With the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra not having planned concert performances for August, an opportunity presented itself to indulge in Beethoven in this his 250th year. Each of our two sessions, then, this month featured Beethoven compositions entirely. Works from two marvellous concerts in place of the cancelled Solsberg Festival from Switzerland featuring the festival organiser (Cellist, Sol Gabetta) opened each of our sessions, filled out by arguably the best of Beethoven’s 32 piano sonatas – the Pathetique – and stunning presentations of two “3rds” - the 3rd Piano Concerto and 3rd Symphony. 

​The notes for each session provide background information for the works plus interesting insights into the artists involved. They also include the video links in each presentation.  Enjoy!

Class Notes:  14th August

​Class Notes:  28th August 
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Bill Squire

Our following of the planned MSO concert schedule for July kicked off with a couple of pleasant surprises in Dvorak’s “legends” – 10 piano pieces for four hands and a Beethoven concert aria “Ah Perfido”! To balance out these little known works, a scintillating rendition of an old favourite in Brahms’ Violin Concerto, and maybe “the greatest graduation piece of all time”, in Shostakovich’s First Symphony, rounded out the first session for this month.

“An Anthem for our Time” and “A message of consolation and hope in times of tragedy” is how Brahms’ “Ein Deutsches Requiem” has been described. This was the feature work of the second of our programmes for this month. In a sense then, an appropriate work to listen to and think about as so much of our world is engulfed currently with tragedy and grief on a huge scale. In keeping with that sentiment, Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” bookends our programme – a memorial to a departed friend. In between there was Elgar’s lengthy Violin Concerto - a work steeped in mystery – and a little-known (or not so often played) Beethoven Overture.

Here are the links to the programme notes, which include  the YouTube links to the music performances:
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10th July  Beethoven 2020; Anton Dvorak: Johannes Brahms: Dmitri Shostakovich
24th July: Beethoven 2020; Johannes Brahms, Edward Elgar; Modest Mussorgsky

​Interested in joining in the Beethoven Celebrations!  Enjoy the video links from the Beethoven catalogue suggested in the notes.

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Bill Squire
​27 July 2020
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The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra was a little light on this month in terms of us trying to emulate the works they had planned to perform. Only five composers to choose from, so naturally all were selected, plus an extra Beethoven work to “make up the numbers” so to speak.   Nevertheless, some interesting works as well as a couple of old favourites.

Check out the notes for each session below - they include links to YouTube for the performances.  

Here are the class notes, which include links to videos to be watched, for 12th and 24th June.

​Class Notes 12th June- Beethoven 2020, Tchaikovsky, Ravel and more

​Class Notes 26th June - Beethoven 2020, Anton Bruckner, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Camille Saint-Saens

If you like what you see and haven’t joined up with our group as yet, either email me at [email protected] or give a me call on 0429 626 334 and I will only be too happy to include you in our twice monthly electronic mailout or provide another means if the computer is not the best medium for you.

I know this is not best way of doing what we do, but because it doesn’t look as though we will be back in our normal venue for a while yet, we must do something……. for, as the ABC FM presenters keep telling their listeners: “…… life’s better with music”. 

So tune into your favourite music station at least, and keep well and keep safe.
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Bill Squire
​27June 2020

The MSO’s scheduled programme for May gave us an array of options. We couldn’t choose it all, so some will have to wait for another time – perhaps a month when the orchestra was planning to not be so busy. To find out what our music selections were, simply click on the links below where you will be able to read the stories behind them and listen to the music you wish to enjoy.

​Class Notes: 

8th May -    Johannes Brahms/Gustav Holst/Beethoven 2020
22nd May - Faure/Purcell/Tchaikovsky/Vaughan Williams/Beethoven 2020

Beethoven 2020

​8th May -   Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) - Quintet for piano and wind instruments, in E flat major opus 16 Klara Würtz, piano / Henk de Graaf, clarinet / Hans Meyer, oboe / Peter Gaasterland, bassoon / Martin van de Merwe, horn

22rd May - Beethoven's 'Emperor' Concerto - A performance on January 14 2017 by soloist Stephen Hough accompanied by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Alan Gilbert. 

