![Edvard Grieg - 19 Norwegian Folk Songs for Piano, op. 66 [With score] @DamonJHK](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bE1ptuE4q1k/maxresdefault.jpg)
Uploaded September 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performer: Gerhard Oppitz
19 Norwegian Folk Songs for Piano, op. 66, written in 1896-97
00:00 - I. Kulokk {Cow-Call}
01:16 - II Det er den største Dårlighed {It is the greatest Foolishness}
02:25 - III. En Konge hersked i Østerland {A King ruled in the East}
03:33 - IV. Siri Dale-visen {The Siri Dale Song}
04:51 - V. Det var i min Ungdom {It was in my youth}
07:27 - VI. Lok og bådnlåt {Cow-Call and cradle song}
08:58 - VII. Bådnlåt (Cradle song)
09:51 - VIII. Lokk {Cow-Call}
10:54 - IX. Liten va guten {Small was the Lad}
11:54 - X. Morgo ska du få gifta deg {Tomorrow you shall marry}
13:19 - XI. Det stander to Piger {There stood two Girls}
14:50 - XII. Ranveig
15:18 - XIII. En liten grå Man {A little grey man}
16:07 - XIV. I Ola-dalom, i Ola-Kjønn {In Ola valley, in Ola lake}
18:13 - XV. Bådnlåt {Cradle song}
20:29 - XVI. Ho vesle Kari var {Little Astrid}
21:27 - XVII. Bådnlåt {Cradle song}
24:05 - XVIII. Jeg gar i tusen tanker {I wander deep in thought}
28:17 - XIX. Gjendines Bådnlåt {Gjendine's cradle song}
The 19 Norwegian Folksongs, Op. 66 are remarkable pieces, as Grieg himself knew. He wrote to the Dutch composer, Julius Röntgen, of having "put some hair-raising chromatic chords on paper. The excuse is that they originated not on the piano but in my mind. If one has the Vøringfoss beneath one's feet, one feels them more independent and daring than down in the valley."
Indeed, the harmonies that Grieg employs in Op. 66 are even more strongly chromatic in flavor than those in his previous set of Norwegian Folk Tunes Op. 17, often to the extent that some of the chords and progressions would undoubtedly grate on the ear of the folk song purist. Nevertheless, given the fundamentally banal character of the original songs, some commentators have conceded that Grieg's chromatic treatment tends to enhance their haunting charm.
Among the 19 tunes are several longer pieces, as well as three derived from "cattle calls," the brief snatches of melody that were originally sounded to call cattle back to the fold, and have a kind of charming, far-away character. Among the most attractive is "I Ola-Dalom, i Ola-Kjönn" (In Ola Dale), No. 14, which Delius later used as the source of the theme for "On hearing the first cuckoo in spring." The melody is treated strophically, and an interlude between each verse determines the style of accompaniment for the next.
Another remarkable piece is No. 18, "Jeg går i tusind Tanker" (In deepest thought I wander), the most purely pianistic and -- at four minutes long -- the longest of the collection. Based on a flowing 16-bar tune, the piece is marked andante religioso, and is characterized by the same fervor and sincerity of Grieg's last opus (74), the "Four Psalms" for unaccompanied choir.
[allmusic.com]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performer: Gerhard Oppitz
19 Norwegian Folk Songs for Piano, op. 66, written in 1896-97
00:00 - I. Kulokk {Cow-Call}
01:16 - II Det er den største Dårlighed {It is the greatest Foolishness}
02:25 - III. En Konge hersked i Østerland {A King ruled in the East}
03:33 - IV. Siri Dale-visen {The Siri Dale Song}
04:51 - V. Det var i min Ungdom {It was in my youth}
07:27 - VI. Lok og bådnlåt {Cow-Call and cradle song}
08:58 - VII. Bådnlåt (Cradle song)
09:51 - VIII. Lokk {Cow-Call}
10:54 - IX. Liten va guten {Small was the Lad}
11:54 - X. Morgo ska du få gifta deg {Tomorrow you shall marry}
13:19 - XI. Det stander to Piger {There stood two Girls}
14:50 - XII. Ranveig
15:18 - XIII. En liten grå Man {A little grey man}
16:07 - XIV. I Ola-dalom, i Ola-Kjønn {In Ola valley, in Ola lake}
18:13 - XV. Bådnlåt {Cradle song}
20:29 - XVI. Ho vesle Kari var {Little Astrid}
21:27 - XVII. Bådnlåt {Cradle song}
24:05 - XVIII. Jeg gar i tusen tanker {I wander deep in thought}
28:17 - XIX. Gjendines Bådnlåt {Gjendine's cradle song}
The 19 Norwegian Folksongs, Op. 66 are remarkable pieces, as Grieg himself knew. He wrote to the Dutch composer, Julius Röntgen, of having "put some hair-raising chromatic chords on paper. The excuse is that they originated not on the piano but in my mind. If one has the Vøringfoss beneath one's feet, one feels them more independent and daring than down in the valley."
