“I grew up in a quiet spot and was saturated from earliest childhood with the wonderful beauty of Russian popular song.”
– Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky
Getting Off to a Good Start
Unless you were fortunate enough to grow up in a household that listened to a lot of classical music, you might feel that it is quite hard to pick up casually and must require extraordinary intellectual effort. Of course, knowledge of any kind of music doesn’t come automatically, and you have to put some time and effort into listening to classical music to get rewards from it, just as you would with rock, blues, jazz, country, and so on. Yet there are other challenges that can make classical music seem particularly daunting. First, listening to anything and everything randomly, either online or at a music library, may bring about confusion, because of the sheer quantity of classical music that exists and the variety of styles and periods it’s associated with, from Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque to Classical, Romantic, and Modern. It’s easy to get lost. Second, you can squander a fortune on buying classical music, even out of the mid-line and budget bins, especially without knowing what’s worth hearing more than once. Third, if you lack a trusted guide, you may begin to feel overwhelmed by all the choices and quit out of frustration. If you aren’t lucky enough to have ready access to the best recordings, vast disposable income, or a knowledgeable teacher or friend to make suggestions, where on earth do you begin? To whom should you turn in your time of greatest need?
Meet Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky (1840 -1893), one of the great Russian composers from the Romantic period, a perennial favorite among classical fans, and possibly the best pathfinder to classical music. Although he demonstrated talent in childhood and received music lessons early, Tchaikovsky began his professional career as a composer relatively late in life, starting out as a lawyer, but changing goals in his twenties to become a professor of music in Moscow. He achieved an artistic breakthrough with the premiere in 1877 of his ballet The Swan Lake, and proved to the public that he had a phenomenal grasp of melody, dance forms, and orchestral colors. He went on to even greater successes, and despite suffering severe doubts over his music and bouts of nearly suicidal depression over his homosexuality, he persevered and was acknowledged as a great composer in his lifetime. Tchaikovsky died ten days after the premiere of his Symphony No. 6 in B minor, “Pathétique,” which many regard as the ne plus ultra of his intensely personal expression.
The concept of operas based on recent historical events has become so commonplace at the end of the first decade of the 21st century that it’s hard to believe that just over 20 years ago, the premise of Nixon in China was a contentious subject, and there was skepticism over whether it was even possible for an opera based on such recent history to have any artistic value. The assumption of the cynics was that the only conceivable motivation for creating such a work was to capitalize on its novelty, and would not admit the possibility that serious artists could treat such a topic with the intent to create enduring art. The term, docu-opera (like the descriptions of many artistic movements, including “baroque”), was originally intended to be derogatory, and that’s probably why John Adams continues to consider it an insult when it is applied to his operas, Nixon in China,The Death of Klinghoffer,and Doctor Atomic. For most people, though, docu-opera has become a value-neutral descriptor of a sub-genre, like opera buffa or verismo opera, and the elevation of several docu-operas to classic or near-classic status has largely removed the stigma. (It has to be admitted that some of the subjects chosen for operatic treatment — the Jerry Springer Show, Clarence Thomas’ Senate confirmation hearings, and the space shuttle Columbia tragedy, for instance — can still raise some eyebrows.) The second installment of this series highlights more examples of the blossoming sub-genre.
After the tremendous success of Nixon in China in 1988, it was practically inevitable that its creators, composer John Adams, librettist Alice Goodman, and director Peter Sellars, would collaborate again. Their second opera, The Death of Klinghoffer, was jointly commissioned by the San Francisco Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Glyndebourne Festival, and Théâtre Royale de la Monnaie, where it was premiered in 1991. The topic, the Arab-Israeli conflict as epitomized by the 1985 Palestinian hijacking of the cruise ship Achille Lauro, and the killing of Leon Klinghoffer, an American Jewish passenger, proved to be so controversial that the opera has rarely been revived. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, it seems even less likely that opera companies will mount a work with such volatile subject matter any time in the near future, which is unfortunate because it contains some of Adams’ most deeply felt music. Its style is far removed from the minimalism of Nixon in China, and shows a broader expressive range and more sophisticated orchestration. Overall, though, the static quality of much of its dramaturgy, and the character of Adams’ text setting make it a less compelling opera than Nixon.
English director Penny Woolcock’s extraordinary film of the opera, which won the prestigious Prix d’Italia, makes a very strong case for it, however. Some of the finest music had to be cut, but this is arguably the most accomplished and persuasive film version of an opera made to date.
