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Quotable Quotations

Hello all,

This week’s music is the Allegro second movement (starting at 6:06) from Charles Ives’ Symphony No. 2.

A Mount Rushmore of American composers could include several names, but two composers in particular would have, in my view, a permanent place on the monument: Aaron Copland and Charles Ives. These two composers have arguably done more than any other figures (with the possible exception of George Gershwin) to define American classical music.

Charles Ives was an eccentric New Englander who forged a unique and powerful path into American modernism. Like the poet T.S. Eliot, Ives worked an office job (insurance salesman) for most of his life in order to support his family, composing in the early mornings and late evenings. He left us with dozens of sonatas, chamber music of all kinds, six incredible symphonies, and several immensely popular short orchestral works like “The Unanswered Question,” “Central Park in the Dark,” and “Three New England Sketches.”

Ives’ second symphony is a masterclass in quoting other musical material, from Wagner operas to American fiddle tunes. In the first movement, he quotes the tune “Columbia, Gem of the Ocean.” The second movement quotes “Bringing in the Sheaves.” Strains of “America the Beautiful” can be heard in the third movement, and the fifth movement showcases quotations of both “Camptown Races” and “Turkey in the Straw.” Other quotations include Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde” overture, Dvorak’s New World Symphony, Beethoven’s fifth symphony (in the second and third movements), Brahms’ first symphony (in both the first and last movements), and even an F Minor fugue in the finale that imitates one of J.S. Bach’s three-part inventions.

Enjoy!

T

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Lullaby Season

Hello all,

I thought it fitting, in light of my becoming a father this past week, to send out a lullaby. This is Brahms’ 1865 Weigenleid lullaby, perhaps one of the best known lullabies in the world.

Enjoy!

T

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Brahms for Two

Hello all,

I had the pleasure of giving a small recital a few weeks before Christmas with some friends of mine. Unfortunately, the audio quality of the recording is not good enough to share with all of you, but I wanted to share the music regardless.

The first piece on the program was the Sonata for Piano and Violin in A Major by Johannes Brahms. Brahms wrote this work while spending the summer of 1886 in Thun, Switzerland. Nestled between two lakes with the Alps towering on either side, Thun was the ideal location for an inspiring summer of composition. The second sonata is the shortest of the three Brahms wrote for these two instruments, but it is considered the most difficult because of its challenging blend of delicacy and virtuosity. It is light-hearted and radiant throughout, with moments of intensity that resolve into rhapsodic back-and-forth exchanges between the two instruments.

There are three movements. In the first movement, relish the soft touch of the piano line. Brahms, a pianist himself, gives the piano much of the melodic material in the first movement. The second movement darts between fast and slow, energetic and dreamy. Listen for the way the two instruments imitate each other and trade melodic lines back and forth. In the third movement, Brahms gives the violin a deep, rich melody line that ends with triumphant flourish. Listen for that classic Brahmsian “dark chocolate” sound.

Enjoy!

T

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A Blue Danube New Year!

Hello all,

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 tomorrow (January 1, 2022) 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, all under the baton of the legendary Daniel Barenboim.

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.

Enjoy!

T

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Christmas Concerto

Hello all,

Our music for Christmas Eve is the “Christmas” Concerto by Archangelo Corelli. I first played it when I was 10 years old as part of the NH Youth Symphony Orchestra, and since then my siblings and I have played it at numerous Christmas concerts.

The concerto is written in the sonata de chiesia form, which was used regularly by Corelli and his early-1700’s contemporaries. Corelli expanded this format from the usual four movements to five, but otherwise he stuck with the stylistic conventions. Like most of the music written during this time period, the concerto is written for two violin soloists and a single cello soloist, accompanied by a tutti orchestra.

There are six movements in the concerto, all of which are beautiful. However, the sixth movement (Pastorale) is the most well-known and, in my opinion, the most beautiful. The melody in the violins is unforgettable.

Merry Christmas, and enjoy!

T

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Sugar Plum

Hello all,

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker. Written as a two-act ballet in 1892, the story is based on T.A. Hoffman’s 1816 short story, “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King.” Tchaikovsky’s evocative and colorful music, combined with the brilliant choreography of Lev Ivanov and others, have created a timeless Christmas classic.

Today we will hear (and watch) the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy. This dance was somewhat revolutionary in its time, for it introduced a new instrument to the world: the celeste. Since then, the celeste has been used by Frank Sinatra, Gustav Mahler, John Williams, Bela Bartok, and dozens of other famous musicians. The celeste operates like most of the other keyboard instruments: keys trigger hammers that strike metal plates suspended over wooden resonating blocks. Tchaikovsky used it to create a delicate, sparkling atmosphere that feels magical and childish at the same time.

Enjoy!

T

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Ceremony of Carols

Hello all,

We’re only a couple of weeks away from Christmas, so its time to start listening to Christmas music! This is not, however, what most people think of when they think of Christmas music. In fact, it’s not even the usual set of popular Christmas carols that cycle through the radio stations this time of year. Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Britten is nonetheless a true Christmas masterpiece.

Benjamin Britten, one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century, wrote Ceremony of Carols in 1942 when he was only 29 years old. It is written for three-part choir, solo voices, and harp and incorporates 11 Middle-English Christmas carols. Britten composed it while on board a ship from New York to London. When the ship stopped in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Britten purchased a book of medieval poetry that happened to include a number of 14th and 15th century English carols. Before he stepped off the ship in London, he had written Ceremony of Carols.

This piece is unique in several ways. First, note the use of a single instrument – a harp – as the accompaniment for the choir. Most choral works are accompanied by a small orchestra, but Britten uses only the harp. Second, note the way the choir is a sort of call-and-response partner with the solo voices. This creates a lovely echoing effect. Third and finally, listen for the simple, roaming unison lines that individual voices sometimes present. This is Britten’s imitation of Gregorian chant, a kind of choral singing that was popular in the 9th and 10th centuries.

Enjoy!

T

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The Lamb

Hello all,

This week’s music is The Lamb by English composer John Tavener. Tavener wrote the following about the piece, which is based on William Blake’s poem by the same name, in 2004:

“The Lamb was written . . . for my then 3-year old nephew, Simon. It was composed from seven notes in an afternoon. Blake’s child-like vision perhaps explains The Lamb’s great popularity in a world that is starved of this precious and sacred dimension in almost every aspect of life.”

If his goal was to create a brief moment of transcendence, Tavener succeeded. The Lamb is a haunting work for a capella choir, written in 1982, that harkens back to the era of Gregorian chant. Listen for the way the choir begins the piece with unison moving lines that shift up and down together. This chant-like atmosphere then gives way to a series of individual lines that weave in and out of each other (somewhat evocative of Stravinsky, who was one of Tavener’s most significant musical influences) before coming back together at the end.

Enjoy!

T

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American Composers #6 – Charles Loeffler

Hello all,

We will be wrapping up our series on American composers with the music of Charles Martin Loeffler.

Loeffler lived and worked on a farm outside of Boston, Massachusetts during the late 19th century. The “Boston Six” was composing at the same time, but Loeffler kept his distance from them and preferred to work on his own. He was considered by many of his colleagues to be a reclusive reactionary, but he welcomed many students to his farm over the years and experimented with tone poems and other symbolic aspects of music.

Loeffler’s music can probably be most easily compared to the music of Debussy and other turn-of-the-century French composers. There is an ethereal, impressionistic quality to it. He was less interested in writing string quartets or symphonies than he was in experimenting with musical moments that evoked colors or moods. Today’s piece, L’Etang from his Rhapsodies for viola, oboe, and piano, is a perfect example of his unique approach.

Enjoy!

T

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American Composers #5 – Amy Beach

Hello all,

This week’s music, continuing in our series on the music of great American composers, is the second movement of Amy Beach’s piano quintet in F-sharp minor, performed by a group of music performance fellows at the Tanglewood Music Center in Tanglewood, Massachusetts.  

Amy Beach was born in Henniker, New Hampshire in 1867. Unlike most composers, she was almost entirely self-taught. She came to fame in a crop of American composers that included George Chadwick, Arthur Foote, and the legendary Edward MacDowell, whose name is associated with the MacDowell Artist Colony (also in my beautiful home state of New Hampshire :).

Like most American composers of this era, Beach’s writing is quintessentially Romantic, with early strains of late romantic and even pseudo-harmonic characteristics. Her piano quintet is a perfect example of this. In the second movement, which you will hear today, she blends soaring piano solos with delicate textures in the strings, punctuated by what can only be described as Charles Ives-esque harmonic undertones.

Listen for the absolutely stunning return of the cello solo at 6:40. In my opinion, this is one of the most beautiful melodies ever written by an American composer!

Enjoy,

T