#early20th

"Symphony in One Movement" (Symphony No.1)  Samuel Barber (1910-1981)

And so after a brief visit to Austria, we are back on American soil, where we'll listen to and briefly explore the first symphony from another giant among American composers, the very distinguished Samuel Barber.

I should mention that I was inspired to listen to this piece after reading an article Marin Alsop contributed to NPR.org, entitled, "Building a Career On Barber, the Enigmatic American". It should come as no surprise that the woman who gives (and gives and gives) us such wonderfully nuanced performances of American music as the conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra would also have a robust insight (and matching verbal expression of same) into the uniqueness of these composers. Ms. Alsop, if I may, you are an American treasure.

The Composer

Born in West Chester, Pennsylvania, Barber showed an early musical aptitude that landed him at the famed Curtis Institute in Philadelphia at only 14 years of age.

His early prodigiousness positioned him for wide success at a relatively young age: premieres by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Vladimir Horowitz, Leontyne Price, and Francis Poulenc; accolades and support from Toscanini, Rodzinsky, and Koussevitzky (again!); and a quiver full of familiar awards:

two Pulitzer Prizes (for his first opera, Vanessa, and his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra

the Prix de Rome

fellowship in the American Academy of Arts and Letters 

"Symphony in One Movement"

I read a little bit of information on this piece while I was listening to it (unfortunately, "a little" is all I could find, as many of the books to which I refer are from the middle of the last century, and don't give much attention to these younger composers). I appreciated reading Barber's own notes, where he spoon-fed the location of the three melodic themes he uses throughout the composition. I am embarrassed to say that because of my lack of formal education in such things, I rarely pick up on these themes unless I'm looking at and marking a score, or have someone point them out for me. I suppose I'm perhaps a "macro" listener for the most part, without a score. Very much "micro" with one handy. I suppose that makes me like most people.

Anyway, it's the second theme that really grabbed my interest; presented at first (and then again later) by a solitary oboe over muted strings, the theme starts with a tritone, and continues to float upward—a tension and subsequent melodic contour that suggests growth or a hard-won optimism. 

Alsop says that Barber was vilified by some of his contemporaries for his "unabashed affinity for Romantic thought and tradition." I suppose that explains the draw toward Barber for me, and my almost total enjoyment of this work. Barber seems to have mastered the tools that composers like Brahms and Mahler used to express complex and intense emotions. This symphony displays a sense of balance and restraint that borders on elegance throughout. 

As I listen to more and more (particularly American) symphonies and other sundry works, I'll be looking to throw out some interesting programming ideas involving many of these pieces. For now, it will have to suffice to say that if I had between one and three years worth of spaces to fill, I would certainly make room for this piece. Perhaps alongside some Joan Tower. I don't know. We'll see. Thanks, as always, for reading.

More on Barber

Here is that really nice article that Ms. Alsop wrote for NPR.

Recordings Used

It only seemed right to use Maestro Alsop's Naxos recording of the Barber symphony, after linking to an article where she mentions the project:

Symphony No.3 "An American Panorama" Roy Harris (1898-1979)

The hits keep on coming: today, another Pulitzer Prize-winning 20th Century American composer who got a big bump from Serge Koussevitzky. Also, another Symphony No.3, by far the most frequently heard symphony by any composer yet profiled here (6 of 11 entries).

Incidentally, when a symphony is titled An American Panorama, I expect it to make me feel like Eustace Conway. This one darn near did.

  The Composer

Roy Harris' early composition training came from Arthurs Bliss and Farwell, and upon Aaron Copland's recommendation, was able to go to Paris for a couple of years to study with Nadia Boulanger (an important rite of passage for many young composers of the time, it seems).

Upon his return, he formed fruitful alliances with Howard Hanson (profiled here in an earlier post) and Serge Koussevitzky, both of whom provided him outlets (Eastman and the BSO) for the performance of his compositions.

He held multiple professorships across the country, most notably at Wesminster Choir College and the Juilliard School, and counted American composer William Schuman among his pupils.

Symphony No.3

According to Neil Butterworth's The American Symphony, Harris's Symphony No.3 was originally a commission for Hans Kindler at the National Symphony Orchestra, but Harris ultimately pulled it and gave it to (who else?) Serge Koussevitsky at the BSO instead. Not really a high-integrity move, but certainly a strong career decision at the time, as we have seen with other composers I've written about here.

