Some of the (programme) notes I have written over the years
Scriabin: Sonata No. 5, Op. 53
Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No. 5 was composed in 1907 as a single-movement work. Described by the composer himself as “a great poem for the piano” and “the best of my works for piano,” the Sonata is often considered one of Scriabin’s most challenging compositions. Sviatoslav Richter argued that the Sonata was among the most technically demanding in the history of piano literature—the “devilishly difficult pieces, the most difficult…you have to practice them endlessly.” Sonata No. 5 exemplifies Scriabin’s venture to break away from conventional harmonic functions. “Rapid ascents and a predilection for high registers,” Richard Taruskin observes, “eventually took the role of ersatz cadential function when Scriabin, as first demonstrated in Piano Sonata No. 5, eliminated conventional tonal resolution.” As the companion piece to The Poem of Ecstasy, Op.54 (1908), it also reveals Scriabin’s devotion to mysticism and occultism. Scriabin’s late works, including Ecstasy, were emboldened by his occult vision, recounted in his notebook dated 1805, the year he started composing Ecstasy. Some intriguing markings in the Sonata also indicate his fascination with the idea of ecstasy. The expression which appears in measures 289 and 401 respectively, “con una ebrezza fantastica” (“with fantastical intoxication”), for example, was inspired by his reading of Nietzsche’s The Birth of Tragedy (1872), in which the German philosopher proclaims: “He is no longer an artist, he has become a work of art.” “In these paroxysms of intoxication,” Nietzsche explains, capturing a spirit that is reflected in Scriabin’s’ ambition to write the Sonata, “the artistic power of all nature reveals itself.”
Schubert: Four Impromptus, D. 935
Schubert’s Four Impromptus D. 935 were written in 1827, the same year when his Impromptus D. 899 were also completed. D. 935 was nevertheless left unpublished until 1839 by Anton Diabelli. The term “impromptu,” which suggests a loose sense of improvisation, can be traced back to the Bohemian composer, Jan Vorisek, who published the first impromptus in 1822, although the German composer Johann Baptist Cramer had also written music under this title in 1815. The impromptus were set in F minor, A-flat major, B-flat major, and F minor respectively. Each one displays a distinct mood and form. The first shows a combination of sonata and rondo elements. The second adopts the form of a minuet-and-trio, whereas the third is a theme with variations. Eva Badura-Skoda, who hears the first of the set as “one of the most beautiful pieces in the whole of piano literature,” suggests the form of D. 935 is less original than D. 899.
The variation theme of the third impromptu has been identified as one closely related to the Rosamunde theme, a melody quoted in Schubert’s A-minor String Quartet, D. 804. Schubert created five variations out of the theme, with the third being a minor variation, set in B-flat minor. Schumann, however, explicitly expressed dissatisfaction with the third impromptu in his review published on December 14, 1838, in Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. However, he added that “if one plays the first two impromptus in succession and joins them to the fourth one, in order to make a lively close, the result may not be a complete sonata, but at least we will have one more beautiful memory of Schubert.” The last and fourth impromptu, composed in F minor, shows characteristics of the Hungarian style. Schubert’s integration of Hungarian elements is not too surprising, since he had worked for the Esterházy family in Hungary, once in 1818 and another time in 1824. The scherzo-like character of this lively impromptu, exemplified by effects such as the use of hemiola rhythm, delights listeners with bountiful musical wit and humour. A sweeping scale descending from the high register to the low, encompassing six full octaves, finishes the piece in the tonic key.
Kapustin: Eight Concert Etudes, Op. 40
Nicolai Kapustin’s musical style is usually taken as a synthesis of jazz and classical elements. Kapustin became interested in jazz music when he was still a student in Moscow Music College. He befriended Andrei Mikhalkov-Konchalovsky, whom he stayed with, and the two would listen to the radio station “Voice of America” regularly, indulging in playing by jazz musicians such as Louis Armstrong and Nat King Cole. Kapustin’s Eight Concert Etudes, Op. 40, written in 1984, are among his more well-known compositions and have been performed quite often in major piano competitions. His other celebrated works include Variations, Op. 41, 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 82, modelled on J. S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, as well as the 24 Preludes, Op. 53, influenced by Chopin’s 24 Preludes, Op. 28.Kapustin’s music has gained much more attention since 2000, especially since Marc-André Hamelin’s performances of his works.The Eight Concert Etudes consist of No. 1 “Prelude,” No. 2 “Reverie,” No. 3 “Toccatina,” No. 4 “Reminiscence,” No. 5 “Raillery,” No. 6 “Pastoral,” No. 7 “Intermezzo,” and No. 8 “Octaves.” Each etude focuses on different technical challenges. For example, No. 3 “Toccatina” deals with repeated notes, whereas No. 7 “Intermezzo” concentrates on double thirds.
A common critique against Kapustin is his treatment of jazz music: since his music can be characterized as written-out improvisation, it contradicts the principle of jazz music. However, Kapustin himself had stressed that he never considered himself a jazz musician or pianist. By writing the Eight Concert Etudes, Kapustin granted the genre that traditionally serves pedagogical purposes a new aesthetic possibility with jazzy idioms, whether one likes it or not.
Handel: Suite No. 5 in E major, HWV 430
Around the year 1718, Handel, then the composer-in-residence at Cannons in Middlesex, composed the Eight Great Suites for harpsichord. The suites were published later as a set in 1720, when Handel took up a new role at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In the preface of the London publication, Handel disclosed his concern about the circulation of “surrepticious and incorrect copies,” indicating his concern over the problem of piracy. He also spoke of his “small talent” a tone of modesty:
I have been obliged to publish some of the following Lessons, because surrepticious and incorrect Copies of them had got Abroad. I have added several new ones to make the Work more useful, which if it meets with a favourable Reception; I will still proceed to publish more, reckoning it my duty, with my Small Talent, to serve a Nation from which I have receiv’d so Generous a protection.
