Epic Mythological Sibelius Symphony

Finnish composer Jean Sibelius takes his first bow in this blog today.  Sibelius is one of those names that is extremely well-known, but mostly by a small handful of major works.  His music was immensely popular around the world when I was young, and still is so in Europe, but perhaps less so now in North America.  It was the experience of hearing a live performance of his beautiful Violin Concerto which set me on the track of writing about one of his relatively rare early works.

The rarity of this early work is odd in another way too, in that the earlier music of Sibelius, written in his younger years, is by far the most popular.  Finlandia, Valse Triste, the Violin Concerto, and the first two symphonies, all were products of the years before his 40th birthday in 1905.

This brings us to the early Kullervo, Opus 7, a 5-movement epic composition for mezzo-soprano and baritone soloists, male chorus, and orchestra which lasts 70-80 minutes in performance.  Based on a tale from the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic poem, Kullervo was the first and grandest product from the overtly nationalistic phase of Sibelius' life and career.  It premiered in Helsinki in 1892 to wildly enthusiastic audience applause and considerable (although not total) critical acclaim.

Kullervo remained relatively unknown in later years for a simple reason.  After its first few outings, Sibelius withdrew it and forbade further performances.  Like many creative artists, he expressed dissatisfaction with his artistic creation, and withdrew it pending revisions.  Unlike many another composer or writer, the revisions never happened.

After only a few years, Sibelius had the self-awareness and self-discipline to realize that he had already become a very different kind of composer altogether from the one who had created this grand flowering of Finnish nationalism.  He also wanted to avoid falling into the trap of becoming too single-mindedly national in his approach.  In this, he resembled Edvard Grieg who complained that some of his most popular music for Peer Gynt "reeked of cow turds, ultra Norse-Norsehood, and be-to-thyself-enoughness."  Sibelius decided to leave Kullervo alone.

Single movements were performed in isolation on a couple of occasions, but never the entire work.  Kullervo languished in obscurity.  Much later in life, Sibelius re-orchestrated the final "lament" section of the long central movement, and with that done he gave permission for the score to be published -- but only after his death.

Kullervo didn't receive its world premiere recording until 1970.  That premiere recording from England, made with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Paavo Berglund, was my introduction to Kullervo -- and it seized and held my attention right from the opening bars.

Although Kullervo was originally described by the composer as a symphony, some experts argue that Kullervo is only a collection of symphonic poems.  I disagree.  There is a strong stylistic unity across the entire work.  The very opening theme, a rising triadic figure, casts its spell across subsequent sections, and together with other key motifs from the third movement recurs in altered form in the finale.  There's also a significant unity of orchestral and vocal sound, with woodwind tones and dark instrumental colours predominating, much singing in the low registers (especially from the male voice choir), and many passages underlain by ostinati or pedal points in the bass.  Finally, there is the undeniable fact that the entire symphony does tell a single story, albeit in detached pieces.

In any case, the very idea of "symphony" was so decisively altered during the nineteenth century, by such masters as Liszt and Mahler, that we can hardly deny the title of Symphony to such a sizable and well-integrated work.  If the only argument against calling Kullervo a symphony is the lack of sonata-form development, then we may as well dismiss with it the symphonies of Liszt, Berlioz, Franck, Chausson, and many other eminent composers of the Romantic era.

Since this is an early work, it's not altogether surprising to find echoes of other composers in certain places.  Sibelius greatly admired the music of Tchaikovsky and Bruckner (an unusual combination of interests), and while the Russian's example is more easily detected, there are some passages, in the first and last movements especially, where those pedal points, ostinato figures, sudden shifts of tone or style, and slow tempi make me feel that his admiration for Bruckner also influenced the process of composition.  Loudest of all, though, is the unmistakable voice of a composer of both ability and substance flexing his wings and taking to the air.

The first movement, an allegro moderato, is modestly entitled Introduction, but it's a large-scale conception, with multiple themes, and lasts for some fifteen minutes.  From the first exhilarating crunch of the bows into the strings on cellos and basses, the epic character of the music is unmistakable.  The first main theme on woodwinds, striving heroically upwards, carries on for some time, spinning out derivatives and variants of itself, until a decisive change of tone brings in another theme, of an almost dance-like character, ushered in by strange woodwind flourishes.  These kinds of abrupt contrasts continue to colour the movement.  The climax of the movement comes with a grandly-scaled chordal reiteration of the opening theme for full orchestra, after which the music dissolves into quiet fragments of the same theme.

The second movement, Kullervo's Youth, is a slow, dark Grave with a brooding ostinato figure that stretches through much of the movement.  Eventually the music rises to a climax with the ostinato thundered out by the full orchestra.  Then the disquieted mood of the opening returns, and the music dies away in the darkest depths.

The third movement, by far the longest, is called Kullervo and His Sister.  Here, the male choir and the two vocal soloists are called in for a dramatic scene.  The orchestral music for this scene has a restless energy and forward drive entirely appropriate, as the Finnish text from the Kalevala describes Kullervo driving furiously through the forest in winter on his sleigh.  This music may well represent the earliest extensive use of a 5/4 metre, many years before Gustav Holst in the United Kingdom made that unusual time one of his signature compositional mannerisms.

The story tells how Kullervo meets a young maiden, and after several attempts seizes her and seduces her.  Only then do they discover that she is in fact his long-lost sister.  The text spares us the climax of the story where she flings herself into the river to drown her shame and distress.

The male chorus relates this grim tale mainly in unison, with a near-strophic pattern as each section of the narrative begins with the same lines:  

Kullervo, Kalervon poika, sinisukka äijön lapsi…

"Kullervo, Kalervo's son, the child of the blue-stockinged man..."

The two soloists, of course, sing the brief dialogues between Kullervo and his unnamed sister.  The moment of the seduction is depicted by a loud, vehement orchestral passage over an energetic, driving ostinato.  Then comes the most heart-rending part of the movement.  The chorus falls silent and we hear the mezzo-soprano's lengthy narration, in which Kullervo's sister describes how she wandered from home and became lost in the woods.  There's a prize sonority from the piccolo and flute at the point where she describes climbing a high mountain and calling out for help, but hearing only mocking echoes back from the wind.  Kullervo's final anguished lament for his crime is punctuated by heavy staccato chords, and after the singer finishes this solo four more huge chords bring the movement abruptly to its close.

The fourth movement, Kullervo Goes to Battle, is an energetic, restless scherzo, with a disconcerting melodic habit of landing emphatically on the last chord of a phrase in the odd location of second beat in the bar.  The orchestration here greatly emphasizes the woodwinds, with the lower strings having a strong role later in the movement.  A contrasting central section brings in military fanfares, but played unusually on dark, snarling trombones rather than the more usual brilliance of trumpets.  Overall, the music strongly relies on folk-like repetition and variation of the themes.  The movement ends on a note of resounding but hollow triumph.

The finale, The Death of Kullervo, begins with ghostly sounds from the strings and a bleak, quiet, darkly-harmonized narration from the chorus, as Kullervo returns to the scene of the rape to find that neither grass nor flower will grow on that spot.  He draws his sword, and asks if it wishes to eat guilty flesh and drink blood that is to blame.  The sword then speaks to him, and agrees to take his life.  He plants the butt of the handle on the ground, and flings himself on the sword.  All of this is narrated by the chorus, to a slow, dark processional bass with recalls of motifs from earlier movements in the middle voices of the orchestra.  The choir's singing grows louder and the funereal march more anguished as the sword pronounces its will.

The march then continues in the orchestra, recalling musical material from both the first and third movements.  The combination of ostinato lines and massive brass chords, culminating in a gigantic silent pause is without question the most Brucknerian moment in the score.  A final choral outburst, summing up Kullervo's tragic end, is set to a massive recollection of the opening theme from the first movement, bringing the story full circle.

