Apologies for missing this feature last week! Last Saturday was a really hectic day that didn’t afford me a real chance to sit down and go Whew! until rather late, at which point I was still facing my daily writing quota, so that’s what happened. But let’s get back into the swing, shall we? Last time I alluded to a major Russian waiting in the wings, and here’s a major Russian, just not the one I was referring to. I’m talking to day about Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, of whose symphonies I wasn’t even aware until just last week.
His first symphony is a student work of sorts, and in honesty, it rather feels like a student work. He makes use of Russian folk melodies throughout, but his orchestration is right out of the German tradition, and the composer even admitted heavily relying on Berlioz’s Treatise on Orchestration (one of the classic texts on the subject, to this day) and the advice of his teacher, Mily Balakirev. Of course, Rimsky-Korsakov himself would mature into one of the greatest orchestral colorists of all time, but that was still in his future.
Here is the Symphony No. 1 in E minor, by Rimsky-Korsakov.
After three consecutive weeks of increasingly lengthy and heavy German symphonies, let’s step back and listen to something shorter and much less dense. What’s needed right now is a French composer, so this week we’ll encounter Vincent d’Indy.
I have heard almost nothing by d’Indy; in fact, it’s quite likely that the work featured in this post is the only work I’ve ever heard by d’Indy. My brief research confirms that his music is little heard today outside of the present piece, although in his Essential Canon of Classical Music, David Dubal does opine that d’Indy is a terribly underrated composer, so perhaps his work is deserving of greater exposure.
This work, the Symphony on a French Mountain Air, is unusual in a number of ways. First, it is in three movements instead of the traditional four; second, its melodic material is mostly derived from a single tune (the “mountain air” of the title, a song d’Indy heard while traveling in the mountains); and third, the work features a prominent (but not quite dominant) part for a solo piano, making it a sort of symphony-concerto hybrid, not unlike Harold in Italy, the symphony by d’Indy’s fellow Frenchman Hector Berlioz, which had featured a prominent part for solo viola.
The Symphony on a French Mountain Air is, to my ears, a delightful listen that always feels fresh and light, especially after a steady diet of heavy Germanic romanticism.
Next week: Well, I haven’t decided yet, but there is a big-name Russian composer knocking on the door….
Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony (in C minor) is an enormous work, comprising nearly ninety minutes of music. The work is scored for enormous orchestra:
The 1887 version requires an instrumentation of three each of the following woodwind: flutes (the third doubling as piccolo), oboes, clarinets, bassoons (the third doubling as contrabassoon) – the triple woodwinds, however, only enter in the Finale (with double woodwind for the earlier movements) – in addition to eight horns, three trumpets, three trombones, a quartet of Wagner tubas, which double as Horns 5–8 in the Finale, and a single contrabass tuba, along with timpani, cymbals, triangle, three harps, and strings.
We’ve come a long way from the Mozart orchestra where you might not even have trumpets or timpani, haven’t we?
The Eighth is the last symphony Bruckner completed (he left behind an unfinished Ninth), and as such, this work represents the apex of his symphonic powers. If you’re attuned to Bruckner and his cathedral-like approach to orchestral sound in his gigantic symphonies, this is music of the highest order. (If not, well, I can’t help you.) Unlike the Fourth, which is rather radiant throughout, Bruckner is grappling with real issues of darkness in the Eighth, which gives the work a lot of its epic feel.
Here is Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 in C minor. Go on its journey!
Another work by Anton Bruckner, this time his Symphony No. 7 in E major. After the 4th, the 7th might be the most familiar of Bruckner’s symphonies. It is the most Wagnerian in sound, right down to his use of four Wagner tubas in the Adagio movement. (The Wagner tuba is an instrument specifically designed by Wagner himself, who thought nothing of inventing instruments to achieve the sounds he wanted.) In fact, Bruckner himself indicated that the theme from that movement came to him in a dream after a sudden realization that Wagner was soon to die (which Wagner did indeed do, less than a month later). Bruckner’s writing in this symphony is typically organ-like, and the work reflects his deep faith and his pastoral background.
As with other Bruckner works, what sounds noble and profound to one ear might well sound trite, repetitive, and pompous to another. I tend toward the former category, myself; I find that Bruckner wrote the kind of music inside which one can easily get lost for a while.
Next week, we’ll wrap up Bruckner with his most massive work.
You know how sometimes you want to listen to a piece of music that is light and airy, that flits around like the will o’ the wisp, that is imbued with bright charm and delicate wit?
Well, forget all that, because now we’re meeting Anton Bruckner!
