>> From the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. >> David Plylar: Good evening everybody. Hi, my name is David Plylar. It's a great pleasure to see you all here. I'm a music specialist at the Library of Congress. I'm also a composer and pianist, so that's my background. My biggest regret of the evening and I hope it remains as such, is my inability to come up with a really catchy title for this talk. Motive Cello -- does anybody have an idea what that might be referring to? I'll give you a clue. We're in the Jefferson building. [ Inaudible Speaker ] Thank you, okay. So -- so it is supposed to be a Monticello reference, but -- [ Multiple Speakers ] I fell very short on this one, so I apologize in advance. Well, I'm going to take a sort of a -- a little bit more of a technical approach to the talk tonight, but not hopefully an overwhelming one at all. We have three really interesting and quite divergent types of pieces that are going to be performed tonight and you're in for a real treat with some great performers. The first piece is the Beethoven, the 4th Cello Sonata, which is a very compact piece and is actually what I'll be spending most of the time talking about because there's quite a bit to unpack in it. Then we have the Brahms 2nd Cello Sonata, which we will all also address. And then kind of a rarely heard piece, the Chopin Cello Sonata. And so I'll -- I'll say a little bit about each one, but you can read a bit more about the historical background in the -- in the notes when you have them. So I'd like to just dive right into looking at how Beethoven approaches the C major Cello Sonata. So far opening gambit, I just kind of put out there what -- what he gives us, which is basically a Cello solo with a piano answer and you can see right there. So the cello's by itself and the piano answers. There are certain types of relationships in here that are -- what you'd say, absolutely characteristic of Beethoven. And in fact, if you look at his earliest works, I'm thinking in particular the opus two number one piano sonatas the F minor. You can see these same exact things happening in those early works up to this work, which was composed in about 1815. The approaches, I'll make a little bit clearer, but I just want to before I go into the analytical part of it, I just want to say that these are just options of how to look at this music. This is not the way or I'm not trying to dictate a particular stance on it. It's just one way that I'm putting out there. So it just helps me to [inaudible] the music a bit better. So we'll take a closer look at a few of these ideas. There are certain ideas that come back again and again throughout this sonata. I've labeled them A, B and C -- those are the big ones. And then A.1 and B.1 -- those are kind of subsidiary ideas that are contained -- A.1 is within A and B.1 is within B. And the N, that stands for neighbor. And that will have a -- make a -- make a -- those notes get along well, so those -- that relationship will come into play a bit later. But these are things that we -- we can hear very clearly. Once A is a descending scale, B has -- basically outlines a triad and -- by the way this is in the tenor clef, so that first note is a C if -- if you're not familiar with that clef. B outlines a major triad and then C is just kind of a [inaudible] figure that keeps coming back and it's -- it's melodically very clear when you hear it. So let's look at this by extension into the piano part as well. That top part is what you just saw in the last slide, but then we have some different things happening already, some manipulations happening to the music in the piano part. And I know that the way that I have labeled it, I might kind of obscured, but all I really need to say is for instance, we have on the top in the center -- and the first the thing you see on the right hand of the piano part is A.1i and all I mean by that is that little tidbit that we have up here in the cello line of A.1, it's inverted. It's upside down. So Beethoven starts with that little idea, I didn't call it A because he doesn't go the E, so that's why I call it A.1i. Again, there's not going to be a quiz on this or anything, but this is just to give you a sense of this. We have C is echoing what we just heard in the cello. We have an echo of that in the piano right after we hear it in the cello. So it creates a very clear sonic relationship between those two ideas. We have another neighbor tone, we have B.1 that's augmented inverted and references the rhythm. And this is the B.1a, which is basically B.1 stretched out a little bit and creating a different type of rhythm. And so why do I mention these things here? Why are these variations already here? If you were just to complete -- if you were just to repeat the same thing over and over again, wouldn't have the most interesting piece of music. It might be a great piece of music, but for Beethoven, he really is all about the process of development and he tends to do that right away. And so, that development process can be quite simple in its local levels, like it's not something crazy difficult to understand -- manipulations you're just turning something upside down or stretching it out, but in total when they're put together, it can become quite complicated and when it's done well, then you have a piece that you enjoy listening to, which is what I think Beethoven achieved, which is why we're hearing it tonight and the artists have chosen it. So we'll move on. Now what I just said, I'm going to take back one thing I just said, which is that he can't repeat something without it being interesting. Well, of course that's