Royalty Free Romantic Chamber Music

Description: Fr�d�ric Chopin's Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 35, popularly known as The Funeral March, was completed in 1839 at Nohant, near Ch�teauroux in France. However, the third movement, whence comes the sonata's common nickname, had been composed as early as 1837. The Sonata is considered to be one of the greatest masterworks of the nineteenth century. This is the dramatic, irruptive reprise of the first movement Grave � Doppio movimento with a series of chords played fff.

Description: The Scherzo No. 4 in E major, Op. 54 is different from the other scherzos by Chopin. Close to the fairytale sphere, though devoid of elves and goblins, it is brighter than the others, written with a finer, lighter pen, though it too occasionally reminds us of the existence of shadows and frights. Two categories of expression form this pianistic poem, which delights us with the immaculate beauty of its sound: the expression of play and the expression of love. The central section of the E major Scherzo (lento, then sostenuto) is filled with thoughtful music, gazing at distant horizons, sounding like the expression of pure yet ardent love.

Description: The Scherzo No. 4 in E major, Op. 54 is different from the other scherzos by Chopin. Close to the fairytale sphere, though devoid of elves and goblins, it is brighter than the others, written with a finer, lighter pen, though it too occasionally reminds us of the existence of shadows and frights. Two categories of expression form this pianistic poem, which delights us with the immaculate beauty of its sound: the expression of play and the expression of love. The central section of the E major Scherzo (lento, then sostenuto) is filled with thoughtful music, gazing at distant horizons, sounding like the expression of pure yet ardent love.

Description: The trio of Fr�d�ric Chopin's Scherzo No. 2 in B-flat minor, Op. 31 transports us into what seems like another world, not just into a new tonal sphere. The Arcadia into which the trio carries us takes three different characters in turn. The first barely marks its presence, with just a few bars of a bucolic sicilienne. The second embodiment of Arcadia is of a waltz-like character, singing and swinging; Chopin has it sung by four different voices at once. The third incarnation of carefree Arcadia also pulls us into the whirl of a waltz, of a ritornel character.

Description: After the pungent, robust motives of the principal theme of the Scherzo, played fortissimo and risoluto in double octaves, like a voice from another realm comes the focused, austere music of a chorale, interspersed with airy passages of beguiling sonorities. The chorale returns many times over, and with it those airy garlands of sound. As its song is reprised, it slips from the hard E major into the gentle, but sad and mysterious (uttered sotto voce), E minor. This altered theme concludes with question marks, imbued with mystery and expectation, soaring upwards in the utmost silence. And we have the most beautiful moment in the whole of the Scherzo: the apotheosis of the chorale. Through a sequence of chords that progress calmly upwards (now in C sharp major), the music attains ecstasy.

Description: The Scherzo No. 3, Op. 39, in C-sharp minor by Fr�d�ric Chopin, completed in 1839, was written in the abandoned monastery of Valldemossa on the Balearic island of Majorca, Spain. This is the most terse, ironic, and tightly constructed of the four scherzos, with an almost Beethovenian grandeur. The music is given over to a wild frenzy, mysteriously becalmed, then erupting a moment later with a return of the aggressive octaves.

Description: After the pungent, robust motives of the principal theme of the Scherzo, played fortissimo and risoluto in double octaves, like a voice from another realm comes the focused, austere music of a chorale, interspersed with airy passages of beguiling sonorities. The chorale returns many times over, and with it those airy garlands of sound. As its song is reprised, it slips from the hard E major into the gentle, but sad and mysterious (uttered sotto voce), E minor. This altered theme concludes with question marks, imbued with mystery and expectation, soaring upwards in the utmost silence. And we have the most beautiful moment in the whole of the Scherzo: the apotheosis of the chorale. Through a sequence of chords that progress calmly upwards (now in C sharp major), the music attains ecstasy.

Description: Belongs to Chopin's 24 Preludes, Op. 28, a set of short pieces for the piano, one in each of the twenty-four keys, originally published in 1839. Chopin wrote them between 1835 and 1839, partly at Valldemossa, Majorca, where he spent the winter of 1838-39 and where he had fled with George Sand and her children to escape the damp Paris weather. In Majorca, Chopin had a copy of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, and as in each of Bach's two sets of preludes and fugues, his Op. 28 set comprises a complete cycle of the major and minor keys, albeit with a different ordering. This piece opens with a thundering five-note pattern in the left hand. Throughout the piece, the left hand continues this pattern as the right hand plays a powerful melody punctuated by trills, scales (including a rapid descending chromatic scale in thirds), and arpeggios. The piece closes with three booming unaccompanied notes - the lowest D on the piano. It�s mood and/or theme is characterized by visions of blood, of earthly pleasure, of death, of the storm.

Description: Belongs to Chopin's 24 Preludes, Op. 28, a set of short pieces for the piano, one in each of the twenty-four keys, originally published in 1839. Chopin wrote them between 1835 and 1839, partly at Valldemossa, Majorca, where he spent the winter of 1838-39 and where he had fled with George Sand and her children to escape the damp Paris weather. In Majorca, Chopin had a copy of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, and as in each of Bach's two sets of preludes and fugues, his Op. 28 set comprises a complete cycle of the major and minor keys, albeit with a different ordering. This piece is spacious and melodic in the left hand, with running semiquavers throughout in the right. It�s mood and/or theme is characterized by playing water faeries, a pleasure boat.

Description: Belongs to Chopin's 24 Preludes, Op. 28, a set of short pieces for the piano, one in each of the twenty-four keys, originally published in 1839. Chopin wrote them between 1835 and 1839, partly at Valldemossa, Majorca, where he spent the winter of 1838-39 and where he had fled with George Sand and her children to escape the damp Paris weather. In Majorca, Chopin had a copy of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier, and as in each of Bach's two sets of preludes and fugues, his Op. 28 set comprises a complete cycle of the major and minor keys, albeit with a different ordering. In 6/8 time, this piece begins with a characteristic dotted rhythm (quaver, dotted quaver, semiquaver) that Scriabin was later to adopt in his early Chopinesque preludes. It�s mood and/or theme is characterized by rebellion and impatience.