Albert Roussel (1869-1937)
Bacchus et Ariane, Op.43
Act 1: Prelude - Games of the young men and women - Dance of the Labyrinth - Bacchus appears - Dance of Bacchus
Act 2: Prelude (Ariadne sleeps) - Ariadne awakes - The kiss - Bacchus’s spell - Parade of the Worshippers of Bacchus- Dance of Ariadne - Dance of Ariadne and Bacchus - Bacchanale - Coronation of Ariadne.
Roussel was born in to trade, and suffered a series of early bereavements: both his parents were dead by the time he was eight, and he was moved between various relatives as a boy, from grandparents who also died, eventually to his maternal aunt. He showed some early signs of musical talent and had lessons from the parish organist, but his real strength was in mathematics. He left home at 15 to study in Paris, and at 17 enrolled in the French Naval College. He spent seven years as a midshipman, and only decided to pursue a career in music at 25. His earliest attempt at composition is a fantasy for violin and piano, written in 1892 while he was serving on the naval ship Melpomène. Following a period of leave in 1894 during which he studied with Julien Koszu, who urged him to settle in Paris, he resigned his commission and moved to the capital. He studied with Vincent D’Indy, who soon entrusted his pupil to take his counterpoint classes for him. Roussel thus became the teacher of Varèse and Satie among others.
His relatively late decision to become a musician perhaps accounts for the fact that his earliest music seems torn between influences: his music owes something both to the French symphonic tradition exemplified by his teacher D’Indy, while also drawing on the innovations of his contemporaries Debussy and Ravel. Asian and Far Eastern music also left a profound impression on him when he encountered it on his voyages with the navy.
One of his earliest major successes as a composer was his first ballet, Le festin de l'araignée, premiered in 1913. By the time he came to write his second, Bacchus et Ariane, Roussel was in his early 60s and at the height of his career, having recently travelled to the U.S.A. to hear Serge Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony première his Third Symphony. His music by now had evolved from the Debussy influenced impressionism of his youth to a more neo-classical style. His orchestral writing retains its sumptuousness, as Bacchus et Ariane amply demonstrates, but this is paired with a new clarity of line and a rhythmic vigour that acknowledges the influence of Stravinsky’s ballets.
The plot of Bacchus et Ariane is fairly minimal. Prior to the events depicted in the ballet, Ariadne, daughter of King Minos, has fled her home of Crete with Theseus, whom she has helped in his quest to kill the Minotaur that lived in the labyrinth built by her father. The ballet opens with a scene of young men and maidens dancing and celebrating Theseus’s defeat of the Minotaur and escape from the Labyrinth to the island of Naxos. Theseus and his comrades reenact his adventures on Crete. The god Bacchus appears, disguised, and envelops Ariadne in his black cloak, causing her to faint. Theseus and his men rush at Bacchus, but fall back when he reveals his identity. He commands them to leave the island and claims Ariadne for his wife. He enters her dreams and dances with her, then lays her down on the rock where she sleeps.
Act 2 begins with a prelude depicting the sleeping Ariadne. She awakens, and sees Theseus’s ship sailing away. Believing herself to be alone and abandoned, she attempts to throw herself into the sea, but falls instead into the arms of Bacchus. Bacchus and Ariadne reprise their dream-dance, now awake, in music of ever intensifying eroticism. At the climax of their dance, Bacchus kisses Ariadne and transforms her into an immortal. Bacchus’s followers appear for a final wild dance, before Bacchus leads Ariadne to the highest rock, and crowns her with stars.
Ibert: La ballade de la geôle de Reading
Jacques Ibert (1890-1962)
La ballade de la geôle de Reading
Oscar Wilde’s poem 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' was written in exile after his release from prison in 1897 and was the last major work he completed. He had been sentenced in 1895 to two years’ hard labour after being found guilty of gross indecency (the legal term at the time for homosexual acts). By the time he was released his health had deteriorated severely and he would die three years later. In prison he had been addressed not by his name but by his cell number: Prisoner C.3.3 (Block C, Landing 3, Cell 3), and the Ballad was initially published under the pseudonym “C.3.3”. The first edition of 800 copies sold out within a week. The third edition, a limited signed run of 99, first revealed the identity of the author, but it was not until the seventh edition in 1899 replaced the number with Wilde’s name that the identity of its author became widely known.
The inspiration and dedicatee of the poem was Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a soldier in the Royal Horse Guards who had been convicted of murdering his wife. He was also imprisoned at Reading and hanged there in 1896 while Wide was resident. Wilde’s poem makes no judgement of the inmates or the laws that brought them to prison , but reflects on how the brutality of prison dehumanises its inmates. Wooldridge's experience is widened to stand for all prisoners, including Wilde himself: he famously observes that “each man kills the thing he loves” (itself an allusion to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice).
Ibert’s orchestral work inspired by Wilde’s poem was written between 1920 and 1922. He had studied at the Paris Conservatoire until the First World War intervened. Ibert worked as a nurse and stretcher bearer at the front and later as a naval officer at Dunkirk. Despite this interruption to his studies he still managed to win the coveted Prix de Rome at his first attempt in 1919. La ballade de la geôle de Reading is thus the work of a young man, still absorbing the influences of Debussy and Dukas, but filled with confidence, and undoubtedly drawn to the subject matter buy his own experience of the brutality of war. Its première in October 1922 was the first public concert to feature his work and established him as a major composer. In 1937 it was choreographed and presented as a ballet at the Opéra Comiquei. Ibert’s music has taken rather longer to cross the channel: tonight’s performance is the first time that La ballade de la geôle de Reading has been performed in the U.K.
The work is divided into three sections which run without a break. Each of them is headed by translated quotations from Wilde’s poem. The brooding opening movement sets the scene, portraying the oppressive prison and its inmates. Strange limpid interludes suggest the “little tent of blue / Which prisoners call the sky.” The second part evokes the terrors of night, when distant, disembodied sounds seem to suggest ghosts and spirits haunting the prison: “in ghostly rout they trod a saraband... And loud they sang, For they sang to wake the dead.” The final section returns to the mood of the opening, and builds to a passionate outburst before sinking back into Stygian mist. It is headed by lines relating to the execution of Woodridge, and his burial: “The warders stripped him of his clothes, And gave him to the flies... And there, till Christ call forth the dead, In silence let him lie.”
