Samuel Barber: Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 22 | Christine Lamprea, cello

1. Allegro moderato 

 2. Andante sostenuto 

 3. Molto allegro e appassionato

Siegfried Wagner: Violin Concerto in one movement

Siegfried Wagner: Sehnsucht (Symphonic Poem after Friedrich Schiller)

Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Lark Ascending | Caroline Adomeit, violin

Sibelius: The Legends of Lemminkainen, Op. 22

I. Lemminkäinen und die Mädchen auf der Insel  00:00

II. Lemminkäinen in Tuonela  16:02

III. Der Schwan von Tuonela  30:50

IV. Lemminkäinen zieht heimwärts  39:05

Frankfurt Radio Symphony

Dir. Jukka-Pekka Saraste

Tchaikovsky: Manfred Symphony, Op. 58

I. Lento lugubre – Moderato con moto – Andante

II. Vivace con spirito

III. Andante con moto

IV. Allegro con fuoco

Frankfurt Radio Symphony

Dir. Vasily Petrenko

A masterpiece of orchestral writing, with evident influences from Franz Liszt's "Faust Symphony". Notice the subtle relation of the main theme of the fourth movement with the main theme of the first movement, which relation is made clear only toward the end of the symphony. (Regrettably, this thematically important part of the finale has been occasionally cut off by many conductors, including Svetlanov and the "perfectionist" Toscanini!)

Yevgeny Mravinsky: Soviet Conductor, Russian Aristocrat

Tchaikovsky: Hamlet Overture | Evgeny Svetlanov

Johannes Brahms: Complete Symphonies | Otto Klemperer

1. Symphony #1 (00:00)

2. Symphony #2 (44:09)

3. Symphony #3 (1:23:01)

4. Symphony #4 (1:59:46)

Unfaithfully Yours (1948)

"Unfaithfully Yours" is a 1948 black-comedy film written and directed by Preston Sturges, and starring Rex Harrison, Linda Darnell, Rudy Vallée and Barbara Lawrence. I thank Mr. Robert E. Nylund for bringing this film to my attention!

P. I. Tchaikovsky: Francesca da Rimini, Op. 32 | Yevgeny Mravinsky

"There's no greater pain than remembering happy times in a time of misery" (Dante, "Inferno", on the torture of the souls of Francesca da Rimini and her lover in Hell).

The dark that enlightens: The symbolic world of “Tristan”

By Costas J. Papachristou

    A musical revolution

We hear it from teachers, friends and psychotherapists: follow yourself ! But it isn’t often that we follow our self in real life. Either because we don’t really know it, or because we consciously sacrifice our freedom in favor of social conventions that allow us to be accepted as members of a society. The escape from the false world of conventions to the true freedom experienced through love is the central theme in Richard Wagner's most interesting work, both musically and philosophically.

Perhaps the most important opera ever created, the music drama “Tristan und Isolde” is a work too complex to fit in a brief analysis. The orchestral Prelude of the first act is regarded as a revolution that broke the rules of classical harmony – although one should not overlook the prophetic quartets by Mozart, dedicated to Joseph Haydn (especially the so-called “Dissonant” quartet, K.465, and the quartet K.428 where the “Tristan” theme itself can be heard!), as well as the harmonically adventurous piano preludes by Chopin.

The “Tristan” Prelude is a real masterpiece of contrapuntal writing that surpasses even that of Bach (as Leonard Bernstein remarks in an analysis of the work, the ingenuity of the produced musical effect is almost hair raising)! At the climax of the music's dramatic tension an incredibly complex harmonic “edifice” is built with musical themes introduced in succession, in such a way that each new “voice” enriches rather than undermines the delicate harmonic balance of the other voices. Thus Bernstein’s remark proves anything but a figure of speech!

    The symbols behind the drama

Wagner’s opera, however, isn’t just beautiful music. “Tristan” is poetry and – above all – philosophy. It symbolizes a dialectic conflict between the symbols of day and night, of light and darkness. And, for the initiated listener, light here is not necessarily “good”, nor is darkness necessarily “bad”: it may be just the opposite. “This light... take this light away!” cries Tristan as he slowly dies...

The day–night dipole symbolizes the opposition between appearance and essence, image and truth, logic and emotion, duty and desire, convention and freedom, honor and love. A love that at its peak abolishes individuality.

