Sergei Rachmaninoff rarely smiled in public, so you may think that he was dour. This tribute will show you otherwise. This is the Rachmaninoff of about the mid to late 1920s. He’s smiling and you can see his love for his granddaughters. And, as one of his friends once reported, he’s polite. He says “thank you” frequently.

Sometimes just being able to see a composer’s painting or photo along with his or her music adds a new dimension to the listening experience. I found a silent film (as part of something much bigger) that shows Jean Sibelius at his home in his later years. View while listening to his music.

Both composers were born on May 7th. However, if any two men in the same place and time with equal amounts of fame and talent could have been more different in action and appearance than Johannes Brahms and Peter Tchaikovsky, I cannot think of them.

Johannes Brahms was brought up in the slums of Hamburg. He was forced to play the piano in bars and brothels at age 12 to help keep the family fed. He saw too much of what a boy his age should not see. Often the women waiting for some "business" would hover around him, and tease him while he read a book and played. One of his beer steins full of tips on top of the piano might lose a few coins through the long night, while the other stein was filled with beer to keep him awake – sometimes allowing him to be exposed to the conversations of these ladies of the night and their practices.

Peter Tchaikovsky was born into Russian aristocracy and was overly protected by the women of his life. His mother doted on him and his governess was always by his side. Tchaikovsky married, but could only take a couple of weeks of living with his bride before he had to leave her. Her body repulsed him, and her agreeable nature sickened him. He tried to argue with her, in a vain attempt to justify abandoning her, but she was just too much in love with him.

She might have been a perfect wife for some other men of the era, but she was not for Tchaikovsky. The question of his sexuality became all too clear in those weeks. Once he’d left her, he never saw her again.

Tchaikovsky was undoubtedly gay. In a time when such an orientation could mean death, he bore his sexuality in almost total silence and secrecy. Once, when Tchaikovsky thought he was about to die (he was a bit of a hypochondriac), he burned all of his diaries, believing that their secrets would forever taint his legacy.

He had few friendships with women, except for his patroness, Nadezhda von Meck. Even that relationship had one very strict rider. Though they could converse by letter, and many of their exchanges survive today, they could never meet. When the news that Tchaikovsky might be gay leaked, von Meck ended her years of support.

Brahms never married. It’s said that from those early days in brothels, he developed a distorted view of women. Still, some of his dearest friends were women. They were the wives of his closest male friends.

These women were of course quite different from the women of his childhood memories. They were not just gracious and elegant, but highly intelligent. Brahms loved conversation with a brilliant woman – that is, a married one. Limiting his relationships to married women freed him from the complications to which romantic relationships could lead, so that he could enjoy their friendship. Sometimes it seemed as if he made friends with men, just to be closer to their wives. The men seemed to understand this, and didn’t view him as a threat.

With Brahms, it might have been at least partly a matter of his persona and appearance. When he was young, he was remarkably good looking. But success came to Brahms early, so he made an effort to look more mature. He grew a beard. He gained weight. His hair greyed early.

Brahms did almost nothing to improve his appearance – especially if it meant spending money. His old, ill-fitting suits (the trousers were often too short) were almost always the same color of gray. They were often wrinkled from several days of previous wear – and resting on the floor for the night, before being worn again.

Tchaikovsky maintained the life of an aristocrat, even though his income wouldn’t allow it. His clothes were expensive and always new. His ever-present white gloves and cane made him stand out, even though he thought his dark glasses (in a day when they were rare) made him feel as if he were incognito.

When Brahms’s income began to mount, he still refused to spend it – except for original manuscripts by Mozart and other favorite composers. Certainly he wasn’t interested in new, fashionable clothing.

Tchaikovsky drank expensive wine. Brahms drank beer. Tchaikovsky loved expensive food. Brahms could be perfectly happy starting off his day eating sardines right out of the tin, and finishing it off by drinking the tin’s oil.

Tchaikovsky wore expensive perfume. Brahms smelled of old clothes and cigars. Tchaikovsky smoked one expensive cigarette after another. Brahms’s cigars were always in his mouth; when the ashes fell, they would disappear into his long, unkempt beard, or land next to a food stain on his large gray vest. Other than his steely blue eyes – and checkered underwear that now and then peeked out over the waistband of his ill-fitting trousers as he conducted – Brahms was a mass of misty grey: smoke, suits, hair, all grey.

Brahms and Tchaikovsky met on New Year’s Day, 1888. Up to this point, Tchaikovsky had made it fairly clear, in letters to a few friends and his brother, that he wasn’t a real fan of Brahms. But after that meeting, Tchaikovsky was impressed by Brahms’s down-to-earth warmth. This is a bit surprising – Brahms could be rather rough.

Both men knew the great violinist of their day, Adolph Brodsky, who had premiered Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto. Brahms may have been friends with Brodsky at least partly because of Brodsky’s wife, Anna. It was she who invited Brahms and Tchaikovsky to dinner at their house in Leipzig, to celebrate that New Year.

Brahms was already there when Tchaikovsky appeared. Brahms and Brodsky were rehearsing Brahms’s third piano trio. Brodsky spotted the Russian composer in the entryway and stopped playing. Brahms, lost in his own world, carried on.

Shyly, Tchaikovsky followed Brodsky back into the music room. What happened next Anna Brodsky described in her diary:

"Tchaikovsky and Brahms had never met before. It would be difficult to find two men more unlike. Tchaikovsky, a nobleman by birth, had something elegant and refined in his whole bearing and the greatest courtesy of manner. Brahms with his short, rather square figure and powerful head, was an image of strength and energy; he was an avowed foe to all so-called ‘good manners.’ His expression was often slightly sarcastic. When A. B. introduced them, Tchaikovsky said, in his soft melodious voice: ‘Do I not disturb you?’

