introduction or coda, originated as a piece for piano duet: the

fifteenth of a set of sixteen such waltzes op. 39 (1865). All of Brahms’ waltzes reveal their Viennese identity in their charm and lightness of heart. Some are derivative from the waltzes of Johann Strauss II, but the one in A-major is more in the character of a Schubert Laendler than a Strauss waltz, though it does boast more delicacy and refinement than we usually find in peasant dances. David Hochstein’s transcription for violin and piano is in the concert violin repertory. Charles Wakefield Cadman Charles Wakefield Cadman was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, on December 24, 1881. As a boy he played the organ in a church near Pittsburgh, and wrote a march that was published. His main music study took place with private teachers: Leo Oehmler, Luigi von Kunits, and Emil Paur. From 1908 to 1910 he was the music critic of the Pittsburgh _Dispatch_. Meanwhile, a meeting in 1902 with the lyric writer Nellie Richmond Eberhart, turned him to the writing of songs in which he achieved his initial outstanding successes as composer. Some of these were inspired by the American Indian. Later researches in the field of American-Indian ceremonials and music led him to write his opera _Shanewis_, produced by the Metropolitan Opera in 1918, as well as several significant instrumental works including the _Thunderbird Suite_ and _To a Vanishing Race_. From 1917 until his death he lived in California where he wrote several major orchestral and chamber-music works, but none in the American-Indian idiom with which he became famous. He died in Los Angeles on December 30, 1946. The _American Suite_, for strings (1938), is an engaging piece of music in which Cadman makes use of several different American folk idioms. In the first movement he borrows his melodies from the tribal music of Omaha Indians. In the second movement we hear Negro folk tunes indigenous to South Carolina. And in the third movement, two old fiddle tunes are effectively employed, “Sugar in the Gourd,” and “Hoop-de-den-do.” “At Dawning” is one of Cadman’s two most famous songs. It sold millions of copies of sheet music and records, and has been translated into many languages. Though originally published in 1906, it reposed forgotten and unknown on the shelves of the publisher (Oliver Ditson) until John McCormack sang it at one of his recitals in 1909 and was given an ovation. “At Dawning” was transcribed for violin and piano by Fritz Kreisler. _Dark Dancers of Mardi Gras_, for orchestra with piano, (1933), is one of Cadman’s most popular symphonic compositions. The composer explains: “The work takes its name from the Negro side of the Mardi Gras, though no Negro themes are used. The Negroes of New Orleans have a Mardi Gras of their own. The fantasy is supposed to reflect the fantastic, the grotesque, the bizarre spirit of the carnival. The original theme goes into a major key in the central section, and might represent the romantic feeling of the King and Queen, and the Court in carnival fashion.” “From the Land of the Sky-Blue Water” is the second of Cadman’s two outstandingly successful songs. It is one of four songs with lyrics by Nellie Richmond Eberhart appearing in _American-Indian Songs_, op. 45, a cycle which was published in Boston in 1909 and in the same year received a prize in a contest sponsored by the Carnegie Institute. This song was first swept to national fame by the prima donna, Lillian Nordica, in her song recitals. It soon entered the repertory of virtually every leading concert singer in America. Fritz Kreisler transcribed it for violin and piano. Lucien Caillet Lucien Caillet was born in Dijon, France on May 22, 1891. After attending the Dijon Conservatory he came to the United States in 1918 and settled first in Pennsylvania, and later in California. He has distinguished himself by his skilful symphonic transcriptions of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, Mussorgsky, and others. In his own works he frequently makes skilful use, and astute adaptations, of some famous pieces of popular music. The _Fantasia and Fugue on Oh, Susanna!