Beethoven – Turkish March (arr. for 8 pianos; Larrocha, Bolet, etc.) , great compositions/performances

Beethoven – Turkish March (arr. for 8 pianos; Larrocha, Bolet, etc.)

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2 successive performances of Ludwig van Beethoven’s Turkish March from “Die Ruinen von Athen”, arranged by Richard Blackford for 8 pianos. Played by Gina Bachauer, Jorge Bolet, Jeanne-Marie Darré, Alicia De Larrocha, John Lill, Radu Lupu, Garrick Ohlsson and Bálint Vázsonyi at a Gargantuan Pianistic Extravaganza in London, 1974.

Please note that the 2nd performance is NOT a shredding video – these great pianists were actually playing what you hear!

The audio goes out of sync after a while, sorry about that.

BEETHOVEN Symphony No 6 (Pastoral) in F Op 68 LEONARD BERNSTEIN, great compositions/performances

BEETHOVEN Symphony No 6 (Pastoral) in F Op 68 LEONARD BERNSTEIN

roger bridgland

Beethoven Symphony No.6 (Pastoral) in F Op.68
Leonard Bernstein (conductor)
Boston Symphony Orchestra****************************************************

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

“Pastoral Symphony” redirects here. For other uses, see Pastoral Symphony (disambiguation).

Part of a sketch by Beethoven for his Symphony No. 6

 

The Symphony No. 6 in F major, Op. 68, also known as the Pastoral Symphony (German Pastoral-Sinfonie^[1]), is a symphony composed by Ludwig van Beethoven, and completed in 1808. One of Beethoven’s few works containing explicitly programmatic content,^[2] the symphony was first performed in the Theater an der Wien on 22 December 1808^[3] in a four hour concert.^[4]

Background

Portrait of Beethoven in 1804, when he had been working on the Sixth Symphony for two years.

 Beethoven was a lover of nature who spent a great deal of his time on walks in the country. He frequently left Vienna to work in rural locations.

The first sketches of the Pastoral Symphony appeared in 1802. It was composed simultaneously with Beethoven’s more famous—and more fiery—Fifth Symphony. Both symphonies were premiered in a long and under-rehearsed concert in the Theater an der Wien in Vienna on 22 December 1808.

The composer said that the Sixth Symphony is “more the expression of feeling than painting”,^[5] a point underlined by the title of the first movement.

Instrumentation

The symphony is scored for piccolo (fourth movement only), 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets in B flat, 2 bassoons, 2 horns in F and B flat, 2 trumpets in C and E flat (third, fourth, and fifth movements only), 2 trombones (alto and tenor, fourth and fifth movements only), timpani (fourth movement only), and strings.

Form

The symphony has five movements, rather than the four typical of symphonies of the Classical era. Beethoven annotated the beginning of each movement as follows:

1. Erwachen heiterer Empfindungen bei der Ankunft auf dem Lande (Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the countryside): Allegro ma non troppo
2. Szene am Bach (Scene by the brook): Andante molto mosso
3. Lustiges Zusammensein der Landleute (Merry gathering of country folk): Allegro
4. Gewitter, Sturm (Thunder. Storm): Allegro
5. Hirtengesang. Frohe und dankbare Gefühle nach dem Sturm (Shepherd’s song; cheerful and thankful feelings after the storm): Allegretto

The third movement ends on an imperfect cadence that leads straight into the fourth; the fourth movement leads straight into the fifth without a pause. A performance of the work lasts about 40 minutes.

Description of movements

Beethoven wrote a short descriptive note at the head of each movement.

I. Allegro ma non troppo

‘Awakening of cheerful feelings on arrival in the countryside.’

The symphony begins with a placid and cheerful movement depicting the composer’s feelings as he arrives in the country. The movement, in 2/4 meter, is in sonata form, and its motifs are extensively developed. At several points Beethoven builds up orchestral texture by multiple repetitions of very short motifs. Yvonne Frindle commented,^[6] “the infinite repetition of pattern in nature [is] conveyed through rhythmic cells, its immensity through sustained pure harmonies.”

II. Andante molto mosso

‘Scene by the brook.’

This movement, titled by Beethoven “By the brook,” is in 12/8 meter; the key is B flat major, the subdominant of the main key of the work. The movement is in sonata form.

At the opening the strings play a motif that clearly imitates flowing water. The cello section is divided, with just two players playing the flowing-water notes on muted instruments, with the remaining cellos playing mostly pizzicato notes together with the double basses. Toward the end of the movement there is a cadenza for woodwind instruments that imitates bird calls. Beethoven helpfully identified the bird species in the score: nightingale (flute), quail (oboe), and cuckoo (two clarinets).

III. Allegro

‘Merry gathering of country folk.’

This is a scherzo in 3/4 time, which depicts country folk dancing and reveling. It is in F major, returning to the main key of the symphony.

