Your Classical Coffee Break

In continuing our investigation on how composers interpret dawn and sun shine, we listen to Mendelssohn's composition for Shakespeare's Mid-Summer's Night Dream in 1842, particularly the magical moment when night becomes day. Another unlikely collaboration is Grieg's composition for Ibsen's play Peer Gynt, perhaps the most recognizable classical music rendition of morning. Ravel's Rise of Day, a more impressionist piece, shows a depth of the morning sound that entrances. We even get a chance to hear one of Mr. Somer's composiitons.

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The coffee break goes back to the very beginning, the darkness-before-the-big-bang beginning to explore how composers interpret sunrises. We listen to Haydn's The Creation and hear what the very first morning might have sounded like. We investigate sunlight as a story-telling event and shine a light on Wagner, Sibelius, and Strauss. A very illuminating coffee break.

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French composer Edouard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole didn't fit the "norms" of what was called a concerto--it was sprawling, had 5 movements, and explored new forms and rhythms. With its French flair and Spanish flavors. it was certainly not of the Germanic school. Inspired, perhaps liberated, by Lalo, Tchaikovsky let his Russian flag fly and composed his extraordinary Violin Concerto allowing himself to express with all the passion and freedom his artistic soul would allow.

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How did two of the greatest violin concerti reach the concert hall? Mr. Somers explains some of the background of the Brahms and Dvorak concerti as we listen to some amazing "fiddle" music. Was Brahm piece "enhanced" by the brilliant violinist Joseph Joachim, the wunderkind who brought the Beethoven violin concerto to life? Was Dvorak a victim of prejudice because of his Czech heritage? Did Brahms come to the rescue to open the door to the music world for Dvorak's work?

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Why the lackluster response to Beethoven's Violin Concerto when it premiered in 1806? Was the violinist showboating and unprepared to play or was the piece too complex and difficult for that era's audience to appreciate? Almost 40 years later, Felix Mendelssohn recused the piece from the dustbin of history and conducted a performance in London with Joseph Joachim, an 11-year-old boy, as soloist. Only then did the world recognize yet another work of Beethoven's genius that pushed the limits of the form.

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We close our exploration of Sibelius by examining his 2 versions of his Symphony #5, This serves as an example on how the exceptional composer constantly refined his ideas and sound until he came up with something startling and new--like his use of brass and the bold new ending of his #5.

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The Pauls explore Finlandia, Sibelius' brilliant, powerful tone poem which became a symbol of Finland's constant struggle for freedom from Russian domination. But the piece also shows his devotion to his big sound that drove him to compose some of his greatest symphonies. Through his Violin Concerto and later work, we hear Sibelius refine and simplify his sound as he developed into a focused, disciplined artist.

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This Coffee Break explores Finnish composer Jean Sibelius' powerful music. His complex sound can be lush and romantic, but often can be spare and full of melancholy. Prolific in the early part of his career, Sibelius was inspired by Scandinavian myths, composing symphonies, operas, and tone poems. But inside the structure of the Finnish composer's music, Mr. Somers found the Sibelius brand, the recurring "S" motif that runs from his earliest creations to his final works.

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The Coffee Break continues to look at the tumultuous year of 1859. Many new inventions prepared the way for a modern world. Music reflected the major changes in politics and culture. "The Nationale" fueled a political movement. Verdi wrote a piece featuring a political assassination, then later wrote the great opera Aida commissioned to celebrate the building of the Suez Canal (digging began in 1859). How the song "Dixie" was highjacked to be used as a Confederate anthem.

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1859 was a year full of dynamic breakthroughs in technologically (particularly transportation), the arts, and philosophy. Darwin, Marx, Wagner, and Brahms produced some of their greatest works, ushering in a new world of bold ideas that disrupted the old ways of thinking. Musically, the Tristan chord initiated the move away from traditional tonal harmony, and even toward atonality. And in Gounod's Faust, evil becomes commonplace, and Mephistopheles is shown as just a regular guy.

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