1001 themes

From theory class to theory class, every professor who wants to be worth his salt always makes this brilliant observation: it's about economy of material.

A gifted composer, taking just four little notes (three of them the same) makes an entire symphonic movement out of just that little theme and no more. Hardly a note exists anywhere on those pages that can't be traced back to the main theme. That's economy.

It isn't easy to do, either. To constantly keep the 'purpose' in view, and not to just wander off whenever you can't concentrate anymore; furthermore, to be able to see a wealth of characteristic possibilities in such a tiny musical idea, to see it from all sides and envision it travelling in all directions: it's still what it was in the beginning, but it has also become something else.

Maybe the rhythm is kept, and the melody is changed. Or just one little interval. Or it's been turned upside down, played backwards, inside out, both upside down AND backwards, elongated, shortened, made to fit a new harmony, tried in a new register (high or low) or a new tone color (on the bassoon instead of the clarinet). It involved experimentation, and innovation, and yet at the same time, being able to never lose sight of that little theme.

It's an amazing way to compose.

Today's little sonata isn't about that method. At all.

Instead, Mr. Haydn pretty much gives us something new to think about every two measures, as if he couldn't stop coming up with new, incongruous little ideas, and festooning his happy little piece with them. Joy, profusion, excitement, and a complete lack of discipline. Which is really odd for Haydn, who is known for making his entire sonata movements be about ONE theme, when nearly everybody else, even the most gifted, would give it at least two.

And yet, eventually, during the traditional "development" section, our prodigious composer does develop a couple of themes. Most of his ideas come and go, replaced by others as fast as he can think of them. But a few stick around and begin to germinate into something else. All the more interesting, then, because the occasion for my recent performance of this work was a church service on the morning when the scripture lesson was Jesus' "parable of the sower." The sower scatters his seed indiscriminately, flinging them everywhere, and most of them fail to grow. But a few do, and produce an amazing crop. My very bright composition student, sitting behind me, caught on to this without my having to tell him.

I think Haydn must have had fun writing this, even if it isn't his best work. A few people pointed out afterward that I seemed to enjoy playing it. I think they enjoyed listening to it, too.

Now it's your turn.

Haydn: Sonata in G, Hob. 6: I. Allegro

Subsidy

Haydn: Sonata in F no. 3, Hob. 9 -- Movement three: Allegro Molto

You are listening to well over a quarter of a million dollars.

It isn't that I enjoy putting monetary values on things or that I'm trying to parade wealth in front of you, but since you might have been lured into the idea that since this music is available to you simply by clicking a button it isn't worth very much, I thought we should pause and consider where this came from.

The reason that I chose this piece to post is that I happen to like the way I performed it. It is a short piece, and not very difficult. All the same, to be able to play those runs evenly, get those articulations so lively, and scale the dynamics so carefully requires a bit of practice.

And I've had plenty of it. I've probably spent at least 10,000 hours practicing the piano in my lifetime, even if only about 15 minutes of that made it into actually preparing this little number. The blood, the sweat, the tears--I don't know how you can tell what that cost, and I don't know how you can ever really determine whether that cost is worth it. In fact, if you are wondering that at all you are probably asking the wrong question. All I know now is that all the preparation is paying big dividends every time I sit down at the piano a few decades later. But honestly I can't really imagine life any differently for better or worse.

Then there is all that money my parents shelled out for piano lessons--childhood lessons, and then four years at the conservatory. Adjusted for inflated college tuition prices, I wouldn't be surprised if we weren't talking close to 200 grand right there.

After graduation I started to foot the bill. College wasn't getting any cheaper then, by the way. Almost another decade of grad school until I had become a doctor of the piano. No kidding. That's some serious money there.

Of course, we mustn't forget that the piano I'm playing this recording on  (a hundred year old Steinway B) cost a pretty penny. And the recording equipment, relatively cheap by comparison, is still around a thousand dollars by itself. I bought it in installments because for a while I was a broke graduate student before I became a slightly less broke professional musician.

Every second, every nuance had how many hours of lessons, how many teachers, how many previous recordings listened to or books read that went into their preparation? Incalculable.

