# Sid's Contrasts and Connections in Music Thread



## Sid James

Last November I started a new blog, posting concurrently in the Current Listening thread on this forum, as well as in the blog section. The reason was to give it a bit of exposure but also to be able to cross reference and pinpoint posts if needed in future, a function that isn't available on the blogs (and I don't want to do a new one each time, I want to keep them together).

They have received a positive response on Current Listening (and thanks to all for that!), however especially since they are getting increasingly detailed and kind of out of place there, I decided to do a separate thread on them here.

I will continue to cross reference them as before at the blog section here, which includes my overall aim and rationale for doing this 'project' of sorts (there is a link to it in my footer too) : http://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/sid-james/1340-contrasts-connections-music.html#comment2075

Comments and conversations or queries about the topics and so on, are very welcome on this new thread.

I will start with links to all the posts I have done so far, and then give you my latest installment in the next post!

Two Devlishly Difficult French Piano Sonatas - Alkan & Boulez

A gentle tickle of the ivories - Beethoven's Piano Concerto #4 and its impacts on Liszt & Tippett

A remote and lonely place - Music by Sibelius, Holst & Sculthorpe

Ode to Joy and its impacts on a Czech and an Argentinean - Music by Beethoven, Dvorak & Ginastera

Two Russians in Dresden, and The Master - Music by Rachmaninov, Shostakovich and Wagner

Comic escapades, more imagined than real - Music by Richard Strauss, Kodály, Prokofiev, Walton and Mancini

Paganini's famous caprice, dances of death, and variations for piano and orchestra to boot! - Music by Liszt, Franck, Rachmaninov and Lutoslawski

Three progressives in Paris, and three symphonies in cyclic form - Music by Franck, D'Indy and Saint-Säens

Ives, ragtime and American music - Music by Ives, Copland, Cage and Bernstein


----------



## Sid James

I've been listening to a fair bit of things to do with cabaret so here is this week's blog on this very topic. This is the first of two posts, I decided to split it up into one on Paris and another to come on Berlin. They where the twin capitals of this genre.

Pictures top to bottom: A painting of the cafés-concerts by Edgar Degas (1870's); a poster of the Chat Noir cabaret in Montmartre; Edith Piaf in a photo with German cabaret artist Marlene Dietrich.
*
Cabaret, Part I: Paris - Music by Offenbach, Satie, and Edith Piaf*
*
Overview - from operetta to cabaret and beyond
*
*Offenbach*, the founder of operetta, can be seen as a precursor of the cabaret genre. His witty, satirical and comical creations poked fun at the pretensions of high art, offering vieled political and social commentary. The songs and dances from them - especially the saucy can-can - went well beyond the Comédie Francaise and Bouffes Parisiens, into the cafés-concerts and streets.

Strictly speaking though, cabaret emerged after Offenbach's time, in the 1880's and '90's, in the night clubs of Paris and Berlin.

*Satie* was in the thick of it, working as a pianist in the 'Chat Noir' of Paris, which was established in 1881. Satie's melodies and chansons where sung there right in the center of the emerging artistic milieu of Montmartre.

Offenbach had made operetta into real comedy, and moved it away from the stuffy conventions found in the Opéra Comique. Satie introduced the element of mixing the mundane, the refined and the downright strange into the genre. *Edith Piaf* brought to it a measure of reality, grittiness and expressiveness.

Piaf's era between the two world wars saw cabaret and chanson increasingly blend with classical music, jazz and trends in literature. One of Paris' trendy cabarets during the period was _Le Boef sur le toit_, and it became a melting pot where composers as diverse as Stravinsky, Ravel, the members of Lés Six such as Poulenc, Auric and Milhaud, as well as jazz musicians and literary figures like Jean Cocteau hung out together. Piaf was to benefit from this eclectic atmosphere, indeed Poulenc who was also a master of chanson wrote a piano piece dedicated to her, and Auric wrote one of her many big hits, _Moulin Rouge_.










*Offenbach *
Overtures to:
_Orphée aux enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld) _(1858)
_La Belle Hélene_ (1864)
_La Périchole_ (1868)
_La Vie Parisienne_ (1866)
- Philharmonia Orchestra under Neville Marriner (Decca)

Any publicity is good publicity as they say, and *Jacques Offenbach's* first big hit _*Orpheus in the Underworld*_ is attestation to that saying. Upon its premiere, the operetta had failed to make an impression, but the powerful critic Jules Janin wrote a review of it calling Offenbach a creator of what was blasthemy, "a profanation of holy and glorious antiquity." Janin's thunderbolt proved to be a blessing in disguise, it made Offenbach the talk of the town, and people flocked to see _Orpheus_. It became a sensation, its tunes became famous overnight.

Offenbach's _opérettes_, also called opera bouffes and burlesques, epitomized the Paris of the Second Empire ruled by Napoleon III. They lampooned the pretensions of high art and also hinted at political and sexual taboos. However, there was a serious side to this, as the period was marked by increasing political repression and censorship, so Offenbach had to tread carefully. Contradictorily, the regime encouraged people to have a good time, to focus attention away from their corruption and double dealings. So its not a matter of 'let them eat cake' but just encourage them to let off some steam - as long as it doesn't affect those pulling the strings.

_Orpheus_ would set a trend which Offenbach would follow up throughout the 1860's until the early 1870's. The deprivations of war and the Paris Commune would dent his good fortunes, but that was in the future. _Orpheus _would run for a record of 228 performances, it only stopped because the cast wearied of doing it. The composer was granted French citizenship, received the Legion of Honour, and amassed enough wealth to buy a fashionable mansion where he threw lavish parties.

Beneath the light surface, Offenbach's music comes across as quite sophisticated. He was influenced by Rossini, who called him "The Mozart of Champs-Elyseés." Another fan was Meyerbeer, who would often get front row seats to Offenbach's productions. Maybe Giacomo enjoyed seeing his pretentious historicist grand operas being lampooned by Jacques? But they had in common the fact that they where both foreigners, Germans of Jewish heritage, who had conquered the city with their music.
*
Offenbach's overtures* are amongst his biggest hits. The Mozart comparison is apt, because Offenbach was like him a master of melody. One thing I noticed straight after I heard Offenbach's music in my youth was his skill at orchestration. To this day I still like how he gives brief but memorable solos to many instruments throughout these pieces, from the woodwinds to the strings, including his own instrument the cello. It has the delicacy and intimacy of chamber music.










*Satie* 
Cabaret Songs: 
_La Diva de l'Empire*
Tendrement*
L'Omnibus automobile* 
Daphénéo
Je te veux_
- Measha Brueggergosman, soprano; BBC SO under David Robertson; *William Bolcom, piano; Orchestrations of last two songs by Robert Caby and Bolcom, respectively (Deutsche Grammophon - from "Surprise" album)

If Offenbach's operettas epitomize the Paris of the _grande monde_, *Erik Satie's* hint at its decline and disintegration. Satie was an innovator in his own right who was to influence so many 20th century composers with his concepts of 'armchair music' (or muzak) and technical aspects such as getting rid of bar lines. His musical descendants are a diverse bunch, ranging from his contemporaries Claude Debussy and Les Six, to many in the jazz world, pianists in particular (eg. Jean Wiener, George Shearing, Jacques Louissier), to the avant-garde figurehead John Cage and minimalist Philip Glass.

The selection of his songs sung here by Canadian soprano Measha Brueggergosman gives a hint of that diversity. They have elements of simplicity and the mundane, the final song _*Je te veux*_ being one of those delicious waltzes which is infectious and becomes an earworm in no time at all!

There is also _*L'Omnibus automobile*_, a surreal song about a bus loaded full of cement hurtling at high speed through Paris, mowing down all like a juggernaut. The song comes across as having a double meaning, one level absurd, on the other deadly serious. The bus mows down people of all social classes from the plebs to their political overlords, the date of this imagined event being July the fourteenth, Bastille Day. Written in 1905, it is prophetic of the disaster that was to be World War I. Here, Satie anticipates the Dada movement that was to spring up during the war, it presented the same mix of the absurd with the surreal.









*
Album: Edith Piaf - 20 French Hit Singles*
- A selection of her recordings made between 1946 and 1962 (EMI)
Songs in focus:
_C'est a Hambourg_ (Monnot-Delecluse-Senlis) Rec. 1955
_L'homme a la moto_ (Dréjac-Lieber-Stoller) Rec. 1956
_Milord_ (Moustaki-Monnot) Rec. 1959
_Mon Dieu_ (Vaucaire-Dumont) Rec. 1961

*Edith Piaf's* voice was one of the most distinctive and recognizable of the 20th century. She reigned as the queen of French chanson from the 1930's to the 1960's, singing in the cabarets of Paris and doing concerts abroad. Piaf was literally born and lived on the streets of Paris. She was discovered busking by an owner of one of the cabarets of the city. With her raw and emotionally expressive voice and signature black dress, she became known as 'the little sparrow,' and took Paris and eventually the world by storm.

Piaf was not formally trained in music, but she had an unerring knack for writing memorable melodies and making sensitive arrangements. While she is not credited for composing all of her hit songs, many of the ideas for these songs originated from her, and her partnership with the composer Margeurite Monnot was extremely fruitful and instructive. Piaf did get credit for some of her songs, she sat and passed the exam which was a requirement to be credited as a composer on published scores.

Piaf's early hits included the famous _*La Vie En Rose*_, and other songs widely known include _*Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien*_ and _*Exodus*_. I love those but chose to cover a handful that are really favourites for me and that I think illustrate many aspects of her art well.

I see Piaf's best songs as mini tone poems or even films, using cinematic devices such as flash forwards and flash backs. Often the narrator and protagonist of the song is ambigious, often she is an outsider. The language used is hard to translate because Piaf wrote in the colloquialisms of her era, words and expressions that are no longer used. Some have suggestions of autobiographical elements, Piaf's life having no shortage of material for inspiration, from her many love affairs, addiction to alcohol and underground activities during the occupation aiding the resistance. There where many sides to her personality, she had a generous side but at the same time was not always the easiest person to be around.

_*C'est a Hambourg*_ paints the picture of a busy port with ships coming in bringing men keen on spending a night with a girl. In this song, when Piaf sings of rain you hear sounds from the orchestra as if it was some Debussy piece, when she sings of love you hear these swellings reminiscent of Wagner, and her own instrument the accordion is thrown into the mix giving the vibes of some rough café or tavern at the docks.

_*L'homme a la moto*_ images a motorcyclist who terrorizes a village and is cruel to his girlfriend. He gets his comeuppance when he is hit and killed by a train. The symbolism of cruelty and just retribution may well be a comment on the events of the occupation, but its not explicitly stated. There is innovation here in the rhythms of the train imitated by the percussion, and actual taped sound of trains being spliced in for added effect.
*
Milord* is a song that did very well on the English market for Piaf, and she explicitly asked Georges Moustaki for a song with the world 'milord' in it as many times as possible. He delivered, and the story in embryo here is an English gentleman, a tourist in France, brushing past a girl on the street. He doesn't recognize her and is in the company of another woman. The narrator reminisces about times she spent loving this man, but now she is like a stranger to him, almost like a discarded item. Was she a past mistress, or a prostitute?
_*
Mon Dieu *_was a song Piaf wrote after the love of her life, the boxer Marcel Cedan, died in a plane crash. The legendary violinist Ginette Neveu also died in the same accident, and that was also a blow to Piaf. The week following this, Piaf locked herself into a room and almost went mad. This moving song came out of that ordeal. It's a song that always moves me to tears, and the incorporation of classical elements is notable, including a soprano accompanist in one part. Piaf has no choice but to find consolation in her God, but also asks the hardest question in such circumstances: why?

Piaf did find love again, but she succumbed to a premature death from cancer in 1963. She was only in her mid forties. Her funeral stopped the traffic of Paris, luminaries and ordinary people tussled at her graveside to pay their last respects, and many of her fellow musicians paid tribute including one who said "Edith Piaf died today, Paris is missing something."

Despite the death of Piaf being a considerable loss, the chanson tradition didn't stop there, one of the great songwriters and interpreters of the younger generation was already emerging. Monique Serf (going by her stage name *Barbara*) is worth checking out as a comparison to Piaf. Barbara was freer in the structures of her songs, she employed jazz musicians to accompany her, and her voice was more trained and polished. I used to have a vinyl on the Philips label titled _Barbara chante Barbara_ (Barbara sings Barbara). Its an interesting follow up to these if you want to go there and can find it!


----------



## Sid James

Sid James said:


> Piaf did get credit for some of her songs, she sat and passed the exam which was a requirement to be credited as a composer on published scores.


Sorry guys, a *correction* to the above. Piaf sat the exam but didn't pass it. I checked in her half sister Berteaut's biography. Would have helped to check what I remembered before publishing but not to worry! My research on Offenbach was strongest, due to the fact that I didn't know that much about him before.

With Piaf, I am more familiar, but my memory kind of reversed her exam result. She had this symbiotic relationship with composers like Monnot, much was published under their names, but ideas germinated from Piaf a lot of the time. She got a cut of the proceeds of royalties because I suppose it was win win for both of them. In terms of the guys who wrote her songs, she ended up having affairs with most of them. However I know some songs are officially credited to her, one is _La Vie En Rose_, her most famous (even the three tenors sang it!).

I will return here next week for an entry on the cabaret scene in Berlin, and links to that in the music of William Bolcom and others.

Thanks to all for reading/visiting/liking here I hope to do many more in future!


----------



## science

This is good stuff, man. Nice of you to write it up.


----------



## ArtMusic

Sid, are you a writer by any chance professionally/student of? Or have you considered writing about music listening (I don't mean academically music listening). Curious.


----------



## Art Rock

Great read. Wrt Barbara: there is an interesting story how she changed European history in a way with her song Goettingen (link).


----------



## Sid James

*Cabaret, Part II: Berlin and New York - Music by Schoenberg, R. Strauss, Weill, Kander and Bolcom*

*Overview - From cabaret in Berlin to Broadway musicals in New York*

Last week's blog looked at how cabaret emerged in Paris during the 1880's. This week I am linking that to the arrival of the genre in Germany during the early 20th century.

French cabaret artists such as Yvette Guilbert had toured German cities for two decades. In 1901, Germany's first cabaret venue, the Überbrettl, opened in Berlin. This established a cabaret tradition that was unique, the Germans tended to be more overtly political than their French predecessors. Composers like *Arnold Schoenberg *and *Richard Strauss *composed music related to the emerging genre early on.

The American connection occurs during World War II, a period of upheaval in Europe. *Kurt Weill*, composer of _The Threepenny Opera_, emigrated to the USA and ended up conquering Broadway with his musicals. The seed was sown for American composers to write their own music inspired by cabaret, and the music of *John Kander *and *William Bolcom *reflects that strongly.

Below: French cabaret artist Yvette Guilbert by Toulouse-Lautrec.










*Schoenberg* _Brettl-Lieder (Cabaret Songs) _(1901)
_Gigerlette 
Jedem das Seine (To Each His Own) 
Mahnung (Warning) 
Galathea
Der Nachtwandler (Night Wanderer) 
Einfältiges Lied (Simple Song)
Der genügsame Liebhaber (The Easily Satisfied Lover)
Arie aus dem Spiegel von Arkaden (Aria from "The Mirror of Arcadia")_
Orchestrations: Patrick Davin, except _Der Nachtwandler _by the composer
- Measha Brueggergosman, soprano.; BBC Symphony Orchestra under David Robertson (from "Surprise" album on Deutsche Grammophon)

*Schoenberg* was hired as musical director at the Überbrettl cabaret when it opened in 1901. He stayed there until 1903, when he returned to Vienna to take up a teaching post. His *Brettl-Lieder* where composed for performance there, but they where not published as a set until the 1970's. These songs, taking a dig at everything from sexual propriety, the neo-feudalist class structure of the ancien regime and bourgeois morality, show a rare humorous side of the composer's musical range. It also looks forward to his seminal song-cycle _Pierrot Lunaire_, which has elements drawn from cabaret.

They are all great, but its not hard to name my favorites.

*To Each His Own* has a soldier placed in three different scenes, one the parade ground, another dancing with his sweetheart, a third lying on the grass with her. The music changes accordingly, from a march, to a waltz, to a lyrical ending. The song puts into sharp contrast the difference between the public face of a soldier and the more intimate concerns at the back of his mind. Militarism contrasted with love. 'Make love not war' way before the hippie era, maybe?

*The Night Wanderer* has the absurd situation of a man parading through the streets at night, a marching band in front of him and two working class women - a washerwoman and an ironing girl - marching along with him. Schoenberg here uses an unusual combination of piano, piccolo, trumpet and snare drum as accompaniment, reflecting the small bands he conducted at the cabaret.

_*The Easily Satisfied Lover*_ has sexual symbolism in a cat that sits on a woman's lap and is stroked by her lover. The narrator is bald like Schoenberg was, and the cat ends up like some living toupee on his head!

Below: a poster of the Uberbrettl cabaret, 1900s.










*Richard Strauss* _Love Scene from Feuersnot _(1901)
- Staatskapelle Dresden under Giuseppe Sinopoli (Deusche Grammophon Eloquence)

Schoenberg's mentor at the time, *Richard Strauss*, also rode the wave of cabaret trend that was sweeping the big German cities. His burlesque opera _*Feuersnot* (Fire Famine)_ has parallels with Offenbach's own operas of this type, but it also looks back to the rogue protagonist of Strauss' tone poem _Till Eulenspiegel_. Strauss' second opera, _Feuersnot_ was premiered in Dresden and had an early run in Vienna too.

The plot of _Feuresnot_ involves a young man seeking to give payback for a girl who jilts him. He hires a magician to fix the matter, and the opera culminates in the girl having fire emanate from her nether regions.

I haven't heard the opera in full, however the *Love Scene*, here played in an orchestral version, gives more than a hint of Strauss' cheekiness. The string writing is syrupy and the horns add this whimsical element. The climax suggests an embrace after much fumbling about, this is like Wagner's _Liebestod_ mixed with elements of humour, maybe a bit of slapstick?

Below: The Uberbrettl, early 20th century.


----------



## Sid James

*Weill/Brecht *- _Songs from The Threepenny Opera (Der Dreigroschenoper, 1928)*_
Music by Kurt Weill, lyrics by Bertolt Brecht

*"The Ballad of Mack the Knife"*
- Louis Armstrong, vocals/trumpet with his All Stars, 1955
- Shirley Horn, vocals; Jimmy Cleveland, trombone; Bobby Scott, piano; Orchestra arranged and conducted by Quincy Jones, 1963

*"Pirate Jenny"*
- Lotte Lenya, vocals with orch. conducted by Samuel Matlowsky, 1954
- Nina Simone, vocals/piano with Rudy Stevenson, guitar; Lisle Atkinson, bass; Bobby Hamilton, drums, 1964 (live in concert)

*Version in English by Marc Blitzstein

Schoenberg left Berlin to go to Vienna, where he would compose his most innovative music. *Kurt Weill *was to emerge in Berlin, where he was trained by Busoni, as a composer who would take music in another direction entirely. His partnership with the playwright Bertolt Brecht was a prolific one and together they would redefine concepts of theatre. The directions Schoenberg had taken meant little to Weill, his artistic credo summarized as "I don't give a damn about posterity, I want to write for today!"

If Schoenberg hinted at the decline of the ancien regime in his songs, Weill's works for the stage where witness to its collapse and the rise of extremism. The interwar period was chaotic, with the tottering Weimar Republic threatened by destructive forces within, ultimately giving rise to Nazism. Here, Weill and Brecht produced _*The Threepenny Opera*_, which was premiered in Berlin in 1928. 

(Pictures top to bottom: Louis Armstrong, Shirley Horn and Nina Simone)











*Mack the Knife*, a song from the opera, became very popular everywhere, everyone from crooners like Bobby Darin to jazz singers sang it, and the violinist Jascha Heifetz even recorded an encore arrangement of it. All of the following recordings of the song where done in New York, but Ella Fitzgerald sang it live in Berlin, and famously forgot the words doing some scat singing to fill the gaps in her memory - mentioning Armstrong and Darin in the process!

*Louis Armstrong's* version has plenty of whimsy but also hints at darker things, for example his rendition of Mack having fancy gloves that don't show "mmm a trace of red" sounds as if he's singing about tomato ketchup rather than blood. The suggestion is that death can be as mundane as having a meal, life can be cheap, killing can be clinical. He also gives a shout-out to Lotte Lenya during this recording, Weill's widow who was apparently in the studio at the time.

*Shirley Horn's* version by contrast is smooth and pretty laid back. The big band arrangement by the legendary Quincy Jones really makes it swing. 










Another song is the disturbing *Pirate Jenny*, which speaks to the oppressed becoming the oppressor, with images of death and destruction. *Lotte Lenya's* version is very dark, emphasizing the repetitive beats so prevalent in Weill's music, it comes off like some goose-stepping Nazi march.

I find *Nina Simone's *version even more disturbing, it comes off as psychopathic. Simone transports the song's setting to the Southern United States, the scene of race riots during the civil rights era in the 1960's when it was recorded. When she whispers "tonight, nobody is going to sleep here…nobody…nobody" it is chilling. Her performance takes in too many emotions to name, it is extremely intense and frenzied.


----------



## Sid James

*Kander/Ebb* _Cabaret: Original Soundtrack recording _(1972)
Music by John Kander, lyrics by Fredd Ebb
- Liza Minelli, as Sally Bowles; Joel Grey, as Emcee; Ralph Burns, musical direction & orchestrations (MCA / Hip-O)










World War II would separate Weill and Brecht, but Weill went on to write Broadway musicals and make his mark on the American scene.

The partnership of *composer John Kander and lyricist Fred Ebb *lasted for some four decades, during which they produced musicals such as _Cabaret_ and _Chicago_.

*Cabaret* has strong links to the sound and feel of _Threepenny Opera_. The musical was first produced during the 1960's, a decade when America was going through many challenges to the system, from the war in Vietnam to the civil rights movement at home. However, the plot takes place in Berlin, in the dying days of the Weimar Republic.

The film is a favorite of mine, and it garnered a swag of Oscars. It has some unusual features, from one of the leads (Michael York) not singing a note, to all the songs except one taking place indoors, in the Kit Kat Club. *Joel Grey *gave a very memorable performance as the ever changing Emcee, sinister one minute, charming the next. It was also *Liza Minelli's *big break, her role of Sally Bowles bringing to my mind images of the film actor Louise Brooks (who played Lulu) of the silent era.

The songs sungs by the Emcee and Sally Bowles are interspersed with the real life plot, and act as commentary on it. Rarely does a musical have all songs that are essential, not just filler, but Cabaret is one of the few that achieves that effect. The pivotal song, _*Tomorrow Belongs To Me*_, is the only one shot outside, in a beer garden. A young Hitler Youth boy sings a song that at first seems innocent, then turns ugly, with the people joining him to sing about a bright future under the coming political order. That twist from innocence to darkness is simply chilling.

There are many subtexts here, from sexuality to racism and otherness. Even the hit song *Cabaret *sung by Sally at the end speaks less to triumph over adversity, more of survival on a temporary basis. Until the next drink comes along, the next night at the cabaret, the next fling. Louis Armstrong did a version of this, but cut out the bits suggesting prostitution.

*William Bolcom* 
_Cabaret Songs_ (c.1980's)
_Surprise!
The Actor
Song of Black Max
Amor
Toothbrush Time
The Total Stranger in the Garden
George_
- Measha Brueggergosman, soprano.; BBC Symphony Orchestra under David Robertson (from "Surprise" album on Deutsche Grammophon)










*William Bolcom's* music merges the mundane with the surreal, making references to clichés of high and low art. Composed with his long time collaborator Arnold Weinstein, the *Cabaret Songs *give snippets of the America of today and yesterday, of reality and of fantasy, of outsiders and eccentrics. Bolcom studied under Darius Milhaud, who was a member of Les Six. The group had formed in the 1920's, during the heyday of cabaret and chanson in Paris, an early mentor of theirs being Erik Satie.

Again, not hard to name my favourites, but I love them all.

In *Song of Black Max* there are undertones of the soundtracks to mafia films like _The Godfather_. Here, Bolcom employs a band similar to Schoenberg, piccolo and snare drum being prominent. The figure of Black Max is similar to Mack the Knife - both come across as shady characters from the underworld.

*Amor* has some groovy Latin beats, underpinned by maracas and congas. The girl who causes a riot in town ends up going past a church singing gospel tunes, and that's in the music too.

*Toothbrush Time* has bleusy saxophone, piano, strings and horns writing that is in colour and rhythm reminiscent of Gershwin. It alludes to Gershwin's propensity for one-night stands, and includes an awkward telephone conversation between two people who slept together but obviously don't know each other from a bar of soap.

_*The Total Stranger in the Garden *_starts with a flowing intro similar to Smetana's _Moldau_, coming across as ironic given the context of a boxed in "garden in a garden apartment." The subject is a conversation turning from boring to bizarre, as a woman stares across the table to her faceless husband who is a total stranger to her after decades of marriage.

*George* is about a New York drag queen who sings Un bel di from Puccini's _La Boheme_, and is killed by a stranger who he invites to his apartment. The bit about his funeral has a neat quotation of the _Dies Irae_. This song, like all the others, was based on real stories known to Bolcom and Weinstein.


----------



## Sid James

This edition of my blog takes a look at some links between three string quintets from three different eras - Classical, early Romantic, and Modern.

*A String of Quintets - Music by Boccherini, Schubert and Sessions*

*Boccherini* _String Quintet in E Major, G.275_ (1771)
- Danubius String Quartet with György Éder, cello (Naxos)

*Schubert* _String Quintet in C Major, D.956_ (1828)
- Arthur Grumiaux & Arpád Gerecz, violins ; Max Lesueur, viola ; Paul Szabó & Philippe Mermoud, cellos (Decca Eloquence)

*Sessions* _String Quintet_ (1958)
- The Group for Contemporary Music - Benjamin Hudson and Carol Zeavin, violins; Lois Martin and Jenny Douglas, violas; Joshua Gordon, cello (Naxos)

*The connections*

The main connection between these works is in terms of influence.

*Luigi Boccherini* was the first composer to add the cello as the fifth instrument to the string quartet to make it into a quintet. Traditionally, another viola was added. It is likely that *Franz Schubert* knew Boccherini's music, and he also added a second cello in his quintet. *Roger Sessions* was an admirer of Schubert's quintet, as well as Mozart's ones, and these inspired him him to compose his own work in the genre (although he reverted back to the traditional quintet lineup, as used by Mozart, adding a viola). 

Other commonalities include these three composers tendency to let their melodies flow and meander with some deal of freedom, even though thematic unity is still present. They all rework sonata form to their own ends, and their grasp of the textures and colours of the string ensemble is of a very high level.

_Below: Boccherini, with cello in hand_.









*Boccherini* _String Quintet in E Major, Op. 13 #5 (G.275)_ (1771)

The Italian composer *Boccherini* spent most of his creative life in Spain, having moved there in his twenties following a successful visit to Paris. Boccherini was a cellist, and had initially studied the instrument with his father, a double bassist. Throughout his career, he wrote prolifically for the instrument, including over 100 string quintets as well as a series of concertos and sonatas.

Boccherini wrote his first set of quintets whilst he was court composer in Aranjuez to the brother of the king of Spain. The *String Quintet in E Major* (the fifth of the set) is best known for its minuet, but its warhorse status conceals a work of sophistication and indeed, innovation. Boccherini's use of the extra cello adds not only another 'voice' to the ensemble, but also imparts added richness and detail in terms of texture.

Another aspect of Boccherini's music is his creativity with form. For example, this piece opens with what in effect is a prelude, the usual sonata form movement comes after this introductory movement. Indeed, Boccherini's quintets vary in layout, they can be anything from two to six movements.

