XC. CORELLI, Arcangelo (1653-1713)
A contemporary of Bach, but his Italian heritage manifests itself in an entirely different style of music.
Also note, that unlike Vivaldi's three-movement concerti, these are written in four movements, usually: 1) slow intro/fast; 2) slow; 3) menuet-type; and 4) fast.
This prefigures the eventual form of the modern symphony.
LXXXIV. TCHAIKOVSKY, Pyotr Ilyich (1840-1893)
Tchaikovsky uses this theme throughout all four movements of this masterful symphony.
If Beethoven had lived to be 118 and drank a lot of Vodka, he would have written this (although it has truly Russian qualities). The true heir to the mastery of the symphonic form after Beethoven, Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies (Nos. 4-6) are giants of the literature.
Wikipedia. Lots of good details about the key scheme, main thematic material (besides the motto motif, above) and the critical reception -- both contemporary and later: for example, the symphony was played during the Seige of Leningrad (St. Petersburg, today) on October 20, 1941 and broadcast live to London "to keep the spirits high in the city ... as the second movement began, bombs started to fall nearby, but the orchestra continued playing until the final note."
Honeck and the Frankfurt musicians put out an astonishing performance here. The crisp rhythmic precision, and -- most of all -- the painstakingly loving attention to the dynamic details are exquisite. For example, on a suspended chord, the resolution is accomplished with a hushed beauty.
Honeck also -- unlike many conductors -- waits between movements for the last audience cough to expire and -- only then -- begins.
Highly suggested for all conductors.
LXXXVIII. CARTER, Elliot (1908-2012)
Carter suggested that no more than four movements be performed at once. Perhaps he felt his audience would become too saturated by the sound.
Metric modulation (a feature of many Carter works) is prominent throughout.
But I present here all of the eight movements and dedicate this post to my son-in-law, Jordan, who is a professional Timpanist/Percussionist.
LXXXVII. LANDINI, Francesco (1325-1397)
Ecco la primavera (14th c.)
Two versions
1. ALKEMIE
(2:44)
2. Enea Sorini, voice, tambourine
Catalina Vicens, portative organ
(2:30)
In music history, we learned the Landini Cadence as being a crucial Renaissance tool for resolving musical phrases -- it appears in all the music of the period, but Landini got the name check.
LXXXVI. NIELSEN, Carl (1865-1931)
LXXXV. MACHAUT, Guillaume de (1300-1377)
Douce dame jolie
Two versions
1. La Morra
Wojciech Zych, director
(2:51)
2. In Itinere Musica Medievale
(4:19)
We studied Machaut in music history mainly because of his Messe de Nostre Dame, one of the first such settings to bear a composer's name.
It is an important work because of its striking use of complex and beautifully composed polyphony, which would be crucial to the development of music in the future.
LXXXIV. BIBER, Heinrich Ignaz Franz (1644-1704)
Born in Bohemia, flourished in Salzburg, Biber was one of the most important violinst/composers of the 17th century. His writing contains elements of techniques which didn't reappear again until the 20th century, like scordatura, col legno and polytonality.
Think about the life expectancy back then. Biber was not a pauper, but he had 11 children, only four of whom survived into adulthood.
Watch the video and you'll see the musicians employing some decidedly "modern" effects.
LXXXIII. DORMAN, Avner (1975- )
Azerbaijani Dance (2005)
Taka Kigawa, piano
(7:08)
Israeli-born; got his PhD with John Corigliano at Juilliard.
A driving rhythm in FIVE sets up some delicate, sometimes dark, moments, reaching for the piano's highest notes.
LXXXII. MILHAUD, Darius (1892-1974)
La création du monde (1922-23)
Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra
(18:35)
Milhaud visited Harlem in 1922. What probably impressed him about the "authentic" jazz he was hearing, was the way Black music of that era used syncopation and created cross-rhythms that weren't common in most Europe-centric music.
In the strings, he replaces the viola with an also saxophone. Genius.
Leonard Bernstein put it best: "The Creation of the World emerges not as a flirtation but as a real love affair with jazz."
**
These young folks -- who play standing -- are really talented.
LXXXI. VIVALDI, Antonio (1678-1741)
J.S. Bach never wrote a bassoon concerto. Vivaldi, OTOH, was fascinated with all sorts of atypical instruments as soloists -- piccolo (or recorder), oboe, and combinations of all sorts of winds and strings.
As someone pointed out in the YouTube comment section, Vivaldi -- unlike Bach -- seemed to anticipate the Classical movement -- crisp, tightly organized compositional structures, and simple thematic material.
