Bach, J.S. - French Suite No.1
Beethoven - String Quartet No.11 'Quartetto Serioso'
Brahms - String Quartet No.2
Chopin
- Piano Sonata No.2
- Ballade No.2
- Scherzo No.3
- Impromptu No.2
- 24 Preludes, op.28
- 2 Nocturnes, op.37
- 2 Polonaises, op.40
- 4 Mazurkas, op.41
- Mazurka for Emile Gaillard
- Mazurka 'Notre temps'
Haydn - Symphonies 86 and 104
Holmboe
- Suono da Bardo
- Hevjið í homrum (Raise in the Passes)
- Lauda, anima mea
Norby - Herbst-Lieder (Autumn songs)
Schubert - Piano Sonata in A, D.664
Sibelius - Symphony No.3
Szymanowski - Metopes
Hmm. Well, I was supposed to be catching up in January, and instead I fell even further behind.
The part of this list I think is worth talking about is the Chopin. This selection of pieces all come from a period around 1838-40, although parts of them were started a bit earlier than that and took until then to come to fruition.
And that means we're in the period of Chopin's relationship with George Sand, and their trip to Mallorca which seems to have been a mix of storms, sickness and working on some rather fantastic music. I don't know whether it was good for Chopin, but the results are certainly good for the music-listening public.
By now Chopin was a fully mature and powerful composer. But then one remembers that he was still only in his late 20s, turning 30 in 1840.
For me, the 24 Preludes are an absolute masterpiece, conveying a huge range of moods in fragments that are often tiny in themselves yet coalesce into a single whole. Some of them are definitely capable of being played on their own, but it's the way that they contrast with each other when played in sequence that really impresses me. There's two levels of structure going on at once, the small-scale and then the 40-minute expanse.
All of the pieces from this period, though, are worthwhile. And they show that while Chopin knew how to be pretty and decorative, as he had right from his teenage years, his mature music has a great deal of depth and sophistication.
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