Response to Hannah on Libby Larsen's Deep Summer Music, Solo Symphony, and Marimba Concerto: After Hampton

I enjoyed reading Hannah’s journal entry on three of Libby Larsen’s compositions – Marimba Concerto: After Hampton, Deep Summer Music, and Solo Symphony. Hannah does a good job telling about each piece, and in fact, when I listened to each piece, I was unsure what relevant commentary I could add to her descriptions. What does strike me as something worth exploring more is Hannah’s analysis of Larsen at the beginning of the entry.
Hannah identifies Larsen as one of those composers who write “with a particular philosophical goal in mind.” At this point, more than at any other in the blog, a question jumped out at me: what is Libby Larsen’s particular philosophical goal? Hannah does not explicitly answer this particular question in her blog, but as I listened to and thought about Larsen’s music, I began to form what I think is a valid answer. Whether or not Larsen would say it in this way, all her music seems to be designed so as to make her audience think about that to which they are listening. Within the umbrella of this philosophical goal, Larsen asks different questions with each composition, or asks the same question in different ways. For example, as Hannah showed, Marimba Concerto: After Hampton raises questions about why a solo instrument is chosen and how visuals change the aesthetic experience of a piece. Just by choosing the marimba as soloist in a concerto, Larsen causes the audience (as long as they’re paying any attention at all) to question the nature of the soloist – at least in my experience, marimba concertos are rare. As the piece progresses, the audience is drawn to compare the use of marimba to the use of more traditional concerto instruments, such as piano and violin; clearly the virtuosity possible on a marimba is of a different sort than the virtuosity possible on a piano, even though both instruments are similar in appearance. I am sure that watching a performance of this concerto would leave me with significantly different impressions about the whole piece, because the marimba and the other percussion used in the accompanying ensemble are such powerfully visual instruments. Larsen’s composition is, in a sense, answering the question “how can a marimba be used in a concerto?” but it nonetheless leaves the audience to think about the way a marimba fits into our collective expectations about a concerto and how Larsen’s composition fits or stretches or defies those expectation. Two other examples of the questions Larsen raises were identified by Hannah in her journal entry. Both Deep Summer Music and Solo Symphony question the nature of a solo and suggest (in my understanding) that no perceived solo is ever truly alone, but take different approaches to do so. In Deep Summer Music, a solo horn line is joined to a supportive orchestra texture. In Solo Concerto, the solo seems to be something of a thematic element in itself – the “theme” of having an independent melodic line is passed from one soloist to another to a section, finally ending with the audience member seeming to be alone and independent (solo, so to speak) in his or her attempt to find a melodic line in the texture.
Although Hannah did not discuss Larsen in comparison to other composers, I think Larsen’s creation of music that elicits thoughtfulness and has a “philosophical goal” strikes a chord (no pun intended) with the intentions of numerous other late twentieth century composers. However, unlike the compositions of John Cage, for example, Larsen’s compositions raise questions about musical philosophy, such as the idea of a soloist, without forcing the audience to question what music is. In the era of Rampant Musical Gruel (thank you Dr. Granade for the visual), I think many people find it too much work to think about questioning the nature of music itself, but may be open to compositions by Larsen and other “milder” thought-provoking composers. Perhaps Larsen’s music is crucial to the reawakening of a generation numbed to music. I hate putting the designation mild on Larsen’s music though; mild suggests that Larsen hasn’t pushed her music as far as it could go or needs to go. I think a description I found in the CD jacket fits better: Larsen’s music is not self-consciously avant-garde. In other words, her composition does not reject Western musical heritage for the sake of being new and different, but departs from it or uses it as much as necessary to convey what Larsen needs to convey. If part of her goal (or all of it) is to inspire thought in an audience member’s listening (or watching) experience, what a noble goal to have.
I think Hannah is on to something when she suggests that Larsen’s music may not be in the canon only because now is not yet its time. I don’t know how distinctive or representative Deep Summer Music, Solo Symphony, and Marimba Concerto: After Hampton are when compared to the totality of Larsen’s composition, but I think it is reasonable to suppose that Larsen may eventually play a role in the canon, for the reasons I brought up in the last paragraph. Larsen’s music is a valuable contribution: not only is it new without rejecting the old, but most importantly it makes us think.

