Often I forget about all the works I listened to when I was younger. Back in the day where it all just seemed so random and different and I was no where close to understanding and loving it as much as I do today. The luxury of music in some forms is how simple it can be whilst still promoting the same effect.

Not much simpler a form of music exists than the Viennese Waltz. The meter is always 3/4, harmonic pace and the harmony itself are typically very simple and the "ump-cha-cha" effect is always present with the downbeat held in the bass voice of the group performing followed by the two other beats in other instruments.

Talk about masters of the Viennese Waltz and a name that immediately pops up is Johann Strauss II, son of Johann Strauss I and is correlated with elevating the waltz to new heights through his lifetime. Four of his waltzes follow below, each one applying to a certain mood, I shall leave that determination to you.



On the Beautiful Blue Danube, Op.314 was a waltz composed by Johann Strauss II in 1867 and is the statue of waltzes among the public that Strauss ever composed. I always remember the scene from Futurama where Bender is floating lost in space and he's swimming in the abyss with this waltz playing in the background. Weird connection I know. This work always appears connected to "space" themes, it was used in 2001: A space Odyssey as well.


Herbert von Karajan conducts the Vienna Philharmonic

Roses from the South (Rosen aus dem Suden), Op.388 If love could stem from a waltz than this would be the work to embody it. It has every range of emotion possible, the first look into her eyes, the first dance, the first kiss, the first letdown and then, life together forever. Okay perhaps not that idealistic but the piece would have it otherwise.



Enjoy life! (Freut euch des Lebans), Op.340. This was another work I had heard in my childhood but never really knew what it was till in my late teens when I saw the YouTtube video below and immediately recognized it.



Voices of Spring (Frühlingsstimmen), Op.410. One of my perpetual favorites that I rediscovered a couple of years ago. Once again I immediately recognized it from my younger days, was always wondering where it came from.



I always figured it was hearing these works in my youth that may have turned my musical interest into the "classical" way. Never really knowing what they were might have spiked my curiosity slightly, if only to look for something greater each time, but still be disappointed in not being able to find a similar "emotional" connection.

These four will always have a special connection however.

Well I must admit were it not for this blog inadvertently forcing me to discover new works and composers, I would have most definitely have posted all the Beethoven and Tchaikovsky Symphonies by now, and that would not be any fun. Nor very interesting as one composer all the time does have the tendency to grab your annoying tendencies and stretch them slightly, as I witnessed with my attempted "Mozart Month."

So as obviously last week I posted on one of my perpetual favorites, the Tchaikovsky Fifth, this week I shift to a work and a composer I still know very little about. What I do know of Antonin Dvorak is that he was as great as Beethoven and Tchaikovsky when it came to the Symphony, keeping alive such an important genre of music in the transition into the twentieth century.

With this post I start off with his most famous work, Symphony No.9 in E Minor "From the New World" Op.95. Written a year into his visit to the United States in 1893, the Symphony is an eclectic mixture of various nuances and cultural ideas that structure themselves into the idea of America's multicultural melting pot.

1. Adagio - Allegro molto


While Dvorak is rooted heavily in Czech tradition, a born and raised Bohemian peasant, the idea of American nationalism spreading from the Ninth Symphony came through the ideas and beliefs he obtained from his trip to the United States. Dvorak was strictly Czech in his roots, the old saying goes how you can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy. He loved the simple pleasures to life, the long journey by train, and casual conversation. Dvorak brought Czech music to the world's attention by showcasing its inherent appeal. Dvorak's music is one of a kind, one quote saying "you could feel the fresh rustic breeze and smell the hale country air." A true nationalistic appeal.

Influenced and inspired by his compatriot Bedrich Smetana, Dvorak had achieved great fame as an ardent champion of his beloved Czech music, fluently melding folk-tinged melodies into classical forms. But unlike Brahms, Liszt and other composers who studied folk music from an academic distance and used it as a fleeting exotic diversion, Dvorak's “Moravian Duets,” “Czech Suite,” “Slavonic Dances” and other cornerstones of his early fame were the very essence of his being.

2.Largo

Part 1. I have an email friend who plays the Oboe and Cor Anglais in France who claims it's her lifelong goal to perform this movement for only the opening solo


Part 2

The story of the "New World" Symphony begins with one woman's attempt to revitalize an aging feeling of American nationalism in music, foster it into the new millennium with a new grace of urgency. The woman was Jeanette Thurber, who had founded in 1888 the National Conservatory of Music, a pioneering venture which opened its doors in 1888 to promising African-American musicians but needed strong leadership. She found it in Antonin Dvorak.

