Four Centuries of Great Music April 21, 2024 New Classical Music Releases from 2024 Episode 3

Today on Four Centuries of Great Music we are continuing our series music from new album releases - albums released since the beginning of 2024.  We open today’s episode with a work from the early 20th century

Claude Debussy, Sonata for Cello and Piano in D minor

Composed in 1915, Debussy’s composition is one of his last works before his death in 1918. The work is in three movements

In Movement 1, “Prologue,” the piano opens with the rather grandiose first theme accompanied by loud block chords; following a mini-cadenza, the cello enters with the melancholy second theme accompanied by the piano’s lamenting chromatic bass. Thereafter theme 2 becomes a militant rhythmic ostinato; theme 1 comes back climactically with resounding C-major chords at the extremes of the keyboard (recalling Debussy’s prelude “The Sunken Cathedral”; and theme 1 concludes the movement on a quiet note without grandiosity.

In the ironically titled  second movement, the practically unsingable “Sérénade,” the cello and piano trade off wispy moonlit themes, mostly piano, tonally unstable, and metrically unpredictable.

Movement 3, “Finale,” begins like a traditional final movement – allegro, dance rhythm, catchy main theme in the cello in D major. But the dance gives way to a rubato “non-ironic” serenade, the tonal stability evaporates, and, following the main theme’s reprise, the movement closes abruptly in D minor.

Here is a performance of Claude Debussy’s Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor

Claude Debussy: Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor I.  Prologue
Claude Debussy: Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor II.  Sérénade
Claude Debussy: Sonata for Cello and Piano in D Minor III.  Finale

 Sophie Shao, cello  and Adrienne Kim, piano
CanCan Macabre
Centaur Records

Next we jump back to the baroque period with Antonio Vivaldi’s  Nisi Dominus, RV608.   This is Vivaldi’s most extended and artistically ambitious Psalm setting for solo voice to have survived. It dates from 1715-1717.

The nine movements are as varied in style and scoring as one could imagine. Two (‘Vanum est vobis’ and ‘Beatus vir’) are simple continuo arias, while one (‘Sicut sagittae’) has a string accompaniment in unison with the voice, and two others (‘Nisi Dominus’, with its abridged and retexted reprise ‘Sicut erat in principio’) are church arias in a lively concerto style. ‘Cum dederit’ conveys drowsiness by being set in a slow siciliana style and employing a distinctive motive with chromatically ascending lines that the composer often introduces in association with the idea of sleep (as in the second solo episode in the first movement of his ‘Spring’ Concerto, RV269); for this movement leaden mutes (piombi) are prescribed.  The 'Cum dederit’ is the hit of this work because it was used in the James Bond film Spectre.  The most original movement is the third (‘Surgite’), which is cast as an accompanied recitative, counterposing rapid ascending figures expressing the act of standing up to slow, reflective passages for the ‘bread of sorrows’. The final ‘Amen’ imitates the style of an ‘Alleluia’ in a motet. But the spiritual fulcrum of the Nisi Dominus lies in the ‘Gloria’, which instead of being the usual expression of simple joy, is a brooding, dark-hued movement full of solitude.

Here is a performance of Antonio Vivaldi’s  Nisi Dominus, RV608 by Maarten Engeltjes, countertenor & conductor of the  PRJCT Amsterdam, baroque orchestra from the album Pergolesi Stabat Mater and Vivaldi Nisi Dominus Pentatone Records

Antonio Vivaldi:  Nisi Dominus, RV608 I. Nisi Dominus
Antonio Vivaldi:  Nisi Dominus, RV608 II. Vanum est vobis
Antonio Vivaldi:  Nisi Dominus, RV608 III. Surgite
Antonio Vivaldi:  Nisi Dominus, RV608 IV. Cum dederit
Antonio Vivaldi:  Nisi Dominus, RV608 V. Sicut sagittae
Antonio Vivaldi:  Nisi Dominus, RV608 VI. Beatus vir
Antonio Vivaldi:  Nisi Dominus, RV608 VII. Gloria Patri
Antonio Vivaldi:  Nisi Dominus, RV608 VIII. Sicut erat in principio
Antonio Vivaldi:  Nisi Dominus, RV608 IX. Amen

We are going to close this first hour of our third episode of Four Centuries of Great Music featuring new album releases - released  in 2024 with the first three movements of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Suite No. 1 for two pianos originally titled Fantaisie-Tableaux.  