Prologue: Chorus of the exiled Palestinians
Act 1, scene 1: Ocean Chorus
Act 2, scene 2: “I must have been hysterical”
Act 2, scene 2: “Every fifteen minutes one more will be shot”
Act 2, scene 2: Aria of the falling body
Jake Heggie wrote his first opera, Dead Man Walking, when he was composer in residence at the San Francisco Opera, which mounted its first production in 2000. The opera, which is based on the 1993 book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, has gone on to become one of the most popular and frequently produced operas of the new century. The excellent libretto, by the playwright Terrence McNally, traces the attempts of a nun to reach a hardened murderer on death row, his resistance to her attempts, and his ultimate redemption. The depiction of the murderer’s family, and the families of his two young victims gives the opera rich layers of emotional and ethical complexity. The familiarity of the story, the emotionally charged topic of the death penalty, and direct accessibility of Heggie’s music all contributed to its success, as well as the opportunities it gives singing actors to create vivid characterizations. The roles of Sister Helen and Mrs. DeRocher, the killer’s mother, are especially sharply etched, and in the first production and the recording they were memorably and sympathetically brought to life by Susan Graham and Frederica von Stade. The role of Joseph DeRocher, too, has become a star vehicle for young baritones.
Act 1, scene 2: “This Journey, this Journey to Christ”
Act 1, scene 8: “You don’t know what it’s like to bear a child”
Act 2, scene 2: “Sometimes forgiveness is in the smallest gesture”
Act 2, scene 3: “Well? Well?”
Act 2, scene 8: “He will gather us around”
Philip Glass has said, “I am convinced that there is no more important composer working today than John Moran. His works have been so advanced [that they are] considered revolutionary.” The Boston Globe called Moran “a modern day Mozart.” Moran has left a surprisingly small digital footprint for a composer with such impressive endorsements, and has few commercially released recordings. His best known work is the opera The Manson Family, which was commissioned by Lincoln Center in 1990, and featured Iggy Pop and Terre Roche, with the composer as Manson. Moran, who wrote the libretto, is not concerned with the factual events of the case, or even a coherent linear narrative, information that “can easily be obtained by anyone walking into a bookstore.” The opera is more like a nightmarish collage of recollections by Manson and several of his followers, particularly Susan D. Atkins, whose lighthearted descriptions the murders are chilling. The music, which has an experimental rock sound, relies heavily on prerecorded samples and overdubbing, and more of the text is spoken than sung. The Manson Family may not have traditional opera fans as its target audience, or conform to many of the standard conventions of the form, but it works on a subconscious level to make a disturbing psychological impact, and is powerfully effective as a music theatre piece.
Act 1: “The Prosecutor,” at Death-Train Station Five (The Tate House)
Act 2: SUBJECT: Lynette (Squeaky) Fromme
Act 3: Night Highway #3
Act 3: Squeaky in a boat
Act 3: SUBJECT: Charles (no name) Manson
Anthony Davis has made a name for himself both as a jazz musician and in academic composition. — he has taught at Yale and UC San Diego — and he has devoted much of his career to opera. His five operas have all been produced by major companies, and several have had subsequent productions. X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X (1985) was the first modern docu-opera, preceding Nixon in China by three years. The ambitious libretto, by Davis’ cousin, Thulani Davis, traces the life of Malcolm Little from his childhood, through his conversion to Islam, political activism, and assassination in 1965. Davis brings the various traditions of his background to the opera, and the orchestra is augmented by a substantial jazz ensemble. Based on the dramatic requirements of the story, Davis’ score incorporates elements of expressionism, minimalist repeating patterns, and various jazz styles. The opera’s eclecticism was initially controversial. While X received considerable critical acclaim, many of Davis’ jazz fans felt that its effectiveness as the depiction of the life of a great populist was compromised by the score’s heavy reliance on European modernist traditions.
In the wake of the French Revolution, the passage of Classical style into the Romantic around 1800 was one of the most pivotal and cataclysmic events in the history of Western music, and dozens of composers were deep in the thick of its development. By putting the weight of this entire historic period on the broad shoulders of Ludwig van Beethoven, music history has had only a weak grasp of what really happened at the time and who else was involved. This has been due partly to the attitudes of those scholars and experts whose opinions mattered most, such as Charles Rosen, who commented in his respected 1971 study, The Classical Style, that any composer from the Classical Era outside of the big three — Franz Joseph Haydn,Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Beethoven — was “not worth discussion.” Since that time, significant progress has been made in advancing some other figures. Key pre-Romantic Classicists such as Jan Ladislav Dussek,Hyacinthe Jadin,Anton Reicha, and Etienne-Nicolas Méhul have stepped forward from the shadows, and certain composers of the era previously branded as conservatives, such as Muzio Clementi and Luigi Cherubini, have had their status upgraded to pioneers of Romantic style.