Lured to New York in 1892 by the promise of a fee twenty times his salary in Prague, and was heavily energized by Ms. Thubert's objective. Early on he proclaimed:

"I am convinced that the future music of this country must be founded on what are called Negro melodies. These can be the foundation of a serious and original school of composition, to be developed in the United States. These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them."

True to his word, Dvorak immersed himself in African-American music. He was particularly drawn to one of his students, Henry Burleigh, who often sang for Dvorak in his home and who later recalled that Dvorak “saturated himself in the spirit of these old tunes.” While he was consistently busy with teaching and organizing performances, Dvorak was still foremost a composer and he had already begun work on what would become the cherished symphony his first winter in New York. It was completed that following summer on vacation in Spillville, Iowa, a colony of Czech immigrants to helped diminish Dvorak's intense homelessness.

Dvorak embraced both worlds from his he had experienced in writing the symphony. Formally the work was outlined by heavy European tradition, with a sonata-from opening, a meditative largo broken by restless outbursts, a hearty schzerto with bucolic trios and a triumphant, but vigorous finale. The work began to foster in new characteristics with the cyclical form embodied in the symphony. The themes all stemmed from a common seminal motif and returned in the finale.

3. Scherzo: Molto vivace - Poco sostenuto


There is however much dispute over the context from the subtitle of the work, "from the New World." While the similarities to the atmospheres provided by Dvorak's earlier works suggests that the symphony was inspired by a deep sense of nostalgia for his native Bohemia. However one would assume that Dvorak set out to practice what he was preaching, a deep examination of the work discovers the prevalence of syncopated rhythms, pentatonic scales and flattened sevenths of the native music to find a closer tie to America.

They noted Dvorak's fascination with the Hiawatha legend and traced the symphony's largo and scherzo to scenes of the funeral and celebratory feast from an opera he had sketched but never pursued. They found especially significant the resemblance of a principal theme of the first movement to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” reportedly one of Dvorak's favorite spirituals. But such speculation has its dangers – it's hard to find much meaning in the far more striking resemblance of a motif in the finale to “Three Blind Mice.” And subsequent critics who went so far as to assert that Dvorak copied his largo from a hymn, “Goin' Home,” were chagrined to realize that the song arose only decades later when lyrics were grafted onto Dvorak's original theme.

4. Allegro con fuoco

Jaws anyone? An amazing performance but unfortunately not complete

Dvorak himself made short work of the claims that he used actual Indian (African-American tunes) and insisted that he only wrote "in the spirit" of native American music. Leonard Bernstein in a 1956 lecture examined each of the themes and traced their origins to French, Scottish, German, Chinese and of course Czech sources and actively concluded that the only accurate view was to consider the work multinational.

New York critic James Huneker however, pointed out in a rather discerning review of the premiere, the “New World” Symphony was "distinctly American in the sense of being a composite, reflecting our melting-pot society." Indeed, much the same could be said for the American culture generally – it's made of foreign ingredients but emerges from the cauldron with a clear American flavor.

I've never been one to merge music with politics as Huneker did, I let the conductor do the talking, to which he does a tremendous job. Herbert von Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic deliver another excellent performance. It is a different perspective as an audience member to watch Karajan in his old age and the impact it impedes on his conducting mannerism. The music speaks for itself in his interpretation but to reference the video I posted of Karajan conducting Beethoven's Third Symphony with Herbert in his younger years, the difference is explicitly clear.

A while back I posted on Brahms' Six Pieces for Piano, Op.118 and discussed how they were my favorite of Brahms' solo pieces for piano. Lately however I have since discovered a couple new recordings of Brahms' other solo works and I may have changed my mind.

That's allowed though right?

In moving chronologically to the next Opus number in Brahms' career, we discover his final work for solo piano and the very last work to be published during the composer's lifetime, the Four Klavierstucke (Four Pieces for Piano), Op.119. Together with the Op.118 collection they were premiered in concert in London in 1894, a year after the four pieces compiling Op.119 were finished.

With the Op.119 collection, I have found the most personal preference for the final two movements of the work, the Intermezzo in C Major leading into the Rhapsodie in E-flat major, effectively acting as a finale (also the last individual work for piano written by Brahms).