not true. Because he does it right away in this same exact piece that I'm referencing. If you look at the top image, you have the piano parts and measure 6 through 10 and just the very top line starting with that G, if you follow that line, you'll see that the same exact melody is repeated verbatim in the cello part starting right after that moment that -- after -- after the piano finishes that phrase. So that's starting again, it's in the tenor clef. I probably should've just put it in the treble clef, but that starts on a G and it's the same thing, just an octave lower. But what makes it different and when you're listening tonight in the concert, it won't strike you as, "Oh, there he goes again with just the same old thing, you know repeating it for us right away." Harmonically it's different and he also puts different types of material with it so that it's always in the sense of -- you always feel like you're in familiar territory, but it's also always changing. The next thing I want to mention is this idea of how he -- Beethoven ends things and I call these termination clauses -- trying to be cute I guess. But the -- what we find is that -- this is just the right hand part of the piano that we just saw. He has these little figures that kind of go around a note. In this case, that first one marked X, it's going around F and then the second one marked X, it's going around C, so that last one it's BDC. It's just a way of terminating on a note that's in the center of two pitches on either side of that note. What we also have or I have labeled end is kind of an ending figure. In this case, it happens to be located close to a half [inaudible], so it has the feeling of actually being an ending. But what Beethoven does is he starts to play with those expectations and truncate the length of the phrases between -- between these examples of these end type phrases. So here we have just a little bit later, this is measures 14 through 16. We see that same basic -- you can -- don't even have to know the pitches, you can just follow the contours of the notes where it's marked end, end and an end. Not N, but end. And those ones -- you can see that they start to become stacked right next to each other. So they no longer have that termination feature to them. They've been reinterpreted and they have more of a kind of thematic motto like quality to them. I won't have time to go into this today, but this has actually a big effect on the entire piece, but I'll -- what I'll mention about it is that Beethoven destabilizes where the end of a phrase is to the point where what -- where we would expect a final cadence doesn't occur in that proper spot until the very end of the piece, for about the last five or six measures, he finally gets it back in sync in the right way. So that's something to listen for. I don't know how [inaudible] it is, it depends on how familiar you are with the piece, but it's -- it's one of those things that he's playing with definitely as he goes. You'll notice that I'm also including more of those neighbor tones, those are those N, marked N and also more of those X -- X kind of figures. So now I'd like to just move on to a problem with the -- with talking about motives and ideas that are related. What exactly makes something related? If you have a scale and you have another, you know, or a triad or something like that that you hear in all classical period music, is it -- is it something that you if -- would feel comfortable with calling that a meaningful motive that has a lot of information in it. The answer is probably not or at least we have to be very clear about what type of criteria we use to determine whether something is a motive or not. And the thing is, is that people have different opinions about this. On the same pieces I'll write papers about how, no that such and such is wrong about this or that. And really what it is -- well, you have to just find places that -- you have to find meaning and see if there is meaning for you when you're analyzing. And one of the biggest problems you have is the half step. Resolving half step idea where it's kind of a -- it's always given a [inaudible] feeling and people will say, "Oh, this has the -- this sort of an affect to it." And sometimes it's very traceable, like if you're looking at the music of [inaudible] or something like that. But at other points it's just because they're in a minor mode and has a flat six or something like that. So it might be not the most meaningful aspect of the [inaudible] component. In this case though, I'm going to just go ahead and put it out there that that X component that I've already mentioned continues to have a role in the second thematic area. Now this sonata is [inaudible] a very strange way. It's basically two movements -- it's written as two movements, but it's -- another way of looking at it is a sequence of about five movements. So it has [inaudible] -- on Dante introduction and then we get to a very fast, very different kind of music and this is part of that right afterwards, but it's juxtaposed with it. So there's no break in the actual -- there's no silence between these movements and so it's still part of movement one. Then that goes for about a good five minutes. Then we have the first structural break where there's a double bar and then we move to a slow movement, which [inaudible] to another referenced to the beginning of the material. So it has two other different tempo areas and then finally, another fast area to finish it. So while on paper, it looks like two movements, it really has these five main sections. In any case, [inaudible] I'll say about this is that these things that I've