Category Archives: Small scale

Four seasons in one hour

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igor-levitAll the seasons in one concert – Igor Levit performs Tchaikovsky’s cycle of twelve months for piano

Igor Levit (piano) – Wigmore Hall, live on BBC Radio 3, 26 January 2015

Listening link (opens in a new window):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0505zfj

on the iPlayer until 28 February

For non-UK listeners, this Spotify playlist is available:

What’s the music?

Tchaikovsky – Méditation (1893) (5 minutes)
Tchaikovsky – The Seasons (1876) (41 minutes)

What about the music?

It might seem like a recent development where music magazines carried CDs on the front, but the idea of the cover mount was given to Tchaikovsky all the way back in 1875 by Nouvellist, a St Petersburg magazine. They commissioned from the composer one piece per month in manuscript form, and these were often published with a short piece of text from the editor Nikolai Bernard.

Although they are separate pieces they work really well as a whole and are perfect easy listening. Closer inspection reveals a wealth of melodic content and some keen characterisation too – especially in the characteristic October gloom with which Autumn begins, dispelling the three bright and incident packed months of summer. Bookending the collection are January in front of the fire, and December – by which time the Christmas hearth is beckoning once again.

The brief Méditation is rather moving, an epitaph to the head of the Conservatoire in Moscow. Tchaikovsky’s response has a noble beauty.

Performance verdict

Igor Levit is ideal for The Seasons, painting each picture with beautiful detail and sensitivity. Sometimes the months run into each other, which is effective when considering the year as a whole – that’s what time does, after all!

What should I listen out for?

1:41 – the soft, contemplative beginning to the Méditation

The Seasons

8:37 – Tchaikovsky paints the comforting warmth of the fireside in January through music that is easy to listen to – though under the surface there are a few worrisome figures
15:48 – The song of the lark in March, possibly the first clue this cycle offers that it is the work of a Russian composer
24:33 – June is the best-loved month of The Seasons, and this reflective Barcarolle is cast in a similar mood to March – until the sun literally comes out in the middle (26:09),as the music changes from minor key to major key
37:25 – After the bracing horn calls of September, the shadows lengthen noticeably for October, the longest of the twelve pieces by far, stretching out like tendrils into the gathering dusk. Tchaikovsky’s music here is appreciably darker in colour, sitting lower in the piano’s register.
42:44 – November puts a brave face on October’s troubles in music that bears more than a little resemblance to Schumann. There is however a very Russian Troika at its heart (from 43:40 and heard in full at 44:20)

Encore

51:22 – Another short Tchaikovsky piano piece, the Chanson triste – a model of simplicity, beautifully played.

Want to hear more?

Tchaikovsky is generally known for his loud orchestral music – 1812 Overture and the like – so why not try something else along the more gentle line practised here? His Symphony no.1, subtitled Winter Daydreams, is well worth trying next.

Finding the Romanian soul

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Finding the soul of Romania – Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Polina Leschenko play Enescu’s remarkable third sonata with music by Mozart
patricia-kopatchinskaja

Patricia Kopatchinskaja (violin) and Polina Leschenko (piano) – Wigmore Hall, live on BBC Radio 3, 12 January 2015

Listening link (opens in a new window):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xrsl2

on the iPlayer until 14 February

For non-UK listeners, this Spotify playlist is available:

What’s the music?

Mozart – Sonata for Violin and Piano in B flat (1784, 20 minutes)

Georges Enescu – Violin Sonata no.3, ‘dans le caractère populaire roumain’ (‘in Romanian Folk Style’) (1926, 25 minutes)

What about the music?

Mozart wrote a mass of sonatas for piano and violin. The order of instruments is significant, because whereas now we tend to be used to the piano playing second fiddle – as it were! – to the violin, Mozart wrote for them the other way around. For this piece, the tale is that he didn’t even have a piano part ready for the first performance in Vienna, so had to make one up on the spot!

Just a week after our encounter with the remarkable Solo Cello Sonata of Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály, we experience an equivalent outpouring of national passion from his contemporary, the Romanian composer Georges Enescu. A formidable violinist as well as a conductor, Enescu wrote what is regarded as one of the most difficult pieces for the instrument in 1926, looking to explore the soul of his country’s music. He does so in music of an incredibly direct nature, treating the violin as a voice at times.

Performance verdict

The Mozart proves to be a delicate palette cleanser for the main course, where the two performers feel a lot more at home in a meaty and often stormy account of Enescu’s masterpiece. It may need several listens but this is a forward thinking piece of work that brings out some extraordinary colours from Kopatchinskaya’s violin. Leschenko is no slouch either! A red hot performance.

What should I listen out for?

