Mykola Lysenko (1842-1912): The Father of Ukrainian Music

By  Georg Predota, Interlude 

Mykola Lysenko

The political conditions in 19th century Europe spawned a rapid growth of Nationalism and Patriotism across the continent. “The pride of conquering nations and the struggle for freedom of suppressed ones gave rise to strong emotions that inspired the works of many creative artists.” We are well aware of countless composers working within this forceful stream of romanticism, ranging from Smetana and Dvořák in the Czech Lands, Edvard Grieg in Norway, Jean Sibelius in Finland, Elgar and Delius in England, Albeniz, Granados and Falla in Spain, and a whole Russian national school established by Mikhail Glinka.

Mykola Lysenko, 1869

As in many other parts of Europe, the emergence of a national spirit in Ukraine resulted in a movement that cultivated popular Ukrainian culture. At the head of this Ukrainian movement for national musical identity we find Mykola Lysenko (1842-1912), widely considered the father of Ukrainian Music. “Beyond providing the inspiration for a national compositional school and founding numerous choirs across the proto-Ukrainian countryside, he is also a national hero whose music academy in Kyiv was a hub for intellectuals, poets and musicians.” Lysenko composed his patriotic hymn in 1885, during a period when Ukrainian culture and language was once again suppressed by the government of Imperial Russia. Lord, O the Great and Almighty,

Protect our beloved Ukraine,
Bless her with freedom and light
Of your holy rays.

With learning and knowledge enlighten
Us, your children small,
In love pure and everlasting
Let us, O Lord, grow.

We pray, O Lord Almighty,
Protect our beloved Ukraine,
Grant our people and country
All your kindness and grace.

Bless us with freedom, bless us with wisdom,
Guide into kind world,
Bless us, O Lord, with good fortune
Forever and evermore.

Mykola Lysenko among the Ukrainian civic leaders in Kharkiv

Ukraine has long struggled for independence, with the borders shifting countless time as different conquerors fought over a land rich in natural resource and culture. A short-lived revolution in 1919 was brutally suppressed and the Soviet occupation inflicted one tragedy after another on the Ukrainian people. During the famine of the 1930s, millions of Ukrainian peasants starved to death because of the criminal policies of Joseph Stalin. We must add “the Nazi occupation of Western Ukraine, when the Final Solution was first implemented in cities whose wealth and cultural standing depended entirely on the vast Jewish population – cities like Lviv or Ivano-Frankivsk; the deportation of the Hutsul people in the 1930s and the deportations of the Crimean Tatar population from the beautiful Crimean peninsula, at the command of various Russian heads of state, starting with the Tsars, repeated under Stalin and then once again in 2014 after the Russian occupation. And we all know about the atrocities being committed under Vladimir Putin right now.

Mykola Lysenko: Dumka-Shooma, Op. 18 (Natalya Pasichnyk, piano)

Lysenko’s music score

Lysenko was born in Hrymky, a village near the Dnipro River between Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk. He came from an old aristocratic family, tracing his lineage back to the Cossacks of the 17th century. Received his rudimentary musical education from his mother, he left for boarding schools in Kyiv and then Karkiv, and he took piano lessons with Panochini and studied theory with Nejnkevič. From 1860 Lysenko studied at Kharkiv University and Kyiv University, joining a number of Ukrainian student societies and church choirs. Ukrainian folk music became his passion, and he began “his life-long ethnographical work of collecting and studying Ukrainian folksong.” Earlier, as a child, he had been deeply impressed by the music of peasant singing, and his nationalist sympathies were greatly stimulated by a volume of poetry by the Ukrainian national poet Taras Shevchenko. Lysenko had been given this volume of Shevchenko’s poetry by his grandfather, and his imagination was fired by words of freedom for the oppressed, especially Ukrainians. A prophetic figure in the Ukrainian Enlightenment, Shevchenko expressed the plight of the Ukrainian people in poetry in the early eighteenth century and “even today holds the status of national hero, as a symbol of the spirit of resistance.” When Shevchenko’s body was brought to Ukraine after his death in 1861, Lysenko, at the age of 19, was a pallbearer at the poet’s funeral.

