Do I hear a clarinet?

Here, more or less, is where we're going to wind up
[I know I sometimes (or maybe often!) keep it to myself -- make it a little surprise! -- where we're headed, musically speaking, but not this time. -- Ken]

i. Allegro [no exposition repeat]
ii. Adagio [at 9:07]

Keith Puddy, clarinet; Gabrieli Quartet (Kenneth Sillito and Brendan O'Reilly (probably, but possibly Claire Simpson), violins; Ian Jewel, viola; Keith Harvey, cello). Classics for Pleasure-EMI, recorded in the U.K., released 1970

But this is where our story -- and there is a little story -- starts

Wait, the saxophone's a Woodwind Family member? Hmm . . . okay, sorta.

But really, at the moment it's just two Family members we're interested in.

Duo in C for Clarinet and Bassoon --
i. Allegretto
ii. Larghetto sostenuto [at 3:49]
iii. Rondo: Allegretto [at 5:58]

Members of the Melos Ensemble of London. EMI-Warner Classics, recorded in Abbey Road Studio No. 1, October 1969

by Ken

Yes, yes, Ives and all of that. I'm still trying to make the transition from "Ives the easy way" to "Ives the hard way," moving from the Second to the Third Symphony, with a dip into the violin-and-piano sonatas (and maybe the string quartets?); with the Fourth Symphony and the Concord Piano Sonata looming on the horizon. Though I've also been wondering whether we oughtn't to go back to the First Symphony, so often dismissed as merely Ives's "student" symphony.

Anyway, in some fashion yet to be worked out, that's all coming!

Meanwhile, there was this EMI "double fforte" double-CD set that somehow found its way to a sitting-around-doing-nothing situation. But before we continue with our "little story," a challenge: your best guess (unless you know, in which case it's not much of a challenge, is it?) at to whether --

the charming little clarinet-and-bassoon duo we just heard is by: (a) Haydn, (b) Mozart, (c) Beethoven, (d) Schubert, (e) Schumann, (f) Brahms, (g) somebody else.

SO, LET'S PROCEED WITH THE "LITTLE STORY" --

Do we dare let Schubert's Gastein Sonata nudge us into the question of what we're looking for in music?

NOTE: THE POST IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION, BUT AT A MORE ADVANCED STAGE (THERE'S LOTS TO LISTEN TO NOW)


dba "Schubert in a happy place, part 2"  [continued from "Schubert in a happy place: More on our mystery 'Con moto,' part 1"]

Historical Events
"New Faces of 1956" opens at Barrymore Theater NYC for 221 performances
Famous Birthdays
• Fred Funk, American golfer (The Tradition 2008, 10; US Senior Open 2009), born in Takoma Park, Maryland
• King Diamond [Kim Petersen], Danish heavy metal musician (Merciful Fate; King Diamond), born in Copenhagen, Denmark
• Sam Irvin, American director and producer (Guilty as Charged), born in Asheville, North Carolina

-- with thanks to onthisday.com

SCHUBERT: Piano Sonata No. 17 in D, D. 850 (Gastein):
ii. Con moto [With movement]

iv. Rondo: Allegro moderato

Sviatoslav Richter, piano. Praga, recorded live in the Rudolfinum, Prague, June 14, 1956

by Ken

No, on the evidence of Onthisday.com, June 14, 1956, doesn't seem to have been a day of great historical moment -- unless we count what we know happened in the Rudolfinum in Prague that day. I'd like to say "that evening," since it was after all a Thursday (finding out that it was a Thursday was what led me to Onthisday.com in the first place), and we can hear at the end that there was indeed an audience present, but can I say for sure that it happened in the evening?

As I've explained (see "What effect (if any) does this 32-second audio clip have for you?," Sept. 26, in which we heard four pianists play the movement, and that day's follow-up post, "Our four pianists revealed"), and last week's "Schubert in a happy place: more on our mystery 'Con moto,' part 1"), it was the Con moto from the Richter performance that day in Prague -- from which we've now heard the opening movement of the sonata as well -- that so forcefully grabbed hold of me and got me listening to and pondering the sonata.


WELCOME TO THE GASTEIN SOUNDWORLD!
LET'S PLUNGE RIGHT IN -- WE CAN CHAT LATER!

Sunday Classics: We're ready now to hear those "fraternal twin" symphonies, Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth

Post rehabilitated and updated, June 2018 (see below)



At top, Leonard Bernstein conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in the instantly recognizable first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony (in the Vienna Konzerthaus, 1977); above, Arturo Toscanini conducts the NBC Symphony (March 22, 1952).

by Ken

The music is all set to go for this post, and I think this week I'm just not going to say very much. [Well, this was so in 2010, a little less so in 2018. -- Ed.] We've already established the chronological connection between Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth Symphonies (whose slow movements we heard in, respectively, Friday night's and last night's previews), which were created in almost a single continuous burst of inspiration, and had their first performances at that amazing four-hour-plus concert on December 22, 1808, at which not just the two symphonies but the Fourth Piano Concerto and Choral Fantasy for piano and orchestra (both of which we heard quite a lot of in a post on Beethoven's piano concertos) plus three movements from the C major Mass and the concert aria "Ah, perfido" also had their premieres -- and the composer also offered a solo piano improvisation, presumably worrying that the audience might not feel it was getting its money's worth.

We've also hinted at the thematic connection between these near-twin symphonies (fraternal twins, of course), which is basically that there doesn't seem to be one. Of course Beethoven had a horror of repeating himself, but when it comes to consecutive creations there seems also to have been an utterly understandable impulse to go somewhere wildly different.

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