"’Not in the least,’ was Brahms’s reply, with his peculiar hoarseness. ‘But why are you going to hear this? It is not at all interesting.’

"Tchaikovsky sat down and listened attentively. Brahms’s personality, as he later told us, impressed him very favourably, but he was not pleased with the music. When the trio was over I noticed that Tchaikovsky seemed uneasy. It would have been natural that he should say something, but he was not at all the man to pay unmeaning compliments. The situation might have become difficult, but at that moment the door was flung open, and in came our dear friends—Grieg and his wife, bringing, as they always did, a kind of sunshine with them …"

The dinner was a more relaxed experience, though there was a bit of nervousness at first. Grieg’s wife was assigned the seat in between Brahms and Tchaikovsky, but she couldn’t bear the silence from the two naturally shy men. Edvard Grieg quickly volunteered to replace her. From then on he worked his magic to spark conversation with Brahms and Tchaikovsky (with the assistance of a fair amount of alcohol for Mr. Brahms).

Among the subjects discussed at that dinner table was Tchaikovsky’s and Brahms’s birth dates. Although Brahms was seven years older than Tchaikovsky, they shared the same calendar day, May 7^th.

I wish I could say that New Year’s dinner was the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but it wasn’t. However, Brahms and Tchaikovsky did cross paths again. A couple of years later, Tchaikovsky was surprised to meet Brahms in the same hotel where he was staying. The story goes, they both enjoyed themselves – thanks once again to an ample supply of alcohol.

David Guerrier plays the keyed trumpet

The trumpet goes back a long, long way. Trumpeters are depicted in art from ancient Egypt, dated in the 14th century BCE.

For most of its centuries of existence, the trumpet was an instrument of royalty, used for playing fanfares. Frankly, that’s about all it was good for. These early trumpets couldn’t play all the notes of the scale. They played only the first few notes from the harmonic series, which is already a subset of the scale’s notes.

By the 16th century, instrument makers had figured out how to make trumpets play more of the notes from the harmonic series. Now, the further up you go in the harmonic series, the closer together the notes get. If you could push your trumpet far enough, and fudge the pitch of some notes a bit, you could play all the notes of the scale. By the 17th century, trumpets could actually be used to more or less play melodies.

I say "more or less" because they still didn’t do a very good job of it. It took a really talented (and fit!) player to get all the notes in tune. (Many of today’s period instrument specialists use trumpets with tiny, inconspicuous, and inauthentic "cheater holes" that help them with this challenge.) Even then, the timbre (tone quality) of the notes varied radically.

In the 15th century, a few instrument makers had experimented with adding slides (like a trombone’s) to trumpets. We have pictures! But given the design – they were straight trumpets – it’s hard to see how a player could’ve flung that slide around fast enough to play any but the slowest music. He might well have knocked his own front teeth out trying. For centuries more, trumpet players had to pretty much depend only on skill and lungs to coax a real tune from their instruments.

In the 17th century, Vienna became something of a Mecca for trumpet players. The very earliest trumpet players had been little more than vagrants, but Viennese trumpeters were given a place of honor. On high feast days the court’s string orchestra was augmented by a choir of trumpets, playing sonatas composed by the likes of Schmelzer and Biber.

But by the late 18th century the trumpet was going out of style, giving way to more agile and tonally consistent instruments. A few trumpeters, determined to salvage their careers, scrambled to develop a trumpet that could compete with the violin, flute, and oboe. Some of them achieved a measure of success by adding keys to the trumpet, so it could play all the notes of the scale, even in its lowest register.

Enter Anton Weidinger (1767 – 1852). Weidinger was a Viennese court trumpeter. Around 1793, he began experimenting with some of these keyed trumpets, refining them and practicing with them. By 1796 he was making enough progress that he convinced Haydn to write a concerto for his Klappentrompette (keyed trumpet). He took that concerto on the road in 1803, playing it in France, Germany, and England. Weidinger caught the interest of composer Johann Nepomuk Hummel, who composed yet another concerto for him and his curious keyed trumpet.

The critics had good things to say about Weidinger’s trumpet and his playing. But it was too late. By 1820 the valved trumpet had appeared in Vienna and was rapidly taking over. Weidinger’s keyed trumpet hung on for a little longer; some musicians and composers preferred its tone to the valved trumpet’s. But by 1840 the Klappentrompette was forgotten – obsolete.

Although the Baroque natural trumpet has no shortage of proponents (and makers and players), not many musicians have shown much interest in reviving the Klappentrompette. Who can blame them? After all, what’s the point of reviving an instrument for which only two major concertos were ever written? (See also the arpeggione.) Adolf Egger has built modern reproductions, as has Christopher Monk, but they don’t seem to have had many customers. The few recordings that have been made with their instruments have quickly gone out of print, presumably for lack of interest.

But if you’d like to see and hear the keyed trumpet, here’s a rare opportunity: David Guerrier playing the first movement of the Haydn in the Festival de l’Epau last May (2009). He’s accompanied by the chamber orchestra "Les Siècles."

Further reading:

The story of the keyed trumpet, by Norwegian trumpeter Ole J Utnes

The natural trumpet in Wikipedia

Adolf Egger’s workshop

Trumpeter David Guerrier from Trumpet World

This article was first published in WKSU Classical on 28 December 2009.

