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Eighteen Pieces, Op. 72 was Tchaikovsky’s last piano cycle. With regard to this work one can speak of a real cycle, although the composer himself left no indications about this at all. All of the pieces in Op. 72 bear names. Judging by several of them – Berceuse, Tendres reproches, Dialogue and Passé lontain – these pieces could reflect Tchaikovsky’s own life. The composer also makes musical tributes to his most favourite fellow composers – Un poco di Schumann and Un poco di Chopin.
The cycle was composed in the last year of Tchaikovsky’s life at the same time as his Sixth Symphony. In letters, the composer wrote that he was writing these pieces incidentally, for money, one per day. Naturally these words should not be taken literally. The true meaning in the music of the cycle, just as the programme in the Sixth Symphony, remains a mystery.
Piano cycles are normally performed in full. But Tchaikovsky’s last piano opus is performed extremely rarely in full at one concert.
Pavel Velikanov
Although Franz Liszt's Sonata in B Minor is dedicated to Robert Schumann, its closest musical “relative” would be Wagner’s musical dramas and Liszt’s own symphonic poems. Hearing the sonata for the first time, Wagner was ecstatic, and there was much to rejoice at. Piano works on such a scale had not been written since Beethoven’s time. Moreover, Liszt’s grandiose sonata is in one section; without interruption it lasts over half an hour and the piano sounds at times like the orchestra and at times like the organ.
Liszt did not give the sonata a programme title, but there is no doubt that it does not belong to the world of “pure music”. The uninterrupted development of the three themes that are subjected to various metamorphoses, even transforming into the reverse of what they began as, bears witness to the fact that there is a “plot” and there are “characters” in the sonata. Most of all, Liszt was interested in two great subjects – The Divine Comedy and Faust, which formed the basis for two of his symphonies.
Liszt completed this Sonata in B Minor in February 1853, but the public at large heard it only in 1857 when it was performed by Hans von Bülow. In the 19th century this work was rarely performed and only came to be appreciated in the 20th century.
Anna Bulycheva
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