Rach and Scrable

Rachmaninoff

Probably one of my favorite characters out there, whom I regret to know quite little about. Has great music, has great playing, and overall he's a very interesting character. He went through depression after a terrible review of his first symphony which he worked very hard on. I thought it was quite interesting to learn that he never smiled in public. I had always wondered why he never looked cheerful in any of the photos I've seen of him. It was in order to maintain a certain level of professionalism. It's a little extreme actually. But I wonder - Was he like this before his depression and before he was on the brink of suicide, or was this always the case? On his music - He wrote 24 preludes, which seems to be the trend.. all of which are gorgeous. The preludes are split up between a few different operas. He also wrote several etudes, the Etudes-Tableaux which are meant to depict some kind of scene, are both beautiful at times, and others just dreadful to play. Many have absolutely ridiculous left hand parts, which only Rachmaninoff could play.

Scriabin

Here is a real character. Apparently Scriabin thought that he was the new messiah. He believed he was to write some huge work of music to be performed by hundreds of people, which was meant to bring about the coming of judgment day. This guy is absolutely awesome. He was raised only by women, and grew up an aspiring pianist, only to injure his right hand while playing Liszt's Don Juan. He had the condition (I forget what it's called), when one see colors in their head when they hear music, so he invented a kind of "color organ" with which he could share his craziness with the rest of us. Much of his large works feature colorful lighting. As for his music - It is also quite interesting. He first began, extremely Chopin-like - with beautiful melodies over a flowing, usually arpegiated left hand, but quickly moved away. He music changed dramatically once he entered his messianic phase. He music featured various use of the perfect intervals, 4th in particular, and he abandonded many "Western" principals in music, including funtional harmonies. Once he got into his late late later phases, he became very impressionistic. If you listen to very early Scriabin and compare it to late Scriabin, the difference will shock you.

Brahms

John Brahm in 4 words:

beard, chromaticism, exercises, Clara.

I'm Spent.

The Un-important people.

Frank (1822 - 1890)

Pretty much insignificant composer from Belgium. He does have a couple popular pieces however - the Prelude Choral and Fugue, Prelude Aria and Finale, and Prelude Fugue and Variations. Notice they all have preludes. Frank was an organist, and his music is significant organ influences, such as continued use of pedal points with lower octaves and counterpoint. He made great use of chromaticism, mostly through counterpoint - something he was quite good at. He had very interesting colorful harmonic doohickeys.

Gabriel Faure (1845 - 1924)

He had a rough life. No one ever liked his music, and even now, he music is noticeable, but still not very significant - a shame because it is very interesting music. Faure took weird stuff to a whole new realm, and I feel he was about 20 or 30 years ahead of his time. Faure's harmonies are just wayyy out there - most of the time being completely unfunctional, simply drifing from one place to another, usually connected by some sort of rythmic contour which fills sound within the piano. His music is quite impressionistic, and wasn't appreciated until late in his life. He wrote much more than Frank for the piano: 13 barcarolles, 5 impromptus, 13 nocturnes, and 8 brief pieces. There is also a widely appreciated Theme and Variations I believe.
My thoughts on Faure - I feel that he was very much ahead of his time. A memeber of the salon crew, it seems from my understanding that his music just didn't quite fit it. You compare his music to that of Chopin, Liszt, and any other salonist of the day and you'll find the music sounds nothing alike, Faure's music being much more distant. I think that had he been born about 30 years later, his music would be much more popular today.

Eddie Grieg (1843 - 1907)

Alright Norway!!! Representing with Grieg!
Great guy, great music, very Romantic in nature, with tons of folk elements in much of his music (especially the lyric pieces, but many in the Sonata as well, and even a few in the concerto!). I also find it interesting that his name is quite widely known, even though he also did not write very much for the piano. The most popular piece being the concerto, other than that, the sonata, the ballade, and a hell of a lot of lyric pieces. Most people havn't even played some of the lyric pieces, and yet they remain popular. Some are good, some not so much.

Folk elements - Grieg incorporated folk elements in almost all of his piano music, a sort of nationalistic trait of his. The lyric pieces are all "folky" in nature, as intended, but Grieg also manages to slip folk themes into the Sonata and Concerto as well. In the concerto, the opening theme in the piano, the falling half step, major third, then major third, minor third alternating is apparently a folk theme! Even the first theme is quite folky in nature. Percy Grainger - probably one of the only famous Australian pianists to the day, was praised by Grieg for playing his concerto with the most "Norwegian" quality, better than any Norwegian pianist could. Grieg coached Grainger with the concerto and a few rare recordings of Percey Grainger's piano rolls exists today. In the concerto, Grieg manages to incorporate folk elements, virtuosofy them, and make them flashy, so theres something everyone could love...

