The Second Viennese School

I am so tired of these “schools”.  Who names then anyways?

Schoenberg thought of himself as continuing the musical traditions of the New German School. In 1921 he developed his twelve tone technique and in essence  began the practice of serialism in music. However, before then, in the early 20th century his music was mostly free atonal and contained no sense of serialism. The only thing necessary was an end to the restrainsts of harmonic practices that had long “plagued” his musical lineage. Shoenberg’s op.  33a represent his delve into serialism.

Alban Berg was one of Schoneberg’s two students who picked up on the serialist technique and adapted it to his liking. His most famous piece for piano is his sonta, which follows closely the sonata form of the Classic era. His longing and frustration and agony is clear throughout the work.  Everyone in my studio tends to play this piece, and I’m not so sure I want to, even though it has been suggested to me by various people. Berg is best known for his songs and string quartets.  This piece sounds a lot like scriabin in that its chromaticism is not meant to sound biting and dissonant but rather to encapsulate the emotion and affect that normally spanned entire symphonies in a shorter amount of time.

Webern. He wrote like 3 things. ever. His entire output is easily contained within just a few CD’s and his piano music is even scarcer. However, his op. 27 Variations are a staple of the 20th century piano repertoire. Based on the same tone row, all three movements are totally different. They are also all very short. Again, S.D. played them when she came, and even though her review in NY was not good, people here seemed to like her playing.

While Webern and Berg tended to expand and stretch the limits of serialism and twelve-tone, Schoenberg was more of a traditionalist and instead stuck to time-tested forms and musical language.

The Spaniards

Those damn Spaniards…wiping out civilizations and killing for gold.

I wish I was a spaniard.

Albeniz was rejected from the Paris Conservatory. haha. Sucks for him. Like other spanish compoers, he is influenced greatly by the Moors living in spain at the time and also uses many exotic scales like phrygian modes and whole tone scales. Lots of Spanish music evokes other instruments and feelings such as castanets, guitars and dances. His biggest and best piece for piano is Iberia which is written in 3 books and is 12 pieces. Triana is in book two and is written in the form of the pasodoble (the double step).

Granados has his famous Goyescas, which incidentally I cannot find a good edition of. Quejas o la Maja y el ruisenor is written like a nocturne. One of Granados’s students was Frank Marshal who in turn went on to be the only teacher Alicia de Larrocha ever had.

De Falla is probably the least appreciated of the three. However, his Ritual Fire Dance is probably the best known spanish work after Bolero. His Fantasia Baetica is full of hard guitar strumming, castanets, its very rhythmic and biting. It was written for Arthur Rubenstein.

Ravel

Ravel is the reason that snare-drummers get repetitive stress injuries. Think: Bolero. I mean, seriously, how many times do you have to play that stupid little lick to prove that you can play the drum?

The Tomb of Couperin is a cool piece. However, it is not title Tomb. It is more like a rememberance of Couperin. He writes in a very impressionistic style with lots of non functional harmonies, but he also structures everything like Baroque and Classic dance forms and treats his themes with the same kind of development you would get in those eras. These compoers, Ravel and Debussy, were really a side-step from the traditional chain of Wagnerianism leading into Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School.

Lots of these impressionist composers like to write songs about rain and Ravel was no exception. His  Jeux d’eau or Water games is a really great piece. Simonne Dinerstein did a masterclass on it. It was cool.

Debussy

Anyone withe the first name Claude already seems old fashioned to me. However, Debussy was the opposite of that. He revolutionized music, and the piano. Interestingly he was really hateful of the percussive nature of the instrument. Debussy’s preludes are awesome and if you are looking for something great to play, fine one. Voiles is the second of the preludes in book1 and ironically, it follows Delphic Dancers whose main motive is comprised of a diatonic nice Bb chord with an F-G-A line. Then you get this Voiles wholetone, pentatonic business. Debussy was a pimp! Who else could get away with that. The images are beutiful. The first book includes the Reflections in the Water and The Homage to Rameau. This would be a great program idea, to take pieces composers wrote in from others. Corelli variations, Homage to Rameu, Bach-Busoni chaconne..and so on. Also, Debussy’s daughter was da bomb. When that dude came and played her papa’s piano she told him. “You play fine….but Daddy listened more!” Smack! Right where it hurts!

R.S.

Not my initials….but Rachmaninoff and Scriabin!!! wo0t.

So Rachmaninoff had big hands…yeah whatever. That whole G over the C chord thing we did in class….like I already didn’t feel insignificant enough as a pianist. Thanks.

His 24 preludes for piano are split between two opuses. 23, and 32. Interesting….hm. 23/4 is the famous D major prelude, with the insane stretches for the LH. 32/10 is the UBER famous b minor prelude. Everyone plays this. I never have. But I would like too. Rachmaninoff himself has said that it tells of a return. Perhaps of a king, but it is a return. Beautiful sonorities in both and both are intimate pieces. Enjoy them, please.