Indeed, the harmonies that Grieg employs in Op. 66 are even more strongly chromatic in flavor than those in his previous set of Norwegian Folk Tunes Op. 17, often to the extent that some of the chords and progressions would undoubtedly grate on the ear of the folk song purist. Nevertheless, given the fundamentally banal character of the original songs, some commentators have conceded that Grieg's chromatic treatment tends to enhance their haunting charm.
Among the 19 tunes are several longer pieces, as well as three derived from "cattle calls," the brief snatches of melody that were originally sounded to call cattle back to the fold, and have a kind of charming, far-away character. Among the most attractive is "I Ola-Dalom, i Ola-Kjönn" (In Ola Dale), No. 14, which Delius later used as the source of the theme for "On hearing the first cuckoo in spring." The melody is treated strophically, and an interlude between each verse determines the style of accompaniment for the next.
Another remarkable piece is No. 18, "Jeg går i tusind Tanker" (In deepest thought I wander), the most purely pianistic and -- at four minutes long -- the longest of the collection. Based on a flowing 16-bar tune, the piece is marked andante religioso, and is characterized by the same fervor and sincerity of Grieg's last opus (74), the "Four Psalms" for unaccompanied choir.
[allmusic.com]
![Edvard Grieg - 19 Norwegian Folk Songs for Piano, op. 66 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bE1ptuE4q1k/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - 19 Norwegian Folk Songs for Piano, op. 66 [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performer: Gerhard Oppitz
19 Norwegian Folk Songs for Piano, op. 66, written in 1896-97
00:00 - I. Kulokk {Cow-Call}
01:16 - II Det er den største Dårlighed {It is the greatest Foolishness}
02:25 - III. En Konge hersked i Østerland {A King ruled in the East}
03:33 - IV. Siri Dale-visen {The Siri Dale Song}
04:51 - V. Det var i min Ungdom {It was in my youth}
07:27 - VI. Lok og bådnlåt {Cow-Call and cradle song}
08:58 - VII. Bådnlåt (Cradle song)
09:51 - VIII. Lokk {Cow-Call}
10:54 - IX. Liten va guten {Small was the Lad}
11:54 - X. Morgo ska du få gifta deg {Tomorrow you shall marry}
13:19 - XI. Det stander to Piger {There stood two Girls}
14:50 - XII. Ranveig
15:18 - XIII. En liten grå Man {A little grey man}
16:07 - XIV. I Ola-dalom, i Ola-Kjønn {In Ola valley, in Ola lake}
18:13 - XV. Bådnlåt {Cradle song}
20:29 - XVI. Ho vesle Kari var {Little Astrid}
21:27 - XVII. Bådnlåt {Cradle song}
24:05 - XVIII. Jeg gar i tusen tanker {I wander deep in thought}
28:17 - XIX. Gjendines Bådnlåt {Gjendines cradle song}
The 19 Norwegian Folksongs, Op. 66 are remarkable pieces, as Grieg himself knew. He wrote to the Dutch composer, Julius Röntgen, of having put some hair-raising chromatic chords on paper. The excuse is that they originated not on the piano but in my mind. If one has the Vøringfoss beneath ones feet, one feels them more independent and daring than down in the valley.
Indeed, the harmonies that Grieg employs in Op. 66 are even more strongly chromatic in flavor than those in his previous set of Norwegian Folk Tunes Op. 17, often to the extent that some of the chords and progressions would undoubtedly grate on the ear of the folk song purist. Nevertheless, given the fundamentally banal character of the original songs, some commentators have conceded that Griegs chromatic treatment tends to enhance their haunting charm.
Among the 19 tunes are several longer pieces, as well as three derived from cattle calls, the brief snatches of melody that were originally sounded to call cattle back to the fold, and have a kind of charming, far-away character. Among the most attractive is I Ola-Dalom, i Ola-Kjönn (In Ola Dale), No. 14, which Delius later used as the source of the theme for On hearing the first cuckoo in spring. The melody is treated strophically, and an interlude between each verse determines the style of accompaniment for the next.
Another remarkable piece is No. 18, Jeg går i tusind Tanker (In deepest thought I wander), the most purely pianistic and at four minutes long the longest of the collection. Based on a flowing 16-bar tune, the piece is marked andante religioso, and is characterized by the same fervor and sincerity of Griegs last opus (74), the Four Psalms for unaccompanied choir.
