Grieg and others

Grieg Sonata and Lyric Pieces, Op. 12

A four-movement sonata, each is quite short (between 3-6 minutes), in sonata standard. This fits well into his "miniature form" scheme of his compositional style. The "lyrical" aspect, which is so apparent in all of his music, is heard especially in the second movement. I love how the beginning is so simple and sweet but later becomes stormy and passionate, totally unexpected. The first movement, in my opinion, is quite Schumanesque, with its off-beat melody, rumbling low-register accompaniment, and the dotted-rhythms. The third movement, a melancholy and grandioso march, a lyrical section with an inversion of the motive from the beginning. Fourth movement, playful in character, again with the dotted rhythms. Having never played this piece before but heard it at numerous different performances, I would imagine it would be a good show piece for a concert. It is a piece that everyone an enjoy, whether you are a professional musician, an amateur pianist, or someone who does not know a thing about music. To me, it is what makes Grieg's music so attractive, because it reaches out to the general public, no matter who you are.

Lyric Pieces, Op. 12, what a lovely piece! Each of these selections are short and sweet (1-2 minutes each). Each presents a different song or dance. Most of them are folk songs or dances or Norwegian. Grieg's talent of writing beautiful melodic lines (yet simple, which is what most folk tune is about) is so apparent here in these miniature pieces.


Frank Prelude, Chorale and Fugue

As I listen to this piece, couple of features come to mind:

Improvisatory style: arpeggios, chromaticism (descending base line in octaves, scales), harmonic meandering.

Pedal tone: the B pedal point that is throughout the piece.

Chorale style: rolled-chords (goes with the improvisatory element). The use of roll-chords is an expressive element of the music.

Off-beats starts: very Bach-like, as we mentioned in class. A good example is the Chromatic Fantasy.

Fugue: a Bach-like 3 voice fugue, but freer in style, less reserved, more outpouring of emotions. I especially like the intro to the fugue, which is a nice bridge connecting the motive material from the prelude and then developing it in the fugue.

Saint-Saens Etude en Forme de Valse

A fun piece! It definitely has some "etude-like" quality to it. The repeated notes, double-notes, ascending 3rds, octaves, all at obscenely fast speed, unless you are Rubinstein, is hard to pull off. What I like about it is that on top of all the Liszt-like brilliant and virtuosic stuff, Saint-Saens managed to make it sound not too pretentious and over the top. Though I'm not exactly sure how anybody could possibly "dance" to this without falling or killing their feet!

Chabrier Scherzo-Valse

No. 10 from the Piece Pittoresque, is in 9/16 meter. This implies that it is a very quick waltz. In the beginning of the piece, the second beats are accented. As the piece progresses, the first beats were accented. Then it alternates, gives it an unexpected feeling of never knowing what will happen next. The word "pesant dance" comes to mind. This piece is not without technical difficulties. The staccato triplets in Vivo is especially hard to articulate clearly.

Alkan Etudes Op 39 No. 12 Le festin d'Esope

We talked about in class how incredibly difficult his music is. It is notey, random, and can be a bit strange. It can get overwhelmingly virtuosic. Sometimes they get too loud and bombastic to the point that it becomes noisy. I appreciate the idea of writing a set of variations using etude format for each of them. We can definitely hear the brilliance of the sound and the virtuosity from Chopin and Liszt's influences.