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“Nuages” and “Fêtes” From Nocturnes Following France’s defeat in its war with Prussia in 1870-71, French cultural leaders opposed every German influence, including that of the German Romantic movement in music, symbolized by Richard Wagner. It fell to the younger generation of composers to break the “German bondage,” and the first major composer to create a new French musical language all his own was Claude Debussy. Born into a totally unmusical family of tradesmen, Debussy showed his musical abilities at an early age and was accepted into the Paris Conservatoire at age ten. Despite the fact that today some of Debussy’s most beloved works are for the piano, it took him some time to warm up to the instrument. When he was at the Paris Conservatoire, one of his teachers remarked, “Debussy isn’t very fond of the piano, but he loves music.” At age 18 he dropped his piano studies and concentrated on becoming a composer. Debussy’s penchant for subtle tonal colors and understatement paralleled the impressionist paintings of his fellow visual artists. He frequented the famous Tuesday Evenings at the salon of Symbolist poet Stéphane Mallarmé, where the philosophy of Impressionism was developed. Another important influences on Debussy, was his exposure to the Javanese Gamelan ensembles that flourished in Paris at various international and trade fairs. The work that fully developed this new musical language was the orchestral work Prélude à l’Après-midi d’un faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) inspired by a poem by Mallarmé. Debussy’s later orchestral works continue in the vein of musical impressionism with their suggestive rhythms, elusive tonality (the backbone of the classical tradition) and orchestral coloration. The three Nocturnes had a long gestation period. Initially called Trois Scènes au Crepuscules (Three Scenes in Twilight), it was inspired by a collection of poems by Symbolist poet Henri de Régnier (1864-1936). In 1892 Debussy wrote a friend that the work was nearly finished, including the orchestration, ready for a projected tour of the United States that never materialized. Two years later the work was reborn in a version for violin and orchestra for Belgian violinist Eugène Ysa˙e; both of these versions have vanished without a trace. Finally, in 1899, Debussy finished the work in the form we know it today, publishing it a year later. Debussy wrote of the first Nocturne, “Nuages” (clouds): “...the unchanging aspects of the sky…grey tones tinged with white.” The woodwinds weave a soft, subtly changing pattern, punctuated periodically by the English horn.  The piece gradually builds in dynamics, and the solo English horn phrase gains a little more shape. About five minutes into the piece, the flute introduces a new melody, echoed by a solo violin, soon returning to the English horn motive and the delicate murmuring of the woodwinds. But the flute theme gets the last word. Underlying “Fêtes” (festivals) is a rapid ostinato pattern, over which the solo flute plays its own rhythmic pattern of triplets, the dance punctuated by trumpet calls. The oboe chimes in with a new melody. Suddenly everything hushes to the almost inaudible pulsating timpani, signaling the approach in the distance of a procession. By means of a very gradual crescendo, the procession arrives as the opening flute theme plays against it in the violins. After a climax in which all the dance themes are heard again, the sounds of the procession fade into the distance, and the solo woodwinds signal the cooling down of the Bacchic frenzy. | ||||||||||
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blue cathedral While grief can paralyzes ordinary individuals, it can inspire great artists to create their finest works. We owe many of the greatest masterpieces in classical music to the ability – in fact, sometimes the emotional need – of their creators to embark on the disciplined outpouring of emotion that constitutes great art. Dvorák’s Cello Concerto, Brahms’ Horn Trio, for example, were composed in response to the death of a loved one; Schubert’s final works, the Quintet in C major, the song cycle Die Winterreise and others sustained him as he approached his own death. Jennifer Higdon composed blue cathedral as a memorial to her brother. Composer, flutist and conductor Jennifer Higdon holds a Ph.D. and a M.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in composition, a B.M. in flute performance from Bowling Green State University, and an Artist Diploma from The Curtis Institute of Music and is currently on the music composition faculty of the Curtis Institute. She has received many national awards and grants, and her list of commissioners is a veritable who’s who of American music. Her music is extensively performed and also recorded. Higdon composed blue cathedral in 1999 on commission from the Curtis Institute to commemorate its 75th anniversary. It premiered the following year and has become one of the most performed contemporary orchestral works in the United States, receiving more than 50 performances in the 2004 -'05 season alone. Higdon expressed some of her thoughts about the creation of this vaguely programmatic