*As an aside, I had been curious about the title of Deep Summer Music ever since I heard the name. At first, I thought it might have referred to summer music that inspired deep thoughts or meditations, but a look in the CD jacket led me to assume that deep summer is equivalent to late summer, i.e., the harvest season, when all the fields are golden and idyllic…

A Survivor from Warsaw

As a narrator’s voice begins to overpower the orchestra’s eerie bursts of cacophony, I feel myself sucked out of my comfortable living room to the inhuman filth and violence of a Nazi concentration camp. I am listening to “A Survivor from Warsaw.”
“A Survivor from Warsaw” is a twelve-tone composition for narrator, men’s chorus, and orchestra, written in 1947. In addition to singing in a performance of the piece last year, I listened to it recorded by the Boston Symphony with Sherrill Milnes narrating. “A Survivor” is not performed very often, presumably because its twelve-tone writing makes it difficulty to sing and because it lacks the prestige of being part of the standard canon.
It is a shame to hear this piece so rarely, however, because the piece is both a beautiful response to the memory of the Holocaust and an opportunity to learn about the man that was Schoenberg. In fact, Michael Strasser calls this piece Schönberg’s “personal parable,” because it metaphorically illustrates his struggle to assert his Jewish identity in the face of persecution. Schönberg, who had planned to raise support from Americans for the Jews in anti-Semitic Germany, seems to have found his worst fears more than met in the Holocaust, a reality driven home by the loss of his brother and cousin (Strasser 58). Despite the importance he saw in his role as an artist, Schönberg wrote that he was willing to sacrifice his art to the Jewish cause, which suggests that this piece, an explicit tribute to those who died for their Jewish identity, might have held particular significance for him (57).
When I first performed “A Survivor,” I was unaware of most of this background information, but the combination of my knowledge of the Holocaust and Schönberg’s musical choices nonetheless had a powerful impact on me. For the most part, I prefer tonal to atonal (or, as Schönberg would say, pantonal) music, and I suspect it is Schoenberg’s treatment of the text that most draws me in, particularly his use of Sprechstimme and the chaotic melody of his ‘Shema Yisroel.’ Even before the narrator enters, however, Schönberg’s use of silence and cacophonous interjections of winds or percussion begin to set me on edge. The music lacks any sense of order, harmonically or rhythmically, so listeners do not know what to expect, just as the Holocaust victims, at the mercy of their captors, hardly knew to what further brutality they would be subjected. What I perceive to be chaotic, almost unnatural music, very vividly conveys the chaotic and unnatural realities of being in a Nazi concentration camp. When the narrator enters, Schönberg augments the text with duration and pitch cues, but refrains from using specific pitches, as he did when writing the Sprechstimme of Pierrot Lunaire. This manner of spoken performance caught my attention. It turns out that the notation in “A Survivor” is actually a later development of Schönberg’s concept of Sprechstimme. Through the rise of recording technology, performances of Pierrot Lunaire could be analyzed, and it was found that one of Schönberg’s favored Sprechstimme performers did not stay in pitch. According to Byron and Pasdzierny, “reproduction of pitch in Sprechstimme was not the main issue for Schoenberg,” and this accounts for Schönberg’s subsequent decision to notate Sprechstimme without actual pitches, but rather with note-heads a relative distance from a single staff line. For “A Survivor” in particular, Schönberg gave special instructions that the narrator’s part be less musical than any of his other compositions, specifying that “There must never be any singing, no real pitch must be recognizable.” I find I much prefer this type of Sprechstimme; although it does not mimic actual speech patterns, I find it heightens the emotional impact of the spoken text, while the sound of Sprechstimme in Pierrot Lunaire distracts me from the text and sends chills down my spine. Sprechstimme only accounts for one section of “A Survivor,” though, and it is balanced by my favorite part of the work. When a male chorus singing the Hebrew prayer “Shema Yisroel replaces the narrator, Schönberg drastically shifts the structure of his piece; the last nineteen bars are dominated by a melody that (except for two repeated pitches) exactly follows a transposition of the tone row. The melody strongly contrasts with the first eighty bars of the piece, which are athematic, much like some of Schönberg’s pre-serialism atonal compositions. Despite the technical rigidity behind this melody, I feel its unpredictable leaps and driving rhythm to powerfully convey the drama of the prisoners’ situation. This forceful declamation may be the prisoners’ last words prior to execution, and it is this exact assertion of Jewish identity that Schönberg found so noble.
I suspect “A Survivor” is typically omitted from the canon for two reasons. One of these is it doesn’t seem to stand out as representative of his work in a particular way. It is a short work, and many of its interesting qualities – Sprechstimme, an athematic serialist section, and a serial melody – are explored more fully in others of Schönberg’s works. Its real value seems to come extramusically, from the deep way that Schönberg’s own life and the emotions spawned by a tragic war come together in this little piece. The other reason is that Schönberg, who initially gained attention for doing something avant-garde , had not been at the edge of avant-garde for a decade or so by the time that this piece was written. Thus, “A Survivor” was not groundbreaking in its time, nor groundbreaking in the output of its composer. I like “A Survivor from Warsaw” a lot, and I consider that a surprising and significant achievement for a twelve-tone piece, but I know this cannot be grounds for its inclusion in the canon. For that matter, there is plenty of music in the canon that, aesthetically, I care little about. With or without the designation of “standard canon music,” I will encourage others to listen to and think about this piece.