I could make this a story about how hard I worked and how much I sacrificed and how you all owe me a big pile of money for getting to listen to this music. But let's not forget that vast committee of persons who made it all possible: parents, teachers; professors who taught extra lessons or cheap lessons or grad school deans and voice teachers who made a graduate assistantship possible and with it the chance to get more education. I owe my doctorate to those last two.

And the list fans out from there. The people who built the piano. And rebuilt the piano nearly a hundred years later. They have their store a couple of miles away. I mentioned the microphones and the recorder, but not the computer and the software and the web host and the people who designed the interwebs. Happy 20th birthday to the world wide web, by the way.

We probably should not forget the composer. I don't recall whether Mr. Haydn's authorship is in dispute over this one. But somebody had to set quill pen to paper and set this whole process in motion in the first place. Although, historically, the person(s)--another committee--who invented the piano started the enterprise a bit earlier (1700 or so).

It's not like I had to pay licensing fees to all these people--or any of them-could you imagine the vast wholesale to retail process that would be involved? And the markup would be outrageous!

Most of these folks made or are making a pretty good living doing what they did or do, so I don't feel bad about not chipping in. Mr. Haydn had his princely employment, and so have many others, who didn't really invent what they invented for the express purpose of my using it, or even with the slightest knowledge. It's stunning what an anonymous process all of this is. It's really like the butterfly in Brazil flapping its wings and starting a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico. Can you blame the butterfly?

And I have my means of making a living as well, which is why you needn't worry about paying for the pleasure of those 50 seconds which, at a cost per second, would hardly be economical if it couldn't exist in mass production, or at least for mass consumption.

But it isn't about the cost, really, and it isn't about numbers. It's funny how people think you can put dollar values on things that seemingly have a cost based on some reasonable calculation of knowable factors when it really just comes down to what somebody is willing to pay for it, not to mention how easy it is to be blind to all of the various costs that have been paid to bring it to you by people you'll never meet. It's also astonishing how easily people come to think that they got everything they got by working hard and forget all the other people who worked hard on their behalf.

So today's selection, like every other selection you've ever heard on Pianonoise, is brought to you by a committee. Pianonoise is not a multinational corporation, with lots of employees working around the globe to bring you the very latest and greatest in piano music from all times and cultures, though it might in some ways resemble that. It's just me. And a whole lot of people that contributed, in various stages of unknowing where it would lead and what the product would look like when it made it to the shelf--or the web player.

We won't be having a fund drive. Some of you have already contributed. For that, thanks. And the rest of you can share in this gargantuan undertaking by just listening. And reading. Or leave a comment or something. Nice to have you around.

Still, in the immortal words of the advertisers, it is quite a deal, isn't it?

The Case of the Missing Measures

This one is for composers.

I’m getting ready to post an early sonata by Haydn over at Pianonoise (click Listen). This is from the finale of the Sonata no. 6, or no. 13, depending on which catalog numbering system you are using.

Here’s the question: what is the difference between this phrase and this one?

I know, it’s me picking on a tiny detail again. Still, I find it fascinating, and if that makes me a geek, so be it. Frankly, I think it is also why we are listening to Haydn after a couple of hundred years.

You noticed it too, right?

The second phrase is shorter than the first by three measures. This gesture, which lasts two measures, fizzles out, and has to be started again (which is a dramatic way of saying he repeats it), is hurled headlong into the next gesture without pause. And this repetition isn't the only casualty. In the first example, this measure right at the end is repeated. In the second, it isn’t.

So what’s the difference?

Lots.  I don’t have a letter from Haydn, but I think this is what’s going on here: the first phrase is from the first section of the piece. In classical period music, balance is important. Balance can be most easily achieved by repetition, not to mention the notes are going by in a hurry and it helps to get our bearing by hearing small gestures twice before going on. But in the second instance, pulled from the piece a minute or so later, we’ve already heard the first section twice, plus a bit of middle-of-the-movement development. Now it’s time to head for home, and in this concluding section Haydn leaves out the repetition. We've already heard these gestures several times (if you include the standard repeat of the entire first section), so our ears don’t really need the reminder, and cutting the extra measures serves to streamline the plot, move the action forward a bit, and move the center of gravity to the next phrase, which begins with that lovely high G and continues splashing its way all over the keyboard to the end of the piece (sort of).

