Solo Keyboard

Bartók’s Allegro Barbaro: Zoltán Kocsis 

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In 1908, the young Béla Bartók, along with his compatriot, Zoltán Kodály, traveled to remote corners of the Hungarian countryside to document the peasant folk music of the Magyars. This is the ethnic group which occupied the region between the Volga River and the Ural Mountains between the eighth and fifth centuries B.C. before migrating west to form present-day Hungary. The colorful inflections of this music, as well as the jagged, irregular …

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Liszt’s Csárdás Macabre: Alfred Brendel

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Among Franz Liszt’s final works for solo piano is the Csárdás macabre, composed in 1881. The piece is a ghoulish joyride, filled with convention-defying parallel fifths and intimations of the Dies irae. Its innovative harmonies anticipate the twentieth century music of Béla Bartók and others. Above the title on the manuscript, Liszt inscribed the words, “May one write or listen to such a thing?” The csárdás is a Hungarian folk dance in 2/4 or 4/4 …

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Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in F Major, BWV 880: A Study in Contrast

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The Prelude and Fugue No. 11 in F Major, BWV 880 comes from the second book of J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. These sublime etudes traverse all twenty four major and minor keys, and in Bach’s words, were conceived “for the use and profit of musical youth desirous of learning, as well as for the pastime of those already skilled in this study.” They are pieces characterized by a divine sense of order. The …

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Schumann’s Arabeske in C Major, Op. 18: Fluid Fragments

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Robert Schumann’s Arabeske in C Major, Op. 18 for solo piano is dreamy and wistful. Its title evokes the intricate floral patterns of Arab architecture. In this ephemeral music, well-structured classical form is replaced by fluid fragments which combine to form a shimmering whole (Erika Reiman). The opening bars give us the sense that we are joining music already in progress. The atmosphere is simultaneously tender and majestic. Phrases develop with obsessive …

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Chopin’s Nocturnes, Op. 15: Songs of the Night

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Composed between 1830 and 1833, Frédéric Chopin’s three Op. 15 Nocturnes for solo piano are haunting, dreamy, and intimate songs of the night. They unfold as bel canto arias without words, in which the piano becomes a singing voice. Chopin’s 21 Nocturnes popularized and expanded a form which was developed a generation earlier by the Irish pianist and composer, John Field (1782-1837). They feature daring harmonic innovations which influenced later composers.  In …

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Janáček’s “In the Mists”: Four Coloristic Pieces for Solo Piano

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In the Mists is a cycle of four solo piano pieces, written in 1912 by the Czech composer, Leoš Janáček (1854-1928). The pieces are intimate, fleeting, and tinged with melancholy. Vivid impressionistic colors blend with elements of Moravian folk music. They reveal psychological “mists,” perhaps of a composer who suffered the tragic death of his daughter. Harmonically, they inhabit distant, “misty” keys with five and six flats. Fluidly changing meters suggest music which …

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Debussy’s “La plus que lente”: A Sultry Homage to the Café Waltz

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Claude Debussy composed La plus que lente in 1910, shortly after the publication of his Préludes, Book I. The brief waltz for solo piano ventures into the sultry, atmospheric world of Parisian café music. Lazy and hauntingly melancholy, it is a dreamy evocation of the sounds of a Gypsy café ensemble. Additionally, at moments, the music anticipates the bluesy strains of jazz. The same year, Debussy visited Budapest and, in a letter, commented on …

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