An Impressive and Powerful Christmas Work

One of the greatest treasures of the English language is the wealth of beautiful poetry from different eras inspired by the story of Christmas.  Writers at all times from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century have set pen to paper and produced verse of high quality, drawing on different aspects of the Christmas story for their themes.

Among all these Christmas poems, the imperial pride of place must go -- I think -- to John Milton's majestic Ode on the Morning of Christ's Nativity.  Composed on a most unusual rhythmic and rhyme scheme, Milton's poem in 27 stanzas with a four-stanza introduction is not overly lengthy but in its scope and interweaving of multiple themes clearly foreshadows the more epic creations that would flow from his pen in years to come.  Nothing about this poem is quite so startling as the fact that Milton completed this work while still a university undergraduate.

Although the vivid imagery of the poem and its themes alike seem to me to cry out for musical illustration, no truly well-known composers have undertaken the task.  Certainly Vaughan Williams made magnificent use of six stanzas in two separate sections of his 1954 Christmas cantata Hodie (read about that work here:  A Christmas Miracle in Music).  But years earlier, back around the turn of the twentieth century, Scottish composer John McEwen produced a setting of symphonic scale, bearing the title of the poem.  He set most of the text in due order, omitting the four introductory stanzas and three more from the Hymn proper.

As far as anyone has been able to discover, this uniquely powerful and evocative music -- although written up in at least one contemporary musical journal -- was never performed or even heard until Scottish conductor Alasdair Mitchell recorded it in 1998 with Chandos Records, fifty years after the composer's death.

My first reaction on hearing this large-scale work was to feel regret that the man who created it never (apparently) got to hear it played and sung.  Despite that lack, the music seems to me to display an uncommon degree of assurance and sophistication such as might be expected from an older composer of much more experience.  This is the more startling when you realize that his two greatest works for the orchestra, the Three Border Ballads (reviewed here:  Unknown Scottish Romantic Music) and the Solway Symphony, still lay ahead of him when he composed this setting of Milton's verses.

I wanted to emphasize that point because what strikes me most of all is the strength of the structural organization in the different sections of McEwen's Ode, and his mastery of orchestration and colour as a means of underlying his view of Milton's words.  The very opening proves the point: a chilling orchestral introduction which effectively paints both the violent negative energy and the sheer coldness of the opening line of the poem, "It was the winter wild...."

Even more gripping is the extraordinary battle music in the sixth movement, and the powerful post-Wagnerian chromaticism of the seventh, reaching almost into the sound world of Schoenberg's monumental Gurrelieder. 

But in between these more dramatic moments are others of great lyrical beauty and repose: the moving pastoral vein of Nos. 2 and 3 or the gentle lullaby evoking the sleeping Christ Child in the final pages.  All these, and more besides, are skillfully drawn by the composer.

In some ways, the most startling moment for me comes in the sixth movement where McEwen sets the same stanzas used by Vaughan Williams in the exhilarating finale of Hodie.  But McEwen approaches the poetry from a completely different angle, and the words (as a result) sound brand-fire-new rather than old familiar friends.

The net effect of this entire work is very much a unified whole in spite of its division into numbered movements, a single mighty arch of choral and orchestral sound.  There's no denying McEwen's skill in setting Milton's sometimes-complex phrases, nor the deep insight which the composer has brought to the underlying messages and meanings of the poem.  And, like all the greatest works of music, the end comes far too soon for my liking.

Indeed, I think I admire most of all the concision of McEwen's structure and writing that lets him cover this rather lengthy poem, all but completely, in less than an hour's span.

The one and only (as far as I know) recording is still available as a download from Chandos Records.

More Christmas Delights Part 2

Another new album that found a home in my collection this year is called A Wondrous Mystery.  The music on this CD comes mainly from the German-speaking part of Europe in the 1400s and 1500s, and is all music for the season of Christmas.  It's expertly and lovingly performed a cappella by the twelve voices of the ensemble Stile Antico and is released on the Harmonia Mundi label.

 

At a quick glance, it's obvious that the biggest work on the disc is the Missa Pastores quidnam vidistis by the Flemish composer Jacobus Clemens (yes, that's the composer who was jokingly nicknamed Clemens non Papa, supposedly to distinguish him from his contemporary, Pope Clement VII ("Clemens Papa" in Latin).

 

The Missa takes its title from Clemens' own five-voice motet on the Christmas text which asks, "Shepherds, what have you seen?" (also included in the disc).  The mass is a lovely, serene work of typical Renaissance polyphony of its time (the 1500s).  The disc is organized so that the different sections of this mass setting are interspersed with works by other and later composers. 

 

These other works include both Latin and German texts.  There are settings of Lutheran chorales and settings of German folk carols.  And in the middle of it all is the piece that really caught my attention, and caught it in the most enchanting way.

 

The title is Magnificat quinti toni and it was composed by Hieronymus Praetorius (no relation of the much better-known Michael Praetorius).  This man composed settings of the Magnificat based on each of the eight tones of traditional chant, but then added this ninth setting, specifically intended for Christmas use.  It's a work which bridges the gap between the stile antico of the Renaissance and the new stile moderno of what we now see as the early Baroque era in music.  He published it alongside two ravishingly beautiful settings of two of the German Christmas carols, with instructions that the carol arrangements should be sung between verses of the Magnificat.  The performers here have followed that direction.  The result fuses chant, polyphony, and harmonized chordal singing of the folk melodies into a thing of utter beauty.

 

The simple key to this loveliness is the use of double choirs throughout the composed sections of the Magnificat and the carol settings.  In the two carols, the melody is entrusted to one of the inner parts and the sopranos instead receive a soaring harmony line of the type that English choirs call a "descant".  It's these descant parts that lift the music out of the ordinary and give it wings.  The two carols used are Joseph lieber, Joseph mein (known in English as The Song of the Crib) and In dulci jubilo.  What fuses all these disparate elements together is the simple rising triad which opens the fifth tone chant, a figure which also occurs in the melodies of both carols. 

 

So while all the music on this disc is very beautiful and aptly suited to an evening's listening before the Christmas tree, it's the Praetorius Magnificat that always prompts me to hit the "repeat" button.

More Christmas Delights Part 1

With December now here, and the church calendar season of Advent under way, it's a good time to look into a couple of new Christmas recordings which I've acquired since this time last year or the year before, whenever I last posted some new Christmas material.

What I love about the traditional music of Christmas is that it's absolutely music of the people.  Genuine folk music, in the most literal sense of the term.  And why not?  At one level, the Christmas story is a story of people of the most ordinary kind, caught up in a most extraordinary event.  I think that Christians through the centuries have often responded to the very ordinariness of Joseph and Mary, of the Shepherds and the Wise Men, the Innkeeper, and even the animals.  The story comes very close to the heart of how so many, many people in the Christian world lived before the coming of the industrial age.

