A Walking Tour through Beethoven's "Pastoral" Sonata

If you’ve heard any Beethoven piano sonatas – and there are 32 of them, all together – you’ve no doubt heard at least the 1st movement of the “Moonlight” Sonata. The sonata Michael Brown will be opening his Market Square Concerts recital with this Saturday - 8pm at Whitaker Center - may not be as famous but it was written right after the “Moonlight” and right before another well-known one, the “Tempest.”

Now, this sonata became known as the “Pastoral” (not to be confused with his 6th Symphony he’d write a few years later), one of many nicknames that did not originate with Beethoven. In fact, it was a critic who later christened the Sonata in C-sharp Minor, Op. 27 No. 2 “The Moonlight” because the first movement reminded him of a moonlit night on a boat on a lake, but he could have listened to the last movement and heard a terrific storm and called it “The Tempest” except there already was a “Tempest” Sonata. And supposedly that one was inspired by Beethoven reading Shakespeare’s play though since the last movement of the “Tempest” Sonata was actually inspired by watching a man ride by on a horse (Beethoven immediately transcribed into a galloping rhythm that permeates the movement), that could have earned this sonata the alternate nickname, the “Rider.”

Well, whatever…

But the “Pastoral” Sonata’s nickname seems to be deserved. The whole sonata is more relaxed if not outright bucolic. But underneath that simple exterior, the work is very cleverly crafted as any abstract work earning the title “Sonata.”

If you’re wondering what a “sonata” is – even if you weren’t – it originated in the days of Mozart and Haydn and is usually a three-movement work for solo piano or an instrument plus piano with an opening movement in “sonata form,” a contrasting slow movement that could maybe be a set of variations, and a final, usually lively movement to conlcude. Four-movement sonatas became more typical in the 19th Century, adding a scherzo or some faster contrast between the slow 2nd Movement and the finale. In the 18th Century, the weight of this multi-movement piece was in the first movement, but this began to shift with Beethoven, particularly in his later works, so that very often the last movement became more significant.

(Incidentally, a symphony is basically a “sonata for orchestra” and follows the same general evolution as the sonata.)

Now, the fact that a sonata opens with a movement in “sonata form” can sound confusing – I tell my students the study of music is called “musicology” but musicologically speaking, it can often seem “music-illogical.”

The Sonata Form is basically a three-part form.

There’s a 1st Theme in the tonic key (let’s say, D Major), then a modulation to the 2nd Theme which is usually (but not always) in the dominant key (A Major). (Sonatas in minor tonic keys could have a 2nd Theme in the “relative major” – D Minor to F Major.) This is called the “Exposition” where the themes are presented (exposed). It isn’t really the Themes that define the form – it’s the keys, the tonal conflict of presenting the tonic and then moving away from it which is then resolved by returning to the initial tonic key.

(My apologies if your eyes glazed over while you were reading that paragraph. I have to admit to a sense of Geek's Revenge after having to deal with people talking about computers or cars or sports without ever feeling the need to explain their own jargon to me, but I digress...)

In the middle is the “Development” Section where the themes are taken apart, varied, changed, “developed” and the key area is very unsettled. The point is, it’s not supposed to be in the Tonic Key at all. The whole point is, having taken everything apart, to put it all back together so the third section, the “Recapitulation,” arrives back in the home tonic (D Major, in this case).

As the themes are “recapped,” everything is now (basically) in the home key – no modulations to the Dominant or whatever the Exposition did. The idea is to stress this dramatic return to Tonic. Of course, the more complicated these movements became, the more complex the key structure became with it, but that’s the generic principal. What a composer does with it may not always agree with what the textbook says it should. Any composer worth his salt knows that rules are made to be broken: it’s how you break them that counts.

So, let’s go back and listen to that performance by Daniel Barenboim as we walk our way through the sonata and listen to how it's put together:

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CLIP ONE – 1st Movement (Part 1) --- --- --- ---

Normally, textbooks tell you music should move by four-bar phrase units but this sonata, rather than being “four-square” with 4+4+4+4 bar phrases, begins [0:15] with a 1-bar intro as if it’s played on the timpani (reminds me of the Violin Concerto’s opening, written 5 years later) + 9 bars (repeated), then [0:38] 8-bars repeated and expanded to 11 bars; [1:00] 4-bars repeated and expanded) which gives it a sense of forward motion – like playing long notes followed by increasingly shorter notes (if that is “rhythm,” this use of shorter and shorter phrases in a kind of “macro-rhythm,” rhythm on a higher structural level).

Also notice how the very first chord [0:17] wants to pull us away from the tonic D Major – that C-natural wants to resolve to a G Major chord which it does but which, as it continues, stays in the D Major tonality. It gives us a feeling of harmonic “fluidity,” chords wafting on nature’s breeze, if you want to think pastorally.

At [1:58], the 2nd Theme (in the outer voices, with “whispering forest” texture in the middle) begins as expected in the dominant key of A Major, but it gets there after a build-up that began at [1:42], moving from the very unexpected key of C-sharp Minor to where it belongs!

Speaking of shortening, notice how these sustained chords at [2:12] followed by a scale-like flourish are telescoped at [2:17] rather than repeated verbatim.

The closing section of the Exposition [2:49] is almost bird-like with “hunting horns” in the left hand – notice the falling octaves in the right hand – which then quietly leads back to the quiet opening timpani introduction [3:20]. The exposition is always marked to be repeated so you can familiarize yourself with everything you’ve heard the first time – the themes, the keys, the tension that will continue to build – on the assumption you can always hear something new the second time around. But not every performer always does.

