April Fools!
T
Easter Music
This week’s music, in the spirit of the approaching Easter celebration, is Miserere by the Scottish composer James MacMillan, performed by the Swedish choir Sofia Vokalensemble.
Miserere is an eight-part choral work. It is based on the text of Psalm 51, which is oriented around the phrase “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy great mercy.” The lyrics explore the progression from guilt and sin to the hope and redemption that is ultimately found in the resurrected Christ, and MacMillan’s harmonic genius enables him to reflect that progression in the tonal movement of the music. Notice how the piece opens with a sombre free-chanting section in E Minor but ends with a glowing, warm E Major cadence. Along the way, the voices search through a variety of different harmonic contexts and musical atmospheres, reaching a sensational peak that fades into a gentle resolution.
This is choral music at its best.
Enjoy! And Happy Easter!
T
Brahms Piano Trio
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
Lark
Hello all,
This week’s music is The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughn Williams, performed by violinist Hilary Hahn.
The Lark Ascending was inspired by an 1880 George Meredith poem about a skylark in flight. The violin line dips and soars, imitating the path of the bird. The orchestra seems to represent the shifting breeze on which the bird floats. It is a visual picture, created in sound. Vaughn Williams referred to it as his “pastoral romance.”
I think perhaps the best thing I can offer you is the words of the poem on which this piece is based. So without further ado:
He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound,
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake.
For singing till his heaven fills,
Tis love of earth that he instills,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup
And he the wine which overflows
to lift us with him as he goes.
Till lost on his aerial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.
Enjoy!
T
Mozart the Great
Hello all,
This week’s music is Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 (nicknamed “the Great”), performed by the London Mozart Players.
Mozart wrote his final three symphonies in the summer of 1788. His untimely death was drawing near, and he had already begun reducing the number of performances he gave. This symphony, in addition to being one of his final musical statements, forecasts the stylistic changes that would soon arrive on the world stage with the birth of Romantic-era music. It hints at a lyricism that is often absent in earlier Classical-era works and begins to expand the orchestral role of previously-ignored instruments like the clarinet, bassoon, and timpani.
The first movement’s hushed, urgent melody and its luscious accompaniment texture are a favorite of listeners around the world. Listen for the ways that Mozart brings this opening theme back throughout the first movement. For instance, in the development (middle) section of the first movement, he suddenly drops into the seemingly random key of F-sharp minor while toying with variations on the original melody.
The third movement is also of interest. At the time of this piece’s composition, the oboe and clarinet were rarely featured in orchestral music. Mozart, however, gives both instruments a prominent role in this part of the symphony. Listen for the oboe solo that recurs throughout the third movement.
Enjoy!
T
The Nutcracker Suite
This week’s music is the famous piano transcription of Tchaikovsky’s ballet The Nutcracker, transcribed, written, and performed by the legendary Russian pianist Mikhail Pletnev.
Enjoy, and Merry Christmas!
T
D Major
Hello all,
This past weekend I had the privilege of hearing Maxim Vengerov (violin) and Polina Osetinskaya (piano) in recital. They played several works by Brahms and Schumann (as well as three encores by Rachmaninoff!), but their performance of Prokofiev’s second violin sonata was the highlight of the evening. I thought I’d share that piece with you this week.
I titled today’s post “D Major” because I’m not sure there is another piece that more fully captures the brightness, energy, and zest of that key. The sonata’s gregarious nature is all the more interesting given the fact that Prokofiev composed it under extremely difficult circumstances. He was evacuated from Moscow in 1941 when the Nazis invaded Russia, but he had to keep moving to avoid being caught in the fighting. Along with his wife Mira, Prokofiev traveled thousands of miles from Nalchik village in the Caucasus Mountains to Tbilisi, Georgi and through Kazakhstan to the city of Perm in the Ural Mountains. Somehow, Prokofiev managed to continue composing during this time. Among other things, he composed his opera War and Peace, the ballet Cinderella, and his second violin sonata.
All four movements of the sonata strictly adhere to the age-old sonata format – presentation, development, and recapitulation. But they also feature Prokofiev’s unmistakably playful and modern style, and Prokofiev does not hesitate to mix in fragments of previous melodies—or abrupt harmonic shifts—to trick the listener into thinking he is deviating from sonata form. The result is a listening experience that is at once exhilarating and familiar.
Enjoy!
T
Emerson #4
Hello all,
For our fourth and final week listening to the Emerson String Quartet, we will be hearing them perform the first string quartet composed by the 20th-century American composer Charles Ives, nicknamed “From the Salvation Army.” Like their recordings of Bartok and Mozart, the Emerson’s recordings of the two Ives string quartets became immediate sensations. Before the Emerson’s recordings, Ives’ chamber music was almost unheard of.