Those of you who follow this blog regularly will recall that I have before presented some works of music based on the traditional noëls or folk carols of France.  Like similar carols everywhere, these songs live in a world of simple diatonic harmonies and engaging melodies.  The words are usually strophic, the tunes more or less appropriate to the scenes and events and feelings being evoked.

Today, I want to bring to you two well-filled CDs (or downloads) from Naxos containing a veritable treasure chest of Christmas music, much of it inspired by the noëls, and all of it composed by the French royal composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier. 

I've previously brought to your attention Charpentier's utterly charming Messe de minuit pour Noël,  in which the original tunes are used to set the text of the Ordinary of the Mass.  In the recordings I'm featuring today, we get the original words as well as the melodies.

While the melodies may not be familiar to you, there's no doubt that they are tunes of the people, totally and aptly suited to mass song among people who are not formally trained musicians.  Charpentier's arrangements of these traditional tunes include accompaniments of bewitching beauty, and the music is aptly orchestrated and performed with original instruments, such as would have been used in the reign of Louis XIV at Versailles.

Aside from the popularity of these well-known carols in France, Charpentier must have possessed some particular affection himself for the Christmas season -- at least if one can judge by the skill and care which he lavished on these seasonal pieces.  Not least in his bag of tricks is the skill of making the music sound artless and simple when it is actually becoming quite sophisticated.  Perhaps the best example of that is the organ arrangements of noëls which dot the two records, arrangements which achieve a very different effect altogether from Louis-Claude Daquin's noëls for the organ which I have also previously reviewed.

For this delightful two-disc set of Christmas music, we are indebted to Kevin Mallon and the Aradia Ensemble.  These are but a few of the many treasures this team of Canadian musicians have recorded through the years for Naxos Records, but they are certainly not the least!  Just as with Daquin's organ delights, once you have listened to these a few times they will become as much a necessary part of your Christmas season as any of the tunes from the English-language tradition.  These recordings are easily available as downloads.

Religion Doesn't Always Have To Be Solemn

It's not always what you know, but who you know.  Through a relative of one of the performers I was given a copy of a lovely new CD from the Canadian ensemble Capella Intima, of some most unusual vocal pieces from the Italian baroque.

 

The programme notes in the booklet go into great detail about the probable (and unusual) circumstances under which these canzonette (songs) were written and performed.  For our purpose, it's sufficient to point out that the song-form known as a canzonetta was normally a secular song, a lively tune that danced along or a more mournful one that drooped its way from one sad phrase to the next, and with words that were not only secular but could be downright earthy.

 

So what is one to make of a collection of Canzonette Spirituali, e Morali?  The volume, published anonymously in 1657, is believed to be the work of Francesco Ratis who was a priest and church organist in Chiavenna in the far north of Italy, right up against the Swiss border.  They're real canzonette, too, making extensive use of popular melodies and dance tunes of the day.  The texts are something else altogether.  The singers join their voices in vivid, emotional language in addressing all facets of the individual's relations with God -- and in mocking the sinner who refuses to come to God and seek forgiveness.  The Song of Songs from the Bible supplies the inspiration for many of the texts, which share its characteristic sensual imagery.

 

Not only that, but the publication includes notation for the use of a guitar, an instrument that was proscribed as unfit for church use by many Catholic authorities of the day.  Again, the programme notes give a clear picture of how such an extraordinary musical black sheep could come into existence.  I'm more concerned about the music itself.

 

It's an absolute delight.  Right from the vigorous cross-rhythmic opening of Poverello, che farai?, the upbeat style of the performance captivated me.  Dreary and dull this music this is not!  The faster numbers will set your toes tapping, while the slower songs offer hauntingly beautiful melodies.  Throughout the disc there's a lovely, clear sound from all four singers, the voices beautifully matched.  Interpretive touches in phrase shaping and dynamics are subtle and sensitively applied.  The recording is well-nigh perfectly balanced between voices and instrumental accompaniment.

 

Director Bud Roach supplies the tenor voice and the baroque guitar accompaniment.  Soprano Sheila Dietrich, alto Jennifer Enns Modolo, and baritone David Roth complete the ensemble. 

 

The programme is carefully arranged so that the character of the music shifts from one number to the next, providing great variety.  Solo voices alternate with duos, trios, and quartets -- often within the same song.  Over an hour of delightful, involving music-making slides by almost before you're aware of the time passing.

 

Half the fun of this music is being able to contrast the sung texts with the musical character of the melodies and rhythms.  This is not music which has to exactly illustrate the words, and indeed some of the best numbers are the ones in which dark, daunting words are set to bright, lively dance tunes.  In a useful compromise, the leaflet includes complete English translations of the texts, and gives the web address where the complete Italian original texts can be downloaded.

In the end, you come away with the distinct impression that this was music aimed at younger people, and was designed to quash any notion that faith and religion have to be dull and dreary.  These lively tunes would certainly accomplish that objective, and the performers definitely capture the innate vigour and playfulness of the music.  You can download this delight from the website of the Musica Omnia label.

Composer or Conductor?

In North America he is mainly remembered as a conductor, thanks to his considerable achievements as music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra from 1952 to 1963.  But Paul Paray was very much more.  He was a prolific and not inconsiderable composer.  A "selected works" list on Wikipedia contains nearly 100 entries, covering chamber music, piano, orchestral, vocal, and choral works.  Much of his composition output dates from the years before 1930 -- in other words, from the first five decades of his very long lifespan of 93 years. 

(It's interesting to note in passing just how many conductors -- and musicians generally -- have managed to stay alive and professionally active into their nineties.  Maybe there's some hope for those of us who like to write about music!)

In 1931, Paray composed and conducted his Messe du cinquieme centenaire de la mort de Jeanne d'Arc ("Mass for the fifth centenary of the death of Joan of Arc").  It was given in Rouen Cathedral during the anniversary celebrations (eleven years after she was canonized a saint).

In the 1950s and early 1960s Paray made a remarkable series of recordings with his Detroit orchestra for the Mercury Living Presence record label, a company whose technology is still regarded as a landmark in lifelike musical sound reproduction.  Among the greatest was the truly extraordinary 1957 recording of the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony, in which the sound of the huge organ was captured with almost unbelievable richness and fidelity.  These recording sessions also yielded a taping of the Messe.  When the Mercury recordings were reissued on CD in 1991, the Messe was coupled with that justly-famous performance of the Saint-Saens.  And that's how I picked it up.

Paray's Messe is a captivating piece of music.  His idiom is half late Romantic, half Debussy.  There's no sign in this music of the currents of revolution sweeping through the musical world during Paray's lifetime.  Plainly he was "conservative" as a composer, but equally plainly he knew what effect he wanted to achieve.

Not the least unusual feature of the work is Paray's choice of text.  After the mid-nineteenth century, one finds relatively few concert-scaled settings of the mass text.  The old Austrian tradition of the mass for voices and orchestra (think of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven) had all but vanished after Schubert's time.  Major composers turned more and more to secular poetry and prose for textual material.