Having repeated the Exposition, we’re now at the “2nd Ending” [6:21] then, starts the Development section by lifting the main theme up into the key of G Major [6:26] (remember what that 1st chord wanted to do at the very opening? Well, here it actually goes to that implied key) but then he takes just the tail-end of the theme and turns it into an ‘almost fugue’ [6:43] with moving 8th notes in the left hand (4+4), switching registers (another 4+4) [6:50] then alternating (2+2) [6:58] then using a phrase that’s only the end “particle” [7:05] of the end of the main theme – the theme is getting shorter and shorter – building up the harmonic tension with accents and louder dynamics, repeating that “particle” in the process 33 consecutive bars – ! – before slowing down and growing quieter, but sounding likes it’s going to resolve not to D Major, not even B Minor but to B Major [7:57] – very serious!

Then, the closing theme (with its falling octave) [7:57] intrudes cautiously, hesitantly, but working itself into the proper chord so it finally does resolve to the expected D Major [8:24]. This is the Recapitulation, the return of the Exposition’s material.

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CLIP TWO – End of 1st/ 2nd Mvmt begins at 2:44 --- --- --- ---

Here, the 1st Theme (in D Major) continues through what had once modulated through C-sharp Major to A Major but here, actually sort of putters around until the 2nd Theme comes in in D Major [Clip #2, 0:49], the tonal conflict resolved! After a third repetition of a little scale-like flourish [1:31-1:34] as if crowing “Back in D Major!”, the closing theme with its falling octave [1:40] reinforces D Major as the 1st Theme makes one more appearance [2:08] with four repetitions of that last little “particle” [2:21-2:30] before ending quietly on a standard dominant-to-tonic cadence, V – I. Resolved. The end.

The slow movement, beginning at 2:44, marked Andante (which really means “walking” so it’s not that slow) – opens with the left hand marked staccato (short articulation on the notes) – like pizzicato (or plucked) strings, accompanying a smoothly phrased chorale in D Minor in the right hand.

The 2nd Section [5:26] switches to D Major and returns us to a kind of pastoral sound-image – in this case, as Andras Schiff describes it, horns answered by twittering birds. This then returns [6:56] to the D Minor chorale with the “walking bass” (not to be too jazzy about it, but still…), which Beethoven now varies with a more elaborate right-hand figuration [7:26]. However, before it finally ends (with a straight-forward chorale version, 9:27 or at 0:01 of the 3rd clip, see below], the horns and birds of the 2nd Section return briefly [0:22], now in D Minor – not as bright, giving it a more melancholy tinge – as the left-hand sinks lower into the earth and the bird-call rises quietly higher and higher.
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CLIP THREE – End of 2nd Movement; complete 3rd & 4th Movements
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The simplicity of this scherzo, beginning at 1:20 of the 3rd clip, is delightful with its very simple 4-bar units. Remember the falling octave in the closing theme from the 1st Movement’s Exposition [Clip #1, 2:49]? Well, that’s where this little movement grows from – four bars, relatively long notes, answered by four bars of shorter, sprightly notes. Whimsical and certainly Beethoven with a smile. A bit of a surprise are the loud chords, just a reminder he did, after all, study with Haydn not too long ago (and Haydn was still the Grand Old Man of Vienna – his oratorio “The Creation” had been written in 1799, two years earlier, and “The Seasons” premiered in April of 1801, just months before Beethoven completed this sonata).

For some reason, the middle section of dances like minuets or the scherzo movement which grew out of them is always called “the trio” even though it has nothing to do with threes (it’s the 2nd of 3 parts, after all, and it isn’t intended to be played by three players). Anyway, this trio [2:45] consists of a 4-bar bit in B minor answered by a similar 4-bar bit that moves to D Major which then, for its second half [2:54], does the reverse. But Beethoven coyly shifts the accompaniment around to reharmonize each bit slightly differently, giving a subtle hint of variety to the expected repetition. Then it goes back and re-does the A Section again [3:07], ending on those very loud chords after such a gentle, sparkling but understated and very brief interlude.

Even though it was the publisher who came up with the title, “Pastoral,” Beethoven must have had this in mind: the last movement returns to an even more rustic sound-image of the countryside – in the left-hand: bagpipes! Not the big honking skirling Scottish bagpipes of military pageantry, but the more subtle, much smaller musettes of the peasants and shepherds. The simple theme he builds over this moves off into a series of ripples [4:27] to a 2nd Theme in A Major [4:44] that sounds like an inversion of the 1st with a hint of drama at the end before the opening returns [5:20].

This lilting or swinging rhythm of the 6/8 meter permeates the whole movement, even in the Development section [6:07] where it becomes almost Bach-like with its chromatic imitation which then increases in tension – harmonic and dynamic – until, again, we reach a storm-like fortissimo [6:33-7:01] – which then clears out with the quiet return of the opening bag-pipes in the bass [7:01], shortened and ornamented (more birds?), then bringing back the ripples [7:30] and finally the 2nd Theme now back in D Major [7:52] then doing the bag-pipe drone one more time in G Major [8:31] (remember what I’d said about the opening chord of the 1st Movement?) before we reach “the coda” [9:08].

Now, “coda” literally means “tail” as in “tail-end” and in this case, it’s a kind of rush to the last measure which pianist Charles Rosen described as being there “just to annoy the amateurs.” This sonata is not technically difficult – which doesn’t necessarily mean it’s easy to play – but this little coda whips along at a pace few amateurs could do cleanly. It ends with a rousing affirmation of D Major: V – I in harmony-speak, “sol – do” in solfeggio-speak, “so – there!” with a wink from Beethoven.

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Beethoven in 1803

Beethoven had recently completed his first six string quartets (written between 1798 and 1800), his 1st Symphony (premiered in 1800), the 3rd Piano Concerto, the Septet Op. 20 (which actually became a big hit), and in 1801, he completed the ballet, The Creatures of Prometheus, two violin sonatas including the “Spring” Sonata, as well as four piano sonatas including the “Moonlight” and the “Pastoral.” The following year, he finished three more violin sonatas, three more piano sonatas including the “Tempest,” and his 2nd Symphony.

Now, after you’ve listened to this piano sonata and if you know any of the music I just mentioned, you might be surprised to realize Beethoven was suffering from early symptoms of deafness and at times so severely that, in October of 1802 while staying in the rural suburb of Heiligenstadt, he could write a heart-searing letter that reads sometimes as Last Will and Testament and at other times as a possible suicide note. 