Kullervo has been particularly fortunate in recordings, with nearly two dozen fine versions having been made.  The first conductor to record the work, Paavo Berglund, laid down a second version years later.  So did Sir Colin Davis, whose fine RCA recording (his earlier version) is my personal favourite.  Due to the importance of accurate pronunciation in one of the world's trickier languages, most recordings use Finnish choirs, and Finnish or Swedish soloists.

I was lucky enough to be present for the second Toronto performances of Kullervo, back during the years when Finnish conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste was the Toronto Symphony Orchestra's music director.  That was an unforgettable concert.  After the main work, the conductor returned to the podium for an encore -- common with a soloist, extremely uncommon for the orchestra itself.  When the massive opening chords of Finlandia roared out, the entire audience burst into spontaneous applause.  Of course, we heard Finlandia performed with the optional choral lines added to the magnificent orchestration!  The choir on that occasion was the Polytech Chorus from Helsinki, and Saraste later recorded Kullervo with them -- but in Finland.

Epic in scale, powerful in story-telling, evocative in its brooding Nordic darkness, Kullervo remains a significant landmark in the development of the art of Sibelius.  In some ways it represents the road which he chose not to follow.  And yet, the stylistic hallmarks of the mature artist's music can also be found emerging throughout this score.  The Davis RCA recording, which I mentioned above, underlined this point by presenting Kullervo and other early works in harness with the final Symphony # 7.  There's no doubt for my ears that all of this music, early and late alike,  comes from the same masterly hand and mind.

German Romantic Symphonies # 3: The Birth of the New Symphony in 1878

On the face of it, the idea of a direct path leading from the music of Brahms to the music of Gustav Mahler seems laughable.  There could hardly be two composers more different, yet their life spans overlapped by a good margin, and Mahler did express admiration for the music of Brahms.

It's even more startling to find the link between them in the music of a composer who has been all but forgotten by subsequent generations: Hans Rott.  It's not that Rott's music was bad -- far from it.  The criminal was a cruel fate which induced mental illness and persecution mania.  During his final years, Rott destroyed most of his music, ripping it up and using it as toilet paper in the asylum where he was confined, saying that this was all it was worth.  He died of tuberculosis in the asylum in 1884 at the age of 25.

Although Brahms did not care for Rott's music, both Bruckner and Mahler acclaimed him.  Here's what Mahler had to say about his contemporary and friend:

What music has lost in him cannot be estimated. Such is the height to which his genius soars in his First Symphony, which he wrote as a 20-year-old youth, that it makes him -- without exaggeration -- the Founder of the New Symphony as I understand it.

Rott's Symphony in E Major clearly shows that he was already well on his way to becoming a force to be reckoned with.  In four movements, and lasting for nearly an hour, it does indeed represent a bridge linking Brahms with Bruckner and with Mahler.  Numerous moments in the Symphony anticipate Mahler's First, and it seems entirely possible that Mahler -- consciously or unconsciously -- incorporated this material in his own work as a tribute to his friend.  Equally, though, Rott's orchestration in this youthful symphony corresponds more to the orchestral sound of Brahms than the sound world of any other composer -- or so it seems to me.

It would be easy enough to dismiss Rott's symphony as derivative because there are so many reminiscences of Wagner and the main theme of the finale is so plainly modelled on the finale of Brahms' First Symphony.  Easy -- and misguided.  I doubt if there has ever been a 20-year old creative artist in any sphere of music, drama, dance, visual arts, etc., whose work has not had derivative aspects.  Rott's true achievement here lies in the way in which he reworks the traditional forms of "symphony" and arrives at completely different, yet entirely engaging, ways of manipulating musical materials in large structures.  It's no wonder that Bruckner and Mahler were impressed.  Bruckner never succeeded in breaking free of the chains of traditional sonata form, but Rott in this score ripped those chains into quivering fragments and went his own way.

The score of the work was reconstructed and edited by musicologist Paul Banks, working from a manuscript score of the last three movements and a set of parts for the first movement.  It was given its first-ever performance by the Cincinnati Philharmonia Orchestra under Gerhard Samuel in 1989, 111 years after Rott completed it, and recorded shortly thereafter.  Since then it has been taken up and recorded by a dozen more conductors and orchestras.

The first and most obvious structural novelty is the fact that each movement is longer than its predecessor, and the finale is almost as long as the next two longest movements combined.  Rott has entirely reversed the formula followed by almost all classical and early Romantic composers, in which the sonata-form first movement is usually the longest.

Moreover, the first movement drastically shortens and simplifies the traditional sonata form, devoting itself to establishing the home key of E major and to announcing and elaborating a main theme of considerable length which in itself expresses three quite contrasting and versatile melodic statements.  This long and intricate melody becomes the motto theme of the symphony, which will be heard in two subsequent movements.

The slow movement opens in A major with a slow, sweeping lyrical theme which again unfolds at considerable length.  As the music darkens, this is worked up to a climax of two large anguished chords underlain by fateful-sounding dominant-and-tonic timpani strokes.  After this climax, the movement omits a classical return to its opening theme and substitutes a chorale intoned softly on the brass in E major.  In my ears, this immediately calls to mind the similar quiet trumpet theme which ushers in the coda in the finale of Mahler's Third.   This chorale theme is also destined to play a key role in the finale.

The scherzo is a rumbustious, rustic country dance, in line with some of Bruckner's scherzo movements in his earlier symphonies.  It amazes me that Rott is able to draw so many fascinating and diverse melodic shapes out of the basic formula of the first five notes of the scale, either as a scale or as intervals.  This feature contributes much to the folklike cut of the themes in the entire work, and particularly here.  The scherzo relaxes into a brief, quiet trio, and then the main theme returns.  But this is the moment when Rott's true genius really shines through.  As the movement sounds like it's working up to an enthusiastic final cadence, a long timpani roll sounds and the music launches out into unknown regions on a whole lengthy series of derivatives from the first movement.  Having blown the traditional A-B-A form into fragments, Rott then rejoices in his ability to keep spinning more and more variants out of his basic thematic material, constantly varying dynamics and orchestration to maintain interest.  This near-demonic moto perpetuo cascade of sound eventually winds up to a final climax and an abrupt but nonetheless timely cadence.

The long final movement opens with a slow, ponderous pizzicato bass line, followed by a reminiscence of the scherzo theme, and for a moment it sounds like we are facing the finale of Beethoven 9, Mark 2.  But Rott again goes his own way, and a series of figures based on a rising fourth slowly build up to a monumental climax with thunderous timpani and striking brass chords, all the more powerful for maintaining the basic slow tempo of the music.  In the end, it takes no less than nine minutes for Rott to reach the end of this long, slow meditation and launch decisively into the allegro section which so plainly reflects the finale of the Brahms First.  Even the texture is the same: a complete play-through of the theme on the lower range of the strings, followed by a repeat on the full orchestra.  It's at this point in time that we see the purpose of all those rising fourths, since that is the opening interval of the Brahms melody.  But Rott's theme, all by itself, lasts for a full minute.  In classical terms, this is just a few seconds shy of eternity.

After the entire theme has been played through twice, the orchestra launches into a spectacular series of vigorous free variations on fragments or parts of the theme.  Again the energy is maintained against the odds of a rather four-square rhythmic environment.  In a fashion that echoes Bruckner, the music rises again and again to what seem like climactic moments, then slips back into quiet before resuming its relentless buildup.

Then, totally unexpectedly, a large chord fades into a quiet snatch of melody in slower time, and we at last see the real point of Rott's structure here: not a slow introduction followed by a fast main movement, as one might guess at first, but a three-part structure in which two slow sections bookend the faster allegro in the centre.  The closest point of reference I can identify, and it comes many years later, is in the draft finale of Mahler's Tenth symphony.  I wonder if, by that time, Mahler still had Rott's intriguing musical ideas in his mind?