Incipit (cantus part) from Canticum Trium Puerorum (Renato Calcaterra) Click to zoom

Now and again music history gives us personalities whose accomplishments range far and wide, well beyond composition. One such musician is Michael Praetorius. Not only did he leave us a good-sized body of music both sacred and secular, he created a reference volume that generations of early music researchers and performers have found invaluable: Syntagma Musicum, describing performing practice and musical instruments in the late Renaissance era.

Among Praetorius’s many publications of Lutheran church music is the collection Musarum Sioniarum: Motectae et Psalmi Latini. The 34th item in that volume is a setting of a text from the Latin Vulgate Bible.

It’s the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego – also called Ananias, Azarias and Misael. The three men refuse to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image, so Nebuchadnezzar has them thrown into a furnace. There, the story goes, they’re protected by an angel. They walk about in the flames, unscathed, praying and singing.

This text has come to be called The Prayer of the Three Holy Children. In the Latin Praetorius used, it’s Canticum Trium Puerorum – the song of the three boys. It’s not clear to me why they’re called boys or children when all of the biblical text refers to them as men, but those seem to be the terms used.

If Bach was the master of numerology, Praetorius excelled at word-painting, at least in this work. Where his text is "bless the lightning and clouds," at "fulgura" (lightning) he zig-zags the music across the voices. At "nubes" (clouds) the music gets softer and darker. Listen:

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But Praetorius’s best word-painting is the trick he plays on us throughout the entire work.

Praetorius structures Canticum Trium Puerorum as a series of verses and two alternating refrains, on a text which exhorts all of Creation to bless the Lord. In the first verse, two high voices (they would have been the boys of his choir) speak of the angels and heaven. With each verse, Praetorius adds more voices. By the time he reaches the last lines of the text almost 20 minutes later, all of Creation is indeed singing – or at least every voice in his choir.

Our recording is an early-1980s recording from Erato Records of France, with the Audite Nova Chorale of Paris and director Jean Sourisse. The choir is doubled in the refrains by a small cornett and sackbut ensemble. In general, when it comes to Renaissance music, there’s ample evidence to support the use of such doubling. However, some purists might insist that since Praetorius didn’t specify an instrumental ensemble, a pure choral reading would be safer, if you’re going for authenticity.

A reviewer for Gramophone also sniffed that the 38-voice choir was too large for Praetorius. I’ll stay out of this one and let that reviewer work it out with Praetorius, should they ever meet. I will say, though, that I suspect that reviewer would wax apoplectic if he heard Erato’s earlier recording of this work.

That older performance was my own introduction to Canticum Trium Puerorum about 3 dozen years ago. No one could possibly call that performance authentic! It was sung by a massive 500-voice choir, doubled in the refrains by a blaring brass band (the Paris Police Force brass ensemble, if you can imagine that). It was the sort of performing forces that, as the recording’s annotator pointed out, Praetorius could only have dreamed of.

That recording was distributed in the US a good half-century ago under the Westminster label, and later by Musical Heritage Society. It’s many years out of print. We’ll have to make do with just 38 voices.

This is Felix Mendlessohn’s handiwork with a watercolor paintbrush. It’s of Lake Lucerne, from 1847.

He was mostly self-taught. His studies were in German studies and Secondary Education. He did not attend a conservatory of music or take any master classes. As a matter of fact, in 1993 a jury member at a national competition (this is taken from a speech he made not too long ago in July 2007), told him to his face, that, “I will never have a musical career, that I have neither the talent nor the technique for playing the piano, and that I should find something easier to do with my life.” He is Jon Nakamatsu. This is a must-see speech.

Bach at the Organ

It’s one of the hazards of concert-going. You’re deeply engrossed in the music. Comes a diminuendo to pianissimo and beyond. You scarcely breathe as the music falls to the limit of audibility.

From three seats over comes a quiet snorfff. The gentleman there has fallen asleep.

It’s hard to imagine a greater insult to a composer. Yet there’s a very well known work which was designed to have this exact effect — well, maybe. Or so legend has it.

J N Forkel

The story comes from Bach’s first biographer, Johann Nicolaus Forkel (1749 – 1818).

Johann Gottlieb Goldberg was one of Bach’s students. He was attached to the household of the former Russian ambassador to the electoral court of Saxony, Count Keyserlingk. The count often traveled to Leipzig. Goldberg usually accompanied him and would visit with Bach for a lesson.

Count Keyserlingk had health problems. Too often, his nights were filled with pain rather than sleep. On those nights he would call for young Goldberg, who would play the harpsichord for him in a room adjoining his bedchamber.

Count Keyserlingk

Could Bach compose some keyboard music for him? Perhaps Bach could make the pieces "of a soft and somewhat lively character." Then they might cheer Count Keyserlingk up on his sleepless nights.

Good story, so far. The first question is — assuming it’s true (and we’ll get to that in a moment), is the count asking for music to divert his mind when he can’t sleep, or music that might lull him to sleep?

The usual interpretation of this passage is the former. I might think that too if I were a keyboard player. Trying to sort out these challenging pieces at the harpsichord is definitely not going to lull you to sleep, and playing them on the piano is even more finger-twisting.

The fact that Count Keyserlingk is (according to Forkel) asking to be cheered, not lulled or soothed, is further evidence for the pianists’ side.

But note what Forkel says the count asked for: music "of a soft and somewhat lively character." Is he asking for pieces that are both soft and lively, or does he want some pieces to be soft and others lively?

Well, could "soft" be just a mistranslation? I don’t think so. Forkel writes sanft. I’m no German expert, though I speak a little, so I asked my old friend Herr Langenscheidt. Here are some possible English equivalents he suggests: soft, gentle, mild, calm, sweet, and smooth. In my book that doesn’t leave a lot of room for negotiation about what Keyserlingk was looking for.