[allmusic.com]")
![Béla Bartók - Violin Sonata No. 1 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/b_C9qQhApvE/mqdefault.jpg "Béla Bartók - Violin Sonata No. 1 [With score]
-Composer: Béla Viktor János Bartók (25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945)
-Performers: James Ehnes (Violin), Andrew Armstrong (Piano)
Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1, op. 21 (BB. 84), written in 1921
00:00 – I. Allegro appassionato
12:29 – II. Adagio
23:52 – III. Allegro
Béla Bartók wrote both of his violin sonatas for the Hungarian violinist Jelly dAranyi. Of the two works, the Sonata No. 1, Op. 21, is more traditional, both in structure and temperament; its three clearly delineated movements are marked by a character that is alternately rhapsodic and violent, but always virtuosic. Despite any appearance of conventionality, however, the sonata represents one of Bartóks most radical statements in its expressionistic rhetoric and its near-atonal harmonic and melodic language (notwithstanding the nominal indication that it is in the key of C sharp minor). The arresting opening bars are underpinned by fast, dissonant arpeggios from the piano that evoke the sounds of the cimbalom, a dulcimer-like instrument from Bartóks native Hungary. The violinists first statement is broad and chromatic, a passionate declamation in a setting of nocturnal fantasy. Both harmonically and melodically, these opposing elements recall Bartóks contemporaneous stage pantomime The Miraculous Mandarin, completed in piano score two years previously. The movement is discursive and often impulsive; while there is confluence and cooperation between the two instruments throughout, thematic material is rarely shared. In this highly dissonant context, the occasional consonance sounds peculiar. A subsidiary theme, for instance, features the interval of a major sixth; often perceived as almost cloyingly sweet, it here emerges in an entirely different light. A searching cadenza-like solo passage for the violin opens the second movement. The piano eventually joins in with a series of ascending chords, no less unsettled for their limpid, impressionistic sonority; even in the turbulent setting of this work, Bartóks debt to the music of Debussy and Ravel is evident. A middle section is ominous and imposing, with frightening, arpeggiated octaves in the piano, increasing in volume as if some catastrophe were imminent; the violin, meanwhile, cries out in double stops and chords. The octaves recede, giving way to the desolate air of the opening. The finale is a series of increasingly wild dances, folk-like in style but wholly expressionistic. Bartók here makes his greatest demands upon the players virtuosity and stamina as he leads them through a series of episodes that, however abstract in nature, arrange themselves roughly into a rondo form. Midway through is a grotesque pesante section marked by a thick and heavy stamping tread in the piano and detached skirlings from the violin in diffident response. The frenetic dance rhythms return, bringing the work to a grim conclusion. The Sonata No. 1 was premiered in Vienna by violinist Mary Dickenson-Auner and pianist Eduard Steuermann; dAranyi and Bartók first performed it at a private recital in Londons Hungarian Legation in March 1922.
[allmusic.com]")
![Maurice Ravel - Chansons madécasses [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bb1Swd9xrl0/mqdefault.jpg "Maurice Ravel - Chansons madécasses [With score]
-Composer: Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937)
-Performers: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (Baritone), Wolfgang Sawallisch (Piano), Karheinz Zoller (Flute), Wolfgang Boettcher (Cello)
Chansons madécasses, song cycle for voice, flute, cello and piano, written in 1925-26
00:04 - I. Nahandove
05:24 - II. Aoua
09:18 - III. Il est doux de se coucher
During the final phase of Maurice Ravels career, he experienced hampered creativity and a confused emotional state which in the years that followed evolved into a preoccupation with economy of means and ensemble combinations. For example, the Chansons madécasses (Madagascar Songs), with their unique chamber ensemble, was, as Ravel indicated, a kind of quartet in which the voice plays the part of the main instrument. The vocal line is uncharacteristic of Ravels detached and objective style; instead the song sensuously and frightfully declares its message. The texts, taken from the eighteenth century Creole poet Evariste-Desire de Parny, are a cry for liberation from colonialism, exploitation, and slavery as they occurred in Madagascar. Nahandove depicts the erotic seduction of a native woman, in which Ravel uses the cello in counterpoint to the flute and piano. Aoua! is the frightful warning of the deceiving and dangerous white men; it opens with shrieks of the songs title, made on descending minor thirds. The vocal line is supported by dissonant piano crunches, while a tam-tam effect is made by the resonances of the piano and low notes of the flute. Aoua! was probably the most discussed of the three songs. When it was sung by Jane Bathori in 1925, at a concert in the Paris Salle Majestic, it was well received, except by a few members of the audience, who found the songs message especially disturbing because fighting was occurring in Morocco. The song comes to a bitter ending where the singer again proclaims mefiez-vous des blancs (Dont trust the whites). Il est doux, featuring exotic timbres, returns to the earlier sexual lure. The first complete performance of the three songs was in 1926. Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, an American patroness of chamber music, made only one suggestion when she commissioned the songs, in regards to the instrumentation of the accompaniment; the choice of text reveals Ravels interest in the exotic.