I had always assumed that Aaron Copland was the de facto soundtrack to America's National Parks, but after listening to Mr. Harris's An American Panorama, I'm not so sure. This is another piece that is very kind to the sensibilities of the less-knowledgeable concertgoer, with lots of payoff throughout in the form of broad, mellifluous lines that evoke the plains in the middle of the American continent. That is not to say that it shouldn't appeal to veteran concertgoers; indeed I'd imagine that this is a piece that almost everyone can agree on. Turns out Bernstein was a huge fan, anyway.

An American Panorama begins with a gorgeous, plaintive cello theme (Tragic)—the kind of music that I imagine cowboys on the frontier used to play around campfires, tired from a long day of carrying their celli around on horseback. The mournful celli are soon replaced by the upper strings, and we hear some long, lovely phrases from the upper strings while the lower strings add a pizzicato undercurrent.

The second movement (Lyric) is very brief, and sounds to me more like a protracted modulation than its own musical thought. This illusion is created by a lot of chromatic movement in the lower voices (sounds like some sub-V action there), and continued in the earliest part of the third movement, where a motif of down-m2nd-up-4th appears.

The third movement (Pastoral) is characterized by this wonderful modal call and response that sounds a little like what might happen if your younger sibling with a good (but not great) ear tried to play back the first line after you played it. It's a whimsical and compelling stretch of music.

Movement four (Fugue-Dramatic) reminds me somehow of some works of Grainger. And Copland. And of the Lone Ranger. I'm sorry, I can't help it. The motif is based around an interval of a 4th (to drive the point home, we're treated to a delightfully Anglican stacked-4ths riff early on). This gives a great deal of bounce to this movement, and really helps to build momentum and drama heading into the finale.

The fifth movement (Dramatic-Tragic) is sort largely an anti-climax, but includes perhaps my favorite melodic passage in the entire work [1-5-1-3-2... 7-5-7-2----...]. The symphony itself kind of ends in a whimper, which isn't altogether out of character for the rest of the work, which is less heroic and more romantic-underbelly-of-heroism. Not off-putting at all. Merely saying, is all.

One of the nice things about this piece from a novice concertgoer's perspective is that it is played without breaks between movements, so there's no worry about being scoffed at for applauding in the "incorrect" place. It is also very short, clocking in at right around 16.5 minutes--well within my attention span, even on my worst day.

In summary, this piece is easily going to fall into my "listen again often" pile. Where some may hear schmaltz, I hear a keen lyric sensibility, and an unabashed sense of wonder, which I identify with, and which is tragically out of vogue in some circles nowadays. It's the kind of music I want to hear even when I'm mentally wiped out, which is often when I end up going to the symphony anyway. (I think there may be a post on that aspect of programming forthcoming... from a theoretical standpoint, of course, since I don't program anything right now, apart from this blog)

Anyway, listen. You should listen to this piece.

Recordings Used

Symphony No.2 "Romantic", Op. 30 Howard Hanson (1896-1981)

I don't feel as though I have the time or space to say everything about this composer or symphony that I'd like to. Suffice it to say I found him the same way I found Ellen Taaffe Zwilich: by browsing the list of Pulitzer Prize winners in music. And I found a recording under a familiar conductor/orchestra: Gerard Schwarz conducting the Seattle Symphony.

  The Composer

 Howard Hanson is another American composer I'm ashamed not to have known about. An active composer and conductor, he was hand-picked by George Eastman to be the director of the conservatory in upstate New York that bore his name. Hanson help that post and is largely responsible for the stellar (deservedly so) reputation it has attained since then. 

One of Hanson's guiding principles as director was that the faculty at Eastman be evenly divided between American and European professors, a philosophy that cost Bela Bartok (who wanted to teach piano, instead of composition) an appointment there.

His Symphony No.2 ("Romantic") was a commission from Serge Koussevitzky in honor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 50th Anniversary. More on that piece later. Additionally, his Symphony No.4 ("Requiem") won the Pulitzer Prize in Music in 1944. He wrote a total of seven symphonies, one opera (more on that later), and many works for band, chorus, chamber ensembles, and solo keyboard.

