Composer Galina Ustvolskaya: The Shostakovich-Trained Iconoclast

By Emily E. Hogstadt, Interlude

Composer Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) has been called “the lady with the hammer” and is known for her connection to Dmitri Shostakovich.

Galina Ustvolskaya and her dog

But she was so much more than this. She was also fiercely independent, staggeringly talented, and completely unafraid. She not only refused to fit in a musical mold but threw out that mold entirely.

Today, we’re taking a look at the life and times of Soviet composer Galina Ustvolskaya.

Ustvolskaya’s Childhood

Galina Ustvolskaya was born on 17 June 1919 in Petrograd to an unmusical family. Her father was a lawyer, and her mother was a teacher from impoverished nobility.

Her childhood was lonely and full of financial pressures.

“I would wear an old coat of my father’s (which was too long for me) and his muffler, which I gave to a young friend. I loved to give gifts, although we did not have anything to spare. Since childhood, I could not tolerate these kinds of pressures.”

Her desire for financial security would later impact her career choices.

She loved music deeply from an early age. When she was young, her parents took her to a performance of Tchaikovsky’s opera Eugene Onegin, but the family had to leave when she started crying. “I want to be an orchestra,” she told them.

Time with Shostakovich

Ustvolskaya studied at a school for young people associated with the Leningrad Conservatory. In 1939, when she turned twenty, she joined Dmitri Shostakovich’s composition class. That year, she was the only woman in that class.

Shostakovich was intrigued by her and in awe of her talent. “I am convinced that the music of G. I. Ustvolskaya will achieve world fame and be valued by all who hold truth to be the essential element of music,” he wrote once. He also said, “It is not you who are under my influence, but I who am under yours.”

He valued her opinion so much that he asked for her feedback on his own compositions. He also used a theme from her clarinet trio in his fifth string quartet (from 1952) and his Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti (from 1974, toward the very end of his life). 

Ustvolskaya studied in his class twice – once from 1939 to 1941 and again from 1947 to 1948. That six-year break coincided with the war, as well as the devastating two-and-a-half-year siege of Leningrad.

A month into the siege of Leningrad, Shostakovich was evacuated to Moscow and Ustvolskaya to Tashkent, the current-day capital of Uzbekistan, along with others linked to the Conservatory. In 1943, she worked in a hospital in the city of Tikhvin, two hundred kilometers from St. Petersburg.

Galina Ustvolskaya

She later made it very clear that she was not keen on an association with Shostakovich. She called his music “dry and lifeless” and wrote to her publisher, “One thing remains as clear as day: a seemingly eminent figure such as Shostakovich, to me, is not eminent at all, on the contrary, he burdened my life and killed my best feelings.”

Her distaste for him may have been rooted in extra-musical reasons. She later claimed that Shostakovich proposed marriage to her, but she turned him down.

Later, she went even further: “There is no link whatsoever between my music and that of any other composer, living or dead,” she once proclaimed. 

Ustvolskaya and Soviet Propaganda

From 1947 to 1977, she taught composition at the Leningrad Conservatory. She didn’t think of herself as a particularly talented professor – composition was her true calling – but teaching was a way to make a living.

In February 1948, a resolution went out from the Soviet government, accusing some composers of Formalism (i.e., failing to compose music that fully supported the state).

After this, she split her creative self into two parts. One composed propaganda pieces acceptable to Soviet leadership, while the other wrote secret avant-garde works that she knew might never be heard. 

Writing music to please the authorities was soul-destroying, but she was apparently very good at it. Her tone poem Stepan Razin’s Dream opened the Leningrad Philharmonic’s 1949 season, to acclaim. She was even nominated for the Stalin Prize.

However, in 1962, she hit her limit. From that time on, she vowed to only write what she truly wanted to write, and she worked to destroy all traces of everything she ever wrote for political reasons.

Fortunately, later in the century, the Soviet Union started being easier on modernist composers, and allowing them to share some of their more controversial music. Ustvolskaya slowly began sharing some of the music she’d been keeping hidden.

Ustvolskaya’s Later Years

Galina Ustvolskaya

By the 1970s the Leningrad Union of Composers began presenting evenings of her music, and critics were impressed.

Her music has several distinguishing features, including extreme dynamics, unusual instrumentation, and brutal and relentless repetition.