La ballade de la geôle de Reading
Oscar Wilde’s poem 'The Ballad of Reading Gaol' was written in exile after his release from prison in 1897 and was the last major work he completed. He had been sentenced in 1895 to two years’ hard labour after being found guilty of gross indecency (the legal term at the time for homosexual acts). By the time he was released his health had deteriorated severely and he would die three years later. In prison he had been addressed not by his name but by his cell number: Prisoner C.3.3 (Block C, Landing 3, Cell 3), and the Ballad was initially published under the pseudonym “C.3.3”. The first edition of 800 copies sold out within a week. The third edition, a limited signed run of 99, first revealed the identity of the author, but it was not until the seventh edition in 1899 replaced the number with Wilde’s name that the identity of its author became widely known.
The inspiration and dedicatee of the poem was Charles Thomas Wooldridge, a soldier in the Royal Horse Guards who had been convicted of murdering his wife. He was also imprisoned at Reading and hanged there in 1896 while Wide was resident. Wilde’s poem makes no judgement of the inmates or the laws that brought them to prison , but reflects on how the brutality of prison dehumanises its inmates. Wooldridge's experience is widened to stand for all prisoners, including Wilde himself: he famously observes that “each man kills the thing he loves” (itself an allusion to Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice).
Ibert’s orchestral work inspired by Wilde’s poem was written between 1920 and 1922. He had studied at the Paris Conservatoire until the First World War intervened. Ibert worked as a nurse and stretcher bearer at the front and later as a naval officer at Dunkirk. Despite this interruption to his studies he still managed to win the coveted Prix de Rome at his first attempt in 1919. La ballade de la geôle de Reading is thus the work of a young man, still absorbing the influences of Debussy and Dukas, but filled with confidence, and undoubtedly drawn to the subject matter buy his own experience of the brutality of war. Its première in October 1922 was the first public concert to feature his work and established him as a major composer. In 1937 it was choreographed and presented as a ballet at the Opéra Comiquei. Ibert’s music has taken rather longer to cross the channel: tonight’s performance is the first time that La ballade de la geôle de Reading has been performed in the U.K.
The work is divided into three sections which run without a break. Each of them is headed by translated quotations from Wilde’s poem. The brooding opening movement sets the scene, portraying the oppressive prison and its inmates. Strange limpid interludes suggest the “little tent of blue / Which prisoners call the sky.” The second part evokes the terrors of night, when distant, disembodied sounds seem to suggest ghosts and spirits haunting the prison: “in ghostly rout they trod a saraband... And loud they sang, For they sang to wake the dead.” The final section returns to the mood of the opening, and builds to a passionate outburst before sinking back into Stygian mist. It is headed by lines relating to the execution of Woodridge, and his burial: “The warders stripped him of his clothes, And gave him to the flies... And there, till Christ call forth the dead, In silence let him lie.”
Chabrier: España
Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894)
España
Chabrier was raised in the Auvergne. He showed an early gift for music and was composing at 14, but his family were lawyers and tradesmen by trade and he duly followed his father's footsteps, gaining a job at the Ministry of the Interior in 1861 which he held for 19 years. His frustration at the restrictions his work put on his burgeoning composing career grew gradually. During the 1870s he began a number of stage works, but only completed one, L’étoile, which was successfully staged in 1877. In 1880 he heard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde for the first time, and within months resigned his post to concentrate on music.
Chabrier composed España after a holiday in Spain in 1882. It is based on two dance forms that he encountered there: the lively Jota and the more sensuous Malagueña. It was originally titled Jota before finding its final title at its completion in October 1883. On hearing it, the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla said that no Spaniard had composed a finer evocation of the Jota. It rapidly spread through the salons and drawing rooms of Europe via a number of arrangements and made Chabrier internationally famous.
Chabrier is today known almost exclusively for España, and familiarity has perhaps dulled our reaction to it. What is generally considered now to be an attractive piece of light orchestral music was declared by Gustav Mahler introducing it to the players of the New York Philharmonic as nothing less than "the beginnings of modern music." Renoir's wife Aline meanwhile recalled hearing Chabrier playing it on the piano: "it sounded as though a hurricane had been let loose."
España
Chabrier was raised in the Auvergne. He showed an early gift for music and was composing at 14, but his family were lawyers and tradesmen by trade and he duly followed his father's footsteps, gaining a job at the Ministry of the Interior in 1861 which he held for 19 years. His frustration at the restrictions his work put on his burgeoning composing career grew gradually. During the 1870s he began a number of stage works, but only completed one, L’étoile, which was successfully staged in 1877. In 1880 he heard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde for the first time, and within months resigned his post to concentrate on music.
Chabrier composed España after a holiday in Spain in 1882. It is based on two dance forms that he encountered there: the lively Jota and the more sensuous Malagueña. It was originally titled Jota before finding its final title at its completion in October 1883. On hearing it, the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla said that no Spaniard had composed a finer evocation of the Jota. It rapidly spread through the salons and drawing rooms of Europe via a number of arrangements and made Chabrier internationally famous.
Chabrier is today known almost exclusively for España, and familiarity has perhaps dulled our reaction to it. What is generally considered now to be an attractive piece of light orchestral music was declared by Gustav Mahler introducing it to the players of the New York Philharmonic as nothing less than "the beginnings of modern music." Renoir's wife Aline meanwhile recalled hearing Chabrier playing it on the piano: "it sounded as though a hurricane had been let loose."
Beethoven: Symphony No.7
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Symphony No. 7 in A, Op.92
The first performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony on 8 December 1812 was one of the greatest triumphs of his career. The occasion was a benefit concert for soldier wounded at the battle of Hanau. In the way of early 19th century concerts, the programme was exceptionally long, and as well as the Seventh included the premier of his Eighth Symphony. Both were received well (and the Seventh’ second movement proved popular enough that it was encored), although it was the potboiler “Battle Symphony” that really attracted attention, celebrating Wellington’s recent victory at Vitoria, a turning point in the Napoleonic Wars.