Ravel stated that he viewed the years shortly before and during which the Chansons madécasses were written as a turning point in his career. In that time he turned from harmonic techniques to the spirit of melody. The composer revealed in a late interview that these three songs were his favorites.
[allmusic.com]")
![Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet No. 16, K. 428 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bkNWCx-2AbU/mqdefault.jpg "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - String Quartet No. 16, K. 428 [With score]
-Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 1756 – 5 December 1791)
-Performers: Quatuor Mosaïques
String Quartet No. 16 in E-flat Major, K. 428, written in 1783 [Haydn Quartet III]
00:06 – I. Allegro non troppo
10:40 – II. Andante con moto
24:50 – III. Meunetto. Allegro
31:07 – IV. Allegro vivace
Of Mozarts six quartets dedicated to Haydn, this is one of the most genial and, in some respects, most Haydn-esque in its delight in unexpected shifts of harmony. Mozart worked on this quartet over the course of two months in summer 1783; perhaps he had this piece in mind when in his dedication he described the group as the fruit of a long and laborious effort it seems he knocked each of the others off in as little as a single day. It is believed that this may have been one of the pieces performed at a quartet party the following year in which the players were violinists Haydn and Dittersdorf, violist Mozart, and cellist Vanhal.
The opening Allegro ma non troppo movement initially seems to ease itself in, Haydn style, with a slow introduction, but this turns out to be merely a somewhat broad, harmonically teasing short statement that rambles straight into the cheerful first subject. Playfulness suffuses the themes, with little phrases tossed imitatively among the instruments and a clucking motif holding the material together. Skies darken somewhat in the brief development section, perhaps a mild allusion to Haydns dramatic Sturm und Drang period, but good cheer returns with the recapitulation, which subtly varies the material rather than merely repeating it.
The Andante con moto is more serious, with most of the instruments playing a noble progression of chords while one member, often the cello, winds a dignified melody through the harmonic foundation. Oddly, that initial melody devolves into a routine bass line of triplets while the chords resolve into more of a melody. The movement is in what was at the time considered the Romantic key of A flat major, but a moment of harmonic uncertainty causes the melody to lose its bearings after its first statement, leaving a skeletal variation on the theme before the first section is repeated. This time the theme overcomes the episode of harmonic instability after nothing more than a brief pause for the players to find their way back home.
The minuet begins with either a gentle sneeze or a donkey bray, depending on the performers forcefulness, surely a Haydn-esque effect. It then proceeds in a fairly stately fashion, except for braying interruptions and humorously hesitant episodes, as if the players were tiptoeing through an especially tricky patch of music. The trio section, coming before a repeat of all of this, noodles a troubled little tune over a bass drone.
The finale, Allegro vivace, alternates a teasingly hesitant series of chords with boisterous passage work an effect of on your mark, go! The energetic second subject refuses to trip over its offbeat chords. The first theme returns, then gives way to a melodramatic episode culminating in a passage that overlaps material drawn from both the chords and the passage work from the beginning. The music reappears in its original form, prepares to scamper away quietly, but ultimately makes a grander exit with four loud, affirmative chords.
[allmusic.com]")
![Igor Stravinsky - Symphony in C [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bmnfwnfnKBA/mqdefault.jpg "Igor Stravinsky - Symphony in C [With score]
Composer: Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (17 June 1882 – 6 April 1971)
Orchestra: Berliner Philharmoniker
Conductor: Herbert von Karajan
Recorded in: 1969
Symphony in C, written between 1938 and 1940
00:00 - I. Moderato alla breve - Tempo agitato senza troppo accelerare - Tempo 1
11:00 - II. Larghetto concertante - Doppio movimento - Doppio valore
17:27 - III. Allegretto
22:26 - IV. Largo - Tempo giusto, alla breve
Just as Igor Stravinskys 1930 Symphony of Psalms bears a dual dedication to God and the Boston Symphony Orchestra on its fiftieth anniversary, so does the title-page of the Symphony in C from ten years later, describing the work as having been composed to the glory of God, [and] dedicated to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on the occasion of the Fiftieth Anniversary of its existence. The commission had been offered to Stravinsky by Mrs. Robert Woods Bliss on behalf of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1938, but it was not until November of 1940, with Stravinsky conducting, that the Orchestra could give the world premiere of the finished work. For, while the commission was certainly a welcome one, the actual progress of the work was interrupted first by a series of personal tragedies the deaths of his wife, daughter and mother, during 1938 and 1939 and then, of course, by the outbreak of war in late 1939 that precipitated Stravinskys emigration to California. The Symphony in C, then, is a composition whose four movements were composed in four different cities and two continents over a span of just under two years.
