Rimsky-Korsakov, who studied piano and composition as a child, abandoned his early career as a naval cadet to devote himself entirely to music.
Rimsky-Korsakov was mainly self-taught, but achieved professional competence through disciplined study. At the age of 27 he was appointed professor of orchestration and composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire and he was a respected teacher.
Generally known for his colourful orchestral compositions, Rimsky-Korsakov also wrote songs and choral music, chamber music and works for piano. His textbook on orchestration has been widely used.
Spanish music was popular with Russian composers in the later part of the nineteenth century. Rimsky-Korsakov wrote his "Spanish Capriccio" in 1887 as a showcase for his proficiency at orchestral colouring.
The opening movement is a lively theme based on a dance from a collection called Echoes of Spain. Later, it returns as the third movement. Sandwiched between these is a set of variations, starting serenely, becoming a little mournful, then reaching a dramatic climax before ending calmly.
The fourth movement, Scene and gypsy song, opens with a drum roll and fanfare. An unaccompanied violin then plays the theme that constitutes the rest of the movement. It provides the opportunity for solos by various instruments. In addition to the violin, the flute, oboe, clarinet and even the harp have their turns. The movement is in triple time, and builds up and runs straight into the final section. This is an Asturian fandango - a dance in three-four time from the Asturias region of northern Spain. Naturally, this movement features the sound of castanets! To round off the work, there is a substantial coda that recalls the opening Alborada theme for a final time.
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Wolfgang, son of Leopold Mozart, showed musical gifts at a very early age, composing when he was five and when he was six playing before the Bavarian elector and the Austrian empress. Leopold felt that it was proper, and might also be profitable, to exhibit his children's God-given genius, so in mid-1763 the family set out on a tour that took them to Paris and London, visiting numerous courts en route. Mozart astonished his audiences with his precocious skills; he played to the French and English royal families, had his first music published and wrote his earliest symphonies. The family arrived home late in 1766; nine months later they were off again, to Vienna, where hopes of having an opera by Mozart performed were frustrated by intrigues.
In his early years in Vienna, Mozart built up his reputation by publishing (sonatas for piano, some with violin), by playing the piano and, in 1782, by having an opera performed: Die Entführung aus dem Serail. The work was successful and was taken into the repertoires of many provincial companies.
Mozart produced 27 concerti, more piano concerti than any other important composer. The first composed when he was only eleven; the last appeared less than one year before his death. But it was in March of 1786 that his Piano Concerto in A entered into the composer’s personal catalogue.
This concerto exhibits all the different elements that Mozart developed in his various concertos, combined in one magnificent work.
The first movement is unusually regular, except for the adventurous development section, and also incorporates a cadenza which Mozart exceptionally wrote into the full score rather than on a separate piece of paper. The slow movement the only one by Mozart in the key of F sharp minor, is one of his most poignant compositions, while the finale is light-hearted and exuberant but not without a tinge of sadness behind its outward high spirits.
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| Tchaikovsky studied under Anton Rubinstein in St Petersburg and became professor at the Moscow conservatoire in 1866. After the success of his first piano concerto, Tchaikovsky was offered financial support from Nadezhja von Meck (1831–1894), a wealthy widow, whom he never met.
Unhappy with his homosexuality, in 1877 he made a disastrous marriage, which led to depression and a suicide attempt, although much of his work was now successful. Officially his death was attributed to cholera, although some believe he committed suicide to avoid further homosexual scandals. Among his compositions are six symphonies, including the last known the Pathetique (1893), three piano concertos (one unfinished), a violin concerto, string quartets the opera Eugene Onegin (1877-78), and the ballets Swan Lake (1876-77) and the Nutcracker (1891-92).
The first sketches for the Fifth Symphony in 1885 came after a period of creative torpor and Tchaikovsky now entered into an extremely productive period during which he composed some of his greatest works.
Around the same time he also began work on a programmatic symphony after Byron’s Manfred; under the influence of Balakirev, he employed the technique of linking all the movements by a ‘motto’ theme. So successful did he feel the Manfred Symphony to be that he immediately adopted the same thematic procedure for his Fifth Symphony, which was completed in 1888.
At first Tchaikovsky intended the Fifth Symphony to be programmatic too, although he soon discarded the titles he had sketched in. Significantly , however, he saw the Fifth Symphony in the same terms as his Fourth, namely as a struggle against Fate.
However in this case the fate motif is a real motto theme, in that it appears in all the movements both as an unmistakeable quotation and as a more subtly integrated element of the musical tapestry. In addition to the obvious development of Tchaikovsky’s compositional technique which this represents the skilful handling of the orchestra and vivid exploitation of instruments resources provide a further demonstration of the progress he had made since the Fourth Symphony. |
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