Beethoven was certainly well-acquainted with the course of the wars. An avowed supporter of the Republican revolution in France, he had originally dedicated his Third Symphony to Napoleon, only to strike the dedication from the title page when Napoleon declared himself Emperor. He had also suffered in 1809 when Napoleon’s forces occupied Vienna. Already suffering deteriorating hearing, he complained that the noise of shelling was accelerating his descent into deafness.
Life in an occupied city was difficult enough, but Beethoven was also wrestling with poor health and depression. In 1811 on the advice of his doctor he went to stay for six months at the spa town of Teplice in Bohemia. The break evidently did some good: on his return to Vienna in the winter he began work on his Seventh Symphony. However, his health remained poor enough that his doctor ordered him back to Teplice in summer 1812. It was here that he wrote his famous letter addressed to “The Immortal Beloved”: a passionate love letter, never sent. Speculation continues to this day about the intended recipient. It is an extraordinary document, that reveals a man in emotional disarray, torn between his evident desire for the intended recipient and a conviction that his vocation as a composer means he cannot commit to a relationship.
Beethoven may have been filled with doubt and depression, but the Seventh Symphony is a statement of absolute conviction. It is characterised by a rhythmic obsessiveness that is relentless even by Beethoven’s standards. Coupled with this is a strong tendency to build structures on drones or repeated bass figures, something also heard in a number of folksong arrangements Beethoven made at the time. The combination of obsessive repetition and abrupt, violent changes of mood and texture led some to speculate that he had composed the symphony while drunk. His contemporary Weber went as far as to suggest that passages such as the coda to the first movement, in which cellos and basses waver around a drone for a full 22 bars, demonstrated that Beethoven was “ripe for the madhouse.”
The first movement’s slow introduction is on such an expansive scale that it might almost be considered a movement in itself. It reaches a climax and dies away to a moment of indecision, one of those moments where the listener is almost put into the mind of the composer: an idea is repeated, turned, and gradually changed until it becomes the rhythm that dominates the main part of the movement. This begins quietly and innocuously before erupting into a forceful galop that hardly lets up.
The second movement is similarly built on an obsessive repeated rhythm. At its first performance it was taken to be a funeral march for the dead of the Napoleonic Wars, and in fact its structure closely resembles the funeral march from his Third Symphony: a sombre opening alternating with a gentler more pastoral idea. Beethoven also borrows another idea from his Third here, in presenting the accompaniment first, before the theme appears winding its way over the dactyls of the bass.
The third movement is an altogether earthier dance. Its opening "scherzo" [in Italian, literally "joke"] section is a rumbustious triple time canter, full of unexpected twists and turns. The contrasting "trio" section’s theme was originally sketched in 1806 and intended for a string quartet. It derives from a Lower Austrian pilgrims’ hymn tune and builds from a quiet prayer to a full blooded cry, as though the congregation has joined in. Both sections are reprised before a final outing of the opening. At the very end Beethoven suggests that he might even go round again, before dismissing the idea with a series of short sharp chords.
The finale picks up where the third movement left off, and then proceeds without respite. It is not so much the speed of the music (Beethoven wrote plenty of faster music) so much as its muscularity that creates its sense of unstoppable force. How deaf Beethoven was by 1811 is a matter of debate; his pupil Czerny maintained that he was still able to hear relatively well and only succumbed to profound deafness later. But he certainly pushes his orchestra here to the extreme, and having exhorted the players to produce an almost unyielding fortissimo [“strongest” or “loudest”] in the final bars he demands for the first time that they produce a triple-forte, effectively demanding that they play “louder than possible.”
In 1816 The Seventh Symphony broke new ground by being the first of his symphonies to be published as a score. This was a significant event: music had hitherto been published purely in the form of instrumental parts, intended for performers. Increasingly, an expanding middle-class audience had the means and desire to study orchestral works. This marked the birth of the notion of a canon of “great works” that largely persists today. As Beethoven’s letters to his publisher complaining of the many mistakes in the score attest, he found the experience thoroughly aggravating. However, given his appalling handwriting, it is perhaps appropriate to spare a sympathetic thought not only for the challenge presented to the musicians, but also the no less Herculean task faced by Beethoven’s copyists.
Symphony No. 7 in A, Op.92
- Poco sostenuto – Vivace
- Allegretto
- Presto
- Allegro con brio
The first performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony on 8 December 1812 was one of the greatest triumphs of his career. The occasion was a benefit concert for soldier wounded at the battle of Hanau. In the way of early 19th century concerts, the programme was exceptionally long, and as well as the Seventh included the premier of his Eighth Symphony. Both were received well (and the Seventh’ second movement proved popular enough that it was encored), although it was the potboiler “Battle Symphony” that really attracted attention, celebrating Wellington’s recent victory at Vitoria, a turning point in the Napoleonic Wars.
Beethoven was certainly well-acquainted with the course of the wars. An avowed supporter of the Republican revolution in France, he had originally dedicated his Third Symphony to Napoleon, only to strike the dedication from the title page when Napoleon declared himself Emperor. He had also suffered in 1809 when Napoleon’s forces occupied Vienna. Already suffering deteriorating hearing, he complained that the noise of shelling was accelerating his descent into deafness.
Life in an occupied city was difficult enough, but Beethoven was also wrestling with poor health and depression. In 1811 on the advice of his doctor he went to stay for six months at the spa town of Teplice in Bohemia. The break evidently did some good: on his return to Vienna in the winter he began work on his Seventh Symphony. However, his health remained poor enough that his doctor ordered him back to Teplice in summer 1812. It was here that he wrote his famous letter addressed to “The Immortal Beloved”: a passionate love letter, never sent. Speculation continues to this day about the intended recipient. It is an extraordinary document, that reveals a man in emotional disarray, torn between his evident desire for the intended recipient and a conviction that his vocation as a composer means he cannot commit to a relationship.
