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Just stumbled upon this demo video. Does anyone know the title of the work being played? Sounds like Schumann.

https://youtu.be/4cajTbecXtw

Siri thinks it's "May, Starlit Night", from Tchaikovsky's Seasons, Op. 37a

It definitely sounds like May from the seasons.

"May" sounds like this in its entirety

May (Seasons)

Siri is very very smart.

Thank you folks - I never would have guessed it was by Tchaikovsky.

I'm off to IMSLP to print out the score.......

I was going to say that I agree about it being Schumann, never would have thought Tchaikovsky.

ALTHOUGH..... in a college course, given by a guy you know of, who we've talked about (Austin), the teaching assistant devoted a whole class to pointing out similarities between these two composers.
Never thought about it since, till this.

I would've LOVED to have heard that lecture even if it was given by the TA.

If the video I posted commenced with the opening Andantino section of the score, I might not have been so convinced it was Schumann. However, the pianist threw me by launching immediately into the Allegro Giocoso section.

What's embarrassing is that I really should be much more familiar with all 12 pieces in this opus. Prior to this I'd only paid attention to March and June. Obviously there are other musical riches to explore here.

(I found that 'TA' online, and sent him a link to this.)

Touching base with him after 50 years?

That's terrific

50 years?
It's been 50 years????


(Hey you're right -- on the nose!)

I hope this doesn't derail the thread but I've always wondered what Tchaikovsky's piano skills were. Did he have the chops to perform his Piano Concertos or even his Seasons, given the enormous volume of piano music he wrote? In all his editorial that I've read I've never seen him mention his technique.

No derailment at all. Your question encouraged me to do a little research and I found this ..."Tchaikovsky’s contemporaries tell us that he was good enough to become a concert pianist, if he had chosen to follow that path. But he preferred to focus on composition, and rarely performed in public concerts."

It is well known that Tchaikovsky performed his 1st Piano Concerto privately for Nikolai Rubinstein - who initially rejected the work (which led Tchaikovsky to dedicate it to someone else) but later became a champion and performed it himself. So I'm assuming that Tchaikovsky was competent as a pianist but not exceptional - and that he could probably play his own piano compositions.

Tchaikovsky thought Schumann's piano music was some of the greatest music ever written and he obsessed over it; according to his brother he would play through Schumann works almost every evening.

In one of his music journals he wrote that the second half of the 19th century would go down into music history as the "Schumannesque period", and observes how Schumann's music tells us of "the mysteriously deep processes of our spiritual life" and of "the moments of doubt and despair" which beset man in his "striving for the ideal".

Schumann was Tchaikovsky's favorite composer next to Mozart and his only complaint was that Schumann did not bring out enough color in his orchestral textures. Even on the Cello concerto (which he described as not being anywhere close to Schumann's best works), Tchaikovsky wrote that it was the still the finest composition ever written for cello. On Schumann's oratorio Paradise and the Peri, Tchaikovsky wrote that there was nothing higher in all of music.

Thank you SO MUCH for mentioning this great work - which I'd read about over the years, but never actually heard myself. Going to take care of that immediately!

Conductor Simon Rattle is a great champion of the oratorio and describes it in the following video as "the great masterpiece that you haven't heard" - noting that it was the most popular work Schumann composed during his lifetime.

Commentary starts at .30 seconds

https://youtu.be/rH3toYv5kzI

And yes, I've also read that Tchaikovsky was a great admirer of Schumann.

Achoo42: And thanks for that whole post!

So interesting, about Tchaikovsky and Schumann.
I had no idea; I wonder how well known that is.

Somebody once gave me a ticket to hear the San Francisco Symphony perform it. I was not too enthusiastic about going, but had nothing more pressing planned, so I went, not expecting much. After all, how good could it be if it was hardly ever performed?

Turns out it was wonderful!! To say I was surprised is understating it.

And that reinforced, beyond any doubt, the axiom that the frequency of performance and the quality of a composition are not necessarily directly correlated.