André Watts, the celebrated American pianist, has passed away following a battle with prostate cancer. He was 77. At the age of 16, Watts made his national debut, performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic as part of a nationally televised Young People’s Concert. Soon after, Bernstein invited Watts to perform on one of the orchestra’s subscription programs, where he substituted for an …
As a musical form, the serenade implies light, entertaining music of the evening, set in a loose collection of movements which resembles a divertimento. The two youthful Serenades which Johannes Brahms wrote in his early twenties conform to this description. Yet they can also be heard as trial runs on the path to a symphony. It was Robert Schumann who heard “veiled symphonies” in Brahms’ early piano music, and who anticipated that …
Epic is a word that could describe Bach’s Prelude and Fugue No. 22 in B-flat Minor, BWV 891. The companion pieces come near the end of Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier, the manuscript of which is dated between 1739 and 1742 in the final years of the composer’s life. From the Prelude’s opening bars, a dense contrapuntal conversation unfolds. At moments, the imitative voices resemble a fugue. The real fugue arrives with …
The Second Symphony of American composer, Paul Creston (1906-1985), celebrates the fundamental musical building blocks of melody and rhythm. These elements are expressed in the Symphony’s two movements, “Introduction and Song,” and “Interlude and Dance.” Through a process of thematic transformation, the theme which opens the Symphony is developed adventurously throughout. This theme first appears as a wandering shadowy single line in the low strings. The violas enter in fugal counterpoint, soon …
With the title, Summer Music, Samuel Barber did not have anything specifically programmatic in mind. Instead, the single movement piece for wind quintet conveys a general atmosphere. Barber said, “It’s supposed to be evocative of summer—summer meaning languid, not killing mosquitoes.” Indeed, the lazy opening moments of Summer Music are enveloped in haze and humidity. Fleeting blues strains combine with primal echoes of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring. As the piece continues, the musical conversation among …
The music of the American composer, Paul Creston (1906-1985), is filled with sunny harmonies, lush tonal colors, and rhythmic vitality. Creston was born in New York City to Sicilian immigrant parents. Baptized Giuseppe Guttoveggio, he changed his name, selecting “Creston” after a character he played in a high school drama. As a composer, he was entirely self-taught. Through the study of scores, he considered his teachers to be Bach, Scarlatti, Chopin, Debussy, and …