The Listeners’ Club

Summer Nights with Berlioz

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Lake Ähtärinjärvi at summer night

French composer Hector Berlioz was an innovator and a revolutionary. He heard strange, shocking new music which had never before been imagined. Berlioz’s song cycle Les nuits d’été (Summer Nights), written in 1841 is deeply psychological and infused with the ideals of Romanticism. This is music of hallucination, at times venturing into the eerie and the supernatural. It plays with our sense of time, sometimes seeming static and unsure, as if wandering through a dream. At other times (as in the fifth song) the music restlessly searches for an allusive goal, remaining quietly apprehensive, unsettled and ghostly. At moments it becomes schizophrenic, taking sudden and unexpected melodic and harmonic turns. 

Summer Nights is a setting of six poems by Theophile Gautier. As you listen, consider how Berlioz captures the atmosphere of each poem through music. Pay attention to the combination of instruments he uses. What musical colors are created and how do these colors make us feel the drama of the text? Can you hear a shadowy, veiled, angelic form passing a ray of light in a dark cemetery in the fifth song? (25:08-25:49) The final chord of this passage is so dissonant that it would not be out of place in the sound world of the twentieth century. Notice the sweeping violin passages evoking a “maritime breeze” in the final song.

Here it is performed by mezzo-soprano Susan Graham with Pierre Boulez conducting the Chicago Symphony:

Les nuits d’été (Summer Nights), Op. 7…Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

  1. Villanelle 
  2. Le spectre de la rose 
  3. Sur les lagunes 
  4. Absence 
  5. Au cimetière 
  6. L’île inconnue 

[/ordered_list]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mcHOXF6VqvM

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hector-berlioz-les-nuits-dete/id305749288″]Find on iTunes[/button] [button link=”http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000003FSU”]Find on Amazon[/button]

Here is more historical background on Summer Nights and Berlioz’s life. Leave a comment in the thread below and share your thoughts on this song cycle. What did you find striking about the music? What are your favorite moments?

Three Lullabies by Gershwin

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New YorkThe lazy days of summer are here in the Northern Hemisphere. For many of us this is a time to rest and recharge, whether in the cool shade of a back yard hammock or the sun and sand of the beach. What music could be more appropriately relaxing and soothing than a lullaby, with its gentle rocking rhythm and simple repetitive melody?

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Lullaby [/typography]

Barely out of his teenage years, George Gershwin wrote Lullaby in 1919 as a harmony exercise for his composition teacher. Even in this homework assignment, Gershwin’s distinct musical vocabulary seems fully formed. As you listen, consider what characteristics make the music sound distinctly “Gershwin.” Listen closely to the thick, shimmering inner voices under the melody. Notice that they often move in parallel motion. Do you hear anything that sounds like jazz or the French Impressionism of Debussy or Ravel? Pay attention to the harmony around 3:47-4:10 and 6:35-6:41. What kinds of emotions do you feel as you listen to the opening melody and the section beginning at 5:16?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2z929ncJ9dg

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gershwin-rhapsody-in-blue/id442994212″]Find on iTunes[/button] [button link=”http://www.amazon.com/Gershwin-Lullaby-string-orchestra/dp/B004VJI076″]Find on Amazon[/button]

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Prelude No. 2[/typography]

Now let’s listen to a piece that Gershwin described as “a sort of blues lullaby.” This is Prelude No. 2 for piano, performed by Arthur Rubinstein:

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gershwin-3-preludes-single/id586138952″]Find on iTunes[/button] [button link=”http://www.amazon.com/Bernstein-Clarinet-Sonata-Gershwin-Preludes/dp/B003QLY5HY”]Find on Amazon[/button]

Did you notice how Prelude No. 2, constructed on the blues scale, veers unexpectedly between minor and major? As the melody almost restlessly searches, there is something constant and unrelenting about the undulating chromatic harmony in the left hand. The tension between these two simultaneous musical personalities (one dreaming and striving, the other accepting reality) is resolved, only at the end of the phrase, as the impetuous top voice falls back in resignation. Despite its far flung adventures, the melody ends where it began (0:26). Notice that Gershwin never gives us a straightforward minor chord for these resolutions. It’s always a murky, crunching dissonance (1:10). Consider the overall mood of the music. Can you hear the deep sadness and yearning that characterizes the blues style? Did the last chord surprise you? Considering what came before, what is the significance of Gershwin’s choice to end this way?

