Robert Schumann
(Born in Zwickau, Germany in 1810; died in Endenich, Germany in 1856)
Traümerai, No. 7 from Kinderszenen, Op. 15 (Arranged for String Orchestra)
During Schumann’s life, the Romantic period in music was just coming into its own, creating music that favored expressiveness and emotion as the essence of Art. Schumann sometimes described it as making music out of pictures, by which he meant the pictures made by words as much as by paint. Indeed, those whom Schumann considered his artistic heroes included Lord Byron along with Beethoven. The son of a bookseller who had fostered a love of literature in his children, the young Schumann was as well versed in prose as he was music, and his love for words and thoughts deeply informed his composing.
Schumann began his musical career hoping to become a piano virtuoso, and thus much of his early works were composed for piano. This is also how he met the love of his life, Clara Wieck, whose father was Schumann’s renowned piano teacher. A virtuoso’s career never materialized for Schumann, but Clara became his artistic muse, and then in 1840, his wife.
The year 1838 was a particularly wonderful year for Schumann’s piano compositions and Kinderszenen (“Scenes from Childhood”), in particular, was inspired by Clara. Kinderszenen’s set of 13 pieces were meant to evoke the magic of childhood as remembered by an adult—a sublimely sophisticated approach—and each scene in the set bore a very deliberately chosen title. The intimacy of emotion that Schumann captures in these vignettes was something that he had an uncanny talent for and which can be found in much of his work. The scene titled “Traümerai” may be his greatest achievement in this regard, and it serves as the emotional anchor of the whole set of Kinderszenen.
Typically translated as “Dreaming” or “Reverie,” Traümerai captures a child’s dreaming with its innocence and naiveté, tinged with that bittersweetness of an adult reverie on a childhood long past. The work is in the form of a simple song, but what makes it uniquely beautiful is how Schumann manipulates the harmonies below its repeating, lovely melody. By simply changing a few notes, Schumann transforms sweet contentment into wistful yearning, shifting between innocent childhood and nostalgic adulthood. And like many masterpieces, Traümerai is as meltingly beautiful arranged for strings, or any instrument, as it is on piano.
The great pianist Vladimir Horowitz, later in his rich and long concertizing life, became extremely fond of playing Traümerai as one of his encores. Hardly a typical encore piece, Horowitz simply adored Traümerai and played it anyway—and it never failed to please. Probably no performer ever gave it more publicity than Horowitz, especially in what was likely one of the most famous recitals in modern times. After decades of being an ex-patriot in America during the Cold War, the native-Russian-turned-American-citizen Horowitz went back to Moscow in 1986 to give several recitals and “see his homeland one last time,” and to be, as he described it, an “ambassador of beauty.” Welcomed like a heroic Prodigal son, Horowitz was received with wide-open arms by his Soviet audience. His recital in Moscow was televised, of course, and received top billing in both Russia and the United States. Horowitz played Schumann’s lovely Traümerai as one of this recital’s encores, because, as he said, “It may look simple on the page, but it is a masterpiece.” The work’s simplicity and deep beauty spoke volumes on the world stage then, just as it does now, and just as it always has since Schumann first wrote it almost two-centuries ago.
Sergei Prokofiev
(Born in Sontskova, Ukraine in 1891; died in Moscow in 1953)
Violin Concerto No. 2 in G-minor, Op. 63
1. Allegro moderato
2. Andante assai
3. Allegro ben marcato
Prokofiev’s marvelous, somewhat quixotic, Violin Concerto No. 2 bears the tell-tale signs of a composer in transition, both ideologically and geographically. It was commissioned for the Belgian violin virtuoso Robert Soetens (1897-1997) by a group of the violinist’s admirers and the work was completed and premiered in 1935. At the time, Prokofiev had been gradually repatriating himself back to Moscow after more than two decades of building his career in the West as a composer, conductor and pianist. He was also evolving musically, shedding some of the ferocious modernism of his former years and actively embracing the new Soviet musical aesthetic of simplicity and lyricism. The Second Violin Concerto was composed in many places while Prokofiev wrapped up his touring life. As he recalled in his autobiography, the first theme of the first movement was written in Paris, the main theme of the second in Voronezh, the orchestration was completed in Baku, and then the premiere took place in Madrid. And the music itself is equally peripatetic, harboring multiple personalities: lyricism, anxiety, sarcasm, naiveté, and wildness, all alongside a hint that, given the right nudge, all hell might just break loose.
The Concerto is also incredibly important in Prokofiev’s evolution as a composer. Immediately after this piece was completed he set to work on two of his greatest achievements: the ballet Romeo and Juliet, and Symphony No. 5, which are also two of the 20th Century’s masterpieces. The lyricisms found in the ballet—those exotic, charming melodies—appear to have had the Violin Concerto as their drawing board. Certainly, the beautiful theme in the Concerto’s second movement Andante foretells those splendid love moments between the two star-cross’d lovers. Likewise, the massive sonic canvases that occasionally take over the Concerto seem to have gotten fully worked out in the Fifth Symphony. The percussive color that is so richly displayed in the Symphony is so indulged in the Concerto that the latter might rightly be considered a Concerto for Violin, Bass Drum and Orchestra during its first and third movements. In addition, the castanets that accompany the main violin theme in the Concerto’s third movement seem to have set the stage for the Fifth Symphony’s delicious percussion extravagance in its scherzo movement.
