An Evening of Romance!

I'm preparing for a concert next week of all Romantic-era music. The program will be the Bach-Busoni Chaconne, Beethoven's Sonata Op. 109, Chopin's G minor Ballade, Franck's Prelude, Choral, and Fugue, Brahms' Opus 118, and a fun closer by Chabrier.

More and more, concert series and audiences really seem to eat up programs with a theme. I've heard some interesting themes throughout the years, one of the most creative being last year when pianist Wei-Yi Yang presented a whole concert of Birdsong-inspired pieces!

The danger of performing a whole concert of music from the one period is that everything might start sounding the same. What I've done to combat this is to pick pieces within the period that are somewhat diverse in their sounds. For instance, the Bach-Busoni Chaconne was originally a piece Bach composed for solo violin in 1720. Over 170 years later, Busoni came along and created a virtuoso Romantic piano transcription of the piece. It's essentially Baroque at it's core, but transformed into a Romantic showpiece. (I like to call this a Baroque piece in Romantic clothing).

The Beethoven Sonata I chose is one of his last three Sonatas composed before he died. Beethoven was a "bridge" composer from the Classical to the Romantic era, so his late Sonatas are definitely early Romantic pieces but still have underlying classical tendencies in style and form.

The Chopin and Brahms may have similar sounds to many listeners, but Brahms really has a lot of classical/traditional influences whereas Chopin sounds to me more like a free spirit.

Franck's Prelude, Choral, and Fugue would require an entry to itself! All I can say is that the composition is masterful and that he has created a masterpiece in this work that does not sound like any other piece I know of.

And, every good concert needs a strong closer. I've chosen Chabrier's Scherzo-Valse, which is a brief, fun, flashy piece. Some would argue that Chabrier is an example of early Impressionist music, but I consider him a sort of blend or transitional figure between the Romantic and Impressionistic periods.

Enough with the analysis and on with the practice for the concert next week. I'll be sure to post how it goes.