Mahler

Gustav Mahler
Symphony No. 4 in G Major
http://manchesterlib.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=101977%2Fmancheslibnml11%2F5347898

I have listened to some Mahler symphonies previously, as my piano teacher is a big fan. They never quite grabbed me. I did however enjoy this symphony and I’d like to think something clicked with this one and I ‘get’ what he is saying..

Wind and sleighbells opening in a light and airy texture – indeed reminiscent of classical era music like Mozart (I read that somewhere). Song-like tunes emanate from the strings. Lots of contrast and tempo changes. Return of the opening theme which you can’t miss with the sleighbells!…then a variation on this with horns and woodwinds. There’s a continuation of general playfulness from all parts of the orchestra, kind of sounds like a game of hide and seek with some more dramatic occasional crescendos and pastoral-like lyricism.

Waltz-like opening to the second movement. Same playfulness with strings and winds interjecting rhythmic phrases, reminiscent again of classical era music. It generally sounds very innocent and subjectively conveys the idea of someone reminiscing about some idyllic past and happy memories.

Third movement brings slower legato strings and more of a sense of melancholy, still with this idea of someone reminiscing about the past. Very beautiful oboe part briefly punctuates the strings. It’s all very unhurried and lyrical. There’s a gradual crescendo with timpani rolls but it’s never convincingly threatening and the mood lightens…the timpanis and crescendo return again and it is starting to suggest loss or struggle of some kind. Playful strings return and all is happy again, emphasized with the use of a glockenspiel. Dramatic crescendo seems to come out of nowhere towards the end of the movement which ends in a similar fashion to the way it began, this time with harp (and eventually woodwind) adding colour to the strings.

Lyrical clarinet opening before the soprano comes in. Still this overiding impression of memories of halcyon days. The wind and sleighbells theme re-appear in dramatic fashion interspersed with the singing. Nice texture with the use of the harp accompanying the tune.

Mahler’s symphonies are long, epic adventures with programmatic components and emotional depth. He uses imaginative orchestration techniques to give a sense of both the intimate and the colossal, and occasionally includes quotations from his own works in the music. His melody lines demonstrate his passion for song and his symphonies often include vocal parts, linking instrumental music with text in accordance with the Romantic ideal. Thematic materials are often linked between movements, to give the music a sense of development and journey, allowing familiar themes to be heard within different contexts and emotions.

Test this description for yourself by listening carefully to a piece of symphonic music by Mahler (e.g. Symphony No. 8).
Make notes on how he uses some or all of the elements described above, and what effect they have on the overall emotional feel and sense of journey.

Based on what I have already written and listened to, I would agree with pretty much everything in that paragraph. Mahler’s 4th symphony comes in at about 55 minutes in length. I’m not sure I would describe the 4th symphony as epic exactly as it perhaps lacks a truly dramatic moment that knocks your socks off, but it nevertheless takes the listener on a journey, and there are both intimate moments and some ‘almost’ colossal moments. The programmatic content for the first 4 symphonies is based on texts from ‘Des Knaben Wunderhorn’ (The Boy’s Magic Horn). The fourth symphony is built around a single song, “Das himmlische Leben” (“The Heavenly Life”), which presents a child’s vision of Heaven. There is also the thematic link between the first and last movements.

I’m not sure whether my interpretation of the movements is quite what Mahler had in mind (!), but I don’t think I’m a million miles off in stating that there are overarching themes of innocence and child-like playfulness throughout the symphony that correlate with the final movement of a child’s vision of heaven, interspersed with some drama in the third movement.

PROGRAMME MUSIC

Hector Berlioz

Symphonie fantastique, Op. 14
http://manchesterlib.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=101977%2Fmancheslibnml11%2F3206242
(Accessed 02/01/18)

I was vaguely aware of the background to this work and that Berlioz became infatuated with the Irish actress, Harriet Smithson, after seeing her perform in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I wasn’t aware of the exact ‘plot’ of the symphony however. I was also aware of the ‘idée fixe’ concept but no clue as to where it was and how it re-occurs in the work.

So, my initial impressions:

Delicate wind and strings opening, quiet, tranquil, slightly mysterious perhaps. Ominous sounding double basses and cellos sound. Lively strings convey a sudden excitement. I have a mental picture of a boat out at sea at night more than anything else. Long held bass note on the strings conveys a sense of anticipation…The boat out at sea image gets a bit lost but then comes a section at about 7’30” as if it is caught in a storm. This picture starts to not fit very well towards the end of the movement where there is more of an internal feeling of passion which not coincidentally matches the title of the movement.

