Klaus Döring's Classical Music/Klaus Döring's Klassische Musik

6 April 2022, 15:02 | Updated: 6 April 2022, 16:23 Tchaikovsky stayed in Trostyanets in his 20s; the city is now destroyed.  Picture: Getty By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM @sophiassocials   One of Russia’s most famous composers once called Trostyanets home. Now the city lies in ruin.  Trostyanets is a city in the north-east of Ukraine, which once played host to Russian composer, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Aged 24, the famed 19th-century Romantic composer stayed in a villa in the city of Trostyanets, then a part of the Russian Empire. It was here he composed his first symphonic work - the overture ‘The Storm’ (1864). The villa, like the rest of Trostyanets, now lies in ruin following the capture of the city on 1 March 2022 during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. After a month of occupation, where civilians were reportedly killed by Russian hand grenades, Ukrainian forces used heavy shelling to gain back control of Trostyanets. Though the Russian army have now left ...

by Georg Predota , Interlude Johann Sebastian Bach In the course of your instrumental studies or attending concert performances you might have come across works title “Partita.” It is a slippery term, and throughout history it has designated a number of different concepts. At times it was used to indicate a variation, a piece, a set of Variations and a Suite or other multi-movement genres. In the late 16th and early 17th centuries it was applied to variations or elaborations on a bass of a traditional tune. Over time this evolved into a collective term for a set of variations. This musical application seems to have been rather popular in Italy, with keyboard compositions thus titled by Trabaci, Frescobaldi, Rossi, Strozzi and Scarlatti. However, this musical form also made it into Germany and  Johann Sebastian Bach  (1685-1750) composed a number of Partitas on various chorale melodies. Bach: Partita No. 1 As the 17th century progressed, “Partita” acquired an additional m...

by   Georg Predota, Interlude Vltava in Prague The conductor Adolf Čech (1841-1903) premiered a number of significant works by Antonín Dvořák, Zdeněk Fibich, and Bedřich Smetana. Such was the case on 4 April 1875, when he took the podium with the Orchestra of the Prague Provisional Theatre in a musical depiction of Bohemia’s longest river. Smetana tone poem  Vltava  (The Moldau), perhaps the most famous  river journey  ever sounded in music, was rapturously received by audiences and critics alike. Adolf Čech Smetana had actually composed the work after losing his hearing completely. He had noticed substantial hearing loss in 1874, and he informed the Provisional Theatre’s management of his situation. “It was in July… that I noticed that in one of my ears the notes in the higher octaves were pitched differently than in the other and that at times I had a tingling feeling in my ears and heard a noise as though I was standing by a mighty waterfall. My con...

by Georg Predota , Interlude “There are only two means of refuge from the miseries of life: Music and Cats!” Albert Schweitzer For many of us mere mortals, it seems utterly unfair that some fortuitous individuals should inherit multiple talents and abilities. Take for example the polymath genius Albert Schweitzer, who made major scholarly contributions to theology and music in the early years of the twentieth century. Not satisfied, he abandoned his academic career and established a medical mission in Africa, a legacy of humanitarian service that is still active today. Schweitzer was born 14 January 1875 in Kayserberg in Upper Alsace, the son of a Lutheran pastor. He took organ lessons at an early age, and started private lessons with the famed Parisian organist Charles-Marie Widor in 1893. His passion for organ music was paralleled by a fascination with theology and he concordantly entered Strasbourg University to study theology and philosophy. He submitted a dissertation on ...

by   Janet Horvath , Interlude Sergei Rachmaninoff You have to hand it to composer Sergei Rachmaninoff—his three symphonies, the Symphonic Dances, four piano concertos, and the  Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini  are all written in minor keys. Other favorites, perhaps less frequently performed, are also in minor keys. Is there a reason? Born in 1873, a leading piano virtuoso, composer, and conductor, Rachmaninoff became one of the last major figures of Russian romanticism. As a youngster, he began piano by the age of four, and displayed uncanny talent but he also experienced emotional ups and downs over his relationships and the successes or failures of his music. He lost two of his sisters, one to diphtheria and the other to pernicious anemia, and his father left the family. The first performance of his Symphony No. 1 in D minor in 1897, a fiasco, led to scathing and caustic reviews. Rachmaninoff, overcome with despair, descended into a depression that lasted fou...

by   Georg Predota, Interlude The Tchaikovsky family in 1848. Left to right: Pyotr (nicknamed Petya), Alexandra Andreyevna (mother), Alexandra (sister), Zinaida, Nikolay, Ippolit, Ilya Petrovich (father) © englishwordplay.com Even at the best of times, the relationship between Russia and the Ukraine has been somewhat troubled. Although they share much of their early history, the Mongol invasion in the 13th century initiated a distinct division between the Russian and Ukrainian people. Tensions escalated over subsequent centuries, and from the mid 17th century, the Ukraine was gradually absorbed into the Russian Empire. In 1918, Ukraine declared its full independence from the Russian Republic, and it took two treaties to calm the military conflict. In 1922, both Ukraine and Russia were founding members of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and both were signatories to the termination of the union in December 1991. Ever since, acute and ongoing territorial and political dispute...

by   Georg Predota, Interlude It really is too bad that Georg Philipp Telemann (1681-1767) did not have a large social network following! Throughout his long and industrious career, he wrote well over 3000 works. It’s no surprise that 18th-century critics unanimously considered him among the best composers of his time. Leading theorists held up his works as compositional models, and his fame extended to Holland, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Italy, England, Spain, Norway, Denmark and the Baltic lands. Yet by the early years of the 19th century, appreciation of Telemann’s music was in rapid decline. The main criticism turned out to be rather tongue in cheek. “In general,” a music historian wrote, “Telemann would have been greater had it not been so easy for him to write so unspeakably much. Polygraphs seldom produce masterpieces.” And once his music was compared according to the very different aesthetic standards of  J. S. Bach , Telemann was judged to be merely “fash...