Paray's Messe may have been composed for an anniversary, but it carries no programmatic intention towards Joan of Arc whatsoever.  Nor is it even usable as a liturgical mass, as the Credo is omitted -- leaving only four of the five main sections of the Ordinary of the mass to be set to music.  It is purely a concert work, a work of considerable beauty, power, and some solemnity, but also very lush and colourful.

Much of the music's almost operatic character derives from the extensive parts for the four soloists, in many cases rising and falling in a manner that wouldn't be out of place in an operatic aria.  It's in the solo parts that some of the most Debussy-like progressions and turns of phrase are heard.

Conversely, the music for choir is often in more chordal style, often accompanied by grand orchestral effects such as the massed brasses and winds -- particularly notable in the Sanctus.  Rich textures and sound combinations are a trademark of Paray's orchestral style in this piece.

For me, the most intriguing aspect of this piece is that Paray has managed to compose a substantial work in a traditional musical idiom that is still completely original and unique.  That in itself is enough to give the lie to the old canard that melody and harmony are passe because nothing remains to be said in that musical language.

Two Great Monuments in Music

Of all the extraordinary musical creations of the great Johann Sebastian Bach, none is more awe-inspiring or powerful (for me) than the incredible Ciaccona or "Chaconne" in D minor which concludes his second partita for solo violin without basso continuo (so specified by Bach himself).  The music is technically of the highest complexity, often requiring the player to fill in harmonies by bowing across all four strings.  Yet even without those chords, the violin's melodic line always clearly implies the bass line and harmonies underlying it -- which helps to explain why attempts to provide a bass part to go along with the violin have never really worked very well.

Many composers have tried to recast the Chaconne for various instruments, or combinations of instruments.  One of the most remarkable versions I've encountered is the piano transcription created in 1892 by the Italian-German composer and pianist, Ferrucio Busoni -- at the ripe old age of 26.  He actually wrote it while living and performing in the United States, in Boston.

Over the years, I've often listened to -- and been disappointed by -- transcriptions of other composers' works for the piano.  Many of my gentle readers have probably had to listen to one of my rants on the subject.  So why my immense admiration for this one?

The key difference from many of the transcriptions of Liszt and his followers is that Busoni has approached the original Chaconne with complete respect and even reverence.  Every single note that Bach wrote has been carefully preserved.  The transcription is not one beat longer or shorter than the original work for violin.  As well, the additional notes, chords, runs, and the like which Busoni uses are, at every step along the road, contained within the chords implied by the harmonic structure of Bach's original.  This is the polar opposite of virtuosity for its own sake.  Instead, Busoni seems to be trying to get right inside the master's thought process -- to imagine how Bach might have written the music if he'd been able to do so for a nineteenth century concert grand piano.

Equally significant is what is left out.  There are no superfluous flourishes, runs, arpeggios, show-off mannerisms, added cadenzas.  Busoni equally eschews gigantic, bass-heavy chords at the bottom and screaming, smashed-china fortissimos at the top of the keyboard.  Unlike some of Busoni's later Bach arrangements, this one resists the urge to rewrite the music, shortening or lengthening various passages in an attempt to "improve" it.  The result is a monumental achievement in its own right.

On the particular recording I have in my collection, it is partnered by an even huger monument of Busoni's own composing: the original version of his Variations and Fugue on Chopin's Prelude in C. Minor, Op. 22.  This work takes one of the simplest of Chopin's 24 Preludes, the C minor funeral march (# 20), and uses it to construct a series of 18 variations with a culminating fugue -- the entire work lasting for over half an hour.  It absolutely boggles my mind to listen to this incredible music and realize that Busoni wrote it while still a teenager (19 to be precise). 

(Years later, Busoni rewrote and drastically shortened the Variations.

He seemed anxious to curb and rein in his youthful excesses.  

The mature, shorter set lasts for less than ten minutes.)

The title page of the work makes plain that Busoni was working "in free form".  In other words, this is a thoroughgoing Romantic creation, not entirely harnessed to the classical models of strict variation form espoused by Brahms, although some parts of the piece do live in that world.  There are some strict variations, and others which develop more like a free fantasia.  Heavy, chordal writing alternates with glittering Italianate scherzando passages.  The variety and diversity of music across the entire chain of 18 variations is itself amazing.  Even more astounding is the realization that Busoni managed to develop this enormous musical kaleidoscope out of an original theme only 8 bars long!  The entire work culminates in a five-minute fugue in which the worlds of Busoni, Chopin and Bach all join hands at once.

Although several pianists have recorded the more concise mature form of the variations, beginning with the late John Ogdon, the CD I have at hand is probably still the only commercial recording of the original larger form of the work.  Beginning with the Bach Chaconne transcription, and ending with the complete Chopin Variations, it also contains several of Busoni's other piano works.  It's on the Naxos label, one of a series of albums of Busoni's piano music.  The music is all played by pianist Wolf Harden with immense authority and aplomb, and still available as a disc or download. 

Flute Delights

It's not everyone's first choice, by any means, but I can still identify with no trouble at all the time and place when I fell in love with the sound of the flute.  It was when I was in Grade 10, at a Toronto Symphony Young People's concert, and the work was Mozart's beguiling Concerto for Flute and Harp.  Instantly, I was hooked -- by the lovely combination of instruments but also, as proven in the long run, by both instruments individually.

Since then, I've amassed a fair number of recordings featuring the flute, and have enjoyed them all.  And now, I want to introduce you to my latest acquisition for this instrument.

The composer is Saverio Mercadante, an Italian composer who lived from 1795 to 1870.  His creative life thus overlaps those of Beethoven, Rossini, and Schubert at the one end, and Brahms, Verdi, and Puccini at the other end. 

I put his dates in reference to Rossini, Verdi, and Puccini because he was mostly famed as a composer of operas.  Indeed, many of his operas were highly successful in their day, and some scholars find it surprising that his works haven't held the stage like those of the three Italian titans I've named.

But Mercadante was much more.  Alone among the Italian composers mentioned, he created many orchestral works as well as paying much more attention to the orchestration of his stage works.  The recording I have at hand is a collection of three flute concertos, played by soloist Patrick Gallois.

The music is generally reminiscent of the late Mozart, or of the earlier works of Beethoven and Schubert.  Mercadante has not yet dived into the wholesale harmonic or structural experimentation of the height of the Romantic era.  Within its own terms, though, his music has some highly original effects and sounds.  

Take for example the finale of the Concerto No 1.  It's a moderate tempo but sprightly and upbeat two-step.  The um-pah accompanying figures could easily become tedious but Mercadante insures against that kind of monotony by varying the instrumentation of the accompaniment each time the theme recurs -- mixes of strings with different combinations of wind instruments successfully keep boredom at bay.