Ives was a through-and-through New Englander. He was born and lived his entire life in Concord, Massachusetts. He began composing music at age eleven, building little tunes out of the folk music he heard in his hometown and the songs he heard sung at revivals and spiritual gatherings in his family’s church. Later, after graduating from Yale with a graduate degree in music composition and realizing he had few options for a career as a composer, he moved back to Concord and began working as an insurance salesman. He would wake up in the early hours of the morning and compose for two or three hours every day before work. Even after his music became nationally famous, Ives kept his job with the insurance company and continued his weekly role as the church organist. And he never lost his love for the small-town American music that had defined his childhood: spirituals, hymns, and folk tunes.
Enjoy!
T
P.S. Ives has been a great inspiration for me in my personal journey as a composer. My compositional interest, like Ives, is based on my desire to bring American music (folk, jazz, classical, ragtime, etc.) into the concert hall. My first violin sonata (linked below) thus incorporates elements of American hymns, American fiddle tunes, and American jazz music.
Emerson #3
Hello all,
This week’s music is Bela Bartok’s third string quartet, performed by the renowned Emerson String Quartet.
Ask any musician over forty what they think of when they hear the words “Emerson String Quartet” and they will probably tell you they think of the Bartok recordings. The first of the Emerson’s nine Grammy awards came for their recording of the six Bartok string quartets in 1988. At the time, the Emerson was the only ensemble who had ever attempted the Herculean task of recording all six.
Bartok’s third string quartet, written during the 1920s, synthesizes his love of Hungarian folk tunes and the raw physicality of his late modernist style. Bartok seemed to have a way of making dissonance sound punchy, exciting, almost dance-like. You’ll hear this throughout the quartet, juxtaposed with smooth, nocturnal conversations between the instruments and surging outbursts of physicality. Listen for the way Bartok incorporates unique string-playing techniques like glissandos (slides), pizzicato (plucking), harmonics, and con sordino (playing behind the bridge) into the music.
Enjoy!
T
Emerson #2
Hello all,
As we continue with our farewell series for the Emerson String Quartet, this week’s music will be the Emerson’s performance of Shostakovich’s famous 8th string quartet.
Shostakovich was in East Germany to write the score for a film about the bombing of Dresden when the inspiration for the eighth string quartet arrived. Three days later, the composition was completed. Shostakovich dedicated it to the “memory of victims of war.”
The eighth string quartet is, in my opinion, the most emotionally powerful of Shostakovich’s string quartets. Indeed, it is one of the most emotionally powerful works of art to come out of the twentieth century. It is a work of shattering strength and tremendous depth, the kind of work that can leave a listener stunned in their chair, the kind of work that can raise memories long buried and remind us of the fragility and rapidity of life. It is a work that plumbs the depths of human psychology. Like Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde and Mahler’s Tenth Symphony, it is a consumate artistic masterpiece.
All five movements of the quartet feature quotations from Shostakovich’s earlier compositions. For instance, first symphony and first cello concerto are reference in the first movement, and the reference to his own initials in his fourth string quartet is scattered throughout the second, third, and fifth movements. Shostakovich is reported to have said about the quartet that it was “written in memory of its composer,” which suggests the references to his name were a sort of preemptive requiem.
What should you listen for? If I answered that question completely, this post would turn into a PhD thesis. But here are a few things to keep an ear out for:
- Shostakovich’s name. It’s everywhere. Shostakovich signed his name D-E flat-C-B natural in his tenth symphony, his fourth string quartet, and his eighth string quartet (a permutation of his initials, DSCH, with the B natural substituting the H in German musical nomenclature). Shostakovich places this little signature all over the place, in every key and instrumentation imaginable.
- The second movement. There’s simply nothing like it. This is Russian music at its fire-breathing, hair-raising best.
- The symbolism in the fourth movement. The start of the fourth movement features a low drone in the first violin, interrupted by three loud strikes that get repeated several times until they reach a harmonic resolution. These strikes represent the gunfire of warfare, and the droning sound of the first violin represents the sound of distant aircraft. Once the strikes resolve, the droning becomes the first four notes of the dies irae portion of the Catholic requiem mass (which is ironically the same notes as Shostakovich’s signature, DSCH, just in a different order). To call this kind of musical symbolism powerful would be a gross understatement.
- The fifth movement’s tribute to Bach. As we saw last week, Shostakovich could not resist paying homage to his hero, J.S. Bach, in almost everything he wrote. And the fifth movement is structured in a classic Bach-style fugue. It’s easy to miss because of the achingly sad, elegiac beauty of the fifth movement, but the fugue is there, hiding just under the surface.
Enjoy!
T
This Week's Music 