In this final, long slow section, the rising fourth theme takes on a different shape, and assumes a distinctly familiar air.  It took me several listen-throughs of the entire disc to realize that the finale's opening is actually a close cousin to the symphony's motto theme from the first movement, and here at last is the culmination when the motto itself slowly unfolds once again, and then builds up to the last and greatest climax of the entire work.  As this final grandiose vision fades away, gently rising and falling string arpeggios quietly frame pairs of horn chords in an obvious tribute to the final moments of Wagner's Die Walküre.  The Wagnerian reference is no less poetic and moving after the journey we've taken in this remarkable work which, although plainly an apprenticeship piece, nonetheless displays considerable mastery of the art of melody, of orchestration, and of building and developing large scale and truly symphonic structures and forms.

Rott's Symphony is a startling and noteworthy landmark in the development of the symphony.

German Romantic Symphonies # 2: Schumann's Not-Quite-A-Symphony

This blog post was triggered by the same Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra concert as the Gernsheim symphony in the first post of this series.

Robert Schumann wrote four symphonies in all, although it's easy to get confused about the order of their composition since the second one he wrote eventually got published as the Fourth.  Far too many interpreters of these works have stopped right there, and ignored another piece which is -- for my money -- a symphony in all but name.

Schumann in fact struggled with the appropriate title for this work.  He referred to it, at one point, as his "Second Symphony."  He also tried calling it a "Symphonette," a curious amalgam to replace the Italian Sinfonietta.  He referred to it as a "Suite."  But in the end, he settled on Overture, Scherzo, and Finale.  If there's any reason why this delightful piece remains so little heard, I would suspect it's really the fault of that absurdly wordy and clumsy title.  Certainly, there's no reason not to record it in harness with the numbered quartet, yet for years there were few recordings which did so (Wolfgang Sawallisch on EMI was one of the earliest, and remains a fine example). 

Especially given ample precedent from Haydn, Mozart, and others, I see no particular reason why a work should be denied the title of "symphony" because of being lighter in weight, colour, or texture, or because of having only three movements.

The Overture, Scherzo, and Finale is one of the products of Schumann's glorious year of the orchestra, 1841.  He began the year with his first symphony, the "Spring" Symphony, followed with this work and the Phantaisie in A Minor for piano and orchestra (which later became the opening movement of his immortal Piano Concerto), and then went on to produce the first version of the D Minor Symphony which was published years later, misleadingly labelled as the Fourth.

Readers who are familiar with the other three works he wrote in the same year may be a little surprised to hear just how different Schumann's sound world becomes in this piece.  If the Spring Symphony was written under the stimulus of hearing the Schubert Great C Major Symphony, this piece owes more than a little to the Mendelssohn of A Midsummer Night's Dream and the Italian Symphony.  Schumann here uses the orchestra in a very Mendelssohnian way, with graceful light textures and relatively sparing use of just 2 horns, versus his more usual four, and with trombones appearing only in the finale.

The first movement opens with a brief introduction that presents two contrasting melodic ideas.  These two ideas recur during the main allegro which follows within moments.  Right from the opening bars, the kinship to Mendelssohn is apparent -- especially so when the main theme is presented by the winds, with the strings dancing attendance. 

The scherzo which follows dances along to a lively dotted rhythm in an unusual pattern that becomes obstinately memorable.  Again, the textures are light and airy, although this music has more of a rustic country-dance feeling than one gets from Mendelssohn's fairy scherzos.  The contrasting trio presents a brief singing melody from the winds, answered by the strings, which switches frequently between major and minor.  The recapitulation of the scherzo after the trio is marked by a strange interpolation of two extra rhythmic bars which disrupt the regular four-bar phrases.  The trio is then briefly recalled, followed by an altered reminiscence of the main melody of the first movement, before a quick little wind flourish ends the movement.

The finale has the most robust textures, partly because of the orchestration, but also because of the composer's use of fugal textures which necessarily involve more melodic lines being in play simultaneously.  Yet the music remains bright and energetic, right up to the closing pages where Schumann takes his vigorous main theme and works it into a grand apotheosis like a chorale, the horns and trombones very much to the fore.  It makes for a satisfying conclusion to a work which is, for me, one of the most breezy and engaging pieces its creator ever wrote.

German Romantic Symphonies # 1: Gernsheim Symphony # 2

Blame it all on Hans von Bülow.

The famous German conductor, pianist, journalist, and composer took up the phrase of "the Three Bs" originally coined by Peter Cornelius, and changed it from Bach-Beethoven-Berlioz to Bach-Beethoven-Brahms.

Added to the fulsome praise of such music critics as Eduard Hanslick, this was enough to elevate Johannes Brahms to the pinnacle of the "conservative" wing in Romantic musical circles.  His supposed primacy acted as a powerful stimulus to slowly but surely drive other German Romantic composers out of sight and out of mind.

The music of Friedrich Gernsheim suffered under a dual additional handicap.  His work was specifically (and unfavourably) compared to the music of Brahms.  Worst of all, since he was born of Jewish parentage, his music was actively suppressed and destroyed during the Nazi regime, under the brutally abrupt label of entartete Musik ("degenerate music").  In recent years, the balance has begun to be redressed, with a few recordings now available, including cycles of his four symphonies.

I haven't heard any of those recordings yet, but I did have the good fortune to hear Gernsheim's Symphony No. 2 in E-flat Major, Op. 46 at a concert of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra last week.  A sizable array of microphones hung above the stage at the Centre in the Square -- perhaps a recording will be forthcoming?  We can always hope!

The symphony impressed me as a work of considerable skill and interest -- much more so than some of the other long-lost orchestral music of the period which I have heard.  Although pre-concert talks made much of the resemblance of Gernsheim's music to that of Brahms, I found that any similarity was more superficial than actual.  Details to follow.

One aspect of Gernsheim's orchestration stood out for me: his habit of separating the wind/brass group from the strings, and having either one or the other playing alone.  To me, this was an immediate signal pointing the way to the similarly divergent handling of the orchestra by Mahler (although the resemblance stops right there).  Mahler may well have become familiar with Gernsheim's music as a young man.  But that's not the whole story.  There are numerous passages where selected winds and/or brasses are felicitously combined with portions of the string body.  Gernsheim's handling of the orchestra is both skillful and imaginative.

The most impressive aspect of the symphony is Gernsheim's skill in creating substantial melodies and then developing them along the lines of classical symphonic procedure.  Only the finale was a bit lacking in this respect.

The first movement opens with a sombre theme on horns, perhaps the most Brahmsian moment of the entire score.  This is taken up by the winds and quickly built up to the entrance of the main theme in an unusual 6/8, allegro tranquillo, a tempo direction which aptly describes the entire movement.  It contains great melodic riches and no shortage of fascinating cross-rhythmic games, yet says its say (like the entire work) in a very punctual way -- no longueurs here.  That choice of the 6/8 time signature, by the way, also refers us back to the similar time in the opening movement of the Brahms First although the character of this music is very different indeed.

The second movement is a brief but energetic tarantella, showcasing the agility and nimble fingers of both winds and strings to great effect.  A brief fugal interlude shows promise of becoming a trio, but it's a false alarm as the main tarantella theme quickly resumes its course and brings the movement swiftly to an end.

The slow movement, Notturno, has a definite Mediterranean air to it as well, a feeling of warm summer nights in Italy which actually sits well with the Germanic style of the work as a whole.  Here, too, the material is worked through with real skill in the instrumentation.  It should come as no surprise, given the punctuality of the symphony as a whole, but nonetheless I was almost startled to realize that we were building up to the entry of the finale, and that Gernsheim followed the precedent of Beethoven 5 and Schumann 4 by linking these movements together.

