War, love, family, tragedy: you name it and music has it. Add in a dash of artistic influence and a bit of a ‘walk in the park’ and you have a quick guide to our March programmes. 

​Session one started out with Wagner’s overture to Lohengrin – an opera about fairy-tale love that ends in tragedy. Beethoven loved nothing more to relieve the frustrations of his encroaching deafness than to go for a nature walk – the sounds he would hear leading him to compose his sixth (pastoral) symphony. Maurice Ravel wrote a concerto which literally can be played with one hand behind your back. His Concerto for the Left Hand being commissioned by a pianist/soldier who lost an arm fighting in the first world war.

First up in session two was Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture written for a play about a fifth century Roman general whose ‘turncoat’ decisions led to his death at the hands of his soldiers – or perhaps he died at his own hand? Brahms, who was never a violinist, struck up a close friendship with one who was the premier violinist of the day. This led to a violin concerto that is one of the most recorded in the violin repertoire. Its premiere saw Brahms as the conductor of the orchestra and his friend as the soloist. A Brahms encore was composed in honour of another of his friends - an artist who died tragically at a young age. “Nänie” is sometimes referred to as Brahms’ “Litte Requiem” (as distinct from his much longer and grander “German Requiem”.

To top off the month’s musical journey Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ – the inspiration for the name coming from Whistler’s painting “Nocturne in Blue and Green”. Written in a hurry (most of it on a train journey) and premiered even before the solo part had been put to paper (Gershwin himself being the pianist), the work went on to become an all-time American classic. You can read the detail and find the links to the music recordings below.  

Bill Squire

An ancient Chinese philosopher once said: "Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, while loving someone deeply gives you courage”. This certainly seemed to be the case with Tchaikovsky and Brahms who were the main composers for our music appreciation this month.

Tchaikovsky’s fourth symphony (played at this month’s 1st session) was an expression of his love for Nadezhda von Mech – a wealthy widow who provided him with a generous stipend annually on condition they never meet. He said in a letter to her: “how much I think of you in every bar”.

Brahms was deeply in love with the widow of Robert Schumann. He wrote to a friend: “I believe that I do not have more concern for and admiration for her than I love her and find love in her. I often have to restrain myself forcibly from just quietly putting my arms around her….” While he could never bring himself tell her as much, his first piano concerto (played at our 2nd session) was composed at the height of his admiration for Clara Schumann.

​In addition to these major compositions, there were shorter works by Mozart, Kodaly, Rimsky-Korsakov, Offenbach and Richard Strauss.  You can read all about it and listen to the music by clicking on the links below.
 
 
Session Notes     (13th May)
 
Mozart - Overture to he Marriage of Figaro
 
Tchaikovsky - Symphony No.4
 
Kodaly - Dances of Galanta
 
Rimsky-Korsakov - Capriccio Espagnole
 
Session Notes   (27th May)
 
Offenbach - Overture to Orpheus in the Underworld
 
Brahms - Piano Concerto No.1
 
R. Strauss - Der Rosenkavalier Suite
 
Offenbach - Orpheus in the Underworld, Finale
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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.

​
Bill Squire
​27 July 2020
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"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