By day, Tristan and Isolde live in the hypocritical world of conventions where “honor” is the reward for blind obedience to the rules. She must appear as the faithful wife of King Marke; he, as the faithful defender of the honor of the monarch and uncle of his. The darkness of the night, however, brings to the surface the true selves of the two lovers. There is only Tristan and Isolde and nothing else in the world. And when the conventional honor of Tristan is lost forever, she will choose to follow him to his own, eternally dark world…

The love–death dipole dominates the entire opera. This time the concepts are in conjunction, as opposed to the completely disjunctive “light–dark”. Love and death are inseparable companions where the latter is a moral prerequisite for the former (an idea that the modern Greek philosopher Dimitris Liantinis persistently pursued in his writings and lectures).

    How much Schopenhauer is there in “Tristan” ?

Is love – this supreme experience of happiness – an unseen partner of death? For some philosophers this is a sacred and eternal truth, which constitutes the main theme in the music drama of a composer whose superficially arrogant nature concealed the existential pain of a deep connoisseur of Schopenhauer's thinking.

Schopenhauer’s influence on the philosophical conception of “Tristan” has been extensively discussed. We should, however, approach the issue with a degree of skepticism. According to Schopenhauer, death redeems the world from the sufferings of love. In “Tristan” the exact opposite happens: death redeems love from the world's compromises!

In the former case love is the victimizer. By pushing man into an endless process of reproduction it is responsible for perpetuating the pain and misery of life. Thus, man’s only redemption from earthly suffering is death.

In the latter case love is a victim of human conventions, especially those related to the sense of honor and the social codes that derive from it. Death functions here as a vehicle of escape from the imposing world of conventions into a world of freedom, in which the two lovers gain the opportunity to experience their own, unique truth. The poison that transmutes into a love potion symbolizes precisely the redemption of the passion of love through death, since only through death can passion acquire eternal life.

After all, love is not a gift offered to us: we are gifts offered to love! Even if we well know how much this offer costs...

* This article is a translated version of a brief musical / philosophical analysis of Wagner's musical drama "Tristan und Isolde", published in 2022 in the Greek journal Klik.

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Munich, 1981) | Bernstein

Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98 | Carlos Kleiber

Brahms never composed another symphony, although he lived long enough to have done so. He knew he had created the perfect work and didn't want to risk anything less than that!

Note in particular the beautiful passacaglia in the last movement: a recurring theme in the bass, accompanied by variations in the higher voices.

Carlos Kleiber's interpretations of the "Fourth" are regarded by many as the finest for this symphony!

The Silence of the Sea (Le Silence de la Mer, 2004)

Beethoven: The 32 Piano Sonatas | Wilhelm Kempff

00:00:00 - Piano Sonata No. 1 in F minor, Op. 2, No. 1

00:19:24 - Piano Sonata No. 2 in A major, Op. 2, No. 2 

00:43:18 - Piano Sonata No. 3 in C major, Op. 2, No. 3

01:09:03 - Piano Sonata No. 4 in E-flat major, Op. 7

01:38:51 - Piano Sonata No. 5 in C minor, Op. 10, No. 1

01:56:52 - Piano Sonata No. 6 in F major, Op. 10, No. 2

02:09:03 - Piano Sonata No. 7 in D major, Op. 10, No. 3

02:31:41 - Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor "Pathétique", Op. 13

02:48:37 - Piano Sonata No. 9 in E major, Op. 14, No. 1

03:01:21 - Piano Sonata No. 10 in G major, Op. 14, No. 2

03:16:13 - Piano Sonata No. 11 in B-flat major "Grande Sonate", Op. 22

03:40:31 - Piano Sonata No. 12 in A-flat major "Funeral March", Op. 26

03:59:48 - Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major "Sonata Quasi Una Fantasia", Op. 27, No. 1

04:14:29 - Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor "Moonlight", Op. 27, No. 2

04:28:26 - Piano Sonata No. 15 in D major "Pastoral", Op. 28

04:49:26 - Piano Sonata No. 16 in G major, Op. 31, No. 1

05:12:31 - Piano Sonata No. 17 in D minor "Tempest", Op. 31, No. 2

05:35:12 - Piano Sonata No. 18 in E-flat major "The Hunt", Op. 31, No. 3

05:58:21 - Piano Sonata No. 19 in G minor, Op. 49, No. 1

06:06:22 - Piano Sonata No. 20 in G major, Op. 49, No. 2

06:14:50 - Piano Sonata No. 21 in C major "Waldstein", Op. 53

06:38:47 - Piano Sonata No. 22 in F major, Op. 54

06:50:59 - Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor "Appassionata", Op. 57

