Your favorite works under 2 minutes

[IcedNote]

Was thinking about this just now, so I decided to post about it here.

What are some of your favorite works under 2 minutes? I imagine preludes and such will dominate, but who knows? Selections from art song could be spot on, too.

First one that comes to mind:



-G

[karlhenning]

Any of a number from the Prokofiev Op.22

[karlhenning]

And from the Op.17 Sarcasms

[arepo]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a1phByRPKo

Best short encore piece ever.

cliftwood

[John F]

Great minds think alike -

[IcedNote]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a1phByRPKo

Best short encore piece ever.

cliftwood

I didn't know that piece...and it'd have taken me a loooooong time to guess it was by Mozart if I hadn't known! Very cool.

-G

[John F]

And now an encore to the encore: Busoni's Gigue, Bolero and Variation. First comes Mozart's gigue with a few tweaks by Busoni, then a dance from "The Marriage of Figaro" Act 3, and finally the gigue in a wild variation in 2 rather than 3:

[jbuck919]

Great minds think alike -

That piece cannot be by Mozart, K number notwithstanding. It bears no resemblance to anything he might have written, represents a genre (the suite of dances) he never indulged in, and sounds like something someone composed yesterday.

I am surprised that Garrett even asked this question. There are thousands of possible answers and it is an irrelevant concept to begin with.

[John F]

Why pick a fight about this? The question is inoffensive and the answers are interesting, to some of us anyway.

You underestimate Mozart, whose intense interest in Baroque music, particularly Handel and Bach, extended to a lot of creative activity. One example is his unfinished suite in C major for piano, K.385i, whose movements are an overture, allemande, and courante:



Mozart did indeed compose the kleine Gigue, in a visit to Leipzig during which he improvised on the Thomaskirche organ in a manner that prompted the organist Karl Immanuel Engel, who had known Bach, to say it was as if the spirit of Bach had come again. Mozart was given the opportunity to study Bach's choral motets and is reported to have said that this was music from which one could learn. Before departing he wrote the gigue in Engel's notebook. The playful syncopations and chromatic dissonances are characteristic - nobody else was then writing music like that.

All this was in the context of a movement to revive the music of the Baroque led by the diplomat and bureaucrat Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who collected many Bach and Handel manuscripts and brought them to Vienna where he shared them with Mozart. At this time Mozart wrote to his father:

I go every Sunday at twelve o'clock to the Baron van Swieten, where nothing is played but Handel and Bach. I am collecting at the moment the fugues of Bach—not only of Sebastian, but also of Emanuel and Friedemann.

Swieten commissioned Mozart's arrangements of "Messiah," "Acis and Galatea," "Alexander's Feast," and "Ode for St. Cecilia's Day" when Mozart badly needed the money. His version of "Love in her eyes sits playing," with fuller harmony and orchestration (clarinets!), is delicious:



Swieten also got Mozart to make arrangements from the Well-Tempered Clavier for string quartet and trio presumably to be played in Swieten's musicales. Swieten was not only a patron but a friend of Mozart and his family; it's he who made the funeral arrangements and helped Constanze in other ways after Mozart's unexpected death.

[jserraglio]

[Donald Isler]

https://youtu.be/dt0Ur23Dk6Y

[jbuck919]

e

Although the minute waltz literally takes only about a minute to play, the term "minute" from the French means small, not the length of time it takes to play it.

[jserraglio]

e

Although the minute waltz literally takes only about a minute to play, the term "minute" from the French means small, not the length of time it takes to play it.

One word, two birds.

[IcedNote]

Mozart did indeed compose the kleine Gigue, in a visit to Leipzig during which he improvised on the Thomaskirche organ in a manner that prompted the organist Karl Immanuel Engel, who had known Bach, to say it was as if the spirit of Bach had come again. Mozart was given the opportunity to study Bach's choral motets and is reported to have said that this was music from which one could learn. Before departing he wrote the gigue in Engel's notebook. The playful syncopations and chromatic dissonances are characteristic - nobody else was then writing music like that.