You can’t say that the Goldberg Variations’ opening aria doesn’t fit that description — though some might call it a bit melancholy instead — and there are plenty of variations in the set which could easily fall into the "soft" category.

First Edition of the Goldberg Variations

Forkel never says that Goldberg played the entire set of 30 variations from beginning to end. On the contrary, he tells us that "when the sleepless nights came, he [Count Keyserlingk] used to say: ‘Dear Goldberg, do play me one of my variations.’" (Emphasis added.) Don’t you think that a reasonable and thoughtful Goldberg would try to choose an appropriate variation for that night’s situation?

Forkel also says that "Bach thought he could best fulfill [the count's] wish by variations, which, on account of the constant sameness of the fundamental harmony, he had hitherto considered as an ungrateful task." The implication is pretty clear here: Bach thought that variations, as a musical form, tended to be dull. One interpretation of this sentence might be that Bach took this as a challenge — to make his Goldberg Variations stimulating and engaging. But you could just as easily take it to mean that Bach used variations because they (or at least some of them!) were more likely than other forms to send the count into dreamland.

Either way, he seems to have pleased the count. Forkel tells us that Count Keyserlingk never tired of his variations. He rewarded Bach with a golden goblet, filled with 100 louis-d’or. A louis d’or was a gold coin with a weight of 6.75 ounces. Today that much gold would be worth a cool $635,850.

It’s a fine tale, but is it true? Good question. I have to admit, there’s evidence to the contrary.

First, a big one: no other source has yet appeared to corroborate Forkel’s yarn.

Nor is there in the published variations any hint of a dedication to either Count Keyserlingk or Goldberg. You’d certainly expect one, especially given the count’s rather generous payment. But Bach’s title page says only Keyboard practice, consisting of an aria with different variations for the harpsichord with two manuals, prepared for the enjoyment of music lovers by Johann Sebastian Bach, Polish royal and Saxon electoral court composer, director and chorusmaster in Leipzig.

Third, the inventory of Bach’s estate lists no golden goblet.

And finally — most damning in the view of generations of pianists who have struggled mightily with the Goldberg Variations — at the time the Goldberg Variations appeared, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg was only 14 years old.

It’s pretty tough to argue with the lack of corroboration, but remember that Forkel got much of his biographical information directly from two of Bach’s sons, Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, who seem to have been generally pretty reliable. The lack of a dedication is telling, though; it definitely runs against common practice at the time.

However, the goblet could have been sold, lost, or given away by 1750. And Goldberg’s age? At 14, Mendelssohn was composing symphonies and Mozart created a full length opera (Mitridate, Re di Ponto). It’s remarkable what a talented kid can accomplish when he’s not distracted by Wii and Facebook, eh?

All that said, until some further documentation turns up — a dedicated copy from the count’s library, for example — I’m afraid we’ll have leave Forkel’s tale of the Goldberg Variations’ origins and use in the "legend, possibly apocryphal" department. But the next 3am when your sheep-count gets into five figures, why not see what the Goldberg Variations will do for you? I’ve listed a few recordings below, and there are many, many more in print.

Further reading:

The Goldberg Variations by Yo Tomita

Further listening (recommended recordings of the Goldberg Variations):

Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichord (1976) stocked item at Amazon Germany

Gustav Leonhardt, harpsichord (1976) special order at Arkiv Music

Pierre Hantai, harpsichord (1993) at Arkivmusic

Glenn Gould, piano (1955) at Arkivmusic

Murray Perahia, piano (2000) at CD Universe

Note: The vendor links above are provided solely for your information. WKSU doesn’t endorse these suppliers, nor does it receive any financial benefit from your use of the links.

George Gershwin in the 1920s (Library of Congress)

In 1920s America, Paul Whiteman was a bandleader and the self-proclaimed "King of Jazz" (a title which must have raised Louis Armstrong’s eyebrows, if not his hackles). On 3 January 1924 Whiteman announced that he planned an "Experiment in Modern Music" at Aeolian Hall in New York City. This concert would be a showcase for nearly every form of American music. It would include a new "jazz concerto" by George Gershwin.

The next day, Gershwin learned from the New York Times that he was composing a new "jazz concerto."

Odd way to receive a commission — from the newspaper — but Whiteman browbeat Gershwin into accepting it. The composer of Al Jolson’s hit song "Swanee" had 39 days to throw something together.

Between the time frame and his own keenly felt lack of experience, Gershwin wasn’t quite up to orchestrating the piece. So Whiteman collared his best arranger, Ferde Grofe, and persuaded him to do the deed. With Grofe’s help, on the 12th of February, a somewhat overly long "Experiment in Modern Music" suddenly snapped to life when Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue crackled through the audience.

Rhapsody in Blue was a smashing success. "Swanee" had made Gershwin’s name in America; now he suddenly had an international reputation.

So he wouldn’t have to rely on Grofe again, Gershwin began studying harmony and counterpoint in earnest. He traveled to Paris and called on Maurice Ravel, whom he knew had instructed other composers in orchestration. Ravel demurred: "Why would you want to risk being a second-rate Ravel when you are already a first-rate Gershwin?"

Stravinsky also turned him down, but in Hollywood, Gershwin finally got Arnold Schoenberg to work with him on orchestration (when they weren’t playing tennis). Schoenberg muttered that, considering his income against Gershwin’s, maybe Gershwin should be giving him music lessons.

