British composer Gerald Finzi was not prolific, which can be seen one of two ways: either the world was denied further work of fine quality by his slow process, or his slow process was essential to his work as a composer. Either way, Finzi wrote in a Romantic, English-pastoral vein that reflects influences of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Much of his work is meditative and full of lush harmonies, and his choral writing is outstanding. All of that is on display in In terra pax, one of his last works. Here Finzi combines the text of a poem by Robert Bridges, “Noel: Christmas Eve 1913” with the famous telling of the birth of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke. He gives the words of the poet to a baritone soloist, and the words of the Angel from Luke to a soprano, with the chorus handling the rest. Even though the work starts off hauntingly and quietly, there is drama later on as the dynamic become quite expansive when Luke tells us that the shepherds were “sore afraid”.
Here is the text of the start of Bridges’s poem:
Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis
A frosty Christmas Eve
when the stars were shining
Fared I forth alone
where westward falls the hill,
And from many a village
in the water’d valley
Distant music reach’d me
peals of bells aringing:
The constellated sounds
ran sprinkling on earth’s floor
As the dark vault above
with stars was spangled o’er.
In terra pax is a wonderful choral miniature piece, a masterwork by a composer who isn’t heard enough.
So far, this Christmas season doesn’t seem to be off to the most joyful start, does it? I remember hearing this song quite frequently during the Christmas season, but it doesn’t seem to show up all that often anymore. And in truth, it’s not really strictly a Christmas song at all, is it? It’s set at Christmas, but that’s not the same thing. However, I could say the exact same thing about “Same Old Lang Syne” by Dan Fogelberg, which I feature in this space every single year, and almost certainly will later this year.
So here’s a sad song about a breakup that happens at Christmastime, which is surely among the worst times such a thing can happen…but really, is there a good time? Here’s “River” by Joni Mitchell, performed by the amazing Sarah McLachlan.
And I promise I’ll start posting some actually happy music one of these days.
I often feel a bit sorry for Beethoven’s Symphony No. 4 in B-flat major. It just doesn’t get talked about that much. Symphonies 1 and 2? Those get discussed as the early works they are, when Beethoven was just starting to move beyond the Haydn and Mozart influences on his work. Then, of course, comes the epochal milestone in music that is the Third, the mighty Eroica, famed for the original dedication to Napoleon Bonaparte, which Beethoven ripped asunder when he learned that his French hero had declared himself Emperor.
And of course, there is the Fifth, the great and glorious Fifth, perhaps the single most performed symphony of all time, a work whose opening bars comprise music that is as familiar to the ear as the Mona Lisa is to the eye. Even the Sixth, the Pastoral, gets more respect than the Fourth, with its wonderful rustic tone-painting.
Rivers of ink have been spilled over the centuries since the Seventh arrived, one of the grandest masterpieces in all of music history, and even the Eighth–the slight, small, intimate Eighth–gets some love here and there. And we’ll come back to the magnificent edifice that is the Ninth later this month. But there, seemingly alone in the middle of the most perfect collection of symphonies ever composed, is the Fourth, the sunny and genial Fourth.
There is no “Fate knocking on the door” here, nor is there a funeral march in place of a traditional slow movement. There is no “apotheosis of the Dance” to be found in the Fourth, nor is there a plaintive depiction of the woods around Vienna that Beethoven loved so much, and certainly there is no wonderful hymn to Joy.
All there is in this work is Beethoven smiling.
The first movement kicks off with a long minor-key introduction, perhaps hinting at serious thoughts to come…but when we arrive at a series of chords that finally resolve into our home key of B-flat, all the clouds disperse and what follows is pure sun and cheer. The genial mood carries into the slow movement, which is dominated by a pulsing rhythm that puts one in mind of Haydn’s “Clock” Symphony, with the same degree of amiability. Toward the end of the movement there is a moment of pure delight as the horn, clarinet, flute, and strings exchange arpeggiated passages.
Our third movement, a scherzo, doesn’t thunder or storm the way Beethoven scherzos often do. This one flits and jokes, with Beethoven giving us rhythms that don’t quite feel like they line up. There is some fantastic writing for the woodwinds in this movement, especially for the bassoons in the middle. And the finale is pure energy, not quite as propulsive as what would come later in, say, the finale to the Seventh, but compelling in the forward momentum of its moto perpetuo construction, before it finally arrives at the thrilling coda.
Why has the Fourth never quite become as beloved as so many of–if not all of–the other eight of Beethoven’s symphonies? I honestly do not know, but I wonder if part of that is because we often seem to like our Beethoven with at least some of his characteristic darkness. We want to hear at least a little of the man who shook his fist at the thundering clouds when he was on his deathbed. We’re not sure what to make of this odd Fourth symphony, a work in which this composer who went deaf and who struggled mightily to make musical sense of the ideas he scrawled in his notebooks seems to be largely in a mood of brightness and good cheer.
