which was in the second movement.... The printed score gives crotchet equals 74, which is extremely slow, but I thought that I must follow what it says. When we rehearsed I could see that the musicians didn't like it at all and in the break the side drum player (who starts the movement with a solo) came to me and said "Maestro, my part is marked crotchet equals 94", which I thought must be a mistake, since none of the other parts have a tempo marking. The only way to check was to locate the manuscript and through the courtesy of the Library of Congress in Washington we obtained a copy of the relevant page, which not only clearly showed crotchet equals 94, but a tempo marking of "Allegro scherzando" (the printed score gives "Allegretto scherzando"). Furthermore Bartók headed it "Presentando le coppie" (Presentation of the couples), not "Giuoco delle coppie" (Game of the couples). I was most excited by this, because it becomes a quite different piece. The programme of the first performance in Boston clearly has the movement marked "Allegro scherzando" and the keeper of the Bartók archives was able to give us further conclusive evidence that the faster tempo must be correct. I have no doubt that thousands of performances, including my own up to now, have been given at the wrong speed![5]

Despite Solti's assertion that thousands of earlier performances had been played at the wrong speed, both of Fritz Reiner's recordings – his 1946 recording with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (the first recording of the work), as well as his 1955 recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (the same orchestra whose side drum player called the matter to Solti's attention) – had been played at the speed (crotchet equals 94) that Solti later recommended. Reiner had known Bartok since 1905, when they were fellow students at the Budapest Academy. And years later, in 1943, it was Reiner, along with Joseph Szigeti, who persuaded Serge Koussevitsky to commission Bartok to write the Concerto for Orchestra.[6]

Elegia
The third movement, "Elegia", is another slow movement, typical of Bartók's so-called "Night music". The movement revolves around three themes which derive primarily from the first movement.[2]

IV. Intermezzo interrotto
The fourth movement, "Intermezzo interrotto" (literally "interrupted intermezzo"), consists of a flowing melody with changing time signatures, intermixed with a theme that quotes the song "Da geh' ich zu Maxim" from Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow,[7] which had recently also been referenced in the 'invasion' theme of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad".[8][9][10] Whether Bartók was parodying Lehár, Shostakovich, or both has been hotly disputed, without any clinching evidence either way. The theme is itself interrupted by glissandi on the trombones and woodwinds.  In this movement, the timpani are featured when the second theme is introduced, requiring 10 different pitches of the timpani over the course of 20 seconds. The general structure is “ABA–interruption–BA."[2]

Finale
The fifth movement, marked presto, consists of a whirling perpetuum mobile main theme competing with fugato fireworks and folk melodies. This is also in sonata-allegro form.[2]

Ludwig van Beethoven Piano Sonata 31, op 110

Commissioned in 1820, Beethoven did not begin working on the work until late in 1821 because of his health and his work on the Missa solemnis.

The work is in three movements. The Moderato first movement follows a typical sonata form with an expressive and cantabile opening theme. The Allegro second movement begins with a terse but humorous scherzo, which Martin Cooper believes is based on two folk songs, followed by a trio section. The last movement comprises multiple contrasting sections: a slow introductory recitative, an arioso dolente, a fugue, a return of the arioso, and a second fugue that builds to a passionate and heroic conclusion.

1. Beethoven Sonata 31, op 110 1 Moderato cantabile molto espressivo
2. Beethoven Sonata 31, op 110 2 Allegro molto
3. Beethoven Sonata 31, op 110 3 Adagio ma non troppo