Haydn and Beethoven

Joseph Haydn was a prominent and prolific Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the piano trio and his contributions to musical form have earned him the epithets "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet".

Beethoven and Haydn: their relationship

The young Beethoven - just over a week past his 20th birthday - first met the renowned Joseph Haydn on 26 December 1790 in Bonn, when Haydn and the impresario Johann Peter Salomon stopped off on their way to London where Haydn was to perform.

Beethoven met Haydn again on Haydn's return journey in July 1792. Beethoven showed him his scores for the Cantatas on the Death of Emperor Joseph II and the Elevation of Emperor Leopold II.

Haydn was sufficiently impressed to tell Beethoven that if he could arrange to come to Vienna, he would gladly take him on as a pupil.

Beethoven took lessons with other teachers - often in secret so as not to offend Haydn!

In August 1795, Beethoven performed his newly composed three Piano Trios opus 1 in the salon of Prince Lichnowsky, with Haydn, who had just returned from London, as guest of honor.

Haydn, 63 years of age, was tired. The trip to London had been exhausting, and he had a grueling commission to fulfill. The three Trios, in performance, comprise more than an hour and a half of music. By the end of the third and final Trio, Haydn was seriously tired.

Beethoven hurried over to his teacher and asked him what he thought. Haydn had the temerity to suggest that the third Trio needed more work on it before it was published.

Beethoven was horrified - and he never forgot Haydn's criticism. (Ironically musicologists today rate the Third as the best of the three!) There was no falling-out between the two, but Beethoven was always quick to criticize his old teacher. He once said, "I never learned anything from Haydn."

Proof that relations were not too strained by the Piano Trio incident came when Beethoven dedicated his next opus, the set of three Piano Sonatas, opus 2, to Haydn.

But Beethoven never acceded to the one request Haydn made of him, which, Haydn knew, would forever tie him to his brilliant and precocious pupil: to put at the top of a single composition ..... by Ludwig van Beethoven, pupil of Haydn.

Anthony Tommasini discusses Haydn and Mozart, two of the four giants who worked in Vienna during a 75-year period.


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Musical Motifs in 'Tosca'

Front cover of the original 1899 libretto

Puccini's Tosca, one of the most popular operas in the repertoire ever since its January 14, 1900 premiere, is a violent drama based on Victorien Sardou's hit play La Tosca, which was written as a star vehicle for the famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt. In the translation from play to opera, the action was tightened, the characters were "Italianized," and most of the political motivation was cut. The action of the play and the opera takes place in Rome between noon of June 17, 1800 and dawn the following day, during which time all of the major characters die violent deaths. 

Sarah Bernhardt in the role of Tosca in play by Victorian Sardou , in 1899 ,

Puccini saw Sardou's play when it was touring Italy in 1889 and, after some vacillation, obtained the rights to turn the work into an opera in 1895. The dramatic force of Tosca and its characters continues to fascinate both performers and audiences, and the work remains one of the most frequently performed operas.

Anthony Tommasini, classical music critic of The New York Times, demonstrates how Puccini's use of motifs with various characters and elements in "Tosca" enhance the emotional power of the work.

The wonderful and moving aria "Vissi d'arte"  is the aria from act 2. It is sung by Floria Tosca as she thinks of her fate, how the life of her beloved, Mario Cavaradossi, is at the mercy of Baron Scarpia and why God has seemingly abandoned her.

Musical Moments with Anthony Tommasini: Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms

"It is not a symphony in which I have included Psalms to be sung. On the contrary, it is the singing of the Psalms that I am symphonizing." --- Igor Stravinsky

The Symphony of Psalms is a three-movement choral symphony and was composed by Igor Stravinsky in 1930 during his neoclassical period. The work was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The symphony derives its name from the use of Psalm texts in the choral parts.

The work represented Stravinsky's need to express his faith and desire to do homage to God. However, the fact that he was a devout believer did not mean that the work ought to be looked upon as a personal confession of faith. It can be understood as a projection of Stravinsky's own faith through the imagined faith of an anonymous congregation. It remains a highly dramatic work nevertheless.