identified as X and Y, by the time we get to the -- that referral back to the original material, Beethoven has combined them so that they are integrated in a compelling way. And you can argue about -- there's certain aspects of why in particular that would come up in lots of minor mode music, but there seems to be a deliberateness in what he's doing -- to me at least. Going back to those neighbor tones that I said that they would become more important later. We start to see this process of oscillation and what I mean by that is kind of a rocking back and forth between different notes and different ideas. So the things marked N down the bottom is basically oscillating between whole steps and half steps. And it's punctuated very clearly with forte panel marking. So very strong attacks. I won't really get into the X variants, but there are those -- I'll just say this, there are those -- still those kind of wedge ideas that keep cropping up. Eventually you start to see the oscillations widening and you'll hear this, it's not just, you know, in my head here. You'll -- you'll hear this because he accents them and it's a very distinct effect, there's this moment where you feel like you're in a harmonic stasis and before moving on. And so, it's a really effective type of development of this neighbor tone idea over time. So it's not just melodic, it also has these sorts of harmonic effects as well. And then you can see that he's also [inaudible] end idea that I showed earlier. So going back to our initial idea that I put up there, which was the opening cello solo. This -- let this one example stand for many in that Beethoven continues to come back to the CID in particular, and variants of A throughout the entire sonata. And so this, for instance, this one is a secondary theme in the fast section down at the bottom. So it's -- it's no longer in the introduction. So it's out of -- it's in a different context and it has a different meaning, but it's audible to the ear. Then what he does is that little A variant that I put there, he turns that into its -- it has its own life to it afterwards and this is something again you'll see in lots of composers, but in particular you'll see it the Beethoven and the Brahms tonight, a little bit in the Chopin too. But mostly in the Beethoven and the Brahms, especially in the Beethoven where he'll take an idea, vary it and then that becomes the core idea. So it's like it's replaced, that original idea and now there's going to be some sort of variation on that. And you can see how there's a relationship there between the top one marked A variant and then the bottom three A variants. At least I see that and I hear it too. So another type of motivic manipulation that Beethoven uses and by extension lots of other composers too, is the idea of the teaser. So he'll have an idea that seems innocuous at first, so in this case what I'm looking at is not so much that seventh, but the B C sharp D sharp E. This idea, it seems like it's just kind of resolving up, but then he does it again and he actually then moves away from it for a while and we don't hear it, except it starts to crop up here and there and melodically. One might -- if this is your only chance to ever hear this piece and it's the first you've heard it, you might then upon hearing this motive in its isolated form, think, "Oh, this is actually quite familiar to me, somehow. Not quite sure how." But Beethoven was sure because he prepared you for it and that was something that -- who knows whether this is an instinctual type of thing or something that is planned. Different composers do it in different ways, but it's certainly there to be found or ignored, depending on how -- what your analytical stance is. So, how he uses this is kind of funny because when it gets to the last section, this idea -- now you can see it in its isolation, that rising scale, which again is just an inversion of that descending scale from the very beginning of the piece. It starts on the piano and it gets echoed -- the cello takes the top note. Then the cello does it, then the piano takes the top notes. And then, the piano starts going on with a theme and the cello gets off by an eighth note. So you can see that the cello is an eighth note early and it takes some time -- it eventually gets back into sync, but over time, it gets out of sync again. And so this is something that Beethoven has a very good time -- I imagine that he's having fun doing this and causing problems for the players too as he's doing this. Then we get to precedence for this type of material. Opus 90, the piano Sonata E minor dates from 1814, so apologize for the Clash of the Titans . But what happens if you're playing this part that comes at the end of this large build, you can see that there's a very clear idea, which is just kind of a turn -- a scale that comes back up at the end. It then gets stretched out farther and farther and then it starts to compress again. Nothing really complicated about it except when you get down to the bottom where it says the two P's -- you start to have the hands playing on top of each other. So you notice that there's a G and then there's a G in the left hand on top of an F sharp going to an E. And so this causes it -- it's kind of a funny moment if you're playing the piece because it's -- it sounds very interesting, but it sounds like it really should be a duet for another, like a pair of instruments. It's really -- it's a strange moment in this piece and if you don't know the piece, it's a great -- also a [inaudible] Sonata that's quite compact. So this is -- this is 1814, we skip ahead again to 1815 and we have some very funny