So far for this blog I’ve listened to pieces from 1607 (Monteverdi’s “L’Orfeo”) to 1941 (Bernard Herrmann’s Symphony No. 1), so for this week I thought I would select a more modern piece. Last June I took the Interlochen Arts “30-Day Classical Music Challenge,” and on June 8th I tweeted my response to “a song you discovered this month” (below), and that song happened to be Bryce Dessner’s “Concerto for Two Pianos.” I had heard it on the radio a few days before. Of course, I couldn’t choose that concerto for this blog because I had, in fact, heard the piece, so I ran a Google-search on other works by Dessner and I landed on a piece for string orchestra called “Réponse Lutosławski.” At that time, I discovered that Dessner composed “Réponse Lutosławski” as a homage to Witold Lutosławski’s seminal composition “Musique Funèbre,” another work for string orchestra completed in 1958 to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Béla Bartók’s death.
Lutosławski wrote the work in tribute to Bartók’s work as a pioneer in ethnomusicology and for his experimentation in tonality and form. In reading about “Musique Funèbre,” I came across this information in an article by Michael Klein for the American Symphony Orchestra: “Lutoslawski wrote that after a performance of his Symphony No. 1 in 1949, the Polish minister of culture ‘stormed into the conductor’s room and in front of a dozen people announced that a composer like me ought to be thrown under the wheels of a streetcar. It is interesting that this was not meant as a joke—he was really furious!’ The seriousness of communist control of music had become evident in 1936, when Stalin’s government attacked Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth as a formalist work. In truth, the term ‘formalism’ was ill-defined, allowing officials to censor anything they didn’t understand.” Lutosławski’s words called to mind Vladimir Lenin’s quote, “We must not stand with folded hands and let chaos develop as it pleases. We must systemically guide this process and form its result.” Can you imagine an artist having to deal with a “Minister of Culture” who imposes standards and control over the creative spirit so that the government can “guide the process” and “form the result”? Where would classical music be today were it not for the artistic advances and works of creative pioneers like Bartok and “his experimentation in tonality and form”? In “Réponse Lutosławski,” Dessner paid tribute to Lutosławski. In “Musique Funèbre,” Lutoslawski paid tribute to Bartok. To whom might Bartok have paid homage? Most certainly it would have been someone who bucked the Ministers of Culture, the imposed standards, and the authoritative structures of control. I realize that I’m veering off track for a bit before getting to Dessner’s “Réponse Lutosławski,” but the idea of one composer influencing another who inspired yet another, reminded me of a favorite poem of mine by E. E. Cummings, “old age sticks" (below on the right).
Witold Lutosławski paid tribute to Bartók in “Musique Funèbre,” and Dessner honored Lutosławski in “Réponse Lutosławski,” a five movement piece for string orchestra co-commissioned by the National Audiovisual Institute of Poland and the Mexico National Orchestra. It was first performed by the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra at Teatr Wielki-Polish National Opera in Warsaw, Poland on November 29 2014. In the video at the top of this post on the right, the movements begin at these times:
I listened to the piece this week (I also discovered that I could follow along with Dessner’s score, HERE), and as you can see by my rating below, I loved it. The first movement, “Resonance,” is as haunting as it is melancholy, but it does not convey a feeling of being distraught. Instead, the rhythmic pulse of the slow triplets and eighth notes under the sliding tones in the upper registers of the violin are steady and calming. There is a steady feel in the fugue-like “Preludio,” too, although there are subtle disturbances brought on later by dotted eighth notes and ricocheted sixteenth notes. The mood tightens as the movemet nears its end with “soft agitations,” “rhythms barely articulated,” and effective uses of sforzandos. “Des Traces” begins with a steady drip of sixteenth notes played by the violins in a round, and soon mists a mournful melody by the viola. Depth is added with the cellos and basses as the melancholy continues; however, after a key change, the mood changes significantly to one of determination and grit, affirmed by a corybantic incantation on the violin and percussive bouncing of bows on the viola and slapping of wood on the cellos and basses. Later, the cellos pick up the incantation to drive the piece forward, and finally some lengthy half notes and whole notes allow you to catch your breath. “Warsaw Canon” is deferential and solemn, almost prayer-like. The final movement, “Residue,” begins with a dissonant chord, soon followed by a lament on the violin. Slow, weighty, dissonant chords continue throughout this movement, and they reminded me of the eerie moaning sounds caused by the wind through the organ in the home of Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard” -- and talk about a perfect, doleful image of “residue” as “Réponse Lutosławski” concludes but the fading star of Norma Desmond in her deteriorating mansion. True to E. E. Cummings’ intimation of “owing old,” Dessner said of Lutosławski, “I like to think that his music opened a window in a certain direction for me, or pushed open a door, through which I could then pass and take my journey with the music.” Most certainly, the work of Dessner will open a window or unbolt a door for another up-and-coming composer.
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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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