Sergei Rachmaninoff, one of history’s most beloved composers and towering pianists, envisioned this work as “a series of musical pictures,” each based on a different poem,  hence its original title of Fantaisie-Tableaux. It was written in the  summer of 1893 and the premiere took place in Moscow, on November 30, 1893, played by Rachmaninoff himself alongside Pavel Pabst. The work was dedicated to Tchaikovsky, who intended to attend the work's premiere, but died five weeks prior to the premiere.

One can hear the influence of Tchaikovsky on this suite, with its richly colored musical textures and sweeping, lush expressivity. It consists of four movements each presenting a fascinating, unabashedly romantic scene juxtaposing human emotion with sounds from nature and life: rippling water, bird calls, tear droplets, and bells.

The first movement is a Barcarolle (boat song) depicting the melancholy strains of the gondolier’s serenade as the undulations of the waves symbolize the surges of love.

The second movement, “The Night… the Love,” features the passions of a nocturnal tryst, accompanied by the warbling of the nightingale.

And the third, “Tears,” unfurls with canonic cascades of descending notes, emblematic of falling tears.

Here is a performance of the first three movements of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Suite #1 for two pianos by Daniil Trifonov and Sergei Babayan from the album Rachmaninoff for Two Deutsche Grammophon

Lets open this second hour of Four Centuries of Great Music with the fourth and final movement of Sergei Rachmaninoff Suite No. 1 for two pianos entitled “Easter”. This final movement is at once terrifying and triumphant, with the epic tolling of Russian Orthodox church bells resounding seemingly throughout the entire earth.

This again is a performance by Daniil Trifonov and Sergei Babayan from the album Rachmaninoff for Two Deutsche Grammophon



To conclude this second hour of Four Centuries of Great Music we  return to the early 20th Century with George Enescu’s Symphony #3.  Originally written in 1916-1918 - almost exactly 200 years after the Vivaldi.  Best evidence was that it was premiered in 1919 and was well received. Iit was revised numerous time with the last revision dated June 12, 1951.  This is the version that was published in 1965, 10 years after Enescu’s death.
 
The symphony is in three movements.
Moderato, un poco maestoso
Vivace ma non troppo
Lento ma non troppo

Enescu employs the same thematic material throughout the symphony, cyclically, but develops it in different ways. The first movement marked Moderato, un poco maestoso alternates brooding, questioning, heroic, and lyrical moods.  The second movement marked Vivace ma non troppo is a darkly sinister scherzo, relieved briefly by a bright march episode.  The finale is solemn and serene, introducing a wordless choir. It ends in "a sort of quiet ecstasy" with the lightest of orchestral textures and employs at one point a small bell which, according to the score, "should have the same sort of sonority as the bells which are used in Catholic churches at the Elevation of the Host". The strongly contrasted characters of the three movements—and especially the paradisal serenity of the finale—have tempted some critics, beginning with Pierre Lalo in 1921, to interpret the symphony programmatically as a "Dantesque trilogy" of Purgatory (alternatively, Earth), Inferno, and Paradise[9]

Here is a performance of by the Choeur de Radio France, Orchestre National de France con Cristian Macelaru from the album Enescu -  Symphonies Nos. 1-3 & 2 Romanian Rhapsodies Deutsche Grammophon



George Enescu: Symphony No. 3 I. Moderato, un poco maestoso
George Enescu: Symphony No. 3 II. Vivace, ma non troppo
George Enescu: Symphony No. 3 III. Lento, ma non troppo