**
Born in Venice, his father trained him on the violin and soon he was also composing. He studied for priesthood and was ordained in 1703. His health was always problematic (probably asthma) and he seemed to prefer composing to performing Mass. He was nicknamed "The Red Priest," presumably because of the color of his hair.
Vivaldi was one of the most prolific composers of all time -- he wrote about 500 concerti, of which 230 are for the violin, while the others are for various combinations of wind and strings. In addition, he wrote 46 operas, a large amount of sacred choral music and 90 sonatas.
Late in life, he met Emperor Charles VI and moved to Vienna, hoping for royal support. However, the Emperor died soon after Vivaldi's arrival, and Vivaldi himself died in poverty less than a year later.
**
This performance by Polish college students is up to professional standards. Most European and Russian schools manage to develop musicianship in their pupils from a very early age. These kids are great!
LXXX. MESSIAEN, Olivier (1908-1992)
Messiaen was captured by the Germans in 1940 and sent to a prison camp. A sympathetic guard gave him a pencil and some paper and he devotedly wrote this music -- originally just a trio, but then expanded to all of the four instruments here.
On January 15, 1941, they performed before an audience of prisoners and guards (the Nazis loved adding a little culture to the hell of the camps), and shortly thereafter -- due to the intercession of the great Marcel Dupré -- Messaien was released.
In the preface to the published score, Messiaen wrote that he was inspired by text from the Book of Revelation (Rev 10:1-2, 5-7):
"And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as if it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire ... and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth ... and the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever ... that there should be time no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished ..."
In the sixth movement, all the instruments play in unison. When I first discovered this piece, I delighted in learning this part and playing it in unision with my friends. It is World War II rock-and-roll.
LXXIX. REICH, Steve (1936- )
All Hebrew words are formed from three-letter roots. Prefixes and suffixes are added to give additional shading and meaning.
For example, the word "tehillim" ("psalms" or more literally "praises") is formed from the root hey/lamed/lamed (HLL) -- the source of the word "Halleluyah."
Reich sets music so that the texts inform the musical rhythm, making for a flowing, magical composition of some of the most beautiful verses in the Psalms.
**
Do not worry when you see how far away the orchestra is when you begin the video. It is necessary in order to present the entire gorgeous light show which accompanies the music.
This is 20th century music at its very finest, and certainly one of Reich's best works. And the light show is pretty cool.
LXXVIII. MAHLER, Gustav (1860-1911)
This is -- at just under an hour -- the shortest of the first four symphonies! In many ways, it is a summary of the first three. Themes reappear, magically transformed. The music feels "classical" like the purity of a Mozart symphony.
Let's call this the "bell theme." It is flutes and sleigh bells and sounds like a jolly outing on Christmas eve. This is the introduction to the ride Mahler is going to take you along ...
The first movement is in sonata form and is exactly what Mozart would have written if he had been alive in 1899. The first theme:
LXXVII. HIGDON, Jennifer (1962- )
Higdon grew up in Georgia and Tennessee, listening to The Beatles and Simon & Garfunkle. She pretty much taught herself how to play the flute when she was in high school -- but even at that point, she had had very little exposure to classical music.
She went to Bowling Green, where she continued her flute studies. Her teacher encouraged her to try composition, but she knew nothing of music theory -- chords, intervals -- nothing!
She caught up quickly, began to write little pieces -- and eventually landed at the Curtis Institute of Music, in Philadelphia, where she studied with Ned Rorem, and later with George Crumb at the University of Pennsylvania, where she earned her PhD in composition.
Talk about coming a long way in a hurry!
Eventually, she found herself teaching a talented young violinist by the name of Hilary Hahn.
This concerto is dedicated to her. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2010.
**
The first movement is a clever play on the street address of the Curtis Institute -- 1726 Locust Street. Higdon uses sevenths, seconds, and sixths as the dominating intervals in this movement.
The second movement is named after the Chaconne, a Baroque form which varies simple harmonic progressions. Probably the most famous Chaconne is from the fifth movement of J.S. Bach's Violin Partita #2.
Higdon says she imagined Hilary running in the Olympics as she was composing this concerto. Fly Forward, indeed.
**
Hahn is miraculous, as usual.
LXXVI. LIGETI, György (1923-2006)
Born in Transylvania, Romania to Hungarian parents, Ligeti barely survived the Holocaust (he lost most of his immediate family) and then barely survived Communism.
It was only in 1956 when he made it to the West that his avant-garde impulses were rewarded with great admiration from the contemporary music establishment.
These eleven movements are astonishing examples of a modern re-thinking of an old style of composition called a ricecar, from the late Renaissance and early Baroque periods.
