This Week's Music

We are continuing our series on the viola repertoire with Carl Stamitz’s viola concerto.

Violists tend to take a lot of grief. There are the jokes about how the first-seat violist in an orchestra is actually just the beginning of the list of people who didn’t make it into the back of the violin section. (There are even websites full of viola jokes – http://www.ahajokes.com/viola.html). There is the plethora of music – particularly Baroque-era music – that gives the viola the exceedingly boring role of holding drone notes while the violins carry the melody. There’s the fact that most people haven’t even heard of any compositions written for the viola. And much more. It is therefore only fitting that we hear at least once in this series from one of the least well-known, rarely-performed composers in all of classical music.

The relative obscurity of Carl Stamitz was most likely due to the fact that he was primarily a conductor, not a composer. His primary contribution to music, aside from the viola concerto you’ll hear, is the popularization of the modern symphonic form. The Stamitz family was a wealthy and reputable family in the music world of the 19th century, and they invested their money and influence in the development of the symphonic form that they liked best. Carl alone wrote over 100 symphonies in their preferred style. He was the first composer to utilize the idea of a crescendo and a diminuendo – the gradual increasing or decreasing of the loudness of the music – rather than the standard Baroque procedure of strict transitions from loud to soft. The Stamitz family was also responsible for introducing the clarinet into the orchestra, from which it had been previously excluded. (Some, including myself, would argue that it still should be excluded, along with its cousin the oboe, on account of its mortifying resemblance to the quacking of an irate waterfowl). Despite these significant contributions to the repertoire, the Stamitz family legacy is practically nonexistent today.

It is therefore no surprise that this concerto has a very symphonic feel and begins with a clarinet melody. The opening theme, with its broad, sweeping expanses of sound, point to Stamitz’s medium of choice. However, the work is unique in that it blends the characteristics of the early Classical period with a taste of the Romantic period. For instance, the opening melody is almost Mozartian in its giddiness, lightness, and airy energy; yet when the viola enters it brings with it a somber richness that is unmistakably Romantic in flavor. The soloist performs a virtuosic cadenza – a signature characteristic of the early Classical era – but the orchestra responds with a lengthy Romantic-era exposition of its own. Listen for these changes in style and see if you can hear the differences between the Classical-era motifs (Mozart-ish lightness) and the Romantic-era motifs (Brahms-like richness).

Enjoy!

T

My sister’s recent senior recital on the viola is the impetus for our new series on music written for the viola. We will explore music by Walton, Hindemith, and others while also getting to some of the great viola masters of the past, including William Primrose, Yuri Bashmet, Lawrence Power, and others.

(This link is for the first movement only. Feel free to click on the videos in the sidebar on the right for the 2nd and 3rd movements).

We are going to start it off with the Walton viola concerto, which is a staple of the repertoire and one that most violists will perform on a regular basis. Walton was an Englishman who happened to be close friends with the famous violist Paul Hindemith, to whom he eventually dedicated the viola concerto. Hindemith premiered the concerto in 1962 to an audience that included another famous violist, Lionel Tertis. Tertis had previously turned down the opportunity to premier Walton’s viola concerto and later said that it was the single biggest regret of his life.

Walton was an admirer of Prokofiev, which makes this a fitting transition from our previous series. He fashioned his viola concerto after the style of Prokofiev’s second violin concerto, which he considered the greatest solo work ever composed. His contemporaries – Elgar, Ives, Stravinsky, etc – were not supportive of his compositions, saying that his concept of musical logic and flow were unfitting for someone of his relatively young age (he composed this concerto in his 40’s, while most of his colleagues were in their 70’s). Because of these criticisms, Walton was extremely insecure about the work and revised it over ten times during the course of the next five years.

If you’re looking for a typical concerto experience, don’t listen to Walton’s viola concerto. It will not be a constant exercise in virtuosity like Paganini, a melodious meandering like Mozart, or a frenetic rage like Bartok. It’s value will be in the almost chamber music-like interactions between the viola and the orchestra, the intimacy with which the soloist weaves the viola’s lines through the orchestral texture, and the lyrical qualities of the thematic material. For example, the first movement is not the usual bombardment of technical fury that comes with any major concerto but rather a lyrical haunting that slips in and out of the shadows of the cellos and woodwinds without ever fully developing itself.

