On March 26, 2024, St Francis music lovers had the opportunity to hear a beautiful pianist from Port Elizabeth, Ciska Range, perform a delightful programme of music that took listeners on a musical journey through Austria, France, Spain and the United States.
As the days of printed programmes and pre-concert talks become less and less frequent, we thought we could perhaps do this differently and present a deep dive into the music for anyone interested in learning a little more about Classical Music. Why not take an hour and give yourself your own personal concert experience by listening to the music as you read? YouTube Playlist
Our concert starts with Mozart’s Rondo in A minor, K511.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was one of the most important composers of the Classical Period. In fact, in his day he was considered quite a celebrity and had an incredible output of work, composing over 600 works in his short life of 35 years. He was a child prodigy and entertained people with his musical skills by the age of five. At six, he wrote his first compositions.
Born into a musical family, Mozart’s dad was a respected composer and violinist employed by the archbishop of Salzburg. In those days, musicians seldom worked independently and were generally either in the service of the church or aristocrats. Their job was to produce music for various events and cater to the moods of their employers. At this point, music of this style was only available to those with money or position in society. So, it was natural that Mozart’s father expected him to follow in his footsteps, working in the employ of the church.
Mozart, however, had other plans. He had spent his childhood performing for the European aristocracy travelling from one castle to the next in bumpy and cold carriages. He decided to rather work on his own terms. This was a bold move for that time and Mozart went through many periods of financial strain, ultimately ending in a pauper’s grave. Despite his challenges, he was a playful man and composed best when he was in a good mood.
Playing before royalty from a young age gave him a certain amount of confidence and it is said that he proposed marriage to Marie Antoinette at age seven. He was also often called the most kissed little boy in Europe. As he grew, his reputation for being an exciting performer and improviser, as well as a composer grew and he was in demand in all the most prestigious courts of Europe. During his travels, he not only learned to speak fifteen different languages but was introduced to many different musical styles and tastes. He also met all of the most prominent composers of the time.
He married the sister of the woman he initially fell in love with and had six children with her, though only two survived. He called her his “little mouse” and they had a happy marriage. A visitor found them dancing together in their apartment one day as they had run out of money for heating and were dancing to keep warm. Mozart was quite a sickly young child, probably due to all the time spent in damp carriages, and grew into a short and thin man with a head too big for his body, and yellowy skin, scarred from smallpox. Yet, he apparently took great care in his dress and always wore the latest fashions.
Mozart’s Rondo in A minor was composed in 1787 in Vienna. A rondo starts with a main theme that returns in between other melodic material. The theme is pensive and melancholic, reminiscent of a lilting siciliano.
There are a few things about this rondo that are typical of music from this era.
- The left-hand plays more of an accompanimental role, lightly outlining the harmonic structure.
- There are some beautiful ornamental structures in the melody. There are times when this piece sounds more like fantasia than your typical rondo. Listen for the long trills at the end of phrases.
- Melody is king in the Classical era – Mozart was a particular master at this!
The Classical period was all about simplicity and balance and this piece is no different. Overly fussy playing will obscure the beautiful emotional quality of the work. The challenge is to convey the sadness and grief reflected in the music, while still staying true to the music. This rondo is special in that Mozart wrote out the ornamentation, normally this was left up to the performer to add.
This work was written toward the end of Mozart’s short life and demonstrates his maturity and life experience. Some say that it encompasses everything that is Mozart; the chiaroscuro and hints of playfulness contrasting with the more intensely emotional sections.
The next piece is Frederic Chopin’s Nocturne, op 27, no.2.
Chopin (1810-1849) was the true master of keyboard music, being one of the very first composers to devote himself entirely to this genre. Unlike Mozart, he only gave 30 concerts in his lifetime which is entirely disproportionate to the influence he had on other musicians. People say that no one has ever been able to capture the soul of the piano as Chopin did, nor has any other composer written as much music for the instrument.
Chopin’s mother was Polish and his father was a Frenchman who had come to Poland as a young man. Young Chopin was yet another musical prodigy and quickly outshined his teachers both in composition and performance. Robert Schumann, famously said “Hat’s off, gentlemen! A genius!” after seeing the publication of his Variations for Piano and Orchestra, opus 2 written when he was 17.