As you would expect of concerto forms, the first movements offer the most symphonic style and sound.  Last movements then give us most of the complex virtuoso writing for the flute solo, while the central slow movements tend more towards simple lyricism.  Mercadante sensibly keeps his touch light with the orchestra so the flautist won't get drowned out!

Great music this perhaps is not, but it makes for delightful listening if you love the sound of the flute as much as I do!  

Unknown Scottish Romantic Music

Last week I attended performances of the modern Scottish theatre epic, The James Plays.  This week I'll be going to a performance of Shakespeare's famous (notorious?) "Scottish play", Macbeth.

Somehow, Scotland is in the air, and this seems like a good time to introduce a couple of Scottish composers and their magnificent orchestral works.

It's a curious fact that, although Scottish writers are known and admired widely, few people seem to be aware of other forms of artistic creation in Scotland.  And yet, Scotland has a centuries-long tradition of revering and respecting the arts, and has produced many fine painters, sculptors, authors, and composers.  In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, at the same time as there was a major renaissance in musical composition in England, a parallel musical boom was also under way in Scotland.  John Blackwood McEwen was one of the finest Scottish composers of that time.

The first work I want to bring to your attention is a set of three symphonic poems which McEwen called Border Ballads.  Although the name suggests singing, there is none.  Instead, we have a symphonic form that can be related to the piano Ballades of Chopin or Brahms: structures which make use of multiple themes, and which proceed in a fashion that suggests narrative without any detailed narrative programme being followed.

The three pieces were all composed between 1906 and 1908, although the ideas may have begun to form as early as 1900.  The style is conservative for the day, the music written in a post-Wagnerian Romantic vein.  And yet, it is unmistakably Scottish.  Perhaps a close parallel is found with the tone poems of Dvorak and Smetana which brought the rhythms and harmonies of Czech folk music into the musical mainstream.

The first of the three Ballads to be composed, Coronach, is an elaborate funeral ode, named after the dirges sung over the bodies of Celtic chieftains.  The opening theme is a quiet funeral march on the brasses, accompanied by timpani rolls.  Although there are louder eruptions from time to time, the music is predominantly quieter as befits its inspiration.  The funeral march is gripping and impressive, but the contrasting themes which follow are more meditative than interesting -- until the march quietly re-emerges and seizes attention once again.  A new march theme in major key then appears and lightens the tone of the music, building up until it ends the Ballad in a tone of majestic triumph.  

The second Ballad, and much the longest, The Demon Lover, is inspired by a Celtic legend of a married woman lured away by the demonic spirit of her former sailor lover.  But like the best symphonic poems of other traditions, this one does not take a narrative approach to the music.  McEwen preferred to construct a symphonic structure related to the legend by tone colour and mood rather than in form.  Sadly, the composer never managed to get this work performed.

It begins with swaying themes that suggest the sea.  More so than the other Ballads, the spirit of Tristan und Isolde hovers over this music, especially in the harmonic procedures, yet it isn't derivative.  A slow, mysterious theme based on a repeated four-note motif rising and falling pursues its way like a funeral march.  After it rises to a shattering climax, a new andante melody suggests passion and longing.  The sombre four-note motif recurs.  The music then bursts into the extended allegro section which comprises the second half of the work.  Here the surging waves of multiple climaxes create a melodramatic atmosphere amidst chromatic Tristan-esque harmonies.  The last and greatest climax is followed, not by a full-scale recapitulation, but by a diminuendo passage which winds its way down to silence.

The last and most musically inventive of these three tone poems is called Grey Galloway.  The title refers to the southwestern corner of Scotland, between Glasgow and Carlisle, a beautiful land of rolling hills and sea lochs, and yet a land which has seen much battle and bloodshed through the centuries.  The music opens with a march-like theme punctuated by brass chords, making almost Wagnerian use of the large brass section of the orchestra.  The dotted rhythm includes in its second bar a "Scotch snap", the rhythm of an eighth note followed by a dotted quarter.  There follows an extended tranquil section whose lyrical beauty brings to mind the rolling landscapes of the Galloway hills.

A skillful crescendo passage leads into a turbulent militaristic battle scene incorporating another march theme.  The effect is not unlike the battle music of Smetana's tone poem Sarka.  A contrasting quieter passage contains wailing woodwind effects not unlike the keening of the pipes.  Eventually the uproar of the battle bursts out again, leading into a final brass-heavy recall of the opening theme to round the work off.

In a later post I'll cover another important work by McEwen which doesn't really fit into my theme today because it is decidedly un-Scottish in mood.

From McEwen I want to turn next to Hamish MacCunn.  I've heard a couple of recordings of his music which held my attention briefly.  But the first piece of his which I ever encountered is one of those remarkable works which is so ingrained in my mind that I can quite easily find myself humming it over when I haven't listened to a recording for months on end.  I'm humming it right now.

MacCunn's concert overture, Land of the Mountain and the Flood, declares itself Scottish by virtue of the title.  It's a line from a once-famous poem about Scotland by Sir Walter Scott, a poem I recall memorizing when I was in elementary school.

The music opens with a simple melodic idea which, in its short two-bar span, has already incorporated the characteristic "Scotch snap" rhythm.  This little melodic idea pervades much of the overture.  After a few introductory pages, a long singing tune is heard which forms the first main theme of the overture.  After some development, the opening two-bar motif returns, but in a more emphatic form which soon takes on a martial character.  With flourishes from the brasses and winds it rises to the overture's one and only really loud climax.  After that dies away, the singing melody returns and gradually leads to a joyful conclusion with brass fanfares.  It's not great, heaven-storming music, but it's full of life and jovial energy, and the themes -- as I already mentioned -- are nothing if not memorable.

None of this music incorporates such "Scottish" elements as bagpipes, folk tunes, or dance music, yet the Scottish feeling is somehow unmistakable in each of these works.  Taken purely as music, they are all definitely deserving of much more attention than they have received up until now.  

The Sweet Sounds of Strings

I have spoken once or twice before about the special affinity which so many British composers have found with the string instruments of the orchestra.  Indeed, there's not just an affinity but an uncommon level of skill in handling the strings, and a really uncommon attention to writing works for the string orchestra alone -- something that few other post-Baroque composers have done more than once or twice.

The three examples in today's post were all written in a short period of time spanning the dawn of the twentieth century, but two of them hark back to an earlier time -- a time when suites of dances were a favoured means of musical expression in all the major countries of Europe.  

I've certainly discussed before this the music of Sir Hubert Parry, an English composer who has for too long been undervalued.  If nothing else, consider the level of skill and polish in Lady Radnor's Suite, a collection of six movements for string orchestra written in 1895 and published in 1902.  The model is the Baroque dance suite.  The music throughout is melodious, harmonious -- and deceptively simple in sound.

