Sergei Rachmaninoff was a world-renowned Russian concert pianist, conductor and composer. He left his native Russia after the Russian Revolution of 1917. Most of his compositions are for solo piano, piano with orchestra and orchestra alone, along with some songs and chamber music. He was regarded as one of the best pianists of his generation with a virtuoso technique and phenomenal memory.
The Symphonic Poem "Isle Of The Dead" Opus 29 was written in 1908 and was inspired by a painting titled Isle Of The Dead by the Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin that he saw exhibited in Paris in 1907. The painting depicts the ancient Greek myth of the newly dead on their way across the river Styx that separates the land of the living from the land of the dead.
The opening of the work begins softly in the low strings, with a time signature of 5/8. The resultant rhythm of this quintuple meter may represent the rhythm of the rowing of oars as Charon, the boatsman of the myth, rows the boat to the land of the dead. In the beginning, Rachmaninoff beats this 5/8 time signature as 1-2-3-4-5, with emphasis on the first beat and the third beat. This breaks it down into essentially alternating bars of 2/8 and 3/8 time. He then shifts the beats into 1-2-3-4-5, and further along he has a section that shifts the beat to 1-2-3-4-5.
This shifting within the beats of the 5/8 time signature is very subtle and it is one of the many details of this master work that helps give the impression of bleakness, loneliness and tension that leads to the climax of the composition, and its denouement. To add to the effect, Rachmaninoff includes variants of the ancient Latin hymn Dies Irae (day of wrath), a hymn thought to have been written in the 12th century and was part of the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass. This hymn was something of a fixation for Rachmaninoff, as it appears in many of his works.
As human beings are creatures that tend to have a hard-wired necessity to categorize things, musical historians have followed this predilection by breaking down the long history of music into eras. This has been useful in helping not only musicians to perform a work in as authentic a manner as possible, but it has aided the listener in their understanding of the work. That is not to say that all music lovers need an exhaustive education in music history and performance practice, but a little insight on the time in which the composer lived and how music was performed in that era can lead to increased enjoyment.
Johann Sebastian Bach is a composer that falls into the Baroque era (late Baroque era to be precise), but he did compose some works in the new gallant style, for example the Six Sonatas For Violin And Harpsichord. That Bach was a master of the so-called old style is true, but he was far more than that. He was a culmination of the late Baroque, and within that culmination were the seeds of the newer style, a style he was well aware of and more than capable of composing in.
While Bach is not thought of as being an innovator, he was quite creative in every facet of music and composition. The art of instrumentation for many years was thought to have been quite primitive in Bach's time, but the opposite has been found to be the case. With a wide variety of instruments and timbres, the Baroque composers and Bach in particular took every advantage of the differences in musical instruments to create tonal color, nuance and expression. One of Bach's many experiments in instrumentation is the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 In B-flat. The concerto is scored for two violas, two violas da gamba (already considered an old instrument when this concerto was written in 1721), one cello, one violone (bass fiddle) and harpsichord. No soprano instruments save for the upper register of the keyboard. The resulting tonal color in the hands of a lesser composer would perhaps have become too dull and monotonous, but Bach writes music of great beauty in a joyful bluish purple color. The concerto is in three movements:
I. No tempo designation -Usually played in allegro tempo, this music has the two violas playfully chasing each other in canon interspersed with dialogue for the other instruments. While the violas chase each other the accompaniment of short repeated notes give a sense of movement to the music while the alternating sections go through key changes that add interest. Bach was said to have enjoyed playing the viola, so perhaps he took special delight in this movement. The violas da gamba play an accompaniment throughout and add movement and color to the overall tone of the movement.
II. Adagio ma non tanto - The violas da gamba are silent in this movement as the violas play a melancholy aria in duet. The cello and continuo alternate accompanying and playing sections of the aria. The movement ends with a whole note chord that gives a sense of suspended movement.
III. Allegro -In the style of a gigue, the violas begin in unison and soon chase each other even faster than in the first movement. The violas da gamba add to the texture and tone color while the cello has a few things to say of its own. The music for violas keeps moving in alternate moderate and fast note values until it reaches a point when the beginning section of the movement is repeated until a full close is reached.
Johann Sebastian Bach in 1721 gave the Margrave of Brandenburg a gift of 6 Concerti for different instrument groups. It is believed that the concerti were not expressly written for the Margrave but were written earlier. That Bach may have offered these up as a kind of resume to become employed by the Margrave is also a possibility. In any event, Bach was not hired on and it isn't known if the Margrave ever had them performed as the forces needed to do that were beyond what the Margrave had at his court. The concertos languished in the archives of Brandenburg until they were rediscovered and given the nickname 'Brandenburg'.