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Summertime[/typography]

Finally, let’s listen to the most famous of the three lullabies, Summertime from Gershwin’s opera, Porgy and Bess. Rob Kapilow provides a fascinating analysis in his What Makes It Great series. Can you feel the sultry, oppressive heat and humidity of the fictional Catfish Row, Charleston, South Carolina at the height of summer? How does the music create this atmosphere? Here is a clip from the opera:

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/gershwins-porgy-bess-new-broadway/id528266857″]Find on iTunes[/button] [button link=”http://www.amazon.com/Porgy-Bess-New-Broadway-Cast/dp/B007FEHA34″]Find on Amazon[/button]

As a fun bonus, let’s finish up with the bigger than life swing of Gershwin’s Broadway side. Here is the Girl Crazy Overture. Please share your thoughts in the thread below. Tell us what you hear in the music of George Gershwin.

Happy Independence Day

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4thFireworks1

John Philip Sousa’s marches embody qualities which are uniquely American. Listen to a British patriotic march like Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 and you’ll hear the slow, stately, majestic character of England. By contrast, Sousa’s marches are faster and more brash, reflecting the optimistic innocence of a young country just beginning to flex its muscles on the world stage. Sousa’s marches provide a musical snapshot of the spirit of America around the turn of the twentieth century. For fun, listen to the British Grenadier Guards try to make The Stars and Stripes Forever conform to that regal British style. Do you notice something missing in this performance?

In celebration of Independence Day, let’s listen to one of Sousa’s most emotionally charged marches, Hands Across the Sea, which he composed in 1899. Here, it’s performed by the Eastman Wind Ensemble, conducted by Fredrick Fennell. It’s followed by other popular Sousa marches including Washington Post, El Capitan, and The Stars and Stripes Forever. You can find this recording on iTunes and at Amazon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1ftdfB0NEM

Hands Across the Sea immediately grabs our attention with small surprises. Listen one more time to the short, rip roaring introduction and pause at 0:07. Think about all the possibilities that could have come next. You probably didn’t expect the musical curve ball that Sousa throws-these two defiant chords, resolving in a surprise D minor. At 1:10 we get another surprise as Sousa moves to B-flat major for the trio section. This melody is as noble as any of Elgar’s marches, but this is nobility through an American lens. Listen to the way the melody plays with our sense of expectation, stepping higher and higher before an almost choral-like resolution.

Now that we’ve heard these marches as Sousa wrote them, let’s finish up with this fun and virtuosic arrangement of The Stars and Strips Forever, played by two violinists from “The President’s Own” Marine Chamber Orchestra:

Music on the Tarmac

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A330 Beijing

Last week, musicians from the Philadelphia Orchestra made news when they turned a three hour delay on the tarmac at the Beijing airport into an impromptu concert. You can watch the now viral video of their performance of the last movement of Antonin Dvorak’s “American” String Quartet.

Let’s listen to the Cleveland Quartet perform all four movements of this amazing piece. Pay attention to the way the four voices interact and trade around motives. Can you hear a musical conversation taking place between instruments? Listen to the rhythmic “motor” which propels the music forward. Notice subtle details that make the music sparkle, like the cello’s pizzicato line that begins at 0:14.

