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France has always been a hotbed for highly influential composers that turn the tides of Western music’s evolution, and perhaps this is most evident in the Neoclassical era. We’ve already looked at several early-20th century reactions against heavy-handed German Romanticism. In France, this reaction was the beginning of an artistic movement, led in large part not only by composers from elsewhere who lived in France (like Stravinsky and Prokofiev), but also from native French composers. Avant-Garde, this interwar era of French art and music, embraced not just the simplicity we’ve already seen in other Neoclassical entries, but also an element of eccentricity, frivolity and surrealism. Art and life were intertwined in strange, fanciful ways; composers began pushing the boundaries of multi-medium performance, multi-genre composition and more.

We will look today at some major players in the Avant Garde movement, which evolved from two major personalities (Erik Satie and Jean Cocteau) and gained momentum as a small group of younger composers took the aesthetic and made it their own with great success. Erik Satie was an eccentric composer and writer, seen as the catalyst for the Avant Garde movement in music. Jean Cocteau, an artist, writer and critic, also had a major influence on his fellow artists and musicians by providing popular texts that would be set to music as well as art to inspire the writing of music. Finally, we’ll look at two composers who built their careers with inspiration from Satie: Darius Milhaud and Francis Poulenc.

Erik Satie: Blazing a Trail

Despite his intelligence and scholarly inclinations, Erik Satie (1866-1925) was known as eccentric, unpredictable, personality. This combination of intellectual ferver and offbeat creativity combined to make a strange but compelling influence in French art and music. Satie didn’t want to be called a musician, but a “phonometrician” (a measurer of sound), and this says more about him than most descriptions could! Satie was deeply involved in the composer circles in Paris, exercising his infectious curiosity and visionary creativity. Satie and Debussy were good friends, but even Debussy’s compositional style proved too chromatic and dense for Satie’s taste. Satie attempted, much like the twelve-tone serialist composers in Austria, to boil down music to its essentials only. Here is a very famous work of Satie, his collections of Gymnopedies.

In addition to severely simplifying music such as in these Gymnopedies, Satie also experimented with multi medium art in his operas. His ballet Parade had an all-star cast in its production: choreographed by Paris’ premier choreographer, scenario by Jean Cocteau, stage and costumes by Pablo Picasso, and contributions by Stravinsky as well. In addition to this A-list production cast, Satie used typewriters, sirens, tape, airplane propellers and other nonsensical objects as part of the soundscape and for the ballet. Critics used the word “surrealism” for the first time in their reviews of Parade.

This was now the trend for music in Paris, and other composers took the outlandish legacy of Satie in several directions.

Darius Milhaud

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) had great respect for the Avant Garde of Satie, and Milhaud’s works have a distinct eccentricity to them, but Milhaud’s life took him all over the world and this influenced his work in equal measure. Milhaud spent some of his early adulthood working for a poet and dramatist who also happened to be the French ambassador to Brazil. Milhaud spent significant time in Brazil, hearing music there as he worked. Milhaud loved the folk music tradition he discovered in Brazil, and this profoundly influenced Milhaud’s compositional output for the rest of his life.

Below is a balled, “Le Boef sur le Toit” (the Ox on the Roof) that depicts several Brazilian melodies at once. Its title is that of an old Brazilian tango, and it is one of nearly 30 Brazilian melodies quoted in this work. Despite the tonal, simple tunes, the ballet still feels like the product of an Avant Garde composer. The orchestra often plays several tunes simultaneously, a concept called polytonality, and dissonant harmonies exist throughout. The balance of popular melodies with strange harmonic and textural choices make for a truly interesting composition.

Milhaud also lived and worked in the United States, and there he heard Jazz. This influenced him as strongly as Brazilian music did, and Milhaud wrote many compositions under the direct influence of Jazz instruments and Jazz harmony. This work, La Création du Monde, showcases Milhaud’s fascination of Jazz instruments such as the saxophone (then a new instrument) and drum set, as well as the versatility of the trumpet which can be at home in both “Classical” and jazz contexts. The instrumentation is a true mash-up of Jazz, Classical and even Brazilian, all at once. Polytonality (many melodies, in different keys, at once) will play a significant role. This piece challenges the listener to keep an open mind about what combinations of sound are “allowed” and what possibilities lie in combinations we may never have thought to use.

Francis Poulenc

Francis Poulenc (1899-1963) lived a very different life than Milhaud, and did much less traveling. Poulenc lived in France for his entire life, serving in both World Wars, living firsthand through Nazi occupation and reacting against it with his music. Poulenc identified strongly with the eccentricity of Satie and genuinely enjoyed writing lighthearted music. His pious upbringing also added an element of seriousness to his work which is often overlooked.

Here is an example of Poulenc’s work for piano, his principal instrument. Poulenc was a world-famous pianist and toured often as a performer. You can tell from the virtuosity of his piano compositions that Poulenc was a great performer as well.

Contemporaries of his criticized his music for having no sense of progress, that it was a regression to courtly jollity. How could such frothy, jolly music arise after the likes of the twelve-tone system, after Stravinsky’s dissonant harmonies, and while Europe was falling apart in War?

Perhaps these critics didn’t hear some of Poulenc’s other works, more serious in tone and using large ensembles as opposed to the single piano so popular in salons and “light music” venues. A concerto for Organ and Timpani in itself is quite inventive in my eyes, and Poulenc’s Organ and Timpani concerto is certainly not a lighthearted work.

Poulenc also wrote many sacred works for choir, especially in the aftermath of several personal tragedies in Poulenc’s life that coincided with the dire circumstances of Nazi occupation in France. Here is a work written after the sudden death of Poulenc’s friend. It sounds completely different from the solo piano works above, as well as the organ concerto,and I enjoy this immense variety in Poulenc’s work.

Milhaud and Poulenc are two of the most prolific major composers of the 20th century, perhaps even in the history of Western music, so it will be difficult to narrow down additional suggestions for listening. Milhaud wrote several string quartets, and Poulenc’s piano repertoire is extensive. I would begin with chamber music by both of them and see where you are taken by the variety you’ll encounter. Jazz, Latin music, Mass voluntaries, salon music, polytonality, even some serialism makes its way into works by both these inventive and curious composers. An exploration of their work will help open a listener’s mind to new possibilities of sound combinations in music, without the (potential) academic tediousness of serialism.

There is more to say about Russia, and I’ll get there, but to give our ears some contrast, I will move to other parts of Europe during the interwar period. For today, we will discuss Germany, (formerly) Czechoslovakia, and Spain, and next time, France will get an article all its own.

In Germany, Paul Hindemith (1895-1963) made a unique harmonic language for himself and left no instrument untouched in his curiosity of different instruments’ capabilities. Meanwhile, in Spain, Manuel De Falla (1876–1946) became a national hero for his inventive settings of traditional folk song. Finally, Czech composer Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) used his inspiration from Stranvinsky’s Neoclassical sound to create a sound all his own.