Each one of the Brandenburg Concertos is different from the other. Number 3 in G major is for 3 violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos, harpsichord and double bass. The style of this concerto harks back to the concerto grosso style, that is when a small group of instruments (the concertino) within the ensemble pass musical material back and forth while the full orchestra (tutti) accompanies. Number 3 is unique in that the two groups are integrated into a whole. Bach makes but eleven instruments sound like much more because each group of three alternates between being the concertino and being part of the tutti.
The first and third movements of the concerto are written in ritornello form while the middle movement consists of a two chord cadence. Some performers play these two chords, others improvise a short cadenza, sometimes a movement from a different work of Bach's is used. Evidently there was no set rule on which route to take. Composers of the Baroque era left a lot to the performers discretion.
The Spanish master guitarist Andrés Segovia, a musician that was responsible for much of the Renaissance of the classical guitar in the 20th century, had this to say about his instrument:
The guitar is a small orchestra. It is polyphonic. Every string is a different color, a different voice.
Segovia's quote underlines the uniqueness of the instrument and well as one of the difficulties in writing music for it. Most music for the classical guitar is either written or transcribed by a musician that can play the instrument. Unlike other instruments where a working knowledge will suffice, the guitar is capable of playing the same note at the same pitch on different strings and in different positions, something that may not be readily ascertainable to a non-playing composer. Add to that the tonal quality of the same note played on a different string, and the problems multiply.
It may be a difficult proposition for a non-guitar playing composer to write for the instrument, but it is not impossible. With the increased popularity of the classical guitar in the 20th century, more non-playing composers wrote works for it. One of the most successful non-playing composers of a work for guitar was the Spanish composer and pianist Joaquín Rodrigo.
His most popular work for guitar was Concierto de Aranjuez for guitar and orchestra, written in 1939 while he was in exile in Paris. He had been writing music for guitar since 1926, and the concerto was his first piece for guitar and orchestra. The work was inspired by the Palacio Real de Aranjuez, a residence of Spanish kings located in the town of Aranjuez and built in the 16th and 18th centuries. The palace is known for its beautiful gardens, and it was these gardens that inspired Rodrigo. As Rodrigo had been almost totally blind since the age of three, it was the sounds of the gardens that inspired the work, as Rodrigo explains:
[The music] should sound like the hidden breeze that stirs the treetops in the parks...depict the fragrance of magnolias, the singing of birds and the gushing of fountains.
The work premiered in 1940 at Barcelona. It is in three movements:
I. Allegro con spirito -There are few works for guitar and orchestra with one of the reasons being a problem of balance. An orchestra can easily overpower a solo guitar, but Rodrigo deftly keeps both entities on equal sonic terms. The work begins with the first theme played by the guitar with a very subtle underpinning by the low strings. The theme is in the style of flamenco and the fandango, a Spanish dance in triple time, and in this case with a few measures of duple time thrown in for rhythmic interest. This theme goes through various guises in the movement. A second theme is also involved and is put through the same development style. The movement ends with a final flourish from the guitar.
One of the gardens of the Palacio Real de Aranjuez
II. Adagio - The guitar begins by strumming chords and the cor anglaise enters with a melancholy theme. The guitar takes up the theme and embellishes it. The haunting themes and harmonies continue until the guitar plays a solo section of the theme spiced with some occasional dissonant accompaniment. The orchestra and guitar have a section of dialog before the guitar plays solo again in music of quiet agitation. The guitar plays arpeggios and strums flamenco style until the orchestra takes over and plays a short climax. The guitar returns, and the music grows quiet as the guitar rises in pitch and plays a gentle ending.
III. Allegro gentile -A theme is played by guitar with a tripping rhythm. This theme is repeated throughout the finale and is varied as it goes. The guitarist plays a descending figure and the music gently ends.
An Hungarian author by the name of Menyhért Lengyel wrote a piece in 1916 called The Miraculous Mandarin which was published in a Hungarian literary magazine in 1917. Shortly after it was published, rumors began to float around that the work, called a pantomime grotesque by the author, was going to be set to music by a Hungarian composer who was not mentioned by name. Whether or not the composer referred to in the article was indeed Béla Bartók is a matter of some debate among historians.
