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Debussy’s nod to the past and to the near future
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The subtle simplicity of Haydn’s C major sonata, Hob. XVI:48
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Thesis, antithesis, and synthesis in Beethoven's Tempest sonata
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The blog looks at the last three pieces of Schubert's Moments Musicaux, which are fraught with gloom, pessimism, and ambiguity.
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The non-existing genre of the musical moment
Schubert seems to have invented a new genre with the Moments Musicaux cycle of seeming unconnected pieces.
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How do we play early music on a late piano?
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Are coincidences from providence?
It is no surprise to find traces of Chopin in Scriabin, who greatly admired the Polish composer. But can there be influences of Schubert in Scriabin? This is the question I address in my blog.
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Bells...
What can be more straightforward in music than representing bells? If music can represent anything, it is bells.
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How is this Mozart different from all the other Mozarts?
Specifically, why is the Adagio in B minor, K 540, so different from hundreds of others Mozart has written?
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Can a sonata exist under water? This is the question I try to answer in my blog about Ondine, the first of the three parts of Ravel's Gaspard de la nuit.
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The orderly chaos inside Schumann's head. Schumann has managed to acquire a reputation for somewhat disorganized music. Gould, for example, who was obsessed with the architecture of the musical text, never touched any of Schumann's piano repertoire. But a closer, or rather different look reveals a logic all its own and a glimpse inside Schumann's head--as it were.
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Beethoven's sonata in F major, Op. 10/2
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Schumann was the father of organic unity and the obsessive musical idea running through all movements of a piece -- an early instance of what was later to be known as the leitmotiv.
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The beauty and glory of Viennese classicism reflected in one Beethoven sonata. Beethoven's two great predecessors, Haydn and Mozart, are often present in his works. But in Sonata No. 6, in F major, like in a Gestalt figure-ground image, both are present simultaneously; now you hear one, now the other.
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You know that something is amiss with the scherzo if the humor is dry and the dance lame. The scherzo of Schubert's sonata in A minor seems to have been written for a clod with no sense of humor and feet of lead.
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What is this collage of almost recognizable snippets and objets trouvés -- like some Marcel Duchamp of the piano?
It is Satie, of course, in this case poking fun at Chopin and Debussy. If we're looking for a musical expression that came close to Dada, Satie is the most prominent name that comes to mind -- although this piece actually predates Dada by a few years. But the spirit is unmistakable.
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Is music an emotional or an intellectual experience? (This is the million-dollar musical equivalent of the mind-body problem.)