Another way in which this concerto is unconventional is found in the broader structural organization of the work. While most concertos will begin with a fast movement, retreat to a slow second movement, and end with a triumphant finale, this concerto begins with a restless Andante, moves to a furious Vivo, and finishes with a very mellow Andante. Listen especially closely to the end of the third movement, in which Walton brings back every single primary melody that he has previously introduced in the other two movements. See if you can identify where he is drawing them from.

Enjoy!

T

Hello all,

Our music for this week comes from the work of the highly-regarded Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti.

Ligeti, a descendant of the legendary violinist Leopold Auer (the teacher of Heifetz), was born in Hungary but lived most of his life in Austria as a conservatory professor. He left Hungary during its Communist occupation, having realized that he would never be able to create music to his full potential if he remained there. Ligeti is considered to be of the foremost pioneers in modern music and was one of the first composers to advanced chromatics, purist tonal systems, and polyrhythm. The fact that he is often mentioned in the same sentence as the great Nicholas Cage indicates his significant musical stature. To his death, he remained an impressively well-rounded individual. He was a devoted reader and writer, a lover of philosophy, a learner of African languages (which he found infinitely fascinating), a painter, an architect, and an obsessed pupil of Mandelbrot’s fractal geometrics.

Here are a couple of things to listen for in this unique composition:

– recurring themes (he based the Concerto off of Romanian folk tunes from his childhood)

– the transitions from movement to movement (or the lack thereof 😉

– the unique sound of the French Horns in the third movement (Ligeti instructed them to use what is called “natural tuning,” which means that they are playing without their usual valves).

Enjoy!

T

Hello all,

Our music for this week is the famous Concerto alla Rustica by Antonio Vivaldi.

Vivaldi’s composing career was actually a secondary pursuit to his performance and teaching commitments. Aside from making his wealth of compositions all the more amazing, this fact sheds light on the reason for his massive collection of concerti that were written for multiple violin soloists. Since he was writing a concerto every single week for his pupils at an all-girls music academy in Venice, he needed to make sure that as many students were involved as possible. As a violinist, he naturally would write violin concerti with two, three, or even four soloists with full orchestral accompaniment so that as many girls as possible could experience the spotlight. These multi-soloist concerti remain popular with students to this day, and I remember playing several of them with other students while learning the instrument myself.

This concerto, however, is one of the very few that do not include soloists. As you might imagine, it is also one of the few concerti that Vivaldi did not write for the students at his school but rather for a professional orchestra. Although the title implies a mild, rustic style, Concerto alla Rustica is a combination of speed and sophistication that seems to be forever on the brink of going just a little bit too fast.

Despite his intentions to make this concerto a completely orchestral affair, Vivaldi’s violinist tendencies were irrepressible and led him to add in a few solo lines for the first violinist in the few brief Adagio’s that intersperse the high-energy Allegro’s. Since, traditionally, the composer played the role of the first violinist, he most likely inserted these lines as a way to show off his prowess on the instrument. This fits with contemporary accounts of Vivaldi’s apparently quite unabashed boastfulness regarding his musical talents. As most musical compositions in that time period were written for royal or aristocratic families, and Vivaldi was reportedly closely tied to the wealthy Ottobini family in Venice, it is likely that this concerto was composed as a gift to them. Perhaps as a gesture to what was (at the time) considered a lesser instrument, or maybe as penance for his earlier virtuosic departures on the violin, Vivaldi graces the first cellist with a few solo lines in the final movement as well.

Enjoy!

T

Every once in a while, I happen to turn on the radio at just the right time and hear 1) a piece of music that I know and love, or 2) a piece that I’ve never heard but immediately love. Richard Strauss’ “Le Bourgeoisie Gentilhomme Suite” is a member of that second group, having been discovered by a lucky turn of the radio knob on the way home from work.

(for some reason, this recording is split into nine parts, so you’re welcome to listen to as few or as many parts as you like. The link above is only for part 1).

Strauss wrote this work in the early 1900’s with the intention of assisting a friend of his in reviving a 1670 comedic play by the same name. Although the play was unsuccessful, Strauss garnered significant attention for the music he created for it. Capitalizing on this surge of popularity, he combined the most popular melodies from his score and created a Suite that could be performed separately from the opera. The suite had its intended effect – audiences loved it and the Strauss was the man of the hour.