_ (1942) for orchestra has for its point of departure the famous song of Stephen Foster, “Oh, Susanna!” Caillet’s composition begins with a preface: a tutti for orchestra which quotes the melody only partly. This leads into a fantasia section featuring the solo string quartet and presenting a quiet version of the melody. A fugue follows, the germ of the “Susanna” melody found in first and second violins in unison. In _Pop Goes the Weasel_ for orchestra (1938) Caillet brings the full resources of his harmonic and instrumental skill to a famous American folk tune. “Pop Goes the Weasel” is a Western two-part melody, long a favorite of country fiddlers since before the Civil War. After presenting this melody, Caillet subjects it to intriguing variations, sometimes with comic effect. Alfredo Catalani Alfredo Catalani was born in Lucca, Italy, on June 19, 1854. After receiving preliminary instruction in music from his father he was allowed to enter the Paris Conservatory without examinations. He concluded his music study at the Milan Conservatory, where in 1886 he succeeded Ponchielli as professor of composition. In 1880 he had his first opera, _Elda_, produced in Turin. He continued to confine himself to the stage, his most successful operas being _Loreley_ in 1890, and _La Wally_ in 1892. In his own time, and shortly thereafter, his operas were outstandingly successful in Italy. Today they are remembered almost exclusively because of some orchestral excerpts. Catalani died in Milan on August 7, 1893. The most popular episodes from Catalini’s two most famous operas are dances often performed by salon orchestras. “The Dance of the Waves” (_Danza delle ondine_) and “The Waltz of the Flowers” (_Valzer_ _dei fiori_) appear in _Loreley_, an opera introduced in Turin in 1890. In this opera the action takes place on the banks of the Rhine. Walter, about to marry Anna, is loved by the orphan girl, Loreley. When Loreley learns she is about to lose her beloved, she calls upon the nymphs and the sprites of the Rhine to help her; throwing herself into the river, she becomes one of them. During the wedding ceremonies, Loreley appears and entices Walter away from his bride. Anna dies of grief; and Walter meets his doom in the Rhine, to which he is helplessly drawn through enticements by the sprites and by Loreley. “The Dance of the Waves” takes place in the last act. After Anna’s funeral procession passes by, Walter comes to the edge of the Rhine, grief-stricken. Out of the waters come the sprites to dance seductively before Walter and to beckon him on into the river. “The Waltz of the Flowers” is a graceful, even gentle, dance performed in the second act, during the wedding ceremonies of Walter and Anna. “The Waltz of the Kiss” (_Valzer del bacio_) is a segment from _La Wally_, Catalani’s most famous opera, which was such a particular favorite of Arturo Toscanini that not only did he conduct it frequently in Italy but he also named his son after its heroine. _La Wally_ was introduced at La Scala in Milan in 1892. The text, by Luigi Illica, was based on a novel by Wilhelmine von Hillern. The setting is 19th century Switzerland where Wally and Hagenbach are in love, and meet their death in an avalanche; all the while Wally is being sought after by Gellner, whom she detests. The “Waltz of the Kiss” is a caressing piece of music from the second act which accompanies a dance by Wally and Hagenbach, in which they first discover they are in love and yield to passionate kissing while the hateful Gellner watches. Otto Cesana Otto Cesana was born in Brescia, Italy, on July 7, 1899. He came to the United States in boyhood and studied music with private teachers. After working in Hollywood, where he wrote a considerable amount of music for motion pictures, he came to New York to become arranger for Radio City Music Hall, and for several important radio programs. In his own music he has been particularly successful in using within large forms popular American elements, at times folk idioms. In a more serious attitude he has produced half a dozen symphonies and various concertos for solo instruments and orchestra. _Negro Heaven_ for orchestra is one of his more popular attempts to use an American folk idiom within a symphonic mold. He explains: “Here follows a musical interpretation of the fluctuating moods that seize the colored man—now gay, now sad, always, however migrating towards carefreeness and abandon, as exemplified in the return of the first subject, which is soon followed by one of those superlative moods, a Negro in the throes of nostalgia.” _Swing Septet_ (1942), for string orchestra, guitar and percussion is in three short movements, the first in sonata form, and the last two in three-part song form. “The chief purpose,” says the composer, “is to give the string players an opportunity to compete with the ad lib boys who, while they improvise the wildest phrases imaginable, are ‘floored’ whenever an approximation of that material is set down on paper.” Emmanuel Chabrier Emmanuel Chabrier was born in Ambert, France, on January 18, 1841. He was trained as a lawyer; from 1862 to 1880 he was employed at the Ministry of the Interior in Paris. But he had also received a sound musical training with private teachers. Composition began for him in earnest in the 1870’s, with two of his operettas receiving performances in Paris between 1877 and 1879. In 1879 he made a pilgrimage to Germany to hear Wagner’s music dramas whose impact upon him proved so overwhelming