Mykola Lysenko: Elegy in Memory of Shevchenko (Solomia Soroka, violin; Arthur Greene, piano)

Mykola Lysenko with teachers of Lysenko Music and Drama School

After graduating in 1865 with a degree in natural science, Lysenko entered the civil service as an arbitrator in land-ownership claims for former serfs, but two years later this particular job was made redundant. As such, he was looking to further his musical studies and he attended the Leipzig Conservatoire, with his most prominent teachers including Ferdinand David, Ignaz Moscheles, Carl Reinecke and Ernst Wenzel. In Leipzig, Lysenko began to fully understand the importance of “collection, developing, and creating Ukrainian music rather than duplicating the work of Western classical composers.” In fact, he was determined to establish a Ukrainian national school of music, and to best express his fervent patriotic and political ideals through music. He returned to Kyiv in 1869 to work as a music teacher and conductor, and continued to collect, publish and study folk music. After taking orchestration lessons from Rimsky-Korsakov in St Petersburg between 1874 and 1876, Lysenko returned to Kyiv and was active as a private teacher before opening his own school of music and drama in 1904.

Mykola Lysenko, 1900s

Being a descendant of the 17th century Cossack leader Vovgura Lys, the story of “Taras Bulba” held special significance for Lysenko. The story of this romanticized historical novella by Nikolai Gogol featuring Taras Bulba and his two sons Andriy and Ostap going to war against Poland. Taras is eventually captured, nailed and tied to a tree and set aflame. Even in this state he calls out to his men to continue the fight. Lysenko worked on his opera Taras Bulba during 1880-1891, but it was his insistence on the use of Ukrainian for performance that prevented any productions during his lifetime. He steadfastly refused to allow the opera to be translated. He did play the score to Tchaikovsky, who reportedly “listened to the whole opera with rapt attention, from time to time voicing approval and admiration. He particularly liked the passages in which national Ukrainian touches were most vivid… Tchaikovsky embraced Lysenko and congratulated him on his talented composition.” As modern critic wrote, “The opera marks a great advance on the composer’s earlier works with its folklore and nationalistic elements being much more closely integrated in a continuous musical framework which also clearly shows a debt to Tchaikovsky. But the episodic nature of the libretto, which may be due to some extent to political considerations during its revision in the Soviet era is still a serious problem. 

Grave of Mykola Lysenko

During his lifetime, Lysenko arranged roughly 500 folk songs, including both solos and choruses with piano accompaniment, and a-capella choruses. Focusing on the tonal and harmonic characteristics of Ukrainian folk songs, he “fashioned arrangement of various types of songs based on a specific Ukrainian cultural tradition.” In fact, Lysenko was adamant to clearly demonstrate the differences between the folk music of the Ukraine and that of Russia. He had been drawn to musical folklore from an early age, and made the first musical-ethnographic studies on the blind kobzar—an itinerant Ukrainian bard singing to his own accompaniment and playing a multi-stringed bandaura of kobza—Ostap Veresai in 1873. He expanded his research into other regions, and his ethno-musicological projects included a monograph on Ukrainian folk music instruments. In addition, Lysenko wrote over 120 art songs to lyrics of Taras Shevchenko as well as Lesia Ukrainka, Ivan Franko, Heinrich Heine, Oleksandr Oles, Adam Mickiewicz and others. A compilation of Lysenko’s works was published in 20 volumes in Kyiv between 1950 and 1959.

Mykola Lysenko monument

Lysenko was a capable concert pianist, and among his numerous compositions for the piano we find a sonata, two rhapsodies, a suite, a scherzo, and a rondo alongside a long list of smaller forms such as Songs without Words, nocturnes, waltzes, and polonaises. In these works he often uses the melodies and rhythms of Ukrainian folk songs, imbued with the musical style and spirit of Frédéric Chopin. Mykola Lysenko is acknowledged as the founding father of Ukrainian music, and during his lifetime he was at the center of Ukrainian cultural and musical life in Kyiv. He gave piano recitals and organized choirs for performances in Kyiv and tours through Ukraine in 1893, 1897, 1899, and 1902. On the occasion of a celebration marking 35 years as a composer, funds were raised that enabled him to open a Ukrainian School of Music “in opposition to the Russian Musical Society’s school in Kiev.” Lysenko inspired countless young Ukrainian musical minds, and his daughter Mariana followed in her father’s footsteps as a pianist, and his son Ostap also taught music in Kyiv.