Mr. Henry Purcell, known as Britain’s Orpheus, celebrates his 350th birthday this month. It’s going to take some cake to support all those candles. He may not be as famous a star as other composers with significant anniversaries this year (Haydn,Mendelssohn), but he is a big deal in England, and rightfully so. He is its native-born hero of the Baroque, the man who put English opera on the world map, so to speak, as well as producing scads of vocal music for all occasions, plus brilliant music for viols and for keyboard. His inspired way of combining the formality of Baroque counterpoint with lively tunes or emotionally touching text is what made his reputation and has kept it alive. If you aren’t familiar with Purcell, here are some guideposts to get you onto the right path into his music.
In our first installment, we covered the big guns in the world of piano sonatas. Now let’s move on to those that aren’t heard as frequently, but are noteworthy. Some are by composers with much better known works, some are by little known composers. Either way, you’ll sound like you really know your stuff with this continuation of your crash course in piano sonatas.
In moving beyond the crème de la crème of piano sonata composers, it might help to further classify or organize the music by era or style, or even nationality. For now, let’s start with musical eras.
From the Classical era, we’ll start with the sonatas of the Spanish monk Antonio Soler. As you might guess, his sonatas follow closely from those of Domenico Scarlatti, but Soler also used newer sounding harmonies and forms. There is still considerable debate regarding which manuscripts actually represent his work, whether he intended to write single- or multi-movement sonatas, whether he intended them for the harpsichord or the new fortepiano, and how his sonatas should be cataloged. Regardless, there are well over 100 sonatas to choose from, with No. 84 in D major being a popular one among keyboardists.
Johann Christian Bach, aka “The London Bach,” one of J.S. Bach’s sons from his second marriage, wrote a few dozen keyboard sonatas. His sonatas are fine examples of the Classical era’s style galant, i.e. music that easily charms (some may call it ingratiating). Typically it features a singing melody over a straightforward accompaniment. J.C. Bach did specifically write for the fortepiano, having spent much of his life in England, one of the centers of fortepiano production.
Two composers who bridge the Classical and Romantic eras are Muzio Clementi and Jan Ladislav Dussek. As well as being a performer, Clementi was a composer, publisher, and piano manufacturer. The style and difficulty of his sonatas varies with the times at which they were written and with the intended performer, whether for himself to use in concert or a student to learn at home. His later sonatas pick up some of the drama showing up in Beethoven’s music.
Czech composer Dussek was also an early concertizing virtuoso. As such, his 40-50 sonatas (depending on how you count various publications), can be a bit showy, and are often compared to the writing of Weber,Liszt, and many others. But what sets him apart is that he was composing with Romantic sensibilities before the Romantic period. His expressive melodies, interesting modulations, and richer textures went beyond what Classical audiences were used to hearing.
The Romantic era was when the piano came into its own and was found everywhere. Character pieces, stylized dances, etudes, and other stand-alone works dominated the period. Multi-movement suites and sonatas were less frequently found among all the other things in most composers’ work lists. Carl Maria von Weber wrote four sonatas; Felix Mendelssohn seven; Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, three each; and Edvard Grieg one and Tchaikovsky two. All of these composers made their mark with the smaller piano pieces and/or more substantial works for larger forces (e.g. symphonies, operas, or ballets), and frequently their sonatas are viewed as being not quite up to the same standards. However, each still has its merits.
Weber’s tend toward the theatrical; Mendelssohn’s are full of the optimism and energy of his teenage years, while Schumann’s tend to display the trouble he had writing multi-movement pieces.
Brahms, like Mendelssohn, wrote his sonatas early in his career, never to return to the form. His sonatas are ambitious and large, with thematic and rhythmic links between movements and carefully planned relationships between keys.
The Lyric Pieces of Grieg are so different from other Romantic piano music that his very traditional Sonata, Op. 7, is a surprise by comparison. It’s a very early work, an endeavor to conform to the traditions of European music made before he discovered his true talent lay in lyrical, folk-inflected piano miniatures. It is fairly conventional compared to his later music, but there is a bit of the northern sound in it, nonetheless, and it’s gained some popularity among fans of Grieg and Scandinavian music.
