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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Michael Torke’s “Nave”: A Preview of “Sessions, 3 A.M.”

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The atmospherically titled Sessions, 3 A.M. is the most recent project of American composer, Michael Torke. It is a collection of fifteen pieces for solo piano, performed by the composer. The first track, Nave, was released as a single earlier this month, and the full album will be available in November. In the nave of a cathedral, repeating structural columns rise to a vaulted ceiling and convey a sense of order and symmetry. …

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Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto: Sardonic and Defiant

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In his later years, the cellist, Mstislav Rostropovich, recalled a conversation that he had with Nina Vasilyevna, the wife of Dmitri Shostakovich. Rostropovich wondered what he could do to encourage Shostakovich to write a concerto for the cello. “Slava,” she answered, “if you want Dmitri Dmitriyevich to write something for you, the only recipe I can give you is this—never ask him or talk to him about it.” Eventually, in July of …

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Josquin des Prez’ “Nymphes des Bois”: Graindelavoix

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Nymphes des bois (“Nymphs of the woods”) is a sensuous, five-voice lamentation by the High Renaissance Franco-Flemish composer, Josquin des Prez (c. 1450-1521). A musical memorial, it was written following the February 1497 death of Johannes Ockeghem, an influential composer with whom Josquin may have studied. The text, based on a poem by Jean Molinet, includes the Requiem Aeternam as a cantus firmus. The first two sections of the piece pay homage to …

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Remembering André Watts

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André Watts, the celebrated American pianist, has passed away following a battle with prostate cancer. He was 77. At the age of 16, Watts made his national debut, performing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic as part of a nationally televised Young People’s Concert. Soon after, Bernstein invited Watts to perform on one of the orchestra’s subscription programs, where he substituted for an …

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Brahms’ Serenade No. 2 in A Major: A Pathway to the Symphony

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As a musical form, the serenade implies light, entertaining music of the evening, set in a loose collection of movements which resembles a divertimento. The two youthful Serenades which Johannes Brahms wrote in his early twenties conform to this description. Yet they can also be heard as trial runs on the path to a symphony. It was Robert Schumann who heard “veiled symphonies” in Brahms’ early piano music, and who anticipated that …

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Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in B-flat Minor, BWV 891: Stratospheric Stretto

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Epic is a word that could describe Bach’s Prelude and Fugue No. 22 in B-flat Minor, BWV 891. The companion pieces come near the end of Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier, the manuscript of which is dated between 1739 and 1742 in the final years of the composer’s life. From the Prelude’s opening bars, a dense contrapuntal conversation unfolds. At moments, the imitative voices resemble a fugue. The real fugue arrives with …

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