The website Ustvolskaya.org writes, “Ustvolskaya’s music is unique, unlike anything else; it is exceedingly expressive, brave, austere, and full of tragic pathos achieved through the most modest of expressive means.” 

Unfortunately, for years, hardly anybody outside the Soviet Union heard it. But in 1989 her work was performed at the Holland Festival, and it made a big impression on audiences.

She was living as a bit of a hermit by the 1990s, but she traveled to Amsterdam to watch performances of her work. Although she hated interviews, she agreed to one with journalist Thea Derk. But when the time for the interview came, she nearly backed out, and only agreed to partake after she was assured she could answer questions with monosyllables, without elaboration. (Luckily, Derk was able to get more than that out of her.)

She was asked how she liked the performance she’d heard. “Not very much,” she said bluntly. She elaborated: “The acoustics were not favourable, so that the piano didn’t come out properly, and the five double basses should have been placed more to the front. Moreover, the ensemble, recruited more or less ad hoc from members of the Concertgebouw orchestra, hadn’t as yet properly mastered the score, and the reciter wasn’t adequately amplified. But yesterday it was better and I hope it will again be better tonight.”

Ustvolskaya’s Death and Legacy

A perfectionist iconoclast to the end, Galina Ustvolskaya died in 2006 in St. Petersburg. She was eighty-seven years old.

In 1998 she gave a description of her life to an interviewer that serves as a kind of thesis statement about her music:

“The works written by me were often hidden for long periods. But then if they did not satisfy me, I destroyed them. I do not have drafts; I compose at the table, without an instrument. Everything is thought out with such care that it only needs to be written down. I’m always in my thoughts. I spend the nights thinking as well, and therefore do not have time to relax. Thoughts gnaw me. My world possesses me completely, and I understand everything in my own way. I hear, I see, and I act differently from others. I just live my lonely life.”

The Sting of a Bad Review — And Revenge!

by Janet Horvath , Interlude

Bad reviews hurt! Why else would we remember Word for Word our first bad review?

When I was a college student, I performed one of my first solos with an orchestra. I had just won the school wide concerto competition and I was chosen to perform Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations. It was in a fabulous new concert hall in Ottawa, Canada. The review said, “… nice tone, iffy intonation…a talented but premature exponent of the Rococo Variations for Cello and Orchestra.”

Reviews can be nasty. Some of these are infamous. Perhaps you’ve heard worse? “Often dull and obscure…” wrote Leon Escudier about Bizet’s ever-popular opera Carmen. Regarding Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, The Harmonicon, an influential monthly journal of music, printed the following review, “… Frightful indeed, which puts the muscles and lungs of the band, and the patience of the audience to a severe trial…” \

Famed writer George Bernard Shaw was quoted as saying about the Brahms Requiem, “It is so execrable and ponderously dull…“

Another favorite composer, Rachmaninoff, didn’t escape the vindictive words of Cesar Cui. He wrote “… This music (Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 1) leaves an evil impression with it’s broken rhythms, obscurity and vagueness of form, meaningless repetition of the same short tricks…” And fellow Russian, Tchaikovsky?

“Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto, like the first pancake, is a flop,” said Nicolai Soloviev.

Lexicon of Musical Invective

Between its hundreds of pages The Lexicon of Musical Invective, by Nicolas Slonimsky, first published in 1953, and later revised in 2000, is a collection of brutal outbursts. I suppose it is more entertaining to read a slam than a gushing review. None other than Peter Schickele of P.D.Q. Bach fame wrote the foreword to the book:

“It is a widely known fact—or, at least, a widely held belief—that negative criticism is more entertaining to read than enthusiastic endorsement. There is certainly no doubt that many critics write pans with an unbridled gusto that seems to be lacking in their (usually rarer) raves, and these critics often become more famous, or infamous, than their less caustic colleagues.

– From “Dangerous Minds”, Posted by Ron Kretsch

Klaus Tennstedt

One of our favorite conductors of all time was Klaus Tennstedt our principal guest conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra from 1979 to 1982. We just clicked! Everything we performed with him was magic. He was known for his brilliant interpretations of Mahler symphonies and we played many of those, but we also performed other works including Beethoven and a memorable performance of the New World Symphony of Antonin Dvořák. The interpretation was so deep and riveting that many of us were literally in tears on stage. It was one of those times that we ascended into the spheres making music that transcended boundaries. Sadly, the reviewer didn’t think so. We were aghast. The headline read:

“Is Klaus Tennstedt Losing His Touch?”