Bill Squire
​25th May, 2020

“Keep the Music Going” has been the catch-cry of the MSO in this time of social distancing Under that banner the MSO has been posting - on YouTube - recordings of recent performances. Given that that April was originally planned as a more or less “off” month concert-wise for the orchestra, this initiative proved serendipitous when it came to selecting music for our one and only presentation this month (one and only because of the Easter holiday break early in the month). 

So as our contribution (for this month anyway) to “Keep the Music Going” in our part of the world, the music selected included Beethoven’s “Septet",  Vaughan William’s “The Lark Ascending” and Martinu’s “Madrigals” – all by the MSO or musicians from the orchestra. There was a small snippet from Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” performed by the Mariinsky Ballet Company (the MSO had posted a recording of a Stravinsky double bill concert featuring the complete “Rite of Spring” and the melodrama “Persephone”, but  a stage presentation is much more appealing)  and the programme was rounded off by Beethoven’s “Seven Variation on a Mozart Duet” (from the Magic Flute). 

You can read about the session and listen to the music by opening up the  explanatory notes  below - these include the relevant video links. 

24th April:  Beethoven 2020; Ralph Vaughan Mitchell; Igor Stravinsky; Bohuslva Martinu 
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Bill Squire

Continuing our celebration of “Beethoven 2020” and shadowing the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s line up of music for March, it was again a mixture of the old and the very new, perhaps stretching a little bit the “Appreciation” side of our musical presentations.

In one programme the very old was a Bach orchestral suite and the very new an excerpt from an Antarctic Symphony by Australian composer – Gordon Hamilton. In between - a Beethoven Piano Trio and the glorious Grieg Piano Concerto.

The second programme - enjoyed “remotely” - featured Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, Kodaly’s “Dances of Galanta”, the finale to Scheherazde by Rimsky-Korsakov, a movement from Schumann’s 2ndSymphony and an Excerpt from “Woven Song” by Australian composer – Deborah Cheetham.

You can read all about it and listen to the music by opening up the  explanatory notes for each session below - these include the relevant video links. 

13 March:  Beethoven '2020'; Bach, Hamilton, Grieg
27 March:    Beethoven '2020'; Schumann, Cheetham, Rimsky Korsakov, Kodaly

The handouts this month will print out in two column, booklet format and require folding. 
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Bill Squire

What a great start to the year with enrolments up by nearly 100%.  Our musical journey this year will see us honouring Ludwig van Beethoven and joining in the world-wide celebrations marking 250 years since his birth.  Each of our fortnightly sessions throughout the year will contain at least one or part of one Beethoven composition. We are also tracking the 2020 programme of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra - who are also joining in the celebrations - and endeavouring to present a selection from whatever music is in their concert programmes in the same month.

For the month of February we started out with Beethoven’s 1st Symphony followed by works of Richard Strauss, Ravel, Elena Kats-Chernin, Bartok and concluded with Dvorak’s New World Symphony.

Our second gathering involved Beethoven’s Appassionata Sonata and a mandolin concerto plus works by Dvorak, Respighi, Khatchaturian; concluding with Mendelssohn’s Scottish symphony.

Programme notes and links to the various videos on YouTube for your enjoyment:

February 14th - 'Beethoven 2020' plus Strauss, Ravel, Kats-Chernin, Bartok, Dvorak
February 28th - 'Beethoven 2020; plus Dvorak, Mendelssohn, Respighi, Khachacturian 
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Bill Squire