String Quartet No. 12 “American”, Op. 96…Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

  1. Allegro ma non troppo (starts at beginning)
  2. Lento (starts at 9:05)
  3. Molto vivace (starts at 16:08)
  4. Finale: vivace ma non troppo (starts at 19:58)

[/ordered_list]

Now, let’s go back and listen again to pick up a few more details in the music. The first movement is built on sonata form, a structure we explored a few months ago in my post, Baseball and the Symphony. Can you hear sonata form at work here? Listen to the second theme at 1:30. Does it feel different emotionally from what came before? Starting around 4:44, can you hear Dvorak shaking up the themes and motives from the exposition, turning them upside down and inside out and developing them in exciting ways? Consider how we slide back into the recapitulation at 6:28. It’s the same music we heard at the beginning, but this time Dvorak throws us a surprise before fully returning home. Can you tell what’s happening and how it’s different from the beginning of the piece? Listen carefully to the harmony at 6:28.

The third movement starts off simply enough with all four voices playing the same music in octaves, but listen to how quickly things get delightfully complicated. Pay attention to the increasingly complex interplay of rhythms that follows this simple opening. Listen carefully and you’ll hear the melody line popping up in the cello at 16:40.

As you listen to the final movement, consider what feelings the music evokes…wild, fun-loving, excited anticipation? Like a real person, this movement’s musical personality is a complex mix of emotions which can’t be fully put into words. Near the end of the movement, there is a brief moment where the “motor” stops and the music suddenly becomes more introspective (23:29). Consider the emotional significance of this moment of reflection. Why does it come at this moment in the piece? What happens next?

Dvorak wrote this quartet in the summer of 1893 in Spillville, Iowa, a prairie enclave settled by Bohemian immigrants. This was the same year that the “New World” Symphony was written as a commission for the New York Philharmonic. Did you hear any of the motives from the Symphony slipping into this quartet? (If you missed it, go back and listen to the cello at 8:49 for just one example). Learn more about Dvorak’s trip to Iowa here.

Between 1892 and 1895, Dvorak directed the National Conservatory of Music in New York. He was interested in helping a still comparatively young America develop an authentic musical tradition. Dvorak urged composers to draw inspiration from Native American and African American folk traditions. Some listeners hear these uniquely American influences in the “New World” Symphony and this quartet. Others only hear the influence of the Czech folk music which inspired Dvorak throughout his life. Which side do you take? Share your thoughts on this music and the Cleveland Quartet’s performance in the thread below. You can find this recording on Amazon.

Spillville, Iowa in 1893
Spillville, Iowa in 1893

 

Voices from Bulgaria

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Young dancers, Pirin, Bulgaria, June 2006

If you haven’t heard the extraordinary and unique sound of the Bulgarian State Television Female Choir, take a moment and listen. This ensemble, made up of singers from villages across Bulgaria, keeps alive a distinctive style of singing which is centuries-old. What’s particularly striking are the rich, vibrant overtones of the voices. The chords ring and glow with perfect intonation and balance. Listening to this clip, it’s easy to lose yourself in the powerful, focused intensity of the sound. In a part of the world where East has traditionally met West, Middle Eastern influence can be heard in the vocal color and ornamentation.

Here is Stani Mi, Maytcho (Get Up, My Daughter), a Bulgarian folk song:

This excerpt is from Nonesuch’s 1988 recording, Le Mystere des Voix Bulgares, Volume 2. You can find it on iTunes and at Amazon. Listen to more excerpts from this set of recordings here. Share your thoughts on this music in the thread below. What are the qualities that make sound beautiful, expressive and moving? If you’re an instrumentalist, consider how the vibrant colors of the human voice inspire you to “sing” on your instrument.

The Rite of Spring Turns 100

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Stravinsky, sketched by Picasso
Stravinsky, sketched by Picasso

This week marks the 100th anniversary of the premier of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, one of the twentieth century’s most important and influential pieces. It was written as a ballet score for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes in Paris and originally choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky.

The Rite of Spring was revolutionary. Its dissonant sounds, complex rhythms and ferocious musical primitivism had never been imagined. The first audience, expecting the elegant classical ballet of the nineteenth century, was rudely confronted with the violent cacophony of a new twentieth century reality. The premier on May 29, 1913 at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees was so shocking that a riot broke out. You can read the New York Times’s account of the evening here.