Anthony Tommasini, classical music critic of The New York Times, performs some of his favorite classical musicmoments on piano.

Musical Moments with Anthony Tommasini:Two Operas, Giacomo Puccini's Turandot and Richard Wagner's Siegfried

Anthony Tommasini, classical music critic of The New York Times, performs some of his favorite classical music moments on piano and explains why.

Turandot –The opera's story is set in China and involves Prince Calàf, who falls in love with the cold Princess Turandot. To obtain permission to marry her, a suitor has to solve three riddles; any wrong answer results in death.

The Prince tries to convince Turandot to love him. At first she is disgusted, but after he kisses her, she feels herself turning towards passion. She admits that, ever since he came, she had both hated and loved him. She asks him to ask for nothing more and to leave, taking his mystery with him. The Prince however, reveals his name, "Calàf, son of Timur" and places his life in Turandot's hands. She can now destroy him if she wants. Turandot and Calàf approach the Emperor's throne. She declares that she knows the Prince's name: Diecimila anni al nostro Imperatore! – "It is ... love!" The crowd cheers and acclaims the two lovers (O sole! Vita! Eternità).

Siegfried, is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung). This part of the opera is primarily inspired by the story of the legendary hero Sigurd in Norse mythology.

Siegfried enters the ring of fire, emerging on Brünnhilde's rock. At first, he thinks the armored figure is a man. However, when he removes the armor, he finds a woman beneath. At the sight of the first woman he has ever seen, Siegfried at last experiences fear. In desperation, he kisses Brünnhilde, waking her from her magic sleep. Hesitant at first, Brünnhilde is won over by Siegfried's love, and renounces the world of the gods. Together, they hail "light-bringing love, and laughing death."

Musical Moments with Anthony Tommasini: Mahler

Anthony Tommasini, classical music critic of The New York Times, performs some of his favorite classical music moments on piano.

Tommasini discusses one of the songs from Mahler's Songs of a Wayfarer', "Ging heut Morgen übers Feld" ("I Went This Morning over the Field"), contains the happiest music of the work. Indeed, it is a song of joy and wonder at the beauty of nature in simple actions like birdsong and dew on the grass. "Is it not a lovely world?" is a refrain.

However, the Wayfarer is reminded at the end that despite this beauty, his happiness will not blossom anymore now that his love is gone. This movement is orchestrated delicately, making use of high strings and flutes, as well as a fair amount of triangle. The melody of this movement, as well as much of the orchestration, is developed into the 'A' theme of the first movement of the First Symphony.

Top 10 Composers by Anthony Tommasini

Johann Sebastian Bach

Anthony Tommasini explores what makes these classical composers great.

In the first video of his series the chief classical music critic Anthony Tommasini explains the importance of Bach and his influence on classical music to come.


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First Crush Critics for The Times Explore Inspiration: It All Started With a Toy Piano

A Critic’s Ode to a Childhood Joy in Classical Music

By ANTHONY TOMMASINI

Before I showed up, no one in my family was musical, played an instrument or even sang in a choir. I found music on my own. In a way, my eureka moment came early, when my parents bought me a little toy piano and, like Schroeder in “Peanuts,” I started picking out tunes on it. I campaigned to get a real piano. It wasn’t until I was 8 that, seeing that I was serious, my parents complied. One day a boxy old upright was hauled into our home on Long Island.

Of course there were formative moments when I started going to live performances, hearing Van Cliburn play the Brahms Second Concerto with the Long Island Philharmonic and Bernstein conduct the “Eroica” Symphony and Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” with the New York Philharmonic. It was not my parents but my fifth-grade teacher, a classical music devotee and audiophile, who generously took me to some of my first concerts and, of special note, my first opera: “Tosca,” at the Metropolitan Opera, with Dorothy Kirsten in the title role, Richard Tucker as Cavaradossi and George London as Scarpia.

What really pulled me in, though, was listening to certain recordings in the basement den of my home, by myself. Two albums especially may have pointed me to my life’s passion.

