Month: April 2022

Debussy’s “Bruyères” from Préludes, Book 2: Krystian Zimerman

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Composed between 1909 and 1913, Claude Debussy’s twenty four solo piano Préludes are divided into two books. Unlike the Preludes of Chopin or J.S. Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, they do not form a sequential harmonic procession. Instead, they float ephemerally between traditional tonality and modal harmony, and the pentatonic and whole tone scales. They emerge as dreamy, atmospheric vignettes. Bruyères is the fifth Prélude from Book II. Translating as “heather,” it “evokes pastoral bliss, an Arcadian …

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Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major: From Youth to Maturity

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Johannes Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major, Op. 8 exists in two versions. The first was published in 1854, only months after the 21-year-old Brahms met Robert and Clara Schumann for the first time. Thirty-six years later, Brahms returned to the work during the summer of 1889 with the intention of trimming its “youthful excesses.” That September, he wrote to Clara Schumann, You cannot imagine how I trifled away the lovely …

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Elgar’s “Cockaigne” (“In London Town”): Portrait of a Dynamic City

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In 1777, the polymath Samuel Johnson wrote, famously, “When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.” Sir Edward Elgar’s 1901 overture Cockaigne (In London Town), Op. 40, is a glittering portrait of this dynamic city on the Thames. In medieval mythology, Cockaigne represented an imaginary utopia filled with endless physical comforts, idleness, and pleasure. In the early years of the …

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Kate Royal Sings Britten: “How Beautiful It Is” from “The Turn of the Screw”

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Benjamin Britten’s 1954 chamber opera, The Turn of the Screw, is a spine-chilling psychological thriller. Based on Henry James’ 1898 gothic horror novella of the same name, it tells the story of a young, inexperienced governess who is sent to a grand English country estate to care for two orphaned children. Their guardian has left strict instructions that she is forbidden to write to him, to inquire about the history of the house, …

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Nathan Milstein Plays Mendelssohn: 1962 Chicago Symphony Telecast

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Nathan Milstein (1903-1992) was one of the most elegant and innately gifted violinists of the twentieth century. The biographer Boris Schwarz called his playing, “a rare combination of classical taste and technical perfection,” adding that “the effortless nonchalance with which he achieves sophisticated technical feats is amazing.” Born in Odessa, Milstein moved to St. Petersburg at the age of 11 where he became one of the last students of the legendary Leopold …

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Stravinsky, Hindemith, and Poulenc: Three Twentieth Century Pastorales

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With roots in the Baroque period, the musical pastorale evokes a serene, bucolic landscape. Often, it rolls along in a gentle 6/8 time and suggests the simple, free-floating melodies and drones of a shepherd’s bagpipes. J.S. Bach’s Pastorella In F Major, BWV 590 for organ, the final movement of Corelli’s “Christmas” Concerto, and the Pastoral Symphony from Handel’s Messiah are famous examples. The sound world of the twentieth century was dominated by …

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