Born January
27, 1756, in Salzburg.
Died December
5, 1791, in Vienna.
Composed in 1786.
Duration: 8 minutes
Franz
Anton Hoffmeister built from his varied but
interlocking talents one of the leading music publishing firms of late-18th-century Austria. Hoffmeister
was born in 1754 at Rothenburg am Neckar, just south of Stuttgart, and went to Vienna at the tender age of 14 to study law.
By the time he had qualified to practice at the bar, however, his vocational
interest had shifted to music
— composing, performing as a harpsichordist, and, especially, publishing.
In 1783, when Viennese music publishing was still in its infancy,
he had two series of his own symphonies printed in Lyons, and issued them in Vienna under his personal imprint. The
following year he announced in the local press that he would henceforth publish
all his own works himself, and by summer 1785, when the first newspaper
advertisements for his new firm appeared, his venture had expanded to include
chamber and orchestral music by Haydn, Mozart, Vanhal,
Albrechtsberger, and other significant Viennese and foreign composers. Hoffmeister’s business had flourished to such a degree by
the end of 1785 that one of his composers (and brothers in the Masonic Lodge), Wolfgang Mozart, started
sending him imploring letters for loans and advances and commissions. Hoffmeister responded generously, and Mozart paid him back
with a number of important compositions, including the Andante and Variations in G major for Piano, Four Hands (K. 501) of
1786.
The
theme, original with Mozart, is one of those marvels of lucidity and apparent
effortlessness in which are embedded the seeds of expressive
ambiguity that Mozart sought out in the works of his maturity — an opening
phrase of eight measures answered not by one of another, predictable, eight measures but by one of
ten; a slight harmonic deflection in the middle of the otherwise
purely diatonic first phrase; a hint of the minor
mode, like a high cloud passing momentarily in front of the sun, at the
beginning of the second phrase. Mozart wove around these formal and emotional
elements five variations of increasingly elaborate figurations that Wolfgang Hildesheimer, in his biography of the composer, wrote
comprise “155 bars of music perfect for teaching, use, and
enjoyment.”
Born February
3, 1809, in Hamburg.
Died November
4, 1847, in Leipzig.
Composed in 1841.
Duration: 12 minutes
Early
in 1841, Mendelssohn accepted the position as Royal Kapellmeister to Friedrich Wilhelm IV in Berlin, where his duties were to include
administering the music section of the newly instituted Royal
Academy of Arts, composing for the Royal Theater, directing the Royal
Orchestra, and conducting the Cathedral Choir. In July, just before leaving
Leipzig to take up his demanding new job in Berlin, he fulfilled a request from
the Viennese publisher Pietro Mechetti
for a musical contribution to an album of original
piano works whose sale would benefit the effort to build a memorial to
Beethoven in his native city of Bonn; Chopin, Liszt, Czerny, Moscheles, and five other notable composers also participated. In tribute to Beethoven’s
life-long dedication to the variations form,
Mendelssohn created the Variations Sérieuses
and then reported to his sister Rebecka, “I was so
pleased by the process that I immediately wrote more variations on a
sentimental theme in E-flat major. Now I am writing a third set, on a graceful
theme in B-flat major. I feel as if I have to make up for not producing any
[variations] in the past.” He also made a version of the B-flat Variations for
piano, four hands, adding two more variations to its original six, but he did
not publish any of these pieces during his lifetime; they were issued in 1850
as his Opp. 82, 83, and 83a.
The
Andante and Variations in B-flat for
Four Hands (Op. 83a) is based on a hymnal theme in three eight-measure periods,
the lead in the first and third given to the left-hand pianist, in the second
to the right. As with most traditional variations, the form, phrase structure,
and essential harmonies of the theme remain largely intact for the following
variations, which here range in style from decorative
to tempestuous, from elfin to one whose carefully
intertwined voices recall a Bach chorale prelude. The
closing section, as long as all that preceded it, comprises three paragraphs:
an agitated strain of somber emotion; a reminiscence of the hymnal theme in its
original guise; and a galloping dash to the end.
