RobertCunninghamsMusic

On May 30 through June 1, I carried out recording sessions presenting my interpretations of four fine works from the piano repertoire. I had the piano tuned on Saturday morning, May 30, then did sessions on that day and on Sunday and Monday. After I reviewed, evaluated, and compared all the resulting files during the week that followed, however, it turned out that my best takes were all from Sunday, May 31, so those takes will be used in the final videos.

First, I recorded Brahms's Intermezzo in B-flat Minor, Op. 117, No. 2. This piece is beautifully expressive and also somewhat challenging technically. It is in a miniature sonata-allegro form, where the principal theme is gracefully flowing and the second theme is lushly lyrical. (Despite their contrasting moods, these two themes are related by thematic transformation, as I plan to demonstrate in a future post.) The development section, in the view of Brahms's biographer Walter Niemann, seems to depict a "man as he stands with the bleak, gusty autumn wind eddying round him." The close of the piece is intensely sorrowful, even funereal.

After the Brahms, I recorded two much shorter pieces. First, I performed the very well-known Mélodie (also sometimes called "Élégie"), Op. 10, No.5, by Jules Massenet. This piece is technically quite easy (I learned it as a youngster), but most of the recordings I have heard do not give it justice, in my opinion, so I wanted to present my own interpretation. The other piece is much less well-known, the Canon in D Minor by Alexander Scriabin. Depending on which calendar you use, Scriabin was born either in December 1871 or January 1872, and this piece was written in 1883. Therefore he was probably 11, and this composition is clear evidence of his precocious early genius. The work has no opus number (WoO 1), and the manuscript includes no tempo markings, dynamics, or other expression markings - thereby leaving plenty of scope for individual interpretation. To me, this piece feels mournful, except for a few bars in the relative major that seem to depict ringing bells.

Finally, I recorded a piano work by Jean Sibelius. Sibelius's Five Piano Pieces, Op. 75, are all named for trees. I performed Op. 75, No. 5, titled "Le Sapin" or "The Spruce." Most of the piece resembles a slow waltz, with the tree's branches swaying gently with the rhythm. A cadenza in the middle, however, seems to depict a fierce Nordic wind rushing through those branches.

I will be uploading the resulting videos to the RobertCunninghamsMusic YouTube channel over the coming months, beginning with the Scriabin Canon on the 25th of this month. I also plan to upload the soundtracks from these four recordings to my SoundCloud site ("lateRomantic") over the months ahead, starting with Sibelius's "Le Sapin" on August 15.

I consider my Piano Sonata No. 2, completed in 1984, to be among my best large-scale piano works. It consists of one large movement, with themes that seem strongly contrasting on the surface yet are nevertheless closely interconnected. This blog post starts a three-part series in which I explain those interconnections, thereby perhaps also shedding some light on the creative process underlying my compositions.

Themes of Sonata No. 2 (Part I) My Piano Sonata No. 2 in C Major was completed in February 1984, and its first digital recording was completed in March 2022. The composition consists of a single large movement in sonata-allegro form, including an introduction and a coda. The sonata's thematic materials, and in particular the thr

My February 22 recording of the famous Melody in F, by the nineteenth-century Russian pianist-composer Anton Rubinstein, is now on YouTube. I was first enchanted by this piece as a child, when I heard it in an arrangement for cello and piano. Years later I found out that the piece had originally been written for piano solo, so I resolved to learn it some day. My interpretation includes some extra embellishments from the Leopold Godowsky edition. For more great Romantic piano music, please subscribe to my channel, RobertCunninghamsMusic!

Anton Rubinstein, Melody in F, performed by Robert Cunningham Anton Rubinstein's Melody in F (Op. 3/1), with revisions by Leopold...

I've played Bach's keyboard Partita No. 1 on B-flat Major ever since I was in high school, but my favorite movement has long been this elegant Sarabande. Historically, the sarabande started out as a Spanish dance in triple meter, which was considered so lascivious that it was banned in Spain in 1583. Later it migrated to Italy and France, where it acquired a slower, more courtly character, as heard here. I made this recording for my channel in September 2019, and it is our VIDEO OF THE MONTH for June.