Fronzy Ponzy

Fronzy Ponzy was a bear
Fronzy Ponzy had long hair
Fronzy Ponzy had large cajones...



Franz Liszt was arguably the world's best pianist. In his younger life, he would practice technique for about 5 hours a day, something I really wish I had time for.. But anyway - extremely interesting character, full of great stories I wont rant on about here...

His Sonata is a very long work, and is very widely played, and every pianist wants to play it. This Sonata is different from Classical, and even most Romantic Sonatas in that it is technically only one movement long. There is no break for separate movements, however, it is a four movement sonata. The one big long work is divided up into 4 sections with a coda. There is a whole story about how it correlates with the Faustian story of temptation with the devil (Mephistopheles) and then the pure Gretchen comes along and fixes everything, yada yada.

The years of pilgrimage (Annees de Pelerinage) are divided into three books, each a different "tour" of some part of the world. The first is Switzerland, the second is Italy, and deals with Italian artwork, be it literary or artistic, and the third is an enocre tour of Italy, but deals with more random encounters, many of which religious in nature.

I must say I have only recently be aquianted with the Annees de Pilerinage, and I have grown to like them very much. This is very serious music for Liszt. Much of his music was flash trash panty droppers. So I think its great to see what the guy came up with when he really put his mind to it.

Chopin's Barcarolle and Second Piano Sonata

Barcarolle, Op. 60

Ok, just to get this out of the way - one of the only reasons the Barcarolle is famous is because of the double trills, lets face it. These are some of the only double trills Chopin ever wrote (I do believe there is a brief one or two in the Grand Polonaise, Op. 22), and they are certainly hard to play. I think it's kind of a shame, really. The Barcarolle is a wonderful piece, very beautiful, and I think it's kind of a shame that when we think of it, the first thing we think of are those damn double trills. I suppose there's no way of changing that, really..

Piano Sonata, No. 2 in B-flat Minor

Chopin's piano sonatas are wonderful. The second is probably the most popular, next to the third. The first sonata is the ugly child with warts who sits in the corner, watching all the other kids play..

Actually, the first sonata is Op. 4. which was before Chopin really began to develop as a composer and take off. I would imagine it is very Classical in nature, since he wrote that before he began exploring with different Romantic ideas, so its probably really boring, at least in comparison to his tons of other masterpieces. I bet Felix liked it.

The second sonata is wonderful, the first movement starts off with that famous D-flat octave leap downward to the E naturals - Strangely enough, this starts off as if it were one of the Ballades, on a single pitch with no clear harmonic implications, and not in tonic. Interesting. The first movement is notable for its truncated form. refer to Roberto's blog (http://rds06c.wordpress.com/) for a little insight on the formal innovations. The second movement (Scherzo) is kind of nice. Chopin does Chopin things within - such as the moving entire chords in parallel motion in one direction, yada yada. The third movement is famous - the funeral march. Everybody and their mom has heard it.. its in alot of cartoons.. Something else that I've discovered: I read somewhere that Chopin's second piano sonata is modeled after Beethoven's Sonata Op. 26. In both sonatas the second movement is a Scherzo, and the third a funeral march - actually sounding very much alike. Chopin adds an extremely Chopin-esqe middle section, with a gorgeous melody that simply breaks your heart. The biggest discrepancy between Beethoven and Chopin is I think is the last movement. Chopin just rambles out a bunch of notes, Presto, which fly by in under a minute. Its a little absurd, but I'm sure Chopin had his reasons. It is one of Chopin's more interesting attempts, but it comes across as really odd, even for a Romantic piece. Chopin probably figured since he knew the first three movements would be good enough to sell the sonata by themselves, he figured he could play around with something experimental in the last movement..

Chopin's 24 Preludes and .. oh wait, no fugues...

Preludes, Op. 28

The preludes are very nice, but not incredibly special.. They do have a key cycle, just like Bach's Preludes and Fugues, one being in every key. Really the only similarity they have with Bach's P's+F's are that they have a key cycle, that's about it - and the cycle isn't even the same. When Bach does the parallel way (C Maj, C min, etc..), Chopin does the relative way (C Maj, A min, etc..). Some are nice, some are not. The most famous being the "Raindrop" prelude, which is gorgeous. Some are long, some are short (the C minor is only a couple of lines). While some are one or two phrases, some could be much longer. I believe the longest the the Raindrop, which is more of a Nocturne than anything else, lasting several minutes. I'm spent.