Symphony No.2 "Romantic"   This symphony is, in almost every possible way, a quintessential American Romantic symphony. It features all of the drama and grandeur and hummable melodies of the works we associate with the Romantic period, but uses harmonic structure--and again, that cinematic feel--that seems to mark the creations of 20th Century American composers.

In the 1st Movement, almost definitely not by accident, Hanson gives a nod to the 2nd Symphony of Johannes Brahms, which made me smile. (That is one of my very favorite symphonies--and the one the Nashville Symphony played when my wife and I had our first date.) No surer way, I think, to justify the "Romantic" moniker than by quoting an exceedingly famous composer from the period.

A composer friend of mine who has a background in drum corps says that for arrangers in that idiom, the guideline is "a payoff every 20-30 seconds". I realize that this guideline wasn't in place in 1930 (or ever, in this idiom), but it seems that Hanson wants to similarly reward his listeners. Something really nice happens every 30-60 seconds throughout the entire work. (example: at ~11:00*, there's one of those resolutions that feels like the split second of zero-gravity on the other side of the roller coaster's crest. I'm a sucker for these moments.)

The second movement maintains the cinematic luster of the first, and reminds me again of the popular arrangements of Nelson Riddle and Vic Schoen.

[I want to take a moment to note, on the eve of his stepping down from the podium there, how beautifully the Seattle Symphony plays American music under Gerard Schwarz. Bravo, Maestro. What unbelievable facility, and an admirable commitment to wonderful and sometimes overlooked repertoire.]

The 3rd movement has hints of Holst (and dare I say John Williams? Maybe I'm hearing things.) and plenty of interesting thematic material to hum for an hour or two afterward.

In my opinion, this is the most palatable of all the symphonies I've blogged about so far in terms of the uninitiated audience. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there likely wouldn't be a disappointed or ambivalent patron in the house at a concert featuring this piece. I'm not kidding. Will you program it, please? 

More on Hanson's 2nd

(1) * - This moment of which I speak turns out to be a rather famous theme, and has been for years known as the "Interlochen Theme", having been played at the close of each concert at that Music Academy each summer for quite some time. An excellent choice.

The theme reminds me of Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade", which was written about 9 years later. Anyone else?

(2) Hanson wrote an opera (1934's Merry Mount) that has been called the first truly American opera (American composer, American librettist, American story). Interestingly, it still holds the record for number of curtain calls--an astonishing 50--at the Metropolitan Opera from its premiere there in '34.

[A recording of its premiere was released by Naxos Records, but is not available for sale in the US for copyright reasons. An updated version, conducted by--who else--Gerard Schwarz is available from Naxos Records, and available for streaming from the Naxos Music Library.]

(3) In a Mahleresque sweep of personal romanticism (a similar story accompanies the Adagietto from Mahler's 5th symphony), Hanson composed and dedicated his Serenade for Flute, Harp, and Strings to Margaret Elizabeth Nelson as his marriage proposal to her, having been otherwise unable to find the words to express his sentiments on that occasion.

(4) Frederick Fennell, conductor of the Eastman Wind Ensemble, called his Chorale and Alleluia "the most awaited piece of music to be written for the wind band in my twenty years as a conductor in this field." Not a bad endorsement. The piece is evidently still on the required list for academic bands competing in NYSSMA contests.

[All information here is gleaned from that scholarly resource of the highest caliber, Wikipedia. Ha.]

Recordings Used

Symphony of Psalms Igor Stravinsky (b.1882-1971)

My first exposure to Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms was performing it with the Nashville Symphony and Chorus. It shared a bill with Rachmaninoff's The Bells, and remains one of my favorite works that we've done with that group.

One of the things that I loved so much about the piece was that Stravinsky used the chorus and orchestra in such a complementary fashion that you scarcely noticed when one ended and the other began. Maestro Guerrero said of the Mahler Symphony No.2 that Mahler used the chorus as just another instrument in the orchestra in that piece. It seems to me that Stravinsky did much the same thing here.

I also loved the vivid images that went through my mind when we sang. I'll try to share those (or at least the ones that come up now) in my discussion below.