Don't be fooled by the apparently lightweight nature of this work!  Parry was unconventional by nature, and his musical style was an amalgam of many influences.  Loudest of all, though, was his own unmistakable voice.  In the first movement of Lady Radnor's Suite, the melody begins with a falling major fourth, and then continues on into a series of running passages, a most typical Baroque procedure.  But Parry's melody never turns the way you think it's going to, and the apparent repeats of the opening melody -- and of the gentler second theme -- are definitely not literal repetitions but new streams of melody originating with the same figures.  There are also some quirky modulations.  And yet the entire movement arrives at its end with what seems to be astronomical punctuality.

It's obvious to me that this is neither burlesque nor clumsiness but a definitely original conception clothed in 18th-century period dress.  I have the same feeling all the way through the six movements of the Suite -- the gentler second movement, the slow minuet in third place, the solemn processional of the fourth movement, the lively bourree fifth movement, and the fast jig of the finale.

Around fifteen years after Parry composed Lady Radnor's Suite, Frank Bridge produced a Suite for String Orchestra.  This is an excellent example to highlight my thesis about English composers and string music.  Bridge's set of four movements have no outward theme, no connection to musical history.  They are music, pure and simple.  Well, pure -- in the sense of being music with no outward connections.  Simple, not so.  This is melodious music, conservative by the standards of the day, but it's not simplistic.  The second movement in particular has some intriguing rhythmic play and some unconventional modulations, and unexpectedly vanishes into thin air just at the point where Bridge seems to be introducing a second theme.  The third movement, a sombre nocturne, is also more harmonically adventurous than its fellows.  The fourth movement has an upbeat rhythmic character which caps the work with a lively, but not extravagant finale.

From Parry and Bridge, we turn to the music of Philip Heseltine, better known by the compositional pseudonym Peter Warlock (he adopted this name because of his fascination with the occult).  He spent a number of years editing early music for performance, and in the process of that work discovered a manual of Renaissance dancing, Orchesographie, by Thoinot Arbeau (the name is an anagram of the real name of the author).  This manual includes dialogues about dance styles, techniques, and steps between Arbeau and another speaker named Capriol.

From this volume Warlock extracted six dance tunes and worked them into a full-scale harmonized setting, which he entitled Capriol Suite.  He placed the dances in a sequence which nicely contrasts the style of music from one piece to the next.  Unlike the typical Baroque practice of writing contrasting pairs of tunes, each dance here consists of one melody only.  Since the complete suite only takes 10-12 minutes to perform, the six dances are undoubted miniatures.  The work exists in three different versions, for piano 4-hands, for strings, and for full orchestra, all arranged by Warlock.

Since the Arbeau volume provides only a melody for each dance, Warlock's approach to arranging them was all his own, and is particularly intriguing.  Although he harmonized the dances primarily in Renaissance terms, he had no hesitation in peppering the score with a fair number of discordant added notes and chords.  These undoubtedly add considerable spice to the harmony.  In the 4-hands version the discords are so abrasive that they sound as if the pianists are making mistakes!  But in the string version, the smoother sound of the instruments reduces awareness of the discordant intrusions, and they simply add extra dimension and depth to the music without necessarily shocking the hearer.

It's not surprising, then, that the charm of the melodies and the skill of the string writing have made this version of the Capriol Suite the most often heard and recorded of these three works.  That still doesn't make it a frequent entry in concert programmes anywhere outside of England.  However, with the more recent revival of older music, the original Arbeau tunes have cropped up in a wide variety of recordings of one sort or another -- and fans of early music will undoubtedly recognize at least some of Warlock's source material when they turn to this early 20th-century piece of pseudo-antiquarian music in a more modern harmonic idiom.

A Sonata For The Ages

In all the broad range of the piano repertoire, there are few compositions more fiendish and technically daunting than the works of Charles-Valentin Alkan -- unless they are other works by Alkan.  Really, it's unnecessary to look any further than the technical demands of his work to realize why Alkan's music has been studiously avoided by almost all pianists.

Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813-1888) moved in the same circles as his close personal friend, Chopin, and Liszt -- among others -- and their respect and admiration for him as a composer and as a pianist is well documented.  The friendship with Chopin is easy to understand.  Despite their totally different approaches to composition, both men were pianists exclusively and composers for the piano almost exclusively.

In recent years, it has become possible to appreciate the scope of Alkan's art through the efforts of such artists as Ronald Smith, Raymond Lewenthal, and Marc-Andre Hamelin.

One of the first great works of Alkan's maturity was his Grande Sonate for the piano, subtitled Les Quatres Ages, Op. 33, which he completed in the 1840s.

I first made the acquaintance of this remarkable piece in Ronald Smith's pioneering EMI recording, now about half a century old.  The recording I pulled out the other day, which triggered this post, was Hamelin's 1994 Hyperion recording.

Although I have listened to some of Alkan's other music, it often strikes me as being virtuosity devoid of purpose.  But that is not true of this sonata.  Indeed, I think Alkan here succeeded even more triumphantly than either Chopin or Liszt in reorganizing the piano sonata along lines that were entirely unique and entirely his own.

The key word is "reorganizing".  Liszt's B minor sonata, admirable as it is, doesn't entirely succeed in convincing me that there is a structure under all the thematic transformations.  No such charge can be levelled at this extraordinary piece.  Its unique character begins with its unusual key relationships and by no means stops at the fact that the four movements are arranged in an order such that each one is slower than its predecessor, a process which I can't recall ever encountering in any other work.

The title gives the clue to the composer's intentions.  This sonata is a succession of musical impressions, firmly controlled by a classical sense of structure, of a man's life in four decades: his twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.

The first movement, the young man in his twenties, was aptly described by Smith as "a whirlwind of a scherzo".  The high-energy first theme is beset by numerous silent beats and cross-rhythms.  It goes swiftly through a main melody and a succeeding counter-melody.  There then follows a trio section of a completely contrasting, march-like tone, before the two main themes of the scherzo return in a free recapitulation.  Although the movement begins in D major it ends in B major.

The second movement, the thirties, is the longest and also the most technically challenging.  It begins in the unusual and disturbing key of D sharp minor.   Subtitled "Quasi-Faust", it portrays the hero in a series of themes which -- like those in the first movement of Liszt's Faust-Symphonie, depict the searching, inquisitive, intellectual aspects of the character.  The first theme up is again of a march-like cut, and launches a lengthy work in classical sonata form.  This ferocious movement eventually arises to a cadence which might be expected to launch a free cadenza in the manner of a concerto.  Instead, after a silent pause, we hear the quiet beginnings of a fugue which soon grows and grows to dominate the entire keyboard -- expanding as it goes until there are no less than eleven separate lines or "voices" all sounding together.  The movement ends in F sharp major.

The third movement, the forties, is an idyll of happy home life in G major.  Here Alkan foreshadows the later depictions of Richard Strauss in his Ein Heldenleben and Symphonia domestica.  The music opens with a long singing melody, and later we hear a swifter lyrical idea representing the children which sounds positively Chopinesque.  Near the end, there is a moment of prayer illustrated by a hymn-like chordal theme which then proceeds in beautiful counterpoint with the "Chopin" melody.

