Kreisleriana, Op. 16, is a composition in eight movements by Robert Schumann for solo piano, subtitled Phantasien für das Pianoforte. It was written in only four days in April 1838 and a revised version appeared in 1850. The work was dedicated to Frédéric Chopin, but when a copy was sent to the Polish composer, "he commented favorably only on the design of the title page".
Kreisleriana is a very dramatic work and is viewed by some critics as one of Schumann's finest compositions. In 1839, soon after publishing it, Schumann called it in a letter "my favourite work," remarking that "The title conveys nothing to any but Germans. Kreisler is one of E. T. A. Hoffmann's creations, an eccentric, wild, and witty conductor." In 1843, when he had moved from writing for solo piano to much larger works, in particular Paradise and the Peri, he still listed it as one of his best piano works.
The work's title was inspired by the character of Johannes Kreisler from works of E. T. A. Hoffmann. Like the kaleidoscopic Kreisler, each number has multiple contrasting sections, resembling the imaginary musician's manic depression, and recalling Schumann's own "Florestan" and "Eusebius," the two characters Schumann used to indicate his own contrasting impulsive and dreamy sides. Johannes Kreisler appears in several books by Hoffmann, including Kater Murr and most notably in the Kreisleriana section of Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier, published in 1814.
In a letter to his wife Clara, Schumann reveals that she has figured largely in the composition of Kreisleriana:
I'm overflowing with music and beautiful melodies now – imagine, since my last letter I've finished another whole notebook of new pieces. I intend to call it Kreisleriana. You and one of your ideas play the main role in it, and I want to dedicate it to you – yes, to you and nobody else – and then you will smile so sweetly when you discover yourself in it.
Robert Schumann
Kreisleriana Op. 16
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La Damoiselle élue (The Blessed Damozel), L. 62, is a cantata for soprano soloist, 2-part children's choir, 2-part female (contralto) choir (with contralto solo), and orchestra, composed by Claude Debussy in 1887–1888 based on a text by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It premiered in Paris in 1893.
Claude Debussy was interested in the symbolist movement and later took inspiration from a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé for his Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894). Reading an anthology of English poetry translated by Gabriel Sarrazin, "Poètes modernes d’Angleterre" (1883) gave Debussy the idea of composing a cantata on the poem "The Blessed Damozel" (1850) by Pre-Raphaelite poet and painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Debussy had probably not seen Rossetti's painting of the same title, but other pre-Raphaelite illustrations with a focus on "a new type of feminine beauty". He completed the piece in 1888. In a letter to André Poniatowski dated 9 September 1892, he confided that he had wanted to compose "a little oratorio in a little pagan mystical note". The work is dedicated to composer Paul Dukas. Debussy sent his music score to the Académie des beaux-arts as an entry for the Prix de Rome. It was published in 1892. Debussy revised his orchestration for the piece in 1902, and in 1906 made a piano reduction of the orchestral part.
La Damoiselle élue belongs to the same period of composition as the Cinq poèmes de Charles Baudelaire, when Debussy was influenced by the music of Richard Wagner. The composer chose to distance himself from this musical influence, while remaining faithful to symbolist literature, when composing his opera Pelléas et Mélisande in the 1890s. Patterns such as fleur-de-lys returned to his stage music for Le Martyre de saint Sébastien (1910–1911).
La Damoiselle élue premiered in Paris at the Salle Érard on 8 April 1893, sponsored by the Société Nationale de Musique, sung by Julia and Thérèse Robert, and conducted by Jean Gabriel-Marie. It was the first of Debussy's works for orchestra to be performed. The premiere was a success, and music critic Pierre Lalo wrote in Le Temps: "Such are the grace and delicacy of his taste that all his audacities are welcome" ("telles sont la grâce et la délicatesse de son goût que toutes ses audaces sont heureuses"). Some critics, however, reproached the work as being "very sensual and decadent" ("très sensuelle et décadente").
Claude Debussy
La damoiselle élue
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The Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129, by Robert Schumann was completed in a period of only two weeks, between 10 October and 24 October 1850, shortly after Schumann became the music director at Düsseldorf.
The concerto was never played in Schumann's lifetime. It was premiered on 23 April 1860, four years after his death, in Oldenburg, with Ludwig Ebert as soloist.
The length of a typical performance is about 25 minutes.
The piece is in three movements, which follow on from each other without a pause:
1. Nicht zu schnell (A minor – A major)
2. Langsam (F major)
3. Sehr lebhaft (A minor – A major)
The work is scored for solo cello, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings.
Robert Schumann
Cello Concerto in Am Op. 129
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The Oboe Quartet in F major, K. 370/368b, was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in early 1781. The quartet is scored for oboe, violin, viola and cello. In 1780, Mozart was invited to Munich to visit Elector Karl Theodor, who had commissioned the opera Idomeneo for a carnival celebration. While in Munich, Mozart renewed an acquaintance with Friedrich Ramm, a virtuoso oboist in the Munich orchestra. It was for Ramm that Mozart composed the quartet in order to show off his virtuosity and the improvements that had been made to the oboe at that time. One way that this piece showed off the instrument was the use of the "high F" above the staff, a note rarely played in any repertoire previously written for the oboe.
This piece is a work of chamber music, but it has elements that harken to other musical genres, and requires a fair amount of virtuosity. Because of its large amount of virtuosic playing on the part of the oboe and the large degree to which the strings simply accompany the oboist, it almost resembles a concerto, but with only four players instead of an entire orchestra. Despite this, there are also a number of places within the work that require ensemble playing, for example, the famous 13-bar passage in the finale in which the oboe plays in common time against a 6/8 accompaniment.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Oboe Quartet in F K 370
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Johannes Brahms (German: [joˈhanəs ˈbʁaːms]; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna. His reputation and status as a composer are such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. An uncompromising perfectionist, Brahms destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Embedded within his meticulous structures, however, are deeply romantic motifs.