The famous minuet has some of the trademarks of Boccherini's music, such as repetition of small melodic 'cells' or motifs (perhaps prefiguring minimalism?), a sense of balance and symmetry, and ornamentation and trills. More obviously, its shows his ability to write a great tune! I remember it being used in a Twinings tea commercial, of all things.

In the finale, an elegant rondo, the main theme is embellished as it is passed between the instruments. A rhythmic flourish reminiscent of one found in the second movement returns briefly before the decisive conclusion.

_Below: Gustav Klimt's painting of Schubert_.









*Schubert* _String Quintet in C Major, D.956_ (1828)

*Schubert* wasn't much older than Boccherini was when he penned his own *String Quintet in C Major*. Schubert used the cello as his fifth instrument, and it is thought that he knew about and was influenced by Boccherini's quintets. Schubert also uses the two cellos in similar ways to Boccherini, for example how they announce the second theme of the first movement in a duet underpinned by the rest of the ensemble. There is also Schubert's use of pivots, extending Boccherini's formal balance, the second and third movements both have a middle sections that act as contrasting anchors or pivots.

There has been much written about this work. Schubert composed it during the final year of his life. Writers have written copiously about the reasons why he came to compose it, and have given many varying interpretations of its contents. Some hear premonitions of death, some talk of the sense of youthful daring and adventurousness of the piece, others about the connections of this music to contemporaries of Schubert, particularly Beethoven. A common opinion is that this encapsulates something which is sublime, and there is a general feeling that its his greatest (or among his greatest) works. The question that is on everyone's lips is that, since was able to achieve this at around thirty, what would he have done at forty or fifty if he hadn't died so young?

Having recently listened to Schubert's symphonies, I think that this work has some things in common with them, even the earliest ones. As in the symphonies, the listener is often jolted from an introduction to the first theme to the second theme with little or no transition in between, there is the same sense of song-like melody given purely instrumental expression, and there is the same calmness underneath which lurks this deeper aspect, speaking to human fragility and maybe even doubt.

Its almost useless to talk about this, like Beethoven's late quartets (which Schubert had heard), its simply music that has to be experienced. The two central movements with their pivots grab me the most. The slow movement having this almost orchestral texture with a stormy pivot, the scherzo which comes across as quite Viennese having one that is the opposite, the calm in the eye of the storm, so to speak. Then the finale, on the surface a jolly Hungarian flavoured romp, but in some ways its over the top and deliberately exaggerated. Fragmentary reminiscences of earlier themes come back, but the ending strikes me as quite ambiguous, and I like that!

_Below: Roger Sessions with some illustrious American colleagues - Douglas Moore and Sessions (both seated, left to right). Standing (also left to right) : Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, Wallingford Riegger, William Schuman and Walter Piston_.









*Sessions* _String Quintet_ (1958)

*Sessions' String Quintet *was amongst his first works using the serial technique. His aim was to make his own mark in the same genre which Mozart and Schubert had mastered in their own times. With this piece, Sessions combines old and new. Before coming to serialism, Sessions was well grounded in the old compositional techniques of sonata form and counterpoint, his teachers being Horatio Parker (who had also taught Charles Ives) and Ernest Bloch.

Sessions was well into his fifties when he took up serialism, and in a large part it was due to his friendship with Arnold Schoenberg, who had moved to the USA after the Nazis took power in Germany. As a result, Sessions' quintet displays the same sort of expressive and at times near Romantic aesthetic as Schoenberg's works. The texture here is quite lean and spare, but at the same time there is this richness of detail. The layering of sounds, the rhythmic contrasts and the journey of the main idea (announced at the start by the lead violinist) throughout the work gives the listener something to hang onto. Sessions said of this signpost system that "I recall an idea very plainly and specifically without repeating it literally."

The structure of Sessions' _String Quintet _is unusual, it having two slow movements leading to the fast and busy final movement. One thing that struck me upon my first listen to this piece where these flowing and unbroken legato lines, and this is a trademark of Sessions' music. In some respects, that same melodic and flowing quality is here, as in Boccherini and Schubert. Another parallel is with Sessions' contemporary Elliott Carter, also a master of chamber music, their music sharing this combination of individual expression with intellectual rigor.

In an interview done in 1965, Sessions said that a composer's command of technical skills - both traditional and cutting edge - could not be underestimated. He also said that he saw the serial technique as being most effective when applied flexibly to each composer's needs, and that he was not concerned about drawing boundaries between what was Romantic and what was Modern music. It goes to show why this piece had such immediate appeal to me, I like that mix of old and new, that cross-fertilization. I don't see a need to differentiate between various types of musics either, his philosophy fits well with my own.


----------



## mirepoix

This is all very interesting to me. It's informative and in some instances providing a foundation - and I look forward to pursuing it at my leisure.
And as an aside, that shot of Louis Armstrong is by Anton Bruehl and is one of only two photos I have framed and on the wall above my desk.


----------



## starry

Sid James said:


> I like that mix of old and new, that cross-fertilization.


Isn't all music to an extent a mix of old and new, whether a composer in a statement about a work wants to highlight that or not? Obviously the balance can vary but everything has to build on the past to an extent. More of modern music inevitably had to have been built on romanticism as that's what preceeded it.


----------



## Sid James

starry said:


> Isn't all music to an extent a mix of old and new, whether a composer in a statement about a work wants to highlight that or not? Obviously the balance can vary but everything has to build on the past to an extent.


I think this is true, and in effect its the reason why I set up this thread/blog. New music builds on old music, or at least older music, something that came before it. However there is always this tension between the old and the new. Once something that is initially innovative and radical becomes accepted and entrenched over time, inevitably it becomes questioned. Some composers react against it, others who are not so radical might heavily modify it, or graft things onto it to meet their own needs.



> ...More of modern music inevitably had to have been built on romanticism as that's what preceeded it.


That's pretty commonsense now, but back in the 1950's and '60's, it wasn't an opinion shared by all, particularly those who saw Romanticism as retrograde. In that interview, Sessions says he disagrees with the cult elevating Webern and correspondingly downgrading Schoenberg. Years before I read it, I thought the same, in particular how its illogical - Schoenberg taught Webern and bought about serialism, it wasn't the other way round. Yet the post-war avant-garde turned their backs on Schoenberg, and said he was too Romantic for his own good, he hung on to too many remnants of the past (one being sonata form, another being his avoidance of total serialisation, things of this sort).

But Sessions said that Schoenberg was the more important figure, and he called the Webern cult with its arguments about the inevitability of total serialism and so on to be a view of music history that was in serious error, that was in his opinion "pseudo history."

Regarding total serialisation, he said that it was of limited interest to him as a composer. He came to serialism late (so too did one other major post-war composer, Luigi Dallapicolla) and he already had his style in place. One anecdote Sessions relates in that interview is how he showed his first serial piece to a colleague, who said to him that he had lost nothing of his musical voice by using the method, it was still recognisable as by Sessions. In other words, Sessions thought things through, he wanted to use the method in his own unique way. That's what he's advocating, not just jumping on some bandwagon.

On that same Naxos disc as the _String Quintet_, there is also Sessions' _String Quartet #1_. Its from the 1930's, and its still tonal but in the interview Sessions said that he realised in hindsight that he was doing similar things in that to Berg. He was already moving into this kind of vague tonal direction, and employing things like polyrhythms (Stravinsky being another big influence early on). It took him time to study and absorb the music of the Second Viennese School. Initially he thought more of Stravinsky, but things changed.

I can hear similarities between the quartet and quintet, one is the slow-slow-fast movement structure, another is that tendency for flowing legato lines, ideas are allowed to meander and they're not too chopped up. When listening to that it doesn't matter if one is tonal the other serial, and this is what Sessions was getting at, the importance of the end product. That's why he values the craft of composing (he's also not a fan of talking about music ad nauseum - basically his philosophy is for composers to get their hands dirty and just do it!).

But in terms of my own listeneing, it doesn't matter what a composer says, I listen to their music and connect with it regardless. However I often have a two pronged approach to music. I like to read about what I am listening to, if I can get my hands on things like interviews or facts surrounding the composition, well all the better. It can be quite interesting and add to my appreciation of their music, as well as music history in general. So this is what I try to share on this thread, however its hard to summarise everything I read without losing some of the detail. Of course I also put my own slant on things, I give my own opinions. Its not just rehashing things I read!


----------



## starry

A composer's words about their music are probably more important in just how they want themselves to be seen or who they want to align with, rather than necessarily being really useful in listening to it.


----------



## millionrainbows

Schoenberg's 12-tone method grew out of the total chromaticism which preceded. In 'free atonality' or total chromaticism, all 12 notes are in circulation already, so all the 12-tone method does is put these in an order. Ordering insures that all 12 notes are used without repeating pitches (but they already were in free atonality). Vertical stacking freed-up the ordering, as the notes could be stacked in any order, which gave some semblance of harmonic identity, but tonality was already a losing proposition, ambiguous at best in total chromaticism. But this is a natural consequence of chromaticism; more notes in circulation tends to hinder a sense of tonality. Tonality is best established with fewer than 7 notes.

Still, the voice-leading and textures and phrasing of tonality are still present in Schoenberg and Sessions, so they are firmly tied to late tonal practices.

Webern, by fragmenting and using unusual phrasing (or no phrasing at all, just isolated note-events), was departing from this older tonal language.

So why this reticence on the part of Schoenberg and Sessions to not go forward with the consequences of serial methods? At heart, it turns out that they are both traditionalists, conservatives, and wish to be firmly associated with traditional craftsmanship: polyphonic writing, voice leading, textures of orchestration, idiomatic writing for instruments, speech-like phrases and melodies, and "thematic" writing and development of ideas, in short: all the traditional skills that musicians used in the past.

With Webern, and later Stockhausen and Boulez, we are entering new territory. The postwar serialists saw the need to depart from the past, and this is partly ideological; World War II had decimated Europe (read about Stockhausen's father and early childhood), and they wanted to separate themselves from the nationalistic and bombastic Western tradition which culminated in this destruction.

Not only that, but fascism and state-controlled scenarios, which were what started the war and also ended it (in a most inhuman way by the U.S.), were ideologically opposed to "modernism" and its offshoots, like serialism (Shostakovich's struggle with Stalin comes to mind). Why should they align themselves with nationalistic forces of culture, as exemplified by Germany and its long tradition, and while America was still building hydrogen bombs?

Meanwhile, back in post-war U.S.A., the "winners" were building a new America, and the nuclear age set in. Roger Sessions, with his "Father Knows Best" suit and horn-rimmed glasses, exemplifies the 1950s, male-dominated, post-war complacency of a victorious America, building shiny new automobiles and perfecting the hydrogen bomb.

That's my criticism with Sessions; he was isolated in ivory-tower academia, like an ostrich with his head in the ground. There is a smug detachment in his vision, which seems to make him a "loner" in the end analysis. 

Cage and Boulez corresponded, and interacted with others; by contrast, Sessions was content to sip his martini and remain alloof, isolated, secure in his traditional stance.

So what makes Sessions any better than Webern or serialists, by holding back? Certainly not the actual sound of his music, which is decidedly atonal. Free atonality/total chromaticism had already dispensed with tonality.

If there is an "ideology" at work here, it is certainly not an ideology of "atonality," because Sessions is just as atonal as Webern, so we can't blame serialism for being an "ideology" in that regard.

Sessions simply "dressed-up" his atonality in the respectable 1950s business suit of tradition and academic detachment. Perhaps this was perfectly in-step with the scientific/industrial aims of the hydrogen age. With Webern, Stockhausen, Boulez, and Babbitt (hats off to him, as he was in academia as well), we have a forward-looking vision which seeks to distance itself from any State ideology or post-war trend of complacency and conformity, and pursue its own artistic goals, which were a true departure from the Western outlook, towards a more Eastern, world-inclusive view.


----------



## Sid James

starry said:


> A composer's words about their music are probably more important in just how they want themselves to be seen or who they want to align with, rather than necessarily being really useful in listening to it.


Speaking for myself, what composers say about their music can and often does provide me with insights. However the music itself is like the primary source, anything else is a secondary source. I'm looking at this in terms of texts - its the same with anything, with a painting or a novel, the thing itself is the main reference point, but there is nothing stopping the person consuming these artforms from looking at sources other than the primary source, the artwork in question.

Of course, not everyone looks at things like I do, however part of the reason why we are on this very forum is to discuss music. So the music is the reference point, what we are discussing is another thing, yet many people find such discussions useful.

In my response to you earlier, I could have stopped at my first paragraph, and avoided letting the serial genie out of its bottle. Mea culpa! I don't want this thread to degenerate into yet another debate about Modern music, etc.

Thanks millionrainbows for your response. I can see your reasoning, however I don't share the conclusions you make. But that's history, like music it can be interpreted in different ways, equally valid to some degree.

I was reading about John Corigliano, in the notes accompanying his _String Quartet _on Naxos label. In that, a quote by him struck me as being similar to the reasons why I set up this thread. Again its that mix of old and new in music that's he's talking about, its to simultaneously look back and forward, but most importantly engage with the present, our own time, and for a composer, his own visions:

"You must understand the importance of the past, but if you don't realize the importance of the present and the future, you don't nourish that - and our art form does not - then it's like a tree that grows no new shoots. Without new shoots, the tree dies."

That same tension between old and new, conservative and radical, underlines Morton Feldman's often quoted saying:

"The people who you think are radicals might really be conservatives. The people who you think are conservative might really be radical."

He was talking about Sibelius there, but he could well have been talking about Boccherini. Maybe Schubert would have used an extra cello in his quintet anyway, but Boccherini got there first! So this is what I am doing with this thread, uncovering things like that which rarely get talked about on this forum. Yet its there, just like serialism later, its part of the historical record. Many composers innovated in these not so apparent ways. I want to look at that as well as other connections between different sorts of musics on this thread.


----------



## starry

Sid James said:


> Speaking for myself, what composers say about their music can and often does provide me with insights. However the music itself is like the primary source, anything else is a secondary source. I'm looking at this in terms of texts - its the same with anything, with a painting or a novel, the thing itself is the main reference point, but there is nothing stopping the person consuming these artforms from looking at sources other than the primary source, the artwork in question.


Obviously I was making a generalisation like we often do on a forum, there are always some exceptions somewhere. In general though I think it helps if a piece can stand on it's own two feet rather than needing propping up.

People look on classical music generally as being conservative, it's not just the long tradition behind it but also that it is more state funded and it's often linked to academia as well. And yet within classical music you will have people who look on themselves as less conservative than others and they will want to voice that. Not of course that conservatism in art should be confused with lack of invention and imagination. Or that music that is less formal or regulated or with a shorter tradition should be seen as less important or more frivolous. There's just a whole load of assumptions that can crop up on this kind of subject and maybe that's why people involved with music feel they have to address it when they speak. Ultimately of course all that matters is whether the music is imaginative and creative on its own terms.

There could be a tendency for composers to want to play down their influences as well in some cases, particularly those who want to see themselves as more modern and forward looking. Or separate themselves from some of their contemporaries to mark out their own territory.


----------



## millionrainbows

Sid James said:


> Thanks millionrainbows for your response. I can see your reasoning, however I don't share the conclusions you make. But that's history, like music it can be interpreted in different ways, equally valid to some degree.


I must admit that I am using this thread as a platform to dispel the common view that "atonality" or serialism is an "ideology" because it is "atonal" or by the way it sounds non-tonal. If it _*is *_an ideology, it is because it exemplifies a new paradigm; one which is non-linear and non-Western, and more Eastern in its outlook, and not because it is "non-tonal" or atonal.

I see this as an aesthetic shift, not a matter of musical materials, which change would have happened anyway.


----------



## Sid James

With this epic post I am looking at India, a source of inspiration for many composers as they sought to look beyond the confines of Western classical tradition. This will be a series, others I plan are the influences of Japanese music and also of the gamelan percussion orchestras of Bali and Java. Stay tuned for those in future!

*India's inspirations - Music by Holst, Delage, Glanville-Hicks, Shankar and Glass*

*The connection*

As you can guess from the title of this week's installment, all things Indian are the focus here. A broader focus is music inspired by other cultures, and the fusion of 'world music' with Western classical music. Throughout the 20th century, many composers looked to cultures outside of the confines of Europe for inspiration.
*
Gustav Holst* was so fascinated by Indian culture that he learnt Sanskrit, as well as studying their literature and philosophy. His chamber opera _Savitri_ is one of the works, which resulted from his inquiries into a country that was in the early 20th century, still a colony of the UK. (Below: A traditional illustration of the Savitri story)








Orientalism, an interest in non-Western cultures, had swept the continent in the 19th century. Frenchman *Maurice Delage*, a student of Ravel who also produced works taking on this trend, traveled to India and composed his song-cycle_ Four Hindu Poems _there.

Australian composer *Peggy Glanville-Hicks* is connected to both of the above composers in some way. She studied under Ralph Vaughan Williams, who was a colleague and lifelong friend of Holst. She also studied in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, which is the same locale and milieu the likes of Delage and Ravel worked in. Her opera_ The Transposed Heads_ has a plot drawn from an Indian legend, and the music in it is strongly influenced by and reminiscent of Indian music. (Below: a photograph of the composer).








The vioilinist *Yehudi Menuhin *had an abiding interest in the music of other cultures and genres. He played duos with jazz violinist Stephane Grapelli, and also did a series of award winning albums with *Ravi Shankar*. The Indian sitar player was at the forefront of this type of fusion in the 1950's, and none other than Glanville-Hicks acted as co-presenter with Menuhin at Shankar's performances in New York. (Below: Menuhin with Shankar).









The American minimalist composer *Philip Glass* also has a connection with Shankar, which started in Paris. Glass was hired to transcribe Shankar's music to be played by Western classical orchestra in a film produced there. As a result, Glass developed an interest in Indian music and incorporated it into his own music. This would result in scores such as the opera _Satyagraha_, which centers on the life of Mohandas Gandhi, a pivotal figure in India's independence struggle. Glass had also studied with Boulanger in Paris and later did an album with Shankar.

A key aspect of influence here is Erik Satie, he influenced Delage (through Ravel), Glanville-Hicks (she did a set of three _Gymnopedies,_ in homage to him) and Glass. The eccentric Frenchman casts his shadow over much music of the 20th century.


----------



## Sid James

Now a look at the music in focus:









*
Holst *
_Savitri, Op. 25 (H96) - Chamber opera in one act, libretto by the composer taken from the Mahabarata_ (1907-08)
- Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano (Savitri), Robert Tear, tenor (Satyavan), Thomas Hemsley, bass (Death), The Purcell Singers, English Chamber Orch. under Imogen Holst (Decca Eloquence)

*Holst's Savitri *is an extraordinary work for its time, chiefly for its economy and pared down aspects that really do look forward to minimalism. It was the first chamber opera to come out of England after over 200 years. There is undoubtedly influence here from Holst's study of English folk songs, however the way in which the piece lacks physical action but simultaneously conveys the psychological states of the characters is nothing short of revolutionary for the period.

From the very beginning when we hear the character of Death calling out to Savitri, coming to claim the life of her husband Satyavan, it is apparent that this will be a somber and dark journey. The opera conveys the idea that death can be both a taker away of life but also a giver of it, thus engaging with concepts like reincarnation. Savitri initially thinks that Death is some sort of god, singing a song praising him. When she realizes who he is, there is little difference, she manages to convince Death that life without her husband is inconceivable. So he gives her husband's life back, as separately they couldn't exist. Its as if the equilibrium between life and death in this world has been restored.









*
Delage *
_Quartre Poemes hindous (Four Hindu Poems) (1912)
1. Madras (Stanza by Bhartrihari)
2. Lahore (Heinrich Heine)
3. Benares (The Birth of Buddha)
4. Jeypur (Stanza by Bharrihari)_
- Janet Baker, mezzo-soprano, Melos Ensemble under Bernard Keeffe (Decca Eloquence)

The précis of *Delage's *finely grained and delicate song cycle is much the same as Holst's opera. Here are four poems, in turn dealing with earthly love, nature, spirituality and closing with earthly love again.

Delage's exposure to Indian music in situ is apparent here, from employing the harp in a way that sounds somewhat similar to the sitar, to accompaniment by the strings in particular that gives the static feel of ragas and the voice of the singer, singing these long unbroken lines that show little or no concern for traditional Western melody. Its simply delicious, and I can imagine *Lahore* being the soundtrack to being in heaven or more appropriately perhaps, experiencing a sort of Nirvana!


----------



## Sid James

*Glanville-Hicks*
_The Transposed Heads - Opera in One Act, text by the composer after the novella by Thomas Mann_ (1954)
- Gerald English, tenor (Shridaman), Michael Leighton Jones, baritone (Nanda), Genty Stevens, soprano (Sita), Maggie King, speaking part (The Goddess Kali), Raymond Long, speaker (Kamadamana, the guru), Festival Chorus (villagers), West Australian Symphony Orch. under David Measham (ABC Classics "Discovery" label)

The first song by Delage paints an image similar to the opening scene of _*The Transposed Heads*_, with a naked woman bathing being admired by the narrator.

The story is the classic lover's triangle with a twist. Both Shridaman and Nanda love Sita, the former sees her as a distant goddess, the latter more as just the girl of his dreams. Sita marries Shridaman but in the pivotal fourth scene they enter the cave of Kali, the goddess of death, and both men behead themselves in what is in effect a double suicide. As in the Holst opera, Kali here gives back the lives of the two guys.

But in what the composer called a Freudian slip, she fails to match the right head with the right body for both guys! Seeing a guru to solve their predicament doesn't help, so the opera ends with all three perishing in flames. Gotterdammerung Indian style, perhaps?

The music itself reflects the eclectic tendencies of Glanville-Hicks, who not only drew from her studies with Vaughan Williams and Boulanger but also serialist Egon Wellesz. Another major influence was Satie, and she also worked with Virgil Thomson while she lived in the USA. She also spent a considerable amount of time in Greece, studying the music and culture there.

First and foremost, Glanville-Hicks was a pioneer in the fusion of Western classical music with concepts and sounds coming from India, Asia and other non-Western regions. Along with the American Alan Hovhaness, she was one of the few composers interested in these to any depth in the mid 20th century. She was to be of particular influence on and act as an inspiring and guiding figure for younger Australian composers such as Peter Sculthorpe.

In an interview in the 1970's Glanville-Hicks talked about her approach to composition, in how she came to treat the Western orchestra as having "three choirs - strings, winds and percussion," all contributing as equals rather than the strings dominating as in traditional practice, with the other two sections serving merely as "decorative garnish." The strings sound much like an orchestra of sitars, and the percussion definitely has East Asian colouristic touches (like gongs) but the rhythms are more Indian.
_
The Transposed Heads_, can also be said to have aspects of minimalism, in its static moments it is a music that isn't as goal oriented as Western classical tends to be. I think that combining non-linear concepts with opera is difficult though, especially over a stretch of over 70 minutes. The singing is not very melodic to my ears, apart from the soprano part it is less operatic in quality and more spoken.

However even after a couple of listens its not hard to discern the themes which course through the work, holding it together. Indeed, Glanville-Hicks said she aimed to present "a musical organism very similar to those of antiquity, a melody-rhythm structure, a variable modal "row" and a multicoloured rhythm element of greatly enhanced subtlety…to use themes and ideas of a beautiful subtle type from Asia without doing any violence to their unique character, and without amendment of my own writing method."









*
Ravi Shankar*
_Raga Piloo
Prabhati (based on Raga Gunkali)
Swara-Kakali_
- Shankar on sitar, Yehudi Menuhin - violin, Alla Rakha - tabla, Kamala Chakravarti - tanpura (EMI)

These famous recordings, done in London during the 1960's, bring together two ambassadors for music as a whole in the 20th century. Master of the sitar, *Ravi Shankar* was not only synonymous with his native India but also an innovator in crossover between 'world' and Western classical musics. *Yehudi Menuhin *had a similar position in the Western sphere as one of the top violinists of his time, but he was never afraid to explore other areas, namely jazz, Indian music and even pairing up with Glenn Gould to play Schoenberg - a 'crossover' of another kind, perhaps?

In his autobiography Menuhin talked of his time with Shankar as being very challenging but also stimulating because it stretched his boundaries so much. He wanted to get into Indian music, he admired the flexibility of its performers, and that combination of discipline, tradition and improvisation. In their first concert together in London, they played a mixed program, combining East with West. First, Menuhin played some of Bach's music for solo violin, then Shankar would come and play his music with his group, and at the end they would all combine for one big live jam session.

These studio recordings caputure some of that electricity and spontaneity. There is real interchange here, evolving dialogues and variations between these master musicians. If I could be a fly on the wall at one particular recording session, it would probably be this!










*Glass*
_Satyagraha__ - selections: The Kuru Field of Justice, Protest, Evening Song_ (1980)
- Douglas Perry, tenor with New York City Opera Orch.& Chorus (Sony)

Ravi Shankar produced a number of film scores, particularly in France where Glass first encountered his music, but also elsewhere. Shankar composed the score to David Attenborough's epic biopic about the life of Mohandas Gandhi, and *Glass' opera Satyagraha* draws from the mahatma's early life as an attorney in South Africa.

I haven't heard the whole opera, but even from these selections I can hear aspects that act to synthesise this topic neatly. There are the same pared down aspects here as in the vocal pieces discussed above, as well as the lack of a goal or endpoint, as in Shankar's ragas. As in Indian music, there is little or no attempt to merge the sounds of the high tenor with the low strings, they are in a way polar opposites, yet work so well as a cohesive whole. They are rather contradictorily in opposition to one another, yet at the same time act in complete harmony. This links to the dualism of Indian philosophy as discussed, the light and dark being part of one indivisible whole.

Indeed, Gandhi had a similar view of the universe and man's place in it, I would like to think he would appreciate Glass' opera for at least that reason. Gandhi's vision of the world hinged on acceptance of this duality between good and evil, between despair and hope, between darkness and light. In political terms, the road to Indian independence had wider implications for other post-colonial countries as well as the West. Leaders as diverse as Nelson Mandela, Aung Saan Suu Kyu, Vaclav Havel and Martin Luther King where strongly influenced by his idea of Satyagraha ('truth force') as a mode of political action. Indeed, Dr. Luther King is a character in Glass' opera.

With that, I've come full circle, and I hope that this post has been an enjoyable and stimulating read for you. Thanks for reading and your comments are welcome!


----------



## samurai

Hi, Sid. Great job in researching and distilling a lot of disparate ideas and themes and then shaping them into well-written, concise and quite interesting vignettes which--even I, a musical ignoramus--is readily able to read and understand.
Well done indeed! :tiphat:


----------



## Sid James

samurai said:


> Hi, Sid. Great job in researching and distilling a lot of disparate ideas and themes and then shaping them into well-written, concise and quite interesting vignettes which--even I, a musical ignoramus--is readily able to read and understand.
> Well done indeed! :tiphat:


Thanks very much samurai, I am glad you enjoyed my post! Thanks for reading. That itself for me is a reward. To tell you the truth, I inevitably discover more connections than I thought when I proceed with my research for these posts. In this case, I also included music new to me, I just recently got the Glanville-Hicks and Glass discs and gave them a first listen this week. So I am teaching myself as well as conveying my thoughts to you and whoever else reads this. Its a kind of balancing act and I try to simultaneously give the history of the music, talk to its musical content and my offer my opinions and any significant insights I can offer from the research.

BTW I don't think you're a musical ignoramus - you can tell me a thing or two (and then some) about the many symphonies you listen to and regularly post on current listening. Indeed, you've got a lot more experience under your belt in terms of listening to whole cycles, that takes a kind of persistence and consistency I don't always have. But we bring what talents we have to the forum, I really believe that. All are different, but like these musical connections, some things inevitably come together.


----------



## ArtMusic

This is a lovely thread, Sid if I may say so.


----------



## Sid James

ArtMusic said:


> This is a lovely thread, Sid if I may say so.


Thank you for your compliment ArtMusic. Yes, you may say so! :lol: Glad you like it.

