The Listeners’ Club

Heifetz Plays “White Christmas”

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Jascha Heifetz and his accompanist, Milton Kaye, having dinner with troops from the 21st General Hospital following a USO concert in Naples, Italy, June 16,1944.
Jascha Heifetz and accompanist Milton Kaye (far Left) have dinner with troops from the 21st General Hospital following a USO concert in Naples, Italy, June 16,1944.

 

If you’ve never heard Jascha Heifetz’s 1944 recording of Irving Berlin’s White Christmas, take a moment and listen.

White Christmas was first performed by Bing Crosby on Christmas Day, 1941. Crosby’s single sold 50 million copies and stands as the best-selling single of all time. The song resonated with soldiers stationed abroad during the Second World War.

Around the time this recording was made, Heifetz assisted the war effort by performing USO-organized concerts for troops stationed in Central and South America, Italy, and North Africa. Flying in U.S. Air Force planes, Heifetz performed 45 concerts in eight weeks. According to a New York Times account,

‘The Messrs Heifetz and Kaye played in theatres, opera houses, airplane hangers, battleships and right up at the front lines…For the front-line engagements, of which there were several, the concerts were given from an open truck which carted a small, olive-drab piano.

White Christmas ranks number two on the Songs of the Century list, behind Over the Rainbow. There’s a sense of melancholy lurking beneath the surface in both songs. In an article published yesterday at Smithsonian.com, Marissa Fessenden examines the sadness of White Christmas and personal tragedy in Irving Berlin’s life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHVK_5gBoGk

Irving Berlin, one of the twentieth century’s greatest song writers, couldn’t read or write music. He played the piano only in the key of F-sharp, which uses many black keys. Berlin dictated melodies to a secretary, who transcribed the musical notation. According to one story, after writing White Christmas, Berlin said,

Grab your pen and take down this song. I just wrote the best song I’ve ever written — heck, I just wrote the best song that anybody’s ever written!

Jazz miniatures arranged and recorded by Jascha Heifetz can be found on a compilation disk called, It Ain’t Necessarily So: Legendary Classic and Jazz Studio Takes.

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Judas Maccabaeus, Handel’s Hanukkah Oratorio

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Judas Maccabeus before the Army of Nicanor.
Judas Maccabeus before the Army of Nicanor.

George Frideric Handel’s 1746 oratorio, Judas Maccabaeus tells the story of Hanukkah. The oratorio, set to a libretto by Thomas Morell, is a three act dramatization of the Maccabean Revolt (167-160 BC), in which a Jewish army rose up against the Seleucid Empire (present day Syria). The revolt, which ultimately led to the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem, was sparked by the actions of a lone Jewish priest, Mattathias. In defiance of the mandate to worship Zeus, Mattathias killed a fellow Jew who was about to offer pagan sacrifice and tore down the pagan alter.

It’s a drama which seems ripe for Handel’s triumphant music. But for all of Judas Maccabaeus’ religious overtones, it’s likely that Handel actually conceived the work as a clever piece of secular political propaganda. Its mythic heroism coincided with Prince William, Duke of Cumberland’s victory at the Battle of Culloden, a conflict which marked the end of the Jacobite rising of 1745.

Judas Maccabaeus moves from mournful despair (the unrelenting quiet intensity of the Chorus For Sion lamentation make at 17:46) to a stirring rallying cry (Arm, arm, ye brave 29:52), and ultimately to triumphant exultation. Listen to the way Handel’s counterpoint becomes increasingly complex and euphoric in the Chorus, Hear us, O Lord (55:56).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=939-BHNKWNI

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Suzuki’s “Chorus from Judas Maccabaeus”

Shinichi Suzuki’s transcription of the theme of the Chorus, See, the conqu’ring hero comes, is included in Book 2 of the Suzuki Violin Repertoire. Chorus from Judas Maccabaeus helps students develop long, sustained bows and a feeling of relaxed, springy connection to the string. It’s also a great piece for bow division and the encouragement of the push of the elbow and upper arm, which allows the bow to reach the frog. For full bows, students should visualize the bow’s motion as an arch (following the dip of the bow stick), not as a straight line.

Here is Handel’s original version, performed by Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. The jubilant chorus occurs towards the end of Judas Maccabaeus. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrgU0hdWuJg

Beethoven’s Variations

Beethoven wrote twelve far-reaching variations for cello and piano on Handel’s theme. Here is a 1966 performance by cellist Maurice Gendron and pianist Jean Françaix:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFfLO7pcujM

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Respighi Meets Botticelli

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Sandro Botticelli Adoration of the Magi 2
Sandro Botticelli’s “Adoration of the Magi” (1475)

 

Ottorino Respighi’s Trittico Botticelliano (Three Botticelli Pictures), written in 1927, was inspired by the work of Italian Renaissance painter, Sandro Botticelli. The second movement is a musical depiction of Botticelli’s famous nativity scene, Adoration of the Magi. 

Color and atmosphere are important elements in Respighi’s music. Notice the distinct voices of the bassoon and oboe and the contrast between the dark, velvety strings and the shimmering timbre of the flute. Towards the end of the movement, you may hear a moment of subtle illumination.