Bohuslav Martinů 

Born in Czechoslovakia but eventually making his life in Paris and United States, Bohuslav Martinů only returned to his native country late in his life. This is evident in the jazzy, cosmopolitain flavors that his music has. You can clearly hear the influence of Stravinsky’s playful, lively music in Martinů’s Serenade for two clarinets and string trio:

In addition to the upbeat, jazzy rhythmic figures, there is experimental harmony to appreciate. I would also recommend the Three Madrigals for violin and viola duet, a piece with plenty of contrast, interesting harmonies, and equally compelling parts for both instruments to play. The title “madrigal” is a direct reference to the renaissance song we discussed months ago here on this blog, and you’ll remember that Neoclassical music is so-called due to its nostalgia for the past. With these titles, you will be surprised at how modern the pieces sound, but the titles add an element of curiosity to the sounds that we hear. Do these sound like old-style music? Sometimes, yes, especially when “perfect” intervals (four or five notes apart) between pitches, old-style harmonies, and folksy rhythms. However, sometimes we are surprised by the modernity of the harmonies too.

Manuel De Falla

One of Spain’s major musical figures of the early 20th century, Manuel De Falla is known for creating evocative, exciting music that showcases folk song and is well-suited for staged performances of intrigue-filled stories. Indeed, De Falla’s most-performed works are either staged works with dancers and singers, or derivatives of these for smaller ensembles that tell stories in the form of song cycles. De Falla was neoclassical in that his music is based on a pleasantly tonal center, popular folksong and traditional sounds. Within this, though, he still adds elements of modernity in voicing, extended techniques, and evocative colors.

De Falla composed the music to the ballet The Three-Cornered Hat, which tells a tale of jealousy and intrigue. Its story is set in Spain, and the choreography employs elements of Spanish dance instead of traditional ballet. Here are two different versions of it; one is an orchestral suite of the most compelling instrumental moments in the ballet, and one is the fully choreographed version with soprano and dancers.

I included De Falla in this article not only to show the tendency toward simplicity and tonality in the Neoclassical era, but also the influence of nationalism on artists in the interwar period. This ballet was specifically choreographed with Spanish dance, and all singing is in Spanish. The orchestral part features castanets, robust rhythmic figures and colorful, strummed string sounds to emulate a guitar. In addition to the daring experimentalism and dissonance used by many interwar period composers, some chose to capitalize on their culture, and this choice made by De Falla made him a national icon.

Paul Hindemith

On the other side of the spectrum of tonality, we have Paul Hindemith, a German-born composer who made his life as much outside of Germany as he did in it, and his relationship with the Nazi party in Germany is cause for much curiosity among scholars today. Given his readiness to leave Germany at the height of the interwar period, to make his life in the United States, and to be head of an aid organization to help Turkish immigrants after the war, it’s safe to say Hindemith did not agree with the Nazi party. In fact, the Nazi party banned Hindemith’s music in much the same way that Stalin later banned Prokofiev’s, for much the same reasons: it was not beautiful enough. Hindemith was called an “atonal noisemaker” by Nazi the minister of culture in 1934. Yet other influential Nazis thought that Hindemith’s unique sound would exemplify modern German music, so Hindemith fell in and out of favor with the Nazis throughout his career. In 1938, Hindemith and his wife (who was of Jewish descent) emigrated to Switzerland and later the United States to avoid the worst of the Nazi regime.

So, what does an atonal noisemaker sound like? Here is an example of Hindemith’s creative harmonic language, a four-movement work for full orchestra based on his opera, Mathis der Maler (Matthew the Painter). It is based on an actual historical figure, Matthias Grünewald, who was a painter during the Protestant Reformation era (1500s). This is another blatant reference to the past, which makes this work a great example of Neoclassical sentiment. More than with Martinů, you will hear harmonies that do indeed sound old-world. This is because Hindemith preferred the open, almost pre-historic sounding open intervals of a fourth and a fifth (four and five notes apart between pitches), while conventional tonality focused on thirds and sixths. Even if this language is quite theoretical for your experience with music, you will hear a distinct medieval quality to Hindemith’s harmonies, and this is why.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsyOuyNh6oQ

Here is an example of Hindemith’s insatiable curiosity about every instrument of the orchestra. In particular, Hindemith wrote solo and sonata-style (with piano) works for the “endangered” instruments of the orchestra, such as the horn, trombone, bassoon and viola. Here is an extreme example of this, a trio for piano, viola and heckelphone, which is essentially a hybrid between an oboe and a bassoon. Perhaps Hindemith’s interest in this instrument stems from its resemblance to earlier, medieval precursors such as the shawm, and these fourth-and fifth-based harmonies suit it well. Remember that the trio sonata in itself was a popular early-music format. This is perhaps Hindemith’s Neoclassical commentary on old-style chamber music as well.

Hindemith is one of my favorite composers, probably because he wrote a substantial portion of the viola’s solo repertoire. Here is one last Hindemith selection (although I could go on), with the viola featured as the soloist. It is called Trauermusik, or “mourning music,” and it was written in a matter of hours to commemorate the death of King George V of England, who died just the previous night.

As we delve further into the Neoclassical era of music, you’ll notice a distinctly large Russian representation, and this is in part because of the censorship imposed upon artists and musicians in Russia during the interwar and postwar period. Composers in 20th-century Russia always lived with a looming, watchful government eye over their work, as the Soviet government wanted music in the USSR to be beautiful, consonant and traditional. Meanwhile, the recently ended Romantic period had created a trajectory of exploring dissonant sounds, new harmonies, and darker emotions expressed in music. What was a soviet composer to do?

Neoclassical-style music was the answer. The government would be happy with the music’s form-driven, clean structure, but the composer could “sneak in” some of their own true voice in the harmonies themselves. We saw this phenomenon last week with Stravinsky’s ballets, and this week we’ll look at how it influenced the works of Sergei Prokofiev. Stravinsky and Prokofiev were both permitted to leave the USSR, and I encourage you to take note of how their works compare to one another in sound, character, and how you feel when you listen to it, due to their very similar life paths. Still, their later years differ, and this may also be evident in their music. Stravinsky stayed away from the USSR for his entire later adult life, while the great depression severely impacted Prokofiev’s performances in the West and he returned to the USSR in his later years.

Sergei Prokofiev’s Pioneering Musical Sarcasm

Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953) is known today as one of the major musical figures of the 20th century due to his fascinating sound; Prokovief’s works mix frivolous, fun-loving, almost fairytale-like wonder with immense dissonance, complexity and contrast. This cosmopolitain sound is a direct result of Prokofiev’s life in the United States and Germany, living outside the USSR for most of his adult life, before returning for government commissions.

