I was rummaging through some Victorian music and found Mélodie, a little 1891 gem by pianist (and Poland’s first president) Ignacy Jan Paderewski. The attraction for me is how there’s something below the surface, including a counter melody scattered in the harmonic underpinnings.

It’s written in the slightly frustrating key of G-flat Major, and just doesn’t sound as fine if transposed to a simpler key.

How appropriate for Mother’s Day, I thought — especially in this sweet performance by Stephen Hough:

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John Terauds

John Terauds, Editor-Emeritus of Ludwig van Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at the University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

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• Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
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Thinking about Mother’s Day made me realise that secular music by or about mothers is rare in the classical canon. A section of Brahms’ German Requiem (which straddles sacred and secular) is all that came to mind.

Update: A big thanks to Scott Belyea, who wrote in after he saw this post to suggest Josef Suk’s set of five pieces, About Mother, Op. 28.

Here is Margaret Fingerhut playing the first one:

Here is another excellent suggestion from Elaine Fine, Moderen, O;. 41, written in 1920 by Carl Nielsen, and performed in this clip by Gro Sandvik, flute, harpist Turid Kniejski and Lars Anders Tomter on viola:

Reader Advisory (to mimic the messages that precede TV shows), if you want to keep a sweet varnish on Mother’s Day, don’t read on.

If we stretch the boundaries a bit, though, here is the scariest song I think it would be possible to find.

With text by Berthold Brecht set to music by Hanns Eisler 70 years ago, “Lied einer deutschen Mutter” (Song of a German Mother) is a chilling confession from a mother who regrets having given her son a brown shirt and jackboots.

If I had known then what I know now, she concludes, I would have seen that the shirt would become your shroud.

Here is an appropriate performance of it by Gisela May, accompanied by Karlheinz Mehring:

John Terauds

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John Terauds

John Terauds, Editor-Emeritus of Ludwig van Toronto, is currently a Divinity student at the University of Toronto and a church music director. He joined the Toronto Star in 1988, was the classical music critic from 2005 to 2012, and continues as a freelance critic for the paper. He is the co-author of Roy Thomson Hall: A Portrait, a book written with Toronto Star Colleague, William Littler.

Latest posts by John Terauds (see all)

• Classical Music 101: What Does A Conductor Do? - June 17, 2019
• Classical Music 101 | What Does Period Instrument Mean? - May 6, 2019
• CLASSICAL MUSIC 101 | What Does It Mean To Be In Tune? - April 23, 2019