This Week's Music

Hello all,

This week, let’s have some more music about springtime! We will hear Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland. This is arguably the most well-known and widely-loved piece of music ever written by an American composer.

Two years after the premier of his amazingly popular ballet Rodeo, Copland wrote the ballet score of Appalachian Spring. He commissioned the work to be performed by dancer Martha Graham. A year later, after the ballet was met with widespread success (including winning a Pulitzer Prize for best musical score), Copland created the orchestral suite you will hear today.

Appalachian Spring evokes images of rolling Blue Ridge mountains, open prairie-lands, soaring northern peaks, and youthful exploration. It captures much of the adventurousness inherent in the American ideal. Ironically, Copland wasn’t even thinking about the Appalachians when he wrote the piece. As he said, “I gave voice to that region without knowing I was giving voice to it.”

While all of the melodies in Appalachian Spring are memorable and evocative, the highlight is the unmistakable “Simple Gifts” theme that begins at 23:27. Based on the Shaker hymn by the same name, this melody was Copland’s attempt to pay homage to the Shaker influence on American culture. Since they were writing for a ballet, Copland and Graham initially chose “Simple Gifts” because of its references to dancing:

When true simplicity is gained
To bow and to bend we shan’t be asham’d
To turn, turn will be our delight
’Till by turning, turning we come round right.

Enjoy!

T

Hello all,

Spring has sprung (at least in my neck of the woods), so I thought Beethoven’s “Spring” Sonata would be the perfect piece for this week’s music. We will be hearing a performance by the Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos and the Italian pianist Enrico Pace.

This four-movement sonata was not originally nicknamed “Spring”—that name was given to it later, by audiences who thought the opening bars of the first movement were reminiscent of a blossoming spring-time meadow—but it was designed to be light-hearted and lyrical. None of the movements feature the dark, powerful motifs so often associated with Beethoven. On the contrary, they are all remarkable cheerful, perhaps even Mozartian.

In the first movement, listen for the way the violin and piano trade the opening line and recycle it through multiple tonalities. Beethoven is a genius at fragmenting a melody, then bringing it back in unexpected ways. The second movement is written in song form, leading some scholars to wonder if it was originally a lullaby. You’ll hear a dance-like trio in the third movement, evidence of Beethoven’s tutelage under the great Franz Joseph Haydn, and the characteristic Rondo that finishes so many sonatas of the Classical era.

Enjoy!

T

I know Easter was last week, but I recently discovered Frank Martin’s Golgotha Mass and had to share it with you. This is a fantastic piece written by an underrated composer, a piece full of emotional depth that mixes elements of modernism, impressionism, the German romantic tradition, and more. We will be hearing the first movement of the Mass today.

Frank Martin was a Swiss composer who lived from 1890 to 1974. He lived most of his life in the Netherlands, but established the now-famous Chamber Music Society of Geneva before he left Switzerland. His compositions range from chamber music to symphonies and everything in between (including a stunning violin concerto), but the primary inspiration for his music was his Christian faith. Like his hero J.S. Bach, Martin’s faith was the sole motivation and aim of his efforts as a composer.

Martin wrote the Golgotha Mass after viewing a series of etchings by Rembrandt at an art museum. The etchings depicted the three crosses on Calvary. Light pours down on the central cross, on which the crucified Christ hangs in agony. Martin was so affected by the etchings that he went home and immediately began working on a Mass.

Martin described the Mass this way: “My idea was for us to relive the sacred drama, and especially to evoke the divine person of Christ; to show him first of all in action, condemning the hypocritical Pharisees with the same vigor as when he drove the traders out of the temple; subsequently to show him during the Last Supper, preparing his disciples for his parting; then in his anguish at Gethsemane. Finally, in the second part, to show him replying to the High Priest and to Pilate with divine peace and authority.” In a break from tradition, Martin did not use the texts of the Gospels for the Mass. Rather, he used texts written by St. Augustine, which he called “long mediations on the mystery of the Passion.”

This is a truly masterful work, one that is vastly under-appreciated in the contemporary canon. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

T

April Fools!

T

Hello all,

Our music for this week is the third movement of Brahms’ Piano Trio No. 2 in C Major, performed by the superstar trio of Leonidas Kavakos, Yo Yo Ma, and Emmanuel Ax.

You won’t find a better ensemble than this one. Each of these three musicians is at the top of their respective instrumental fields. Yo Yo Ma rose to fame as a child prodigy and continues to amaze crowds around the world with his bravado and energy. Emmanuel Ax has dominated the world of the piano since winning the Rubenstein International Piano Competition in 1974. Leonidas Kavakos, one of the most versatile musicians and conductors alive today, has been atop the violin world since his victory at the Sibelius and Paganini competitions in 1985 and 1988, respectively. The three of them have been touring the world for several years now, playing the best of the piano trio repertoire to packed audiences around the globe.

The second piano trio of Brahms was composed at the height of his compositional maturity. By this point in his career, he had overcome the massive shadow that Beethoven cast on all who followed him. He was now writing music with the comfort of a well-established reputation behind him, and this confidence comes through in his music. The third movement of the C Major trio exudes confidence while also combining elements of Romanticism and Classicism into a cohesive whole. There are strands of Mendelssohn in the dark emotionality of the movement, but there are also playful sections that remind the listener of Beethoven’s lighter moods.

Enjoy!

T