Yuja Wang: Piano Works by Messiaen, Scriabin, Debussy, and Chopin
Olivier Messiaen composed his evening-length piano cycle Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant-Jésus in 1944 in occupied Paris.
Tag: Piano
Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott: Suite by Fauré, Dvořák, Assad, and Boulanger
Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott open their recital with a lyrical set of five pieces, most of which could be mistaken for folksongs.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Rondo in D major for Piano and Orchestra, K. 382
Mozart wrote the Rondo in D Major in 1782 as an alternate finale to his Piano Concerto No. 5, which he had composed almost a decade earlier. In the intervening years, he had quit his job in Salzburg and moved to Vienna with “a kick on my arse” from the Archbishop.
Sergei Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43
Both Sergei Rachmaninoff and Niccolò Paganini were virtuosos of their eras. There the similarities seem to end.
Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F minor, Op. 21
In 1829 Frédéric Chopin was still Fryderyk—a 19-year-old Polish pianist of some acclaim. His piano concertos became passports to success in Western Europe.
Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor, Op. 15
If you think Beethoven looms large over classical music today, imagine being a young composer in 1853—just 26 years after his death—and being declared his second coming.
Johannes Brahms: Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, Op. 25
After the first rehearsal of Brahms’s Piano Quartet in Vienna, a notoriously grumpy violinist hugged him and said, “this is Beethoven’s heir!”
Frédéric Chopin: Fantaisie in F minor, Op. 49
Many critics hear the Fantaisie as a reflection of Poland’s plight after the failed 1830 November Uprising against the Russian Empire, a grand anthem for a national victory that never was.
Johannes Brahms: Sechs Klavierstücke, Op. 118
The rather dry title of Brahms’s Sechs Klavierstücke (Six Piano Pieces) conceals the enormous amount of feeling held within.
Frédéric Chopin: Mazurkas, Op. 59
Chopin wrote his mature mazurkas in exile, reinterpreting a Polish folk dance for Parisian salons. The Op. 59 Mazurkas are relatively late works, written in 1845, a decade-and-a-half after he last stepped foot on Polish soil.