Ultimo aggiornamento
2024-05-06
Aggiorna
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin Chopin Schumann Balakirev Anton Rubinstein Rubinstein Mendelssohn Winding 1833 1861 1862 1887
-Composer: Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin (12 November 1833 – 27 February 1887) -Performers: Moscow String Quartet and Alexander Mndoiantz Piano Quintet in c minor, written in 1862 00:03 – I. Andante 05:39 – II. Allegro non troppo 11:34 – III. Allegro moderato While in Heidelberg in May 1861, Borodin met and fell in love with the pianist Yekaterina Protopopova, who soon became his wife, and who seems to have inspired in him a taste for her favourite composers, Chopin and Schumann. Later that year she fell ill, and the engaged couple wintered in Italy. There in May and June 1862 Borodin composed his Piano Quintet in C minor, the last work he would complete before his game-changing meeting with Balakirev. That the twenty-eight-year-old composer was already ripe for adoption to the nationalist cause is evident from the opening theme, which has the contours and character of a Russian melismatic song. In fact the entire first movement is made up of variations, repetitions and derivations from this idea, dressed up in piano textures that could easily have come from Anton Rubinstein on the other side of the nationalist/academic divide. The movement feels quite happy to end in A minor, rather than the tonic C minor, and it is in A minor that the scherzo second movement launches out, its main theme being another thinly disguised variation on motifs from the first movement. A bouncy violin theme provides contrast, and once again enthusiasm and directness of feeling, rather than sophisticated technique, carry the movement forward. The trio section rhapsodizes freely, never feeling obliged to put all five instruments together. The finale is once again subtly derived motivically, and its initial motifs are never all that far from the surface. As with the cello sonata, the opening mood—wistful in this case—is a feint. The music soon becomes more robust, before taking flight à la Mendelssohn. Here Borodin attempts a full sonata from, complete with repeated exposition. From a Germanic perspective many ideas go to waste; from a Russian-nationalist one, however, it is entirely virtuous that they should be unhampered by excessive learning. This is music for use and enjoyment, unconcerned with conforming to ‘comme il faut’. The structure may be wayward, but this at least means that the listener is kept intrigued as to when and how it will end. Always apparently winding up, in the end it seems to wind down before reaching its full potential; but the soft conclusion suggests that Borodin knew what he was aiming at.
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin Mussorgsky Beethoven 1833 1873 1874 1875 1877 1879 1887 1995
- Composer: Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin (12 November 1833 / 27 February 1887) - Performers: Moscow String Quartet - Year of recording: 1995 String Quartet No. 1 in A major, written in 1874-1879. 00:00 - I. Moderato 13:58 - II. Andante con moto 22:28 - III. Scherzo. Prestissimo 28:24 - IV. Finale. Andante. Allegro Risoluto When Borodin began sketching out his first string quartet in 1873, he wanted to produce something identifiably Russian, rather than follow German traditions slavishly. Yet he was not fully committed to the musical nationalism of Mussorgsky and other members of the Mighty Handful. The resulting quartet contains many Slavic touches, written as it was during the long gestation of Borodin's opera Prince Igor, but it takes a predominantly Classical (yes, German) form. Borodin had the quartet sketched out by 1875, did substantial work on it in 1877, and completed it in 1879. - The first movement is in sonata form, prefaced by a Moderato introduction that could almost pass for a Russian folk song, although the melody seems to be original. From the beginning, Borodin is willing to use all four instruments melodically, although he tends to relegate the cello to a supporting role that enriches the group's sonority. The movement's main portion, Allegro, begins with a flowing theme drawn from the finale of Beethoven's String Quartet in B flat, Op. 130 [uploaded on this channel]. It sounds like full-fledged Borodin, though, with its mid-phrase grace notes. The theme is passed among the violins and the cello in little variants on its basic form. The second subject flows just as freely if slightly more urgently, often over a drone bass. It's all light and good-natured, only occasionally building much tension. Things do get exciting early in the development when the cello leads the way into a little fugue, but the rest of the development simply maintains the varied-repetition format Borodin established early in the exposition, breaking into separate sections of mildly contrasting character. After the full recapitulation, the movement ends with a long, hushed coda. - The Andante con moto begins with a slightly folk-like melody. Its viola counterpoint is derived directly from a Russian folk tune, "The Song of the Sparrow Hills" (this song also found its way into Prince Igor). The movement becomes a series of mild variants on this and the opening, original melody. In the song, an eagle holds a crow in its talons; the crow, in mortal danger himself, tells the eagle of having seen a young hero lying dead, over whom hovered three songbirds representing the hero's mother, sister, and wife. Borodin may have patterned his movement after the song's subject matter. The first portion, laying out the themes, would be associated with the eagle and the crow; the fugato in the middle depicts the hero and the distraught songbirds; and the ending, an impassioned rephrasing of the opening material, deals with their grief. - Borodin leaves all this behind when he launches the Scherzo, an almost perpetual-motion presto that remains light-hearted, never threatening. The middle trio section stretches out and employs some striking instrumental effects, notably violin harmonics. The music alternately evokes a glass harmonica and, with a busier accompaniment, a music box. - The finale is another sonata-form movement, again with a slow, haunted introduction. The main Allegro risoluto material bursts in with a driving, nervous, sharply accented theme. This subsides long enough for Borodin to introduce a second subject of repeated, hesitant little phrases. These themes develop through Borodin's technique of varied repetition, the second subject becoming more assertive when it reappears and the first subject binding the movement together with its urgent momentum, which culminates in a frenzied yet uplifting coda. Hints of the second movement lend the work an overall unity.
Non più?
Ogni giorno soclassiq cerca nuovi articoli, video, concerti e così via sulla musica classica e l'opera lirica, i loro artisti, luoghi, orchestre....
Moscow String Quartet ? Non abbiamo ancora raccolto molti contenuti su questo argomento, ma continuiamo a cercare.
o
- Ensemble musicali.
- Indici (per ordine alfabetico): M...