Solo Keyboard

Remembering Radu Lupu

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The great Romanian pianist, Radu Lupu, passed away earlier this week. According to his manager, Lupu “died peacefully in his home in Switzerland from numerous long-term illnesses.” He was 76 years old. In 1966, Radu Lupu was awarded the first prize at the second Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. He went on to win first prizes at the George Enescu International Piano Competition and the Leeds International Piano Competition. Lupu’s playing was filled …

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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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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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Schubert’s Piano Sonata No.21 in B-flat Major, Mitsuko Uchida

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“The opening movement of the Sonata [No. 21] in B-flat Major goes beyond analysis,” writes the pianist Stephen Hough. “It is one of those occasions when the pen has to be set down on the desk, the body rested against the back of a chair, and a listener’s whole being surrendered to another sphere.” This was Franz Schubert’s last instrumental work. Completed in the autumn of 1828 during the final months of …

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Sviatoslav Richter Plays Rachmaninov: Prelude in D Major, Op. 23, No. 4

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Sergei Rachmaninov’s Prelude in D Major, Op. 23, No. 4 (Andante cantabile) is a dreamy nocturne in triple meter. Its sensuous melody floats above continuous eighth note waves which rise and fall gently. Moving from intimacy to soaring passion, it takes us on a journey filled with revelatory harmonic turns. Rachmaninov’s Ten Preludes, Op. 23 were composed between 1901 and 1903. “How well he hears the silence,” observed the writer, Maxim Gorky, after …

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Samuel Barber’s Nocturne, Op. 33: Aftertones of Chopin

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Samuel Barber gave his Nocturne, Op. 33 for solo piano the subtitle, “Homage to John Field.” Field (1782-1837) was the Irish pianist and composer who is credited with inventing the nocturne. Barber’s piece, written in 1959, is as much a dreamy reflection on the Romantic nocturne itself, with all of its atmospheric allusions to the poetry of the night. Perhaps it is the spirit of Frédéric Chopin, whose twenty-one nocturnes pushed the …

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Chopin’s Nocturnes, Op. 27: Enharmonic Dreamscapes

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Frédéric Chopin’s Op. 27 Nocturnes inhabit a serene, sensuous, and melancholy dreamscape. The two pieces for solo piano, composed in 1836, are among twenty-one surviving Nocturnes written by Chopin. The form originated a generation earlier with the English composer-pianist, John Field (1782-1837). Chopin’s Nocturnes become magical and atmospheric “songs of the night.” They are bel canto arias without words, in which the piano is transformed into a singing instrument. They are harmonically …

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