Johannes Brahms - His Music and Life

Johannes Brahms was born on May 7, 1833 in Hamburg/Germany and passed away on April 3, 1897 in Vienna/Austria.

Brahms became a contra-bass-player and respected horn player. As a young boy Brahms earned his livings by performing in different sailor saloons and dives.

After wretched and puny school years he did try to build up a higher education through self-confidence and self-study. Brahms surprisingly drew people's attention to his impressing piano playing, especially when he accompanied the Hungarian violinist Eduard Remeny on virtuoso touring.

In 1858, Brahms became Musical Director in Detmold/Germany. In 1863, Brahms has been in charge of the Vienna Academy of Music. As freelance artist Brahms lived a carefree life. Schubert had been forced to it, Beethoven succeeded in doing at the beginning.

The Piano was Brahms' source of composing work. He could fulfill a sonata's gigantic measurements and extents. Richard Wagner and Johannes Brahms have been the "Children of Romanticism", but only Brahms has lacked the pathos of theatrical language and expressionism. But, Brahms' compositions have become a world power - equal to Beethoven and Wagner.

This space doesn't allow mentioning the whole life's work of an incredible German classical composer named Johannes Brahms.

More in my next post about him.

(To be continued!)

Johannes Brahms - Symphony No.3 - Poco Allegretto

Maurice Ravel - His Music and Life

Maurice Ravel was born on March 7, 1875 in Ciboure-Biarritz/France and passed away on December 28, 1937 in Paris. His father was a Swiss engineer automotive pioneer while his mother had been a Basque housewife.

Ravel joined the Conservatoire de Paris for an unbelievable period of 16 years. His professors were the well-known Andre Gedalge (1856-1926) and Gabriel Faure (1845-1924).

Nothing fascinated Maurice Ravel more than translating piano music into the language of the virtuoso orchestra. The time was ripe, for by 1900, Rimsky-Korsakov and Richard Strauss had brought a new opulence to symphonic scoring. Ravel was a born transcriber who prided himself on the precision of his orchestral craft as he stretched the instruments to the limits what they could do.

Like Claude Debussy ("Claire de Lune"), Ravel was trained primarily as a pianist, and most of what he wrote originated at the keyboard. But everything was fair game for his brilliant metarphormoses, not only his own piano works which were given dual lives.

Paradoxically, though he was a master of the orchestra, only three of Ravel's own symphonic works were originally scored for orchestra, beginning with the wonderful Rapsodie Espagnol from 1907, when he was akready 32 and quite famous in Europe.

Once you have heard the pizzicato strings in the role of guitars and a colorfully large orchestra glinting with percussion from Alborada del gracioso, is it hard to believe that this wonderful show piece was initially conceived to the keyboard.

Ravel's "Bolero" from 1928 is also an outstanding representative of Spanish sensuality in the form of classical music.

Ravel remained unmarried. He loved exotic cats and Japanese ornamental plants. Even experiencing a luxury life the agonizing feelings of loneliness let become Ravel mentally deranged.

“The only love affair I have ever had was with music.”

Maurice Ravel

The history of classical music, however, is full of fabulously gifted individuals with slightly more earthy ambitions. Love stories of classical composers are frequently retold within a romanticized narrative of sugarcoated fairy tales. To be sure, happily-ever-after stories do on rare occasions take place, but it is much more likely that classical romances lead to some rather unhappy endings. Johannes Brahms had an overriding fear of commitment, Claude Debussy drove his wife into an attempt at suicide, Francis Poulenc severely struggled with his sexual identity, and Percy Grainger was heavily into whips and bondage. And that’s only the beginning! The love life of classical composers will sometimes make you weep, or alternately shout out with joy or anguish. You might even cringe with embarrassment as we try to go beyond the usual headlines and niceties to discover the psychological makeup and the societal and cultural pressures driving these relationships. Classical composer’s love stories are not for the faint hearted; they are heightened reflections of humanity at its best and worst. Accompanying these stories of love and lust with the compositions they inspired, we are able to see composers and their relationships in a completely new light.

Just in Between again Mozart - Requiem/Nochmals Mozart zwischendurch

Maurice Ravel - Bolero

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Jean Sibelius - His Music and Life

Jean Sibelius was born on December 8, 1865 in Tawastehus/Finland and passed away September 9, 1957 in Helsinki.

Many of his in-laws and forefathers were well-known doctors, artists and clergy members. Sibelius began to study law at first. But unsatisfied, he changed his mind soon and shifted courses to music.

In 1890, his real composition works started. The first decade had been the most fruitful and successful period of Sibelius' whole career and life.

Finland's history and its wonderful ferry tales and legends had been inexhaustible source for symphonies and incredible orchestral suites such as "En Saga" (1892, revised in 1901), "Karelia" (1893), "Four Legends for Orchestra" (1895) and "Finlandia" (1900). Sibelius took most of his musical ideas from his native land Finland with Finnish longing and melancholy.

