Romantic Period

Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov” (1869 Version): “Death Does Not Frighten Me”

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Set in Russia between 1598 and 1605, Modest Mussorgsky’s opera, Boris Godunov, tells the story of a Tsar who usurps the throne by brutal means, bears witness to the suffering of his people, and, as a result of his misdeeds, descends into loneliness, remorse, paranoia, and madness, leading to his ultimate death. In the end, it is the Russian people, represented by a mighty chorus in the opera’s epic Coronation Scene, which endures. …

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Borodin’s String Trio in G Minor: Variations on a Russian Folk Song

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Alexander Borodin’s String Trio in G minor for two violins and cello unfolds in a single brief movement. Composed in 1855, it is a set of eight variations on a once popular Russian folk song, Chem tebya ya ogorchila (“What have I done to hurt you?”). A single violin begins the melancholy theme and is joined soon in a canon by the other two instrumental voices. Each variation opens the door to a …

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Schumann’s Blumenstück in D-Flat Major: Vladimir Horowitz, Live in 1966

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Robert Schumann described his Blumenstück (“Flower Piece”) in D-flat Major, Op 19 as “variations, but not upon any theme,” adding that “everything is interwoven in such a peculiar way.” Indeed, the brief solo piano piece unfolds in a series of dreamy episodes through which runs a common thematic thread. Following its initial statement, the opening episode fades into the background, and it is the second section of the piece which recurs as …

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Schumann’s “Genoveva” Overture: Dramatic Music From a Neglected Opera

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Genoveva was Robert Schumann’s only opera. The tragic drama in four acts premiered in Leipzig in June of 1850. The unsuccessful original production received only three performances, and, with the exception of the Overture, the work fell into obscurity. As with Wagner’s Lohengrin, which was written during the same period of time and premiered in August of 1850, Genoveva is based on a medieval German legend. Genoveva, the wife of Siegfried, Count of Brabante, …

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Dvorák’s Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat Major: Melodies Coming in Droves

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As with Franz Schubert, Antonín Dvořák was a composer awash in melody. In a letter to a friend, dated August 10, 1889, Dvořák expressed gratitude for this seemingly effortless melodic stream: Do you want to know what I’m doing? My head is full of it. If only one could write it immediately! But it’s no use, I have to go slowly, only what the hand can manage and the Lord God will …

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Mahler Meets Schnittke: The Unfinished Piano Quartet in A Minor

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Gustav Mahler was fifteen or sixteen years old and a student at the Vienna Conservatory when, in 1876, he composed the Piano Quartet in A minor. The work exists as a single movement, cast in sonata form and marked Nicht zu schnell (not too fast). Conceived as the opening movement of a larger abandoned project, it is followed by a thirty-two measure fragment of an unfinished scherzo. This is the only surviving …

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Mendelssohn’s First Symphony: Youthful, Vigorous, and Inventive

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The fifteen-year-old Felix Mendelssohn already had thirteen string symphonies and a number of chamber works under his belt when, in March of 1824, he completed his first symphony for full orchestra. Mendelssohn was a classicist who built on traditions of the past. He studied, extensively, the works of Mozart and Haydn, as well as the counterpoint of J.S. Bach and Handel. Additionally, the teenage composer absorbed the influences of his contemporaries, most …

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