As perhaps you know, the slow movement has a memorable melody for the English horn, which was performed with great heart and soul by our young English horn player now a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra. The reviewer, with stunning ignorance, referred to the famous solo as an oboe solo — indicating to us that this person not only lacked discernment but also of basic knowledge of orchestral music.

Normally one has to take a bad review and swallow it! It’s a matter of taste, preference and perhaps experience of other performances. But here was a case of blatant ignorance.

The members of the orchestra decided to do something that we’ve never done before — not only did several of us write individual letters to the newspaper, we wrote a collective letter— a rebuttal, that was signed by virtually all the members of the orchestra, head lined:

Dvořák Conductor Didn’t Deserve Critic’s Caviling

“As members of the Minnesota orchestra, we wish to express our collective outrage at the criticism written by X. We strongly question the credibility of the XX in engaging a free-lance writer who knows so little about the subject matter. A cursory glance through the program notes would have revealed to X that the solo in the LARGO movement of Dvořák New World Symphony was not an oboe, as X stated, but an English horn…. unable to distinguish a great performance from a bad one….X stated Maestro Tennstedt had “nothing new to say about the New World Symphony…” criticizing the orchestra for including a “Warhorse” on the program that was capable of, “bringing down the house even with a high school orchestra… the last movement seemed to have nothing to say, but said it loudly…”

…The spontaneous ovation from the 2,200-plus members of the audience and the 82 members of the Minnesota Orchestra on the stage …constituted an eloquent testament to the depth of the performance and the profundity of Tennstedt’s interpretation…

The orchestra is forced to compete with the orchestras of Berlin, London, Boston, New York and Philadelphia (to name a few) for his time and talent and it is lamentable that the X prints insulting columns by a writer who not only displays a dearth of simple musical knowledge but also a total lack of critical acumen… Klaus Tennstedt’s knowledge and genius are not in question. However the critical perceptiveness of X and the editorial integrity of XX most certainly are.

The reviewer was fired. Bad reviews may be part of the business but the next time you are rejected, passed on or criticized, remember our sweet revenge!

Tchaikovsky for Beginners: 12 Pieces to Make You Love Tchaikovsky

 by Emily E. Hogstad  February 26th, 2024

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born on 7 May 1840 in Votkinsk, a town almost eight hundred miles east of Moscow.

Nowadays he is remembered as music’s quintessential Russian Romantic, and a forebear to giants like Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and Shostakovich.

Pyotr Il’ych Tchaikovsky

Today we’re looking at twelve pieces spanning the length of Tchaikovsky’s composing career. Before we jump in, here are some things you should know about him.

• Tchaikovsky wrote music in an era of nationalism:
  During his lifetime, artists of all kinds were inspired by their national identities.
  Tchaikovsky often found himself caught up in debates about whether Russian composers should focus on creating uniquely Russian music or copying a more Western European style (he preferred the idea of striking a balance between both).
  That said, the Russian vocabulary of his work is unmistakable, and it influenced future Russian and Soviet composers for generations to come.
• Tchaikovsky was gay. He married in 1877, but it was the most traumatic experience of his life. Six weeks after the wedding, he fled the country to recover. He and his wife never reconciled, but they also never divorced.
• Tchaikovsky suffered from crippling self-doubt. He was enamored by his work one moment, then repulsed by it the next. This emotional seesaw is a hallmark of his works, as well.
• Tchaikovsky was able to write much of his music due to the financial aid of a wealthy woman named Nadezhda von Meck, who pledged to support him…just as long as they never met in person. This unusual arrangement worked well for both parties, and the letters they exchanged became important emotional outlets for each of them.
• Tchaikovsky died of cholera in 1893, supposedly after drinking a glass of contaminated unboiled water, but conspiracy theories have surrounded his death for generations. Some people believe it was suicide or forced suicide, perhaps due to his homosexuality.

Tchaikovsky tomb at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery

If that peek at Tchaikovsky’s dramatic life intrigues you, keep reading. Here are twelve pieces that will make you fall in love with Tchaikovsky:

Piano Concerto No. 1 (1874) Tchaikovsky’s 

has become one of the most popular works for piano and orchestra ever written, but originally, it was criticized.