Ominous opening to the second movement with the harp sounding a kind of magical touch. Dance-like ¾ time signature. The whole movement does indeed convey a ball where the protagonists are swept away in their emotions.

Delicate clarinet / cor anglais (?) opening seems like an anti-climax to the previous movement. We are not quite sure what’s happening as if we have just woken up from a dream but we don’t quite recognise where we are…we take tentative steps in a foreign landscape (pizz strings)…we gradually get our bearings…the music then becomes more introspective briefly before a legato string and prominent cello section. There is sudden urgency to the music that conveys a storm perhaps, before the return of some delicate winds followed by pizz strings and clarinet. Nothing springs to mind particularly…though gradually there is a sense of nature and the countryside that comes through. Timpani roll sounds ominous….delicate clarinet sounds out a tune ignoring the timpani, it’s starting to sound slightly sad…

Drum roll now sounding far more ominous with dark horns suggesting nothing good, though paradoxically it all sounds like a major key to me, so still not too dark. Triumphant sounding trumpets & trombones. At about 3’45” sounds like a battle with a cavalry charge which only gets reinforced by the triumphant sounding conclusion to the movement.

Air of ominous mystery with ‘psycho’ (as in the film) like stabbing strings. Incongruous instruments (clarinets?) sound rather strange and the whole thing sounds as if we are caught up in a whirlwind and we aren’t in Kansas anymore…Tolling of the bell accompanied by the tuba playing what sounds like a slow laborious march to one’s doom. I’ve got a mental picture of creatures like orcs working away at the face of a coal mine and heavy machinery. It sounds half-heroic at times though as well and still this pervading sense of a major key. I’m slightly confused by it all.

Berlioz Takes a Trip
http://manchesterlib.naxosmusiclibrary.com/stream.asp?s=101977%2Fmancheslibnml11%2Ftf2831%5F001

The recording I listen to also contains some commentary on the piece by Bernstein himself. The fact that the title of of the commentary is called ‘Berlioz takes a trip’ is rather revelatory. Bernstein also explains the concept of the idée fixe, something that had alluded me completely whilst listening to the piece.

Second audition

I guess the delicate opening suggests the idea of our protagonist gently daydreaming. We then have a strings ‘skipping’ section as if his heart misses a beat so to speak as he encounters the vision of his beloved perhaps (?) though the idée fixe idea doesn’t come in until later at about 5’02”. The music subsequently seems to convey passion and torment as well as swinging to slower, sad sections. It’s kind of a confused mess which I suppose is exactly the idea.

Not much more to say about the second movement though I am now recognising the idée fixe theme at approx 2’04” played by the winds.

Third movement opens with Cor Anglais and Oboe (I was wrong about the clarinet after checking the score). There is a kind of contrast at times between the quiet countryside and the sometimes turbulent emotions going through the head of our protagonist. It’s also the cor anglais at the end of the movement, rather than the clarinet. I don’t hear the idée fixe theme in this movement.

The opening of the fourth movement still sounds more like a military march to me and doesn’t seem to fit with this idea of the protagonist poisoning himself with opium. The opening brass sounds strangely ‘pop-like’ to me! Still sounds too triumphant sounding to relate to the storyline. Weird. Part of the idée fixe theme seems to be present in slightly transformed fashion in a good proportion of this movement. [Subsequent to writing that I think this is wrong actually… it seems reminiscent of  part of the theme in some way to me but doesn’t seem to be backed up by anything I’ve read subsequently, there’s a similarity to the sequences to my ears]. Moving on…I seem to recall Suzy Klein (some years ago) talking about the pizz strings as out hero’s head is chopped off and it bounces on the floor. That sort of fits.

My initial description of the witches sabbath does fit with what is going on musically. I like the way he uses the clarinet and winds to suggests a crazed swirling dance of creatures. I keep a lookout for the idée fixe theme and it’s only after repeated listening and some research that I realise it sits in slightly crazed fashion at 1’40 and it’s almost unrecognisable from its original statement in the first movement.

Choose one or two movements to examine in more detail. How does Berlioz convey the
events musically? How well do you feel that Berlioz succeeded?

I am going to examine the final movement.

