Christoph W. Gluck, Mélodie from Orfeo ed Euridice

Artur Schnabel, a distinguished pedagogue with admittedly bad technique, got it right when he said "the sonatas of Mozart are unique; they are too easy for children, and too difficult for artists." It's true. Playing all of the notes on the page as written is relatively simple. But convincing performances are rare.

The same general idea is at work here, with the added obstacle that playing all of the notes of this piece accurately is marginally harder than a Mozart sonata. Putting the score on the stand and having three staves staring back at you instead of the usual two was a psychological obstacle, I've got to say. But one comes to realize that it really can't be done any other way. The top staff is the melody, which looks appropriately clean. The bottom staff takes care of the important bass notes. That leaves the delicately churning accompaniment for the middle.

Having three staves is less of a problem, of course, than having two hands with which to attack the notes written on them. The simple solution, one which the music editor explicitly recognized, is that the notes of the middle staff alternate between the right and left hands. How do you know when to play with which hand?

Just look at the direction of the stem on the sixteenth notes. If the stem points up, the right hand takes it. If the stem points down — that is, if it looks upside down — it's played with the left hand. Fascinated? Watch Nelson Freire's video two paragraphs down!

This is a famous transcription by the Italian pianist-composer Giovanni Sgambati, a contemporary of Brahms. History has not been too kind to him, as he's best known for this quick little encore, moving though it is. Actually, I think his original piano music is very effective (problem is, it's been championed by the pianist Pietro Spada, who might be too mechanical for his dead beneficiary). Anyhow, the Mélodie is a beautiful transcription of the "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" from Christoph Willibald Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice. (If you've think you've seen the name before, Mozart mocked his music in the tavern scene in Amadeus as being too boring.) At about four minutes it just begs to be placed at the end of recitals as encores, which it is.

If you're in the market for professional recordings, my strongest recommendation is to pursue a live performance. My first choice is Earl Wild (the disc is out of print, but in my view well worth the $25 an Amazon seller asks for the two-disc set). Maybe not accidentally, his and my recording times are identical (4:24). Another recording I like is the Brazilian artist Nelson Freire, who used just three and a half minutes of tape. It's much, much faster — but it works. Here is a video of that performance; you'll have to skip ahead to 3:50.

If Mozart really said that Gluck's music was boring, the Mélodie wouldn't be my first counterargument. But what it lacks in imaginativeness (which is now a word, by the way — not to be confused with imagination), it makes up in power.


mp3 | score

Robert Schumann, Träumerei, Op. 15 No. 7

Träumerei is widely regarded as belonging to Vladimir Horowitz. The piece is part of the Kinderszenen suite of 13 piano miniatures finished by Robert Schumann in 1839, when the composer was 29. Horowitz adopted the piece as one of his most oft-performed encores — whether that was because it was a favorite of his or whether he pandered to his electric full houses can't be sure, but I am inclined to think the former, since popular favor wasn't necessarily a first concern of his.

Easily the most popular of its suite, strange things are done to Träumerei, which may mean either "Dreaming" or "Reverie," depending on who you ask (and I'm not sure translating titles from the original language was the best use of anyone's time). There is an unfortunate tendency to discard rhythm with the piece, with the pianist tossing in the next notes whenever he or she feels their time has come. Perhaps the title is to blame. But frankly, I don't care. My comment is entirely removed from the discussion of tempo; I'm not saying it's too slow or too fast, though allowing it to drag does make it harder to respect the beat.

At Horowitz's last concert, in Hamburg in 1987, he was at his best, playing Träumerei in a comparatively spritely 2:29. You can hear an informative clip at that Amazon link. Here is a video of the master at his infamous 1986 Moscow recital. Contrast that with Donald Betz's rendition at nearly a minute longer, which offers not much new. And for fun, here's Victor Borge doing it in 2:02, the way only Victor Borge could.

Mine is about 2:34, accounting for silences. But please, take my recording with the figurative sodium. I have never studied the piece formally, and in fact just began to play around with them this week. They are ideal exercises in voicing. To pass them, the composer would agree, requires the now-clichéd "singing tone" of the piano.

The genius of Schumann, in this case, is making conventional key modulations sound groundbreaking. In my version, listen for the modulation to B-flat major (a perfect fourth above the F major tonic (for our purposes, tonic means "home key") — it's a standard key change; please just take my word for it, yes?) at 1:32. Then at 1:48, we're already moving back to F major. But notice how pleasantly surprising each of these is when you hear them for the first time.