Handel’s Suite No. 5, written in E major, consists of four movements: Prelude, Allemande, Courante, and an Air and Five Variations. The last movement is nicknamed “The Harmonious Blacksmith,” but this title was not Handel’s idea. One story, included in “Reminiscences of Handel” (1836) by Richard Clark, suggests that Handel came across a blacksmith humming the melody of the air and decided to integrate the tune into the movement. This myth has been disputed; the English music historian William Chappell even accused it of being a tale conceived out of “pure imagination,” although Clark has identified a man named William Powell as the blacksmith Handel encountered. The air of “The Harmonious Blacksmith” takes a binary form. The right hand plays chordal arpeggiation in the first variation, whereas the second is dominated by arpeggiated playing on the left hand. The left hand then plays the melody in the third variation while the right performs dazzling sixteenth triplets. They switch roles in the fourth variation, followed by the final variation, where both hands join in sounding spectacular scale passages that raise the suite to a brilliant end, framed in the tonic. The music may seem harmonically simple in shifting mostly between the tonic and the dominant, but the music remains colorful.
Chopin: Nocturne Op. 27 No. 1
Chopin composed the two nocturnes of Op. 27 in 1836 and published them in 1837. Dedicated to the Countess Thérèse d’Appony, a salon hostess in Paris, both nocturnes are enharmonically related. The first nocturne is set in the sombre key of C-sharp minor and the second, D-flat major. The first, marked Larghetto, opens with wide arpeggiation in the left hand – although one that omits the third of tonic harmony – while the right hand voices a mystifying melody. It seems to settle for neither a major or minor mode as it alternates between the two. In più mosso, which means “more motion,” the music intensifies in restlessness and agitation. Ascending chromaticism eventually transports listeners to con anima in D-flat, a gesture that seems to prefigure the key of the second nocturne. Jonathan D. Bellman calls this con anima section a “clarion call for Polish fidelity,” suggesting that Chopin has incorporated “pitch-perfect evocations of opera” that include not only aria but also chorus, duet, scene, recitative, and instrumental interlude, “all of which would exceed the powers of a mere melodist.” The first theme later returns in measure 84, and the nocturne ends in a major, reaching an E# that delicately points, again, to the opening of the second Nocturne.
Chopin: Barcarolle in F sharp major, Op. 60
Composed between 1845 and 1846, just three years before the composer’s passing, Barcarolle in F-sharp major might have been one of Chopin’s personal favourites. Chopin performed the piece quite often in his concerts in major cities, including London and Paris. The genre of the barcarolle can be traced back to the songs of the Venetian gondoliers, although Chopin had never been to Venice himself. The barcarolle in Chopin’s hands is sometimes considered a genre that shows similarities, in terms of tone and mood, with two other genres that the composer was known for, namely the nocturne and the berceuse. Chopin’s Barcarolle displays typical characteristics of the barcarolle, such as a gentle rocking-boat rhythm evocative of soft undulating waves and a 12/8 meter. The Barcarolle charms with poetic lyricism throughout, singing delicate and ornamented melodic lines, often in thirds and sixths, fashioned by sublime harmonies. As Ravel described in an article published in 1910:
In the Barcarolle glowing harmonies clothe the subject, flexible and subtle in thirds. The melodic line is constant. In one moment, the “melopea” disappears, it is suspended and then re-created delicately, softly, tempted by magical accords. The intensity increases. The new subject erupts, full of splendid lyricism, thoroughly Italian. Everything calms down. From the depth, a quick luminous trail rises and floats shimmering above the refined and tender accords. Some mysterious apotheosis comes to mind.
Music theorist David Kopp has suggested that the piece employs a “sprawling, idiosyncratic formal plan.” One of the most beautiful moments is heard in the section titled, in Italian, “dolce sfogato,” which stresses the feeling of sweetness. In the history of piano literature, Chopin’s Barcarolle has perhaps attained an unsurpassable place in the genre, with Walter Raymond Spalding declaring on this work: “It is also most sincerely conceived, intensifying the suggestiveness of the descriptive title. Would that objective program music were always so true to life and to the real nature of music!”
Chopin: Polonaise in F-sharp minor, Op. 44
Written in 1841 and dedicated to Princess Ludmilla de Beauvau, Chopin’s Polonaise in F-sharp minor, Op. 44 is often known as the “Tragic” polonaise. Garrick Ohlsson hears the polonaise as “tragic, compulsive and complex.”
A stately and dignified Polish dance in triple meter and usually a moderate tempo, the polonaise developed from the Polish dance taniec polski of the eighteenth century, although taniec polski was also partly derived from the seventeenth-century chodzony, that is, “walking dance.” Polish scholars have recently reinterpreted the history of the polonaise by arguing that the concept of “kinetic Polishness” accounts for the capability of the polonaise to reinforce national identity through embodied movement. What strikes as peculiar with Polonaise Op. 44, however, is the integration of mazurka. The mazurka section “Tempo di Mazurka” which appears in the middle of the piece can seem to perform stylistically destabilizing effects. As Liszt once wrote:
Chopin’s Mazurkas distinguish themselves considerably from his Polonaises in regard to their expression. Their character is completely different. They move inside another circle of feeling, into gentle, soft, and richly changing shades, instead of the rich and vibrant coloring of the Polonaise.
Liszt discerned “softer, feminine element” in the mazurka; even if one does not agree fully with his observation, the insertion of mazurka materials still offer a surprising contrast, though they do not at all undermine but rather further accent the Polishness of the piece, since the mazurka is a national dance that symbolizes Polish identity, just as how the Viennese waltz can signify Austrian identity.