A diminutive man with an immense musical talent, Edvard Grieg (1843 - 1907) wrote one of the world's most popular piano concertos. He remains today as Norway's most beloved composer, magically capturing the energy and beauty of the folk melodies he grew up with.  Grieg was one of a string of nationalist composers – Dvorak, Smetana, Sibelius, Bartok, Kodaly, Glinka, Tchaikovsky and others in countries throughout Europe were also turning to the folk songs and rhythms of their homelands to create a Nationalist movement that was also reflected in plays, ballets, operas, novels and poems.  Today, his music celebrating Norway and the beauty of Scandinavia is played around the world.
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"His name will endure, if only thanks to one superb violin concerto." Thus read the entry in “The New Grove” on Max Bruch (1838 - 1920), a prolific composer who was much admired in his lifetime. The First Violin Concerto, however, was only the first of a string of works for the instrument. He also composed three symphonies, a wonderful work for cello and orchestra, a number of (mostly unsuccessful) operas and other choral works. Conservative musically , much in the mould of Brahms, he reacted against the innovations of Liszt and Wagner, and found himself isolated from contemporary opinion later in life. He was, nevertheless, a respected teacher, and numbered Respighi and Vaughan Williams among his students.
These were the composers our group celebrated this month. You can read more and sample their music on the Music Appreciation page of our website.
Bill Squire

Class Notes - November 8 - Edvard Grieg 1843 - 1907 - just one of the links in the notes: 

Class Notes - November 22 - Max Bruch 1838-1920 - a link from the notes:

What’s in a Name?
Camille Saint-Saens and Anton Dvořák suffered a common complaint – their respective names:  Saint-Saens’ from mispronunciation, and Dvořák’s from misspelling. Other that they were music contemporaries in the late romantic period.

Saint-Saens was music’s Renaissance man, a former child prodigy whose genius extended beyond music to linguistics, literature and science. A restless creative spirit given to constant travelling - making trips to some 27 countries - it was in North Africa that he found his spiritual home — and his physical home too. There he documented many of his travels in musical works that he composed using themes collected along the way.
 
He was one of the most precocious musicians ever, beginning piano lessons with his aunt at two-and-a-half and composing his first work at three. At age seven he began studies in composition, and at the age of ten, gave a concert that included works by Beethoven and Mozart. Curiously, Saint-Saëns' music was regarded with some condescension in his homeland, while in England and the United States he was hailed as France's greatest living composer well into the twentieth century.

“A peasant in a frock-coat”, as one conductor called him, Dvořák was one of a new breed of nationalist composers who emerged during the 19th century, which included Grieg (Norway), Tchaikovsky (Russia), Liszt (Hungary), Chopin (Poland) and Sibelius (Finland). “I am just a plain Czech musician,” he reflected towards the end of his life. I remain what always was: a simple Czech musician”. Although he travelled widely his heart was always in his homeland. Hence, much of the music he composed reflected his native Czechoslovakia. He spent his final years as one of the most sought-after composers in Europe. Brahms even went as far as to offer him his entire personal fortune in an attempt to get him to settle in Vienna.

These are the two composers whose lives and music we studied in October. You can read more about them in the notes linked below and listen to their music by following the YouTube links highlighted in the notes.  Some examples follow!
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Bill Squire

Class Notes:  11th October  - Camille Saint-Saens 1835 - 1921
A sample from the video links in the notes:  

Class Notes:  25th October -  Antonin Dvorak - 1841 - 1904
Enjoy Dvorak's Serenade for Strings - just one of many YouTube links to his music included in the class notes: 

'Russian Roulette' was the title given to a recent published interview with visiting conductor Semyon Bychkov regarding the life and death of Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Describing him as a conflicted man because of his inability to repress his homosexuality, Bychkov considers him Russia’s first successful composer. Tchaikovsky was born in the foothills of the Ural mountains and steeped in Cossack history. Although he travelled widely as a musical celebrity, he once wrote of himself: “I have never come across anyone more in love with Mother Russia. I love passionately the Russian people, the Russian language, the Russian way of thinking, the beauty of Russian faces, Russian customs”. Nevertheless, according to Bychkov,  “his unique ability to look both outwards towards Europe and inwards at Russia, combined with a tendency to gloomy introspection, led his distinctive ‘sound’ to become for many, the very definition of ‘Russian music’”.

