Since the Fourth of July is coming up, I thought I would listen to a piece of American music this week, but what? I ran a Google-search for something like, “Best American classical music,” and I found a list from ClassicFM.com with that exact title, “The Best American Classical Music, HERE. Of the twenty selections they have listed, I’ve heard of fourteen of them, and I’ve heard thirteen of them performed. The pieces I had not heard of were there following:
I'm a fan of the music by Steve Reich, so I selected his “Different Trains” to listen to this week. I also listened to Carter’s “A Symphony of Three Orchestras,” but I will save that piece for an upcoming week. Also, before I get to Reich’s work, can I vent a little bit? Classic FM’s list of “The Best American Classical Music” included -- at spot #8 on their list of 20 works -- John Cage’s 4’ 33”. Really? 4’ 33” ranks as one of the “the best” pieces of American classical music? Here’s what ClassicFM had to say about the piece: “If you thought 4'33" was just three movements of silence, think again. John Cage, one of America's most influential 20th century composers, considered it his most important work. He was playing with the idea of what music 'is' - and as far as 4'33" is concerned, that includes any type of sound, whether it's played by an instrument or not.” So four and a half minutes of silence ranks as one of our best? This peccadillo motivated me to do two things.
Below from left to right: My new masterpiece "5x7." As you can see, this is an incredible piece, and its mood changes dramatically, depending upon which wall it is hung. If you have interest in making an offer to own this one-of-a-kind piece, please let me know a.s.a.p. -- as I am sure it will go quickly! Now, before I move on to Steve Reich's "Different Trains," here is my Top 20 list of "The Best American Classical Music" -- and please note, although I have twenty works named below, I did not rank them. The tiles highlighted in RED are also on the ClassicFM list. 1. The score from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein 2. Appalachian Spring by Aaron Copland 3. Stars & Stripes Forever by John Philip Sousa 4. Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber 5. Variations on America by Charles Ives 6. Rhapsody in Blue by George Gershwin 7. Suite of Old American Dances by Robert Russell Bennett 8. Piano Concerto in F by George Gershwin 9. Scene d'Amour from "Vertigo" by Bernard Herrmann 10. Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin 11. Ashokan Farewell by Jay Ungar 12 Beautiful Dreamer by Stephen Foster 13. Theme from The Magnificent Seven by Elmer Bernstein 14. Rodeo by Aaron Copland 15. The soundtrack to Star Wars' "A New Hope" by John Wiliams 16. Three Dances from "On the Town" by Leonard Bernstein 17. Washington Post March by John Philip Sousa 18. The Desert Music by Steve Reich 19. Overture to Candide by Leonard Bernstein 20. Breakfast Machine by Danny Elfman* *Hey, if ClassicFM can have 4' 33" on their list, then I can have Breakfast Machine on mine! If you had to identify twenty pieces as the "best American classical music," what would you include?