Let’s use Berlioz’s own programme words to see how well he conveys musically what he describes verbally:

He sees himself at a witches’ sabbath, in the midst of a hideous gathering of shades, sorcerers and monsters of every kind who have come together for his funeral. Strange sounds, groans, outbursts of laughter; distant shouts which seem to be answered by more shouts.

The movement opens with tremolando strings as if he is waking up into a nightmare, so to speak. There’s a recurring motif played by the cellos and double basses that sounds threatening as well as the stabbing sounds of the violins. Illustrated below

More groaning of the strings and a general sense of anticipation is created by the return of the tremolando strings.

The beloved melody appears once more, but has now lost its noble and shy character; it is now no more than a vulgar dance tune, trivial and grotesque: it is she who is coming to the sabbath…

As illustrated by this excerpt:

Roar of delight at her arrival… She joins the diabolical orgy…

There is a tutti fortissimo section where the ‘roar’ is indeed portrayed at the ‘Allegro Assai’ section (no bar numbers in my score), then a little later the idée fixe theme is transformed into a lurid vulgar dance kicked off by the winds until the whole orchestra joins in, creating a kind of whirlwind effect.

The funeral knell tolls, burlesque parody of the Dies irae,** the dance of the witches. The dance of the witches combined with the Dies irae.

Looking at the score I like how Berlioz combines the Dies Irae with the Witches Round dance at the end of the movement where they had previously been played separately earlier. I did not know the Dies Irae motif prior to listening to this, but it sounds suitably morbid combined with the bell. Quite what it represents I’m not sure – presumably our hero’s unrequited love and his ensuing deep despair.

In conclusion I would say that Berlioz is successful in portraying musically what he describes verbally for the final movement of his symphony fantastique. It is quite a ride!

Auxiliary instruments of the orchestra

Wagner Tuba

BRUCKNER, A
Symphony No. 7 in E Major, WAB 107 (original 1885 version, ed. R. Haas)
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2F792047
[Accessed 21/11/17]
Gentle lyrical cello opening punctuated by legato horns. Conjures up the mist slowly dissolving in the early morning. A dancelike upbeat feel emerges in a 1&a2&a pattern only to be replaced by the gentle lyrical feel again on the winds. Ominous forte horns temporarily break the tranquility. First movement finishes in a crescendo of trumpet and horns (Wagner tubas?).
Use of 4 Wagner tubas in the slow and lyrical second movement. The music meanders (in a good way) at the start. Similar dramatic motifs on the horns to the end of movement 1, echoed by the strings. Rising string motif with the horns providing backing harmony and eventually ‘breaking through’.
Third movement sounds somewhat dramatically Wagnerian, a bit ‘ride of the valkyries’ at the beginning. This theme re-appears several times and is contrasted by a generally lyrical movement, that ends in a triumphant sounding of the principal theme.
Extensive use of the horns in the final movement, really ‘milks’ the ending – big horn harmonies.
Not really been conscious of hearing any Bruckner prior to this, and I like it. I found the way the first and second movements come to a close slightly unsatisfying, like there wasn’t a sense of a home key? Nice use of the clarinet in parts aswell. Not particularly conscious of the texture of the Wagner tubas. After downloading a score and listening along, the texture they provide is pretty subtle a lot of the time, particularly in the softer passages.

Richard Strauss
Eine Alpensinfonie (An Alpine Symphony), Op. 64, TrV 233
http://manchesterlib.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=101977%2Fmancheslibnml11%2F107932
(Accessed 04/01/18)

