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Mirror in the Mirror

Hello all,

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.

Enjoy!

T

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Shostakovich Strings #6

Hello all,

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.

Enjoy!

T

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Shostakovich Strings #5

Hello all,

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.

Enjoy!

T

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Shostakovich Strings #3

Hello all,

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.

Enjoy!

T  

4 – last movt starts at 14:12

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Autumn

Hello all!

Since the summer is winding to an end and we will soon (for those of us in
non-tropical climates, at least) be surrounded by orange and red leaves, I
thought it was a good time to bring back a piece we’ve heard before that
will get us in the mood for fall. Today you will hear the violinist
Frederieke Saeijs perform Autumn from Antonio Vivaldi’s famous
“Four Seasons” on a 15th-century Italian Guarneri violin.
She is accompanied by the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra.

Here’s a quick refresher on the “Four Seasons.” The “Four
Seasons” is a set of four violin concertos (or, in the more
appropriate Italian plural form, concerti) in which each concerto
represents one of the four seasons of the year. The composer is the great
Italian violinist Antonio Vivaldi, who penned them around 1716 and later
premiered them in Venice to dazzling reviews.

As with the rest of the seasons, Autumn is based on a set of
written sonnets. Each movement of the “season” corresponds to one of the
sonnets. The first movement’s Allegro, which represents the harvest
dance of a drunk farmer (Vivaldi’s subscript says that he has been “inflamed by
Bacchus”), is delightfully cheerful. The pensive second movement represents the
eventual and peaceful slumber of the tired peasants. The third and final
movement depicts a country hunting party setting out a dawn with their horns
blaring. If you watch the (incredibly helpful) subtitles that the maker of this
video inserted into the video, you’ll be able to see when the hunt begins and
what takes place as the hunters journey through the wilderness.

Enjoy!

T

 

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Jupiter

Hello all,

Our music for this week the Symphony No. 41 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is known by the nickname “Jupiter,” which was coined by the British philanthropist Johann Salomon as he advertised performances of the symphony in 19th-century London. Why the name “Jupiter”? No one knows, but it is likely that the sheer size and majestic key of C Major may have inspired Salomon’s grand view of the composition.

Here are a few things to listen for in each movement:

The first movement is all about lyricism. Mozart, you may remember, was a masterful opera composer and often incorporated the romanticism of operatic music into his symphonies. (For you opera buffs out there, listen for the melodic quotation from Don Giovanni).

The second movement is unique among Mozart’s works because the strings play with mutes. Watch the musicians between the first and second movements slide mutes over the bridges of their instruments in order to dull the sound.

The third movement, in true Mozartian fashion, is a dance.

The fourth movement is where you should pay close attention. It is a fugue based entirely on four notes, yet it also follows sonata form (exposition, development, recapitulation – for those of you who are just joining us). In a masterful feat of compositional genius, Mozart borrowed from the fugal brilliance of Bach and the sonata format of his contemporaries and created a generational masterpiece.

Enjoy!

T  

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Koncertmusik

Hello all,

Our music for this week is the “Konzertmusik for String Orchestra and Brass, Opus 50” by German composer Paul Hindemith. The Konzertmusik was written in 1930 at the request of legendary Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor Serge Koussevitzky. It is the third “Konzertmusik” written by Hindemith in the year 1930, pairing with the “Konzertmusik for Viola and Chamber Orchestra” and the “Konzertmusik for Piano, Brass, and Harp.”

Hindemith, who lived from 1865 to 1963, is a contemporary of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Bartok, and other mid-twentieth century composers whose music reflects the experience of living through two world wars. (Hindemith, whose wife was Jewish, was particularly shaped by the second world war). His music incorporates atonal strains of Romantic-era lyricism with jarring infusions of post-modern orchestration. Like other composers of this time, Hindemith sought to portray the struggle of rebuilding society in the wake of international conflict. In particular, he embraced the globalization of culture, language, and artistic heritage. His music reflects this viewpoint; one can hear the melodic lines of Italian opera, the full-blooded strength of the late Romantic era, the intrigue of Ravel’s turn-of-the-century Orientalism, and much more.

There are two parts to the Konzertmusik: Massig schnell, mit Kraft – Sehr breit, aber stets fliebend (“moderately fast, with power – very broad, but always flowing) and Lebhaft – Langsam – Im ersten Zeitmab (“Fast – Slow – Tempo primo”). These descriptions are, I believe, helpful when listening to this work. The varying tempi of this composition can make it difficult to pick out its melodic patterns, so having a perspective of “very broad, but always flowing” is instructive for understanding the atmosphere the composer is trying to convey.

Enjoy!

T

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Top 25 #25 – An American Legend

Hello all,

We are at the end of our countdown! And what a journey it’s been! We’ve covered over four centuries of music in these 25 posts, ranging from J.S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos to Samuel Barber’s Adagio and everything in between. I thought it only fitting that we end with one of the most famous compositions ever written by an American composer – the “Hoedown” from Aaron Copland’s ballet Rodeo.

