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Erik Satie: Gymnopédie No. 1
Frédéric Chopin: Prelude, Op. 28, No. 4
Frédéric Chopin: Scherzo No. 3, Op. 39
Johann Sebastian Bach: Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3, in D major, BWV 1068)
Franz Schubert: Impromptu in G-flat major (from Four Impromptus, D. 899)
Franz Schubert, arr. Franz Liszt: Ständchen (from Schwanengesang, D. 957)
Frédéric Chopin: Polonaise, Op. 53
Frédéric Chopin: Mazurka, Op. 17 No. 4
François Couperin: Les barricades mystérieuses The Mysterious Barricades
Johann Sebastian Bach, arr. Franz Liszt: Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543
Franz Liszt: Consolation, S. 172
Franz Liszt, arr. Vladimir Horowitz: Hungarian Rhapsody, No. 2
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‘A dance competition of boys unencumbered by clothing’ or ‘a nude dance and competition of young men in ancient Sparta’ are some of the definitions of gymnopédie. Today we usually associate the term with Trois gymnopédies, three pieces written in 1888 by Erik Alfred Leslie Satie (Honfleur, 1866 – Paris, 1925), a French composer of Scottish origin. Satie was expelled from the Paris Conservatory several times and later often complained that only one, rigid type of education was required of musicians, while others, such as writers, were free to learn as they pleased. He also stated, ‘I have always said that there is no such thing as Artistic Truth, no single Truth, I mean.’
Today, he is best known for his short piano pieces, namely the Gymnopédies and Gnosiennes. Many of his works, also concise and humorous, have unconventional titles, such as the Bureaucratic Sonatina or Four Flabby Preludes for a Dog. He also wrote songs, orchestral pieces, ballets, and music for a short film.
Gymnopédie No. 1 is an unusual, melancholic and minimalist piece with short, stripped-down phrases – probably not so much a ‘dance’ or ‘naked contest’, since titles are often metaphorical. American author Roger Shattuck writes that the piece is ‘like a painting by Velázquez, where everything looks correct but the perspective seems somehow subtly awry.’
The piano repertoire is unthinkable without the works of the master of short forms and romantic virtuosity. Frédéric François (Fryderyk Franciszek) Chopin (Żelazowa Wola, 1810 – Paris, 1849), one of the most important composers of the 19th century, was born to a Polish mother and a French father. He studied counterpoint and harmony, and also literature, in Warsaw. After local successes, he had difficulty making his way in Vienna; he was much better accepted in Paris, where he socialized with musicians and gave successful piano performances. However, his public appearances were relatively rare and he mostly played in salons, becoming a piano legend known only to the select few. He was also a sought-after teacher. Chopin’s health problems began in the mid-1830s, and his tuberculosis worsened after a long stay in Mallorca with the writer George Sand. Chopin was given a grand funeral in Paris with a performance of Mozart’s Requiem: he was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery, but on his deathbed he requested that his heart be taken to Poland, where his sister smuggled it.
He is best known for short musical forms – sometimes inspired by Polish dances – which were otherwise considered a salon genre, but Chopin gave them an artistic touch, combining expressive melodies, innovative harmonies and high technical demands. He also wrote two piano concertos, and rarely composed for other instruments.
Chopin’s works include 24 preludes, one for each key. This is a nod to Bach’s preludes, but without the fugues, which means that Chopin’s preludes are not introductions to anything, but independent pieces. Prelude, Op. 28, No. 4, in E minor, is marked by a melody that, at first quite slowly, moves through tight intervals, with a harmonically floating accompaniment, a melody that conveys romantic longing that is resolved, perhaps, only at the very end.
Frédéric Chopin was the first to write scherzos, whose name is derived from the Italian word for ‘joke’, as independent pieces and not just movements in multi-movement compositions. He composed four scherzos, marked presto (here with the addition of ‘con fuoco’), with a calmer middle section. He wrote the Scherzo in C-sharp minor, Op. 39, in Mallorca, already in failing health, creating a stormy work that begins with a quieter tension, and then moves into a ‘hunting’ octave theme. In the middle section we hear Chopin’s typical fluidity, descending cascades of tones.
Polonaises, short movements in Polish style, solemn, in triple meter, and reminiscent of a march, were written before Chopin, we find them among the works of Haydn, Beethoven, Hummel, Schubert, and in salons. Chopin, however, was the one made them popular, composing the majority of his polonaises later in his career. The Polonaise in A-flat major is perhaps the best known, due to its strong, yet skilfully executed, ‘heroic’ touch. Chopin wrote it in 1842, already physically weak, but with a rich imagination with which he combined dance and fighting, celebration and melancholy.
Mazurkas, perhaps Chopin’s most elaborate and harmonically daring works, are originally Polish dances for dancing in pairs, in triple meter, moderately fast, and characterised by dotted rhythms. The last Mazurka from Op. 17 begins and ends quietly, mysteriously. Its gentle theme is slightly different each time, interrupted by ‘livelier’ parts and embellished with fioriture. In a letter he wrote at the age of fourteen, Chopin mentions a dance he wrote and calls it Żydek – the little Jew. His family later believed that he was referring to Mazurka, Op. 17, No. 4, which prompted listeners to look for ‘oriental’ elements in the composition.