In music school, I was taught that a ricecar is basically just a fugue (with long notes). The exact meaning is "to search out" which is what happens in a typical fugue.
But what Ligeti does with the term is to "search out" new ideas about tonality and rhythmic complexity.
The first movement involves only one pitch class -- an A. The final note is a D, thus setting up his exploration ("searching out") ...
By the time you get to Movement 11, he uses all 12 notes of the chromatic scale.
The second movement may sound familiar if you've seen Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut (1999).
Kubrick first used Ligeti's music in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) without his permission. A copyright lawsuit followed and they settled out of court.
He must not have held a grudge, because at the German premiere of Eyes, he escorted Kubrick's widow.
**
In my complete Ligeti collection (which seems now to be out-of-print), there is a recording of Pierre Charial playing this work on a barrel organ.
LXXV. MOZART, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791)
LXXIV. LUTOSŁAWSKI, Witold (1913-1994)
String Quartet (1964)
1. Introduction
2. Main Movement
Philharmonia Quartett Berlin
(22:54)
Lutosławski and Penderecki were the most famous Polish composers of the 20th century.
Both wrote music which used new techniques for the strings, like quarter-tone clusters, scraping sounds, playing behind the bridge, etc.
Lutosławski also used aleatoric ideas, leaving certain things to chance.
But the ultimate result is a tightly-cohesive sound from the four string players. This performance is excellent.
**
I had the great honor of hanging out with Frank Zappa for six hours in 1989. We were discussing various different modern music compositions, and when I brought up this quartet, his eyes lit up, and we talked about it for a few minutes. It had a big influence on both of us.
LXXIII. HILDEGARD OF BINGEN (1098-1179)
Veni creator spiritus (?)
ANONYMOUS 4
(4:31)
I knew I'd get to the 12th century eventually.
Born almost 1,000 years ago, it's incredible that we know so much about her:
LXXII. BACH, J.S. (1685-1750)
Yes, this is a very long piece -- but not as long as the Woody Allen joke about it, which appears in his film Stardust Memories (1980):
"I don't know much about classical music. For years I thought the Goldberg Variations were something Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg tried ..."
First off -- piano versus harpsichord.
Glenn Gould does an unbelievable job with this piece. On the piano.
If I'm going to spend 94 minutes listening to this music, I want it to be played on the harpsichord, for which it was written.
Rondeau is splendid, picking up on all the little details which make this massive composition so special.
Here's the aria, a sarabande:
LXXI. BEETHOVEN, Ludwig van (1770-1827)
LXX. HINDEMITH, Paul (1895-1963)
As a generalization, in the early part of the 20th century, composers were either serialists (Schoenberg, Webern, Berg) or Late Romanticists (Mahler).
Hindemith set out on his own path. The term Neue Sachlichkeit (new objectivity) became applied to his work, perhaps reflecting the way he injected a sort of neo-Bachian spirit which one could use to describe his many "Kammermusik" concerti.
He employs both the highest and lowest extremes of the orchestra here, yet -- of course -- the violin can always be heard perfectly.
The Nazis couldn't decide if his music was degenerate or not. He was "honored" with the Entartete Musik (Degenerate Music) exhibition in Düsseldorf in 1938; other high officials of the party, however, thought that "he might provide Germany with an example of a great modern composer."
In any case -- with a half-Jewish wife -- he moved to Switzerland that same year.
Two years later, to the U.S., where he taught at Yale.
LXIX. ALKAN, Charles-Valentin (1813-1888)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was an old man when Felix Mendelssohn, age 12, paid him a visit and played the piano for him.
One of the things the child prodigy played for him was a piano reduction of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
"What a noise!" Goethe declared. "I can only imagine it with a loud orchestra!"
Goethe never met Alkan. He would have had to cover his ears.
Alkan, a French Jew, was widely hailed as a great pianist, along with Chopin and Liszt. But he preferred a reclusive lifestyle, and spent his time writing piano music and translating the Hebrew bible into French.
To play Alkan's music requires the abilities of a super-human pianist -- the writing is thorny and complex.
OTOH, he was capable of great delicacy -- as heard in the middle two movements here.
The legend that he died after reaching for a volume of the Talmud off a tumbling bookshelf seems to have been debunked.
Still -- not a bad way to go.
LXVIII. SAYGUN, Ahmet Adnan (1907-1991)
Cello Concerto, Op. 74 (1987)
1. Moderato
2. Largo
3. Animato
Mirjam Tschopp, cello
Bilkent Symphony Orchestra
Howard Griffiths, cond.
(24:36)
Little known -- even after the CPO label released a lot of his music (including his five symphonies) -- this Turkish composer travelled to France to study composition with Vincent d'Indy when he was 21.