“But what a humiliation for me,” he wrote, “when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone standing next to me heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life - it was only my art that held me back.”

It should make us appreciate not only the music he left us – especially considering the rustic beauties of this pastoral sojourn – but also what we ourselves, in our world today, can hear and so often take for granted.

– Dick Strawser

January's Concert: Beethoven & Schubert

Since I’m running a little behind schedule with… well, reality in general, I’m going to post videos of the Beethoven and Schubert sonatas that Michael Brown will be performing at this weekend’s concert – Saturday at 8pm at Whitaker Center. With any luck I’ll finish and post the articles about the background of each work tomorrow or Thursday.

This is a good time to mention, if you know of any students who’d like to attend this recital, Market Square Concerts offers $5 tickets for any college or university student. School-age students are free and an accompanying adult can purchase a ticket for $5. You can get these tickets in the ground floor lobby of Whitaker Center or at the door at other locations before the concert.

The program opens with one of Beethoven’s less-well-known piano sonatas – the Piano Sonata in D Major, Op. 28, known as “The Pastoral” – but one which has long been a favorite of mine (in fact, when I mentioned to a concert pianist friend of mine this was on the program, he said “Oh, that’s one of my favorite Beethoven sonatas”). It doesn’t have the public relations the “Moonlight” Sonata has been blessed with and it’s not the virtuosic tour-de-force the Appasionata or Waldstein Sonatas might be – nor does it plumb the depths like the Late Sonatas (but then, what else does?) – however, it’s a beautiful and beatific work written in 1801 right after the “Moonlight,” a difficult but very busy time in Beethoven’s creative life. Perhaps the relaxed nature of the piece may have been a kind of creative escape from... well, reality.

Check this post, where you can take a "walking tour" of this sonata and find out how it's put together.

Here is Daniel Barneboim performing the complete sonata live at a recital in Berlin. Due to standard YouTube editing practices, the clips do not break cleanly between movements for which I apologize.

1st Movement (Part 1)

End of 1st Movement; 2nd Movement, Part 1 (beginning at 2:44)
End of 2nd Movement; 3rd Movement begins at 1:20; 4th Movement begins at 4:02
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Michael Brown continues the program with an early work by Frederic Chopin which you can hear and read about in this earlier post.

His program concludes with another Piano Sonata in D Major, one that Franz Schubert composed in 1825. He wrote it while on a summer holiday, visiting the spa-town of Gastein, south of Salzburg.

For this, I’ve chosen four separate performers. 1st Mvmt w/Bulgarian pianist, Ivan Donchev
2nd Mvmt w/a classic recording by British pianist, Clifford Curzon

3rd Mvmt w/an unknown pianist (they abound on the internet and the person who posted this has an affinity for the artwork of Thomas Kinkade)
4th Mmvt w/a vintage monaural recording by the great Soviet pianist, Sviatoslav Richter, recorded in 1956.

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- Dick Strawser

January's Concert, Part 1: Chopin - The Early Years

Chopin at 28, painted by Delacroix

This weekend, pianist Michael Brown will include a work by Frederic Chopin on his Whitaker Center recital – Saturday at 8pm – not that that’s unusual. Chopin is a mainstay of many pianists’ repertoire. But this is a piece not often heard in performance. 

In fact, the whole program for this month’s presentation by Market Square Concerts is “not often heard in performance,” even though the two larger works on the program are sonatas by Beethoven and Schubert. I’ll get to those in later posts. 

Here’s Austrian pianist Ingolf Wunder who placed 2nd in the 2010 Chopin Competition in Warsaw, playing the “Rondo a la Mazur” by Chopin, recorded live during the competition’s 3rd round. 

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If A-B-A is a traditional three-part format where the A-Theme makes a sandwich out of B, then a Rondo, where the A-Theme recurs with other alternating themes in between becomes A-B-A-C-A-D-A (or some variation of that) – kind of like those “Dagwood Sandwiches”  – though this particular example is a not so gut-busting A-B-A-C-A. 

'A'

'B' at 1:45 

'A' returns at 3:50 

'C' at 5:35 

'A' returns at 7:46 

Here, this recurring theme “A” is based on the Polish folk dance which originated in Mazovia, the region of Central Poland whose history goes back to the 11th Century, where Warsaw is located and where Chopin grew up. 

So, the title basically means “Rondo in the style of Mazovia,” or, basically, a Mazurka.

In addition to the Mazurka’s traditional rhythm, Chopin employs a folk-like scale you wouldn’t traditionally hear in Western European classical concert music: a scale with a raised 4th degree or, in the key of F, a B-natural rather than the expected B-flat. To make sure you don't miss it, he accentuates it rhythmically, not just passing over it.

As you listen to this, if you’re familiar with a lot of Chopin, you may think, “well, yeah, that sounds like Chopin” even if you realize the “Opus 5” means it’s a work published very early in his career. (Opus numbers, usually assigned by publishers, are ways of cataloguing a composer’s works – ‘opus’ means ‘work’ in Latin -- but they’re not necessarily published in chronological order. As it happens, many of the works Chopin left unpublished during his life were published posthumously, meaning several early works look like they were written later than others.)

This particular work was written when Chopin was 16. And if that sounds surprisingly like more familiar works of his maturity, keep in mind Chopin was, after all, a prodigy who spent several years of his childhood improvising before he started writing things down.

It's surprising to realize in 1826, when Chopin composed this, he had just officially started taking composition lessons – more a way of taming these improvisations – and, if you look at the date, also realize that Beethoven was working on his late string quartets at the same time and Schubert, his last string quartet (the piano sonata closing this program was written the year before).

Sometimes, we tend to forget what else was going on in the music world when we listen to a composition “out of context.”