The final movement in G sharp major is slow, dark, and full of despair.  Entitled "Prometheus enchained", it represents the fear of aging and death with long, slow dragging bass scales and emphatic chords which as quickly lose steam and fade away again.  The end is the longest scale of all, rising with slow but dogged determination to a concluding cadence of staccato chords with pauses between them, then a final sustained chord, quiet and low down on the keyboard.  Here, it is the finale of Tchaikovsky's last symphony which is definitely foreshadowed.

Right from the first time I heard this piece, I was captivated by the energy and sense of forward motion that infuses all the music.  The speeds may get slower and slower as the sonata progresses, yet there is never a feeling that the composer has run out of ideas, or is just doodling along to the next spectacular effect.  Although the ordering of the movements, and the key sequence, are wildly unconventional, the structural backbone underlying the work keeps both pianist and listener firmly on course right from first to last.  And, again in contrast to Liszt's sonata, it's unnecessary to listen to Les quatres ages more than once or twice before its structure becomes readily apparent.

Although there are now several recordings of Alkan's sonata available (and quite a few recordings of his other works), I would definitely recommend Hamelin's magisterial account, still available as a download from the Hyperion records website.

The Witches' Sabbath -- or is it?

In the Romantic era, there was a tremendous and ongoing fascination in all the fine arts with the whole mythos of "black magic", of evil forces, demonic powers, and the like.  The musical world in particular is thickly covered with works which -- in whole or in part -- deal with this subject matter.

 

Of course, the best-known examples are the numerous works inspired by Goethe's poetic drama Faust -- works whose composers read like a roll-call of musical Romanticism: Schumann, Schubert, Wagner, Liszt, Gounod, and more besides.

 

And then there's the long-standing tradition of the "Witches' Sabbath", a black rite taking place by night in which the demonic powers hold complete sway over the world until daylight returns.  Where else but in this tradition lie the origins of the Anglo-Saxon world's beloved Hallowe'en?  Two very famous works here are the "Dream of a Witches' Sabbath" movement from the Symphonie Fantastique of Hector Berlioz, and the tone poem St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain by Mussorgsky.  

 

I picked the work I'm discussing today precisely because tonight is the night on which the story is set.  The piece in question is Mendelssohn's dramatic cantata Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, and today, April 30, is the feast day of St. Walpurga.  There's a long-standing mythic tradition in German folklore that tonight is the night when all the witches and demons make their revels on top of the mountain called the Brocken in the Harz mountains of northern Germany. 

 

The poem set by Mendelssohn was, interestingly enough, written by Goethe with a musical setting in mind.  It's an intriguingly modern take on the old legend.  Goethe cites the Brocken as one of the final hideouts of the Druids as early Christianity sweeps across Europe.  In the text, the Druids have gathered to celebrate their spring festivals on the first of May.  When they hear that the Christians are coming to attack them, a Druid proposes that they dress as demons and witches and make loud noises to frighten the superstitious Christians away.  In this clever stratagem, Goethe implies, we find the origins of the traditional belief in a witches' Sabbath on the Brocken.

 

The composer Goethe had in mind, Mendelssohn's teacher Zelter, never succeeded in getting the project off the ground, but Mendelssohn certainly did and the resulting 35-minute work is one of the tautest, most incisive choral works he ever composed.  It's been a favourite of mine ever since I first heard an early recording when I was a teenager.  Just once, I've had the privilege of hearing it sung live -- and I hope I will again in the future.

 

The cantata begins with a dramatic overture which is -- for my money -- one of Mendelssohn's most powerful and forceful orchestral movements.  It depicts the winter storms, followed by the slow unfolding of spring over the mountains.  The storm music, which forms the bulk of the overture, transcends the fussy agitation sometimes found in the composer's music, and the fury of the wintry tempest can clearly be felt.  The storm slowly dies away as spring comes over the land, and the music flows directly into the opening recitative and lyrical spring chorus.

 

There's a warning solo sung by an elder Druid woman (mezzo-soprano) with women's chorus, and then a baritone solo (a Druid priest) sings an appropriately solemn and stately invocation.  A light-footed chorus of Druid watchmen take up their places, to an orchestral accompaniment reminiscent of the Midsummer Night's Dream fairy music.

 

This brings us to the centrepiece of the work, and its most hair-raising section.  The bass soloist proposes the deceptive plot, and the people take up their disguises.  To a lively dance accompaniment the chorus sing gleefully of their depiction of the evil forces.  This "demonic" choral movement sweeps us forward in a moto perpetuo of great musical skill and mighty dramatic force for five minutes before dying away.  It makes vivid use of cymbals, bass drum and piccolo -- three instruments that are otherwise very rare in Mendelssohn's output.

 

The priest and chorus of druids then join in their solemn C major chorus of invocation to the Divine Light.  The last dramatic masterstroke of the work is the interruption of the ritual hymn by the agitated tenor solo and male chorus of the terrified Christian guards, imagining that they see hell let loose all around them.  It ends with the various voices singing alternately "Lasst uns fliehn!" ("Let us flee!").  As their voices die away in the distance, the hymn of praise to the Light resumes, bringing the cantata to an elevated and majestic close.  Note, though, that it is not the intruding Christians who sound the final note of triumph but the Druids, voicing their strength in the face of persecution.  Perhaps it was, after all, no coincidence that this poem appealed so strongly to Mendelssohn, baptized a Christian but surely not unaware of his Jewish heritage and ancestry.

A Magnificent Musical Joke

Today's work is one that hovers at the edge of the established repertoire -- certainly better known now than at any time since it was composed, yet still an unknown quantity to many music lovers.

This work is a paradox -- a monumental masterpiece composed on a small scale, for a small ensemble, a work which encompasses the melodious, the dramatic, and the stylish, and whose composer was uncertain whether he had created a masterwork or a piece of junk -- at least if we take him at his word.

But then, that kind of wavering -- which may have been real or may itself have been a self-mocking joke -- was characteristic of Gioacchino Rossini, one of the most famous composers of opera in the nineteenth century.  Later in life, Rossini abandoned the theatre and turned instead to songs, piano pieces, and other small items -- some of which he published under the title "Sins of my Old Age."

There seems to be some validity to the idea that Rossini was genuinely concerned about his stature in the eyes of God as he felt his older age creeping upon him.  Certain it is that this "last mortal sin of my old age" was prefaced by a letter to God in which he asked forgiveness because his heart was in the right place even if his music wasn't!

So let's have a look at this greatest of his late "sins": the Petite Messe Solennelle or (literally) "Little Solemn Mass".  Scholars remain divided about the title.  Was it a literal description of a work written for a chamber ensemble of singers accompanied by 2 pianos (one of which only doubles in the bigger movements) and a harmonium (a domestic-sized chamber organ)?  Or was it yet another of the composer's little jokes, since this Petite Messe lasts for 90 minutes in performance?