Both sessions in September were given over to exploring Tchaikovsky’s music. When it came to choosing which works would best illustrate his musical life given the time available, perhaps that could be described, too, as an exercise in ‘Russian Roulette’.
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You can read about our choices on the U3A Music Appreciation in these links to the class notes where also you will find YouTube links to the musical selections:

Class Notes:   13th September
Class Notes:    27th September 
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Bill Squire

'Big, Bold and Brassy' ...That’s how some might describe the music of Hector Berlioz and Anton Bruckner - the subjects of our August musical adventures.  Huge symphonic scores with equally huge orchestras and choirs to perform them were features of much of their compositional work. But it wasn’t all like that. Delving deeper you come across a number of works of melodic and lyrical beauty
. 
All in all, it’s been a real venture into the unknown, more or less, for our group (presenter included) to study these composers and their music, and therefore a large, but enjoyable, learning curve in our musical appreciation. Check it all out in the programme notes for both composers which also contain the Youtube links for the music that was presented. Enjoy!!

9th August -  Anton Bruckner
23rd August - Louis-Hector Berlioz

Bill Squire

Mention the name ‘Wagner’ in some circles and likely responses will include ‘opera’, ‘Bayreuth’ and ‘Hitler’. The first two are 100% correct and third only in part. Richard Wagner was widely known for his revolutionary activities and anti-Semitic views, and years after his time Hitler adopted him as his favourite composer.

But as one commentator has said: “forget about the stories and the politics, the music is what matters most”.   Wagner’s impact on the musical and theatrical world has been immense, with lasting consequences to this day. A revolutionary in more ways than one, Wagner wanted to bring together all of the artistic disciplines — poetry, music, movement and design — in a powerful theatrical experience. To this end he had a special theatre designed and built at Bayreuth in which to present his operas a kind of multi-sensory musical adventure, which has been described as a sort of forerunner to virtually reality.

Hence both sessions for July have been devoted to his music.  In the first we looked at his six major operas outside of the “Ring Cycle”, while the second was devoted to the four operas of the “Ring”.

Even so, so immense are his works that little more could we do than appreciate a sample of his output.

Do feel free to explore more about the man and his music in the programme notes for both sessions which are posted here for your enjoyment..

Class Notes: 
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12th July - The Music of Richard Wagner
26th July - Wagner - Der Ring des Nibelungen 

Bill Squire

"THE WAR OF THE ROMANTICS"
 
During the second half of the 19th century a schism developed in Europe between composers who represented a ‘futuristic”  approach to music and those who took a conservative approach. Chief among the first was Franz Liszt, while the latter was headed up by Johannes Brahms. This became known as the “War of the Romantics”. The main debates centred  around whether music should be descriptive: something that is inspired by art or literature or other external ideas; or whether music should be simply “pure” or “absolute” or “classical”.
 
Brahms’ ‘school’, who followed ‘Classical’ principles and looked back to the great masters of the past, such as Bach, Haydn, Mozart and especially Beethoven, were labelled 'conservatives'. Proponents of the Romantically-inspired ‘New German’ music, principally Liszt and company, drew widely on literature and painting, breaking the boundaries of classical forms to make music which was freely expressive in subject matter, structure and harmony.
 
Our June programmes featured music by each of Liszt and Brahms. You can read the programme notes for each session by clicking on the links below - the notes also contain the Youtube links to the music selections.
 
As for who was the greater composer, I guess it boils down to personal taste or musical preference.

​Bill Squire

Class Notes for June- click on the composer's name to link to document.

June 14th - Franz Liszt
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June 28th - Johannes Brahms

​Two musicians of the romantic period were our focus for May – Felix Mendelssohn and Robert Schumann lived at the same time as each other. The music that came from both of them is firmly classical in form and romantic in nature. But there the similarity fades.

Much of Felix Mendelssohn’s music came as a result of his travels. He toured Europe visiting a number of countries where he sketched musical fragments later to be turned into concert works, which is why a number of them bear titles suggesting these countries (the titles are not his doing, but publisher’s- he hated the idea). For example, he visited Scotland, writing the seeds for his Scottish Symphony and the Fingal's Cave overture (following a trip to visit the Isle of Staffa, near Mull) and meeting Sir Walter Scott. He sketched his Italian Symphony while visiting Rome and Naples.