Perhaps even more than Stravinsky, whose works were indeed dissonant, evocative and daring, Prokofiev adds biting sarcasm to the palette of emotions that music can express. Prokofiev also expresses melodrama, bitterness and heartbreak in more depth than Stravinsky, at least to me, perhaps because Stravinsky was more interested in the evocative power of rhythm and other structural, not emotional, elements of music. Not to say that Stravinsky wasn’t capable of emotional heft, but I hear more of it in Prokofiev’s music.

One final note of context for Prokofiev is that, after his return to the USSR as a successful but recently cash-starved composer in the West, he was one of several local Russian composers to be denounced as “degenerate” by the same government that invited him back in the first place. As part of the “Zhadanov Doctrine,” designed to censor art and culture in postwar USSR, Prokofiev and several other composers were given an ultimatum in 1948. They were accused of “formalism,” described as the “renunciation of the basic principles of classical music” in favor of “muddled, nerve-racking” sounds that “turned music into cacophony” (Tomoff, Kiril (2006). Creative Union: The Professional Organization of Soviet Composers, 1939–1953.) They had to publish prettier, less offensive music or face very serious consequences. Let’s see what kind of music was deemed so offensive by the Soviet government, but is so popular today.

Symphony Number 5 (1944)

Prokofiev’s most often-performed symphony is also one of the first works Prokofiev completed upon his return to the USSR after a life abroad. His experiences in Europe and the United states shines through in the emotional, colorful Fifth Symphony. I particularly enjoy the contrast between the movements, as well as the creative use of accompaniment, range, and harmony.

The first movement is marked at a slow tempo, and opens the work in what seems like a positive, panoramic light. One might imagine a film starting with music such as this. The use of exposed, dissonant lower strings adds an element of discomfort, or at least alerts the listener that this work was written not in 1744, but 1944! The commentary of snare drum rolls also creates an atmosphere of military-like presence, a popular theme in postwar Soviet music which has come to be associated with the oppression that composers and musicians felt. The rest of the movement makes use of all kinds of interesting, unique accompaniment lines under the original melodic material. The orchestral piano also adds unique color, as it is unusual (even still today) to have a piano as a member of the orchestra.

The second movement is the “Scherzo” of the symphony, and the quotes are there not to imply that it isn’t a scherzo, but to emphasize that this is a direct link to the Neoclassical concept of copying older formats. This movement is absolutely a scherzo, with short, energetic rhythmic patterns and an upbeat character. The dissonance is biting, especially in the melodies, which are based largely on half steps, chromatic motion between notes, and tritones, which are all traditionally displeasing intervals. The B section, or the “trio,” shows off Prokofiev’s time in the USA with a jazzy set of harmonies, bright orchestration, wood blocks, and an almost Gershwin-esque character.

The third movement is the emotional center of the symphony. It begins with a distinctive accompaniment pattern, active and expressive, and over this the clarinet presents the main melodic material for the movement. The strings quickly take over and in this passage I see Prokofiev’s mastery of emotional writing. The melody rises to sky-high pitches in huge, emotional leaps. Many of Prokofiev’s melodies are very difficult to sing along to, both due to the confusing smaller intervals and the massive leaps between pitches. A counter melody is introduced, and various combinations of instruments expressing both the main and contrasting melodic material adds orchestration interest to this movement. There is a shocking change of mood at climactic point of the movement, one of foreboding darkness, but it disappears as quickly as it came. The movement closes with a recap of the original material, with subtle hints from the disturbing climax added in as haunting, high-reaching runs in the cellos. Is all well? Or not?

The fourth movement opens with a cello chorus of the opening melody from the first movement, as if our film has reached a nostalgic close. The violas interrupt to begin on a completely different, new path, one similar to the scherzo. The skittering strings interact with sardonic, playful woodwind interjections. Despite the playful call-and-response structure, all melodic intervals are dissonant and jarring. The ear spends most of this movement wondering what to make of what it’s hearing, whether it’s a playful mood or one much darker. The end of the piece is a louder, more exciting iteration of this material again, with elements of earlier movements as well. Is this ending positive? Negative? And why are the snare drums (war, local oppression) and wood block (jazz, frivolity, the West) back, at the same time?

Perhaps the best word for it is simply, sarcastic.

Romeo and Juliet

Commissioned by the premiere ballet and opera theater in Russia (known today as the Marinsky Theater), Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet was supposed to be an attempt to move back from works based on innovation and modernity (in line with the USSR’s vision of old-style, utopian sounds). Somehow, Prokofiev managed to write music inoffensive enough to skate by the higher-up scrutiny, but still thoroughly of himself in style. This is one of Prokofiev’s most popular works, performed not just as a full ballet but often as an orchestral suite. It has many similarities to the Fifth Symphony, with added playfulness to tell a “fairy tale.” This combination of small-scale, “kid-friendly” sounds, and immense emotional power when necessary, makes for a truly evocative work.

Some favorites from the ballet are the “Montagues and Capulets,” which depicts the bitter feud between the two families, the “Balcony Scene” in which Romeo and Juliet finally meet, and the “Death of Tibalt” (near the beginning) which is depicted almost as a crazed, fun-loving hoedown before the characters realize what has happened in the frenzy, and the mood darkens inconsolably. Enjoy this premier screening from the Royal Ballet in London as part of their response to the pandemic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8igolhGEGQ

More Prokofiev

If you are curious about more of Prokofiev’s work, I recommend these below. Primarily a pianist himself, many of Prokofiev’s most personal works are for solo piano, or piano and orchestra. His second piano concerto, written for a friend who committed suicide, is intensely emotional and full of Prokofiev’s darkest harmonies as he responds to the death of his friend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il95HXvCdH4

Finally, take a listen to Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas number 6, 7 and 8, also grouped together and called called the “War Sonatas.” They have a complex relationship to the Zhadanov Doctrine. It is said that Prokofiev wrote these three sonatas with his “true feelings” despite the wishes of the USSR regime, and how ironic that Stalin himself loved one of these works. Sonatas number 6 and 8 were explicitly banned as degenerate, while number 7 was not only allowed to be performed but even won a “Stalin Award” for its appeal to the regime.

Last week we discussed the daring and outlandish twelve-tone system, which challenged audiences more than ever before to find the meaning behind the sounds in music. Meanwhile, on the other side of the spectrum, the Romantic period had reached a point of near-breakdown in the large-scale, autobiographical tone poems and epic symphonic works of Richard (not Johann) Strauss and Gustav Mahler. Today’s post will focus on the reaction to these two conflicting poles in the interwar years, a return to “simplicity,” but first a disclaimer is necessary.

Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, the head figures of (very) late romanticism, are hugely popular with audiences around the world and their works are programmed often. As a performer I know their works incredibly well. I admit it’s ridiculous, from a music history perspective, that I didn’t give them both their own blog posts, because their presence both in their lifetimes and now is enormous. However, I decided before I began writing this series that if I were going to take the time to do it, I would only talk about composers I genuinely enjoyed listening to. Sadly I’ve never enjoyed listening to Strauss and Mahler, even less now that I play them so often. I’m very much in the minority, though, so I’d encourage you to give any of Mahler’s symphonies, as well as Strauss’s tone poems, a listen. The main takeaway for our purposes is that they took romanticism to its limits, and there was a void after their death that nobody could fill in the same way.