Classical balance, we've been told a hundred times in theory class, is important. But so is drama. And drama doesn't work very well if you have to repeat everything every time there is an opportunity. Drama works better if, after the plot and characters have been established and you are careening toward the final curtain, the action speeds up a little. Or a lot. Don’t tell us what we've already heard twice before. Just refer to it. And get on with it.

It’s curious how often master narratives we are told about the overall tendencies in musical production are belied by the music itself. Classical tendencies unfold one way; romantic, quite the opposite. And here, of course, in the field, in an actual piece of music, we have both. Which is not really that odd, and neither is shortening the return to the opening to sustain the drama. Importantly, what’s needed to qualify as repetition is there. We hear again what we need to identify it as the return to the opening, to bask in the familiar, and to recognize that signpost in the piece’s unfolding. A casual listener probably wouldn't even notice a difference; yet, somehow, our interest has been sustained by leaving out what was once essential material, and now is just getting in the way. A good composer can tell the difference.

Ninety-nine composers out of a hundred wouldn't bother with a detail like this. But then, with so much music having been written and continuing to be written, we can’t listen to everybody, can we?

Take note, composers.

Oh--I suppose you wouldn't mind hearing the whole piece now.

Haydn: Sonata 6 (or 13) in G (either way) fourth movement: Allegro Molto

The Sonata Principle

Let's play "drop the needle"

listen


Based on that tiny snippet you've just heard, what sort of piece do you think this is? What does the music sounds like that leads into it, or that comes right after it?

I'd like you to take a second and try to imagine it. Do something with that musical fragment--in your head, in your larynx, in your feet or hands, or at the piano or oboe. Imagine it, hum it, tap it out--just play with it a little. Be a composer.

I'll wait.



Ok. Ready for the next part? This might seem a little odd because here is what actually comes immediately before it.

listen


I thought I'd put these two parts in isolation because so often we just listen to pieces of music and it is like the aural equivalent of going Greyhound--we just leave the driving to the composer. Well, I'd like to encourage you all to be backseat drivers for a while.

You must have noticed that these two bits of music didn't seem like they had that much in common--one in a chirpy major key, march-like, kingly, trumpets and drums, the other in a minor key, subdued, all in unison, no rich harmonies to back up the sparse musical motive, trumpets and drums need not apply.

It's a union of opposites. And this is often what sonatas are all about. Here is one musical point of view, here is another, and---go! And then we listen as they struggle with each other, attempt to come to terms, or one dominates the other.

Actually, I can save you some suspense. Coming of age as sonatas did during the era of Enlightenment and Colonialism (how's that for a collision) the musical winner was generally a foregone conclusion. But that's for another time.

For now, the second movement of Haydn's sonata in A Major (Hoboken number 5), the middle section of which provided today's musical examples.

Haydn: Menuetto from Sonata no. 5 in A Major

I can't think of anything good to write so I think I'll just throw some words together and hit 'publish.' Is that ok with you?

This one is for young composers. Whenever I encourage students to write music, the first barrier they come up against is they "can't think of anything good." And when they do think of something, it isn't good enough. Well, meet Joseph Haydn.

He's generally thought of as a pretty decent composer. Here's his entry. It's a movement from an early piano sonata:

Haydn, Sonata no. 12 in A, movement three: Finale

Now, at the risk of ruining the pleasure you get from listening to it by explaining what's going on, possibly making it seem boring and mudane, "decoolifying it" by taking it apart to examine and seeing whether that rush of notes really has anything to say, let me show you what his idea is made of. Let's break it down. It may sound pretty cool with all of those notes rushing around together, but sometimes those notes are just a lot of pre-fabricated activity that isn't really saying all that much. In the first few measures of this piece most of the activity is in the left hand, in a standard device known as an Alberti Bass. Here's what the right hand melody would sound like all alone without that Alberti bass in the left hand (which, by the way, is just a simple major chord whose members are played one at a time--1 5 3 5 3 5 and so on. It's named after a fellow who, if he didn't invent the idea, overused it considerably):

melody

Now, since those rapid melodic twitches happen to have a name--they are known as inverted mordants, a kind of melodic "ornament" which had been around for a while by the time Haydn used it. (The first note of Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue in d minor is an inverted mordent.) Inverted mordents work like this: you play a note, play the note immediately below it in the scale, and then come back to the original note, all really quickly. You don't actually have to write out all three notes, you just write the first one and put a squiggle above it with a line through it--it's a kind of musical shorthand.  Let's get rid of the ornament, too, keeping in mind that Joe didn't really think of that on his own, either.  So here's what's left of our tune.