Okay, enough of all that. The time has come to discuss the piece at hand, Steve Reich's "Different Trains." First, let me say that the music of Steve Reich is not for everyone. The music. The music of Steve Reich. The music -- the music -- the music of Steve Reich is not -- is not -- for everyone. Is Not -- the music -- is not for everyone, everyone. Not for -- everyone. Okay, I’m being silly. However, if you’re not familiar with the music of Steve Reich, it is classified as “minimalism,” and I’m sure that the style does not appeal to everyone. I Google-searched “elements of minimalism” and I found this:
As you have probably guessed from my bit of silliness above, “Different Trains” is a minimalist piece, and it incorporates the elements of minimalism outline above -- so I'm sure it won't appeal to some (many?). The work consists of three movements:
During World War II, Reich made several train trips between New York and Los Angeles. Years later, he pondered the fact that, as a Jew, had he been in Europe instead of the United States at that time, he might have been travelling in Holocaust trains. This idea motivated him to compose “Different Trains,” a piece for string quartet and tape which includes recorded speech as a source for some of the melodies. The recorded speech is taken from interviews with people in the United States and Europe about the years leading up to, during, and immediately after World War II. More information about the interviews can be found on Wikipedia, HERE. The first movement begins by jumping in mid-trip with a train rushing ahead, lapping up the miles (to borrow Emily Dickinson’s description of a train, “I like to see it lap the Miles / And lick the Valleys up"). The rhythms, instrumentation, and sound effects most definitely convey the sound and feel of a train. And then comes the first recording of taped conversation: From Chicago From Chicago From Chicago From Chicago to New York. From Chicago to New York. From Chicago From Chicago From Chicago to New York From Chicago to New York From Chicago to New York From Chicago From Chicago to New York From Chicago Ugh. If I could make one change to "Different Trains," it would be to get rid of the recorded statements. They are monotonous, and they get in the way of truly appreciating the power of the piece. Yes, phrases of melody match the spoken pitches of lines like “one of the fastest trains” and “1939,” but they really do intrude with what could be a profound listening experience. One interesting feature of the minimalist approach with “Different Trains” is that trains really do generate steady beats with constant rhythms. They really do create specific and perpetual pitches with nominal changes. However, people don’t talk in fragmented and repeated phrases, and the repetitive lines detract from the powerful pulse and pitch of the piece. Plus, the phrases are banal and innocuous. They are more meaningful in the second movement, During the War (with lines like “Germans invaded Hungary” and “They tattooed a number on our arm”), but I think the music alone -- with the added sound effects of sirens and alarms -- leads to a more profound understanding of what is being conveyed. Maybe performance venues should just include the interviewee’s statements in the program notes? The intrusion by the lyrics is true for the third movement as well. The music conveys the speakers’ uncertainty about the end of war (“Then the war was over,” “Are you sure?” “The war is over”) and the moods and memories that follow in the wake of the horrific war. This site, HERE, includes all of the lines spoken in “Different Trains,” and the person who posted them concluded, “You can see that this music actually tells a story, although by fragmented sentences.” I think the music tells the story, and the fragmented sentences only get in the way. Again, having them printed in a program and then letting the music tell the story would be more powerful. Because of the intrusive lyrics, I have rated “Different Trains” BLUE. Minus the lyrics, I would have rated it higher.
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Since this week began with Father’s Day, I thought I would listen to something by Joseph Haydn, affectionately called “Papa Haydn” by many.
Why is he called “Papa Haydn”? According to “10 Facts about Franz Joseph Haydn” (HERE), he is called “Papa” for many reasons. First and foremost, though, he is known as “Papa” because he regularly had to “care for his often mischievous orchestra musicians who frequently needed saving from trouble while in the court of Prince Esterhazy.” He is also known as the “Father of the Symphony” and the “Father of the String Quartet.” I decided that I would listen to a symphony by Haydn since he wrote 106 of them, but which one? Since I’ve only heard one of them, I had 105 to choose from. Well, in truth, I have heard various Haydn symphonies on the radio. I’m just not sure I could tell you which ones. No one symphony -- other than the Symphony No. 94 in G Major, the “Surprise Symphony” -- really sticks out in my mind. So which symphony to listen to? I found this article, “We made this guy listen to all 104 Haydn symphonies and put them in order of greatness,” (HERE), and he rated No. 40 in F Sharp Minor, “La Passione,” as the best -- so I decided to give it a go. Here’s what the author said: “When a truly dark, complex work leaps out of a musical canon so often reliant on frolic and joy, it’s a big deal. ‘La Passione’ is perhaps Haydn’s most troubling symphony and, therefore, one of his most effective. It’s all in F minor, it’s all morose, it’s all deep, it’s all sweetly shot through with meek sunshine. You can’t deny the emotional power of this symphony, and if you do, well, you’re just doing it wrong, aren’t you?” It is true that -- while many of Haydn's symphonies convey "frolic and joy" -- the essence of this symphony is imbued with melancholy. Soft quarter notes in the strings open the first, adagio movement, and they immediately set a somber, elegiac tone. As a matter of fact, there are passages just before each repeat where the lower strings play short eighth notes as the violins answer with two sixteenth notes, and it very reminiscent of a similar pattern in the Lacrimosa of Mozart’s Requiem. The second movement, marked “Allegro di molto” -- literally “cheerful by a lot” -- definitely picks up the pace; however, the F Minor key continues the serious tone, and it is by no means “cheerful.” Could this buoyant but bleak tone in some way articulate what Emily Dickinson meant when she wrote, “The bustle in a house / The morning after death / Is solemnest of industries / Enacted upon earth.” There is most definitely the solemnest of bustle throughout the entire movement. The third movement, a minuet, continues in F Minor, so the melancholy tone continues as well. However, there is a 40 bar trio in F Major, so for a few brief moments a bit of optimistic geniality emerges. The short (three and a half minute) finale, marked Presto, picks up the speed yet again. Still in F Minor, the somber bustle of the piece rushes to its end, perhaps suggesting the final four lines of Dickinson’s poem quoted above: “The sweeping up the heart / And putting love away / We shall not want to use again / Until eternity.” I did enjoy this symphony. Though it is not as memorable as many of the most famous symphonies in the classical music canon (Beethoven’s 5th, Tchaikovsky’s 6th, Mozart’s 41st, etc.), it certainly was an interesting and satisfying piece.
Written in 1893, the String Quartet in F Major was composed by Antonin Dvořák when he was vacationing in the Czech community of Spillville, Iowa. It has been nicknamed (not by the composer) the “American” for its presumed association with American folk songs, African-American music and spirituals, and perhaps even a Native American tune.
However, British music critic Paul Griffith doubted specific American influences, and he once wrote, “In fact the only American thing about the work is that it was written there." Others have shared his skepticism about the connection to Americana in the piece. Still, Dvořák did write in a letter, “As for my new Symphony (which he himself named 'From the New World'), the F major String Quartet and the Quintet, I should never have written these works ‘just so’ if I hadn’t seen America.” Although I have not been able to find specific references to American tunes, folk songs, or spirituals among the passages within the four movements, portions of the quartet do most certainly evoke the sound and character of 19th century America. As a matter of fact, this quartet calls to mind more about Walt Whitman and his time than Gustav Holst’s “Walt Whitman Overture” which I reviewed four weeks ago, HERE. Dvořák’s quartet is composed of four movements:
I enjoyed the quartet very much, and to be honest, some of it sounded vaguely familiar. Did that have something to do with potential connections to American folk songs and spirituals? Or had I actually heard this piece before -- maybe as a selection on the radio as I’ve had it playing in the background? I know that I’ve never heard the quartet played live in concert, nor have I owned an album or CD that featured this work. The first movement opens with fluttering violins, and three measures in, the viola introduces a spirited and folksy melody that is echoed and developed throughout the piece by all four instruments. A second soft and sweet melody begins about a minute and a half into the work, and later, after a short fugato bridge, the movement repeats and restates these melodies. In typical fashion, the second movement slows things down with a bit of melancholy expressed first by the violin. The lament is then shared and developed throughout the piece. Still, in the vein of a spiritual, the tone conveys joy even when speaking of sadness, and it never conveys hopelessness. The tempo picks up again in the third movement with a cheerful refrain. There’s a bit of drama here and there with shifts to passages in a minor key, but overall the verve and buoyancy continue through the third and fourth movements. The fourth movement is bright and jaunty to be sure. So, did Dvorak allude to specific folk songs or spirituals within his quartet? Or like music critic Paul Griffith wrote, is “the only American thing about the work is that it was written there”? The quartet does convey a sense of Americana, but the architecture (or -- if you prefer -- the grammar) of the piece isn’t purely American in the way of something like Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring” or -- to cite a more modern example -- a string quartet by Mark O’Connor. O’Connor’s String Quartet No. 2 (nicknamed “Bluegrass”), HERE, is so American, in fact, that he probably should have called it his “Fiddle Concerto No. 2.” An article on Wikipedia about Dvorak’s quartet does note, “While the influence of American folk songs is not explicit in the quartet, the impact of Dvořák's quartet on later American compositions is clear. Following Dvořák, a number of American composers turned their hands to the string quartet genre, including John Knowles Paine, Horatio Parker, George Whitefield Chadwick, and Arthur Foote. The article gives the final word to British composer and conductor Neil Butterworth who wrote, "The extensive use of folk-songs in 20th century American music and the 'wide-open-spaces' atmosphere of 'Western' film scores may have at least some of their origins" in Dvořák's new American style.