Jamie Bernstein: ‘Sondheim was like an uncle’ and West Side Story a ‘fourth sibling’

Leonard Bernstein with his daughter Jamie. Picture: Getty

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM

@sophiassocials

 

Classic FM met with Jamie Bernstein to discuss her father, the new West Side Story remake, and her familial-like relationship with the late Stephen Sondheim...

Jamie Bernstein is an author, writer, narrator, and the eldest child of the American composer-conductor, Leonard Bernstein.

Her memoir Famous Father Girl, published in 2018, shared an intimate, undisguised portrait of her father as the musical genius, but also complex human being that he was.

Now with her father’s musical, West Side Story brought to the big screen for the second time in multi award-winning fashion, we sat down with Jamie to discuss the musical that she and her younger brother and sister, Alexander and Nina, refer to as the “fourth sibling”.

West Side Story (2021). Picture: Alamy

West Side Story

“I couldn’t wait to see the new film!” Jamie told Classic FM. “My brother and sister and I finally got to go to a private, very COVID-conscious screening last April, and we just were crazy for it.

“What was really fantastic for us was that musically, it was the best possible outcome. It was just stellar all the way through and filled with superstar performers.”

The high-profile music team working on the 2021 remake was made up of the talents of both the New York Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. They were directed by Venezuelan conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and the Academy Award-nominated composer David Newman, was the orchestrator and arranger.

“How I wish my dad was around to see this film, to hear this film and hear how his music sounds in it,” Jamie revealed.

“I also so wish that my father and Steven Spielberg could have met each other because they have a lot in common. They’re both incredibly warm-hearted people. They love to reach out and communicate and make connections and they’re really peas in a pod.

“I’m sorry they didn’t get to meet in real life, but they sort of did meet through the film.”

Steven Spielberg directs West Side Story (2021). Picture: Alamy

Jamie also told Classic FM about her familial-like relationship with the late composer Stephen Sondheim, who wrote the lyrics to West Side Story.

“Steve was always there, just like West Side Story was, and for the exact same reason – because he was there working with my father. But he wasn’t just a work colleague, he was really a friend of the whole family.

“He would come and visit us in the summers, come out to our country house in Connecticut for the weekend. He really hung out with us. For my siblings and I, he was like another uncle.

“We were always a little careful around Steve because you wouldn’t want to rile him; he was a scary dude when we were young! But, interestingly enough in the last 20 years of his life, he kind of mellowed out and became genuinely avuncular and was very affectionate with the three of us. He often invited us over to his house to have dinner or play anagrams and word games, which we all love so much. We got to really hang out with him in this very relaxed and affectionate way quite a lot in the last years of his life.”

Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim at the opening night of West Side Story on Broadway in 1957. Picture: Getty

Sondheim was also at the pre-screening of West Side Story in April. “He actually had his own private screen with nobody else there because they were so keen to keep him safe from COVID, since he was 90,” Jamie adds.

At the end of the screening, Sondheim told Steven Spielberg how much he adored the film. He thought it was sensational. He was over the moon and he said to Spielberg, “I can't wait to see it at the public premiere when there's a full audience”.

But Sondheim died three days before that New York premiere, so he missed it.

“It was heartbreaking, we missed him so badly,” Jamie says sadly. “It was very bittersweet that night.”

Jamie Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim far left. Picture: Getty

One of Sondheim’s most emotive examples of his lyric-writing is in the song ‘Somewhere’ from West Side Story.

In the Broadway musical, it’s part of a dream-like sequence. In the 1961 film, it’s a duet sung between Tony and Maria as they long for a place where they can be together. However, in the 2021 remake, the song is sung solo by the character Valentina (played by Rita Moreno) on a generational level, as the older character mourns the missed opportunities for the young people in the film.

“‘Somewhere’ has taken on a personality in the world all unto itself,” Jamie tells Classic FM, “because it’s become such an anthem and expresses all our collective longing for a world where we take care of each other and are kind to each other. A world where love rises above hatred, which is what West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet are about.

“It’s not only in Sondheim’s lyrics, but it’s in my father’s music too.

“Musically, the great thing about West Side Story is that it doesn’t need to go in a box,” Jamie concludes.

