Happy
New Year from Clef Notes and 90.9 WGUC, Cincinnati’s Classical Public Radio! If
you’re looking for great music to accompany your New Year’s Day morning, join
us from 11am until 1pm for the annual New Year’s Day from Vienna.
As
we close up 2014 and enter the new year, we need your help. First, what were
some of your favorite posts/topics discussed on Clef Notes in 2014? Second, are
there any specific topics you would like to learn more about in 2015?
Thanks
for your input and have a wonderful holiday!
Merry Christmas from Clef Notes and 90.9 WGUC, Cincinnati’s Classical Public Radio! What will you be listening to today as you spend time with the family and take part in holiday festivities? Do you have any favorite Christmas melodies?
Don’t forget that tonight at 6:00 we are featuring an encore presentation of A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols on 90.9 WGUC – the perfect accompaniment to your holiday activities!
In
light of Christmas this week, I thought it would be appropriate to contemplate
the beauty and meaning in an ancient Christmas text, O magnum mysterium. Below you can read the English translation of
this text and then I’ve followed it with five musical settings. Which is your
favorite, or do you have another favorite that is not listed here?
O
great mystery,
and
wonderful sacrament,
that
animals should see the new-born Lord,
lying
in a manger!
Blessed
is the Virgin whose womb
was
worthy to bear
Christ
the Lord.
Alleluia!
Morton
Lauridsen
William
Byrd
Tomás
Luis de Victoria
Giovanni
Pierluigi da Palestrina
Francis
Poulenc
Here
is a list of upcoming Christmas specials on 90.9 WGUC to accompany your holiday
activities!
Tuesday, December 23, 7:00 PM
St.
Olaf Christmas Festival: A service in song and word that has become one of the
nation’s most cherished holiday celebrations. The festival includes hymns,
carols, choral works, and orchestral selections celebrating the Nativity and
featuring more than 500 student musicians who are members of five choirs and
the St. Olaf Orchestra.
Wednesday, December 24, 10:00 AM
A
Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols: Hosted by Michael Barone, this is a live
stereo music and spoken-word broadcast from the chapel of King's College in
Cambridge, England. The 30-voice King's College Choir performs the legendary Festival
of Nine Lessons and Carols service of Biblical readings and music.
Wednesday, December 24, 6:00 PM
A
Chanticleer Christmas: Nothing signals the beginning of the holiday season like
12 men singing in beautifully blended harmony. A Chanticleer Christmas is
American Public Media's one-hour celebration of the season as told through the
glorious voices of Chanticleer, the San Francisco-based men's choir. The program spans the globe and the centuries
— from England in the 1300s to new arrangements of classic and contemporary
carols to Chanticleer's popular Gospel medley of Christmas tunes.
In
light of it being Beethoven’s birthday week, I thought it would be fun to
gather a list of some of my favorite Beethoven works. This was more difficult
than I anticipated, however, because really all of his works are great! Therefore,
I limited myself to ten favorites. What would you add to the list?
I’d like to spend
our last day looking at music and ethnicity focusing on one of my favorite
nationalistic pieces, Bedrich Smetana’s “Vltava” or more commonly known as “The
Moldau” from Má vlast, meaning “My
country.”
One of the first
major nationalist composers in Bohemia, Smetana gave his people a musical
identity during a time when the Czech population desperately needed some sort
of national character to hold on to. Their country had been under Habsburg rule
for quite some time and as a result, their Czech-connection somewhat lost.
Their language, for instance, fought for survival against the dominant German
tongue.
Many of Smetana’s
works identified with his own pride in his homeland, thus creating a similar
pride amongst his fellow Bohemians. His eight operas and many of his symphonic
poems have national subjects inspired by his country’s legends, history, and
landscapes. Má vlast is a cycle of
six symphonic poems, one of which is “The Moldau.” The Moldau is a river in the
Bohemian region. During his composition, Smetana’s goal is to leave an
impression on the listener of how the river flows across the Bohemian
landscape. You can listen to this lovely work here. Do you hear the forests
depicted by hunting music or the village wedding conveyed by a polka?
