I’m going to put it in the “Exclusive” Perfect Music section. Any piece that can give you goosebumps after you’ve heard it about a zillion times deserves it! Honestly – when he hits the climax it never fails to bring up a primal rush.
Tchaikovsky The Nutcracker / Pas de Deux
Tchaikovsky-nutcracker-pasdeux1
I recently gave a two CD set of Classical music to a friend who wasn’t at all familiar with Classical.
He reported that Dvorak’s Humoresque “got him”
In the whole repertoire of those two CD’s – including Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt, Chopin, Schumann, Schubert etc. etc.
This is the only piece he mentioned that really moved him! So I went to jimsclassicalmusic.com and found there wasn’t a single Dvorak piece! Now there’s two.
Humoresque op. 101 no. 7
Dvorak-humoresque-op-101-no-7
Drobnosti Trio / allegro moderato
Dvorak trio drobnosti allegro
Whilst sitting back having a root canal – my Dentist, who turned me on to Hummel (see Hummel under composers) – was playing one of those ‘compilations’. Something like “For meditation and relaxation.”
A piece came up and we both perked up our ears. “This is different … nice – wonder who this is.?”
A break in the spit vacuum and drilling comes and he reports, “It’s Spohr”
Neither of us had heard of him.
I had guessed Mendelssohn or Schumann and my dentist thought it was much later than that. Well I was closer to right! Louis (born Ludwig) Spohr was there when Beethoven was a baby and Mozart was a teenager! Mendelssohn and Schumann were not quite twinkles in the eye yet. But it wasn’t “Later” stuff. Earlier actually.
Here are some snippets from his biography:
Spohr was a noted violinist, and invented the violin chinrest, about 1820. He was also a significant conductor, being one of the first to use a baton and also inventing rehearsal letters, which are placed periodically throughout a piece of sheet music so that a conductor may save time by asking the orchestra or singers to start playing “from letter C”, for example). Spohr’s best works are his wistful, elegiac minor-mode first movements, hailed by many of his contemporaries as quintessentially Romantic and inherited by Mendelssohn; his deft scherzos whose influence was felt as late as Brahms; his expressive slow movements with their chromatic alterations which, on occasion, become cloyingly sentimental; and his light-hearted finales which are able to avoid the trap of trivial thematic material.[3]
The ‘wistful, elegiac, and cloyingly sentimental’ bits get me … because sometimes cloyingly sentimental, elegiac and wistful … can come across as just plain moving! Like in this piece.
Here’s the piece that perked up our ears.
Spohr violin concerto no. 7 / Adagio
violin-concerto-no-7-adagio
Thanks to a comment by Jess (see “Almost Perfect Music” on the right and look in comments) We now have some Schubert! It was quite an oversight on my part since I’ve plenty of his works; and the fact that Liszt said he was ‘the most poetic of them all’ (that’s how I remember the quote of Liszt’s on Schubert)
Passionate, poetic and emotionally stimulating me says!
Schubert’s Impromptu D 899 no. 3 Andante
from a famous series of songs, played here on guitar
Schwanengesang, D 957 no. 4 Standchen
Schubert’s piano sonata b-flat-major-d960 second movement
Come on. Let’s face it. Tchaikovsky IS the “Melody Man”
Who else wrote melodies like this? It’s as though they had existed for thousands of years and somebody just pulled them out of a hat!
(*To see more Melodies that existed – before they existed!: Go to Tchaikovsky/Perfect Music)
Tchaikovsky Sleeping Beauty Waltz
swan-lake-act-1-finale
I didn’t know anything about Johann Nepomuk Hummel until my Dentist mentioned him the other day. My dentist is a Classical Music buff and I’d given him a 2 volume CD Set titled: In the Dentist Chair:
(It was all the music I thought folks might like to hear midst the trauma of drilling and vacuuming spit!)
As a result I’ve been on a Hummel Hunt.
At first it was like listening to a student of Mozart (as he was!) – but the more I listened and researched, the more I realised he was an accomplished and important composer in his own right. He’s one of those who went out of fashion shortly after they died, and are making a “Comeback” as I type.
The Great composers he actually ‘hung out’ with, and/or influenced by teaching them is amazing. Then if you add the composers who taught or influenced him … you come up with a Who’s Who of the “Classical to Romantic Bridge Period.”
Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Haydn, Czerny, Liszt, Schumann, Schubert and the list goes on.
Here’s to a Hummel comeback! Next time you hear of a Hummel concert in your area – GO!
Later – P.S. – just found this on a music site: Historians tell us that pianist and composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel was spoken of in the same breath as Mozart and Beethoven in 1820 — but not for long…
Hummel piano-concerto-no-2-allegro-moderato
Theme and variations introduction Allegro
Bassoon-concerto-romanza-andantino-e-cantbile
Farrenc Long Play 24 minutes long
Sonata No. 1, Op. 37: II. Poco adagio
Etudes opus 26 – No 18 en re bemol majeur
Nonette pour cordes et vents en mi bemol majeur Adagiol
Variations concertantes sur une mélodie suisse, Op. 20
Improptu en Si Menor
Nonette pour cordes et vents en mi bemol majeur Adagio
Here’s the real post ! What you intended to be one of your faves.