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Chopin’s father, a Frenchman and son of a wheelwright, was 16 when he emigrated to Poland in 1787 before the start of the French Revolution. After fighting in the Kosziusko Uprising in 1794 during the “second partition” of Poland, he became a tutor to the children of local aristocrats and later ran a respected boarding school for the sons of wealthy families. In 1806, he married Justyna Krzyżanowska, a woman he’d met through one of his clients. She was the daughter of a once wealthy aristocratic family which, after her father’s death, fell into debt and lost their estate.

(Her brother, incidentally, would later become the father of Włodzimierz Bonawentura Krzyżanowski, Chopin’s first cousin, who fought in the 1848 Revolution against Prussia, then fled Poland to avoid arrest, eventually settling in New York. He became a Union brigadier general during the Civil War and fought at Gettysburg in 1863, helping repel an evening assault by the Louisiana Tigers atop East Cemetery Hill.)

While the Chopin name is French, the composer’s father “polanized” his first name from Nicolas to Mikołaj. The Polish spelling of his surname would have been Szopen but this he didn’t change. As a result, I have been told by several friends who’re from Poland or traveled there, the natives do, in fact, pronounce his name “CHOPP-in” not “SHOW-pah(n).”

Frederic Chopin, the family’s second child and only son, was born in 1810 in a small country town west of Warsaw where the family moved seven months later. Between 1817 and 1827 – the time when Chopin composed the Rondo a la Mazur – the family lived in a spacious second-floor apartment of a building (see photo, above) that was part of the Kazimierz Palace where the Warsaw University had been founded. (The medallion on the 2nd floor central window is, like the car, a more modern touch.)

His father played the flute and violin and his mother, a pianist, was responsible for giving the boys of their boarding school their music lessons. As a child, Chopin was said to have wept when his mother played the piano and so, at 6, once he tried figuring out how to play the piano himself, his older sister began giving him lessons. Then he started studying with a man of limited talents (the student soon bettered his teacher) and at the age of 8, Chopin gave his first public performance at the Radziwill Palace.

Chopin’s first compositions were two polonaises which were said to rival the best of those written by acclaimed local composers, despite the fact Chopin was 7.

He also charmed the Grand Duke Constantine, the brother of Russian Tsar Alexander I (Warsaw was a province of the Russian Empire at the time), and was often invited to the palace as a playmate for the duke’s son.

During two summer vacations, at the home of a classmate north of Warsaw, the 14-year-old Chopin first heard actual folk music, not the stylized courtly dances like the Polonaise which he began “transmuting” into original compositions.

Chopin in 1826

While he had learned the basics of theory early in his studies – both at home and at the schools he attended – he didn’t start studying composition formally until the fall of 1826, around the time he wrote the Rondo a la Mazur. His teacher, Josef Elsner, “observed” rather than guided Chopin’s creativity, preferring not to constrain him with what he considered outdated academic rules, instead letting his talent develop “according to the laws of his own nature.”

Two years later, Chopin traveled to Berlin with a family friend and heard performances by Felix Mendelssohn, for instance, who was only a year older (he would soon conduct the first performance of Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion” since Bach’s death). On his return trip, they stopped at the palace of Prince Anton Radwizill, a keen amateur cellist and composer for whom Chopin composed his “Introduction and Polonaise brilliante” for cello and piano, later published as Op. 3. Once back in Warsaw, he heard two of the greatest performers of the day, the violinist Paganini and the pianist Johann Nepomuck Hummel, once a student of both Mozart and Beethoven.

Chopin at 19

At the age of 19, Chopin completed two piano concertos – the F Minor first, followed by the E Minor (they were published in reverse order, as it happened) and began composing the first of his Etudes. When he was 20, he made a successful debut in Vienna performing two separate concerts to generally favorable reviews, though comment was made of the “small tone” he drew from the instrument.

In fact, as it turned out, Chopin was not comfortable with the virtuoso’s world: during his short life, he gave about only 30 public performances.

When the November Uprising began in Warsaw in 1830, initiating a year-long war for independence from Russia, Chopin left his homeland with an urnful of Polish soil with plans to live nearby in Vienna until it would be safe to return. But Viennese life proved incompatible with his sensibilities and rather than go on to Italy, he chose to head to Paris, arriving there having received news the rebellion had been crushed (this is the presumed inspiration for the “Revolutionary” Etude).

He would spend the rest of his life in Paris, the capital of his father's homeland. Ironically, he was never able to master the French language!

A few months after his arrival in Paris, Robert Schumann, writing in his Leipzig journal, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (The New Journal for Music), reviewed Chopin’s “Variations on La ci darem la mano” written for piano and orchestra when he was 17, and concluded, “Hat’s off, gentleman! A genius.” 

And with that, Chopin’s career reached a whole new phase.

For more on this weekend's recital by Michael Brown, which also includes sonatas by Beethoven and Schubert, there will be subsequent posts.

- Dick Strawser

Did you hear about the Classical Grammy Nominations...?

The Grammys announced their nominees for the 2012 awards, in case you missed the concert televised on network TV last night or read that Kanye West received seven nominations.

And even if you did watch it, I doubt you noticed there were any classical music recordings nominated. (If you're wondering, you can check my post here.)

But that's always been the case. Even on those rare occasions when a classical artist did appear on the awards broadcast live, it was met by either indifference or incomprehension (as when host Ellen DeGeneris had to pronounce Shostakovich, Gil Shaham and Zdenek Macal all in one breath).

It's always nice to look through the list, scrolling down to the very bottom to find the Classical Categories, finding artists you've enjoyed, recordings you've bought or heard, and, in the case of this blog, performers who have appeared on Market Square Concerts' programs in recent (or even distant) seasons.

But this year, I'm looking through the list and can't even find the Chamber Music Category. Doing a search on "string quartet," for instance, turns up no category and few mentions - though the Pacifica Quartet's recording of Shostakovich and his contemporaries and the St. Lawrence Quartet's recording of the John Adam quartet they played here last year were nominated under the category "Producer of the Year, Classical."