The form of the movement is an altered version of the usual form for scherzi, in that the trio appears twice rather than just once, and the third appearance of the scherzo theme is truncated. Perhaps to accommodate this rather spacious arrangement, Beethoven did not mark the usual internal repeats of the scherzo and the trio. Theodor Adorno identifies this scherzo as the model for the scherzos by Anton Bruckner.^[7]

The final return of the theme conveys a riotous atmosphere with a faster tempo. The movement ends abruptly, leading without a pause into the fourth movement.

IV. Allegro

‘Thunder. Storm.’

The fourth movement, in F minor, depicts a violent thunderstorm with painstaking realism, building from just a few drops of rain to a great climax with thunder, lightning, high winds, and sheets of rain. The storm eventually passes, with an occasional peal of thunder still heard in the distance. There is a seamless transition into the final movement. This movement parallels Mozart‘s procedure in his String Quintet in G minor K. 516 of (1787), which likewise prefaces a serene final movement with a long, emotionally stormy introduction.^[8]

V. Allegretto

‘Shepherd’s song. Happy and thankful feelings after the storm.’

The finale is in F major and is in 6/8 time. The movement is written in sonata rondo form, meaning that the main theme appears in the tonic key at the beginning of the development as well as the exposition and the recapitulation. Like many classical finales, this movement emphasizes a symmetrical eight-bar theme, in this case representing the shepherds’ song of thanksgiving.

The coda starts quietly and gradually builds to an ecstatic culmination for the full orchestra (minus “storm instruments”), with the first violins playing very rapid triplet tremolo on a high F. There follows a fervent passage suggestive of prayer, marked by Beethoven “pianissimo, sotto voce”; most conductors slow the tempo for this passage. After a brief period of afterglow, the work ends with two emphatic F major chords

Valentina Lisitsa – Beethoven – Moonlight Sonata Op.27 No.2, great compositions/performances

Valentina Lisitsa – Moonlight Sonata Op.27 No.2 Mov.1,2,3 (Beethoven)

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Published on Apr 18, 2013

The Piano Sonata No.14 “Quasi Una Fantasia” Opus 27 No.2 (Moonlight Sonata)
Movement 1: Adagio sostenuto
Movement 2: Allegretto
Movement 3: Presto agitato

***Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
***Performer: Valentina Lisitsa

Beethoven | Piano Sonata No. 12 in A-flat major | Daniel Barenboim, great compositions/performances

Beethoven | Piano Sonata No. 12 in A-flat major | Daniel Barenboim

OndaCC

beethoven:  Piano Sonata No. 12

*****From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia*****

Portrait Ludwig van Beethoven when composing the Missa Solemnis (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ludwig van Beethoven composed his Piano Sonata No. 12 in A-flat major, Op. 26, in 1800–1801, around the same time as he completed his First Symphony. He dedicated the sonata to Prince Karl von Lichnowsky, who had been his patron since 1792.

Consisting of four movements, the sonata takes around 20 minutes to perform.

1. Andante con variazioni 3/8
2. Scherzo, allegro molto 3/4 A-flat major, D-flat major, A-flat major
3. Maestoso andante, marcia funebre sulla morte d’un eroe 4/4 A-flat minor, A-flat major
4. Allegro, Rondo form 2/4 A-flat major

The structure of the sonata is unconventional in that the piece opens with a relatively slow movement in the format of theme and variations. In contrast, the remaining movements of the sonata proceed according to classical principles in fast-slow-fast alternation. The third movement incorporates a funeral march, clearly anticipating the watershed of the Eroica Symphony that Beethoven wrote in 1803-1804. This is the only movement from his sonatas that Beethoven arranged for orchestra, and was played during Beethoven’s own funeral procession in 1827.

This sonata is also unusual in that none of its four movements is in sonata-allegro form.

In most of Beethoven’s four-movement sonatas, the third movement is in 3/4 and in ternary form, while the second movement is slow and in a different key from the other movements. In this sonata, the second and third movements have switched roles, where the second movement is the ternary scherzo and trio, while the third movement is the slow movement in the tonic minor.

The main theme of Schubert‘s Impromptu in A-flat major, Op. 142 No. 2 is strikingly similar to the theme in the first movement of Beethoven’s sonata. The four-bar phrases that open these pieces are almost identical in most musical aspects: key, harmony, voicing, register, and basic as well as harmonic rhythm. Another less immediate connection exists with the main theme, also in A-flat major, of the Adagio movement in Schubert’s piano sonata in C minor, D. 958. Indeed, Schubert may have borrowed these themes from Beethoven, as he often did in his compositions.

This sonata was greatly admired by Chopin, who repeated its basic sequence of scherzo, funeral march with trio, and perpetuum mobile finale in his own Piano Sonata in B-flat minor.^[1] His first movement, however, is also animated and in sonata form, unlike Beethoven’s Andante con variazioni.