Sibelius - Symphony No. 4 In A Minor

In 1908 Jean Sibelius had a tumor removed from his throat that proved to be cancerous. For the next few years he feared a return of the cancer, which may have led to the dark music contained within the 4th Symphony.  But the dark hue of the music could just as well been influenced by another piece he was working on at the time; a setting of Edgar Allan Poe's poem The Raven in a setting for voice and orchestra (a work that never came to fruition).  Or perhaps it was the general atmosphere of the world at the time that led to the mood of the symphony. Speculations by musicologists have covered these possibilities as well as others.

Whatever caused the atmosphere of the music, there is no denying that the 4th Symphony is one of Sibelius' most puzzling works. Written in 1910-1911, it is sandwiched between the triumphant 3rd Symphony and heroic 5th Symphony and is in contrast to both.  With its sparseness in scoring and exploration of the dissonant interval of the tritone,  the symphony received scant applause at its premiere in 1911 which was conducted by the composer. The composer's wife recalled:

People avoided our eyes, shook their heads; their smiles were embarrassed, furtive, or ironic. Not many people came backstage to the artists' room to pay their respects. 

The symphony bewildered audiences for years, but is finally getting recognition as one of Sibelius' best works. It is in four movements:

I. Tempo molto moderato, quasi adagio -  Known for over 300 years as a dissonance, the tritone (a musical interval composed of three adjacent whole tones) was also known as diabolus in musica, or the devil in music because of its perceived dissonance. The name was given to it early in the Medieval era to emphasize that the interval should be avoided in music like the devil in every day life. The evil connotation of the interval was used by composers in music that attempted to depict fear, terror or the devil itself.  The French composer Camille Saint-Saëns use of the tritone to depict the devil playing its fiddle in his tone poem Danse Macabre is but one example of how it was used.  Sibelius begins the first movement with a short introduction for bass instruments that uses the tritone to create tonal ambiguity. A solo cello further confuses the tonality  until the cellos as a group state the first theme in A minor after the introduction. The tritone continues to appear throughout the movement as well as the rest of the symphony.  Short motifs float in and out making it difficult for the ear to find its way. After much ruminating, the strings slowly play a series of ascending notes E-F-Bflat-A (which contains the tritone E-Bflat) until the movement ends quietly on A

II. Allegro molto vivace -  The second movement begins as a sprightly scherzo but roughly half way through the mood turns black and the music gets extremely quiet and the movement stops.

III. Il tempo largo -  The third movement wafts across the orchestra in a nocturne of haunted night music. Sibelius referred to this symphony as "a psychological symphony" perhaps referring to this movement that represents the darkness of the mind.  The music slows to a quietly throbbing C-sharp in the violins and violas that is played across bar lines as a short motif repeats a few times until the spectre evaporates.

IV. Allegro -  As in the beginning of the second movement, the fourth movement opens in a somewhat cheerful music that is brightened by the glockenspiel. The movement begins in A major but struggles between A major and E-flat major. Not coincidentally the interval A-Eflat is a tritone. The music ends up going nowhere, and on a repeating C in the strings (the same pitch that began the symphony) the symphony hints at the home key of A minor and stops.

With all four movements ending in quiet ambiguity, virtually no memorable themes, an original harmonic scheme based on the interval of the tritone and movement structure that places a slow movement at the beginning of the symphony, it is no wonder that audiences found the work difficult and perplexing. Sibelius continued to develop his symphonic style up to his last finished symphony. Perhaps he could develop his style no further, perhaps he was written out, but whatever the reason his seventh symphony was his last, and after 1926 he did not write any more large works for the rest of his life. He died in 1957.

Bruch - Scottish Fantasy For Violin And Orchestra

Max Bruch was born in 1838 and died in 1920. He lived through almost the entire Romantic age of music and into the dawn of the Modern era, but he never followed the 'new' music school of Wagner and Liszt. He composed music which can be described as 'classical romantic', somewhat in the style of Felix Mendelssohn.

He was a teacher, conductor and violinist as well as a composer. His most popular composition is his first violin concerto in G minor, a work that tended to eclipse all of his other works for violin and orchestra, a fact which he grumbled about many times in his life. The Scottish Fantasy was inspired by the writings of Sir Walter Scott, a popular author among the Romantics. He included a harp in the work as he thought of it as a Scottish instrument, along with the violin.  Although Bruch never visited Scotland until three years after he composed the piece, he had an interest in folk music and used some Scottish folk tunes in the work.

