The Unanswered Question

New England ChurchIn the virtual isolation of early twentieth century New England, an organist and insurance salesman named Charles Ives (1874-1954) was imagining shocking and innovative new music. Ives created atmospheric collages of sound. He poured fragments of American folk songs and other material into a musical melting pot to create an exciting cacophony. Much of his music became widely known only decades later when other composers embraced similar techniques.

Previously, we listened to Thanksgiving and Forefathers’ Day from Ives’s Holidays Symphony. Now let’s hear The Unanswered Question, written in 1908 and later revised. Ives described this piece as a “cosmic landscape.” As you listen, pay attention to three distinct and independent musical layers: the strings, the trumpet and the woodwinds. Which voice do you think is asking the question? What is the response? What do you think the question might be? What feelings does the music evoke?

I grew up listening to this great recording with Michael Tilson Thomas and the Chicago Symphony. Close your eyes and become one with the sound, giving the music your full attention:

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

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Three simultaneous but contrasting realities exist in The Unanswered Question. The strings remain placid and unchanging throughout the piece with chorale-like music built on triads. The trumpet enters with an atonal statement which emerges from a completely different sound world. The woodwinds react, at first calmly and then with increasing agitation.

There are several ways of interpreting the question and its response and I would be interested in hearing your thoughts in thread below. The trumpet may be asking “The Perennial Question of Existence,” as Ives wrote. The woodwinds may be saying, “I don’t know!” with increasing impatience. Or maybe, as Ives suggests they begin to realize the futility of the question and start to mock it. The strings represent an eternal and unchanging reality. In the end, the question remains. It’s stated one final time by the trumpet as the strings’ G major chord fades into eternity.

These lines from Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 1841 poem, “The Sphinx” may have inspired Ives:

[quote]Thou art the unanswered question;
Couldst see thy proper eye,
Always it asketh, asketh;
And each answer is a lie.
So take thy quest through nature,
It through thousand natures ply;
Ask on, thou clothed eternity;
Time is the false reply.
[/quote] 

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]From the Steeples and the Mountains[/typography]

Here’s another interesting piece by Charles Ives. In From the Steeples and the Mountains Ives musically depicts the glorious cacophony of church bells ringing out from various steeples and then echoing off the mountains. Listen to the way Ives creates a collage with layers of sound. You may also hear echoes of Taps. This is from a recent recording by Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony:

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[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Christian Zeal and Activity[/typography]

Like Charles Ives, contemporary American composer John Adams (b. 1947) traces his roots to New England. Adams’s Christian Zeal and Activity seems to pay homage to The Unanswered Question, although it ends up going in a different direction. Adams uses the hymn tune, Onward , Christian Soldiers, but slows it down and alters it in a way similar to Ives. In an interview with Edward Strickland (American Composers: Dialogues on Contemporary Music, pg. 185) Adams explains:

[quote]In any hymn the voices tend to move in blocks, so I went in and unhinged the hasps and let the four voices float in a dreamlike space so that they only rarely come together, and the effect was very beautiful. At moments it almost sounded like some unwritten Mahler adagio. I didn’t mean it to, but it just ended up sounding that way.[/quote]

Above these string lines, we hear the taped voice of an evangelist. Adams cuts up the tape and repeats fragments. His emphasis is on the expressive sound of the voice rather than the meaning. Listen to Christian Zeal and Activity and consider the ways it reminds you of the Ives. What emotional impact is created by the seemingly disparate combination of the strings and the recorded voice?

This is the San Francisco Symphony, conducted by Edo de Waart:

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Short Ride in a Fast Machine

speeding-driver

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Excitement on the Edge of Terror[/typography]

There’s something exhilarating about testing the limits…knowing that you’re on the verge of losing control but never crossing the line. This is the thrill of downhill skiing, roller coasters, jumping out of airplanes or taking a short, harrowing ride in a friend’s Corvette. In each case, it’s about motion. Motion is also an essential element of music. All music flows through time, although it can unfold in dramatically different ways, depending on the piece.

Keeping all of this in mind, let’s listen to Short Ride in a Fast Machine by American composer John Adams (b. 1947). This musical joyride was written in 1986 as a fanfare for the Pittsburgh Symphony. What elements in the music remind you of a traditional fanfare? What image or “inner movie” comes to mind? Do you feel a physical sense of motion as you listen? Does the music come close to spinning out of control at any points? The piece begins with a straightforward pulse played by the wood block. Listen to what happens rhythmically around this pulse as the music progresses. Here is Britain’s City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Simon Rattle:

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If you’re like me, your sense of expectation was heightened from the beginning. In this piece, there’s no way of knowing what’s around the next corner. You probably noticed points of arrival in the music (1:11, 2:42, 3:04), but they could hardly be called goals because we didn’t hear them coming. These arrival points are like shooting out of a tunnel, hitting a sharp curve and suddenly seeing a dramatic view unfold in front of you. In this case the joy of the ride is more important than the destination. John Adams talks about the Lamborghini ride that inspired him to write Short Ride in a Fast Machine here.