It turns out that, in April earlier this year, the Grammy Awards announced the stream-lining of their categories, either eliminating or consolidating several awards, whittling it down by some 30 categories. This mostly affected the Classical and Jazz divisions.

Chamber Music has been absorbed by the category "Small Ensembles" which can still include chamber orchestras. This year, no string quartets or comparable ensembles were nominated.

Now, solo albums must compete with artists appearing as concerto soloists. Only one solo performer received a nomination this year - pianist Ursula Oppens playing music by John Corigliano.

Classical Music in general is rarely served by the print and broadcast media across the country. The Grammys paid scant attention to classical recordings even in the past and most media outlets ignored those classical categories at the bottom of the list, unless you were reading the New York Times.

Now, the Grammys serve classical musicians, already struggling to make, release and promote new recordings, even less.

While I wish Kanye the best, but I mean really dude, the JACK Quartet's recording of George Edwards' 2nd String Quartet on Albany Records was SOOO much better...

JACK, Part 3: Well, Hello, Iannis...

(The JACK Quartet performs Saturday at 8pm at Temple Ohev Sholom in uptown Harrisburg on Front Street below Seneca Street. I'll be giving a pre-concert talk at 7:15. I've posted about the other pieces on the program here.)

You know those stories that begin something like “it was a dark and stormy night”? You usually know what to expect at least in a general if not in a specific sense: anticipation and dread, mostly.

For some, the idea you’re about to hear something “challenging” sets up mental roadblocks to enjoyment. Today, we have a fairly lame attitude to “enjoyment,” though, which implies the music we listen to (the TV we watch, the art we look at) must “entertain” us (cue the dancing girls, now).

Many listeners have lost sight of other emotional responses we might have in reacting to music, transferring the bottom line of the arts experience to “I liked it. I didn’t like it.”

For some people, listening has become a passive skill: it's on in the background while you focus on something else. But even in Brahms and Beethoven, if you listen “actively,” you’ll get more out of it rather than just letting it wash over you. That’s easy to do with something you’re familiar with. (“Active listening” is also something that will help you enjoy your marriage a little more, too.)

But with something unfamiliar and initially “off-putting,” letting it wash over you can start to feel like you’re drowning.

Take this statement, a contemporary comment but I’ll leave the composers’ names blank for the moment:

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“[COMPOSER #1’s] works do not in general please quite so much as [COMPOSER #2’s] – they confirm he has a decided leaning toward the difficult and the unusual.”
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This was published in London at the end of the 18th Century when Mozart’s “Haydn” Quartets were still new enough to be “New Music.” Which one of these composers do you think is going to be Mozart?

Not to pick on London critics, but here’s one from 1900 and the Dawn of 20th Century Music: which composer (and piece) do you think he’s describing?

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"The [Piece by This Composer] is a work built upon dry as dust elements. It is one of those odd compositions which at times slipped from the pen of _____, apparently in order to prove how excellent a mathematician he might have become, but how prosaic, how hopeless, how unfeeling, how unemotional, how arid a musician he really was. You feel an undercurrent of… quadratic equations, of hyperbolic curves, of the dynamics of a particle. But, it must not be forgotten that music is not only a science; it is also an art. The [Piece] was played with precision, and that is the only way in which you can work out a problem in musical trigonometry."
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In the first quote, Composer #1 is Mozart. Composer #2, the one who proves more pleasing to the critic (if not the audience he’s writing for) is Leopold Kozeluch. (You may need to look him up: check here.)

In the second quote, the mathematically minded composer is Johannes Brahms and the example of musical trigonometry is his Sextet in B-flat, written in 1860, forty years before that review was written.

As a famously "difficult" composer himself, Roger Sessions once said "Every composer whose music seems difficult to grasp is, as long as the difficulty persists, suspected or accused of composing with his brain rather than his heart - as if the one could function without the other."

So, considering the music of Xenakis is often labeled, for better or for worse, with mathematical attributes – regardless of whether it was conceived mathematically or not – I thought those two quotes might give a listener in 2011 something to think about.

And perhaps no better introduction to the impact his music can have on a listener would come from someone who did not at first like it. 

Kevin McFarland, the “K” in JACK, wrote this for their concert’s program notes:

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I first encountered Xenakis' music rummaging through my teacher's CD collection. The liner notes described his works using words such as “mathematical,” “calculus,” and “scientific,” which I found a bit off- putting. At the time, I had inherited my teacher's skepticism of the application of math to composition, even though I enjoyed math (especially calculus) often to the chagrin of my peers. The sounds I heard couldn't have been more contrary to my expectations. I would have described them as being brutal, primitive, and alien. I didn't quite know how to process what I was hearing at the time; I didn't know whether I liked it, hated it, or what.

I rediscovered Xenakis in college when reading Formalized Music, his treatise on composition. The book completely changed my approach to writing music. Influenced by the ancient Greeks, he believed that music should be treated as a science as well as an art. For example, he demonstrated the application of stochastic processes (previously used to model chaotic systems such as the behavior of gas molecules) to “clouds” of string pizzicati or the density of woodwind attacks. These techniques were very exciting to me as a composer; there existed an entire world of potential mathematical processes that seemed much more interesting than, say, twelve-tone rows.

However, at the same time, I was listening to many recordings of Xenakis' music, and the paradox of process versus aesthetic became apparent again. This was not heady-sounding music at all, but rather visceral, primal, corporeal. The process of composition was not obvious on the surface of the music. Instead, one might imagine the wailings of a mourning woman, the thunder of a summer storm, or even sexual or religious ecstasy.
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Earlier this year, when the St. Lawrence Quartet performed the quartet John Adams had written for them, I was intrigued to read that Adams himself had difficulties when he first heard Béla Bartók’s 1st String Quartet which you’d think, compared to the dramatic 3rd, the structurally involved 4th and 5th, and the enigmatic 6th Quartets, would be a walk in the park. But for him, it involved a good deal of “active listening” to make sense of the piece – in the sense another composer makes “sense” of something, perhaps. He said it took several hearings to “get” it.