Bartók read Lengyel's piece and immediately wrote down some music inspired by the content of the work. Bartók played his musical ideas to Lengyel, and the author was delighted with it. The two had not met before then, but became friends and collaborators. While Bartók worked on the score for the ballet, he wrote to his wife about the music:
It will be hellish music. The prelude before the curtain goes up will be very short and sound like pandemonium... the audience will be introduced to the den of thieves at the height of the hurly-burly of the metropolis.
The First World War delayed the completion of the score until 1919 with the orchestration taking yet another three years, and the first staging of the ballet had to wait until 1926. The premiere of what was now being called a dance pantomime occurred in Cologne, Germany. A short synopsis of the lurid story of the work in Bartók's own words:
Menyhért Lengyel
Just listen to how beautiful the story is. Three thugs force a beautiful young girl to seduce men and lure them into their den, where they will be robbed. The first turns out to be poor, the second likewise, but the third is a Chinese, a good catch, as it turns out. The girl entertains him with her dance. The Mandarin’s desire is aroused. His love flares up, but the girl recoils from him. The thugs attack the Mandarin, rob him, smother him with pillows, stab him with a sword, all in vain, because the Mandarin continues watching the girl with eyes full of yearning... the girl complies with the Mandarin’s wish, whereupon he drops dead.
Not many who heard the premiere agreed with Bartók's beautiful story opinion, as the performance caused a huge scandal as reported in a German music journal:
Cologne, a city of churches, monasteries and chapels... has lived to see its first true scandal. Catcalls, whistling, stamping, and booing... which did not subside even after the composer’s personal appearance, nor even after the safety curtain went down... The press, with the exception of the left, protests, the clergy of both denominations hold meetings, the mayor of the city intervenes dictatorially and bans the pantomime from the repertoire... Waves of moral outrage engulf the city...
Bartók prepared the suite of the ballet that uses roughly two-thirds of the music. The suite was first performed in Hungary in 1928.
The suite begins with a depiction of the chaos and noise of the city. Three tramps are in a room. They have no money so they enlist the help of a girl to dance seductively in front of their window to try and lure men into the room so they can rob them. The girl's seductive dance is portrayed by the clarinet. The first man that is lured into the room is an old man. He pursues the girl, but once the tramps discover he has no money he is thrown out of the room. The clarinet again depicts the seductive dance of the girl and this time a young man enters the room. He begins to dance with the girl, and his passion grows. But he also does not have any money so the tramps throw him out. Again the girl dances, and this time she attracts a wealthy Chinese man, a Mandarin (portrayed by trombone glissandos) The tramps hide as they hear the Mandarin's footsteps up the stairs to the room. The Mandarin stands in the doorway and the tramps encourage the girl to keep dancing. The Mandarin makes a lunge for the girl and embraces her. She escapes and the Mandarin begins to chase her with the tramps close behind. The suite ends with the chase that takes the form of a fugue, and brash chords for full orchestra. The full ballet continues with the repeated efforts of the tramps to kill the Mandarin. They try to smother him with pillows and stab him three times with a rusty sword, but he still grabs the girl. They hang him from a light pole, but the pole falls and the Mandarin's body begins to glow eerily. The girl finally submits to the Mandarin, and after his passion has been satisfied his wounds begin to bleed and he dies.
Among all the composers alive Cherubini is the most worthy of respect. I am in complete agreement, too, with his conception of the 'Requiem,' and if ever I come to write one I shall take note of many things.
So said Beethoven when asked who, aside from himself, he considered the best of his contemporary composers. High praise indeed from an artist that could be notoriously blunt in his opinion of others. Unfortunately, Cherubini's opinion of Beethoven was not as favorable. The two met in Vienna where Cherubini was staging one of his operas. Cherubini went to the premiere performance of Beethoven's opera Fidelio and was not impressed. He remarked in French that Beethoven was too rough for his taste.
Luigi Cherubini was born in Italy and was a child prodigy. He wrote operas at the beginning of his career, and after feeling stifled by the operatic traditions of his native country, he traveled to England and finally settled in France in 1790. He found the freedom his creativity needed in Paris and his operas became very popular for some years. The opera scene of the time was always in state of flux. What was popular today could become a flop tomorrow. Cherubini's operas felt the fickleness of the opera public as his operas fell from favor. He then turned to music for the church and chamber music. Cherubini was appointed director of the Conservatoire de Paris in 1822. He was known to be somewhat of a cantankerous man and did not show as much of a gift for teaching as he did as a composer.