A 34-year-old Tchaikovsky brought the score to pianist Nikolai Rubinstein as soon as he finished it, looking for feedback. Rubinstein was brutal in his assessment: he hated it.

Tchaikovsky wrote later, “I need and shall always need friendly criticism, but there was nothing resembling friendly criticism. It was indiscriminate, determined censure, delivered in such a way as to wound me to the quick.”

But when the work was premiered in Boston in 1875, the audience loved it. They continue to love it to this day.

You can hear elements in this work that read as Russian, especially the lush sweeping string passages and folk dance rhythms.

Swan Lake (1875-1876) 

We don’t know exactly where the story of Swan Lake came from, although it’s possible that Russian folklore was an inspiration.

In this ballet, a prince is told by his mother that he must marry as soon as possible and that a slate of options will be presented to him at a ball the following night. A flock of swans flies overhead. To distract himself from his imminent engagement, the prince embarks on a hunt.

Swan Lake ballet performance
© PortsmouthNH.com

One swan transforms into a beautiful woman named Odette. A sorcerer has enchanted her, and the only way she can return to human form is if someone who has never loved before promises to love her forever. She is then turned back into a swan.

The following night at the ball, the sorcerer arrives with a woman who looks just like Odette. Unfortunately, the sorcerer has transformed his own daughter to look like Odette, and the real Odette is still stuck by the lake. Obliviously, the prince falls in love with the fake Odette.

But when the prince discovers the girl’s true identity, he rushes to the real Odette and apologizes. Unable to break the spell, the two decide to die together. They reunite after death.

A variety of alternative endings exist, too, but the story is always secondary to Tchaikovsky’s dramatic music.

It’s easy to see why Tchaikovsky poured his heart and soul into this project. It touches on his love of dance and drama, tapping into an unrestrainedly emotional Russian style of writing. It also reflects the despair of a man being forced to marry, and the tragedy present in doomed love.

Slavonic March (Marche slave) (1876) 

In 1876, an organization called the Russian Musical Society commissioned a piece from Tchaikovsky to be played at a benefit concert for wounded Serbian veterans.

At the time, Serbia and the Ottoman Empire were fighting the Serbian-Ottoman wars, in which Serbia was seeking its independence from the Empire. Russia had allied itself with Serbia in the struggle. So this work is a bit of musical propaganda.

Tchaikovsky uses Serbian folk songs in this work, as well as the melody from the Russian imperial anthem God Save the Tsar. He intertwines these melodies with a militaristic musical language that’s heavy on brass, piccolo, and percussion.

Even though the military conflict it was written about is long over, the work remains popular for its heart-on-sleeve bombast.

Violin Concerto (1878)

Tchaikovsky married a pianist named Antonina Miliukova on 18 July 1877. His crush, violinist Yosif Kotek, was one of the witnesses. Six weeks later, Tchaikovsky fled the country alone to come to terms with his disastrous decision.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and Yosif Kotek

In March 1878, he ended up at his patroness’s Swiss estate. Kotek came to visit, and the two struck up a productive creative partnership. With Kotek’s help, inspiration, and feedback, Tchaikovsky wrote his violin concerto in under a month. Today it is one of the most popular violin concertos in the repertoire, and it’s bursting with longing, regret, and joy.

Things didn’t end well between Tchaikovsky and Kotek. Any attraction they had for one another quickly cooled, especially after Kotek began seducing a string of women. But the violin concerto remains as a monument to their deep affection for one another.

Serenade for Strings (1880)

The patroness whose Swiss estate Tchaikovsky had fled to was none other than Nadezhda von Meck.

In 1877, the same year as his wedding, she began sending Tchaikovsky 6000 rubles a month, a hugely generous income that enabled him to quit teaching and focus solely on composition.

Nadezhda von Meck © en.tchaikovsky-research.net

His connection with her helped kick off a new era in his creative life. The Serenade for Strings is one of the pieces from early in their creative partnership.

Tchaikovsky wrote this serenade as a kind of antidote, because he was burnt out from composing another work that he feared was artistically worthless…

1812 Overture (1880) 

The work that Tchaikovsky feared was artistically worthless was the 1812 Overture, a work that has become among Tchaikovsky’s most popular.