that he finally decided to give up his government work and concentrate on music. Returning to Paris in 1880 he published the _Pièces pittoresques_ for piano. Following a visit to Spain he produced in 1883 his first major work for orchestra and realized with it his first major success as a composer—the rhapsody _España_. He also wrote two operas, _Gwendoline_ produced in 1886, and _Le Roi malgré lui_ introduced one year later. Some of his best writing was for the piano and included such distinguished works as the _Habanera_, _Bourrée fantasque_, and _Trois valses romantiques_. Chabrier became a victim of paralysis in the last two years of his life, and just before his death he began losing his sanity. He died in Paris on September 13, 1894. While in his operas he revealed his profound indebtedness to the Wagnerian idiom, Chabrier was at his best either in music that interpreted Spain or to which he brought a natural bent for laughter, gaiety, and the grotesque. _España_, an orchestral rhapsody, is his most famous composition, as popular in the semi-classical literature as it is in the symphonic repertory. Chabrier wrote it in 1883 after a Spanish holiday, and its première in Paris on November 4 of that year was a sensation. This rhapsody is built from three principal subjects, two borrowed from Spanish folk melodies, and one Chabrier’s own. A nervous rhythm in plucked strings leads to a strongly accented malagueña, first heard in the wind instrument. Different sections take it over before soaring strings arrive with a lyrical jota melody. Chabrier’s own theme, a stately subject for trombones, is then heard, set against the background of the malagueña melody. The French waltz-king, Waldteufel, used Chabrier’s themes from _España_ for one of his most famous waltzes, also entitled _España_. The _Joyeuse marche_ (1888) reveals the composer in one of his satirical moods. Chabrier wrote it at first as a piano composition to be used for a sight-reading class at the Bordeaux Conservatory. It proved too difficult to fulfil this function, and Chabrier decided to orchestrate it, calling it _Joyeuse marche_ and presenting it as one of his more serious endeavors. The music is in a burlesque style, believed to be a musical description of drunken musicians staggering home after a festive evening. The work opens with an orchestral flourish, following which the oboe offers a capricious subject. This gaiety is maintained in the lively second theme for the violins. The _Suite pastorale_ (1880) is an orchestral adaptation of four of the ten piano pieces in _Pièces pittoresques_. In the first, “_Idylle_,” a beautiful melody is accompanied by plucked strings. The second, “_Danse villageoise_” is a country dance in which the lively dance tune is first heard in clarinets. The third piece, “_Sous bois_” has a pastoral character, while the concluding number, “_Scherzo-Valse_” is a protracted piece of pulsating music. George Chadwick George Whitefield Chadwick was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, on November 13, 1854. Most of his music study took place in Germany. When he was being graduated from the Leipzig Conservatory in 1879, his overture _Rip Van Winkle_ received its première performance. He then studied organ and composition with Rheinberger in Munich. After returning to the United States in 1880, he became a teacher of harmony and composition at the New England Conservatory, rising to the post of director in 1897. He was also active for several years as director of the Worcester Music Festival. He died in Boston on April 4, 1931. Chadwick was a prolific composer of symphonies, concertos, and various other orchestral and choral works. He never freed himself from the influence of German Romanticism, with which he had been infected during his student days. He wrote with a sure craftsmanship, usually filling his classical structures with winning melodies and often lush harmonies and orchestration. Two compositions for orchestra are of particular popular appeal: _Jubilee_ and _Noël_. Both are movements from the _Symphonic Sketches_ (1895) which received its world première in Boston in 1908. (The other two movements, the third and fourth, are “Hobgoblin” and “A Vagrom Ballad.”) _Jubilee_ is a vigorous tonal picture of a carnival. A spirited melody is loudly presented by the full orchestra and is elaborated upon. A second virile subject is then presented by bass clarinet, bassoons, violas and cellos. Following a lively return of the opening carnival theme, the woodwind and horns appear with a lyrical subject. The music then gains in vitality until it comes to a rousing conclusion with a coda built from the carnival motive. _Noël_ has been described as “a little Christmas song.” It is a haunting orchestral nocturne in which a serene Yuletide melody is offered by the English