07:15:48 - Piano Sonata No. 24 in F-sharp major "For Therese", Op. 78

07:24:00 - Piano Sonata No. 25 in G major, Op. 79

07:32:03 - Piano Sonata No. 26 in E-flat major "Les Adieux", Op. 81a

07:46:31 - Piano Sonata No. 27 in E minor, Op. 90

08:00:47 - Piano Sonata No. 28 in A major, Op.101

08:18:40 - Piano Sonata No. 29 in B-flat major "Hammerklavier", Op. 106

08:58:55 - Piano Sonata No. 30 in E major, Op. 109

09:15:58 - Piano Sonata No. 31 in A-flat major, Op. 110

09:34:28 - Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor, Op. 111

Schubert: The Complete Piano Sonatas | Wilhelm Kempff

00:00:00 - Piano Sonata No. 1 in E major, D. 157

00:20:03 - Piano Sonata No. 2 in C major, D. 279

00:38:58 - Piano Sonata No. 3 in E major (Five Piano Pieces), D. 459

01:07:16 - Piano Sonata No. 4 in A minor, D. 537

01:25:52 - Piano Sonata No. 5 in Ab major, D. 557

01:38:05 - Piano Sonata No. 6 in E minor, D. 566

01:54:29 - Piano Sonata No. 7 in Eb major, D. 568

(Piano Sonata No. 8 in F-sharp minor, D.571 was left unfinished)

02:23:42 - Piano Sonata No. 9 in B major, D. 575

(Piano Sonata No. 10 in C major, D.613 was left unfinished)

02:49:03 - Piano Sonata No. 11 in F minor, D. 625

(Piano Sonata No.12 in C-sharp minor, D 655 was left unfinished)

03:11:48 - Piano Sonata No. 13 in A major, D. 664

03:32:41 - Piano Sonata No. 14 in A minor, D. 784

03:51:21 - Piano Sonata No. 15 in C major "Relique", D. 840

04:15:08 - Piano Sonata No. 16 in A minor, D. 845

04:44:47 - Piano Sonata No. 17 in D major "Gasteiner", D. 850

05:24:13 - Piano Sonata No. 18 in G major "Fantasy", D. 894

05:55:28 - Piano Sonata No. 19 in C minor, D. 958

06:25:37 - Piano Sonata No. 20 in A major, D. 959

07:01:42 - Piano Sonata No. 21 in Bb major, D. 960

Clara Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op.7 | Alice Burla

Wagner: Tristan und Isolde, arr. for violin, piano and orchestra | Isaac Stern, violin

Dora Pejačević: Piano Concerto in G Minor, Op.33 | Oliver Triendl

Dora Pejačević: Symphony in F sharp minor, Op. 41

Siegfried Wagner: "Glück" (Happiness) | Symphonic Poem (1923)

Siegfried Wagner: Prelude to "Rainulf und Adelasia"

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 | Khatia Buniatishvili

Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 | Yuja Wang

Ecstasy (1933) | Hedy Lamarr

Beethoven: Cello Sonata in A Major | Mendelssohn: Song Without Words in D Major

Sol Gabetta, Cello 

Seong-Jin Cho, Piano

Richard Strauss: Elektra

Music: Richard Strauss

Libretto: Hugo von Hofmannsthal, after Sophocles

Elektra: Irene heorin

Clytemntestra: Waltraud Meier

Chrysothemis: Eva-Maria Westbroek

Aegisth: Robert Gambill

Orestes: Rene Pape

Tutotor to Orestes: Oliver Zwarg

Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna State Opera Chorus

Conductor: Daniele Gatti

Tchaikovksy: Francesca da Rimini (Symphonic Fantasy after Dante, Op. 32) | Santtu-Matias Rouvali

Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op 93 | Valery Gergiev

If one credits Gustav Mahler entirely to the 19th century in order to make room for subsequent important 20th-century composers, then Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975) must undoubtedly be regarded as the greatest symphonist of the latter century. His 10th Symphony (whose scherzo alludes to the barbarism of Stalinism) is the absolute masterpiece of the Soviet composer!

1 Moderato

2 Allegro

3 Allegretto

4 Andante - Allegro

National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America

Valery Gergiev, conductor

Granville Bantock: Dante and Beatrice | Royal Philharmonic Orchestra · Vernon Handley