MusiLLection

The dark and dramatic mood expressed in Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony is represented in this romantic setting, painted by his older brother, Ferdinand. Schubert's S ymphony No.8 puzzles why it's a masterpiece and why no one knows why he didn't complete it. By October 1822 he had finished the two opening parts and had started working on the third, the Scherzo . At this point he stopped and turned his attention to another work, the Wonderer Fantasie . The following year Schubert sent the unfinished score of the 8th Symphony to his friend Joseph Hüttenbrenner who gave it to his brother Anselm, who kept it for forty years. In 1865, Hüttenbrenner was persuaded to assign Schubert's scores by Johann Ritter von Herbeck, director of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The Symphony was first performed in Vienna on September 17, 1865 in front of an ecstatic audience. Around 1890, Symphony No. 8 acquired the nickname "Unfinished" and since then the fans...

The hungarian violonist Jelly d'Aranyi In 1922,  Maurice Ravel was deeply impressed by the hungarian violonist Jelly d'Aranyi, when he heard him play the gypsy music of his homeland. The composer's interest in this style resulted in this workd for violin and piano - and later for orchestra - which he composed in 1924. The work contains many elements of gypsy music. A long and complex solo segment on violin, begins this wonderful and unusual concerto rhapsody. The passionate play of the soloist, immediately takes us to old Hungary. The oriental scales with the strangeness for the western ear style, which so fascinated Ravel, dominate dearly here from the beginning. Other features are the chords of the violin and a multitude of string techniques, which make up this wonderful concerto-style work. A long trill leads to the second half of the play. At first we hear the harp that combines fiery grabs and glisanti with the violin trills. We alos hear the exotic string techniques....

Chopin's first nocturnes, Op.9, dates back to 1831. In England, in an effort to increase their sales, they were given the impressive title "Murmures de la Seine" (Whispers of the Seine). Nocturne in B flat minor, Op.9, No.1 When Chopin composed this nocturne, he was going through an intensely emotional period. At the time, he was breaking up with Konstancja Gladkowska, a goung singer with whom he was in love. We inevitably recognize the echo of his personal feelings in a part of the music, although that does not mean that there is always a connection between a composer's work and his personal life. This composition features all the characteristics of Chopin's nocturne: a soft, melancholic melody with a lacy texture, played with the gentle accompaniment of the open chords of the left hand. Nocturne in E flat Major, Op.9, No.2 This nocturne expresses the mood of the private evening "lounges", where Chopin was feeling relaxed. It has a serenity full of gr...

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was born in 1813 in Le Roncole, a very small village in the northern Italian province of Parma, near Busseto. His parents maintained the village's only shop, but they were poor and uneducated and never learned to write or read. Their son must have shown his musical talent early, because his parents bought him a spinnet (small harpsichord) and at 12 years old he was already an organist in the village church.  The house where Verdi was born,   in the village of  Le Roncole. Fortunately for Verdi , one of his father's suppliers, Antonio Barezzi, was a wealthy merchant and philanthropist. He lived in the neighbouring town of Busetto where he took over the supervision of Giuseppe's music education. The boy lived there as a boarder and learned to play flute, bass clarinet, horn and piano. On Sundays he walked barefoot to Le Roncole to perform the duties of ecclesiastical organist.  At eighteen, Verdi applied to register at the Milan ...

Claude Debussy playing the piano at Ernest Chausson 's home. Claude Debussy was one of the greatest composers of piano music. The "Pianoforte" (soft-loud) as is its original Italian name, evolved from the harpsichord during the 18th century. Only in the next century, however, did it grow in size, wealth and tonal power. Beethoven , Schumann , Chopin , Liszt and Brahms wrote their best compositions for it. At the time of Debussy, that is, at the beginning of the 20th century, the piano had reached the peak of its development. Debussy took full advantage of this fact, writing music that made full use of the spectrum of the keyboard and the dynamics of the piano (the degree of softness and intensity).  He also used the pedals in a special way, giving duration to certain notes or chords at the same time as others are played, thus mixing their sounds. In this way he utilized the piano as the composers before him had not even imagined. Some of his pianistic compositions, with...

Franz List probably took this title from a poem by Lamartine (Une larme, ou Consolation). He composed six such works in 1848, immediately after his installation in Weimar. It was "The Year of the Revolutions" with the political movements that rocked the whole of Europe. Instead, these works are models of romantic tenderness. In Paris Liszt had read poems by Lamartine with his pupil Caroline de Saint-Cricq, their early liaison interrupted by her parents, but remembered by Liszt over the years. His circle of friends and acquaintances in Paris in the earlier 1830s also included Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve and the year 1830 brought the latter’s publication of his Consolations, a further suggested source for Liszt’s choice of title, both writers reflecting Liszt’s literary interests and associations. Liszt later revised his six Consolations, publishing them in 1850. Consolations in E Major and D flat Major Both of these works have almost the same mood - they are quiet, thoughtfu...

The optimism and serenity of Mozart's music is in stark contrast to a life of debt-chewing and an incurable anxiety.   Mozart was a child prodigy. Born on January 27, 1756, he played without difficulty any melody he heard on the piano at the age of three, violin at four and composed music at the time he gave his first public concerto, that is, when he was five and a half years old. A painting of the time, presents the Mozart  playing with his father and his sister Maria-Anna in  the garden of the house of his children’s years in Salzburg.  His life was full of music. Even in his games, young Wolfgang used to move from room to room, to the lively melody of a march. In the age of 12 years he had written three operas, six symphonies and hundreds of other works. European tours Mozart's father, Leopold, was a composer and a virtuoso violinist in the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg. He understood that Wolfgang's extraordinary talent could bring significant economic ...