Carnaval (Schumann) Carnaval, Op. 9, is a work by Robert Schumann for piano solo, written in 1834-1835, and subtitled Scènes mignonnes sur quatre notes (Little Scenes on Four Notes). It consists of a collection of short pieces representing masked revelers at Carnival, a festival before Lent. Schumann gives musical expression to himself, his friends and colleagues, and characters from improvised Italian comedy (commedia dell’arte). For Schumann the four notes were encoded puzzles, and he predicted that "deciphering my masked ball will be a real game for you. "[1] The 21 pieces are connected by a recurring motif. A, E-flat, C, B - signified in German as A-S-C-HA-flat, C, B - signified in German as As-C-HE-flat, C, B, A - signified in German as S-C-H-A. The first two spell the German name for the town of Asch (this is now Aš in the Czech Republic), in which Schumann's then fiancée, Ernestine von Fricken, was born.
Schumann dedicated the work to the violinist Karol Lipiński. 1. 2. 3. 4. 6. 7. 8. --. 9. 10. 11. Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Louis Moreau Gottschalk (May 8, 1829 – December 18, 1869) was an American composer and pianist, best known as a virtuoso performer of his own romantic piano works.[1] He spent most of his working career outside of the United States. Life and career[edit] Gottschalk was born in New Orleans to a Jewish businessman from London and a Creole mother. He had six brothers and sisters, five of whom were half-siblings by his father's mulatto mistress.[2] His family lived for a time in a tiny cottage at Royal and Esplanade in the Vieux Carré.
Louis later moved in with relatives at 518 Conti Street; his maternal grandmother Bruslé and his nurse Sally had both been born in Saint-Domingue (known later as Haiti). He was therefore exposed to a variety of musical traditions, and played the piano from an early age. He was soon recognized as a prodigy by the New Orleans bourgeois establishment, making his informal public debut in 1840 at the new St. Works[edit] Recordings[edit] In popular culture[edit]
New Orleans. New Orleans (/nuː ˈɔrliənz/ or /ˈnuː ɔrˈliːnz/, locally /nuː ˈɔrlənz/ or /ˈnɔrlənz/; French: La Nouvelle-Orléans [la nuvɛlɔʁleɑ̃] ( )) is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The population of the city was 343,829 as of the 2010 U.S. Census.[2] The New Orleans metropolitan area (New Orleans–Metairie–Kenner Metropolitan Statistical Area) had a population of 1,167,764 in 2010 and was the 46th largest in the United States.[3] The New Orleans–Metairie–Bogalusa Combined Statistical Area, a larger trading area, had a 2010 population of 1,214,932.[4] The city is named after the Duke of Orleans, who reigned as Regent for Louis XV from 1715 to 1723, as it was established by French colonists and strongly influenced by their and African cultures. New Orleans is located in southeastern Louisiana, straddling the Mississippi River. History Beginnings through the 19th century Nearly 90 percent of the new immigrants settled in New Orleans.
Souvenir de Porto Rico. Souvenir de Porto Rico, Op. 31, is a musical composition for piano by American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk written from 1857 during a tour in Puerto Rico. Dedicated to the Dutch piano virtuoso and salon music composer Ernest Henry Lubeck, and published in Mainz circa 1860 with the subtitle of Marche de Gibaros,[1] it is based on the Christmas folk song Si me dan pasteles, denmelos calientes, performed by local peasants known as Jíbaros.[2] The piece makes use of Latin-American and Afro-American melodies and rhythms almost fifty years before early ragtime and jazz would popularize its use.
History[edit] Souvenir de Porto Rico was written in the last trimester of 1857, when of Gottschalk's stay at the sugar plantation of English-born Mr. Cornelius Cartwright, in Plazuela.[4][n 1] At the time, Gottschalk was on vacation with singer Adelina Patti and her father. Musical analysis[edit] Notes[edit] References[edit] Sources[edit] Jackson, Richard, Piano Music of Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Franz Liszt. Franz Liszt, T.O.S.F. (German: [fʁant͡s lɪst]; Hungarian: Liszt Ferencz; October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886), in modern use Liszt Ferenc[n 1] (Hungarian pronunciation: [list ˈfɛrɛnt͡s]); from 1859 to 1867 officially Franz Ritter von Liszt,[n 2] was a 19th-century Hungarian[1][2][3] composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, teacher and Franciscan tertiary.
