Tag Archives: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Under the Surface at the Proms – Nielsen: Wind Quintet

Posted on by
Reply

Proms Chamber Music 2, 27 July 2015 – Royal Northern Sinfonia Winds at the Cadogan Hall

royal-northern-sinfonia-winds

Three of the five Royal Northern Sinfonia Winds taking part in the Cadogan Hall concert – Timothy Orpen (clarinet), Juliette Bausor (flute) and Steven Hudson (oboe). They were joined by Peter Francomb (horn) and Stephen Reay (bassoon)

Nielsen Wind Quintet (1922)

Composers and their anniversaries have long been a prominent feature of the BBC Proms, and this year is no exception.

Happily the BBC have taken the opportunity to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the birth of Carl Nielsen with both hands. The seeds were sown with Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and their cycle of the composer’s six symphonies that fitted snugly into their 2015-16 Barbican Season.

Now at the Royal Albert Hall we have the chance to enjoy the composer’s three concertos, for clarinet, flute and violin respectively – and here, in the second Proms Chamber Music concert of the season at Cadogan Hall, the opportunity to hear the composer’s most popular chamber work.

Audio

http://www.bbc.co.uk/events/ez3zc8#b063dgkd

(Nielsen from 2:25)

The Wind Quintet is a charmer. Written in 1922 after Nielsen was captivated by the Copenhagen Wind Quintet, it celebrates the sonorities a combination of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon can offer – and Nielsen cheats a bit by alternating between oboe and its very close relative, the slightly deeper cor anglais (English horn).

The first movement celebrates the sound of the five instruments together and also on their own – while the second spins a lovely melody from the clarinet and uses it as the base for a sunlit movement. The third starts with improvisatory bursts from solo instruments – oboe and clarinet – before a solemn hymn deceives us into thinking the composer has gone all serious – before he enjoys a set of variations on that theme, pairing instruments off and exploring different combinations.

It is a lovely piece to listen to, and the Royal Northern Sinfonia Winds did it full justice, clearly enjoying the interplay. They were equally good with Mozart’s Quintet for piano and wind, where they were joined by the stylish piano playing of Christian Blackshaw, who led what is effectively a concerto reduction.

It was Mozart that Nielsen heard the Copenhagen ensemble playing – and the Wind Quintet in turn led to the Clarinet and Flute Concertos. So Nielsen, in the final decade of his life, proved an accomplished writer for wind instruments – and the Proms’ exploration of his achievements is already proving an enjoyable aspect of the festival.

There will be more Under the Surface features as the Proms progress, exploring lesser known pieces and composers at the festival

Kristian Bezuidenhout plays Mozart at Wigmore Hall

Posted on by
Reply

Kristian Bezuidenhout plays Mozart piano music at Wigmore Hall

Kristian Bezuidenhout 2010 Photo: Marco Borggreve

Kristian Bezuidenhout (fortepiano) – Wigmore Hall, live on BBC Radio 3, 13 April 2015.

Listening link (opens in a new window):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05qdw80

on the iPlayer until 13 May

Spotify

In case you cannot hear the broadcast…Kristian Bezuidenout has recorded all of this music, save for the brief encore, as part of a complete series of Mozart’s solo piano works for Harmonia Mundi. A playlist of the works played in this concert can be found here

What’s the music?

Mozart – Piano Sonata in F major, K332 (c1783) (18 minutes) ((the ‘K’ number gives an indication of the work’s position in the Köchel catalogue of Mozart’s music)

Mozart – Adagio in F major (unknown) (6 minutes)

Mozart – Piano Sonata in D major, K284 (1775) (Dürnitz) (27 minutes)

What about the music?

mozart

The sound of the fortepiano (a very early form of the piano as we know it today) is definitely an acquired taste – and even then it has to be said not everybody acquires that taste. That is not to put you off listening to the music, but it is an advanced warning of sorts that this is a very different piano sound, one with sharp colours when played loudly. At times the sonorities approach that of a harpsichord, though with an instrument such as the one South African-born Kristian Bezuidenhout uses, a copy of an 1805 model, there is room for manoeuvre.

Kristian is in the process of recording all of Mozart’s work for the instrument, a sizeable canon that includes a number of memorable piano sonatas and several shorter but important standalone pieces. One of these is the Adagio inserted into the middle of the concert – though this is of doubtful authenticity, and may not be by Mozart at all.

The second sonata in this recital, K284, is almost twice as long as the first, and was completed in Munich for a friend of the composer’s, bassoonist Baron von Dürnitz.

Performance verdict

Kristian Bezuidenhout gives these pieces his all, leaving the listener in no doubt as to his total commitment to Mozart’s music. He adopts quite challenging speeds, the fast movements rushing along and even the slow ones being much faster than anticipated – at least in the case of the first sonata in the recital.

His right hand work is always very clear, especially when playing more than one note at once, so each of the inside parts can be heard. This is especially important with the fortepiano, where the notes do not necessarily sustain for as long.