Very dramatic & timbrally rich beginning with the use of the brass and strings holding down a low pedal note against which a slowly descending scale is played. The richness of the sound is supposed to convey the ‘thickness’ of the night. I like this straight away. It sounds very BIG and dramatic and decidedly Romantic.
The Ascent – sounds like there are some off stage trumpets.
Very dramatic sound again in ‘Entry to the woods’ where there’s a string ostinato over which the brass play some BIG motifs until the piece settles into more of a development section…
‘On the Alpine pasture’ includes the use of cowbells, not the modern drumkit variety, but a softer sounding version.
The texture thins at ‘Dangerous Moments’ with what sounds like a solitary bassoon sounding an alarmed motif that is taken up by other brass instruments as the strings play a tremolando pedal note.
BIG brass sound for the summit, gives way to an oboe that seems to marvel at the accomplishment, perhaps slighty in awe. BIG brass sound returns with something reminiscent of ‘Thus Spoke Zarahustra’.
As if the texture could not get any bigger, an organ enters the fray in ‘vision’!
Change of tempo, texture and tone as a sense of eeriness is created mainly by the winds and strings in ‘mists rise’ and ‘the sun gradually darkens’.
There’s a gradual crescendo until the brass and strings create the mayhem of the storm accompanied by plenty of percussion and the use of a thunder machine (Donnermaschine). The piccolos manage to pierce their way through the texture.
‘Sunset’ – there are some musical themes that are re-stated here.
Organ texture starts off the ‘final sounds’ accompanied by winds and rather quieter lyrical brass until ‘night’ returns with the same descending scale run heard at the beginning of the piece but in a thinned out texture.
It’s the last tone poem that Strauss wrote, started in 1911, completed 1915.
Not exactly an understated affair, but overall I like it.
Completely forgot about the Wagner tubas during this analysis!
Just a couple of details regarding the instrumentation: Double woodwind section and eight extra players, 4 harps, 12 horns…

And now for something completely different…Really…

Bass Clarinet

Maurice Ravel
Daphnis et Chloe
http://manchesterlib.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=101977%2Fmancheslibnml11%2F4632483
(Accessed 05/01/18)

Coincidentally written at about the same time as the Alpine Symphony above. Contrasting use of the orchestra. Ravel seems to be particularly adept at orchestrating winds.
Pianissimo timpani and the gradual addition of the strings eventually produces the quiet but very attention-grabbing introduction, complete with offstage voices. Mixture of winds providing melodic interest. Occasional harp texture. Pizzicato march feel provided by the strings whilst the winds ‘float’ on top.
Trumpet enters with a mix of staccato and longer held notes answered by the winds and strings.
Dancelike section provided mainly by strings and winds but percussion here and there (Dorcon’s advances to Chloe)
There are so many changes of texture that it’s kind of pointless to keep on describing this as I’m listening to it… but it clearly ties in with what is happening on stage.
Mystical and ‘other-wordly’ effect with the use of the voices during the interlude.
Very interesting glissando effect on the violas in the final section of part 2 when the creatures of Pan appear and frighten the pirates, general air of mystery and anticipation before the horns sound dramatically alarmed. Very brief use of voices.
Third sections consists of lots of busy harp textures and winds before a climactic finale with full orchestra and voices.
Bass clarinet present from the outset in the score.

Hector Berlioz
Grande symphonie funebre et triomphale, Op. 15
http://manchesterlib.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=101977%2Fmancheslibnml11%2F1052838
(Accessed 05/01/18)

Big orchestra required (again!) with 26 Bb clarinets, 2 Bb bass clarinets, 8 Bassoons, 15 Cellos and 10 double basses amongst other requirements. Perhaps of note: No violins or violas in the score.
Glancing at the score, the bass clarinet appears to double one the bassoons (at least for the first few bars).
Side drum kicks off this dramatic funeral march, which I suppose sounds pretty much as expected though the winds provide a certain lightness and airiness to the affair where the work might otherwise sound stodgy. Tuba sticks out in the texture somewhat.
Second movement ‘Funeral Sermon’ is far thinner in texture than its surrounding movements, and quite an understated affair, but suitably solemn.
Triumphant brass kicks off the third movement to an eventual marching rhythm with triumphant choir / voices at the end.

Electronic Music pieces

Schaeffer, Pierre
5 Etudes de bruits:
No. 1. Etude aux chemins de fer
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/stream.asp?s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2Frl0519%5F001
[Accessed 08/11/17]

Various railway noises as described in the course notes. The thing that puzzles me the most is that I’m hearing it in stereo and surely at the time this was created, stereo did not exit yet. How wrong I am! However, based on the various articles I’ve read about radio it is likely that the broadcast did not take place over FM and was therefore in mono.
The works were premiered via a broadcast on 5 October 1948, titled Concert de Bruits on Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (RTF). I don’t know how the work was received, I suspect that most people would have been baffled, not unlike today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereophonic_sound
https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scots_Guide/RadCom/part21/page1.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_radio#FM_in_Europe

Schaeffer, Pierre / Henry, Pierre
Symphonie pour un homme seul
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2F2580160
[Accessed 08/11/17]
Split into 12 pieces with titles such as Valse, Erotica, Scherzo, with corresponding sounds and sometimes music suggestive of the titles, e.g. a woman gigling suggestively for ‘Erotica’, snippets of string music during ‘Valse’, silly baby-like and sped up sounds during ‘Scherzo’, etc. Close to being absolute nonsense by today’s technological standards, but very much about the context and the creative ways of using technology at the time.

