Solo Keyboard

Tchaikovsky’s “The Seasons”: March, Song of the Lark

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In the 19th century, writers such as Charles Dickens commonly published books in monthly installments which appeared in popular periodicals. Published on the first day of each month in 1876 in the St. Petersburg music journal, Nuvellist, Tchaikovsky’s piano cycle, The Seasons, Op. 37a reached listeners in a similar way. Subtitled “12 characteristic scenes,” the atmospheric works are miniature tone paintings. Tchaikovsky composed them concurrently with the ballet, Swan Lake. In this era before recordings, …

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Brahms’ Variations on a Theme of Paganini: Musical Athleticism

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Niccolò Paganini’s 24th Caprice for solo violin has provided an irresistible blueprint for numerous composers. Most famously, its jaunty, infectious melody inspired the 24 variations of Sergei Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43. Nearly seventy years before Rachmaninov, in 1863, Johannes Brahms composed his own Variations on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 35. The work is organized in two books, each made up of fourteen blazingly athletic variations, and …

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The Artistry of Ferruccio Busoni: Historic Recordings from 1922

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Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), who died 100 years ago last July, was a musical renaissance man. The Italian composer, pianist, conductor, teacher, writer, and editor has been called “the first truly modern composer.” He is also remembered for numerous enduring transcriptions of the music of J.S. Bach. Busoni associated with such a disparate group of contemporaries as Schoenberg, Sibelius, and Edgard Varèse. His small circle of students included Kurt Weill. The pianist Alfred …

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Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major: Impressions and Reveries

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Composed during the summer of 1816, the Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101 is the first of Beethoven’s five “late period” piano sonatas. It is music filled with mystery and divine revelation. Isolated from the world as a result of nearly total hearing loss, Beethoven, in his final years, conceived of music unlike anything which came before. Gone is the classical charm, and ferocious revolutionary struggle of the earlier periods. …

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Clayton Stephenson Plays “Tea for Two”

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Last weekend at the Richmond Symphony we welcomed American pianist Clayton Stephenson. The 25 year old New York native performed Ravel’s glittering and bluesy Piano Concerto in G Major. Two other 20th century masterworks rounded out the program; one depicting the majesty and mystery of the sea (Debussy’s La Mer), and the other rooted firmly in the earth (Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring). A finalist at the 2022 Van Cliburn International Piano …

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Rachmaninov’s Prelude in B Minor, Op. 32, No. 10: Longing for the Return

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The 1887 painting, Die Heimkehr (“The Homecoming” or “The Return”), by Swiss Symbolist Arnold Böcklin (1827–1901), shows a solitary figure seated with his back to a square reflecting pool. His attention is focused on a shadowy house with a single lit window. The late autumnal landscape suggests the falling veil of mortality, greeted with a blend of quiet anxiety, detachment, and inevitability. It was this painting which inspired Sergei Rachmaninov to write the …

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Liszt’s “La Chapelle de Guillaume Tell” from “Années de Pèlerinage”: Horn Calls and Heroism

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During the 1830s, Franz Liszt embraced the romantic life of the medieval Troubadours. While in a relationship with the Countess Marie d’Agoult, Liszt wandered throughout the countryside of Switzerland and Italy, where he visited “places consecrated by history and poetry,” and found the “phenomena of nature” to be deeply stirring. These travels formed the inspiration for Années de pèlerinage (“Years of Pilgrimage”), a three-volume cycle of 26 pieces for solo piano. The …

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