melody

It's just four notes going up! How's that for not all that special. In fact, this is starting to look like the musical equivalent of cotton candy--just a blob of sugar whipped up into a large clump of mostly air and sold for 6$ at the country fair. Because without all that dressing from the left hand (which was a typical thing to do at the time) and those Baroque borrowed ornaments (also pretty standard) all he really had going for him was half of a scale. And even with all of those additions to make it sound like more was going on than actually was there is a real danger things are going to get boring fast. And he knows it, too. So here's what he does next:

melody

A downward plunge. The right hand speeds up, so to speak. Like a rollercoaster, we go up slowly, and go downhill in a hurry.

Now the important thing to note here is that Haydn didn't look at those first four notes, decide they were boring, ball them up and start over (and over and over). He present his idea, which after all lasts about 5 seconds, gave us all a chance to figure out what was going on and then to just begin to wonder if things weren't getting a little predictable and THEN just as we started to think we needed a little more than a single ornament on every downbeat, gave it to us. Just what we needed, once we had a chance to notice we needed it. That takes a little patience from the composer, and the ability to see what is missing from an idea--and to let it be missing for a moment, and then to balance it after the listener has time to notice it too, and not before!

It's also a reminder that composers don't always have great ideas. And for many composers (not all of them) the important thing is what you do with the idea once you have it. That's often what makes the piece interesting--not the first line, but the rest of the story. Not the characters, but what happens to them in the course of the novel. In which case, sometimes it is better to have an idea that is pretty simple because it is easier to do things with it.

Joe Haydn's piece is not exactly a masterpiece. Maybe it is more the equivalent of musical chitchat than a great speech. But it really isn't bad. It has charm, it is fun to play and listen to, and even if he was having a bad day in the inspiration department he was able to make a lot out of it. That's where craft and skill come in. They are pretty underrated by the general public. But composers know their worth. Sometimes they make all the difference.

A blast from the here and now?

I want you to listen to something:

Listen

What does it make you think of?

For me, it's rather melancholy and tuneful, almost the sort of thing a moody heroine might play on the piano to show us she how deeply she could express her feelings in an art film. Something written by a film composer, and recently. It isn't, though.

That little bit of music comes from a piano sonata by Haydn. Haydn, who lived from 1732 to 1809, and wrote this piece sometime in the 1760s. That's a decade or so before the United States existed.

It also makes this a "classical" piano sonata, and the narrative on classical music is that it flourished during the enlightenment, at a time when the leading minds of Europe valued logic and reason, aesthetic beauty, balance, formal perfect, and so forth, above the messiness of self expression and emotional outbursts. That came with the next century.

One might also posit a connection between the authority of the kings, princes, and other potentates for whom  most musicians worked and the desire to put on an optimistic face, a sunny disposition, and not stray too far into the area of dissatisfied-sounding sounds. Perhaps. The messy Romantic century that followed did see an awful lot of revolution.

But context is (nearly) everything (and interpretation is the rest). If you listen to the entire piece, the second movement from the A Major Sonata (number 12 by both of the leading catalogs) you'll hear the formal, courtly, well-behaved steps of a minuet on both sides of what turns out to be a peculiar interlude. Do you suppose Haydn is trying to tell us something? And if so, what is it?

Or was he just bored with A major?

Here's the whole movement:

Full piece

some assembly required

If they sold piano sonatas at IKEA, they would come in a box, and you'd have to put them together yourself. There would also be optimistic hieroglyphs with ambiguous arrows and no written instructions within miles.