The first was an RCA release titled “Rubinstein Plays Grieg.”  I already had a recording I loved of Grieg’s Piano Concerto, which my mother had picked up at a supermarket, and I cannot remember the pianist. On the Rubinstein recording of solo works by Grieg, there was just one longer piece: the Ballade in G minor, written in theme and variations form. I was haunted by the achingly sad theme. The subsequent variations were exciting but baffling. This work of nearly 17 minutes was Grieg’s only attempt at writing an extended solo piano piece, and the music becomes confusingly tumultuous.

What really hooked me on this recording, though, were Rubinstein’s accounts of 11 of Grieg’s short “Lyric Pieces.” Like most aspiring Norwegian composers, Grieg felt compelled to go to Germany to complete his training. Still, he remained Norwegian to his core, someone who loved the music of his country and incorporated freely adapted folk songs into his works.

In the “Lyric Pieces,” the combination of the colorful titles and the wistful music filled me with curiosity about Norway. Why was Grieg’s “Shepherd Boy”  so sad? In the “Little Bird,” Grieg depicts no chirping feathered friend but a mysterious forest creature. Even “Spring Dance,” though hardy and rustic, had thick, heavy chords and strangely impetuous energy. This recording taught me that music could stir deep, perplexing emotions in a way that made me want to know more.

The other recording was a Columbia LP of Rudolf Serkin playing three titled piano sonatas by Beethoven: the “Pathétique,” the “Moonlight” and the “Appassionata.” All three pieces were thrilling, and Serkin became my pianist hero. 

But the “Pathétique” especially hooked me. I loved that in the grave, slow introduction to the first movement, each phrase began with a steely chord that lingered, then trailed off into a sighing harmonized melodic turn.

Hearing this piece made me want to, even need to, play it. It was somehow already clear that I could never be a Rudolf Serkin. He was a titan. But what he did, I just had to do in my own way.

When I finally heard Serkin perform live, my titan looked like a toothy, bespectacled grandfather. Still, he was charismatic to me. I will never forget the Serkin concerts I heard in my youth, including recitals at Carnegie Hall and solo appearances with the New York Philharmonic, especially a sensational Beethoven “Emperor” Concerto with an exuberant Bernstein conducting.

Before then, though, when I first tried to play the “Pathétique” Sonata, I figured out how to navigate those grave opening chords pretty well, putting all my force into making a crashing fortissimo sound. But the restless Allegro main section was beyond me.

It was not until my sophomore year in high school that I performed the first movement as a musical interlude during a school function. Despite some tangled passagework, my playing, if I remember, was full of tragic intensity. I played the whole sonata on a recital program the next year, along with shorter works by MacDowell, Bartok and Schumann, ending with a sloppy but rhapsodic performance of Chopin’s Second Scherzo.

Later, in graduate school, I played the “Appassionata” quite a bit in concerts, but I dropped the “Pathétique” after high school. Perhaps I had become too emotionally entangled with it.

I was reminded of this formative moment when I interviewed the great soprano Leontyne Price, one of my early idols from the opera world, in public for The New York Times in 2004. I was asking her about growing up in Laurel, Miss., and her early musical experiences. She recalled a life-changing trip as a young girl with her mother by bus to Jackson to see the magnificent American contralto Marian Anderson in recital. The hall was segregated, so Ms. Price and her mother sat in the “colored” section.

This had to have been a confusing experience for the young Ms. Price. I asked her how she processed it. She said that she blocked out everything except Anderson’s glorious singing. “I looked at her,” Ms. Price said, “and told myself, ‘I am going to be her.’ ”

What a eureka moment.

One more thing, something wonderful, about my eureka moment with “Rubinstein Plays Grieg.” In a 1996 article about some Grieg recordings, I mentioned how much that album had meant to me. I received a letter from Paul A. Rubinstein, the pianist’s elder son, who wanted to make a present of his father’s personal copy of that 1955 release. I met him at his office to pick it up, something I could never have imagined when I used to sit alone in the den, listening to that recording as a child. 

   

Reposted From The New York Times