Uploaded April 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
F. CHOPIN: Scherzo no.2 - Krystian Zimerman
Photos:Poland
The Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31 is a scherzo by Frédéric Chopin. The work was composed and published in 1837, and was dedicated to Countess Adèle Fürstenstein. Robert Schumann compared this scherzo to a Byronic poem, "so overflowing with tenderness, boldness, love and contempt." According to Wilhelm von Lenz, a pupil of Chopin, the composer said that the renowned sotto voce opening was a question and the second phrase the answer: "For Chopin it was never questioning enough, never soft enough, never vaulted (tombe) enough. It must be a charnel-house.
Structure
The beginning is marked Presto and opens in B flat minor. However, most of the work is written in D flat major. The opening to the piece consists of two arpeggiated pianissimo chords, and after a moment's pause, goes into a set of fortissimo chords, before returning to the quiet arpeggiated chords. The piece then goes to an arpeggio section which leads to the con anima. Then, the middle section appears in A major. After the middle section ends (modulating in B flat minor), the first section reappears with a coda.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Chopin
F. CHOPIN: Scherzo no.2 - Krystian Zimerman
Photos:Poland
The Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31 is a scherzo by Frédéric Chopin. The work was composed and published in 1837, and was dedicated to Countess Adèle Fürstenstein. Robert Schumann compared this scherzo to a Byronic poem, "so overflowing with tenderness, boldness, love and contempt." According to Wilhelm von Lenz, a pupil of Chopin, the composer said that the renowned sotto voce opening was a question and the second phrase the answer: "For Chopin it was never questioning enough, never soft enough, never vaulted (tombe) enough. It must be a charnel-house.
Structure
The beginning is marked Presto and opens in B flat minor. However, most of the work is written in D flat major. The opening to the piece consists of two arpeggiated pianissimo chords, and after a moment's pause, goes into a set of fortissimo chords, before returning to the quiet arpeggiated chords. The piece then goes to an arpeggio section which leads to the con anima. Then, the middle section appears in A major. After the middle section ends (modulating in B flat minor), the first section reappears with a coda.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Chopin


![L.V.BEETHOVEN: piano concerto no.5 - A.B.MICHELANGELI;CELIBIDACHE(LIVE 1969)
L.V.BEETHOVEN: piano concerto no.5 - A.B.MICHELANGELI;CELIBIDACHE(LIVE 1969)
Photos: SAN MARINO (Google; Sandro da Rimini)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E♭ major, Op. 73, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto, was his last completed piano concerto. It was written between 1809 and 1811 in Vienna, and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethovens patron and pupil. The first performance took place on 13 January 1811 at the Palace of Prince Joseph Lobkowitz in Vienna, with Archduke Rudolf as the soloist,[1] followed by a public concert on 28 November 1811 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig under conductor Johann Philipp Christian Schulz, the soloist being Friedrich Schneider.[2][3] On 12 February 1812, Carl Czerny, another student of Beethovens, gave the Vienna debut of this work.
The epithet of Emperor for this concerto was not Beethovens own but was coined by Johann Baptist Cramer, the English publisher of the concerto.[4] Its duration is approximately forty minutes.
Instrumentation:
The concerto is scored for solo piano, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets in B♭ (clarinet I playing in A in movement 2), two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani in E♭ and B♭, and strings. In the second movement, 2nd flute, 2nd clarinet, trumpets, and timpani are tacet.
Movements:
The concerto is divided into three movements:
Allegro in E♭ major
Adagio un poco mosso[a] in B major
Rondo: Allegro in E♭ major
The first movement begins with the solo piano unfurling a series of virtuosic pronouncements punctuated by emphatic loud chords from the full orchestra. The vigorous, incessantly propulsive main theme follows, undergoing complex thematic transformation, with a secondary theme of tonic and dominant notes and chords. When the piano enters with the first theme, the expository material is repeated with variations, virtuoso figurations, and modified harmonies. The second theme enters in the unusual key of B minor before moving to B major and at last to the expected key of B♭ major several bars later.
Following the opening flourish, the movement follows Beethovens three-theme sonata structure for a concerto. The orchestral exposition is a two-theme sonata exposition, but the second exposition with the piano introduces a triumphant, virtuosic third theme that belongs solely to the solo instrument, a trademark of Beethovens concertos. The coda elaborates upon the open-ended first theme, building in intensity before finishing in a final climactic arrival at the tonic E♭ major.