Taxi Horns (Cambridge University Musical Society)

In 1926 Gershwin was in London for the opening of his musical Lady Be Good, and he visited Paris again in a side trip. He spent much of his stay there wandering round the city on foot. He not only explored the usual tourist sites, he also visited an auto parts store on the Avenue de la Grande Armée. When he returned to America, he brought back a few authentic Parisian taxi horns — and a jaunty "walking theme," just the tempo of his own Paris-traipsing gait.

So Gershwin had the opening of An American in Paris — but that was as far as he could get. He needed another, longer visit to La Ville-Lumière to tie down the rest of his "rhapsodic ballet." He got it in March of 1928. Such European musical luminaries as Ravel, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Poulenc and Milhaud graciously welcomed Gershwin. He also bought more taxi horns.

Gershwin was back in New York on 20 June and had the piano sketches for An American in Paris wrapped up within 6 weeks.

This time, Gershwin proudly orchestrated the work himself. It took him an agonizing 2 1/2 months. When he finished An American in Paris on 18 November, Gershwin had less than four weeks until the premiere. Walter Damrosch conducted it with the New York Philharmonic on 13 December, 1928.

So just who is the American in Paris? Gershwin tried to be vague. In August of 1928, he told a writer for Musical America magazine, "My purpose is to portray the impression of an American visitor in Paris, as he strolls about the city and listens to various street noises and absorbs the French atmosphere."

But that’s exactly what Gershwin did in Paris in 1926 and 1928: he strolled the city, listened to its sounds, absorbed its atmosphere. "Write what you know," that’s the author’s axiom, and in 1926 and 1928, it worked for Gershwin. It would be awfully difficult to argue that anyone but George Gershwin himself was the American in Paris.

From the Middle Ages, Italy’s Medici family was a magnet for artists and artisans, who created extraordinary works under the family’s generous patronage. In 1688, Florence’s Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici hired Bartolomeo Cristofori, then 33 years old, to look after his collection of harpsichords. This was an important position: Cristofori was paid as much as any court musician.

The harpsichord of Cristofori’s time was a well developed instrument, responsive and flexible. But it lacked one feature: variable dynamics. The harpsichord’s mechanism plucked the strings of the instrument. There was no practical way (then) to make it pluck them more gently. The only way to vary volume was to change stops or combine manuals. The possibilities for dynamic variety were fairly limited.

Some time in the 1690s, Cristofori had a brainstorm. He realized that if he replaced the harpsichord’s plucking mechanism with one which struck the string instead, the force of the strike — and thus the volume of the sound — could be under complete control of the player.

The idea of a keyboard instrument that struck the strings rather than plucking them wasn’t really new. The clavichord had existed since at least the 15th century. A clavichord had tangents fastened to the keys. Instead of controlling jacks and quills which plucked the strings, the tangents themselves struck the strings inside the instrument’s case.

The problem with the clavichord was that while it was capable of extraordinarily sensitive dynamic expression, its volume range was from almost inaudible to barely audible. Let’s face it, the force that a keyboard player can transmit through his or her fingers is limited. The clavichord’s tangents couldn’t strike its strings hard enough to make a sound that could be heard, say, in a church sanctuary. This meant that the clavichord wasn’t suitable for anything other than the most intimate music-making. (It made a magnificent instrument for late-night keyboard practice, however.)

Cristofori solved this problem by adding a mechanical action. It multiplied the player’s string-striking force by four (eight, in his later instruments) and used that force to drive a hammer against the string. He also added an escapement mechanism. The escapement allowed the hammer to fall back after striking the string, so the string would keep vibrating. (Think of the way a fine crystal goblet rings when you tap it with a spoon — as long as you don’t keep the spoon touching the glass after you tap it.)

Cristofori called his invention "arpicimbalo che fa il piano e il forte" — harpsichord with soft and loud. Today, we shorten that name a bit. We call it the piano.

Maybe you’re expecting me to say here that Cristofori’s piano "took Europe by storm" (or some similar cliche’!) and almost immediately eclipsed the harpsichord.

That didn’t happen. Truth to tell, keyboard players didn’t like the touch. The Florentine piano was harder to play, and the keys just didn’t feel right when pressed. They didn’t like the tone, either; it was too soft, too muffled. Besides, who really needed that much variety in volume anyway?

It would remain for later piano makers to solve these problems. But Cristofori had begun the process of breaking the harpsichord’s lock on public keyboard performance. It’s not hard to imagine that without the financial and moral support of the Medici family, Cristofori probably couldn’t have pushed keyboard technology ahead — but that’s another story for another day.

Now back to 1700, and over to Naples. That’s when and where Domenico Scarlatti, one more musical member of a hugely talented musical family, was named organist and composer of the Royal Chapel. He was even granted a special additional salary for his work as chamber harpsichordist.

Domenico Scarlatti was only 15 years old.

Two years later, Scarlatti and his father Alessandro made the first of two visits to Florence. Their host was none other than Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici, Cristofori’s patron. Did Domenico play one or more of Cristofori’s Florentine pianos on these visits? Perhaps. History doesn’t tell us. So far no documentation has surfaced — no letters home raving about (or excoriating!) the new-fangled instrument, no eyewitness reports, no newspaper articles.

By 1708, Domenico had joined his father in Rome. There he attended the weekly concerts originated by Cardinal Pietro Ottoboni. In 1709, Prince Ferdinando sent the Cardinal a lavish gift from Florence: one of Cristofori’s pianos. Did Scarlatti play or hear that instrument? Again, history doesn’t tell us.

