A few bars from J.S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion are always good for the soul, but they are particularly appropriate during the Lenten season and the Easter celebration. This week’s music, “O Haupt Voll Blut Und Wunden” (O Sacred Head Now Wounded), is perhaps the most well-known portion of St. Matthew’s Passion.
The St. Matthew Passion is a sacred oratorio written by Bach in 1727. It is one of his greatest achievements and one of the best compositions to come out of the Baroque era. The Passion is scored for solo voices, double choir, and double orchestra, and it sets the 26th and 27th chapters of the Gospel of Matthew to music. “O Haupt Voll Blut Und Wunden” is based on a Latin poem, Salve mundi salutare, which addresses the crucifixion of Jesus Christ from a position of remembrance and lament.
This week’s music, in the spirit of the upcoming celebration of Easter, is the fifth and final movement of Gustav Mahler’s second symphony, titled “Resurrection.” (The video only shows the last part of the movement, but you can find the whole thing on Spotify 🙂
Gustav Mahler, arguably the greatest symphonist of all time, took seven years to write his second symphony. The first four movements came quickly, but inspiration for the finale did not arrive until he attended the funeral of conductor Hans von Bulow and heard the words of Friedrich Klopstock’s poem “Resurrection” sung from the organ loft. Three months later, he had written the largest orchestral finale the world had ever seen.
The poetic inspiration for the finale concerns the gift of eternal life given through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Mahler wrote that the undercurrent of the movement was the “still small voice” that announces the day of judgment and described the movement as a longing for connection with God in the afterlife. His choice of thematic material is particularly interesting given that he converted to Catholicism three years after the second symphony was completed, which suggests he was wrestling with his beliefs during the time of its composition.
The movement begins with a terrifying trumpet fanfare that evokes the opening of the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. Mahler then introduces the main theme, which gives way to the vocalists’ exploration of the “Dies Irae,” the traditional opening melody of a choral composition. The middle section of the movement is dissonant and complex, weaving the initial “Dies Irae” theme through a march motif and a quotation of the poem’s “Crux fidelis” section in the vocalists. After an alto solo leads the chorale from the text “Believe, my heart” into the pivotal text of “I am from God, I want to return to God,” the full orchestra—led by the horns—tumbles through a set of falling fifths into a resounding finish.
This week’s music is Spiegel Im Spiegel by the Estonian composer Arvo Part.
Spiegel im Spiegel is, like Barber’s Adagio for Strings, one of the most powerful pieces of music written in the 20th century. It consists of a single solo line (in this performance, violin) over a piano accompaniment. The title of the 1978 piece means “Mirror in the Mirror,” and it describes how the pieces progresses. The melody, which starts with only two notes, is a repeated set of ascending melodic phrases that are mirrored by a descending mirror phrase. The ascents are broken by periodic returns to the central pitch of A. The piano, mirroring these changes with ascents and descents of its own, plays what are called tintinnabula notes, which are bell-like tones that sound above and below the melodic line following a fixed formula.
Arvo Part’s view of musical performance is relevant to the simple style of this piece: “Everything redundant must be left aside. Just like the composer has to reduce his ego when writing the music, the musician too must put his ego aside when performing the piece.” In a way, the musical atmosphere of Spiegel im Spiegel is a reflection of Part’s own view of music.
This week’s music, which will complete our series on the string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich, is the String Quartet No. 12, performed by the Jerusalem Quartet.
You may remember from one of the earliest installments in this series that all of Shostakovich’s string quartets were premiered by the Beethoven String Quartet. Because of this, Shostakovich dedicated each of his last four string quartets to a member of the Beethoven Quartet. The twelfth string quartet is thus dedicated to the first violinist, Dmitri Tsyganov.
