Forgotten records

127 Posts
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Starting with a Flash: Schumann’s ABEGG Variations
Robert Schumann (1810–1856) made wide use of imaginary characters, which he imbued with distinctive characteristics, to extend the meaning of his piano works. His most famous, of course, are Florestan and Eusebius, who stood for the two sides of his
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An Ode to Home: Janáček’s Sinfonietta
The craze for nationalism that swept 1920s Europe was a time for composers to nail their national colours in music. Leoš Janáček’s 1926 Sinfonietta was an ode to Czechoslovakia. The country was created in 1918 after the collapse of the
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Highly Talented but Insufficiently Trained: Mussorgsky’s St John’s Night
Led by the nationalism of Mily Balakirev (1837-1910), the Mighty Handful were a group of dilettantes who deliberately kept out of the academic circles of the St Petersburg Conservatory and were starting to write their own music. That included Nikolai
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Finding Home: Grieg’s Violin Sonata No. 1
Edvard Grieg (1843–1907) viewed his three violin sonatas as representative of his development as a composer. The first (1865) was the young naïve composer, the second (1867) was his nationalistic phase, and the third (1887) represented a wider outlook. This
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Success After All: Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony
On first hearing a performance of his fifth symphony in 1888, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) decided it was a failure: ‘There is something repellent in it, some over-exaggerated colour, some insincerity of invention, which the public instinctively recognises…’, as he
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A New World and A New Voice: Dvořák’s American Quartet
In his three-year stint (1892-1895) as artistic director of the National Conservatory of Music in America, Czech composer Antonín Dvořák caused a fundamental change in American classical music. As an outsider coming into the New World, he could better appreciate
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The Last Symphony: Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6
Pyotr Il’ych Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) wrote his last symphony the same year he died and the work tantalizes the listener: did he write this to a program idea? Why does he seem to refer to Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata in its opening
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A New Ending: Mozart’s Rondo, K. 382
In 1773, Mozart completed his Piano Concerto in D major, K. 175, after he had returned from a trip to Salzburg where he was unsuccessful in getting a court position. This is the first concerto of Mozart’s maturity – opening
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