Born May 12, 1845, in Pamiers,
Ariège, France.
Died November
14, 1924, in Paris.
Composed 1893-1896.
Premiered on April 30, 1898 in Paris by Edouard Risler
and Alfred Cortot.
Duration: 17 minutes
This
delightful collection of keyboard miniatures was named for Hélène Bardac, who was so tiny as a baby
that she was nicknamed “Dolly.” Hélène was the daughter
of Emma Bardac, a talented soprano, a woman of wit
and elegance, and the wife of a successful Paris banker, whom Fauré
met in the summer 1892 during a composing retreat at Bougival,
in the Seine valley a dozen miles west of Paris. Fauré’s
nine-year-old marriage to Marie Fremiet, daughter of
the celebrated animal sculptor Emmanuel Fremiet, had
never been one of passion or shared interests (it had largely been arranged for
him by his friend Marguerite Baugnies when he was
trying to start a family before reaching his fortieth birthday), and that
summer he fell into an affair with Mme. Bardac. The
intensity of his feelings for Emma were reflected in the impassioned song cycle
La Bonne Chanson, composed to poems of Paul Verlaine
between 1892 and 1894, which he dedicated to her. Emma and Fauré saw each other frequently throughout the 1890s, both
in Bougival and Paris, but their relationship cooled
and in 1904 she took up with Claude Debussy, giving birth later that year to
Claude-Emma, affectionately called “Chouchou,” who
was to inspire from her father the Children’s Corner Suite and the
“children’s ballet,” La Boîte à
Joujoux (“The Toy Box”). Emma’s apparently
liberal husband joked, “She’s just treating herself to the latest fashion in
composers; but I’m the one with the money. She’ll be back,” but he was wrong —
Debussy and Emma were married in 1908.
Three
of the six pieces comprising the Dolly Suite were Fauré’s
musical birthday gifts for Hélène: Mi-a-ou (1894, when Dolly was two), Le Jardin de Dolly (1895), and Kitty Valse (1896); the Berceuse dates from 1893 and Tendresse and Le Pas Espagnol
from 1896. The gently swaying Berceuse takes its name from the
French word for “rocking chair,” which in music denotes a “cradle song” or “lullaby.”
There was no feline intent in the playful Mi-a-ou,
whose title is a contraction of “Messieu Aoul,” the family nickname for Dolly’s brother Raoul. Le Jardin de Dolly
may trace its sylvan mood to Fauré’s childhood
memories of a Mediterranean garden, a place of solace for the introverted
youngster, at Montgauzy College, where his father was director. Kitty
Valse is an enduring misprint from the first
edition of the score; the piece was supposed to have been called Ketty Valse, after Raoul’s pet dog. The lovely Tendresse,
without a specific reference or an association with the Bardacs, was composed during a stay in September 1896 at
the French seaside villa of Fauré’s British
publisher, Frederick Maddison,
at Saint-Lunaire, just west of Mont-Saint-Michel. Le Pas Espagnol
(“Spanish Dance”) of 1896 is Fauré’s tribute
to the best-known work of his French colleague Emmanuel Chabrier,
who had died two years before.
Born January
25, 1913, in Warsaw.
Died there on February 7, 1994.
Composed in 1941.
Duration: 6 minutes
Among
the many impositions of the German occupation of Poland during World War II was the
prohibition of the use of concert halls and theaters by the country’s musicians. To sustain their own music-making, and to retain some semblance
of musical life in Warsaw, Lutosławski and
his friend and fellow composer Andrzej Panufnik formed a piano duo to perform in the city’s cafés
and created some 200 arrangements of music ranging from organ works by Bach to
pieces by Debussy and Ravel for their own use. Among the handful of those
pieces that survived the war is Lutosławski’s Variations on a Theme of Paganini, based on the last of the Caprices for Unaccompanied Violin, No. 24 in
A minor, written around 1815, a bravura showpiece that has also inspired
compositions from Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, Lloyd Webber, Casella, Dallapiccola, Blacher,
and others. Lutosławski
explained that “my Variations closely follow Paganini’s
model. In each Variation [there are twelve in each work],
I translate the violin line for keyboard. Polyharmony
often occurs between the two keyboards but tonality remains a clear force with
frequent traditional dominant-tonic
cadences.”