Remember the idea of art moving in a pendulum throughout history? That eras are formed as reactions against the era before? By this logic, it’s no surprise that the immediate aftermath to over-the-top romanticism and twelve-tone serialism was nostalgia for simpler times.

Neoclassicism, or “New Classicism,” is a term that refers to many mediums of art; in music it refers to a return to the structures and characteristics of Classical era music but with modern harmonic language. Here are some elements to watch out for in identifying music that sounds “neoclassical” and how they were reactions against Romantic or twelve-tone music.

Strauss and Mahler’s works called for huge orchestras; one of Mahler’s symphonies is subtitled “Symphony of a Thousand” and called for the stage to be filled to capacity with choir, orchestra and soloists. In response to this, composers of Neoclassical sentiment tended to use smaller ensembles of players to imitate the intimate orchestra size in the Classical period.

Romantic era music had become heavily narrative, especially with the “tone poem.” Instead of being a “symphony” with movements and recognizable formats, the tone poem was entirely subservient to telling the story the composer envisioned. Strauss’s “Ein Heldenleben” is the story of “a hero’s life,” which in other words is his not-so-subtle autobiography.

As a reaction to this, Neoclassical music tends to use classical formats such as the symphony, sonata and chamber music formats like quartets and trios. It tends to be absolute music instead of program music, to make things simpler for the audience to follow. The major exception to this would be ballets, since there is obviously a story to tell with the music, and we’ll discuss Stravinsky’s later ballets in this article.

Due to this similarity in format to Classical music, the listener has a strange experience of familiarity and when listening to neoclassical music. The “skeleton” of the music is lighthearted, simply textured, not too much is happening at once. However, the harmonies are entirely different than what Haydn or Mozart would have written. This dichotomy of familiarity and dissonance is what I really enjoy about Neoclassical music.

Stravinsky’s Ballets

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) is a towering figure in not just Neoclassical music but Western music as a whole. His Rite of Spring has been used in Disney’s Fantasia series, so I and many other people knew who Stravinsky was even as a small child. Stravinsky was Russian-born, but is better known for his training and professional presence in Paris and even the United States. Some Russian composers remained in Russia and their works would be heavily influenced by this choice, and Stravinsky’s style was profoundly affected by his choice to base himself in France.

Stravinsky is especially well known for his ballet scores, all of which were written once he had professional connections in France. The atmospheric “French” aesthetic we discussed before is alive within Stravinsky’s music, and combined with Stravinsky’s interest in rhythm, we have an exciting, versatile, and strangely lighthearted sound despite the dark stories some of Stravinsky’s ballets tell.

The Rite of Spring

This is one of the most famous works of western music, used in films, pop culture and adored by audiences in concert both as a full ballet and with the music by itself. It is a high achievement for Stravinsky and deserves the favor that it has because of its adventurous use of counterpoint, driving rhythm, and the narrative excitement that Stravinsky achieves.

The story is that of a fictional primitive, pre-historic Russian tribe. The tribe has a tradition and a belief that spring will not come unless a young girl dances herself to death. They ballet follows this sacrificial rite: the events leading up to the selection of which girl will dance, the other events taking place alongside the rite itself, the other tribes participating and the dances done to interact with them, and finally the girl’s dance itself.

Stravinsky sets the scene cinematically with a woodwind opening that is now famous. I’ve always imagined that it shows the cacophonous sounds of birds singing as the sun rises. Stravinsky writes for the bassoon to play far out of its normal range, experimenting with all sorts of new and interesting sounds to create a primitive-sounding atmosphere. The dances that follow are either heavily rhythm-focused, or eerily etherial. You’ll hear a particularly rhythmic dance toward the beginning, which is the selection of the girl to be sacrificed. The dance represents young, energetic teenagers dancing with passion and excitement, perhaps not knowing what they’re signing up for. An example of an etherial dance would be the beginning of the second part (the ballet has two parts with a short break in between). This is the dance of “mystic circles,” which I always associate with the intake of some sort of hallucinogens, etc, to prepare for such a brutal ceremony. Another favorite moment in this ballet is also in the second part, the “calling of the ancestors,” which has a slow but deliberate buildup to a hugely exciting horn call. The tempo stays disturbingly slow the entire time, but there is still an impressive trajectory of excitement.

I hope you enjoy the wild ride that is the Rite of Spring. It’s timelessly popular and, if you’re in the right headspace for it, thoroughly enjoyable because of how convincingly you are pulled into this fictional story. The dance format allows Stravinsky to retain a “classical” element to an otherwise very narrative format (the individual dances are more interesting than the ballet going on above), and I think this is why Stravinsky’s ballets are performed so often with the music alone.

More Stravinsky

If you’d like to hear more Stravinsky, try these other two great ballets which exemplify the small-scale nature of Stravinsky’s ensembles and plot lines. Stravinsky’s works suit a “small” show because of the element of playfulness his music tends to have. Both these ballets focus on toys and playthings having dramas of their own, and the music suits them both incredibly well!

The first is called Petrouchka, and it tells the story of a puppet who deals with love, loss, death and even haunting his unfaithful lover as a ghost. You will hear folk songs to evoke the sense of being at a provincial marketplace, a crowd watching a puppet show and being unaware of the show-within-a-show.

The second, which is perhaps my favorite of the lesser-performed ballet repertoire, is Jeux des Cartes or “card game.” In the spirit of a small-scale show-within-a-show, it also tells of the drama that happens below the surface of a plaything. This time it is the intrigue between the King, Queen, and Jack of the standard card deck. It’s so Neoclasscal that you’ll even hear a blatant nod to Rossini’s La Gazza Ladra. Even if you aren’t familiar with that opera I bet you will recognize the quote; it’s that famous!

World War I left Europe in a state of paralysis, shock and nihilism, arguably leading Europe (and others) into a direct continuation with World War II not long afterward. The unprecedented levels of damage to human life and civilization brought every area of the arts into a new era of divergence, one in which artists would use any and all methods to express their anguish and their need for answers, control and solace.

Music underwent incredible diversification during this tumultuous period. Some composers looked back to simpler times, coining the term “Neoclassicism” in music, which we’ll discuss later. Others ventured into the folk traditions of their own nations, reacting to the years of intense, direct conflict with other nations. Still other composers clung to the Romantic tradition.

A fourth group of visionaries embarked on a strange and, even by today’s standards, radical experiment. Twelve-Tone Serialism was coined by the composer Arnold Schönberg. This Austrian composer spent the early years of his composition career heavily influenced by late romantic sound. For an idea of this, listen to his earlier works (like this one). He clearly had a mastery of tonal harmony and Romantic-style writing.

