The Concert - Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

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133. Romantic Literary Inspirations Jan 01, 2012

Show notes

Works for mezzo-soprano, strings, and piano performed by Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano, and Musicians from Marlboro.

Respighi: Il Tramonto
Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor, Op. 60

The two works on today’s podcast share a common inspiration: Romantic literature. First on the program, we’ll hear Respighi’s Il Tramonto, or The Sunset, for mezzo-soprano and string quartet or orchestra. Respighi was in his early 30s when he wrote the piece, working on it simultaneously with what was to be his career’s watershed composition, The Fountains of Rome. The work hinges on its text—a 19th-century poem by Percy Shelley that brims with the unfulfilled love and longing that characterize much poetry of the era. The second piece on the program, Brahms’ third piano quartet in C minor, is inspired by another tale of star-crossed lovers: Goethe’s famous Werther. Brahms gave the quartet the subtitle “Werther” himself; apparently, he thought the first movement embodied the protagonist’s sorrow and desperation in finding that his beloved has married another. Interestingly, this piece, like Respighi’s, was an early composition: Brahms began work on it as early as 1855, when he was in his early twenties.

132. A Score of One’s Own Dec 15, 2011

Show notes

Works for solo piano and string quartet performed by Charlie Albright, piano, and Musicians from Marlboro.

Haydn: Piano Sonata No. 62 in E-flat Major, Hob. XVI:52
Haydn: String Quartet in C minor, Op. 17, No. 4, Hob. III:28

For most of his life, Haydn enjoyed a level of stability and comfort most contemporary composers would envy. For about 30 years, he was resident composer to the Esterhazy court, where he wrote musical works by the dozens and was given his own orchestra to perform them. Although much of his output was dictated by his employer’s needs, some works in his catalogue seem to have been personal projects, or at least destined for players beyond the palace walls. Haydn’s dazzling, ambitious Piano Sonata No. 62 was written for a close friend who was a virtuoso pianist in London, and is designed to show off not only her skill, but also the capabilities of the new, powerful English pianos. There’s no evidence that the second piece on today’s program, Haydn’s String Quartet in C minor, was ever played at the Esterhazy court. Haydn’s quartets were, however, performed in Vienna, where they were apparently a hit with audiences, according to contemporary critical accounts.

131. Death and the Maiden Encore Dec 01, 2011

Show notes

Works for solo piano and string quartet performed by Seymour Lipkin, piano, and the Belcea Quartet.

Schubert: Impromptu in E-flat Major, Op. 90, No. 2
Schubert: String Quartet No. 14 in D minor, D. 810 (“Death and the Maiden”)

Once you get to podcast 131, we figure you earn the right to repeat yourself. And we’re doing just that with this encore performance of one of the great string quartets: Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden.” In contrast to certain other titled works, which were appended with descriptive names by publishers trying to sell sheet music, the title “Death and the Maiden” was given, in this case, by the composer himself. It was very much intended as a descriptive, alluding not just to Schubert’s quotation of his own song of the same title (which appears in the second movement), but to the thematic content of the entire piece. Written at a time when Schubert was suffering from a prolonged battle with syphilis, many scholars have suggested that the quartet exposes his own longing for the relief of death. Before jumping into this work, we’ll hear Schubert’s Impromptu in E-flat Major, a brief keyboard work written a few years after “Death and the Maiden,” near the end of Schubert’s life.

130. Musical Paintings by Liszt Nov 15, 2011

Show notes

Works for solo piano performed by Cecile Licad.

Liszt: Two Legends
Liszt: Three Pieces from Années de Pèlerinage

Perhaps no composer was more skilled than Liszt in his painterly use of the piano, deftly evoking a wide range of images and emotions. We begin this episode with the composer’s Two Legends, both based on the lives of saints. In the first—St. Francis of Assisi preaching to the birds—swirling, shape-shifting flocks are evoked by high tremolos in the piano. The second Legend tells the story of St. Francis of Paola walking on the water. In a clever musical counterpart to the first, Liszt again uses swirling textures, this time in the bass, meant now to depict rolling waves. Next on the program is a selection of movements from Liszt’s three-volume Années de Pèlerinage, or Years of Pilgrimage. Spanning three hours when performed in full, the pieces range from evocations of the sculpture, poetry, music, and landscapes that Liszt encountered in his journeys to more abstract spiritual meditations. We’ll hear three selections from the first book, about his travels in Switzerland.

129. Three Equal Partners Nov 01, 2011

Show notes

Works for violin, cello, and piano performed by the Claremont Trio.

Mozart: Piano Trio No. 3 in B-flat Major, K. 502
Mendelssohn: Piano Trio No. 1 in D minor, Op. 49

The piano trio—an ensemble of violin, cello, and piano—was one of the great innovations of classical and Romantic chamber music. Before that time, composers wrote for similar groups of instruments, but the pieces rarely gave equal prominence to the three players. Classical and Romantic composers shifted the balance of the trio by giving equal weight to all three players and putting equal thought into each instrument’s part. In fact, Mendelssohn made extensive revisions after completing the first draft of his Piano Trio No. 1, adding more elaborate and technically challenging passagework to up the ante for the pianist. Mozart was a true father of the piano trio genre, and his B-flat trio is considered one of his best contributions, chock full of tuneful melodies arranged with grace and balance to show off all three members of the trio to their best advantage.

