My October tradition in this series is to feature works of music that are dark, or macabre, or outright tinged with terror. This one is a melancholy meditation, a brooding work on the journey to death. Here is Sergei Rachmaninov’s epic tone poem, The Isle of the Dead. The work pulses and rocks with the uneasy waves, but as the work progresses, a sad lyricism takes over, and the whole work is punctuated by quotes from the Dies irae, the death-chant that Rachmaninov found uniquely compelling and quoted in a number of his works.

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It’s October, so it’s time to feature spooky stuff here! First up, some film music: A suite from John Williams’s score to The Fury, a Brian De Palma-directed horror movie from 1978. This was right in the middle of Williams’s most notable creative stretch, but this score is generally unfamiliar because the film itself has pretty much vanished into obscurity. (Whether deservedly or not, I couldn’t say; I’ve never seen it.)

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A repeat today, but one I haven’t posted in nearly two and a half years, so I don’t feel so bad about it. It’s a work by Jules Massenet called Visions, and I know nothing more about it now than I did then (see the earlier post for details). It’s a dreamy, meditative, and affecting work. Enjoy!

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It’s always been interesting to me that so few great and enduring works of classical music have been inspired by the Arthurian legends (or “the Matter of Britain”). There’s some crossover in the operas of Richard Wagner, mostly in his use of the Grail in Lohengrin and Parsifal, but that’s really about it, outside of the work of today’s composer, French Romantic Ernest Chausson. I suppose this can be possibly explained by the fact that nationalism in art also arose during the Romantic period, so when composers were most inspired by legend and myth they also tended to be inspired by their own nation’s legends and myths. This, coupled with the fact that very few of the “great” composers of the Romantic era came from Britain, may explain the paucity of Arthurian operas and symphonies and tone poems.

Except for this Frenchman, Ernest Chaussons, who wrote a tone poem and an opera directly inspired by the Arthurian legends. Chausson was a “bridge” figure, connecting the earlier era of French romanticism with the emergent forms of Impressionism that followed the Romantics. Chausson was primarily influenced by Wagner and by Cesar Franck, and even though his output was small, his music is highly individual and deeply felt. In this way–and in his untimely death–Chausson almost seems like a French counterpart to Alexander Borodin.

The tone poem Viviane is inspired by the love affair between Merlin the wizard and the maiden Viviane, which ends tragically in the eternal imprisonment of Merlin inside a cave of crystal. The work is lush and mostly introspective, but with passages of rapturous passion before concluding on a sad note. One can definitely hear in this work the drama of a Wagner but also the atmospheric introspection of the impressionists to come.

Here is Viviane by Ernest Chausson.

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The operas of Giacchino Rossini aren’t performed very much today, but they were once all the rage, and the overtures to those operas have remained mainstays of orchestral music even while the operas themselves have lapsed into some neglect. Rossini’s overtures sparkle with energy, adventure, and lyrical wit, and a few have managed through use in other areas of popular culture managed to become even more well-known now than they were in the composer’s own time. Think of William Tell‘s final section, reused later as the theme for The Lone Ranger, or of the amazing use a Looney Tunes cartoon made of The Barber of Seville.

Today we have a different overture: L’italiana in Algeri, or The Italian Girl in Algiers. The overture starts off quietly before a surprising smash erupts from the orchestra, and then as the overture progresses the tunes and rhythms become more and more dancelike as the overture propels toward its close. As always, the overture is full of Rossini’s sparkle and delight.

Enjoy!

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