It's been said -- with some justice -- that to perform this mass you need only a piano, a harmonium, a choir of eight and the four greatest solo singers in the world!

I first encountered this work as a young singer, when our church choir at St. George's Church in North Toronto performed it with one piano and organ.  At the time, there was only one recording available, and that was a production of doubtful quality and authenticity (probably pirated at a live concert), presenting the later orchestral version which Rossini was compelled to create himself to block others from doing it for him.  At any rate, it was such a thrilling piece to sing that I have never forgotten that experience.

Today, there are a number of commercial recordings made and more concert recordings available on line, and the original score has almost completely (and rightfully) supplanted the later orchestral adaptation.

So what can a music lover expect to find in this 95-minute "little" mass?  There are movements where the instruments seem to dance in accompaniment to the singers.  There are Italianate operatic solos of the sort you hear in the composer's better-known Stabat Mater -- no shortage of those for Rossini was, first and foremost, a composer for the stage!  There are fugues -- fugues which stretch singers and players alike to the limits, and keep them there for minutes on end.  There is music of solemnity and music of joy.  Through it all, Rossini never loses sight of the fact that he is composing for a private performance in a private chapel.  This is definitely not  the B Minor Mass nor the Missa Solemnis dressed in a vow of perpetual poverty!

The score is littered with Rossinian musical jokes.  One of the best comes at the end of the tenor aria Domine deus, which is in D major.  The music modulates slyly to C major, the dominant of F (which is the central key of the entire Gloria) and then sets up every expectation of a conventional dominant-to-tonic resolution -- but ends instead with a thunderous open octave on the dominant C, leading to a remote and tragic F minor for the succeeding Qui tollis.  Another good instance is found in the weird modulations that jump out repeatedly during the Sanctus.

Where the music is least "petite" is in the gigantic choral fugues which end the Gloria and Credo respectively.  The high-speed, high-energy Cum sancto spiritu of the Gloria in particular winds up with a grandiose peroration in which the music climbs a ladder of rising keys before finally landing back in unadulterated and spectacular F major for the final chords.

The solennelle side is introduced right at the outset by the dark introduction of the Kyrie eleison.  The pianos set up an ostinato rhythmic pattern which continues through most of the succeeding movement, propelling the music ceaselessly forwards.  The polyphonic Christe eleison for unaccompanied chorus, in its simple austerity, looks backward to the Renaissance -- before the Kyrie returns, ushered in by that remorseless ostinato.  

Perhaps the most solennelle movement of the entire score is the instrumental Preludio religioso which precedes the Sanctus.  Normally entrusted to a piano, this can be heard in at least one recording played instead on the harmonium.  Either way, it's a pure piece of ecclesiastical polyphony which can be taken as Rossini's tribute to the polyphonic writing of Bach.

Among the solos, all others take yield pride of place to the mezzo-soprano's E minor Agnus dei (with chorus) which crowns the entire work.  In its place, it inevitably suggests the very different Libera me of Verdi's Requiem  in that the audience can easily forget all about the rest of the performance by the time this final solo is over.  The pianists accompany with a rhythmic motif that to me always suggests a slow-motion tango, of all things.  When the soloist and choir reach the final repetitions of Qui tollis peccata mundi, she keeps ratcheting up the dramatic tension by semitones, high in her range, until the music suddenly erupts into a glorious E major as she sings for the last time the words Dona nobis pacem.  But the composer's dramatic master-stroke comes after the singers have finished, in the reiteration of the doubt-tinged instrumental introduction of the movement, before the pianos and harmonium finally, grandly, finish this "little solemn mass" on an emphatic E major chord.

In the Beginning Were the Words

From time to time, we music lovers come across a work which is so uniquely itself that it can't really be compared to any other work we know.  Today's post, on Good Friday, 2016, deals with such a piece, and it's a piece composed unmistakably for Good Friday.

In 1785, Franz Josef Haydn received a most unusual commission from Cadiz in Spain.  A detailed description which he wrote at a later date gives an eye-witness account of the Good Friday service for which this work was written.

In that service, the Bishop of Cadiz pronounced aloud one of the "Seven Last Words", the seven sayings of Christ culled from the varied Gospel accounts of his crucifixion.  He then preached a sermon about that Word.  Following the sermon, he left the pulpit to pray before the altar while an orchestra played a piece of instrumental music suited to the message.  In this manner, the Bishop went through all seven of the Last Words.  Haydn's task was to compose a set of seven orchestral adagios, with an eighth to serve as an introduction to the service, and an instrumental depiction of the earthquake at the moment of Christ's death to conclude it all.

The year after this unique chain of eight slow movements for orchestra was first performed in Cadiz, Haydn arranged it for string quartet for his London publisher.  In that reduced form it became better known.  Then an organist/choirmaster at Passau in Germany set an appropriate text to Haydn's music to create an oratorio.  Haydn heard this work, and approved of both the text and the setting of the words.  However, he resolved to create his own choral setting and this he duly completed eleven years after the initial performance in Cadiz.  Haydn used the same text, but with additions and amendments by Baron van Swieten.  He added an additional interlude for winds only before the fifth Word, and an unaccompanied intonation of each Word by the choir before each related choral-orchestral movement.

Because of the widespread growth of mass choral singing in northern Europe and especially in the British Isles, this became the best-known version during the nineteenth century.  In more recent times, the work has sunk down below many music lovers' horizons, becoming far better known by name than by sound.

What a shame!  When you consider the problem Haydn was asked to solve, his work can be seen as truly masterly.  Not only does he achieve great variety within the unvarying slow tempo, but his handling of both melody and harmony impresses as much as any of his symphonies.  Each Word also adopts a tonal character suited to the meaning of the Word and to the events occurring in the Gospel at the time it is spoken.  It's not going too far to sense the presence of illustrative elements in each of the seven Words.  As well, the melody of each slow movement can be fitted quite neatly to the text of the Word -- plainly Haydn was "setting" the gospel Words to music even before he planned a vocal version of the work!

Each of the slow movements has its own particular beauties.  Sometimes it's the beauty of the melodies that you most notice.  In other cases, the orchestral scoring draws more of your notice.  The cycle breathes an air of tragedy in one sequence, to be as convincingly succeeded by consolation in the next.  Taken as a whole, I find it one of Haydn's finest achievements, not least because he triumphantly surmounted the difficulties of the commission given to him.  

The Terremoto ("Earthquake") which concludes the work sweeps away all the mourning and meditation of the preceding hour in a storm of high-energy arpeggios and fierce cross-rhythms.  The music rages so fiercely that it comes as something of a shock afterwards to realize that this movement lasted less than two minutes!  On the final pages, Haydn calls for his orchestra to play fff, and this may well be the first time such a direction was ever given to musicians.

