DCCCLI. YI, Chen: Symphony #2

DCCCLI. YI, Chen (1953-       )

Symphony #2 (1993)
The Women's Philharmonic
JoAnn Falletta, cond.
(18:09)

DCCCL. TELEMANN, Georg Philipp: Ouverture à la Polonaise in D Minor, TWV 32:2: I. Ouverture

DCCCL. TELEMANN, Georg Philipp (1681-1767)

Ouverture à la Polonaise in D Minor, TWV 32:2: I. Ouverture (1728)
Roberto Loreggian, harpsichord
(3:13)

DCCCXLIX. HANUŠ, Jan: Prague Nocturnes

DCCCXLIX. HANUŠ, Jan (1915-2004)

Prague Nocturnes (1972)
1. Misterioso
2. A capriccio
3. Amoroso
4. Feroce
5. Sereno
Prague Chamber Orchestra
(27:04)

DCCCXLVIII. LIGETI, György: Mátraszentmrei Dalok

DCCCXLVIII. LIGETI, György (1923-2006)

Mátraszentmrei Dalok (1955)
1. Három hordó (1:10)
2. Igaz zerelem (1:14)
3. Gomb, gomb (1:23)
4. Erdöbe, erdöbe (0:55)
London Sinfonietta Voices
Terry Edwards, cond.

1. Three barrels

I have three barrels of wine
All of them are open now
With wine as sweet as honey
If you love me, look at me

There are three heads of lettuce here
Three girls are harvesting them
I don't need any of the lettuces
I only need the harvesters

Let's drink here, let's drink here
This is a good place
How it flows, how it spills
We can have fun here

Drink, drink
Once you have arrived
Afterwards you can rest
On your pillow

I have three barrels of wine ...

Three bushes of redcurrants
Three girls picking them
I don't want the redcurrants
I only want the ones who are picking them

2. True love

My little angel's brass trellised gate
Oh, how often it was open for me
God bless you, brass latch-gate
And you my love, read this summons
Read my marching orders
And then forget my name
I can never forget your name
Can you see, my dove? This is true love!

3. Pompon

Pompon, pompon, a line of buttons
I am buttoning up my silk waistcoat
With its thirty-three buttons
Heigh, my lover's name is sewn on it

Heigh, listen to what I said
The girl is pretty when she turns red
If she is not red but pale
I embrace her tightly
I embrace her and kiss her happily!

4. Out in the woods

Out in the woods, in the rosemary forest
While I was with my love, my best ox ran away
On your feet, help me find my ox, you lads
He came home to his stall long ago
I hear his bell tinkling!

I know that bell, it was in my hand
I bought it at the last market for my prized beast
It was a hundred forints, and it belongs to my lover
Her name is engraved on it in golden letters!

DCCCXLVII. MOZART, Wolfgang Amadeus: Serenade #13 in G Major ("Eine kleine Nachtmusik"), K. 525

DCCCXLVII. MOZART, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791)

Serenade #13 in G Major ("Eine kleine Nachtmusik"), K. 525 (1787)
1. Allegro
2. Romanze: Andante
3. Menuetto: Allegretto
4. Finale: Allegro
Bremer Barockorchester
(8:38)

First movement

Up goes the Mannheim rocket, and back down again:

The second theme is lighter and in the dominant, D Major:

Second movement

In the subdominant (C Major), this beautiful slow movement is in rondo form -- A-B-A-C-A + Coda:

Third movement

Fourth movement

Sonata rondo form: A-B-A-B-A:

DCCCXLVI. TELEMANN, Georg Philipp: Quartet in G Major, TWV 43:G2

DCCCXLVI. TELEMANN, Georg Philipp (1681-1767)

Quartet in G Major, TWV 43:G2 (1733)
1. Largo -- Allegro -- Largo
2. Vivace -- Moderato -- Vivace
3. Grave
4. Vivace
Elizabeth Blumenstock, violin
Colin St-Martin, flute
Meg Owens, oboe
Barrett Sills, cello
Matthew Dirst, harpsichord, cond.
(15:07)

From the massive three-part Tafelmusik. Courtly table music.

Handel and Quantz were among the 200 subscribers to this publication.