Bruckner, in my experience, is one of those “love him or hate him” composers…or maybe that’s not quite fair. Maybe it’s not “hate”, but I’ve definitely encountered listeners for whom Bruckner is amazing, and for whom Bruckner is just someone they don’t really care if they ever hear again. His symphonies are long and, at times, repetitive; he thinks nothing of writing a five-minute exposition and then putting in a repeat. His orchestrations are, at times, very heavy and dense, and if Bruckner himself wasn’t quite a Wagnerian, there is at least a part of Wagner in the scope of his works and their weighty nature.
Unlike Wagner, Bruckner was a man of very deep faith, and I find it impossible to listen to Bruckner without feeling some of that spiritual nature coming through. He writes for the orchestra, at times, as though it were an organ, and his music seems almost designed to fill the cavernous spaces of enormous cathedrals, with long fugal passages and gigantic chorales and a general sense of vastness that is leading the way to Mahler.
Bruckner does not seem to have been the most self-confident of composers, which makes his works problematic for musicologists as he was constantly revising earlier works and muddying the waters as far as determining which versions are definitive. Look at the list of known revisions for today’s work, and you’ll see the problem.
This symphony, the Fourth in E-flat major, is often cited as the best starting point for Bruckner, and I tend to agree. The symphony does have one of the most magical openings to any symphony ever written, with the shimmering strings and then the high horn calls that seem to beckon from a distance. For the listener willing to go where Bruckner is leading, he draws you in, slowly and gently, so that when it all opens up in glory, there’s simply no question that this is where he was going all along.
I actually have not heard a lot of Bruckner, but what I have heard, I love. Here is Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4, the “Romantic”.
Next week: another Bruckner. We’ll be doing three of these altogether, so if Bruckner’s not your thing, well, I’ll see you in May!
In the late 19th century, the American musical tradition was pretty much an extension of the European musical tradition, which is generally why American composers of that period aren’t generally held in the highest regard; American concert music was still maturing, and the first real American musical forms — rooted in the emergence of jazz — had yet to fully emerge. But there was still good music being written, and it’s really Eurocentrism that keeps a lot of it from being heard more.
A good example is this fine symphony by Amy Beach, who lived from 1867 to 1944. She was a prodigy and a gifted performer who received great acclaim as she took the stage in her late teens, but then she married a man who decided that she shouldn’t perform much and that she shouldn’t study composition with a teacher, so while she continued making music, I must inevitably wonder what art was stifled by our society’s sexist idiocy of the day. During her lifetime, her compositions were actually credited to “Mrs. H.H.A. Beach.” The mind, hopefully, reels.
Beach’s Gaelic Symphony is reminiscent of Dvorak (who was a heavy influence upon her) in its orchestration, and she used a number of Irish songs in the symphony’s melodic material, creating a work that is fascinating to hear. Beach wrote this symphony early in her musical life, before she embraced native musical material, but it is still a fine and invigorating listen. In her later life, Beach would live for 34 years as a widow, composing and teaching. She never wrote another symphony, unfortunately.
All right, we got a barn-burner here. Seriously, you’ll be needing good speakers and you’ll be wanting to turn them UP, especially for the last movement. Today it’s the Symphony No. 3 in C minor by Camille Saint-Saens, better known as the “Organ” Symphony. This is one of the great warhorse-works in all classical music, and there’s a reason for that.
This symphony is, quite simply, awesome. It’s amazing. With all respect (well, some respect, anyway) to Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, this symphony is the musical equivalent of a fireworks show. Maybe not all the way through, obviously — it opens with an ethereal chord followed by a meditative passage before the tempo quickens, and there’s a wonderful slow movement, but when that final section arrives, with that first gigantic chord in the organ, well, that’s when the clouds disperse.
I first heard this work in excerpt form at EPCOT, of all places, as parts of it are used (along with other French works) in the Impressions de France film in the French pavilion. I bought a recording of the symphony within months, and it has been a favorite piece of mine ever since. In fact, my college roommate and I used to use the last movement as background motivational music whenever we were getting dressed for a band or orchestra concert (we were in both). Toward the end, when the entire brass section gets to just let it all loose, the effect is one of the most thrilling in all of classical music.
The Organ Symphony was written in 1886 for the Royal Philharmonic Society in London, although Saint-Saens dedicated the work to Franz Liszt after that great composer’s passing. The Symphony’s structure is slightly odd: it seems like it’s in four movements, but the first two movements and the last two are played without break, so in reality, the work is in two sections. It’s easier to refer to the four movements, though, so that’s the convention I follow here.