In the painting, Botticelli replaces the backdrop of the stable with ruins of ancient Rome. Respighi also draws on history, quoting Veni, Veni Emmanuel, which has roots in ninth century antiphon. Listen to Zoltán Kodály’s choral arrangement of Oh Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVwZddiBuUk

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Remembering Lydia Mordkovitch

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Lydia Mordkovitch (1944-2014)

Russian-born violinist Lydia Mordkovitch passed away earlier in the week. She was a student of David Oistrakh and served as his assistant in the late 1960s. In this interview she talks about her Russian musical roots and the influence of Oistrakh’s teaching.

Mordkovitch emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1980. In 1995 she joined the faculty of the Royal Academy of Music. Her extensive discography on the Chandos label includes music of English composers (violin concertos of Arnold Bax, William Alwyn and George Dyson) and Max Bruch’s seldom heard Second and Third Violin Concertos.

Listening to a sample of Lydia Mordkovitch’s recordings, I was struck by the soulfulness and honesty of her musicianship. While many contemporary violinists seem to sound alike, her tone was distinctive. The Loure from J.S. Bach’s Third Partita (the second movement in the final clip below) is an example of Mordkovitch’s singing approach to sound and wide array of tonal colors.

Strad Magazine offered the following description in a 2009 review of Mordkovitch’s CD of Russian violin music:

To hear Lydia Mordkovitch at the peak of her interpretative powers is like being thrown back half a century when the likes of David Oistrakh, Isaac Stern and Yehudi Menuhin held sway…She has never believed in half measures and here every note is played to its maximum expressive potential, whether it is a raging violin fortissimo or a gentle viola pizzicato.

Here is the first movement of Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2, Op. 63 with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqavSNZrjwg

Olivier Messiaen’s Thème et variations was written in 1932 as a wedding gift for the composer’s first wife, violinist Claire Delbos:

Here is Mordkovitch’s 1987 recording of J.S. Bach’s Partita for Solo Violin No. 3 in E:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4QYWX73RQY

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Something of Life: Jeffrey Zeigler’s New Album

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jz_digitalcoversqCellist Jeffrey Zeigler’s debut solo album, Something of Life, came out last month. The recording, produced on the Innova label, features dynamic contemporary music by Paola Prestini, John Zorn, Philip Glass, Gity Razaz, Glenn Kotche, and Felipe Pérez Santiago. Zeigler recently left the Kronos Quartet after eight seasons to focus on a solo career, teaching, and family.

Paola Prestini’s Listen, Quiet, first performed in 2010, is a multimedia work which blends percussion, amplified cello, and electronic sounds with film and other visual elements. The composer offers the following description of the piece at her website:

“Listen, Quiet” explores the way I feel about water in my life: it nurtures, heals, separates. The work is based on recorded private conversations that struggle with live performance. The piece was inspired by the third panel in “Going Forth By Day” a multi-channel work by Bill Viola. In this specific video panel, water accumulates throughout the thirty minute cycle, and eventually, washes out an entire home, its memories, delusions, stories. The work is divided in two halves.

Listen: I had recorded an artist’s voice this past summer who was dealing with a great deal of pain, thinking that this work would eventually ease her pain, and illuminate her vicious cycle. The work assigns roles to each player: the cellist narrates, the percussionist is the perpetrator and symbolizes the indifference, at times, of life; the manipulated voices recount her story, and the natural elements eventually wash away her voices, leaving only sounds of nature. Perhaps easing the pain, perhaps narrating that these stories are in fact, the everyday, and they are cyclical.

Quiet: is a hymn to voices from my childhood, of my mother. They tell a story of magic, and of the memories that shaped us both.

This work includes staging, video design, a glass sculpture, and sound design.

In Listen, Quiet, the cello provides a mournful and sometimes anguished voice. At times it suggests the passionate, spontaneous intensity of a rock electric guitar (listen around 7:10). Repeated percussion patterns in the first section of the piece give way to a three note ostinato bass line in the second section:

John Zorn’s Babel suggests the edgy, ferocious rhythmic drive of Heavy metal. Listen to the harmony suggested by a rich array of overtones:

The recording also includes Gity Razaz’s Shadow Lines, Philip Glass’ Orbit (which gives a nod to solo Bach), Glenn Kotche’s Something of Life, and Felipe Pérez Santiago’s Glaub. 

Jeffrey Zeigler’s Something of Life album showcases some of the exciting, brand new music which is emerging from the New York avant-garde scene. This is music which combines electronic and acoustic elements to reflect the unique sound of the twenty-first century. It will be fun to see how Zeigler’s future recordings follow up on this debut CD.

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Music Fit for an Emperor

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Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)
Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Violinist Mark Sokol passed away last week. He was a founding member of the Concord String Quartet. Between 1971 and its disbanding in 1987, the Concord String Quartet championed music by American composers including Charles Ives, George Crumb, Jacob Druckman and Morton Feldman. Mark Sokol later joined the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

Here is the Concord’s recording of Haydn’s String Quartet in C Major, Op. 76, No. 3. This quartet earned the nickname “The Emperor” because the second movement is made up of variations on the melody, “God Save Emperor Francis.” Today we know this theme as the German national anthem.