One might ask, whether Sibelius' "Violin Concert" was the composer's carefully planed revenge on the deities of this instrument.

In his childhood, Sibelius had first played the piano, but after a few years he switched to the violin. He later confessed: "The violin took me over completely. From then on for the next ten years or so my profoundest wish, the loftiest aspiration of my ambitions, was to become a great violin virtuoso." But Sibelius never quit managed to reach these goals. 

As I mentioned earlier: Sibelius took most of his musical ideas from his native land Finland. In this respect, the music that he wrote in 1906 for Hjalmar Procope's play "Belshazar's Feast" represents a rare excursion for the composer into the exotic and the oriental.

Swan Lake: Waltz, Schwanensee Walzer: Peter I. Tschaikowsky

Niccolo Paganini - His Life and Music

Niccolo Paganini was born in October 27, 1782 in Genoa/Italy and passed away in Nice/France on May 27, 1840. His strict father, a sales manager, expected him a daily eight-hours-training on a violin and mandolin.

In 1798, the father escaped because of the begotten mother. It's difficult to decide, while reading different encyclopedias and a published biography of Paganini, which are reality and legend regarding his life. 

The decline of the tradition of instrumental music in Italy during the 19th century, the first signs of which had appeared late in the previous century, resulted from a number of related and complex events: the dispersion of Italy's leading composers throughout Europe, the gradual and unrelenting decline of Italian orchestras and, most importantly, the evolution and spread of the operatic style. 

Whereas instrumental music on German Romanticism assumed a completely autonomous and dominant position, Italian composers felt more and more captive to the wiles of opera, gradually abandoning  thematic elaboration and a classical sense of form for a dramatic stage style.

The nature of the 19th century concerto is inseparable from the idea of virtuosity. The new audiences and institutions that promoted popular concerts contributed to the transformation of the musician into an actor. It is within the framework that one must consider the violin concertos by Niccolo Paganini, the violin virtuoso who mesmerized such as Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms.

Paganini elevated the dying tradition of improvisation to a transcendental level with his dazzling performances,a and, he gave rise to a star worship comparable to that which vocalists enjoyed, colored, however, by a "demonic" aspect unique to instrumental music. In fact, Paganini's concertos for violin show strong ties to operatic tradition in the form of numerous Rossini-like cadenzas - something in common to most Italian instrumental music of that time.

The "Concerto or Violin in d-major", composed in 1817-18 (an earlier concerto was dated 1815), gives wonderful expression to the musical charm of this epoch. From a convential and rather superficial point of view, it anticipates the 19th century tradition. The central "Adagio espressivo" transforms operatic elements of an aria to a moving and personal romance, modest, yet dignified. 

The "Concerto for Violin No. 4 in d-minor", composed in 1829-30 and first performed in Frankfurt/Main on the 16th April 1830 (and revived by Gallini in Paris in 1954!), displays a pronounced balance between melody and virtuosity.

Pagaini's play, many times, was described as "devil's play". He composed many pieces for the g-string, maybe, because during many performances his violin strings have been cut because of this "devil's play"... .

His sonatas and compositions for guitars have been forgotten since long, even wonderful to be listening. I am glad, I still have some pieces in my music library... .

Edvard Grieg - His Life and Music

 

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born on June 15, 1843 and passed away on September 4, 1907 in Bergen/Norway. His mother became his first music teacher. The Norwegian violinist O. Bull advised him to study music in Leipzig/Germany. Nevertheless Grieg couldn't develop a good relationship to German classical music.

He was more impressed with Danish music, especially when he moved to Copenhagen at the age of 20.

Grieg loved Norwegian folksongs and took plenty themes and variations into his compositions. With the "Holberg Suite", composed in 1884, Grieg made his contribution with which Scandinavians commemorated the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ludwig Holberg, the Norwegian writer, who with his 32 brilliant comedies had earned the name of a "Moliere of the North". For the commemorative address delivered on December 3 in Bergen, his birthplace, and the unveiling of a statue on the market place, Grieg composed an (unpublished) cantata for male chorus and conducted this "in furs and furlined boots, with a cap of the same", so Grieg.

Subsequently he wrote a "Suite in the olden style" for piano, and, in the following year, arranged it for string orchestra (with multiple division of the single instrument parts). With this "wigged piece", as Grieg described it. he took on the light-hearted pre-classical style of the French rococo, combined old dances types with a Scandinavian accent, so to speak, and thereby created a conscious anachronism of special charm.

The "Peer Gynt Suites" made Grieg wellknown all over the world. I really love them too. Many piano virtuosos have appreciated his piano concerto a-minor opus 16 up tp now. Grieg succeeded in squaring the musical circle. He took the elements of Norwegian music with its minor dominant, pentatonic scale or falling lead-note, as well as its dance rhythms, and would thereby really be counted merely among the little-valued "dialect artists". But over and above his Scandinavian accent grieg showed a mastery of refined orchestral timbres and so became one of the forerunners of impressionism.

