#ClassicsaDay #November11 Week 3
November is the eleventh month. And so the Classics a Day team opted to make eleven the month’s then. The challenge is to post works that are numbered 11 in some fashion, either an opus number, a series number, or even a suite number.
It turns out that there’s a lot of great music associated with elevens. By the time most composers publish their eleventh opus, symphony, string quartet, or sonata, they’ve mastered their art. As I quickly discovered.
Here are my posts for the third week of #ClassicsaDay #November11
11/15/21 Ferdinand Ries – Piano Sonata in E-flat major, Op. 11, No. 1
Ries was a piano and composition student of Beethoven’s. His Opus 11, published in 1809 contained two piano sonatas.
Amy Beach – Three Songs, Op. 11
When she married Dr. Henry Beach, Amy Cheney agreed to give up performing but was allowed to continue composing. These songs were written four years into her marriage.
11/17/21 Johannes Brahms – Serenade No. 1, Op. 11
Brahms’ serenades were warm-ups for his symphonies. He used them as exercises for thinking of music orchestrally, instead of pianistically.
11/18/21 Fanny Mendelssohn Henzel – Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 11
Fanny composed this work as a birthday present for her sister. It wasn’t published (and assigned an opus number) until three years after Fanny’s death.
11/19/21 Josef Elsner – Symphony No. 1 in C major Op. 11
Elsner was one of the first Polish composers to incorporate folk music into his works. His first symphony was written in 1804, the same year as Beethoven’s “Eroica.”