“The whole fun of West Side Story is that it has elements of musical theatre, elements of opera, bebop jazz, Latin Caribbean; all of these genres are mixed together into a work of art that really redefined the context in which it was originally presented on Broadway.

“It just exploded the boundaries in such a wonderful way that really nobody could go back after that.”

The Bernstein family: Felicia, Leonard, Alexander, and Jamie (seen pointing at the music). Picture: Getty

Family and the new Bradley Cooper film

It is clear from the way Jamie speaks about music that she is incredibly passionate about the art form, but also gifted with an innate understanding of musical theory, thanks to her upbringing.

“As children, my brother, sister and I all took piano lessons”, Jamie told Classic FM, “but we didn’t really like our piano lessons. We never practised except in that sickening half hour before the piano teacher came to the house on Tuesday afternoons, when we tried to remember what we were supposed to have practised last week.

“My brother used to get stomach aches right before his piano lesson. And he says that to this very day, around 4pm on a Tuesday afternoon, he still gets a similar feeling,” Jamie laughs.

“Aside from the piano, the three of us are very musical. We’re always talking about music and singing along to whatever comes up on the radio – we feel music really viscerally.

“But because of this bright light that we lived under, we couldn’t even imagine doing it ourselves. Well, I did try, but I never could shut off the voice in my head that would say ‘Who do you think you are and what do you think you’re doing?’.”

Jamie and Leonard Bernstein in 1980. Picture: Getty

The ‘bright light’ of her father will be illuminating the big screen once again, but this time in the form of an upcoming film about the composer, and his family, starring Bradley Cooper.

“We’re in regular communication with Bradley Cooper, because he’s very interested in achieving a kind of authenticity about [Leonard Bernstein].

“He’s starring in the film, co writing the screenplay and he's directing. He’s doing everything. He’s a total immersion guy, and he’s just maniacally immersed in all things Leonard Bernstein, so he’s asking us lots of questions all the time and has been very generous with his whole process.

“It’s incredibly strange and disconcerting, to have this young movie star portraying our dad at several ages. Bradley portrays my dad when he was in his 20s, 40s, 50s, and then in his final years, too, so he’s going to be going through many transformations.

“It’s not a biopic, strictly speaking, it doesn’t tell the story of Leonard Bernstein from birth to death – it’s not that kind of a film at all. In fact, it’s a portrait of our parents’ marriage. It’s about something very specific and very personal for us. We’re really struck by the fact that this was the aspect of the story that Bradley decided to focus in on and we’re very excited about Carey Mulligan as our mother Felicia; I promise you she is going to send it to the moon in a rocket.

“It’s going to be amazing.”

Bernstein and his wife Costa Rican-American actress Felicia Montealegre. Picture: Getty

Jamie is due to speak at the Jewish Music Institute on 10 March 2022 about her father, alongside speakers representing other Jewish musical figures including, Yehudi Menuhin.

“It’s important we never miss the opportunity to celebrate them,” Jamie says ahead of her appearance at the fundraising gala.

“My father’s parents were both from Ukraine, so these last few weeks, I've had some very intense feelings about where we all came from.

“Back at the turn of the 20th century, which is when my grandparents finally had to emigrate, because there were pogroms and terrible anti semitism. At that time, the country was not a very welcoming environment for Ukrainians who were Jewish.

“There are so many Jewish musicians in the world whose ancestors came from Ukraine. That whole area produced incredible prodigies and geniuses who were able to get out into the world and share their art with the rest of us.

“Today my heart swells with hope that everyone in Ukraine will be okay. There’s a great line from my dad, about what music does in times like these.

“After President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, my father conducted a performance of Mahler's Second Symphony, the resurrection, which was broadcast nationally as a gesture of comfort to everyone.

“A couple days later he was speaking about the circumstances and my dad said: ‘This will be our reply to violence. To make music more intensely, more beautifully, and more devotedly, than ever before.’”

Ukrainian pianist plays a final Chopin melody before fleeing ruined home near Kyiv

Irina plays piano in her destroyed hometown of Bila Tserkva. Picture: TikTok @kkkarysia

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM London

@sophiassocials

 

Irina Maniukina plays her piano amidst a destroyed home, one last time, before being forced to flee. 

Irina Maniukina brushes the ashes off the keys of her grand piano, as she sits down to make music in her family home one last time.

