Franz Peter Schubert was born on the 13th of January 1797 and died at the young age of 31 on November the 19th 1828. He composed almost 1,000 works, over 600 were songs but a large amount of piano music.
The Sonata I am playing today was composed in May of 1825. Some of his best music was composed between 1822 and his death in 1828. At the time of composition, Schubert was already aware that he was dying, now officially diagnosed as typhoid fever though it is commonly thought that he died of Syphilis.
This first movement has some sorrowful melodies as well as joyful parts. On the whole it is a dramatic movement with many characters. For me, this movement has been an important project and I have thoroughly enjoyed all the challenges it has posed.

Schubert - Piano Sonata In Am, Op. 42 (mov. 1)

Frederic Chopin was recorded as being born on the 22nd February 1810 although he always gave it as March 1st. His father was French and his mother was Polish and was raised in Warsaw. He was already recognized as a child prodigy at aged eight and was performing in elegant saloons and beginning to compose. He left Warsaw in late 1830 for Vienna. During his eight month stay he learnt of the Warsaw uprising. He would never return to Poland. He made his way to Paris and remained there for much of his life. He had an affair with the writer George Sand although it ended in complication in 1847. By this time, Chopin was suffering badly with tuberculosis. In 1848, a pupil invited him to England and Scotland to escape the Parisian revolution. He died less than a year after his return to Paris.
This Nocturne begins with a two bar introduction that sets the mood for the melancholic first section. The melody is flowing and although restrained on the surface, is very passionate. The central section is radically different and brings a great change in mood. Chopin changes the key, tonality, tempo and metre too. The phrases are broken up into two bars and sound as if they could stand alone. The theme is brought back relentlessly time and time again before quickly reducing down to a brooding transition bar as the music moves back into F# minor. This is perhaps the most passionate version of the original melody featured in the whole Nocturne. It is broken by a single line that slowly falls. A descending chromatic line is introduced shortly after and repeated again with a different harmonization which swells to the final reprise of that first sweeping melody. It soon gives way to a barcarole-like passage ending in a delicate flourish.

Chopin Nocturne in F# minor Op. 48 No. 2

Achille-Claude Debussy was born on the 22nd August 1862. He began piano studies at the Paris Conservatoire at the age of 11. He began composing in 1880 and four years later he won the prestigious Prix de Rome which allowed him to study another two years in Rome. He became one of the most influential composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He used elements from both Eastern cultures and antiquity; pentatonicism, modality (from ancient Greece and the medieval Church), parallelism, and the whole-tone scale. In 1918, he died from colon cancer having also suffered from a deep depression brought by the beginning of WW1.
Golliwog’s Cakewalk is the last of six pieces from Debussy’s Children’s Corner suite written for his daughter Claude-Emma. The opening bars announce the playful character of the piece before the dance launches. This dance is based on the dance of a golliwog doll, imitating the puppet. The middle section still maintains the joyful mood around inserts of the opening theme from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde. Debussy seems to poke fun at the motif with staccato, chirpy chords that follows the motif. This comes four times before he returns to the dance.

Debussy Golliwog's Cakewalk from Children's Corner

Franz Joseph Haydn was born on 31st of March 1732 in Lower Austria. Among his great achievements are his 104 symphonies and 68 string quartets. His career also reflects the early development of both the symphony and the string quartet.  He spent most of his creative life in the service of one noble family, the Esterhazys. He stopped composing in 1803, after which he prefaced his correspondence with a little musical quotation from one of his part songs bearing the text; ‘Gone is all my strength; I am old and weak’. He died in Vienna on May 31, 1809.
These double variations were originally called ‘Sonata’ in the autograph and consisted of two separate sections. The first section contained bars 1 to 145 with a 5 bar coda. This work was expanded with by adding the minor theme again and expanding it into a large capriccio coda. Only in the first edition was the short 5 bar coda removed and both sections joined together. The piece was given the title ‘Variations’ presumably by the publisher Artaria.
The minor theme is longing and sorrowful whereas the major theme is a big contrast. It is light, joyful, and at times humorous. The first minor variations feature a syncopated melody and for the major theme, trills. The second variation has a running minor melody and an energetic major counterpart. The original minor theme returns and develops into a flamboyant coda ending in a thoughtful mood as it settles into the major.

Haydn - Variations In F

Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany, on May 7th, 1833. His father was a double bassist in the Hamburg Philharmonic Society. Brahms was exposed to music from a young age and began playing the piano at age seven. Schumann was very impressed with Brahms’ compositions and his piano playing that he hailed him as ‘the young eagle’ in an article. This greatly helped Brahms become known in the music world. Even after Schumann’s death in 1856, he remained close friends with Clara Schumann. In the early 1860s, he moved to Vienna and remained there for the remainder of his life. Brahms’ last public performance was in March 1897 in Vienna. He died a month later, on April 3rd, 1897, from liver cancer.
The Op. 79 rhapsodies were composed in 1878 in a village called Pörtshach in the Austrian Dolomites. Brahms was recovering from a heavy load of concerts brought about by his growing fame. At this same time, he was completing his Second Symphony and beginning his Second Piano Concerto. 
Both Rhapsodies have a great intensity of emotion yet it is not easy to see where this comes from. A popular theory is the clash of two attachments in the composer’s personal life; Clara Schumann and a new one to Elisabeth von Hersogenberg. Elisabeth was Brahms’ only pupil and he described her as ‘a slender woman in blue velvet and with hair of gold.’ Both of the Rhapsodies are dedicated to her.
Here is my recording of the second of the Rhapsodies. In many ways, this is typical of Brahms; there is a very rich texture with a lot going on, and the melody weaving it’s way around the parts. It is strange that this was labelled as a Rhapsody as the form is not free but in Sonata form. Brahms loved the classical style so this could be pointing to that. There are four main themes presented in the Exposition; the strong opening idea with undulating triplet quavers in the middle, a more broken, octave-based theme, a beautiful and lyrical melody, and a sinister march. The first and the last of these are developed before all four return in the Recapitulation.

Brahms Rhapsody Op. 79 No. 2 in G minor

I'm 16 years old and currently studying as a specialist pianist at Wells Cathedral School.
I began playing at the age of six after being inspired by an older cousin. I later picked up the violin and I enjoy the other aspects of music that it uses, mostly orchestral playing.
I would like to continue playing the piano through to Music College and have a professional career.
Any constructive criticism is welcomed, I'm always aiming to improve!

Nicole Pellizzon

Popular tracks