Uploaded December 2015 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
- Composer: Nikolai Andreevich Roslavets (4 January 1881 -- 23 August 1944)
- Performers: Trio Fontenay: Michael Mücke (violin), Jens Peter Maintz (cello), Wolf Harden (piano)
- Year of recording: 2000 (?)
Trio for Piano & Strings No. 3, written in 1921.
One movement, marked: Moderato assai
Roslavets' Piano Trio No. 3 was begun in 1921 in Kharkov and published in 1925. It is composed in one big movement with many subsections. While his earlier trios had been characterized by outbursts of tremendous and strident violence, the trio is more lyrical in nature. The entire work is essentially calm and reflective although there are moments of dramatic passion as well.
Roslavets is one of the most important figures and a pioneer in the Russian modernist music movement, which became known as Russian Futurism. He had a traditional enough musical education. He came somewhat late (1902) to the Moscow Conservatory where he studied violin and composition, the latter with Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, no modernist to be sure, among others. Surprisingly, it took him 10 years to graduate (1912). But already by 1910, he was attracting the attention of Russian Futurist painters and writers.
Influenced by the later works of Alexander Scriabin, Roslavets sought a new means of expression. As early as 1907, he created what he called "a new system of sound organization" which was arrived at independently from and before Schoenberg's twelve-tone serialism. It does have several similarities and this led to Roslavets being referred to, as early as 1912, as "the Russian Schoenberg." However, Nikolai Myaskovsky and several other Russian composers, none of whom were modernists, pointed out the original nature of Roslavets' style, which owed nothing to Schoenberg but was more akin to Scriabin. During the heady days after the Russian Revolution, Roslavets became one of the leading Soviet composers of the New Music Movement and one of its strongest advocates.
Unfortunately after Stalin's rise to power, his music was banned and he was considered an enemy of the State, and declared a 'non-person' until his death. Roslavets "new system of sound organization" for the most part consists of chords of six to nine tones. In the 1920s Roslavets developed his system further, expanding it to encompass counterpoint, rhythm, and musical form while elaborating new principles of teaching.
- Composer: Nikolai Andreevich Roslavets (4 January 1881 -- 23 August 1944)
- Performers: Trio Fontenay: Michael Mücke (violin), Jens Peter Maintz (cello), Wolf Harden (piano)
- Year of recording: 2000 (?)
Trio for Piano & Strings No. 3, written in 1921.
One movement, marked: Moderato assai
Roslavets' Piano Trio No. 3 was begun in 1921 in Kharkov and published in 1925. It is composed in one big movement with many subsections. While his earlier trios had been characterized by outbursts of tremendous and strident violence, the trio is more lyrical in nature. The entire work is essentially calm and reflective although there are moments of dramatic passion as well.
Roslavets is one of the most important figures and a pioneer in the Russian modernist music movement, which became known as Russian Futurism. He had a traditional enough musical education. He came somewhat late (1902) to the Moscow Conservatory where he studied violin and composition, the latter with Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov, no modernist to be sure, among others. Surprisingly, it took him 10 years to graduate (1912). But already by 1910, he was attracting the attention of Russian Futurist painters and writers.
Influenced by the later works of Alexander Scriabin, Roslavets sought a new means of expression. As early as 1907, he created what he called "a new system of sound organization" which was arrived at independently from and before Schoenberg's twelve-tone serialism. It does have several similarities and this led to Roslavets being referred to, as early as 1912, as "the Russian Schoenberg." However, Nikolai Myaskovsky and several other Russian composers, none of whom were modernists, pointed out the original nature of Roslavets' style, which owed nothing to Schoenberg but was more akin to Scriabin. During the heady days after the Russian Revolution, Roslavets became one of the leading Soviet composers of the New Music Movement and one of its strongest advocates.
Unfortunately after Stalin's rise to power, his music was banned and he was considered an enemy of the State, and declared a 'non-person' until his death. Roslavets "new system of sound organization" for the most part consists of chords of six to nine tones. In the 1920s Roslavets developed his system further, expanding it to encompass counterpoint, rhythm, and musical form while elaborating new principles of teaching.