Scriabin was sorta crazy. While I did not know of his obsession with mosquitoes–and actually, I didn’t want to know, but too late–I did know that he thought of himself a messiah. All of this, because he happened to be born on Dec. 25. Anyways, his music is so unique and colorful. Of course Horowitz plays his Dsharp minor prelude all the time because its big and flashy…or did. Scriabin wrote a whole ton of Mazurkas of all things. It’s crazy! Polish dances by a Russian composer! But, he was obsessed with Chopin, so that’s that. 10 sonatas, many hard etudes, preludes and other works survive him. Interesting story, he hurt his hand learning the Liszt Don Juan. Sucker. By sonata 5 we get instances of the ‘mystique’ chord coming about. (I don’t think I’ve used the letter Q as many times in the week as I have in this paragraph…wow.)  It’s built off of all sorts of 4ths but I’m not getting into theory any more in my blog thanks to Sean.

Those Commies…

Mussorgsky – Wrote Pictures at an Exhibition, detailing his meandering about an exposition and looking at all the paintings. Awesome piece, orchestrated by tons of people, but it ultimately sounds better on piano. All sorts of titles are used to label each movement in all sorts of languages including German/Yiddish, bad Latin, French, Italian, Russian ect. The Great Gate of kiev is probably the most well known after the opening/reoccurring Promenade. Wonderful pieces.

Balakirev – Islamey. Listen to Boris Berezovsky on Youtube. This guy looks bored, but sounds soooo good. I mean, he won the Tchaik comp. Anyways, this piece is a staple of the virtuoso rep. Lots of double octaves, trills, thirds, fourths, glisses, 6ths, expanded LH arpeggios. Anything you can think of putting in a piece to make it hard….it’s here. It was also played by Lang Lang when he first came onto the American scene, but I don’t like it. Anyways, sort of an overarching, larger ABA form for the entire piece.

Tchaikovsky – Written in 1893, the theme and variations are the 6th piece in a set of….wow, 6 pieces for piano. The other five are a Reverie du soir, a scherzo humoristique, a feuillet d’album, a nocturne and a capriccioso, respectively. Best known pianistically for his concertos, these pieces are also a novelty and fun to listen to!

The Big 3

Ford, GM, and Chrysler…or…Franck, Faure, and Grieg.

Really, I could keep this metaphor going for far too long. Instead, I will just forget it ever came to mind. You’ll thank me later.

Franck. (If he were an auto company he could be Chrysler) Best known as an organist and teacher had some pretty cool students inclluding Chausson and Duparc. Incidentally, Duparc has beeeeauuuutiful songs. Listen up, pretty’s. Anyways, Franck is most famous infamous for his violin sonata piano concerto with violin descant. However, he does have some solo piano stuff. While his output is not that large, his Prelude, Chorale and Fugue is the best known of his piano writings. The opening sounds like a traditional Baroque unmeasured prelude, sorta improvisatory, but with a nice melody. It eventually becoes the chorale with a singing top voice. All of the textures are very organ-like. When the fugue comes in, it incorporates both themes and makes for a great concert piece.

Faure. (Ford)Faure is famous for his song and his three compositional periods which everyone knows and loves. I’m not talking about that. Although, L’hiver a Cesse (minus a couple spelling issues) is an awesome song…but don’t listen to the Mandoline. Debussy’s is way better. Plus he sets the french better. Anyways, I said I wasn’t talking about it. Shut up. His Nocturnes are a beautiful set and there are 13 of them.  A strange number, seeing as how most compositions are done in sets of up to 12 or 24. You never see like 17 Preludes….unless the guy died. Dr. Williams, if I remember, played one on her recital. It was wonderful.

Grieg (GM). Grieg….can be played on a mountain. Anyways…piano concert in a minor.  ‘Nough said.  His lyric pieces make everyone happy and I haven’t played one in ages.  But, Puck is a great one…tons of fun. They are all programmatic and they all have something to do with Norway. They better, Grieg needs to be representin’, yo. Nobody else comes from Norway. In total over 66 pieces spread over about 10 opussesses.  Andrei Gavrilov has a recording of most of them. They are great. Also, listen to Rubenstien play Elfin Dance. It’s so fast. I think—drumroll—too fast. Anyways, not for me to decide.

Let’s bail these companies out. (Play the the music of these composers). But not Ford, he has enough money to get him through 2010. (Singers to butcher his songs.)

…..ok. No more.

Brahms….tired of being ‘the other guy’

Brahms love Clara.   Brahms no shave.  Brahms no get Clara.

That’s gotta hurt.

On the plus side, this gave Brahms a lot of time to collect and catalog history. Brahms collected music from Couperin and Scarlatti to Beethoven and R. Schumann. He had letters and documents pertaining to music and music history. He read old treatises and other things of an important nature. Brahms is probably best known for his Intermezzo in A major, as it is not only beautiful but played everywhere all the time. However, his op. 117 Intermezzi are also wonderful little gems of Intermezzi. Written in 1892 and in Bb minor, Eb major and c#minor, they are great. Lush harmonies and pianistically thick textures prevail. With the second in Bbminor being my favorite with its beautiful melody and arpeggiated texture. All three are similar in that their opening melodies are sorta revolving and meander around a central pitch–they are limited in range.