The first sonata that Tchaikovsky wrote, but which was published posthumously, was a student work with some of the same melodic charm as his mature pieces. On the other hand, the later Sonata, Op.37, is often described as not being up to Tchaikovsky’s usual level of tunefulness, and, therefore, is dismissed by musicologists, but it still seems to find some popularity among pianists.
Among the Post-Romantics, and into the 20th century, the sonatas that tend to stand out more are Rachmaninov’s two, the four of American Edward MacDowell, and the sonatas of Rachmaninov’s much lesser-known friend Nikolai Medtner. In both of Rachmaninov’s sonatas, the movements flow into one another, demanding a lot of effort from the performer physically and musically. The second is many times more popular, even in its different versions, than the first.
Edward MacDowell was perhaps the first American composer whose music could hold its own among that of the great 19th century composers, which isn’t surprising since he received most of his musical education in Europe. His four sonatas are all programmatic, heroic, grand works often compared to Liszt’s Sonata in B minor and Grieg’s music. They are in the German Romantic style, with thematic links between movements, and as challenging as the more well-known Romantic sonatas.
You’re more likely to hear of the music of Nikolai Medtner in Russia and England, the two countries where he lived, than anywhere else. His sonatas also have a lot in common with the Germanic Romantic styles. Basically, his sound can be thought of as a mash-up between the harmonies and passion of Rachmaninov and the thematic and motivic development of Brahms. Not only are the links between movements, but Medtner also would create links between the sonatas in a single opus.
Moving fully into the 20th century, things get very interesting, and it’s probably easiest to look at sonatas by country or region.
The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski wrote much early in the century, but his music is closer to that of the modern era than the Post Romantic. Scriabin,Reger, and Chopin were just some of his influences, with the Scriabin coming through more in his three sonatas.
Piotr Anderszewski - Szymanowski: Piano Sonata No. 3, Op. 36 - Presto
Contemporary with Szymanowski is Czech composer Leos Janácek. His sonata subtitled “From the Street, Oct. 10, 1905″ is a depiction of a protest, which started out peaceful but resulted with a carpenter killed by a soldier’s bayonet. Janácek destroyed his original manuscript, but the pianist who premiered the piece managed to copy out the first two movements, which is what Janacek later published.
Just two years later, Alban Berg began work on his Piano Sonata, Op. 1, his first published work. It’s a single movement work, with structure based on conventional forms and harmony that utilizes all 12 tones, as would be expected for this sonata, written under the aegis of Berg’s teacher, Arnold Schoenberg. (The 12-tone system, a serial technique, is not present in the sonata. Schoenberg did not formulate the system until 1915, seven years after Berg’s publication.)
In Eastern Europe, there are significant sonatas in the oeuvres of Stravinsky and Shostakovich, and you may not have heard of Dmitry Kabalevsky. Stravinsky, like so many others, has an early, unpublished (during his lifetime) sonata and a later one. It’s the later one that is the more important of the two. He looked to the Baroque for it, and the Baroque meaning of the term “sonata,” more than the Classical period, which inspired so much of his other music.
Shostakovich also wrote two sonatas, and, once again, it’s the second that has proved to be more enduring, with the first often described as being musically “difficult” from the listener’s standpoint. The second is more in keeping with the sound world and temperaments of Shostakovich’s symphonies and concertos, on a smaller scale of course.
Dmitry Kabalevsky wrote dozens of small piano pieces for young students, including a couple of sonatinas, which is how most who do know of him have encountered his name. He wrote three sonatas, which, although intended for mature pianists and fully representing his stylistic development over the years, can also be said to be less adventuresome than the music of his compatriots and contemporaries. This isn’t too surprising given the times he lived in, when every artist’s work was subjected to the whims of the Soviet leaders.
Ives’ sonatas, just like most of his music, are sui generis, frequently quoting and juxtaposing familiar tunes in an utterly original way. His five-movement Sonata No. 1 contrasts the sacred with the secular, i.e. hymns with ragtime, while his “Concord” Sonata is more fully representational of his style of writing. Each of its four movements is an “impressionistic picture” of New England’s transcendentalist thinkers; Ives even published a companion set of essays for the sonata.