Those of you who have been with us for a while are probably used to string quartets having four movements. And most of Shostakovich’s string quartets follow this pattern. The twelfth quartet, however, contains only two movements. The first movement begins with a 12-tone row on the cello, perhaps a nod to Arnold Schoenberg’s popular experiments with twelve-tone music. (Shostakovich, it should be said, was not a believer in Schoenberg’s system). This establishes a searching mood, a sense that the movement is seeking closure and is unable to find it. The second movement, however, offers the answers the first movement sought. Listen here for Shostakovich’s brilliant creativity when it comes to rhythm. He creates multiple shifting rhythmic texture that overlap in fascinating ways. After a long, dark passage for solo cello, Shostakovich brings back the initial melody in an epic, breathtaking switch to a major key, the ultimate answer to the unsettled 12-tone row that began the quartet.
It is worth mentioning that Shostakovich’s later string quartets (those composed after the eighth) are controversial. Some listeners like them, others despise them. I am not personally a fan of his later string quartets, with the possible exception of the twelfth, because they seem to get away from the brilliance of the eighth. With that said, I think there is much to enjoy in the twelfth string quartet, and its harmonic journey from dissonance to resolution is, I believe, a fitting way to end our series.
This week’s music is the most famous of Shostakovich’s string quartets, the eighth, performed by the legendary Emerson 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 we saw last week 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. As we saw last week, Shostakovich signed his name D-E flat-C-B natural in his tenth symphony, his fourth string quartet, and now 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.
This week’s music continues our series on the string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich with the first movement of his string quartet No. 5, performed by the Jerusalem Quartet. The composition was written during the dark last days of Stalin’s rule over the Soviet Union and premiered by the Beethoven Quartet in November 1953.
To call the fifth string quartet groundbreaking would be an understatement. By this point in his career, Shostakovich had become quite comfortable with the string quartet form and was beginning to bend it to his stylistic will. For instance, he discarded the conventional separation of the piece into movements and joined all three movements together in one continuous piece. He also became more comfortable, given the approach of Stalin’s death, with drawing melodic material from his fellow Russians. An example of this can be found in the first movement, which begins with a tight, careful exposition that grows into a startling eruption that carries a “fff” dynamic marking. It appears again at the end of the movement, then again in the middle of the third movement. As it turns out, this melody came from a 1949 trio for clarinet, violin, and piano written by one of Shostakovich’s most famous composition pupils, Galina Ustvolskaya.
It is a rule of thumb that the influence of Shostakovich’s idol, J.S. Bach, can almost always be identified in his music. And the fifth string quartet is no exception. The first four notes played on the viola, for instance, are a permutation of the D-E flat-C-B natural motif that occurs in Shostakovich’s tenth symphony and was made famous in his eighth string quartet (which we will hear next week!). This is almost certainly an imitation of Bach, who often signed his initials B-A-C-H (B natural) in his music.
We are continuing our series on the string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich with the fourth movement of his fourth string quartet, performed by our old friends, the Jerusalem Quartet.
For those of you familiar with Shostakovich’s work, you can hear elements of his later style in the somewhat dissonant tendencies of the fourth movement. His love of certain forms of dissonance—and in particular, flattened scale degrees—stemmed from his love of Jewish folk music. To Shostakovich, Jewish folk music was “close to my idea of what music should be.” He wrote: “Jews were tormented for so long that they learned to hide their despair. They express their despair in dance music. All folk music is lovely, but I can say that the Jewish folk music is unique.”
Yet when he was writing this string quartet in 1949, Shostakovich was adamant that it would never be performed. A year earlier, he had been fired from his position as professor at the Moscow Conservatory because of his public opposition to Soviet ideological correctness. And Stalin had banned all Jewish music and literature only a few months before the quartet was composed. Shostakovich was therefore certain that his fourth string quartet would remain unheard for the foreseeable future. As it turned out, the quartet was not heard publicly for many more years. It received its first public performance nine months after Stalin died.
The fourth movement (starting at 14:12 of the video) begins with a simple viola melody inspired by a Jewish folk tune. But don’t let its simplicity deceive you! Wait a few minutes and Shostakovich will be pounding it through dense, multi-layered fugal imitation and dozens of changing meters. He combines the sadness of the Jewish folk melody with the violent excitement of a pulsing dance motif that creates an unforgettable blend of adrenaline and terror.
