Henry Litolff - Concerto Symphonique No. 2, Op. 22 (1844) скачать в хорошем качестве

Henry Litolff - Concerto Symphonique No. 2, Op. 22 (1844)

Henry Charles Litolff (7 August 1818 – 5 August 1891) was a virtuoso pianist, composer of Romantic music, and music publisher. A prolific composer, he is today known mainly for a single brief work – the Scherzo from his Concerto Symphonique No. 4 in D minor – and remembered as the founder of the Collection Litolff (today part of Edition Peters), a highly regarded publishing imprint of classical music scores. Please support my channel: https://ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans Concerto Symphonique No. 2 in B minor, Op. 22 (1844) Dedication: Giacomo Meyerbeer 1. Maestoso - Grandioso - Presto (0:00) 2. Scherzo. Presto (16:16) 3. Andante - (20:22) 4. Rondo. Allegretto (25:43) Peter Donohoe, piano and the Bournemouth Symphony conducted by Andrew Litton Hyperion CDA66889 The significant achievements in the field of nineteenth-century keyboard music are a continuation of the developments of the Viennese Classicists, especially Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. The connecting link between the Classical and Romantic periods is exemplified in the works of Hummel, and later of Litolff. The difference between them—a difference in structure—is one which applies to all the music of the two periods. The individual element or motif emerges in the nineteenth century as the basic entity in the structure of entire compositions. Previously this element had been only a part of the whole, significant only in the way it worked or participated in the construction of the work, and it had no independence, depending rather upon the total architectonic idea. Only in the nineteenth century was the idea of treating a single element or motif independently and making it the basis of an entire composition fully developed. The genres epitomizing this technique were the miniatures for piano such as nocturnes, preludes, études and berceuses. The piano composition which exemplifies this, of course, is the étude, a unicellular idiom in which the structure of the whole is dependent upon the exhaustion of the possibilities of this cell. This facet of piano music influenced the greater part of the nineteenth century. At the same time, the leitmotif, cyclic form, and the idée fixe became the basis of many musical compositions. Litolff’s music consists of many salon pieces of the unicellular variety, limited orchestral music which uses cyclic and unicellular ideas, songs/Lieder, and the twelve operatic works. Of the piano works, only three do not have descriptive titles, and some strive to be more representational than just descriptive. It is in the piano concertos, however, that Litolff is at his best, for he incorporates into these orchestral compositions not only all the characteristics of piano salon music, but also a profundity to the development of the material similar to that in Beethoven’s later works. The concertos are written on a grand scale. Litolff adds a Scherzo, making a total of four movements instead of the usual three; the concertos are actually symphonies with piano obbligato. The symphonic character of the solo-orchestral relationship is similar to that found in the concertos of Mozart and Beethoven and, of course, the placement of the Scherzo before the slow movement finds its precedent in Beethoven’s Symphony No 9. Undoubtedly, Litolff strove for a new equality between the orchestra and solo instrument, and he influenced Liszt in the use of the four-movement scheme (and in the use of the triangle): octave passages, so predominant in Litolff’s endings of sections, are used similarly in the Liszt concertos. There is, however, a major difference between the two composers: Liszt assigned to the piano more thematic material, while Litolff used it mostly in an accompanimental role but, of course, in a highly virtuosic manner. Of the five piano concertos, four survive, the most famous being the Fourth with its famous Scherzo movement. The Concerto Symphonique in B minor, Op 22, was composed in 1844. It adheres to eighteenth-century structure with double expositions in the first movement (Maestoso). Only in the second movement does one perceive the radical changes which Litolff introduces to the genre: the Scherzo is used for the second movement, a new theme is used in the development sections, the third movement is a short and improvisational Andante, and the brilliant final Rondo-Allegretto begins with an ‘Elision/Introduction’. The concerto is scored for two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, timpani and strings. Ted Blair © 1997