This composition is most certainly influenced by the ongoing troubles of the world, but it endeavors to be melodic and structured while conveying the tumultuous, agitated, and tragic character of our epoch. While Mr. Stolyarov uses some similar techniques in this piece to several of his earlier “Neo-Baroque” compositions, this one is more somber, as the title implies. It follows a theme-and-variations format; one of the variations is not actually somber, and the listener will clearly hear which one. In protracted periods of tragedy, there are still good times to be encountered on occasion, and this piece conveys that as well.
Watch the video on YouTube here and on Odysee here.
This work was composed by Mr. Stolyarov on March 30-31, 2022, and is played using the MuseScore 3.0 software.
This composition received an Honorable Mention at the 2022 Rodrigo Landa-Romero International Composition Competition.
Louis Moreau Gottschalk’s piano transcription of Carl Maria von Weber’s 1826 Oberon Overture for four hands has seldom been performed in public, and no known recording existed of it until now. Gottschalk (1829-1869) created it in 1857, and the last documented public performance was by Eugene List (1918-1985) in Spring 1979, as briefly mentioned in a May 4, 1979, New York Times article by Joseph Horowitz.
While there exist many transcriptions of the Oberon Overture, Gottschalk’s is absolutely, monumentally unique in its extent of ornamentation, thunderous intensity, and virtuosic passages (which will be unmistakable to the listener). Perhaps the demands that this piece would place on human performers explain the rarity of any attempts to play it. It is likely that only a few remarkable pianists throughout history, including Gottschalk himself, would have had the skill, endurance, and proto-transhuman mental processing power needed to carry it out without fail.
Fortunately, with musical notation and composition software, combined with increasingly realistic digital instruments, the limitations of the human hands can be transcended, and this work can be made available to listeners as Gottschalk intended it to be heard. This recording was created using the MuseScore 3.0 by Gennady Stolyarov II between June and December 2021; the transcription itself required approximately 36 hours of meticulous work, spread out over half a year. However, elevating this piece into public awareness is certainly worth the effort. This is heroic music showing the impressive heights to which human achievement, ingenuity, and virtuosity can rise, and it is a marvelous gift from Gottschalk in 1857 to our era.
Watch the score video on YouTube here and on Odysee here.
Download the MP3 file of this composition for free here.
Download the score (published in 1901 – now in the public domain) here.
Louis Moreau Gottschalk – Pensée Poétique – Nocturne, Op.18 – Recording by Gennady Stolyarov II
Commentary by Gennady Stolyarov II: This Pensée Poétique (Poetic Thought) was composed by Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829 – 1869) in 1852-1853. It is a short nocturne – Gottschalk’s Opus 18, different from Gottschalk’s more famous Pensée Poétique, Op. 62.
To my surprise, I am unaware of any readily available recording of this quite interesting nocturne with some strong Chopin influences. Therefore, I created a rendition using MuseScore 3.0. This video follows the original Gottschalk score, to which I hope to have done justice. The last third appears to be rather virtuosic (as is much of Gottschalk’s work), and I am glad that we live in an era where programs allow us to experience these kinds of compositions in spite of the difficulty for a human to learn them.
Watch the video with the score on YouTube here and on Odysee here.
Download the MP3 rendition by Gennady Stolyarov II here.
The sheet music is in the public domain and is available here. (IMSLP page.)
Description from Gottschalk.fr (English translation):
“Rather ‘classical’ piece with a beautiful lyrical line. Found by John Doyle in Brazil. (‘A bibliographic study and catalog of works’). Published by Chabal, Paris; it can also be found at the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, from where it was extracted.”
Allegro Risoluto, Op. 91 (2021) – Musical Composition by Gennady Stolyarov II
This composition by Gennady Stolyarov II coveys the sense of proceeding with swift determination, even through challenging settings and terrain. Occasionally there is an opportunity for respite to enjoy the scenery. Watch the video on YouTube here and on Odysee here.
This composition is intended to be playable by a human on piano, and those with pianistic abilities are encouraged to try and free to record and publish videos of themselves doing so.
Photographs taken by Gennady Stolyarov II from the trails of C-Hill above Carson City, Nevada, on April 26, 2018.
This composition and video may be freely reproduced using the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike International 4.0 License.
Remember to LIKE, FAVORITE, and SHARE this video in order to spread rational high culture to others.
See the index of Mr. Stolyarov’s compositions, all available for free download, here.