When he was around 20, he made the pilgrimage to Paris which at that time was the centre of all things cultural in Europe. The Romantic Period in music was just getting going and everyone looked to Paris. Chopin was immediately accepted by the artistic elite and was soon invited to perform for knowledgeable audiences and was in high demand as a teacher. In those days as a hot artist, one would go from one aristocrat’s chateau to the next and they had the privilege of boasting of the talent they hosted.
Chopin became intimate with the writer Aurora Dudevant who was six years older than him and wrote under the pen name of George Sand. Chopin’s association with her inspired him to new heights and levels of emotional maturity reflected in his music. He continued his liaison with her for nine years, but towards the end, he became really ill with tuberculosis. He died at the age of 39, having spent the last year of his life mostly in bed.
Nocturne, Opus 27, No. 2
The title of Nocturne was quite common in that time, but Chopin’s Nocturnes are distinct and were very popular amongst his contemporaries. Written to evoke the mystery and beauty of the night which was quite topical with writers and poets at the time, a nocturne can be whimsical and delicate yet also passionate and emotive. The two nocturnes, opus 27, were composed in 1835 and published the next year in Leipzig, Paris, and London, dedicated to the Countess Thérèse d’Appony, in whose salon Chopin often appeared.
There is a dreamy melody that glides sensitively over the keys with rippling broken chords in the left hand. The ebb and flow of the music can take you on a beautiful journey.
Music of this period was often written to be played in living rooms. The Industrial Revolution had helped make the pianoforte more affordable and it became quite common for middle-class families to have one in their living room. Composers began to write shorter pieces that could be played on a solo piano and have a life of their own. Often just a stand-alone piece. Composers also began to develop individualistic styles. They were ready to break rules and play with forms and ideas far more than their predecessors in the Classical period. This highly expressive and emotional style of playing became Romantic.
Moving on a few years, we now have Manual de Falla’s Cuatro piezas españolas (1909).
Born in Cadiz, Manual de Falla’s father was a businessman from a family of bankers and shippers and his mother was an excellent pianist. She was his first teacher and by the age of 14 he was already giving recitals. Falla (1876-1946) moved to Madrid shortly afterwards to study further and became interested in Spanish nationalism and how he could incorporate it into his style. He quickly gained a reputation for himself as one of Spain’s best pianists. Like many other pianists of his calibre, he moved to Paris and was warmly received by many of the big names of the time including Dukas, Albeniz, Faure, Debussy and Ravel.
The support of these noted musicians was to be invaluable in many situations, e.g., when Falla received a note from the publishing house of Durand, “The messieurs Debussy, Ravel, and Dukas have spoken to me of your Four Pieces for Piano. If you would care to send them to us we will be happy to publish them.” Durand offered him 300 francs for the works. “They paid you fifty francs more than they gave me for my quartet” said Debussy. “That’s what they gave me for The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” said Dukas. “They didn’t pay me anything for my score of Catalonia,” said Albéniz. “And they didn’t want my quartet even as a gift,” added Ravel. Durand published Cuatro piezas españolas in 1909. “
With the world war on the horizon in 1914, Falla returned to Madrid and became increasing popular as a composer. In 1922, he felt the need for a more peaceful existance and moved to Granados. Once again fleeing a war, he left Spain for Argentina in 1939 and died there in 1946.
Cuatro piezas españolas, published in 1909 was dedicated to Albéniz, who died in the year of their publication, and bear a slight resemblance to the piano works of Falla’s older colleague. Albéniz generally gave the pieces in Iberia the names of particular cities or districts within a city; Falla uses names relating to entire provinces (“Aragonesa,” “Cubana,” “Montañesa,” and “Andaluza”), as Albéniz had done much earlier in his Suite española.
In the opening piece, “Aragonesa,” Falla borrows the popular dance rhythm of the jota of Aragon. Its incessant triplet figure is unmistakable, and scarcely a measure is to be found without it.
