Recently I’ve been watching some reruns of “Frasier” starring Kelsey Grammer as radio talk host Frasier Crane. In the opening episode for Season 3, Frasier has to deal with a powerful new boss, Kate Costas (played by Mercedes Ruehl) who has some problematic (to Frasier) ideas to improve his show.
At one point, Kate and Frasier argue over Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra”: Kate: Anyway, your ratings are very good. But I still think we can do better. Any ideas? [Kate takes items out of box and goes to put them on a shelf] Frasier: How to improve my show? That is a tall order. Uh. Oh, wait, you know, I was thinking of playing classical music before my intros. Let's say, perhaps, uh, Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra in D Minor. Kate: It's too highbrow. I mean, I love classical music, but to most people it's a big snore. Oh, incidentally, Bartok's Concerto is in C. Frasier: Are you sure? Kate: Positive. I put myself through college working at a classical station. Let's talk about advertising. You've got a great face. I want to see it on t-shirts. I want to see it on park benches. I even want to see it on Frisbees. Everybody in Seattle should be tossing it, wearing it, sitting on it! Frasier: Wonderful. You know, I hate to nitpick, but I'm certain that concerto's in D. I was a music minor at Harvard. Kate: It's in C. It was commissioned by Serge Kosivinsky in 1943 for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and since then it's been recorded over thirty times. Each time in C. Frasier: Well, maybe you're right. Maybe I'm right. Interestingly enough, maybe both of them were wrong? Bartok said that he called the piece a concerto rather than a symphony because of the way each section of instruments is treated in a soloistic and virtuosic way, and according to information on Wikipedia, the piece is in F minor (HERE). Others say that there is no key signature – that the piece “shifts keys” – and that nowhere does it state that it’s in C, D, or F minor. The concerto has five movements: I. Introduzione. Andante non troppo II. Giuoco delle coppie. Allegretto scherzando III. Elegia. Andante non troppo IV. Intermezzo interrotto. Allegretto V. Finale. Pesante – Presto The first movement opens very slowly and quietly with sustained notes in the low strings, and they are soon joined by tremeloes in the violins and violas. The mood is very ominous, if not Hitchcockian (i.e., Bernard Herrmann-esque). About two minutes in, the full orchestra adds to this tense tone, and though there are some lighter passages here and there, the mood throughout most of the movement is characterized by suspense and angst. The heavy tone of the concerto lightens in the second movement both in rhythm and melody in a playful scherzando. The mood isn’t joyous and light, per se, but it is a whimsical and wry piece. The featured woodwinds are wonderful. The third movement is much quieter and solemn at the start. The notes from the YouTube video state that “Bartok described the keystone third movement, ‘Elegia,’ as a ‘lugubrious death-song,’ in which unsettled ‘night music’ effects alternate with intense, prayerful supplications” – and there are, indeed, moments of intense desperation before the movement reaches its much calmer conclusion. The fourth movement opens with some cunning and clever rhythms as the time signature alternates between 2/4 and 5/8, koon followed by some spirited and mischievous passages. The movement even includes satiric treatment of the march theme from Shostakovich’s “Leningrad” Symphony. Bold French horns open the finale, and then the strings take off in a burst and blur of energy. It isn’t until about 144 measures in or so before the orchestra seems to take a breath. Soon, they’re off again, until they reach “un poco meno mosso,” “a little less motion.” At this point, the orchestra begins a fugue-like section, building on a theme introduced by the strings. Soon, though, they’re back to “Tempo I” followed by a short “tranquillo” section, and then a race to the conclusion. As one comment below the YouTube video states, Bartok’s Concerto is “a work of exhilarating color and syncopated rhythm."
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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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