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I had an odd thought this week when I was looking for a piece to listen to (my apologies to those of you who don’t like sentences which end in prepositions – should I have said “when I was looking for a piece to which to listen”?: I wondered if there were any classical music works out there where the composer was totally unknown. I ran various Google-searches on works by nameless composers, but I kept coming up with pieces by “unknown” composers, i.e. “not well known” – not completely unknown.
I found the Trio in A Major (for piano, violin and cello) that is “attributed to Brahms” so I thought I’d give it a try. A bit of the history of the piece is HERE, and the article explains why scholars believe that the work was most likely composed by Brahms. The Trio is composed in four movements:
The Moderato opens with a tranquil passage on piano played in thirds, and then it is shared with the cello. This passage is repeated now and again throughout the movement, and there was something about it that gave off just a hint of Rachmaninoff. It reminded me of a Rach melody that might turn up in a pop song by Gilbert O’Sullivan or in something akin to “Full Moon and Empty Arms” – but again, there was just a hint of this, and there was no depth to any line as lush and rich as something by the Rach. The better part of the movement was light and airy, but not so joyous as the A major opening to Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4. Overall, though, the mood is filled with contentment. There is a touch of drama after the first repeated section, but then the opening theme returns the trio to the serenity present throughout most of the movement. The second movement starts with a sneaky vivace that sounds a bit devious. It sweeps the listener to a calmer, lullaby-ic (is there such a word as “lullaby-ic”?) trio before returning to the more mischievous slinkiness of the piece’s opening. The third movement is, for the most part, peaceful, but with an added touch of mystery provided by the occasional use of a tango-like rhythm (instead of the straight eighth notes used throughout most of the movement, Brahms (or the unknown composer) threw in some eighth notes followed by a sixteenth rest and a sixteenth note) The final movement is marked as “presto,” but the use of many half notes and whole notes on the melody line with an underscore of more action below (with quarter notes and eighth notes) gives the illusion of a somewhat slower dynamic. Later, the addition of quarter notes followed by two eighth notes provides a bit of a rocking lilt – even more so later when dotted quarters are paired with eighth notes – and then the trio races to its vigorous end. Overall, I did like the work. I wouldn’t say that I loved it. When listening, nothing made me stop in my tracks, so to speak, like when I listened to Beethoven’s “Triple Concerto” or Schubert’s “Fantasie in F Minor” – but I did enjoy the work. It was very pleasant.
On Thanksgiving, my wife and I visited my brother and his wife in the northern Virginia area, and for a time in our car we listened to WETA's annal Thanksgiving countdown of Top 100 classical music favorites. Of course, we only heard a few of the selections while we were in the car, so later I checked the WETA website to see the complete list (HERE).
I was not familiar with three of the pieces on the list, so I listened to them as part of this site. I listened to Marin Marais' "The Bells of St. Genevieve" during the week of 11/27 (HERE), and I listened to Vasily Kalinnikov's Symphony Number One during the week of 12/4 (HERE). This week I listened to the final of the three pieces, Symphony Number Three by Florence Price. I've listened to the piece a few times, and Imma be honest -- I vacillated between rating the piece BLUE ("Okay, It Was") and YELLOW ("Liked It, I Did") -- but I ended up rating it YELLOW because I did like the 3rd and 4th movements -- and much of the first movement -- so that put me over the top to give a final rating of YELLOW. The symphony is composed in four movements:
"Mrs. Price, both in the [piano] concerto and in the symphony, spoke in the musical idiom of her own people, and spoke with authority. There was inherent in both works all the emotional warmth of the American Negro, so that the evening became one of profound melody satisfaction. In the symphony there was a slow movement of majestic beauty, a third in which the rhythmic preference of the Negro found scope in a series of dance forms, and a finale which swept forward with great vigor." To me, though, the four movements did not seem particularly cohesive, and (LOL) it reminded me of words of advice I hear often on my favorite reality show, "Top Chef." I've been binge watching "Top Chef" for a few weeks now -- and I'm up to the current season, 19 (so I"ve witness a lot of cooking!) -- and two things I've learned from the show (and these are important lessons for chefs to grasp who aspire to be on the show), (1) the contestants should concentrate on one meal/preparation during an "elimination challenge" and not spread themselves to thin by preparing too many disparate aspects for the dish and (2) if/when preparing a multi-course meal, the menu items should be cohesive. As a multi-course "meal," so to speak, Price's four movements in this symphony just seemed too disparate with little cohesion. I liked the first movement, but it just didn't seem to fit with the third. The second movement? It was okay. The third movement seemed out of place with the second and fourth -- but as a stand-alone piece, it "worked." As the King of Siam in "The King and I" would say, "et cetera, et cetera, et cetera." However, like I said earlier, I did like the third and fourth movements, and there was enough about the first movement that I did enjoy that that "pushed it over the edge" for me when I was considering whether to land on a rating of BLUE or YELLOW. YELLOW it is. ; )
This past Thanksgiving, I drove through the northern Virigina area, so for a time I was able to listen on my radio to WETA’s annual countdown of their listeners’ Top 100 classical music favorites. I was only able to hear a handful of the selections, so when I got home, I pulled up their website to view the complete Top 100 list, HERE.
I was familiar with 97 of the 100 works, so I thought I would listen to the three I've never heard. Last week, I listened to Marin Marais’ “The Bells of St. Genevieve,” #41 on the list. My comments and rating are HERE. This week I listened to Vasily Kalinnikov’s Symphony Number One, #94 on the list. Next week I will listen to #100, Florence Price’s Symphony Number Three in C Minor. I’m somewhat but not completely surprised that Kalinnikov’s symphony made the Top 100 list. On the one hand, it’s not a frequently played piece in the standard classical repertoire (at least not that I’m aware of); on the other hand, it employs a lot of bold brashness especially with blaring brass and lush strings in the final movement so I can understand why this is a crowd pleaser. For me? I liked it. I didn’t love it – but yes, I liked it. Kalinnikov’s symphony is made up of four movements:
The first movement begins with a main theme played in unison strings, and I don’t know if there is such a thing as a “Russian boat song” genre – similar perhaps to sea shanties but more in line with the Volga boat song – but it has a definite feel of a Russian boat song, and soon it moves into a Russian-boat-song-meets-Broadway fusion. There is a second theme developed later in the piece before returning to the opening theme, so the opening movement to the symphony is a bit long. Hmm…maybe Kalinnikov should have just concentrated on that first theme and then moved on. The second movement opens with quiet, pulsating strings, and then an oboe glides in with a melody as graceful as Saint-Saens’ “The Swan.” Though much of the piece was reminiscent of Saint-Saens’ magnum opus, Kalinnikov’s work ever quite reached that level of greatness. The third movement is a scherzo and contains Russian folk-music influences. As a result, it’s bouncy and more cheerful than the opening and second movements. The initial “boat-song” theme from the first movement opens the final movement, and it quickly moves to a more joyful rendition of the motif (predictably so as the key has changed from G minor to G major). Kalinnikov then revisits and transforms themes from the other two movements as well before concluding with a festive ending played by the full orchestra. For me, though, a more festive – and memorable – work for full orchestra is Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Festive Overture.” Kalinnikov’s symphony is worth a listen to, though, and I suspect it would be a fun and exciting piece to hear performed live. |
A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
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