A few months ago -- I believe it was about the time I reviewed Paganinni’s Violin Concerto No. 1 (HERE) -- I researched various “Top Ten” inventories of violin concertos,” and of course, Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 was on every list. In some cases his concerto topped the countdowns as the “greatest” violin concerto of all time. That got me to thinking -- do I know any other works by Max Bruch? Sadly, I couldn’t name one. I wondered if he had written a piano concerto as admired as his violin concerto, so I checked this inventory of his works -- HERE -- and lo and behold, there was no piano concerto. However, there was one concerto for two pianos and orchestra (in A Flat minor), so I decided to listen to that this week. As you can see by my rating below, I loved it. The concerto, which runs only about 28 minutes, is comprised of four movements: I. Andante sostenuto II. Andante con moto – Allegro molto vivace III. Adagio ma non troppo IV. Andante – Allegro In a word, the concerto is lovely. The first movement -- lovely. The second movement -- lovely. The third movement -- very lovely. The fourth movement -- well, you get the picture. It’s lovely. The first movement of Bruch’s concerto opens with powerful notes played in octaves on both pianos -- similar to (but pre-dating) Rachmanioff’s Prelude in C Sharp Minor -- as if tolling the news of some tragedy (the piece is in A flat minor, after all). Soon the full orchestra joins in to accentuate the drama, until thirteen measures into the piece when one of the two pianos offers a tranquil lament with a simple melody of single notes. Four measures later the second piano joins with a parallel melody, and only slowly is depth added with additional harmonies. Soon the orchestra underscores both pianos, and the piece builds to a somber dirge. The powerful opening notes of the concerto are repeated often and effectively by the strings and brass as the pianos underscore the elegiac chords, and soon the movement resolves itself with diminished volume but with profuse sorrow. The majority of the second movement is spirited and at times joyous, marked “Allegro molto Vivace,” but only after a slower and serene segue provided by the strings and woodwinds opens the work. Although there are a few passages with more of a worried tone, the timbre of the movement is in clear contrast to that of the first. The slower third movement, marked “expressivo” or “molto expressivo” (very expressive) throughout, is lush and emotional. The piece is beautiful. In the final movement, the orchestra echoes the pianos’ powerful chords from the concerto’s opening measures. The tone here is more promising and grand. The final passages are marked “pesante,” meaning “heavy and ponderous,” but to me, the conclusion sounds more optimistic and triumphant. I don’t know the “how and why” Bruch structured his concerto like this, but the dirge-like opening, the spirited shift, the return to the “expressivo” tenor, and the triumphant finale called to mind for me a poem by Emily Dickinson, “If anybody’s friend be dead.” More on that -- coming soon. Stay tuned!
To me, the tone of the fourth movement called to mind the first four lines from a different poem by Dickinson:
This World is not Conclusion. A Species stands beyond – Invisible, as Music – But positive, as Sound – Although the main focus of "If anybody's friend be dead" and Bruch's concerto deal with grief and loss, the final movement of Bruch's work suggests the optimism of the four additional lines by Dickinson -- that "this World is not Conclusion," and a lost friend surely "stands beyond" in some better place -- as "positive as Sound." |
A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
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