The overture was commissioned to celebrate the completion of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in St. Petersburg, a monument that had been started generations earlier, after Napoleon’s ill-fated attempt to overtake Russia.

The historical event was massive and the cathedral was massive, so the overture had to be massive, too. Tchaikovsky wrote parts for a large orchestra with a huge percussion section, a brass band, pealing church bells, and even cannons, which were supposed to be set off by electric switch.

The scale of the premiere deflated after the assassination of the tzar in 1881. It took until the 1950s for a recording to be made that actually included cannon fire.

Capriccio Italienne (1880)

One of the destinations that Tchaikovsky escaped to while avoiding his new wife was Italy. Tchaikovsky was enchanted by Italy. He wrote to Nadezhda von Meck:

“I have already completed the sketches for an Italian fantasia on folk tunes for which I believe a good fortune may be predicted. It will be effective, thanks to the delightful tunes which I have succeeded in assembling partly from anthologies, partly from my own ears in the streets.”

Even though the purportedly Italian-inspired Capriccio is also very Russian, it works well, anyway. It remains a moving musical portrait of what Tchaikovsky saw as he was recovering and coming to terms with the trauma of his marriage.

Romeo and Juliet Overture (1880) 

Another coping mechanism that Tchaikovsky used during this time was reworking music from his past.

In the late 1860s, when he was a young music professor in St. Petersburg, Tchaikovsky fell in love with a magnetic singer named Désirée Artôt. Since Artôt ended up being the only woman in his entire life who Tchaikovsky felt this way about, some people speculate that he may have been in love more with her singing than with her as a person.

Désirée Artôt

The two discussed marriage, but she ultimately married another man…possibly because she heard about Tchaikovsky’s same-sex attraction.

Shattered by the rejection, Tchaikovsky wrote a symphonic poem based on the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet. He struggled with mixed feedback from renowned composer Mily Balakirev. One version was premiered in 1870, and a second in 1872, but neither one stuck.

Fortunately, during his burst of creative productivity in 1880, he finally figured out what he wanted to say with the piece, and reworked it a third time, to great effect.

The love theme was adored by audiences, and it remains cultural shorthand for love, even today.

Orchestral Suite No. 4 in G major “Mozartiana” (1887) Play

Mozart had always been Tchaikovsky’s favorite composer. In 1887, on the centenary of the premiere of Mozart’s opera Don Giovanni, Tchaikovsky came out with this orchestral suite to celebrate his hero.

This work is unusual in Tchaikovsky’s output in that it is based on Mozart piano pieces (as well as a slightly treacly reworking of a passage from his Requiem).

It’s fascinating to hear how this most Romantic of Russian composers treats the delicate work of Mozart, the Classical era’s poster child. It reveals a new side to Tchaikovsky’s interests and musical personality that isn’t often seen.

Symphony No. 5 (1888) 

In 1888, Tchaikovsky wrote a note to himself: “Introduction. Complete resignation before Fate – or, what is the same thing, the inscrutable designs of Providence.”

This idea of a symphony exploring the idea of unalterable fate – with all of the darkness, joy, and inevitability that such an idea implies – became a part of his fifth symphony, which opens with a theme that has come to be known as the “fate” theme, and which recurs throughout the work.

He updated von Meck: “I shall work my hardest. I am exceedingly anxious to prove to myself, as to others, that I am not played out as a composer. Have I told you that I intend to write a symphony? The beginning was difficult, but now inspiration seems to have come. We shall see…”

He finished it in a few months, but the premiere was unsuccessful. He updated von Meck, “Having played my Symphony twice in Petersburg and once in Prague, I have come to the conclusion that it is a failure. There is something repellent in it, some over-exaggerated color, some insincerity of fabrication which the public instinctively recognizes.”

However, within a matter of months, having returned to it and performed it again, he changed his mind yet again, writing to his nephew, “I have started to love it again. My earlier judgment was undeservedly harsh.”

Whether you love it or hate its over-the-top emotion, take solace in the fact that at some point, Tchaikovsky agreed with you!

The Nutcracker (1892) 

For The Nutcracker, which would turn out to be his last ballet, Tchaikovsky partnered with legendary choreographer Marius Petipa.

Their partnership became extremely granular. Petipa gave measure-by-measure instructions about what he was envisioning for the dance, and Tchaikovsky delivered. Despite this, the colorful score feels incredibly free and organic.