128. Beethoven's Favorites Oct 15, 2011

Show notes

Works for solo piano and string quartet performed by Paavali Jumppanen, piano, and the Orion String Quartet.

Beethoven: Piano Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp Major, Op. 78
Beethoven: String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 131

It’s always interesting to find out which of his own works a composer particularly loved (or loathed). Today, we’ll listen to two favorites of the great Beethoven, beginning with the sunny Piano Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp Major. A piece of rather diminutive proportions—just two movements, a total of about 10 minutes—this sonata was nonetheless one of the composer’s personal favorites, according to noted Beethoven biographer Maynard Solomon. The next work is altogether different: Beethoven’s seven-movement String Quartet in C-sharp minor. By all accounts a magnum opus, this was one of the composer’s last large-scale works, and though he demurred somewhat when asked to pick a favorite from among his 16 string quartets—saying each had its own merits—he later implied that this was in fact the top contender.

127. Kodaly’s Creative String Pairings Oct 01, 2011

Show notes

Works for string duo and trio, performed by Musicians from Marlboro.

Kodály: Serenade, Op. 12
Kodály: Duo for violin and cello, Op. 7

It’s difficult to discuss Hungarian composer Zoltán Kodály without, in the same breath, mentioning his longtime musical compatriot Béla Bartók. Despite their close association, Kodály had a distinct musical voice of his own, which certainly comes across in this program. First, we’ll hear Musicians from Marlboro play Kodály’s Serenade for two violins and viola. Kodály wrote a lot of vocal music, and his proclivity for melody comes through in this piece. Like many of his works, it incorporates scales and folk dance rhythms borrowed from his extensive studies of traditional Hungarian music. Next, we’ll hear violinist Augustin Hadelich and cellist Peter Stumpf of Musicians from Marlboro perform Kodály’s Duo for violin and cello. It, too, exhibits a profusion of passionate melodies and a harmonic language tinged with Eastern European folk scales.

126. Roots, Traditional and Contemporary Sep 15, 2011

Show notes

Works for voice and violin with piano, performed by Jeanine De Bique, soprano; Warren Jones, piano; Timothy Fain, violin; and Jeremy Denk, piano.

Various: Selected Spirituals
Ives: Violin Sonata No. 3

The repertoire on today’s podcast—spirituals paired with a modern violin sonata—might at first glance, and even first listen, seem a bit odd. But we think Charles Ives, the composer of the sonata in question, wouldn’t find it strange in the slightest. Ives often used musical quotation in his works, borrowing and stitching together snippets of tunes, often from traditional American sources like hymns and folk songs, to achieve a layered, patchwork effect. The sonata you’ll hear today, his third for violin and piano, has some wonderful moments, in particular its imaginative interweaving of hymn and gospel tunes. We’ll begin back at the source, with a selection of spirituals arranged for soprano and piano.

125. Back-to-Back Mozart Sonatas Sep 01, 2011

Show notes

Works for solo piano performed by Paavali Jumppanen.

Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 7 in C Major, K. 309
Mozart: Piano Sonata No. 8 in A minor, K. 310

On this program, we’ll hear two piano sonatas by Mozart, composed back-to-back on a trip he took throughout Europe with his mother in 1777 and 1778. Mozart wrote today’s first piece, his Piano Sonata No. 7 in C Major, in the court at Mannheim, where he hoped to secure a respectable position. After an unsuccessful stay in Mannheim, Mozart and his mother headed to Paris, where she fell seriously ill. Around that time, Mozart completed the eighth sonata in A minor, one of just two piano sonatas Mozart composed in a minor key over the course of his life. These back-to-back sonatas are an interesting time capsule, capturing the composer at a critical juncture in his maturation from child prodigy to young adult.

124. A Violinist to Watch: Caroline Goulding Aug 15, 2011

Show notes

Works for violin and keyboard performed by Caroline Goulding, violin, and Shuai Wang, piano and harpsichord.

Tchaikovsky: Melody in E-flat Major, Op. 42, No. 3
Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 2
Tartini: Violin Sonata in G minor ("Devil's Trill")
Respighi: Sonata in B minor

The idea of the virtuoso—often a musician who possesses not just exceptional skill, but also great precocity—has been part of the culture of classical music for centuries. Violinist Caroline Goulding fits the profile. An astonishing young musician, Goulding began playing the violin at age 3 ½ and earned a Grammy nomination for her first CD, recorded at age 16. In her Boston debut recital at the Gardner Museum, she took her violin, the General Kyd Stradivarius, through its paces, performing a wide variety of works.

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