March-Trio in C Major, Op. 89 (2019) – Musical Composition by Gennady Stolyarov II
This is a determined, uplifting march composed by Gennady Stolyarov II for piano, violin, and cello – intended to be played by a human ensemble. As the decade of the 2010s concludes, this composition expresses the hope that a better future awaits for the entirety of humankind.
This march was composed by Mr. Stolyarov in October-December 2019, and is played using the MuseScore 3.0 software.
A waltz for two pianos and a string orchestra, conveying an even-tempered cheerfulness – in a largely 19th-century style but including a bit of melodic experimentation.
Four orchestral variations in a late 19th-century style build upon a piano theme begun by Mr. Stolyarov in 2002 and subsequently rediscovered and completed in 2018. The strong chords and frequent major-minor contrasts evoke the dramatic, sweeping views of the Carson Valley, which often encompass multiple contrasting weather phenomena.
The Rational Argumentator is pleased to feature the most current arrangement of Rodney Rawlings’s musical adaptation of lyrics from Lord Alfred Tennyson’s 1847 poem, The Princess. This is a piano rendition, following up on Mr. Rawlings’s 2004 version of this piece for string orchestra.
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Composer’s Description: In the link below I present a piano rendition of my song “Come Down, O Maid.”
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The song is my musical setting of a Tennyson lyric that appears in his long poem The Princess (1847). Those much-loved verses, which I have presented at the very bottom of this post, have been described as “a summons to the valleys of domestic affection, away from the heights of idealism and abstraction.”
MP3 file for piano rendition (left-click to listen, right-click to download):“Come Down, O Maid”
Length: 4:46
If the reader is looking at my lyrics here while listening, it should be borne in mind that, because the vocal part is also represented by a piano sound, in a couple of sections it is harder to distinguish the two aurally:
Away below the frozen mountain
Deep in the valley was a shepherd,
And he sang:
Come down, O maid, come from yonder mountain:
What pleasure lives in height and cold? Come down, and cease
To sit a star on the sparkling spire.
Love is of the valley, O come thou down
And find him there,
Hand in hand with Plenty;
Nor cares for Death and Morning on the silver horns,
Nor firths of ice, furrow-cloven falls;
Let them dance thee do-own
To find him there.
(Transitional musical passage)
O maid, come down;
Leave the monstrous ledges
To spill their wreaths
That like a broken purpose waste:
So waste not thou;
All the vales await thee-ee;
Azure pillars arise to thee.
My shepherd pipe, children too, are calling,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
The rivulets so clear hur’ying through the la-awn,
What pleasure lives in height (the shepherd sang),
In height and cold, the splendour of the hills?
But cease to move so near the Heavens, and cease
To glide a sunbeam by the blasted Pine,
To sit a star upon the sparkling spire;
And come, for Love is of the valley, come,
For Love is of the valley, come thou down
And find him; by the happy threshold, he,
Or hand in hand with Plenty in the maize,
Or red with spirted purple of the vats,
Or foxlike in the vine; nor cares to walk
With Death and Morning on the silver horns,
Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine,
Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,
That huddling slant in furrow-cloven falls
To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:
But follow; let the torrent dance thee down
To find him in the valley; let the wild
Lean-headed Eagles yelp alone, and leave
The monstrous ledges there to slope, and spill
Their thousand wreaths of dangling water-smoke,
That like a broken purpose waste in air:
So waste not thou; but come; for all the vales
Await thee; azure pillars of the hearth
Arise to thee; the children call, and I
Thy shepherd pipe, and sweet is every sound,
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;
Myriads of rivulets hurrying thro’ the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees.
As can be seen, this stunningly beautiful work was freely adapted to form the lyrics of my song. As well, I composed a musical framing theme providing context for the thoughts and feelings expressed.
By popular demand, the PDF score of Mr. Stolyarov’s Composition for Piano and Harpsichord, Op. 50, composed in 2008, has been released. It is available for free download here.
This experimental composition, Mr. Stolyarov’s first attempt at polyphony in 2008, explores the interplay between two instruments, including their potential to simultaneously play two different but complementary melodies. The mood of this piece also alternates between tense and jubilant.
This work was remastered using the Finale 2011 software, with the Steinway Grand Piano and Harpsichord instruments.
A grand waltz for piano, cello, string section, oboe, and timpani, composed in the key of C# major, with interspersed major and minor passages. The two main themes are varied throughout the piece using different orchestrations and an increase in ornamentation.
This waltz was composed by Mr. Stolyarov on June 16-18, 2016, and is played using the Finale 2011 software.