Fortunately, navigating today's selection isn't going to be that difficult. But, rather than simply listen to the whole thing at one gulp (even if it is a small gulp), I've divided it into sections, so you'll have to strike the play button each time you want to go on to the next part.

The upside to this is that there will be absolutely no confusion about where a new section begins; when the music gets to the end of one part, it stops until you do something about it. Call it the first interactive piano sonata. It's the latest, greatest thing in piano sonatas, and everything else.

The first part of a sonata has the technical term "Exposition" because that's where the composer launches his musical ideas for the piece. This is divided into two parts. Here is the first one:

Exposition: part one

Now if you take a few seconds to let your head clear before playing this next part, you might come to the conclusion that this next part is rather different--you might even think it is a completely different piece of music. That will depend, partly, on how you heard the "modulation," that is, moving from one key to another. Between the two parts of the exposition the composer moves to a new key, which is a lot like moving to a new location in the physical world. Depending how smoothly the composer does it you might not notice it;other times is is jarring. In either case, there is a new melody and a new rhythmic idea in this part:

Exposition: part two

Now, classical composers are more reasonable human beings than popular mythology might suggest. They know they've given you a lot to absorb, that's why there is always a repeat sign at this point. In order to faithfully reproduce your classical sonata, at this point you need to go back and play both parts of the exposition again (in order). Otherwise, you'll get to the end of your put-it-together-yourself sonata and realize you have a couple of extra pieces left in the box with no idea where they belong, and we wouldn't want that.

Now it's time for the "development" section, in which the composer shows us what sorts of interesting things he or she can do with the ideas from the first section. Notice how many times you keep hearing that little rhythm from the very opening of the piece: the first thing you hear (dumm--dadeeh)--nearly every phrase has at least one of them tucked in there somewhere.

Development

If you are the sort of piece who likes repetition, the "recapitulation" is your thing. At this point in the sonata, we are pretty much through adventuring, and the rest of the piece repeats the first part of the piece again, blow by blow. It is in two parts, just like the "exposition"--two "themes" and in the same order. Here is the first one again. Sound familiar?

Recapitulation: part one

The only difference (and philosophically it is a big one) is that this time we don't go to a new key for the second part. While you were busy listening to the clever ways the composers tossed his themes around in the development, Mr. Haydn was also taking us back to the key we started in so we'd be "home" in time for the last part of the sonata. Now that we're there, we're going to stay there.

Recapitulation: part two

You can catch the difference between these two parts by going back up to the 2nd part of the "exposition" and listening to the first few seconds, then hitting the button for the 2nd part of the recapitulation. The webplayer doesn't mind if you interrupt it; it should start playing the new file right away if the connection is not too slow and the internet gods aren't angry today.

And just like that you have a nice early-classical sonata. Beethoven would later write sonatas that were larger and more complicated, but this one will fit in your den. Next to that plant in the corner.

Caffeine Society

Consider this your morning Joe.

Joe Haydn, that is. And, since we are all in a hurry these days, you'll be happy to know that you are getting the full nutrients of an entire piano sonata in just five minutes. A sonata by Beethoven might take upwards of twenty full minutes to listen to. A sonata by Brahms, half an hour. But Joe here has written three full movements, each fulfilling the architectural requirements of a sonata movement, and finished it in under five minutes. Nice of him.

Alright, he had a little help. Yours truly, being a modern pianist, did what modern pianists tend to do with Haydn these days, which was to take him rather fast.

We don't have any recordings of Haydn playing his own works obviously, but many folks in the know think that pianists are breaking the speed limit when it comes to the classical era. It is likely that we are playing Haydn faster than he or his contemporaries would have played, for the following reasons: 1) The action of early pianos wouldn't have supported runs as fast as they do now. 2) Although they were hardworking and dedicated musicians, they would not have been able to spend 8 hours a day in little practice rooms doing nothing but practicing pieces written before they were born, like athletes training for the Olympics to be bigger, faster, stronger with each generation. Instead, they were busy writing the next piece for the next royal occasion, practicing the orchestra, teaching the young princessa, trying not to get cholera, and so forth.