If you are not a fortepiano enthusiast then hopefully Bezuidenhout’s graceful way with the Adagio in particular will go some way to winning you over.

What should I listen out for?

Piano Sonata in F, K332

1:37 – a genial beginning, but soon there is an outburst of storm and strife at 2:04, as Mozart wrenches the music into the minor key. Bezuidenhout exaggerates the contrasts between a relatively calm right hand and the occasionally stabbed notes in the left that give powerful energy to Mozart’s writing

8:31 – the slow movement, the middle of the three – and the most harmonically adventurous. Mozart enjoys some quite florid writing for the piano and uses the walking accompaniment to his advantage, writing music of unexpectedly profound expression. Bezuidenhout arguably plays it a bit too quickly here.

13:08 – a literal hammer blow starts this fast movement with a rapid clatter of notes. At times it sounds as though someone has sat on the lower end of the piano, such is the force of the playing! The fortepiano certainly brings alive the contrasts in Mozart’s writing for keyboard, and here Bezuidenhout uses it to bring out the bell-like figurations in the right hand. Towards the end there is a lovely, graceful touch from the pianist that brings us to a calm finish.

Adagio in F

21:26 – a tender, almost operatic piece of work where the right hand at times takes on the profile of a singer. There is a slightly mischievous element to the melody, which can overdo itself at times, but it is charming much of the time.

Piano Sonata in D, K284

29:18 – this piece starts with a flourish, and Bezuidenhout keeps a brisk tempo throughout. The first main theme is vigorous, the second a bit more thoughtful and graceful, especially when it appears the second time around at 31:18.

34:26 – a thoughtful second movement, and an airy one, with a lightness of touch that really suits the music. There is an attractive ‘question and answer’ between the hands.

39:18 – a long third movement, which is a theme and variations – a form in which Mozart excels. A relatively simple theme is heard to start with before the music heads through twelve very different reworkings of the source material, each one seemingly more difficult than the last! It is a chance for Mozart to really flex his compositional muscles. Of particular note is the variation at 44:31, where Mozart slows down rather. The variation finishing at 46:54 goes heavy on the bass, and is followed by a darker turn in the minor key. An unexpectedly tender episode at 51:36 finds the piano keys lightly brushed, the tempo slowed down dramatically. Finishes at 55:53

Encore

Mozart: Allemande from the Suite in C major, K399 (3 minutes)

57:21 – this short piece, described by the pianist as ‘enigmatic’, is part of a pastiche Mozart wrote, a Suite in the Style of Handel. It is surprisingly dark at times.

Want to hear more?

If more Mozart piano music is what you want, I would point you in the direction of some of the composer’s short and very profound single pieces. Two Rondos do the trick here, with a Fantasia and a late Adagio for good measure. All are played by Bezuidenhout, and included at the end of the Spotify playlist referenced above.

For more concerts click here

Connecting Bach with Mozart – Giuliano Carmignola and Kristian Bezuidenhout

Posted on by
Reply

Connecting Bach with Mozart – Giuliano Carmignola and Kristian Bezuidenhout link J.S. Bach with Mozart by way of three violin sonatas

carmignola-bezuidenhoutGiuliano Carmignola and Kristian Bezuidenhout – Wigmore Hall, live on BBC Radio 3, 16 February 2015. Photo © Ben Collingwood

Listening link (opens in a new window):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b051chkl

on the iPlayer until 17 March

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

For those unable to hear the broadcast I have put together a Spotify playlist, including Giuliano’s recordings of the Bach with harpsichordist Andrea Marcon, and the Mozart – which he has not yet recorded – with Mark Steinberg and pianist Mitsuko Uchida on Decca:

What’s the music?

J.S. Bach – Sonata no.2 in A major for violin and keyboard BWV1015 (thought to be between 1717-1723) (13 minutes) (the ‘BWV’ number gives an indication of the work’s position in the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (Bach Works Catalogue)

J.S. Bach – Sonata no.3 in E major for violin and keyboard BWV1016 (thought to be between 1717-1723) (15 minutes)

Mozart – Violin Sonata in A major K526 (1787) (21 minutes) (the ‘K’ number gives an indication of the work’s position in Mozart’s catalogue. This is no.526 of a total of 626 numbered published works)

What about the music?

This is a ‘period instrument performance’ – that is, played on instruments from or designed to sound like those in Bach and Mozart’s time. The BBC Radio 3 announcer Sara Mohr-Pietsch confirmed Carmignola’s violin is an Italian model dating from 1739, while Bezuidenhout used an early piano developed from an original of 1805.

Mozart wrote dozens of sonatas for violin and keyboard, but the later ones are generally regarded as his finest. This particular example was written around the same time as the opera Don Giovanni, and is dedicated to the memory of Mozart’s friend and fellow-composer Carl Friedrich Abel.