The dance of the Aragonese Jota is distinctive because of its use of heel-toe steps and small jumps which can occasionally become athletic leaps. The arms are kept curved and usually raised, moving up and down in front of the body. The dancers usually carry castanets and are dressed in colourful regional costumes (Northern Spain).
The second piece, “Cubana,” may seem out of place with the others, but Cuba was still closely tied to Spain as the Spanish-American war was still fresh in 1898. Based on the Cuban dance called the Guajira which is a flamenco dance. The Guajira is usually danced by a female dancer who uses a large fan and is often said to be a flirtatious dance, a dance to celebrate the lovely moments in life.
Falla has given this work the rhythm of the guajira, the most typical Cuban dance, characterized by alternations of 6/8 and 3/4. He sometimes contrasts these meters simultaneously between the two hands, making this small character piece metrically complex.
The third piece, “Montañesa,” evokes a landscape of the region of La Montaña near Santander (on the Northern coast of Spain). An exquisite Impressionistic introduction is followed by a lyrical section in the style of a Montañés folk song.
The final piece, “Andaluza,” provides a striking contrast to the preceding one. It is marked tres rhythmé et avec un sentiment sauvage (“very rhythmic and with a savage feeling”). This feeling is inevitable from Falla’s expert use of grace notes to give the opening chords a metallic “clang,” suggesting the rasp of the guitar.
Richard Rodgers, arr. Stephen Hough “The Carousel Waltz” (from CAROUSEL)
The “Carousel Waltz” is an arrangement of a waltz taken from the Broadway musical ‘Carousel’ which was named by Time magazine as the best musical of the 20th century. It premiered in 1945 and was performed 890 times in its first run. As the second musical produced by Richard Rodgers (music) and Oscar Hammerstein II (book and lyrics) – the first was the big hit, ‘Oklahoma’ – the pressure was on to create something as successful. The story for Carousel was taken from the play “Liliom” written by the Hungarian, Ferenc Molnar in 1909. The original was set in Budapest but Rodgers and Hammerstein decided that Maine might be a more appealing backdrop for their musical.
Carousel is not a particularly happy story or even a love story, for that matter. It’s the story of an angry young man who hurts those around him, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. A young man, Billy Bigelow who works as a carousel barker falls for millworker, Julie Jordan. It’s love at first sight as their eyes meet while he is beckoning people to ride the carousel. They become fixated with one another and their passion ends up in Julie falling pregnant. As a result, they both lose their jobs and face some challenging financial issues. Under a lot of strain, Billy is often physically abusive to Julie and typical of this era, Julie stays quiet and tries to put on a brave face. Billy, in an attempt to provide for his unborn child, commits a robbery. Unfortunately, he gets caught and decided it would be better to rather stab himself than face the consequences.
After his death, he goes to a robber’s heaven and gets given one chance to make things right with Julie and his unborn child, but has to wait 16 years in purgatory until this will happen. Once this time has elapsed, he returns but can choose when he wants to be visible. There is a situation where Julie is sobbing and Billy, in the guise of a friend of her father’s, offers her the star she stole. She slaps his hand and drops the star as Billy becomes invisible again. Julie does for a moment feel his presence though. Then Billy is at is his daughter’s high school graduation ceremony. They are given advice not to let their parent’s mistakes follow them through life and invited to sing the old song “You’ll Never Walk Alone” together. At this point, Billy whispers that this is true in her ear and they all end up singing the song together as the curtain goes down.
“The Carousel Waltz” is what Rodgers composed in lieu of an overture. In his mind, the only instruments that were ever heard in an overture were the brass as there was typically so much shuffling around going on in the theatre before the curtain goes up. As the waltz is playing we see Billy fulfilling his role as carousel barker and then his eyes alight on Julie. As the waltz is playing Julie gets on the carousel and we see them fall in love.
The arrangement of this piece for piano was done by Stephen Hough.
Stephen Hough, an Australian citizen of British descent, is an extraordinarily fascinating person. Not only is he a composer and celebrated concert pianist, but also a published author (not only on books about music), blogger for The Daily Telegraph and award winning poet. He has exhibited his artworks, is a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music in London, the International Chair of Piano at the Royal Northern College in Manchester and on the faculty of the Julliard School.