If the years between 1938 and 1940 were turbulent ones for both Stravinsky and the community of nations around the world, it doesnt show in the work: here is pure music, unruffled by the dynamics of personal emotion and, following Stravinskys heartfelt beliefs on the subject, making absolutely no pretense at expressing anything except the fundamental drives of a composer struggling to come to grips, really for the first time in his life, with symphonic form. Stravinsky himself felt that there is some stylistic difference between the first half of the work, composed in Paris and Sancellmoz, and the second half, composed in Massachusetts and California, but these distinctions of direction (or perhaps taste) are, after all is said and done, relatively minor, and in performance the Symphony comes across as essentially a very well-unified body of music.
Most of the musical narrative in the first movement, Moderato alla breve, can be traced to one use or another of a single musical idea. This cell, a rising step (either half- or whole-) followed by a falling fourth, finds expression in the very opening bars as a dramatic series of rising B natural octaves that, after a rapid crescendo, complete the motive (by rising to C and then falling back down to G) before the woodwinds take over to give, in slower note values, the whole-step form of the motive (D-E-B). Soon enough, the oboe expounds on the original form at some length over a background of constant eighths in the strings.
In the Larghetto concertante that follows, Stravinsky explores the riches of the orchestra by using a series of more or less solo textures. The Allegretto serves as the Symphonys scherzo; sharp timpani and violin strokes get the movement underway, but the woodwinds quickly take over with music of considerable wit and ingenuity.
A dreary Largo for bassoons, horns, and trombones opens the last movement. After about a minute, however, the tempo guisto alla breve body of the movement breaks in, and soon the three-note motive recurs that defined the first movement. During the coda the winds give this ur-motive a treatment in dense, slowly-moving chords, to which the strings add just one final comment.
[allmusic.com]")
![Edvard Grieg - 7 Childrens Songs, op. 61 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/buxdX2nJPcI/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - 7 Childrens Songs, op. 61 [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performers: Monica Groop (Voice), Love Derwinger (Piano)
7 Barnlige Sange {Childrens Songs} for Voice and Piano, op. 61, written in 1894
00:00 - I. Havet {The Ocean}
01:09 - II. Sang til Juletæet {The Christmas Tree}
03:38 - III. Lok {Farmyard Song}
04:26 - IV. Fiskervise {Fishermans Song}
05:36 - V. Kveldssang for Blakken {Good-night Song for Dobbin}
08:15 - VI. De norske fjelde {The Norwegian Mountains}
11:48 - VII. Fædrelands-Salme {Hymn of the Fatherland}")
![Zoltán Kodály - Dances of Galánta [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/daepERU8rnE/mqdefault.jpg "Zoltán Kodály - Dances of Galánta [With score]
Composer: Zoltán Kodály (16 December 1882 6 March 1967)
Orchestra: Budapest Festival Orchestra
Conductor: Iván Fischer
Dances of Galánta (Galánti táncok), for orchestra, written in 1933
Despite the prominence of folk music in his career, Kodály was a type of artist/scholar an omnicompetent musician who composed fastidiously crafted chamber works richly colored by a fascination with French music, Debussy in particular, that were accepted by an international public long before they were embraced by his countrymen. He did not come to prominence in his native land until his Psalmus Hungaricus, given its premiere in 1923, took the audience by storm and went on to performances around the world. The first version of his opera Háry János (1926) met even greater success. The pattern of cosmopolitan influence and international acceptance, coupled with incomprehension and hostility at home, is paralleled in the career of his exact contemporary, the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski. But Szymanowski came to Polish folk music late in life, seizing upon it as a basis for a major stylistic turning point; Kodály grew up in the provinces, hearing folk music all around him. Beginning in 1905, he began collecting folk songs, eventually notating over 4,000 examples and publishing landmark scholarly articles on his discoveries. Among them was the gulf between authentic folk song, usually modal, and folk music overlaid by popular European dance idioms spiced with flamboyant gypsy ornamentation verbunkos music. Before Kodály and Bartók, authentic Hungarian folk music was overshadowed by verbunkos music, which had come to be accepted as the national Hungarian idiom. Even Liszt, seduced by the brilliance of gypsy musicians, was moved by it, and much of the material included in his Hungarian Rhapsodies is verbunkos in origin. Kodálys family moved to the village of Galánta before he was two and remained there for some seven years. Thus, when he was commissioned for a work by the Budapest Philharmonic Society in 1933 to commemorate its 80th anniversary, Kodály turned to his origins. Curiously, most of the material of Dances of Galánta is verbunkos-related, though its companion piece, the Marosszék Dances, employs authentic folk tunes. After an evocative flourish, a series of dances the sultry and insinuating giving way to the exhilarating and scintillant brilliantly conceived in opulent, glowing orchestral sonorities, place Dances of Galánta shoulder to shoulder with such ripe masterpieces as Fallas Nights in the Gardens of Spain and Dukas La Péri while looming as perhaps the last and finest composition in the mold of Liszts Hungarian Rhapsodies. Kodály conducted the Budapest Philharmonic at its premiere on December 19, 1934.