Karlheinz Stockhausen – Mikrophonie 1 – Film 1966

[Accessed 08/11/17]
performed by Aloys Kontarsky, Alfred Alings, Harald Boje, Johannes G. Fritsch and Karlheinz Stockhausen directed by Francois Béranger groupe de recherches musicales.
Stockhausen himself and some assistants doing unspeakable things to a Tam-Tam 🙂
Mikrophonie I was first performed in Brussels on 9 December 1964. The score is dedicated to the composer’s godson, Alexander (Xandi) Schlee.
‘the microphone is used actively as a musical instrument, in contrast to its former passive function of reproducing sounds as faithfully as possible’ – Stockhausen. (In Stockhausen, Texte zur Musik 3:57–65. Cologne: Verlag M. DuMont Schauberg, cited on Wikipedia entry for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikrophonie_(Stockhausen)

I have mixed reactions to watching this. In a sense it is amazing the lengths that Stockhausen goes to discover all the sounds that one instrument can make. He really is like a pioneer going on a voyage of discovery and using every technique of the time imaginable to create a soundscape, with a score to match. I don’t consider it music personally though it fits in an objective way around the concept of organized sound. I’m sure modern composers and sound fx people working in film and TV go to similar lengths to create sounds to fit a movie. It is not something I would listen to on a regular basis!

Sound in Unlimited Space
Synthesized sound

Herbert Eimert / Robert Beyer, Klang im unbegrenzten Raum 1952
[Accessed 08/11/17]
‘Herbert Eimert and Robert Beyer together created Sound in Unlimited Space, which is more or less the first work of synthesized music — a bubbling, moaning landscape of sine tones’.
As described in Ross, Alex. The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century.
Reminds me of sci-fi movies from the 50’s and 60’s – think ‘Forbidden Planet’ perhaps! Zapping, whooshing, spring-like noises in what sounds like a random order, though there are recognisable sound motifs that occur.

Milton Babbitt – Ensembles for Synthesizer (1964)

[Accessed 08/11/17]
I find it interesting that it sounds like a random set of electronic noises in the same vain as Sound in Unlimited Space, but with a slightly different tone and timbre overall. Babbitt himself states that he uses serialist techniques to compose the music and create the sounds. I don’t like it particularly, and probably prefer Sound in Unlimited Space as the sounds generally have less of an attack compared to what Babbitt is programming and there’s a certain harshness to the sound in Babbitt’s work, no doubt related to how the RCA MkII produced the tones.

Exploring Composition for Percussion

Reich, Steve
Clapping Music
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/stream.asp?s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2Fpn2249%5F001
[Accessed 06/11/17]

I listened to this and it turned out differently to what I was expecting. I was expecting something a little more extreme in terms of losing the sense of time or pulse. Something like how the piece starts with both pairs of hands clapping the same rhythm, but with one pair gradually going out of sync, or phase. I mean by fractions of seconds rather than beats.
To my ears this doesn’t happen. The pulse is never ‘lost’, I suspect there is some beat displacement going on and it gets syncopated at some points with the emphasis coming on different beats in the bar and I definitely lose the sense of where each player is up to in playing the pattern, but I love it. It’s the sort of thing that turns up in pop and rock. As an example, I’m thinking of a track by Suzanne Vega called ‘Solitude Standing’ where there are different instruments playing phrases of different lengths that go on & off the beat.
What are your views on the instruments used? The instruments used work just fine – minimalist.
Can you hear the rhythmic pattern clearly as the two parts come apart? Not really. The fact that the ‘instruments’ are the same makes it harder to discern who is playing what.
If not, how soon does the identity of the rhythmic pattern become lost? Pretty much as soon as the phasing starts if I’m honest.
What is the overall effect of the phasing? The phasing displaces the emphasis of the beat and makes the entire rhythm texture thicker and busier.
How successful do you think the piece is? I think it succeeds in exploring rhythm in its most basic form though the resulting syncopation is far from basic. It creates interesting syncopations and rhythms.
Nice video illustrating what it happening:

 

Shostakovich’s 5th symphony

Shostakovich, Dmitry
Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47
London Symphony Orchestra
Previn, André – Conductor
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2F3544034
[Accessed 06/11/17]

