Forbidden Harmonies: Composers Whose Music Was Once Banned

by Fanny Po Sim Head  

Throughout history, music has been both a reflection of and a response to societal and political climates. Under authoritarian regimes, art—particularly music—has often been a target for censorship. Whether deemed politically subversive, ideologically incorrect, or culturally inappropriate, certain works were banned, silenced, or suppressed in an attempt to control the narratives and voices that music can powerfully communicate. This article explores the lives and works of composers whose music faced censorship, showcasing the deep intersection between art and politics and the resilience of composers who faced suppression under totalitarian regimes.

Alban Berg (1885–1935)

Alban Berg, 1920s

Alban Berg was an Austrian composer known for emotionally intense music bridging late Romanticism and modernism. A key figure in the Second Viennese School, Berg studied under Arnold Schoenberg and created atonal music that expanded emotional and structural expression. Despite his non-Jewish status, his connection to Schoenberg and atonality made him a target of the Nazi regime’s campaign against “degenerate music.”

Berg’s opera Wozzeck, premiered in 1925, was groundbreaking for its atonality and acclaimed. However, with the Nazi rise in the early 1930s, his works were labeled “degenerate” and banned in Nazi-controlled areas. This suppression affected his later opera Lulu and the Lulu Suite, which also faced condemnation. The Lulu Suite premiered in Berlin in 1934 but met resistance, resulting in conductor Erich Kleiber’s resignation in protest. By 1935, all performances of Berg’s music were prohibited in Nazi Germany, and although his Violin Concerto premiered posthumously in 1936, it reflected the peak of censorship. While not openly denounced like some composers, Berg’s music remained silenced during a highly oppressive period of the 20th century. 

Igor Stravinsky (1882–1971)

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky, one of the most influential composers of the 20th century, is best known for his revolutionary ballets The Firebird, Petrushka, and The Rite of Spring, which shattered conventional music traditions. However, Stravinsky’s avant-garde approach did not endear him to all regimes, particularly those with ideologically driven artistic policies. His music was banned and suppressed in the Soviet Union, particularly after the 1917 revolution, when he criticized the regime and emigrated. Stravinsky, a celebrated figure in Russia, soon found himself labeled an enemy of the state.

In Soviet Russia, much of Stravinsky’s music was denounced as bourgeois and formalist. His early works, including The Rite of Spring, were deemed decadent and inaccessible by the Soviet authorities, leading to their prohibition. It was not until the 1960s, after Stravinsky’s return to Russia under tight surveillance, that some of his music was cautiously reintroduced. However, for most of his life, Stravinsky’s works remained largely banned in his home country, silenced by a regime that feared the influence of Western, modernist thought.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)

Dmitry Shostakovich, 1942 (Red Star newspaper, No. 86 (5150) from 12 April 1942)

Dmitri Shostakovich, one of the greatest composers of the Soviet Union, became a symbol of artistic survival under the oppressive policies of Joseph Stalin. Shostakovich’s music, which often oscillated between personal expression and forced compliance, faced constant scrutiny. His opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District (1934), initially acclaimed, was suddenly criticised by the Soviet regime in 1936 after a scathing review in Pravda, labeled as “muddle instead of music.” This criticism led to the withdrawal of several of his works and years of self-censorship as he navigated the complex relationship between artistic freedom and state control.

Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony was suppressed before its premiere, while other works such as the Eighth Symphony and From Jewish Folk Poetry were banned due to their perceived political implications and pessimism. Despite moments of official rehabilitation, Shostakovich’s compositions remained under the threat of censorship for most of his life, reflecting the constant tension between artistic expression and political pressure. 

Ding Shande (1911–1995)

Ding Shande © sin80.com

Ding Shande, a prominent Chinese composer, faced significant challenges during China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), a period marked by extreme censorship and the suppression of anything deemed “bourgeois.” Western classical music was viewed as a symbol of imperialism, and many of Ding’s works—rooted in Western tradition—were suppressed during this era. His Long March Symphony, a composition that celebrated the Red Army’s historic journey, was initially well-received but later faced suppression as China’s political climate turned against any perceived foreign influence.