In 1719, Scarlatti left Rome, ostensibly for England. In actuality, he was on his way to Lisbon, Portugal, where he had a job offer — he was to be master of the Royal Chapel there. In Lisbon he encountered an exceptionally talented royal youngster — the infanta Maria Barbara, who, as a contemporary report said, “Surprise[ed] the amazed intelligence of the most excellent Professors with her Mastery of Singing, Playing and Composition.”

In January of 1729, Maria Barbara married Ferdinando, the Spanish infante. It was a rather uncomfortable union whose purpose was entirely political. Maria Barbara soon found herself in the hostile company of the jealous Queen Isabella of Spain. Isabella even refused to allow Maria Barbara to bring along her personal servants — all but one, that is: her music teacher, Domenico Scarlatti. During the remaining 28 years of his life, Scarlatti composed and catalogued over 550 keyboard exercises for Maria Barbara — from 1746, queen of Spain.

Scarlatti and the Florentine piano are linked (if only circumstantially) at several other times and places, but what’s undeniable is that Maria Barbara herself was a point of intersection.

Maria Barbara owned pianos. We know this because she died just over a year after Scarlatti did, and at her death, her instruments were inventoried. Of her dozen (!) keyboard instruments, three were pianos, and two more were harpsichords which had been converted from pianos (perhaps because their actions failed, or because they were judged unsatisfactory as pianos). It thus becomes rather difficult to deny that Scarlatti was acquainted with the piano.

But did he play them? Did he intend for Maria Barbara to play his sonatas on them?

Ralph Kirkpatrick didn’t think so. Kirkpatrick was an American harpsichordist (1911 – 1984). He had a distinguised career as a performer, but his magnum opus was his biography of Domenico Scarlatti. It occupied him for 16 years, from 1937 to 1953. When it came to Scarlatti’s sonatas, Kirkpatrick’s views in that 1953 publication were enormously influential, guiding the performance practice of a generation of historically-oriented keyboard musicians.

Kirkpatrick pointed out that 73 of Scarlatti’s 550-some sonatas required more keys than the queen’s pianos had. This is pretty hard to argue with! It seems very unlikely that either Maria Barbara or Scarlatti played those 73 sonatas on any of the pianos to which they had known access. That’s a carefully qualified statement, but it’s about as definitive as we can really get in this discussion.

Kirkpatrick thought that was sufficient evidence to declare that Scarlatti probably had the harpsichord in mind for playing all of his sonatas. There is more to his argument, but it’s mostly conjectural, related to what he saw as the musical suitability of the piano of the time to the sonatas. What else can one do without definitive surviving documentation?

But from 1970, other historically-oriented musicologists and performers began to question Kirkpatrick’s assessment. Their re-evaluation of the evidence, sketchy as it was and is, led to harpsichord maker David Sutherland’s 1995 article in Early Music magazine, “Domenico Scarlatti and the Florentine Piano.”

Sutherland argued that, in making his recommendation, Kirkpatrick should have given more weight to the circumstantial evidence connecting Scarlatti and the early Florentine piano. Sutherland also questioned Kirkpatrick’s judgement of the Florentine piano as unsuited to Scarlatti’s sonatas, but in all honesty it’s difficult to see Sutherland’s view of this matter as any less subjective than Kirkpatrick’s. Finally, he took issue with Kirkpatrick’s argument that the piano was mostly used at court for accompanying singers. Sutherland’s evidence here seems about as persuasive as Kirkpatrick’s. Stalemate.

Who’s right? I don’t know.

Keyboard isn’t my instrument, so maybe I’m able to view this whole discussion with a bit of detachment. We’ve invested over 70 years in poring over what little documentation exists (reckoning from when Kirkpatrick began his research for Domenico Scarlatti). We have more informed opinions than ever (and thank goodness for that), but informed as they are, they’re still opinions. We don’t have a definitive answer as to whether Scarlatti intended his sonatas for the harpsichord or the piano. Perhaps he intended some of them for one and some for the other, but we have no way of knowing that. If he did, the 73 I mentioned before are the only ones which we currently have much hope of assigning. Actually, we don’t know whether Scarlatti even cared which instrument they were played on. We may never know. There just isn’t enough evidence to say.

Meanwhile, players of the modern piano, from Dame Myra Hess to Vladimir Horowitz — and countless others since — have never stopped playing Scarlatti. Why should they? For them, I suspect that the question of what instrument Scarlatti had played was pretty much academic. His music worked for them on their chosen instrument. They gave Scarlatti a voice, and also found their own expressive nuances in the sonatas. Audiences loved it. I imagine that was enough for them.

What I do know is that I’ve heard successful and musically enlightening performances of Scarlatti sonatas on harpsichords, Florentine pianos, and modern pianos. But don’t take my word for it; compare for yourself. Here are three short clips from Scarlatti’s Sonata in f minor, K519 — played on modern piano, a reproduction of Cristofori’s Florentine piano, and harpsichord.

Scarlatti’s K519 sonata on modern piano (Beatrice Long)

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Scarlatti’s K519 sonata on Florentine piano (David Schrader)

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Scarlatti’s K519 sonata on harpsichord (Colin Tilney)

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I’ve also heard some pretty good Scarlatti on other instruments, including harp and guitar. His music seems to suit many different instruments, and I for one am glad that one more avenue of timbre and style has opened up for interpreting Scarlatti sonatas.

Further reading:

Domenico Scarlatti. Ralph Kirkpatrick, 1953 (1983 revision).

Domenico Scarlatti and the Florentine Piano. David Sutherland, Early Music, 1995 (Note: JSTOR access is required to read this article. A public-access computer associated with a university or library will usually connect immediately, but most home or business computers will not.)