Psalmus Hungaricus by Zoltán Kodály

I noted that although Kodály is known for dedicating much of his life to collecting and studying Hungarian folk music, this oratorio is not chiefly concerned with transferring that sound to a large-form work or characterizing Hungarian culture. Rather, this work focuses on creating a moving and politically significant setting for Psalm 55, and nonetheless exhibits Hungarian sound. The ability to convey such nationalism even when focusing on expressing a powerful text evidences Kodály’s development of a compositional language of folk music elements.

I enjoyed digesting the sounds of Psalmus Hungaricus, for which Kristina’s description had whetted my appetite, even before I looked up the text. It was in looking up the text, however, and subsequently the setting in which the piece was premiered, that I found the deep meaning Kodály sought to convey. An English translation of Psalm 55 revealed to me a prayer rife with grief and angst – and yet also faith. The psalmist begins by praying for vindication in the midst of suffering and betrayal, and then shifts his tone to reiterate his confidence in the Lord and to urge others to a similar faith. At first it might seem ironic that this text, full of suffering and demanding vindication, was premiered at a celebration – the 50th anniversary of the merging of Buda, Pest, and Óbuda into a single capital city for Hungary. A deeper look reveals that Kodály’s choice had political connotations – it reflected his views about Hungary’s “immediate, tragic past and distasteful present” (All Music Guide). Understanding this powerful reason behind Kodály’s writing gave me a greater sense of connection to the work.

The Hungarian nationalism exhibited in the compositions of Bartók and Kodály gives their music a particularly distinctive sonority, hence their work has had widespread influence, and to this day is an important part of music history education. Kodály and Bartók’s compositional styles differ, however, and studying the work of both composers together adds important dimensions to our understanding of Hungarian sound and 20th century compositional practices that we miss by studying either composer to the exclusion of the other. For this reason, I think we ought to include Kodály’s work alongside Bartók’s in the canon. In particular, I think Psalmus Hungaricus merits inclusion. It is significant that Kodály was able to evoke Hungarian culture in his music, not only without specific folk melody quotations, but also in the absence of an established “Hungarian” compositional tradition.