Chopin himself referred to this work as “a fantasy in the form of a polonaise.” In August 1841, he wrote to the Viennese publisher Pietro Mechetti, stating: “I have at this moment a manuscript to place at your disposal. It is a kind of Fantasia in the form of a Polonaise, and I shall call it a Polonaise.” He also enclosed this letter with another one that he penned to his friend and copyist Julian Fontana, in which he described the music as “a sort of Polonaise, but more of a Fantasia.” In this sense, Op. 44 also seems to hint at Chopin’s attempt to write a polonaise-fantasy that materialized several years later.
Chopin: Polonaise Op. 71 No. 2 in B-flat
Chopin’s Op. 71 consists of three polonaises, composed during the composer’s early years: Allegro maestoso in D minor, WN 11 (1825–1827), Allegro moderato in B-flat major, WN 17 (1829), and Allegro moderato in F minor, WN 12 (1826–1828). They were published after Chopin’s death as posthumous works by Julian Fontana. Chopin’s biographer Frederick Niecks once remarked that the three polonaises appear “artistically unimportant” and are only as interesting as “biographical documents.” He explained: “…the tyro strives to say something new, but succeeds only very imperfectly; he has an ideal, but as yet cannot attain it.” Chopin did not intend them to be published, perhaps also thinking they are not his most mature creations; but No. 2 in B-flat, which takes the form of ABA CDC ABA, ultimately reveals Chopin’s youthful charm through its bright musicality.
Chopin: Polonaise-Fantasy
Chopin’s Polonaise-Fantasy was finalized in 1846, in the village of Nohant, where Chopin was staying at the country house of his lover and novelist George Sand. The piece underwent several revisions as indicated in the extensive sketches made during a period of eighteen months that began a year earlier in 1845. A friend of both Sand and Chopin, the French painter Eugène Delacroix later transported the autographs of Polonaise-Fantasy as well as Chopin’s Barcarolle and the two Nocturnes Op. 62 to Paris for publication. Although Liszt has described Polonaise-Fantasy as a work of “fevered anxiety,” this piece demonstrates Chopin’s intent to fuse “fantasy-like” characteristics into the polonaise, something that can be felt early on in the introduction of the piece, where lengthy arpeggios rise freely from the low register of the piano. The key in the introduction shifts continuously and thus prolongs the sense of “fantasy,” but majestic polonaise rhythm finally breaks in, in E-flat octaves, in measure 22. The rhapsodic and at times melancholic rhetoric heard throughout has not diminished at all the noble and heroic character of the polonaise.
Chopin: Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35
Chopin completed his Sonata No. 2 at George Sand’s house in Nohant in 1839. Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 was once criticized by Schumann as a work that reveals Chopin “could not quite handle sonata form,” but the receptions that came later seem to undermine Schumann’s quite negative impression.
The sonata comprises four movements. The first adopts the sonata-allegro form and opens with Grave, pronouncing solemn and dramatic octaves, and transitions into Doppio movimento, which is much faster, executed with perpetual agitation. The second movement is a fierce scherzo with strong octaves, leaping chords, and other forceful elements, although the trio of this movement sings a beautiful melody with simple accompaniment.
The third movement is likely the most well-known movement, although it was composed a year or two earlier. The funeral march, in a three-part form, emits a dark, grim tone while the trio in D-flat in the middle of the movement touches listeners with a consoling tenderness. Frederick Niecks depicts the Trio as “a rapturous gaze into the beatific regions of a beyond.” Wilhelm von Lenz, who studied with Chopin, once heard Chopin himself play the trio and described what Chopin performed as “indescribable” – that “only [Giovanni Battista] Rubini sang like that, and even then only exceptionally.” This passage in Lenz’s view becomes the site “where you learn whether the pianist performing is also a poet or merely a pianist; whether he can tell a story [fabulieren] or merely play the piano.” For Liszt, the movement deserves much adoration, as he puts it in The Life of Chopin (1863), using heavily spiritualized terms:
The intensity of mystic hope; the devout appeal to superhuman pity, to infinite mercy, to a dread justice, which numbers every cradle and watches every tomb; the exalted resignation which has wreathed so much grief with halos so luminous; the noble endurance of so many disasters with the inspired heroism of Christian martyrs who know not to despair;—resound in this melancholy chant, whose voice of supplication breaks the heart. All of most pure, of most holy, of most believing, of most hopeful in the hearts of children, women, and priests, resounds, quivers and trembles there with irresistible vibrations…. These sounds, in which the wild passion of human anguish seems chilled by awe and softened by distance, impose a profound meditation, as if, chanted by angels, they floated already in the heavens: the cry of a nation’s anguish mounting to the very throne of God!
The appeal of human grief from the lyre of seraphs! Neither cries, nor hoarse groans, nor impious blasphemies, nor furious imprecations, trouble for a moment the sublime sorrow of the plaint: it breathes upon the ear like the rhythmed sighs of angels.
The most mesmerizing movement, however, would perhaps be the finale, often perceived as enigmatic, wind-like, and ghostly. Anton Rubinstein described it as “wind howling around the gravestones.” The Chinese-British pianist Fou Ts’ong, who was awarded the third prize and the Polish Radio Prize for the best performance of Chopin’s mazurkas in the 1955 International Chopin Piano Competition, would begin his daily warm-up routine by playing this movement slowly, gradually increasing his tempo in each repetition. Haunting but also demanding, even though one is supposed to make the playing appear effortless in an uninterrupted manner, this finale is perhaps among the most idiosyncratic few minutes of music Chopin had ever written.
Chopin: Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58
His Concertos and Sonatas are beautiful indeed, but we may discern in them more effort than inspiration. His creative genius was imperious, fantastic and impulsive. His beauties were only manifested fully in entire freedom. We believe he offered violence to the character of his genius whenever he sought to subject it to rules, to classifications, to regulations not his own, and which he could not force into harmony with the exactions of his own mind. He was one of those original beings, whose graces are only fully displayed when they have cut themselves adrift from all bondage, and float on at their own wild will, swayed only by the ever undulating impulses of their own mobile natures.