There are many curious and exciting moments in this Concerto, from the Concerto’s dark and longing opening theme, through the soaring and pure melody of the second movement, to the witty and sarcastically jangled dance-like third movement. It is the violinist who must give the Concerto’s many personalities their fair voice, and whose virtuosity must shine through in its splendidly challenging technical passages. We, as an audience, get to enjoy thereby one of the most original and fun masterpieces of Prokofiev’s great career.
Ludwig van Beethoven
(Born in Bonn in 1770; died in Vienna in 1827)
Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92
1. Poco sostenuto – Vivace
2. Allegretto
3. Presto – Assai meno Presto
4. Allegro con brio
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 is undeniably one of the most beloved symphonies ever written, and its famous second movement is one of those rare creations that seem to appear once a century. That it is arguably Beethoven’s most skillfully realized symphony and composed at the height of his melodic abilities only partially explain what is so inspiring about this extraordinary work. What has truly enraptured listeners throughout two centuries is its infectious exuberance and joyful intensity.
The slow Introduction to the first movement, with its broad swashes of colorful chords and its strident woodwind lines descending between them, may seem to be a lovely reverie in luxuriant sonority. But in fact this Introduction establishes two important parameters that will define the entire symphony: mood and rhythm. While we are basking in a feeling of regality and gladness, the Introduction’s scalar patterns and lengthy sets of repeated notes are laying the groundwork for an extraordinary moment which will define the symphony’s rhythm. At the bridge between the Introduction and the Exposition (the fast, main section of the movement), harmony and melody quickly evaporate, leaving the winds and the strings trading notes. This leaves us in an absolutely static moment of simple rhythm, but one which inventively morphs into the new, delightful skipping rhythm of the Exposition’s first main theme. Though the rest of the movement spans a fairly vast amount of melodic and harmonic ground, this new morphed rhythm remains persistent throughout nearly every measure. Uninhibited by Beethoven’s usual struggle between Fate and triumph, this movement and its persistent, carefree rhythm evoke a mood of genuine ebullience. It allows, as well, for the energy to steadily intensify until the ending coda arrives, where, as the basses start welling up like sea surges, the horns proclaim the theme for the last time in a manner so glorious it sets nerves of joy ablaze.
The second movement Allegretto is a work of such otherworldly mastery and beauty, it is impossible not to be swept into its realms. This movement, too, revolves much around a persistent and simple rhythmic motif: a two-bar phrase of a quarter note, followed by two eighth notes and then two quarter notes. But where the first movement’s rhythm acted as an engine, the rhythm here in the Allegretto performs as an emotional transporter. The effect is ingenious. The movement starts with a solitary, solemn chord which is then followed by a rather skeletal melody upon the simple rhythmic motif. From here, an extraordinary set of variations begin: the rhythm gently propelling us through increasingly more beautiful and mysterious layers, absorbing us into haunting contours of sublime beauty. And then, the rhythm calmly brings us back. As the musical layers peel away, the rhythm also begins to falter, until we find ourselves back to the solemn chord with which the movement began.
The third movement scherzo, Presto, begins in a blaze of animation and with a rhythmical pattern taken from the static metamorphosis in the first movement. The energetic intensity of this music is greater than most of Beethoven’s former scherzos, and its contrasting middle section, the Trio, also builds into a more powerful air than its usual relaxed role. Although the Trio’s theme is believed to be based on an old Austrian hymn, it is hardly treated as such. For example, the famous and powerful moment near the middle of the Trio when the horns begin a syncopated, half-step warbling, building up incredible tension, until the exalted phrase of the hymn is joyfully released by the strings, trumpets and timpani. The movement ends with the Presto firmly reestablishing its quick-stepped pace.
The Finale continues the breezy and frenetic nature of the Scherzo but at an astonishingly higher intensity and with extraordinary vitality. The first two short phrases provide much of what, again, will be a persistent rhythm throughout the movement, and then the first theme essentially begins a rollicking and steady descent into joyful lunacy. In a sense, the entire Finale serves as a coda to the entire symphony, finalizing the work’s joyful theme with a nearly uncontrollable elation. The conductor and musicologist Donald Francis Tovey called it a “triumph of bacchic fury,” and it is indeed one of the most wonderfully energetic utterances ever created, steeped in joyous vigor and triumphal gladness.
As enshrined as one of Western music’s greatest masterpieces as Beethoven’s Seventh has become, the circumstances of its first public performance makes for a wonderfully ironic historical footnote. The Seventh was premiered in December 1813, along with Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony and his curious “Wellington’s Victory” (“Battle Symphony”). The concert was held to benefit Austrian and Bavarian soldiers disabled at the Battle of Hanau against Napoleon. The affair was organized by Johannes Maelzel, inventor of the metronome and (among other peculiar devices) the panharmonicon, a humongous mechanical orchestra. Maelzel persuaded Beethoven to compose a symphonic work for his contraption for the concert, which resulted in “Wellington’s Victory” (which commemorated a recent Napoleonic defeat in Vitoria, Spain). Once the contraption inevitably broke, Beethoven hurriedly wrote the parts out for a real orchestra. Even more unique about the work, however, is that it also employed live cannon and musket fire in time with the music (long before Tchaikovsky’s own “1812 Overture”). Even more extraordinary, was that participating in its performance were such luminaries as the composers Hummel, Meyerbeer, Spohr, Moscheles and Salieri. The “Battle Symphony” was hands-down the unabashed hit of the evening, leaving the two other symphonies in the shadows. However, even in 1813, the Seventh’s ethereal Allegretto movement made an impression, as the audience demanded that it be encored.