Beethoven may have been filled with doubt and depression, but the Seventh Symphony is a statement of absolute conviction. It is characterised by a rhythmic obsessiveness that is relentless even by Beethoven’s standards. Coupled with this is a strong tendency to build structures on drones or repeated bass figures, something also heard in a number of folksong arrangements Beethoven made at the time. The combination of obsessive repetition and abrupt, violent changes of mood and texture led some to speculate that he had composed the symphony while drunk. His contemporary Weber went as far as to suggest that passages such as the coda to the first movement, in which cellos and basses waver around a drone for a full 22 bars, demonstrated that Beethoven was “ripe for the madhouse.”
The first movement’s slow introduction is on such an expansive scale that it might almost be considered a movement in itself. It reaches a climax and dies away to a moment of indecision, one of those moments where the listener is almost put into the mind of the composer: an idea is repeated, turned, and gradually changed until it becomes the rhythm that dominates the main part of the movement. This begins quietly and innocuously before erupting into a forceful galop that hardly lets up.
The second movement is similarly built on an obsessive repeated rhythm. At its first performance it was taken to be a funeral march for the dead of the Napoleonic Wars, and in fact its structure closely resembles the funeral march from his Third Symphony: a sombre opening alternating with a gentler more pastoral idea. Beethoven also borrows another idea from his Third here, in presenting the accompaniment first, before the theme appears winding its way over the dactyls of the bass.
The third movement is an altogether earthier dance. Its opening "scherzo" [in Italian, literally "joke"] section is a rumbustious triple time canter, full of unexpected twists and turns. The contrasting "trio" section’s theme was originally sketched in 1806 and intended for a string quartet. It derives from a Lower Austrian pilgrims’ hymn tune and builds from a quiet prayer to a full blooded cry, as though the congregation has joined in. Both sections are reprised before a final outing of the opening. At the very end Beethoven suggests that he might even go round again, before dismissing the idea with a series of short sharp chords.
The finale picks up where the third movement left off, and then proceeds without respite. It is not so much the speed of the music (Beethoven wrote plenty of faster music) so much as its muscularity that creates its sense of unstoppable force. How deaf Beethoven was by 1811 is a matter of debate; his pupil Czerny maintained that he was still able to hear relatively well and only succumbed to profound deafness later. But he certainly pushes his orchestra here to the extreme, and having exhorted the players to produce an almost unyielding fortissimo [“strongest” or “loudest”] in the final bars he demands for the first time that they produce a triple-forte, effectively demanding that they play “louder than possible.”
In 1816 The Seventh Symphony broke new ground by being the first of his symphonies to be published as a score. This was a significant event: music had hitherto been published purely in the form of instrumental parts, intended for performers. Increasingly, an expanding middle-class audience had the means and desire to study orchestral works. This marked the birth of the notion of a canon of “great works” that largely persists today. As Beethoven’s letters to his publisher complaining of the many mistakes in the score attest, he found the experience thoroughly aggravating. However, given his appalling handwriting, it is perhaps appropriate to spare a sympathetic thought not only for the challenge presented to the musicians, but also the no less Herculean task faced by Beethoven’s copyists.
Stravinsky: Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments
Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)
Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments
The piano was central to Stravinsky’s composing routine, but it was not until 1924 that he began to see performing on it in public as a potential source of revenue for himself. Always of an entrepeneurial bent, he had in the years since the Russian Revolution and the end of the First World War been working hard to expand his sources of income through a variety of means. As well as performing, the early 1920s saw Stravinsky take up conducting, and engage in the creation of piano rolls of his music. There were certainly good incentives to engage in these activities: all enabled his music to be propagated to a wider audience. However, another advantage was the control they gave Stravinsky over the presentation of his music. He was spurred to take up the baton by the cool reception given to the premiere of Symphonies of Wind Instruments and in 1923 as well as conducting the early performances of his Octet took advantage of another new technology by making a recording of the piece. Meanwhile, he had been taking advantage of facilities offered by the Pleyel Company in Paris to create pianola versions of his works. In an interview he explained that his aim in creating these rolls was not to produce ‘a photograph of my playing... but rather a “lithograph”, a full and permanent record of tone combinations that are beyond my ten poor fingers to perform.’
These activities - the taking charge of performances and using various means of mechanical reproduction to relay his music - may be seen as a reflection of his increasingly vocal antipathy to the very idea of “interpretation”, which he characterised as “a crime against the composer”. His music, he asserted, should be performed exactly and precisely as he had written it, with no liberties whatsoever to be taken by the performers. The player-piano in particular appealed, as an instrument able to produce a performance without any interpretive interference.
It is ironic that with the premiere of his Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments in 1924 Stravinsky used music designed to deny the possibility of individuality to launch his career as an interpretive performer. Whether he intended this from the start or whether that he should take the soloist’s role was suggested as he neared completion of the work by its commissioner Serge Koussevitsky, is unclear. Certainly the influence of Carl Czerny's studies that Stravinsky practised to prepare for his public performance can be heard in the concerto. Also unclear is whether there is any truth in the tale of his memory lapse at the first performance. As Stravinsky himself relates it in his memoirs, “After finishing the first movement and just before beginning the Largo which opens with a passage for solo piano, I suddenly realized that I had completely forgotten how it started. I said so quietly to Koussevitzky, who glanced at the score and hummed the first notes. That was enough to restore my balance and enable me to attack the Largo.” Stravinsky was a master of inflating his own myth, however, and Sergei Prokofiev, who was present, remembered no such incident. The concerto was performed over 40 times in the first five years of its existence, all with the composer at the piano - Stravinsky had made sure to retain exclusive performing rights for himself, realising that the fees he earned as performer of the concerto were rather greater than the performing royalties he received as its composer.
The Concerto is one of the earliest manifestations of his so-called "neoclassical" style. The distinctly Russian voice of his earlier works is abandoned in favour of what appears to be a mask stitched together from gestures drawn from earlier music. In addition to the exercises of Czerny's, the concerto displays a debt to baroque. The absence of strings follows the example of Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments and his cantata Les noces [The Wedding], which was originally envisioned as an orchestral work but ended up scores for pianos and percussion. “The short, crisp dance character of the Toccata (the concerto's first movement)," explained Stravinsky, "engendered by the percussion of the piano, led to the idea that a wind ensemble would suit the piano better than any other combination. In contrast to the percussiveness of the piano, the winds prolong the piano's sound as well as providing the human element of respiration."