Such were Liszt’s words of praise for Chopin. Chopin composed three piano sonatas in his life time. The last in B minor perhaps exemplified the creative genius Liszt had identified the most in comparison to his Piano Sonata No. 1 in C minor, Op. 4, written in 1828, and even Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, “Funeral March.” When this sonata first premiered in 1845, however, the responses from the audience in Paris were not entirely positive. The complexity of the work proved challenging to the listeners, who were perhaps looking for more clarity in formal structure.
Written in 1844 during some of his happiest times with George Sand and dedicated to his pupil Countess Élise de Perthuis, and premiered by the composer himself in Paris on February 26, 1845, Chopin’s Sonata No. 3 comprises four movements. The first, Allegro maestoso, composed in a sonata-allegro form, announces itself with a solemn and forceful descending theme in B minor. The exposition, repeated, is followed by a highly contrapuntal, fugal, harmonically intense development with chromaticism. The first theme is omitted in the recapitulation and the movement ends in B major with an impressive coda. The very short second movement, designated Scherzo, is set in a distant E-flat major in ABA form. In the trio, the music takes the key of B major and shows a more serious persona that contrasts the scherzo sections. The third movement, Largo, also written in ABA form, shows the entrance of double-dotted rhythm. It opens in a resolute and passionate fortissimo in B major but quiets down to piano rather quickly. Usually considered a nocturne, one that migrates to E major before returning to B major, this slow movement displays an introspective and poetic character. The finale Presto non tanto, now back in B minor, adopts the form of rondo. It opens with a series of sonorous octaves, radiating immense power and a sense of restlessness. The coda continues to showcase virtuosity with brilliance and bravura, leading the sonata to its compelling end that glories in the grand B major.
Brahms: Four Ballades, Op. 10
Brahms composed Four Ballades, Op. 10, during the summer of 1854, when he was only twenty-one of age. Although the ballades were dedicated to his friend Julius Otto Grimm, they were written in a distressing time, when Brahms grew in his conflicting feelings for both Robert and Clara Schumann. Schumann attempted suicide by plunging into the Rhine River earlier in that year. Brahms tookcare of Clara and her children while Schumann, then kept in an insane asylum, was separated from his wife. As Brahms suffered from anguish over his dear friend Schumann, his love for Clara also deepened. He wrote to Clara one lonely night in 1855: “I can do nothing but think of you… What have you done to me?“
The four ballades were arranged in two pairs. Each pair was framed in parallel keys: the first two ballades were composed in D minor and D major, whereas No. 3 and No. 4 were written in B minor and B major. The first ballade was inspired by the Scottish poem Edward, which appeared in Stimmen der Völker in Liedern [The Voices of the People through Their Songs], compiled by the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder. Scholars differ in their views on how the poem relates to the music, but what is indisputable is the certain despair, which echoes the tragedy of Edward, is felt throughout the opening spacious and sonorous harmonies, set primarily in open fifths and octaves in the dark key of D minor.
Edward tells the story of a murder confession in the form of dialogue: Edward’s mother questions her son about his bloody sword and Edward confesses, after making up several false accounts, that he has killed his father. He curses his mother, however, while blaming her for his crime. No. 2 is characterised by sweet serenity, although the central section displays more emotional intensity. Brahms titled No. 3 as Intermezzo and Schumann, perhaps having in mind the recurring thematic gesture that haunts in minor, described this ballade as “demonic.” The last ballade, which opens with a lovely melody accompanied by falling broken chords, conveys tender sentiments in a somewhat Schumannesque manner. Brahms marks the middle section in F-sharp major with col intimissimo sentimento, ma senza troppo marcare la melodia, roughly translated as “with the most intimate feeling but without pointing out too much the melody.” Delicate intimacy and warm lyricism entwine in this final ballade, seemingly exuding the affection that Brahms might have felt for Clara.
Mendelssohn: Fantasia in F-sharp minor, Op. 28
In The Romantic Generation (1995), Charles Rosen declares Mendelssohn—not Mozart or Chopin—is “the greatest child prodigy the history of Western music has ever known.” Although the final manuscript of Fantasia in F-sharp minor, Op. 28 was finished in 1833 and published in 1834, Mendelssohn’s letters to his sister suggest the composer might have composed this piece as early as 1828, when he was only nineteen. This fantasy, dedicated to Ignaz Moscheles, was then named “Sonate ecossaise” [“Scottish Sonata”], but Mendelssohn later decided to scrap the title when he published the piece. The earlier title might seem to suggest his trip to Scotland was a source of inspiration, but Mendelssohn did not visit Scotland until 1829, making the connection unlikely. His Scottish Symphony and Hebrides Overture, however, were written during his stay in Scotland.
In this fantasy, Mendelssohn plays with the idea of “fantasising” by not only transforming the theme harmonically and rhythmically but also setting each movement at a faster tempo than the previous one. The first movement opens with harp-like and mysterious arpeggios that rise and fall, alternating between Con moto agitato and Andante in a melancholic mood while the dramatic climax leads to a passionate return of the main theme. The second movement is a lively scherzo, and the finale in 6/8 metre, thrilling and rigorous, finishes the fantasy with a mesmerizing coda packed with plummeting scales and sonorous trills.
Liszt: Légendes, S. 175, 1. St. François d’Assise: la prédication aux oiseaux and 2. St. François de Paule marchant sur les flots
During his years in Rome (1861–64), Liszt wrote mostly music of religious themes. In 1863, he composed the Two Franciscan Legends—St. François d‘Assise: La Predication aux Oiseaux [St. Francis of Assisi’s sermon to the Birds] and St. François de Paule: Marchant sur les flots [St. Francis of Paola Walking on the Waters], dedicating them to his daughter Cosima, who later married Richard Wagner in 1870. Liszt considered both St. Francis of Assisi and St. Francis of Paola as his two patron saints.