In a TikTok video filmed by her daughter, Karina, the 48-year-old mother of two takes a deep breath of composure, before she starts to play Chopin’s Étude Op. 25, No. 1 (Aeolian Harp). As she performs, the camera pans around the destroyed house, showing debris, smashed glass, and rubble.

Hours earlier, a bomb landed just 30 feet away from her home in Bila Tserkva, south of Kyiv. Through the blown-out windows in another TikTok video posted by Karina, you can see her neighbours gathered around a huge crater in the ground.

In a pinned video comment, Karina writes: “Do not judge, my mother is a professional pianist and decided to play to let go of this case.”

The video, which has been watched almost 2 million times on the platform, has been shared across other social media channels, and commenters have drawn comparisons to the film The Pianist.

Composer Howard Goodall drew comparisons to the November Uprising, also known as the Polish-Russian War 1830-1. The BAFTA-winning musician suggested it was particularly poignant that Irina played Chopin, as he also had to leave his home country when Russians invaded.

Prior to the bomb explosion outside their house, Karina said there was no warning; no plane sounds, no air sirens, just an “orange and black” cloud when the blast hit.

“After the explosion, everything was smashed and in ashes,” Karina said. “I looked around the house and saw that a fire was starting in my brother’s room. I had already called my mother and they rushed as quickly as possible. They couldn’t drive straight to the house. Since the wires just lay on the road.

“They ran into the house and all together ran to put out the fire.

“After that, everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and my mother decided to gather her thoughts and sit down at the piano.”

Houses destroyed during Bila Tserkva air strikes. Picture: Getty

Karina said the performance “wasn’t a sad moment”, as the music helped her remember all the good times they had in that house.

“[My mother has] been playing all her life and she even graduated as a pianist,” said Karina. “She [played because she] wanted to forget about the war and her worries for our safety [in that moment].”

The family were then forced to flee from their home, and last week, made the 300-mile journey to the western Ukrainian city, Lviv.

They’re currently looking for an apartment, but Karina has shared that “they’re all occupied”.

Lili Boulanger - Her Music and Her Life

One of the most treasured composers in France is the younger sister of Nadia Boulanger, Lili Boulanger (1893 – 1918). While the older sister lived a long and fruitful life as one of the most important pedagogues, bearing her influence upon musicians from Aaron Copland to Astor Piazzolla to Daniel Baremboim, Lili’s short life is remembered only by her surviving works.

Six years younger than Nadia, Lili was a child prodigy and accompanied her sister to her classes at the Paris Conservatoire. Studying with prominent French composer and organist, Louis Vierne, Lili could play the piano, violin, cello and harp. Accordingly to Nadia, Gabriel Fauré used to bring his latest songs and read them together with Lili. Though illness since young had kept her from rigorous practice, she was a keen musician whose curiosity brought her to the latest works of Debussy and compositional classes with the greatest teachers of the time. At the age of nineteen, in 1913, Lili made history as the first woman winner of the Prix de Rome; she later visited Rome and wrote some of her best works at the Villa Medici.

The Prix de Rome was one of the most prestigious prizes at that time, offering scholarship through fierce competition in various fields. The Music Composition prize was awarded almost yearly from 1803 to 1968, often gracing such famous names as Hector Berlioz, Charles Gounod, Claude Debussy, Florent Schmitt, et cetera, and the list goes on. Lili’s winning work in 1913 was her cantata Faust et Helene (she had 31 votes out of 36 jurors), of which many recordings have been made in recent years.

Her stay stopped short by the war, she returned to France and continued her work. In the midst of the difficult times, she managed to compose a great deal of music while caring for wounded soldiers. Completing as many works as she could, she finally succumbed her fight with Crohn’s Disease, an intestinal inflammation and died at the tender age of 24. She dictated her last work Pie Jesu to her sister during her last days.

Lili’s knowledge of the prevailing style of that time gave her a wide and varied vocabulary to express her musical ideas. Her command in choral writing ranked as one of the best, while her instrumental works add a unique colour and elegance to the repertoire. Her writing was mature beyond her age, with instrumentation and treatment of voices that resemble Debussy and Massanet.