A minor correction here though, of course I meant to write Richard (not David) Attenborough as the director of _Gandhi. _

Also taking the opportunity to add this article from 2013 about an Indian born soprano called Patricia Rozario who performed some of the music of Peggy Glanville-Hicks. As I stated in my post, Glanville-Hicks was not only a conduit introducing Ravi Shankar to audiences in the West but also had a deep interest in non-Western musics before it was really fashionable to do so. Her music engages with not only Indian but also music of East Asia, the Pacific islands, and of antiquity principally Greece.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/art...rhythms-of-india/story-fn9d2mxu-1226641553264

In future blogs I hope to highlight how Australian composers have been at the forefront of change in the 20th century, one is Percy Grainger who I see as a significant innovator in his time, predating things the likes of John Cage would do much later. I have already covered one work by Peter Sculthorpe in an earlier blog here and I hope to do more. Similarly to Glanville-Hicks, he was interested in things before they became trendy, when he went to Yale around 1960 he asked to see the scores of Charles Ives, but they where literally gathering dust in a storage area under a stairwell. Today it is a different story, Ives' old alma mater would no doubt be proud of him, and his scores would be at the centre of the music library there.

In terms of things like this I want to relate this kind of history here, the untold and in some ways supressed histories of classical music. It is not about raising Messiahs - or alternative Messiahs - to the ones that are always touted as the "innovators" and "liberators" of music. It is more to draw parallels between seemingly different musics, to see not only differences but also commonalities, and basically to celebrate and put into the spotlight the rich history of music. All from my own viewpoint, based on my experiences of listening and researching. It is an alternative to the methods of forcing music into boxes and categories which is easy to do, but ultimately a trap. Its about being as inclusive, bringing things together and creative as possible.

Thanks for the responses and support and although I have less time available to me to spend on the forum, I do hope to utilise it the best way I can, which is this.

Do stay tuned and visit this spot!


----------



## millionrainbows

Glass was influenced by Indian music in the way it handles rhythm in "modular" units. A certain raga may have 17 beats, divided 4-4-4-5. Also, ragas are governed by certain rules which allow for certain notes to be played in ascent, and differently on descent. Also, it's worth noting that Indian music does not modulate, nor does it have harmony or harmonic function as we think of it, All notes of the raga are related to the underlying drone, played on the fretless tamboura, which has the fundamental and its fifth. The fifth in Indian music is perfect, i.e. a 3:2 'just' fifth, and this is why the frets on a sitar are moveable, to accommodate different fundamentals.


----------



## Sid James

Turning away for now from Indian and world musics - and thanks for your insights, millionrainbows - and focusing on connections between classical and jazz in the early to mid 20th century.


*Parisian denizens of Le Boeuf sur le Toit - Music by Wiener, Stravinsky, Milhaud, Ravel and Renaud*

After both world wars, Paris was inundated with jazz, coming from the American soldiers and the musicians who entertained them. At the center of all this was a venue called _Le Boeuf sur le Toit _(_The Ox on the Roof_) which initially started as a cabaret and then became a jazz club. It was a venue where musicians of many kinds hung out and played together. 








Pianist* Jean Wiener *played at the club, and also organized concerts combining classical and jazz on the same program. Eclectic is the word for Wiener's concerts. One that took place in 1921 (at the Salle de Agriculteurs hall on the Rue d'Athenes), had the program made up of Billy Arnold's jazz orchestra,* Igor Stravinsky *performing an extract from his _Rite of Spring; _and *Darius Milhaud*, presenting his sonata for piano and wind instruments. The composer* Maurice Ravel *was present in the audience, and congratulated Billy Arnold's group.

This post brings together works of all four composers - Wiener, Stravinsky, Milhaud and Ravel - as well as one from the next generation who performed at _Le Boeuf sur le toit_, pianist *Henri Renaud.* He was one of the luminaries of the Parisian jazz world in the post World War II era, and here we have a set featuring his "New Sound" big band playing jazz standards in modern arrangements by Fancy Boland.








An overall connection here is the move, which was already occurring in the early 20th century, to bring together different types of music. One reason was the feeling that late Romanticism was overblown and in some ways stretched to the limit. Composers where looking at music without the strictures of the more subjective aesthetic which dominated the 19th century, and at the same time embracing aspects that had emphasis on tight ensemble work on a small scale, aimed just to entertain and a big focus on the craft of music itself. These provide the underlying reasons why Jazz was a pertinent influence between the two world wars, so too music of the Baroque and Classical eras.








Another overarching influence here is again Erik Satie. He was not only a major influence on Wiener's pared down piano style, but also on the _Les Six _group which included Milhaud. We can hear his sense of playfulness and fun in all of these pieces to some extent. Wiener's music also made impacts, big and small, on Milhaud, Poulenc and Stravinsky.

_Images top to bottom: 1. Poster for the film Touchez pas au grisbi (1954), the score composed by Jean Wiener ; 2. A photograph of the "Boeuf sur le toit" club during the 1920's ; 3. Ravel sitting at the piano, when visiting in New York, George Gershwin is on the far right._


----------



## Sid James

Okay, now looking at the music in depth:










*Wiener *_Touchez pas au grisbi - Original soundtrack of Jacques Becker's film _(1954)
- Jean Wetzel, harmonica; Jean Wiener, piano; Henri Crolla, guitar; with an unknown rhythm section (from album "Jazz et cinema 4" on Gitanes/Universal)

During the 1950's and '60's a trend developed in French cinema to feature jazz scores. *Jean Wiener's *score for a film about some small time crooks, _*Touchez pas au grisbi*_, is a good example of this trend. Wiener's score presents a distinctively European type of jazz, it is quite atmospheric and understated, but deeply emotional at the same time. His minimalist piano playing is underpinned by delicate guitar accompaniment, and the main melody is played on a bluesy harmonica.

In this recording, he bought together Jean Wetzel, a virtuoso harmonica player who was a pop musician, and Henri Crolla, one of the finest jazz guitarists in Europe (seen by some to be the successor to Django Reinhardt). It shows Wiener's view of different types of music being able to blend in a way that is effective and unique. Wiener reminisced about his score: "It was a great success, the only one that spoke the truth." 










*Stravinsky* _Ragtime for 11 instruments _(1918)
- Boston Symphony Chamber Players: Joseph Silverstein & Max Hobart, violins; Burton Fine, viola; Henry Portnoi, double-bass; Doriot Anthony Dwyer, flute; Harold Wright, clarinet; Charles Kavaloski, horn; Armando Ghitalla, trumpet; William Gibson, trombone; Everett Firth, percussion; Myron Romanul, cimbalom (Decca Eloquence)

*Stravinsky's Ragtime* takes on the dance and transforms it into something different, similar to what the Modern Viennese School where doing with Strauss' waltzes in their music. Stravinsky contrasts a kind of ebb and flow, reminiscent of ragtime, with a regular 4/4 beat here. There is also the twang of the cimbalom underpinning the whole thing, kind of weird in this context. I guess he avoided using piano here to get away from just rehashing jazz in a clichéd manner?

This is essentially an extension of the ragtime found in _The Soldier's Tale_, and looks forward to his continued engagement with jazz in such works as _Dumbarton Oaks_ and the _Ebony Concerto_.

I find _Ragtime _to be a delightfully quirky piece. I can imagine it being used as a soundtrack to some silent movie by Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. Stravinsky didn't produce much chamber music but I am always thankful for what little of it exists, because like this piece it tends to be very interesting.










*Milhaud *_Le Boeuf sur le toit _(1919)
- Orchestre National de France conducted by Leonard Bernstein (EMI)

*Milhaud's Le Boeuf sur le toit*, like the bar is Paris, has a name that comes from a Brazilian popular song, _O boi no telhado_ (_The Ox on the Roof_). Initially, material from this score was conceived as an accompaniment to a Charlie Chaplin film, but eventually Milhaud decided it deserved more extensive treatment. The piece was later appropriated by Jean Cocteau in a choreographed pantomime called _The Nothing-Doing Bar_, but Milhaud was most satisfied with it as a purely concert hall item. He said that his aim was "to create a merry divertissement in memory of the Brazilian rhythms that had so captured my imagination."

In terms of technique, _Le Boeuf sur le toit_ is essentially a rondo that takes the Brazilian tune on a journey through all 12 keys of the scale. The composer's trademark polytonality ensures that there is variation throughout. The piece is a riot of colour and contrasting textures, it is extremely varied in terms of mood, having shades of everything from sambas, tangos and the Portuguese fado, to popular chansons of Paris (maybe even the ghost of Offenbach's burlesques?), to atmospheric night music, to brassy jazzy parts, and then some.


----------



## Sid James

*Ravel* _Piano Concerto in G_ (composed 1929-1931, premiered 1932)
- Mee Chou Lee, piano with Ljubljana Radio SO conducted by Anton Nanut (ZYX Classic, coupled with Dvorak's _Piano Concerto_ - Can't find image, but this painting by Monet of Argenteuil is on the cover, so enjoy!)

"It is my opinion that the music of a concerto can be happy and brilliant and that it is not necessary to strive for depth or dramatic effects" said *Ravel* of his _*Piano Concerto in G*_. He also described the work as a "concerto in the strict sense, written in the spirit of Mozart and Saint-Saens."

In a sense, Ravel was flying in the face of the Romantic definition of the piano concerto. His influences here are definitely the likes of Mozart, Saint-Saens and Mendelssohn. Jazz also plays a role as an influence here, especially in the jaunty rhythms, the use of brass and woodwinds, and the vigorous and quite muscular piano part in the outer movements.

The ghost of Satie's meandering _Gymnopedies_ seems to haunt the middle movement, which is amongst Ravel's most beautiful creations. There is the feel of the blues here, a nostalgic quality, as well as a sense of ornamentation and filigree that you get in Mozart and Haydn.

There are a number of devices unifying the piece, principally the vigorous rhythms in the outer movements, the lyrical second theme of the first movement being mirrored in the middle movement, even a kind of arch formed in the overall structure of the work by the first sound coming from the whip and the last from the bass drum.

Despite Ravel's quite humble intentions just to entertain, he created what truly is a masterpiece! Henri Prunieres put it quite well when he wrote that Ravel gives a sense of the spirit of jazz in this work, "but with great discretion." Like the best music of this type, Ravel isn't just rehashing jazz, he is integrating it in a wholly unique way into his own style.










*Renaud* _New Sound at "the Boeuf sur le toit" _(Live recording at the club, February 15, 1952)
Tracks played: 
_Venez donc chez moi_ (Feline/Misraki); 
_Stompin' at the Savoy_ (Razaf/Goodman/Sampson); 
_Pinch Bottle_ (Haig); 
_Pot luck_ (Kelly); 
_Out of nowhere_ (Heyman/Green); 
_I'll take romance_ (Hammerstein II/Oakland)
- Henri Renaud, piano/leader with big band comprising: Jean Liesse, trumpet; Nat Peck, trombone; Philippe Benson, alto saxophone; Sandy Mosse & André Ross, tenor saxophones; Jean-Louis Chautemps, baritone saxophone; Fats Sadi, vibraphone; Jimmy Gourley, guitar; Benoit Quersin, double-bass; Pierre Lemarchand & Jean-Louis Viale, drums; Fancy Boland, arrangements; Bernard Peiffer, guest pianist (Gitanes/Universal)

Coming full circle and returning to the 1950's, and the Boeuf sur le toit as it had by then become, a jazz club.

This live recording of *Henri Renaud's* big band playing a gig at the club is charged with atmosphere, from the applause and "bravos" of the audience, to a snatch of conversation captured here and there by the microphones during the quieter solos, to the tapping of cutlery against plates as a further sign of appreciation by the crowd.

Fancy Boland's arrangements still come across as fresh today, nothing dated about them. The set is a mix of songs, a focal point being the duet between guest pianist Bernard Peiffer and drummer Jean-Louis Viale. Their 'dialogue' in *Stompin' at the Savoy *is a joy to hear, improvisation combined with swing and more than a hint of bebop.

Guitarist Jimmy Gourley and vibes player Fats Sadi also stand out for me as well, their metallic sounds blending with the saxes. Renaud reflected that "the group's sound was new for the time, it was due to the tenor-guitar alloy, since Ross loved Lester [Young], and Gourley was very close to Jimmy Rainey…I'd asked Fancy Boland to write arrangements for four pieces."

I see this type of jazz as chamber music, with added qualities. In jazz, there is a sense of freedom and risk taking that - in the hands of highly disciplined musicians such as these - can really pay off. I am glad this was recorded, not only for enjoyment but also for history. As the notes say "There's no doubt about it: February 15, 1952 at Number 34, Rue de la Colisée, was a thrill a minute."

Thanks for reading, and I do hope you enjoyed this and got something out of it.

In future entries I aim to expand aspects of things touched on here. One is more coverage of Stravinsky's chamber music, including _The Soldier's Tale _and_ Dumbarton Oaks_. Another is a look at Milhaud's students, who where numerous in the classical world and beyond (William Bolcom, Burt Bacharach, Dave Brubeck, Steve Reich to name a handful). My aim is not only to look at connections between pieces within a post, but also have themes running through the whole series.


----------



## science

Sid James said:


> *Milhaud *_Le Boeuf sur le toit _(1919)
> - Orchestre National de France conducted by Leonard Bernstein (EMI)
> 
> *Milhaud's Le Boeuf sur le toit*, like the bar is Paris, has a name that comes from a Brazilian popular song, _O boi no telhado_ (_The Ox on the Roof_). Initially, material from this score was conceived as an accompaniment to a Charlie Chaplin film, but eventually Milhaud decided it deserved more extensive treatment. The piece was later appropriated by Jean Cocteau in a choreographed pantomime called _The Nothing-Doing Bar_, but Milhaud was most satisfied with it as a purely concert hall item. He said that his aim was "to create a merry divertissement in memory of the Brazilian rhythms that had so captured my imagination."
> 
> In terms of technique, _Le Boeuf sur le toit_ is essentially a rondo that takes the Brazilian tune on a journey through all 12 keys of the scale. The composer's trademark polytonality ensures that there is variation throughout. The piece is a riot of colour and contrasting textures, it is extremely varied in terms of mood, having shades of everything from sambas, tangos and the Portuguese fado, to popular chansons of Paris (maybe even the ghost of Offenbach's burlesques?), to atmospheric night music, to brassy jazzy parts, and then some.




I love that work and that recording. Thank you for all this research!


----------



## Sid James

science said:


> I love that work and that recording. Thank you for all this research!


Thanks and I'm glad you enjoyed it. I also have great affection for that disc. It actually took me a while to warm to _Le Boeuf sur le toit _perhaps because it is so unconventional, a rondo in itself rather than as what we're used to, as a final movement of a concerto, sonata or symphony. However the work opened itself up to me over time and I love that sense of freedom Milhaud imparts to this traditional structure, it has this sense of fun to it but also a sense of adventurousness and thinking outside the box. So many things in it, yet still working as a unified whole.

Incidentally, I read up a bit more on Bernard Peiffer, the pianist featured on the Henri Renaud recording, and learnt that he was classically trained. Won first prize at the Paris Conservatoire. However he was influenced by Fats Waller to go into jazz, and ended up working with the illustrious names who passed through Paris such as Rex Stewart, Don Byas and resident Belgian Django Reinhardt. In fact, I got one of his recordings where he plays a version of _Touchez pas au grisbi_!

I forgot that, as well as how the Zoot Sims set on the Renaud disc has the latter as pianist. I just listened to it. Its a jam session that happened to be taped, it was released on LP at the time but they didn't do it for that purpose. A great version of _I found a new baby _is there, and Renaud as ever quite French, very understated and elegant. For those interested, two of the items from that session are on youtube (_Charlie Was In Rouen _&_ Charlie Went To Cherbourg_).

I will be back next time, most likely to look at Beethoven's _String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132_ and its impacts through the 19th and 20th centuries until now.


----------



## GioCar

Sid James said:


> .......
> I will be back next time, most likely to look at Beethoven's _String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132_ and its impacts through the 19th and 20th centuries until now.


Very promising... can't wait for it!

Thank you Sid for this amazing thread!:clap:


----------



## Sid James

This entry is another one that covers five key works, all relating in some way to one of Beethoven's late quartets.

*A song in the middle of my string quartet: Heiliger Dankgesang and its impacts until today - Music by Beethoven, Bruckner, Bartók, Sessions and Corigliano*

*Ludwig van Beethoven's* _String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132_ has as its centerpiece a pivotal movement titled _Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit, in der lydischen Tonart_ (_Song of Thanksgiving, in the Lydian mode, offered to the Divinity by a convalescing invalid_). The slow movement shows the human side of a composer often more noted for the forceful and overtly powerful aspects of his music. The piece was completed after Beethoven's recovery from a month-long illness that had interrupted its composition.

Beethoven's work, said by some to be the finest string quartet ever penned, had impacts on future generations on composers but it is also firmly grounded in tradition. In terms of the harmonies of that slow movement, scholars have noted a similarity to choral music of the Italian Renaissance, in particular Palestrina. The structure of the work goes back to the Baroque suite and also has precursors in the music of Mozart and Haydn, particularly their divertimentos.








In the late 19th century, composers such as César Franck and *Anton Bruckner* began to take note of the deeper implications of Beethoven's music. Bruckner studied the late quartets of Beethoven when composing his _String Quintet in F. _The influence is there, most notably on how the work hinges on a same sort of pivotal movement reminiscent of Palestrina's music. Bruckner's work, like Beethoven's, is a symphony for string quartet.








By the early 20th century, the 'back to Bach' movement had truly gotten underway, and one of its notable figures was the Hungarian *Béla Bartók*. Knowledge of Baroque contrapuntal techniques informed his music, as well as of the studies he made of the folk musics of South-Eastern Europe with his colleague Zoltán Kodály. The _String Quartet #4_ by Bartok exhibits the same structure as Beethoven's - five movements centred on a slow song-like movement - and imparts even more of a palindrome structure to it (the two outer movements mirroring eachother and centering on the middle song movement, ABCBA).

The _String Quartet #1_ by *Roger Sessions* has a direct link to Beethoven's Op. 132. Sessions said that he was influenced by the Beethoven quartet, and this is quite discernible, especially in terms of structure and also the expansion of these cellular themes.








Another American, *John Corigliano* directly borrows the palindrome structure of Bartok's _String Quartet #4, _using it as a vessel for his own innovations within this medium. The lineage back to Beethoven's Op. 132 is quite obvious, a further link being their orchestral qualities and pushing the string quartets to its very limits. Corigliano did an arrangement for string orchestra of his _String Quartet_, perhaps somewhat like similar arrangements have been made of Beethoven's late quartets?

_United by song - pictures top to bottom:
1. Palestrina, Italian Renaissance composer of choral music, a common link between Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 132 and Bruckner's String Quintet.
2. Bartok (left) recording the singing of Hungarian villagers with the use of an Edison phonograph, early 20th century.
3. Fez in Morocco, the place where the morning call to prayer inspired the night music movement of Corigliano's String Quartet._


----------



## Sid James

*Beethoven* _String Quartet in A minor, Op. 132_ (1825)
- Kodály Quartet: Attila Falvay & Tamás Szabo, violins; Gábor Fias, viola; György Éder, cello (Naxos)

*Beethoven's String Quartet in A Minor, Op. 132* presents many slices of life so to speak, from its hazy opening suggesting the formation of the universe - or just of an idea? - to contrasts between the rustic and the refined, the mundane and the sublime, the symphonic and the operatic.

At the heart of that seemingly hazy and vague opening of this piece are four notes that form the basis of a kind of theme that goes through the cycle of late quartets (notably the Opp. 130, 131, 132 and 133). Beethoven's string quartet goes outside the confines of one work to embrace other things beyond it. Indeed, if any cycle of quartets can rightly be called a cycle, it is this one.

Much has been written about this piece but the favourite quote I have come across was by the novelist Aldous Huxley, who described the molto adagio sections of the slow movement as being like someone seeing how slowly they can ride a bicycle without losing their balance. There have also been comments on the incongruity of the march-like sections in this movement, that it interrupts the flow of the movement and in effect detracts from its overall stately dignity. The inclusion of this is too mundane, some have said, even simple and childlike. However I quite like it, not only as a source of contrast but also as a way of lightening the solemn mood a bit.

This movement was used with great effect in the recent film _The Soloist_, about the friendship of a homeless musician and a journalist, the camera flying like a bird over the city of Los Angeles where it was set. Beethoven has a way of entering the popular culture even with his most 'highbrow' works like this. Another more recent film, _Performance (A Late Quartet)_, used music from his _String Quartet, Op. 131_. Both of these films offered Beethoven's music as an embodiment of the art of classical music, relating his life and music to the dilemmas of our own times. So I think that the mixture of the profound with more immediate concerns is something that still resonates with people strongly now.

Beethoven's inclusion of the mundane though again goes back to traditions established by Haydn and Mozart, the second movement having this catchy tune underpinned by a drone suggesting bagpipes or perhaps a hurdy gurdy. The fifth movement reads like a recitative in an oratorio, and it merely acts as a short introduction to the final movement that is alive with constantly changing rhythms and references to earlier material. These two movements are thought to be drawn from what was the original finale to Beethoven's _Symphony #9_. He shelved the formerly instrumental ending and substituted the famous choral ending. It explains the unabashedly operatic qualities of the finale to Op. 132.










*Bruckner *_String Quintet in F_ (1878)
- Vienna Philharmonia Quintet: Wolfgang Poduschka & Alfred Staar, violins; Josef Staar & Helmut Weis, violas; Wolfgang Herzer, cello (Decca Eloquence)

Half a century later another composer residing in Vienna composed what became his finest work in the chamber realm. *Bruckner *had been asked by the violinist Josef Hellmesberger to compose something for his string quartet to play. Bruckner shelved the idea and came back to it seventeen years later. The *String Quintet in F* is a masterpiece of its type and era, containing many trademarks of Bruckner's style. One is an organic rather than prescriptive development of themes based around several recurring cellular motifs. Another are these layerings reminiscent of choral music, providing the basis for ecstatic climaxes and the voids that inevitably follow. There is this contrast between a kind of drama and stasis in his music, which fill large scale structures comparable to cathedrals in sound.

There is much to enjoy in this work overall, I quite like the flighty second movement, a scherzo mixing rustic charm with Viennese panache, and the whimsy of Mozart comes to mind too. Speaking to this movement, Bruckner's quintet was just as challenging for players in his day as Beethoven's had been half a century before. Hellmesberger asked the composer for an easier replacement for this scherzo, and Bruckner composed the _Intermezzo in D minor_ for that purpose.

The slow movement (_Adagio_) alone puts Bruckner's quintet in the front rank of chamber works of its time. Words can't describe this, and here the links with Palestrina are palpable, going back to Bruckner's early years centering on the church - as a chorister, conductor of choirs and also his significant career as an organist. Australian composer Brett Dean said that it is the pivot to the "grand arch" of this work, same as with Bruckner's symphonies. Dean spent the first half of his career as a violist, he was for many years a member of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and in recent years has enjoyed playing Bruckner's quintet in the viola chair.










*Bartók *_String Quartet #4 in C major, Sz95_ (1928)
- Alban Berg Quartett: Günther Pichler & Gerhard Schulz, violins; Thomas Kakuska, viola; Valentin Erben, cello (EMI)

If the pieces by Beethoven and Bruckner reflect influences coming from the churches and taverns, civilized surroundings in Vienna, *Bartók's* music is inspired by something very different. His _*String Quartet #4 *_goes for an aesthetic that is more earthy, primitive and brutal. Coming around a century after Beethoven, and half a century after Bruckner, this work reflects a preoccupation with the very roots of music found in the Hungarian soil. Even though Bartók borrows and elaborates upon the template set up by Beethoven, he is in effect turning his back on the city and embracing the country.

Again, a song sung by the cello is the centerpiece of this quartet, an example of the night musics that Bartók so often puts as a cornerstone of his pieces. I find it dark but much less disturbing than the ones found in his following quartet. It comes across as simply a song of the night, rather than something that mirrors the oppression of living under a regime where people are taken away in the dead of night.

The two inner movements flanking the central slow movement are in contrast with eachother but related, one acts as a prelude to the other. The second movement (_Prestissimo, con sordino_) is a web of muted sounds and textures, with only fragmentary or underlying melody at best. The fourth movement (_Allegretto pizzicato_) is entirely plucked and brings out the melody hinted at earlier very emphatically. Plenty of the snapping 'Bartók pizzicato'on display here!

The outer movements, that is the first and fifth movements, are thematically speaking the most tightly linked. Aspects of the first movement's three themes (or more accurately cells) come back in the final movement, particularly the initial very vigorous one. Here there is the feel of a village dance, and Bartók makes absolutely no concessions to the listener. It comes across as rough and crude, yet beneath the surface there is a kind of logic and unity that isn't too hard to grasp. The brilliant ending has an element of suspense, the listener is kept on tenterhooks until the very last note.


----------



## Sid James

*Sessions* _String Quartet #1 in E minor_ (1938)
- The Group for Contemporary Music: Benjamin Hudson & Carol Zeavin, violins; Louis Martin, viola; Joshua Gordon, cello (Naxos)

The _*String Quartet #1*_ by *Sessions* draws upon the template set down by Beethoven in the Op. 132, but with a twist. The work is in only three movements, but having dispensed with the two inner interlude-like movements, Sessions compensates somewhat by including scherzo-like elements in the outer movements.

The first movement is comprised of three themes, a lyrical flowing one, a more agitated dancy one, and a third one which is vague and more changeable than the other two. The second movement continues in the lyrical direction, featuring some fine-grained writing for instruments in solo, duo and group formations. The third movement is a vigorous dance with a stomping beat, Copland's music of the 1930's comes to mind here a bit. Sessions said that this reminded him of the time he composed the piece, spending time on a ranch in Nevada and riding on horseback.

Certainly the delicately wrought slow movement brings elements of Bartok's _String Quartet #4_ to mind, but more direct influences for Sessions where Stravinsky, Berg and Schoenberg. Sessions had a deep interest in not only the music of the past, but also the music of his time. This wasn't only as an academic but as a concert programmer, including concerts he organized before World War II with Aaron Copland. The Copland-Sessions concerts as they came to be called featured old music alongside appropriately selected new music, including his own. Sessions reminisced in a 1964 interview that:

"The plan of each concert was two contemporary works and between them some little-known work of a past composer…[one such concert featured _Les Nuits d'Été_ by Berlioz, the third _Lecon de Tenebres_ by Couperin and] _En blanc et noir_ of Debussy, and _The Hanging Gardens_ [by Schoenberg]. I believe we did the first American performance of the Stravinsky _Concerto for Two Pianos_. We did the _Lyric Suite _[by Berg], I know. I remember my _First Quartet_ was played at one concert, and the _Diary_ pieces where done at another, and then there where some pieces of [Edward] Steuermann's. I think there was some Bartók. And then the _Scotch Songs_ of Haydn, _An die ferne Geliebte_ of Beethoven which at that time was hardly ever performed."










*Corigliano *_String Quartet _(1995)
- Corigliano Quartet: Michael Jinsoo Lim & Lina Bahn, violins; Melia Watras, viola; Jeffrey Zeigler, cello (Naxos)

*Corigliano's* _*String Quartet *_neatly brings together all of these connections. Much like Beethoven's late quartets, the full implications of Bartok's quartets where not widely understood or appreciated until after his death. Certainly Bartok had success with his late masterpiece, the _Concerto for Orchestra,_ nevertheless his other music was still considered difficult in his own time. In other words, overall he was more respected than loved.

By the late 20th century, composers such as Sessions, Tippett and Carter had made deep inroads into Bartok's music. Corigliano builds upon their legacy, his work has the same arch-form structure of Bartok's _String Quartet #4 _and features a pivotal night music movement. The inspiration for this _Nocturne_ came to the composer after visiting Fez in Morocco. Early one morning he was awoken by muezzins making their calls to prayer atop the city's many minarets. There is an interesting mix of static layering here with an aspect of the melismas of Arabic chant.