DCCCXLV. MOZART, Wolfgang Amadeus: Symphony #35 in D Major ("Haffner"), K. 385

DCCCXLV. MOZART, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791)

Symphony #35 in D Major ("Haffner"), K. 385 (1782)
1. Allegro con spirito
2. Andante
3. Menuetto
4. Presto
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Bernard Haitink, cond.
(23:20)

The Haffners were a prominent Salzburg family; they helped the Mozarts out in the earlier years. They commissioned a Serenade for the wedding of Haffner the Younger sister's wedding in 1776.

A serenade is background music. They commissioned another one for the ennoblement (Salzburg Bar Mitzvah) of young Sigmund.

Leopold was the one who accepted the commission. When he told his son the "good news," Wolfgang freaked out a little. As usual, he was working on five things at once, but he took up the project and wrote another serenade with a March and two Minuets.

Apparently, he didn't finish it on time for the ennoblement, and Mozart began to reimagine it as a symphony.

Premiered on March 23, 1783 at the Vienna Burgtheater. Hope you have a comfortable chair:

• Movements 1-3 of the new symphony;
• Aria: Se il padre perdei from Idomeneo;
• Piano Concerto #13, K. 415;
• Scena: Misera, dove son!, K. 369;
• Concertante movements from Serenade, K. 320;
• Piano Concerto #5, K. 175;
• Scena: Parto, m'affretto from Lucio Silla;
• At this point, he improvised a fugue for the Emperor and two sets of variations (K. 398, K. 455) ...
• Another aria (The Rondo, K. 416?)
• Movement 4 of the symphony

First movement

"To be played with fire!"

A loud unison followed by a perfectly-phrased melody, piano -- with a light cadence back to D ...

The second subject is cradled back and forth by the violins, while the violas play the initial subject.

As in Symphonies #31, 33 and 34, Mozart indicated no repeat sign for the exposition. Haitink takes it anyway ...

The development (above) begins with a strong hint of D Minor, but the music cadences to F-Sharp Major!

Look how Mozart cadences back to D Major, with secondary dominants. The dominant (C-Sharp) resolves to F Minor -- the third degree. With the first subject on top, the harmony is iii / V of iii / V of vi / V of ii / V / I ...

Second movement

G Major Andante.

With the violins playing a steady 16th-note A, the seconds and violas accompany it with a charming flow of 32nd-notes:

Chorale-like passage with syncopation in the strings:

Third movement

The Trio is all piano.

Fourth movement

More fire!

New subject:

Fascinating chromatic movement back to the main theme:

DCCCXLIV. BORISOVA-OLLAS, Victoria: Angelus

DCCCXLIV. BORISOVA-OLLAS, Victoria (1969-       )

Angelus (2008)
Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra
Andrey Boreyko, cond.
(22:25)

DCCCXLIII. SHOSTAKOVICH, Dmitri: Symphony #12 in D Minor ("The Year of 1917"), Op. 112

DCCCXLIII. SHOSTAKOVICH, Dmitri (1906-1975)

Symphony #12 in D Minor ("The Year of 1917"), Op. 112 (1961)
1. Revolutionary Petrograd -- Moderato -- Allegro -- Più mosso -- Allegro
2. Razliv -- Allegro (L'istesso tempo) -- Adagio
3. Aurora -- Adagio (L'istesso tempo) -- Allegro
4. The Dawn of Humanity -- Allegro (L'istesso tempo) -- Allegretto -- Moderato
Mariinsky Orchestra
Valery Gergiev, cond.
(41:40)

"[This symphony] is much more interesting than some people think." -- VG in this preface to the Twelfth.

Very true -- but I remember as a kid when the music library first got the Twelfth, I took home the record and score and felt sorely disappointed. A paean to Lenin? It seemed more like a vague tone poem on its subtitle -- "The Year of 1917."

The Tenth and Eleventh were so great! What happened?

Shostakovich expert Elizabeth Wilson quotes Lev Lebedinsky (a close friend and confidant):

"DS decided to attempt to express his true attitude to what was going on in his country. He decided his Twelfth Symphony was to be a satire of Lenin. When he told me this I tried to talk him out of it. It was too dangerous and nobody would understand anyway. He brushed off my advice with 'he who has ears will hear.'

The day before the premiere, he rang me up in a panic. 'Lev Nikolayevich, tomorrow my symphony will be played for the first time. Can you come up to Leningrad?'

He was waiting for me at the hotel. 'I've written a terrible symphony. It's a failure. But I managed to change it.'

'Change what?'

'The whole symphony. I realized that you had been right. They'd crucify me for it because my conception was an obvious caricature of Lenin. Therefore I sat down and wrote another one in three or four days. And it's terrible!'"