Although some of Mendelssohn’s  compositions were clearly inspired by external events and bear highly descriptive titles, he shied away from any programmatic interpretations voicing the opinion that music was to be interpreted by the listener. 

Schumann on the other hand composed a far amount of music that was programmatic – much of it evocative of the love of his life, Clara.  Schumann was not so widely travelled and his compositional life was sporadic due to health issues (he was bi-polar) and periods of separation from Clara ( her father took to all sorts of measures early on keep them apart and discourage any relationship). His early works of piano miniatures and songs in earlier years gave way, in the later years, through Clara’s inspiration and encouragement to symphonies, concertos, string quartets, and stand-alone concert overtures and more.

You can read more detail of the lives and music of both composers on the Music Appreciation Page of the U3A website. There you will find also links to Youtube for the music we listened to at both sessions.

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Bill Squire

If you would like to review the session on 10 May, or are following Bill Squire's Music Appreciation class notes notes and recommended Youtube clips on line, here are Bill's latest class notes for your edification!  

​Music Appreciation Class Notes - May 10 2019

The early romantic period - more or less the first half of the 19th century - saw the birth of numerous composers whose works still feature prominently in the experience of today’s music  listening generation. 

In music, Romanticism contributed to a status shift in the role of the composer. While composers of the previous (classical) period were more likely to be in the employ of the wealthy (eg. Bach and Mozart),  the Romantic movement saw composers become artists in their own right.
 
If the composers of the classical period held the belief of logical order and clarity, the Romantics believed in allowing their imagination and passion to soar spontaneously and interpret it through their works.

April saw us explore the music of Schubert and Chopin - two such composers whose lives occupied the same period of time (save for about five years), yet whose music was widely different in its expression.

Franz Schubert wrote about 600 lieder (German songs) as well as instrumental and choral music, whereas Frederic Chopin is best known for his beautiful character pieces for solo piano.
Why not explore, then, as we did, the compositions of these two music greats and visit the links to the class notes at the end of this report. There you will find a potted history of Schubert and Chopin, a few details of what lay behind some of their music and Youtube links to the music we enjoyed.
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Music Appreciation Class Notes - 10th April
Music Appreciation Class Notes - 24th April

Bill Squire

From Bach who took the high baroque to its absolute height, and was probably the most astonishing technical composer of all time, to  Mozart who  wrote prolifically and perfectly on a level that’s never been rivalled, whose “genius” was so manifest as to dwarf every other composer of his time, to Beethoven who by comparison had to struggle for his craft more than either of the  above.

This has been our musical journey so far this year.

Although he wrote far less music than many of his contemporaries and predecessors, it is argued that Beethoven produced music that was somehow richer: richer, simply because in ‘struggling for every note on the page” as one critic put it, he “transcended form and reinvented small forms and blew up the symphony forever thereafter”. 

Beethoven as the bridge between the “classical and the “romantic ” periods of composition was the subject of this morning’s musical exploration. Bookending the programme with the overture to and the finale of “Fidelio” – the only opera Beethoven produced (and 10 years nearly in the making at that) – we traced his work sequentially from early to later by opus numbers including excerpts from the range of instruments and genres for which he composed.
 
A number of ‘significant’ compositions were deliberately omitted from this morning’s session with a mind to a larger celebration of Beethoven’s contribution to music around the time of the 250th anniversary of his birth next year.

From solo to septet and sonata to symphony, you can view our morning’s presentation, complete with Youtube links to the various performances, on the Music Appreciation page of the U3A website.

Would you like to read the class notes for this session?   

Ludwig Van Beethoven - Music Appreciation Class notes Friday March 8 

​Bill Squire

A bright start to this year’s music with an appreciation of the life and music of J S Bach - the composer of some of the most famous works of the classical repertoire, and who has influenced perhaps more composers than any other figure in music.

Better known during his lifetime primarily as an outstanding organ player and technician, the youngest of eight children born to musical parents, Johann Sebastian was destined to become a great musician. 