The F minor sonata op. 5 is also gorgeous. It is also massive. It consists of 5 movements instead of the traditional 3, and even Brahm’s other sonatas aren’t as big. Interestingly, Brahms was only 20 when he wrote it and it is the last of his piano sonatas. It is a clear allusion to Beethoven, with the triplet-quarter being a reference to the 5th symphony. It is also full of hemiolas, which Brahms loved oh so much. (Maybe even as much as he loved Clara…) The falling thirds in the second movement are a crucial part of the scherzo third movement, and the Intermezzo, which recalls previously stated themes. It is very reminiscent.

Liszt

Man, I wish I had the cojones that Liszt had. That dude spent hours on technique, screw school. Screw a job. He worked on his technique and the rest, as they say is history.

Major conjones.

Anyways, Liszt is probably best well known for his etudes which are obscenely difficult, mostly because he could play them to show off his…yup, you guessed it, cojones. The 12 Transcendental were re-written 3 times, and there are three published versions. Liszt himself got better at writing for the piano, so naturally, his pieces developed.  No. 10, interestingly one of the only 2 that Liszt did not title is marked allegro agitato molto.  Not one of the harder ones, but pretty popular, it deals with treating melody in octaves in the right hand with cramped spacing, left hand difficult figurations and other such gnarly things. In addition, the Paganini etudes are also famous, particularly La Campanella. If you have the Norton Recordings from survey, it’s Andre Watts playing. I hate it. I mean, he does some things well…but man. I just don’t like it. Anyways, its super famous. Everybody knows what it sounds like. Noteworthy is the fact that Liszt himself said that the LH octaves in the coda could be changed. He wasn’t “teaching enough” when he wrote that.

The sonata is a masssssssive work (like Liszt’s conojones!) that does a lot of cool things with Sonata Form and keys and such, but seeing as how last time I talked about form, I was ridiculed in another blog I will refrain this time. (You know, Sean, I thought this was a safe space, where I could talk about what I wanted without fear of judgment. I guess not.) The sonata has many cool historical anecdotes associated with it, and there are conflicting reports from many of Liszt’s own students about how to play the opening three G’s. Everyone who is anyone records this sonata and it’s absolutely beautiful. It is possibly programmatic, telling the story of Faust and Gretchen and Mephistopheles.  If not, it’s still clearly a struggle between light and dark. I love this piece, but I can’t find a recording that I like all the way through. Parts of one and parts of another and blah blah. I wish I could splice them together and submit it as my own…..but I don’t have the balls.

Liszt is also famous for doing what many composer/pianists did at the time and that is adapting the famous works of other well known composers to fit their concert billings. (Dude, can you imagine the cojones it takes to take Beethoven and Schubert and Chopin and make it “Better”….wow.) Liszt does this through his opera paraphrases and his song transcriptions. The song Auf dem Wasser zu singen is a Schubert song that Liszt treats nicely and the Reminiscences of Don Juan is a particularly coherent set. There is, in fact a duo piano arrangement. We should have the Grinell Artist duo team of Toha and Bell perform it in class one day. I’m sure they could use it on their performance resume. Apparentley, Scriabin hurt his hand playing this piece and wrote his funeral march for the first sonata in memory of his once perfect hand.

The Anees de Pelerinage is in three books. I’m waiting for the posting of the info from class before I go into any great detail. But most of the famous pieces of Lisz’ts come from here, including a beautiful!! Petrarch Sonett (104).  For these pieces, I definitely reccomend Alfred Brendel’s recordings of it. I don’t know why, but I really like them. Maybe I should listen for his priorities to see if they match with my own. But alas…no time. The only thing is that he only plays the first two books, with Zoltan coming in as relief pitcher and finishing up book 3. Speaking of cojones….closing for Brendel….thats a pair.

Chopin Barcarolle and Second Sonata

The Chopin Barcarolle is one of three stand alone pieces that Chopin wrote that are very popular on the piano. The Fantasie and the Berceuse are the other two. A barcarolle is normally a gondolier’s song. Usually in 6/8 to help promote the swaying of the ocean and eliciting a specific scenery and mood. The Barcarolle is famous for its beauty and for its double trills which are noticeably missing in any of Chopin’s (and much of anyone else’s) piano works.

The second sonata is also the first really good sonata, as the first one is sorta lame. The form is truncated, with the P theme coming back during the end of the development section, and the S theme coming back in the tonic key at the beginning of the recap. It’s sorta cool. This sonata contains the famous Funeral March third movement. Normally transposed to c minor to make it easier to play, it surprised me to learn that it was, in fact, actually in Bb minor. I really enjoyed this sonata, and the third one, actually. I had never listened to Chopin’s sonatas, but I am now glad I did.