Still widely known in France, there are no shortages of recordings of Lili’s works. The Faust et Helene, among other choral works, are still being performed and recorded. Her works for violin and piano are in print and widely distributed, while a foundation set up by recent scholars have kept alive the memory of Lili and her sister Nadia. A manuscript of an unfinished Theme and Variation has recently been discovered, completed and recorded by French scholar and pianist Emile Naoumoff.

Discography

Recommended works:
Faust et Hélène, for mezzo-soprano, tenor, baritone, and orchestra
Psaume 24, for tenor, choir, organ, and orchestra
Psaume 130, for alto, tenor, choir, organ, and orchestra
4 Melodies for soprano, tenor and piano
3 Pieces for piano
Nocturne for violin and piano

Piano Practice: Etudes from Planet Impossible

by Hermione Lai , Interlude

Erard piano, c. 1830

Virtuosity is totally intoxicating. To me, there is nothing ambivalent in a performance of a piece of music of such complexity that only the most exceptional artists can tackle it. It’s like an athletic event of the most demanding physicality, and in the case of musical performance, at the highest level of craftsmanship and artistic skill. It was the violinist Niccolò Paganini who first personified the exciting concept of virtuosity. He could extract sounds and effects from his instrument that nobody had been able to imagine. Paganini was capable of such virtuosity that otherworldly powers were ascribed to him. Contemporaries had no qualms suggesting that Paganini had made a pact with the devil. When Franz Liszt heard him in performance, he decided to equal Paganini’s skill on the piano. Liszt’s quest was aided by a piano of better mechanical opportunity and greater dynamic range supplied by the instrument builder Érard.

Franz Liszt

Érard introduced the so-called repetition mechanism, which allowed for more rapid repetition and at the same time increased sensitivity to key touch, which enhanced the possibilities for musical expression. Paris became the center of piano building and virtuoso performance, with “dozens of steel-fingered, chromium-plated virtuosos playing there, including Kalkbrenner, Herz, Hiller, Hünten, Pixis, Thalberg, Dreyschock, and Cramer… There was Dreyschock with his octaves and Kalkbrenner with his passage-work, and Thalberg with his trick of making two hands sound like three.” Heinrich Heine ranked the mightiest piano virtuosos, calling “Thalberg a king, Liszt a prophet, Chopin a poet, Herz an advocate, Kalkbrenner a minstrel, Mme Pleyel a sibyl, and Döhler a pianist.” The cult of the piano virtuoso was exploding in Paris, and as they attempted to outperform each other, etudes of staggering difficulties started to appear. In this blog, we will listen to a brief survey of mind-boggling etudes from the planet impossible. 

Liszt: Transcendental Etudes No. 4: ‘Mazeppa’

Franz Liszt was the undisputed superstar, and his performance style was described as “containing abandonment, a liberated feeling, but even when it becomes impetuous and energetic in his fortissimo, it is still without harshness and dryness. He draws from the piano tones that are purer, mellower and stronger than anyone has been able to do; his touch has an indescribable charm.” The reviewer doesn’t actually focus on pianistic pyrotechnics, but on his delicate touch and charm, and “even his handsome profile.” Apparently, Liszt’s performances induced fainting spells among female listeners, which were subsequently dubbed “Liztomania” by Heinrich Heine. This “Liszt-Fever,” as it was called, was thought to have been a medical condition that was extremely contagious.

Franz Liszt, 1858

Heinrich Heine offered an alternate explanation. “A physician, whose specialty is female diseases, and whom I asked to explain the magic our Liszt exerted upon the public, smiled in the strangest manner, and at the same time said all sorts of things about magnetism, galvanism, electricity, of the contagion of the close hall filled with countless wax lights and several hundred perfumed and perspiring human beings, of historical epilepsy, of the phenomenon of tickling, of musical cantharides, and other scabrous things, which, I believe have reference to the mysteries of the Bona Dea (An ancient Roman goddess associated with chastity and fertility). Perhaps the solution of the question is not buried in such adventurous depths, but floats on a very prosaic surface. It seems to me at times that all this sorcery may be explained by the fact that no one on earth knows so well how to organize his successes, or rather their ‘Mise-en-scène,’ as our Franz Liszt.” Seemingly, Liszt already understood that presentation was everything. 