Innnnnteresting. There's just something about the texture that strikes me as being composed later than Mozart...as though it was Prokofiev writing in his classical style. I'd have to stop to think about it to really put my finger on it. Alas...

-G

[IcedNote]

Ah, I vividly remember learning this one with my piano teacher! She never thought I got the left-hand touch right...and was probably right. Thanks for the memory.

-G

[IcedNote]

https://youtu.be/dt0Ur23Dk6Y

Nice piece/performance, Donald! Didn't know that one, that's for sure.

-G

[John F]

Hugo Wolf's song in praise of little things, "Auch kleine Dinge," which begins his Italian Songbook:

Even little things can delight us,
Even little things can be precious.
Think how we gladly adorn ourselves with pearls;
They are very expensive and yet are small.

Think how small is the fruit of the olive tree,
And is nevertheless sought for its virtue.
Just think of the rose, how small it is,
And yet it smells so lovely, as you know.



Most recordings last about 2 minutes, this one a little longer, but who's counting? The "little things" at hand are the songs in the Italian Songbook, including this one, and by extension all the short pieces we might add to this thread.

[Donald Isler]

Thank you, Garrett!

[barney]

Cheating, I know, and if we allow pieces longer than two minutes we might end up with Gotterdammerung, but a particular favourite of mine is Sokolov playing Couperin's Tic-Toc-Choc, which goes 2 minutes and 13 seconds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8r5kecJfS2I

[barney]

I meant to say: great photography capturing the fingerwork, and the piece is beautifully articulated.

[IcedNote]

How about nearly every tune from Dichterliebe?

But if I had to pick one...



-G

[jbuck919]

Why pick a fight about this? The question is inoffensive and the answers are interesting, to some of us anyway.

You underestimate Mozart, whose intense interest in Baroque music, particularly Handel and Bach, extended to a lot of creative activity. One example is his unfinished suite in C major for piano, K.385i, whose movements are an overture, allemande, and courante:



Mozart did indeed compose the kleine Gigue, in a visit to Leipzig during which he improvised on the Thomaskirche organ in a manner that prompted the organist Karl Immanuel Engel, who had known Bach, to say it was as if the spirit of Bach had come again. Mozart was given the opportunity to study Bach's choral motets and is reported to have said that this was music from which one could learn. Before departing he wrote the gigue in Engel's notebook. The playful syncopations and chromatic dissonances are characteristic - nobody else was then writing music like that.

All this was in the context of a movement to revive the music of the Baroque led by the diplomat and bureaucrat Baron Gottfried van Swieten, who collected many Bach and Handel manuscripts and brought them to Vienna where he shared them with Mozart. At this time Mozart wrote to his father:

I go every Sunday at twelve o'clock to the Baron van Swieten, where nothing is played but Handel and Bach. I am collecting at the moment the fugues of Bach—not only of Sebastian, but also of Emanuel and Friedemann.

Swieten commissioned Mozart's arrangements of "Messiah," "Acis and Galatea," "Alexander's Feast," and "Ode for St. Cecilia's Day" when Mozart badly needed the money. His version of "Love in her eyes sits playing," with fuller harmony and orchestration (clarinets!), is delicious:



Swieten also got Mozart to make arrangements from the Well-Tempered Clavier for string quartet and trio presumably to be played in Swieten's musicales. Swieten was not only a patron but a friend of Mozart and his family; it's he who made the funeral arrangements and helped Constanze in other ways after Mozart's unexpected death.

Well at least you have confirmed my suspicion that Mozart, though he is little known for it, was probably the greatest organist of his time, as were several other major composers. Your erudition never ceases to amaze me, and occasionally embarrass me, and that goes double for your recent post on the horn concertos. Bravo.

[John F]

Well, as you know Mozart is my man, as Bach is yours - we both get chances to show off what we know now and then. Anyway, thanks!

[jserraglio]

1'01"