What does “get” it mean? To each of us, probably something different: a composer wants to understand how a piece is put together, what the composer he’s listening to did to make this piece work; a performer probably listens more to how the players are making sense out of it, handling technical aspects or projecting the structure of the piece into something audible and compelling; a listener will probably be happy enough with “enjoying” it, finding some satisfying emotional response.

Even as someone who composes music, I cringe reading composers’ program notes about “How I Wrote This Piece” using technical jargon that perhaps they expect will snow the audience into submission. That’s fine but I can drive a car without needing to understand the physics of the combustion engine.

So, rather than thinking about quadratic equations and slope formulas and other aspects of trigonometry turned into music, just listen to how it works.

Listen for the visceral, dramatic response to what the composer has created from his architectural plan just as you would look at his building and not be conscious of… whatever architectural terminology one architect would use to impress the pants off his colleagues.

To the untrained listener – the Xenakis Virgin – it may sound like they’re making this up, up there, aren’t they?

But it’s not improvised, it’s not “aleatoric” (left to chance).

Instead of the kinds of phrases and cadences and melodic shapes you’re used to from Bach through Brahms – or for that matter even Schoenberg – Xenakis is finding other ways to express the same underlying concepts.

In a way, it’s like taking a plan for a church – you have the basic idea of what a church is supposed to be, but does it look like the gothic Notre Dame in Paris, the Renaissance cathedral in Florence, the modern Sagrada Familia in Barcelona or this unidentified modern church (the joy of surfing...)? They're all churches but they each look different: different times, different places but same purpose.

You can listen for Xenakis’ musical gestures (rather than thinking of them as melodies, they’re more like shapes and cells that expand to create longer musical ideas) and hear how they contrast (just as Beethoven’s often cellular ideas grow and contrast), played first in this register or instrument, then in another, or how they sound similar here and there, giving the overall soundscape some sense of unity.

Or you can sit there, annoyed, and think of a few choice gestures of your own.

But I think, if you open your mind to the point you’re not focused on negative brain-waves at this point, you’ll walk away with a more positive (or less negative) impression.

Back in the ‘80s, the Harrisburg Symphony played a piece that is often described as “The Great American Symphony” though it’s never played that often – William Schuman’s 3rd. It is not a difficult work – compared to much music written in the 1940s – but it is not an easy work on first hearing.

Two people in front of me were applauding vociferously. I thought they “got” it but then I heard one say to the other, “I really didn’t like it, but they did a marvelous job trying to convince me.”

Live performances have a much better chance to “convince” you than listening to a recording. And a committed performance from players who are convinced what they’re doing is vital will be more likely to convince you than other performers who may only be going through the motions (though technically proficient) because they feel “hearing contemporary music is good for you” (like green beans and broccoli, not likely to be on top of the “what’s for dinner” list).

In a sense, I’m reluctant to post a video of “Tetras” for fear someone will just click on it and, after 10 seconds, exit the page and go listen to this bit of trigonometric music. But hopefully, if you’ve read this far, you’ll give it a chance.

To return to Kevin McFarland’s program note about Xenakis’ music:

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Perhaps no composition better embodies this contradiction than Tetras. Written relatively late in his career, Tetras is a work of starkly contrasting textures. The piece opens with a virtuosic glissando violin solo followed by the viola in double stops and then the whole quartet in quiet echo of the solos. From there the piece moves through a handful of sections, often with little or no transition in between. The feeling I get from this work is that Xenakis had already liberated string sounds from traditional roles and was then completely free to create in the wake of this revolution. It is a work of uncompromising vision, savage brutality, and startling beauty.
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Here’s the JACK Quartet recording “Tetras” by Iannis Xenakis:



If you’re not one of those immediately taken in by the whole new sound-world this may open to you and you’re thinking instead, “How do I listen to this stuff?”, listen to it again and follow these points:

Long opening violin solo (single notes, sliding up and down through different registers of the violin which may sound a bit like someone talking.

At 0:32, the answering solo in the viola (two notes at a time, still sliding, but responding, making it a conversation).

At 1:02, other instruments enter with brief swirls of colors and different textures, as if commenting on the conversation between the violin and the viola ("discuss amongst yourselves"). 

At 1:15 accents contrasting with quiet flurries and sudden “rude noises” like sharp chords.

At 1:48, the tension’s been increasing to a point where – suddenly – the energy is released, and this excerpt ends with sounds (you might call them ‘noises’) that punctuate the texture like an unexpectedly loud chord in Beethoven puts a period on a musical paragraph.

(By the way, you’ll notice, looking over Chris’ shoulder, the music he’s playing from is completely (and complexly) notated, not left to improvisation.)

Instead of something that might be the logical equivalent of a still-life painting with fruit and a bowl, or somebody's barn in winter, you're looking at a colorful kaleidoscope of images, or fragments of images - or the shadows of fragments of images...

If this is your first time hearing any of Xenakis’ music, I envy you the excitement of discovery but also understand how you might feel lost. Think John Adams and Bartok’s 1st – or Kevin McFarland’s first encounters with it (and here he is, playing it for you, now).

Keep in mind, it took a while for Columbus to figure out where his explorations “got” him, too.

So if you decide you don’t like Xenakis’ music, that’s fine, if you’ve made an honest attempt at listening to it. (I remember, after making a face the first time I ate an olive, my mom said “You have to eat seven olives before you’ll like them.”)

And if you decide you never want to hear Xenakis again – which is your perfect right as an individual – you can always go home and listen to your Kozeluch CDs.

- Dick Strawser

JACK, Part 2: Meet G, C and P

The JACK Quartet will be performing their GPCI Program on Saturday – November 12th – at 8pm at the Temple Ohev Sholom on North Front Street in Harrisburg (just below Seneca Street) – I’ll be doing a pre-concert talk at 7:15, by the way.