![Jean-Philippe Rameau - Suite in G major/minor (Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin 1727)
- Composer: Jean-Philippe Rameau (25 September 1683 12 September 1764)
- Performer: Grigori Sokolov (piano)
- Year of recording: 1997 (Live in Bergen, Norway)
Suite in G major/minor, from Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin, for harpsichord, written in 1727.
00:00 - Les Tricotets (Rondeau)
01:46 - LIndifférente
04:25 - Menuet
06:05 - Menuet II
08:11 - La Poule
12:27 - Les Triolets
17:00 - Les Sauvages
19:06 - LEnharmonique (Gracieusement)
25:33 - LÉgyptienne
The Nouvelles suites de pièces de clavecin includes 15 pieces. The first seven pieces of the anthology are grouped around A major and A minor [not in this recording], while the remainder are centered on G major and G minor. Like all French keyboard works, they are notable for such characteristic devices as the broken chord (stile brisé) taken over by French keyboard composers from the influential school of early seventeenth century lutenists. Also highly characteristic are the lavishly decorated melodic lines, based on a code of ornamentation illustrated in didactic prefaces by composers such as dAnglebert and Couperin. As in all three of Rameaus collections, the pieces are divided between the binary (two-part) dance movements of the Baroque suite and the character pieces unique to French instrumental music.
The present collection is headed by three dance movements: an Allemande, a Courante, and a Sarabande (worthy of special mention as one of Rameaus noblest conceptions), and also includes a Gavotte et doubles (variations) and a pair of Minuets. The descriptive character or genre pieces sometimes have intriguing titles, the original meaning of which cannot always be determined. The Nouvelles suites includes ten such pieces, among them one of the composers most famous keyboard works, LEnharmonique. It takes it name from the striking enharmonic modulation just after the start of the second half, reminding listeners that the composer was also an outstanding theorist whose Traite dharmonie (Treatise on Harmony) was one of the most influential pedagogical publications of the eighteenth century. Another popular piece here is La Poule, which graphically imitates the clucking of a hen in the most ingenious fashion. The contemporary vogue for the exotic is not ignored, either, as the inclusion of pieces entitled Les Sauvages and LÉgyptienne clearly illustrates. A number of Rameaus keyboard works were later orchestrated and reused in his operas, an example being the Sarabande, which later found its way into the third act of Zaroastre from 1749.
These pieces were originally written for the clavecimble, in this recording they are played on the grand piano by G. Sokolov; his clavecimble-like playing of these pieces on the piano shows that it can make perfect sense to play harpsichord pieces like this on the piano if theyre handled as well as they are here by Sokolov. Jean-Philippe Rameau - Suite in G major/minor (Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de Clavecin 1727)](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aT15H458uoo/mqdefault.jpg)
![Willem Pijper - Six Adagios
- Composer: Willem (Frederik Willem Johannes) Pijper (8 September 1894 18 March 1947)
- Orchestra: The Residentie Orchestra
- Conductor: Eduard Flipse
- Year of recording: 1953
Six Adagios {Zes Adagios} for Orchestra, written in 1940.
00:00 - I. Grave
02:09 - II. Adagio (lento assai)
03:42 - III. Adagio (quasi un poco meno lento)
04:59 - IV. Adagio, un poco più andante
06:13 - V. Largo
07:39 - VI. Grave
Dutch composer Willem Pijper composed the Six Adagios for Orchestra for the student initiation of the Order of Freemasons, of which he was a member. Each adagio was designed as temple music for a given phase of the initiation ritual.
Given the purpose of the work, he did not utilise his usual polytonalic and polyrhythmic techniques, but returned very consciously back to the familiar tonality principle: the Adagios are in the key of C Major and C minor. Therefore, the music comes to the listener as an understandable, familiar language, richly melodic and with a gentle harmony partly due to the instrumental timbres. This piece, along with the Sex Epigrams [uploaded on this channel] show of Pijpers excellent orchestral writing skills.
The piece is recorded under the label Order of Freemasons under the Grand Orient of the Netherlands. Willem Pijper - Six Adagios](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/akCuYMGT6kI/mqdefault.jpg)






![Juliusz Zarębski - Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 34
- Composer: Juliusz Zarębski (3 March 1854 15 September 1885)
- Performers: Waldemar Malicki (piano), Amar Corde String Quartet
- Year of recording: 1997
Quintet for Piano & Strings in G minor, Op. 34, written in 1885.