Listen especially for these bits:

Mozart

01:28 – the start of the piece. A polite musical language, calm and unaffecting. Kopatchinskaja uses very little vibrato here.

02:47 – Mozart moves from the slow section (marked by the Italian term Largo) to the fast (‘Allegro’). The music becomes more nimble

08:02 – The start of quite a lengthy but serene slow movement, with violin and piano imitating each other’s musical phrases.

14:42 – The beginning of the third movement, a sprightly number – where Kopatchinskaja’s outbursts suggest a bit of impatience!

Enescu

22:22 – the mysterious and almost otherworldly start of the Enescu

26:40 – the sort of broad, highly expressive melody in which the Romanian composer specialises, with animated backing on the piano.

31:30 – Enescu employs harmonics on the violin to get a really unusual, glassy sound quality, the start of a passage with a kaleidoscope of colours that reaches its peak at 34:39 with some weird and wonderful squeaks from the instrument – before 35:30 features some incredibly robust double stopping (more than one note at once on the violin) and runs on the piano from Leschenko

40:00 – A strong set of quotations from Romanian sources, with brilliant ensemble from the two players.

43:00 – Vigorous plucking to add a percussive element to the music

47:00 – the lead up to the powerful end

Encores

The duo gave two encores to the performance:

Cage – Etude for Violin and Piano (from 49:23 to 53:03)

Fritz Kreisler – Syncopation for Violin and Piano (from 54:12 to 56:22)

Want to hear more?

Mozart – one of the great master’s five violin concertos, which provides a good number of tunes (K216)

Enescu – further explorations of his country’s heritage in the Romanian Rhapsody no.1

 

Hungarian passion

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Hungarian passion – Alisa Weilerstein plays music for solo cello by Bach and Kodály

alisa-weilersteinAlisa Weilerstein (cello) – Wigmore Hall, live on BBC Radio 3, 5 January 2015

Listening link (opens in a new window):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04wmjx6

on the iPlayer until 7 February

For non-UK listeners, this Spotify playlist is available:

What’s the music?

J.S. Bach – Solo Cello Suite no.5 (1724, 26 minutes)

Zoltán Kodály – Solo Cello Sonata (1915, 28 minutes)

What about the music?

Bach wrote six suites for the cello – or an instrument incredibly similar to it – and they have become some of his most popular works, suitable for students or performers alike. They are intensely private pieces but have a nice line in humour as well, especially in the faster sections, set to European dance forms of the time.

The first of Bach’s six suites was used in the film Master and Commander, on which more can be found here. The fifth is a sparse work and quite bleak at times. It is in six movements – with a Prelude, two faster dances (an Allemande (German) and a Courante (French), then a slow French one (Sarabande). Then we have a pair of lively Bourrées (French again) and a Gigue.

The Hungarian composer Kodály has written a much more modern sounding piece; even more so than its 1915 composition date suggests. Before performance the cellist is required to lower the lower of the four from a ‘C’ pitch to a ‘B’, darkening the colour considerably. Kodály uses a lot of dance music – like Bach – but this is much freer and has an improvised feel, the listener practically carried outside into the village by the directness of the writing.

Performance verdict

Despite a couple of lapses of tuning in the Bach, Alisa Weilerstein gives a carefully thought performance. In the Kodály she really comes into her own though, with plenty of fire and brimstone!

What should I listen out for?

Listen especially for these bits:

J.S. Bach

01:08 – the start of the Prelude, where Weilerstein plays very quietly with no vibrato*. The music is bare and at a funeral pace.

16:03 – the ‘Sarabande’ (a slow dance), which Weilerstein takes incredibly slowly. To me this sounded like an evocation of slowly falling tears.

Kodály

26:44 – the arresting start of the Kodály Sonata. A lot of music for just one instrument!

30:00 – the second main theme. More serene and songful.

37:27 – the start of the second movement. A broad low ‘B’ leads through a slow melody to

38:00, where a distant tune brings the strongest use yet of Hungarian folk music. While the right hand is using the bow, the left hand is plucking the open string alongside.

41:36 – a powerful outburst on the cello.

57:55 – the incredibly fraught and powerful run to the finish, ending with an emphatic final double-stopped** chord.

Want to hear more?

Bach – if you enjoyed this performance something equally dramatic can be found in the form of the St John Passion, a vivid telling of the Gospel

Kodály – the Hungarian’s grasp of orchestral colour can be fully appreciated in the Dances of Galanta

Glossary

*Vibrato – a way of adding extra expression to a piece of music, usually used by string players or singers. For string players it is controlled by the non-bowing arm, with a vibration applied to the finger pressed onto the string. For singers it is achieved through control of the voice.

**Double-stopped – playing more than one string at a time on the cello.