This Week's Music

As we continue our series on the music of Maurice Ravel, we turn to the Sonata for Violin and Piano and the musicianship of violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Jeremy Denk. There are three links because there are three movements in the sonata.

This sonata is – in my humble opinion – the most quintessentially Impressionist piece of music ever composed. Debussy’s violin and piano sonata rivals it, but this sonata seems to be constantly boiling over with the musical equivalent. Ravel wrote it in 1923 at the very height of the Impressionist movement in music, which lagged behind the Impressionist movement in art by at least a decade. Saint-Saens, Franck, and other European composers who are often regarding as the last hallmarks of the Romantic period of music, can also be considered the harbingers of the Impressionist movement and the precursors to Ravel’s stunning mastery of the Impressionist style. However, where Saint-Saens and Franck were quite hesitant in opening up to Impressionism, Ravel kicked the door down. The second movement in particular (I’ve put a few asterisks next to the appropriate link above) is evidence of his eagerness – it is titled “Blues” and is more closely akin to something an American jazz band or blues ensemble would play than a Parisian violinist.

What is fascinating and awe-inspiring is the way that Ravel was able to so fully incorporate blues influences into his music and still have it remain both classically French and traditionally pure. As Denk says of the work, “It’s a croissandwich.” By this he means that it takes an American musical style (blues) and views it through the lens of a French musical format (Parisian classical). The blues element is heard in the sarcasm, the slides, the swinging melodies, and the harmonic tension that is reminiscent of B.B. King, George Gershwin, and Etta James. The Parisian classical element is heard in the tenderness, the refinement of the phraseology, the delicate pizzicato passages, the passionate waves of legato, and the maturity of the harmonic structure that elicits comparisons with Franck, Elgar, Faure, and others.

Enjoy!

T

Our series on the music of the French composer Maurice Ravel continues this week with Le Jardin Feerique (The Fairy Garden), an excerpt from his famous Mother Goose Suite. You’re more than welcome to listen to the full Mother Goose Suite on your own, but I wanted to highlight this especially beautiful part of the Suite in this week’s email.

The Pavane for a Dead Princess, Ravel’s first exceptionally popular composition (which we listened to last week), was actually the beginning of the journey that led to the Mother Goose Suite. Building on the success of the Pavane, he wrote a second and a third Pavane in the hopes that they would increase his fame. While they were not as successful on their own, he was able to combine them into a book of Pavanes and etudes for young pianists that was quite popular. This collection became the inspiration for the Mother Goose Suite after Ravel decided to create a “musical storybook” for children. He proceeded to write several duets for young pianists and combined them into what we now know as the Mother Goose Suite, later orchestrating it into a full-size ballet at the request of the Paris Symphony Orchestra.

This movement, titled “The Fairy Garden,” is the final movement of the Mother Goose Suite. It has been described as the closest thing Ravel ever wrote to a Requiem. Instead of ending the Suite with a dashing finale like most other composers would have done, Ravel opted to conclude the Suite with this meditative, soul-searching chorale composition. It reminds me of Rachmaninoff’s gut-wrenching Requiem more than it does a children’s musical storybook, but it is nonetheless a powerful and moving work. Sit back and enjoy Ravel’s amazing genius.

Our music for this week is the Festive Overture by Dimitri Shostakovich.

Shostakovich wrote the Festive Overture in 1954 to commemorate the 37th anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917. The anniversary concert, however, found itself without an appropriate opening piece with only three days to go until the performance. The conductor frantically contacted Shostakovich and asked him to write an overture in a mere two days. Shostakovich casually dashed off what we now know and love as one of his greatest compositions. There exists an account, written by a friend, that describes what it was like to watch Shostakovich write the Festive Overture in such a short time. The writer was astounded by the speed with which Shostakovich wrote, and exclaimed more than once over the fact that he could do so while simultaneously cracking jokes with bystanders and carrying on conversations with his friends. All of those present were shocked, upon the completion of their conversation with Shostakovich, to look down at his desk and see a completed orchestral masterpiece lying on the table.

The Festive Overture was written early in Shostakovich’s career, so it contains many stylistic references to the Romantic period rather than the 20th Century/Modern period. Those of us who are used to the modern and wild erraticism of the more mature Shostakovich will undoubtedly find this piece a significant departure from his usual inclinations. As is fitting for an overture, the Festive opens with a brass fanfare, continues with a lyrical melody in the strings, and finishes with a death-defying scramble.

Enjoy!

T

Our music for this week is the Rhapsody in B Minor for solo piano by Johannes Brahms.

Brahms was, like most great composers, a child prodigy. His father was a bassist in the Hamburg (Germany) Symphony Orchestra and his mother was a recital pianist. However, his parents were not typical of other prodigies’ parents. Rather than showcase him on the world stage, they put him to work earning money for their very poor young family by playing music in bars, taverns, and hotels across Germany. Fate could not wait too long, however, and his travels soon connected him with the famous violinist Joseph Joachim, who introduced him to the premiere musical circles of his day. After meeting Robert Schumann and several other household names, Brahms threw himself full-time into performing and composing.