The music of the concerto swings between two poles. These are set out in the first movement, in which a slow, monumental, Handelian introduction leads to a hyperactive toccata which embodies the "sewing machine" view of baroque music. The subsequent two movement repeat this pattern: a solemn slow movement and a sparkling motor of a finale, which pauses slightly for a recollection of the very opening before speeding to its conclusion.
Stravinsky recalled that on another occasion performing the concerto,“I suffered a lapse of memory because I was suddenly obsessed by the idea that the audience was a collection of dolls in a huge panopticon. Still another time, my memory froze because I suddenly noticed the reflection of my fingers in the glossy wood at the edge of the keyboard.” Such detached, isolated feelings perhaps offer a clue to the unsettling effect of his neoclassical style. The mechanical sewing-machine rhythms and the ironic appropriation of archaic musical gestures suggest something more than simply the donning of a mask, but the disturbing possibility that there is nothing behind the mask.
Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments
- Largo - Allegro - Maestoso
- Largo
- Allegro
The piano was central to Stravinsky’s composing routine, but it was not until 1924 that he began to see performing on it in public as a potential source of revenue for himself. Always of an entrepeneurial bent, he had in the years since the Russian Revolution and the end of the First World War been working hard to expand his sources of income through a variety of means. As well as performing, the early 1920s saw Stravinsky take up conducting, and engage in the creation of piano rolls of his music. There were certainly good incentives to engage in these activities: all enabled his music to be propagated to a wider audience. However, another advantage was the control they gave Stravinsky over the presentation of his music. He was spurred to take up the baton by the cool reception given to the premiere of Symphonies of Wind Instruments and in 1923 as well as conducting the early performances of his Octet took advantage of another new technology by making a recording of the piece. Meanwhile, he had been taking advantage of facilities offered by the Pleyel Company in Paris to create pianola versions of his works. In an interview he explained that his aim in creating these rolls was not to produce ‘a photograph of my playing... but rather a “lithograph”, a full and permanent record of tone combinations that are beyond my ten poor fingers to perform.’
These activities - the taking charge of performances and using various means of mechanical reproduction to relay his music - may be seen as a reflection of his increasingly vocal antipathy to the very idea of “interpretation”, which he characterised as “a crime against the composer”. His music, he asserted, should be performed exactly and precisely as he had written it, with no liberties whatsoever to be taken by the performers. The player-piano in particular appealed, as an instrument able to produce a performance without any interpretive interference.
It is ironic that with the premiere of his Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments in 1924 Stravinsky used music designed to deny the possibility of individuality to launch his career as an interpretive performer. Whether he intended this from the start or whether that he should take the soloist’s role was suggested as he neared completion of the work by its commissioner Serge Koussevitsky, is unclear. Certainly the influence of Carl Czerny's studies that Stravinsky practised to prepare for his public performance can be heard in the concerto. Also unclear is whether there is any truth in the tale of his memory lapse at the first performance. As Stravinsky himself relates it in his memoirs, “After finishing the first movement and just before beginning the Largo which opens with a passage for solo piano, I suddenly realized that I had completely forgotten how it started. I said so quietly to Koussevitzky, who glanced at the score and hummed the first notes. That was enough to restore my balance and enable me to attack the Largo.” Stravinsky was a master of inflating his own myth, however, and Sergei Prokofiev, who was present, remembered no such incident. The concerto was performed over 40 times in the first five years of its existence, all with the composer at the piano - Stravinsky had made sure to retain exclusive performing rights for himself, realising that the fees he earned as performer of the concerto were rather greater than the performing royalties he received as its composer.
The Concerto is one of the earliest manifestations of his so-called "neoclassical" style. The distinctly Russian voice of his earlier works is abandoned in favour of what appears to be a mask stitched together from gestures drawn from earlier music. In addition to the exercises of Czerny's, the concerto displays a debt to baroque. The absence of strings follows the example of Stravinsky's Symphonies of Wind Instruments and his cantata Les noces [The Wedding], which was originally envisioned as an orchestral work but ended up scores for pianos and percussion. “The short, crisp dance character of the Toccata (the concerto's first movement)," explained Stravinsky, "engendered by the percussion of the piano, led to the idea that a wind ensemble would suit the piano better than any other combination. In contrast to the percussiveness of the piano, the winds prolong the piano's sound as well as providing the human element of respiration."
The music of the concerto swings between two poles. These are set out in the first movement, in which a slow, monumental, Handelian introduction leads to a hyperactive toccata which embodies the "sewing machine" view of baroque music. The subsequent two movement repeat this pattern: a solemn slow movement and a sparkling motor of a finale, which pauses slightly for a recollection of the very opening before speeding to its conclusion.
Stravinsky recalled that on another occasion performing the concerto,“I suffered a lapse of memory because I was suddenly obsessed by the idea that the audience was a collection of dolls in a huge panopticon. Still another time, my memory froze because I suddenly noticed the reflection of my fingers in the glossy wood at the edge of the keyboard.” Such detached, isolated feelings perhaps offer a clue to the unsettling effect of his neoclassical style. The mechanical sewing-machine rhythms and the ironic appropriation of archaic musical gestures suggest something more than simply the donning of a mask, but the disturbing possibility that there is nothing behind the mask.
Prokofiev: Symphony No.7
Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953)
Symphony No. 7 in C sharp minor, Op.131
The Prokofiev who wrote the Seventh Symphony in 1951-2 was a world away from the precocious young talent who had penned his First, the "Classical" Symphony 45 years earlier. In 1917, Prokofiev was a prodigy, a bright young talent to watch out for. The Seventh Symphony in contrast is the final desperately sad outpouring of a sick and broken man.
He had spent most of the period following the Russian Revolution in 1917 abroad in Europe and the United States. However, he felt increasingly homesick and from 1927 began to visit Russia again. Stalin's regime was keen to court him as one of the foremost Russian composers of the day, and in 1936 persuaded Prokofiev and his family returned permanently to the Soviet Union. Prokofiev had been assured that his international touring career would not be curtailed, but he soon found his movements as restricted as anyone else.