Those familiar with Copland’s Appalachian Spring,Rodeo, or Fanfare for the Common Man, will probably be surprised by the cooler, more abstract nature of his Piano Sonata. It follows, in its own way, a typical sonata-allegro - scherzo and trio - finale form, however, the tempos are the reverse of the traditional: slow - fast - slow.
Elliot Carter’s and Samuel Barber’s sonatas both date from 1946. Barber’s is considered a highpoint of the form for the period, not just in the realm of American music, but within art music as a whole. It employs twelve-tone techniques combined with motivic development that recalls Beethoven. Carter’s uses chromaticism more assertively and adds a variety of sound possibilities dependent on touch and use of pedals as a dimension of its musical development.
Pierre Boulez has written three sonatas, the first two of which refer back again to Beethoven, but in a highly cerebral way. He applied serial methods not just to tonality, but to note duration, dynamics, and attack. His still incomplete — or evolving — Piano Sonata No. 3 (two movements were published in 1961), introduces chance into the equation, as ordering of sections of the movements is left up to the performer.
Finally, Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera also composed three sonatas, the first of which has become something of a favorite. It employs chromaticism, but it’s the folk rhythms and melodies and the virtuosity of it that excite listeners and performers alike. The other two sonatas, coming 30 years after the first, embody his mature, idiosyncratic style, which more freely or conceptually uses native elements, but can be just as invigorating.
This gives you the briefest of introductions to the world of piano sonatas, the bare bones basics. And I haven’t even mentioned the sonatas of Johann Nepomuk Hummel,Paul Dukas,Richard Strauss,Ignace Jan Paderewski,Charles Tomlinson Griffes,George Antheil,Paul Hindemith,Henri Dutilleux,John Cage, and so many others. Finding the right performer who can bring out the best in the music is often more important with these lesser known composers and sonatas than it is with the more popular ones, so you should definitely use the links here to find out more about the sonatas and the available recordings. Enjoy the adventure!
“Summertime, and the livin’ is easy …” Besides being so memorably beautiful, Clara’s lullaby from George Gershwin’sPorgy and Bess resonates with listeners because we understand just what she’s singing about — a time when life can open up and slow down, when the heat requires us to relax and shift into a lower gear. Because of that, summer may be the season that’s friendliest to music. It’s the time when kids (and more and more, adults) go off to music camps to spend their vacation doing what they love best. It’s the season of music festivals, where music lovers can indulge in daily concerts, operas, or recitals. Some lucky communities still have civic bands or orchestras that offer open-air concerts in gazebos or bandshells under the stars. Summer is the time when composers with busy on-season schedules have a chance to spend time on the music that’s been percolating on the back burner throughout the year. For example, Gustav Mahler’s day job was conducting, and the concert season kept him so busy that he wrote primarily in the summer.
There are plenty of pieces that give equal play to all the seasons — Antonio Vivaldi’s famous cycle of violin concerti, Franz Joseph Haydn’s oratorio, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky’s suite for piano, and the ballet by Alexander Glazunov — but among the seasons, summer seems to have generated the largest outpouring of music. These are just a few of the pieces inspired by the warmest, most easy-going season.
One of the earliest examples of summer music is the English round, Sumer is icumen in, which was most likely written in the middle of the 13th century. The round is to be sung in four parts, and there are two harmony parts that repeat throughout the song, making this the earliest surviving example of six-part polyphony. The bright, perky melody and its effectiveness as a round have made this one of the most memorable and familiar pieces of medieval music. It also served as inspiration for Ezra Pound’s blustery poem, Ancient Music, which opens with the line, “Winter is icumen in.” (But let’s save that dreary thought for another time, shall we?)
Antonio Vivaldi’s four violin concertos, The Four Seasons (1723) are among the most popular and beloved pieces of classical music in the world. For each concerto, the composer also wrote a Petrarchan sonnet, to be read as part of the performance of the music. For summer, the text for the first movement describes a shepherd and his flock on a miserably hot summer day, and the atmospheric change that suggests a storm is on the way. The second movement illustrates the gathering winds as the storm approaches, and the final movement depicts the fury of the storm itself, driving the man and his flocks to shelter and destroying the crops.
Franz Joseph Haydn’s The Creation had been such a success that he was encouraged to write another large-scale Classical oratorio in the English Baroque tradition of George Frederick Handel,Die Jahrezeiten (The Seasons), completed in 1801. The text, a German translation of an English narrative poem, concerns a farmer, his daughter, and her suitor as they pass through the seasons of the year. The excerpts include a pastoral song, complete with horn calls, a hymn to the rising sun, and the beginnings of a summer storm.
