Works for solo violin and string quartet performed by violinist Ray Chen and the Borromeo String Quartet.

• Bach: Chaconne from Partita in D minor
• Bartók: String Quartet No. 2 in A minor

Music is an art of variation. From the cantus firmus masses of medieval Europe to the 12-bar-blues of early 20th century America, the art of the varying and building upon a set theme has a long history. Bach’s famous Chaconne from the D minor partita is regarded as the apotheosis of the genre—a four-bar ground bass, repeated some 64 times with incredibly rich variation. In Bartok’s second String Quartet, the mournful first and third movements draw on intervals from Hungarian peasant music. The contrasting second movement is a driving rondo—another classic form based on a returning, repeated theme. The folk music that inspired this energetic movement was from North Africa. Listen for the rhythmic, repetitive ostinato—inspired by Arabian drumming.

Works for solo violin and string quartet performed by violinist Ray Chen and the Borromeo String Quartet.

- Bach: Chaconne from Partita in D minor
- Bartók: String Quartet No. 2 in A minor

Music is an art of variation. From the cantus firmus masses of medieval Europe to the 12-bar-blues of early 20th century America, the art of the varying and building upon a set theme has a long history. Bach’s famous Chaconne is regarded as the apotheosis of the genre—a four-bar ground bass, repeated some 64 times with incredibly rich variation. In Bartok’s second String Quartet, the mournful first and third movements draw on intervals from Hungarian peasant music. The contrasting second movement is a driving rondo—another classic form based on a returning, repeated theme. The folk music that inspired this movement was from North Africa. Listen for the rhythmic, repetitive ostinato inspired by Arabian drumming.

Recorded live in the Tapestry Room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is pleased to share this concert under a Creative Commons Music Sharing License. For details see www.gardnermuseum.org.

Works for solo piano and piano quintet performed by pianist Jean-Frederic Neuburger and Musicians from Marlboro.

• Ravel: La Valse
• Franck: Piano Quintet in F minor

World War I truly changed the way people saw the world around them, and that shift was particularly evident in art and music. On this episode we’ll hear French works from before and after the war. Franck was a full-fledged Romantic who never lived to see the war. His Piano Quintet exhibits the intense passion that characterized music of his era. Biographers have suggested that Franck was infatuated with one of his students at the time—a love that was not returned—and that emotional strife may explain this work’s extremes of feeling. Ravel, on the other hand, experienced the Great War firsthand, as an ambulance driver on the front lines. His La Valse, written just after the war, begins as a seeming homage to the waltz. But, as it progresses, the dance spins further and further out of control, the waltz itself becoming a stand-in for all the excesses of pre-war Austria, and its musical unraveling a metaphor for the destruction wrought by war.

Works for solo piano and piano quintet performed by pianist Jean-Frederic Neuburger and Musicians from Marlboro.

- Ravel: La Valse
- Franck: Piano Quintet in F minor

World War I truly changed the way people saw the world around them, and that shift was particularly evident in art and music. On this episode we’ll hear French works from before and after the war. Franck was a full-fledged Romantic who never lived to see the war. His Piano Quintet exhibits the intense passion that characterized music of his era. Biographers have suggested that Franck was infatuated with one of his students at the time—a love that was not returned—and that emotional strife may explain this work’s extremes of feeling. Ravel, on the other hand, experienced the Great War firsthand, as an ambulance driver on the front lines. His La Valse, written just after the war, begins as a seeming homage to the waltz. But, as it progresses, the dance spins further and further out of control, the waltz itself becoming a stand-in for all the excesses of pre-war Austria, and its musical unraveling a metaphor for the destruction wrought by war.

Recorded live in the Tapestry Room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is pleased to share this concert under a Creative Commons Music Sharing License. For details see www.gardnermuseum.org.

• Chopin: Twenty-four Preludes, Op. 28

In the Romantic era, “preluding” was a common practice. Before or between set pieces on a program, the pianist would often improvise a brief prelude, to establish the mood and key. Chopin was an expert at that art, but his composed Preludes were quite different, and as such somewhat confounding to his contemporaries. The set of 24 short pieces—one in every key—wasn’t intended as a compilation of introductory material, but rather a complete cycle unto itself. In that way, many have noted, they took more inspiration from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier—also a set of keyboard works in every key—than from the traditional Romantic conception of a prelude.

Work for solo piano performed by pianist Cecile Licad.