moments that come in this Sonata. So what you'll hear is the -- the cello kind of plays a drone like dyad. A few times this happens throughout the movement and then the piano enters with the -- the idea that we just talked about and then the cello tries to catch up. And it -- it does it several times in a row and it just -- it has the effect -- to me it's a very comical effect and I -- I think it's done unjust, but it's a -- it's a nice effect for sure. And again, it plays with this idea of getting back on the beat as one of the dramatic imperatives of the whole piece, it's just -- just getting these things to come together by the very end. Okay. So, that's what I'm going to say about the Beethoven for now. And I'm going to skip ahead to the Brahms and the Chopin. I've -- I'll say a little bit less about them in terms of just the -- the more detailed within the piece kinds of statements, for two reasons. Well, one is I don't have much time, but another one is that the Beethoven was really about kind of an introverted approach to looking at music. So that's referencing within the piece. The Brahms you can also do that and you can also do that with the Chopin, but to me the Brahms has also a very extraverted sort of aspect to it. And I'll mention just a few things like that -- how -- what I mean by that. So, if we look at the very opening of it and this is the opening of the -- of the Cello Sonata and this dates from about 1886. This is Brahms second -- we see this kind of big [inaudible] sound. It does say piano, but most pianists do a very loud [inaudible] in the opening and then they're still pretty loud, they keep it going because they get excited and I don't know. But the -- the cello comes in with this very kind of heroic theme that goes all over the place in terms of tessitura and range, but this struck me as very reminiscent or rather prefiguring another famous [inaudible] opening of Brahms. And that's the -- I think that I have the [inaudible]. Yes, [inaudible] two, which is the G major string quartet opus 111, which dates from about, I think five or six years later. What's interesting about these is that the cello plays the inverted role as far as the thematic material is concerned. It quickly deviates, but you have the -- the [inaudible] and the upper strings and the cello starts with the fourth that goes down. If we go back to look at this and we have the fourth that goes up in the cello. So there's this -- they feel like they're from the same sound world. Okay, maybe, maybe not. Well, it certainly wasn't from the same sound world of this time because he had written the string quintet yet. So, there are some other interesting references that Brahms is making though, both to his own music and to the music of others. When we look at the beginning of the slow movement of the Brahms, does anybody notice anything strange about this movement from what you see here? And I'll just say again, that this is the -- the Brahms Sonata in F major. [ Inaudible Speaker ] Yes. Thank you, yes. So, it's -- it's in F sharp, which is a little odd to say the least. In fact, there are -- is some evidence and I'm not sure -- I don't know for sure about it, but there's some compelling evidence that this was actually intended to be part of his first Cello Sonata, which is in E minor and -- but it wouldn't of been in F sharp, it would've been in F. And the reason that's -- what's interesting about this is that there's a point in the middle of the piece -- in the middle of the movement where it goes into F minor and if you just transpose down a half step, you have F to E. So -- which is going to be a much simpler keys game in terms of, you know, having to count a certain number of sharps and flats and whatnot. But anyway, that's -- that's -- and I -- it's been [inaudible] and there's some decent evidence for it, that this would've been potentially part of that earlier Cello Sonata, which was written about 20 years before -- before the second Cello Sonata. But Brahms felt that it was overloaded and that original one has -- I think it's from 1865 or 66 -- has only three movements. So anyway, he uses it here and he uses it to grade effect and it fits in with the rest of the piece and there's all kinds of reasons why that it -- it's clear that it does and so it's not that he just kind of, you know, transported it over and, you know, willy nilly and just let it be. But what's interesting to me about this opening is that it feels like very much that it's referencing Beethoven. In particular, early Beethoven or at least a Beethovenian type of writing. And I'm speaking in particular of kind of a walking baseline. And so, if we look at say the -- the piano Sonata A major the second opus two number two, the largo movement -- the second movement, you can see this same sort of baseline happening. With the Brahms it becomes quite clear that there's a bit more of a condensed chromatic harmonic motion happening, but the Beethoven is also quite sophisticated if you -- if you listen to this movement. And that's -- so anyway, he's -- he's very much referencing these, but what's of course the difference, is that we have the Cello Pizzicato that's providing that walking baseline at the beginning. So listen for that and it's -- it's a very interesting effect and it's really well done. Yeah, okay. So this is one of my favorite moments of the -- of the piece and that's the -- really the only reason I have the slide on it. But this is -- it is also an example of -- of a type of voice exchange that Brahms will do -- very much like the Beethoven one that I showed before. So, if we look at the cello line, that's an F sharp in the top