A Florentine Piano c.1730 for Early Piano Music. Denzil Wraight.

Domenico Scarlatti, a brief biography. Chris Whent, Here of a Sunday Morning, WBAI, New York.

Cristofori, Inventor of the Piano. Roy E. Howard, Cantos Para Todos.

This article was originally published on 17 July 2008.

Jean Sibelius (Wikimedia Commons)

Much of Finland’s history is the story of dominance by one country or another, mostly Sweden and Russia. In fact Finland wasn’t a truly independent entity until 1992, in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Russia controlled Finland for the better part of the 19th century, but for most of that time they were a relatively docile master. After the Finnish Diet accepted Tsar Alexander’s authority, Russia granted Finland grand duchy status and promised to respect Finnish law.

But nationalism continued to grow in Finland, with the spreading conversion of the elementary education system to the Finnish language, and the publication of the Finnish national epic, the Kalevala.

In 1899, Tsar Nicholas II decided he’d had enough of these upstart Finns. He abrogated the earlier agreement to respect Finnish law and instituted new restrictions, notably on freedom of the press.

Here composer Jean Sibelius enters the picture. Sibelius was asked to create incidental music for a historical tableau. Ostensibly the performance of this pageant was to benefit the press pension fund, but in reality it was economic and moral support for the beleaguered newspapers and freedom of the press.

The finale was called Finland Awakes, representing — well, exactly what you’d expect. This selection quickly became a separate (and very popular) concert work. The following year, Sibelius revised it and renamed it Finlandia.

Given Finland’s craving for independence it’s no surprise that Finlandia became something of a rallying cry, and that Sibelius came to be considered a nationalist composer. This view was only reinforced when Sibelius was among the first to sign a petition protesting Russia’s plan to dissolve the Finnish army.

Still, as patriotic as he may have been, Sibelius wasn’t keen to have his music pigeonholed this way.

The year after Finland Awakes became Finlandia, Sibelius, on holiday in Italy, began creating the musical ideas which would eventually become his second symphony. He premiered the work in Helsenki on 8 March 1902 to widespread acclaim. Sibelius’s Symphony #2 quickly found conductors in other nations who championed it, too.

Conductor Robert Kajanus, for years one of Sibelius’s most ardent proponents, immediately suggested a fairly explicit nationalistic program for the second symphony. To him, the andante section was a "protest against all the injustice," the scherzo a "picture of frenzied preparation," and the finale "lighter and confident prospects for the future." With Finlandia so fresh in the Finnish public’s mind, it’s no surprise that Kajanus’s idea sat rather well with them.

Sibelius would have none of it. He denied any such associations. He wanted the symphony taken at face value — as absolute music, without any meaning beyond the notes on the page and in the ear.

And in fact there is nothing anywhere in the recorded history of Sibelius’s work on the second symphony that supports any of Kajanus’s ideas. Indeed one could make as much of a case — which is to say, a weak one — for the second symphony representing Italy, thanks to Sibelius’s holiday there. What’s more, he recycled some of the symphony’s musical material from an abandoned tone poem inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy, which of course has nothing to do with Finland’s independence.

Sibelius’s international musical capital suffered something of a decline in the mid-20th century. This was thanks in no small part to American composer Virgil Thomson’s bully pulpit, which he occupied at the New York Herald Tribune. It was Thomson who penned that famous, witheringly vituperative assessment labeling the second symphony "vulgar, self-indulgent, and provincial."

History doesn’t record Sibelius’s opinions of Virgil Thomson’s music. But from the perspective of the 21st century’s first decade, it isn’t too tough to judge which of the two was the more significant composer. Today the Symphony #2 remains Sibelius’s best known symphony, and indeed one of the 20th century’s most frequently programmed symphonies.

Spiegelgasse today ( Franz Jachim, Vienna)

Mozart’s 40th symphony is one of his most emotionally charged (dare I say Romantic?) works. It’s one of only two large-scale symphonies he composed in dark minor keys (the other is #25, also in g minor). And it’s one of three late, lonely symphonies that he actually meant to be played in — of all places — a casino.

The wonder is that he wrote the fortieth at all.

Over a period of 16 years (he started at age 8!) Mozart composed well over 3 dozen symphonies, and several more that were really slightly tweaked opera overtures. But once Archbishop Colloredo’s literal kick in the pants had launched Mozart into his life as a freelance musician in Vienna, he had little further use for symphonies. In the nine years he had left in this world, Mozart created only a half-dozen more.

No wonder. By 1781, when Mozart descended on Vienna, symphonies were falling out of fashion there. What the Viennese clamored for, at least at first, was Mozart at the keyboard. They filled the theatres for his operas, and for a while they even were willing to pay him handsomely – in advance, no discounts or refunds, thank you very much – for music lessons. His purse jingled a happy tune. Symphonies? There was no money to be made from them, so why write them?

He did knock out a few symphonies for specific occasions – in seven years, all of three. But the big symphonic revival came 1788. Mozart composed three more, his last, all in that one year. They’re the ones we call numbers 39, 40, and 41.

Why symphonies? Why then?

Seven years on, Vienna had begun to drift away from Mozart. The needy composer had mined the virtuoso vein voraciously, and it was nearly played out. Then there were matters over which Mozart had no control. The emperor’s reforms – exactly what Mozart admired about him – had taken money out of the pockets of the wealthy, so they were less interested in concerts and commissions. The reforms had benefitted the rising middle class, and they’d filled seats at Mozart’s concerts a few years before. But the Turkish War had sapped everyone’s resources and enthusiasm.