The Rite of Spring shakes off the civilized world and offers a glimpse at raw nature in all of its earthy, potent glory. In this clip from a rehearsal, Leonard Bernstein suggests that the music conjures up primal feelings of connection to a living earth-the feeling of laying on the grass and hugging the earth on a warm day or wrapping your arms around a tree trunk. Disney’s use of the music in the soundtrack of Fantasia suggests something equally primordial. Stravinsky said that his unifying idea was “the mystery and great surge of the creative power of spring.”

Let’s listen to an excellent concert performance by conductor Jaap van Zweden and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic (video below). Elements of the music may remind you of jazz and even rock. Early jazz musicians were influenced by composers such as Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel. At the same time, composers were becoming interested in the music of Asia and Africa which fed into jazz. You might also hear music that reminds you of Bernstein’s West Side Story.

Many of Stravinsky’s melodies for The Rite of Spring grew out of folk music from the most rural reaches of Russia. You may notice that the music is often constructed on an ostinato, or repeated motive or phrase. Listen closely to the way Stravinsky layers chords to create shocking new harmonies. Most importantly, enjoy the feel and groove of the rhythm. At times you will hear Stravinsky layer competing grooves on top of each other to keep us feeling off balance. For one especially exciting example of this, listen to the base drum beat at 13:30 and what follows.

The Rite of Spring is divided into two parts, The Adoration of the Earth and The Sacrifice (starting at 16:03). Listen to the way the piece grows out of a single high bassoon line. More and more instruments join and interrupt. Consider the mood that is set in this opening. Do you feel a sense of anticipation, as if something shocking is just around the corner? Does the music take sudden turns which surprise or even scare you? Can you feel a sense of motion and raw emotion in the music?

The second part centers around the tribe’s selection and sacrifice of a young girl (16:03). Listen to the way Stravinsky musically builds tension and anticipation as this ritual unfolds (25:44). The ballet ends with a Sacrificial Dance as the girl dances herself to death (29:09).

For more background and analysis of The Rite of Spring, watch this episode of Michael Tilson Thomas’s Keeping Score. Also hear the thoughts of composer/conductor Pierre Boulez and watch this video. Share your own thoughts about this monumental piece in the thread below. Tell us what you heard. What aspects of the music do you find particularly interesting? What emotions do you feel as you listen? What are your favorite moments in the piece?

Oblivion

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tango-couple-buenos-aires-club_11320_600x450

[divider]Take a moment and listen to this hauntingly atmospheric music by twentieth century Argentine tango composer, Astor Piazzolla. Oblivion was written in 1982 and used in the soundtrack of Mario Bellocchio’s film, Enricho IV. There are many versions of this piece for different combinations of instruments. This performance features Latvian violinist, Gidon Kremer and comes from his CD, Hommage a Piazzolla.

Like all great music, Oblivion conjures up a complex mix of emotions which cannot be put into words. What feelings does this piece evoke for you? As you listen, pay attention not only to the melody, but to the underlying harmony and rhythm in the bass and piano.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZo_4pm6L_0

For a contrast to Kremer’s performance, listen to this orchestral version played by the Montreal Symphony and Charles Dutoit. It’s an excerpt from a CD entitled Tangazo. If one version speaks to you more than another I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts. For more music by Piazzolla, visit my post featuring The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires.

