Consider This Your Classical Education

An exploration in classical music. With a few contemporary pieces thrown in for good measure.

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Christmas at Hogwarts

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OPERAS I’VE SEEN: Antonín Dvořák, Rusalka  

Rusalka is an opera by Antonín Dvořák. The Czech libretto was written by the poet Jaroslav Kvapil (1868–1950) based on the fairy tales of Karel Jaromír Erben and Božena Němcová. Rusalka is one of the most successful Czech operas, and represents a cornerstone of the repertoire of Czech opera houses. A Rusalka is a water sprite from Slavic mythology, usually inhabiting a lake or river. It is the ninth opera Dvořák composed.

For many years unfamiliarity with Dvořák’s operas outside Czechoslovakia helped reinforce a perception that composition of operas was a marginal activity, and that despite the beauty of its melodies and orchestral timbres Rusalka was not a central part of his output or of international lyric theatre. In recent years it has been performed more regularly by major opera companies. 

The most popular excerpt from Rusalka is the “Song to the Moon" from act 1 which is often performed in concert and recorded separately. It has also been arranged for violin and used on film sound tracks.

The plot contains elements which also appear in The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen and in Undine by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué, and has been described as a “sad, modern fairy tale”, in a similar vein to his previous play, Princessa Pampeliška. The libretto was completed by 1899, when Kvapil began looking for composers interested in setting his text. His composer friends were engaged with other works, but mentioned that Dvořák was looking for a project. The composer, always interested in Erben’s stories, read the libretto and composed his opera quite rapidly, with the first draft begun on 22 April 1900 and completed by the end of November. Coming after his four symphonic poems inspired by the folk-ballads of Erben of 1896–97, Rusalka may be viewed as the culmination of Dvořák’s exploration of a “wide variety of drama-creating musical techniques.” His music is generally through-composed, and uses motifs for Rusalka, her damnation, the water sprite and the forest. His word-setting is expressive while allowing for nationally inflected passages, and Grove judges the work shows the composer at the height of his maturity. He uses established theatrical devices – dance sections, comedy (Gamekeeper and Turnspit) and pictorial musical depiction of nature (forest and lake). 

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Daily routines of creative people

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Happy birthday Tchaikovsky! (h/t San Francisco Symphony)

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Frédéric Chopin - Fugue in A minor

Anatol Ugorski, Piano

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Composer: Joseph Haydn (1732 - 1809)

Work: Allegretto from Symphony No. 100 “Militärsymphonie [Military Symphony]” (1793 or 94)

Performer: Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields; conducted by Neville Marriner

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Mozart, Mass in C minor, K. 427 (1783): Kyrie Ileana Cotrubas, soprano John Alldis Choir • New Philharmonia Orchestra • Raymond Leppard (1974) Experiment on a Bird in an Air Pump, Joseph Wright

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#MusicMonday: Is this the sound of genius? Behold the Andalusian Cadence. Never heard of it? Perhaps, but you sure have heard it! It’s a simple sequence of four notes—in the key of A major, it would be A, G, F, E—and it’s been used from the Renaissance to Rihanna, with Beethoven, Mozart, the Beatles, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan and Green Day in between. Listen to 50 different examples of Andalusian Cadence from our friends at WNYC Radio. Is that genius? We think so. #thatsgenius

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Ludwig van Beethoven, autograph Piano Trio in D Major, 1808. Vienna. Via Morgan Library

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The Seasons, XI. November: On the Troika | Tchaikovsky

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Brahms Waltz in A Minor, Op. 39 No. 14

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Symphony #1 "Titan", Movement 2 - Mahler

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The Magic Flute, Act II - Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen (Papageno)

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Happy Birthday, Georg Friedrich Händel!

Composer: Georg Friedrich Händel (1685 - 1759)

Work: La Réjouissance from Music for the Royal Fireworks (1749)

Performer: The King’s Consort; conducted by Robert King

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Illustration for German opera magazine “Engelsloge”. Explaining the term “opera dialogué”, which is a form of opera that is compromised of mainly recitative, without arias. It has been favoured by ”The Mighty Five”, a group of Russian composers in the 1860s.

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Happy Thanksgiving with Mozart

"There’s nothing harder than Mozart. And what’s hard about it is, it’s so simple." Hear Alan Gilbert reflect on this week’s programs, all of which feature Mozart’s final symphonies.

Join us, and give thanks for, and with, Mozart.

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Symphonie Fantastique: V. Ronde du Sabbat "Witches' Sabbath" | Berlioz