Vivaldiana by Gian Francesco Malipiero

“When was this piece written?!” When I first began listening to Vivaldiana, I had to check our list of journal options again to make sure I had chosen from the right unit, because the work has none of the Romantic Era sounds I expected. Instead, the work’s repetitive melodic motives, harmonic movement, instrumentation, etc. sounded purely Baroque.
A little bit of research into Malipiero told me that I shouldn’t be so surprised to find Baroque music bearing his name, since he is known to have been an early musicologist. Malipiero specialized in Italian Baroque composers such as Monteverdi and Vivaldi. In fact, at the time he was preparing this piece, Malipiero was editing and publishing a compilation of Vivaldi’s music (Grove Music Online listed this piece as an arrangement, but I have been unable to verify its unoriginality, nor identify any Vivaldi concerti that match the music). The Vivaldi-esque sounds I hear are no amateur period imitation: they are the work of a Baroque Era expert and a Vivaldi expert.
Vivaldiana is a three-movement orchestral work. The first, “Adagio-Allegro,” moves from a slow to a fast tempo, the slow tempo lasting less than a quarter of the movement. The second, “Andante piu lento un poco,” is relatively slow throughout. The third, “Allegro molto,” is faster than the first movement throughout its entirety. Several distinctive stylistic elements in Malipiero’s work gave it its baroque sound. Harmonic movement is very simple, as in other baroque works, and is filled out by using arpeggiated chords. The melody is driven by repeating motives and shared between different voices, and the repetitive style is very baroque, without the developmental elements that became popular in romantic writing. Malipiero did not give rhythm as much importance as many Romantic Era composers had given it. Unlike the large form works of many of his Classical Era and Romantic Era predecessors, Malipiero’s work is lightly orchestrated, and deals primarily with woodwinds and strings. However, unlike Vivaldi’s, winds in Malipiero’s orchestra play more than a soloist role, often creating part of the texture. Also, Vivaldiana lacks the basso continuo that was characteristic of Vivaldi’s compositions. Overall, however, Malipiero’s work has much of the sound of Vivaldi’s work.
I found Vivaldiana to be both a convincing and an enjoyable Baroque style work. Malipiero seems to master baroque style so well that I can only come to the conclusion that when he diverged from it, as in his orchestration, he did so purposefully. I think those who enjoy baroque music would equally enjoy this twentieth-century work, even with its few stylistic differences.
I stated before that I had been unable to verify whether this work was originally Malipiero’s or an arrangement from Vivaldi’s own work. In either case it is commendable as an enjoyable work with a baroque sound, however, it would detract from my high estimation of Malipiero’s writing abilities if most of the work was originally Vivaldi’s. Perhaps the issue of authorship is part of the reason that this work is excluded from the canon. I think I know of another, more important, reason for its exclusion however. While this work gives insight into early musicology and (perhaps) the ability of twentieth-century composers to imitate baroque sounds, it is not representative of most of the writing happening during that time period.

Response to Ben Cross on Isaac Albéniz' Suite Española

Ben has done an excellent job analyzing Albéniz’ piano suite, and as I read his listening journal his thoughts sparked an interest in listening to and learning more about Albéniz’ work.

When Ben mentioned that Albéniz was instrumental in distributing the folk music of Spain, I decided to learn a bit more about how folk music was used in Albéniz’ work. I know that many nationalistic composers have achieved a national sound without even using folk music. In Albéniz’ case, it was clear that he used traditionally Spanish dance forms to achieve a Spanish sound, but did he use folk music in other ways? It turns out that Albéniz’ did not actually use recognizable folk tunes in his music, unlike his teacher Felipe Pedrell, but took rhythms and harmonies from the folk music that was around him in Spain and used them all throughout his music.

I disagree with one of Ben’s opinions, that Albéniz’ characterization of Spain makes the country seem as boring like a drive across Kansas. As Albéniz was intentionally writing nationalistic music, he must have sought to portray distinct regional flavors in such a way that a Spaniard would be able to hear his country in each piece, no matter which Spanish region or style was implied. With that said, is contrast even a primary goal of nationalistic music? Certainly, composers don’t desire the similarity of their works to bore an audience, but a certain level of similarity is necessary to make the works cohesive. When I hear a Lied, I recognize the genre right away; if the same is true for a Spanish piano piece, then we can consider it a success on Albeniz’ part.

Although I think Ben has a point in suggesting that Suite Española doesn’t stand out as much as most works in the canon, I would like to offer another explanation for the suite’s exclusion from the canon. My research suggests that Albéniz’ four-book composition, Iberia, throws a shadow on the Suite Española. Much like the suite, Iberia’s collection of twelve impressions attempts to capture the essence of the nation in sounds and rhythms. However, Iberia was written nearly a decade after the suite, and Albéniz’ compositional style had significantly matured. When he was writing Iberia, Albéniz was reaching the end of his career and dedicated most of his energies to music composition; Iberia, which took three years to compose, is what Grove Music Online calls a masterpiece (“Albéniz, Isaac”). Suite Española, in contrast, was a set of pieces written in large quantity over a short period of time so that Albéniz could play his own pieces in concert. Thus, it seems Iberia was a much more important work to Albéniz himself, and one he was more likely to see as representative of his best compositional ability. When a work such as Iberia attempts to accomplish much the same purpose as Suite Española and demonstrates the composer’s more mature style, it makes sense that the earlier piece gets much less recognition.