In my last post
we talked about the lack of national identity in 19th-century
Finland, resulting in the population’s pride in Sibelius’ nationalistic Finlandia. A similar pride developed in
Spain during the 20th century following the premiere of Joaquín
Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez. The
work was first performed in 1940, not long after the end of the Spanish Civil
War. Inspired by Spanish classical and folk music, art, and literature, the
piece is exactly what Spain needed to hold onto a sense of national pride.
Joaquín Rodigo
was blind from the age of three yet showed musical talent early on, studying
with the famous composer Paul Dukas. Rodrigo had a strong interest in the
classical guitar, at least 6 of his 13 concertos involving the instrument.
Aiming to create a Spanish ambiance in his music, the Concierto de Aranjuez references the flamenco style and Spanish folksong.
Rodrigo noted that the piece was named for the royal palace located between
Madrid and Toledo. Describing the concerto, Rodrigo once commented, “It should sound like the hidden breeze
that stirs the treetops in the parks, as strong as a butterfly, as dainty as averónica[a classic pass in bullfighting].”
Below you can listen to the Adagio from this concerto. This
movement is known as one of the most-recognized guitar melodies in history.
Take note of the beautiful lyricism used in this work. Perhaps the piece became
instantly popular following its premiere because it evokes a romanticized idea
of how the composer viewed his country rather than the difficult reality they
had just experienced during a civil war? What do you think?
Over the past
several weeks, we have looked at various composers and their use of
nationalism. Many of these composers found that using folk music from their
homeland helped to forge a connection between their music and national pride.
Finnish composer Jean Sibelius went about composing his famous Finlandia in a different way. Finding
inspiration in the nature surrounding him as well as in the Finnish epic Kalevala, Sibelius created his own
melodies and wound up accidently composing Finland’s folk anthem when he
completed Finlandia.
During the 19th-century,
Finland lacked a sense of national identity as it was a part of the Russian
Empire and culturally saturated with influences from Sweden. Finlandia was composed during a period
of political unrest in Finland as the Russians sought to draft Finns into their
own military. Sibelius’ iconic work was first performed under the heading Finland Awakes at a national event in
Helsinki.
You may have
heard this piece performed with lyrics at some point. Did you know that
Sibelius did not actually write lyrics to his work and was angered by the fact
that others did so? Here’s a listening clip of Finlandia. Can you see why the Finnish people felt so much national
pride when listening to this work?
Today I would
like to talk about Heitor Villa-Lobos, the 20th-century Brazilian composer
known to be South America’s most famous. There is quite a lot that could be
said about Villa-Lobos and his music but, due to the constraints of one blog
post, I must limit myself to mentioning only a couple of his works.
At the time of Villa-Lobos’
birth, Brazil was embedded in European musical tradition and virtuosi from
Europe and America received greater accolades than those natives from Brazil.
Loving music from an early age, Villa-Lobos longed to modernize a Brazilian
musical style. In the year 1900, the young composer set off to wander the
inaccessible regions of Brazil for ten years, observing folk, geographical, and
musical influences. Culturally diverse Brazil became his inspiration for
composition rather than the rules and formulas taught at the conservatory.
One of
Villa-Lobos’ earlier pieces is below. Amazonas
was written in 1917 and shows his early unique style. In this work, the
composer uses primitivism and folklore ideas he gained from his travels as
inspiration. At the first performance of this work, the violinists actually
tied handkerchiefs to the end of their bows in protest, refusing to create the
sounds Villa-Lobos wrote into his music!
Spending time in
Paris later in life, Villa-Lobos began to appreciate European traditions as
well as Brazilian. In many works, we can see a fusion of these two traditions
as he became a less abrasive nationalist composer. The Bachianas brasileiras (1930-45) is an excellent example of one of
these later works. It consists of a cycle of nine suites written for various
combinations of instruments and voices. In it, Villa-Lobos adapts Baroque
compositional procedures to Brazilian music. You can listen in to the first of
these suites below. Notice the unique instrumentation he uses: an orchestra of cellos!
Join me next time
as we travel to Finland and listen to the music of Sibelius!