Haydn composed the theme after returning from England, where he heard “God Save the Queen.” The theme quickly gained popularity and inspired patriotism at a time when Napoleon was threatening the Austrian Empire.

Composer Samuel Adler offers a technical analysis of the second movement’s progression of variations:

This is a wonderful lesson in orchestration, for too often the extremes in the range are wasted too early in a work, and the final buildup is, as a result, anticlimactic. The other formal factor to notice is that the entire structure is an accumulation of the elements which have slowly entered the harmonic and contrapuntal scheme in the course of the variations and have become a natural part of the statement.

Here are the second, third and fourth movements.

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Friday Afternoons with Benjamin Britten

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Children from Suffolk and Yorkshire sing Friday Afternoons at the Royal Albert Hall this month. Photograph: Anna McCarthy
Children from Suffolk and Yorkshire singing at Royal Albert Hall last week. Photograph: Anna McCarthy

 

Last Friday, children across the world came together to sing.

Friday Afternoons, a global project designed to promote singing in schools, began in 2011 as part of celebrations of the centennial of Benjamin Britten’s birth. Last year, 67,000 students around the world participated in the live-streamed event, organized by Aldenburgh Music.

In the early 1930s, Benjamin Britten wrote a collection of twelve songs called Friday Afternoons for students at the Clive House School in Prestatyn in northeast Wales. The songs, which include “Cuckoo!” and the canon, “Old Abram Brown”, feature catchy, repetitive phrases and a strong sense of pulse, elements which appeal to young children. This year, in the spirit of Britten, twelve new children’s songs were written by composers including Nico Muhly, Rachel Portman, and the 14-year-old Zoe Dixon. Listen to all of the songs here and watch a segment of the event.

The benefits are obvious. Children develop aural and rhythmic skills by singing and listening to music from an early age. This development can lead to a meaningful, lifelong relationship with music.

Archeologists believe that music predated language. Throughout most of history, music was produced live and was experienced collectively. In an era of iTunes downloads and silent discos, Friday Afternoons restores the joy of collective music making, this time on a global level.

Friday Afternoons offers us a great opportunity to evaluate our priorities. For too long, society has offered token support for music and arts education while simultaneously tolerated cliched statements like, “we just don’t have the money” or “we need to focus on basics to train a competitive work force.” The 1999 film Music of the Heart impacted emotions and ideals without translating into a deeper and more enlightened commitment to the role of music in a complete education. If the future of the world relies on peaceful cooperation between countries, educated, thoughtful citizens, and the unleashing of the creative force, what could be more relevant than an event like Friday Afternoons?

A Ceremony of Carols

…and while we’re on the subject of Benjamin Britten, let’s kick off the Christmas season with This Little Babe from A Ceremony of Carols, Op. 28, performed by the King’s College Choir of Cambridge:

Philippe Quint’s Unedited Tchaikovsky

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61Fs5yW6KyL._SL500_AA280_In September, Russian-American violinist Philippe Quint released a recording of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, accompanied by conductor Martin Panteleev and the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra. If you already own a thousand recordings of the Tchaikovsky, there are good reasons to also include this CD in your collection. Quint offers a distinctive and introspective performance, which emphasizes a rounded, singing tone, even in the most difficult passages of the first movement’s cadenza. He also includes Tchaikovsky’s rarely heard original final movement.

As Philippe Quint explains in this interview, Tchaikovsky originally dedicated the concerto to Leopold Auer, the legendary teacher of Mischa Elman, Jascha Heifetz and Nathan Milstein, among others. Auer considered the third movement to be “unviolinistic” and set the concerto aside. Tchaikovsky withdrew the dedication and rededicated the work to Adolph Brodsky, who gave an ill-fated premiere in Vienna on December 4, 1881. Leopold Auer later revised the final movement and this is the version we almost always hear performed.

Listen to Quint’s performance of the first and second movements and the standard Auer version of the third movement. Then compare it with Tchaikovsky’s original version of the final movement (below). The influence of ballet seems to be just below the surface in much of Tchaikovsky’s music. Throughout ballet scores like The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty, Tchaikovsky often repeats short, symmetrical phrases. We hear a similar kind of repetition in the third movement of the Violin Concerto (1:01-1:09, for example). Auer condensed the score, cutting these repeated passages.

Arensky’s String Quartet No. 2

This recording also includes Anton Arensky’s String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, Op. 35 (1894). Arensky, a student of Rimsky-Korsakov and the teacher of Alexander Scriabin and Sergei Rachmaninov, dedicated the Quartet to the memory of Tchaikovsky. The second movement is a series of variations on a theme from Tchaikovsky’s Legend, No. 5 from 16 Songs for Children, Op. 54. Arensky’s Quartet features the unusual combination of violin, viola and two cellos. Here are the first, second and third movements.

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