Finding out about Iberia made me wonder about another comment that Ben made – was Felipe Pedrell the most notable influence on the compositions of Albéniz? I was unsure at first about this idea because I read on Grove Music Online that Joaquín Malats heavily influenced the final two books of Iberia, and Iberia seems to have been Albéniz’ most notable musical composition. As I continued researching and thinking about Pedrell’s influence, I realized that Iberia might owe much of its existence to Pedrell. If Pedrell did indeed turn Albéniz toward nationalistic music, then his teaching was a necessary motivation for both Suite Española and Iberia.

Like Ben’s, my overall experience with Albéniz’ Suite Española was enjoyable – perhaps it was even more enjoyable for me, because the suite reminded me of the piano music I fell asleep to as a young child. The dancing melodies and limited use of block chords lull me into a state of relaxation normally – in fact, sleepiness has been a significant obstacle to the completion of this listening journal response. In my opinion, the Suite Española does not merit inclusion in the canon, but this in no way lessons the aesthetic value of the pieces. I would recommend them to others as a pleasing and relaxing listening experience. It bears mentioning that some works included in the canon are not relaxing experiences (and weren’t intended to be).

Lieder By German Women Composers

Lieder By German Women Composers

What business do women have composing songs? Though we do not expect to hear this question in our culture today, it was an all too familiar one for women writing in Romantic Era Germany. In this listening journal, I will attempt to answer that question by comparing the Lieder of four German women to the standards their male counterparts established.

The primary object of my exploration is Lieder, an LP recorded by Katherine Ciesinski (mezzo-soprano), John Ostendorf (bass-baritone), and Rudolph Palmer (pianist). The recording contains twenty-one songs by Clara Schumann, Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel, Josephine Lang, and Pauline Viardot-Garcia. These four women wrote primarily during the 1830s and 1840s, after Franz Schubert had established the Lied as a genre through his prolific song composing.

Lied is the German word for song, but over time, historians have come to identify the term with the style developed by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, and others in 19th-century Germany. Lieder piano accompaniments particularly set them apart from earlier songs; in addition to providing a harmonic framework for the vocal line, the piano helps to convey part of the sentiment of a Lied, sometimes sharing the melody with the voice or acting as a separate character in the drama. The piano texture also helps to set the tone of contrasting sections of a piece and typically begins and ends the piece in order to portray a song’s mood in sections without words. Usually the texts for Lieder were contemporary, deeply emotional poems.

The heyday of Lied composition occurred prior to movements for women’s suffrage and other rights, but murmurings of the questioning that would eventually result in the struggle for gender equality were already present. Female musicians were an essential part of popular and high-class entertainment and had been for hundreds of years, but there were mixed feelings as to whether women ought to be a part of the business of music by publishing their compositions for money. Perhaps part of that hesitation to approve women publishing music stemmed from a doubt that women shared equal abilities with men. In fact, even the legendary Clara Schumann often doubted her compositional abilities: “I once thought that I possessed creative talent, but I have given up this idea; a woman must not desire to compose—no one has been able to do it, and why should I expect to? It would be arrogance, though indeed my father led me to it in earlier days” (Lieder). Others, however, simply thought it inappropriate for a woman to publish. Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel’s father and brother, Abraham and Felix Mendelssohn, told her that she must not try to publish or make a career out of music, though they considered her to be a skilled musician. In Felix Mendelssohn’s words, “[Fanny] is too much all that a woman should be for [authorship]” (Lieder). In fact, Fanny’s womanhood in a rich family meant that not only did she not have to work, but she was not allowed to work, and publishing and performing public concerts were both considered “work” (Sperber 24). The suggestion that it is unwomanly to work or publish music seems strange to our modern views. Due to the disparity between our culture’s collective understanding of gender and the notions of Felix Mendelssohn’s time, we cannot objectively fault Mendelssohn for his opinion on women’s occupations. We can, however, explore the ability of female composers through the works they left us, such as those on our chosen recording.