[allmusic.com]")
![Dmitri Shostakovich - Cello Concerto No. 2 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/e92zMFbDSQ4/mqdefault.jpg "Dmitri Shostakovich - Cello Concerto No. 2 [With score]
Composer: Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (25 September 1906 9 August 1975)
Orchestra: Boston Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Seiji Ozawa
Cello: Mstislav Rostropovich [Also the dedicatee]
Cello Concerto No. 2, op. 126, written in 1966
00:00 - I. Largo
13:59 - II. Allegretto
18:19 - III. Allegretto
Shostakovichs last major work before his first heart-attack his first intimation of his own mortality was the Second Cello Concerto. Composed in the early months of 1966, the Cello Concerto seems to have started life as what Shostakovich called his Fourteenth Symphony. In the event, however, the work evolved into the concerto, although the works symphonic character was so pronounced that Shostakovich wrote to his friend Isaak Glikman ...that the Second Concerto could have been called the Fourteenth Symphony with a solo cello part (Shostakovich, A Life, Laurel Fay, p. 247).
Although the work was conceived and composed prior to the deterioration of his health, the Second Cello Concerto is, for the most part, a dark and ominous work with a long and introspective opening Largo and a counter-balancing Allegretto finale, which is a sort of dusky barcarolle. Indeed, the work ends with the curious clock-work percussion which closed the Fourth Symphony of 1935 and which would close the Fifteenth and final symphony of 1971. Yet the work is not all gloomy: the central movement, also an Allegretto, is based in part on a popular song of the 20s, Pretzels, Wholl Buy my Pretzels? Apparently, Shostakovich and some of his close friends saw in the New Year of 1966 with a game of Name that Tune and Shostakovich played that tune which he said was one of his favorites. One of the party guests was the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, the dedicatee and first performer of the Second Concerto.
Scored for pairs of winds with double bassoon, a pair of horns and of harps, plus a large percussion section, Shostakovichs Second Concerto is a darkly lit work with flashes of light. The outer movements are rhapsodically composed around pivotal climaxes and the central movement is a sardonic scherzo of a type that Shostakovich had been writing since his E flat major Scherzo of 1923 - 1924. The lack of display for the soloist and the inward nature of the music has denied the Second Cello Concerto the popularity of the First Concerto of 1959; nevertheless, it is a great, if underappreciated, work.
[allmusic.com]
Original Audio: https://youtu.be/oEU5y_Qjvpw")
![Francis Poulenc - Cello Sonata [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/eIla8wtCc7E/mqdefault.jpg "Francis Poulenc - Cello Sonata [With score]
Composer: Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7 January 1899 30 January 1963)
Performers: Pierre Fournier (cello), Jacques Février (piano)
Sonata for cello and piano [Sonate pour violoncelle et piano], FP 143, completed in 1948
00:00 - I. Allegro - Tempo di marcia
05:48 - II. Cavatine
13:06 - III. Ballabile
16:46 - IV. Finale
Woodwind pieces dominate Poulencs chamber music oeuvre, but the Cello Sonata, like the somewhat earlier Violin Sonata, is a substantial work finding the composer at the height of his powers, and his tongue planted less firmly in his cheek.
Despite a rather rude initial outburst from the piano, the sonata-form first movement, Allegro (tempo di marcia), leavens its fragmentary fanfare-like motifs with lyrical, good-humored material for the cello. One important theme is especially broad, romantic, and bittersweet, although much of the development section is given over to playful treatments of the melodies, with staccato piano accompaniment to cello pizzicato.
The slow second movement, Cavatine, is one of Poulencs most tenderly songful creations. After a long introduction, the cello takes up a mournful, nostalgic theme, and with the piano subjects it to several elaborations, some intense, some hesitant, ending with a lullaby for lost souls.