St. Francis of Assisi loved birds. According to The Little Flowers of St. Francis, he once preached a spontaneous sermon to some birds that he encountered. The monks who travelled with him also reported that Francis blessed the birds. After Francis had finished his sermon, the birds flew away and scattered in all directions, as if they were spreading the good news of God. To narrate this story, Liszt deploys abundant trills and tremolos to imitate the singing of birds. Silence signifies the birds’ attentiveness as they listened to Francis’ teaching.
The legend of St. Francis of Paolo meanwhile tells the miracle of Francis walking on water. When Francis sought to cross the Straits of Messina, the ferrymen forbid him to take the ferry, since he could not afford the service. Francis was able to walk over the sea with staff, however, after praying to God on his knees in humility. Liszt composed a theme in solemn octaves, but he also created another musical imitation of nature: the rising and falling of scales in the bass imitate the swelling of waves, whereas dissonance and chromatic lines depict the danger Francis faced. The piece ends in a glorious triumph in tonic. Alan Walker observes that the coda recalls a passage from a short choral work, An den heiligen Franziskus von Paula [To St. Francis of Paolo], written three years earlier but not yet published then. The words associated with this passage—“O let us preserve Love whole”—captures Liszt’s remembrance of the love of God in the two legends.
Liszt: Après une lecture du Dante, fantasia quasi sonata (“Dante” Sonata), S. 161/7
“The heavens call to you, and circle about you, displaying to you their eternal splendours, and your eye gazes only to earth.”—Dante
Inspired by Dante’s epic poem Divine Comedy which journeys through Inferno (Hell), Purgatorio (Purgatory), and Paradiso (Paradise), Liszt composed both a two-movement piece titled Fragment after Dante and the “Dante” Symphony, premiered in 1839 and 1857 respectively. Liszt even wrote his own commentaries on Divine Comedy: he compared Dante’s depiction of Beatrice to his idea of “woman sublime”—contending that “a loving woman is sublime,” he describes himself as being “terribly disturbed” by the fact that Beatrice was conceived “not as the ideal of love, but as the ideal of learning.” Fragment after Dante was the earliest sketch for the one-movement Après une lecture du Dante: fantasia quasi sonata, derived from Victor Hugo’s poem of the same title, “After a Reading of Dante.” Commonly called the “Dante” Sonata, this “fantasia, almost a sonata” can be found in the second volume of Années de Pèlerinage [Years of Pilgrimage], first published in 1858.
“Dante” Sonata survives in three full manuscripts and four fragments. David Trippett suggests that this sonata “interweaves hours and hours of improvisation with a gradual process of revision on a more abstracted, conceptual level.” Trained by Czerny in the practice of Phantasieren, Liszt, as heard in this sonata, blurs the boundaries of composition, improvisation, and performance. “Dante” Sonata is built on two main themes: the first is a chromatic theme in D minor, also the key of the “Dante” Symphony, which depicts the suffering souls in Hell; the second is a theme in F-sharp major, the same key Liszt employed in “Benediction of God in Solitude” in Harmonies poétiques et religieuses. The sonata opens with the use of tritone, which recurs throughout the piece. Known historically as “the devil’s interval” or, in Latin, diabolus in musica, the tritone in its recurrence reminds listeners of the damning threat of inferno.
In 1847, Liszt made a reference to Dante’s Divine Comedy‘s opening line when he spoke of his artistic breakthrough to his then new patron, the Grand Duke Carl Alexander: “The time has come for me (Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita—thirty-five years old!) to break out of my virtuoso’s chrysalis and allow my thought unfettered flight.” In “Dante” Sonata, one hears the flight of imagination—a defining mark of Phantasieren—reaching a new height and depth in the musicality of Liszt.
J.S. Bach/Rachmaninofv: Suite from Violin Partita No. 3 in E major, BWV 1006
Sergei Rachmaninov was prolific in writing piano transcriptions: his transcriptions are much more than mere adaptations or reproductions of the original compositions but (re)creations that embody rather personal interpretations with tasteful additions. Rachmaninov first began to transcribe music in 1886, which led to a four-hand piano reduction of Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, op. 58. In 1891, he also transcribed Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Sleeping Beauty, op. 66, published later in 1892, although Tchaikovsky had expressed his dislike for the first transcription.
In 1933, Rachmaninov decided to transcribe three movements from J. S. Bach’s Partita No. 3 for Violin Solo in E Major, BWV 1006, based on his recollection of his father’s playing of the piece on the piano, and combined them into a suite. Out of the six movements, he chose to work on the Preludio, Gavotte, and Gigue, adding new contrapuntal materials and harmonies, while omitting the Loure, Menuts, and Bourreé. In the same year, Rachmaninov also performed his transcription of the Prelude, after having premiered his arrangement of the Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s incidental music to A Midsummer Night’s Dream in January. He likely did not transcribe the Gavotte and Gigue until the summer. He played all three movements as a unified work in November but did not record them until nine years later. Rachmaninov was not the only pianist-composer who took an interest in transcribing Bach’s music; Liszt and Busoni had both conceived marvellous Bach transcriptions for piano. But, as Barrie Martyn points out, Rachmaninov demonstrated the ability to rework polyphony, deriving counterpoint from the single melodic line which he expanded into a “complex web.” Given Rachmaninov’s personal elements in the music, unfavourable receptions from critics do linger even though the transcriptions arguably display “great pianistic clarity and restraint.” Nevertheless, Marytn suggests, “those with less squeamish tastes have good reason to rejoice in the existence of so stimulating and inherently musical a work”—and this work, he observes, “should be set alongside Busoni’s arrangement of the D minor Chaconne as the supreme Bach transcription of the twentieth century.”