Dramatic ominous opening that is immediately repeated more quietly and sadly. Slow string passages, various solo instrumental lyrical passages. Return of the opening motif several times…percussion and cacophonous horns…return of the opening motif on horns…lyrical wind passages, celesta. Overall both beautiful and ominous.
Waltz-like second movement – generally comical and humorous, drunk at times…
…which only enhances the pathos of the third Largo movement…Sounds like a dark night that ends with the glimmers of sunrise.
This version of the final movement is relatively fast. Reminiscent at times of Beethoven’s ninth as the music searches for where it’s going before the triumphant (in this case) ending. Sounds convincing enough to be kept out of the gulag to me.

Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47
Russian National Orchestra
Kreizberg, Yakov – Conductor
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2F164251
» IV. Allegro non troppo
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/stream.asp?s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2Fpt6096%5F04
[Accessed 06/11/17]

It is only the final section of the movement that is markedly different to the previous version. The dissonances are very much more obvious, in fact it sounds like a cacophonous mess!!! With some very ‘reluctant’ marching timpani playing. Sounds very, very wrong.

Shostakovich’s 5th symphony

Shostakovich wrote his fifth symphony in 1937. It was premiered in Leningrad in November that year for the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. It originally carried the sub-title “The practical answer of a Soviet artist to justified criticism”.

The ‘justified criticism’ had come in the form of newspaper articles in Pravda, the state mouthpiece. In particular an article entitled “Muddle Instead of Music”. This article appeared shortly after Stalin had attended a performance of Shostakovich’s ‘Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk’ at the Bolshoi Theatre, so it was interpreted as being Stalin’s opinion of the music.

The oppression and murderous brutality of Stalin’s regime is well documented so I’m not going to delve into that unnecessarily. Suffice to say that when Shostakovich wrote his fifth symphony there was a real danger of him becoming persona non-grata in Stalin’s USSR and all the dreadful possibilities that entailed. He had in fact been writing his fourth symphony at the time the “Muddle Instead of Music” article was published. The fourth symphony got as far as rehearsals with the Leningrad Philharmonic but there was pressure from the authorities. As Shostakovich states – “I didn’t like the situation… Fear was all around. So I withdrew it.”

To give an idea of the cultural atmosphere at the time:

At an October 1932 gathering at Maxim Gorky’s Moscow mansion, Stalin mused aloud that writers should be “engineers of human souls,” and the writers debated among themselves what he meant. From the meeting emerged the concept of socialist realism, according to which Soviet artists would depict the people’s lives both realistically and heroically, as if from the standpoint of the socialist utopia to come. Ross, Alex. The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century.

So Shostakovich responds with his fifth symphony:

‘I wanted to convey in the symphony how, through a series of tragic conflicts of great inner spiritual turmoil, optimism asserts itself as a world-view … There is nothing more honorable for a composer than to create works for and with the people. The attention to music on the part of our government and all the Soviet people instills in me the confidence that I will be able to give everything that is in my power’. (www.keepingscore.org)

Of course we can’t really take this at face value in the context of political atmosphere at the time. So we need to listen to it… (See comments under each performance.)

The slower the tempo in the last movement suggests something increasingly laborious and forced. The fact that there is some doubt about the marking up of the tempo, and whether it’s a mistake or not, suggest to me that Shostakovich absolutely deliberately created the ‘problem’ around tempo and how triumphant the finale should sound. Marking up a tempo in a score is surely something that a composer is not going to get wrong! The effect of playing the finale at different tempos is quite striking and the effect on the listener is entirely different. The faster tempo is plausibly triumphant. The slower tempo is not. From a listening aesthetic point of view I prefer the faster tempo.

References:
https://www.keepingscore.org/interactive/shostakovich-fifth-symphony
Ross, Alex. The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007). HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Episode 2, Tunes for Tyrants: Music and Power with Suzy Klein, Series 1. [Television programme online] Wingspan Productions, BBC, UK 21:00 09/10/2017 https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b097ts08/tunes-for-tyrants-music-and-power-with-suzy-klein-series-1-2-dictatorship
[Accessed 03/11/17]