G = Guillaume Machaut (c.1300-1377): Three Pieces arranged by Ari Streisfeld 
P = Philip Glass (b.1937): String Quartet No. 5
C = Caleb Burhans (b.1980): Contritus (a work composed for JACK)
I = Iannis Xenakis (1922 – 2001): Tetras

Very often, when people go to concerts where a work by a still-living composer is performed, if they don’t like the “new music,” it’s the composer’s fault but if they don’t like the Beethoven, it’s the performer’s fault.

Most of that comes from familiarity. The Beethoven You Know, whether it’s from recordings or other performances you’ve attended, is something “measurable.”

The New Guy is not.

It’s possible you’ve never heard his or her music before, much less this particular piece. And if it’s a World Premiere, no one has a yard-stick they can measure it by so you can’t even use somebody else’s opinion – a critic or the friend who talked you into coming to this concert – to base your own reaction on.

I got a phone call one night, when I worked at the radio station after playing some music by a Living Composer (something this listener equated more with a Zombie), something he didn’t particularly like. In fact, he was arguing that it wasn’t even, really, music, much less “classical music.”

Of course, I could spend hours writing about that, alone, but the comment he made about not playing music that has not reached a certain level of popularity struck a chord with me (so to speak).

This is what I now call the Reality TV Reaction – a combination of “Survivor: New Music” and “American Composer Idol” – in which listeners essentially get to vote new pieces off the island.

He said if it doesn’t “reach” an audience, “it has no right to stand next to a great work of art like the Beethoven Violin Concerto.”

I thanked him for choosing that particular piece because he just made his own argument invalid.

I explained: Beethoven’s Violin Concerto is regarded as one of the Two Greatest Violin Concertos ever written. Beethoven wrote it in 1806 and it was a disaster at the premiere (for any number of reasons: the soloist did not have enough time to learn it and was, essentially, practically sight-reading parts of the last movement). It was rarely performed because many considered it too long and too difficult to play and listen to. It did not enter the repertoire until Joseph Joachim championed it after playing it the first time in London with Felix Mendelssohn on the podium in 1844. If you’re not quick on the mental math, that’s 38 years after it was composed and 17 years after Beethoven’s death. (Oh, and Joachim was 12 at the time.)

So yes, sometimes it takes a while for a work we think of as great to “find its audience.”

As a composer, I find no more reassuring literature to read than the famous bad reviews that Nicholas Slonimsky (himself a composer and conductor of then new music) collected in an amazing little volume called The Lexicon of Musical Invective which could be subtitled “They Don’t Write Reviews Like That Anymore.”

In “classical music,” we regard what the composer wrote with all the reverence of a sacred text. Modern performances can succeed or fail on how closely they come to the composer’s intentions (whatever that is).

At least as long as the listeners are familiar with it.

One of my favorite “gottcha” moments was the fallout following a concert about 30 years ago by a famous interpreter of modern piano music – unfortunately, I’ve now forgotten her name; French, I believe – and a major Carnegie Hall recital which included works by Schoenberg and Xenakis. It was hailed as a triumph, especially the Schoenberg which, amazingly enough, she played from memory. I remember, reading the review, thinking how true it is that committed playing can win over a doubtful listener who still finds Schoenberg daunting to listen to.

Well, as it turned out, Paul Jacobs, who was a pianist also specializing in contemporary music and who’d recorded all of Schoenberg’s piano music, was sitting in the audience wondering the 1980s equivalent of “WTF?!” And he wrote a “letter to the editor” in which he voiced his opinion that very little of what she played was actually Schoenberg.

It turned out – and the pianist admitted this later, out of embarrassment – she had several memory lapses and rather than stop and start over, she kept on going, improvising “in the style of” Schoenberg and some of the most astute critics in New York City were none the wiser. (She said she’d spent so much time worrying about the Xenakis, she took her memory of the Schoenberg for granted.)

Would the same thing have happened if she’d had a similar problem in Beethoven’s “Moonlight” Sonata?

(True story: when I was a child and first taking piano lessons, I used to improvise at the piano all the time and of course hated all the time spent practicing. I decided I wanted to become a composer because that way, I would be the only one who’d know if I was making mistakes.)

So, to give you an idea of how differently interpretations may affect how you react to it, here’s a “period instrument” version of one of Machaut’s “greatest hits,” the song, Douce dame jolie. I’m not saying either of these are “wrong” or “better” – just different interpretations of what was once on the 14th Century Hit Parade.

Here, Theo Bleckmann performs the same song: the title translates as “Sweet, lovely lady (do not think any has sovereignty over my heart but you alone).”


Ari Streisfeld, the “A” in JACK, has arranged three works by Machaut for string quartet, playing with the lines, moving parts around, making good use of the timbres available in a string quartet.

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Caleb Burhans is a more recent composer – to put it mildly – born 31 years ago rather than over 700. And one I’ve not heard before, so I am definitely looking forward to discovering his music. Here’s a link to his web-site bio.

About the work he composed for his fellow Eastmaniacs in JACK – entitled Contritus – he wrote this which is included in the program notes:
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Contritus is Latin for “crushed by guilt”. In the Catholic Church there are many prayers of contrition and penance. Composed in the fall and winter of 2009, Contritus is in three sections that organically flow into one another. These sections represent three different prayers of contrition. Much of the string writing in Contritus is evocative of early music and viol consorts while still portraying a sense of modern guilt. 

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When I saw the title, my first expectation was he might be finding some inspiration in medieval or renaissance church motets – or maybe not: it could also sound completely (and possibly) wildly different, a 21st Century take on a 15th Century model? But reading his comment about the piece, it seems that first expectation might be more accurate. I’m eager to find out how he translates one age into another.

Here is an example of another work of his, excerpts from “The Things Left Unsaid” for cello ensemble, composed in 2006.

Philip Glass has become one of the “Grand Old Names” in Modern Music, recently surviving the public recognition of his 70th Birthday. Glass’ music is no stranger to Harrisburg – his Violin Sonata was given its world premiere on a Market Square Concerts program at Whitaker Center, commissioned to honor Lucy Miller Murray.