work: “When I began blue cathedral, it was the one-year anniversary of my (younger) brother’s death, so I was pondering a lot of things about the journey we make after death. …I was imagining a traveler on a journey through a glass cathedral in the sky (therefore making it a blue color). …I wanted the music to sound like it was progressing into this constantly opening space, feeling more and more celebratory...As the journey progresses, the individual would float higher and higher above the floor, soaring towards an expanded ceiling where the heart would feel full and joyful.” The sound of high-pitched bells and percussion throughout blue cathedral creates an ethereal atmosphere, while Higdon’s own instrument, the flute, and her brother’s, the clarinet, give an intimate personal dimension to the piece. The work opens quietly, with whispered cellos and the delicate sounds of bells. The solo flute introduces the main theme of the work and is joined by the clarinet. The two instruments expand on the theme together, gradually building in volume and orchestration until reaching a dance-like climax. After returning to the gentle sounds of a flute duet and solos for English horn with glockenspiel. Additional instruments enter one by one including oboe, violin and cello. The tempo picks up leading into an almost military incarnation of the theme for low brass and percussion. Higdon, using a host of musical effects created by the high range of the strings, bells and percussion, restates the main theme with the full orchestra. The piece ends quietly, returning to the main theme again with flute, clarinet and English horn over gently muted strings. As the clarinet fades, a prepared piano, with two screws added to change the timbre to sound more like a clock chiming, gives thirty-three strikes in groups of three, representing the age of her brother when he passed away. | ||||||||||
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The Planets Composer, educator and conductor Gustav Holst is known outside his native England essentially as a one-work composer. The Planets, composed between 1914 and 1916, gained him international fame, but he detested its popularity. As if to validate the composer’s feelings, snippets of its opulent music with its broad orchestral palette have also been favorite fodder for television commercials. Holst came from a musical family and was taught the piano by his father. He was a precocious, but not a particularly healthy, child who started composing while in grammar school. As a teenager he developed neuritis in his right arm, forcing him to give up the piano, but he picked up the trombone as a cure for his asthma. At the Royal College of Music, which he entered in 1893, he continued with the trombone in addition to composition, and from 1897 to 1903 performed as a freelance trombonist, mostly with opera companies. The experience inspired him to write numerous works for brass band, including two Suites for Military Band and Hammersmith, the latter written for the BBC Military Band. Holst was influenced by mysticism and developed his own individual blend of Indian music and English folksong. His early works were inspired by the Vedas, Sanskrit holy verses, which he modified and adapted for his own compositions. In 1908 he wrote a chamber opera, Savitri, based on a story from the great Sanskrit epic Mahabharata. A quiet introverted person, for most of his life Holst devoted his musical efforts to teaching. From 1905 until his death he taught music at St. Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith, where many of his compositions were written for the school's orchestra and chorus. In 1906, on his doctor's advice, he went on vacation to Algeria and bicycled in the desert. The experience was the inspiration for the orchestral work Beni Mora. When it was first performed in England, one critic complained, "We do not ask for Biskra dancing girls in Langham Place." Composer Ralph Vaughan Williams once noted that had the piece been premiered in Paris, it would have made Holst a household name some ten years earlier than his success with The Planets. In 1932 Holst was visiting lecturer in composition at Harvard; among his students was composer Elliott Carter. The inspiration for The Planets was not astronomy, but astrology, to which Holst was introduced in 1913, when he began studying the writing of the aptly named astrologer, Alan Leo. He attempted to depict in music the traditional astrological "personalities" and influences of the seven planets (Pluto was not discovered until 1930 and has now been demoted anyway.) His musical language was influenced by the new – albeit divergent – developments in music at the time, especially by Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky and Edward Elgar. Holst arranged the seven movements according to musical, not astronomical, criteria. Thus their arrangement does not correspond to their orbital distance from the sun: Mars, The Bringer of War: This martial movement with its brutally percussive machine rhythms, was actually written a few months before the outbreak of World War I. | ||||||||||
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| Copyright © Elizabeth and Joseph Kahn 2011 | ||||||||||