3. Intermezzo in C Major


The Intermezzi were a medium of compositional genius for Brahms. Toying with rhythmic perceptions is the vehicle of success for Brahms in this movement as he creates a perplexing hemiola effect and employs a very intriguingly playful yet near serious melody.

4. Rhapsodie in E-flat Major

Irena Koblar performsl

I once heard one of my colleagues at school call this piece the "macho of piano pieces." While I may have agreed at the time, as I am currently working on this piece for a performance in the distant future, it also meddles with the word "epic."

"The rhapsody has been criticized for its rather crude from and medieval austerity. But the form has to match its content and a complex polyphony or a sonata form like development would surely disturb the archaic character of this magnificently heroic epic."

Brahms was a meticulous composer for a reason, not a note goes without a significant rationale and while the overall idea of his composition sees that his intermezzi are more polyphonic and his rhapsodies are more homogenized, proves that his enormous technical expertise as a composer is applied to the character ideally conveyed in the music.

For the longest time in my life I've always envisioned how much it would take me to learn the piece in today's post. I remember when I was little thinking about how much this piece would haunt me in my later years as I attempted to learn it. I first saw the score when I was 9 and nearly fainted. Here eleven years later and I'm still completely baffled by it.

The piece is Chopin's Polonaise in A-flat Major, Op.53, commonly known as the "Heroic" Polonaise and if there were ever a name that suited a piece perfectly, this would be one of them. The piece was written in 1842 and is perfect example of Chopin's piano compositions: bursting with energy throughout its entirety, scaling a wide range of the keyboard, colored with harmony and a distinct melody throughout.

It was for awhile my favorite piece by the piano written by Chopin, and while I may have since moved into the light of some of his other works, the Polonaise will always be there.


The polonaise being performed by Rafal Blechacz, the winner of the 15th International Chopin Piano Competition in 2005. Performance in the video starts at 2:18

The piece, though classified as a polonaise, has little to do with the true polonaise style. The work presents itself with two sections with a polonaise rhythm but most of it has no polonaise attributes. It is believed that Chopin wrote the piece having at the back of his mind, a free and victorious Poland which could explain the title of the polonaise, a wide spread dance on carnival parties in 3/4 rhythm.

The piece also references Chopin's earlier Polonaise in A Major, Op.40, No.1 with the beginning chords and ensuing chromatic development. Unlike the "Heroic" Polonaise, the Op.40, No.1, also known as the "Military" polonaise is a "true" polonaise, I should also know as I have performed it and been criticized about not bringing out the true "polish dance" aspect towards it.

A short little piece today to heighten the mood of a summer on the cusp of coming to an end for another year. Only one month left remaining and it almost feels like yesterday that I left Lethbridge because school was over.

In a way I feel sort of relieved to be returning to the environment that sinks me into the world I love. On the other hand, it means moving again and leaving all the friends I made in Calgary over the summer. Here's a piece to tribute both situations.

The works of Dimitri Shostakovich were under constant scrutiny because of the era in which he wrote music. With the Stalinist regime taking full control of all social aspects to the music that Shostakovich was forced to write through most of his career, it is possible to imagine the feelings of near freedom once that regime came to an end.

The Festival Overture in A Major, Op.96 is a work that really means nothing. It has no political undertones, no hidden subtleties into the progression of the working class like there was with his Fifth Symphony.


St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Y. Temirkanov conducting

The Overture is simply a becoming work that dares to ask the question, "why not?" to almost everything.

Why not enjoy it? Why not dare to have fun in life?

Well I've decided to break my Summer hiatus as July is now officially over. Also seeing as it is a Friday, I suppose it makes it obvious what the post will be about.

I've had my head around the music of Tchaikovsky lately, more specifically his piano concerto in b minor and the final three symphonies. As I've already posted on the Fourth Symphony with the Chicago Symphony and Daniel Barenboim conducting, I figured I would continue the pursuit chronologically and move on to this fifth.

The Fifth Symphony in E minor, Op.64 was originally my personal favorite of the final three the composer wrote. Although I've since seen the brilliance behind the fourth and the sixth, the fifth is perhaps closer personally if only for the second movement, and a few brief moments in the finale which give me goosebumps. Sometimes I wish I played a brass instrument just to get that feeling.