This week’s music, as we return to our series on the string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich, is the fourth movement of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 2, performed by the Jerusalem Quartet.
Shostakovich wrote his second string quartet while staying at a retreat center for writers and composers outside of Moscow. It was later premiered by the Beethoven Quartet, the ensemble that Shostakovich ultimately chose to premiere all of his string quartets. I find this choice of ensemble particularly interesting, given that Shostakovich’s compositions, like Beethoven’s, are often divided into three chronological categories: early, middle, and late.
The fourth movement (starting at 24:04) is based on a folk tune that Shostakovich featured in his second piano trio. First, you will hear a sombre (and, in my opinion, extremely Russian-sounding) E-flat minor dialogue between the first violin and the cello. The two instruments trade the folk tune back and forth until the viola ushers the ensemble into a second folk tune in A minor. Shostakovich then puts this new theme through a series of ever-intensifying variations that culminate in a frenzy of punched chords. The movement concludes with a recapitulated variation of each theme and a full-throated and stirring rendition of the original folk tune.
I realize we could probably make a series out of the times I’ve started a series and then pivoted to another topic. But the annual New Year’s Day performance of Johann Strass’ Blue Danube waltz by the Vienna Philharmonic only happens once a year, so I believe I’m justified in today’s diversion.
To that end, our music for this week is the Blue Danube waltz by Johann Strauss, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic on January 1, 2020 under the direction of Maestro Andris Nelsons.
Every year, the Vienna Philharmonic gives a New Year’s Day concert that ends with the famous Blue Danube waltz. The concert has been taking place since 1939 and has featured some of the greatest conductors of all time: Ricardo Mutti, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, and more. It will take place on January 1, 2023 at 11:15 am Eastern Time. Unfortunately it will not be live-streamed, but most classical music radio stations around the world broadcast the program live. The program will also include a number of other waltzes, selections from a ballet, and more.
The Blue Danube waltz hardly needs any introduction, other than to say that it is easily the most famous waltz of all time. You will hear the famous theme in the cellos and the horns.
This week’s music marks the beginning of a new series on the string quartets of Dmitri Shostakovich. We will be kicking off the series with the fourth movement of his String Quartet No. 1, performed by the Jerusalem Quartet (the fourth movement starts at the 10:41 mark in the video).
Before getting to the fourth movement, here’s a bit of background on Shostakovich as a chamber music composer:
He did not begin writing chamber music until age 32, much later than most of his Russian colleagues. When he started composing the first string quartet, Shostakovich wrote, “I began to write it without special ideas and feelings. I wrote the first page as a sort of original exercise in the quartet form, but then work on the quartet captivated me and I finished it rather quickly.”
Unlike his symphonies, Shostakovich intended his early string quartets to be light-hearted. In his own words: “Don’t expect to find special depth in this, my first quartet opus. In mood it is joyful, merry, lyrical. I would call it ‘spring-like.'” In keeping with the view in Moscow musical circles at the time, Shostakovich did not view chamber music as a series musical pursuit. Ironically, his string quartets have become some of the best-loved compositions of the twentieth century.
The contentment, ease, and lightness you will hear in this string quartet are a sharp contrast to the turmoil in Shostakovich’s life at the time he wrote it. His Fourth Symphony had received a disastrous premiere in Moscow, and Shostakovich had given up hope that he would ever write a great symphony.
The fourth movement (starting at 10:41 in the video) returns to the home key of C Major. The end of the movement hangs the listener over a ledge of C Minor before resolving to the tonic. I chose this movement for the first installment in our series because it is a preview of some Shostakovich tendencies that you will become familiar with as we listen to his other string quartets. For instance, the fourth movement showcases the punchy metric effects Shostakovich would later perfect in his eighth string quartet. It also features shifting meters (later perfected by the American composer Aaron Copland) and classic “Shostakovich-style” harmonies that seem to be bitter, tart, and sweet at the same time.
This Week's Music 