Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki describes Chopin’s Nocturnes as intimate music one plays for oneself, alone at night. Born in Calgary to Polish immigrant parents, Lisiecki was invited to perform at the 2008 Chopin and His Europe Festival in Warsaw when he was 13. His affinity for the music is on display in a 2021 album of Chopin’s complete Nocturnes. He believes that “Chopin’s music flows by itself in a sense, but you …
After hearing Antonín Dvořák’s String Sextet in A Major, Op. 48 in 1941, conductor Václav Talich was overcome with the pure beauty of the work, exclaiming, “Beautiful musical ideas, a beautiful structure and a beautiful sound! God himself must have been walking the Czech Lands when his humble servant Dvořák bequeathed to us a work of such excellence and sanctity…” Filled with the Slavonic folk influences, the Sextet is the enchanting music …
Friedrich Schiller’s 1803 tragedy, The Bride of Messina, tells the story of a bitter rivalry between brothers who have fallen in love with the same woman, Beatrice. She turns out to be their long-lost sister. Amid jealous discord and a clash between paganism and Christianity, the turbulent love triangle ends in a murder-suicide. The two-act play was unusual and controversial at the time due to Schiller’s incorporation of a Greek chorus, a device …
Through the years, conductors have tampered with the works of Robert Schumann, occasionally doubling instruments. Schumann’s works can be taxing for the orchestra, and some commentators cite weaknesses in the orchestration. In a 1953 analysis of Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61, Leonard Bernstein shatters this myth. He suggests that Schumann’s orchestration is, in fact, innovative. For example, there is the magical introduction in which the strings (traditionally at …
The opening of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 breaks all the rules. Heralded by four mighty descending notes, stated three times by the horns, the majestic and expansive theme sets up the wrong key—not the home key of B-flat minor, but its relative major, D-flat. Even more strangely, the iconic theme never returns. Still, the Russian musicologist, Francis Maes, has written that “the opening melody comprises the …
A notorious villain of the Hebrew Bible, the Baal-worshiping Athalia usurped the throne of Judah, attempted to kill all royal heirs, and ruled as Queen for six years (c. 841–835 BC) before being overthrown. The dramatic story is the subject of Jean Racine’s 1691 play, as well as Handel’s 1733 oratorio. King Frederick William IV of Prussia commissioned Felix Mendelssohn to write incidental music for a Berlin performance of Racine’s Athalie. In …
Sergei Rachmaninov was 19 when, in 1892, he composed his set of five solo piano Morceaux de fantasie (“Pieces of fantasy”). The collection was dedicated to Anton Arensky, Rachmaninov’s harmony teacher at the Moscow Conservatory. It includes the famous Prelude in C-sharp minor, with its allusion to the Bells of Moscow. Shortly after publication, the young composer gave a copy to Tchaikovsky, who commented on the quality of the work. The set begins …