The chromatic scale, one of the most prevalent and recognizable figures in all of music, from the Baroque era to the present day, has many implications, both musical and rhetorical. One of the iconic examples of a chromatic line appears in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, where the descending chromatic line represents a descent into hell. Throughout the […]
Janáček’s two-volume cycle of miniatures, On an Overgrown Path, is a prime example of musical conciseness. While 19th and early 20th century music can at times be accused by its detractors of verboseness, Janáček’s style is pithy and direct by nature, so much so, that a sense of impatience is sometimes heard in the music. That […]
A great many works of music exist in multiple versions, for orchestra and for piano (or two pianos)—in fact, one can think of such works as quite an extensive sub-genre. Liszt’s many symphonic poems, the Rite of Spring, and Ravel’s La valse (which has versions for both one and two pianos) are just a few examples of “hybrid” […]
One way I like to think of Debussy, one of my favorite composers, is as a nostalgic composer. Trying to resist his natural temptation towards Wagner, which led to a bitter and later nationalistic resentment of the composer and the Germanic tradition out of which he came, Debussy longed and searched for a pure “French” […]
A while ago I discussed the qualities and quirks of an early, short, and not too significant C major sonata by Haydn. The C major Haydn sonata I discuss this time is a formidable and masterful work. There are two important sonatas Haydn wrote in this key, a late one, written in London (Hob. XVI:50), […]
In previous entries, I have touched upon the subject of cycles of multi-movement works published in the 18th and early 19th centuries having an overarching shape of sorts. As it was common to publish works in groups of three or six, the first work in the group was often the simplest, and the last the […]
The first three movements of Schubert’s Moments Musicaux are three different “snapshots” of rustic life, in its charm, pride, and wide emotional range. That rustic character is still present in the last three movements, which constitute the second “volume” of the work. However, many differences arise when comparing the first three movements with the last three. The […]
Schubert’s Moments Musicaux is not a work I instantly understood or loved. I long considered it to be weaker than his sonatas and impromptus. It didn’t leave the emotional imprint on me that other works of Schubert left. Although I never outright disliked it, I might have considered it to be a bit “fickle” compared to say, […]
My first experience playing the music of CPE Bach was not as a pianist but as a violinist, leading a high school orchestra in the extraordinary last movement of the D minor flute concerto. I was immediately struck by its originality and raw emotion, and concluded that had his positioning in the timeline of music […]
I have long been fascinated by the question of coincidence when it comes to composers being influenced by one another. We know that there is no coincidence when we hear Beethoven’s influence on Brahms, or Schubert’s influence on Bruckner, but is this always the case when we hear echoes of one composer in the work […]