Here is the Organ Symphony by Camille Saint-Saens. And seriously, turn this thing up — and check out the timpanist in the symphony’s closing seconds. That guy is getting every ounce of pleasure out of every single drumbeat!
Antonin Dvorak spent several years in the 1890s in the United States, including a time in a community of Czech immigrants in, of all places, Spillville, Iowa. I once drove through Spillville, and it’s tiny — less than 500 people live there. And yet, one of the greatest composers of all time lived there one summer, and some of his experiences there played into the music he composed while living in our country.
Dvorak felt that American music at that time was mainly concerned with echoing the Germanic symphonic traditions, with little attention paid to what he considered the true folk music of America, namely the chants of the Native Americans and the spirituals of the African-American population. He attempted to capture some of the character of those melodies in his Ninth Symphony, but what he mainly did was create new melodies based on the pentatonic scale, which does tend to be common to many aboriginal cultures of the world. There is nothing specifically American in this symphony, despite its being called “From the New World”, and Dvorak himself would later insist that the symphony is a purely old-world work, composed in the old-world rhythm (particularly with regard to the use of Czech folk rhythms, something Dvorak would do his entire life), and more intended to convey the emotions Dvorak felt as a European seeing the great expanse of America for the first time.
None of that really matters, though — whether one hears America or Prague or some blend of the two in this work, Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony is one of the enduring works in all classical music, and with good reason. It is loaded with wonderful melodies (particularly that spellbinding second movement), to be sure, but it is also a superb work of musical craftsmanship as well, with every idea in its place and some of Dvorak’s finest orchestrations. Here is Dvorak’s Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World”.
First off, it’s been brought to my attention that sometimes there are ads on the symphony videos that I use, and that sometimes the ads are not appropriate, over and above their annoying presence to begin with. The problem is that I never see ads, owing to my paid membership on Google Play and Google Drive, which also gives me access to “YouTube Red”, which is YT’s premium service. I’m going to try to alleviate this by using Internet Explorer to search YT for symphony videos. (On IE, I’m not signed into my Google account as a default, so my YT access through IE is the regular service and not the premium.) I hope this works.
And now, Dvorak’s Symphony No. 8 in G Major!
I love this symphony. Always have. It’s always been one of my favorite symphonies of all time, and certainly my favorite of Dvorak’s, even above the amazing, tuneful 9th. This music is so well-attuned to me, with its sense of lyrical good cheer and its Dvorakian attention to folk and dance rhythms. This is the music of Eastern Europe. I call anyone heartless who isn’t moved to at least a little bit of happiness upon hearing this work.
Pay special attention to the finale, a theme-and-variations that opens with a trumpet fanfare. (How I would have loved to have been able to play this!) One conductor once said of this opening: “Gentlemen, in Bohemia the trumpets never call to battle – they always call to the dance!” This movement is just a fun listen, as Dvorak builds the theme from its first statement, through the orchestra, until it explodes in full force with blazing brass (note the loud trills in the horns). There is just so much pure delight in this symphony! In terms of pure optimism, the only symphony that might outpace it is Beethoven’s Seventh. (Yes I consider Beethoven’s Seventh an optimistic work, even with that magnificently brooding slow movement.)
Here’s Dvorak’s Eighth.
Next week: Yup. The Ninth. Time to visit “the New World”!
Dvorak wrote nine symphonies, of which I’m going to focus on the last three, or at least as far as we know are the last three. The numbering of Dvorak’s symphonies is a rather messy affair: what is commonly thought of as the Ninth was originally published as the Fifth; the symphony up for consideration today was originally published as the Second but is now considered the Seventh.
Dvorak’s Ninth Symphony (“From the New World”) is so well-known and frequently performed that it actually tends to overshadow the rest of Dvorak’s symphonic output, which is quite a shame as I’ve yet to hear a work of Dvorak’s — in any genre or form — that didn’t have a great deal of charm, melodic invention, fine orchestration, thrilling gift of rhythm, and most important of all, a feeling of folk dance. Dvorak was a Czech national through-and-through, and the native tunes and rhythms of his country shine in everything he wrote. The Seventh Symphony is a perfect example of this, with its emotional intensity and stormy passages juxtaposed with moments of tranquility.
My favorite movement of this symphony is the Scherzo, which is likely because I actually got to perform it in my student days, at the summer music camp I attended. I’ve always found Dvorak to be a wonderful “gateway composer” for introducing people to classical music — not that he’s demanding, but his music is enjoyable on a lot of different levels. There is profundity, but there is also melody; there is long-form symphonic thought, but there is also dance.
Here is Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony. Next week, my favorite of Dvorak’s symphonies — the wonderful Eighth!