The finale opens with an obvious gesture of homage to the Brahms First, itself a similar homage to the Joy theme of Beethoven's Ninth.  The similarity goes so far as having the violins and violas play their theme on their lower strings, imitating even the sound of the Brahms.  Complimentary it may be, but this movement is also for me the weak link of the symphony as a whole.

The truth is that Gernsheim here becomes a victim of the "finale problem" which bedevilled all the Romantic composers of symphonies.  Faced with the titanic precedent of Beethoven, especially in his Fifth, Seventh, and Ninth symphonies, composers from Schubert and Schumann to Liszt and Bruckner struggled to find equally convincing ways to crown their symphonies with climactic final movements that opened the gates of heaven (Bruckner especially wished to do that!).  Gernsheim's aim here is to achieve that magnificence by varying his theme and attacking it with his favourite device of cross-rhythms, but it all sounds a little too academic to be truly convincing -- mainly because the theme itself has become merely stodgy.

However, the closing stretto redeems him and the work, the sudden shift in tempo and brightening of the sound picture bringing a quick but convincing buildup to a punctual, emphatic final chord.

This symphony is so filled with riches of melody, orchestration, and rhythmic ingenuity that it seems almost impossible for it to last only 30 minutes.

Gernsheim, on the evidence of this music, was a composer of real skill and imagination, and trod his own path.  Like the eminent Czech composer Dvorak, Gernsheim did not let his admiration for the music of Brahms drag him too far into mere imitation.  This second symphony is definitely the work of a man sure of his own way, and able to express himself in his own distinct style.  I look forward to hearing more of his music!

Beyond Carmina Burana

Carl Orff's choral/orchestral work, Carmina Burana, has become justly famous and popular all over the world ever since its premiere in 1937.  It's a good example of that peculiar artistic phenomenon known as the "one-hit wonder."  The number of performances and recordings of all of Orff's other works combined will not come close to equalling the total for this one work.

Today, I'm going to recommend a good starting point if you wish to investigate the music of Carl Orff beyond his single greatest hit.  In fact, that starting point -- Der Mond ("The Moon") -- is nearly contemporary with Carmina Burana, being written immediately after the more famous work and premiered two years later, in 1939.  Despite some obvious differences in approach, the musical language of Der Mond is sufficiently similar to the more famous work that anyone who is comfortable with Carmina Burana will likely feel right at home here.  I certainly did, the first time I sampled a recording from the public library as a young 'un.

Orff did not at first wish to call Der Mond an "opera."  He called it a kleines Welttheater ("Little World Theatre"), a term which he himself coined to describe his ideal vision of a theatre piece which combined movement, music, and drama to illustrate or illuminate the condition of the world.  It all sounds suspiciously like Richard Wagner's Gesamtkunstwerk, but the result is spectacularly anti-Wagnerian in scope, in sound, and in the form of storytelling.  Later on, he labelled the work a "fairy-tale opera."

Song, solo or choral, is mated regularly with spoken dialogue, some of which is given a precise rhythmical scheme to be followed.  The music is supported by a similar orchestra to that in Carmina Burana, but with the addition of an onstage orchestra as well as the main band in the pit.  Orff uses the same style of strophic song based on little rhythmic ostinato figures repeated multiple times.  Melodies are mainly diatonic, and rhythms dominate -- with the familiar trick of inserted bars every so often adding an extra beat or two.  A wide array of percussion instruments dominate the musical texture, but never is the same combination used in two successive sections.

There's a detailed description of how the stage should appear for Der Mond.  The set is divided into an upper and lower level.  The lower level should represent a vaulted cellar stretching back apparently into infinity.  The upper level is to be divided into left and right halves by a hazel bush, and each half is a mirror image of the other -- a tavern with an oak tree outside.  A staircase leads down from the upper to the lower level.  There also needs to be a higher point, near (one presumes) the top of the proscenium, which overlooks the entire stage.  By now, you may already have guessed that these three levels represent heaven, earth, and the underworld.  Bingo.

The plot line of Der Mond is based on a story of the same title in the Brothers Grimm.  A narrator describes a country where no light shone at night, and all was blackness.  Four young men from this land journey to another land where a bright light shines out in an oak tree.  Asking about it, they are informed that this is the "moon," and that the mayor bought it for three thalers and hung it in the tree.  Hearing this, the four young men steal the moon and take it back to their own land to hang in their own oak tree, leaving the land where they found it in darkness.  

In due course they get old, and express a wish that they each be buried with one-quarter of the moon in his casket.  When the mayor cuts the first quarter with shears, the moon turns blood red and the people cry out in dismay.  Eventually, all four quarters are buried, one by one, leaving the land dark again.  The four men wake up in the underworld, and reassemble the moon.  The unexpected light rouses all the sleeping dead people, and they begin carousing, drinking, gaming and whoring, much as when they were alive.

Peter, the guardian of heaven, hears the racket and looks out to see what is happening.  To still the clamour of the dead, he hurls a comet from the sky down among them, and silence falls.  Peter then descends into the underworld to find out what is happening.  The four men proudly explain to him about the moon, and the party resumes.  Peter drinks with the dead until they fall into a drunken stupor, then -- to terror-stricken, portentous music -- he announces that they will party no more, but only sleep, and he takes the moon away, concealed inside his cloak.

Peter hangs the moon up in the heavens.  On earth a child sees it, and exclaims, "See there! The moon!"  The people on earth stare up in amazement at the light.  In the underworld, the dead snore.

The narrator role is assigned to a high lyric tenor voice, and right away the reference is clear to the Passions of Bach and other Baroque masters.  But the numerous spoken sections just as obviously relate back to the traditional German singspiel.  The various vocal and choral numbers are easily related to the style of Carmina Burana, both musically and in the overt raunchiness of some of the texts.  The music during the carousing in the underworld contains brief quotations from popular songs, drinking songs, Verdi, Puccini -- and Carmina Burana.  The final quiet scene where the child sees the moon is accompanied by a zither and violin, a distinctly Bavarian sound (Orff lived and worked in Munich).  Any performance of course has to include numerous sound effects, not least a whistling scream for the comet, and these are doubly important for a recorded performance.  

Although it's easier to follow the action with a full libretto, even a moderately detailed synopsis will allow the listener to get the main gist of what's going on in an audio recording.  

In the end, the biggest single point of resemblance between Der Mond and Carmina Burana is that they are both fun -- fun to listen to, likely even more fun to watch, and with no lack of entertainment value for the adventurous music lover.  Ready?  

Vorzeiten, gab es ein Land, wo die Nacht immer dunkel,
und der Himmel wie ein schwarzes Tuch darüber gebreitet war....

"Once upon a time, there was a land where the night was always dark,

and the sky was spread over it like a black cloth...."

Semi-Biblical Heroics

Recently I pulled out Handel's Dettingen Te Deum for a revisit (see previous post).  This experience in turn inspired me to dig up a long-time favourite among Handel's oratorios after a long absence.  

The oratorio genre predates Handel, but it was his genius that raised it to the pre-eminent art form which it remained for well-nigh two centuries after his death.  It can fairly be said that the oratorio form as we know it today was invented by Handel, or at least evolved by him.  It met a pressing need in the life of this first great composer-impresario.  Unlike the vast majority of court or church musicians who filled Europe in his day, Handel composed largely to sell tickets and make money from the public.  When the Church of England hierarchy forbade performances at the opera during Lent, Handel responded by creating a sacred musical drama which required no staging, and which could be sung, played, and enjoyed without any fear of officious religious authorities and their puritanical scruples.

Several key differences separate the oratorios from the operas in Handel's output.  The operas were sung in Italian, the oratorios in English.  The operas tend more towards the florid and ornamental, while the oratorios (although they certainly have their virtuoso pages) included a higher percentage of solemn, dignified, and prayerful music.  The operas were dominated by the solo voices, while the oratorios have (in varying degrees) much more choral contribution.