There are nine different parts, or movements, to the Suite. (Strauss later wrote two additional movements for the play that were not as well-received). Each of the movements depicts a scene from daily life (dinner conversation, cleaning the house, working in the fields, etc). Strauss borrowed themes from common countryside tunes to create these movements, which certainly contributed to its immediate popularity. However, another factor that may have helped in this regard is the very distinct Baroque flavor that Strauss gives the work. In a sense, it is even neo-classical. For instance, several of the melodies come from the music of the Baroque cellist Jean-Baptiste Lully while others are inspired by the 17th-century keyboard player Francois Couperin. It is quite possible that this reference to the history of classical music struck a chord with his audience in a way that the Romantic music of his time could not.

Enjoy!

T

To finish up the series on Prokofiev, we’ll be enjoying the Romeo and Juliet Suite that he wrote for a ballet by the same name in 1935.

Looking at the history of Russian classical music, it is clear who Prokofiev was chasing with the composition of this ballet – Tchaikovsky. Russia’s musical heritage was built on the back of Tchaikovsky’s greatest works, most of which happened to be ballets – Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, etc – and Prokofiev was very aware of the fact that he had a chance to join Tchaikovsky’s ranks with Romeo and Juliet. The pressure was compounded by the fact that his previous attempts at writing for ballet had been unsuccessful and unpopular.

To make matters worse, Prokofiev was at the mercy of scrutinizing Soviet officials during the entire composition process. For instance, the original Romeo and Juliet ballet from many years earlier had changed Shakespeare’s ending and created a happy ending in which the two lovers live happily ever after. This did not sit well with the Soviet authorities, who promptly dispatched most of the ballet company’s employees, exiled the director, and ordered a more melancholy ending to be put in place. Prokofiev was then put in a difficult position, because he was revered by the Soviet government but was also a close friend to the exiled former director of the ballet. On top of all this, the Soviet propaganda of the day published harsh reviews of Prokofiev’s colleague and good friend Dmitri Shostakovich that criminalized him for many of the same musical characteristics that Prokofiev used in his own music. In light of these dynamics and the pressure he must have felt to conform to the Soviets’ tastes, it makes sense that Prokofiev labored over the ballet score for five years before releasing it.

The orchestration of the ballet is unique. Peppered in among the usual orchestral characters you’ll hear a tenor saxophone (let me know if you can pick it out), a viola d’amore (from the Baroque period), a cornet (old-school variation on a trumpet), and several mandolins. The result is a distinctly Russian ballet that features a cat-and-mouse game between a jazz instrument and several unmistakably Italian Baroque sounds. You should also listen very carefully to the opening melody of the ballet, as it is quite similar to another Prokofiev melody that we heard recently.

Enjoy!

T

As we near the end of our Prokofiev series, I wanted to focus on an often-ignored side of Prokofiev’s work.

The opera we’ll be hearing from is titled The Love for Three Oranges, composed in 1919 and the recipient of a disastrous public response when first performed. To remedy this problem, Prokofiev extracted what he viewed as the best themes from the opera and turned them into a suite. We will hear the “March,” the only theme that remains popular today.

Part of what made the opera so hard for audiences to like was that it was full of fantastical characters but featured a very minimal storyline. There was almost a lack of a plot, and the segments of the opera seemed disjointed and unrelated to each other. While one movement dealt with peasants’ dance tunes, another switched suddenly to an implied commentary on imperial actions in 20th century Russia. Perhaps the March stuck with people because it was a tune that was memorable amidst the somewhat confusing strains that filled the rest of the opera. Listen for the famous “wrong notes” throughout the work – Prokofiev put them there on purpose. I won’t tell you where they are, since they’ll most likely be quite apparent when they occur, but I will add that each of the “wrong notes” is actually a harmonic trick that Prokofiev is playing with our psyches. He knows that the listener, whether musically inclined or note, subconsciously adjusts to a new tonal center whenever a piece begins. Anything that deviates from that tonal center is aggravating to the listener’s mind, whether they understand why or not, because it creates dissonance between the home key and the note in question. This happens automatically in every one of us once a piece of music starts. That is why key changes in music are so powerful – we don’t see it coming but all of a sudden we are transported to another “tonal home base.” Even my dad recognizes dissonance – and he couldn’t carry a tune if it hit him in the face 😉

Enjoy!