Leopold Kozeluch
Piano Concerto No. 1 in F major Op. 12
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The String Quartets, Op. 50 (Hob. III/44-49, L. 36-41), were composed by Joseph Haydn in 1787. The set of six quartets was dedicated to King Frederick William II of Prussia. For this reason the set is commonly known as the Prussian Quartets. Haydn sold the set to the Viennese firm Artaria and, without Artaria's knowledge, to the English publisher William Forster. Forster published it as Haydn's Opus 44. Haydn's autograph manuscripts for Nos. 3 to 6 of the set were discovered in Melbourne, Australia, in 1982.
Each of the six quartets in the set has four movements, and in each case the movements are ordered in a conventional fast–slow–minuet–fast sequence.
The set was Haydn's first complete set of quartets since the Opus 33 set of 1781. While the Opus 33 set was apt for broad public consumption, the Opus 50 set is more serious and experimental. It is perhaps because of the Opus 50's intellectual character that other sets among Haydn's mature quartets have received more attention from performers.
Joseph Haydn
String Quartets Op. 50 - No. 1 in B flat major HobIII 44
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Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit (God's time is the very best time), BWV 106, also known as Actus tragicus, is an early sacred cantata composed by Johann Sebastian Bach in Mühlhausen, intended for a funeral.
The earliest source for the composition is a copied manuscript dated 1768, therefore the date of the composition is not certain. Research leads to a funeral of a former mayor of Mühlhausen on 16 September 1708. The text is a carefully compiled juxtaposition of biblical texts, three quotations from the Old Testament and four from the New Testament, combined with funeral hymns, of which two are sung and one is quoted instrumentally, and some additions by an anonymous author. Bach scored the work for four vocal parts and a small ensemble of Baroque instruments, two recorders, two violas da gamba and continuo. The work is opened by an instrumental Sonatina, followed by through-composed sections which have been assigned to four movements. The structure is symmetrical around a turning point, when the lower voices, who contemplate the Old Covenant, are overcome by a soprano calling for Jesus.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit BWV 106
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Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario), K. 486, is a comic singspiel by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, set to a German libretto by Gottlieb Stephanie, an Austrian Schauspieldirektor. Originally, it was written because of "the imperial command" of the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II who had invited 80 guests to a private luncheon.[1] It is regarded as "a parody on the vanity of singers", who argue over status and pay.
Mozart, who describes it as "comedy with music" wrote it as his entry in a musical competition which was given a private performance hosted on 7 February 1786 by Joseph II at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. This competition pitted a German singspiel, presented at one end of the room, against a competing Italian opera, the Italian entry being Antonio Salieri's opera buffa, Prima la musica e poi le parole (First the Music, then the Words), which was then given at the other end of the room. The premiere was followed by the first of three public performances given four days later at the Kärntnertor Theater, Vienna, on 11 February.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Impresario K 486
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Johannes Brahms - Concerto in A Minor Op. 102
The Double Concerto in A minor, Op. 102, by Johannes Brahms is a concerto for violin, cello and orchestra. The orchestra consists of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani and strings.
The Double Concerto was Brahms' final work for orchestra. It was composed in the summer of 1887, and first performed on 18 October of that year in the Gürzenich [de] in Cologne, Germany. Brahms approached the project with anxiety over writing for instruments that were not his own. He wrote it for the cellist Robert Hausmann, a frequent chamber music collaborator, and his old but estranged friend, the violinist Joseph Joachim. The concerto was, in part, a gesture of reconciliation towards Joachim, after their long friendship had ruptured following Joachim's divorce from his wife Amalie. (Brahms had sided with Amalie in the dispute.)
The concerto makes use of the musical motif A–E–F, a permutation of F–A–E, which stood for a personal motto of Joachim, Frei aber einsam ("free but lonely"). Thirty-four years earlier, Brahms had been involved in a collaborative work using the F-A-E motif in tribute to Joachim: the F-A-E Sonata of 1853.
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Daphnis et Chloé is a ballet in one act with three parts (scenes) by Maurice Ravel described as a "symphonie chorégraphique" (choreographic symphony). The scenario was adapted by Michel Fokine from a romance by the Greek writer Longus thought to date from around the 2nd century AD. Scott Goddard published a contemporary commentary that discussed the changes to the story that Fokine made to prepare a workable ballet scenario. The story concerns the love between the goatherd Daphnis and the shepherdess Chloé.
Ravel began work on the score in 1909 after a commission from Sergei Diaghilev. It was premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris by his Ballets Russes on 8 June 1912. The orchestra was conducted by Pierre Monteux, the choreography was by Michel Fokine, and Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina danced the parts of Daphnis and Chloé. Léon Bakst designed the original sets.
At almost an hour long, Daphnis et Chloé is Ravel's longest work. In spite of the ballet's duration, four discernible leitmotifs give musical unity to the score. The music, some of the composer's most passionate, is widely regarded as some of Ravel's best, with extraordinarily lush harmonies typical of the impressionist movement in music. Even during the composer's lifetime, contemporary commentators described this ballet as his masterpiece for orchestra. Ravel extracted music from the ballet to make two orchestral suites, which can be performed with or without the chorus. The second of the suites, which includes much of the last part of the ballet and concludes with the "Danse générale", is particularly popular. When the complete work is itself performed live, it is more often in concerts than in staged productions.
Maurice Ravel
Daphnis et Chloé - Suite No. 2
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