The greatest blessing of the age of recording is the presence of all three versions.  The original orchestral score is, sadly, the least common of the three but it can be found.  The string quartet version has found more favour recently.  Some years back, a quartet from Ottawa performed it at several summer music festivals, and then laid down a recording.  I was present at their performance in Parry Sound, at the Festival of the Sound, and it was a lovely and moving experience.

The choral version, too, can be found in several recordings.  I'm listening to the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt's 1990 Vienna recording as I write this -- appropriate indeed for Good Friday.

The Seven Last Words is a truly unique and rewarding musical experience, and one that every music lover should seek out -- in whichever form suits them.  

Remembered Virtuosi, Forgotten Composers Part 1

Since today is International Women's Day, it's the perfect opportunity to begin a series of posts about women composers.

In the nineteenth century in Europe, the role of women as performers and teachers of music was widely accepted and even acclaimed.  However, those who were prepared to consider women as composers were few in number.  The result is that a number of women famed for their abilities as performers also composed music of high quality -- yet that music is but rarely heard and not at all well known, even today.

That description fits the French composer Louise Farrenc (1804-1875) to a "T".  She achieved wide fame as a virtuosa of the piano, giving concerts and (with her husband) founding a musical publishing house.  She was also a noted teacher, serving for three decades as Permanent Professor of Piano at the Paris Conservatoire.  Her students achieved many Premier Prix awards, and numbers of them embarked on professional careers.

While her public fame as a performing artist and a teacher was considerable, her musical compositions were far less well known.  The one genre in which she did not compose was opera, and the opera was the centrepoint of French musical life during her time.  This fact alone would have caused her work to be widely ignored by the public.

And yet, musicians and other knowledgeable persons acclaimed the high quality of her music.  In the 1820s, she began by writing exclusively for the piano, but her works already drew much favourable comment, from Robert Schumann among others.  Later, in the 1830s and after, she composed a great deal of chamber music, which many experts agree is of comparable quality with the best works of her male contemporaries.  Most notable among these is a nonet for four strings and five winds, a work which was performed with no less a virtuoso than Joseph Joachim leading the ensemble.  It was after the enthusiastic reception of this nonet that Farrenc was finally able to force the Conservatoire to pay her a salary equivalent to that paid to her male colleagues.

Here's where my reaction comes in, because the recording I acquired is a disc of three major chamber works: a clarinet trio and a piano trio, both in E-flat major, and a sextet in C minor for winds and piano -- which she later recast in an alternate version as a string and piano quintet.

This is all very engaging music -- in the sense that it engages the listener and keeps you engaged throughout.  No idle doodling along where you can check out for a bit -- this is music of both skill and substance, and well worth anyone's time and effort.

The musical vocabulary, as one might expect, is poised somewhere between Mendelssohn, Schumann and the early Brahms -- exactly the point in musical history where it was composed.  Farrenc was no revolutionary, but she plainly had a thorough grasp of all the expressive possibilities within the musical language of her time.  The sextet is especially admirable, making full use of the contrasting tone colours within the wind ensemble to highlight the musical ideas. 

Sure sign of a good thing: I have pulled this recording up and listened to it more than a few times in the months since I downloaded it.  Perhaps the impetus to write up this post will send me looking for more recordings of her music to enjoy.

The Handel of the Romantic Era

Happy New Year to all!  To start 2016 off with a bang, I am presenting to you a masterpiece (and it is in my opinion no less than that) which has vanished due entirely to politics.  Taken on its own terms, as music, it should never have dropped off the map at all.

My title is inspired partly by style, but also partly by content in this case.  Handel composed several major works to celebrate victories in one or another of the ongoing string of European wars in his lifetime -- the Utrecht Te Deum and Jubilate and the spectacular Dettingen Te Deum being prime examples.  Maybe I should write about them next!

In 1871, to celebrate the victory of the nascent Germany over France in what is now called the Franco-Prussian War, Brahms composed a cantata which he called Triumphlied.  It sets words from the Bible, principally from the Book of Revelation, and definitely stands in the direct line of succession from Handel's 18th century victory hymns.  Not only that, but the music itself has an energy and exuberance that one doesn't necessarily associate with Brahms, but which also invites comparison with the celebratory works of the older master.

Of course, the war which the Triumphlied celebrated is now seen as the direct forerunner of the two great World Wars of the twentieth century.  It didn't help the music's cause at all when Brahms wrote into the score the words "...for he hath judged the great prostitute," under notes that would have carried those words perfectly (although he did not set the words to music).  In this way he basically equated the sinful city of Babylon in the Book of Revelation with Paris.  As a result, this has become the least heard and least recorded of the sequence of major works for choir and orchestra which Brahms composed throughout much of his life.

In the 1970s, the young Giuseppe Sinopoli conducted a series of recording sessions for Deutsche Grammophon of major choral works with orchestra by Brahms, and in the process gave the Triumphlied what I believe to be its first major label recording.  It wasn't an easy recording to get in Canada.  As an LP, it was only available at a very high price as a special-order import.  But when the complete set was reissued on a 3-CD box, it became one of my first CD purchases.  As soon as I opened that box, I immediately pulled out the Triumphlied, the one piece in the set which I had never heard before.

From the very first notes, this music engaged me totally.  Right in those opening bars I was drawn into an exhilarating sound world which, with its fast-moving melodies, immediately reminded me of Handel's public and ceremonial music -- and the resemblance doubled when the choir entered after the minute-long instrumental introduction with a rousing chain of "Hallelujahs!".  I've never lost that impression since.

The Triumphlied is divided into 3 movements, lasting in total for about 25 minutes.  In contrast to the surging rhythms of the quicker first and last movements, the second one adopts a more moderate tempo, but make no mistake -- there's no slackening of the essential energy of the work, such as one encounters in (for instance) the slow sections of Bruckner's Te Deum. 

The third movement harks back in structure and style to the sixth movement of the Deutsches Requiem, composed not many years earlier.  A baritone soloist sings the text describing the appearance of the white horse with the rider who was called faithful and true, and this leads directly into a rousing fugal movement, which then in turn gives way to a more substantial and worked-out fugue that brings the composition to its spectacular "Hallelujah! Amen!" conclusion.

In composing such a work, Brahms was of course going with the extraordinary flowering of German nationalism in his time.  While the Triumphlied dropped out of sight for political reasons after World War One, I see no reason why it can't be reappraised, politics apart, in our day.  After all, well over a century has elapsed.  And in that century-plus, we've seen no great issue with listening to recordings and attending concerts given by artists who worked throughout the Nazi regime, nor indeed with marvelling at the operas of Wagner, the virulently anti-Semitic darling of the Third Reich.  By comparison, the sins of Brahms in this work shrink to a mild peccadillo.  By all means, seek the Triumphlied out and enjoy it, for it is one of its composer's finest creations for voices and orchestra.