The two Bach works are not as often performed as his works for solo violin, but demonstrate his ease and flair with writing for the instrument. Violin and piano are very closely linked in this music.

The Bach connection comes through the friendship between Bach’s son Johann Christian – whose music is still frequently performed to this day – and Carl Abel. Both met the eight-year old Mozart and stayed in touch with him.

Performance verdict

Carmignola’s bright tone is ideal for the Bach, which could be dry in lesser hands. Here he brings out all the vocal elements in the writing, and is helped by strong support by Bezuidenhout, whose springy rhythms and nicely shaped phrases are a constant pleasure.

The Mozart is an exceptional performance, bringing deep emotion and uncertainty to the slow movement in particular. The grace with which both performers play is unusual in period-instrument playing, and the softness of tone from the fortepiano is beautiful.

The Bach works are a little less obviously expressive, but are extremely well played. What was abundantly clear – an often underestimated point – is just how much the players were listening to each other during performance, not to mention a clear enjoyment of the music!

What should I listen out for?

Bach Sonata no.2

4:49 – at first I actually wondered if the two instruments were tuning up, as they were playing a unison ‘A’! However it turned out to be the easy going start of a graceful slow movement, the first of four.

7:49 – quite a punchy beginning to the first fast music of the sonata, the instruments dovetailing their melodic lines and with several cleverly worked sequences. The music ends quite suddenly.

10:54 – marked ‘Andante’ (at a walking pace), this has purposeful movement despite the slower tempo, and a slightly sorrowful air. Carmignola gives some tasteful ornamentation to the melody.

13:49 – an energetic fourth and final movement. The movement between the violin and piano parts (‘counterpoint’) drives the music forwards.

Bach Sonata no.3

18:47 – a spacious but very expressive slow movement, marked ‘Adagio’. The profile of the violin melody is as if written for a singer, with a common five-note accompaniment for the fortepiano.

22:29 – a lively second movement, with a constant stream of dialogue (‘counterpoint’) between the two instruments, beautifully dovetailed in this performance.

25:29 – this may be a slow movement but there is a soft dance element. Eventually it peters away into almost nothing.

29:44 – a vigorous fourth movement, simply marked Allegro, where both violin and fortepiano work hard together and apart.

Mozart

35:43 – a colourful fast movement to begin with, with both instruments equally involved in the dialogue and sharing the themes. The piano has some particularly tricky runs in the right hand which Bezuidenhout appears to manage easily.

42:19 – a deeply profound piece of contemplation, where Mozart appears to be remembering his friend in music that alternates between hope and deep thought. The passages of ‘hope’) (from the start, for example) tend to be in the ‘major’ key, while the passages of darker introspection (45:28 for example) are rooted in the minor.

49:15 – to start with the violin and piano seem out of sync, with some elaborate rhythms from Mozart. The piano in particular is incredibly busy, with the left hand shadowing the right in melodic profile. The violin becomes more showy in the central section.

Encore

57:49 – A short and nippy encore, the last movement of J.S. Bach‘s Violin Sonata in B minor, BWV1014. This work was published as the first of a group of six – the works above being the second and third in the group.

Want to hear more?

As the link between this music is Johann Christian Bach, here is a link to a disc of ‘Six Favourite Overtures’, played by the Academy of Ancient Music under Christopher Hogwood:

For more concerts click here

Finding the Romanian soul

Posted on by
Reply

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

 

Screen Grab: Master & Commander

Posted on by
1

master-and-commander

Master and Commander-The Far Side of the World poster by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia

One of the secrets behind the success of the 2003 Oscar-winning film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, apart from the outstanding ensemble acting, was the music – and especially the classical music used.

That’s not to discredit the original score, which is a combination of original music written by Christopher Gordon, Iva Davies and Richard Tognetti, and traditional folk dances. The original score is on a massive scale, carrying a powerful blast of sea spray in its opening number, The Far Side of the World, and it captures the grandeur of the ship as well as the menace of approaching battle.

The use of classical music lifts the film still further, none more so than the use of Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis. This becomes the stirring motto of the film, with a newly-motivated crew and their strong feelings of brotherhood:

With the film set in 1805, director Peter Weir skilfully incorporates music written in the preceding century. At the other end of the scale from the big-boned soundtrack music is the Prelude for solo cello by J.S. Bach, taken from the Cello Suite no.1 and played by Yo-Yo Ma:

Also used are pieces by Mozart (a brief excerpt from the last movement of his Violin Concerto no.3, leading from a slow introduction to busy strings) and Corelli, whose Adagio from his Christmas Concerto is solemn but rather beautiful.

Finally, for the closing credits, we have a String Quintet by the Baroque composer Luigi Boccherini, for string quintet (two violins, viola and two cellos), which is genial in terms of the communal music making the crew get involved in below decks, but alternates between slow, profound thoughts and vigorous bursts of energy.

The Master & Commander soundtrack can be heard on Spotify here:

Published post no.2 – Sunday 1 February 2015