Programme Notes: Recent Episodes
Chamber Music New Zealand
From Chamber Music New Zealand, ‘Programme Notes’ is a tour of classical music from the central figures and ideas to the esoteric marginalia. Each episode relates to a Chamber Music New Zealand tour, pulling on some tantalising thread the concert programme offers, but what unravels stands alone too. Hosted by Clarissa Dunn, 'Programme Notes' is a podcast for the curious music lover.
How much should we draw lines between the personal lives of artists and the creative innovations in their careers?
Arnold Schoenberg‘s relationship with his first wife Mathilde was one of extremes. They fell in love on holiday, and the composer churned out one of his best-loved pieces, Verklärte Nacht (‘Transfigured Night’), in a matter of days. But the marriage dissolved when Arnold discovered Mathilde’s affair with painter Richard Gerstl—also on holiday—and the artist’s subsequent death by suicide. It is hard not to draw parallels between this complex moment of tragedy and the revolutionary, alien beauty of the String Quartet No. 2.
A companion to the very first episode of Programme Notes, this episode looks at Schoenberg not as an analytical, unemotional theorist but as a Hopeless Romantic.
This episode features the following recordings:
- Arnold SCHOENBERG | Variations for Orchestra, Op 31. Performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra under Robert Craft. Naxos.
- Arnold SCHOENBERG | Verklärte Nacht, Op 4. Performed by the Artemis Quartet featuring members of the Berg quartet. Warner Classics.
- Arnold SCHOENBERG | String Quartet No 2, Op 10. Performed by the Fred Sherry String Quartet and Jennifer Welch-Babidge. Naxos.
- Arnold SCHOENBERG | “Schenk mir deinen goldenen Kamm”, 4 Lieder, Op 2 No 2. Performed by Konrad Jarnot and Urs Liska. CapriccioNR.
- Arnold SCHOENBERG | String Quartet No 1 in D minor, Op 7. Performed by the Fred Sherry String Quartet. Naxos.
- Arnold SCHOENBERG | Chamber Symphony No 1, Op 9. Performed by Philharmonia Orchestra under Robert Craft. Naxos.
- Arnold SCHOENBERG | Gurre-Lieder. Performed by Philharmonia Orchestra under Robert Craft (with Stephen O’Mara, Melanie Diener, Jennifer Lane, David Wilson-Johnson, Martyn Hill, Ernst Haefliger and Simon Joly Corale). Naxos.
- The Programme Notes title music is a collage of the endings of Béla Bartók's six string quartets
Written by Dave Armstrong
Presented by Clarissa Dunn
Produced by Elliot Vaughan
This episode was made to accompany CMNZ's "Another Night in Vienna" tour, which has been generously supported by the Chamber Music New Zealand Foundation.
www.chambermusic.co.nz
The salon was an important environment for the Parisian artist, philosopher, poet, socialite and musician during the belle époque. A dapper young composer with a charismatic moustache could really rub elbows with the right people at these events.
Follow Fauré through three important salons, hosted by three important women: Countess Greffühle, Pauline Viardot and Princesse Polignac. As Fauré and his cohort of composers were shaping the sound of the day, these women were creating the fertile environment that allowed this flourishing of culture, and they were doing it in the most glamourous way.
This episode features the following recordings:
- Gabriel FAURÉ | Nocturne No 5 in B-flat, Op 37. Performed by Jean Martin. Naxos.
- Gabriel FAURÉ | Pavane, Op 50. Performed by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra under Keith Clark. Naxos.
- Gabriel FAURÉ | Fantaisie for Flute, Op 79. Performed by Mathieu Dufour and Kuang-Hao Huang. Cedille.
- Pauline VIARDOT | Des Nachts, VWV1056. Performed by Miriam Alexandra and Eric Schneider. Oehms Classics.
- Gabriel FAURÉ | Violin Sonata N 1 in A, Op 13. Performed by Dong-Suk Kang and Pascal Devoyon. Naxos.
- Gabriel FAURÉ | Nocturne No 4 in E-flat, Op 36. Performed by Jean Martin. Naxos.
- Gabriel FAURÉ | Nocturne No 5 in B-flat, Op 37. Performed by Jean Martin. Naxos.
- Frederic CHOPIN | Mazurka No 41 in C-sharp minor, Op 63 No 3. Performed by Idil Biret.
- Wolfgang Amadeus MOZART | “Di scrivermi ogni giorno” from Cosi fan tutte, K588. Performed by Joanna Borowska, Priti Coles, John Dickie, Andrea Martin, Peter Mikulas, Rohangiz Yachmi, Slovak Philharmonic Chorus and Cappella Istropolitana under Johannes Wildner.
- Gabriel FAURÉ | “Mandoline” from Cinq melodies ‘de Venise’, Op 58 No 1. Performed by Marilyn Schmiege and Donald Sulzen. Orfeo.
