Opus 1

Attention is often focused on a composer’s autumn works—music created towards the end of a career, reflecting the culmination of life’s experience. Beethoven’s late string quartets and Mahler’s final symphonies, for example, are considered among the most accomplished achievements in classical music. But what about turning the scope the other way, examining the pieces sketched when spring was barely in bloom? In Opus 1, pianist Anna Geniushene gathers together a collection of early works by Chopin, Tchaikovsky, Clementi, Schumann, Brahms and Berg to shed light on their various compositional journeys. “I am fascinated by starting points and what drives composers to compose,” Geniushene tells Apple Music Classical. “It’s often a colossal challenge to make a first step forward—I wanted to know more about the early part of these lives we know so well.” Chopin’s Rondo in C Minor, Op. 1 (1825), written while he was 15, hints at the sophisticated experiments with harmony and form that would come later in his sonatas. You can hear his trademark lyricism and introspective pensiveness, yet the music, packed with neat melodies and embellishments, feels far closer in style to the Classical period (the era of Mozart and early Beethoven). So it fits nicely alongside Clementi’s elegant Sonata in E-flat Major, Op. 1 No. 1, published in a six-part set in 1771. It’s a work that represented both a different direction for the composer, and for the piano, which was making a glittering entrance as the new instrument on the block. But not everyone started so young. Tchaikovsky was in his twenties when he switched from a career in law to music. The Two Pieces included here were published in 1868, written while the composer was working as a professor at the Moscow Conservatory. The playful “Scherzo” evokes Russian folk song, whereas the “Impromptu” is more reflective. It was this piece that served as the initial inspiration for this album: “I love this work,” says Geniushene, “I actually think there is a resemblance to Radiohead’s song ‘Subterranean Homesick Alien’. I’m a big Radiohead fan.” Schumann set himself an unusual task in his Op. 1—the Abegg Variations, composed when he was 18, uses a musical cipher. The “A-B-E-G-G” motif has been alleged to represent a Countess Pauline von Abegg, or perhaps an imaginary friend. The cascading notes and expressive melodies would become a hallmark of later works. But sometimes early compositions can become a springboard for something quite different. Berg’s Piano Sonata Op. 1 was written during studies with Schoenberg, and although it hints at future modernistic experimentation, it is striking for its heady Romanticism. “It is one of the most beautiful one-movement sonatas ever written,” says Geniushene. “It requires bravery to share something meaningful when you are not recognised as a composer—it’s that tipping point that really drew my attention,” concludes Geniushene, who then raises her own personal connection to the album’s subject. “I was born on 1 January 1991,” she laughs, “So in a way, I am an Opus 1.”