It was only towards the end of his short life that the works of Franz Peter Schubert (Vienna, 1797–1828) reached a wider audience, and at that time he also wrote Four Impromptus, one of which is on tonight’s programme, and Moments musicaux. He played and composed from an early age, but since his family did not consider music a suitable profession, he became a teacher at the school where his father worked. Later, he also experienced the difficult life of a freelance composer. He often presented his works at private musical gatherings, later called ‘Schubertiade’. He was one of the most important composers of German Romantic art songs (Lieder), but he also wrote symphonies, chamber music, piano pieces, operas, and masses. The third Impromptu, in G-flat major, was first transposed to G major by his publisher, fearing that the original key would frighten the wider audience, but today the original is performed, a kind of reverie, peacefully floating above the whisper of the accompaniment, in pianissimo with a very measured harmonic growth.
This evening’s programme will be concluded with the music of Franz Liszt, who was enthusiastic about Schubert’s music from an early age and promoted it throughout his life, through his own performances, editing printed editions of Schubert’s works and also with their arrangements. He arranged many of Schubert’s songs for solo piano, including the gentle Ständchen (Serenade), with the text ‘Softly my songs plead...’ Some considered that Liszt emphasized the virtuosity of the performer in his arrangements more than the composer’s original idea, but at the same time he introduced the works to wider audiences. The renowned baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau stated: ‘It was Franz Liszt, with his much scorned transcriptions, who, through piano arrangements alone, assisted greatly in the propagation of German song.’
Liszt also transcribed for the piano the works of the Baroque musical genius Johann Sebastian Bach (Eisenach, 1685 – Leipzig, 1750). Bach wrote the rhapsodic Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543, for the organ, and it was preserved in a number of later manuscripts. Liszt arranged and published Six Preludes and Fugues, BWV 543-548, which had fascinated him since childhood. He regularly performed the Prelude and Fugue in A minor with his famous theatricality, which often led to Lisztomania.
The Air movement from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 3 has long since had a life of its own, becoming one of the most performed excerpts, popular on festive occasions. It is also known as ‘Air on the G String’, after August Wilhelm’s arrangement for solo violin. The name Air refers to an aria, to melodiousness, in this case of broad breath, over dignified bass line.
François Couperin (Paris 1668–1733), a French composer, harpsichordist and organist, also called ‘le Grand’, or the Great, was the founder of the French harpsichord school. He wrote numerous works for harpsichord, in four large collections, in which he used techniques that would be adopted by later composers when the development of instrument building allowed them to do so. His compositions are characterised by speed, virtuosity, and numerous arpeggios, but also graceful melodiousness.
Les barricades mystérieuses is the mysterious title of a composition in rondeau form from the sixth part (Sixiéme Ordre) of the harpsichord suite Pièces pour Clavecin, from 1716–1717. It is a suite of dances for home performances with descriptive titles. Musicologist Philippe Beaussant writes that the sixth part of the suite is characterised by unity, with all the pieces in the same key, B-flat major, and with ‘mostly bucolic themes’. Harpsichordist Pascal Tufféry points out that Couperin uses ‘a convoluted, perhaps slightly playful, way of expressing himself, such as was practiced, for example, in the circle of the poet Vincent Voiture’.
It is unclear what the title Mysterious Barricades refers to; according to one theory, it refers to women’s eyelashes, according to another, to women’s underwear and/or chastity belts – a more explicit barricade. Some believed it alludes to Freemasons, to wine (barricades and barrique), or ‘just’ to music – to a barricade in the form of a bar line, or to barricaded hands during playing. In addition to harpsichordists and pianists, this fluid piece with a swaying theme with rubatos (‘stretching’) is also performed by guitarists. Thomas Adès arranged it for a quintet, while the piano version is included in the film The Tree of Life.
Franz Liszt (Doborján [Raiding], 1811 – Bayreuth, 1886), a composer and probably the greatest pianist of his era, studied music with his father, and with Czerny and Salieri in Vienna. He then left for Paris, where he played in salons and took private lessons. The combination of a lively social life and a penchant for religious themes would mark his life, and in his youth he was also strongly influenced by Paganini’s virtuosity. In addition to the aforementioned support for Schubert’s legacy and transcribing numerous works of other composers, he co-financed and inaugurated Beethoven’s monument in Bonn. In later years, he began to compose larger works and became the leader of the New German School, based in Weimar. He spent a lot of time in monasteries in Italy, taking minor orders in 1865 and assuming the name Abbé Liszt, and his output from this period includes more sacred music. Liszt’s legacy includes virtuosic piano pieces, inspired piano recitals and masterclasses, thematic transformations and the introduction of the symphonic poem.
As he became synonymous with virtuosity and demanding pieces, Liszt’s ‘easier’ works, including Consolations (1849–1850), were in danger of falling out of fashion. This intimate set of six contemplative pieces about earthly and heavenly love, perhaps a nod to Chopin, will conclude this evening’s programme.
Between 1846 and 1885, Liszt wrote 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies for the piano, some of which he later orchestrated. Wanting to compose music based on Hungarian folklore, he reached for the already transformed version performed by Roma ensembles across Hungary and created a series of dramatic, virtuosic works marked by contrasting moods, out of which Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 is by far the most performed. This technically demanding piece has a slow introduction – lassan – and a faster, energetic, explosive second section – friska. Tonight, we will hear an even more virtuosic and expressive arrangement by one of the most prominent pianists of the 20th century, Vladimir Horowitz (Kiev [Kyiv], 1903 – New York, 1989).
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