Twentieth Century

Barber’s Overture to “The School for Scandal”: Reflecting a Playful Spirit

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Composed in 1931, the Overture to The School for Scandal, Op. 5 was Samuel Barber’s first orchestral work. Barber was completing studies at the Curtis Institute of Music, and the piece served as a graduation thesis. Two years later on August 30, 1933, it was premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Alexander Smallens. The eight-minute-long concert overture appeared on programs across the country, helping to establish Barber as one of the …

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Shostakovich’s Second Violin Concerto: Mournful, Introverted, and Singing

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“Very slowly, with difficulty, squeezing it out note by note, I am writing a Violin Concerto,” Dmitri Shostakovich confided to a friend in the spring of 1967, adding, “Otherwise everything is going splendidly.” The Violin Concerto No. 2 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 129 is a shadowy, introverted work. It is mournful and endlessly singing. “Gone are the instantly memorable images, the brightly etched colors and coruscating ferocity,” writes commentator Gerard McBurney. “Instead we …

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Scriabin’s Etude in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 42, No. 5: Daniil Trifonov

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“Scriabin wished to combine all aesthetic experience in a single, mystical musical vision,” writes pianist Daniil Trifonov. Described as a “poet, philosopher, musician, mystic, visionary and egotist,” Russian composer Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) pushed Romanticism to the breaking point. Experiencing a blending of senses known as synesthesia, he associated musical keys with colors. Scriabin composed the solo piano Etudes, Op. 42 in 1903. The tempestuous Etude No. 5 in C-sharp minor has been …

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Remembering Leon Bates

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American pianist Leon Bates has passed away at the age of 76. Born in Philadelphia, Bates became drawn to the piano at the age of 6 after his kindergarten teacher played for the class. Initially excelling at both violin and piano, he studied at the Settlement Music School, and later at Temple University. Bates went on to appear on the world’s most prestigious stages. Bates was a bodybuilder, a discipline which he …

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Barber’s “To Be Sung on the Water”: Conspirare

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Themes of loneliness, isolation, and loss emerge in the late works of Samuel Barber. One of the most poignant examples can be heard in To Be Sung on the Water, Op. 42, an a cappella setting of a poem by Louise Bogan (1897-1970). Composed in December of 1968, the music unfolds over an ostinato which suggests the gentle, hypnotic motion of a rowboat through the night. We become aware of the persistent flow …

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Ravel’s “Menuet sur le nom d’Haydn”: An Homage in Code

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In 1909, the Revue musicale mensuelle de la Société Internationale de Musique commissioned six French composers to write pieces in commemoration of the centenary of the death of Franz Joseph Haydn. Ravel’s 54-bar-long minuet is built on a five-note motif outlining Haydn’s name. The French system for musical cryptograms involves the entire alphabet, with H-N, O-U, and V-Z in lines under the original diatonic notes A-G. In Ravel’s score, H is represented by B natural, A and …

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Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony: Alain Altinoglu and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony

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Composed during the war-torn summer of 1943, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 8 in C minor attempts to take a journey from tragedy to triumph. It is the same C minor to C major trajectory we encounter in Beethoven’s Fifth, Brahms’ First, Bruckner’s Eighth, and Mahler’s Second. Yet for many listeners, the victory feels hollow. Perhaps there is even a hint of sarcasm. Shostakovich described his Seventh and Eighth Symphonies as “requiems,” written amid …

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