The beginning and end of that _Nocturne _emerges quietly and finishes in the same way. That applies to the start and finish of the quartet itself, but in between there are many edgy moments. Corigliano adopts the beats of rock music, he leaves no stone unturned in terms of textural exploration and he pushes his players rhythmic abilities to the limit - they are often directed to play out of sync with one another, or with the repetitive precision of machines. The final movement (_Postlude_) brings the work's opposing mechanical and emotional qualities together, the music sounding like a disturbing lament.

Corigliano's experiment in sound has a serious and profound quality, it can be very intense. Given its wide contrasts in rhythm, dynamics and texture, it is understandable that he subsequently arranged the work for string orchestra. It is good to know that the composer has found recognition and success for this piece, the orchestration - his second symphony - won him a Pullitzer Prize in 2001.


----------



## starry

With Op132 I think the opening is the birth of an idea, I don't like making the extra-musical interpretation there. The livelier sections in the slow movement are most likely meant to represent a surge of energy after illness rather than just a mundane contrast. Most of the comments on the piece tend to be about the slow movement, but I actually find the first two movements pretty interesting. The first movement has a tragic starkness that perhaps could be compared to the opening movement of the 9th. And the second movement has a soothing quality, almost otherworldy at times with the contrast of the high pitched trio. The only big puzzle I have is the sudden positive ending to the work, which doesn't feel in line with the rest of the piece.


----------



## GioCar

Quite dense and intriguing... I'll finish reading and meditate upon it tomorrow. It's past midnight here and I am quite tired after a hard day's work ... Thank you Sid!


----------



## Sid James

starry said:


> With Op132 I think the opening is the birth of an idea, I don't like making the extra-musical interpretation there. The livelier sections in the slow movement are most likely meant to represent a surge of energy after illness rather than just a mundane contrast. Most of the comments on the piece tend to be about the slow movement, but I actually find the first two movements pretty interesting. The first movement has a tragic starkness that perhaps could be compared to the opening movement of the 9th. And the second movement has a soothing quality, almost otherworldy at times with the contrast of the high pitched trio. The only big puzzle I have is the sudden positive ending to the work, which doesn't feel in line with the rest of the piece.


Thanks for your feedback. I agree the whole of Op. 132 is amazing and I could have written more about it, but I did attempt to cover as much as I could in that post. I love the way Beethoven conveys his classic darkness to light narrative in this piece. In my mind, the vague sounding opening goes back to Haydn, particularly The Creation but also his London set of symphonies, most of which begin with a slow and searching kind of introduction.

But the slow movement is special for many reasons, one is that its unique in Beethoven's output and innovative in that at that time doing Renaissance-inspired music for strings was unusual. Its a precursor to many things, not only the Bruckner but also to for example the likes of what Vaughan Williams did in the 20th century (eg. the Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis). Hovhaness is another one like that.



GioCar said:


> Quite dense and intriguing... I'll finish reading and meditate upon it tomorrow. It's past midnight here and I am quite tired after a hard day's work ... Thank you Sid!


You're welcome. Looking back over it now, two days after posting, maybe it could have done with a bit of tightening up and further editing. I welcome your feedback once you get around to wading through it!

But I could have also put in more, such as Bruckner's connection with Schubert in that they where both taught by Simon Sechter. So perhaps a link to Schubert's _String Quintet in C_, which I covered a few weeks ago on this thread? Sechter said that Bruckner was his most conscientious student, thus quashing the myth (voiced on this very forum in my early years here) that he didn't know sonata form. He knew it of course like all composers do, he just didn't slavishly imitate it in academic fashion (Beethoven and others are the same).

Another connection is between Bartok and Schoenberg, and as a result Sessions. Bartok's _String Quartet #4_ was premiered by the Kolisch Quartet, that had premiered Schoenberg's works and one of them became his brother in law.

There's so many connections like this, often which I find out subsequent to posting here as I read further, I am increasingly learning more things myself as I am writing these posts. It is great - and since I am doing it all off my own initiative, I have quite a bit of freedom to vary things as each separate topic of focus is different.


----------



## Sid James

*Percy Grainger's circle…and the Paris connection - Music by Grieg, Grainger, Delius, Gershwin, Django Reinhardt and Duke Ellington*

*The boy from Melbourne*

*Percy Grainger* was somewhat of an oddity in music of the early 20th century. He was born in Australia, but spent most of his career outside his own country. Like opera singer Dame Nellie Melba, Grainger hailed from 'Marvellous Melbourne,' named as such for its time as the richest city in the world, thanks to a gold rush. Melbourne had a lively arts scene then as now, however Australia was too small a place for his gifts as a musician. He made his career abroad, earning money as one of the top pianists of his day, and spending time collecting folk songs chiefly in the British isles and Scandinavia (particularly Denmark).








*Grainger, Grieg, Delius*

It is in Norway that Grainger met *Edvard Grieg*. The Norwegian was impressed with the young Australian's playing of his music, saying that he captured its spirit like no other. Grieg's _Piano Concerto in A minor_ became Grainger's calling card as a concert pianist the world over.

*Frederick Delius* was also befriended by Grieg. They met when Grieg visited Liepzig Conservatory, his old alma mater, were the young Delius was also studying. Delius had already developed an interest in Norway, spending summer vacations there hiking. Grieg was impressed with Delius' music, especially his_ Florida Suite_. Grieg encouraged Delius' father to financially support his composition studies.

It is no surprise that Grainger and Delius also became friends. Another connection is that they both married Danish women.








*Delius and Gershwin in Paris*

*George Gershwin* was, like Delius, a friend of Grainger and much admired by him. Grainger's piano arrangements of Gershwin's songs are still played today. Gershwin and Delius both spent time in Paris, and it inspired pieces by them.

*Delius* spent around eight years living in the Latin Quarter of the city, during the 1890's. He came into contact with composers such as Maurice Ravel and Gabriel Fauré, as well as artistic figures such as the painters Paul Gauguin and Edvard Munch.

*Gershwin* visited Paris over two decades later, during the 'The Roaring Twenties' and also spent time with the leading lights of music there. He asked Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Ravel for lessons but all turned him down, citing his individuality and success as a composer being proof that he didn't need lessons, he just needed to continue to develop his own ideas. Nadia Boulanger also said that Gershwin knew enough about music, she didn't want to risk her rigorous approach acting as a break on his natural talents.








*Django and The Duke*

While spending time teaching at New York University, Grainger invited jazzman *Duke (Edward Kennedy) Ellington *there for a performance. During that time, this was highly unorthodox thing to do, since jazz was not taken as seriously by academe as it is now.

Ellington was one of the major figures of the big band era in music, along with the likes of Count Basie and Woody Herman. The connection to Gershwin is obvious, his songs being a core part of the jazz repertoire (the classic 'jazz standards' still played and sung today).

But Ellington's influence found its way into classical and vice-versa. His simultaneous focus on craft and refinement, but no less spontaneity and improvisation was one element of that. Another was his crossing over into classical, with compositions such as _Black, Brown and Beige Suite_, mixing elements of blues, jazz and classical. He even dedicated a piece called _Blue Serge _to Sergei Rachmaninov.

We come full circle to Grieg with jazz guitarist* Django Reinhardt*. The legendary Belgian had in fact toured the eastern states of the USA, in appearances with Duke Ellington. The guitarist known for his gypsy swing style also made early inroads into crossover territory, his rendition of Grieg's _Norwegian Dance #2_ neatly bringing together the strands of this topic - folk, classical, jazz…and again, Paris!

_Pictures top to bottom:
1. 'Marvellous Melbourne,' Grainger's home town, in 1900
2. Percy Grainger (middle) between Jelka and Frederick Delius
3. Paris in the 1890's, as drawn by Edvard Munch, an artist who Delius met while living in the city_


----------



## Sid James

*Grieg*
_Holberg Suite for string orch., Op. 40_ (1884)
_Four Norwegian Dances, Op. 35_ (orchestrated by Hans Sitt) (1881)
_Lyric Suite, Op. 54_ (orchestrated by Anton Seidl, edited by the composer) (1891)
- Gothenburg SO conducted by Neeme Järvi (Deutsche Grammophon)

*Grieg's* music personifies Norway, he put his country on the musical map. However his famous quote about aiming to build simple houses which people could dwell in - rather than the mighty cathedrals of sound built by Bach - shows a more personal side to the man.

Grieg was a man of frail health, always nervous before performances, and he liked the quiet life. He lacked pretension and avoided controversy, but his social conscience impelled him to refuse to perform in Paris at the height of the notorious Dreyfus case, citing the racism of the French judicial system.

Turning to Grieg's music, the pieces on this disc showcase aspects of his breadth of vision and stylistic diversity.

The *Holberg Suite* is one of the earliest prototypes of Neo-Classicism from the Romantic era. The work looks back on an era of restraint and elegance, that of Haydn and Mozart, whilst incorporating aspects of Norwegian folk music such as drone sounds.

The *Lyric Suite* looks forwards to Impressionism, in terms of delicacy of textures and evocative image painting. Even though Debussy derided Grieg as a composer of "bon bons filled with ice," it is likely that he was influenced by him. However, Ravel was more complimentary in his assessment of Grieg, and all three where influenced by Liszt.

The *Norwegian Dances* are more in line with similar national dances by Dvorak and Brahms. They are brilliant orchestral showpieces, the second one being the most popular, one of the 'orchestral lollipops' of yesteryear.










*Album: A Salute to Percy Grainger *(Decca Eloquence)

_Folk song arrangements and settings_
- Various performers, incl. vocal and instrumental groups conducted by Benjamin Britten and Steuart Bedford

_The Warriors - Music to an Imaginary Ballet _(1913-1916)
- Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by John Eliot Gardiner (Associate conductor: Achim Holub)

*Grainger* was amongst the first composers to go out into the field and record folk song as it was actually sung, rather than fitting it into the straightjackets of Western harmony. Unlike Grieg, he had little time for what he saw as the strictures of Western tradition, avoiding things like sonata form. Grainger also was comfortable mixing with the country folk, whereas Grieg wasn't and tended to access folk music from collections done by others, mainly academics.

Grainger's *"fripperies"* come close to Grieg's folk-inspired music, because they tended to come from existing published sources. Grainger fashioned instrumental pieces out of these, spicing them up with the quirky harmonies and odd keys found in real folk music, and also jazz.

My favourites are _*Molly on the Shore*,_ which has this freshness and improvisatory quality, and *Danny Boy,* which blurs the distinction between folk, classical and blues. The Neo-Classical tendencies of Grieg's_ Holberg Suite_ is also mirrored by another piece on this collection, Grainger's _*Green Bushes - Passacaglia on an English folksong*_.

The most impressive and substantial piece on this excellent set is _*The Warriors*._ Originally written as a ballet, possibly for the Sergei Diaghilev's _Ballet Russes_, the piece ended up being premiered in the USA as a concert hall work. This work anticipates many things to come decades later, from incorporation of chance techniques to using multiple orchestras playing complex rhythmic layerings (polyrhythms) to combining music from disparate sources (Polystylism).

_The Warriors_ is scored for large orchestra, with an independent percussion section and a brass band backstage. Two or three conductors are required to marshall these vast forces. Grainger wasn't a fan of sonata form, so here we get too many themes to count - something like fifteen in total! - but after a few listens the work congeals and comes together. The tunes range from the banal to the sublime, echoes of the music hall jostle with delicate Oriental sounds and primitive rhythms.

In his usual eccentric way with words, Grainger described the imagery in the music as being like "Ghosts of male and female warrior types of all times and places [having gathered] for an orgy of war-like dances, processions and merrymakings, broken, or accompanied, by amorous interludes."

_The Warriors _was premiered in 1917 and dedicated to Delius, who called it "Grainger's greatest thing."


----------



## Sid James

*Delius* _Paris - The Song of a Great City_ (1899)
- London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Anthony Collins (Decca Eloquence)

*Delius* had some cause to be supportive of Grainger, as both where shunned by elements of the music establishment during their careers. One reason was their avoidance of traditional forms, chiefly sonata form, in effect inventing their own unique ways of composing.

Delius' first published works appeared in Paris, such as _Légende for violin and orchestra_, _Concerto for Piano and Orchestra_, and _*Paris - Song of a Great City*_. Delius was able to establish a reputation on the continent, particularly in Germany, and after his marriage he moved to the village of Grez-sur-Loing, where he lived for most of the rest of his life.

Listening to _Paris_, its not hard to figure out why he was - and apparently still is - more popular on the continent than in Britain. It reminds me of Wagner and Ravel in terms of sound, and the structure is free and rhapsodic. Some aspects of Delius' mature style is noticeable, such as these flowing melodies with more than a hint of heartbreak, and also long solos for instruments, notably the violin. There is more than a hint of the dance here too, perhaps the waltz or even Offenbach's can-cans, and the use of the tambourine adds a carnival atmosphere.

In 1899, the year in which _Paris_ was composed, Delius' profile in his homeland was given a boost with a concert entirely consisting of his works. The reception of London critics was mixed, one saying that Delius was "one of the few composers of genius" originating from England, another complaining of his "discordant, harsh and uninviting" music.

Maestro Beecham would work hard to promote Delius and encourage the opinions of the former critic, but despite his efforts to this day Delius remains somewhat of an acquired taste. There are parallels here with Grainger too, who in Australia is known more for his "fripperies" than any of his more experimental works (even though _The Warriors _does receive the occasional performance).










*Gershwin* _An American in Paris_ (1928)
- Pittsburgh SO under André Previn (Decca)

_*An American in Paris* _started as a prospective ballet, but in the end it was premiered as a concert hall piece. Later, Gene Kelly turned it back into a ballet subjecting it to his modern choreography in the film of the same name. However the work stands on its own feet as a tone poem, essaying Gershwin's time in Paris, taking in everything from the hustle and bustle of the Champs-Elyseés to the artist's district of Montmartre, with its many cafés.

Gershwin spent time composing the piece in the Hotel Majestic, and a stream of visitors came to view the score in progress, including composer William Walton and conductor Leopold Stokowski. Gershwin invited two students from the Paris Conservatoire to the hotel to check out the score once it was finished. They where amazed, especially by the horns imitating car horns and the bluesy nostalgic 'café' theme. Gershwin took out two horns he had in the room and the two students where the first to test his writing of those parts!

In an interview about the work, Gershwin said his chief influences where Debussy and _Les Six_, and he had met with Milhaud and Poulenc. Gershwin provided a program for the piece but described it as a rhapsody that was "programmatic only in a general impressionistic way, so that the individual listener can read into the music such episodes as his imagination pictures for him."

_An American in Paris_ was premiered at Carnegie Hall, New York in a performance by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Walter Damrosch.


----------



## Sid James

*Album: Duke Ellington's Jazz Violin Session*
_Compositions by the Duke: Take the 'A' train, In a Sentimental Mood, Don't get around much anymore, Day dream, Cotton tail, Pretty little one, Tricky's licks, Blues in C, String along with strings, Limbo jazz, The feeling of jazz_
- Duke Ellington, piano; Stephane Grappelli & Ray Nance, violins; Svend Asmussen, viola; Ernie Shepard, bass; Sam Woodyard, drums; with contributions by Billy Strayhorn, piano; Russell Procope, alto sax; Paul Gonsalves, tenor sax; Buster Cooper, trombone - Recorded in Paris, 1963
(From the 'Original album series' 5 cd set of Ellington's music on Rhino/Warner label)

*Duke Ellington*, like many of the great jazz musicians of his time, played in Paris. He cut this album there, a relaxing crossover of genres. Here we've got the Duke's immortal jazz standards, played with the intimacy of classical chamber music, mixing in everything from the feel of folkish fiddles to Latin beats. Most important of all there is the improvisation, the mix of discipline and freedom, which was the hallmark of the Duke's philosophy of music. He would often reject more 'perfect' and therefore mechanical takes in favour of including less polished and freer takes for publication.

Like many of the greats, Duke Ellington refused to stay in the one place in terms of style or genre. Cutting his teeth by playing in small dance combos early in his career, he came to form his big band, one of the most famous and long lived in the business. As the big band era declined after 1945, Ellington continued to tour, record and experiment with music. His collaborations with arranger Billy Strayhorn brought about many albums, from playing his own music to that of other jazz masters, to tunes from musicals to the movies to those from the hit parade such as by The Beatles.

In *Jazz Violin Session*, Ellington returns to his roots, the small group. The Duke's signature smooth style is there, but nothing is clichéd. Listen to what are in effect him covering his own songs, and you may be surprised. They sound nothing like the originals from the 1930's and '40's, and it's a joy to hear it all in detailed stereo sound. The emphasis is on freedom, one thing I notice is that often the song starts off with one of the guys playing the tune as if they started halfway though it. Pretty quirky, perhaps not far off from Grainger?










*Grieg*_ Danse norvegienne (Norwegian Dance #2)_
- Hubert Rostaing, clarinet; Django Reinhardt, solo guitar; Joseph Reinhardt, rhythm guitar; Ladislas Czabanyck, double bass; Andre Jourdan, drums - Recorded 1947 in Paris (from album "Django Reinhardt Swing '48" on Gitanes/Universal)

Coming full circle with a jazz arrangement of Grieg's _Norwegian Dance #2_. *Django Reinhardt* here plays amplified guitar, and he does a nice little duet with clarinetist Hubert Rostaing, who actually led his own big band during the swing era. The three minute track is like a little polished gem.

Paris and jazz go hand in hand, even during the war the Nazis turned a blind eye to its performance, and many of the musicians where part of the resistance. Django stayed put in the city during the occupation, and after liberation he cut various recordings including this one. Another connection with Duke Ellington is one of the violinists on the _Jazz Violin Session_ album, Stephane Grappelli had also played with Django. He was one of the original members of the legendary Quintette du Hot Club de France.


----------



## Sid James

Sid James said:


> It is in Norway that Grainger met *Edvard Grieg*...


A correction to the above info - they met in London, but later Grainger did visit Grieg in Norway.


----------



## Sid James

Sid James said:


> _*An American in Paris* _started as a prospective ballet, but in the end it was premiered as a concert hall piece. ....Gershwin invited two students from the Paris Conservatoire to the hotel to check out the score once it was finished. They where amazed, especially by the* horns imitating car horns* and the bluesy nostalgic 'café' theme. Gershwin took out two horns he had in the room and the two students where the first to test his writing of those parts!....


Another correction before I do my next blog entry, no doubt laden with mistakes (hope not!). The horns in American in Paris where real car horns, sourced by Gershwin in motor mechanics garages in Paris. He hunted around and chose a few for their unique timbres, believe it or not!


----------



## Sid James

*Spanish impressions, of sun and the night, and the dance - Music by Debussy, Ravel, de Falla, Surinach, Carmichael and de Lucia*

Although *Claude Debussy* spent only a day over the border in Spain, his music was an important influence on *Manuel de Falla.* The Spanish composer wrote a description of the images he garnered from *Iberia*, the second of Debussy's _Images for Orchestra_:

"Echoes from the villages, a kind of sevillana - the generic theme of the work - which seems to float in a clear atmosphere of scintillating light: the intoxicating spell of Andalusian nights, the festive gaiety of a people dancing to the joyous strains of a banda of guitars and bandurrias…all this whirls in the air, approaches and recedes, and our imagination is continually kept awake and dazzled by the power of an intensely expressive and richly varied music."

*De Falla *had only come to Paris for a short visit, but ended up staying seven years. During that time he came into contact with the leading composers there, including Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Albert Roussell and Paul Dukas. He composed his *Nights in the Gardens of Spain* in Paris, a piece that displays the influence of Debussy and incorporates elements of Spanish music, including flamenco.








De Falla praised Debussy for his synthesis of the "fundamental elements" of Spanish music rather than using tunes from actual folk songs or dances. De Falla did the same in his own music, avoiding actual quotation or direct usage, and favouring use of the fundamentals and stylistic traits or idioms of the music instead.

The contrast between the fundamental elements and direct quotation methods are a point of reference for the works I have chosen to discuss here. However I am not aiming to make a literal delineation between the two. The development of any melody, whether taken from folk sources or entirely devised by the composer, will ultimately take shape according to his or her own creativity and imagination.








*Ravel* uses the latter approach in his _*Rapsodie Espagnole*_, using actual Spanish melodies in the piece.

*Carlos Surinach* in comparison goes the fundamental elements or idiomatic route. His_* Piano Concerto*_ is nothing if not Spanish, particularly the flamenco infused final movement, but he doesn't make any literal reference to folk tunes.

Australian composer *John Carmichael,* who worked in Spain as director of a touring folkoric dance company, uses a mix of the two approaches in his *Concierto Folkorico.*

A commonality between the pieces by Debussy, de Falla and Carmichael is a nocturnal middle movement encased by two outer vigorous movements of more sunny disposition. There is often a contrast between the passion and introspection, and also of direct emotion and a kind of cool detachment, in the music emanating from the Spanish tradition.

Finally I have chosen to include *Paco de Lucia* here, who moved flamenco from its traditional roots to an exciting fusion, taking in elements of classical, jazz and rock. Out of flamenco, which is itself a fusion of Spanish, gypsy, Moorish, Jewish and other traditions, de Lucia fashioned the _*Nuevo Flamenco*_. It's a new genre but it speaks to that mix of tradition and change in Spanish music across time. 








I can't go without saying that Spain has endured, despite a tragic history that included the civil war of the 1930's. Many died, and many had to leave as the Franco dictatorship took hold, and both de Falla and Surinach ended up voting with their feet, so to speak. Despite that, and also the current economic situation there that seems dire, one quote by de Falla speakes to the reason why Spanish culture and music has endured despite the many challenges over time:

"It has occasionally been asserted that we have no traditions. We have, it is true, no written tradition; but in our dance and our rhythm we possess the strongest traditions that none can obliterate. We have the ancient modes which, by virtue of their inherent freedom, we can use as inspiration dictates.

…The essentials are in the people. I do not like taking actual folk material; but you must go to natural, living sources, study the sounds, the rhythms, use their essence, not just their externals. You must go really deep, so as not to make any sort of caricature. In Spain every region has its own essential music. The gypsies have theirs in some Hindu roots."

_Images top to bottom:
1. "El Jaleo" by John Singer Sargent
2. The town of San Sebastian, where Debussy spent his brief visit to Spain
3. Photo of Manuel de Falla_


----------



## Sid James

*Debussy*_ Iberia _(1910)
- Montreal SO under Charles Dutoit (Decca)

*Debussy* had little experience with Spanish music, including hearing flamenco guitarists at the 1889 Universal Exhibition in Paris and going just over the border to San Sebastian to attend a bull fight. However, he managed to capture the essence of Spanish music in _*Iberia*_.

The use of castanets and tambourine add typical Spanish character to the piece, the two outer movements speaking to the sun, heat and warm colours of the place. My favourite though is the central movement which provides night music of the utmost delicacy, including atmospheric writing that includes the oboe prominently, as well as the harp and celesta. Bells close the movement, heralding the coming of a new day, the muted trumpets ushering in the big tune that dominates the final movement.

*Ravel* _Rapsodie Espagnole _(1907)
- Melbourne SO under Hiroyuki Iwaki (from ABC Classics album "Symphony, Volume 3, Places," no image found)

*Ravel* composed a number of Spanish themed pieces, including _Alborada del Grazioso, Bolero_ and _*Rapsodie Espagnole*_. This was the piece that put Ravel on the map, his first big success as a composer, upon the premiere of the piece the second movement had to be encored. Ravel had tangible connections to Spain in that he was born in the Basque region of France.

Much of the thematic material in the piece hinges upon the four note descending motif played by muted strings at the very start. The mood changes from mysterious to rapturous throughout the work, with Ravel's trademark smooth orchestration in evidence. The coda is like an eruption of rhythmic sound, its got this fiery quality to it.










*De Falla* _Nights in the Gardens of Spain (Symphonic Impressions for Piano and Orchestra) _(1915)
- Philippe Entremont, piano with Philadelphia Orch. under Eugene Ormandy (Sony)

*De Falla* didn't provide _*Nights in the Gardens of Spain*_ with a literal program to accompany it, and he was concerned less with picture painting and more with expressing moods and emotions.

The composer talked about qualities of "melancholy and mystery" in the piece, and another Spanish composer Joaquin Turina talked of the poetic, intimate and passionate nature of the work. Turina's impressions talk to the night as a time of sleep and also intimate thoughts and loving. This is a theme that goes through Spanish music in slow movements of concertos by a number of composers, including Joaquin Rodrigo.

The work also has this otherworldly quality that the composer put down to composing a piece about his country whilst living abroad, "I was so far from Spain that I may have depicted the nights as more beautiful than they are in reality."

Two aspects that grabbed me on this listen to it where the imitation by the piano of guitars in the first movement, and the incorporation of the dramatic and theatrical qualities of flamenco style singing in the final movement.


----------



## Sid James

*Surinach *_Piano Concerto_ (1973)
- Alicia de Larrocha, piano with Royal PO under Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (Decca Eloquence)

While de Falla drew upon French influences, *Surinach* drew upon those of Germany. He was taught by Richard Strauss and his _*Piano Concerto*_ bears influence of Baroque counterpoint. The last movement in particular is a brilliant synthesis of flamenco and the 'back to Bach' tendencies of many Modern composers of the early 20th century. Bartok comes to mind, and if you like his piano concertos, odds are that you'll like this one.

The work is in the usual slow-fast-slow format with rhythmic interjections during the middle movement that look forward to those in the final movement, which is an amazing release of tension and tests the abilities of the soloist. No wonder that the late Alicia de Larrocha said that she had to first grasp the basic canon - in other words that of the German tradition - before she could lay her hands on any Spanish music.

Spanish piano music is amongst the most difficult, technically speaking, and Surinach's grounding in traditional classical techniques speaks to that ability to go from tradition to innovation with firm foundations underpinning his work. It also explains why even though the mood of the work is severe and edgy, it isn't without warmth. Passion is such a strong element in Spanish music, is it not?










*Carmichael *_Concierto Folklorico for piano and string orchestra _(1965)
- The composer on piano with West Australian SO under David Measham (from ABC Classics double album, "Swagman's Promenade: all the greatest light classics")

Spain has so many types of music to accompany different dances. I've got a book that lists something like three dozen, all coming from different regions of the country. The Spanish love their dancing, that's for sure.

*Carmichael's Concierto Folkorico* draws upon these rich traditions, incorporating both actual folk tunes and the idioms of music such as flamenco. In terms of the latter, there are parallels with de Falla and Surinach. A foreigner like Debussy, albeit one who worked for years in Spain, Carmichael manages to produce a work that conveys something of the essence of the place. To my ears, this could have been written by a 'native.'

The work is great easy listening, with a Neo-Classical feel imparted by the light scoring for string orchestra. Framed by the opening little bittersweet tune played by the pianist over hazy string accompaniment, to the vigorous dance of the finale, this is an immediately accessible piece. Again, the middle movement is the high point for me, a sweet song with dark undertones, the material drawn from a flamenco song called _La Petenera_ that is about a femme fatale who meets a grisly end.










*Paco de Lucia 'Flamenco Virtuoso' *(compilation album on Jazzclub Legends series, Universal)
- _De Lucia on guitar with various accompanists, compositions by De Lucia and others, recordings made 1966 - 1998_

Finishing with guitarist *Paco de Lucia*, who had his foot in both camps, the traditional and the contemporary. Flamenco being a living tradition, the reason for its endurance has been its ability to update itself and remain relevant.

The diversity of the tracks on this compilation, taken from various albums spanning over thirty years, speaks to this. There is music for solo and duo guitars, sometimes with added accompaniment of traditional sorts such as castanets, dancing, clapping or vocals. There are also a couple of tracks of fusion variety with sax, flute, bass and percussion. But whatever the combinations involved, the musicianship on display here is amazing to hear, as is the fusion of the ancient with the new.