horn. Cécile Chaminade Cécile Chaminade was born in Paris on August 8, 1857. Music study took place in Paris with Marsick and Godard among others. In 1875 she launched her career as concert pianist by touring Europe in programs that often included her own compositions. At her American debut, on November 7, 1908, she appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra in a performance of her own _Concerstueck_. She wrote many other ambitious works including a symphony, two orchestral suites, and ballets. She died in Monte Carlo on April 18, 1944. Though Chaminade staked her future as composer on her larger, serious works for orchestra and the ballet stage, she is today remembered almost exclusively for her slight morsels of the salon variety. Most of these originated as compositions for the piano; her piano music numbers about two hundred works including arabesques, etudes, impromptus, valse-caprices, and so forth. _Automne_, a sentimental melody, and _Sérénade espagnole_, in a pseudo-Spanish style, come from her piano music: _Automne_ from the _Concert Etudes_, op. 35. It has been transcribed for popular orchestra by Melachrino. _Sérénade espagnole_ has been adapted for violin and piano by Fritz Kreisler. Chaminade’s most popular piece, _Scarf Dance_, comes from a ballet, _Callirhoë_, produced in Marseilles in 1888. It is often heard in its original orchestral version and in various transcriptions for solo piano, and solo instrument and piano. Gustave Charpentier Gustave Charpentier was born in Dieuze, France, on June 25, 1860. He received his musical training in the Conservatories in Lille and Paris, winning the Prix de Rome in 1881. During his stay in Rome he wrote _Impressions of Italy_ for orchestra, with which he realized his first success upon its première performance in Paris in 1892. Charpentier’s fame, however, rests securely on a single opera, _Louise_, a triumph when introduced in Paris on February 2, 1900, and since become recognized as one of the major achievements of the French lyric theater. A sequel, _Julien_ (1913), was a failure. From 1913 on, Charpentier wrote almost nothing more, living a Bohemian existence in the Montmartre section of Paris where he died on February 18, 1956. _Impressions of Italy_, a suite for orchestra (1890) is a nostalgic picture of five Italian scenes. The first movement is “Serenade,” in which is described a picture of young men emerging from a bistro at midnight, singing love songs under the windows of their girl friends. “At the Fountain” depicts girls parading with dignified steps near a waterfall by a ravine; from the distance come the sounds of a shepherd’s tune. “On Muleback” tells of evening as it descends on the Sabine Mountains. The mules trot along, and there rises the song of the muleteer followed by the sweet love song of girls riding in their carts to the village. “On the Heights” presents noontime on the heights overlooking Sorrento. All is peace, though the toll of bells can be heard from a distance. The finale is a musical tribute to a great city, “Naples.” In this music we see the crowds of the city, the parading bands. A tarantella is being danced in the streets. The strains of a sentimental folk song drift in from the quay. Evening falls, and fireworks electrify the sky. Frédéric Chopin François Frédéric Chopin, genius of music for the piano, was born in Zelazowa Wola, Poland, on February 22, 1810. He began to study the piano at six. One year later he made his first public appearance and wrote his first piece of music. His later music study took place privately with Joseph Elsner and at the Warsaw Conservatory from which he was graduated with honors in 1829. In that year he visited Vienna where he gave two successful concerts of his works. He left Poland for good in 1830, settling permanently in Paris a year after that. He soon became one of the most highly regarded musicians in France, even though he gave only a few public concerts. In 1837 he first met the writer, George Sand, with whom he was involved emotionally for about a decade, and under whose influence he composed some of his greatest music. Always sensitive in physique and of poor health, Chopin suffered physically most of his adult life. He died in Paris on October 17, 1849 and was buried in Père Lachaise. Chopin produced 169 compositions in all. Practically all of them are for the piano, and most within the smaller forms. In writing for the piano he was an innovator who helped change the destiny of piano style and technique. He is often described as the poet of the keyboard, by virtue of his sensitive and deeply affecting lyricism (usually beautifully ornamented), his always exquisite workmanship, and his profound emotion. Many of his works are nationally Polish in expression. The Etude in E major, op. 10, no. 3 (1833) is one of two of