Bach’s use of counterpoint was brilliant and innovative, and the immense complexities of his compositional style still amaze musicians today. Many consider him the greatest composer of all time.
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Because of the vast number of compositions (1100 or so catalogued – goodness knows how many there are in total) time allowed only for a sampling of his musical output. Hence we named it  “A Dégustation of Bach” and framed our selection of his music around the instruments he composed for and some choral work.

Our second programme in February saw us move down the years (just a little) from the “Baroque” period of Bach to the “Classical” era and the music of Mozart. Another prolific composer - but with only a little more than half the catalogued works of Bach -  so again  it was “smorgasbord” of Mozart music across the various genres he composed for, although with not quite the same volume of music to choose from, we were able to lengthen the time a little for our listening experience of the items presented.

Full programme notes of each of the two sessions together with links to the appropriate “Youtube” site for the music presented in February:

8th February 'Johann Sebastian Bach'

​22nd February - Celebrating Mozart Week - 'Mozart' 


​Bill Squire

Here are the class notes from Music Appreciation's December's session - 'Christmas Music'.  These wonderful notes prepared by convenor Bill Squires could be dipped into each year before Christmas.  

The arrangement of  'In Dulci Jubilo' by Michael Praetorius 1571 -1621 featured during the session.  You might like to listen to this beautiful version on You Tube.

Friday 23rd November
Our most recent session saw us delve into the life and music of Percy Grainger. Incredibly eccentric in his behaviour, dress, and many of his views (he claimed to be the world’s ninth best composer - below Delius but above Mozart and Tchaikovsky), he was absolutely brilliant and wide ranging in musical ability, and ahead of his time in the technological side of musical presentation (he was the first to use a phonograph to record folk songs, tried unsuccessfully to develop a synthesiser, but jumped on the duo-art pianola bandwagon soon after they were invented so that he could arrange for music (his and other composers’) to be transcribed on to pianola rolls). With a lifelong aim to see himself remembered as Australia’s foremost composer Grainger established and endowed the Grainger Museum in Melbourne which is still in operation today.

Programme notes for 23rd November on Percy Grainger and his music together with the music presented 'Salute to Grainger'

NOTE: The final Music Appreciation session for this year will be on Friday 14th December at 10am
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Bill Squire

Leonard Bernstein at 100

Music of all the Arts stands in a special region unlit by any star except its own, and utterly without any meaning …… except its own.

As composers go, Leonard Bernstein probably attracted more divided opinion during his lifetime than any other. His music, his sexuality, his politics, his outspokenness; they all attracted comment. Despite this, was an amazing energetic man who remains a commanding figure in twentieth-century classical music.

Leonard Bernstein was originally named Louis – but he changed his name when he was 16 years old. Shy and sickly as a child – probably why he was introduced to the piano at the age of five – he was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts to Russian/Jewish immigrants.

He died only five days after retiring; the cause was emphysema (difficulty breathing) after a lifetime of heavy smoking.

Famously quoted as saying, ‘I’m not interested in having an orchestra sound like itself. I want it to sound like the composer’. I guess, that was how ‘he’ thought the composer wanted it to sound?

Bernstein was married in 1951, and his detractors have suggested that the marriage, to Brazilian actress Felicia Cohn Montealegre (after they’d originally been engaged, then split up before she had a long relationship with Broadway actor, Richard Hart – before getting back together again), was to dispel rumours about his sexuality. In the 1950’s the orchestral governing boards were famously conservative, and so it might have been a sensible move to protect his professional reputation. Whatever, they had three children and clearly loved each other before she died of lung cancer in 1978.

​Bernstein went public with his bi-sexuality in 1976 when he left his wife to move in with Tom Cotham, a radio station musical director. However, with the onset of his wife’s lung cancer, he returned home to care for her until she died.

In 2013 the book, ‘The Leonard Bernstein Letters’, a letter written by his wife to him said the following; ‘you are a homosexual and may never change – you don’t admit the possibility of a double life, but if your peace of mind, your whole nervous system depends on a certain sexual pattern, what can you do?’ A close friend of his, Shirley Rhoades Perle once said about Bernstein, ‘he required men sexually and women emotionally’.