So while my colleagues are all breaking speed records in Haydn to win competitions and impress audiences, I think we'd do well to remember that speed isn't everything. On this occasion, however, it turns out I am guilty of that very offense. One of the nice things about having a blog is you get to flagellate yourself in public.

There is an upside to this, however, which is that you don't have to listen very long to figure each movement out. For instance, in the first movement, it only takes 14 seconds to reach the end of the first section, which is then repeated, causing you to have to spend another whole 14 seconds listening to it.

This repetition is important, and I'll be focusing on it in subsequent blog posts. I only mention it now so I can repeat it later (har! har!).

Part two of the first movement lasts another 18 seconds. It is also repeated (0:46), by which time a grand total of 1:05 has gone by.

The blueprint for the second movement is similar: and A section (12 seconds) repeated (:13-:24), a B section (:25-:36), also repeated (:37-:48), then a contrasting middle part, also in two sections (C and D?), each repeated, and a return to sections A and B, which you only get to hear once this time.

Then the third movement, which goes by pretty fast--part A lasts 18 seconds (plus repeat), and the B section, another 22 (plus a repeat).

And just like that, an entire piano sonata has gone by. If you live on the west coast you've probably got time for another one before you head out the door, but, I'm sure you're watching your diet. One sonata is enough for this morning. Besides, this one has clearly got a lot of sugar in it.

Haydn: Sonata in C, Hob. 7
Allegro
Menuetto
Finale: Allegro

Tickling the Ivories

It has become rather popular to assert at the end of a movie (perhaps because it is a legal requirement?) that "no animals were harmed in the making of this film."

As it happens, our friendly neighborhood Steinway B, site of most of the piano recordings you'll hear on this blog, turns 101 this year, which means it is old enough to have ivory keys. But since the elephant that gave its tusks for our sadistic musical enterprise has long since passed from this earth I can tell you that no animal was harmed during the actual playing of today's musical selection. I am, however, tickling ivory.

That turns out to be especially relevant with regard to the second part (theme) of the piece. Today's piece is short--perfect if you've got places to go. It would be shorter if I didn't repeat both sections.

The first section is 30 seconds long. If you break it down into its component parts, the first of these is only eight seconds long. Don't blink your ears, you'll miss it.

But it's the second part of that first section that has my attention. The first could, almost, maybe, function like a melody. If it were slower maybe you could sing a bit of it before it gets too difficult. After a slight pause (these are important) we are treated to a finger-flexing whirl of notes, up and down the short range of the octave. Now I am not given as much as some are to feats of pianistic derring-do, trying to impress people with flash and dazzle. It works, though. People are always interested in watching how fast a pianist's fingers move.

Still, I don't mind having some fun. Like a lot of instances of high density in the notes-per-square measure variety, this part doesn't really have much to say musically except "see how fast I can go." But it all goes by pretty quickly. Even faster, given that this section is broken up by a curious little musical phrase, in a minor key, that seems to ask midway (as I do) "is this alright? or is something wrong here?"

But as usual, after that unsettling bit of questioning our motives, the answer turns out to be "Yes! Everything is fine, here! And I am moving my fingers very fast and having a good time!" No great metaphysical questions on the state of humankind. In fact, it only took three seconds to ask the question, so if your ears blink, you'll miss that part, too.

You'll get to hear this fun little sequence four times by the end. That 30 second portion repeats; then the second section, which contains a little more wandering away from home (but maybe just around the block) returns to do the same thing, this time in the home key. And you'll hear all of that over again, too.

The piece comes from an early Haydn piano sonata (the fourth movement) and is marked "Allegro molto" (very fast). Whether Haydn himself, or anybody living in the 18th century, would have played it as fast as many of us do today is a good question. It's not as though people weren't spellbound by an accomplished virtuoso back then. On the other hand, notions of speed may have been quite different. And besides, you wouldn't want your wig to come off!

It probably took you as long to read this as it is going to take to listen to the music, so listen to it again whenever you're in the mood. Have a great rest of your day.

Haydn: Sonata in G: Allegro molto

p.s. for pianists out there, this is the fourth movement of Sonata no. 13 (Landon numbers) or 6 (if you're using Hoboken numbers, like my Dover edition)