J.S. Bach/Busoni: Chaconne from Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004
Busoni was praised as “a Bach player by the grace of God” by Adolf Paul after his performance of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier in Helsinki, Finland, on November 3, 1888. Busoni wrote a large number of piano transcriptions of Bach’s organ and violin works, included in the Bach–Busoni editions. His love for Bach is well encapsulated in the Bach-Busoni editions, which contain performance suggestion on Bach’s compositions and an essay that discusses the art of transcribing Bach’s music. Among all the Bach transcriptions, the Chaconne from Violin Partita No. 2 in D minor and the ten “Chorale Preludes” for organ are perhaps the most recognized. Bach’s Chaconne is one of the most well-known works of music in the history of violin repertoire and is often played as a stand-alone piece. Like the original Chaconne for violin, Busoni’s piano transcription is technically challenging and virtuosic, but it exhibits emotional depth and profundity throughout, conveyed in sonorous complexity born out of Busoni’s pianistic imagination. Busoni evokes the violin with pizzicato and spiccato textures, but he also makes full use of the low register of the piano to bring forth majestic harmonies, inserting imitations of timpani, bells, and other instruments also. Busoni’s transcription is regularly contrasted with Johannes Brahms’s piano transcription of the same piece, for both show radically different approaches. Brahms intended to be “faithful” to Bach’s Chaconne by adopting, in his words, “the same difficulty, the nature of the technique, the rendering of the arpeggios, everything conspires to make me feel like a violinist” and for him, writing the transcription for the left hand alone is the only way to “secure undiluted joy from the piece.”
As noted by Leon Fleisher who holds Brahms’ transcription as “probably the single greatest work for solo left hand,” Brahms was “looking for a way to capture the sparseness, in a piano transcription, of the unaccompanied violin line of Bach’s wondrous D minor Chaconne” and writing for the left hand had enabled Brahms to “echo the limitations of the solo instrument and the ways that Bach miraculously transcends them.” But Busoni experimented with the limits and boundaries of the piano, too: he realized the piano’s potential to, on one hand, invoke characteristics of the violin and, on the other, dramatize the sublimity of Bach’s Chaconne in rich organistic and orchestral sound without forsaking the earnestness that marks the original.
Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit
Maurice Ravel was introduced to Aloysius Bertrand’s Gaspard de la nuit, a book of poems written between 1832 and 1836, eventually published in 1842, in 1887 by the Spanish pianist Ricardo Viñes. Ravel was drawn to the poems as they echoed his love for supernatural stories as well as his adoration of Edgar Allan Poe’s macabre and gruesome works. Ravel professed in 1928 that his “greatest teacher in composition was Edgar Allan Poe.” Emphasizing composers must in their music maintain a balance between emotion and intellect, he even proclaimed that “Poe proved that art must strike a balance between these two extremes, for the first leads only to formlessness and the second to the dry and abstract.”
For Ravel, “Gaspard has been a devil in coming, but that is only logical since it was he who is the author of the poems.” Bertrand himself ha stated Satan was Gaspard as the real author of the poetry. Ravel chose three poems out of the book, “Ondine,” “Le Gibet,” and “Scarbo,” turning the demonic and the grotesque into the most astounding and daring piano music in 1908. The first movement “Ondine” is filled with quiet shimmering notes that reflect the effects of rippling water, paired with melodic lines that bespeak the water nymph Ondine’s luring songfulness. Undine seeks to seduce a married man to his by demanding him to listen: “Listen! — Listen! — It’s me, it’s Undine who brushes these drops of water on the resonant panes of your window, illuminated by the mournful rays of the moon; and look, in a robe of watered silk, the lady of the chateau who contemplates, from her balcony, the beautiful starry night and the beautiful sleeping lake.” But she does not succeed in the end and “dissolves in tears and laughter.”
The slow and mysterious movement, “Li Gibet,” mesmerizes with sound of tolling bells ringing for the corpse of a dead man on the gallows in a desert—“the bell ringing by the walls of a city below the horizon, and the carcass of a hanged man reddened by the setting sun,” as Bertrand writes. Bertrand suggests the bell can be heard as similar to creeping insects, like “some cricket singing from its hiding place in the moss and sterile ivy with which the forest covers it floor out of pity” and “some fly hunting for prey and blowing its horn all around those ears deaf to the fanfare of the dead.” The finale “Scarbo” is often considered the most virtuosic. Ravel had admitted wanting to showcase his ability to write music more difficult than Mily Balakirev’s Islamey with this movement, all the while creating “a caricature of romanticism.” Ravel’s manipulation of violent and impulsive elements, of rhythmic unpredictability and frenzied dissonance, depicts the vampiric and nocturnal dwarf who is addicted to lurking in the dark at nighttime. Although the piece was dedicated to pianist Harold Bauer, Viñes premiered the work in Paris on January 9, 1909. But as Ravel himself expressed in a letter to Michel-Dimitri Calvocoressi, Viñes consistently went against the stated tempos and phrasing, and he was disappointed by Viñes’ performance of “Le Gibet” in particular. Ravel no longer had Viñes premiere his piano pieces and the French pianist Marguerite Long became the composer’s preferred performer of his work instead.
Rachmaninov: Études-Tableaux, Op. 39
Rachmaninov’s “Etudes-Tableaux,” Op. 39, written between 1916 and 1917, revolutionized the genre of etude with its vivid pictorial imageries and scenes, although Rachmaninov did not seem exactly sure about categorizing the pieces as etudes, given the title did not appear in the autograph. The earliest reviews of this set of nine pieces even referred to the compositions as “Preludes-Tableaux.” Each etude-tableau of this set evokes a distinct landscape and emotion. Rachmaninov gave some of these etudes specific titles. No. 1 in C minor, stormy in character, was designated “The Sea”; No. 2 in A minor, the dramatic and powerful “The Sea and Seagulls,” although the famed pedagogue Heinrich Neuhaus had called it “Levitan” instead, referencing the Russian mood landscape painter Isaac Levitan; and No. 6 in A minor, inspired by the fairytale by Charles Perrault of the same title, “Little Red Riding Hood.” The other etudes sound a wide spectrum of characters. No. 4 in B minor, for example, exhibits scherzo-like humorous personalities. No. 7 in C minor is a funeral march that alludes to church bells, with the opening theme evoking a march and the other, the singing of a choir. No. 9 in D major characteristically calls to mind an “oriental march.”