De Lucia even plays _Tomo Y Obligo_, a tango by Carlos Gardel. He was the predecessor of Astor Piazzolla, originator of _Nuevo Tango_. Perhaps a compliment by the originator of _Nuevo Flamenco_ to that of _Nuevo Tango_? Who knows, but it's a good connection to end this post with!


----------



## science

Some of the points in your post remind me of Stephen Hough's "Spanish Album."










Only about half of the music is actually Spanish, the other half (or so) is Spanish-ish music by composers like Debussy and Ravel. (Memory, and mine in particular, being what it is, I should go home and check it before saying anything else about it.)

I find it interesting because using orchestration (castanets and so on) creating a "Spanish" sound can be fairly obvious, but when the only thing you have is a piano. Of course there's always rhythm, which can be reproduced easily. Beyond that it gets difficult, and I don't always agree when people say something sounds Spanish. Obviously this doesn't mean I'm right, it means I don't understand.

Anyway, Spain definitely has a wonderful musical heritage and I'd like to know more about it, so thank you for these thoughtful and informative posts!


----------



## Sid James

science said:


> ...
> I find it interesting because using orchestration (castanets and so on) creating a "Spanish" sound can be fairly obvious, but when the only thing you have is a piano. Of course there's always rhythm, which can be reproduced easily. Beyond that it gets difficult, and I don't always agree when people say something sounds Spanish. Obviously this doesn't mean I'm right, it means I don't understand.
> 
> ...


Thanks science, and your welcome. Its also an area I am beginning to grasp, I am by no means presenting myself as an expert on this, I found out many new things doing this post.

I haven't heard that Stephen Hough album but I do know some of the pieces on it (Albeniz, Granados, Ravel, Debussy).

I think though that there is ultimately no clear line between what's Spanish and other. The long quote at the end of my introductory post by de Falla speaks to this, in terms of Spanish music being like a combination of many different influences from outside, and of course the diversity of regions within the country. Another source I used is Paco de Lucia's obituary from The Guardian here, which says its wrong to call what he did fusion, because in effect combining things is central to everything he did. In other words, tradition is fusion in Spanish music, its always been done.

Another work I could have coverd where de Falla's Seven Popular Spanish Songs. Originally for vocalist and piano, I've got a version for soprano and guitar. Its also been transcribed for violin/piano and cello/piano. But the reason I mention this is that it ties directly into what Paco de Lucia did later, that is incorporate different types of dances (like flamenco) into his music. There's also the element of music being adaptable to different arrangements. In this way, de Falla started something that de Lucia continued.

Of course with many composers, like Dvorak or Bloch, or Bartok, Vaughan Williams, Grainger, all those composers who cultivated some sort of national or tradition-based aesthetic direction, its hard even for experts to see where the roots of their music (like a folk tune) begins and the composer's own creative imagination takes off. Its why I said in the opening post, music being about creativity ultimately what is that factor that makes a thing of one nation - or region? - can be quite fuzzy to begin with.

You know, I read a book about Spain a long time ago, and it covered the diversity of the country in terms of ethnicity, language and politics. Maybe it can be compard to the British Isles? Perhaps the only thing that unites Spain is the Catholic faith? I don't know because its been a long time since I have looked at this but yes it is fascinating, and I its that exchange of ideas and cultures that informs a lot of my topics on this blog series.

Thanks for your reply, and thanks to all the likes guys, I appreciate the interest and the opportunity to add to the forum like this.


----------



## Sid James

*Dictators, wars and E-flat - Music by Beethoven, Schoenberg and Richard Strauss*

*Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony #3 "Eroica"* holds a central place in the Western classical canon, as well as a place in European history. The work was the big game changer in Beethoven's output, not only in terms of its length but also its scope of imagination, the first symphony with a political program in music history.

The work was written at a pivotal time in the composer's life, after he was increasingly aware of the onset of deafness. Beethoven was depressed and suicidal but resolved to go on, if only for the sake of music itself. He had moved to Heiligenstadt on the outskirts of Vienna in an attempt to restore a sense of peace and balance to his life.

There is a whole mythology surrounding this work. One story goes that Beethoven withdrew the dedication to Napoleon Bonaparte in a fit of rage after hearing that the French leader had crowned himself emperor, thus betraying republican ideals. Another story talks to Beethoven's eye being on remunerative rather than political concerns. Prince Lobkowitz, one of his benefactors, had offered a large fee in return for the symphony being dedicated to him. So the new political reality may just have been an excuse for the composer to rededicate the work and get a larger fee for it.








In any case, the symphony, like a number of other works by Beethoven - such as the opera _Fidelio_ and the incidental music to the play _Egmont_ - speaks to the spirit of the Enlightenment. This was enshrined in the ideals of the French Revolution of 1789 - liberty, equality and fraternity amongst men who where free citizens. In any case, as the revolution turned into a bloodbath and Napoleon rose through the ranks to restore order, reality ultimately became very different.

The ideals expressed by intellectuals in the 19th century continued to be thwarted by _realpolitik_. Despite various attempts of window dressing, the ideals of 1789 where not much closer to reality by the early 20th century. The ancien regime collapsed after World War I, but all that occurred was a rearrangement of the deck chairs of power. The interwar period was marked by the rise of dictatorships and the result was World War II.








Amidst this, two of the leading European composers responded to these events in their music. *Arnold Schoenberg*, a Jew, had to leave Europe due to the rise of anti-Semitism. Once he settled in the USA, like Beethoven he wrote pieces that responded to world events, including _*Ode to Napoleon*_. Schoenberg's use of Lord Byron's poetry was highly appropriate in expressing a condemnation of tyranny that gripped the world.

Back in Germany, Schoenberg's one time mentor *Richard Strauss *lived through the war and witnessed the collapse of the Nazi regime. Strauss served the regime in an official capacity, which included composing music for the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin and conducting Wagner's operas at Bayreuth. However, he was not a Nazi and had done it to protect family members who where Jewish. Towards the end of the war, Strauss became disillusioned with the regime and became _persona non grata_ with the political and musical establishment there. 








He started composing *Metamorphosen* in the dying days of the war. The piece doesn't have a set program, however the mood is solemn, tragic as well as having a sense of bittersweet nostalgia. Strauss wrote "In Memoriam" on the score, for exactly who or what isn't clear, however the work is inseparable from the tragic and bleak circumstances in which it was created.

Strauss' _Metamorphosen _ends with a quotation from the funeral march (second movement) of the _Eroica_, and Schoenberg's_ Ode _settles towards the end on the key of E-flat. Neither composer knew exactly why they did this, in effect they both subconsciously went back to the birth of the Enlightenment as symbolized by Beethoven's symphony. I see them as being at the end of the process that had begun with Napoleon, the betrayal and shattering of worthy ideals by men whose hunger for power could never be satisfied.

_Pictures, top to bottom:
1. Detail of Napoleon's coronation ceremony painted by J.L. David.
2. Herbert von Karajan with Richard Strauss in the early 1940's.
3. Munich in ruins, 1945._


----------



## Sid James

*Beethoven* _Symphony #3 in E flat, Op. 55 "Eroica"_ (1803)
- London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Wyn Morris (MCA/IMP)

Right from the two 'thumps' that open this work, you know you're in for an exciting ride.

The broad and noble theme of the first movement goes through many emotions, and the tone is sweeping and very dramatic. Here, the composer stretches the sonata form to the limit. Indeed, the whole symphony is twice the length of the average Mozart or Haydn symphony.

The second movement, the *funeral march*, is a masterpiece in itself. Towards the middle a deeply profound contrapuntal section emerges but for a moment all is silent. Then the rumble of the basses lead into a very agitated passage, horns and trumpets blasting. This makes me think of many things, notably the transitory nature of power. When Beethoven heard of Napoleon's death in captivity many years after penning it, he apparently said he that had predicted the dictator's humiliating demise in his symphony.

The third movement is an interlude with the hero in battle, its sudden changes in rhythm easy to detect.

The last movement has two main themes, one coming across as light and triumphant, the other as a rustic dance. These have been interpreted as symbolizing the English and Hungarian armies, mirroring music of the two nations which where fighting Napoleon when the symphony was finished.

Its hard to underestimate the impacts of this work, whether or not the individual listener considers the political program attached to it. Conductor Arturo Toscanini downplayed the importance of things strictly outside the music in his famous quote about the _Eroica_: "Some say Napoleon, some say Hitler, some say Mussolini, for me it is _Allegro con brio_."

In any case this work, and all the mythology attached to it, signifies an important point in Beethoven's career and also for the development of the symphonic genre in general. Initial critical reception of the work was one of bafflement, one critic writing that "if Beethoven continues on his present path, his music could reach the point where one would derive no pleasure from it." However, composers of the generation emerging when Beethoven reached his final years, such as Berlioz, Liszt and Mendelssohn, would quite quickly come to deal with the implications of this work.


----------



## Sid James

*Schoenberg *_Ode to Napoleon for speaker, piano and strings, Op. 41 _(1942)
- David Pittman-Jennings, baritone; Jeanne-Marie Conquer & Hae Sun Kang, violins; Christophe Desjardins, viola; Jean-Guiden Queyras, cello; Florent Boffard, piano; Pierre Boulez, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)

*Schoenberg's Ode to Napoleon *harnesses the bitterness inherent in Byron's text to express in music the sheer corrupting influence and brutality of power. Perhaps like Maestro Toscanini, we don't have to worry too much about who was at the back of the composer's mind when he set it to music. Whether it was Napoleon, Hitler or Mussolini, the piece works on many levels as a condemnation of all dictatorships, past and present.

Schoenberg employed two of his innovations from decades before - _sprechtstimme _(speech-song) and Serialism - in this piece, but his final decade or so saw a certain mellowing of his style. This can be noted for example in the sequence of notes struck quite forcefully by the pianist at the beginning coming back towards the end of the work, more or less unaltered. There is also a sense of grandeur and relaxation of tension right at the end, around the point the speaker talks of George Washington, and as noted the work resolves around E-flat. Another aspect is the composer's trademark use of dance-like rhythms and fragmentary tunes, I can hear one appearing after the introduction. After all, the man was Viennese to the core, wasn't he?

The piece was premiered on November 23, 1944 by members of the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under Artur Rodzinski. The 1940's decade saw increasing performances of Schoenberg's music in the United States, including concerts celebrating his seventieth and seventy-fifth birthdays. He also received the Special Award of Merit from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Nevertheless, Schoenberg still felt an outsider, he had mixed feelings about whether things had changed since the initial hostile reception of his early atonal works in Vienna all those decades ago.


----------



## Sid James

*R. Strauss* _Metamorphosen, study for 23 solo strings _(1945)
- Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted Herbert von Karajan (Deutsche Grammophon)

*Strauss*, like Schoenberg came out of the war intact, in the post-war period he made an acclaimed visit to London conducting his own music and also continued mentorship of the younger generation of musicians (one was the conductor Georg Solti).

However, the war years where difficult ones for Strauss. While Schoenberg had to leave Germany - and had relatives perish in the death camps - Strauss stayed. He was able to protect his relatives but inevitably his reputation suffered, he was seen by opponents to the regime as an opportunist. To refer to Maestro Toscanini again, his famous line about him taking his hat off to Strauss the musician, but firmly putting it back on again to Strauss the man, is apt here. Toscanini was the conductor who refused to work at Bayreuth once the Nazis took power, and it was Strauss who replaced him.

*Metamorphosen *obviously speaks to feelings of defeat, loss, and grieving over once what was great being reduced to rubble. Of course, many monuments of German culture where literally in ruins after the war, including Goethe's Weimar house as well as the opera houses that Strauss had worked in at Dresden, Munich and Vienna.

Undoubtedly though the work addresses concerns larger than just bricks and mortar. Nazism had torn at the fabric of not only German life but the whole of Europe. In 1945, even though hostilities had ceased, there where millions of displaced persons, Strauss eventually became one of them as he was exiled in Switzerland. Of course, there where the countless combatants and civilians who had perished, not to speak of the tragedy of the Holocaust.

It was in Switzerland that _Metamorphosen_ was premiered on January 25, 1946. The conductor was the man who commissioned it, Paul Sacher. At this time, Strauss was being investigated by American authorities as part of de-Nazification, but he was eventually cleared and allowed to return to Germany. The conductor on this recording was in a similar situation. Herbert von Karajan had similarly fallen out of favour with the Nazi regime. He had escaped to Switzerland before the end of the war with his family.

To speak to the piece, _Metamorphosen_ is unique in the string repertoire; there is nothing else quite like it. All twenty-three players (ten violins, five violas, five celli and three double basses) are soloists in their own right. There are beautiful solos throughout for them individually and in groups, big and small, as well as big swells of sound in the tutti sections.

Thematically the work is quite complex, with two theme groups of three subjects each subjected to considerable development and transformation. It is impossible to distinguish them just from listening, they are so enmeshed and tightly linked. In any case, it isn't necessary. This is one of the works, like J.S. Bach's _Chaconne for solo violin_, that is highly technical but very emotional at the same time. Maestro Karajan's recording, although not the clearest in terms of recording quality, has bought me to tears on many occasions. I feel that he had a special affinity with this piece, not only due to his experiences but also because he knew the composer personally. I have also heard the work live quite a few times, one memorable performance was led by Wolfram Christ. It is cathartic in effect, but not always easy to take.


----------



## science

Another phenomenal series of posts; I love that Schoenberg piece and I'll give the Strauss another listen soon because, like all of Strauss, it has never really, really grabbed me. 

I think you mean that Beethoven's symphony and Napoleon represent the birth of totalitarianism rather than the birth of the Enlightenment. If the Enlightenment has a birth it has to be around 1700; following a fascinating scholar (Jonathan Israel) I would argue for an earlier date, definitely no later than 1688, ideally to the 1650s when Descartes and Hobbes were writing and Spinoza was kicked out of his synagogue. 

The musical equivalent for these developments would be the late Baroque period, and perhaps in a way that makes sense. I've felt for a few years now that we could periodize things with a line around 1648 at the earliest and 1688 at the latest, with Monteverdi on one side and Corelli and Rameau on the other; you've got the ascent of the violin and cello, quite a bit of improvement with the harpsichord, the development of the concerto (easy to see this as an Enlightenment thing, a rational-ish exploration of community dynamics), opera seria. I read that Rameau was considered "the Isaac Newton of music." The idea of Enlightened despotism, and Louis XIV's example in particular, contributed to the idea that music appreciation could help legitimize social status (the best example of this would be "the Flute king," Frederick the Great, the ultimate "enlightened despot"), and that's quite a change from the early 17th century. I know that none of this appeared totally de novo in the late 1600s or early 1700s, and it's always way too easy to overdo this kind of thing, and that these musical developments were largely pushed from Italy and France while the intellectual side of the Enlightenment was largely developed in the Netherlands and England (these are also easy to overstate), but I think that if we handle it all with enough trepidation at least we can find some correspondences. 

From this POV, the transition from Baroque to what we now call "classical era" music would be phenomena within the Enlightenment, parallel in some ways (again with trepidation) to the transitions between Baroque, Rococo, and neoclassical visual arts; parallel as well in some ways (trepidation) to the development of the novel, and the earliest trends we'd identify as romanticism (which really appeared within the Enlightenment itself before dominating the era between Napoleon and the 1848 revolutions). 

Well, this is far off from music at this point and I would have to defend this scheme against a lot of just criticism, which is more than I care to do. I'll just let it be an "I'm not saying anything I'm just sayin'" "take it or leave it" sort of series of suggestions.


----------



## Arsakes

Such knowledgable topic! 
I appreciate it a lot.


----------



## Sid James

Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts, science.

Its true that what happened in reality was dictatorship, the opposite of the philosophies of the Enlightenment, and I suppose what Napoleon was doing was like a double edged sword. He spread the ideas of republicanism to all the countries he invaded. Of course that's oxymoronic in itself. But the thing is that once that happened, and even though he was defeated, those ideas did make impacts far and wide. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, a period of reaction set in. That's what led to 1848, basically. You tell people all these crazy ideas about freedom, but you don't give it to them, well you can expect trouble.

But yes, Napoleon did become a dictator. He's still a potent symbol of that kind of Machiavellian transformation from liberator to oppressor. You look at that African dictator Bokassa, who in the 1970's staged a self coronation that was a near to replica of Napoleon's one. He even had horses imported from France, carriages built, his throne was the same, everything. The French gave him 2.5 million dollars, it was all part of Cold War politics, and they got access to the country's vast mineral resources. Later on Bokassa was tried for murder, embezzlement and cannibalism. He was put into captivity like Napoleon, but he died a free man.

But my point with this is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Napoleon is a symbol, like the French revolution that preceded his rise, of a big change. But the big change didn't really work out very well. For the French he's still some sort of symbol with many things attached, including positive things, despite his soldiers committing war crimes (look at Goya's etchings 'The Disasters of War'). Bokassa is apparently still revered by some in Central African Republic, you get that same sort of nostalgia attached to figures like Idi Amin, or indeed Stalin and especially Mussolini. You do something right, like let the trains run on time to speak to the cliche about Mussolini, and many of the bad things you did can be swept under the carpet.

I also agree that the Enlightenment happened way before Napoleon, before 1789. Its just that then it became reality in some ways. No wonder Napoleon modelled himself on the Roman emperors, he was seeking to build an empire, and with that reform many aspects of European life, such as the political, judiciary and education systems.

And yes, image was important, for example architecture moving into the Neo-Classical style away from the Rococo was an aspect of that. You got rid of the excess and had this severe and pared down kind of look. It spoke to that idea of government for the people (pity they only built the parliaments, but they where just rubber stamps for oppressors of one type or another).

As for the rest of what you say, I think like that too, marrying up what's going on in music with the other arts. Its not clear to me if there are exact correspondences, but things do sometimes overlap. Of course Italy was important, the Renaissance in terms of the visual arts looms in my mind in terms of that. Of course there you still had that tension between change and oppression.

The enlightened despots such as Louis XIV and Frederick the Great (Tsar Peter the Great is another good example) are also on my mind often when I listen to and read about music of that era. The French monarchy was very decayed, the Prussians where less ostentatious but Frederick ruled with an iron fist, and despite Russia's 'window to the West' St. Petersburg, the vast majority of the Tsar's subjects lived in abject poverty, in feudalism.

There are these issues, the other thing is that you've got 1789 as being taught - certainly in my time - as the beginning of what we call Modern history. A case can be made for Beethoven's Eroica being the one of the beginnings of Modern music, and in terms of visual art there is that view that paintings like J.M.W. Turner's Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway where the first 'Modern' paintings.

I'm not that hung up on this really though, I remember reading a quote by Peter Warlock to the effect that everything old was modern once, all art was at some point new and therefore of its time. That's close to my definition of modern, a transient and changeable one depending on its context.

But a lot of what Modern means is an extension of Romantic anyway, and I was going to put a quote by Schoenberg about what he saw as important for him as a composer. Its basically something that Beethoven might well agree with, Strauss definitely. About the primacy of self expression by a composer, of the transmission of emotions, but I don't want to paraphrase too much. I ended up leaving that out of the post, but I may end up including it if I do another one including Arnie.



Arsakes said:


> Such knowledgable topic!
> I appreciate it a lot.


You're very welcome Arsakes, I'm glad you enjoyed reading it.


----------



## Rapide

Sid James said:


> *Schoenberg *_Ode to Napoleon for speaker, piano and strings, Op. 41 _(1942)
> - David Pittman-Jennings, baritone; Jeanne-Marie Conquer & Hae Sun Kang, violins; Christophe Desjardins, viola; Jean-Guiden Queyras, cello; Florent Boffard, piano; Pierre Boulez, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)
> 
> ....[/COLOR]


That is a fantastic recording on every level.


----------



## Sid James

*Towards breaking the sound barrier - Music by R. Strauss, Mahler, Busoni and Varese*

*Richard Strauss* and *Gustav Mahler *where two of the most important figures in music at the turn of the 20th century. In some ways they where opposites, Strauss the master of the tone poem (and later of opera), and Mahler the master symphonist. Strauss tended to rely on literary texts for inspiration, while Mahler composed music that avoided too much emphasis on conveying some program or narrative. 








However there where similarities between them, such as their use of large orchestras, and also their careers as conductors. They where also cultivated men who where interested in literature, philosophy and psychology.

Another aspect is how both men acted as mentors to and inspired the younger generation of composers. One such composer was *Edgard Varese*, who was undoubtedly influenced by the tone poems of Strauss and the symphonies of Mahler. After initial studies in music in Paris under Vincent D'Indy, Albert Roussel and Charles-Marie Widor, Varese made his way to Berlin where *Ferruccio Busoni *took him under his wing. In an interview late in his life, Varese reflected about how Strauss, Mahler and Busoni "had given me my professional start with their encouragement and esteem for my scores."









I think that there is some sort of lineage that goes through the works I am about to cover in depth here. All of these composers where pushing sound itself to the utmost limits, which explains the title of this post. Of course, they where doing equally interesting things with other aspects of music such as rhythm, structure and tonality. One aspect that all these pieces have in common is sections which speak to sound that just floats as if in outer space. The Busoni piece is literally a work that is totally like that.









Speaking to more tangible connections, it is possible that Varese heard Mahler's _Symphony #6_, but it isn't known for sure. There are sections of his _Ameriques_, particularly passages for the offstage brass banda, that display that possible influence. Both works employ large percussion sections, and novel instruments such as Mahler's notorious 'hammer of fate' and Varese's trademark sirens.

Busoni dedicated his _Berceuse élegiaque_ to Varese, and a grievously ill Mahler conducted this piece in his last ever concert in New York. Mahler admired Busoni's piece, as did Strauss and other composers such as Schoenberg. In terms of admiration going the other way, both Mahler and Varese praised Strauss' _Salome,_ but again it was considered by many to be a masterpiece of the age, albeit a controversial one.

_Images, top to bottom:
1. Nikolaus Lenau, the poet who wrote Don Juan upon which Strauss' tone poem is based.
2. Edgard Varese with electronic equipment in his later years.
3. Mahler's 'hammer of fate' ('hammerschlag') in action._


----------



## Sid James

*R. Strauss *_Don Juan, Op. 20 _(1889)
- Royal PO conducted by Charles Mackerras (alto)

The premiere of *Strauss' Don Juan *took place at Weimar, where he was working as assistant conductor, and it was a resounding success. The composer, who had conducted his own work, had five curtain calls and an encore performance was demanded by the audience. Later, Hans von Bulow, who had criticized Struass' _ Aus Italien _only two years previously, embraced the new work as well.

Strauss explained that his work was less about Don Juan the playboy and more about a young man's sense of longing for the unattainable. That is, a psychological quest for the perfect woman, which ultimately ends in disillusionment. The composer didn't provide any literal program for the piece, but made the following statement:

"My Don Juan is no hot-blooded man eternally persuing women. It is the longing in him to find a woman who is to him incarnate of womanhood, and to enjoy, in the one, all the women on earth, whom he cannot possess as individuals. Because he does not find her, although he reels from one to another, at last Disgust seizes hold of him and this Disgust is the Devil that fetches him."

The work alternates between a driving theme announced at the start, which brings to mind our hero bursting onto the scene, with contrasting love music episodes. There is no doubting the works drama, but there is much subtlety here too. The love episodes bring solo instruments to the fore, one the violin, another the oboe above these floating strings. The climaxes are bold and loud, with drum rolls, blaring brass and surging strings.

The work ends in an ambiguous way, bringing back that sense of floating texture in the love music. The plucked strings concluding _Don Juan _remind me of the same texture Liszt used to open his most famous tone poem,_ Les Preludes_. Perhaps this is a tribute to the former kapellmeister at Weimar, himself a_ Don Juan _in some respects?


----------



## Sid James

*Mahler* _Symphony #6 in A minor _(1903-4)
- Melbourne SO conducted by Mark Wigglesworth (ABC Classics)

I find *Mahler's Symphony #6* to be an intriguing work. It is amongst the longest of his symphonies and yet it is also one of the most thematically unified ones. It doesn't break out of the traditional four movement and purely instrumental mould, yet it is full of sounds that are startling for the period. The work requires a large orchestra, including a massive percussion section (on and off stage), and a so-called 'hammer of fate' (_hammerschlag_) which produces the massive thuds in the finale.

The whole piece turns on two main themes announced at the start. One is a march that is cutting and begins without any warning, bursting forth much like the start of _Don Juan_. The second, played by the strings, is passionate, hopeful, warm and even quirky. The latter is said to portray the composer's wife, Alma.

Textures also course through the symphony, one is like floating in outer space. It plunges the listener into some parallel dimension away from the banal marches. Mahler uses delicate scoring for this idea, using instruments such as harp, celesta, muted trumpet and flute. The xylophone also appears throughout the symphony, giving off a spooky vibe. Another recurring texture is the odd combination of double basses and bassoons.

The first movement ends with the 'Alma' theme in triumph. Mahler didn't prescribe the order in which internal movements must be played, in this recording the scherzo comes first. It is again an odd combination of a rough and ready dance with a refined and graceful trio section straight out of Haydn or Mozart. The slow movement is the emotional core of the work, it begins with a tune that has the feel of church music. Its conclusion gives the biggest emotional release thus far, a huge surge of energy and passion from the strings.

As usual, with the final movement Mahler brings everything together. Half an hour in length, this is one of his most ambitious finales. The floating spacy idea kicks it off, and themes and their variations from earlier come and go. It is all punctuated by massive poundings from the _hammerschlag_ and cymbal clashes. This comes across as not only some sort of hell, but avant-garde before the term became used. After a final clash the work ends with a fade out effect.


----------



## Sid James

*Busoni* _Berceuse élegiaque, Op. 42 _(1909)
- Hong Kong PO conducted by Samuel Wong (Naxos)

The spaced out and floating sections of both Strauss' _Don Juan _and Mahler's _Symphony #6_ served to give the listener rest and plunge him or her into another world. In *Busoni's Berceuse elegiaque*, those types of otherwordly vibes are not just episodes in a work, they are the whole work.

Busoni originally composed the piece for piano, but orchestrated it after his mother died. It is an extraordinary work for its time, the entire eleven minutes features a small orchestra with muted strings playing this rocking rhythm, the winds with these glissandi, all punctuated by celesta and gong. The rhythm is both comforting and obsessive, both hypnotic and disturbing. Ambigiuty is the word here, both in terms of tonality and mood.

Richard Strauss admired the orchestration of this piece. Strauss had an opinion on almost anything, incidentally he found Mahler's _Symphony #6 _to be "overscored." However, knowing Strauss, that may well have been a facetious comment! But like Mahler's sixth, Busoni's berceuse was initially greeted with much bafflement.


----------



## Sid James

*Varese *
_Ameriques, for very large orchestra and offstage banda _(original version, 1921)
- Polish National Radio SO conducted by Christopher Lyndon-Gee (Naxos)

The startling effects of Strauss, the exposed writing of Mahler for various sections of his massive orchestra, and the ambiguity of Busoni are all reflected in *Varese's Ameriques*. The composer had left Europe for America at the end of World War I in 1915. It is likely that he started composing it prior to his departure and in effect it is a compendium of all of his studies in Paris and Berlin.

Like Mahler's_ Symphony #6_, with its references to the street parades and banal street music of his own milieu, Varese's piece is a portrait of New York. The opening solo played by bass flute brings to my mind aspects of the opening of Stravinsky's _Rite of Spring,_ a work whose premiere Varese attended. The lush sound of the flute is soon interrupted by interjections that suggest an urban jungle as opposed to some remote tropical jungle.

Varese mines his 155 piece orchestra for all it is worth, there is a plethora of sounds here such as cow bells (as in the Mahler), siren and the trademark 'lion's roar.' Again like Mahler, there is the music of marching bands and loud crashes punctuating the work. While there isn't repetition strictly speaking, elements such as the opening flute idea do come back, played by various instruments. There are also interchanges between the offstage 'banda' and the onstage orchestra. The work ends in an intense onslaught of cacophonous sounds.