Maybe, maybe not. All I know is that I really do love the Fourth.
This is the month when Ludwig van Beethoven turns 250 years old…fifteen days from now, to be precise. In honor of this, I’ll be stepping up the frequency of Beethoven-related posts–not quite daily, I expect, but there will be a lot of Beethoven this month, with a special post on the 16th, Beethoven’s actual anniversary. Let’s kick things off with an overture to one of Beethoven’s signature works, his only opera, Fidelio. Among Beethoven’s passions–in fact, after music, maybe his greatest passion–were the ideas of freedom and liberty. Beethoven lived in a deeply revolutionary era (I am reading a book about this aspect of his personality right now, but more on that later in the month), and he believed deeply in the liberal ideals that France would express as Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité. These values inform his opera, in which a woman goes undercover as a man to rescue her husband, who has been unjustly accused. The opera itself is a great work, and its overture (which was the last of four that Beethoven composed for it, being ever the perfectionist) is representative of many of Beethoven’s finest aspects as a composer.
Well, it’s December 1, do let’s get started with this year’s musical run-up to Christmas, shall we? I know, I know–this ghastly year is more limping toward Christmas than anything else, but there’s nothing we can do about the calendar, and all we really can so is try to find what light we can.
Longtime followers will not be surprised that I’m featuring this particular song, because I do every year…but never on the very first day of December. I usually wait on this one, because it’s not obviously cheery. Lontime followers of mine will also know that I always accompany this song with my objection to the changing of the lyrics, at the behest of Frank Sinatra, that has become pretty well standardized ever since he figured that part of the original lyric wasn’t sufficiently brimming with Holiday cheer. And this year is no different…in fact, if ever a year made the case for keeping the original lyrics, this is the one.
Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow; Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow, So have yourself a merry little Christmas now.
What lyrics could we possibly have this year, when so many of us are unable to be together at Christmastime (or any other time)? “If the fates allow,” indeed…and indeed, all we can do is “muddle through somehow”. That’s all we can ever do, really…but 2020 has made it manifest.
So let’s enter December, trying to find what hope we may…even as we muddle through somehow.
As I’m sure most people did, we enjoyed a quiet and socially-distanced Thanksgiving this year. But since Thanksgiving is always quiet and socially-distanced for us, it really wasn’t a big deal. Thanksgiving is always a small event for us, in terms of numbers of people; it sure isn’t small in terms of food!
Anyway, even though I had no intention of attempting any shopping, I also took Black Friday off as I always do these days; Thanksgiving Weekend has become over the years one of my favorite weekends of the year. It was pretty nice actually this year as well, even with COVID trying to ruin everything.
Here’s some photographic evidence of what transpired this weekend:
Fifteen years seems like a lot, and sometimes it feels like a lot.
Other times it feels like yesterday.
We miss you, Quinn, and we wonder what kind of life you might be living now. How much fighting would you have done? Where would you be? You should be sixteen, not forever frozen in my heart and mind at fifteen months and two days.
According to somebody, November 27 is “National Pie in the Face Day”. The last few days I’ve been posting some of my favorite photos of myself in a pied-face state, with nifty quotes attached, to social media because let’s face it, if ever we lived in a time where humor of any kind was desperately needed, even if it’s an old staple like the pie in the face, it’s now. So here are a few selections!
And finally, here is an amusing item from an artist who creates surreal images mixing elements of classic art with real life. Given the apparent state of affairs as I write this, especially in the United States, it’s hard not to think that God, if They are out there, is in precisely this kind of mood with regard to humanity:
Indeed.
Stay safe, everybody, and at least try to keep laughing. It’s really all we can do in the face of disastrous times, until they end!
Hey, folks! I’m doing this on Twitter and Instagram, and since this blog is the granddaddy of all my “social media” ventures, I should do it here, too. I am in the cover-design phase of The Savior Worlds, Book Four of The Song of Forgotten Stars, which means it’s time to update the author photo on the back cover! I’ve pre-selected these four images, and if a consensus forms around which one is best, I’ll go with it. (If it roughly breaks even then I will pick.) What should be my author photo? Let me know!
This has been a truly ghastly year, and even the weather today as I write this is metaphorically on point: it’s drizzly and rainy and the screen on my library window is filled with raindrops so I can’t really even see outside very well.
I won’t write my usual long list of things I’m thankful for, but suffice it to say that even in a year like this, it’s still quite a long list, when I really put some thought into it.
Stay safe, folks. Please don’t take unnecessary trips and please oh please oh please, keep your masks on. It looks like we might very well get through this all right, but if this pandemic is a baseball game, we’re only in the bottom of the fifth. Let’s play the whole nine innings, folks.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Oh, and here’s a sleeping dog.
Share This Post
ForgottenStars.net
The official site of Kelly Sedinger: Reader, writer, photographer, and dreamer