Perhaps as the world around Schönberg darkened and fell into war, he felt unable to connect with this romantic style of composition any longer. Or perhaps he was simply bored with Romanticism and wanted something else. I suspect there was at some need for control, order and freedom from convention that prompted Schönberg to create the Twelve-Tone system.

To explain what this is, let’s first discuss some context. Between two octaves of the same pitch on the piano, (for example, C to C again, above or below) there are 7 diatonic pitches, meaning the major or minor scale will use every intermittent letter name once (CDEFGABC). There are, however, five pitches left out in between. If you begin on the pitch C and ascend one octave to the next highest C, playing every single pitch possible in between, both white keys and black, they will all be related by one half step (semitone), ascending in very close proximity, and there will be 12 of them. This is called a chromatic scale instead of a diatonic scale because it breaks an octave into every chromatically possible pitch in between. Some nonwestern music traditions use even smaller subdivisions, such as quarter tones, to break the octave up even further. This fundamental difference–what is the smallest possible distance between two pitches– is one of the key aspects that make nonwestern music sound so very different to the western ear.

I digress. Schönberg took full advantage of these five unused chromatic pitches in the octave, and committed himself to writing music that would use every single one of these pitches at least once before repeating them again. Sometimes, this would be done using a “tone row,” in which Schönberg would shuffle the 12 available pitches into a certain order, and he would invent a melody that used all twelve in this order. Then, the rest of the harmony would be built to accompany this melody. Sometimes, many aspects of a work were serialized, for instance rhythms may also be split into certain patterns and repeated in a certain order. Even dynamics, indicating the volume, would sometimes be put into a certain order.

Schönberg’s Twelve-Tone Serialism is not for the faint of heart. It sounds incredibly different than anything you will have listened to in earlier posts. This is an effort to break free of traditional rules of harmony, and to take the composer out of the process of composing and leave elements to math, chance and pattern. Despite this, Schönberg created a strange marriage of hands-off composing and incredibly strict rules nonetheless. You’ll hear this dichotomy at work in these pieces. They sound as if randomly thrown together melodically, rhythmically and otherwise, but they are actually composed with stricter rules even than diatonic, classical-style works were.

Pierrot Lunaire, op. 21

This is Shonberg’s most famous twelve-tone serial composition. Interestingly, this piece was completed in 1912, two years before World War I began; even I am quite surprised by this. For some context, Rachmaninoff’s very romantic-sounding All Night Vigil, which we discussed last time, was composed three years after Schönberg composed Pierrot!

Coined by Schönberg himself as a “melodrama” for small ensemble, Pierrot is a collection of 21 short movements, all set to a poetry cycle of the same name by Albert Giraud. The work was so influential that the ensemble that Schönberg wrote for– flute, clarinet, violin, cello and piano plus soprano singer– became a standard ensemble in the 20th century.

One other notable element of the piece’s structure is the use of Sprechstimme, or “spoken singing.” It is as it sounds, somewhere between singing and speaking, and is meant to emulate a state of wistfulness, haunting or even drunkenness.

Pierrot, the wistful and mentally unstable protagonist represented by the singer, is wandering around, away from home, at night. He sings about love, anger, religion, the moon, the stars, whatever and whoever is on his mind. He eventually returns home, haunted by his past and what he has seen on his journey.

Despite the oddities of twelve-tone serialism, this piece in particular shows off how gifted a composer Schönberg was. Even with such harsh parameters for harmony and melody, he manages to get contrast, create moods to match the topics being sung about, and make the work seem like a nearly-followable narrative. If anything, the audience is interested in what sounds will come out next!

Alban Berg, Violin Concerto

One of Schönberg’s most outstanding students, Alban Berg, continued in his mentor’s twelve-tone system but added what I consider an even more romantic sensibility to it. Berg’s violin concerto is truly a beautiful piece of music; I genuinely love it even though it is undeniably serialized music both melodically and harmonically.

The piece begins perhaps most curiously out of any other major violin concerto—the soloist’s first pitches are simply their open strings. You normally wouldn’t hear open strings all in a row unless a musician was tuning their instrument, so how surprising that these four simple pitches in fact comprise the first four notes in Berg’s tone row for the first movement. You’ll hear the ascending and descending pattern several times, both in the solo and orchestral parts. It’s also ironic that the beginning of the piece is so “easy” for the soloist, just playing their open strings, when in reality the entire rest of the concerto is among the most technically difficult of all violin concerti! Even after the soloist has learned the music, imagine having to memorize a 30-minute, technically very difficult part, based on 12-tone serialism instead of any familiar and predictable harmony!

Despite all the work that goes into having to prepare a serialized piece (Pierrot’s premier took 40 rehearsals!), for a piece like this violin concerto it seems worth it to me. Berg orchestrates it in a way that the audience still hears similarities to Romantic-era violin concerti that came before. Perhaps, if the notes were just a bit different, it wold be exactly like a Romantic concerto in sentiment, but the notes are what they are, and this is what creates curiosity. Is this something that makes sense to my ear or not? There’s a constant battle in my brain to answer this question as I listen, and the lack of an answer is in itself beautiful and interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2eWUSlo7EE

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) is not only one of my personal favorite composers but also a general favorite of audiences worldwide. Rachmaninoff’s unique place in history, at the culmination of the Romantic period and the dawn of the 20th century, gave him a choice: would he continue in the Romantic tradition, already expounded by his forbearers, or would he explore contemporary sound and harmony? Rachmaninoff did both, and struck a magnificent balance not only between old and new but also between the orientalist and cosmopolitain poles in Russian music.

Rachmaninoff grew up hearing the dichotomy of Russian sound that we’ve already discussed, that of the orientalist school (Boradin, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, etc) versus the cosmopolitain sounds of Tchaikovsky. Rachmaninoff took these elements and blended them with his own concept of lush, sweeping melodies atop inventive, melancholic harmonies. Rachmaninoff’s studies at Moscow Conservatory, as well as his international touring career and his later life in the United States, also gave him compositional inspiration. One can hear the dense, chord-based orchestration of Brahms, the harmonic innovations of Debussy and Ravel, and even elements of American Jazz, in Rachmaninoff’s later work. Despite all of these influences, Rachmaninoff’s own voice is clear and unique to anyone else’s, and hearing all of this coherently in his work must be one reason why his music is so timelessly popular.

Being one of the greatest pianists of all time, Rachmaninoff features the piano in nearly all of his compositions, and his idiosyncratic use of the piano is perhaps the most defining feature of his music. Rachmaninoff had unusually large hands, which meant he was capable of leaps, chords and extensions on the piano that other pianists struggled to execute. Rachmaninoff’s piano writing daringly utilizes the range of the instrument and chords have a distinctly far-reaching range between bass and treble notes.