Rene Jacobs, cond. - Haydn: The Seasons Aria and Recitative. Der munt’re Hirt versammelt nun Trio and Chorus. Sie steigt herauf, die Sonne Trio and Chorus. Die düst’ren Wolken trennen sich
The Romantic era produced its share of great summer music, and the arch-Romantic composer Hector Berlioz paid homage to the season in his song cycle on poems by Théophile Gautier, Les Nuits d’été. Although little in the texts connects the songs thematically, their emotional intensity and soaring lyricism portray summer as a time of passion and deep mystery. Berlioz composed the songs in 1832 and completed their orchestration by 1856, and this atmospheric work proved highly influential to the generation of French song writers who followed, including Gabriel Fauré,Henri Duparc,Claude Debussy, and Maurice Ravel.
Felix Mendelssohn was one of the greatest composition prodigies of all time. As a teenager, he was enamored with the plays of William Shakespeare, and his Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written at the age of 17, is one of the most striking and witty compositions from the Romantic period. Sixteen years later, in 1842, when he had the opportunity to write complete incidental music for a Berlin production of the play, his music matched the youthful vitality and inventiveness of the Overture. The selections from the score have become, along with Edvard Grieg’sPeer Gynt, the most successful examples of incidental music entering the core repertoire of orchestral favorites. The exuberant Wedding March is certainly one of the most recognizable classical themes in the world.
Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Felix Mendelssohn’s older sister, also wrote a cyclical work spanning a year, Das Jahr (1841), a suite of character pieces for piano. Fanny has been overshadowed by her brother’s fame, but her music is notable for its originality, and Charles Gounod cited her as a significant influence in his musical development. Her family discouraged her from promoting her music, considered an un-ladylike practice at the time, but she stood up to them and published several works, with much critical success, and after her death in 1847, Felix arranged for the publication of others. Das Jahr contains autobiographical elements, particularly reflections on a trip to Italy the previous year, as well as depictions of the characteristics of the various months.
Much as Fanny Mendelssohn’s character pieces did not revolve around the four established seasons but focused instead on the months, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons is a collection of 12 keyboard pieces named after the months and devoted to particular themes associated with celebrations, moods, or natural events. The seventh piece in the series, July - The Song of the Reaper, is gentle and rustic, and represents a cheerful farmer at his work. This, and the somber, hymn-like eighth piece, August - The Harvest, symbolize the peak of the summer activity in agrarian Russian life.
Alexander Glazunov’s 1900 ballet The Seasons, Op. 67 has no clear-cut storyline, but it is divided into four fanciful tableaux with dances that correspond symbolically to seasonal activities. Summer’s tableau is a sequence of dances representing corn, cornflowers, and poppies, which wilt under the sun’s heat but are rejuvenated by water-bearing spirits. The lush score features many memorable melodies, and it became one of the most popular Russian ballets of the period between the Romantic and Modern eras.
The English composer Frederick Delius was virtually a fountain of summer-themed music — his catalog lists dozens of works about summer or warm climates. He lived for a while in Florida, where he “experimented” with running an orange plantation, and it was there that he began to study music in earnest and became certain of his call as a composer. Although he returned to Europe to study at the Leipzig Conservatory, and eventually settled in France, he returned again and again to the warmth of the south in his compositions. Delius’ lush impressionism is ideally suited to expressing the heat and the languid moods of summer.
Felix Mendelssohn wasn’t the only composer fascinated by A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There have been numerous operas based on the Shakespeare play, the most successful being Benjamin Britten’s1960 version, which has established itself as a standard in the repertoire of contemporary opera. Britten and Peter Pears devised a dramatically concise libretto by making judicious cuts and rearranging some of the scenes. Like Mendelssohn, Britten created three distinct sound worlds for the various groups of characters — the fairies, the lovers and nobles, and the rustics. The opera contains some of Britten’s most humorous, colorful, and orchestrally luminous music.
Britten’s compatriot and contemporary Michael Tippett also wrote an opera on the subject of summer romance, The Midsummer Marriage, which many consider his masterpiece. The plot of the opera is similar to that of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’sThe Magic Flute, insofar as a noble couple must undergo trials and transformations before they are able to marry. There is an evil father who parallels the Queen of the Night, an order of mystical Ancients, and a secondary plebian couple — she’s a secretary and he’s a mechanic — who dream of the simple pleasures of domestic life together. Tippett’s eclectic but essentially lyrical score is notable for its vocal coloratura and the inventiveness of its orchestration.