_Ameriques _would only be the beginning of Varese's quest to express the essence of sound. By the end of his career he would be composing electronic music, making reality the theories that had been taught to him by Busoni. With his compositions aiming at expressing in music that which was formerly inexpressible, only 'heard' in the composer's inner ear, he had broken the sound barrier.

To conclude, I'll leave you with another quote by Varese from that interview I mentioned earlier:

"I don't care about reaching the public as much as I care about reaching certain musical-acoustical phenomena, in other words to disturb the atmosphere - because, after all, sound is only an atmospheric disturbance!"


----------



## Sid James

*Corelli, concertos and strings from the sunny South - Music by Corelli, Handel, Elgar, Tippett and Dutilleux*​
*Arcangelo Corelli* was one of the most important composers of the Baroque period. He was pivotal in making instrumental music into an artform that was independent of church music and opera. His sets of _sonatas da camera_ and _concerti grossi_ paved the way for the solo sonatas and concertos that followed. They where widely imitated and arranged by other composers.








In addition to composition, Corelli was famous as a violinist and as a teacher. His innovations in string technique included the signature singing tone, bringing the feel of choral music into instrumental music, and increased opportunities for the players to improvise and add ornamentation to the music. He also established the playing of double and triple stops (playing two or three strings at the same time) as a part of violin technique.

Corelli's influence extended from Italian composers such as Geminiani, Locatelli and Vivaldi to others abroad such as J.S. Bach, Handel, Telemann, Couperin and Purcell. Speaking of *George Frederic Handel*, his stay in Italy between 1706 and 1709 saw him meeting and working with a number of prominent musicians, and one of them was Corelli. The Italian was at the end of his career, whilst the young composer from Germany was only in his twenties. Their collaboration saw Corelli play under Handel's direction in performances of his operatic works, and they also swapped places with Corelli directing.

It is likely that both men where homosexual, although with Corelli the evidence is much clearer than with Handel. *Corelli's 12 Concerti Grossi * are at the center of his slender but significant body of works. They where published posthumously by the violinist who was his lover of some twenty years, Matteo Fornari. 








These pieces are in five or six contrasting movements, with the larger body of the orchestra (the _concerto grosso_) itself contrasted with a smaller group of string players (the _concertino_). The two groups at times merge and at other times throw ideas back and forth, creating a sort of dialogue in music. There is the choral quality, as already mentioned, in many of the slow movements.

Corelli's counterpoint tends to be light in texture, and often there are catchy melodic 'hooks' that can be just as memorable as any pop song. The one in the opening of the fourth concerto is amongst my favourites. The most famous of these concertos is the eighth 'fatto per la notte di natale' (_made for Christmas Night_). Indeed, after Corelli's death, these pieces where widely played in churches.

*Handel's Italian cantatas* show the influence of Corelli, particularly in the breezy string writing, even though the textures are fuller and the rhythms even more driving. The instrumental sonata opening _*O come chiare e belle*_ sounds like it could have been written by Corelli, but other sections (such as the aria _Io torno a sperare_) have that typically Handelian bouncy counterpoint. The conclusion of this cantata (_Alle voci del bronzo guerrero_) with its writing for trumpet looks forward to _And the Trumpet Shall Sound_ in _Messiah_, the masterpiece of Handel's maturity to come.








These pieces are mini operas with plots revolving around earthly and godly love in Arcadian settings. Significantly, they where performed at private soirees (or _conversazione_) exclusively attended by cultivated men, but where never published in Handel's lifeteime. They give expression to the pleasures and dangers of love, and hint at a gay subculture in Italy which Handel connected with on his visit there.

_Details of recordings above_:

*Corelli* 
_12 Concerti Grossi, Op. 6_ (published 1714)
- Musica Amphion directed from the harpsichord by Pieter-Jan Belder

*Handel* 
_Italian cantatas_ (1708-9) : 
_O come chiare e belle HWV143 ; 
Clori, mia bella Clori HWV92 ; 
Amarilli vezzosa (Il Duello Amoroso) HWV82_
- Patrizia Kwella & Gillian Fisher, sopranos ; Catherine Denley, contralto with The London Handel Orch. under Denys Darlow (Hyperion)​


----------



## Sid James

*Corelli's legacy for Western classical music *continues uninterrupted until today, at least subliminally in that sonatas and concertos continue to be composed. In the 20th century composers again began to compose concerti grossi, notable examples including those by Martinu, Bloch and Schittke. However, in this post I will discuss works that display aspects of the concerto grosso form but don't go by the actual title. 










*Elgar* _Introduction and Allegro, Op. 47_ (1905)
- Capella Istropolitana under Adrian Leaper (Naxos)​
A concerto grosso in all but name, *Edward Elgar's Introduction and Allegro* for string quartet and string orchestra pays homage to masters of previous eras that he so admired. When a colleague asked Elgar how he achieved that unique string sonority found in his chamber music, "study old Handel, I went to him for help ages ago" was the advice he offered.

Elgar had also, by necessity, made arrangements of music by Mozart and Rossini when conducting amateur orchestras in his younger days. The orchestras where too small to play their full scores, so Elgar had to slim them down to size. Elgar was largely self-taught, and he studied the classics rigorously to get a grasp of technique and form.

_Introduction and Allegro_ opens with a flourish and settles down to a lyrical and somewhat melancholic melody. A more animated section later on speaks to the vibrancy of Handel's music, and a fugue towards the end of the work ties the whole piece together neatly. 










*Tippett* _Fantasia concertante on a theme of Corelli_ (1953)
- Yehudi Menuhin & Robert Masters, violins; Derek Simpson, cello; Bath Festival Orch. under the composer (EMI)​
*Michael Tippett's Fantasia concertante on a theme of Corelli* was composed to commemorate the three hundredth anniversary of the composer's birth.

The theme stated at the beginning comes from Corelli's _Concerto Grosso #2. _ In turn that evolves into another quoted theme, from Bach's _Fugue in B minor BWV578, _ which itself was based on a Corelli theme. The structure here is no less deliberate than of Elgar's piece, however the transition from introduction to the seven variations and fugue is less noticeable and quite seamless. The work comes round full circle at the end, back to the initial Corelli theme.

Malcolm Sargent, who was to conduct the premiere of this work, rejected it. He said it was too intellectual and denounced it so the job of conducting went to the composer. Sargent's reaction was in some respects understandable. The piece pushes the possibilities of the string orchestra to its limit in terms of complexity of counterpoint and rhythmic changes. The writing is quite dense in places, bringing to mind how Beethoven pushes the string quartet to its limits in his late works. The motoric rhythms bring to mind Stravinksy, who was another composer who profoundly influenced Tippett.

Tippett's music in general was an acquired taste for me. However, I did eventually come to appreciate and enjoy his music. The _Fantasia concertante_ is often cited as bringing the English string tradition to a close, but I think it also provides for new beginnings in terms of the eclecticism and quirkiness of Tippett's style. 










*Dutilleux* _Symphony #2, "Le Double"_ (1959)
- Orchestre National de Capitole de Toulouse under Michel Plasson (EMI)​
If Tippett's _Fantasia concertante_ caused controversy for stretching boundaries too much, *Henri Dutilleux's Symphony #2 "Le Double" * garnered the opposite reaction from sections of the musical establishment. Written when the serialist hegemony was still a force to be reckoned with, Dutilleux's symphony engages with the old concerto grosso form, adding to it more than a hint of the big bands of the jazz realm. The work is just as eclectic in terms of technique as in terms of form, for it mixes tonal, modal and serial elements freely.

Throughout the work, there is an element of exchange, battle or just ebb and flow between the orchestra and a mini orchestra of 12 instruments. The inclusion of harpsichord always makes me think that the ancient instrument might just have been left in the concert hall from a Baroque concert done the night before. The symphony definitely has bluesy elements, particularly in the parts for brass and winds.

There is a certain epic quality, almost filmic, to the first movement. There are dotted rhythms here played on brass, coming across as something like Handel mixed with jazz.

The second movement opens with a nocturnal feel, string soloists come to the fore here and there, as in a concerto grosso. Other instruments, from the harpsichord, to oboe, to trumpet emerge and subside in turns. A climax is reached at about mid point, and the soaring trumpet in particular reminds me of Berg's music.

The suspense of the middle movement gives way to the final movement, that returns to the initial epic feel. The exchanges between the big and small orchestras come thick and fast here! Massive bursts of orchestral colour contrast with the most delicate of textures, a particularly beautiful one involves the harp. The work fades away into the nothingness from which it emerged.


----------



## Sid James

*Looking forwards, looking back: Brahms' two piano concertos - Music by Mozart, Brahms and Schoenberg*​
The title of this post is taken from a popular country song, as it captures how I see the two piano concertos of Johannes Brahms. They play a pivotal role in the history of the concerto genre. 








*Brahms' Piano Concerto #1*, premiered not long after his mentor Robert Schumann's death, has a great deal of drama and even turmoil. The work is in the same key as *Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Piano Concerto #20*, a piece that Brahms played often in his years as a concert pianist. 








Early in his career Brahms was better known as a pianist than a composer, and on the eve of the 100th anniversary of Mozart's birth, he was invited to perform this work in Hamburg. It is amongst Mozart's darkest and expressive works, displaying an embryonic Romanticism, and Ludwig van Beethoven and Clara Schumann also liked to play it. Brahms even wrote a cadenza for it.

*Brahms' Piano Concerto #2* came some two decades after the first, and the piece is mellow, confident and even lighthearted in mood. Like the earlier concerto, it incorporate dance tunes, inspired by Hungarian music as well as the Viennese waltzes that Brahms so admired.








*Arnold Schoenberg's Piano Concerto *is also full of the spirit of the waltz, albeit quite fragmented. Schoenberg saw Brahms as a progressive, chiefly in how he brought a new sense of freedom to the old forms, thus bringing new life to them. Schoenberg's concerto also continues the symphonic tendencies of both of Brahms' concertos, the piano is fully integrated into the orchestral texture, rather than being set apart from it. This emphasis on unity and adoption of a conversational quality - as opposed to the usual dueling between soloist and orchestra that typifies the traditional concerto genre - was another reason why Schoenberg saw Brahms as an innovator.

_Pictures top to bottom:
1. Brahms (left) with Joachim, the most significant composer-performer relationship of the 19th century.
2. Raoul Dufy's "Blue Mozart," painted in 1952.
3. Arnold Schoenberg._​


----------



## Sid James

*Mozart* _Piano Concerto #20 in D minor KV466 _(1785)
- Géza Anda, piano with Camerata Academica of the Salzburg Mozarteum; Cadenza by Anda (DGG Eloquence)​
The *Piano Concerto #20 *comes from *Mozart's* time as a freelance musician during the 1780's in Vienna. During the Lenten season the theatres where closed, and Mozart capitalized on this with public concerts. It was at one such concert during 1785 that he first performed this piece, and it was an immediate success.

The piece is dark in mood, atypical of Mozart's music, although it has similarities with other works such as the opera _Don Giovanni._ Haydn's _Sturm und Drang _period must surely have been an influence, and Haydn was in Vienna during this time.

Throughout, the piece alternates between a sense of edginess, sadness and poetry, but the ending is a happy one. The Mozart scholar Eric Blom commented on this as being an example of Mozart pushing the audience as far as he could, but then retracting at the last minute. "After all," wrote Blom, "Mozart remembered this was a concerto, a piece meant to entertain. Feeling that he had done enough to startle his polite hearers with his most impassioned music, he relieved them at the end and let them go away emotionally relaxed."

*Brahms*
_Piano Concerto #1 in D minor, Op. 15_ (1859)
_Piano Concerto #2 in B flat major, Op. 83_ (1881) *
- Wilhelm Backhaus, piano with Vienna PO under Karl Bohm; *Emmanuel Babec, solo cello in third movement (Decca Eloquence)​
"I take up this sharp and hard steel nib of Sahr's to tell you how it came to pass that my concerto was a brilliant and decisive - flop" wrote *Brahms* after the premiere of his *Piano Concerto #1* in Hanover. However, a performance a few months later in his home town of Hamburg was more successful.

Brahms was pushing boundaries just like Mozart had before him, and his concerto also opens with a serious - even heroic - introduction. The work comes across very much as struggle between darkness and light. The pianist's entry has the delicacy of the cimbalom, an instrument of Hungarian bands. This speaks to Brahms fascination with the music of that country, which started as early as 1848 when Hungarians fleeing the revolution there flooded into Hamburg, many en route to the United States.

Two Hungarian violinists figured largely in Brahms development as a composer. One was Ede Remenyi, with whom he toured as a pianist, another was Joseph Joachim. With the latter, Brahms would form arguably the most important composer-performer partnership of the 19th century. Brahms consulted Joachim on technical matters concerning many works, including the _Piano Concerto #1_. Letters have survived which show the detailed manner of their working through these major works, passing ideas back and forth.

The _*Piano Concerto #1*_ was Brahms' first large scale work, and it is hard to deny the strains which he was under during this time. It was started around the time his mentor Robert Schumann was going through his final illness in an asylum. The high point of the work is the central slow movement, that has _Benedictus qui venit in nomine domini _(_blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord_) written on the score. During Schumann's illness, Brahms visited him with Clara Schumann, and they both studied choral music. The ideas in this emotional movement are thought to stem from these experiences.

After the stresses of the first concerto, Brahms said that "a second one will certainly be different." Indeed it was to be, but it came over twenty years later. By that time, Brahms was no longer a young composer finding his feet but an established composer of middle age. He started work on the piece after returning from one of his trips to Italy.








Even if his _*Piano Concerto #2*_ reflects a sense of confidence, Brahms still had doubts about it. Working with the conductor Hans von Bulow on the piece at Meningen, Brahms was eager to keep it under wraps until the last minute. He even wrote to a friend, probably facetiously, that he was working on a "tiny" concerto!

Brahms looked back on this experience as really satisfying. He wrote of the musicians at Meningen as being "truly industrious players" and "magnificent." Taking the work on tour, Brahms would swap roles with von Bulow, one conducting, the other as soloist and vice-versa.

It can be argued that the second concerto is even more tighter thematically than the first, no doubt helped by the addition of a scherzo as second movement. The tone is really conversational, form the initial horn call immediately answered by the piano, to the final movement where the dance tune is passed from the winds to the piano and back again. Many elements, such as a certain warm string sonority and pizzicato remind the listener of moments in Brahms' chamber music. The cellist is also given a star turn in the slow movement, and the trademark Baroque-flavored contrapuntal textures are also present.










*Schoenberg* _Piano Concerto, Op. 42_ (1942)
- Mitsuko Uchida, piano with Cleveland Orchestra under Pierre Boulez (Philips)​
Brahms acolyte, critic Eduard Hanslick, called that second concerto "a symphony with piano obbligato." It was exactly this quality, the sense of expanding the concerto whilst rigorously yet freely working on themes, which attracted *Schoenberg* to Brahms' music. His own _*Piano Concerto*_, like Brahms' second one, is divided into four roughly corresponding movements. Since Brahms' concertos attracted some criticism for their symphonic aspects, Schoenberg's adoption of the same form acts in some way as vindication of their structural integrity and sense of balance.

If Mozart's concerto looks forward to Romanticism, and Brahms' concertos look forward to Modernism, then Schoenberg's piece can be seen as a culmination of the two. Of all three composers, Schoenberg was the only one who was native to Vienna, so it is understandable how his concerto is like a waltz in disguise.

When I first heard this concerto (the earlier recording by Alfred Brendel), what I noticed immediately are those delicate layers of sound. While Schoenberg pushed boundaries in terms of going beyond the traditional tonal system, his music is also interesting in terms of sonority. The composer here makes use of a very wide range of colours and instrumental effects, from muted brass to exposed strings and woodwinds.

The whole piece grows organically out of the lyrical piano passage at the start, and as it moves from one movement to the next without pause, numerous transformations of this idea occur. Even though the work utilizes the serial technique, it is relatively approachable, and there is delicacy here and even whimsy. The last note gives me a sense of being suspended in mid air, a very unorthodox way to end a piece.

The concerto was premiered by Eduard Steuermann and the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski on February 6, 1944.


----------



## Sid James

*In Mahler's shadow - Music by Mahler, Britten, Copland and Bernstein*








"One dare not analyze where such a spell is wrought," wrote Paul Bekker in his well known essay on *Gustav Mahler's Symphony #9. *Coming to write this post, I am daunted by this mammoth 80 minute work, one of the few in the symphonic repertoire that can take up a whole concert unto itself. Nevertheless, I feel that I must include it in this series, for it holds a pivotal point in music at the turn of the 20th century. Mahler cast his shadow over the 20th century, similar to how Beethoven did over the previous century.

Composers influenced by the piece included *Benjamin Britten*, who had a lifelong fascination with Mahler's music, his _*Sinfonia da Requiem *_opening on his favourite key (which is that of the ninth symphony - D major).

Another was *Aaron Copland*, whose _*Clarinet Concerto *_opens with a melody much like that of the ninth symphony.

*Leonard Bernstein's* score for the film _*On the Waterfront *_is another, which has a similar opening, albeit more in mood and texture than actual melody.









There are connections between these three composers as well. When Copland visited London, he was Britten's guest. The situation was reversed when Britten went to New York. The two developed a sympathetic friendship, based on admiration of eachother's work as well as them both being outsiders, homosexuals.

Bernstein conducted the American premiere of Britten's opera _Peter Grimes _(1945), and was also one of the best interpreters of Copland's music. Bernstein and Copland where lovers at one point as well. Bernstein's role in the postwar Mahler revival is well known, and he came into the spotlight as a brilliant young conductor in 1943, when Bruno Walter was unable to conduct the New York Philharmonic due to illness.

Maestro Walter had been Mahler's protégé, and had conducted the premieres of both the ninth symphony and _Das Lied_.









Speaking to his connections with Copland, I must also mention the jazz clarinetist *Benny Goodman *here. He commissioned the Copland piece, and he may have had a concerto written for him by Britten too, had it not been for a strange quirk of history. He had started to compose a concerto for Goodman whilst in America, but it was confiscated by customs officials when he returned to Britain in 1942. They thought it contained secret codes!


_Images, top to bottom:
1.	Portrait of Mahler by Emil Orlik, 1902.
2.	Copland and Britten, c. 1950's.
3.	"On the Waterfront" movie poster._​


----------



## Sid James

*Mahler* _Symphony #9 in D major _(1909)
- Vienna PO under Claudio Abbado (DGG Virtuoso)​
*Mahler's Symphony #9* begins where his previous work, _Das Lied von der Erde_, takes off. The gently swaying melody has a sense of bittersweet nostalgia to it, and it contrasts with another focal idea that is anguished and intense. Alban Berg thought that this movement was Mahler's most beautiful creation.

Indeed, in the first movement Mahler is not interested in sonata form, but in how these ideas can be contrasted, elaborated and varied in a free manner. This dualism is continued in the following three movements, the play between light and darkness, happiness and misery, life and death being an obvious metaphor for how the wildly contrasting ideas are presented.

If Haydn's late symphonies show us a picture of late 18th century life, with allusions to bagpipers, fiddlers and sounds of the city, Mahler's vision is similar in terms of imaging his own time. Throughout the symphony, there are reminiscences of marches - both military and funereal - to the trademark folk dances (_landlers_), even gypsy bands and perhaps the spirit of the fairground. It is obviously also a portrait of music being like a spiritual balm for the ills of life, and the final movement has string sonorities that owe some debt to choral music.

Bekker concluded his essay by describing the _Adagio_ as a "solemn revelation of worlds to come." Mahler's influence would indeed prove revelatory for many composers to come in his wake.










*Britten* _Sinfonia da Requiem, Op. 20 _(1940)
- New Zealand SO under Myer Fredman (Naxos)​
*Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem* is overall a quite pared down work and it has elements that are disturbing. The first movement opens with doom laden Ds on the timpani and builds up suspense with repetitive patterns. The middle movement starts with the trademark flutter-tonguing of flutes, an outlet of the tension which energises the percussion section to no end. There is a sense of the orchestra being used like a machine here, it makes me think of some wind up toy. The third movement brings some release and winds down the piece into silence.

There is a similar slow-fast-slow structure here to Mahler's ninth symphony, and the massed strings in the last movement also impart the feel of choral music.

Commissioned by the Japanese government but rejected by them due to the Christian title, the work was dedicated to the composer's parents and premiered in New York under Sir John Barbirolli in March 1941. Its likely that Britten threw this to the Japanese as a provocation, he knew it would be rejected. But he made good use of the money, buying a car with it!


----------



## Sid James

*Copland *_Clarinet Concerto _(1948)
- David Singer, clarinet with A Far Cry Orchestra (Naxos)​
"I remember hours of reading Mahler scores, painfully reading them at the piano - especially _Das Lied von der Erde_. It didn't matter how slowly you went, you had to go on!," said Copland in a 1967 interview, reminiscing about his student years in Paris.

*Copland's Clarinet Concerto* was composed in 1948 for the "King of Swing," Benny Goodman. No surprises that jazz is a strong influence here, especially the final movement that goes in the direction of Latin jazz, to the heart of Brazil. Copland composed part of the work in Rio. Here, my favourite bit is when the clarinetist jams with the double bass and pianist, as in a jazz trio.

The quirky rhythms of Stravinsky are there, so too the delicacy of Debussy's orchestral textures. These are composers with whose music Copland was acquainted with first hand in his youth under Nadia Boulanger's tutelage. Speaking to that, the piece is lightly scored, for strings, harp and piano accompanying the soloist.

The opening of this work stretches right back to the sublime and song-like aspects of Mozart's _Clarinet Concerto_, and emerges through the lens of the opening bit of Mahler's _Symphony #9_. The harp is there, but imagine the clarinet replacing the horn with its poignant and nostalgic melody. The two-movement work is unified by a central cadenza, and goes without break.

The concerto was premiered by Goodman with Fritz Reiner conducting the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1950. It has been in the repertoire virtually ever since, and was adapted into a ballet called _The Pied Piper _by the New York City Ballet.










*Bernstein* _On The Waterfront - Symphonic Suite from the Film _(1954)
- Bournemouth SO under Marin Alsop (Naxos)​
"Hollywood is exactly how I expected it, only worse," wrote *Bernstein* to Copland, desolute about how much of his music for *On the Waterfront *didn't make it to the film's final cut.

It was Bernstein's only original film score. Director Elia Kazan's film about a conflict between longshoremen and their corrupt union on the New York docks broke new ground in terms of its grittiness, realism and incorporation of things like improvisation and method acting. The film featured an all-star cast - Marlon Brando, Eve Marie-Saint, Rod Steiger and Karl Malden.

Even though the score was nominated for an Oscar, Bernstein found working in Hollywood to be quite a restrictive experience. He fashioned this piece from the discarded material, and its one of my favourite works by him.

For all intents and purposes, this is a symphony, but it also ties into the action of the film. The pivotal love theme is in effect the slow movement. Who can forget that soaring emotional melody, first played on the flute then passed to the low strings and then the trumpet? It was the scene where Eve Marie dropped her glove accidentally and Marlon picked it up and kind of toyed with it, which was not planned but the cameras kept rolling. Here, we have Bernstein building up those layers just as Mahler does.

The start of the work features this horn theme that has strong shades of the opening of Mahler's _Symphony #9_, a perfect accompaniment to the distant New York skyline seen from Hoboken. Another main idea in the work is this agitated idea with this aggressive pounding rhythm, which is the scene in the film when the church of the priest played by Malden, who sides with the workers, has its windows smashed by thugs.

The fugue that ends the work and brings all these ideas together is simply breathtaking, original and imaginative. The three themes are united together and it ends in triumph. Again, just as in the film, the corrupt union boss finds himself abandoned by the workers who follow Brando, Eve Marie and Malden.


----------



## Sid James

Further listening:

*Mozart's *_Clarinet Concerto_ - a work that got the clarinet concerto genre going, Benny Goodman also performed this.

*Britten's *_An American Overture _- also composed while he was in America, it bears influence of Copland.

*Bernstein's* _Three Dance Episodes from On the Town_ - bears traces of jazz and blues. The last movement _Times Square _could well have been composed for Goodman, its got a catchy clarinet solo.

*Bartok's *_Contrasts_, also commissioned by Benny Goodman.

*Robert Aldridge's *_Clarinet Concerto_, a work from the 21st century (composed 2004), it bears the influence of Mahler as well with a klezmer infused march in the middle movement.

*Benny Goodman's 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall* (image below, double album on Sony label). It was the first jazz concert in a classical venue of such prestige in American history, and thought to be the first ever at such a place featuring African American musicians. The lineup is stellar, not only Goodman's regulars such as trumpeter Harry James, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton and drummer Gene Krupa, but also guests from the Duke Ellington and Count Basie big bands. A thrill to listen to, especially the two longest tracks (_Honeysuckle Rose_ and _Sing, Sing, Sing_) which provide ample opportunities for solos and improvisation.


----------



## Sid James

Sid James said:


> "One dare not analyze where such a spell is wrought," wrote Paul Bekker in his well known essay on *Gustav Mahler's Symphony #9. *


*



Sid James said:



Bekker concluded his essay by describing the Adagio as a "solemn revelation of worlds to come."

Click to expand...

^^A correction, it wasn't Paul Bekker who I quoted there, but Alfred H. Meyer. Both are quoted at length in the source I was looking at, so that lead to the confusion. Meyer wrote his description in the Boston Transcript, after hearing the premiere of Mahler's Symphony #9.

Apologies but now that I'm here I'll take the opportunity to add more information. I did this post in some haste and it could have been improved, but not to worry. In terms of writing about his music, Mahler always daunts me more than any other composer.

Meyer's analysis has more interesting connections. He writes about similarities between aspects of the second theme in the first movement of Symphony #9 and the "Death-Dance" scherzo of the Symphony #4. Speaking to the resolution of the two conflicting ideas in the ninth's first movement, he writes:

"After much conflict in which the two opposing themes seem at times to devour eachother Mahler introduces a solemn march-like music over which he writes the direction, "Wie ein schwerer Kondukt." These words take on especial meaning when one recalls that "Kondukt" is the Austrian circumlocution for funeral procession. After more interplay of the two principal themes, the movement ends on a new note, more quiet, more peaceful than that of the principal theme, a note somehow prophetic of the final Adagio."

Meyer also points out parallels between the ninth symphony's third movement (Rondo Burleske) and the "Drinking Song of Earthly Woes" in Das Lied.

I also should have mentioned something more about the second movement (Dies Irae - Allegro con fuoco) of Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem. After a series of climaxes, which feature the tambourine, harp and cymbals - these cascading and rippling wave-like crashes, bringing to mind Britten's trademark sea imagery - the music disintegrates and leads to the calm final movement. Britten's own lengthy formal description of the work is interesting to read.

Another connection is that he got to know Mahler's music during the 1930's, through Bruno Walter's recordings. At the time there weren't many Mahler enthusiasts in Britain, including his very progressive teacher, Frank Bridge. "We are in complete agreement over all - except Mahler! Though he admits he is a great thinker," wrote Britten in his diary at the time. Even Vaughan Williams thought Mahler to be a "tolerable imitation of a composer."*


----------



## science

The uncertainty over Mahler is really enjoyable to recall. If I understand correctly, it seems that what made Mahler hard to accept was the structures of his symphonies, as if he'd failed to tie everything together in the way that, say, Brahms would have demanded. Of course I might be misunderstanding and surely I'm oversimplifying the situation.... But what there doesn't seem to have been is any anxiety over his harmonies, that element which our contemporary warriors emphasize so relentlessly. Anxiety over structure... those were the days, heh! 

Bennie Goodman seems to have been one of the all-time good guys, an inspiration to jazz as well as classical musicians. Judging by what I see for sale in music stores, he's being forgotten. I guess I don't know, maybe it was always uncommon to see anything besides the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert. But it wouldn't hurt to have a bit of a revival here soon. I would lay down a bit of cash for an 8 or 10 disk set....