T

Prokofiev’s Symphony No 1 in D Major, otherwise known as his “Classical Symphony,” is one of the few works in his repertoire that does not clearly fit into a 20th century stylistic framework. It is considered to be one of the bridges between the Romantic and the Modern eras of classical music, and many refer to it as the original “neoclassical” symphony.

Prokofiev wrote the Classical Symphony while on vacation in the summer of 1917. He was in his twenties and was already an international sensation, having composed his first opera at the ripe old age of 9. After studying with the great Rimsky-Korsakov himself, he embarked on a spree of piano competitions around the globe, winning many and garnering numerous awards.

The symphony is based on the compositional style of Joseph Haydn, an aristocratic violinist and composer from the early years of the Classical era (1600’s). While a student at the St Petersburg Conservatory, Prokofiev was exposed to the symphonic works of Haydn and was struck by their deceptively complex structure. A naturally inquisitive and exploratory personality, Prokofiev decided to challenge himself to write a symphony in the style of Haydn – entirely in his head. In other words, he would not compose at the piano in order to test out harmonic structures, and he wouldn’t write down his compositions until after he had formed them in his head. The Classical Symphony was thus composed on day-long walks that Prokofiev took, wandering around the Russian countryside and composing in his head.

One of Haydn’s favorite things to do was surprise the audience. He understood that our minds subconsciously become rooted in the tonal center that the piece centers around, and any deviation from that center is received as dissonance or alteration of the norm. He would therefore throw in random surprises that jolted the audience for reasons they could not consciously identify. For instance, he would spend several measures creating the harmonic context for a recapitulation of the original theme, building tension that implied an impending return to the main melody. However, just when the audience expected the melody to reappear, Hayden would introduce a new theme or, better yet, bring in the original theme but in a totally different key. Prokofiev does something very similar in the opening movement of the Classical Symphony, repeatedly introducing familiar themes in unfamiliar keys.

Homage to Haydn can also be seen in the types of movements that Prokofiev included in the symphony. Rather than sticking to the usual stylistic conventions of the late Romantic period, he incorporated a Gavotte, a Baroque dance that is most commonly heard in the music of Bach, Handel and Haydn. Yet in this instance, Prokofiev is unwilling to stick exactly to Haydn’s style. Instead of using a Gavotte in 3/4 time, as Haydn would have done, he creates a Gavotte in 4/4 time and thereby introduces an entirely new conception of the dance. As if in apology to Haydn for not completely recognizing his stylistic conventions, he inserts a few bagpipe lines into the Gavotte as a homage to Haydn’s 88th Symphony.

Enjoy!

T

Our music for this week begins the series on the music of Sergei Prokofiev. We are starting it off with one of his lesser-known works, the Overture on a Hebrew Theme. It is among my favorite Prokofiev works and I believe it should be regarded as one of his most beautiful and important compositions.

The Overture on a Hebrew Theme was written in 1919 while Prokofiev was visiting friends in the United States. It was written for a very rare combination of instruments – clarinet, piano, and a string quartet. Prokofiev apparently wrote the work in response to a commission by the Zimro Ensemble, a Russian group with the combination of instruments noted above. He grudgingly agreed to write them a composition and remained stolidly disapproving of the work for the rest of his life. His dislike of the piece, however, is surprising given the immediate positive response it elicited from the public. Since Prokofiev’s death, the Overture has been revised to fit a full orchestra, and, unlike most other compositions that are “scaled-up” in this way, I believe this edition adds value to the work.

The work carries a distinctively Middle-Eastern flavor, due largely to the efforts of the clarinetist. Most of the composition features moments of melancholy lines that are meditative and reflective in nature, interspersed with multiple sections of lively transition. The primary themes of the work are repeated throughout the work but are traded amongst the instruments each time they reoccur. Two things in particular stand out to me whenever I hear this piece: 1) the almost tangible sense of color, and 2) the soulful melody that returns throughout the work with a different instrument each time. This melody is one of those rare gems that feels like you’ve always known it.

Enjoy!

T