The second movement in B major forms a quiet nocturne for the solo piano, muted strings, and wind instruments that converse with the solo piano. The movement briefly changes to D major, a very remote key from the concertos E♭ major. The third movement begins without interruption when a lone bassoon note B drops a semitone to B♭, the dominant of the tonic key E♭. The end of the second movement was written to build directly into the third.
The final movement of the concerto is a seven-part rondo form (ABACABA). The solo piano introduces the main theme before the full orchestra affirms the soloists statement. The rondos B-section begins with piano scales, before the orchestra again responds. The C-section is much longer, presenting the theme from the A-section in three different keys before the piano performs a passage of arpeggios. Rather than finishing with a strong entrance from the orchestra, however, the trill ending the cadenza dies away until the introductory theme reappears, played first by the piano and then the orchestra. In the last section, the theme undergoes variation before the concerto ends with a short cadenza and robust orchestral response. L.V.BEETHOVEN: piano concerto no.5 - A.B.MICHELANGELI;CELIBIDACHE(LIVE 1969)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ViHjxyTyvxA/mqdefault.jpg)
![N.Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade (v.1)
N.Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Scheherazade, also commonly Sheherazade Op. 35, is a symphonic suite composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1888 and based on One Thousand and One Nights (also known as The Arabian Nights).
This orchestral work combines two features typical of Russian music in general and of Rimsky-Korsakov in particular: dazzling, colorful orchestration and an interest in the East, which figured greatly in the history of Imperial Russia, as well as orientalism in general. The name Scheherazade refers to the main character Scheherazade of the One Thousand and One Nights. It is one of Rimsky-Korsakovs most popular works.
During the winter of 1887, as he worked to complete Alexander Borodins unfinished opera Prince Igor, Rimsky-Korsakov decided to compose an orchestral piece based on pictures from One Thousand and One Nights as well as separate and unconnected episodes.[3] After formulating musical sketches of his proposed work, he moved with his family to the Glinki-Mavriny dacha, in Nyezhgovitsy along the Cherementets Lake (near present-day Luga, in Leningrad Oblast). The dacha where he stayed was destroyed by the Germans during World War II.
During the summer, he finished Scheherazade and the Russian Easter Festival Overture. Notes in his autograph orchestral score show that the former was completed between June 4 and August 7, 1888.[4] Scheherazade consisted of a symphonic suite of four related movements that form a unified theme. It was written to produce a sensation of fantasy narratives from the Orient.[5]
Initially, Rimsky-Korsakov intended to name the respective movements in Scheherazade Prelude, Ballade, Adagio and Finale.[6] However, after weighing the opinions of Anatoly Lyadov and others, as well as his own aversion to a too-definitive program, he settled upon thematic headings, based upon the tales from The Arabian Nights.[3]
The composer deliberately made the titles vague so that they are not associated with specific tales or voyages of Sinbad. However, in the epigraph to the finale, he does make reference to the adventure of Prince Ajib.[7] In a later edition, Rimsky-Korsakov did away with titles altogether, desiring instead that the listener should hear his work only as an Oriental-themed symphonic music that evokes a sense of the fairy-tale adventure
Scheherazade is a major female character and the storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the One Thousand and One Nights.
Narration
The story goes that the monarch Shahryar, on discovering that his first wife was unfaithful to him, resolved to marry a new virgin every day and to have her beheaded the next morning before she could dishonour him. Eventually the vizier could find no more virgins of noble blood and, against her fathers wishes, Scheherazade volunteered to marry the king.
Once in the kings chambers, Scheherazade asked if she might bid one last farewell to her beloved younger sister, Dunyazad, who had secretly been prepared to ask Scheherazade to tell a story during the long night. The king lay awake and listened with awe as Scheherazade told her first story. The night passed by, and Scheherazade stopped in the middle. The king asked her to finish, but Scheherazade said there was no time, as dawn was breaking. So the king spared her life for one day so she could finish the story the next night. The following night Scheherazade finished the story and then began a second, more exciting tale, which she again stopped halfway through at dawn. Again, the king spared her life for one more day so that she could finish the second story.
Thus the king kept Scheherazade alive day by day, as he eagerly anticipated the conclusion of each previous nights story. At the end of 1,001 nights, and 1,000 stories, Scheherazade finally told the king that she had no more tales to tell him. During the preceding 1,001 nights, however, the king had fallen in love with Scheherazade. He wisely spared her life permanently and made her his queen. N.Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade (v.1)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/W1UIevvb1JI/mqdefault.jpg)