This extended range is also related to Rachmaninoff’s interest in Russian sacred music. Russian Orthadox Chant is associated with impressively low-range bass singing, and we’ll look at an example of this in Rachmaninoff’s choral writing as well.

Piano Concerto no. 3 in d minor, op. 30

This concerto for piano and orchestra is one of Rachmaninoff’s most popular works. Pianists regard it as one of the most technically difficult concerti to play, related in large part to Rachmaninoff’s writing it for his own oversized hands.

In the first movement you will hear some key elements of a classic “Rachmaninoff” sound. He begins with a simple melody, taken from a Russian folk tune, one that has an unusual rhythmic cadence. This means doesn’t fit nicely into a rhythmic “box” of 8 symmetrical bars. Rachmaninoff often writes melodies taken from Russian (emphasis on the not-quite-western qualities) folklore, so this creates the effect of the melody meandering on past the point that the listener expects it to conclude. I especially enjoy this aspect of Rachmaninoff’s melodic writing; I am always surprised by how familiar yet unusual his melodies sound, no matter how many times I’ve heard them.

You will hear special attention being paid to low-range instruments, such as the low strings, bassoon, horn and low brass. This compliments lots of low-range playing in the piano. We will see relationships between this and the choral works we see next.

The harmonies in Rachmaninoff’s piano writing are gorgeous but also highly chromatic. This winding through uncomfortably-closely-related keys creates Rachmaninoff’s unique sense of tension, cycling around in a very narrative way, wondering where to go next. This is part of why Rachmaninoff’s music has been used in films. In addition to many other pop culture uses, his second piano concerto was the entire soundtrack for the 1945 film “Brief Encounter.”

Enjoy this truly gorgeous work, one of the finest examples of Rachmaninoff’s unique voice both on the piano and as an orchestrator. It’s a true pleasure to play this work every time it’s programmed!

All-Night Vigil, op. 37

The All-Night Vigil is a set of 15 movements for a capella (unaccompanied) choir, based on the texts recited at the traditional all-night vigil in the Russian Orthadox Church. Rachmaninoff claimed that this was among his very favorite of his own works, ironically one of the few without piano!

The influence of Russian Orthodox chant are overt, largely because the Russian government required a certain proportion of the work to be directly taken from traditional chant when Rachmaninoff composed it. Rachmaninoff was very interested in chant anyway, so this wasn’t a major setback for him creatively. The combination of traditional Russian church music and Rachmaninoff’s own lush harmonic language makes for an evocative, compelling listening experience.

Each musician, depending on what instrument or specialization they have, has a mental list of works to consider as a red flag when programmed. For instance, I would be weary of Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” oratorio because I know that the viola part is exhausting, and despite the work’s beauty it lasts well over two hours without a break. I consider myself warned when I agree to play it. Perhaps a choral singer’s equivalent of this would be Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil. Even I have long known of the logistical challenge of this piece—the bass parts are so low that many singers simply cannot reach the pitches required. Specialists are required in order to sing this work correctly and safely.

But once you have assembled the appropriate musicians, this work is entirely worth the logistical challenge. Enjoy!

Cello Sonata in g minor, op. 19

Our final look at Rachmaninoff’s writing will be an earlier work of his, featuring both his beloved piano and an instrument he knew little about. Rachmaninoff was not a cellist and felt very apprehensive composing for what felt like a foreign instrument. Unlike Tchaikovsky and so many other piano-trained composers, Rachmaninoff never wrote a violin concerto, cello concerto or any string-featured work. This cello sonata is all we have.

Luckily, it is enough. This is a gorgeous, distilled example of Rachmaninoff’s voice. Even without an entire orchestra on stage, Rachmaninoff manages to evoke a similar feeling to his piano concerti with epic, sweeping lines and meandering, woeful melodies. His love of low-range instruments is evident in his choice to write for cello, not violin. The piano part is, unsurprisingly, significant and domineering in comparison to other piano+single instrument sonatas. The cello generally has single-stopped lines and its primary role is to play melodies over the active, atmospheric and brooding piano texture. All three movements are epic and stirring, despite there only being two musicians.

I hope you enjoy the cinematic experience that is listening to Rachmaninoff. If you would like to hear more, I suggest his three symphonies, his tone poem, “In the Isle of the Dead,” his other two piano concerti, and the many works for solo piano that he composed.

Having covered most of continental Europe several times over, it’s time to discuss what was going on in Britain during the romantic period. Britain had an immense colonial presence during the Romantic period of art and music. It was wealthy and at the peak of its international political influence both on the countries it colonized and on other major world powers in Europe and elsewhere. Even if many artists and creatives didn’t assert imperialist, patriotic ideals, the greatest of works produced in this period were sources of nationalist pride. For example, even today, Elgar’s works are of immense patriotic significance in the UK despite Elgar having negative feelings about Britain’s classicism and nationalism during his own lifetime.

There are many composers to talk about from the British isles, from the earliest of Western music up to this point, but I will focus on two of the most well-known to introduce you to this distinct style of sound. I encourage you to discover the many more composers from Romantic-era Britain such as John Ireland, Gustav Holst (composer of The Planets), York Bowen and their contemporaries.

Edward Elgar

Perhaps the most quintessentially “English” of soundscapes by today’s standards, Edward Elgar (1857-1934) himself would probably disagree strongly with this title. He felt like an outsider for much of his life. He was Catholic in a land of protestants, not wealthy, self-taught as a composer, and always looking East to Europe for musical inspiration. His dream to study at a German music conservatory was never realized due to his family’s meager finances. Thus Elgar taught himself to compose music and, without the guidance of a teacher, developed his own highly unique soundscape without even being aware of how unique it was. It was only after the fact that this sound became so associated with British nationalism.

Elgar resented the class system of Victorian Britain, acutely aware of his modest background even after he achieved fame for his compositions. He was a gigging musician, playing violin in various small-scale orchestras around his hometown, teaching and working at music shops. He was introverted and shy. When one of Elgar’s works was finally premiered with a live orchestra, an orchestra in which he played the violin himself, Elgar turned down the offer to conduct his own work and preferred to sit in his usual seat in the violin section. He received the audience’s applause afterward, as the composer, from his seat in the orchestra.