As soon as Handel's oratorios are mentioned, Messiah springs immediately to mind, but it is not really representative of the genre, to put it mildly.  Masterpiece though it undoubtedly is, Messiah is a musical meditation on the events of the Christmas and Easter story rather than a dramatic depiction of those events.  Messiah is also atypical in using actual texts selected from the Bible, a characteristic it shares only with Israel in Egypt.  

The oratorio Samson, which is my subject today, is a more typical member of the Handelian oratorio family.  The text was provided by Newburgh Hamilton, who adapted it loosely from Milton's dramatic poem, Samson Agonistes and At a Solemn Musick.  This libretto is written in metric verse far better adapted to singing than the epic language of Milton's works.  This oratorio includes named roles for a number of characters, and the chorus alternately presents the viewpoint of the Israelites or the Philistines, and (in one case) both in the same movement, with the choir divided into antiphonal groups.  The libretto takes us through multiple dramatic scenes depicting the events of Samson's final days.  Samson has actually been staged as if it were an opera, which becomes a back-handed compliment to the skill with which Handel translated the operatic form to the concert hall.

It's important to mention that Samson is one of the most richly-orchestrated of Handel's oratorios.  The ensemble includes the expected strings, continuo, oboes, and bassoons (which Handel used to double the soprano and bass lines of his choruses) but also features trumpets, drums, flutes, and horns.

The score also deploys many styles of music with great acumen.  You need only contrast the sober, even solemn choruses of the Israelites with the downright jolly music for the chorus of Philistines to see just how wide Handel's dramatic range became in this composition.  Or, in the role of Samson, compare the dark chromatic tones of Total Eclipse to the bluff and hearty swagger of Go, Baffled Coward, Go.

The distribution of solo voices appears a bit odd to us today, used as we are to the standard vocal quartet of one of each voice type. It's also odd by Handel's standards, working as he was in an era when both castrati and counter-tenors were common; this oratorio was performed by Handel using no counter-tenor or castrato voices at all.

Samson himself is sung by a tenor, an interesting choice when the hero roles in many of Handel's operas were taken by counter-tenor voices. Dalila is a soprano role, but not overly high, and the part has in fact been sung by mezzo-sopranos (Janet Baker for one). Another soprano sings the role of the Virgin who attends her. Micah, a key figure among the Israelites, is an alto. Manoa, the father of Samson, is a bass. The Philistine giant Harapha is also a bass role. Lesser roles include tenor parts for a Philistine man and an "Israelitish man." And right at the end of the work, there is that florid soprano solo for an "Israelitish woman." That odd description, "Israelitish," has always given me a chuckle.

Part of Handel's skill in composing Samson is demonstrated by his development of larger unified sections out of the typical short, independent numbers of the oratorio form.  The score in fact opens with two of these blocks: a multi-movement overture for the orchestra, followed by a celebratory chorus of the Philistines.  After an interspersed aria, the chorus is repeated.  Other large blocks occur in the scene between Samson and Dalila (yes, her name is spelt like that, and always pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable) and in the festival of the Philistines which rounds out Act 2.  The last major block comes with the funeral rites for Samson at the end.  In each of these cases, a single movement is repeated several times, with contrasting sections or movements interspersed.  In this way, Handel creates solid anchor points for the entire larger structure.

The Dalila scene makes repeated use of a musical number, My Faith and Truth, O Samson, Prove, which is sung first by Dalila.  It is then repeated immediately by another soprano identified as "A Virgin" -- with the sole change that the opening line becomes Her Faith and Truth.  This solo then flows into an extended duet for Dalila and the Virgin.  The original version is then repeated yet again by a Chorus of Virgins.  Dalila next sings a delightful aria, To Fleeting Pleasures Make Your Court, marked by a repeated "Scotch-snap" rhythm in the melodic line which then morphs into rapid triplets.  The women's choir sings Her Faith and Truth which Dalila follows with another Scotch-snap aria, musically identical to her first, but to the words How Charming is Domestic Ease.  The Chorus of Virgins then sings a fifth repetition of Her Faith and Truth -- and now you know why many performances indulge in a substantial amount of cutting in this scene!

In the Philistine celebration, the text provides the repeat.  A Philistine Man (tenor) sings a light-hearted, dancing aria in triple time, To Song and Dance We Give the Day.  This aria is very typical of the music for the Philistines throughout the work -- playful, jovial, and great fun to hear.  The text is then repeated by the full choir to completely different music, over a triadic ostinato bass with horns very much to the fore in the orchestra.  The music then continues into a spectacular antiphonal double-chorus number with trumpets and drums, using this cleverly, carefully arranged text:

Israelites:  Jehovah...                              

                               Philistines: Great Dagon...

 Israelites:  Jehovah rules...                              

                              Philistines:  Great Dagon rules...

Together:  The world in state.

And later:

Israelites:  Jehovah...                              

                              Philistines:  Great Dagon...

Israelites:  Jehovah is...                              

                               Philistines:  Great Dagon is...

Together:  of gods the first and last.

If the Dalila scene suggests that Handel's inspiration might have been going off the boil, this magnificent conclusion to Act 2 shows that no such thing was true.

One of the few really famous excerpts of Samson which is still regularly heard is the aria, Total Eclipse, sung by Samson himself in the first act.  He is, of course, lamenting his blindness.  This slow, anguished tenor aria has formed the dramatic centrepiece of many a song recital.

More powerful, and more energetic too, are the several arias during the confrontation scene between Samson and Harapha.  The culminating number here is a duet, where the two singers match quite different texts to the same musical lines in rapidly alternating phrases.

Even more dramatic is the depiction of the story's violent denouement.  It happens offstage, followed by a messenger's speech narrating the event.  Handel presents the collapse of the temple musically by having a recitative sung by Manoa interrupted by a vigorous Symphony of Horror and Confusion.  After another brief dialogue in recitative, the "symphony" is repeated, more fully scored, to accompany a chorus of the Philistines crying out for help.  The choral singing ends in an unexpected harmonic position with the words We sink, we die -- and the orchestra is left alone to bring the music quietly to a close with a subdued cadence.

The music then proceeds through the funeral rites of Samson, with the most beautiful musical ideas of the entire score to accompany the laments and accolades of the dead hero.  A magnificent Dead March for the orchestra punctuates this scene.  But Handel's last and greatest inspiration comes with the triumphant, resplendent, trumpets-and-drums conclusion of the oratorio: the brilliant soprano aria, Let the Bright Seraphim which flows directly onwards into the blazing final chorus Let Their Celestial Concerts All Unite.  

Perhaps the biggest weakness of Samson for modern audiences is the text, which includes numerous digs and downright insults aimed at women in general, sung in the context of the Dalila scene.  These derive directly from Milton's dramatic poem -- as does that interesting spelling of Dalila's name.  Since these offensive texts mostly occur in the recitative passages, no great violence is done to the music if one simply fast-forwards through those sections -- or, for that matter, through the seemingly endless repetitions of Her Faith and Truth.

Aside from these difficulties, Samson does contain many, many pages of Handel's finest music for choral and solo voices, and makes for very rewarding listening.  I've been in love with this work ever since I had the privilege of singing it as a young man, and I've certainly enjoyed this return visit!

A Blazing Victory Celebration

Beethoven was a composer with a deservedly massive ego, but he could be more humble when faced with what he considered to be true genius.  Hence, this comment which he made about the music of George Frederick Handel:

"Handel is the unequalled master of all masters.  Go to him, and learn how to create the grandest of effects by the simplest of means."

Few works by Handel illustrate the truth of this statement as gloriously as the majestic, magnificent Dettingen Te Deum.  Composed in 1743 for a service of thanksgiving after a great military victory at Dettingen, this cantata for solo voices, choir, and orchestra does indeed employ the simplest of means to create the grandest of effects.  