Of his 144 songs in all, 124 are on texts by Scandinavian poets; the others are composed by German poems. To a great extent, his wife, Nina Hagerup, who, as a trained singer, propagated her husband's art with impressive creative power, inspired Grieg very much.

 

Anton Vivaldi - His Life and His Music

 

Antonio Vivaldi was born 1678 in Venice (the exact date is unknown) and passed away on July 28, 1741 in Vienna/Austria. He was an Italian composer and violinist and became a violinist pupil of the great Giovanni Legrenzi (1626-1690).

In 1703, Vivaldi was ordained as priest and has been nick-named as the "red haired priest" (Il prete rosso). 1716, he became principal of the music school for girls in Venice. He loved to travel extensively and became one of the first composers of his time. He was one of the first composers, using clarinets and composed fantastic chamber music, secular cantatas, church music, oratorio, and operas.

Despite tremendous output, he was by no means a conventional composer, and much of instrumental works show a lively and fertile imagination. As with Bach, Vivaldi's music was unfashionable and unpopular or many years; however, since the 1950s, there has been enormous revival of interest in Vivaldi's music especially in Europe, and later followed also in the USA. Especially his cincerts, among which four works for violin, collectively known as "The Four Seasons", have become particularly popular.

Appreciating Vivaldi's originality and diversity is to get beyond the form, and to listen to his fresh and melodic writings. Vivaldi invented a a structure for his conciertos that served him very we. No two pieces are exactly the same, and the combination of structural discipline and melody freedom is the hallmark of musical greatness from any period.

Vivaldi composed 49 operas, 22 pieces only for the town of Venice. Johann Sebastian Bach admired Vivaldi so much, that he rearranged some compositions of Vivaldi and felt very much inspired for more wonderful compositions.

Vivaldi died in Vienna in totally poverty.

 

Johann Strauss - His Life and Music

 

Johann Strauss, Jr., was born on October 25, 1825 in Vienna and passed away also there on June 3, 1899. He was the eldest son of Johann Strauss and is deservedly known as the "King of Waltz". His father didn't want his ten children to choose music at their career. Johann Strauss, Jr. worked as a bank clerk, but learned violin play secretly and studied composing.

In 1844, Strauss engaged to direct summer concerts in Petropaulovsky Park in Saint Petersburg in Russia for ten years. As a conductor o Austrian court bals from 1863-1872, he composed nearly 400 waltzes, which have come to epitomize Viennese gaiety and sentiment. Some of his well-known waltzes are "The Blue Danube", "Roses from the South", the great "Emperor Waltz" or "Tales from the Vienna Woods". It's beloved, wherever music is played, as well as Strauss' polkas and other dances.

Very late Strauss came in contact with the operetta, but a certain dramatic lyric mostly lacked. Only his third operetta "The Bat" (1874) became a world success.

Strauss was friend and admirer of Richard Wagner, who like Johannes Brahms and other composers including Arnold Schoenberg, were what we should now call "fans" of Strauss, recognizing a supreme master of a genre who composes with style, elegance and taste.

Beethoven's 5th Symphony - Beethoven's 5. Sinfonie

Ludwig Van Beethoven's Ninth SymphonyNeunte Sinfonie

Béla Bartók - Music for Strings

Bela Bartok

Bela Bartok was born on March 25, 1881 in Southern Hungary and passed away on September 26, 1945 as migrant in New York. His father had been a very enthusiastic music fan and cellist. Bartok's mother ha been an elementary school teacher and took care of him and educated him alone, because his father passed away already in 1889.

Bartok couldn't develop close ties to his home country. National pride could never grow up. Political confusions between Hungary, the CSSR, Romania and the former Yugoslavia during that time let Bartok become a permanent refugee.

At the age of 9 he started composing. With 10 he was introduced to the world public. From 1899-1903, Bartok studied at the Hungarian Music Academy Budapest. Bartok had been mostly two personalities in one: the simple folk song research scientist and on the other hand the great classical composer, who also loved to travel as a gifted virtuoso, who played his own compositions.

In 1907, Bartok has been appointed as music professor at the Hungarian Music Academy Budapest. When he met the composer Claude Debussy ("Claire de Lune"), Bartok met also the impressionism with its strange Fareast elements. Serious and momentous occurrences in Bartok's life reflected in his music. Best examples are his three piano concertos from 1926, 1930, and 1945. From hammering and pounding rhythms Bartok changed into a choral type "Adagio religioso" in his third piano concerto - already while being deadly sick and terrible lonely.

His world known instrumental works are Music for Strings, Drums and Celesta (1936), Divertimento for Strings (1939), and the Concerto for Orchestra (1943). The two Rhapsodies for Violin and Orchestra (1928) grip more.