- Chopin: Twenty-four Preludes, Op. 28

In the Romantic era, “preluding” was a common practice. Before or between set pieces on a program, the pianist would often improvise a brief prelude, to establish the mood and key. Chopin was an expert at that art, but his composed Preludes were quite different, and as such somewhat confounding to his contemporaries. The set of 24 short pieces—one in every key—wasn’t intended as a compilation of introductory material, but rather a complete cycle unto itself. In that way, many have noted, they took more inspiration from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier—also a set of keyboard works in every key—than from the traditional Romantic conception of a prelude.

Recorded live in the Tapestry Room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is pleased to share this concert under a Creative Commons Music Sharing License. For details see www.gardnermuseum.org.

• Brahms: Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79
• Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10

With lush harmony and passionate, singing melody, the Brahms Rhapsodies are textbook examples of the mature Romantic style. As the Romantic era progressed, composers began pushing the harmonic envelope further, and that late Romantic language is typified and further extended by Schoenberg’s Quartet No. 2. The first and second movements exhibit that late Romantic practice of stretching tonality, but they are fairly idiomatic for the time period. It is in the final movement that the real change comes. There is no key signature; the harmonies roam freely across the chromatic scale, in what is considered by many to be the composer’s first real experiment with atonality. It would be a little more than a decade before Schoenberg introduced his 12-tone system, but there is a sense that, with this quartet, the path of modern music has been irrevocably altered.

Works for solo piano and for voice and string quartet, performed by pianist Louis Schwizgebel-Wang, soprano Mary Elizabeth Mackenzie, and musicians from Ravinia’s Steans Institute.

- Brahms: Two Rhapsodies, Op. 79
- Schoenberg: String Quartet No. 2, Op. 10

With lush harmony and passionate, singing melody, the Brahms’ Rhapsodies are textbook examples of the mature Romantic style. As the Romantic era progressed, composers began pushing the harmonic envelope further, and that late Romantic language is typified and further extended by Schoenberg’s Quartet No. 2. The first and second movements exhibit that late Romantic practice of stretching tonality, but they are fairly idiomatic for the time period. It is in the final movement that the real change comes. There is no key signature; the harmonies roam freely across the chromatic scale, in what is considered by many to be the composer’s first real experiment with atonality. It would be a little more than a decade before Schoenberg introduced his 12-tone system, but there is a sense that, with this quartet, the path of modern music has been irrevocably altered.

Recorded live in the Tapestry Room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is pleased to share this concert under a Creative Commons Music Sharing License. For details see www.gardnermuseum.org.

• Telemann: Gulliver Suite in D Major for two violins
• Pachelbel: Canon and Gigue in D Major for three violins and continuo
• Vivaldi: Sonata in D minor for two violins and continuo, RV 63 (“La Follia”)
• Bach: Trio Sonata in C minor for flute, violin, and continuo from The Musical Offering

Today’s podcast offers up a menu of Baroque treats. Telemann’s suite, a five-movement work inspired by Jonathan Swift’s immensely popular novel Gulliver’s Travels, offers playful depictions of some of the story’s main characters. Next is Pachelbel’s canon, followed by a series of virtuosic variations on a famous 16th century tune and harmonic progression, “La Follia.” The theme has been set by dozens of composers over the centuries, and Vivaldi’s version is one of the most famous. We end with Bach’s Trio Sonata from “The Musical Offering.” This composition builds on a highly chromatic tune given to Bach by Frederick the Great of Prussia, who challenged the composer to use it in a six-voice fugue.

Works for flute, violin, and continuo, performed by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

-Telemann: Gulliver Suite in D Major for 2 violins
-Pachelbel: Canon and Gigue in D Major for 3 violins and continuo
-Vivaldi: Sonata in D minor for 2 violins and continuo, RV 63,“La Follia”
-Bach: Trio Sonata in C minor for flute, violin, and continuo from The Musical Offering

Today’s podcast offers up a menu of Baroque treats. Telemann’s suite, a five-movement work inspired by Jonathon Swift’s immensely popular novel Gulliver’s Travels, offers playful depictions of some of the story’s main characters. Next is Pachelbel’s canon, followed by a series of virtuosic variations on a famous 16th century tune and harmonic progression, “La Follia.” The theme has been set by dozens of composers over the centuries, and Vivaldi’s version is one of the most famous. We end with Bach’s Trio Sonata from “The Musical Offering.” This composition builds on a highly chromatic tune given to Bach by Frederick the Great of Prussia, who challenged the composer to use it in a six-voice fugue.

Recorded live in the Tapestry Room of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston.

The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is pleased to share this concert under a Creative Commons Music Sharing License. For details see www.gardnermuseum.org.