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

A year earlier, John Adams wrote a different kind of fanfare for the Houston Symphony. It’s called Tromba lontana or “distant trumpet.” Listen to all the musical layers from the solo trumpets to the strings to the pulsating piano, harp and percussion. Consider this piece’s flow. It’s moving through time, but where is it going? What feeling do you get as you listen? This recording is by Edo de Waart and the San Francisco Symphony:

There’s something slightly ominous and unsettling about this piece. The sparkling bells and high strings establish a glistening, almost innocent pulse. Then the lower strings enter, adding something darker to the mix. We have the sense of the pulse propelling us forward into infinity while the other voices search aimlessly. The piece develops slowly with an underlying sense of building anxiety, but does it ever find a resolution? Listening to Tromba lontana is like floating through some kind of deep, subconscious dream space where a thought or landscape emerges, becomes fixed in the imagination and then inexplicably disappears.

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

The rock band Rush was also inspired by the speed and excitement of a fast car. The song Red Barchetta is from their 1981 album, Moving Pictures. It was inspired by the futuristic short story, “A Nice Morning Drive” by Richard Foster (published in a 1973 issue of Road and Track magazine). Here, the car becomes a symbol of freedom and rebellion against intrusive government regulation:

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Now go back and listen to this week’s music a few more times. Share your thoughts in the thread below. How do these three pieces flow and how do they influence our perception of time? Next week we’ll continue to explore motion with music inspired by trains.

The Chaconne Across 300 Years

My last post featured music constructed around a repeating bass line, or ostinato. We listened to Johann Pachelbel’s famous Canon in D as well as passacaglias by Handel and Bach.  Now, let’s return to the ostinato  with another type of musical composition that was popular in the Baroque period, the chaconne.

Like the passacaglia, the repeating bass line of the chaconne gave Baroque composers a great opportunity to write endlessly inventive variations.  Most chaconnes are built on a four note scale that descends from the tonic (the home pitch of any key) to the dominant (the fifth scale degree).  This simple four note pattern creates its own satisfying drama.  Listen to the chaconne bass line.  Can you feel the pull of the lowest note (the dominant) back to the first note (the tonic)? With each repetition of this bass line, the music moves away from “home” and then returns.

Chaconne in G Minor…Tomaso Antonio Vitali (1663-1745)

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This piece was ascribed to Vitali by the nineteenth century violinist Ferdinand David, but it is unclear who actually wrote it.  Here is a performance by the great David Oistrakh:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4B1ifcWa9o

Chaconne from “Roland”…Jean Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)

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Suzuki violin students know Jean Baptiste Lully because of his Gavotte in Book 2. Lully was one of the most important French Baroque composers and was especially influential in developing French opera.  This chaconne comes from the Third Act of his opera, Roland.  If you like this music, you might also enjoy another chaconne Lully wrote for the opera, Phaeton.

Partita in D Minor for Solo Violin BWV 1004…Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Ciaccona

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Bach wrote six unaccompanied sonatas and partitas for violin.  A partita is a suite, or collection of pieces.  This monumental chaconne comes at the end of the Partita in D Minor.   In a Washington Post interview, violinist Joshua Bell called this chaconne “not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history. It’s a spiritually powerful piece, emotionally powerful, structurally perfect.”

In a letter to Clara Schumann, the composer Johannes Brahms wrote: “On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind.”

There are many great recordings of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin. Recordings I recommend include performances by Henryk Szeryng, Hilary Hahn, Julia Fischer, Ilya Kaler, Gidon Kremer, Arthur Grumiaux and Mela Tenenbaum. Tenenbaum’s recording features a separate CD with her thoughts on the music and is worth exploring for any musician who is studying solo Bach.

Here is a performance by the legendary Russian violinist, Nathan Milstein.

Violin Concerto…John Adams (b. 1947)

II. Chaconne: Body through which the dream flows

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In 1993 American composer John Adams wrote a chaconne for the second movement of his Violin Concerto.  It’s easy to hear echoes of the past in this haunting and atmospheric music.  In what ways is this chaconne similar to its Baroque predecessors?  In what ways is it different?  What feelings does the music evoke?

Pearls (from the album, Love Deluxe)…Sade (Released in 1992)

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Interestingly, this song from the British band, Sade is built on the same descending chaconne bass line that Vitali, Lully and other Baroque composers used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un8xpMnsf9U