Serialism and indeterminacy

CAGE, J.: Works for 2 Keyboards, Vol. 1 (Pestova, Meyer)
A Book of Music
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2F3028657
[Accessed 04/10/17]
I am slightly perplexed by the sound coming out of my headphones at first. The recording says ‘Works for 2 keyboards’ – so I was expecting piano music but it sounds more like plucked instruments, at times a cross between a banjo, a koto and a lute perhaps? Quite a nice sound actually. It sounds like there is some percussion as well but I am hazarding a guess that these sounds are coming from prepared pianos made to sound percussively at times. I confirm this later in the liner notes. It also sounds like the tuning of the strings has been altered. There is very limited harmony, it’s more polyphonic lines interacting with each other. I get the impression that there are definite cells, patterns and motifs but I’m not able to say if these are structured in any formal way.
I like it. It definitely sounds like music, with all the elements of composition present in terms of dynamics, melody, (limited) harmony, rhythm, etc.

Suite for Toy Piano
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2F3028658
[Accessed 04/10/17]
Initially single melodic monophonic lines that develop into more arpeggiated chordal like harmony at times. The last piece in the suite sounds like a lullaby.

Music for Amplified Toy Pianos
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/stream.asp?s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2Ftb8029%5F001
[Accessed 04/10/17]
Sparser sound at first and indeed all the way through, with the expected toy piano texture, but this is then occasionally interrupted by extraneous and not-always-recognisable other sounds, sometimes to quite comical effect – animal snorting noises, a vacuum cleaner…
I love it. He keeps your attention because there is a suspense created by these other noises, and you wonder what’s coming next. There’s nothing dissonant about it, which helps. Having said that, I’m glad the piece wasn’t any longer. After about 10mns I was starting to get bored and there were still a couple of minutes to go.
By my reckoning this is more like art rather than music.

CAGE, J.: Early Electronic and Tape Music (Cage)
Fontana Mix With Aria
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/stream.asp?s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2Fps8414%5F001
[Accessed 04/10/17]
I’m slightly lost for words at first as to how to describe this. It sounds like someone tuning the radio and coming across different stations complete with all the sounds that come from tuning analog radio. This is punctuated by a woman practising operatic lines, other singers of different styles of music, and other general noises which are heard at the same time and more clearly in the mix / in the room.

Imaginary Landscape No. 5
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/stream.asp?s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2Fps8415%5F001
[Accessed 04/10/17]
Similar concept to ‘Fontana Mix with Aria’ but with less of the radio tuning noises and snippets of famous classical works being heard.

‘Imaginary Landscape No. 5 (1952) was John Cage’s first work for magnetic tape, employing “chance” procedures in a pre-determined fashion using block-graph notation. Each block on the score equals three inches of tape, equivalent to one-fifth of a second. There are a total of eight simultaneous tracks made from any forty-two phonograph records. Duration and amplitude (volume) are notated for each of the forty-two records, but there is no indication of what the records should be. It is the performer of the score, rather than the composer, who finally determines what the content will be…’ at URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8b5epOonI8

WBAI
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/stream.asp?s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2Fps8416%5F001
[Accessed 04/10/17]
Same concept again, this time with rather more squeals and groans from tuning the radio. Some of the bass noises sound like a synth producing a basic waveform.

Imaginary Landscape No. 4 (1951),

[Accessed 05/11/17]
‘for twelve radios, partakes of the same mad house atmosphere: two players are positioned at each radio, one switching stations according to patterns specified in the score, the other making adjustments to volume. A more pointed satire of media-saturated society could hardly be imagined, although, as ever, the composer’s attitude is studiously deadpan’.
Ross, Alex. The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century (2007) HarperCollins Publishers. Kindle Edition.
More ‘art’ than ‘music’ in my view.

Performance of 4’33” by John Cage

[Accessed 17/10/17]
It’s amusing how the audience shuffles about between each ‘movement’.

Brief TEDx lecture on 4’33”

[Accessed 17/10/17]
Professor Julian Dodd explaining his views on Cage’s 4’33 and why in his view it’s art rather than music, as well as a possible definition as to what constitutes music.

First Construction (in Metal)
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/stream.asp?s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2Fem2875%5F001
[Accessed 04/11/17]
Prepared piano playing some ‘riffs’ other percussion noises and rhythms.

SCHOENBERG / BERG / WEBERN: Piano Music
Berg, Alban
Piano Sonata, Op. 1
http://manchesterlib.naxosmusiclibrary.com/stream.asp?s=101977%2Fmancheslibnml10%2F292993%5F01
[Accessed 04/11/17]
Surprisingly pleasant. Sounds romantic and tonal in parts. I was expecting something else.