Unusually for Poulenc, an extra movement separates the slow section from the finale. This Ballabile a word suggesting a dance-like nature is a playful intermezzo offering a nod to the music hall in its outer sections. A trace of wistfulness colors the still cheerful middle portion.
The Finale begins with a stern cello recitative over sour piano chords, pausing for an eerie passage of harmonics. The movements main matter scampers quickly through several episodes of short-breathed cello phrases and rippling piano passagework, with time out midway and again just before the end for more tender if occasionally dizzy music. The movement concludes with the recitative with which it began.
Original Audio: https://youtu.be/dzGlnvG53hU , https://youtu.be/m8K8kkPDvYs")
![Edvard Grieg - Lyric Pieces (Volume VIII), op. 65 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/elK3NIPXAlA/mqdefault.jpg "Edvard Grieg - Lyric Pieces (Volume VIII), op. 65 [With score]
-Composer: Edvard Hagerup Grieg (15 June 1843 – 4 September 1907)
-Performer: Leif Ove Andsnes
6 Lyric Pieces, op. 65, written in 1896
00:00 - I. Fra Ungdomsdagene {From Early Years}
04:39 - II. Bondens Sang {Peasant’s Song}
07:02 - III. Tungsinn {Melancholy}
11:50 - IV. Salon
13:45 - V. I Balladetone {Ballad}
17:53 - VI. Bryllupsdag på Troldhaugen {Wedding Day at Troldhaugen}
Edvard Grieg has a longstanding place among Romantic musical miniaturists, standing in the direct lineage of Mendelssohn and Schumann. He was born in Bergen, Western Norway in 1843. By the time of his death there in 1907, his principal achievement was to have successfully engineered a fusion between nationalistic elements commonly found within indigenous Nordic song, and some of the most progressive innovations of mainstream Romanticism, notably the rapid advance of musical impressionism as applied to the keyboard miniature.
Taking the broad view of Griegs output, we can say that the impact of folkloristic idioms can be found to pervade most of his compositions for solo piano. The links are strongest, perhaps, in the Piano Sonata in E minor, Op. 7, of 1865, the Pictures from Country Life, Op. 19, and of course, the ten books devoted to Lyric Pieces, some sixty-six miniatures in all which were published in the years 1867-1901. It was, wrote Grieg, the celebrated Norwegian violin virtuoso Ole Borneman Bull who opened my eyes to the beauty and unspoilt nature of Norwegian music, although in these works, it would be hard to overlook the demonstrable impact that exerted upon Griegs creative processes by the seminal German Romantic miniaturists, and by the music of Chopin, whose expressive instincts are also closely mirrored. As Joachim Dorfmüller has written To this traditional aspect, however, Grieg added a novel element in the form of folk music, which, in a number of pieces may be regarded as a genuine source of inspiration.
Writing to his publisher, the head of Peters Edition Henri Hinrichsen in 1901, the composer remarked that his Lyric Pieces were an intimate slice of life, and indeed, it would be very hard to challenge such an assertion. Book 8, published as Griegs Op. 65, comprises of the following numbers: 1) From days of Youth, 2) Peasants Song, 3) Melancholy, 4) Salon, 5) In Ballad Vein, 6) Wedding Day at Troldhaugen. The final piece in the set has good claims to be the best-loved and most universally performed of all Griegs piano works, great or small. This is the piece known as Wedding Day at Troldhaugen, Op. 65 No. 6. As Dorfmüller explains, Trolls are quintessentially Norwegian creatures, and it was in their honour that Grieg and his wife Nina named the plot of land on which they built their house on the outskirts of Bergen in 1884-85; Troldhaugen or Troll Hill. In this delightful piece, the march-like outer sections, illustrating the guests greeting the happy couple, frame a more lyrically reflective central episode. Other pieces, notably Op. 65 No. 5 In Ballad Vein set a much more melancholic tone, in its broad chorale-like phrases. Finally, as Dorfmüller concludes, in his Lyric Pieces, and indeed in much of his remaining piano music, Grieg thrust aside tradition no doubt, in the final analysis, to his own astonishment as much as to that of his contemporaries and in his last great creative period he set out on a virtually impressionistic path.
[allmusic.com]")
![Francis Poulenc - Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ensR1tipEf0/mqdefault.jpg "Francis Poulenc - Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon [With score]
-Composer: Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc (7 January 1899 – 30 January 1963)
-Performers: Felicity Lott (Voice), Pascal Rogé (Piano)
Deux poèmes de Louis Aragon for Voice and Piano, FP 122, written in 1943
00:00 - I. C
03:08 - II. Fêtes galantes
I. [...] The bridges of C, sometimes called Ce, are the four Caesar Bridges are near Angiers. In 51 B.C.E., the Gauls were defeated there by the Romans. In 1940, the Germans invaded at the same spot, and the French were again defeated.