00:00 - I. Allegro
10:03 - II. Adagio
20:51 - III. Scherzo
26:41 - IV. Finale
In 1935, at the peak of the neoclassical period, the Piano Quintet in G minor Op. 34 by Polish composer-pianist Juliusz Zarębski was published. The Quintet was written at the beginning of 1885, during the period of convalescence of the composer (who suffered from tuberculosis) in his home town of Żytomierz. The Quintet was the last and the most outstanding masterpiece written by Zarębski, who died in September of this same year at the age of 31. Zarębski was a member of the 19th century guild of composers and virtuosos. Extremely talented, he studied piano and composition in Vienna and St. Petersburg. He composed mainly salon and virtuoso music for the needs of his numerous tournées; the most famous collection is called Roses and thorns (Róże i ciernie).
The great talent of Zarębski is reflected in the opinions of Franz Liszt, who had seen in him not only the great virtuoso (sharing the interest in a two-keyboard piano with the maestro from Weimar), but also a deeply sensitive composer. Liszt insisted that Zarębski should seriously devote himself to composing. It is therefore hardly surprising that the Quintet was dedicated to Liszt [À mon cher maître Fr. Liszt]. There are however clear musical reasons for this dedication. The Quintet emerges from the tradition of the New German School, whose outstanding figures were Liszt and Wagner. The origins of the work manifest itself in the richness of colour and harmony and also in treating the themes as if they were characters in a novel. That is why, instead of a classical motif work, we hear the metamorphosis of the characters, themes return in the subsequent parts, and the finale is the culmination in the synthetic style. It is not the form that captures our attention but the twists and turns of the narration. However, it must be added that the novel plays out in a highly abstract register. Therefore, it appears inappropriate to search for a concrete programme. After all, Liszt and Wagner did not write chamber music for a reason. The originality of this Polish chamber music masterpiece lies in the amicably incompatible combination of classical and Late Romantic traditions. But the beauty of the Quintet lies mostly in the music.
- Allegro: Against the backdrop of murmuring waves of the piano, the strings sail in a broad unison, the theme in turn rolling but serious, and diatonic and broken in a chromatic prism. The second theme in E flat major balances this initial appassionato with a nocturne section: quite light, fanciful and twinkling. The march rhythms play an important role in this part. They are only a seasoning, they never crystallize into an independent theme. However, they give the piece intransigent, maybe even (especially with the connection with falling chromatic bass) fatal character. The particular feature is a gypsy C sharp. It appears in the theme; it causes an amazing journey into C-sharp minor in the second section of the development (ended with a solo, longing cello recitative); it is on show in the daring coda.
- The second movement Adagio, begins and ends with bizarre music which suggests some kind of picture or landscape: maybe a starlight shimmering on dark waters? The foundation of Adagio is the lied (art song). The outermost parts have a hymnic character in B flat major; the middle section in G major can be described as idyllic, in accordance with the symbolic tradition of this key and the connotations of a 12/8 meter. However, Zarębski introduces a shadow, especially in the form of chromatics, which in turn gives an edge of surrealism to this idyll.
- Truly diabolic is the Scherzo. Presto: full of frictions, dissonance, sudden changes, contrary accents and unnatural scales (a comeback of the gypsy Allegro note). Even the diatonic fragments, as a result of freezing the harmonic centre, create an impression of wildness. Quasi-folk melodies appear too (and they seem to be Russian: a kamarinskaya dance).
- The Finale. Presto begins with an epigraph taken from the previous movement, after which a cleansing calmness prevails. Further on, the music flows colourfully and capriciously, expressed in a rhapsodic sonata form. The first theme again resounds with a bawdy dance note, with a highly stylized (and therefore difficult to identify) character. The themes from the first and second movement return. The piece is crowned by a glorification of the Quintet first parts main theme.
Fortunately, this piano quintet is now slowly starting to be played at concerts and rightfully so, because this masterpiece deserves a place among the biggest Romantic Piano Quintets. Juliusz Zarębski - Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 34](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ctkgy0ZFXnU/mqdefault.jpg)