He composed 6 string quartets and a quintet from 1814 to 1837. His First String Quartet was written in 1814 but wasn't published until 1836. The quartet has very little in it from the quartet tradition of Haydn and Mozart, but is more of a reflection of Cherubini's operatic writing. Schumann reviewed the work after its publication and thought the form of it somewhat difficult to understand. It is in 4 movements:
I. Adagio - Allegro moderato -A slow introduction prefaces the movement until the somewhat nervous first theme begins. Short snatches of motives weave in and out of the exposition until a secondary theme is played. The motives return and the exposition is repeated. Themes and motives are dramatically explored in the development until the recapitulation begins. and the movement ends in the tonic E-flat major. II. Larghetto sans lenteur -The second movement is in B-flat and is a theme and variations. The theme is gentle in nature as are most of the variations except for a more dramatic outburst in the middle of the movement. After that, the music mostly stays quiet and calm until it ends in a gentle mood. III. Scherzo: Allegretto moderato -The scherzo begins in G minor and has a subtle rhythmic drive that propels it along at a steady pace until it reaches the trio that is in G major and features rapid 16th notes in the violins. The scherzo returns and ends the movement. IV. Finale: Allegro assai - A short introduction leads to the first theme that is framed in a quirky rhythm. The second theme is a duet between violin and cello. A very short development section full of off-the-beat accents leads to the replaying of the two major themes, and after a short coda the quartet ends with a slight stumble.
Ever since the string quartets of Haydn and Mozart, many composers have taken the challenge of writing for two violins, viola and cello. Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Dvořák added to the tradition and development for this most personal of musical forms.
Edvard Grieg was more well known for his lyric pieces for piano and his Piano Concerto In A Minor, but he did make three attempts at writing a string quartet. He completed only one, the String Quartet No. 1 In G Minor. It was written in 1878 and made an impression on Franz Liszt who said of it:
It is a long time since I have encountered a new composition, especially a string quartet, which has intrigued me as greatly as this distinctive and admirable work by Grieg.
The composition of the quartet was an ordeal for Grieg as he strove to continue the tradition while expanding the possibilities of the form. He was successful and his quartet had a large influence on not only Debussy, whose only string quartet is in the same key of G minor, but on later composers such as Schoenberg and Bartók.
That Grieg indeed strove to write in a different way for the form of the string quartet is evident in his own words about the work:
I have recently written a string quartet, which I still haven’t heard. It is in G minor and is not intended to bring trivialities to market. It strives towards breadth, soaring flight and, above all, resonance for the instruments.
Grieg wrote the work in cyclical form, and used a portion of one of his own songs as the recurring theme, the song titled Spillamæd (Minstrels). The quartet is in 4 movements:
I. Un poco andante - Allegro molto ed agitato -The work begins with all 4 instruments in unison, one of the devices Grieg uses to impart his own unique sound to the quartet. The original song that the main theme was taken from dealt with a water spirit that would give minstrels great gifts of musical abilities in exchange for their happiness. The main theme is full of rhythmic verve and appears in all 4 movements. The theme is full of drama and plays itself out until it comes to a full close. After a slight pause the second theme begins, a lyric tune that has outbursts that remind the listener of the opening. The opening theme returns and alternates with the second theme in a section that can be thought of as the development. The recapitulation brings the back the drama of the opening, along with the full close and slight pause before the second theme commences. There is an extended coda that continues to deal with the two themes and parts of them, including a short section where the cello plays solo while the other three instruments play tremolo and close to the bridge (sul ponticello) which gives the accompaniment a glassy, shimmering effect, until the instruments join in a loud, dramatic ending to the movement.
II. Romanze. Andantino -The movement begins with a happy, waltz-like theme, after which a more sinister and nervous middle section that is related to the main theme is played. After a transition, the waltz returns with a few differences. The nervous theme interrupts the waltz a few times until the waltz music ends the movement in the high register of all 4 instruments.
III. Intermezzo. Allegro molto marcato - Più vivo e scherzando -The song theme that opens the work returns at the start of this movement. The music remains rough around the edges as it rhythmically makes its way to the middle section where Grieg flexes his contrapuntal skill as the cello begins a theme by itself, and each instrument enters in turn while the others play pizzicato. This section is repeated and then developed. The first theme returns, a few references are made to the middle section, and the movement scurries to an end. IV. Finale. Lento - Presto al saltarello - The solemness of the opening of the quartet returns as an introduction before the music turns into a saltarello full of cross rhythms, syncopation and frenzy. Near the end the music turns back to the main theme of the work and alternates between major and minor mode versions until at the very end the major mode wins out and the work ends in G major.