When I first heard a recording of this vivid work, the opening pages stood my hair on end.  No other composer in history could mine this vein of celebratory music for public ceremonials so richly as Handel did in this work.

Handel's text is the ancient hymn Te Deum Laudamus ("We Praise Thee, O God"), sung in the English version of the Church of England's prayer book.  The choice of text was, of course, dictated by the occasion for which this piece was composed.

The work is scored for the unusual combination of 3 trumpets (two high and one low), with the standard Baroque orchestra of oboes, bassoons, strings, timpani, and continuo.  A mixed chorus and four soloists are also required.  The solo voices are an alto, a tenor, and high and low bass voices.  Since the solo parts are relatively limited and the chorus does most of the work, it's perfectly feasible to have the solo voices drawn from the chorus.

Since this glorious music was composed in thanksgiving for a military victory, the work opens with martial rhythms played by the low trumpet and bassoons, and beaten out on the timpani, followed by the vivacious opening melody on oboes.  When the timpani return, they are joined first by high trumpet fanfares, and then by the chorus, singing the opening line of the hymn in slow, majestic chords.  Throughout the first movement, quieter sections for strings and voices only alternate like echoes with the resplendent sounds of full chorus with trumpets and drums.

The overall plan of the entire piece continues as it begins, with alternating sections for varying forces.  The grander movements using the trumpets are all set in D major, a requirement of music using the valveless trumpets of the Baroque era.  One of the most awe-inspiring movements comes at the setting of the words To Thee cherubim and seraphim continually do cry.  The trumpets and drums carry the principal melodic sense and structure of the music while the several parts of the choir sing a fast-moving phrase to the words continually do cry for a total of no less than 80 rapid repetitions.

Quieter, more prayerful movements are set for smaller forces (a solo here, a men-only chorus there) with lighter accompaniment such as strings only, or oboe and continuo, and in one memorable moment the orchestra falls silent (very unusual for Handel).  A single trumpet plays a slow fanfare with an obvious family resemblance to the fanfares of The trumpet shall sound in Messiah (which was composed 2 years earlier).  Then the unaccompanied choral voices sing:

We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge,

We therefore pray Thee help thy servants 

Whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy precious blood.

When Handel reaches the final verse, he brings the trumpets and drums forward again but eschews a grandiose final gesture in favour of a more flowing, almost prayerful choral movement to the words In Thee, O Lord, have I trusted; let me never be confounded.  Only in the final sustained choral phrase does an underscoring of beating drums recall the militant aspect of the opening.

For the official celebrations of the Dettingen victory, Handel also composed an anthem for similar forces.  Lasting only 15 minutes (versus the nearly 45 minutes of the Te Deum), the Dettingen Anthem shares the ceremonial air of its larger companion, but features a more virtuosic style of writing for both voices and instruments.  Florid violin parts strike a very different note from the frequent chordal writing of the Te Deum.  The text is drawn from Psalms 20 and 21, and opens with a verse also used in the first of Handel's great Coronation Anthems of 1727:  The King shall rejoice in thy strength, O Lord.  Three more sections follow before the anthem concludes with a rapid fugal allegro setting of Alleluia, which couldn't be more different from its distant but famous cousin at the end of Part 2 of Messiah.

Anyone who loves Messiah and wants to explore Handel's great gifts with grand vocal writing should definitely give the Dettingen Te Deum and Dettingen Anthem a closer acquaintance! 

Celtic Legend in Music

With St. Patrick's day but recently passed, I'm choosing today to introduce to you a composer who was not Irish himself, but was in his early years intensely fascinated by the legends, folklore, music, and art of the Celtic peoples -- and of the Emerald Isle in particular.

Arnold Bax (1883-1953) was born in suburban London, and lived and worked for most of his life in England.  The years which he passed in Dublin, as a young man, were deeply influential in the development of his orchestral style -- a style developed and honed through a series of symphonic poems.  Today I'm discussing two of the finest of these "Celtic" works.

First, let's take up the earlier of these two symphonic poems, The Garden of Fand, composed between 1913 and 1916.  Like many of Bax's major works, it is written for a larger than usual orchestra with multiple woodwind and brass.  

In Celtic mythology, Fand is the daughter of Manannan, lord of the oceans, and lives in a magical garden on an island which appears and disappears at her will.  The mysterious vanishing "island beyond the West" is one of the great recurring themes of Celtic mythology, and the garden of Fand is just one of its many manifestations.

Bax's music might perhaps be better described as a musical impression, since it does not narrate the detailed legend of Fand and her encounter with the hero, Cuchulain.  Instead, the work presents a simpler narrative in a tripartite structure: a ship floating on the enchanted surface of the Atlantic is cast up on the shores of the island, the sailors are drawn into Fand's magical world of eternal dance and song, and the sea rises to overwhelm and drown them as the island vanishes with its immortal inhabitants.

The quiet opening pages of this music achieve a near-miraculous sound which paints the image of the ocean rising and falling while the sunlight sparkles on the surface.  As we listen to these gently heaving waves of sound, we realize that each one is a rising and falling arpeggio with its various segments passing quickly from one woodwind instrument to another.  These woodwind arpeggios float on a sea of iridescent pianissimo harps and first violins divided into no fewer than eight parts. Deeper tones are heard below the surface, moving more slowly in their own good time.  After a few minutes of this sea music, the sound builds up into a series of ever-larger, surging waves, which swell up to a peak and then break off.  There couldn't be a clearer sound picture of the ship being tossed up onto the island's shore.

Instantly we are surrounded, not by the sounds of the sea, but by lively, piping dances which lead us into the heart of the magical garden.  After the dancing dies away, the slower, lyrical theme which next appears is uniquely scored for a unison of flute and cor anglais over divided strings; it represents the enchanting, enticing song of Fand herself, the Lady of this enchanted land.  The song is repeated, more powerfully scored, but then dies away.  The dance then resumes, and eventually rises to a brief recall of Fand's song, and then towards what is plainly the climax of the piece.

And it is right there, when the dance reaches its absolute peak, that it suddenly transforms into the opening sea music -- but played fortississimo, thundered out by the full orchestral forces in a series of what have now become mighty surging waves of sound.  As this immense catastrophe dies away, the music resumes its original aspect of sunlight sparkling on the gentle swells, with Fand's magical island nowhere to be seen as twilight falls.

The second, and equally intense work of Bax to be discussed here is Tintagel.  Again, the legends came forward to inspire Bax, when he visited the famous ruined castle on the northern coast of Cornwall.  Tintagel has for years been linked with the mythical world of King Arthur.  But more than this: the castle stands in a wild and dramatic setting atop high cliffs, almost cut off from the land by two deeply cut bays, and open to winds and storms from half or more of the compass.

Bax's music here lacks the firm structural basis of The Garden of Fand.  Although a tripartite shape can be discerned, it's much looser in form, relying mainly on the contrast between two main themes to evoke different aspects of the setting and the legends associated with it.  The work begins with bird-song trills and a surging figure evoking the sea again, but in a very different way from Fand.  This surging wave pattern underlies a rising fanfare-like theme in the horns whose dotted figures gradually develop into a memorable climax.

As it fades away, the second main theme arises in the strings, an extended melodic song evoking the nobility of the Round Table.  This theme is developed at some length, with different portions of it selected out for repetition and transformation.  A restless energy begins to invade the music, and fanfares announce a musical battle.  This battle music begins as a free fugato on what sounds like an inversion of the second theme.  Soon, militant tramping rhythms seize control and the orderly nature of the music disintegrates into fragments, with rapid descending figures dominating the texture.

As the battle music dies away in darkness, the opening theme appears again on the horns, but with less certainty than before.  Eventually the power of the opening grows into the music again.  And now the noble second theme arises in the full power of the orchestra, in partnership with the opening fanfares and sea music, to tie all the threads together in the main climax of the work.  This dies away into a quieter passage of reminiscence, before a final return of the majestic opening fanfare brings Tintagel to a grand fortissimo conclusion.