----------



## Mahlerian

science said:


> The uncertainty over Mahler is really enjoyable to recall. If I understand correctly, it seems that what made Mahler hard to accept was the structures of his symphonies, as if he'd failed to tie everything together in the way that, say, Brahms would have demanded. Of course I might be misunderstanding and surely I'm oversimplifying the situation.... But what there doesn't seem to have been is any anxiety over his harmonies, that element which our contemporary warriors emphasize so relentlessly. Anxiety over structure... those were the days, heh!


During his lifetime, his harmony was considered radical as well, and he was frequently derided for the overuse of "unusual" effects (such as having instruments play in nonstandard registers). This was all put together with criticisms that none of his themes were original and that he was the "Meyerbeer of the symphony".


----------



## Guest

The Meyerbeer of the symphony?

OUCH!!

(I had not heard that one. It's wicked bad.:devil


----------



## KenOC

Mahlerian said:


> ...criticisms that none of his themes were original...


A canard! "Dear Gustav, thank you for sending along your new symphony. The themes are both good and original. Unfortunately, the themes that are good are not original, and the themes that are original are not good."

(Stolen from another composer's comments, not about Mahler!)

BTW, the "Meyerbeer" comment, given the givens, may have been a bit of an anti-Semitic jab.


----------



## Mahlerian

KenOC said:


> BTW, the "Meyerbeer" comment, given the givens, may have been a bit of an anti-Semitic jab.


So too the idea that nothing he did was original. It was a given among some with anti-Semitic leanings that Jews could not be "true" creative artists, but could only steal from others' achievements.


----------



## hpowders

Yeah. The "Beckmesser" complex.


----------



## science

KenOC said:


> the themes that are good are not original, and the themes that are original are not good


~ Samuel Johnson


----------



## Sid James

science said:


> The uncertainty over Mahler is really enjoyable to recall. If I understand correctly, it seems that what made Mahler hard to accept was the structures of his symphonies, as if he'd failed to tie everything together in the way that, say, Brahms would have demanded. Of course I might be misunderstanding and surely I'm oversimplifying the situation.... But what there doesn't seem to have been is any anxiety over his harmonies, that element which our contemporary warriors emphasize so relentlessly. Anxiety over structure... those were the days, heh! ...


My impression is that the consensus then was that he was a great conductor, but reception of his music was more mixed. I think its significant that none of his symphonies where premiered in Vienna, partly due to the fact that he didn't want to seem to be pushing his music (eg. self promotion, since he was at the helm of the Vienna Court Opera).

Lately, reading about Brahms, I recall that he didn't like Mahler's first symphony overall, but praised the scherzo. There was an anecdote related in the book, Brahms and Mahler where somewhere along a shore (probably the Danube, but I don't remember where exactly). Anyway, Mahler pointed to a strong wave or current, saying to Brahms that it was going somewhere in a very strong manner. Brahms replied that no matter if the current is strong, it may end up going nowhere significant.

This is not to paint Brahms as an outright conservative - because I think that's simplistic, particularly how he praised Liszt's piano music as second to none, and it influenced him, and he also had guarded praise for Wagner's music of all things. However, as with any generation, there was a significant difference between Brahms and Mahler thought about the symphony (similar in some ways to Mahler's famous conversation with Sibelius).



> Bennie Goodman seems to have been one of the all-time good guys, an inspiration to jazz as well as classical musicians. Judging by what I see for sale in music stores, he's being forgotten. I guess I don't know, maybe it was always uncommon to see anything besides the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert. But it wouldn't hurt to have a bit of a revival here soon. I would lay down a bit of cash for an 8 or 10 disk set....


Well I hope he's not forgotten, same with other great clarinetists of that time, such as Artie Shaw. I've got Shaw's own Clarinet Concerto on a Naxos Nostalgia 2 disc set. Haven't heard it for ages, but its only short (around 8 minutes, so about 2 sides on the old bakelite records). I could have maybe put it on the further listening list, but I forgot!

Another thing I liked about the 1938 Carnegie Hall concert was Martha Tilton singing two songs that could be described as jazz arrangements of world music - one Scottish and another Yiddish. I like Goodman's eclecticism a lot, that sense of reaching out across boundaries of genre and style. Yes, he was an amazing musician.


----------



## Sid James

*Film music and its ghostwriters - Music by R. Strauss, Rimsky-Korsakov, Respighi and Maurice Jarre*








Back in the 1950's, film composer Dmitri Tiomkin won an Oscar for his score to _High Noon_. His thank you speech brought down the house, because rather than read a list which included his director, producer and family, he thanked a whole bunch of dead composers. Tiomkin paid homage to the likes of Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Rachmaninov for assisting him with his award winning score. The audience included many of his fellow Hollywood composers who, like him, mined the works of these and other composers for their scores.








Think of a desert scene in a movie with Arabs riding camels, and none other than the exotically coloured music of *Rimsky-Korsakov's* _*Scheherazade*_ comes to mind. Its influence can be heard in the music to David Lean's _*Lawrence of Arabia*_. Its composer was another Oscar winner, *Maurice Jarre.
*
In his capacity as a master orchestrator, Rimsky-Korsakov had many students. One of them was the Italian *Ottorino Respighi, *and his _*Roman Trilogy*_ is a demonstration of his own abilities in not only producing amazing orchestral sonorities, but also painting images in music.








I couldn't leave out *Richard Strauss* in terms of his influence on film composers. A master of the tone poem, his story telling and rigorous application of old forms - such as the many variations drawn from a single theme in _*Don Quixote*_ - is also important here, and provides contrast with Rimsky-Korsakov's approach.

Finally, there is a strong connection here in composers expanding the sonorities available in the Western orchestra. Rimsky-Korsakov with his emphasis of percussion and winds, Strauss with use of novel effects such as muted brass and the wind machine, Respighi's incorporation of mandolins and a recording of bird calls, and Jarre's of the theremin (an early electronic instrument).

_Images, top to bottom:
1.Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (painting by Ilya Repin).
2.Nijinsky and Ida Rubinstein in Scheherazade the ballet to Rimsky-Korsakov's music, by Barbier 1912.
3.Peter O'Toole in Lawrence of Arabia (film still).​_


----------



## Sid James

*Rimsky-Korsakov* _Scheherazade, Op. 35_ (1888)
- Frédéric Laroque, violin with Orchestre de l'Opéra Bastille under Myung-Whun Chung (Deutsche Grammophon - Virtuoso)​
*Scheherazade* was composed in 1888, and that same year Rimsky-Korsakov also composed the equally popular _Russian Easter Festival Overture_ and _Capriccio Espagnole_. As the saying goes, good things come in threes, and the music taps into the 19th century interest in music from outside Europe. This trend in the arts is now called Orientalism, and in the case of Russian composers, there was an interest in the Caucasian and Asiatic provinces in the South-Eastern part of Russia.

The percussion section - including timpani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, tambourines, triangle and tam-tam - is utilized as a key part of this score, as well as the woodwinds and flutes. This mirrors the music of Russia's outer provinces, sculptures from there show ancient versions of these instruments being played.

The score is unified by two main themes. The solo violin represents the character of Scheherazade, from the _Arabian Nights_, and is gentle and seductive. It spins its variations just as she spins her tales. The other theme occurs at the very start of the piece, it is bold and commanding, it is the sultan who is eventually won over by Scheherezade's stories, so he spares her life.

Rimsky-Korsakov employs the _idée fixe_ system of Berlioz as a unifying device in the piece. As a young man, Rimsky-Korsakov had heard Berlioz conduct his early symphonic poem _Sadko_. Rimsky-Korsakov was regarded as a disciple of Berlioz and Liszt, and was criticized for the unconventional aspects of his music. By the end of his career, Rimsky-Korsakov was to become revered as a master of orchestration, innovating in the field much like Berlioz had before him.

Apart from the sheer colour and radiant beauty of this score, which is full of suggestions of everything from love scenes to parades and one of the most spectacular evocations of the sea, there is one element that is fairly unique for music of the time. Rimsky-Korsakov consciously chose to emphasise melody and avoid too much counterpoint. He saw this as an essential element of music that was authentically Russian. Years later he reminisced about this tendency in his autobiography: 

_"…my orchestration reached a considerable degree of virtuosity and bright sonority without Wagner's influence, and within the limits of the usual make-up of Glinka's orchestra. These three compositions [Scheherazade, Russian Easter Festival Overture and Capriccio Espagnole] also show a considerable falling off in the use of contrapuntal devices…The place of the disappearing counterpoint is taken by a strong and virtuoso development of every kind of figuration which sustains the technical interest of my compositions."_










*Richard Strauss* _Don Quixote, Op. 35_ (1897-8)
- Tibor de Machula, cello; Klaas Boon, viola; Theo Olof, violin; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Bernard Haitink (Deutsche Grammophon - Eloquence)​
*Richard Strauss* was the master of the orchestral tone poem, composing pieces that used characters and plots drawn from literature for inspiration. In *Don Quixote*, subtitled "fantastic variations on a theme of knightly character," Strauss fuses theme and variation form with main events from Cervante's story, using the orchestra in a vivid way.

The piece can be enjoyed with the story in mind or as a concerto, for the solo cellist is given a starring role. The cello represents Don Quixote, while his squire Sancho Panza is played by numerous instruments (first by tenor tuba and bass clarinet, then by solo viola). The work consists of an introductory theme, ten variations and a finale. The introduction contrasts whimsy with emotional expression, but it ends in chaos with much clashing and noise, a representation of the Don's insanity.

The ten variations which follow each portray a scene from the story. Ones that I find particularly memorable include the battle with the sheep (their bleating represented by muted brass - Variation II), the one representing Dulcinea, the Ideal Woman (the love theme - Variation V) and the imaginary ride on the wooden horse (the illusion of flight conveyed with use of wind machine - Variation VII).

The finale sees the Don defeated and returned safely home, his spirit broken but his sanity regained. This is suggested by a peaceful mood and the theme from the beginning comes back in a simple and resolved manner.


----------



## Sid James

*Respighi*
Roman Trilogy:
_Fountains of Rome (Fontana di Roma)_ (1916)
_Pines of Rome (Pini di roma)_ (1924)
_Roman Festivals (Feste Romane)_ (1929)
- Royal Philharmonic Orch. under Enrique Bátiz (Naxos)​
*Respighi* is the composer chiefly known for establishing Italian orchestral music as an independent force, moving his country beyond its composers traditional focus on opera. He started as a violinist and went to St. Petersburg. There, he worked as a violist in the opera house and studied composition with Rimsky-Korsakov. He completed further studies in Berlin with Max Bruch.

*Fountains of Rome*, the first of Respighi's *Roman Trilogy*, established him as a leading composer in Italy. Throughout his career, he would also hold numerous academic posts, including director of the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome.

The three works all have interesting features, and convey scenes and narratives from Rome's history. Respighi employs the modern symphony orchestra to the utmost, with a range of sounds from the most delicate to the most brash, from barely audible tremolos on the strings to ear splitting brass fanfares accompanied by cymbal clashes. There are references to everything from plainchant to birdsong to church bells tolling to columns of Roman soldiers marching and much else.

Overall, Respighi's style is a very skillful blend of aspects of Romanticism and Impressionism. His soundworld owes much to not only Rimsky-Korsakov and Strauss, but also Debussy and Puccini. Being delightful, image laden and lush, it obviously provided fodder for composers of film scores. What was new for Respighi are to our ears old and predictable, after a century of his devices becoming cliches.

It is fairly obvious that Respighi's increasing reputation as a composer was mirrored by political events in his country. The seizure of power by Benito Mussolini led to the formation of an ideology that similarly glorified Italy's past. When he died in 1937, Respighi was given a state funeral. It was attended by the country's leading musicians as well as the king and Il Duce.

Nevertheless the finale of *Pines of Rome*, with its imaging of Roman legions marching up Capitoline Hill bring to mind Hollywood epics such as _Ben Hur_, rather than the staged rallies of the fascist era. Speaking to that, Respighi provided detailed programmatic information about the scenes he was portraying in each part of the trilogy. It reads almost like a sketch for a film scene. Here is the composer's guide to the aforementioned _Pines of the Appian Way_, the finale of _Pines of Rome_: 

_"Misty dawn on the Appian Way. The tragic country is guarded by solitary pines. Indistinctly, incessantly, the rhythm of innumerable steps. To the poet's fantasy appears a vision of past glories, trumpets blare, and the army of the consul advances brilliantly in the grandeur of the newly risen sun toward the sacred way, mounting in triumph the Capitoline Hill."_

This piece is thought to contain the first use of a sound recording in an orchestral piece. At the end of the third movement, _The Pines of the Janiculum_, a recording of a nightingale is accompanied by trills on the muted violins with harp, underpinned by a chord played on the low strings. 










*Maurice Jarre*
Film suites:
_Lawrence of Arabia_ (1962)
_Doctor Zhivago_ (1965)
_Ryan's Daughter_ (1970)
_A Passage to India_ (1984)
- Royal Philharmonic Orch. under the composer (live recording, Milan Music label, coupled with music by Malcolm Arnold)​
One of the leading film composers of the mid to late 20th century, *Jarre* had like Respighi started his career as an orchestral player. In the early years, he played in the same orchestra as Pierre Boulez, a fellow Frenchman destined to follow an entirely different path in music.

All of the scores here display Jarre's knowledge of the classical canon. *Lawrence of Arabia* begins with a march vaguely reminiscent of something British, perhaps Elgar, which segues into a sweeping melody that is pure Russian Orientalism, and it includes a belly-dance like segment that brings to mind Saint-Saens' _Bacchanale_ from _Samson and Delilah_. _*Doctor Zhivago*_ is centred on a waltz tune that brings to mind Tchaikovsky while _*A Passage to India*_ has elements of the avant-garde, with use of the theremin.

Jarre's scores are now classics and have a canon to themselves - that of film music. Other composers of film music such as Miklos Rozsa, Nino Rota and John Williams owe scarcely less a debt to the great composers who came before them. Tiomkin was right to thank these "ghostwriters" of film music in that speech long ago!


----------



## Sid James

Further listening:


*Ippolitov-Ivanov's* _Caucasian Sketches (Suites I and II)_ (1895)

- Another student of Rimsky-Korsakov, these suites are worth hearing in their eniterety, beyond the 'orchestral lollipop' which is _Procession of the Sardar. _They offer similarly exotically scored images of places on the fringes of the Russian empire - from mountain passes to mosques and bazaars.

*Stravinsky's *_The Firebird_ ballet (1910)

- Rimsky-Korsakov's most famous student, his _Firebird_ owes much to his teacher, but already there are signs of the innovations to come (such as the rhythmically vigorous and even aggressive _Infernal Dance of King Kaschei)._ The first of three suites that Stravinsky extracted from the ballet is very famous, however the complete work is widely recorded too.

*Saint-Saens' *_Bacchanale_ from _Samson and Delilah _(1877) and *R. Strauss'* _Dance of the Seven Veils_ from _Salome_ (1905)

- Two orchestral excerpts that present snapshots of how Orientalism was used to add a hint of spice to operas, a femme fatale flashing her navel (or more?) and doing a bit of dancing never seems to go astray.

*Grieg's*_ Anitra's Dance_ from_ Peer Gynt Suite #1 _(1888)

- A Norwegian take on the same subject. Atmospheric, terse and lightly scored.​


----------



## Alypius

Sid James said:


> Further listening: ...
> *Bartok's *_Contrasts_, also commissioned by Benny Goodman.​




Sid, Thanks for your ongoing commentaries. I've been slow to take the time to read through those from the last month or so. They are helpful, and I personally enjoy just such more expansive and reflective remarks on specific works.

Just a comment about Benny Goodman and Bartok: I only discovered Bartok's _Contrasts_ a few months ago when I had the privilege of seeing it performed in a concert in San Francisco by Marc-Andre Hameln, Anthony Marwood, and Alexander Fiterstein. I was captivated. The work has a fascinating history -- since it was not only commissioned by Goodman, but he and Bartok and violinist Joseph Szegeti traveled around premiering it around the US soon after its completion. Well, a new performance of it appeared recently by violinist James Ehnes (with Andrew Armstrong on piano and Michael Collins on clarinet). I had two earlier of Ehnes' Bartok releases and had much enjoyed them. This new one is excellent:


----------



## Sid James

*Elgar's legacy - Music by Elgar, Delius and Bliss*








_"The variations have amused me because I've labelled 'em with the nicknames of my particular friends. That is to say, I've written the variations each one to represent the mood of the 'party.' It's a quaint idea and the result is amusing to those behind the scenes and won't affect the reader who 'nose nuffin.'" _

So said *Edward Elgar* about his *Variations on an Original Theme, "Enigma." *The composer was in his forties and this work was his first big success, and it is still amongst the most well known and often performed works by coming from Britain. Elgar's unique idea to write a set of variations portraying his friends - and also himself - paid off.

Elgar in effect ended the saying that England was a 'land without music,' unable to produce its own composers to warrant international appeal. He was lauded by the likes of Richard Strauss and conductors from Adrian Boult to Arturo Toscanini and Pierre Monteux performed the piece many times, their recordings further strengthening its place in the orchestral repertoire.

Elgar had been largely self-taught and was an unlikely candidate for the composer to lead a resurgence in English music making. He had cut his teeth in conducting amateur orchestras, and did clerical jobs to support himself. Perhaps this is why he was so supportive of other composers.








In this regard, Elgar instigated the composition of Arthus Bliss' _A Colour Symphony _in 1922. It was one of the works that put Bliss, then in his thirties, on the map. Elgar also asked for pieces by Herbert Howells and Eugene Goossens for the Gloucester Festival of that year. Elgar was baffled by Bliss' piece, which shows signs of his influence as well as of Ravel and Stravinsky, but some critics at the time praised it.

Elgar admired the *Concerto for cello and orchestra *by *Frederick Delius*. The two met in old age at Delius' house in France, and Elgar said he wanted to conduct "the beautiful cello concerto." Delius' work was written in response to a request by cellist Beatrice Harrison, who had played Elgar's very different concerto for the instrument.

The final piece I have included here is *Bliss' Metamorphic Variations*. While Elgar's _Enigma Variations _kick started his career, Bliss signaled the end of his career with this work. He was eighty, and the work shows him looking back and in effect summing up that which had went before. Similar to the Elgar piece, it was inspired by the paintings of George Dennett, one of Bliss' long time friends.

_Images -

Top: Edward Elgar, c. 1900's.

Bottom: Painting of Arthur Bliss by Mark Gertler._​


----------



## Sid James

*Elgar*
_Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 36 "Enigma"_ (1899)
- Sydney Symphony Orchestra under Myer Fredman (ABC Classics)​
Although *Elgar* provided a list of the friends he portrayed in the* Enigma Variations*, he never revealed the source of the theme itself. Suggestions have varied from it being derived from all sorts of things, from _Auld Lang Syne,_ to nursery rhymes, to Wagner's _Parsifal_ and Beethoven's string quartets. When Toscanini's recording was released, a competition was held by newspapers for readers to guess the tune.

The work begins with the theme played on the strings, it has a certain sense of melancholy and quiet strength so readily associated with Elgar's music. He takes it on a journey which not only portrays his friends but also reflects aspects of his own music (from the trademark rich string sonority, to music reflecting ceremonial grandeur of the time, to episodes which let solo instruments have their say). Below I will give a blow by blow description of each variation, focusing on the aspect of musical portraiture.

_I. C.A.E. [Caroline Alice Elgar, the composer's wife] (Andante)_ - A gentle portrait of Elgar's wife, which includes some light rhythms reminiscent of dance music.

_II. H.D.S.-P. [Hew David Steuart-Powell, pianist in Elgar's trio]_ (Allegro) [/I]- Elgar's colleague had a habit of exercising his fingers by playing quick bursts on the piano. The music is accordingly vigorous.

_III. R.B.T. [Richard Baxter Townshend, author] (Allegretto) _- High woodwind sounds are prominent here, reflecting his "strange, reedy voice."

_IV. W.M.B. [William Meath Baker, nicknamed 'the Squire'] (Allegro di molto) _- Drums and trumpets punch out the theme, reflecting his propensity to give orders and boss people around.

_V. R.P.A. [Richard Penrose Arnold, son of the poet Matthew Arnold] (Moderato)_ - The music of contrasting moods reflects this person's character, the noble string theme contrasted with a lively woodwind one (which portrays his nervous laugh).

_VI. Ysobel [Isobel Fitton, viola player] (Andantino)_ - The viola is prominent here, especially towards the end.

_VII. Troyte [Arthur Troyte Griffith, architect] (Presto) _- His excitable, argumentative and explosive nature is reflected by the dominance of brass and timpani here.

_VIII. W.N. [Winifred Norbury] (Allegretto) _- Elgar ardmired Miss Norbury, who worked as an accompanist with him and lived in an eighteenth century house. Her variation imparts a sense of the elegance of music of that era.

_IX. Nimrod [August Johannes Jaeger, reader for the publisher Novello & Co.] (Adagio) _- The most famous variation depicts Jaeger (which means hunter in German, hence the title _Nimrod_). Elgar described the variation thus: "It is a record of a long summer evening talk when my friend Jaeger grew nobly eloquent - as only he could - on the grandeur of Beethoven and especially of his slow movement."

_X. Dorabella [Dora Penny, later Mrs. Richard Powell] (Allegretto)_ - The dialogue between winds and strings here mimics the speech patterns of this friend.

_XI. G.R.S. [George Robertson Sinclair, organist of Hereford Cathedral] (Allegro di molto)_ - The rapidly descending strings here represent this friend's bulldog running down to the edge of a river for a swim, its barking copied by the brass.

_XII. B.G.N. [Basil G. Nevinson, cellist in Elgar's trio] (Andante) _- The cello is featured here, for obvious reasons.

_XIII. Romanza *** [Lady Mary Lygon, later Trefusis] (Moderato) _- This variation had no name attached to it, because this friend embarked upon a sea journey to Australia, before she could grant permission to use her initials on the score. Elgar described this section thus: "The soft tremor of the drums suggests the distant throb of the engines of a liner, over which the clarinet quotes a phrase from Mendelssohn's overture, _Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage_, while the quiet undulations of the violas suggest the peaceful motion of the waters."

_XIV. Finale: E.D.U. [Elgar himself - 'Eddoo' being his wife's nickname for him] (Allegro) _- The work ends in a triumphant mood, one writer describing it as an affirmation of his optimism in life, and faith in art.








*Delius* _Concerto for cello and orchestra _(1921)
- Julian Lloyd Webber, cello with Philharmonia Orchestra under Vernon Handley (Sony)

"Refinement of speech, delicacy of touch, restrained emotions, tranquility, and repose are some of the qualities of Delius' music…his is music of sensibility," wrote a critic of the London Times.

Like that general description of his music, *Delius'* _*Concerto for cello and orchestra *_has this immersive effect. It reads like a meander in a gently undulating landscape, with the three layers provided by the soloist, string and woodwinds, with timpani and harp delicately underpinning them.

The piece isn't a conventional concerto for a number of reasons: the focus is on blending the instruments, so there is no sense of a conflict between soloist and orchestra; there is no cadenza, however the soloist hardly ever pauses, so the work reads like one long unbroken line; and sonata form isn't followed in that a new theme is introduced before the end of the piece (an animated and vigorous _Allegramente_ section which to my ears sounds Asian or pentatonic).

I have come to like the 'moment by moment' quality of Delius' music, and perhaps like many listeners, its been an acquired taste. An odd thing with this work is that the main theme is similar to _Autumn in New York _(a jazz standard, but also sung by crooners such as Frank Sinatra).

For a large part of his life, Delius had more fans on the European continent than at home, and he mostly lived in France. However, many of the major English conductors programmed his music, so increased familiarity had a positive effect. Delius' main ally at home was Sir Thomas Beecham, whose organization of a week long tribute to him in 1929 was the beginning of wider acceptance of his music. Delius was ill and frail but was able to be present in London. He thanked Beecham, saying "this festival has been the time of my life."










*Bliss* _Metamorphic Variations_ (1972)
- Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under David Lloyd-Jones (Naxos)​
"If I were to define my musical goal," *Bliss* once said, "it would be to try for an emotion truly and clearly felt, and caught forever in a formal perfection."

In his *Metamorphic Variations*, the octogenarian composer successfully achieved this goal. An abstract triptych painted by his friend George Dannatt inspired the work. The piece is correspondingly in three sections, separated by two scherzos. The fourteen sections are drawn from material appearing on the outset. One theme is played on the oboe, another by the horns, yet another is a note cluster combining woodwinds and horns.

Each of the three sections extensively draw on these elements, the material being varied for contrast and combined with eachother. I found it quite easy to hear the oboe theme coursing through the piece, and the work ends with the oboe playing it and fading out.

Bliss sustains the listener's interest by combining thematic unity and structural balance with a sense of surprise. For example, _Assertion_ (third section) has the agitated rhythms of jazz, _Polonaise_ (eigth section) has castanets and _Cool Interlude _and _Duet _(sections ten and twelve respectively) have delicate string solos accompanied by harp and celesta, imparting an otherworldly feel. _Funeral Processions _(ninth section) acts as the pivot, with the rumble of the bass drum accompanied by trumpet fanfares.

The work was dedicated to George Dannatt and his wife Ann. It was premiered in Liverpool under Charles Groves. Mr Dannatt described the piece as "dramatic, lyrical and meditative."

Bliss, like Elgar, had an active interest in new music throughout his career. He was a member of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM), was director of music at the BBC (1942-44) and chairman of the music committee of the British Council (1946-1950). In this respect, Dannatt paid tribute to his friend for "his exceptional ability to turn from the needful isolation of the creative artist to the pressures imposed upon the committee man and administrator, to both of which roles he brought an appraising and incisive mind."


----------



## Sid James

Further listening:

*Bliss* _A Colour Symphony _(1922)

- The work instigated by Elgar shows Bliss depicting Purple, Red, Blue and Green. Listen to red which is the equivalent of being in a blast furnace, the blasts from the brass giving off a lot of heat! Influences of Ravel, Stravinsky and jazz are detectable in this piece.

*Elgar* _Cello Concerto _(1918-19)

- One of the masterpieces of the genre, this work contrasts with Delius' one. It is in four movements and the mood is solemn. Composed after World War I, the piece displays a directness of utterance and sparseness in texture.

*Elgar *_Piano Quintet_ (1918-19) and* Bliss* _Clarinet Quintet_ (1932)

- Both composers where profoundly affected by World War I and these chamber pieces engage with this issue. Elgar's opens with a tune suggestive of the _Dies Irae _plainchant from the mass for the dead, whilst Bliss' opens with a poignant clarinet solo (the instrument being his brother's favourite, he had been killed fighting in the war).

*Elgar* _Nursery Suite_ (1930) and *Bliss *_Welcome the Queen _(1954)

- Elgar served as Master of King's Musick and Bliss as Master of Queen's Musick. These pieces have the connection of Queen Elizabeth II, the Elgar piece written for her when she was four years old, the Bliss piece to celebrate her returning from a tour of the Commonwealth after assuming the throne.​


----------



## Sid James

*Three poets of the piano - Music by Field, Hummel and Chopin*​
The three composers who are the focus of this topic had much in common. They all exemplified a style of piano playing that had qualities of subtlety, freedom to improvise and above all of making the piano sing. Another commonality was the strong influence of Mozart on their music. They where poets of the piano, essaying the most delicate atmospheres and emotions in sound.

*John Field* was born in Dublin. He was a child prodigy and came to study under Muzio Clementi in London. Whilst there, Haydn heard the ten year old Field play, and noted that he played "extremely well." At the end of the apprenticeship, Clementi took Field on tour with him, and Field ended up spending most of the rest of his life in Russia. There he made impacts with his teaching as well as his performances, Mikhail Glinka being amongst his students.








