Romantic Period

Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Sixth Symphony: A Communion With Nature

by

Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies were completed in the same year of 1808, and were premiered at the same under-rehearsed, four-hour-long concert. Yet, the two works stand as diametric opposites. The Fifth Symphony takes a dynamic journey towards transcendence. It is filled with ferocious, crackling energy and a sense of heroic struggle. Set in the bucolic key of F major, the quieter Sixth Symphony inhabits the stable, enduring world of nature. Beethoven gave it the subtitle, …

Read more

Bruckner’s Mass No. 3 in F Minor: Entering Symphonic Dimensions

by

Anton Bruckner’s mighty Mass No. 3 in F minor emerged at a pivotal moment in the composer’s life. In a way similar to the music which Beethoven composed following the Heiligenstadt Testament, it can be heard as a majestic expression of faith and gratitude. Beethoven’s contemplation and ultimate triumphant rejection of suicide in the face of progressive hearing loss is well known. A nervous breakdown in the spring of 1867 led to …

Read more

Rachmaninov’s “The Rock”: An Homage to the Romantic Tone Poem

by

Sergei Rachmaninov was twenty years old when he composed the orchestral tone poem, The Rock, Op. 7 in the summer of 1893. It is music which looks back as much as forward. We hear Rachmaninov’s distinctive voice coming into focus. At the same time, this early work pays homage to an existing Russian Romantic tradition. The influence of Rimsky-Korsakov, to whom the piece was dedicated, Tchaikovsky, and Borodin is evident. At moments, The Rock develops with that …

Read more

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

by

“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 …

Read more

Berlioz’ “Waverley” Overture: Adventures of a Youthful Dreamer

by

The Waverley Overture is vibrant, youthful music by the 23-year-old Hector Berlioz. Literary influences abound throughout the works of Berlioz. This early Overture was inspired by Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novels, which depict the adventures of Edward Waverley, a young English soldier and dreamer who travels to Scotland amid the Jacobite uprising of 1745. The manuscript and printed score are prefaced with a poetic quote from an early chapter of Scott’s initial novel: Dream of love and …

Read more

Dvořák’s Piano Trio No. 2 in G Minor: Elegiac and Transcendent

by

Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Trio No. 2 in G minor, Op. 26 was written in the wake of personal tragedy. In August of 1875, Dvořák lost his newborn daughter, Josefa, within days of her birth. The G minor Piano Trio was composed four months later. Written over the course of seventeen days, it was the first piece Dvořák completed following the painful loss, and it opened the creative floodgates for music to come. …

Read more

Schubert’s Sixth Symphony: The Youthful Charm of the “Little C Major”

by

In March of 1827, the biographer Anton Schindler brought a stack of Franz Schubert’s lieder to Beethoven’s deathbed in an attempt to comfort the ailing composer. Schindler recounted that after studying the songs, Beethoven commented, “Truly in Schubert there is the divine spark.” Schubert and Beethoven lived in Vienna at the same time. Yet, they traveled in different circles and their creative paths diverged widely. While Beethoven’s ferocious, revolutionary symphonies were shaking up the musical …

Read more