Prokofiev's naivety had led him to believe that his own music would not be subject to the restrictions applied to his peers. He was after all committed to the ideal of producing positive music that would appeal to the common man, and therefore his work was fully aligned with the concept of "Socialist Realism." He had a first inkling of the capriciousness of the Stalinist regime shortly after he settled in the Soviet Union in 1936. A new adaptation of Eugene Onegin which was being prepared for the centenary of Pushkin's death and for which Prokofiev was composing the incidental music was abruptly declared to be unsuitable for performance. On this occasion Prokofiev himself was not in the firing line, and was simply left with a collection of music which he would recycle into a number of future projects.
The full force of the regime eventually hit him in 1948, when the infamous Zhdanov Decree accused him, along with Shostakovich and Khachaturian, of composing "Formalist" music. For Shostakovich, a cynic who had been through this kind of condemnation before, the path was clear: lie low, produce a few potboilers praising Stalin and wait until the wind changed. For Prokofiev however the experience was devastating: he had no strategy to deal with such a situation. He was almost immediately reduced to penury, as nearly all his works were banned from performance. Prokofiev's health by now was already poor, and the situation exacerbated matters. Over the next few years his health deteriorated further.
In 1952 some respite finally came when two of his works were unexpectedly rehabilitated: Zdravitsa, which he had written for Stalin's 60th birthday celebrations in 1938, and his ballet Cinderella. He was already working on a new symphony which like Cinderella reused ideas from his music for Eugene Onegin, and hoped that this would help restore him to favour.
The new symphony was played in a piano arrangement to the Union of Soviet Composers and approved, and even gained the approval of the State Radio Orchestra ("Oh wonder!" Prokofiev sarcastically noted). Prokofiev was too ill to complete the writing out of the full score himself and had to enlist the help of a younger colleague, but managed to attend its première on 11 October 1952. It was suggested that it might even be in line for a Stalin Prize. There was however, the state Prize Committee declared, a problem: the ending of the symphony was not joyful enough. perhaps Prokofiev could compose a new one? It was implied that such a revision might make the difference between a third division and first division prize. Even had he not been in such dire straits this kind of request could not be refused, and so Prokofiev wrote an alternative ending, and pretended to like it. Meanwhile he pleaded with his friend, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, "Slava, you will live much longer than I, and you must take care that this new ending never exists after me." (Tonight's performance observes Prokofiev's preferred original scheme.)
Prokofiev originally suggested that the Seventh was a symphony for children. Its melodies and construction have a simplicity bordering of the naive ("Is it too simple?" he asked Kabalevsky). The apparent simplicity is undermined however by his penchant for abrupt shifts of tonality, and by his orchestration, which lends a pallor to the music that undermines its superficially cheerful elements. There seems little or no fight here, only a deep and weary sadness. Even the warm theme that follows the desolate opening seems to have more of yearning than satisfaction about it, while the ticking sounds that interject add a subtly unnerving aspect. The second movement is an apparently cheerier affair that plays with waltz forms, although sudden high-pitched interjections and other twitches undermine its pretensions to light-heartedness. The third movement reuses material from Eugene Onegin relating to its heroine Tatyana and her feelings for Onegin, and seems to inhabit a world of nostalgia and regret. The finale seems to begin in a livelier vein, and proceeds through what appears to be a compendium of clichés common in Soviet music of the time. It is as though Prokofiev is taking a flick through the scores of his contemporaries in search of something. Whatever it is is not to be found though, and so eventually the yearning theme from the first movement returns, and the ticking which counts slowly down to the quietly desperate end.
Prokofiev’s death on 5 March 1953 went barely noticed in Russia: it was overshadowed by the death of Stalin the same day. The Seventh Symphony was eventually awarded its state prize. By then Stalin’s name had been removed from all such official recognition, and so in 1957 Prokofiev became the posthumous recipient of a Lenin Prize.
Symphony No. 7 in C sharp minor, Op.131
- Moderato
- Allegretto
- Andante espressivo
- Vivace
The Prokofiev who wrote the Seventh Symphony in 1951-2 was a world away from the precocious young talent who had penned his First, the "Classical" Symphony 45 years earlier. In 1917, Prokofiev was a prodigy, a bright young talent to watch out for. The Seventh Symphony in contrast is the final desperately sad outpouring of a sick and broken man.
He had spent most of the period following the Russian Revolution in 1917 abroad in Europe and the United States. However, he felt increasingly homesick and from 1927 began to visit Russia again. Stalin's regime was keen to court him as one of the foremost Russian composers of the day, and in 1936 persuaded Prokofiev and his family returned permanently to the Soviet Union. Prokofiev had been assured that his international touring career would not be curtailed, but he soon found his movements as restricted as anyone else.
Prokofiev's naivety had led him to believe that his own music would not be subject to the restrictions applied to his peers. He was after all committed to the ideal of producing positive music that would appeal to the common man, and therefore his work was fully aligned with the concept of "Socialist Realism." He had a first inkling of the capriciousness of the Stalinist regime shortly after he settled in the Soviet Union in 1936. A new adaptation of Eugene Onegin which was being prepared for the centenary of Pushkin's death and for which Prokofiev was composing the incidental music was abruptly declared to be unsuitable for performance. On this occasion Prokofiev himself was not in the firing line, and was simply left with a collection of music which he would recycle into a number of future projects.
The full force of the regime eventually hit him in 1948, when the infamous Zhdanov Decree accused him, along with Shostakovich and Khachaturian, of composing "Formalist" music. For Shostakovich, a cynic who had been through this kind of condemnation before, the path was clear: lie low, produce a few potboilers praising Stalin and wait until the wind changed. For Prokofiev however the experience was devastating: he had no strategy to deal with such a situation. He was almost immediately reduced to penury, as nearly all his works were banned from performance. Prokofiev's health by now was already poor, and the situation exacerbated matters. Over the next few years his health deteriorated further.