In a concert of Brahms‘ Piano Concerto No. 1, where he famously argued with the pianist, Glenn Gould, in rehearsal – Gould wanted a slower tempo – Bernstein made an announcement to the audience before they began. ‘Don’t be frightened. Mr Gould is here….in a concerto, who is the boss….the soloist or the conductor? The answer is, of course, sometimes one and sometimes the other, depending on the people involved’. Ever the entertainer, who waited for the applause between each line of his address, Bernstein was later criticised for either attacking Gould (he could hardly reply!) or simply abdicating responsibility for the performance that was to ensue.

Perhaps his best-known work is the Broadway musical, West Side Story; inspired by Shakespeare’s, Romeo and Juliet and with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, the musical explored rivalries between two 1950’s New York gangs (the Jets and the Sharks). The 1961 musical film version won ten academy awards. Originally it was going to be about an Irish Catholic family and a Jewish family living on the lower east side of Manhattan – but this idea was discarded for the Puerto Rican vs Whites story that we now know. Phew!

Despite the controversies, Bernstein was one of the most acclaimed and ‘in demand’ conductors in the world; almost undoubtedly because of the energy and passion he gave to every performance.

Bernstein was one of the first classical musicians to ‘master’ TV. The Young People’s Concerts have existed in the US since 1924, but Leonard Bernstein brought them to a new audience in 1958 with the first televised concert of its type. Then, in 1962, the Young People’s Concerts became a TV series and Bernstein conducted 53 of them with his usual brand of enthusiasm and energy.

Politically, Bernstein and his wife seemed to do their best to put their toes in the hottest of waters; his wife, Felicia, help to found an anti-war effort to promote the education women against the war in Vietnam, which lasted from 1955 to 1975. This doesn’t now sound to be such a bad thing now, but in 1967 it was considered very ‘anti-American’. Likewise, Leonard and his wife hosting a party for the extreme African-American Group, the Black Panthers in the 1970’s didn’t go down too well.

It wasn’t because of these activities – because they occurred much later – but Leonard and his wife were named in the anti-communist report, Red Channels; the report of Communist Influence in Radio and Television written in 1950 by the right-wing group Counterattack. The fact that they were named with such luminaries as Aaron Copland, Lena Horne, Pete Seegar and Artie Shaw, certainly didn’t do them any harm in the long term. Leonard was also closely monitored by President Hoovers FBI as a potential ‘red’.

'Opus 1 Works'
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Just as in the first of this month’s programmes we listened to the final works of a number of well-known composers, so in the second we listened to the “Opus 1” works of the same composers. These are not by any means their first compositions but more or less their first works to be published. “More or less” because in some cases a composer might “sit” on piece of music for a number of years before offering it for publication, and again not everything a composer wrote made it to publication. Or again, an early work not submitted may not come to light until after the composer’s death. Confusion is magnified because publication numbering might depend on who the publisher was, give that a composer might hand his composition to more than one publisher. 

Also, before the music publishing industry really got into overdrive, some composers eg: Mozart, would have only published a handful of their works, so even referring to them by their opus number is not all that helpful in determining chronological order. While some more well known composers have had their works catalogued, and may more often than not be referred to by their catalogue number, these numbers serve only to identify the piece of music and not necessarily the order of composition.

Nevertheless an enjoyable listening experience of music comprised of excerpts from the following composers’ works recorded as their “opus 1”:

Wagner               Sonata in B flat                                 
Mozart                Violin Sonata in D major                K 306   
Hadyn                 String quartet in B flat major      
Schubert             Erlkönig                                               
R Strauss            Festmarsch                                        
Chopin                Rondo in C minor                            
Beethoven          Piano Trio in E flat major              
Dvorak                String Quintet in A minor
Grieg                   Four Piano Pieces
Mendelssohn      Piano quartet in C minor
Liszt                    24 Etudes in C major
Tchaikovsky        Scherzo à la Russe
JS Bach              6 Partitas BWV 825 -830.