Enigma Variations

Here is one of Elgar’s most famous works, the Enigma Variations. Each of these short vignettes are dedicated to one of Elgar’s contemporaries, friends, or other special person in his life. Particular ones to note are the first variation, dedicated to his wife, the famous “Nimrod” variation, dedicated to Elgar’s best friend and editor, and others. There are variations that mimic people comically as well, such as variation IV which is said to show how this particular friend of Elgar’s tended to slam doors. Variation VII depicts another close friend of Elgar’s, enthusiastic but inept at the piano, and this variation may also refer to the pair once being caught in a thunderstorm. Variation XI depicts not a person but a pet; a friend’s bulldog jumps into a stream to retrieve a stick. The final variation is about Elgar himself as he relates to his friends, and he quotes the variation dedicated to his wife in this finale to show his love for her.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GbD20h8-_4

Elgar’s Cello Concerto

Now a cornerstone of the cello repertoire and a concert favorite, Elgar’s cello concerto did not get off to a positive start. The premier was disastrous due to lack of adequate rehearsal time. Even the critics present at the concert stated how sorry they felt for Elgar, since the piece seemed to have potential but was so badly presented. It would be over a year before another performance of the concerto, and it would not get significant attention until the 1960’s when cellist Jaqueline du Pré made an iconic recording of the piece and listeners finally discovered how beautiful it was!

This piece is also an example of how war can have a profound effect on art, especially for artists who lived both before and after a time of war. Elgar’s style was distinct, but pre-war and post-war Elgar sound quite different. At the time when Elgar wrote the cello concerto, World War I had recently reached its armistice. Elgar spent wartime in unsettling proximity to tank movement and open warfare. In personal distress as well, Elgar was recovering from a major surgery when he wrote the first sketches for this concerto. When she saw the sketches, his wife could tell already that Elgar’s outlook had changed from his pre-war self. Can you hear a difference between Elgar’s earlier and later work?

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Another decisive voice in music from the British Isles, Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) marked a decisive break in soundscape between Britain and the rest of Europe. A pupil of Ravel for a short time, even Ravel warned Vaughan Williams not to study with him for too long, lest he lose a voice already so interesting and unique. Vaughan Williams is known for his love of Tudor folk song, Renaissance English chant and pastoral harmonies from his homeland. I would argue that this is a more “English” sound than Elgar, since the influence in Vaughan Williams’ music is much more concentrated in local folklore and over so many centuries of music. We will explore some of Vaughan Williams’ most famous works now.

The Lark Ascending

This work for violin and orchestra is among the most popular works in the world for solo violin, certainly in Britain it is performed perhaps weekly! But I don’t mind; it is absolutely beautiful and shows Vaughan Willaims’ love of pentatonic folk melody, sparse texture, and compelling chord progressions. Ravel only taught Vaughan Williams for a short time, but you can tell that his encouragement went a long way. Remember the pentatonic melodies that both Debussy and Ravel used so much?

This used to be one of my most-listened to works when I was a kid; I found the harmonies almost cinematic in their character and imagined all sorts of landscapes and scenes that this music could describe. Much of Vaughan Williams’ music has this soundtrack-like quality to it, due to its pastoral harmonies and through-composed structure. There are still themes, but no sonata form, in The Lark Ascending. Vaughan Williams gives enough memorable information to keep the audience’s attention but keeps the format quite open-ended otherwise, allowing room for narrative creativity for both the performers and the audience.

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

This is about as folk-inspired as one could be; Vaughan Williams takes a Renaissance-era motet and uses it as the structure of a modern work. A fantasia is a work that is entirely through-composed; once you hear section A, it will not return, and the same goes for B, C and however many additional sections the composer chooses to include. You will be able to hear remnants of the original Tallis motet throughout, and this unifies the work’s various sections, but the ways Vaughan Williams chooses to explore and develop the Tallis motet will change as the piece continues.

This is another favorite from my youth, probably because of the viola solo! It is also interesting to know that this work is for two string orchestras plus a string quartet; this will not be obvious when listening but you will notice the effects in the music’s volume and sense of distance from the listener. You will hear many call-and-response effects in which a sound is echoed by fewer musicians, sounding much further away. The second “orchestra” of string players is only a few musicians, and they sit either across the room from, or above (if there’s a choir loft in a church performance space), the larger orchestra. The effect is meant to imitate the echoes through a large cathedral, and Britain has so many cathedrals that it’s easy to hear very authentic performance of this work!

First listen to the motet that inspired the Fantasia. You will understand the Fantasia much better.

Now, listen to the Fantasia.

I have one more composer to share with you before we leave late-Romantic Britain.

George Butterworth: A Shropshire Lad

A heartbreaking example of what war can do to art, George Butterworth (1885-1916) was killed in World War I when he was only 31 years old. A colleague of Vaughan Williams, both composers were friends and had similar beliefs in the art and folk music of their heritage. Here is a gorgeous short work for orchestra by Butterworth, depicting his hometown. Although it’s wonderful to have the works that do survive, we can’t help but wonder how much more Butterworth would have offered to music had he not been killed. Many more artists lost their lives in war and we will continue to see lives cut short as we delve into the 20th century.

Continuing on our journey from last week, we’ll spend our entry discussing two of France’s most significant contributors to music: Debussy and Ravel. They tend to be lumped together, as I mentioned last week, as “Impressionist” composers despite both of them rejecting the label. They are often mentioned in the same sentence, but they have very different sounds. I hope today’s entry encourages you to see these two great composers in very different light than one another, and as more than just the musical equivalent of the impressionist painters. In their own ways, both Debussy and Ravel were true innovators and much more than a continuation of the French musical style. Borrowing from nonwestern music and jazz, featuring the colors of overlooked instruments, let’s see how each of these unique composers built an evocative artistic language of their own.

Claude Debussy

A musical maverick, Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was one of those personalities that forged a new and different path with courage and an unstoppable confidence. Despite his modest upbringing by a non-musical family, Debussy showed enough musical talent to be accepted to Paris Conservatoire as a pianist. He then changed his principal area of study to composition, much to the chagrin of the composition professors at the Conservatoire. The famous German composers of the day, especially Wagner, were influencing all of Europe with densely textured, serious, epic-scale and multi-medium compositions. Debussy considered this grandeur overblown. He didn’t think much better about the more absolute German music, such as Brahms’ and Schumanns’ symphonies, calling them archaic and irrelevant.

So, Debussy created his own sound, from the foundational harmonic structure upward. His composition teachers critiqued it harshly. Even fellow French composers called it scandalous, loose and intensely frivolous, without any base in harmony that they understood. Debussy fostered this style for years before it gained him fame; he was 40 before any of his work was premiered on a paying stage.

This sound was based on early influence of nonwestern music, Russian folk music, pentatonic scales, imitating natural phenomena, and rejecting conventional formatting traditions. And despite the opposition from nearly everyone around him, Debussy was confident that he had it right. Incredibly, the tides turned to him and he almost singlehandedly turned the French musical aesthetic away from the influence of Wagner and on its own path for the future. Debussy would be the chief influence for many equally great composers to come after him all over the world, such as Bartok, Stravinsky and Copland.

Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun (L.86)

This early work is from Debussy’s most youthfully defiant days, when he was most convinced to go against the melodrama of Wagner and the musical archaic-ness of the symphony. This short, 10-minute prelude takes an “epic” scene, a greek mythological character that a Wagnarian opera might have been written about, and turns the story on its head. Instead of the faun being involved in an epic, heart-wrenching and 3-hour-long adventure, he simply enjoys a lazy afternoon with his faun friends. That’s it. They relax, enjoy the euphoria of having nothing to do on a beautiful day in their mythical faun forest, and perhaps have a romantic encounter just because they can.

