Solo Keyboard

Dvořák’s Humoresque in G-flat Major: Ignaz Friedman and Art Tatum

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Antonín Dvořák was one of the greatest composers of melody. Perhaps the most catchy and popularly enduring example is the Humoresque No. 7 in G-flat Major (Poco lento e grazioso), originally written for solo piano. Propelled forward by an infectious, lilting rhythm, the melody develops in two-note steps which ascend gradually and explore a variety of motivic combinations before sinking into repose at the end of the phrase. As with much of …

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Chopin’s Mazurka in A Minor Op. 17, No 4: Evgeny Kissin

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Frédéric Chopin’s Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4 inhabits the ephemeral world of dreams. Emerging out of silence, the opening bars are hazy and harmonically ambiguous. They contain a rising three-note cell which searches for the “right” note and soon spins into a melody. It is music which seems to be composing itself in realtime. Traditionally, the mazurka is a lively Polish folk dance in triple meter, with strong accents …

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Remembering Menahem Pressler

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Menahem Pressler, the pianist and founding member of the Beaux Arts Trio, passed away on May 6. He was 99. Born in Magdeburg, Germany, the 14-year-old Pressler hid from Nazi thugs who vandalized the shop owned by his Jewish parents during the Kristallnacht. In 1939, the family fled and emigrated, first to Israel and then to the United States. In 1946, Pressler won first prize at the Debussy International Piano Competition in San …

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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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