​Bill Squire

This morning we listened to a selection of last works. As all composers by this stage of their lives had reached a certain level of expertise all works were extremely competent and pleasurable to listen to.

The composers last words do not always relate to their work.

Richard Wagner   Last Work    Parsifal
Last Words “I feel Lousy”

W A Mozart Last Work Requiem
Last Words “The taste of death is upon my lips”

Joseph Hayden Last Work Emperor String Quartet Op 76
Last Words “Children be comforted, I am well”

Franz Schubert Last Work Piano Sonata in D flat major
Last Words “Here, here is my end”

Richard Strauss Last Work Four Last Songs
Last Words “I would have given anything to have written Mozarts Clarinet Concerto”

Frederic Chopin Last Work Sonata for Cello and Piano
Last Words “Now is my final agony. No more”

Ludwig van Beethoven Last Work New Finale to String Quartet in B flat major
Last Words “Pity. Pity, too late” (This referred to a late wine delivery)

Antonin Dvorak Last Work The Opera Armida
Last Words “I feel a bit dizzy. I think I’ll go and lie down”

Edvard Greig Last Work Four Psalms Op 74
Last Words “Well if it must be so”

Felix Mendelssohn Last Work Songs without words
Last Words “Weary weary weary”

Franz Liszt Last Work Bagatelle sand Tonalite
Last Words “Tristan”

Johann Sebastian Bach Last Work Before They Throne I stand
Last Words “Don't cry for me for I go to where music is born”

From notes provided by Bill Squires.  From now on, Bill Squires will be the Convenor of the Music Appreciation Group. 

​Neville Gibb

​ At our first session in September we listened  to Russian Music selected by Bill. In the last half of the 19th Century a Nationalist Russian music trend became established. Composers tried to infuse their work with Russian Themes and to challenge the popularity of music from Western Europe. In time in the 20th Century these works have been taken up by the west and are now included in the classical repertoire.

We listened to works by Balakirev, Cui, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. It was both educational and enjoyable to listen to works by these men.
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Bill was expansive in his knowledge of these Russian Artists and we thank him for the copious notes he provided provided for our pleasure.
 
At our second session for the month we listened to Beethoven, Chopin and Mozart.

• Beethovens Piano Sonata No 23
• Chopins Polonaise No 6.
• Mozart Piano Concerto in C Op 14.

All were played by Lang Lang and were entirely enjoyable.

We recognised the Beethoven and Chopin but the Mozart was not known because the music we listened to was by Mozart's sonFranz Xaver Mozart.  

Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart, also known as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Jr., was the youngest child of six born to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and his wife Constanze. He was the younger of his parents' two surviving children.

Franz Xaver Wolfgang Mozart was only four months old when his father died. He received his early musical education from the Mozart student Johann Nepomuk Hummel, and from Georg Friedrich Albrechtsberger, who had taught Haydn and Beethoven. Antonio Salieri suggested, “the boy has a rare talent for music, and his future might not be inferior to that of his celebrated father.”

It was always going to be slightly difficult to fill his father’s musical shoes. Franz Xaver was certainly a gifted pianist who toured extensively through the German speaking parts of Europe, but also in Denmark, Russia and Italy, and then spent most of his life as a private music tutor in the Ukraine. He also remained unmarried and had no children, so that particular musical lineage sadly disappeared. In terms of personality, Franz Xaver was very unlike his father. He was introverted, constantly underrated his own talent and feared that whatever he composed would be compared to the compositions of his father, and of course, it was. His father’s shadow even followed him after his death. On his tombstone we can read, “May the name of his father be his epitaph, as his veneration for him was the essence of his life.”

Franz Xaver composed about 30 compositions, assorted Sonatas, some chamber music and 2 piano concertos, with his music remaining stylistically firmly in the mature musical style of his father. Franz Xaver was never going to be able to escape the shadow of his father, but both composers were born with exceptional musical talent and aptitude into a fertile environment that recognized, encouraged and nurtured that particular talent.

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Neville Gibb