Henryk Siemiradzki: Chopin concert

Still to this day, virtuosity is often considered negatively, “as a performance aimed at a public that outwardly demonstrates exceptional agility in terms of instrumental or vocal technique, especially as related to speed of execution. Such displays are both admired as demonstration of a divine gift and condemned as a diabolical perversion of musical practice.” In the exciting world of the piano virtuoso, Frédéric Chopin held a special position. He was described as “greater than the greatest of pianists, he is the only one.” And an admirer added “not only do we love him, we love ourselves in him.” Liszt and Chopin began their careers at roughly the same time, and whatever has been written down in the history books, they never really enjoyed a close personal friendship. Their professional and personal lives often intersected and overlapped, to be sure, as they appeared together in concerts and as part of events organized for charity, with their performances always the center of attention. Reviews referred to them as the two greatest virtuosos of the day, artists “both of whom have attained the same lofty standard and sense with equal depth to the essence of art.”

Chopin: Etude Op. 10, No. 4 “Torrent étude”

To be sure, as their relationship as friends and fellow artists developed they did hold shared admiration for each other’s talent. Liszt wrote about Chopin, “never was there a nature more imbued with whims, caprices, and abrupt eccentricities. His imagination was fiery, his emotions violent, and his physical being feeble and sickly. Who can possibly understand the suffering deriving from such a contradiction?” And tellingly he added, “Chopin’s character is composed of a thousand shades which in crossing one another become so disguised as to be indistinguishable.” Long after Chopin’s death, Liszt commented to Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein, “no one compares to him; he shines lonely, peerless in the firmament of art.” Liszt never highlights the technical aspects of Chopin’s compositions, but focuses instead—as Schumann would do—on the depths of artistic expression. In a sense, virtuosity becomes a necessary evil for complex musical and personal expressions. Chopin, in turn, was critical of the purely pyrotechnical elements of many of Liszt’s compositions for the piano, but he was clearly aware of the magnetic powers of performance offered by Liszt. As he almost jealously writes to Ferdinand Hiller in 1833, “I hardly even know what my pen is scribbling, since at the moment Liszt is playing one of my etudes and distracting my attention from my respectable thoughts. I would love myself to acquire from him the manner in which he plays my etudes.” 

Leopold Godowsky

Heralded as the “Buddha of the Piano” among musical giants, Polish-American pianist and composer Leopold Godowsky (1870-1938) once wrote, “I love the piano and those who love the piano. The piano as a medium for expression is a whole world by itself. No other instrument can fill or replace its own say in the world of emotion, sentiment, poetry, imagery and fancy.” Musically speaking, the Chopin etudes really can’t be improved upon. However, Godowsky used them as the basis for creating over fifty monumentally difficult studies that have achieved legendary status among enthusiastic pianists. Fashioned over a number of years, these Studies reflect “Godowsky’s success as a piano pedagogue, his interest in resolving technical problems and developing pianistic vocabulary, his ambition to perfect his own mechanism, his encyclopedic knowledge of piano literature, the need to extend his own repertoire, and his unusual fascination in arranging piano works.” As a famed critic in the 1960’s wrote, “they are probably the most impossibly difficult things ever written for the piano. These are fantastic exercises that push piano technique to heights undreamed of even by Liszt.”

Chopin-Godowsky: Etude No. 25 in A-flat major

Shortly before his death in 1938, Godowsky wrote on the process of arrangement, “To justify myself in the perennial controversy which exists regarding the aesthetic and ethical rights of one composer to use another composer’s works, themes, or ideas as a foundation for paraphrases, variations, etc., I desire to say that it depends entirely upon the intention, nature and quality of the work of the so-called ‘transgressor.’ Since the Chopin Études are universally acknowledged to be the highest attainment in étude form in the realm of beautiful pianoforte music combined with mechanical and technical usefulness, I thought it wisest to build upon their solid and invulnerable foundation to further the art of pianoforte playing. Being averse to any tampering with the text of any master work when played in the original form, I would condemn any artist for taking liberties with the works of Chopin or any other great composer. The original Chopin Studies remain as intact as they were before any arrangements of them were published; in fact, numerous artists claim that after assiduously studying my versions, many hidden beauties in the original Studies will reveal themselves to the observant student.” 