Chopin’s most famous works in the etude form. While an etude is essentially a technical exercise, Chopin produced twenty-seven pieces for piano which, though they still probe various technical problems, are nevertheless so filled with poetic thought and musical imagination that they belong in the realm of great art and must be numbered with his most significant compositions. That in E major is one of his most beautiful melodies, a soulful song rather than a technical exercise; Chopin himself regarded this as one of his most inspired pages. One of the many transcriptions of this composition existing is for the voice. The so-called _Revolutionary Etude_—C minor, op. 10, no. 12 (1833)—was inspired by the tidings received by Chopin while he was traveling from Vienna to Paris that Warsaw had fallen to the Russians. His first impulse was to rush back home and join in the battle. He was dissuaded from doing this by his family, and instead he sublimated his intense patriotic feelings by writing a fiery piece of national music, full of the spirit of defiance. Since then this etude has become as inextricably associated with Poland and its national aspirations and ideals as, for example, is Sibelius’ _Finlandia_ with Finland. This etude was repeatedly played over the Polish radio when Nazi Germany first attacked Poland in 1939, a continual inspiration to the defenders of Warsaw; it was the last piece of music played over the Polish radio before the Germans took over. In the Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor, op. 66 (1834), Chopin makes a structural compromise between the forms of the fantasy and the impromptu. In doing so, he produced one of his best known melodies, a melody that appears after a fast bravura opening. This is a flowing sentimental song that was used for the popular American tune, “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows.” The _Funeral March_ is surely the most celebrated funeral music ever written. It is found as the third movement of the Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, for piano, op. 35 (1839). In various arrangements, especially for orchestra, for band and for organ, this music has accompanied the dead to their final resting place in every part of the civilized world. In three-part form, the first section consists of a slow, mournful march. In the middle trio a more reflective mood is projected, almost like a kind of gentle recollection of the dead and the good he had performed. The opening mournful tread returns after this trio to bring the composition to its conclusion. The fifty-five Mazurkas are among the most national of Chopin’s compositions, those in which he most fervently expressed his strong feelings about his native land. The Mazurka is a Polish dance in ¾ time, somewhat slower in tempo than the waltz, and highly varied in rhythm and emotion. In Chopin’s Mazurkas we find, on the one hand, brief mood pictures, and on the other, a fiery romantic temperament which expresses itself in rapid and at times abrupt alternations of feeling from the gay to the melancholy, from the energetic to the pensive. One of the most beautiful of the Mazurkas is that in A minor, op. 17, no. 4 (1833), of which Stokowski made an excellent orchestral arrangement. One of the most dramatic is that in B-flat minor, op. 24, no. 4 (1835) orchestrated by Stokowski, Auber, among others. Two other Chopin Mazurkas that have been orchestrated are found in _Les Sylphides_ (see below): that in D major, op. 33, no. 2 (1838) and C major, op. 67, no. 3 (1835). Chopin wrote nineteen Nocturnes, each one a slow, poetic and atmospheric piece of “night music.” “Chopin loved the night,” wrote James Gibbons Huneker, “and its soft mysteries, and his nocturnes are true night pieces, some with agitated, remorseful countenance, others seen in profile only, while many others are whisperings at the dusk.” The most celebrated of Chopin’s Nocturnes is that in E-flat major, op. 9, no. 2 (1833), truly a “whispering at the dusk.” This is a beautiful, romantic song that begins without preliminaries. As this spacious melody unfolds, it acquires even new facets of beauty through the most exquisite embellishments. Among the many transcriptions that have become popular, besides those for orchestra, is one for violin and piano by Pablo de Sarasate, and another for cello and piano by David Popper. There are two Chopin Polonaises that are particularly favored by audiences everywhere. One is the _Heroic_, the other the _Military_. Chopin was especially successful in endowing artistic dimensions and significance to this old courtly folk dance which is technically characterized by its syncopations and accents on the half beat. He wrote twelve for piano. The _Heroic_, in A-flat major, op. 53, no. 6 (1842) is fiery music, its first robust theme being the reason why