Louis Aragon, the poet, speaks of the ancient defeat, and the tales of glory that followed. Then he speaks of the present time and the ill-concealed tears for his beloved, abandoned France.
Every line ends with a rhyme to the word Ce. The vocal line moves syllabically, and the piano part is equally unextravagant. In total, this is one of those heartrending moments in music that achieves its goals through simple means.
II. [...] While Aragon consciously evoked a period of Frances past in the C, here he ironically applies a title Watteau used in painting and Verlaine in poetry. But whereas these two creative artists of earlier times were celebrating grace and beauty, Aragon points out the ugliness and the absurdity of the ugliness of the period of Occupation. Every line except the last is a miniature portrait of yet another horror, always presented in the same way: You see [On voit] fops on bicycles, you see pimps in kilts...you see motor cars run on gasogene...you see guttersnipes you see perverts, you see drowned folk.... This entire litany, eerily comic in its piling-on of horrors, rattles out from a music-hall accompaniment as the baritone declaims the text with extreme rapidity. Poulenc applies the tempo marking Incroyablement vite (Unbelievably Fast), with a tempo marking not less than quarter note = 152. Like Shostakovich did so often, Poulenc here confronts the drab, valueless life under a dictatorship with the commonplace, with banality, with the sound of a low cabaret.
[allmusic.com]")
![Felix Mendelssohn - Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 2 [With score]](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/fGaBqZRQmW4/mqdefault.jpg "Felix Mendelssohn - Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 2 [With score]
-Composer: Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy (3 February 1809 – 4 November 1847)
-Performers: Mischa Maisky (Cello), Sergio Tiempo (Piano)
Sonata for Cello and Piano No. 2 in D major, Op. 58, written in 1843
00:07 - I. Allegro assai vivace
07:33 - II. Allegretto scherzando
13:10 - III. Adagio
18:31 - IV. Molto allegro e vivace
Mendelssohn was briefly between jobs when he wrote the second of his two cello sonatas; he was making the transition from handling musical matters for the King of Prussia to assuming the directorship of the new Leipzig Conservatory. The attendant stress of this period is hardly reflected in this sonata, which the composer wrote for his brother Paul, a cellist. The first movement, Allegro assai vivace, begins with a surging, confident melody for the cello, underpinned by a pressing piano accompaniment. The keyboard then presents its own statement of the theme, the cello now relegated to the background. The piano remains dominant during the introduction of the more lyrical but still impulsive second subject, but the cello eventually gets its turn at an extension of the tune. Unwary listeners might gather that Mendelssohn is here launching a third subject, but the cello is clearly playing the flowing outline of the melody the piano has just broached. Indeed, the instruments will be treated as equals throughout most of this sonata, and often each is allowed a virtuoso flourish. Mendelssohn develops his themes sequentially and neatly, with an almost circumspect ardor that never subordinates one instrument to the other.
The second movement, Allegretto scherzando, opens with a whimsical tune in the piano that is quickly taken up pizzicato by the cello. The melody becomes a bit more lyrical when played arco, but Mendelssohn reserves real songfulness for the second theme, which the cello sings out over a palpitating piano accompaniment. The movement continues with a repeat of the first section that turns uncharacteristically gruff before a brief reprise of the second theme, again in the cello. The instruments quietly slip away, playing fragments of both melodies.
The Adagio begins with graceful piano arpeggios that follow the chord structure of the aria Es ist vollbracht from Bachs St. John Passion, reflecting Mendelssohns lifelong devotion to the music of the German Baroque master. The piano recedes into the background as the cello offers an aria of its own, which grows more ardent and recitative-like as it progresses. Before long, the cello is playing its aria over the pianos chorale-like arpeggios; at the very end, the piano offers its own treatment of the cellos theme. Cellist Coenraad Bloemendal has proposed reading this movement as a programmatic representation of the competing religious forces that coexisted in Mendelssohns mind the Lutheran piano part overlapping and ultimately embracing what Bloemendal describes as the cellos cantorial chant.
The extensive finale, Molto allegro e vivace, begins with hectic yet low-key material that recalls the composers famous Spinning Song. All of this sonata-form movements thematic elements are spun from the material of the first several measures. Mendelssohn does not vary or develop this material so much as use it to put the two instruments through accelerating, arduous runs, culminating in a final section that creates a dazzling effect without descending to vulgarity.
[allmusic.com]")