Bruch wrote the work at the request of the Spanish virtuoso Pablo Sarasate. Bruch wrote the first half of the work very quickly, and contacted Sarasate and requested a meeting to discuss its progress. Sarasate failed to reply, and Bruch then turned to  Joseph Joachim who advised him and in return Bruch asked him to give the premiere of the work.  Bruch was not pleased with Joachim's performance, and he reconciled with Sarasate who went on to play the piece with great success.

The Scottish Fantasy is in four movements:
I. Introduction; Grave - Adagio cantabile - The introduction is dark and represents Scotland, the land of myth and mystery. The Adagio cantabile is the beginning of the first movement and is based on the Scottish tune Through the Wood Laddie.

II. Scherzo; Allegro - The next movement is based on the song The Dusty Miller and is played on the violin while the orchestra plays a bagpipe-like accompaniment. There is a short transition to the third movement and  a fragment of Through The Wood Laddie is heard.

III. Andante sostenuto - Bruch uses a derivative of the tune I'm A' Doun for Lack O' Johnnie to showcase the lyrical singing of the solo violin.  The movement grows quiet and ends peacefully.

IV. Finale; Allegro guerriero - The last movement is based on the song Scots, Wha Hae and other tunes. Bruch varies the main tune, interlaces it with other tunes. The directions Allegro guerriero (fast and war-like)  may be a clue that the music is a tribute to the Scottish history of courageousness  in battle.  A part of Through The Wood Laddie makes one final appearance before the work ends.

Paganini - Violin Concerto No. 2 'la Campanella'

When Niccolo Paganini wrote his 2nd violin concerto, he took a different route than his 1st Violin Concerto. The first is full of fiery, virtuoso doings for the violin and was written as a vehicle to show off Paganini's playing ability. In the 2nd, he concentrates more on the melodic and lyric aspects and puts a lid on some of the virtuoso pyrotechnics - but not completely. Paganini knew how to dazzle an audience, whether it was the lightning fast movement of his bow and fingers, to the achingly beautiful melodies he wrote.

I. Allegro maestoso - The first movement begins with the strings playing a B minor chord in tremolos, with two major themes being stated by the orchestra before the entrance of the soloist. The orchestra plays a somewhat larger role than in the first concerto, and has some sections where it carries the structure and development of the music without the soloist. The composer in Paganini strove for more cohesive music making, rather than it being all about the soloist.

II. Adagio -  Paganini made his first visit to Vienna in the first of his concert tours of central Europe in 1828. His reputation had made the rounds before his arrival, and being just as great a showman as musician, he helped fan the flames of expectation by making the social rounds before the first concert. When the evening of the concert came, the hall was not completely full, as Paganini charged what many thought was too high for a ticket. But the concert was a rounding success, and Franz Schubert had the opportunity to attend one of his concerts, and is said to have remarked, I have heard an angel sing. Perhaps this adagio movement was what Schubert spoke of.  The orchestra sets the mood for the soloist in the opening of this movement. The solo violin sings an aria that shows Paganini's fondness for Italian opera.

III. Rondo à la clochette - The cohesiveness of the violin and orchestra in the first movement and the violin's singing of the operatic aria in the second are all well and good, but it is this last movement that caused the riotous success of the concerto. Paganini takes every opportunity to showcase his abilities in violin technique, some of which he developed himself. And he was very secretive about his music. His concertos were not published until after his death, at concerts he distributed the orchestral parts only at the last minute and showed no one the solo part. Clochette is French for 'little bell', and indeed a little bell is heard throughout the movement, with the soloist imitating it with harmonics on occasion. The movement was such a success that it spawned all kinds of transcriptions and popular arrangements of it. Franz Liszt used it in his interpretive set of six Paganini compositions, Grandes Études de Paganini.

Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No. 5

Bach held the position of music director at the court of  Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen early in his career. The Prince had a small orchestra of very good musicians and Bach created some of his best work during his five years  there.  The Prince sent Bach on a trip to Berlin to finalize the purchase of a new two-manual harpsichord and it was during this trip that Bach met the Margrave of Brandenburg, Christian Ludwig.

Bach played for the Margrave, who enjoyed Bach's music. Bach offered to send some of his compositions to the Margrave upon his return to Cöthen. For various reasons (including the death of his wife) Bach put off sending anything to the Margrave until two years later.  What prompted Bach to remember was the fact that Prince Leopold was engaged to a woman who did not care for music as much as the Prince did, and the rumor was that as soon as she was married she was going to use her influence on the Prince and have him disband his orchestra and release his musicians.

So Bach had six of his finest concertos bound together and he wrote a syrupy, pandering and overly-flattering dedication in French to the Margrave. He was basically sucking up to the Margrave looking for a job.  There's no evidence that the Margrave ever had them performed, musical historians doubt that the Margrave's court had enough fine musicians to play the concertos.  As for Bach, he moved on to Leipzig and spent the rest of his life there.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 is a Concerto Grosso as the rest in the set. The soloists (concertino section) of the work  are harpsichord, transverse flute and violin. The rest of the orchestra (or ripieno section) consists of violins, violas,  violone and harpsichord. This work is unique in that the harpsichord participates in both sections of the orchestra, and it eventually plays a florid and highly decorated solo cadenza in the first movement.  It is thought that this concerto may have been written for the two-manual harpsichord Bach was sent to Berlin to purchase for Prince Leopold, and played by Bach as the soloist.

The first movement sees the three soloist dialogue with each other, with the harpsichord gradually garnering more of the spotlight with its music becoming more and more complex and decorated. The harpsichord becomes more and more demanding until the rest of the instruments give in and turn silent while the harpsichord gives us one of the best examples of Bach's prowess and improvising skills at the keyboard.  The second movement is a gentle song played by the soloists only. The third movement is a lively gigue that rounds out the work.

This concerto is one of the first examples of a keyboard instrument having a solo part that was originally written for it, which paved the way for the classical piano concertos of Mozart and others.

Schoenberg - Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night)

Arnold Schoenberg wrote this work as a string sextet at the turn of the 20th century in 1899, and it was so modern that the Vienna Music Society refused to perform it. It was premiered in 1902 by the Rose Quartet (augmented by an extra cello and viola) at the Vienna Musikverein.  Between the highly chromatic music and its subject matter, the piece stirred up a lot of controversy.

This was Schoenberg's first important work and it showed the influence that Wagner and Brahms (whom Schoenberg always thought of as a modern composer) had on the young composer. It is not so much a revolutionary piece of music as it is an evolutionary piece of music, a product of what the masters had done before Schoenberg and his desire to continue the evolution.  It was written before Schoenberg developed his twelve tone technique and while Transfigured Night does go far afield in its harmonies it is still a work based on tonality. It is a rare example of a chamber music work that is also program music. It is based on a poem written by Richard Dehmel  called Transfigured Night.  The synopsis of the poem:

A woman and man are walking through the woods on a moonlit night. In love, but ashamed, she reveals that she is pregnant with another man’s child, a man she never loved. The man responds with loving acceptance of her and the child as though it were his own. The unborn child, the man, the woman and the night itself are transfigured from darkness into light.

Schoenberg composed the piece in one movement and followed the poem closely in music that is rich, complex, and emotional. Frequent time signature changes and key changes charge the music with an intensity that finally resolves into a shimmering 'transfiguration' at the end.  The music was arranged by the composer for full string orchestra in 1917 and revised it in 1943. It is this version that is heard on the video.

Schoenberg's first compositions written within his twelve tone system are over a hundred years old, and they still sound rather sour to many ears. Anyone that has not heard Transfigured Night before hearing any of his twelve tone works may wonder if Schoenberg wasn't more of a theorist than a feeling, emotional composer. Transfigured Night has glimpses in it of where Schoenberg was headed, but to my mind it is a late romantic composition and shows that Schoenberg was much more than a theorist. He was a composer of the first rank.

The complete poem by Dehmel:

Two people walk through a bare, cold grove;
The moon races along with them, they look into it.
The moon races over tall oaks,
No cloud obscures the light from the sky,
Into which the black points of the boughs reach,
A woman’s voice speaks:

I’m carrying a child, and not yours,
I walk in sin beside you.
I have committed a great offense against myself.
I no longer believed I could be happy
And yet I had a strong yearning
For something to fill my life, for the joys of motherhood
And for duty; so I committed an effrontery,
So, shuddering, I allowed my sex
To be embraced by a strange man,
And, on top of that, I blessed myself for it.
Now life has taken its revenge:
Now I have met you, oh you.

She walks with a clumsy gait,
She looks up; the moon is racing along.
Her dark gaze is drowned in light.
A man’s voice speaks:

May the child you conceived
Be no burden to your soul;
Just see how brightly the universe is gleaming!
There’s a glow around everything;
You are floating with me on a cold ocean,
But a special warmth flickers
From you into me, from me into you.
It will transfigure the strange man’s child.
You will bear the child for me, as if it were mine;
You have brought the glow into me,
You have made me like a child myself.

He grasps her around her ample hips.
Their breath kisses in the breeze.
Two people walk through the lofty, bright night.

Rachmaninoff - Isle Of The Dead

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.

Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No. 6 In B-flat Major BWV 1051

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.