György Ligeti

The Hungarian composer György Ligeti composed his cycle of devilishly difficult 18 études for solo piano between 1985 and 2001. Ligeti continues in the tradition of the virtuoso piano writing seen in Chopin, Liszt and Godowsky, and his etudes are considered “the most important additions to the solo-piano repertoire in the last half-century.” Technically way beyond the abilities of mere mortals, these works are shaped from influences taken from “the polyrhythmic player-piano studies of Conlon Nancarrow to the music of sub-Saharan Africa, chaos theory to the minimalism of Steve Reich. In the Études, Ligeti effectively created a new pianistic vocabulary, while remaining exuberantly himself—the moments when the music seems to evaporate in the highest reaches of the keyboard, or flounders in its lowest depths.” The 18 études are arranged in three books of six works each.

Ligeti: Etude No.13 “The Devil’s Staircase”

Originally, Ligeti had only wanted to compose twelve studies, following in the footsteps of Debussy’s Études, but he “enjoyed writing the pieces so much that he embarked on a third book.” Sadly, Book 3 is incomplete as the composed fell ill and died a couple of years later. Ligeti gave the various etudes titles containing a mixture of technical terms and poetic descriptions. In Book 1 we find “Désordre,” a study in fast polyrhythms moving up and down the keyboard, with the right hand playing only white keys while the left hand is restricted to black keys. In “Touches bloquées” two different rhythmic patterns interlock. One hand plays rapid, even melodic patterns while the other hand blocks some of the keys by silently depressing them. “Automne à Varsovie” pays homage to the annual festival of contemporary music in Warsaw Poland, and in Book II we find among others “Galamb Borong,” “Fém,” “Der Zauberlehrling,” and “L’escalier du diable” (The Devil’s Staircase). This hard-driving toccata that moves polymetrically up and down the keyboard might be the most terrifying work in the entire piano repertoire.

Charles-Valentin Alkan

In his day, Charles-Valentin Alkan (1819- 1888) was mentioned in the same breath with Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt. Not only was Alkan—he was born of Jewish parentage as Charles-Valentin Morhange—one of the most celebrated pianists of the nineteenth century, he was also a most unusual composer, “remarkable in both technique and imagination.” Alkan gave his first public concert as a violinist at age seven. By that time, he already had been a student at the Paris Conservatoire for almost 2 years, and during his piano audition the examiners reported, “This child has amazing abilities.” By age fourteen, Alkan had composed a set of piano variations on a theme by Daniel Steibelt, published as Opus 1. He soon performed in the leading salons and concert halls of Paris, and made friends with Franz Liszt, Eugène Delacroix, George Sand and Frédéric Chopin. He continued to publish piano music, including the Trois Grandes Etudes, one for the left hand, one for the right hand, and the third for both hands together. Robert Schumann commented on these pieces as follows, “One is startled by such false, such unnatural art…the last piece titled ‘Morte’ is a crabbed waste, overgrown with brush and weeds…nothing is to be found but black on black.” By the age of 25, Alkan had reached the peak of his career, with Franz Liszt providing glowing reviews of his performances and even recommending him for the post of Professor at the Geneva Conservatoire. And his “Train Journey” must be one of the most demanding etudes in the piano repertoire.

Jean-Amédée Lefroid de Méreaux

We could seemingly go on forever and find fiendishly difficult and often musically satisfying etudes by Alexander Scriabin, Anton Rubinstein or Moritz Moszkowski, to name only a selected few. But I wanted to conclude this blog with an etude by the relatively little-known Jean-Amédée Lefroid de Méreaux (1802-1874). A French composer, pianist, piano teacher, musicologist and music critic, he was initially groomed to enter the legal profession, but he also received first prize in a piano competition at the Lycée Charlemagne. Desperate to pursue a career in music, he was allowed to take harmony lessons from Anton Reicha at the Conservatoire de Paris, and he published his first works at the age of 14. Today, he is probably best known for his 60 Grandes Études, Op. 63, compositions of immense technical difficulty. Marc-André Hamelin considered them more difficult than those of Charles-Valentin Alkan. However, he also calls them unmusical. This simple statement underscores the idea that rapid velocity, large intervals within very short periods of time, escalations of ornamentation and variations, notes doubled an octave apart are “processes of pointless acrobatics and soulless agility.” We all know that virtuosity can be seen as an elaborate magic trick, but does this make it any less exciting? Even the digital midi version of the “Scherzo alla Neapolitana” offers plenty of excitement, don’t you think?