Bax's music is rare to the point of being non-existent on North American concert programmes, but I did have the good fortune to hear a rare live performance of The Garden of Fand some years ago, with the Toronto Symphony conducted by Sir Andrew Davis.  The stage at Roy Thomson Hall was as packed with players as for a Mahler symphony.  And, like the major climaxes of Mahler's epic works, the catastrophic wave pouring over Fand's island landed on the ears with the force of a physical blow -- a force which is all but impossible to reproduce in a recording. 

A Pair of Unusual Concertos

It's okay, I know the correct Italian plural is "concerti."  Sometimes I fear turning into a musical pedant and decide to cut loose and really goof off.  Hence the "incorrect" spelling of the title.

Once again, back to my favourite English composer, Ralph Vaughan Williams, for a pair of works which remain rarely heard, even among devotees of his music.  The simple truth is that the concerto form, however you choose to define it, was very much a byway for RVW.  His central output is anchored by symphonies, operas, and major choral concert works with orchestra.

However, he did write a number of concertos and concertante works, and here are two of them.

His Concerto in A Minor for Oboe and Strings is a classic example of his pastoral style.  And why not?  After all, the sound of the oboe has often enough been associated with the sounds of a shepherd's pipe by composers from the classical and romantic periods.  To listen to this engaging, lyrical score, you'd never know it had been composed at the height of the flying bomb attacks on London in 1943-44.

This concerto has a beguiling air of naïve innocence about it.  The oboe writing features broadly diatonic melodies and the accompaniment carries this forward with the composer's characteristic flair for string writing.  The three movements are nicely contrasted in tempo, while the general ambience of the work consistently reminds me of Blake's classic phrase, "England's green and pleasant land."

The first movement, entitled Rondo pastorale, opens with an extended lyrical section of flowing melody, followed by a brisker but still graceful section with the air of a country dance.  Passages labelled cadenza are interspersed with the main themes.  The movement ends with a slower, quieter meditative passage.

The second movement is a short but sprightly Minuet and Musette, with the oboist providing the obligatory drone note for the central Musette section before the Minuet is briefly recalled.

The finale is actually a scherzo, with plenty of rapid virtuoso writing for the oboe.  The movement includes several abrupt tempo changes which challenge the soloist's breath control.  Near the end, a sweeping Lento section draws us into the celestial sound-world of the Fifth Symphony and the Delectable Mountains of the opera The Pilgrim's Progress, two works which occupied the composer during the time period when this concerto was composed.

The Piano Concerto in C (1931) is a bird of a very different feather.  Vaughan Williams was not by nature a composer of keyboard music, and the piano writing in this work is dense, thorny, chordal, often uncomfortably difficult to play. Indeed, the piano part's technical challenges are such that the composer re-arranged the score in 1946 into a Concerto for 2 Pianos.  It was also at this time that he added the gentle, quiet ending onto the work's final movement.

The craggy, uncompromising piano idiom of this Concerto can also be heard in the much later Fantasia on the Old 104th Psalm Tune, which I previously wrote about -- you can read about that work here:  Music for Piano, Orchestra,... and CHORUS???

Again, this concerto is in the classic three movements, but with little of the classical concerto style present.  As with the Oboe Concerto, and definitely contrary to standard classical practice, each movement divides into a number of sections with sharply contrasting tempo indications.

The first movement, a Toccata, explodes in a fortissimo curtain-raiser before the pianist erupts into the first main theme, a sequence of rising and falling chordal passages.  The aggressive quality of this music is easily relatable to the nearly-contemporary Fourth Symphony.  The music is said to be influenced by Busoni's piano transcriptions of Bach (the title of the movement suggests such a kinship).  The music rises to a virtuoso largamente statement and then a slow cadenza bridges the way to the next movement.

The slow central movement is titled Romanza -- it's a name Vaughan Williams reserved for a few of his most heartfelt musical creations.  A quiet, meditative line for solo flute floats gently above quiet piano arpeggios.  Other instruments take up the flute's theme while the piano continues to gently provide a counter-melody over the arpeggios.  A brief, more impassioned central episode, passes by and the quieter atmosphere is resumed.

The finale in effect incorporates two movements into one: a  powerful opening fugue for piano and orchestra is then linked by another cadenza to the Finale alla tedesca, in the style of a German country dance.

The fugue subject is loudly announced by the brasses, and then taken up by the piano in a fierce virtuoso display of 3-part counterpoint, with the orchestra joining in at the fourth entry.  As the complexity builds, the composer tosses in fiercely orchestrated passages where different instruments are heard playing the same lines at different speeds.

The biggest of the piano cadenzas, with the heaviest scoring for the instrument, leads the music from the fugue into the finale.  Dance-like it may be, but it's more of a bar-room brawl than a ballroom waltz.  The opening bars are clearly related to the fugue subject.  Another cadenza draws down the emotional temperature, and the piano recalls the theme of the Romanza before the music dwindles down to a quiet ending -- with the piano's final notes vanishing into the air.

These two rarities of the concerto repertoire are featured in a Chandos live-concert recording with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and music director Peter Oundjian -- the last of many rich recording projects which Oundjian helmed during his years in charge of the orchestra.  This recording is filled up with two somewhat better-known Vaughan Williams masterpieces.

The  Serenade to Music is heard here in the common version for choir and four vocal soloists, rather than the rarer original score for 16 solo voices.  The Serenade is discussed in this previous post:  The Touches of Sweet Harmony

Also heard on this recording is one of RVW's most unique inspirations, the suite Flos campi ("The Flower of the Field") for small orchestra, solo viola, and chamber choir.  You can read about that piece here:  Rare and Beautiful From RVW

A Concerto Which Spans the Emotional Universe

The work I have been listening to with as much pleasure as ever the last few days is one of the most surprising victims of an egregious double standard in the world of music.

This double standard decrees that the Great Composers are always great, even on their off days, while the Not-So-Great Composers are never great, even at their finest full stretch.

Utter hogwash.  Beethoven, Mozart, and Schubert -- to name only three Great Composers -- all set pen to paper for numerous little potboilers and money spinners, and lavished little or none of their greatest gifts on such things as contradances, minuets, and folk song settings.  I'm sure they'd all kill themselves laughing at the holy reverence with which such chips from the workbench are often played and discussed in our times.

On the opposite side of the great divide, Mendelssohn and Saint-Saens are but two examples of composers whose art is often spoken of with an upturned, sneering nose by snobbish commentators.  Yet both composers achieved truly moving results in some of their finest works.

Camille Saint-Saens published five piano concertos in all.  They've never achieved much more than to hover on the periphery of the repertoire (at least in my lifetime), with the Fourth receiving rather more performances in recent years than any of the others.  I may be called on this, but I strongly suspect that these works have been slowly dropping off the radar in recent years -- even to the extent that there may be fewer recordings of them available now than was the case when I first heard them as a teenager.  

I submit that the time has come for a fair reappraisal of the Second Concerto, in G Minor, Op. 22.  It was composed in 1868 when Saint-Saens was 33 years old, and had already developed a strong musical personality all his own.  In many ways, I think this concerto is the perfect introduction to the wide-ranging art of this complex musical personality.

Saint-Saens was a composer who, much like his very different contemporary Brahms, lived with one foot firmly planted in the musical past.  Living and working in the height of the Romantic era, both men remained by temperament classicists, although taking much advantage of the harmonic and instrumental innovations of their times.

Nothing speaks to this classical pedigree quite so much as the fact that each of the three movements of this concerto -- wildly diverse in mood as they are -- is built on the classic sonata-form structure of first theme group, second theme group, development section, and recapitulation of themes.