Brahms wrote this Rhapsody during the most productive time of his life (1877-1879). During these two years, he made his residence in Italy and churned out the vast majority of his best compositions, which include his two Rhapsodies for solo piano. Both of them are dedicated to one of his many lovers but are otherwise unnamed. It is interesting to note that he titled them as Rhapsodies, implying an almost wild or uncontrollable style, but composed the works in the very formal Sonata format. In short, Sonata form begins with an opening theme, goes through a development and into a secondary theme, then recapitulates into the first theme before coming to a close. Brahms adhered quite closely to this format in his B Minor Rhapsody, but he added a small twist that you might be able to pick out if you listen carefully. Instead of giving the listener two themes and a development section, he added multiple recapitulations into the structure of the piece. In other words, the first theme begins to transition into a development stage but suddenly turns back to the original theme in a completely different key. Once he has the listener on his or her toes, Brahms is then content to move on to the secondary theme. Listen for repeated thematic material and see if you can pick out the different instances in which Brahms loops previous melodies back onto themselves.

Enjoy!

T

Our music for this week is the Divertimento for Violin and Piano (or, in this case, orchestra) by Igor Stravinsky. In fact, you’ll only be hearing the fourth movement, as performed by my favorite violinist Augustin Hadelich with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra.

As you might be able to tell from the style of the piece, the Divertimento was originally a movement from a ballet titled “The Fairy’s Kiss” that Stravinsky wrote in 1928. It is said that Stravinsky, who admired his Russian predecessor Tchaikovsky but also hated the fact that Tchaikovsky was more famous than he was, viewed this ballet as the moment he surpassed Tchaikovsky in terms of musical greatness. While I can’t vouch for one or the other, I can positively affirm this piece as being a wonderful example of the transition between Romantic and 20th-century classical music. Stravinsky does an unbelievable job of blending the newness of the 20th-century atmosphere with the rich and historical folk melodies of Russian music that are so often heard in Tchaikovsky’s music.

I”ve written about Augustin Hadelich in earlier emails (if you are interested in reading about his amazing rise to international fame, go find the email on Brahms’ violin concerto), so here are a few notes about the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. The Orpheus is the world’s premiere chamber (miniature) orchestra. Created in 1972 by a few NYC musicians who enjoyed chamber music, it quickly separated itself from the crowd by pledging to never rehearse or perform – or even hire – a conductor. In this sense, Orpheus is truly unique – it is almost an enlarged quartet rather than a small orchestra.

Enjoy!

T

Hello all,

Instead of sending you a new piece of music this week, I wanted to remind you all that we have a playlist on Spotify that you can listen to as well. It contains nearly every single piece we’ve ever listened to via these emails – over 14 straight hours of the world’s greatest music! It’s a great tool for studying, reading, or just relaxing, as you don’t need to click through playlists and change albums all the time. You can find it under the (very original) title of “Music Email Playlist.”

Enjoy!

T

Our music for this week is one of the most fascinating pieces of music I’ve listened to in a while. It was a random discovery of mine while listening to the radio on the way to work one day.

These are the Polovtsian Dances from the opera “Prince Igor” by Alexander Borodin. Borodin was a Hungarian composer who lived during the mid and late 19th century. Like his contemporaries Smetana (from whom we recently heard with the “River Moldau Suite”) and Dvorak, he was fiercely proud of his Hungarian folk heritage and sought to display it in all of his compositions. The series of dances, which was meant to come at the end of Act II of the opera, takes us through an amazing and intense variety of musical styles – soft choral melodies, furious cadences, booming fermatas, delicate andantes, and wild chases. I would encourage you to read along with the following description of each dance while listening to the music to gain a fuller understanding of the work.

The Introduction leads us through a mellow and carefree exposition of one of the opera’s main themes. When the sopranos enter to begin the second dance, we have begun the Gliding Dance of the Maidens, which radiates gracefulness and evokes images of Hungarian countryside landscapes. The third dance is the Wild Dance of the Men, which needs very little explanation. Listen for the frenetic winding and running of the clarinet, winds, and finally the strings that signal the start of this movement. It is a wild and rollicking dance that is very short and to the point. Next comes the General Dance, which thunders along with massive tones from the trombones and tuba. The entire choir is involved in this part of the piece, further adding to the sense of power that it emanates. The following dance is the Dance of the Boys, which is again introduced by a very fast conversation between the oboe and the clarinet and quickly descends into a frantic whirlwind. A return to the Gliding Dance of the Maidens is unmistakably the next step (you will have no trouble recognizing it), but this time it is sped up and combined with the craziness of the Dance of the Boys. These two melodies mix to merge into a return to the Dance of the Men and finally a recapitulation of the General Dance for the finale.

Enjoy!

T