Category Archives: Musical Interpretation

Musical Interpretation

Faure Piano Quintet No.2 – General

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Faure’s Piano Quartets and Piano Quintes and Other Major Piano Quintets

Composer

Works

Composed

First Performance

Schumann

Piano Quintet Op.44

1842

1843

Brahms

Piano Quintet Op.34

1861-64

1868

Faure

Piano Quartet No.1 Op.15

1876-79

1880

Franck

Piano Quintet f-moll

1878-79

1880

Faure

Piano Quartet No.2 Op.45

1886

1887

Dvorak

Piano Quintet Op.81

1887

1888

Faure

Piano Quintet No.1 Op.89

1887-95, 1903-05

1906

Faure

Piano Quartet No.2 Op.115

1919-21

1921

Music sources：

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Conducting AdMaestro, Musical Interpretation

Score Reading I

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This is an article for Admaestro users and general users who want to learn music a little more serious.
To study and interpret music , it is essential to read scores because they are only tangible materials that  composers can express their music.
Please get a miniature score of Eine kleinenacht Musik by Mozart. You can get one from your music dealers or you can down load it from IMSLP site on lime. When you use the digital score, print out a hard copy otherwise you would not be in time for turning pages.

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Musical Interpretation

Franck Violin Sonata 4th Movement

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4th Movement: Allegretto poco mosso

Sonata Form:
Primary theme is written by canon. The theme flows very smooth and natural. There is no characteristic skips which associates M1. The theme may leave off M1 consciously which have been provided various expressions. M4 in Fig.1 is frequently used in the development section楽
Fig.1 Mes.1

FranckVnSonata0401

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Musical Interpretation

Franck Violin Sonata 3rd Movement

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Third Movement:　Recitativo – Fantasia

Introduction by piano presents the following 4 measure phrase.
Fig.1 Mes.1

FranckVnSonata0301
This phrase is extracted from the first movement M1, but the character of this phrase resembles the one from measure 59 of the first movement. It sounds unfriendly, and suggesting some depressing feelings. Then a recitativo by violin follows.

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Musical Interpretation

Franck Violin Sonata – Interpretation

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When I was still in my twenties, I heard the problem of Franck’s Violin sonata. The feeling of the first 3 movements is quite different from that of 4th movement in spite of his cyclic form to achieve uniformity. I felt maybe so, because I agreed the difference of the feeling, but I didn’t think it a problem.

But this problem dragged for many years. One day when I was reading a book about the Borgia family, I got an idea of literary interpretation for the problem from scandalous rumors about Lucrezia Borgia. I want to make it clear that my literary interpretation has no relations with Franck and/or Yseye. I’ll write my literary one later, and I l write here a usual musical interpretation first.

Form of the 1st movement is A-A’, However, It would be suitable to understand this movement as  sonata form without a development section since the first theme is meticulously worked on the basic motive M1, and second theme is also carefully set as we usually see in sonata form.
 

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Musical Interpretation

Franck Violin Sonata 4th Movement Theme

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I went a concert by Leonid Gorokhov and Sachiko Hanano on March 1, and had a chance to talk to him after the concert. I asked about his phrasing of the opening melody of the 4th movement


The below is Violin Version

FranckGor01

Usually this beautiful melody starts flat and quiet with beautiful tone. Players generally try to emphasize the beauty of this melody with fine vibrato. It is reasonable to make some decrescendo for the first 4 notes: h'-cis"-a'-gis'- fis' because it is flowing into e’.

It was my surprise that Mr. Gorokhov played above 4 notes as if there were a clear indication by the composer.
In reply to my question, he said, “As the melody of piano comes first, so I though the first few notes are enough to show we are playing a canon.”

It was impressive for me that he considers the style first, and has got to a fresh expression.
He also played Bach Cello Suite No.2 by Anna Magdalena version in the concert. It was excellent.

Conducting AdMaestro, Musical Interpretation

Do you know where you are while playing?

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Have you ever thought about “where am I?  What am I doing?” while you are playing music?

When your conductor starts the music, don’t you think “if music comes to the end, it is over.”
If the music is short enough, your memory tells you that next page has the ending. But if the music is very long, don’t you say in mind, “how many more pages shall I turn?”

It is always important to know where you are and what you are doing even in the music world. I would like to explain the importance by an example of sonata style.

Classical standard sonatas comprise Exposition, Development, Recapture and Coda.
You can easily find the end of Exposition because it has a repeat mark at its end. So, Development starts after the repeat mark. You can find the beginning of Recapture since the Recapture is exactly same as Exposition. And the end of recapture is almost the same as Exposition. Therefore, it is not difficult to know where you are in the music structure.

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Musical Interpretation

Future music (1)

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We have experienced drastic changes of music in 20 century. It is almost impossible for us to imagine how people enjoyed music, what kind of performances were appreciated before 20centuries. There are many reasons; Tonal harmony that had developed since 1600s came to the end in the early 20tn century. Various inventions and development of science and technology provided new lights on music performances. Speakers and CDs give chances of the recovery for once extinct musical instruments like recorders, lutes, viols and so on. It is getting popular that Beethoven’s Symphony is played by period instruments. One of the best places to listen to music is his or her audio room. They listen to the world highest level music by audio equipment and go to concerts to meet their friends. To players, exactness, velocity, rewards are impeccable for their debut, and the best evaluation criteria for music and recording companies are easy to measure, easy to digitalize,
I don’t like some of the changes, though, I think I got the great benefit of these changes and I am happy with living in this age.

Do you think this commercialized music world will continue to the end of this century? We knew the change of styles, baroque, classical, romantic, modern. In our century, we enjoy all of the style in many deferent ways on the same business model. Sheet music is the same, we use urtext version and edit version. Everything is in a crucible now and waiting for melt down.
Next time I want to discuss in details

Musical Interpretation

Enjoy the World of Violin Duos

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Violin duos are  familierr  for violinists as they have experiences to play duos with their teachers. Duos have a long history since early baroque era to now.

We can classify duos by three categories for their purpose. Classification is not easy because most of the work have no clear description on how and why they were composed.

Category 1:
Duos for education. Major composers are Kaliwoda, Mazas and Pleyer.

Category 2:
Duos for domestic use.  Haydn, Boccherini and other arranged works. I fell many of duos of Haydn, Boccherini are written for amateur players.

Category 3
Duos for concert composers’ own performance. Duos of Aubert, Lecleir, Guignon, Viotti, Belwald, Berio and Wieniawski are difficult and may be written to show their technique for audience. Duos by Reger, Bartok and Prokofieff are serious.

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