Mozart’s operas were still doing decent box office, but rumors circulated that the Opera would soon be disbanded. It was running a deficit, and the imperial treasury was rapidly draining away into the war. In the end, the Opera survived, but the whispering (and some actual pink slips) drove away some of the best singers – and the audiences.

Mozart’s income was sliding. But Mozart had rubbed elbows with nobility! Surely he deserved to live just as graciously as his musical colleagues – Salieri included – who had steady salaries from their court positions.

So he did. Between his profligate ways and Constanze’s worsening health (no surprise, since he kept her in a nearly constant state of pregnancy), Mozart was spiraling downward into debt. He wrote to his fellow Mason J M Puchberg, “Life becomes impossible when one must bide one’s time between various odd bits of income.”

Mozart was writing to ask Puchberg for – what else? – money. Nor was Puchberg the only one. By 1788 Mozart’s letters to his sister Maria Anna speak ever less of his full datebook, and ever more of his empty pockets.

Finally, desperate for some income, Mozart made plans for an autumn concert series. Phillipp Otto had just opened a new casino in the Spiegelgasse in Vienna. A couple of years before, Mozart had had some success with a "concerts in the casino" series at Trattner’s casino. Maybe Otto’s would work even better.

Initially Mozart sketched out a piano concerto for this series. He gave it up, though, maybe realizing that Mozart at the keyboard wasn’t quite the draw it had been. Instead, perhaps ready to try anything that might attract the jaded and uneasy Viennese, Mozart turned back to the symphonic world he’d mostly neglected.

Mozart had moved yet again, trying to cut his expenses. Although the new digs were cheaper, he now he had an idyllic garden in which to put pen to manuscript paper. There Mozart composed the turbulent 40th, along with its sunnier neighbors the 39th and 41st, during a 2-month period that summer.

Legend has it that Mozart never heard the 40th symphony performed, but that’s very unlikely. It’s tough to be certain, because Mozart’s letters, usually our best map of his musical life, are maddeningly thin on details. However, it appears that he did succeed in mounting at least one of the autumn concerts: Mozart wrote to Puchberg, offering him tickets. Alas, there’s no date on the letter. Although we’re pretty sure that Salieri used it in a benefit for the Tonkünstlersocietät in April of 1791, we may never know for sure whether Mozart’s 40th symphony was actually played where he intended it to be – in the casino in the Spiegelgasse.

Royal Fireworks (Wikimedia Commons)

The War of the Austrian Succession sapped Europe’s prosperity and will from 1840 to 1848. As soon as the ink was dry on the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, England was ready for a celebration. It was set for 27 April, 1749, and it was to be a magnificent party with fireworks and music provided by none other than the great Handel.

For some reason, though, apparently King George wasn’t too keen on the idea of having any music at all! Or so we read in a series of rather huffy letters which flew among Handel, the king’s Master General of Ordnance (who had the say-so over military music), and Charles Frederick, who had been assigned the remarkable title of Comptroller of his Majesty’s Fireworks for War as for Triumph. However, once Handel had assured the King that the music wouldn’t be overly long, "he was better satisfied."

But he "hoped there would be no fiddles."

There were none.

Handel did try a few times to sneak a few violins into the band, but in the end (perhaps placing some significant value on his own head) he bowed to George’s wishes — and to practicality, since for outdoor performance in such a situation, strings wouldn’t really have added much. His ensemble was as "warlike" as they come. And it was big: 9 trumpets, 9 horns, 24 oboes, 12 bassoons, 3 pair of kettledrums, and an unspecified number of side drums. What a magnificent amount of volume it must have made!

A public rehearsal of Handel’s music on 21 April in Vauxhall Gardens drew a record crowd of 12,000, causing a 3-hour traffic jam on London Bridge. Maybe the tie-up was more newsworthy than the music; the press tells us much more about the rehearsal than about the actual performance at Green Park on the 27th. However, one report identifies Handel’s music by its alternate name — A Grand Overture of Warlike Instruments.

Though we know it today as Music for the Royal Fireworks, it appears that Handel’s music didn’t actually play during the fireworks display. That was a good thing for the musicians. The display was apparently a bit disappointing: "The rockets and whatever was thrown up into the air succeeded mighty well; but the wheels, and all that was to compose the principal part, were pitiful and ill-conducted, with no changes of coloured fires and shapes: the illumination was mean, and lighted so slowly that scarce anybody had patience to wait the finishing." But more significantly, one of the pavilions — almost exactly where Handel’s band had been playing the hour before — caught fire during the fireworks and burned to the ground.

Not one to let good music lie, Handel programmed his Grand Overture of Warlike Instruments on many other occasions, including a performance at the Foundling Hospital a month later.

And yes, he often added strings.

Louise Farrenc was a student of Ignaz Moscheles and Johann Nepomuk Hummel, and later studied with Anton Reicha at the Paris Conservatory.

In 1842, when she was 38 years old, Farrenc started a nearly 30-year career as Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatory. Hers was considered one of the most prominent musical positions in all of Europe. That made her the only female professor of music to be hired in the nineteenth century at the famous Paris Conservatory.

One day in late 1884, after his daily walk to the railway station in Prague, Dvorak said "The first subject of my new symphony flashed into my mind on the arrival of the festive train bringing our countrymen from Pest." The Czechs he was talking about were in fact coming to the Prague National Theatre for a concert. But there was a darker side of the event. The concert was in support of the political struggles of the Czech nation. That night, Dvorak resolved that his new symphony would reflect this struggle.