Schoenberg, Arnold
3 Piano Pieces, Op. 11
http://manchesterlib.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=101977%2Fmancheslibnml10%2F12109
[Accessed 04/11/17]

6 Little Piano Pieces, Op. 19
http://manchesterlib.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=101977%2Fmancheslibnml10%2F12111
[Accessed 04/11/17]

5 Piano Pieces, Op. 23
http://manchesterlib.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=101977%2Fmancheslibnml10%2F12110
[Accessed 04/11/17]

Suite for Piano, Op. 25
http://manchesterlib.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=101977%2Fmancheslibnml10%2F12114
[Accessed 04/11/17]

I’m perhaps only half listening to the above but there seems to be distinct progression towards atonality as the Opus numbers go up. I don’t find it unpleasant, at least in part because the sound of the piano is quite harmonious. It’s not completely random, there’s always something for the ear to grab onto either in terms of dynamics, ‘melody’, or rhythm. Ironic use of the Baroque dance titles in Op.25.

Webern, Anton
Variations, Op. 27
http://manchesterlib.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=101977%2Fmancheslibnml10%2F16492
[Accessed 04/11/17]
Much like Schoenberg really. Perhaps even more angular and random sounding.

Boulez, Pierre
Structures, Book 1
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2F5725597
[Accessed 05/11/17]
A seemingly random selection of notes on the piano played at different volumes, lengths, rhythms.
Based on Messiaen’s approach of ‘Mode de valeurs et d’intensités’ or ‘Scale of Durations and Dynamics’.

Le marteau sans maitre
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2F5725599
[Accessed 05/11/17]
It’s not exactly easy listening. Texturally interesting – Guitar, Xylorimba (that’s a new one for me!), Contralto, etc…. Apparently inspired by Pierrot Lunaire.
(Sleeve notes – Label: Decca Catalogue No.: 00600753425121)

Peter Grimes

Britten, Benjamin
Peter Grimes, Op. 33
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2F635440
[Accessed 02/10/17]
I found a copy of the libretto so I was able to follow the story, otherwise I think I would have been rather lost. I liked the plot and Britten’s use of the orchestra, but overall it left me rather ambivalent. I would describe the music as unsentimental. Though it has contrasts of drama and quieter moments, there’s never a moment where it is particularly lyrical.

RNCM concert – 03/11/17

Olivier Messiaen – les Offrandes Oubliées
Bohuslav Martinů – Rhapsody Concerto H337
Igor Stravinsky – The Rite of Spring

It’s not very often that I attend classical music concerts and this was a real treat. I very much enjoyed all the performances and I particularly liked the Martinů piece as it features some solo viola moments. I prefer the richer tone of the viola to the violin, though I suppose it is probably harder to write for as it does not ‘cut through’ quite so easily.

The performance of the Rite of Spring was fantastic. One thing that’s great about a live performance is that apart from the visuals, the dynamic range of the orchestra is right there and it’s really quite striking going from the very loud fortissimos to silence. And the other way around. Indeed one lady pretty much jumped out of her seat at one moment!

There was also a pre-concert talk by Dr David Horne illustrating amongst other things, the folk influences and pentatonic scales that some of the motifs are based on. Entertaining and instructive.

Kontakte – Stockhausen

Stockhausen, Karlheinz
Kontakte (version for electronic sounds, piano and percussion), Work No. 12 1/2
http://imslp.naxosmusiclibrary.com/stream.asp?s=167137%2Fimslpcomp01%2Fr21642%5F04
[Accessed 24/10/17]
It sounds like a seemingly random array of piano, percussion, and electronic noises, and more like an exploration of sound rather than a composition as such. Generally fairly sparse sounding. I find the electronic sounds the most interesting, as it is something ‘composed’ in 1960 when I imagine the tools to make electronic music were absolutely rudimentary (e.g before Moog synths). Lots of whooshing, fizzing, panning sounds, spacey and ambient sounds, but also some synth sounds slowed down to great effect to sound like percussion. Fascinating. The sounds would not be out place in a modern sci-fi movie. I love it on an intellectual level, hate it on an emotional level.
The sleeve notes explain that ‘in 1958-1960 Stockhausen had to mix together sine tones and other waveforms in the electronic music studio. This process is additive synthesis…’
Label: Music and Arts Programs of America Catalogue No.: CD-0648 Release Date: 1990