This concerto certainly deserves to be heard more often. Saygun has a beautiful touch -- he employs all the registers of the cello without ever allowing the orchestration to drown it out.
LXVII. SOUSA, John Philip (1854-1932)
Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (1923)
San Jose Wind Symphony
Edward C. Harris, cond.
(3:33)
Sousa was a fine composer, as well as an expert trap-shooter and he also wrote novels.
A Masonic society established in 1870, the Shriners shortened the name of their organization from the previously elaborate Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (AAONMS).
Would be hard to get all that on one of those little cars.
He wanted the tubas to project their sound, so in 1873 he convinced J.W. Pepper to make it -- the sousaphone:
LXVI. SHOSTAKOVICH, Dmitri (1906-1975)
Prelude and Fugue in C Major, Op. 87 (1950-51)
Dmitri Shostakovich, piano
(4:54)
To hear the composer play his own music is always a treat. There are several good recordings of him playing his own works.
This cycle -- and this Prelude and Fugue, in particular -- are obviously influenced by Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.
Simple, satisfying music.
LXV. BUXTEHUDE, Dieterich (1637/39-1707)
Passacaglia in D Minor, BuxWV 161 (?)
Leon W. Couch III, organ
(6:23)
In 1705, J.S. Bach, then a young man of 20, walked from Arnstadt to Lübeck, a distance of more than 400 kilmetres (250 mi), and stayed nearly three months to hear the Abendmusik, meet the pre-eminent Lübeck organist, hear him play, and as Bach explained, "to comprehend one thing and another about his art."
This beautiful performance gives rise to the thought that Bach must have gladly worn out several pairs of shoes.
Incredibly, the Korean pop group BTS inserts this music in the middle of their music video for their song Blood Sweat & Tears.
LXIII. BEETHOVEN, Ludwig van (1770-1827)
Sonata for Violin & Piano #9 in A Major ("Kreutzer") (1802-03)
1. Adagio sostenuo -- Presto -- Adagio
2. Andante con variazioni
3. Presto
David Oistrakh, violin
Lev Oborin, piano
[scrolling score]
(34:17)
Poor Louis.
He wrote masterpieces for friends, for nobility (ka-ching) -- but in this particularly case, nothing seemed to work out for him.
The sonata was originally dedicated to George Bridgetower (1778-1860), the famous Black Englishman of African descent.
Beethoven -- using a term which is considered offensive today -- wrote the following dedication:
"Mulatto Sonata composed for the mulatto Brischdauer, great madman mulatto composer."
From Wikipedia:
Shortly after completion the work was premiered by Bridgetower and Beethoven on May 24, 1803 at the Augarten Theatre at a concert that started at the unusually early hour of 8:00 A.M. Bridgetower sight-read the sonata; he had never seen the work before, and there had been no time for any rehearsal.
After the premiere performance Beethoven and Bridgetower fell out: while the two were drinking, Bridgetower apparently insulted the morals of a woman whom Beethoven cherished. Enraged, Beethoven removed the dedication of the piece, dedicating it instead to Rudolph Kreutzer, who was considered the finest violinist of the day.
There's more:
Kreutzer hated the piece and refused to play it, calling it "outrageously unintelligible."
Of course, this is around the time of composition of the Third Symphony ("Eroica") and Beethoven was exploding with a new kind of energy -- which today we call "Romantic" music.
Tolstoy wrote the steamy and censored The Kreutzer Sonata in 1889. By then people loved the sonata. But Louis had already been dead for 62 years.
**
I chose this scrolling score version not only so musicians might enjoy it, but also because it's the great David Oistrakh.
LXII. BOULEZ, Pierre (1925-2016)
Sonatine for Flute and Piano (1946)
Sophie Cherrier, flute
Sébastien Vichard, piano
(11:53)
One's experiences in childhood can have a life-long effect on later perceptions.
I was pretty young -- maybe 10 or 11 -- when I started to go to Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh and check out scores and records of all kinds of music.
LXI. MENDELSSOHN, Felix (1809-1847)
What cohones!
This 16-year-old kid decides to give a birthday present to his violin teacher, so he writes a work for double string quartet -- a very unusual combination for the time.
Not only that, but it is a work of such exquisite beauty and power that still amazes us today -- from a composer of any age!
The entire piece is an absolute joy. My favorite part is the Scherzo (22:22); said to be inspired by "Walpurgis Night's Dream" from Goethe's Faust.
The old poet's meeting with Mendelssohn (age 12) ...
CMLXVI. BRANT, Henry (1913-2008) Ice Field (2002) Cameron Carpenter, organ San Francisco Symphony Michael Tilson Thomas, cond. (24:31)