Cellist, Yo Yo Ma has some interesting thoughts on Piazzolla’s music and the tango tradition in Argentina:

[quote]Tango is not just about dancing. It is a music of deep undercurrents. Because of what Argentina went through as a country, tango has become the soul of Argentina. Music is always one way people can speak when they aren’t allowed to express themselves otherwise. And Piazzolla’s tangos have the great strength of true voice…. Piazzolla’s music is endlessly passionate—full of yearning—and at the same time tremendously contemporary. There’s a quote to the effect that Piazzolla is the Ellington of Argentina, and in a way it’s true. He actually took the tango to another level by inhabiting his music. The music grew in him, and he adeptly incorporated the influences of his surroundings—whether from New York, Paris, or Buenos Aires. During the almost forty years he worked on his music, Astor Piazzolla tried many different variations—even tried an electronic ensemble! Because of this experimentation, and also his ingenuity, focus, and hard work, his music has many levels of expression and a tremendous depth. His is a truly successful synthesis of the tango and the contemporary.[/quote]

Here is an excerpt from Yo Yo Ma’s recording called, Soul of the Tango: The Music of Astor Piazzolla.

Baseball and the Symphony

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Wrigley field 720

A symphony is a dynamic, unfolding process. Within its formal structure small musical motives develop and evolve, constantly searching for an ultimate goal. On the largest level, the drama of a symphony might remind you of a baseball game. Through a series of exciting and unpredictable musical “plays,” it moves away from home and returns.

To get a sense of this drama, listen to the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 (Molto allegro). Pay attention to the opening motive and how it develops. At the same time, can you perceive a larger formal structure?

Symphony No. 40 in G minor, K. 550…Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

  1. Molto allegro -starts at 0:42
  2. Andante -starts at 8:28
  3. Menuetto. Allegretto-Trio -starts at 22:33
  4. Finale. Allegro assai -starts at 26:10

[/ordered_list]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HbMzu1aQW8

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Motivic Development[/typography]

Could you hear the restless opening theme develop and search for a resolution? There are short term goals along the way, but the music never really rests until the final note. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear the opening theme pop up in unexpected places. For example, listen to the musical conversation between the clarinets and bassoons at 2:11. This motive is the seed from which the entire first movement grows. One musical cell spins to the next and every note seems inevitable. Motivic development is essential to the symphony, as Leonard Bernstein discusses in What Makes Music Symphonic?

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Circling the Bases with Sonata Form[/typography]

This first movement is a great example of a common musical structure called sonata form. Conductor Robert Spano offers a brief and informal introduction to sonata form here. Also watch Leonard Bernstein’s What is Sonata Form? 

Sonata form is made up of three main sections: the exposition, development and recapitulation. In the exposition, motivic material is introduced for the first time. We start out in a “home” key, but then begin to move away. The goal of the rest of the movement is to find a way back home. The development section is the most harmonically unstable. Here, the composer plays around with the motives, embellishing them in many adventurous ways. The recapitulation returns home. It’s the music of the exposition, but this time we must avoid being pulled to a new key.

Now, let’s go back and listen to the first movement again to hear sonata form at work in Mozart’s Symphony. Pay attention to the moment where the music moves aways from the home key of G minor (1:17). You’ll hear a second theme in B-flat major begin at 1:38. How is the mood of this theme different? The entire exposition repeats at 2:42. The development section starts at 4:33. Listen to the sneaky way Mozart slips back into the recapitulation (5:47).

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Fast-Slow-Fast[/typography]

After you listen to the first movement a second time, go on to the other three movements. The classical symphony of Mozart and Haydn typically has a fast first movement, a slow second movement, a Minuet and a fast final movement. This fast-slow-fast structure evolved out of earlier opera overtures. You’ll hear that the second and final movements are built on sonata form. In the opening of the Andante, listen to the way Mozart seems to be searching for the right notes as voices build on top of each other. Here, as in the first movement, there is a sense of the music growing out of a motivic seed. Pay attention to the snappy rhythm that innocently enters in the violins at 9:06. What happens to this motive? Can you hear it begin to “infect” the music and take on a life of it’s own? The final movement is all about the fun of setting up our expectations and then throwing in a jarring surprise. Don’t miss the extraordinary and intense development section at 31:43.

If you would like to learn more about the origins and history of the symphony watch this recent BBC documentary. For a slightly contrasting interpretation of Mozart’s Symphony No. 40 you might be interested in hearing this performance by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Andreas Delfs. Recordings can also be found through iTunes and Amazon.