and we look two measure later, you'll find the F sharp in the base. And you'll see the echo, that it's -- it's happening, but it has a very different effect on our ears because the first one is entirely melodic, we hear it that way. And the second one also serves as the base. So, we're hearing it in a different way, but we also hear that melodically as well. So -- so you'll -- you'll hear this and -- and enjoy it I'm sure. Okay. Another thing about -- about Brahms is that -- and actually many, many great composers, especially people like Bach and whatnot, they -- sometimes you just need some help. So it's usually okay if you're delving into your own works for that help if you might think about it. So, this is the opening of the final movement of Brahms third symphony, the opus 90, which is written about three years prior to -- prior to the composition of the Cello Sonata. Yeah, you need to cite it if you are going to -- to steal those [inaudible], but -- but the -- you can actually see because they're in the same key, if you follow the top line -- he does his preference for six in the -- as often he does in the piano part of the beginning of that -- of the [inaudible] movement from the Cello Sonata in the bottom. If you follow that top line starting on C, you'll see a sort of outline of the first two measures of that symphonic component. And if you hear these next to each other, it -- it leaps out. But he very quickly moves on and it becomes -- takes him in two very different -- different paths, so it's not like he's cheating that much. But speaking of cheating, the -- the Chopin I -- and I -- this work -- I'll say just a little bit about it because it -- it's a strange piece for Chopin. He wrote it starting around 1845 to 1847, during that period. It's -- it's a piece that he's struggled with. There are more worksheets for this piece, I believe then for any other piece of Chopin in terms of what he didn't save everything. But he had a hard time with it and he worked on it with a cellist friend who also premiered it with him. But prior to that, he had not written , I think -- I think he hadn't -- the last cello and piano piece he had written was 1831, so a good 15 years before and in that time he had only been writing for almost completely solo piano music. Had Chopin not died at age of 39, I would really liked to have seen where he would've gone if he had done more chamber music because he only has a trio and then three pieces for cello and piano. There supposedly were some violin and piano pieces, but nobody knows where they are, so we really only have four pieces of chamber music by Chopin, which is a shame. And this -- and this piece is a very interesting one because it sounds like there's so much going into it, that at first it can be confusing. At least to me in the first movement and it takes time for it to unravel. And it unravels in a very different way than the -- the Beethoven or the Brahms and in a very compelling way, I think as well. But one thing, since we're on the topic of stealing, I do want to mention the largo movement from the Chopin Sonata. If you'll just notice, I'll come back to this screen. The -- the cello's melody -- and just kind of let it sink in and you'll -- you'll hear it quite clearly in a little bit. Then compare that to -- this is the -- the funeral of march movement of his second piano Sonata, which was finished I think in 1837. And so, it predates by about eight, nine years this largo movement. If you were to basically take -- it starts with an F, G flat, F, E flat, B flat, A flat -- if you were to skip the D flat and the C, you'd have the same basic melodic line that you have in this one. Your hearing them next -- next to each other will help to make that clear. But it's quite a different -- ends up being a different harmonic context and there's a bit more going on. But this is actually a much shorter movement. It's only about three and a half, four minutes in the Cello Sonata versus the funeral march movement from the piano Sonata, which is a full eight and a half to nine minutes if you do the repeats. And then it also has -- it's followed by that really brief [inaudible]. I think lastly what I'd like to say other than [inaudible] is that the -- the main points that I'm making are that there are these intertextual types of relationships that you can find within a piece and there are lots -- many, many more than what I pointed out here. This is just a little bit of what I'm thinking. Intertextual -- and these are ones where you can see relationships between pieces, maybe even between styles of music. And then interesting textural, which would be in the Chopin, what I -- and I don't really have time to show you, but what I'd like you to listen for are certain types of piano figuration, for instance, that will kind of carry over from movement to movement. They're not exactly the same, but they serve a similar sonic function as a motive. In that we -- we start to hear them and they become -- they develop in particular ways that are interesting. I'll say one thing about that, in the first movement of the Chopin, you'll have -- the piano does an introduction which is actually a statement of -- kind of an abbreviated statement of the main theme followed by this -- this kind of strange -- I think it's three bar [inaudible] like elaboration that feels out of place at first. And it's not until you get to the development section of the Sonata that that takes on a whole life of its own. And [inaudible] in fact develops in a way that is a little bit similar to the way that, say Beethoven would develop a motive, but not so much in terms of inverting it and doing [inaudible] down instead of up. But rather that it starts to have more of a thematic meaning to it. At this point, I'd like to thank you all for listening to me talk and I think because we have a few minutes and I'm happy to take any questions if you have. I think we have just a -- time for a couple questions if you have any. Just one moment, if you can wait for the microphone, that way we can [inaudible]. And hopefully I'll have an answer. >> Thanks. I always feel like I'm taking up for Brahms, but the [inaudible] don't you think like, for example, the opening to his first Cello Sonata and the opening to his fourth symphony -- you get the inversion of the -- of the triad. I mean, I think he gets into a certain world in these keys that, I don't think [inaudible] much, it's just his expression of that key. >> David Plylar: Those are the same keys, by the way. So it's E minor, first Cello Sonata E minor, symphony -- the fourth symphony. Yeah, and this is one of those things where it's a question of what -- what you privilege as a meaningful motivic connection. Absolutely, it's debatable. I don't hear those as being as related as I do the [inaudible] movement to the -- but again, it's a tenuous relationship. It's one that is going to come up time and again in many different contexts just because of the particular mode you're using, you know, all those types of things. So it's a good point that it may not be meaningful, but maybe it's just the analyst's choice to make it meaningful. >> The other thing is I read that, you know -- a very light piece of Beethoven the Sonata. [ Inaudible Speaker ] [Inaudible] and at this point he's throwing out Sonata form, which he, you know, for his early works, he's working with Sonata form [inaudible] Mozart and by this time he's throwing it out pretty much entirely. So this is -- I read this actually in -- in a preface to a score just today that he -- that he's just -- right now just saying what he's got to say and getting out. >> David Plylar: See I would -- I would disagree with [inaudible] being thrown out necessarily. I think what's happening is -- >> Well, he's taking from it what he needs and -- >> David Plylar: Yeah, and -- and I think the thing to remember with forms is that, you know, people don't -- most composers that I know and I think composers in this common practice time wouldn't sit down with like a form that they would -- a template that they would then fill out and meet certain expectations with -- with the exceptions of certain types of harmonicals that they might have. But you find that changing from very early on and it's quite fluid, especially in Beethoven, but these [inaudible] -- >> Beethoven broke it up with the [inaudible]. >> David Plylar: Yeah. And he's still -- I mean, he's still working within the realm of Sonata forms though in -- in the piece that we're looking at tonight too. It just depends on -- it's just a more fluid sense of it. Especially like I -- I mentioned at the beginning that we now have this kind of five movement kind of [inaudible]. For instance, if you look at the Brahms -- I'm trying to think of another five movement structure even though it's two movements -- Brahms opus five, the third piano Sonata. That piece is in five minute -- five movements and it has this what's called a [inaudible] look back kind of movement that is the [inaudible] movement before the finale. He's -- to me this is -- I haven't thought of this until just now, but to me it's -- it's kind of a clear relationship to the [inaudible] on Dante reference in the C major Beethoven Sonata. Because he's looking back to the beginning, but actually in a more direct way. So you know, the movements themselves might just -- might not be characterizing Sonata, the fast movements do character -- have a Sonata characteristics, but these other components, the slow introductions and things like that that are added do have this take on a different import. Definitely, so yeah. I think it's just one of those fluid things, so. Sure if we can -- >> A nontechnical question. >> David Plylar: Oh, sure. >> You mentioned three works [inaudible] that Chopin wrote. I'm familiar with the Sonata and the [inaudible]. >> David Plylar: Yeah. >> What is the third work? >> David Plylar: The third one is -- and that's actually one that he also collaborated on with his friend -- and I'll butcher his name if I try to pronounce it, but [inaudible] I think his name -- [ Inaudible Speaker ] -- thank you. Yeah, excuse my [inaudible]. It's -- it's actually -- it's basically a fantasy on Robert the Devil [inaudible] Opera. That was huge; it was premiered in 1831. Made it big in Paris and it's not -- he doesn't assign an opus number to it. In fact, I can't remember at what point it was published, but I think it was published [inaudible]. I'm not sure about that though. But it was -- it was a piece where he collaborated with the cellist completely and it -- they shared -- it's actually a fairly effective piece and this was -- I mentioned this in the notes, but there's a lot of composers at the time were really quite taken with this grand opera that [inaudible] was producing. One of those people was not Mendelson, for instance, who thought it was a sham. But -- but there's a lot to it that's actually quite interesting. And the fantasies themselves are really interesting to compare and worth checking out. And it's a nice piece. It's been recorded several times. >> Thank you. >> David Plylar: Yeah. Any other? I think -- unless I see anybody else, I think we're done. So thank you so much for coming. I appreciate it. [ Applause ] >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov.