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.

J.S. Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No.3

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.

Prokofiev - Alexander Nevsky Cantata

Just days before the outbreak of World War Two in 1939, Nazi Germany and the USSR signed a non-aggression pact that declared the two nations would take no military action against each other for 10 years. The date was August 23rd, Germany invaded Poland September 1st, thus starting World War Two.

The agreement was on shaky ground from the beginning. Germany wanted to try and keep Russia out of the war, and due to the Great Purge that began in 1934 (where over one million Russian leaders, citizens and military personnel were executed) Russia was weak militarily, so Stalin signed the pact to try and gain time to rearm. Anyone that didn't have their head in the sand knew that Germany would invade Russia, sooner or later.

In 1938 while both nations postured and blustered, the Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev joined filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein in the making of the film Alexander Nevsky. Nevsky was an actual 13th century Prince of Novgorod who led an army that defeated the invading Teutonic (German) Knights in the Battle of Lake Peipus in 1242.  The movie was more than a historic epic. It became a patriotic propaganda tool after the Soviet big-wigs saw the finished product. The authorities were thrilled with the movie and the fact that it was brought in five months ahead of schedule.

The filmmaker and composer worked together very well .  Both fed off each other ideas and the movie became more than a Soviet propaganda film. After the war the film became a classic.  To allow the music to be heard other than in a movie house, Prokofiev arranged much of the music into a a cantata a few months after the premiere of the film for mixed chorus, mezzo-soprano soloist and orchestra.  The cantata is in seven movements, original text is in Russian except for the third movement which is in Latin:

Statue of Alexander Nevsky in St. Petersburg

I.  Russia under the Mongolian Yoke - A brief and bleak introduction refers to the time in the 13th century when parts of Russia were under the domination of the Mongolian Tartars who ruled over the Russians and forced them to pay tribute.  Alexander Nevsky had been given to the Mongol rulers as a hostage. He grew up among their leaders and understood the workings of their culture. He wed the Mongol leader's daughter and was named leader of the Vladimir principality.

II.  Song about Alexander Nevsky - Nevsky was summoned by the people of Novgorod to become Prince after Swedish invaders had landed on the outskirts of the area. Nevsky commanded a small army that surprised the Swedish invaders and prevented and all-out invasion.  Nevsky gained in power and political influence and coupled with his association with the Mongol invaders, conflict with the Boyars of the area caused him to be forced to leave Novgorod. In this song the chorus sings the praises of Nevsky and urges him to return and defeat the Teutonic invaders:

It happened by the river Neva,by the great waters .
There we cut down the enemy warriors of the Swedish army .
Oh, how we fought, how we cut  them down !
How we cut  their ships to pieces !
We swung an axe and a street appeared ,we thrust our spears and a lane opened up .
We cut  down the Swedish invaders like grass on parched soil.
We shall never yield our Russian land . Those who attack Russia will meet their death .
Arise , Russia, against the enemy, 
arise to arms, glorious Novgorod ! 

III. The Crusaders in Pskov -  The Crusades by Christians against Islam to regain the Holy Land in the Middle East is well known, but what many don't realize is there was also Christian Crusades held in Eastern Europe against pagans. These Crusades were similar to the ones to regain the Holy Land in that not all the actions taken by the Crusaders were for purely religious reasons. Political gain, personal gain and seizing land played a large part. The Teutonic Knights were formed in the 12th century to aid Christians fighting in the Middle East and to establish hospitals. After Christians were defeated in the Holy Land, the order moved to Eastern Europe to help defend Catholic countries and convert pagan ones. The German Crusaders are depicted in slow, plodding, heavy music punctuated by percussive dissonance. The words sung are Latin, but when translated don't make any sense: As a foreigner, I expect my feet to be shod in cymbals.
Perhaps Prokofiev chose the words (that were taken from the Latin Vulgate Bible) at random, or for their foreign sound:

Peregrinus expectavi, pedes meos in cymbalis

IV. Arise, Ye Russian People - A call to arms against the invaders sung by the choir:

Arise to arms, ye Russian people,
in battle just, the fight to death; 
arise ye, people free and brave
defend our fair native land!
To living warriors high esteem,
immortal fame to warriors slain!
For native home, for Russian Soil,
arise ye people, Russian folk!
In our great Russia, in our native
Russia no foe shall live: Rise to arms,
arise, native mother Russia!
No foe shall march across Russian land,
no foreign troops shall raid Russia;
unseen are the ways to Russia,
no foe will ravage Russian fields.

Scene from the film Alexander Nevsky

V. The Battle on the Ice - The two armies meet on the ice of the frozen River Neva. This battle is also referred in history as The Battle On The Ice.  Prokofiev creates tension and builds drama with the orchestra that slowly builds in tempo and speed. As the armies clash the Teutonic Knights repeat their hymn with added words:

A foreigner, I expect my feet to be shod in cymbals. 
May the arms of the cross-bearers conquer! Let the enemy perish!

After much creative orchestration and development of themes, the hymn of the Crusaders is finally overtaken by themes that praise Nevsky. Traditional history of the battle relates that the weight of the Teutonic Knight's horses and armor broke the ice and many Crusaders drown in the frigid water while the ones that didn't fall through the ice were slain by Nevsky and his army.

VI. The Field of the Dead -  The aftermath of the battle has the mezzo-soprano voice of a woman walking among the dead:

I will go across the snow-clad field,
I will fly above the field of death.
I will search for valiant warriors,
my betrothed, my stalwart youths,
Here lies one felled by a wild saber;
there lies one impaled by an arrow. 
From their wounds blood fell like
rain on our native soil, on Russian fields. 
He who fell for Russia in noble death shall
be blessed by my kiss on his eyes and to
brave lad who remained alive,
I will be a true wife and loving friend.
I’ll not be wed to a handsome man;
earthly charm and beauty fade fast and die.
I’ll be wed to the man who’s brave.
Give heed to this, brave warriors!

VII. Alexander’s Entry Into Pskov - The hero Nevsky is welcomed with a procession by the jubilant people:

In a great campaign Russia went to war.
Russia put down the hostile troops.
In our native land no foe shall live.
Foes who come shall be put to death!
Celebrate and sing, native Mother Russia.
In our native land foes shall never live,
Foes shall never see Russian towns and fields.
They who march on Russia shall be put to death.
Foes shall never see Russian towns and fields.
In our Russia great, in our native Russia no foe shall live.
Celebrate and sing, native Mother Russia.
To a fete in triumph all of Russian came.
Celebrate, rejoice, celebrate and sing, our Motherland!

Of course the non-aggression pact between the two totalitarian dictators ended up being not worth the paper it was written on as Nazi Germany launched the largest invasion force in history against Russia on June 22, 1941. Russia's participation in the war resulted in between 20 and 40 million Russian deaths from all causes, and Germany suffered the same fate of other forces in history that tried to invade the country; collapse under the sheer size of Russia, its rugged weather and huge population, not to mention the ruthlessness of their leader Stalin.

Prokofiev had returned to the USSR after living abroad from 1918 to 1936, and his Alexander Nevsky film music and cantata brought him into good graces with Stalin until 1948 when Prokofiev, along with composers Shostakovich, Myaskovsky, and Khachaturian were denounced for formalism, a crime that was described as renunciation of the basic principles of classical music [in favour of] muddled, nerve-racking [sounds that turned] music into cacophony. 

Prokofiev suffered from extreme hypertension and as a result had a fall from which he never really recovered. In poor health and deeply in debt because his works had been banned, he desperately tried to get back into good graces with the authorities, but he remained in official artistic limbo the rest of his life. After Stalin's death on March 5, 1953 things began to change in the USSR and composers were slowly 'rehabilitated' and bans on their music began to be lifted. Ironically, Prokofiev didn't benefit from Stalin's death as he died the same day.

Rodrigo - Concierto de Aranjuez

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.

Bartók - The Miraculous Mandarin Suite

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.