Bach, Sarabande from Partita No. 1, performed by Robert Cunningham The Sarabande from J. S. Bach's Partita No. 1 in B-flat Major, BWV 825. Recorded by Robert Cunningham on Sept. 22, 2019.See also:Robert Cunningham's SoundCl...

In 1984, I composed a musical setting of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's beautiful poem, "Hymn to the Night," for SATB chorus with piano accompaniment. It was originally intended for an amateur chorus that I was directing at the time in Atlanta, GA. We rehearsed the piece, which they greeted with avid enthusiasm, in preparation for its premiere performance. But the concert had to be cancelled at the last moment because of a storm leading to a power outage, which left the auditorium in the dark. After that, the piece languished for decades, and I despaired that it might never be performed. In February 2020 I posted an article about it to my blog, lamenting that the "Hymn to the Night" had ultimately been "defeated by darkness."

But as it turned out, that was not the end to the story. Therefore, I have relabeled the original blog post as "Part I," and in this new Part II I describe the happy ending to the story, culminating within the last year.

Hymn to the Night (Part II) My Hymn to the Night is a composition for mixed chorus, composed in 1984 based on the Longfellow poem of the same title. In a post to this blog on February 11, 2020, I recounted the story behind this work as of that time. I originally wrote it for an amateur chorus I was directing in Atlanta, GA.

The soundtrack from my February 22 recording of Frühling ("Spring"), a piano piece by Gerald Wilhelm Braden, is now on SoundCloud, where you can listen to it or download it in a high-quality .wav format. Braden, who was born in Vienna before coming to the United States, composes in a tonal and rather traditional style, reflecting the close connection he feels to the classical and Romantic traditions of his Austrian homeland.

Gerald Wilhelm Braden, Frühling (Spring) Gerald Wilhelm Braden's Frühling ("Spring"). Recorded by Robert Cunningham on February 22, 2026. Braden is a contemporary composer who was born in Vienna before coming to the United States as a teen

Performing a piece by Jean Sibelius for the Phoenix Piano Club on the afternoon of Sunday, April 26. The pieces in Sibelius's Five Piano Pieces, Op. 75, are all named for trees. I played Op. 75, No. 5, titled "Le Sapin" or "The Spruce." Most of the piece resembles a slow waltz, with the tree's branches swaying gently with the rhythm. A long cadenza in the middle, however, seems to depict a fierce Nordic wind rushing through those branches.

My February 21 recording of the second movement from J. S. Bach's Italian Concerto is now on YouTube. Despite its title, the Italian Concerto was originally written for a solo harpsichord and has been adopted into the pianist's standard repertoire. I first learned it in my early teenage years and returned to it from time to time over the decades since. It has three movements, and over time my favorite has become the rhapsodic middle movement, which is marked Andante and has been described as the "jewel" of the work. For more great music from the piano repertoire, as well as original compositions, please subscribe to my channel. :)

RobertCunninghamsMusic 199 likes, 64 comments. "Bach, Andante from Italian Concerto, performed by Robert Cunningham"

Born on this day in 1840 (by the modern Gregorian calendar) was Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the most beloved of late-Romantic composers. I would like to honor his birthday with this "June" movement from The Seasons, subtitled "Barcarolle" and featuring a warm and soothing melody.

Tchaikovsky, "Barcarolle" ("June" from The Seasons), performed by Robert Cunningham "June" from Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's The Seasons, subtitled "Barcarolle." Recorded by Romantic composer-pianist Robert Cunningham on May 17, 2025.See also...

May's VIDEO OF THE MONTH is this video showing the score of my vocal work "I Have a Star," using a soundtrack performed by the magnificent soprano voice of Lindsay Robison Killian, along with violinists Charles Liu and Harry Fisher, violist Mason Haskett, cellist James Stanley, and myself at the piano. We recorded it on April 15, 2018, and I uploaded the score video to my channel in late September of that year. But the story behind this composition, which has deep emotional significance for me, began more than three decades before that, and is recounted in this blog article: https://robertcunninghamsmusic.com/i-have-a-star/.

RobertCunninghamsMusic 30 likes, 16 comments. ""I Have a Star" by Robert Cunningham (with score)"