The initial response to The Nutcracker was lukewarm, but future generations came to treasure it. After dancer George Balanchine choreographed a version in New York in the 1950s, it became established as a December holiday tradition, especially in America.

The Nutcracker has become so popular that it has single-handedly helped keep many ballet companies afloat in financially difficult times. Tchaikovsky would no doubt be pleased!

Symphony No. 6 (1893) 

Tchaikovsky began the composition of the sixth symphony by creating notes…and then ripping them up.

But he kept trying. In 1893, he wrote to his nephew, “I am now wholly occupied with the new work … and it is hard for me to tear myself away from it. I believe it comes into being as the best of my works.”

What resulted was his darkest music yet, exploring themes of loss and mortality. Notably, it ends on a quiet, tragic note, instead of the much more common flurry of triumph.

Composing the work seems to have excised dark feelings for Tchaikovsky. His brother wrote later, “I had not seen him so bright for a long time past.”

The symphony was premiered in late October 1893. On the Wednesday after its premiere, he went to a restaurant and supposedly drank unboiled water. On Thursday, he began showing symptoms of cholera. On Monday, he was dead.

Tchaikovsky on his death bed

For obvious reasons, the sixth symphony is the most mythologized piece in Tchaikovsky’s entire output. It is difficult to listen to it and not think of the tragic fate that befell its composer a few days after its premiere. This juxtaposition has led to all sorts of conspiracy theories.

Conclusion

There are many reasons why Tchaikovsky is one of the most beloved composers in classical music history.

His music is accessible and affecting. He knew how to spin a melody and how to orchestrate, and he never got caught up in academic arguments at the expense of the music. For him, expressing emotion was always the most important thing, and audiences through the generations have responded to that.

Add in the struggles he faced with depression and self-doubt, and the lifelong struggle of hiding his homosexuality and never being able to be in an open relationship with a man, and he becomes a relatable – albeit tragic – figure for many people.

One thing is clear. As long as orchestral music is played, it seems likely that audiences will be hearing and loving Tchaikovsky.

Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings - Concertgebouw Kamerorkest / Chamber ...

How These Ten Pieces Can Help Writers Unlock Creativity

by Emily E. Hogstad

Writing is hard. It’s a lonely pursuit requiring not only focus and discipline, but inspiration, too.

While there are many tools and techniques that writers can use to boost their creativity, one often overlooked resource is classical music.

© helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com

Today we’re looking at ten famous pieces of classical music and why they might appeal to writers.

Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a writer or just starting out, here’s how these classical pieces can help you unlock your full potential and take your writing to the next level.

LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN: MOONLIGHT SONATA

This melancholy piece for solo piano will encourage writerly introspection, enabling authors to explore their deepest thoughts and feelings…even when those thoughts and feelings might be dark or sad.

Its mesmerizing triplet rhythm will help writers get into a meditative creative groove, too. 

ANTONIO VIVALDI: THE FOUR SEASONS

The ever-shifting moods contained within these four timeless concertos by Vivaldi will inspire writers to weave a diverse range of emotions and experiences into their writing. 

Here’s a hint: if you want a modern take on these concertos, try listening to Max Richter’s Recomposed, a reimagining of Vivaldi’s original music. It sounds like a movie soundtrack. 

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART: REQUIEM IN D MINOR

The haunting melodies and solemn nature of this masterpiece will help writers contemplate profound questions about life, death, and the human condition.

Mozart died young while writing the Requiem. Hopefully apart from the music, that story will encourage authors to seize the day and prioritize that writing project they’ve always dreamed about tackling. 

J.S. BACH: GOLDBERG VARIATIONS

This intricate piece for keyboard will inspire writers to strive for perfection in their craft and pay attention to every little detail, just like Bach did.

The thoughtful complexity of the Goldberg Variations – like so much of Bach’s music, and Baroque music in general – can help writers of all kinds to get into a particularly productive flow state. 

PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY: SWAN LAKE

The grandiose gestures of this iconic Romantic ballet will help writers channel their inner drama queen and imbue their writing with a sense of old-fashioned romance.

This is perfect music for when you’re writing characters experiencing fierce arguments, grand realizations, or passionate love affairs. 

CLAUDE DEBUSSY: CLAIR DE LUNE

This dreamy, atmospheric solo piano piece will transport writers into a world of inspiration, enabling them to easily visualize the beauty of a moonlit night.