- Gabriel FAURÉ | Nocturne No 2 in B, Op 33 No 2. Performed by Jean Martin.
- The Programme Notes title music is a collage of the endings of Béla Bartók's six string quartets.
Written by Hamish Robb
Presented by Clarissa Dunn
Produced by Elliot Vaughan
for Chamber Music New Zealand
www.chambermusic.co.nz/programme-notes
Time is at the heart of the musical artform.
It is measured in heartbeats, sentences, or the pragmatic click-clacking of a metronome. It dulls the monotony of the waiting room, or represents the cycling of the seasons. Music can whisk us through time in an exhilarating flurry of notes, dizzying us with an overwhelming amount of sound per second, or it can suspend us in a reverie where time itself melts away and we glimpse eternity in a single, interminable tone.
In this episode we look at how musicians harness time, and how audiences experience it.
A list of recordings featured in this episode can be found here: https://chambermusic.co.nz/programme-notes/#credits
What makes Beethoven’s famous sonata so moonlit? Why does a lullaby feel like a warm blanket? What are the ingredients of a nocturne? Aren’t crickets and frogs neat?
There is a wealth of classical music about and of the night. The simultaneous contemplative introspection and moonlit mystery, the warmth or anxiety of sleep, the night sounds heard with heightened ears—the dark hours have been a rich source of inspiration for centuries of music.
Featuring recordings of pianist Jian Liu (among others), we survey some of the approaches composers have taken in making music about the night.
This episode features the following recordings:
- Ludwig van BEETHOVEN | Piano Sonata No 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op 27 No 2, “Moonlight Sonata”. Performed by Michael Houstoun. Rattle Records. https://rattle.co.nz/catalogue/releases/beethoven-complete-piano-sonatas
- Franz SCHUBERT (Ludwig Christoph Heinrich HÖLTY, poet) | An den Mond. Performed by Julien van Mellaerts and James Baillieu. Radio New Zealand. https://www.rnz.co.nz/concert/programmes/musicalive/audio/2018702859/schubert-eight-songs
- Vincenzo BELLINI | “Casta Diva” from Norma. Performed by Maria Callas and The Orchestra and Chorus of La Scala, Milan under Tullio Serafin.
- Frederic CHOPIN | Nocturne No 7, Op 27 No 1. Performed by Sándor Falvai. Naxos.
- Clara WIECK-SCHUMANN | “Notturno” from Soirées Musicales, Op 6 No 2. Performed by Michael Landrum. Sono Luminus.
- Charles IVES | Central Park in the Dark. Northern Sinfonia under James Sinclair. Naxos.
- Béla BARTÓK | “The Night’s Music” from Out of Doors. Performed by Jian Liu for this podcast.
- R. Murray SCHAFER | Clarinet Nocturne from Patria. Performed by Judy Loman. Opening Day Entertainment Group Inc.
- Frederic CHOPIN | Berceuse, Op 57. Performed by Jian Liu for this podcast.
- Robert SCHUMANN (Joseph von EICHENDORFF, poet)| “Zwielicht” from Liederkreis, Op 39. Performed by Thomas E. Bauer and Uta Hielscher. Naxos.
- Robert SCHUMANN | “In der Nacht” from Fantasiestücke, Op 12. Performed by Jian Liu for this podcast.
- Gillian WHITEHEAD | Lullaby for Matthew. Performed by Jian Liu for this podcast.
- The Programme Notes title music is a collage of the endings of Béla Bartók's six string quartets.
Written by Hamish Robb
Presented by Clarissa Dunn
Produced by Elliot Vaughan
for Chamber Music New Zealand
www.chambermusic.co.nz/programme-notes
Verklärte Nacht ('Transfigured Night') is a piece that sits at a series of divides.
Written at the end of the 19th century and first performed at the beginning of the 20th. Composed by a young Arnold Schoenberg, toast of Vienna, but before he developed his dodecaphonic system that made him the cilantro of composers. Both a piece of Brahms-like formalism and of Wagnerian heart-on-the-sleeve narrative.
We take a close look at Transfigured Night and discover the composer as radically inventive but also a steadfast adherent to the traditions of Germanic composition.
This episode features the following recordings:
- Arnold SCHOENBERG | Verklärte Nacht, performed by the Artemis Quartet featuring members of the Berg quartet. Available on Warner Classics. https://www.warnerclassics.com/release/verklarte-nacht
- Johannes BRAHMS | String Quartet no 1, performed by the New Zealand String Quartet. Available on Naxos. https://www.naxos.com/catalogue/item.asp?item_code=8.573433
- Richard WAGNER | Overture, Tristan und Isolde, Hand Schmidt-Isserstedt and Orchestra national de France. Radio France.
- The Programme Notes title music is a collage of the endings of Béla Bartók's six string quartets
Written by Hamish Robb
Presented by Clarissa Dunn
Produced by Elliot Vaughan
for Chamber Music New Zealand
www.chambermusic.co.nz