The Composer

I love Stravinsky. The more I listen to him, the more I realize he's one of those mad cats who can bridge the gap for those of us who want to evangelize about orchestral music to an indie rock culture.

He seemed like a really interesting guy (minus the whole fascist sympathies thing): Born in Russia (raised in St. Petersburg—there's the shout-out to my sister), he became a naturalized French citizen, then naturalized American citizen, named one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of the 20th Century, studied with Rimsky-Korsakov, counted Leopold Stokowski among his benefactors, had an extramarital side-thing with Coco Chanel (NOT endorsed by this blogger, but certainly interesting), and... oh, heck, there's no shortage of material written on him, but it wouldn't hurt to start with his Wikipedia entry.

One thing that kills me about Stravinsky is that he's a huge name who, if you stop to think about it, will remind you that music "history" wasn't all that long ago. I mean, Gershwin was a contemporary, for one. And he died in '71. After, say, JFK. I mean, this guy was just hanging around yesterday.

There has got to be some way to communicate this better to young audiences. I'd hate to see him thrown in with Beethoven and Mozart and the like... one of those impossibly old guys we could never appreciate (unless we were rich or old).

Symphony of Psalms

One great thing about this choral piece is that, like Carmina Burana, it doesn't waste any time getting to the payoff. (In my opinion, the whole piece is a payoff, but at any rate...) The opening movement is 3 minutes of drama and pathos that rivals any of the pieces we typically think of in that category (say, "O Fortuna" from Carmina, or the "Dies Irae" from Verdi's Requiem). It opens with one of Stravinsky's beloved ostinati—this one an arpeggiated diminished 7 chord in the bassoon (a theme introduced in the opening bars, then clipped for this purpose) while the chorus sings the "Exaudi". The text is Psalm 39:12-13: "Hear my cry, O LORD, listen to my cry for help; do not be deaf to my weeping." and so on), and Stravinsky gives this text all the musical urgency it deserves.

The second movement eases off the gas a bit to deliver Psalm 40:1-3 ("I waited patiently for the LORD... He lifted me out of the slimy pit... He set my feet upon a rock..."). Of course, these are the Psalms, and things rarely ever stay placid in the Psalms (you ever notice how moody David was?). About three quarters of the way in, we're back to full-fledged desperation. And it's awesome, and I mean awesome in the Biblical sense.

The third movement (Psalm 50) features three or four primary choral themes, each of which is executed to stunning effect:

A gentle and tense "Alleluia" followed by "laudate Dominum" in octaves (1) that gets passed around over a simple ostinato. From here, we move into another setting of "laudate Dominum" (2) that—as masterful as it is—reminded me of how young a cappella arrangers sometimes want so badly to fit a line of text into a background part that they'll completely ignore the stresses in the words in order to cram that sucker in there.

Here of course, Stravinsky uses the device intentionally, and to almost hypnotic effect. It reminds me of the moments immediately following the opening of the aforementioned "Dies Irae"... a cruel, almost mocking, calm after the storm.

Anyway, out of this hypnotic state, the gray seems to fade, clouds part, and in this new light, we hear this beautiful fugue (3)—some of the most gorgeous lines you'll ever hear—that suddenly but almost imperceptibly gives way to what sounds like the soundtrack to a mad, morbid carnival (4), a Rufus Wainwright-meets-Strauss-at-Disney tune that gives one the sense of suspended animation, or maybe even 'super-slo-mo'. And if it's possible, this section is even more beautiful than the fugue. I get chills every time. Such restraint from composer, chorus, orchestra, conductor—as if teetering perilously on a high wire, where a single note overplayed or over-sung may send the whole thing arse-over-tip to the ground 40 feet below.

[I hope you can forgive the delusions this piece inspires in me. I assure you these are the very images that passed through my head as we sang it, and I'll never forget it as long as I live.]

And then, the same way we started, we end with the delicate (and impossibly soft) "Alleluia". You can feel that dissonance at the base of your neck. And then the stoic, "Laudate dominum" in octaves. Ugh.

Listen. Go and see. Do what you have to, but experience. this. piece.

More Stravinsky

On my other Tumblr, I once re-blogged this touching photo of Stravinsky placing flowers on the grave of Jean Sibelius, at Sibelius' home in Finland in 1961.

Recordings Used