This recording will sound different from others I've made. I hope so, at least, since this was made tonight on my prized Steinway Model L! The sonics could be better, but for a $75 microphone that I bought because it's disguised as quaint-looking black box (think law school lectures; I'll say no more), it's stereo — who am I to complain? And man, did I engineer the heck of out of this. I needed a set-up that put the microphone higher up than the piano, so I took two bar stools and placed them at the far (narrow) end of the piano. On one, I placed my laptop. On the other, I stood up Jan Swafford's wonderful biography of Brahms. On that went the microphone. Bam, home recording studio. Frought with symbolism! Don't you just love it when things are frought?


mp3 | score*

* Open the link and scroll down in the PDF to the seventh piece.

Johannes Brahms, Sonata in F minor, op.5

Brahms felt that "to compose a long adagio is the most difficult of all." By adagio, he means "slow movement," and I think he was right. It's hard to keep a listener's gears turning with original material for more than a few minutes.

Brahms revered Beethoven — Beethoven's success in the symphony and string quartet genres made Brahms petrified at the prospect of releasing some of his own — so it's not unlikely that Brahms's observation was a direct reference to his fellow German. Any slow movement coming from Beethoven's later years was terrific (the Hammerklavier piano sonata's adagio [performances of which push the 20-minute mark] and the cavatina from the op. 130 string quartet are good examples; bring a sword if you plan to disparage them to a critic).

Brahms's third piano sonata was completed when he was 20 years old — pre-beard. The sonata is unique for its five movements. Four is the conventional maximum, and I guess one could argue that it is a conventional, early-Romantic sonata, with a strange little piece squeezed in between the quick scherzo and the finale.

The andante espressivo I've recorded is really the center of the sonata. Performance times can flirt with 15 minutes. I think mine's around 12. In any case, it doesn't seem that long, which I guess is the beauty of it. Alfred Brendel, with characteristic eloquence, described the movement as a musical orgasm (is that why it doesn't seem so long? [I'm sorry, that was too easy, but still very bad]).

Brahms was a staunch believer in music for the sake of music — called "absolute music" — that is to say, the idea that music shouldn't necessarily tell a story or do anything that ties it down to anything as vulgar as language. There was practically a war between he and Wagner on this principle alone — you were either a Brahmsian or a Wagnerite (or you didn't care). So what's notable about the andante espressivo is the epigraph he affixed to the top of the manuscript:

Der Abend dämmert, das Mondlicht scheint,
Da sind zwei Herzen in Liebe vereint
Und halten sich selig umfagen.

Unfortunately, the German makes that C.O. Sternau stanza all but unreadable. So here it is in English:

Twilight falls, the moonlight shines,
Two hearts are united in love,
And keep themselves in bliss enclosed.

Notice a pattern? Whatever else the two hearts are doing, they have a dialogue around the 2:40 mark. Also note the short-short-short-long motif at around 8:13. It's sprinkled throughout the entire sonata, and is thought to be an homage to Beethoven (imitation is flattery, right?).

I played the whole sonata for my senior recital at N.Y.U., and hope to get the other movements up eventually as well. Sorry in advance for wrong notes; this baby's too long to re-record.


Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor, Op. 5
Composed 1853

II. Andante espressivo

mp3 | score | note on recordings

Ludwig van Beethoven, Sonatas

Here are Beethoven's two most widely known slow movements — the Adagio Cantabile from the Sonata "Pathétique," op. 13, and the Adagio Sostenuto from the "Moonlight" Sonata, op. 27 no. 2.

For as often as they're played, these movements are nice to return to from time to time because they're wonderful exercises in contrapuntal voicing (more on that later) and, surely no less important, because the melodies are unforgettable.

By "voicing," musicians usually mean emphasizing one note (voice) over the others. Often that happens to be the top voice — the highest note — as if a vocalist were singing over accompaniment. Cantabile means "singing," so there you go.

Those of you who are familiar with the sonatas may raise an eyebrow at a few liberties I've taken in my interpretations. Thankfully, most of you aren't, so you won't notice. Suffice it to say that the great pianist Josef Hofmann made a convincing case for indulging little artistic conceptions that came to him during that particular performance, conflicts with the composers' explicit instructions notwithstanding. His view was pretty much, as long as it isn't capricious and ridiculous, knock yourself out. So, not one to ignore anyone named Hoffmann, I did.

I studied the Pathétique sonata in high school, and haven't formally studied the Moonlight. In any case, I hope to have the other movements of each recorded soon. It's really strange to post individual movements of sonatas; I only did it here because these are so famous. Go.

Finally, at the beginning of each track you will hear a faint resonance from a high note. The software cuts out the first few milliseconds of the signal it receives from the piano. I don't know why. To get around it, I play a high note, which starts the recording process; then I wait for the note to die and start playing. Crucially, I then edit out the annoying, irrelevant note at the beginning. Laziness prevents this last step from being taken in these cases. Try to deal.


Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 ("Pathétique")
II. Adagio cantabile
mp3 | score

Sonata quasi una fantasia* No. 14 in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2 ("Moonlight")
I. Adagio sostenuto
mp3 | score


* The subtitle quasi una fantasia was, unlike the moniker "Moonlight," actually added by the composer. It refers to the unconventional structure of the sonata — the slow movement is placed first. Usually the first movement is a quick tempo, the second movement is slow, and the third quicker than the first (with a minuet or scherzo sometimes shoehorned in between the first and second or second and third movements). Fantasia is a catch-all for anything that doesn't fit into a common mold. Needless to say, it explains my middle name.

Blame Legal Writing

Ludwig van Beethoven, Bagatelles, Op. 119

The importance of Beethoven's last three piano sonatas, Opp. 109-111, seemingly can't be overstated. There's this romantic, transcendent halo about them, which is unfortunate from the stance of an amateur music critic, because that means every performance of them is awful. Even professional critics on occasion fall into the trap of saying that a pianist lacks "feeling" in her playing, without bothering to elaborate. To my mind, saying that a pianist lacks feeling may as well mean that the critic doesn't like the pianist's face, or the country he came from. It's utterly meaningless.

Don't get me wrong. Convincingly playing these works beyond simple(!) technical prowess is no easy task. And there's nothing quite like closing your eyes and really being wowed by one of the greats. (Try the slow movement of the Op. 110.) But after four years with a conservatory, I would submit that the three late sonatas need to be more accessible, and played less often by conservatory soldiers.

Despite the myth that Beethoven was composing his last three sonatas as a grey old miser on his deathbed, there were quite a few solo piano works still in the offing. The most significant of these was certainly the epic Diabelli Variations, Op. 120, but there were also two sets of Bagatelles, Opp. 119 & 126. Beethoven's Bagatelles are short, sweet, and were probably composed as a quick cash infusion. He expressly indicated that the pieces aren't meant to be related as a "suite" per se. So, I consider myself justified in shamelessly ripping seven from the Op. 119 set, in no particular order.

Maybe I shouldn't bore you with production details, but at least it might shed a little light on my selection process. No. 11 is the result of about 20 takes; No.7, of probably somewhere near 30. That doesn't mean I recorded them the whole way through all of those times, but still. This is why I'm shying inconspicuously from larger works. Because I may perish in my rage (but a cool, Beethoven-y rage).

Of the 11 in the Op. 119 set, Nos. 10 and 11 would probably be my favorites. Not often do you get to plunk something down that lasts all of 13 seconds, as No. 10 does. And the lyrical No. 11 was the inspiration for Max Reger's imaginative Variations on a Theme of Beethoven, which was arranged both for two pianos and for orchestra.

If you really want to hear death in music form, hunt down Beethoven's late string quartets. Start with the Heiliger Dankgesang of Op. 132, and then there's always Op. 135, the last work he completed.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Bagatelles, Op. 119
Composed 1820-22

I. Allegretto (G minor)

II. Andante con moto (C major)

V. Risoluto (C minor)

VII. * * * (C major)

IX. Vivace moderato (A minor)

X. Allegramente (A major)

XI. Andante ma non troppo (B-flat major)


mp3 (zip) | note on recordings | sheet music

Mac and Windows each have an unzipper tool built in. If it doesn't work for you, let me know.

Johannes Brahms, Waltzes, Op. 39

Two quick waltzes from Brahms's opus 39, first published around 1865. Please ignore Wikipedia's editorializing. I'm the editorialist around here.

I know of three arrangements of this set — the original, a simplified version, and an arrangement for piano duo. Maybe there are more. Brahms arranged a large number of his works for two pianos* or piano duet, probably because he had many musical friends, or because he needed money (duet arrangements were hot sellers), or both. I went with the original.

In any case, this set of 16 waltzes doesn't see much light, except when the A-flat major warhorse serves its perennial purpose as an encore (and, sometimes concurrently, a lullaby). I chose the G-sharp minor to accompany it because it's a closely related key signature (G-sharp = A-flat) and because I like the transition right before the first repeat.

You'll recognize number 15 from pretty much everywhere.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Waltzes, Op. 39
Composed 1864-5

III. G-sharp minor
XV. A-flat major

mp3 | note on recordings | sheet music

* Brahms's most successful ventures in this arena, I think, are the Haydn Variations, originally for full orchestra, and the F minor sonata, which began life as a string quintet and eventually became the great Piano Quintet.