Composed in 1910-1913.
Ballet premiered on May 29, 1913 in Paris, conducted by Pierre Monteux; the formal public premiere of the piano duet
version was apparently given on November 6, 1967 in Los Angeles by Michael Tilson
Thomas and Ralph Grierson.
Duration: 34 minutes
Stravinsky’s
epochal The Rite of Spring came into existence in three versions
simultaneously — the full orchestral score and versions for piano solo and
piano duet. As with all of Stravinsky’s ballets from The Firebird
through Agon, the piano reductions were
created specifically for the use of the choreographer
and the designer, and subsequently for the dancers’ rehearsals, which, in the case, of The Rite of
Spring, stretched to more than 120 sessions. It was the keyboard versions
that first stirred reports of the revolutionary nature of this phenomenal
creation. The composition of the score was accomplished between the summer of
1911 and November 1912, and Stravinsky allowed Diaghilev and Pierre Monteux, conductor of the premiere, their first taste of
the music during the intervening April in Monte
Carlo, where the Ballet Russe was giving performances
of The Firebird and Petrushka. “With
only Diaghilev and myself as audience, Stravinsky sat
down to play a piano reduction of the score,” Monteux
recalled. “Before he got very far, I was convinced he was raving mad. Heard
this way, without the color of the orchestra, the crudity of the rhythm was
emphasized, its stark primitiveness underlined.” Diaghilev chose Nijinsky to do
the choreography (though Stravinsky objected to the choice because of the dancer’s inexperience
as a choreographer and his lack of understanding of the technical aspects of the music), and rehearsals for the premiere were
begun in Berlin by December 1912. Rehearsals proceeded
through the winter and early spring, always to piano accompaniment. Stravinsky
polished the piano duet version sufficiently for the Russischer
Musik Verlag to begin
engraving it in January 1913; it was published in this form several weeks
before the opening on May 29th. (The full orchestral score
was not published until 1921.) It was only on May 26, 1913, just three days before the opening,
that The Rite of Spring was finally played by a symphony orchestra.
The
following summary of the stage action of The Rite of Spring is excerpted
from The Victor Book of Ballet by Robert Lawrence: “The plot deals
with archaic Russian tribes and their worship of
the gods of the harvest and fertility. These primitive peoples assemble for their
yearly ceremonies, play their traditional games, and finally select a virgin to
be sacrificed to the gods of Spring
so that the crops and tribes may flourish. There is a prelude in which the composer evokes the primitive
past. Insistent, barbaric rhythms are heard, shifting accent
with almost every bar. The first rites of Spring are
being celebrated, and a group of adolescents appears. They dance until other
members of the tribe enter. Then the full round of ceremonies gets under way: a
mock abduction, games of the rival tribes, the procession of the Sage, and the
thunderous dance of the Earth. The curtain falls, and there is a soft interlude
representing the pagan night. Soon the tribal meeting place is seen again. It
is dark and the adolescents circle mysteriously in preparation for the choice of the virgin to be sacrificed to the gods. Their dance is
interrupted, and one of the girls is marked for the tribal offering. The others
begin a wild orgy glorifying the Chosen One and — in a barbaric ritual — call on the shades of their
ancestors. Finally the supreme moment of the ceremony arrives: the ordeal of
the Chosen One. It is the maiden’s duty to dance until she perishes from
exhaustion. Throughout the dance, the music gathers power until it ends with a crash
as the Maiden dies.”
©2007 Dr. Richard E. Rodda