This concerto opens in as classical a mood as you could possibly imagine: arising from a thunderous octave deep in the bass, the piano soloist plays a winding, majestic, almost improvisational cadenza, which owes a strong debt of style to Bach's organ fantasias -- particularly the famous G Minor fantasia (note the same key).  Nor is this surprising when we recall that Saint-Saens was one of the most notable French organist-composers of the late 1800s and early 1900s.  A brief eruption of the orchestra with a grand cadence is succeeded by a transition to the first actual main theme of the movement, a slow, mournful melody for piano which is then joined by orchestra.  

Although the original andante sostenuto tempo is in due course modified by more rapid passages in the development, with virtuoso fingerwork for the soloist, the mournful mood is never truly laid aside -- nor is the majestic aura which gives this music something of the flavour and dignity of a state or royal funeral.  The recapitulation brings the saddest, most world-weary sounds as the orchestra reprises that main theme and its sequels, slowly growing quieter and quieter until the music eventually dies away to a gentle recapitulation of the opening cadenza, this time played by piano accompanied by soft sustained notes in the orchestra.  Then, fortissimo, the grand cadence figure brings the movement to an abrupt but timely end.

The stylistic diversity of this concerto prompted Polish composer Zygmunt Stojowski to quip that it "begins with Bach and ends with Offenbach."  Actually, it's the second movement, a  lively, jolly scherzo, which brings the style of Offenbach ("the Mozart of the Boulevards") to mind.  Indeed, the piano part in this delightful confection is marked leggieramente (lightly).  Saint-Saens certainly had a fun-loving side to his personality, seen of course in the famous Carnival of the Animals but also apparent in such works as the Septet for trumpet, piano, and strings.  This triple-time firework set piece is in fact a miniature but well-organized sonata form movement, with a contrasting theme in the form of a lolloping march doing duty for a second subject while still appearing to be (at first blush) the trio of a scherzo-and-trio form.  As so often with this composer, apparent simplicity conceals considerable structural and musical skill and subtlety.  At any rate, the second movement in its light-hearted E-flat major jollity, forms a perfect foil to the darker solemnity of the first movement.

The finale, again a sonata form in G minor, holds to similar dimensions as the second movement, so that the second and third together match in weight and duration the first.  Inattentive listeners are apt to dismiss this finale as another lightweight faux pas, but this furious tarantella is every bit as apt to its place as significant predecessors like the finales of Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony or Schubert's C minor piano sonata, D.958.  As with both of those distinguished forerunners, this finale remains firmly grounded in its minor key right to the finish line.

The immense propulsive energy of this music is best served by a pianist and conductor who understand that it is propulsive, and not a mere cream puff.  When the finale is played with that object in mind, it gains much more weight and strength -- and, by no means incidentally, shows off the immense skill of Saint-Saens the virtuoso.  The closing pages seize upon that motoric energy and use it to drive the piano through furious cascades of notes leading to the staccato final chords in G minor.

New Year's Resolution and Two Poems

The resolution first: 2019 is going to be the year when I pay more attention to this oft-neglected blog about rare and unusual classical music.  Okay, I know I've said this before, but this year I really do want to write more than I have been doing in this blog.

To start with, then, two poems.  Actually, one of these two works sets a pair of undistinguished poems to music; the other was inspired by a phrase from a novel by Turgenev.  The distinction between a workmanlike writer and an inspired composer is easy to discern when you read the texts of the poems, and then listen to this soaring, rich, sensuous tapestry of sound.

The composer is Ernest Chausson, a composer perhaps better known from the textbooks than from live performances or recordings.  Partly, this is due to the fact that he completed only 39 published works.  The act of composition was usually slow and arduous for him, but the quality of the results suggests that he was an aptly stern self-critic.  The other reason lies, perhaps, in the fact that his distinct style forms a bridge between his friend Cesar Franck and the later, sparer impressionistic style of Claude Debussy -- a fact which has led to his work being overshadowed by the achievements of those two great artists.  Yet Chausson definitely belongs in their company.

So, to the two works in question.  The great rarity is the Poème de l'Amour et de la Mer ("The Poem of Love and the Sea"), composed between 1882 and 1893.  It comprises two extended song settings of poems by Maurice Bouchor, a friend of the composer.  The two songs are set for voice and orchestra, connected by a brief orchestral interlude, and the entire work lasts for about 30 minutes in performance.  The first song is entitled The Flowers of the Waters, and the second, The Death of Love.  Yet this is certainly not just a song cycle, much as it may be rooted in the tradition of the French mélodie.  Equally, though, it is not a tone poem -- although the writing is both atmospheric and evocative.  Nor is it in any sense a "song-symphony" such as Mahler would later make his specialty.  Rather, this is a composition sui generis in which the orchestral and vocal parts are co-conceived as equal partners, and there is no suggestion at all that the orchestra serves merely to "accompany" the singer.  

The two parts of the text unfold a love story, using intensely visual, sensuous symbolism instead of direct statement.  It's this symbolic approach from the writer which allowed the composer to create his own tonal world in an endless stream of melody from both orchestra and voice.  The closest Chausson came to direct illustration in the first song was in supplying gently rocking figures in the orchestra which evoke the endless heaving of the sea, and the sparkle of the sunlight on the water.  Although there are certain common thematic figures woven through the music, especially in the first part, they don't draw attention to themselves in at all the same way as in the composer's Symphony in B-flat or in the tone poem Viviane, works which I previously covered here.

The brief interlude, lasting all of two and a half minutes, is just that.  The music is marked lente et triste ("slow and sad") and works quietly with some of the melodic figures heard in the first song.  The orchestra does not develop the music with any of the resources one might expect to find in a symphony.

The symbolic tone resumes in the second song, not at all dramatic.  The title, The Death of Love, sounds like some great tragic fate but the poem makes clear that the cause of the death of this love is forgetfulness.  The music here is less chromatic than in the first poem, with the opening melodic figure heard more persistently in the orchestra.  Then the sound suddenly darkens, and a series of quiet, bleak sustained chords accompany the singer's slow chanting of the lines describing the beloved's forgetfulness.  At this point, Chausson introduces a transcription of four verses from his earlier mélodie, Le temps des lilas ("The time of lilacs"), also to a text by Bouchor, to bring the work to its sad conclusion.

I've long felt that the Poème de l'Amour et de la Mer is best appreciated by first reading the text, then setting it aside and just letting the composer's assured, unique fusion of French romanticism and Wagnerian continuous melody just wash over you.

Better known, yet still not at all frequently performed, is the Poème for violin and orchestra, Op. 25.  The composition of this work happened unusually quickly, for Chausson, during the months of April to August in 1896, and it was first performed in 1897 by the dedicatee, Eugène Ysaÿe, a close friend of the composer.

A brief slow introduction leads to the solo violin's quiet statement of the principal theme, and this is immediately repeated piano by the orchestra.  There follows a lengthy rhapsodic section in which the music (shared between soloist and orchestra) unfolds in an almost Wagnerian continuous stream of melody.  A brief forte for the orchestra is succeeded by an almost folk-like passage for the violin, all in double stops.  A musing passage, almost a fantasia, leads to a new orchestral statement of the main theme -- differently orchestrated from its initial appearance.

The solo violin alludes to the theme, high up and quietly played, accompanied by tremolando strings, which continue through much of the remainder of the work.  The soloist continues developing the theme, gaining velocity and volume as the violin leads the way to an impassioned climax.  The brasses alternate in presenting phrases of the theme, and then the full orchestra transforms it into a grandiose, almost march-like climax.

Thereafter, the solo violin muses gently on the theme, underlain by gentler and gentler sounds from the orchestra.  The violin climbs to a high tremolando note above a rising and falling figure in the winds, and this gorgeous tone poem then gradually descends to a quiet ending on a sustained woodwind chord.