Glass himself, with his ensemble, played the filmscore to Koyaanisqatsi live at Whitaker Center and though I find it difficult to sit in a room and listen to the full recording of the music, the actual experience of hearing (and feeling) it live while watching the film it was meant to accompany was astounding – riveting, in fact – and by the time it was over, I thought we had only reached intermission. 

Here is a performance of the 5th Movement of the 5th Quartet which JACK will be performing Saturday night. And this is also an example of another great name for an all-male quartet – I suspect it must be pronounced in the Italian way as “tes-tahs-steh-ROH-neh”…
 

For Iannis Xenakis, the last composer on this program, I’ll include an introduction to his “Tetras” in a separate post.

- Dick Strawser

JACK comes to town

Contemporary:
1. Belonging to the same period of time (a fact is documented by two contemporary sources)
2. Of or about the same age (Brahms and Wagner were contemporaries)
3. Current or modern (art work that is contemporary with our own times and sensibilities)

It’s the third definition we’re using to describe the music the JACK Quartet will be performing this Saturday at 8pm for Market Square Concerts, a program that will be held at the Temple Ohev Sholom in uptown Harrisburg at Front below Seneca Street.

There is a pre-concert talk beginning at 7:15 presented by Dick Strawser (that would be me) and I’ll try not to duplicate everything verbatim I will post here on the blog.

There are additional posts about the music on the program: Part 2 introduces the Machaut, Caleb Burhans' Contritus, and Philip Glass's 5th String Quartet. Part 3 is an introduction to Iannis Xenakis' Tetras.

Opening the season with the Juilliard Quartet brought one of the Great Quartets of All Time to Harrisburg, a group that has been performing (in one personnel configuration or another) for sixty years.

This month, Market Square Concerts offers listeners one of the newer, cutting-edge ensembles that’s only been around six years, officially forming into a quartet after they’d all graduated from the Eastman School of Music (when I was a student there in the Trying to be Wild & Crazy ‘70s, there was much talk of trying to get out from under what we called “Eastman Gothic”…).

They call themselves the JACK Quartet and the name comes from the first letters of their first names:

J = John Pickford Richards, violist
A = Ari Streisfeld, violinist
C = Christopher Otto, violinist
K = Kevin McFarland, cellist (who, incidentally, is from Lancaster PA)

(In this photograph, I guess that would be JCKA but in the photo at top, it's CAKJ though since the violinists share 'who's on first,' so to speak, it could sometimes be ACKJ.)

Tickets are available on-line through Whitaker Center, by calling (717) 214-ARTS, in person at The Box on the 2nd level of Whitaker Center or at the door prior to the concert.

Student Tickets: We also offer $5 tickets for college and university students.

School-age students are free.

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Going to concerts presents a multiplicity of possibilities. As far as the composers go, consider familiar works by familiar names – Beethoven’s 3rd Razumovsky Quartet or Brahms Piano Quintet – things you’ve heard before and perhaps enjoy meeting whenever they come around. Or maybe it’s an unfamiliar work by a familiar name: let’s say it’s Dvorak but it’s not his “American” Quartet – knowing you like the familiar one, chances are good you might like another of his works.

Even if you’ve never heard a piano trio by Anton Arensky (whom you may not be familiar with), you might realize liking some of his European contemporaries or other Russian composers from the late-19th Century might mean this could be a pleasant discovery.

Of course, speaking of Russian composers, just because Cesar Cui is one-fifth of ‘The Mighty Handful’ doesn’t mean you’ll find him up there in the same league as his colleagues Borodin or Rimsky-Korsakoff.

Then, of course, there are programs where one of the names, unfamiliar or not, inspires fear. For some people, it could be Brahms. More listeners tend to suffer from contemporariphobia, anything (usually unfamiliar) which strikes them as New Music even if it’s older than their grandparents – for instance, did you know 2012 is the Centennial of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire?

I have been told that Ives and Cage are four-letter words (then, too, so is Bach).

One of my favorite composers is Elliott Carter (who incidentally turns 103 in a month and is still composing). For some, Carter is an acquired taste, but he must be doing something right to be regarded as one of the great composers of the 20th Century.

The problems some listeners have in dealing with “new music” come not so much from their lack of familiarity with it but from listening to it the same way they’d listen to Beethoven and Mozart. You would tell a Vivaldi-fan who can’t stand Wagner that you can’t judge Wagner because he’s not Vivaldi but we do it all the time with most “contemporary” music, dismissing it because it’s not Beethoven.

Listening to unfamiliar music will be one of the topics I’ll be getting into at the pre-concert talk I’m offering before the JACK Quartet’s performance on Saturday. So if you’re cautious about what’s on the program and debating whether you should go or not, I would say, yes you should go and yes you should go with an open mind as well as ear and, of course, yes you should come to my pre-concert talk ;-)

Their program opens with something not terribly contemporary – the music of Guillaume Machaut who died in 1377. Yes, the 14th Century! When you consider most concert music we hear these days rarely pre-dates 1700, this would seem a bit of a stretch, contemporaneously speaking.

Keeping in mind that Steve Reich (a leading composer in today’s so-called “minimalist” school) once said his music had more in common with Hildegard of Bingen (12th Century) than with Haydn (18th), it’s important to realize that music, first of all, is music, whatever era it comes from, and in many cases has many of the same attributes, though they may be realized differently.

There might be phrases and elements of tension and release that create cadences and form which might be easier to hear in more familiar works like Beethoven and Mozart, but you can still hear a composer like Iannis Xenakis who can create lines and forms and textures and tensions in many different, sometimes similar ways yet sound completely different from anything you’ve ever heard before.

Now, if you’ll pardon one more analogy, you’ve never had Thai food before, you know it’s spicy and you walk into the first Thai restaurant you find. You look at the menu and stab your finger at, say, a Chicken Panang Curry. After you realize you can no longer feel your lips and the roof of your mouth is melting, do you say “I don’t like this; it’s not a cheeseburger”?

Stay tuned. More posts on the way.

Dick Strawser