In 1952 some respite finally came when two of his works were unexpectedly rehabilitated: Zdravitsa, which he had written for Stalin's 60th birthday celebrations in 1938, and his ballet Cinderella. He was already working on a new symphony which like Cinderella reused ideas from his music for Eugene Onegin, and hoped that this would help restore him to favour.
The new symphony was played in a piano arrangement to the Union of Soviet Composers and approved, and even gained the approval of the State Radio Orchestra ("Oh wonder!" Prokofiev sarcastically noted). Prokofiev was too ill to complete the writing out of the full score himself and had to enlist the help of a younger colleague, but managed to attend its première on 11 October 1952. It was suggested that it might even be in line for a Stalin Prize. There was however, the state Prize Committee declared, a problem: the ending of the symphony was not joyful enough. perhaps Prokofiev could compose a new one? It was implied that such a revision might make the difference between a third division and first division prize. Even had he not been in such dire straits this kind of request could not be refused, and so Prokofiev wrote an alternative ending, and pretended to like it. Meanwhile he pleaded with his friend, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, "Slava, you will live much longer than I, and you must take care that this new ending never exists after me." (Tonight's performance observes Prokofiev's preferred original scheme.)
Prokofiev originally suggested that the Seventh was a symphony for children. Its melodies and construction have a simplicity bordering of the naive ("Is it too simple?" he asked Kabalevsky). The apparent simplicity is undermined however by his penchant for abrupt shifts of tonality, and by his orchestration, which lends a pallor to the music that undermines its superficially cheerful elements. There seems little or no fight here, only a deep and weary sadness. Even the warm theme that follows the desolate opening seems to have more of yearning than satisfaction about it, while the ticking sounds that interject add a subtly unnerving aspect. The second movement is an apparently cheerier affair that plays with waltz forms, although sudden high-pitched interjections and other twitches undermine its pretensions to light-heartedness. The third movement reuses material from Eugene Onegin relating to its heroine Tatyana and her feelings for Onegin, and seems to inhabit a world of nostalgia and regret. The finale seems to begin in a livelier vein, and proceeds through what appears to be a compendium of clichés common in Soviet music of the time. It is as though Prokofiev is taking a flick through the scores of his contemporaries in search of something. Whatever it is is not to be found though, and so eventually the yearning theme from the first movement returns, and the ticking which counts slowly down to the quietly desperate end.
Prokofiev’s death on 5 March 1953 went barely noticed in Russia: it was overshadowed by the death of Stalin the same day. The Seventh Symphony was eventually awarded its state prize. By then Stalin’s name had been removed from all such official recognition, and so in 1957 Prokofiev became the posthumous recipient of a Lenin Prize.
Rachmaninoff: Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini
Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943)
Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, Op. 43
The trauma of being forced to leave Russia in 1917 left its mark on Rachmaninoff’s output: between then and his death in 1943 he completed only six original works. The combination of homesickness and the punishing touring schedule he had to undertake in order to provide for his family both took their toll, and his inspiration seemed to desert him.
Of those six works, four were composed in the 1930s. The revival of his compositional activity was partly a result of his feeling more settled: he built a villa by Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, which he christened Senar (a portmanteau of his and his wife’s names). He spent every summer until 1939 at Senar, which more than one visitor observed had the atmosphere of the kind of Russian homestead where Rachmaninoff had spent his youth. As well as recreating the kind of home he was familiar with from his childhood (all the staff at Senar were Russian), he was also able to indulge his love of gadgetry and novelty by acquiring a speedboat which he would race across the lake.
Although his schedule did not permit him to compose prolifically, the works he did complete during this time rank as some of his finest: The Corelli Variations, the Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, the Third Symphony and the Symphonic Dances all date from this period. These works on the whole were less well received by audiences than his earlier music, but the Rhapsody was an immediate hit and quickly established itself as a necessary part of any pianist’s repertoire. In 1937 the choreographer Mikhail Fokin approached Rachmaninoff with the idea of a ballet on the legend of Paganini, using the Rhapsody. This was eventually produced at Covent Garden in 1939. Rachmaninoff had planned to attend but in the event was unable to as he had injured himself in a fall. The advent of war meant he would never have the opportunity to visit London again.
These late works all see Rachmaninoff expanding his outlook as a composer. They are more adventurous in his harmony and orchestration, occasionally nodding towards Prokofiev as the most prominent of the younger generation of Russian composers. Thus the Rhapsody, while it is as generously upholstered as one might expect from its composer, has its voluptuousness tempered with a certain amount of brittle, steely wit. Rachmaninoff’s design for the work is one of his tightest and most successful. There are 24 variations, which group together into four distinct sections: The first ten variations form an opening “fast movement”, variations 11-15 are a moderate sequence in triple time, variations 16-18 correspond to a slow movement, and variations 19-24 a finale.
The theme itself is one of the most famous and widely appropriated themes, from Paganini’s 24th Caprice for solo violin. It has provided inspiration for a bewildering variety of musicians, from Brahms to Benny Goodman. Unusually, the first thing we hear is not the theme but the first variation: a skeletal outline which is then fleshed out by the appearance of the theme itself. The subsequent variations follow largely seamlessly and there is little point in cataloguing them here. However, one significant development that should be noted is in the sixth variation, in which Rachmaninoff introduces a countermelody in the form of his recurring obsession, the Dies Irae [“Day of Wrath”] plainchant from the Requiem mass. From hereon this shadows, and occasionally overwhelms the main theme.
The eleventh variation, a Lisztian cadenza, heralds the second “movement”: a moderate triple-time which builds in energy before evaporating in another cadenza. The sixteenth and seventeenth variations then introduce a mystical mood, which eventually softens into the eighteenth variation, in which Rachmaninoff inverts the theme (a process more readily associated with Bach or Schoenberg) to produce one of his finest melodies (“That one is for my agent”, he commented dryly.) The 19th-24th variations then form a finale, in which the Dies Irae is combined with the main theme in music of increasingly frenetic character. Everything seems to be building to an apocalyptic conclusion before Rachmaninoff pulls the rug from under everyone’s feet in a brilliantly deadpan conclusion.
Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, Op. 43
The trauma of being forced to leave Russia in 1917 left its mark on Rachmaninoff’s output: between then and his death in 1943 he completed only six original works. The combination of homesickness and the punishing touring schedule he had to undertake in order to provide for his family both took their toll, and his inspiration seemed to desert him.
Of those six works, four were composed in the 1930s. The revival of his compositional activity was partly a result of his feeling more settled: he built a villa by Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, which he christened Senar (a portmanteau of his and his wife’s names). He spent every summer until 1939 at Senar, which more than one visitor observed had the atmosphere of the kind of Russian homestead where Rachmaninoff had spent his youth. As well as recreating the kind of home he was familiar with from his childhood (all the staff at Senar were Russian), he was also able to indulge his love of gadgetry and novelty by acquiring a speedboat which he would race across the lake.
Although his schedule did not permit him to compose prolifically, the works he did complete during this time rank as some of his finest: The Corelli Variations, the Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini, the Third Symphony and the Symphonic Dances all date from this period. These works on the whole were less well received by audiences than his earlier music, but the Rhapsody was an immediate hit and quickly established itself as a necessary part of any pianist’s repertoire. In 1937 the choreographer Mikhail Fokin approached Rachmaninoff with the idea of a ballet on the legend of Paganini, using the Rhapsody. This was eventually produced at Covent Garden in 1939. Rachmaninoff had planned to attend but in the event was unable to as he had injured himself in a fall. The advent of war meant he would never have the opportunity to visit London again.
These late works all see Rachmaninoff expanding his outlook as a composer. They are more adventurous in his harmony and orchestration, occasionally nodding towards Prokofiev as the most prominent of the younger generation of Russian composers. Thus the Rhapsody, while it is as generously upholstered as one might expect from its composer, has its voluptuousness tempered with a certain amount of brittle, steely wit. Rachmaninoff’s design for the work is one of his tightest and most successful. There are 24 variations, which group together into four distinct sections: The first ten variations form an opening “fast movement”, variations 11-15 are a moderate sequence in triple time, variations 16-18 correspond to a slow movement, and variations 19-24 a finale.
The theme itself is one of the most famous and widely appropriated themes, from Paganini’s 24th Caprice for solo violin. It has provided inspiration for a bewildering variety of musicians, from Brahms to Benny Goodman. Unusually, the first thing we hear is not the theme but the first variation: a skeletal outline which is then fleshed out by the appearance of the theme itself. The subsequent variations follow largely seamlessly and there is little point in cataloguing them here. However, one significant development that should be noted is in the sixth variation, in which Rachmaninoff introduces a countermelody in the form of his recurring obsession, the Dies Irae [“Day of Wrath”] plainchant from the Requiem mass. From hereon this shadows, and occasionally overwhelms the main theme.
The eleventh variation, a Lisztian cadenza, heralds the second “movement”: a moderate triple-time which builds in energy before evaporating in another cadenza. The sixteenth and seventeenth variations then introduce a mystical mood, which eventually softens into the eighteenth variation, in which Rachmaninoff inverts the theme (a process more readily associated with Bach or Schoenberg) to produce one of his finest melodies (“That one is for my agent”, he commented dryly.) The 19th-24th variations then form a finale, in which the Dies Irae is combined with the main theme in music of increasingly frenetic character. Everything seems to be building to an apocalyptic conclusion before Rachmaninoff pulls the rug from under everyone’s feet in a brilliantly deadpan conclusion.
Bray: Black Rainbow
Charlotte Bray (b. 1982)
Black Rainbow
A moonbow or “black rainbow” is a rarely-observed phenomenon. It occurs when moonlight is refracted through moisture in the air. It is not only rarely-occurring, but rarely seen. When one does appear the low light levels and muted colours produced make it difficult to see.
The close, humid atmosphere of New Hampshire in summer provides good conditions for a black rainbow to appear. It was there that Charlotte Bray found the inspiration for her orchestral work Black Rainbow, when she spent time at the MacDowell Colony in 2013. The Colony was established in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, wife of the composer Edward MacDowell. Many composers have been awarded fellowships to stay there, including Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and Ruth Crawford-Seeger. In the 1920s an amphitheatre was constructed. This remarkable structure is a recreation of the similar spaces found in Greece where the works of Ancient Greek dramatists were performed.
Black Rainbow was commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for their Youth Orchestra and first performed in 2014, continuing a connection with the city that stretches back to Bray’s student days. In it Bray imagines scenes played out at the amphitheatre. The black rainbow of the title is “a metaphor for something sought after but impossible to attain, an alluring ongoing search.” The piece is in two parts: “The first movement is dark and ritualistic. It’s mid summer and the air is tight, uncomfortable. The light grey, purple almost. The second is fleeting, sensual; time is suspended, a dream-like state.”
Black Rainbow
A moonbow or “black rainbow” is a rarely-observed phenomenon. It occurs when moonlight is refracted through moisture in the air. It is not only rarely-occurring, but rarely seen. When one does appear the low light levels and muted colours produced make it difficult to see.
The close, humid atmosphere of New Hampshire in summer provides good conditions for a black rainbow to appear. It was there that Charlotte Bray found the inspiration for her orchestral work Black Rainbow, when she spent time at the MacDowell Colony in 2013. The Colony was established in 1907 by Marian MacDowell, wife of the composer Edward MacDowell. Many composers have been awarded fellowships to stay there, including Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein and Ruth Crawford-Seeger. In the 1920s an amphitheatre was constructed. This remarkable structure is a recreation of the similar spaces found in Greece where the works of Ancient Greek dramatists were performed.
Black Rainbow was commissioned by the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra for their Youth Orchestra and first performed in 2014, continuing a connection with the city that stretches back to Bray’s student days. In it Bray imagines scenes played out at the amphitheatre. The black rainbow of the title is “a metaphor for something sought after but impossible to attain, an alluring ongoing search.” The piece is in two parts: “The first movement is dark and ritualistic. It’s mid summer and the air is tight, uncomfortable. The light grey, purple almost. The second is fleeting, sensual; time is suspended, a dream-like state.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)