“What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” William Shakespeare uses this line in his play Romeo and Juliet to convey that the naming of things is irrelevant. Composer Robert Schumann would disagree. For Schumann, everything was in a name, and his own was legion. Most famous of all are Florestan and Eusebius, whom Schumann labelled the two emotional extremes in his changeable personality - the active and the passive aspects of his personality. Florestan, an outward-going, robust figure; Eusebius, moody and introspective. These also appear regularly in Schumann’s music. His second Symphony is a good example with its contrasting moods of quiet reflection and exuberant hyperactivity. This, the main focus of the first of our April sessions, was bookended by a Telemann Overture and Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet for strings, composed at sixteen years of age. Interestingly, Telemann’s music was an enormous influence on Mendelssohn’s more than a century later, and Mendelssohn was the conductor for the premiere of Schumann 2nd Symphony.
If Schumann’s mental state was his “Achille’s Heel”, Beethoven’s was his encroaching deafness which, at times, drove him to despair and, like Schumann, to thoughts of suicide. It was in the midst of this anguish that Beethoven’s Second Symphony was born. A work which bewildered critics at the time, others since have come to see it as filled with spirited vitality, humour and frivolity – “music which glances backwards while looking forwards”. This was the first part of a double bill in our second April session, the other being Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.23 – it also being a work expressing powerful emotions. Another composer of powerful emotions was British composer Ethel Smyth whose campaigning for women’s rights aa well as her music both landed her in gaol and in performance in the drawing room of Queen Victoria; and later the first composer to be made a Dame of the British Empire. We heard the Overture to her opera “The Wreckers”.
Links to the recordings and the notes for the 2nd session may be accessed by clicking on the links below. Hopefully notes for the first session will be posted as soon as possible.
Bill Squire.
If Schumann’s mental state was his “Achille’s Heel”, Beethoven’s was his encroaching deafness which, at times, drove him to despair and, like Schumann, to thoughts of suicide. It was in the midst of this anguish that Beethoven’s Second Symphony was born. A work which bewildered critics at the time, others since have come to see it as filled with spirited vitality, humour and frivolity – “music which glances backwards while looking forwards”. This was the first part of a double bill in our second April session, the other being Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.23 – it also being a work expressing powerful emotions. Another composer of powerful emotions was British composer Ethel Smyth whose campaigning for women’s rights aa well as her music both landed her in gaol and in performance in the drawing room of Queen Victoria; and later the first composer to be made a Dame of the British Empire. We heard the Overture to her opera “The Wreckers”.
Links to the recordings and the notes for the 2nd session may be accessed by clicking on the links below. Hopefully notes for the first session will be posted as soon as possible.
Bill Squire.
14th April Session Notes - to be added shortly.
G.Ph. Telemann Ouverture-Suite in D major, I Ouverture, TWV 55D1 (Musique de table Tafelmusik).mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbLYcAu7BNA
Symphony No. 2 Robert Schumann Dowland Lachrimae Antiquae Klaus Mäkelä Oslo Philharmonic.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxbfkZ_BzwU&t=5s
Felix Mendelssohn String Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1xiQ93L7A
G.Ph. Telemann Ouverture-Suite in D major, I Ouverture, TWV 55D1 (Musique de table Tafelmusik).mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbLYcAu7BNA
Symphony No. 2 Robert Schumann Dowland Lachrimae Antiquae Klaus Mäkelä Oslo Philharmonic.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxbfkZ_BzwU&t=5s
Felix Mendelssohn String Octet in E-flat major, Op. 20.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JL1xiQ93L7A
28th April Session Notes (pdf)
YouTube Links to Recordings:
Ethel Smyth Overture to The Wreckers - Queer Urban Orchestra.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbpp2tiNCXk
Beethoven Symphony No. 2 in D major, op 36 Christian Theilemann & Wiener Philharmoniker.mp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdvcIE6kVuE&t=2127s
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major K 488 Evgeny Kissin mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4S6UYv8-W4&t=711s
YouTube Links to Recordings:
Ethel Smyth Overture to The Wreckers - Queer Urban Orchestra.mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbpp2tiNCXk
Beethoven Symphony No. 2 in D major, op 36 Christian Theilemann & Wiener Philharmoniker.mp
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdvcIE6kVuE&t=2127s
Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 in A Major K 488 Evgeny Kissin mp4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4S6UYv8-W4&t=711s