This story is equally hard to believe or refute. But the fact remains -- despite Maestro Gergiev's comment -- that this is not his best symphony ...

A critic wrote that if the Eleventh was "folk music drama," the Twelfth was "folk-heroic epic."

Isaak Glickman:

"He led me into the little room where he slept. He began to cry and sob. Stammering through his tears, he said 'they've been following me and persecuting me.' Khrushchev's entourage was putting pressure on him to join the Party."

He reluctantly joined in 1960. To celebrate the 22nd Communist Party Congress, Shostakovich was commissioned wrote another symphony.

All movements are attacca ...

1. Revolutionary Petrograd -- Moderato -- Allegro -- Più mosso -- Allegro

Picturing the general restlessness and frustration of the people, who are looking for a leader. This rather banal theme is a revolutionary song with the text "shame on you, tyrants!"

He harmonizes it, adding the upper strings:

Then -- remaining in 5/4 -- he ratchets up the tension with that silent fifth beat:

The theme is relentlessly developed and finally dropped down to nothing ...

An eight-bar variant phrase is repeated and developed:

This marcato breaks up the theme:

The movement winds down a lovely horn solo, followed by the "missing-quarter-note" riff with underlying ominous percussion:

2. Razliv -- Allegro (L'istesso tempo) -- Adagio

Razliv was Lenin's countryside retreat outside Petrograd.

The music describes the tension and anticipation of war, not some lovely dacha. Perhaps DS really did throw away the "Lenin-portrait" idea and quickly rewrote  all this ... we know that he was fast.

The sinuous motif in the lower strings is borrowed from the Eleventh -- French horns play a different motif, but replete with those bars of "sighing" half-steps:

Still rumbling, Shostakovich moves to E-Flat Major, with flute and clarinet playing a riff that will transform into full-blown orchestral color later on:

3. Aurora -- Adagio (L'istesso tempo) -- Allegro

The Aurora was the ship that fired on the Winter Palace, beginning the Revolution.

Same music -- faster -- and made more dramatic with the timpani part:

Low brass and winds accent the theme with full orchestral accompaniment:

4. The Dawn of Humanity -- Allegro (L'istesso tempo) -- Allegretto -- Moderato

Broad horns and strings. This theme is Hope.

This maestoso melody is repeated with the strings and brass exchanging figures ... ending on a glorious D Major chord. Previous motivic cells are transformed into this charming Allegretto:

Developed; the majestic horn call returns. Themes are intermingled.

Finally, he blows the initial (5/4) theme up -- all the brass play it, while the winds and strings and percussion soar and rattle the foundations:

Eardrum-rattling finish:

DCCCXLII. BACH, J.S.: Suite #6 in D Major for Cello, BWV 1012

DCCCXLII. BACH, J.S. (1685-1750)

Suite #6 in D Major for Cello, BWV 1012 (1717-23)
1. Prelude
2. Allemande
3. Courante
4. Sarabande
5. Gavotte I/II
6. Gigue
Sergey Malov, cello
(23:50)

 

What kind of cello did Bach intend here? And it had to have a fifth string -- an E string a fifth above the high A.

Apparently most manuscript sources preface the music with a note about needing five strings -- but the only source that pictures the notes was in Anna Magdalena's hand.

A virtuoso cellist can play it on four strings -- but it was obviously written for five.

Ah, but which cello? There is the violincello piccolo:

Or perhaps it was meant to be played on a cello da spalla:

That is the choice for Mr. Malov -- who gives a fantastic performance here:

1. Prelude

A ferocious torrent of 1/8th-notes (in 12/8 meter). Bach's two main riffs is the bariolage and these arpeggiated chords.

The use of alto clef for the cello is rare. The use of soprano clef is even rarer.

2. Allemande

Typically gorgeous Allemande. Notice how this surprising low C shakes the rafters.

3. Courante

The main riff:

4. Sarabande

This thick-textured, slow-moving Sarabande is stunning. Like all good Baroque experts, Malov embellishes the music after the repeats:

5. Gavotte I/II

The form is lovely -- like a Menuet and Trio -- Gavotte I w/repeats; Gavotte II w/repeats; Gavotte I, no repeats.

Notice the pedal D, producing an effect that sounds like a hurdy-gurdy or bagpipes!

6. Gigue

And a complex jig to complete the suite.

Most charming are these descending double-stopped chords ...