This piece would be perfect to listen to while writing quiet scenes between two characters, or the inner monologue of a character who is alone and lost in thought. 

GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL: MESSIAH

The soaring melodies and powerful choral outbursts of Handel’s masterpiece will inspire writers to explore themes of faith, hope, and redemption, and infuse their writing with a sense of transcendence and wonder.

And again, like so much Baroque music, its propulsive rhythms will help writers get into that sought-after creative groove.

FRÉDÉRIC CHOPIN: NOCTURNES

The moody, atmospheric nature of these piano pieces evokes a sense of longing and introspection in any writer and will inspire them to delve into their characters’ inner worlds.

The nocturnes would be especially perfect for anyone writing historical fiction or Gothic drama. Nothing conjures up a Victorian parlor or doomed period romance like Chopin’s piano music! 

Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 1

The majesty of Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 will inspire writers to think big and aim for greatness, while the soaring melodies and powerful crescendos might give them ideas about how to build suspense and excitement in their own work.

This piece should also inspire every writer to keep at their craft and never give up, because this symphony took Brahms over twenty years to compose! The next time you have a bad writing day, think of Brahms and his persistence. 

GUSTAV HOLST: THE PLANETS

Each movement of The Planets represents a different planet in the solar system, so you can imagine how dramatic this music gets!

It’s no coincidence that The Planets often sounds like movie music. Composer John Williams was deeply inspired by Holst’s portrait of the cosmos when composing his classic soundtracks. 

These ten pieces of classical music are only the beginning. By taking the time to explore different genres, composers, and pieces, writers can tap into a rich source of inspiration – and in the process, unlock their full creative potential.

Happy writing!

10 pieces of classical music that will 100% change your life

10 pieces of classical music that will change your life (pictured: Romanian Athenaeum). Picture: Alamy

By Classic FM

@ClassicFM

 

Hold on to your hats – if you haven’t heard any of these musical works of genius, your life is about to be changed 10 times in a row.

Classical music can calm nerves, fire up the senses and spark creativity. It can also be uniquely life-affirming.

Here are the 10 major works we recommend you devote some time to. Needless to say, each of these examples should be digested in a single sitting.

1. J.S. Bach: St Matthew Passion

   What is it?
   It’s one of two ‘Passion’ oratorios that have survived since Bach died (he could’ve written up to five), but it’s also become one of his most celebrated pieces. The original title is Passio Domini nostri J.C. secundum Evangelistam Matthæum (the ‘J.C.’ stands for Jesus Christ, which is maybe a bit familiar for someone he hadn’t met… but we’ll let him off).
   
   Why it will change your life:
   If you thought that Baroque music mostly dealt with plinky-plinky harpsichords, the St Matthew Passion will change mind. There are biblical proclamations of impending apocalypse littered throughout, and for each of them, Bach works in some sort of crushing atonality or strange chord, as if he’s wincing with pain each time it happens. This is such a human experience, composed at a time when human experiences weren’t chief among the aims of most Baroque composer composers.

   
   

2. Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6

   What is it?
   Tchaikovsky’s final symphony, nicknamed ‘Pathétique’. The premiere performance was given just nine days before the composer died.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   Tchaikovsky was surely one of the most personally troubled of the great composers – and this symphony was essentially the outpouring of many of his issues, in a way. Many initially thought it was a lengthy suicide note, others pointed to the composer’s torment over his suppressed sexuality, while some thought it was just a tragic, sad, glorious and indulgent artistic expression. But the reason it’ll stay with you forever is that all of these contexts work in their own way, but it never detracts from how magisterial the music itself is. It’s a lesson in the very best ways of expressing emotions through music.

   
   

3. Mahler: Symphony No. 2

   What is it?
   Massive, that’s what it is. Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 (known as the ’Resurrection’) is a 90-minute attempt to put the whole nature of existence into a piece music. So pretty ambitious.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   If you think any bit of music over three minutes long is a bit indulgent and full of itself, this single piece will convince you that sometimes it’s completely worth spending an hour and a half on one musical concept – even if it is a huge concept. No other composer could’ve made it more entertaining (listen out for death shrieks!), or more rewarding. The epic final few minutes are a stupidly generous reward on their own, but getting there is half the fun.

