Tchaikovsky’s Romance in F Minor, Op. 5: Sviatoslav Richter

by

Throughout the music of Tchaikovsky, the key of F minor is associated with deep sadness, resignation, and the triumph of fate. F minor is the key of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony, with its haunting and recurring “fate” motif. A similar melancholy envelops Tchaikovsky’s Romance in F minor, Op. 5 for solo piano. It was composed in late 1868 around the time of Tchaikovsky’s doomed relationship with the Belgian soprano, Désirée Artôt. The first …

Read more

Michael Torke’s “Run”: A Shifting Musical Panorama

by

Run is a brief and exhilarating orchestral showpiece written by American composer Michael Torke in 1992. The work is filled with boundless energy and forward motion. It evokes a bright, gradually shifting landscape. The work is launched into motion with string flourishes and the crack of the woodblock. The short, repeating motif takes shape through a pulse-driven additive process reminiscent of the music of Steve Reich. Here is the composer’s program note: Run …

Read more

Bruckner’s “Ecce sacerdos magnus”: Thunderous Power and Majesty

by

Anton Bruckner’s sacred motet, Ecce sacerdos magnus, WAB 13 (“Behold a great priest”) begins with an earth-shattering announcement, set in motion by primal open fifths. The Old Testament text celebrates the blessings given to devout men. Scored for eight-part choir, organ, and three trombones, it is music of thunderous power, majesty, and solemn mystery. Growing out of Medieval plainchant, its soaring antiphonal blocks of sound recall the Renaissance strains of Giovanni Gabrieli. As …

Read more

Remembering Samuel Magad

by

Samuel Magad, long-serving concertmaster of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, passed away on May 25 at his home in Buffalo Grove, Illinois. He was 94. A native of Chicago, Magad first appeared with the CSO in 1944 at age 11, performing the first movement of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. Music director Fritz Reiner appointed him to the violin section in in 1958, and in 1966 he was promoted to assistant concertmaster. In 1972, Georg …

Read more

Remembering Sonny Rollins

by

Sonny Rollins, one of the greatest jazz saxophonists of all-time, passed away on Monday at his home in Woodstock, New York. He was 95.  A statement on his website included this quote of Rollins reflecting on death: I think when the creative person ends, he continues in the next existence. I’m a person who believes this life isn’t the be-all and end-all of everything. A spiritual person doesn’t feel like that. Rollins grew …

Read more

Britten’s “Young Apollo”: Fanfare for Piano, String Quartet, and String Orchestra

by

Young Apollo, Op. 16 is blazing, exuberant music of the 25 year old Benjamin Britten. Composed in the summer of 1939 in response to a commission from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, it is a striking fanfare for piano, string quartet, and string orchestra. The three disparate musical forces frolic in the bright sunshine of unending A major. The title refers to a line in John Keats’ unfinished poem, Hyperion.  In his program …

Read more

“Music, When Soft Voices Die”: Frank Bridge’s Setting of Shelley

by

“Music, when soft voices die, Vibrates in the memory.” These are the opening lines of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s famous 1824 poem, a meditation on the eternal nature of memory, sensation, and love. English composer Frank Bridge (1879-1941) created an a cappella choral setting of the poem in 1907. The opening phrases pay homage to the English madrigal tradition. Visions of mortality are painted tonally with a plaintive sighing gesture. The final notes …

Read more