While Ding’s music was not banned in the same way as Western composers, his ability to compose and perform freely was restricted under the Cultural Revolution’s stifling ideological control. 

Grażyna Bacewicz (1909–1969)

Grażyna Bacewicz

Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz is widely regarded as one of Poland’s most accomplished musicians. During the Nazi occupation, she endured the harsh conditions imposed on Polish artists but continued to create, often in secret. Bacewicz, along with other musicians, performed clandestine concerts to keep music alive during the war. After the occupation, she faced more formal repression during the Communist regime, which had a distaste for modernist styles. Her works, particularly her String Quartet No. 2, were composed and performed in defiance of the occupying forces.

Bacewicz’s music became a symbol of resilience in the face of oppression, demonstrating the power of music to both resist and survive under harsh conditions.

Witold Lutosławski (1913–1994)

Witold Lutosławski

Witold Lutosławski was another prominent Polish composer whose music faced suppression under the Communist regime in Poland. Lutosławski’s compositions, particularly his First Symphony, were labeled “formalistic” and banned by authorities for being too complex and nonconformist. His music, which often challenged the conventions of Soviet-approved style, was seen as a threat to the ideological conformity that the regime sought to maintain. Despite these challenges, Lutosławski’s music gained recognition on the international stage, and he became a leading figure in 20th-century music.

Lutosławski’s works, once banned at home, have since become staples of the classical repertoire, symbolising the triumph of artistic freedom over political oppression.

Federico García Lorca (1898–1936)

Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca, a celebrated Spanish poet and playwright, also made significant contributions to Spanish music, particularly through his collection and arrangement of traditional Spanish folk songs. His Colección de canciones populares españolas (1931), created in collaboration with the singer La Argentinita, highlighted the beauty of Spanish folk traditions. However, due to Lorca’s political beliefs and personal identity—he was openly gay and a Republican during Spain’s turbulent years—his works faced severe censorship under Franco’s dictatorship.

After his tragic assassination in 1936, many of Lorca’s works were banned, and his folk song collection was suppressed as part of the Franco regime’s effort to stifle cultural and political dissent. It wasn’t until after Franco’s death in 1975 that Lorca’s music was revived and began to regain its place in Spain’s cultural landscape. 

Paul Hindemith (1895–1963)

Paul Hindemith, 1923

Paul Hindemith, a German composer and violist, found himself on the receiving end of Nazi censorship. His music, which combined modernist and neoclassical elements, was initially accepted but soon became targeted due to its perceived lack of alignment with Nazi ideals. Hindemith’s opera Mathis der Maler, which explored the role of the artist during political strife, sparked controversy, and by 1936, his works were banned in Germany. Faced with increasing persecution, Hindemith left Germany and eventually settled in the United States, where he continued his compositional career.

Despite his international success, Hindemith’s legacy in his home country was temporarily erased due to the oppressive political climate. 

Mauricio Kagel (1931–2008)

Mauricio Kagel

Mauricio Kagel, an Argentine-born composer, became known for his experimental and theatrical approach to music. Kagel’s works often defied conventional musical boundaries, using irony and satire to critique societal norms and political regimes. While living in Germany, Kagel’s compositions like Ludwig van (1970) and Staatstheater (1971) were controversial for their audacity and critiques of cultural institutions. Staatstheater, in particular, faced significant resistance and even required police protection for its premiere. Although Kagel’s music was not officially banned, his works were suppressed in politically conservative environments, including during Argentina’s military dictatorship.

Kagel’s contributions to experimental music serve as a testament to the power of art to resist and critique authoritarian power structures. 

Gilberto Mendes (1922–2016)

Gilberto Mendes © Wikipedia

Gilberto Mendes, a Brazilian composer known for his avant-garde approach and political activism, also faced censorship, especially during Brazil’s military dictatorship (1964–1985). While his music was not formally banned, works like Motet em Ré Menor and Santos Football Music were unofficially suppressed due to their political subtext. Mendes used his compositions to criticize societal and political issues, and this led to his music being withdrawn from festivals or omitted from broadcasts. Despite these challenges, Mendes remained a steadfast advocate for artistic freedom, helping to redefine Brazilian music in a time of political repression.

The experiences of these composers reflect the complex and often painful intersection of art, politics, and censorship. Music has long been a powerful force for both expression and resistance. Through their work, composers like Berg, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and others not only endured suppression but also used their art as a form of defiance. The censorship of their music serves as a reminder of the enduring power of music to transcend oppressive regimes, offering hope, resistance, and a lasting legacy of resilience in the face of adversity.

Global Giggle Fest World Laughter Day Unleashes Hilarity

by Hermione Lai  

On the first Sunday in May, we celebrate World Laughter Day. It all started in a park in Mumbai in 1998 when Dr. Madan Kataria gathered hundreds of people in a laughter yoga movement.

It started with some fake-laughing until the giggles turned real. It was gloriously absurd as strangers cackled like hyenas, some wiping tears of laughter, all because someone pretended to laugh at a non-existent joke.

Laughing is highly infectious, and moments of organised silliness remind us that laughter can cut through the daily grind. And while classical music might seem like a stuffy museum of serious faces, composers have given us plenty of giggles over the centuries.

Mozart Joke 

Mozart’s Divertimento for Two Horns and Strings in F Major, K. 522, is like the 18th-century equivalent of a musical prank call. It is a deliberate trainwreck of bad composing, written in 1787 to poke fun at every hack and mediocre musician. To be sure, Mozart throws in every compositional cliché he can think of.

© wfmt.com

We hear repetitive phrases and off-key surprises, with the strings playing along like they forgot how to read music. The horns honk at the worst possible moments and in silly keys, and the transitions are simply awkward. Still, it’s catchy and brilliant. It’s the kind of piece that makes you laugh out loud. Are you laughing with Mozart, or is he secretly laughing at you?

Satie Joke

Erik Satie

The French musical maverick Erik Satie gave the world his “Three Pieces in the Shape of a Pear” in 1903. This piano duet isn’t just a composition, it’s a wacky response to stuffy critics who whined that his music lacked form. The title alone is enough to make you laugh, and in fact, it’s actually seven pieces and not three.

The music itself is a delightful mess of quirky melodies, wonky rhythms, and moments when the piano is daydreaming about being in a circus. Satie throws in some playful titles and instructions, like “play with a very profound gentleness,” and “Prolongation of the Same.” The pieces meander through dreamy waltzes like a conversation between friends that keeps changing topics. We can’t help but laugh at such sheer silliness.

Alkan Joke

The reclusive piano wizard Charles-Valentin Alkan unleashed his “Funeral March on the Death of a Parrot” in 1858. This piece is exactly what it sounds like. It’s a mock-serious dirge for a dearly departed parrot, complete with all the pomp and circumstance you might expect for a fallen feathered friend.

It’s pure musical satire with a solemn and plodding rhythm that sounds absurdly grandiose. Alkan piles on the melodrama with heavy chords and exaggerated tempos. Can you hear the quirky little flourishes and dynamic shifts? It’s like Alkan is snickering behind the music and daring you to keep a straight face. This is musical trolling at its finest, and somewhere, the parrot’s ghost is squawking with glee.

Haydn Joke

Franz Joseph Haydn was basically the original musical prankster, and his String Quartet Op. 33, No. 2 is nicknamed “The Joke” for very good reasons. This piece shows Haydn at his most impish as he lures listeners into a false sense of security with its chipper melodies and polite classical vibes.

In the finale, Haydn pulls out all the stops. Just when you think the music is wrapping up with a tidy little bow, Haydn throws in a cheeky pause, and when everybody gets ready to clap, he restarts the music with a cheeky encore. I bet he had some stuffy aristocrats looking like fools. Pure, mischievous and utterly funny genius!

As we celebrate “World Laughter Day,” let’s raise a glass to the musical jesters who turned stuffy concert halls into serious giggle celebrations. Let’s tip our hats to the genius composers who weave hilarity into their harmonies, proving that music can spark laughter around the world.

Music softens the blow

 

YOUR LOVE - Ennio Morricone, from "Once Upon A Time In the West"

Your Love by Ennio Morricone from "Once Upon A Time In The West"

5 May 1891: Opening Night at Carnegie Hall

by Georg Predota  

New York audiences and music lovers were treated to a momentous occasion in May 1891. Specifically, they witnessed the inaugural concert at Carnegie Hall, a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 5 May 1891. Carnegie Hall would soon rise to become one of the most prestigious venues in the world of music.

Carnegie Hall in 1895

The vision of a dedicated Music Hall was the brainchild of Leopold Damrosch, conductor of the Oratorio Society of New York and the New York Symphony Society. His son Walter, who met the businessman Andrew Carnegie during his studies in Germany, carried Leopold’s vision forward. Eventually, he was able to convince Carnegie to donate 2 million dollars and the Oratorio Society and New York Symphony bought nine lots at the southeast corner of Seventh Avenue and 57th Street.

Andrew Carnegie

They approached architect William Burnet Tuthill, a talented amateur cellist and board member of the Oratorio Society to design the Music Hall. Tuthill had engaged in extensive studies of European concert halls, and he brought his experience with acoustics to bear on the Carnegie Hall project.

“Old Hundred” arr. Vaughan Williams 

Designed in a modified Italian Renaissance style, the cornerstone for the Music Hall was laid by Carnegie’s wife Louise on 13 May 1890. Within the next 12 months, the original five-story brick and limestone building “containing a 3,000-seat main hall and several smaller rooms for rehearsals, lectures, concerts, and art exhibitions,” began to take shape. Andrew Carnegie said, “It is built to stand for ages, and during these ages, it is probable that this Hall will intertwine itself with the history of our country.” The Recital Hall opened in March 1891, and the Oratorio Hall in the basement opened on 1 April 1891. The Music Hall officially opened on 5 May 1891, starting a five-day Opening Week Festival.

William Burnet Tuthill

Contemporary reports write of “horse-drawn carriages lining up for a quarter-mile outside, while inside the Main Hall was jammed to capacity.” Conductor Walter Damrosch led the New York Symphony Orchestra and the Oratorio Society on Opening Night, and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky had been engaged for a guest appearance. He was apparently paid $5,000 for his service, which in today’s money equates to roughly $150K. 

A contemporary eyewitness reports, “People are swarming everywhere trying to get into this magnificent hall. The architecture is absolutely gorgeous with a façade made of terra cotta and iron-spotted brick. I manage to get inside where the main hall is jammed to capacity. I look around to see that the magnificent architecture extends to the inside as well. I looked up at the boxes to see the Rockefellers, Whitneys, Sloans, and Fricks families. I find my seat, smooth my dress, and sit down.”

Carnegie Hall Opening Festival poster

The program opened with the hymn “Old Hundred,” a tune from the second edition of the Genevan Psalter. It is considered one of the best-known melodies in the Western Christian musical tradition, and it was the first work transmitted by telephone during Graham Bell’s first demo at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1876. Bishop Henry Codman Potter delivered a lengthy speech praising Carnegie’s philanthropy. Walter Damrosch entered the stage and the hall erupted in applause. The New York Symphony played “America,” and Beethoven’s Leonore Overture No. 3. A member of the audience reported, “The acoustics are even better than I could imagine.”

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Marche solennelle 

Then it was Tchaikovsky’s turn. In his diary, he writes, “In a crowded carriage I reached the Music Hall. Illuminate and packed with the public, it made an exceptionally striking and grandiose impression…The pastor gave a long and, it was said, exceptionally tedious speech, and after this, there was a very good performance of the Leonore Overture. Interval. I went downstairs. Excitement. My turn came. I was received very noisily. The march (Marche solennelle) went off beautifully. A great success! I listened to the rest of the concert from Hyde’s box. Berlioz’s “Te Deum” was rather tedious; it was only at the end that I really began to enjoy it.”

Ticket from the Opening Night at Carnegie Hall

Tchaikovsky was also less than enthusiastic about the review he read in the papers the next day. As he records in his diary, “Tchaikovsky is a tall, gray well built interesting man, well on the sixty?!!! He seems a trifle embarrassed and responds to the applause with a succession of brusque and jerky bows. But as soon as he grips the baton his self-confidence returns.”

Carnegie Hall at night

Tchaikovsky was rather annoyed and added, “It makes me angry that they not only write about music, but about me personally. I cannot bear it when they comment on my embarrassment, and marvel at my brusque and jerky bows.” Tchaikovsky did not have much time to ponder the review, as he was in the audience at the second concert, which featured Mendelssohn’s oratorio “Elijah.”

Music

 

Fugues and Other Musical Charms From Bach to Shostakovich

by Georg Predota  

An example of a fugue structure © composerfocus.com

Among the most feared course requirements for many aspiring composers and students of music is a class simply labeled “Fugue.” And it’s no wonder, as a good many universities that still teach this kind of skills will ask you to sit in this particular class for an entire semester. And invariably, you will have to compose a fugue for your final project. The basic premise is simple enough. Take a short melody or phrase introduced in one part. That melody then taken up by other parts and developed by interweaving the parts. What sounds simple is in reality a highly complex process of rules and restrictions that is commonly regarded as the most fully developed procedure of imitative counterpoint.

Bach’s unfinished fugue in The Art of Fugue

It is hardly surprising that a good many composers past and present consider the process of writing a fugue an “exercises in a dead language.” Yet for the musical and expressive genius Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), the possibilities within these restrictions were endless. His most celebrated and extensively studied collection of contrapuntal movements The Art of Fugue explores the possibilities inherent in a single musical theme. Demonstrating every compositional technique and method known to him, Bach composed eigthteen movements; fourteen fugues and four canons. The collection remained unfinished, however, as Bach died while incorporating his musical signature. How many more gripping jewels he might have composed, we will never know. 

Mozart’s “Jupiter” fugal entries

Even during Bach’s lifetime, fugues and other forms of imitative counterpoint were considered seriously old fashioned. The aesthetics of music and culture had simply changed dramatically. During his extensive travels, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was exposed to a multiplicity of compositional styles, tastes and genres. Mozart, the undisputed pop star of the 18th century, unrelentingly integrated, synthesized and transformed stylistic and musical conventions. It might reasonably be argued, however, that it took the encounter with the music of Bach and all those marvelous fugues that eventually produced compositions of universal appeal and stunning individuality. Mozart had been exposed to counterpoint throughout his life, but he engaged in serious study of fugue only during the 1780s. The diplomat Baron Gottfried van Swieten—who penned the libretto for Haydn’s Creation—was an avid collector of musical manuscripts. Wanting to have these works performed, he held regular musical parties in his Viennese residence, and Mozart was a steady guest. He reports to his sister, “nothing is played but fugues by Handel and Bach.” Mozart’s contact with the mastery of the German contrapuntal tradition opened a completely new musical horizon. He produced a number of stand-alone fugues, and this newly gained compositional skill helped to inform the creation of his final sublime orchestral masterpieces. Words simply can’t describe the jaw-dropping and breathtaking fugal display of quintuple invertible counterpoint in the final movement of the “Jupiter.” 

Johannes Brahms

In 1899, Ernest Walker addressed the 25th session of the Royal Musical Association with a lecture on Johannes Brahms. He described the composer’s musical style as a “fusion of heterogeneous materials with the desire for emotional expression.” Essentially then, Walker saw Brahms as the logical union of Bach’s contrapuntal art and Beethoven’s formal perfection. To his contemporaries and critics, Brahms looked like a bastion of musical conservatism. Surprisingly, it was Arnold Schoenberg who suggested that Brahms was “a great innovator in the realm of musical language, and that his chamber music prepared the way for the radical changes in musical conception at the turn of the 20th century.” But let’s be clear, musical language for Brahms always starts in strict accordance with his extensive knowledge of counterpoint and fugue. He studied every available treatise on this subject and the integrity of the musical structure is paired with the attempt to achieve a deeper level of contrapuntally inspired motivic cohesion. Just listen to the finale of his E-minor Cello Sonata, a movement that epitomizes Brahms’ style. The fugal subject is derived from Bach’s Art of Fugue, and the movement weaves together a highly contrapuntal style with the exploitation of the possibilities inherent in sonata form. Through his study of fugue, Brahms became aware of his place within the Classical tradition, and the inspiration he drew from it resulted in the revitalization of classical form. 

Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin

As a young student, Nadia Boulanger discovered Maurice Ravel cheerfully writing counterpoint exercises in Fauré’s class. She recalled, “I had a surprise when I found myself in Fauré’s class and discovered Ravel was there, too, doing as I used to do then, traditional counterpoint. I didn’t always find it interesting, yet it seemed quite natural that Ravel should do it… It was only years later that I asked him why he was still studying counterpoint. ‘One must clean the house from time to time; I often do it that way,’ he replied.” Ravel’s devotion to the discipline of counterpoint and fugue provided the basis for his elegant and imaginative contrapuntal virtuosity. In fact, Ravel’s first-level entries in the Prix de Rome competitions between the years 1900 and 1905 were naturally five fugues. His engagement with strict contrapuntal forms continued in the piano suite Le Tombeau de Couperin, completed when he was discharged from military service in 1917. First performed by Marguerite Long in 1919, the audience was suitably surprised and impressed to discover that a meandering and jazz-inspired “Fugue” was part of the collection. 

The Esterházy castle

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) entered into the services of the Esterházy family as a court musician in 1761, and he would remain on the job for a total of 41 years. Much of his career was spent at the family’s remote estate, with Haydn reporting “Well, here I sit in my wilderness; forsaken, like some poor orphan, almost without human society… nobody is nearby who could distract me or confuse me about myself. I had no choice but had to become original.” Haydn had turned forty and was working on his six string quartets opus 20, when originality struck. Whereas in earlier efforts he would often fuse the viola and cello parts together in one musical line, he now made the fullest use of four completely independent voices. And one of the clearest ways of demonstrating complete independence of individual voices is to write strict counterpoint and fugues.

Haydn: Sun Quartets, Op. 20

For his opus 20, subsequently nicknamed “Sun Quartets” because the sun is displayed on the cover of the first edition, Haydn composed three fugal finales. Haydn was undoubtedly the leader of fugal composition and technique in the Classical era, and writing fugal finales also offered a brand new solution to the relative weighting of all movements. These fugues are not dry academic exercises, however, as Haydn greatly expanded the texture and dynamics and experimented with flexible phrase length and structure. Every measure is full of variety and unpredictability, with Haydn combining his extensive knowledge of historical sources with the furthest reaches of his brilliant musical imagination.

Beethoven: Sketches for the String Quartet Op. 131

As a young and eager student of music, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) received thorough instruction in counterpoint and fugal writing. During his early days in Vienna he even attracted attention by playing fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier on his recitals. Fugal passages are found in his early piano sonatas and also in the “Eroica,” but fugues did not take on a central role in Beethoven’s oeuvre until late in his career. No doubt you are familiar with the fugue in the Cello Sonata, Op. 102 No. 2, the technically devilish fugue in the “Hammerklavier,” the massive dissonant fugue published as “Große Fuge” Op. 133, and fugal passages in the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony. However, it is his Opus 131 string quartet that is considered the pinnacle of his creative output. Writing in 1870, Richard Wagner published a poetic description of the work, “Tis the dance of the whole world itself: wild joy, the wail of pain, love’s transport, utmost bliss, grief, frenzy, riot, suffering, the lightning flickers, thunders growl: and above it the stupendous fiddler who bears and bounds it all, who leads it haughtily from whirlwind into whirlwind, to the brink of the abyss – he smiles at himself, for to him this sorcery was the merest play—and night beckons him. His day is done.” Written during a period of immense personal suffering, the opening fugue has been called “the most superhuman piece of music that Beethoven has ever written.” It is like a mysterious vision of another universe and represents for some critics “the melancholiest sentiment ever expressed in music.”

Simon Sechter

A few months before his death, Franz Schubert (1797-1828) first laid eyes on a score of Handel oratorios. “Now for the first time,” he writes, “I see what I lack, but I will study hard with Sechter so that I can make good the omission.” Simon Sechter was probably Vienna’s most famous teacher of counterpoint, and he recalled, “A short time before Schubert’s last illness he came to me… in order to study counterpoint and fugue, because, as he put it, he realized that he needed coaching in these.”

Organ at Heiligenkreuz Monastary

Schubert only managed to have one lesson with Sechter, before he was taken severely ill. He wrote to a friend eight days later, “I am ill. I have had nothing to eat or drink for eleven days now, and can only wander feebly and uncertainly between armchair and bed.” One week later Schubert passed away. Around his lesson with Sechter and his untimely death, Schubert and his friend, the composer Franz Lachner, visited the Heiligenkreuz monastery south of Vienna. Apparently, it was Schubert who suggested that they each write a fugue for the famous organ, which they both did. The Schubert manuscript is lost, but a copy of the work, written in four staves instead of the normally three for organ, did survive. As such, it was first published in 1844 for organ or piano four-hand, but it might well be the case that this fugue represents the very last composition Schubert ever completed. 

Dmitri Shostakovich © Deutsche Fotothek

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) rapidly composed his Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues between 10 October 1950 and 25 February 1951. This polyphonic cycle is the first work composed in the twentieth century that follows the tradition and the dimension of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. The Shostakovich cycle embraces all twenty-four keys, however, it is organized around the circle of fifths, and not in chromatic ascending order like Bach. We know that Shostakovich played the Bach preludes and fugues as a young boy, and in 1950 he was an honorary member of the jury of a piano competition organized in Leipzig for the 200th anniversary of the death of Bach. Bach’s music, and especially the Well-Tempered Clavier, must have given Shostakovich a certain creative impulse and in conversation with some German musicians in Leipzig he exclaimed, “Why shouldn‘t we try to continue this wonderful tradition.” Back home, Shostakovich was in political hot water, fired from his teaching positions in Moscow and Leningrad, with his music officially banned from concerts and broadcast. In fact, he was on the verge of suicide, and he “decided to start working again… I am going to write a prelude and fugue every day. I shall take into consideration the experience of Johann Sebastian Bach.” As with Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, the fugue served as the vehicle for the expression of the most personal, intimate and uncompromising thoughts and feelings.

Maurice Ravel as a Young Man

by Siri Livingston  

Maurice Ravel was born on the 7th of March 1875, at Ciboure, a little fishing village at the base of the Pyrénées near the French-Spanish border. Members of Ravel’s family on the paternal side had emigrated to Switzerland, and Stravinsky’s sharp but witty barb – that Ravel was “the most perfect of Swiss watchmakers” in music and personality – led to a rather inaccurate association of Ravel with the Swiss by the general public. Indeed, Ravel had greater claims to Spanish roots than Swiss, his mother having spent her youth in Madrid, and his parents having met and fallen in love in Aranjuez, the romantic city known for its summer palace and gardens, as well as the concerto for guitar and orchestra, Concierto de Aranjuez.

Maurice Ravel

Shortly after Maurice was born, the family relocated to 40 rue des Martyrs, Montmartre, Paris. Soon, the happy couple had a second son, Edouard, of whom Ravel was deeply fond for his entire life. For, indeed, it was a happy little family – Ravel was exceptionally close to his mother, and Ravel’s father, a skilled engineer, was only too happy to encourage Ravel in his artistic pursuits. Edouard followed in his father’s footsteps and became an engineer, but on both sides of the family – the engineers and the artists – there seemed to be mutual interest and respect. Ravel noted in later years that his father had given him a strong amateur grounding in music and artistic taste, and in his music-related travels, Ravel was always sure to send news to his father and brother of any interesting technology he encountered.

In 1889, Ravel passed the entry exam to study piano at the Paris Conservatoire, and in the class of Eugène Anthiome met a key player in the story of his life and work. Ricardo Viñes, a young pianist who would one day become a leading interpreter of the music of Isaac Albéniz and Manuel de Falla, became fast friends with the young Maurice, and a tradition was born: their mothers would chatter away in Spanish while the young boys played piano duets. It was to Viñes that Ravel’s Menuet antique was dedicated, and Viñes premiered it at the Salle Érard in 1898.

Maurice Ravel: Menuet antique 

On the whole, however, Ravel’s experience of the Conservatoire was not an entirely smooth one. He remained at the Conservatoire for fourteen years, an unusually long time. He was not one to seek academic distinction for its own sake, and his resistance to conventional ideas and the imposition of others upon his style created various difficulties in entering and competing in the illustrious Prix de Rome on numerous occasions.

While he did win prizes for piano and advanced to better classes in both piano and harmony, Ravel began to feel he had learnt what he could from the Conservatoire, and was expelled for this attitude in 1895 – the first of several expulsions for failure to adhere closely to the Conservatoire’s rigid rules. It was in studying with composer Gabriel Fauré that Ravel found a way of being at the Conservatoire that truly suited him, and the composer became a treasured friend and mentor when Ravel renewed his studies in 1898.

Maurice Ravel with Ricardo Viñes, 1901

In addition to Fauré, at a young age, Ravel had already identified three musical figures who were his greatest compositional inspirations: Emmanuel Chabrier, Erik Satie, and Mozart. In a lecture given in 1928, Ravel said of Satie:

“Satie possessed an extremely alert intelligence, keyed to inventiveness… [he] pointed the way with simplicity and ingenuity; but as soon as another musician followed his lead, Satie immediately changed his own direction and then, without hesitation, opened a fresh way to new fields or experiment… we have today… many a work which would not have existed had Satie not lived.”

Ravel’s next work to be premiered for the public was his Shéhérazade, an overture to a projected but abandoned opera, and his first work for orchestra. The work was not well received, and Ravel himself dismissed it as “clumsy hotch-potch.” His next serious commission has become one of Ravel’s best-known and beloved works: the Pavane pour une infante défunte. For solo piano and dedicated to his patron, the Princesse de Polignac, the piece is not, as many incorrectly assume, a pavan for a deceased child. Rather, the “enfant” here refers to “infanta,” or princess, and the “défunte” refers less to literal death than to a bygone age or the distant past. As such, the work is a kind of otherworldly, surreal imagining of the dance of a princess of a lost age, and Ravel often wittily chided pianists who played it too slowly by saying it was the princess, not the pavane itself, that was dead. The work is incredibly harmonically rich and showcases Ravel’s profound understanding of the timbral qualities of chord spacings at the piano. Its charm, carefully constructed inner voicings, and delicate interplay of line have made it an enjoyable and accessible challenge for generations of pianists.

In the pavane we also see emergent preoccupations that were to be Ravel’s for the rest of his life – his enjoyment of old dance style and form, his fascination with the heritage of both Spain and France, and his deliberate assimilation of arcane soundworlds into his musical style. At the turn of the century, armed with a strong sense of his own musical interests and sensibility, Ravel was poised and ready to earn his lifelong stature as a great composer – but there were still some bumps in the road ahead…