Copland composed Rodeo in 1942. He had previously written a western-style ballet called Billy the Kid that had been met with only moderate success, so he was wary of writing another. However, he was convinced when the Hollywood choreographer Agnes de Mille told him that Rodeo would essentially be “the Taming of the Shrew – with cowboys!” “Hoedown” has since become such a core piece of American musical heritage that it was recently inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

The ballet consists of five sections. First, there is “Buckaroo Holiday,” which introduces the Wild West context of the ballet and the main character, known as Cowgirl. Second is “Corral Nocturne,” in which a lovesick Cowgirl wanders an empty corral at night. Third, there is “Ranch House Party,” which contrasts a rollicking dance theme with a more pensive clarinet line in order to portray the loneliness felt by Cowgirl despite her many friends. Fourth is “Saturday Night Waltz,” in which Cowgirl falls in love with a cowboy named Roper. Finally, there is the “Hoedown,” which is what we will hear today. This section of the ballet is meant to portray the happiness and exuberance of love as well as the boundless energy of the Wild West legend surrounding the ballet as a whole.

I hope you enjoy this final installment in our Top 25 Greatest Pieces of Classical Music series, but more importantly, I hope you’ve benefited from this series. Perhaps it has helped you grasp the unbelievable breadth of music that is included within the small phrase “classical music.” Perhaps it has introduced you to new music that hadn’t heard before, or maybe it was a stroll down the memory lane of “greatest hits” that you hadn’t dug up in a while. Or perhaps it has helped you narrow your tastes a bit and given you a more nuanced understanding of what it is about classical music that appeals to you. Either way, I hope you have benefited from this series and have had some fun along the way.

See you next week, and – as always – enjoy!

T

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Top 25 #16 – Moonlight Sonata

Hello all,

The sixteenth installment in our series on the Top 25 Greatest Pieces of Classical Music is the famous Moonlight Sonata by Ludwig van Beethoven.

The Moonlight Sonata is one of Beethoven’s most widely-known pieces, right up there with the Ninth Symphony and the Violin Concerto. He wrote it in 1801 while working as a teacher and court musician for a Hungarian baron. Most people assume that, with a name like “Moonlight Sonata,” this piece was meant to reflect a moon-lit stroll with a lover. However, Beethoven’s journal entries suggest that it was actually a memorial for a dear friend of his who had passed away around that time.

There are three movements in the sonata. Here’s what to listen for:

First is Adagio Sostenuto, which contains the famous Beethoven melody that we all know. Listen for the base line that reverberates throughout the entire movement. It provides a solemn grounding force that carries the melody through its many different permutations.

Second, you’ll hear the Allegretto. This movement could not be more different than the first movement. Think of this part as less of an individual movement and more of an emotional reprieve that Beethoven inserted between the first and third movements.

Third is the Presto Agitato, which starts at 9:14. This movement is the storm that so many Beethoven works are famous for. Listen for two themes – first, a theme composed of flying arpeggios, and second, a more lyrical melody that is reminiscent of the first movement.

Enjoy!

T

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Top 25 #14 – Ma Vlast

Hello all,

The fourteenth installment in our series on the Top 25 Greatest Pieces of Classical Music is Smetana’s Ma Vlast.

Bedrich Smetana was an ardent Czech nationalist whose claim to fame was to have created a uniquely Czech style of music. This is somewhat ironic, since he spoke mainly German, had studied at German music schools, and was heir to a tradition of classical music that was full of German composers (Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, etc). His fame and performing abilities were flourishing fantastically when he suddenly became deaf in 1874 at the peak of his career (yet another sadly ironic similarity to a famous German composer). Nonetheless, he embraced his new role as somewhat of a spokesperson for Czech music and wrote his massive set of Czech tone-poems titled Ma Vlast (meaning “My Country”) in 1879 with the goal of putting Czech music on the map once and for all.

Each of the tone-poems, all of which are written for full orchestra, reflect a different aspect of the Czech culture, land, or people. There is an opera entitled The Kiss, the famous melody of The Bartered Bride, and even a narrative of his life that ends with a high-pitched, ringing E that represents his elderly deafness.

The River Moldau Suite (Vltava) is undoubtedly the most famous tone-poem of the entire set. It describes the river that flows through Prague and includes specific depictions of places along the river that Smetana had visited himself. It begins in the mountains as a tiny brook – listen for the trickling water representation in woodwinds – and ends as a powerful, rushing river that courses through the Czech countryside and through downtown Prague (heard in the sweeping melodies played by the strings and the brass). Smetana noted in his description of the tone-poems that he had personally been to the mountain-top location where the Moldau started and had heard the folk music of the villages nearby. He also made sure to mention that he had ridden a boat through the rapids of the Moldau outside of Prague and also sailed through the city on its currents.

There isn’t a feat of orchestration or a set of amazing harmonic shifts that make this piece unique – it is simply just a beautiful piece of music with timeless melodies. You’ll wish you were in Prague!

Enjoy!

T