Fitting to one’s enjoyment of the etudes are Rachmaninov’s words in a 1941 interview for the magazine, named coincidentally also as The Etude. Rachmaninov remarked,
I have no sympathy with the composer who produces works according to preconceived formulas or preconceived theories. Or with the composer who writes in a certain style because it is the fashion to do so. Great music has never been produced in that way—and I dare say it never will. Music should, in the final analysis, be the expression of a composer’s complex personality…. A composer’s music should express the country of his birth, his love affairs, his religion, the books which have influenced him, the pictures he loves. It should be the product of the sum total of a composer’s experiences.
With this set of “Etudes-Tableaux,” Rachmaninov seemingly demonstrates that his music is an accumulation of his personal experiences. In the same interview, he also confessed: “When composing, I find it of great help to have in mind a book just recently read, or a beautiful picture, or a poem. Sometimes a definite story is kept in mind, which I try to convert into tones without disclosing the source of my inspiration.” Given the source is concealed, how then shall we listen to his piano pieces, including these etudes? Rachmaninov answered: “Since the sources of my inspiration are never revealed, the public must listen to the music absolutely.”
Mendelssohn: Variations sérieuses in D minor, Op. 54
Completed in 1841, Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses was intended to be included as part of the anthology “Album-Beethoven,” published in January 1842 by Pietro Mechetti. The purpose of the anthology, which composers such as Chopin and Liszt had also contributed to, was mainly to raise money for the construction of the Beethoven monument in Bonn, Germany. Although Mendelssohn had first declined this invitation, fearing that he might not be able to produce a work which could live up to the title of the anthology, he later showed much enthusiasm when he decided to take up the task. He wrote to his friend Karl Klingemann in a letter dated July 15, 1841:
Do you know what I have been doing so passionately for the last few weeks? -variations for piano. Eighteen of them at one go, on a theme in D minor [op. 83]; and they gave me such a divine pleasure that I immediately wrote a new set on a theme in E flat major [op. 82], and am now working on a third on a theme in B flat. I almost feel as if I have to make amends for not having written variations before.
After many rounds of revisions, the Variations sérieuses, consisting of seventeen variations, was premiered in 1841. Mendelssohn also performed the piece in a summer evening of 1846 before some guests, which included Richard Wagner and Louis Sphor. Sphor described the piece as “a fearsomely difficult and highly idiosyncratic composition… with monstrous brauva.” As indicated in the title, the concept of “seriousness” distinguished the variations—the idea of a “serious” variations might reflect the composer’s reverence for Beethoven and the occasion which the anthology served; on the other hand, it might also suggest Mendelssohn’s impression of Beethoven’s personality or musical persona. To write “serious” music, then, Mendelssohn did not prioritize virtuosic brilliance, something often considered key to nineteenth-century aesthetics. The original theme, marked Andante sostenuto and composed in a four-voice texture, declares solemnity in the key of D minor. Variation Ten is also highly contrapuntal with four voices, conceived as a fugato. The coda, designated Presto, is noted for its dramatic intensity and reminds listeners of Variation Five, with chords vigorously alternating between two hands. The Variations sérieuses was extremely well-received by Mendelssohn’s contemporaries, with two major musical journals of the composer’s time, the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung and the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, expressing high praises for the work.
Prokofiev: Suggestion diabolique, Op. 4, No. 4
An extremley short piece, Suggestion diabolique, the final movement of Prokofiev’s Four Pieces for Piano, Op. 4, composed in 1908, is full of aggressiveness and drive like a demonic piece of music. Prokofiev himself mentioned this piece in his diary often and performed it in his recitals, including his public piano debut, which took place also in 1908, at a concert series called Evenings of Contemporary Music. Despite its short length, this piece has left a mark on many composers. The Russian composer Viktor Yekimovsky, who passed away last year, cited Prokofiev and Suggestion diabolique as sources of inspirations.
Although Yekimovsky’s main teacher was Aram Khachaturian, he had heard Suggestion diabolique in the 1960s and experienced what he claimed to be a “Prokofiev metamorphosis.” He then imitated Prokofiev in his musical writing, an attempt that could be heard, as Peter J. Schmelz points out, in his unpublished piece named Gavottee (1963). In 1991, Yekimovsky praised Prokofiev in an essay as “the only one of the authentic innovators in musical syntax that they allowed us the indulgence of hearing,” refercing both Suggestion diabolique and Prokofiev’s Toccata in D minor, Op. 11, for piano. According to Boris Berman, it was precisely in these two pieces that Prokofiev seemed to have developed his “signature finger/wrist non-legato double stops and chords,” which characterize many passages in his Piano Concertos.
Shostakovich: Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op. 61
Composed in 1943, Shostakovich’s Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor was the last of his piano sonatas. His son, Maxim Shostakovich, also an outstanding pianist and conductor, has described this sonata as “one of Shostakovich’s most tragic scores.” The sadness felt throughout the sonata reflects a sense of loss the composer experienced after hearing about the news of his piano teacher Leonid Nikolayev’s passing, which took place a few months before he started to compose this sonata. Shostakovich wrote the piece to commemorate his teacher and premiered it in Moscow on June 6, 1943. Although Shostakovich had once expressed that the sonata is the most important piano work he had ever composed, the initial receptions of the piece were not all positive. Emil Gilels, for example, found the piece rather dissatisfying. The sonata opens with an Allegretto marked by incessant sixteenth notes and later, march-like characteristics. The Largo is lamentful, emitting an odd sense of loneliness, although it has been considered waltz-like. The finale, Moderato con moto, consists of a set of variations, with the last one recalling the opening of the sonata with its relentless sixteenth notes. The spirit of melancholy remains in this movement; the opening sings with one hand only and the sonata ends by dissolving into an ultimate desolation in the bass, in a mystifying pianissimo.
Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 4 in E-flat major, K. 282
“…I have a few words to say to my sister about Clementi’s sonatas,” Mozart complained in the early 1780s. “Everyone who either hears them or plays them must feel that as compositions they are worthless. They contain no remarkable or striking passages except those in sixths and octaves. And I implore my sister not to practice these passages too much, so that she may not spoil her quiet, even touch and that her hand may not lose its natural lightness, flexibility and smooth rapidity.”
For Mozart, Clementi’s piano sonatas privilege “atrocious chopping effect and nothing else whatever.” Although Mozart’s K. 282 is not the most known and frequently performed sonata, it reveals Mozart’s reluctance to write in such manners that seek to impress with dazzling techniques. Mozart sets the first movement in a slow tempo as an Adagio, which was not a usual practice in his time. The second movement comprises two minuets, with the first being set in the key of B-flat major and the second, E-flat major, followed by a return to the first minuet. The third movement, Allegro, returns in the home key in E-flat major. The sonata charms the listener with tenderness and sweetness, proving that for Mozart, feeling and taste, which he accused Clementi of lacking, were much more important in the creation of music.
Schumann: Fantasie in C, Op. 17
Written in 1836 with a dedication to Liszt, Schumann’s Fantasie in C, Op. 17 was originally intended to be a tribute to Beethoven, to be published as a “Sonata for Beethoven” titled “Ruins, Trophies, Palms. Grand Sonata.“ Schumann had informed Liszt of his plan to dedicate this work to him in a letter dated January 14, 1839. Liszt was flattered, replying on March 1: “What a pleasure it is for me to accept the piece which you intend for me! However unsuitable it may be for public performance, do not doubt at all that I shall do everything in my power to give it its true value.” Three months later, on June 5, Liszt expressed his high regard for the piece to Schumann: “The Fantasie dedicated to me is a work of the highest order – I am truly proud of the honour you do me in addressing such a grand composition to me. Also I want to work at it and penetrate it to the core, in order to be able to draw the greatest possible effect from it.”
But it was arguably Clara Wieck, then still his fiancée, who was really the object of this grand piece of music. The first edition of the Fantasie, published by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1839, printed these words by the poet Friedrich Schlegel: “Among all the sounds in earth’s many-colored dream/One soft note calls to the secret listener.” Schumann confessed to Clara that she was that soft note for him, who had been separated from her for far too long. He described this work to Clara as “excessively melancholy” and called the first movement “perhaps the most impassioned music I have ever written—a deep lament for you.”
Schumann conveys his longing for Clara in three movements—the first movement, immensely passionate since the moment it begins, even incorporates an Adagio coda that cites the last song of Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte (To the Distant Beloved). But the second movement seemed to capture his beloved’s imagination the most. Clara, who would perform the Fantasie in private circles, described this movement as music that makes her “hot and cold all over.” She heard it as “a victory march of warriors returning from battle, and in the A-flat section I think of the young girls from the village, all dressed in white, each with a garland in her hand crowning the warriors kneeling before them.” After this stirring march comes the final movement which, delicately beautiful and engrossing, resolves in a tender and serene C major.
Schumann: Carnaval, Op. 9
Carnaval, Op. 9 by Schumann was written in 1834–1835, subtitled Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes, roughly translated as “Little Scenes on Four Notes.” Dedicated to the violinist Karol Lipiński, this work comprises twenty-one short pieces, depicting masked revelers at Carnival, a pre-Lent festival. The “four notes” can be considered some sort of musical codes, which allow a variety of combinations: A, E-flat, C, B (A-Es-C-H in German), A-flat, C, B (As-C-H), E-flat, C, B, A (Es-C-H-A). The various combinations as motifs refer to the town of Asch, the birthplace of Schumann’s then fiancée, Ernestine von Fricken, whom he was in love with before he fell for Clara; Fashing, the German term for “Carnaval”; Asch as a reference to Ash Wednesday; and S-C-H-A as an abbreviation of his name.
Like Fantasiestücke, Op. 12, Kreisleriana, Op. 16, and Nachtstücke, Op. 23, Carnaval was partly informed by the literature of E.T.A Hoffman. But as Schumann scholar John MacAuslan puts it, the titles of Carnaval also indicate, “in a confection of fact and fiction,” a cast drawn from both the commedia dell’arte and Schumann’s circle of artists, as exemplified in “Florestan,” “Eusebius,” “Chiarina,” “Chopin,” “Estrella,” and even the evocation of the great violinist in “Paganini.” The description of Carnaval in the Leipziger Tageblatt of March 29, 1840 being a “humorous novel of masks” dominated by characters, appointed in “fleeting musical sketches, between which an escapade seems to unfold,” likely came from Schumann himself. Schumann had also referred to his Carnaval as “a more elevated kind of Papillons [op.2]” and quoted the waltz theme from his Papillons, Op. 2, in Carnaval’s “Florestan.”
Interestingly, the review printed on May 19, 1837, likewise emerged as a fictional play by Schumann. The postscript claimed that “composers should not imagine that by hanging a little tail on thought worth 0 they can turn it into a 9.” The “tail” was a derogatory term and the work associated was arguably Carnaval, with its opus number being “9.” But the review was a fiction, presumably a comical one cloaked as criticism, because Carnaval had not yet appeared at that time—and when Carnaval appeared, a new pianistic world of comedic and theatrical invention, of captivating characters and fascinating narratives, had come to life.