Saturday, September 4, 2021

The “Brandenburg Concertos” are a set of six instrumental works presented in 1721 by J.S. Bach to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, along with a letter requesting employment. No response was received, and the leather-bound manuscript hand-written by Bach was sold for a pittance after the Margrave’s death in 1734.

 Friday, September 3, 2021

The Piano Concerto in B-flat is one of Beethoven’s earliest great works. Begun in 1793 when Beethoven was still in Bonn, it took its final form in 1795 when the 24-year-old composer performed it in one of his first public appearances in Vienna.

 Thursday, September 2, 2021

B-flat is a very interesting pitch: in most central and northern European languages "B" is usually called “H”, while B-flat is called “B”. It’s also a very popular key in orchestral works, since instruments like the clarinet and trumpet are pitched in B-flat (meaning that when the note written as "C" is played on those instruments, it sounds as B-flat).

 Wednesday, September 1, 2021

We close our A minor survey with Beethoven’s great masterpiece in A minor: the Opus 132 string quartet. In 1822, at the age of 53, Beethoven received a commission from Prince Nicholas Galitzin of St. Petersburg for “one, two, or three” string quartets. He began work in earnest the following year, and ultimately finished five great quartets plus the “Große Fuge” (originally intended as the finale of Opus 130, but later separated and published on its own, Beethoven composing a new finale for the Opus 130). The so-called “late quartets” occupied Beethoven in the last three years of his life, and definitively moved the string quartet genre from the salons of the wealthy to the concert stage for the edification of all.

 Monday, August 30, 2021

One of the best-loved of Beethoven's shorter piano works is his Bagatelle in A minor, better known as "Für Elise". This piece has inspired many budding young artists to launch their study of the piano in earnest.

 Sunday, August 29, 2021

The overwhelming majority of Mozart’s compositions were composed in major keys. A rare exception is his piano sonata number 8 in A minor, composed in 1778 while Mozart was in Paris with his mother seeking new employment.

 Saturday, August 28, 2021

Beethoven intended that his fourth and fifth violin sonatas be published as a set, with the dark and dramatic A minor contrasting with the sunny lyricism of the F major.

 Friday, August 27, 2021

Bach composed a fascinating prelude and fugue in A minor in Book II of his Well-Tempered Clavier.

 Thursday, August 27, 2021

Inadvertently omitted in our march up the well-tempered chromatic scale was the key of G-sharp minor (my fingers must have stumbled on a black key). The key signature for G-sharp minor has five sharps, making it slightly more convenient to employ than its enharmonic equivalent key, A-flat minor, with seven flats.