Field was the inventor of the nocturne, and in this respect had marked influence on *Frederic Chopin*. Exposure to Polish folk music on country visits also made impact on the young Chopin. So too did his teacher at Warsaw Conservatoire, Joseph Elsner, who had a deep respect for classical tradition, and was also a passionate advocate of the emergence of a distinctively Polish national style in music.

After premiering his two piano concertos in Warsaw, Chopin visited Vienna. Once Poland was invaded by Russia he decided to make Paris his home. He stayed in the French capital for most of the rest of his life, becoming the pianist of choice for the most fashionable salons. Chopin preferred the quiet and intimate setting of the salon to the concert hall. He would play at several salons every day, and often go to the opera during the evenings.








During the early 19th century there where a number of piano virtuosos working in Europe. *Johann Nepomuk Humme*l was another, besides Field, who influenced the younger Chopin.

Hummel had initially been taught by Mozart and was, besides Beethoven, the leading pianist of his generation. Hummel's powers of improvisation where considered to be second to none, even Beethoven. His piano music displays a sense of poise and polish, the focus on freely flowing ideas within conventional frameworks (rather than any preoccupation with profundity or depth of thought).








Hummel, like Field, was taught by Clementi in London. He was later taught by Haydn in Vienna, who he succeeded as kapellmeister at Eszterhaza. Hummel later took up appointments in Stuttgart and Weimar, and also made appearances in Paris and St Petersburg. Besides being a pianist, he was also a noted conductor, particularly of opera.

Hummel was also important in the promotion and dissemination of his rival Beethoven's music. Hummel commissioned Beethoven's _Mass in C_ while at Eszterhaza and made piano duet arrangements of the symphonies. Apart from influencing Chopin, it is likely that Hummel also influenced Schubert.

_Images, top to bottom:

1. Painting of Warsaw by Bernardo Bellotto (1778), the city where Chopin premiered his piano concertos.

2. The famous portrait of Chopin by Eugene Delacroix (1838).

3. James Abbot McNeill Whistler's Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Old Battersea Bridge (1870's)._​


----------



## Sid James

*Field* 
_Piano Concerto #5 in C major, "L'Incendie par l'Orage" ("Fire by Lightning")_ (1817)
_Piano Concerto #6 in C major _(1819)
- Benjamin Frith, piano with Northern Sinfonia conducted by David Haslam (Naxos)​
*Field's* piano concertos have a feeling of not only fantasy and fun, but also poetry and imagery.

The *fifth concerto *is named for a brief three minute episode during the first movement which has got harmonies and 'wrong notes' that would be more in place in a 20th century piece. The work got its name from either named after the scorched earth policy used during the war of 1812, or just any fire caused by lightning. I quite like the blending of piano with tubular bells, which brings Berlioz (who came later) to mind. Beethoven's Pastoral symphony was a likely influence here.

The *sixth concerto* anticipates Chopin in the slow movement that is an arrangement of one of Field's own nocturnes. Field played these with a smooth gliding touch, letting the simple and charming melodies work their magic on the listener. The finale is a lot of fun too, many unexpected twists and turns here and there, the ending cleverly being held off.










*Hummel *
_Piano Concerto #2 in A minor, Op. 85_ (1816)
_Piano Concerto #3 in B minor, Op. 89_ (1819)
- Hae-won Chang, piano with Budapest Chamber Orchestra conducted by Tamás Pál (Naxos)​
*Hummel's* concertos are like operas without words, the piano part as well as the woodwinds coming across as singing songs rather than just playing tunes.

I quite like how Hummel unifies *Piano Concerto #3* with a simple device, the piano being paired in each movement with another instrument. In the first movement, the rhythms of the timpani provide a recurring motto, in the second pianist is accompanied by the horns, and in the boisterous finale, he is in a dialogue of sorts with the trumpet.

The final movement of *Piano Concerto #2* is also memorable, it opens with a quirky little dance tune that has the bittersweet and melancholic feel of Chopin. Both finales provide the pianist with much opportunity for elaboration and embellishment. This is sparkling and brilliant music, demonstrating how Hummel was considered amongst the finest pianists - and best improvisers - of his day. These concertos where considered to be among the most difficult to play at the time.










*Chopin *
_Piano Concerto #1 in E minor, Op. 11 _(1830)*
_Piano Concerto #2 in F minor, Op. 21_ (1830)**
*Tamás Vásáry, piano with Berlin PO under Jerzy Semkow ; 
**Ivo Pogorelich, piano with Chicago Symphony Orchestra conducted by Claudio Abbado (DGG Virtuoso)​
Although they come from the pen of a nineteen year old, *Chopin's two piano concertos *already display aspects of his mature style to come. There is depth of feeling, a sense of melancholy and hushed atmospheres, and not least the Polish dances that Chopin so loved.

As with Schumann's symphonies, I've noted people's comments on the orchestration of these works. Speaking to this, I read that Karl Klindworth - a now forgotten late 19th century composer - reorchestrated these works, altering the piano solo so it could be heard above the orchestral part that he also made louder. The musicologist Tovey commented that Klindworth's effort was bloated, "in the style of a full-swell organ."

Tovey said that "Chopin's orchestration, except for a solitary and unnecessary trombone part (not a note of which requires replacing), and a few rectifiable slips, is an unpretentious and correct accompaniment to his pianoforte writing. We may be grateful to Klindworth for taking so much trouble to demonstrate this."

The less overt use of the orchestra in Chopin's concertos can also be seen as carrying on the influences of Mozart, Hummel and Field. I'd also note that both concertos where premiered by the composer in private performances in his home at Warsaw where he was accompanied by reduced orchestras. During these performances, an aria was inserted between the first two movements of _Piano Concerto #1_ and a divertissement for horn was inserted in the same place in _Piano Concerto #2. _This may have been done to provide respite for listeners after such long first movements, however the premieres of both concertos proved to be successful.

The slow movement of _*Piano Concerto #2*_ is my favourite, especially the part where the piano is accompanied by the bassoon with strings floating underneath (very operatic). It was composed whilst Chopin was in love with a young singer, however it proved to be an unrequited love. The final movement has the obligatory infectious dance with an early section where string players gently tap with their bows, another example of Chopin's tendency for delicacy of orchestration.

Robert Schumann asked, "What are ten editorial crowns compared to one such adagio as that of the second concerto!" Another great pianist of the time also had good things to say about it:

_"Passages of surprising grandeur may be found in the Adagio of the Second Concerto, for which he evinced a decided preference, and which he liked to repeat frequently. The accessory designs are in his best manner, while the principal phrase is of an admirable breadth. It alternates with a Recitative, which assumes a minor key, and which seems to be its Antistrophe."_ 
*- Franz Liszt.*


----------



## Sid James

Further connections:

*Haydn's *_Piano Concerto in D major_ also has a delicately wrought middle movement, reminiscent of moonlit nights.

*Scriabin's* _Piano Concerto_, an early work bearing the influence of Chopin's concertos.

*Bartok's *three piano concertos have central 'night music' movements of a different kind, providing for interesting comparison with those of a hundred years before.​


----------



## Sid James

*Bach's Brandenburg Concertos, unity within diversity - Music by J.S. Bach, Stravinsky, Martin, Hindemith and Villa-Lobos*​
*Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos *where composed during his time at the court in Köthen. They where dedicated to the Margrave Christian of Brandenburg in 1721, possibly with an eye on gaining a court position in Berlin.

These works show Bach absorbing Italian influences, notably Vivaldi, but also departing from them in significant ways. Whilst Vivaldi's concertos have solo instruments (either singly or in groups) as a single focus, Bach's concertos have instruments blending in a variety of ways, either as single soloists, or as part of small groups, or joining with the orchestra as a whole. Bach's concertos are also more diverse than Vivaldi's in terms of structure and tone colour as well.

Bach's synthesis of influences from Italy and Northern Europe show him building upon existing traditions and also innovating within them.








The _Brandenburg Concertos_ show him arranging and compiling earlier ideas into a cycle of works that have as many differences as similarities. The boundaries between concertos, trios and solo keyboard works are blurred, even in a single concerto.

Bach incorporates sounds of his time, such as town pipers, hunters with their horn calls and also sounds replicating his own instrument, the organ.

With their contrapuntal complexity and opportunities afforded to all players to be soloists, these works also aim at not only gratifying listeners but also challenging performers.








Like many composers, Bach's legacy has been subject to the tides of fashion. After his death, he was largely unknown to the general public until the revival spearheaded by Mendelssohn in the 19th century. The _Brandenburg Concertos_ where discovered at an archive in Berlin in 1849.

In recent decades, Bach has been given his due as not only a traditionalist but also precursor to future developments in music. This has had a lot to do with the period instruments movement, which broadened the scope in the way we understand Bach. 








There are many Bachs, they include the master organist, a composer who served at courts and the church, but also who sought to break away from them with his concerts at the Collegium Musicum in Leipzig. There is also Bach the teacher, a man at the service of the art of music itself. Another aspect is his continuation of the family tradition, his sons becoming important composers in their own right.

_Images, top to bottom:

1. A view from Bach's lodgings looking out on the promenade at Leipzig (Coloured engraving by Bergmuller from a drawing by Johann August Rosmasler, 1777).

2. German stamp, marking Bach's 250th anniversary in 2000.

3. Bach, seated at the organ, leading his musicians in Leipzig (engraving by Johann Christoph Dehne, "Performance of a Bach Cantata," 1732)._​


----------



## Sid James

In the following posts I will discuss four of the Brandenburg Concertos, and relate them to four corresponding works of the 20th century.

_Brandenburg Concerto #2_ - *Hindemith* _Concert Music for String Orchestra and Brass_

_Brandenburg Concerto #3_ - *Stravinsky* _Concerto in E Flat "Dumbarton Oaks"_

_Brandenburg Concerto #5_ - *Martin* _Petite Symphonie Concertante_

_Brandenburg Concerto #6_ - *Villa-Lobos* _Bachianas Brasileiras #1 for an orchestra of cellos_​


----------



## Sid James

*Bach*

_Brandenburg Concerto #2 in F major, BWV 1047 for trumpet, recorder, oboe, violin, strings and basso continuo_

_Brandenburg Concerto #3 in G major, BWV 1048 for three violins, three violas, three cellos and basso continuo_

- Cologne Chamber Orchestra conducted by Helmut Müller-Brühl (Naxos)​
*Brandenburg Concerto #2* can be called a trumpet concerto in all but name, in terms of the outer movements that have virtuosic writing for the instrument. Here, Bach utilised an instrument called the clarino, the highest playing trumpet of the time, here they are required to be played in their highest registers.

The meditative inner movement omits the trumpet, paring the texture down to solo flute, violin and oboe with harpsichord accompaniment.

*Brandenburg Concerto #3 *features the strings, and all players are soloists. The rhythmically driven outer movements brilliantly display Bach's ability to alternate many instruments and yet still provide a sense of unity within these contrasts.

The middle movement is just a brief introduction for the harpsichord, it is left blank in the score for improvisation (in this recording a cadenza has been inserted, however some other recordings leave the bare chords as they are).










*Hindemith* _Concert Music for String Orchestra and Brass _(1930)

- Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by William Steinberg (Eloquence)​
*Paul Hindemith *can be seen as a 20th century equivalent of Bach. The link is obvious between his works such as _Ludus Tonalis_ having the same similarity and purpose to Bach's _Well Tempered Clavier _and also his series of _Kammermusik _pieces being much like the_ Brandenburg Concertos_. Hindemith was also a violist and important academic, setting up the system of music education in Turkey and holding posts in America.

It was for the Boston Symphony Orchestra that Hindemith came to compose *Concert Music for String Orchestra and Brass. *Hindemith's emphasis on contrapuntal music, another link back to Bach, is apparent here (especially in the fugue which opens the second of its two movements). The work opens with a fanfare for the brass, a prominent contrasting theme is a sweeping emotional melody played by the strings.

Towards the end of the piece, there is a trumpet solo that has the feel of the blues and is perhaps a nod to Gershwin. The contrasting of rich textures with solos reflect Bach's influence as well.

The vitality of this piece speaks against the view that Hindemith's music is dry and technical, a charge sometimes made against Bach. Deems Taylor said of Bach that "the best way to listen to Bach's music is to forget the word counterpoint and to listen just for the music." Perhaps this observation can be applied to Hindemith too?










*Stravinsky* _Concerto in E flat ("Dumbarton Oaks") _ (1938)

- Orch. of St. Luke's under Robert Craft (Naxos)​
*Igor Stravinsky* composed the *Concerto in E flat* after conducting _Brandenburg Concerto #3._ Melodies and rhythms here give a nod to those in Bach's concerto, which Stravinsky absorbs into his own style. Whilst the inner slow movement has the woodwinds sounding like birdsong, the outer movements with their thrusting rhythms suggest darker vibes.

The work was composed for the owners of the Dumbarton Oaks estate near Washington DC, which has one of the most beautiful gardens in the USA. I think that a link can be made between the formal layout of European-style gardens and the old structure and format of the Baroque concerto that Stravinsky uses here.


----------



## Sid James

*Bach*

_Brandenburg Concerto #5 in D major, BWV 1050 for violins, viola, cello, flute and harpsichord

Brandenburg Concerto #6 in B flat major, BWV 1051 for two violins, two violas da gamba, cello and basso continuo_

- Orchestra of the Antipodes directed by Erin Helyard (ABC Classics)​
Bach's *Brandenburg Concerto #5* was the first harpsichord concerto to be composed (although it retains links with the concerto grosso, the flute part also being very prominent).

The harpsichord solo at the end of the first movement speaks to this fusion of Italian concerto forms with Bach's own brilliance as a keyboard player. It is amongst the most brilliant solo passages in the concerto literature. The slow movement is entirely given over to the three soloists (on harpsichord, flute and violin), as in a trio sonata.

*Brandenburg Concerto #6*, like the third concerto, features the strings. The sonority here though is darker and more velvety, and Bach's employment of violas in a star role throughout was unusual at the time. 










*Martin* _Petite Symphonie Concertante for harp, harpsichord, piano and two string orchestras _(1945)

- Osian Ellis, harp ; Simon Preston, harpsichord ; Philip Ledger, piano ; Academy of St Martin in the Fields under Neville Marriner (EMI)​
*Frank Martin's* _Petite Symphonie Concertante _combines old and new. It reads like a mid 20th century equivalent of _Brandenburg Concerto #5_.

One of the composer's earliest recollections was a performance of Bach's _St Matthew Passion_. Martin's other influences in this piece include Schoenberg and Stravinsky, namely the incorporation of serial technique and Neo-Classicism. There's also a hint or two of jazz, particularly in the harpsichord part. Martin spent many years in Paris, and his eclectic style mirrors the diversity of modern music there.

Jacques de Menasce characterised Martin's style as having "broad melodic lines of a chromatic nature, subtle harmonic and rhythmic patters, and a sustained contrapuntal texture."

*Petite Symphonie Concertante* opens with the strings playing a theme that goes through the whole piece. There is a choral quality here. This serves as a prelude to the next section, which is more animated and colourful. The second movement opens with a cadenza for the three soloists and concludes with a lively march.










*Villa-Lobos* _Bachianas brasileiras #1 for an orchestra of cellos _(1930)

- Nashville Symphony Orchestra conducted by Andrew Mongrelia (Naxos)​
Bach expert Hubert Parry said of Bach's _Brandenburg Concerto #6_ that "the colour is weird and picturesque throughout, and the subject matter such as befits the unusual instruments employed." In Parry's time, during the early 20th century, conductors would assign the parts played by viola da gamba to the cellos. A connection can be made here between that concerto by Bach and the first of* Heitor Villa-Lobos'* series of nine _Bachianas Brasileiras_.

*Bachianas Brasileiras #1*, for eight celli, combines melodies and rhythmic elements drawn from Brazilian music with counterpoint recalling Bach. The outer movements are for the whole 'orchestra of cellos,' whilst the middle movement has a cello solo reminiscent of Bach's cello suites, another series of pieces which Villa-Lobos studied

Like the series of concertos by Bach, the _Bachianas Brasileiras_ by Villa-Lobos are extremely varied. Besides the first, others have parallels with Bach's ones, for example the third being a piano concerto in all but name, and the ninth one being for string orchestra. He even incorporates vocals by a soprano in the fifth one, which is his most famous piece.

Early in his life, Villa-Lobos absorbed the street music of his native city, Rio de Janeiro. He played in restaurant and theatre orchestras to earn a living, coming into contact with the urban musical form named the choros. Later he made extensive travels in Latin America and the Caribbean, studying the music of the entire region.

Like Stravinsky and Martin, Villa-Lobos was in Paris during the 1920's and absorbed the latest currents in music there. He started composing his series of Bachianas Brasileiras once he returned to Brazil in 1930, the final one being completed in 1945. He also conducted Bach's music, notably the _Mass in B minor,_ and took part in reorganising the music education system of Brazil.


----------



## Sid James

Further connections and listening:

*Vivaldi's *concertos, especially those involving violins and trumpets.

*Saint-Saens' *_Piano Concerto #2 _(1868) and _Suite for Cello and Orchestra_ (1862), two examples of the late 19th century trend of going back to Bach, a precursor to early 20th century Neo-Classicism.

*Stravinsky's* _Concerto in D for strings_ (1946), another work by him having strong links to Bach and the Baroque. Despite incorporating serialism, his _Septet_ (1952) retains a Neo-Classical feel, and it was also commissioned by the owners of Dumbarton Oaks estate.

*Jacques Loussier's *1970 arrangement of Bach's _Brandenburg Concerto #5_ for jazz trio (piano, double bass, drums) and string orchestra, an example of the widespread trend amongst jazz musicians to reach back to Bach.

*Wendy Carlos'* performance of Bach's _Brandenburg Concerto #3 _on the Moog Synthesiser, on the _Switched on Bach _album of 1968.

*Jon Lord's *_To Notice Such Things - Suite for solo flute, piano and string orchestra_ (2010), influenced by the _Brandenburg Concertos_, written by former Deep Purple member in memory of his friend John Mortimer who wrote the _Rumpole of the Bailey _novels. It includes _Stick Dance_, a lively Scottish jig.​


----------



## Sid James

*Czech music, history and a sense of place - Music by Smetana, Dvorak, Janacek and Martinu*

"He is the standard bearer and symbol of the history and liberation of his people," said Paul Stefan of *Bedrich Smetana*. Like Verdi was to the Italians, and Sibelius was to the Finns, Smetana's significance for the Czechs went beyond music.

Smetana took part in the 1848 revolution against Hapsburg rule, and was forced in exile after, working in Sweden. A decade later Austrian rule became less harsh, partly due to their unsuccessful war with the Italians, and they started granting concessions to parts of their empire. For the Czechs, this spurred a period of nationalism in culture and politics too.

After his return in 1861, Smetana was at the forefront of musical life in Prague, in terms of being a teacher, critic, conductor and composer. The cycle of symphonic poems called *Ma Vlast (My Country)* came in the following decade. At this time, he was beginning to suffer the onset of deafness, which eventually led to his mental decline.








At home, the younger Czech composer *Antonin Dvorak *was constantly under the shadow of Smetana, the rivalry being less the case of between the composers themselves and more a problem with the cliques surrounding them. Dvorak had been mentored by Smetana, as a young man playing viola in orchestras conducted by the older composer. Like Smetana, he built his music on a German base (chiefly Brahms and Wagner).

If ever there was a composer tied to his locale, its Dvorak. His childhood being spent only a stones throw away from the mountains of Czech sagas, the Vysehrad and the Rip, and his music taking in sounds of nature and of course influenced by the folk music of the area.

By the time he composed his *Symphony #8*, Dvorak's music was gaining more popularity abroad, especially in Germany, England and the United States. He also had strong allies in Vienna (chiefly Brahms but also Bruckner) and in Russia (Tchaikovsky).








If Smetana and Dvorak built the foundations of Czech music, *Leos Janacek *continued their legacy into the 20th century. Janacek had been encouraged by Dvorak to develop his own unique style, and was influenced by his departure from the strictures of sonata form in particular.

Janacek found his maturity as a composer well into middle age. His series of late works coincide with the foundation of Czechoslovakia after World War I, and in many respects embody the optimism of that time. His *Sinfonietta* is amongst these pieces.








*Bohuslav Martinu* was a young man in the 1920's when Janacek had his big burst of creativity. Martinu was, like Stravinsky, a truly cosmopolitan composer. Martinu's music takes in trends like jazz and Neo-Classicism, but he said he felt indebted to Dvorak "because he gave such forthright expression to his people and his Czech origins and because in this respect there was something which I myself wanted to express."

Martinu saw the tragic erosion of Czechoslovakia's sovereignty in 1938, a mere twenty years after the gaining of independence, and it proved to be a catalyst for his *Double Concerto*.

Martinu spent many years in Paris and upon the German invasion of France was forced to flee to the United States. After the war he spent time in France, Italy and Switzerland, but never returned home. Czechoslovakia remained in Soviet hands until the late 20th century.

Images, top to bottom:

_1. A portrait of Smetana.

2. The city of Brno today.

3. "Peace for our time." Neville Chamberlain at the time of the Munich Agreement in 1938_.​


----------



## Sid James

*Smetana *

_Ma Vlast (My Country)_ (1874 - 1879)

- Wiener Philharmoniker / Rafael Kubelik (Eloquence)​
The cycle *Ma Vlast *is an epic portrayal of Czech (or Bohemian) landscape and history. The music is infused with melodies inspired by folk music. The orchestration, naturalistic effects and the unity of its musical ideas over such a long span of time are also noteworthy.

The cycle consists of *Vysehrad* (the ancient castle of Bohemian kings, incidentally Smetana is buried there), *Vltava* (a portrayal of the river flowing through Prague), *Sarka* (a valley north of Prague, named after the mythological character), *From Bohemia's Meadows and Forests*, *Tabor* (the camp, introducing the Hussite war song) and *Blanik* (the hollow hill to which the Hussite patriots retreated in order to regroup for their final battle for liberation). It is easy to spot the thematic link between the last two - the ending of one mirrors the beginning of the other.

*Vltava* being the most famous of these, here is the program of it published in the original score:

"Two springs pour forth with their streams in the shade of the Bohemian forest, the one warm and gushing, the other cold and tranquil…the woodland brook, chattering along, becomes the river Moldau…it flows through dense woods amid which the joyous sounds of the chase resound, and the call of the hunter's horn is heard ever nearer and nearer. It flows through verdant meadows and lowlands, where a marriage feast is being celebrated with song and dance. At eve, in its glimmering wavelets, wood nymphs and naiads hold revels, and in these waters many a fortress and castle are reflected which bear witness to the bygone splendour of knight-errantry and to martial fame vanished with days of yore. At the rapids of St. John, the stream spreads onward, winds through cataracts, cleaves a path for its foaming torrent through the rocky gorge into the wide river bed in which it rolls on, in majestic calm, toward Prague, where, welcomed by time-honoured Vysehrad, it disappears from the poet's gaze far on the horizon."










*Dvorak *

_Symphony #8 in G major, Op. 88 _(1889)

- London SO under Witold Rowicki (Philips)​
A masterpiece of cyclic form, *Dvorak's Symphony #8* was performed to great acclaim in England and also published there. Its previous subtitle "English" though has long been discarded.

The work is unusual in that the first movement bursts with themes, but elaboration is held off to the very end of the symphony. The next two movements have a folk dance and waltz as focal points, and the finale ties all the material together, but not so much repeating ideas as transforming them.

By the time he composed _Symphony #8_, Dvorak was financially secure enough to acquire a property at Vysoka in Southern Bohemia. The only composer to be trained as a butcher, Dvorak remained at heart a man of the country, and his religious faith remained unshakable too.

Speaking to that, this symphony has so many aspects pointing to Dvorak's life, the melodies and their treatment suggestive of sounds of choral music, nature (many 'bird call' type sounds), to folk music, to a fair bit of Viennese panache.

Today, Dvorak is recognised for his contribution to Czech music for many reasons. Although Smetana was the founder of Czech national opera, Dvorak's contribution cannot be overestimated not only in terms of his many works in the repertoire but also in being the first Czech composer to gain international recognition.


----------



## Sid James

*Janacek*

_Sinfonietta _ (1926)

- Austrain Radio SO (ORF) / Milan Horvat (Point Classics)​
*Janacek's Sinfonietta*, coming from the final years of his life, is one of his pieces that embodies the newfound optimism of then recently independent Czechoslovakia. The work was inspired by brass fanfares, and it incorporates a huge brass section. It was intended for open-air performance and dedicated to the Czech army.

The piece is in effect a suite of songs and dances inspired by Moravian folk music. The movements coming after the introductory fanfare are meant to convey in music a portrait of the city of Brno in Janacek's native Moravia - the castle, the monastery, the main street and the town hall. A reprise of the fanfare theme ends the work.

The trademarks of Janacek's music are all here: the unique harmonies (based on an involved theory of his own devising), mosaic or block-like construction, short ostinato figures repeated with slight variations, and orchestration which was highly unorthodox at the time.

Janacek said the work was an expression of "contemporary free man, his spiritual beauty and joy, his strength, courage and determination to fight for victory." The working title of the piece was _Military Sinfonietta_, but it was not used.










*Martinu *

_Double Concerto for two string orchestras, piano and timpani_ (1938)

- John Alley, piano ; Charles Fullbrook, timpani ; City of London Sinfonia / Richard Hickox (EMI)​
"It is a composition written under terrible circumstances, but the emotions it voices are not those of despair but rather of revolt, courage, and unshakable faith in the future," said *Martinu* of his *Double Concerto*. The year was 1938, and part of Czechoslovakia was given to Germany in an attempt to appease the Nazis. What British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain called "peace for our time" was a case of simply buying time. In the following year, World War II began.

This piece is considered to be amongst Martinu's best. It brings together aspects of his mature style - clarity, economy and precision - and packs a powerful emotional punch from beginning to end. If the work does have any folk elements, they are highly fragmented and wholly integrated into it.

During rehearsals the musicians found the piece technically challenging. At one point Swiss conductor Paul Sacher stopped and said,"Gentlemen, you do not realise that this is a masterpiece." Rehearsals lasted six months, and the premiere at Basel was a success. One critic praised both its technical and emotional qualities, saying Martinu had truly reached a whole new level with it.

This work grabs me from beginning to end, it is full of suspense and tension. The pivotal piano solo is like a moment of calm in the eye of a storm. Again in the composer's words the outer movements "are expressed by sharp, dramatic shocks, by a current of tones that never ceases for an instant, and by a melody that passionately claims the right to freedom."


----------



## Sid James

Further connections and listening:

*Dvorak's *series of late tone poems, including *The Wood Dove *(1896), show him writing programmatic music dealing with mythology, and also taking on newer trends in music (he was likely influenced by Richard Strauss when composing these).

*Janacek's Suite for String Orchestra* (1877), an early work clearly indebted to Dvorak.

*Martinu's Sinfonietta La Jolla* (1950) and *The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca *(1954), are lighter works which see him responding to a sense of place. The former to the town in California where he lived, the latter to the Arezzo frescoes seen on a trip to Italy.

*Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta *(1936) and *Frank Martin's Petite Symphonie Concertante *(1945), also commissioned by Paul Sacher and having much in common with Martinu's _Double Concerto_. (I covered the Martin piece in an earlier topic in this series).

Music by *Pavel Haas *and* Erwin Schulhoff*, two composers who where emerging at the time of the Nazi invasion, both among those murdered in the concentration camps. Haas was a pupil of Janacek. I am familiar with their string quartets, Haas' _String Quartet #2 "From the Monkey Mountains" _and Schulhoff's _String Quartet #1_, both from the mid 1920's, stand out as a significant pieces of the period.

*Karel Husa's Music for Prague* (1968) combines modern techniques with Czech hymns, and was written in response to yet another invasion of Czechoslovakia (by the Soviet Union and its proxies, crushing the _Prague Spring_, and putting a halt to leader Alexander Dubcek's reforms).​


----------