Even though Anton Webern is most often remembered for his spare and angular twelve-tone compositions, one of his youthful works is a lush, late Romantic tribute to the beauty of summer. Im Sommerwind was composed in 1904, and Webern styled it an idyll for orchestra, though it really is a tone poem in the manner of Richard Strauss — lavish orchestration, rich tonal harmonies, and rapturous chromatic melodies are in abundance, quite unlike anything Webern composed before or after. Inspired by a poem by Bruno Wille, Im Sommerwind depicts the peacefulness of nature, which was especially dear to Webern’s heart and perhaps the reason he preserved this work when he rejected most of his early efforts.
No survey of summer music would be complete without Summertime, the song that opens Porgy and Bess, as well as this article. For many people, its limpid melody, shimmering accompaniment, and generous, optimistic lyrics epitomize all that’s best about summer. Let the languor linger longer!
Vivaldi: The Four Seasons; Piazzolla: The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires
Lara St. John, violin; Eduardo Marturet, Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela Violinist Lara St. John also serves as chief executive of her own Ancalagon label, and she takes an interest in unusual and challenging couplings. It seems every violin player has to come to terms with Antonio Vivaldi’sThe Four Seasons at one time or another, but rather than mate it with other Vivaldi concertos or similar Baroque fare, here she combines Vivaldi’s oft-recorded cycle with Astor Piazzolla’sThe Four Seasons of Buenos Aires in a shimmering arrangement for violin and strings by Leonid Desyatnikov. She is not the first to do so — that may have been I Solisti Italiani back in the 1990s — but it remains a striking combination in the face of the usual fare that comes along for the ride with most issues of The Four Seasons. Read the rest of the reviewby Uncle Dave Lewis
Marc Blitzstein: First Life
Sarah Cahill, piano; Del Sol String Quartet Marc Blitzstein makes a significant impression from first contact, whether through his songs, the Airborne Symphony, his theatrical work The Cradle Will Rock, or the opera Regina; a composer who is “in the American grain” — to borrow a phrase from William Carlos Williams — yet who is not of the hay bales, prairie lands, and rodeos of Aaron Copland, but of cities, sophistication, and late nights spent in conversation, cigarettes, and a glass or two of whiskey on the rocks. The Cradle Will Rock — the earliest Blitzstein piece longer than a song that has previously circulated — comes to us so complete and fully formed that one might wonder if the back story is genuinely necessary. But if one is as passionate about Blitzstein as other trailblazing American composers of his generation, who wouldn’t be curious as to what went before; after all, Blitzstein never suppressed his early works, he just couldn’t find a publisher for them, and ultimately fell out of sympathy with their style and baggage. San Francisco’s Other Minds has worked with Blitzstein’s estate to raise First Life: Marc Blitzstein, the first substantial peek into Blitzstein’s pre-1937 output that recordings have provided to the general public. Read the rest of the reviewby Uncle Dave Lewis
Source Records 1-6, 1968-1971
Various Artists In the late ’60s, a fair amount of avant-garde and electronic music was being recorded in the United States, even on major labels; in addition to the old standbys like CRI, which had represented some measure of experimental music in addition to the straight, modernist orchestral stuff that had been its main bread and butter. However, there was a stratum of experimental music beyond that which even CRI wouldn’t touch, owing to its heightened political rhetoric, seeming artlessness or perceived sense of experimentation for the sake of experimentation. Enter Source Magazine, a spiral-bound periodical featuring music scores, photographs, and articles on experimental music, and, from Vol. 2/2, 10″ LPs. Despite their somewhat smaller size, the 10″ LPs could hold a lot of music and — in addition to adding a lot of value to the periodical itself — delivered works drawn from that substrate of experimental musicianship, introducing to records composers like Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier, Lowell Cross, Alvin Curran, and Allan Bryant to records for the first time. The main compilers at Source were composers Larry Austin — the only artist represented twice on Source — and Stanley Lunetta, and both have cooperated with this Pogus Productions retrospective of the label. Read the rest of the reviewby Uncle Dave Lewis
Cyril Scott: Complete Piano Music, Vol. 5 “Lotus Land”
