Musical weekend(s)

... cannot expect more and would have no time in doing it!!

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To start from the last one: Finally it came the first day of the Integral Schubert String Quartets by Cuarteto Casals!

As you know, last season I went to Lisbon for Leonskaja's Integral Schubert Piano Sonatas, but I didn't mention that Cuarteto Casals was also playing in the Gulbenkian Auditorium - all the Schubert SQs, with the pace of the same weeks as Leonskaja. As they were programmed all on working days, I couldn't follow. But I had the luck to listen to them in the presentation.

All by chance: I was, at that time, in my coldest travel with music, in the warmest destination of winter - In Lisbon the grass was already flowering in January. Then the second day (rainy as it was my mood), browsing on facebook in the hostel, I found a message of the quartet, which I responded and got almost instant reply. So I went to meet them and did have a great time, enjoying some excerpts of Schubert and comparative examples with Haydn's and Beethoven's SQs. Vera and Abel, the violinists, changed bows according to each work. And they also altered 1st and 2nd violin depending on different pieces (which is not normal in SQ, I suppose). Jonathan's explications were clear enough for an ignorant like me; I took notes with my phone but later didn't write them down here. I wonder if I try to do some from now on...

And one year earlier than Lisbon, how I got to know Cuarteto Casals was also a surprise out of plan. It was at a Liceu Conservatory's masterclass with Brendel, and, when listening to them playing "Death and the Maiden", what a great pity I felt for not knowing such a good string quartet before (and more, based in my city, just 10-minutes walking from home)!

When I found their plan to play the series again, I had no words to express my excitement! And believe - that ticket price was NOT a printing mistake!! And it will take place in my favorite hall of the Auditorium, Sala Oriol Martorell, with very good acoustics!

I bought two cycle tickets because planned to go with different friends. I always believe that instrumental chamber music is the easiest way to get a new listener into the classical music, perhaps upon my own experience in the childhood. And last night it did work - my friend was already asking me in the interval which upcoming ones I recommended for her... though, unfortunately, some of the recitals has been sold out. 

If you don't know this quartet before, I suggest to listen to excerpts of their CDs here, and it is also easy to find at Youtube their performances if you prefer to watching.

Now, before I go to their second recital of Schubert, which will start in 40 minutes, I'd like to write some random notes here before I get confused with those of tonight:

1. The first SQ of Schubert was written in 1810. Now with the fresh reading and writing I have done thanks to the Beethoven course at Coursera, I know that this year, apart from its well-known relation with the core-period Romanticist composers (Chopin & Schumann born, Mendelssohn learning German and Liszt about to be born), which has nothing to do with the Viennese Schubert, 1810 was also the first year after Haydn's death, and also the year of transition of the already deaf Beethoven to his infinity of the late period (he was continuing with the "Emperor Concerto", after finishing the sonata "Les Adieux"). So this is the music background Schubert was living as a teenager.

2. An odd menuetto of an unfinished (or partly lost) Schubert piano sonata is DIRECTLY relationed to the same movement of a string quartet he wrote in the same year... Once at home, I immediately consulted Wikipedia and Henle's and Wiener Urtext comments of that piano sonata. No mention. However, there was a version for piano trio. I will link audios here later to make the evidence.

3. If I don't remember wrongly, a piano work (not any sonata) of Enescu that I heard in Lübeck masterclass in the past summer should be initialed with a quotation of the first motive of the last movement of Haydn's SQ in C major "The Bird". I will check it later to confirm.

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Moving backwards to Friday. In the afternoon I learnt by heart an easy nocturne of Chopin, out of the expectation of a muggle-born who just tried to sight-read it for the second time ^ ^

In the evening, then finally I watched the second lecture of Western Music History, with a complete performance of Chaconne. I have to say that I am NOT used to the way of polyphony played on strings... I needed scores to follow it : ( And then had to think about the assignment... which was not easy for a string illiterate like me. So, instead, I passed the rest of the night watching other two videos:

The first one was about acoustic fundamentals of music, which has nothing to do with music, but Physics. If you are curious and have time:
http://v.163.com/movie/2002/1/T/A/M6GLVTL1C_M6GM0KQTA.html

And the second one, which I immediately linked to Coursera forums, is about... You'd better watch it yourself, of 20 minutes only:


One point that touched me a lot is the example of that old man... What could music mean to people? For example, to me, simply, it saved my life.

And the speaker's last question is what I most appreciate... I remember once I wrote to a musician after listening to her recital live on the radio - I was very stressed that morning and the concert refreshed my mind thoroughly as a shower after sports, and I felt so grateful that I sent the message on my way to the second work place in the afternoon (without lunch due to the concert). Later I got a reply, or rather, a question: "What do you mean?" It was then when I realized this after-concert secret, that its effect, or the contextual independence of everybody, may not always be transferable. "Nothing. Holmones..."

(Faces after a concert, Barcelona, 2012)