When a composer’s work is marked as his or her Opus 100, it absolutely marks a milestone of their improvement. Some composers didn’t make it that far, after all, leaving us questioning what might need been, had they lived lengthy sufficient or loved circumstances that higher facilitated a freedom to compose. Chopin falls into one other class: he died when he was 39, leaving us with Op. 65 as his final work to be numbered in that means; he accomplished many others, however they remained unpublished. Some composers aren’t documented by use of the ‘opus system’, however we are able to cheat of their instances by spotlighting the ‘100’ used of their explicit classification system: Mozart’s Okay.100 (Köchel), for instance, or J. S. Bach’s BWV 100 (Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis) or Liszt’s S.100 (Searle).
So, right here’s a fortunate dip choice of six works from {the catalogue}’s century markers. Do they replicate a milestone maturity? I’ll depart it to you to resolve.
I’m opening with a track by Russian composer Dmitry Shostakovich (1906–1975), one among his Spanish Songs Op. 100 which he wrote in 1956 for mezzo-soprano and piano. Titled Little Stars and primarily based on an previous Spanish folks track, the textual content interprets as follows:
A younger man hurries beneath the cypresses on the seashore, holding his guitar, to fulfill his sweetheart and to show her songs. He requires kisses as reward for his classes and subsequent morning she remembers every little thing aside from notes. It’s such a disgrace not to have the ability to restart from the start, as a result of it’s daytime and the celebrities don’t shine. By night time, he teaches his beloved the names of all shining stars and will get one kiss for each title. It’s unusual—she learns every little thing simply, however not the names of the celebrities.
Little Stars (8.574031)
Examine that vignette with the Op. 100 by Shostakovich’s modern, the Ukrainian-born Sergey Prokofiev (1891–1953). Educated in Russia, Prokofiev subsequently lived in America and Paris earlier than returning to Russia in 1936. Having beforehand escaped censure of his music by the Russian regime, this time spherical he wasn’t so lucky. In 1948 Prokofiev’s title was overtly joined with that of Shostakovich (a long-term sufferer of Stalin’s controlling diktats) in an much more specific condemnation of formalism, with explicit reference to his opera Battle and Peace. Prokofiev died in 1953 on the identical day as Joseph Stalin, and so by no means benefited from the following rest in official coverage to the humanities.
Written in 1944, Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, Op. 100 (he wrote seven altogether) is one among his biggest and most full symphonic statements. At its premiere he himself known as it “a symphony of the grandeur of the human spirit”. Right here’s the concluding part of the work’s finale.
Symphony No. 5 (8.573029)
From jap to central Europe now and music from the nineteenth century. The primary is by Antoine Reicha (1770–1836), who was born in Prague however subsequently moved to Bonn (the place as a youngster he met and befriended Beethoven), thence to Hamburg, Paris, Vienna and at last again to Paris (the fixed strikes arising from Napoleon’s army manoeuvres). In Paris he grew to become a properly revered determine within the French musical institution, attracting pupils similar to Berlioz, Liszt, Franck and Gounod. Reicha promoted the comparatively new mixture of flute, oboe, clarinet, horn and bassoon in his 24 compositions for the ensemble. John Sainsbury, a critic from the time, commented in 1825: “The impact created by the extraordinary mixtures of apparently opposite-toned devices, added to Reicha’s vigorous fashion of writing and even handed association, have rendered these quintets the admiration of the musical world.”
Reicha’s Six Quintets Op. 100 have been printed a yr earlier than Sainsbury’s evaluation. Right here’s the third motion from the fifth quintet within the set. Be aware using a wierd fanfare-like motif within the central part.
Wind Quintet: Menuetto (8.550432)
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) accomplished the second of his three violin sonatas in 1886 whereas on vacation in Switzerland. First carried out in December of that very same yr in Vienna, it was printed as Violin Sonata No. 2 in A serious, Op. 100. Brahms had begun his skilled profession as a piano accompanist to better-known artists, and it was on this capability that he made the acquaintance of the famend violinist Joseph Joachim. Their affiliation developed right into a friendship that lasted the size of their grownup lives and resulted within the composition of Brahms’ Violin Concerto, the Double Concerto for violin and cello, and the three violin sonatas. The latter have been written on the peak of Brahms’ maturity and comprise a few of his most intense and exquisite music. I’ve chosen the second sonata’s second motion.
Violin Sonata: Andante tranquillo (8.554828)
Throughout The Pond to the US now, the place Antonín Dvořák served as director of the Nationwide Conservatory of Music of America from 1892 to 1895. It was solely a matter of months that separated the composition of his mighty Symphony No. 9, ’From the New World’, Op. 95 and his self-effacing Violin Sonatina in G main, Op. 100, which he accomplished within the final two weeks of November 1893. Meant for efficiency by his personal kids, Ottilie and Antonín, it exudes nostalgia for his native Czechoslovakia whereas on the similar time drawing on new musical influences from his American backdrop. Right here’s the sonatina’s final motion that carries echoes of Dvořák’s ‘New World Symphony’, Op. 95 and his String Quartet Op. 96, ’The American Quartet’.
Violin Sonatina (8.554413)
Lastly to the Cassation (Serenade) in D main, Okay. 100 by Mozart (1756–1791). The precise derivation of the phrase ‘cassation’ can’t be confirmed; there are a selection of doable roots from which it was adopted. The phrase is usually utilized, nonetheless, to compositions in any other case generally known as serenades or divertimenti, works in a lighter fashion in a sequence of brief actions. Mozart’s Okay. 100 was in all probability written in Salzburg in the course of the summer season months when the top of the tutorial yr was marked by out of doors performances in entrance of buildings occupied by both the Aristocracy or lecturers. I’ve chosen the primary of the eight brief actions that make up Mozart’s Okay. 100. As as to whether or not you suppose it marks a milestone of maturity, do keep in mind that Mozart was solely 13 years previous when he wrote it in 1769!
Cassation in D main (8.550609)