Leslie De’Ath, piano With Cyril Scott: Lotus Land, Canadian pianist Leslie De’Ath reaches the fifth volume of his complete survey of the piano music of British composer Cyril Scott for Dutton’s Epoch series. The conventional wisdom about Scott is that he was a composer of light, insubstantial music for salon pianists and that his compositions are not worth the countless printed pages that they occupy. However, what has proven so impressive about De’Ath’s project thus far is that it makes clear that Scott’s music is serious, and it plays a significant role in the development of early modernism. De’Ath’s series also opens a window upon a composer who was a greatly imaginative musical thinker and a pictorialist on a par with Edward MacDowell. Read the rest of the reviewby Uncle Dave Lewis
Antonio Bertali: Prothimia Suavissima, Parte Seconda
Ars Antiqua Austria; Gunar Letzbor, cond. Not too long ago, musicologists treated the 17th century as a period where instrumental music barely existed, as though there wasn’t anything really noteworthy in terms of instrumental music before Bach, Handel, and Vivaldi apart from early English keyboard music. The revival of interest in Heinrich von Biber beginning in the 1960s brought about a revolution in that regard, and by the opening of the 21st century the names of figures such as Johann Heinrich Schmelzer, Giovanni Felice Sances, and Johann Kasper Kerll are reasonably familiar ones to those who follow music of the early Baroque. Considerably less well known is that of Antonio Bertali, a musician in the Viennese royal chapel from the 1620s and, from 1649 until his death in 1669, served as kapellmeister in the Viennese court. In Arcana’s Antonio Bertali: Prothima Suavissima Parte Seconda, Gunar Letzbor leads the Ars Antiqua Austria though the posthumous 1672 print indicated in the title in its entirety. Read the rest of the reviewby Uncle Dave Lewis
Ravel: L’Enfant et les sortilèges; Shéhérazade
Nashville Symphony Orchestra, Alastair Willis, cond. Given the number of very fine recordings of Ravel’sL’Enfant et les Sortilèges, it’s perhaps surprising that one of the very finest, most stylish, and idiomatic performances should have its roots firmly planted in the American heartland. Alastair Willis, leading the Nashville Symphony Orchestra, members of the Nashville Symphony Chorus, members of the Chicago Symphony Chorus, and the Chattanooga Boys Choir, conjures up a truly magical version of the opera. This is the result of a happy confluence of all the necessary elements: exceptional soloists who may not yet be international superstars, but who sing beautifully and are fully invested in bringing their roles to life, a thoroughly responsive chorus, exquisite orchestral playing, extraordinarily fine, nuanced engineering, and above all, Willis’ loving attention the details of the score and his ability to bring an exhilarating musical and dramatic coherence to an opera that in lesser hands can seem quaintly episodic. Read the rest of the reviewby Stephen Eddins
Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem
Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester, Sergiu Celibidache, cond. Sergiu Celibidache’s 1957 recording of Brahms’Ein deutsches Requiem easily ranks among the most thrilling and satisfying on disc, which is no small recommendation, given the multitude of outstanding versions. The conductor’s grasp of the work’s architecture, both as a whole and in each movement, makes this a riveting performance; the Requiem has rarely sounded so vividly dramatic. The opening movement, “Blessed Are They That Mourn,” seems slow at first compared to common performance practice. There is no slackness in Celibidache’s approach, though; the sense of ethereal equipoise that the stately tempo induces beautifully evokes the serenity that the text describes, and it doesn’t take long before this relaxed pace is entirely convincing, even revelatory. Read the rest of the reviewby Stephen Eddins
Meet Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky (1840 -1893), one of the great Russian composers from the Romantic period, a perennial favorite among classical fans, and possibly the best pathfinder to classical music. Although he demonstrated talent in childhood and received music lessons early, Tchaikovsky began his professional career as a composer relatively late in life, starting out as a lawyer, but changing goals in his twenties to become a professor of music in Moscow. He achieved an artistic breakthrough with the premiere in 1877 of his ballet The Swan Lake, and proved to the public that he had a phenomenal grasp of melody, dance forms, and orchestral colors. He went on to even greater successes, and despite suffering severe doubts over his music and bouts of nearly suicidal depression over his homosexuality, he persevered and was acknowledged as a great composer in his lifetime. Tchaikovsky died ten days after the premiere of his Symphony No. 6 in B minor, “Pathétique,” which many regard as the ne plus ultra of his intensely personal expression.
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