In order to get a closer look at the compositional skills of these four composers, let us examine Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel’s “Die Nonne” (“The Nun”), Op. 9, No. 12, which is in many ways representative of the other songs on the recording. As a Lied, the song set a poem by a contemporary of the composer, in this case Johann Ludwig Uhland, and tells of a young nun whose love has died. Her grief is mixed with joy, because, she says, her love has become an angel (“Er wird ein Engel sein”), and she can love angels. Sinking in exhaustion and ecstasy at the feet of a statue of Mary, she closes her eyes and dies. Mendelssohn Hensel expertly uses the piano to convey the text’s dramatic mood. The song is strophic, and during each strophe the piano’s rapid arpeggios accurately mirror the nun’s turmoil, her circling thoughts and emotions. At the beginning and end of the piece and in between each strophe the piano plays a descending thirds pattern that creates a series of sighs. If this compositional form sounds familiar, it is for no other reason than the close similarity between the structure and style of this Lied and those written by Mendelssohn-Hensel’s male contemporaries.

Hensel was not the only female composer to use compositional traits found in male composers of the time. In other Lieder by women, more shared traits occur. In Clara Schumann’s “Vorwurf” (“Reproach”), Op. 10, No. 2, for example, the piano and voice trade the melody back in forth around the word “Dahin,” a technique sometimes employed by her husband Robert Schumann in his efforts to make the piano and voice equal contributors in a song.

The Lieder of the female composers on this recording is equal in quality to the Lieder of the male composers with whom the art of the Lied is normally identified. Some exceptions are the songs of Pauline Viardot-Garcia, which use more chromaticism and exotic rhythms than I hear in most Lieder (the record sleeve claims she exhibited “the broader taste of a singer of grand opera”), but this style of writing is in no way indicative of inferior compositional ability. It should come as no surprise that talented women of the nineteenth century were the equal of talented men; when faced with many of the same influences and sharing the same compositional goal, women and men are equally able to write beautiful music (they are also equally able to write dreadfully irritating music, but that’s a topic for another day).

I was introduced to Lieder only in the last two years, but I have fallen in love with the often-passionate blend of piano and voice that the genre offers. I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to the music of these female composers, particularly as I was able to read along with the lyrics and translation and observe how the composer evoked the emotions inherent in the text. This listening assignment has introduced me to more music that I expect I will treasure for the rest of my life. On a less sentimental note, however, I found studying these pieces beneficial to understanding the art of the Lied as we spoke of it in class, since these pieces exhibit key Lieder characteristics as well as any others.

As far as goes the canon, I think these Lieder by female composers belong alongside compositions of Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, and others because they are as important to our understanding of the German songwriting climate as are those of male composers. They are masterfully-composed songs, and possess a distinct beauty – in my mind they can no more be said to be already represented in the canon by the works of the males than they can be said to be inferior to those of the males. For the sake of our own musical edification and to acknowledge the important accomplishments of these composers, we who appreciate good music need to listen to these compositions.

Commentary on "Dittersdorf 'Die vier Weltalter'" by Ben Cross

First of all, great post Ben. I enjoyed reading along in your blog as I listened to Die vier Weltalter. I appreciated your description of the musical elements that you think indicated the different programmatic elements of the piece. I haven’t heard much about Ovid’s Metamorphoses or Dittersdorf’s sinfonias on them before visiting your blog (I suppose that is why we are assigned to listen to them, after all). I am curious about the relation this simfonia has to the other eleven in the set. As the first sinfonia, does it also correspond to the first part of Metamorphoses?
Another question that immediately came to mind when I started reading about this work was how much programmatic instrumental work was being produced around the time that Dittersdorf wrote this piece. Outside of opera, I thought that programmatic instrumental works were not popular until the Romantic era, and as you said, Dittersdorf’s piece is a Classical work. Was his set of of 12 sinfonias an unusual work, or was it becoming more fashionable to write program music around the turn of the century?
One aspect I would have like to see expanded in your blog was the discussion of form. One of the hallmarks of the Classical Era was composers’ adherence to form –though composers like Mozart commonly explored a form and made it their own, they did not push its limits as much as Beethoven and Romantic composers would in the coming years. You mention in one paragraph that the first movement features “somewhat of a sonata form,” and it makes me ask in what ways the form is similar and different from Sonata form.