Liszt gained renown in Europe during the early nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age, and in the 1840s he was considered by some to be perhaps the greatest pianist of all time. Liszt was also a well-known and influential composer, piano teacher and conductor. He was a benefactor to other composers, including Richard Wagner, Hector Berlioz, Camille Saint-Saëns, Edvard Grieg and Alexander Borodin.[4] Life[edit] Early life[edit] Anna Liszt, née Maria Anna Lager (portrait by Julius Ludwig Sebbers between 1826 and 1837) Paganini[edit]
Transcendental Etudes. History[edit] The Transcendental Études S. 139 are revisions of his Douze Grandes Études. This third and final version was published in 1852 and dedicated to Carl Czerny, Liszt's piano teacher, and himself a prolific composer of études. The set included simplifications, for the most part: in addition to many other reductions, Liszt removed all stretches of greater than a tenth, making the piece more suitable for pianists with smaller hands and less technical skill. However, the fourth étude of the final set, Mazeppa, is actually more demanding than its 1837 version, since it very frequently alters and crosses the hand to create a "galloping" effect. When revising the 1837 set of études, Liszt added programmatic titles in French and German to all but the Études Nos. 2 and 10. Editor Ferruccio Busoni later gave the names Fusées ("Rockets") to the Étude No. 2, and Appassionata to the Étude No. 10; however, Busoni's titles are not commonly used or well known.
References[edit] Réminiscences de Don Juan. The piece begins with music sung by the Commendatore, both from the graveyard scene where he threatens Don Giovanni ("Di rider finirai pria dell aurora! Ribaldo audace! Lascia a' morti la pace! " — "Your laughter will not last, even till morning. Remember, that the dead still remember! ") and from the finale where he condemns Don Giovanni to Hell.
In contrast to perhaps the majority of opera fantasies composed during the nineteenth century, Liszt's Don Giovanni paraphrase is a much more tightly controlled and significant work. "The finest of [Liszt's] opera fantasies...are much more than that: they juxtapose different parts of the opera in ways that bring out a new significance, while the original dramatic sense of the individual number and its place within the opera is never out of sight. " Frédéric Chopin. Photograph of Chopin by Bisson, c. 1849 Frédéric François Chopin (/ˈʃoʊpæn/; French pronunciation: [fʁe.de.ʁik ʃɔ.pɛ̃]; 22 February or 1 March 1810 – 17 October 1849), born Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin,[n 1] was a Romantic-era Polish composer.
A child prodigy, Chopin was born in what was then the Duchy of Warsaw. He grew up in Warsaw, which after 1815 became part of Congress Poland, and there completed his musical education and composed many of his works before leaving Poland, aged 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. Both in his native Poland and beyond, Chopin's music, his status as one of music's earliest 'superstars', his association (if only indirect) with political insurrection, his amours and his early death have made him, in the public consciousness, a leading symbol of the Romantic era. Life[edit] Childhood[edit] Chopin's Polish residences Warsaw building where Chopin's family lived in 1817–27,[n 2] embellished with bas-relief of his profile. Mazurkas (Chopin) Over the years 1825–1849, Frédéric Chopin wrote at least 69 mazurkas, based on the traditional Polish dance (see mazurka): 58 have been published 45 during Chopin's lifetime, of which 41 have opus numbers13 posthumously, of which 8 have posthumous opus numbers11 further mazurkas are known whose MSS are either in private hands (2) or untraced (at least 9).
The serial numbering of the 58 published mazurkas normally goes only up to 51. The remaining 7 are referred to by their key or catalogue number. His composition of these mazurkas signaled new ideas of nationalism, and influenced and inspired other composers—mostly eastern Europeans—to support their national music. Chopin based his mazurkas on the traditional Polish folk dance, also called the mazurka (or "mazur" in Polish). Chopin started composing his mazurkas in 1825, and continued composing them until 1849, the year of his death. After scholars created this myth, they furthered it through their own writings in different ways.
Ballades (Chopin) Chopin, 1835 Frédéric Chopin's four ballades are one-movement pieces for solo piano, composed between 1831 and 1842. They are some of the most challenging pieces in the standard piano repertoire.[1][2] The term "ballade" was associated with an old French verse-form used for grand and rhetorical subjects, but may also have connotations of the Medieval heroic ballad, which was sung and danced.
There are dramatic and dance-like elements in Chopin's use of the genre, and he may be said to be a pioneer of the ballade as an abstract musical form. The four ballades are said to have been inspired by poet Adam Mickiewicz.[1][3] The exact inspiration for each individual ballade, however, is unclear and disputed. The four ballades are among the most enduring of Chopin's compositions and are frequently heard in concerts.[4] They have been recorded many times. Main theme of Ballade No. 1 Opening bars of Ballade No. 2 Opening bars of Ballade No. 3 The second theme sounds like a donkey's pace.