   
   

4. Beethoven: Grosse Fuge

   What is it?
   One of the last pieces Beethoven wrote for string quartet, one of his celebrated ‘Late’ quartets. It’s a one-movement experiment in structure that was universally hated when it was first composed.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   It’s proof that not only can critics and audiences get it really, really wrong, but also that it’s all about interpretation. You can actually hear the struggle and the effort it must have taken to compose, which means it’s not always a relaxing listen, but few pieces in history have so nakedly shown how a composer can throw absolutely everything into a single work. And, in the end, it was hugely influential to serialist composers of the 20th century with none other than Igor Stravinsky proclaiming it a miracle of music. How about that for delayed gratification?

   
   

5. Mozart: Requiem

   What is it?
   The piece that Mozart wrote on his deathbed, in a furious fever. Well, if the movies are to be believed, anyway.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   From the opening Introitus, the mournful tone is set. It might just be us, but doesn’t it actually sound like Mozart is scared of death here? Aside from being spooky as anything, the Requiem is a haunting patchwork of things. Completed by one of Mozart’s pupils, Franz Süssmayr, it’s become a legendary mystery and the perfect way to end the story of one of history’s most celebrated geniuses – in other words, not end it all. What an enigma.

   
   

6. Monteverdi: Vespers

   What is it?
   It’s Baroque genius Claudio Monteverdi’s defining work, a gigantic noise that some argue bridged the gap between the Renaissance and the early Baroque periods.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   It makes you realise that just because something’s really old, it doesn’t mean it’s automatically boring, or simply lauded because it was ‘groundbreaking’. Make no mistake about it – Monteverdi’s Vespers are hugely entertaining on their own terms. For starters, it’s simply enormous in scale. If you want to be crude about it (and we do) then you could describe it as Monteverdi taking church music to the opera, with all the drama that implies. Trumpets, drums, massive choruses, florid vocal lines… this really is the greatest hits of the early Baroque.

7. Elgar: Cello Concerto

   What is it?
   The only cello concerto that Edward Elgar wrote, and one of the most famous concertos of all time.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   It’s proof that intense emotion can come from the most unlikely of people. We don’t want to get all mushy on you, but there’s something spectacularly English about how the ultimate stiff-upper-lipped curmudgeon, Edward Elgar, was able to convey his emotions in music rather than in words or actions. His private life was surprisingly tumultuous (that’s another story), and in pieces like the Cello Concerto it’s as if the gasket has blown and Elgar is finally able to let out all the pent-up emotion in a focused blast.

   Cellist Sébastien Hurtaud plays Elgar Cello Concerto (3rd movement)

   Played and edited by cellist Sébastien Hurtaud.

8. Wagner: The Ring Cycle

   What is it?
   It is everything.

   Why it will change your life:
   Realising for the first time that the world of opera could actually be this immersive is a very, very special feeling. Wagner’s whole four-opera cycle has a terrible reputation as simply ‘that exhausting long opera’ – but that perception couldn’t be further from the truth. The Ring Cycle is a fundamentally unhinged work of staggering genius, and the peak of operatic indulgence, excess and excellence. Ignore at your peril.

9. Max Richter: Vivaldi: Recomposed

   What is it?
   A radical, beautiful re-invention of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons concertos, by modern indie-classical composer Max Richter.
   
   Why it will change your life:
   Listening to Vivaldi: Recomposed is like discovering an old jumper that you used to love has magically, miraculously lost all its bobbly bits and is actually at the height of fashion. What Richter manages to do so incredibly well is to subtly sneak in delightful additions, tweaks and reinventions to a classic you already know extremely well, and freshen it up not just for the modern era, but for the eras to come too.

10. Gorecki: Symphony No. 3

    What is it?
    Possibly the most emotionally draining piece of music ever written.
    
    Why it will change your life:
    There’s a reason Polish composer Henryck Górecki called his third symphony the Symphony of Sorrowful Songs. Each movement features a solo soprano singing texts inspired by war and separation, but it’s the second movement that really stands out. The text is taken from the scribblings on the wall of a Gestapo cell during the Second World War and, as you can imagine, it’s pretty harrowing stuff – but Górecki makes it sound so transcendental that it’s hard to believe it was written in such dire circumstances. He said himself that he wanted the soprano line “towering over the orchestra”, and it certainly does that.