Part 1


Part 2


Composed between May and August of 1888 (200 years ago, I swear that wasn't planned), Tchaikovsky gave the premiere himself on November 8 that fall. Like the fourth symphony, the fifth is a cyclical work as the "motto" theme is treated and seen more than once in the symphony. Unlike the Fourth where the opening fanfare is heard in the first and fourth movement, the theme is heard in all four movements in the Fifth.

The Symphony is also somewhat programmatic, as was with the Fourth. While the composer himself gave the theme of "Fate," to the fourth symphony, he didn't designate a program for the Fifth, but it clearly occupies a theme, if only for a different motivation.

While all three of his final works deal with the subject, the fifth is perhaps the only one that transforms the idea of fate through the course of the symphony. The first movement opens with the theme, taken from a passage in Mikhail Glinka's opera A Life for the Tsar, translated meaning "turn not into sorrow," in the tonic e minor and is treated in a funeral march setting, opening into a more optimistic fanfare as the opening movement progresses, having established the idea of that "fate" theme. Progressing slowly through each movement, subject to tragedy, beauty and dance, by the time the Symphony has finished one could obviously tell the outlook Tchaikovsky had of the subject

His own notebook sheds light on the idea of the "program" for the fifth having wrote:
Introduction: Total submission before fate, or, what is the same thing, the inscrutable designs of Providence.
Allegro. 1) Murmurs, doubts, laments, reproaches against...
II) Shall I cast myself into the embrace of faith???
A wonderful programme, if only it can be fulfilled"

Part 3

unheralded beauty contained within this video!

Part 4


Tchaikovsky's last question in the notebook perhaps leads to a familiar struggle the composer had with himself about the ability in his writing. As had happened several times before, including working on the fourth symphony and his first piano concerto in their beginning stages, Tchaikovsky was plagued by self-doubt, often convinced himself that is creative powers were deserting him.

Things were slow to start, and although the inspiration soon began to gather momentum, before starting work on the instrumentation Tchaikovsky wrote to his patron Mme von Meck that there was "none of the former lightness and constant readiness of material" in the work. However, in time his opinion of the symphony began to improve and he came to love it.

Tchaikovsky evolved his own view of the symphony substantially between the fourth and fifth symphonies. His treatment of the "motto" subject, incorporated into all four movements is a major step forward from the Fourth. While the Fourth almost had that subset of a "safety net" with the work being designated a program, the Fifth took in stride the necessity to have each succeeding paragraph or appearance of the theme progressed naturally. While in the Fourth Symphony finale, the motto theme returns before the height of the Coda, whereas in the Fifth it is treated in every movement with more enthusiasm. Tchaikovsky threw in more themes, seen at its greatest in the second movement, thus increasing the potential for the music and its development, there were still some "seams" but they occurred less frequently and now had a more dramatic effect.

Part 5

like a surging power wave, the energy flowing is breathtaking!

Part 6

finale at hand!

It is remarkable how the idea of fate presented from the Fourth symphony is taken on such a journey in the Fifth. Treated with such absolution at the beginning, tragedy in the second movement with a brief interlude of dance and temptation in the third movement to the ultimate feeling of triumph as witnessed in the finale, Tchaikovsky is at his most dramatic and emotional clarity and yet, the sense of a declared theme for this work is faint at the most.

In the years of the Twentieth Century the Fifth found a new popularity, possibly for its ultimate idea of "ultimate triumph through strife," the symphony was quite popular during the days of World War II. Many recordings and performances took place, one of the most notable performances was by the Leningrad Radio Symphony Orchestra during the Siege of Leningrad.

City leaders had ordered the orchestra to continue its performances to keep the spirits high in the city. On the night of October 20, 1941 they performed the Fifth Symphony at the city's concert hall and it was broadcast live to London. As the second movement began bombs started to fall nearby, the Orchestra continued to play till the work was finished.

The post on the Fourth was strong in my mind because the videos featured a strong performance from the Chicago Symphony and Daniel Barenboim. This time in keeping with that trend I was lucky to find a great recording on Youtube with Leonard Bernstein conducting the Boston Symphony, not necessarily a perfect recording but the emotional range from Bernstein is amazing, especially in the second movement(second half of part 2, all of part 3).

It is quite an exploration musically, and one with an outlook that from where it finishes, would never be seen again in the Sixth and final Tchaikovsky Symphony.