Bach’s Cello suite no. 1 bwv 1007 prelude
ANOTHER “Underdog” Luigi Cherubini (1760-1842) Italian composer who spent most of his working life in France.
Talk about being cheated out of fame and posthumous recognition!!! Just read what was said about him … by “Them” – back then! And then listen to a movement from that vocal piece “They” raved about.
Posterity has a habit of elevating the obscure and neglecting the famous. Thus it is that Cherubini, hailed by Beethoven as ‘the greatest living composer’, is today often forgotten; ‘If I were to write a Requiem, Cherubini’s would be my only model’, Beethoven continued and the work was performed at his funeral in 1827. Schumann’s opinion was that it was ‘without equal in the world’. Berlioz considered that ‘the decrescendo in the Agnus Dei surpasses everything that has ever been written of the kind’.
Cherubini requiem-no-1-in-c-minor-agnus-dei
Or should it be Linnie Binnie? Anyway dear sister-in-law – since you didn’t specify which movement of a Mozart Piano Concerto in D Minor; I’m going to assume it’s this one! Correct me (backchannel) if it’s not the one you long to hear, and I’ll find and post the correct movement. Regards to Robert.
Mozart Piano Concerto 20 in D Monor Kv466 / Romanze
Here ya go Tim – yer fave! Even though we’ve all heard it a million times – still – IF you give yourself up to it … and just listen
it will take you away!
*update: after listening see the Post titled: Tim@EspressoHead revisited and the comments
Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata
So many of the great composers have been somewhat ‘on the edge.’ Here are three excerpts from the Wikipedia article on Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin.
(I love the bit about how he was going to transform the whole world with a multi-media performance in the Himalayas! – under the influence of Madame Blavatsky and Theosophy)
Scriabin stands as one of the most innovative and most controversial of composers. The Great Soviet Encyclopedia said of Scriabin that, “No composer has had more scorn heaped or greater love bestowed…” Leo Tolstoy once described Scriabin’s music as “a sincere expression of genius.”[2]
In 1909 he returned to Russia permanently, where he continued to compose, working on increasingly grandiose projects. For some time before his death he had planned a multi-media work to be performed in the Himalayas, that would bring about the armageddon, “a grandiose religious synthesis of all arts which would herald the birth of a new world.” [5] Scriabin left only sketches for this piece, Mysterium, although they were eventually made into a performable version by Alexander Nemtin.[6] The Mysterium was, psychologically speaking, a world Scriabin’s genius created to sustain its own evolution.[7]
Horowitz performed for Scriabin, in his home as an 11 year old child, and Scriabin had an enthusiastic reaction, but cautioned that he needed further training.[11] As an elderly man, Horowitz remarked that Scriabin was obviously crazy, because he had tics and could not sit still.[11]
Tics and all … what beauty he created! It’s easy to see why he is favoured in the repetoire of many of the piano masters.
Piano Sonata no. 3 Op. 24 / Andante: *** The very last few seconds are cut. Strange! … every source I tried had this cut off ending.*** What a beautiful piece.
scriabin-05-piano-sonata-no-3-in-f-sharp-minor-op-24-03-andante
Scriabin etude no 11
Scriabin prelude 3 opus 17
Even though this is almost always included in the “Top 20, 50 or 100” of Classical Pieces – I still won’t include it in the Exclusive, ‘Perfect Music’ section. (*wanting to keep that section very exclusive!)
BUT … just listen to the piano work 2 – 3 minutes into the piece. With just a handfull of strokes on the keyboard, you’d swear you’d Died and Gone to Heaven!
Grieg piano concerto in a minor op-16-2-adagio attacca
My wife says; HOW could you not love this? (O Mio Babbino Caro by Puccini) And I say … well – I guess I do – a little bit! (*uTube link)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0diDwHtATw
BUT – a BIG BUT! … I feel the emotional power much more from the Orchestral version.
Puccini-o-mio-babbino-caro
Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev was an important figure in the Russian music scene of the 1800’s. He was Tchaikovskys pupil and the teacher of Rachmaninoff and Scriabin. I read somewhere that in Russia today his bust will appear alongside Beethoven, Tchaikovsky etc. And yet … “By the time of his death at the age of 58, Taneyev had left behind a substantial catalog of works, virtually none of which has entered the standard repertory.”
The virtuosic and scintillating Suite de concert, Taneyev’s first work for solo violin and orchestra. This is the final variation and coda.
Taneyev Suite de concert Final variation and coda
As a virtuoso pianist Taneyev could display his own piano works, as Chopin, Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Scriabin, Rachmaninov, and Medtner had done and were to do. Somewhat unusually for a pianist-composer of his calibre, however, he wrote very few compositions for the instrument, and he did not perform these at concerts…
Taneyev Repose (Elegy) in E major
From the String Quartet #3 – opus 7 (Theme and Variations) I’ve picked out three of the variations
SQ variation