Concerto No.2 for Piano and Orchestra By Rachmaninov It may be all the more remarkable when hearing this emotional outpouring to remember that Mozart was preparing for the premiere of his new opera The Marriage of Figaro in Vienna.Ħ. It is in a simple A-B-A form and the interplay between soloist and orchestra is delicate and understated, each absorbed by a subtle shared sadness. The key Mozart chose for the second movement in F sharp minor (the relative minor), and one of the few slow movements written in a minor key. It is an intimate and highly expressive work that was not finally published until after Mozart’s untimely death. It is the central slow movement of this middle period Concerto that is perhaps the rawest expression of longing and grief. This Piano Concerto is considered by many to reveal the very essence of Mozart as he bares his soul through the medium of which he was a master music. A difficult piece to grasp on a first hearing but worthy of the time and effort.ĥ. The Sonata is divided up into broadly seven continuous sections in which Scriabin builds an immense and at times grotesque structure of continuous development. Harmonically Scriabin supports the blackness of the mood by basing the entire work on the interval of a minor ninth creating an inbuilt dissonance that makes the entire Sonata ache. The work has as a nickname “Black Mass” which in itself should make the hairs on your neck stand to attention and the wailing tempestuousness of the Sonata leaves you with a sense of impending doom. I have chosen to include this in the article as for me it has such a depth of unquenchable sadness that it was vital to single it out. Only towards the end of the piece does the melody fly towards the highest note of the work only to tumble back towards the final dark cadence in e minor.Ĭomposed between 1912 to 1913, this piano piece is amongst the most musically and emotionally complex of all his works. It is as if the composer himself is struggling to breathe such is the shallow rise and fall of the opening idea. Similar to the B minor Prelude above, Chopin uses a simple but elegant melody that struggles to move against the unrelenting pulse of the accompanying chords. Chopin writes smorzando, meaning dying away which adequately reflects the despair the composer was feeling at the time of writing from the Monastery in Majorca. Prelude in E Minor by Chopin (Op.28 No.4)įrom the final dynamic marking of this brief Prelude, we have a clear sense of the nature of the composition. The whole Prelude is barely two minutes in length with an unfaltering ostinato in the right-hand like a tolling bell that simply stops at the pianissimo close of the piece.ģ. Each time it is heard, it seems to attempt to reach upwards towards a light, only to fall each time back to where it came from. Melodically, Chopin chooses to write a rising arpeggio that climbs from the darker regions of the piano register. One of the more outwardly simplistic pieces that Chopin composed, this Prelude has a brooding pensiveness about it from the opening chord. The opening movement seems to capture Beethoven’s mixture of emotions about the Countess with such a bittersweetness that is almost too hard to listen to.Ģ. It was written, if the scholars are to be believed, from Beethoven’s love for the young Countess Giulietta Guicciardi who Beethoven taught and admired as a pianist. Regardless of this opinion, the darkness and solemnity of the first movement is one of the most emotionally fraught of all Beethoven’s works. The first work on my list is the opening movement of what has come to be nicknamed, the moonlight, sonata after a critic described the opening of the piece as moonlight dancing on the water of a lake. The “Moonlight” Sonata (Op.27 No.2), by Ludwig van Beethoven.In this article, I will highlight a selection of piano works that for me exemplify the sad and tragic character of the instrument’s repertoire. There is often something inherent in its richness and range that draws the ear towards the story it is offering in a way other instruments do not. Perhaps due to its presence in so many movie scores these days, the piano has epitomised itself as an instrument of intense emotional expression.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |