The Sound of Summer Rain in Classical Music Vivaldi, Rameau, Beethoven, Grofé and Whitacre

by Maureen Buja, Interlude  

 

Channeling the sound and fury of nature through an orchestra gives everyone, from the composer to the conductor to the orchestra (primarily the string section) a thorough workout.

Antonio Vivaldi: The Four Seasons – Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 8 (Summer)

© unripecontent.com

One of the most familiar of storms is in the third movement of Vivaldi’s Summer concerto from the Four Seasons (1720).

The sonnet that goes with the concertos sets this up at the end of the first verse: ‘Soft breezes stir the air, but threatening | the North Wind sweeps them suddenly aside. |The shepherd trembles, | fearing violent storms and his fate’. And then, in the 3rd verse: ‘The Heavens thunder and roar and with hail | Cut the head off the wheat and damages the grain’. And starting with rain in the violins, the heavens open.

Jean-Philippe Rameau: Platée – Act I Scene 6 – Orage

Jean-Paul Fouchécourt as Platée, 2000 (City Opera)

In Rameau’s 1745 opera Platée, two storms set the beginning and end of Act I. In an attempt to cure Jupiter’s wife of her jealousy, Mercury comes and tells the king of Greece that the opening storm has been caused by Juno’s jealousy. The King proposes a false love affair between Jupiter and Platée, a marsh nymph of outstanding ugliness.

Every time Juno is angered, another storm breaks out and the one at the end of Act I is a magnificent work of lightning flashes and drowning rain.

Rameau wrote the work for the wedding celebrations of Louis, Dauphin of France, son of King Louis XV of France, to the Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain. Despite having an opera based on marital infidelity and deceiving one’s spouse, the opera was popular and resulted in Rameau’s appointment shortly after the celebration to the position of Composer of the King’s Chamber Music.

Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 6 in F Major, “Pastoral” – IV. Thunderstorm: Allegro

© behance.net

For his fourth movement Thunderstorm in his Pastoral Symphony, Beethoven used an orchestra that could do thunder (cellos and double basses), rain (violins), more thunder (timpani), lightning strikes (piccolo), and all of the other accompanying sounds and actions of a really good storm. At the end, the storm passes, with occasional grumbles of thunder in the distance.

Ferde Grofé: Grand Canyon Suite – V. Cloudburst

Ferde Grofé’s 1931 work The Grand Canyon Suite, gives us the sound and fury of a storm in the American West. The previous movement was Sunset and so this movements continues the stillness until suddenly, there are flashes of lightning, down bursts of rain in the piano, thunder in the timpani, and suddenly, we’re in the middle of a full-blown storm. But, as the title says, it’s a cloudburst so just a quick 3-minute flash storm, and then the sunset returns, fighting its way through the clouds.

Eric Whitacre: Cloudburst

Although we’ve seen how orchestras create rainstorms, one of the most innovative of modern composers, Eric Whitacre, has given us a magnificent choral storm in his 1991 work Cloudburst. The song text by Octavio Paz is El cántaro roto (The Broken Water-Jar) and is a reflection on water and no water, dust and the burnt earth, until the rain awakens. The chorus is augmented by two thunder sheets and a bass drum, but it is the chorus itself, through finger snaps and hand claps, that brings the storm to us and then it recedes.

Cloudbursts, slashing rain, echoing thunder, and bright flashes are these rainstorms. Use it to cool off from the summer heat, or to water the thirsty plants. It can be a welcome relief or an overwhelming flood, but no matter where it comes, it’s necessary to all life.

Weird and Wonderful: Discovering Classical Music with a Difference

by Maureen Buja, Interlude

Sometimes composer break out of their box – make a new sound – make you hear music a new way – and sometimes it’s the performers who help as well. Take a listen to these performances and these interesting works from a variety of composers from the Renaissance period to today.

We’re so used to hearing BIG Beethoven. Large chords, rhythms that never seem to end, dramatic statements. But what happens if you change the means of performance? Is this the way you imagined the Moonlight Sonata? 

© Wikipedia

Luciano Berio was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for a work for its 125th anniversary, for its 1968-69 season. He gave them Sinfonia, for orchestra and 8 amplified voices, to create not a history of music, but a distorted history of culture. The third movement is a mélange of musical quotation and text quotations. The movement starts with extensive quotations from Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, a composer championed by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic. The orchestra also plays ‘snatches of Claude Debussy’s La mer, Maurice Ravel’s La valse, Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, as well as quotations from Arnold Schoenberg, Anton Webern, Johannes Brahms, Henri Pousseur, Paul Hindemith, and many others (including Berio himself)…’.The voices recite texts by Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, stage directions, with the original word sometimes changed or juxtaposed with other texts. 

We all know the third movement of Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2. It’s the somber Marche funebre. A funeral march at a Lento speed. What may not be so familiar is the next movement. The speed is Presto, the touch is legato, the dynamics muted, and the notes unceasing until the final note, which strikes, as a writer said, as a ‘blow from the executioner’s axe’. 

One work that on first hearing you’d have a hard time to even place it with the correct composer, let alone get the date of composition correct, is Maurice Ravel’s 1918 work for piano, Frontispice (Frontispiece). It’s for 2 pianos, but 2 pianos and 5 hands. The two pianos are in different meters: piano 1 starting in 15/8 and Piano 2 enters one measure later in 5/4. The pianos provide overlapping melodic lines that are completely independent. The piece was written as a prelude to a reading of Ricciotto Canudo’s poem S.P. 503 Le poème de Vardar, where the author reflects on his war experiences. 

We know Liszt: bravura piano music, melodically driven, constantly innovating, and then when we look at his Bagatelle sans tonalite, S. 216a (earlier titles included Bluette fantasque and Mephisto Walzer Nr. 4 (ohne Tonart), we have a work of ambiguous harmony. There are echoes of the earlier Mephisto Waltzes, but this seems to remain outside – almost a commentary on his own work.

Can you guess what unusual sound generator is used at the beginning of Arvo Pärt’s Symphony No. 2? 

Yes, those were rubber ducks, and later, there’s crackling cellophane paper. Written in 1966, this work was part of Pärt’s early serialist style.

George Crumb: Vox Balaenae score © FANDOM Music Community

American composer George Crumb was inspired by one of the largest animals on Earth for this work from 1971. Vox Balaenae (Voice of the Whale) requires the players to be anonymized by wearing black half-masks through their performance. Written for amplified flute, cello, and piano, the work requires that the flautist both plays and sings at the same time, and the cellist uses glissandos in an ultra-high register to imitate the cries of seagulls. 

Dowland’s lute music set the style for the English court – melancholic but always melodic. We somehow always imagine these as somewhat dry pieces, performed by a lutenist to himself as his best audience. However, in one work, he guaranteed that the performer would be able to get as close as possible to his audience. His work, My Lord Chamberlain, His Galliard, was published in his First Book of Songs in 1597. This work is written for 1 lute, but two performers (or in piano-speak: 1 lute, 4 hands.

Conlon Nancarrow: Player Piano © Whitney Museum of American Art

What happens when you have a vision for the music you want to play but it’s literally impossible for a single person with two hands and 10 fingers to play? For American composer Conlon Nancarrow, he transferred his music from a regular piano to a player piano. Mixed time signatures? No problem. Notes that are impossibly fast? No problem. More than 10 keys being played at once? No problem.

The composer and humourist Peter Schickele, in his manifestation as P.D.Q. Bach (the oddest of J.S. Bach’s 20-odd children), gave us a work that is almost too familiar to talk about, but in presenting it with the vapid commentary of a baseball game, gave us a different way to hear Beethoven. It’s a legitimate analysis, with all the familiar sports metaphors, but with a commentary that doesn’t miss a note.

 Music – we have lots of way of appreciating it – sometimes seriously, sometimes with humour – but always with an understanding that there’s lots of it out there to discover!

John Williams hints at retirement from film music, says new score might be his last

Composer John Williams. Picture: Getty

By Kyle Macdonald, ClassicFM

 

In a new interview, the legendary film music composer suggests he might be writing his final score.

Movie music maestro John Williams has given his strongest hint yet at retirement, and that film music’s greatest and most illustrious career might be nearing its final chapter.

In an interview published on Thursday by Associated Press, the 90-year-old reflected on his work in film. Williams said “At the moment I’m working on Indiana Jones 5, which Harrison Ford – who’s quite a bit younger than I am – I think has announced will be his last film.”

He then hinted it may be the same case for him: “I thought: If Harrison can do it, then perhaps I can, also.”

A Star Wars film demands six months of work, he said. “At this point in life [that] is a long commitment to me.”

Read more: 10 of John Williams’ all-time greatest film themes, ranked

Alongside the score to Indiana Jones 5, Williams is currently devoting himself to composing more music for the concert hall, including a piano concerto for long-time collaborator and friend, American virtuoso pianist Emanuel Ax. In the interview, the composer also mused on music and life. “Music can raise one’s thinking to the level of poetry,” he said.

“We can reflect on how necessary music has been for humanity. I always like to speculate that music is older than language, that we were probably beating drums and blowing on reeds before we could speak. So it’s an essential part of our humanity.”

“It’s given me my life.”

John Williams and Steven Spielberg in 2016. Picture: Getty

Williams also reflected on his long-standing creative friendship with director Steven Spielberg.“It’s been 50 years now. Maybe we’re starting on the next 50,” the composer said Williams with a laugh. “Whatever our connections will be, whether it’s music or working with him or just being with him, I think we will always be together.”

John Williams is the most prolific and widely honoured living composer of film music and holds the record for being the most Oscar-nominated living person. So far he has received 59 Oscar nods during his lifetime, and won five of them.

And although he is thinking about final film scores, it also sounds as if a compositional door will always be open from the prolific composer. “I don’t want to be seen as categorically eliminating any activity,” Williams said.

And with characteristic good humour added, “I can’t play tennis, but I like to be able to believe that maybe one day I will.”

A Variety of Opera Singers in Ceramic

by Maureen Buja , Interlude 

The ceramic modeler Johann Joachim Kändler designed many music objects for the porcelain maker Meissen. In addition to the figures of the singer with the fox at the keyboard, he also did other figurines of singers.

This group of two singers at the Metropolitan Museum, created by Kändler has been identified as Madame de Pompadour and the Prince de Rohan singing in the opera Acis and Galatea, in a production that took place at Versailles in 1749. However, in the record books of Kändler, we find that this group dates from 1744. Now we can start to look for other points of inspiration.

Two opera singers (Metropolitan Museum)

We know of Kändler’s familiarity with the opera scene at the Dresden court and if we look at the designs for Hasse’s opera Antigono, which was staged in Dresden in 1744, we see a male costume much like what is shown here.

Francesco Ponte: Antigono: design for the character Learco, 1744

The costume he’s wearing was normally that of a Roman character. The costume and the plumed helmet are his identity as a classical and heroic figure. The wide scalloped skirt, the tonnelet, was worn by both male singers and ballet dancers and was a common stage costume.

When we look through other collections of Kändler’s work, we find other representations of the two singers from the production house of Meissen, such as this one that came up for auction in 2015.

Two Opera Singers, Bonhams

The auction house, Bonhams, says this was styled on Kändler’s original but doesn’t say that it’s his model. If we look at the two in comparison, we see some differences. Now her right hand has been turned down instead of up, his face is at a different angle, his feathers are smaller, her dress has a cut-out on the bottom of her dress, her fur collar is gone, etc. The whole style seems rougher and also lacks the dimensional flower details on the stand.

In some versions, the two figures have been separated to create a very different image.

Two Opera Singers, Christies

He still has the same headgear and tonnelet, but he no longer grips his sword, his right hand is posed in a much more romantic gesture towards his heart while his left hand is now behind his back. Her dress is much larger and more dramatic, with her tiny waist being emphasized.

What’s of interest are all the variants we’ve found on just one Meissen design by Kändler. It speaks to the popularity of opera and of the Dresden court that we’ve seen Kändler document before.

The composer of choice at the Dresden court was Johann Adolph Hasse. He wrote the opera Didone Abbandonata in 1742 for the birthday of August III, the Elector of Saxony and King of Poland. Hasse had been kapellmeister to the Dresden court since 1731. His wife, mezzo-soprano Faustina Bordoni, prima donna of the court opera, took the role of Didone.

The final aria is her death scene, rewritten for the performance at the Dresden Carnival in 1743. At the premiere, in the August III’s hunting lodge at Hubertusberg, the stage was too small to accommodate the closing scene of Didone dying before the flames of burning Carthage, so Didone’s death was simply announced by Genderal Osmida.

Johann Adolph Hasse: Didone abbandonata – Act III Scene 7: Aria: Cadra fra poco in cenere il suo nascente impero (Iarba) – Scene 8: Numi, onde l’ira in sen tutta mi piomba (Didone, Selene, Araspe) – Final Scene: Ah che dissi, infelice! (Didone) (Valer Barna-Sabadus, Iarba; Theresa Holzhauser, Didone; Magdalena Hinterdobler, Selene; Maria Celeng, Araspe; Hofkapelle Munchen; Michael Hofstetter, cond.)

Another opera singer in Dresden that Kändler modeled was the castrato Domenico Annibali, who was another one of the star singers in Hasse’s operas.

Anton Raphael Mengs: Domenico Annibali

As part of a series of court figures, Kändler made this model of Annibali.

Kändler: Opera Figure – Domenico Annibali, ca. 1750

If we try and imagine the market for these figurines, we have to remember all those glass cabinets with glass shelves, designed to show off your exquisite taste in porcelain. Meissen’s discovery of the Chinese secret of porcelain making opened up an entire market to local wares.

Youngest ever Van Cliburn winner moved Marin Alsop to tears with this rapturous Rachmaninov

 By Siena Linton, ClassicFM

 

The legendary conductor was seen wiping away tears as Yunchan Lim thundered through the finale of Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto.

Six competitors went head-to-head at the weekend in the final round of the sixteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas.

Over four days from 14 to 18 June, each of the finalists brought two concertos to the stage to perform with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under the baton of legendary conductor Marin Alsop.

18-year-old South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim was one of three finalists to select Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto, which he performed during the third concert of the final round on Friday 17 June.

Throughout the competition, Lim performed a wide range of works by Bach to Beethoven, Chopin to Scriabin, including a highly praised rendition of Liszt’s Transcendental Études. But it was his final performance of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.3 which would seal his victory.

Lim stormed his way through the finale of Rachmaninov’s mighty work, as Marin Alsop attentively directed the orchestra in keeping with the young pianist’s impressive pace. Alsop could be seen nodding in approval as Lim expertly transitioned from dramatic cadenzas to the sweeping Romantic themes that Rachmaninov is known and loved for.

As Lim finished the piece in a sensational flourish, the world-class conductor could be seen wiping tears from her eyes.

The two performers hugged in a touching moment, and as Lim went to thank the first row of violinists, Alsop could be seen both nodding her head in approval, and shaking it in disbelief, as she and the orchestra marvelled at the young talent. Watch Lim’s full performance below.

Marin Alsop herself was jury chair of the competition, on a panel that also included celebrated names of the piano world, including Stephen Hough, who was recently recognised in The Queen’s Birthday Honours, and Jean-Efflam Bavouzet.

Speaking to Classic FM, Alsop said, “What a joy to be part of this inspiring and compelling performance. Yunchan is that rare artist who brings profound musicality and prodigious technique organically together. The fact that he is only 18 years old is truly awe-inspiring and gives me great hope for the future”.

Lim’s selection as a finalist already made a mark in the prestigious competition’s history books, as the youngest competitor to progress to that stage of the competition, and on Saturday 18 June it was announced that he had been awarded the gold medal.

As winner of the competition, Lim will receive $100,000 (£81,660) and three years of additional support in his career. Second place went to Russian pianist Anna Geniushene, 31, with Ukrainian pianist Dmytro Choni, 28, taking the bronze medal.

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.

   Read more: 10 of Bach’s all-time best pieces of music

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?

   Read more: Definitively the 20 greatest Beethoven works of all time

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.

   Read more: 10 life-changing pieces of music by Mozart

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.

8. Wagner: The Ring Cycle

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.