The prelude begins with a flute solo that that isn’t in any particular key. This was wildly scandalous in the late 19th century, when harmony had rules and ways listeners expected melodies to behave. Great composers might have played with expectations with harmonies resolving elsewhere, but few composers had experimented with harmonies that had no resolution at all. That is in character with the lazy lounging that this little piece depicts; the protagonist has nowhere to be and appreciates it.

The harmonies after this opening continue to reflect this lack of resolution. The listener has a sense of a question mark, rather than any full stop or punctuation, after nearly every phrase in this prelude. The height of the prelude is only recognizable as the high point die to the texture of the orchestra, more in unison than before, the louder dynamics and the number of instruments playing in unison. Still, it doesn’t lend itself to any particular key, and it’s incredibly impressive that Debussy manages to make this sound as emotionally powerful as it does without the harmony ever actually resolving.

Estampes (L.100)

These three movements for solo piano highlight not only Debussy’s personal harmonic language and sense of color, but they also explore nonwestern sound. As we mentioned last week, there was a great interest in nonwestern culture, art and music in late 19th-century France. Paris was the host to an annual convention to which art pieces, cultural artifacts and other items from cultures around the world would be displayed. Debussy attended these conventions and was undoubtedly inspired by what he saw.

The first movement, Pagodes, is meant to depict a Japanese garden. Debussy makes liberal use of the pentatonic scale, long-associated with East Asian music, as well as repeated cycles of arpeggiated pitches to lend color instead of melodic or harmonic value. There is barely a melody independent of the pentatonic scale itself, but this adds to the atmospheric beauty of this movement.

The second movement, Soirée dans Grenade, depicts an small evening gathering in Grenada, an ancient city in Spain. It is overall a calm, stately movement, with short episodes of activity that might depict a character attending the party, a drink spilling, a quick gesture, or otherwise.

Grenada is also associated with the North African (called Moorish) settlers that lived there for many generations and had a string influence on architecture, art and culture there. Alhambra Palace, a Unesco world heritage site built by Moorish settlers, is located there. Although the Spanish element to this movement is blatant and multi-faceted (the repeated rhythmic figure is just one example!), I feel that I can also hear this deliberate choice of Debussy’s to set his “soiree” in a Moorish city. Here’s one example. The melody presented at the beginning of the movement has little harmonic accompaniment. When it’s repeated at the end, it appears changed, with deeply rich harmonies underneath. These harmonies exemplify the harmonic minor scale, associated strongly with music of North Africa and the Middle East. There are many other examples, all very subtle. Can you hear any other colors in this movement that evoke more than just Spain?

The finale is called Jardins Sous la Pluie, or “gardens in the rain.” It is a molto perpetuo format, meaning the notes never stop, not even once, from beginning to end. Despite the constant notes, Debussy manages to get two distinct characters: first is the rain storm on the flowers, buffeting them chaotically around. Second is the calm between the rain and the sun coming out again, when the flowers look particularly beautiful with water on their leaves. First we hear the rain, which builds up and up into quite a serious storm. Then, the sun seems to come out and things calm down. There is a surprise return of the rain (as is usual) in the middle of this, and finally the sun comes out in earnest for a glorious finale.

More Debussy

Debussy rejected the idea of the Symphony as archaic, so he composed his symphonic works withe a more programmatic sense. La Mer is a great example of this; it is a multi-movement work for symphony orchestra but isn’t a “symphony” par say. These three movements depict the ocean in different senses. The first is a panoramic view of the ocean before dawn, with a beautiful sunrise at the end. The second movement is almost a scherzo, called “play of the waves,” and the third movement is called “dialogue of the wind and the sea.”

Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was a younger contemporary of Debussy, and his unique mind also came under much the same scrutiny as Debussy’s. Ravel attended the Paris Conservatory, just like Debussy did some years before, and entered the composition competition several times, losing every single time to lesser composers. Here is the work Ravel entered into the competition for the final year of his studies:

His String Quartet in F Major would become one of the absolute staples of the string quartet repertoire and an undisputed masterpiece. The bias of the professors judging, and probably the intimidation of such a gifted pupil out-composing them, caused Ravel’s composition to once again lose the competition, but enough third parties within the university recognized what was afoot and an enormous scandal ensued. After hearing rejection from his professors, Ravel showed the quartet to his mentor, Debussy. Debussy is said to have told Ravel, “do not change a single note of this quartet,” and believed in his talent.

Ravel was unique even from Debussy, taking idiosyncratic harmony a step further by introducing jazz into his collection of harmonies. You’ll hear jazz harmonies in the string quartet, and you will also have heard them in Ravel’s famous orchestration exercise, Bolero. Ravel never intended for Bolero to be published or even performed; he wrote it as a joke, testing how orchestral instruments sounded in various combinations.

Le Tombeau de Couperin

Ravel was indeed a great orchestrator. We’ve already seen his work with Pictures at an Exhibition, creating color with saxophone and other unorthodox choices for bringing each painting to life in orchestral sound. Here is another great example, a work originally for piano but later orchestrated. Le Tombeau de Couperin is inspired by a visit to the grave of the great French Renaissance composer, Couperin. Ravel uses Renaissance-inspired techniques such as old-style ornaments, simple harmonies and dance forms in these short, sparkling vignettes for piano (and later, orchestra). There is a slow minuet and a peasant dance to evoke older times, as well as more modern additions like a prelude, fugue and toccata (molto perpetuo).

Here is the orchestrated version, which only has some of the movements. Ravel did not orchestrate the entire work.

More Ravel

Ravel is one of the few composers whose mastery of craft is equally evident in his entire collection of compositions. There is not a single “bad” piece in Ravel’s output, and I haven’t met a musician who wouldn’t agree with that. Listen to anything with Ravel’s name on it and you will be glad you did.

Ravel wrote an incredible Piano Concerto in G, which is an audience favorite and often performed. You should listen to due to its jazz-inspired harmonies, gorgeous middle movement and youthful energy. However, this Piano Concerto for the Left Hand is less well-known and deserves the same amount of fame. Ravel wrote this piano concerto for the left hand only, so that his friend and fellow pianist, whose right arm was compromised in WWI, could still perform. Ravel makes full use of the low instruments in the orchestra to reflect the lack of high-register piano, showcasing his orchestration talents once again. This is one of my favorite pieces of music, full stop. What Ravel could achieve musically with only half a pianist’s usual resources is better than what anyone else could do with all of them!

From this point forward, I’ll be posting listening club articles once per week instead of twice. Things are picking up again in the music industry and we’re very happy to start recording and playing together with our colleagues again, even in a socially distanced and safety-minded capacity. See you next week!