the entire work has been designated as “heroic.” This main melody was borrowed for the American popular song, “Till the End of Time,” a big hit in 1945. (Sigmund Spaeth has pointed up the interesting fact that while “Till the End of Time” was at the head of the “Hit Parade” in 1945, the polonaise itself from which this song was derived was in fifteenth place, “competing with all the light and serious music of the world.” And one of the reasons why the Polonaise suddenly became so popular was because it was featured prominently in the screen biography of Chopin released that year, _A Song to Remember_.) The _Military Polonaise_, in A major, op. 40, no. 1 (1839) is one of Chopin’s most commanding pieces of music. Both principal themes have a pronounced military character, though the second is somewhat more subdued and lyrical than the first. Glazunov’s transcription for orchestra, for the ballet _Chopiniana_, is one of several adaptations. Of Chopin’s twenty-six Preludes, two should be singled out for their enormous popular appeal. Chopin’s Preludes are brief compositions suggesting a mood or picture, but at the end leaving the impression with the listener that much more could be spoken on that subject. These Preludes, as Robert Schumann wrote, “are sketches, the beginnings of studies, or, if you will, ruins; eagles’ pinions, wild and motley and pell-mell. But in every piece we find, in his own pearly handwriting, ‘this is by Frederic Chopin’; even in his pauses we recognize him by his agitated breathing.” There are twenty-four pieces in op. 28 (1839), each one in one of the keys of the major or minor scale, beginning with C major and A minor, and concluding with F major and D minor. The most popular is that in A major, one of the shortest in the group, a sixteen-bar melody in two short sentences; this is not only one of Chopin’s simplest lyrical thoughts, but also one of his most eloquent. Among the orchestral transcriptions is the one found in the ballet _Les Sylphides_ (see below). The second of Chopin’s most popular Preludes is the so-called _Raindrop_, in D-flat major, op. 28, no. 15. Some of the depression experienced by Chopin during a miserable stay in Majorca with George Sand—where he was plagued by illness, bad weather, and the antagonism and suspicions of his neighbors—can here be found. The melody is a somber reflection, through which is interspersed a repetitious figure that seems to suggest the rhythm of falling raindrops, the reason why this piece acquired its familiar nickname. The belief that Chopin was inspired to write this music by listening to the gentle sound of falling rain on the roof of his Majorca house is apocryphal. _Les Sylphides_, one of the most popular works in the classic ballet repertory, makes extensive use of some of Chopin’s best-known compositions for the piano, orchestrated by Stravinsky, Alexander Tcherepnine, Glazunov, and Liadov. With choreography by Michel Fokine it was first presented by Diaghilev’s Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo in Paris on June 2, 1909 with Pavlova, Karsavina, and Nijinsky as principal dancers. There is no story line to this ballet. In place of characters there are only dancers dressed in long white dresses, and a danseur in black and white velvet. In place of an actual plot there is only atmosphere and mood. A subdued, introspective overture (Prelude in A major, op. 28, no. 7) leads to the rise of the curtain on an ancient ruin within a secluded wood. Girls in white are transfixed in a tableau; then they begin dancing to the strains of the Nocturne in A-flat, op. 32, no. 2. After that come various dances to the following Chopin compositions: Waltz in G-flat, op. 70, no. 1; Mazurka in C major, op. 67, no. 3; Mazurka in D major, op. 33, no. 2; a repetition of the opening A major Prelude; Waltz in A-flat, op. 69, no. 1, the _L’adieu_; a repetition of the opening A major Prelude; Waltz in C-sharp minor, op. 64, no. 2; Waltz in E-flat, op. 18, the _Grande valse brillante_. Chopin’s fourteen waltzes are the last word in aristocratic elegance and refinement of style; they are abundant with the most beguiling lyrical ideas. Perhaps the best loved of all these waltzes is that in C-sharp minor, op. 64, no. 2 (1847). The waltz opens without preliminaries with music of courtly grace; two other equally appealing subjects follow. The so-called _Minute Waltz_—in D-flat major, op. 64, no. 1—is one of the shortest of Chopin’s compositions for the piano. The term “minute” does not refer to the sixty seconds supposedly required for its performance (actually that performance takes less than a minute) but to the French term, “_minute_” meaning “small.” Eric Coates Eric Coates, one of England’s most highly esteemed and widely performed composers of light music, was born in Hucknall, England, on August 27,