Download Later Nationalists - Northern State University

Later Nationalists
Within the Mainstream of early Twentieth Century Music there are a group of composers
who:
 Moved by the spirit of nationalism
 Blended folk music or other national characteristics into a cosmopolitan musical
style, or
 Provided leadership within their home countries toward either a musical
renaissance
1)
Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
a)
Spanish music had inspired French and Russian composers who used
Spanish elements (dances, rhythms, melodies which were either
borrowed or emulated Spanish folk song). Examples include Bizet
(Carmen), Chabrier (Espana), Rimsky-Korsakov (Capriccio
Espagnol), Glinka (Nights in the Gardens of Spain), Lalo (Symphonie
Espagnol), Ravel (Bolero), and many others.
b)
Falla was the principal Spanish composer of the early 20th century. His
major works include:
i)
La vida breve (1904-1913), opera
ii)
El Amor brujo (1915), ballet
iii)
El Sombrero de tres picos (1916-1919), ballet
iv)
El Retablo de maeso Pedro (1919-1923)
2)
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
a) The first great English composer had been Purcell, after whom the British
tended to import their composers from the Continent, as they did with
Handel, attempted with Haydn, and followed with the championing of the
music of Mendelssohn, Dvorak, and others.
b) The British musical renaissance began with Edward Elgar (1857-1934).
Elgar’s most successful work was Variations on an Original Theme
(Enigma), which he composed at age 42. Other important works of Elgar’s
include the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, Symphonies Nos. 1 and The
Dream of Gerontius, a choral work inspired by Wagner’s Parsifal, based
on a poem by the Catholic poet John Henry Newman. Elgar also
composed important violin and cello concerti.
c) With Vaughan Williams it took a nationalist direction. Williams:
i)
Studied from Ravel
ii)
Collected and published 100s of English folksongs
iii)
Used authentic folk melodies in numerous original
compositions, including Variants on Dives and Lazarus.
The composer wrote that these variants are not “replicas”
of traditional tunes, but are reminiscences of different
versions of the folksong. Vaughan Williams composed the
piece while he was working on his Fifth Symphony. It was
premiered at the World’s Fair of 1939. The English ballad
1
3)
4)
5)
Dives and Lazarus is associated with the English folksong
is known as The Star of the County Down.
iv)
Vaughan Williams was also the editor of English Hymnal
v)
In Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, he used a Tallis
hymn in the Phrygian mode, using antiphonal effects,
modal scales, and chord streaming.
Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)—the leading Czech composer after Smetana and
Dvorak. Janáček was Moravian by birth, and used the rhythms and inflections
of his native language to construct a highly individual musical style. His
principal works include the operas Jenǔfa, The Cunning Little Vixen, The
Makropulos Affair, and From the House of the Dead. His most famous
instrumental work is Sinfonietta (1926).
Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)—the leading Scandinavian composer after Grieg.
Like Verdi, Sibelius’s music became identified with the Finnish cause.
Sibelius composed tone poems such as Kullervo and The Swan of Tuonela
based on Finnish legend. His tone poem Finlandia became the national
anthem. Sibelius composed seven symphonies, a violin concerto, and
incidental music to a number of plays including Shakespeare’s Tempest and
Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Sibelius’s symphonic style is in marked
contrast to Mahler’s. Sibelius was initially influenced by Wagner and attended
performances at Bayreuth Sibelius’s first two symphonies, the most popular,
are indebted to Tchaikovsky in the heroic stance. After these works, Sibelius
moved steadily toward a more individual style which emphasized gradual
thematic metamorphosis instead of contrast. His later style is more akin to
Bruckner than Mahler. There was a rumored eighth symphony which never
materialized which the composer either never really completed or destroyed.
Sibelius had a brush with death in about 1911 with a surgery for suspected
throat cancer. Whether it was depression, alcoholism, debt, or the feeling that
the musical world had passed him by, Sibelius’s output as a composer nearly
ceased after about 1926, which only a few works after that. He and his wife
retired to Ainola, a home which Sibelius had built north of Helsinki and where
the family (wife and six daughters) which was designed by a famed Finnish
architect and is now a national museum.
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873-1943)—trained as a pianist, composer and
conductor. He was born near Novgorod into an aristocratic family. Both of his
parents were amateur pianists. His talent was recognized when he was a boy,
but he was thought of as lazy. He became acquainted with Tchaikovsky, who
encouraged him. Rachmaninov studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory
with Arensky and Taneyev (both were students of Tchaikovsky) and with
Siloti (who was a student of Liszt’s). At least two things contributed to a bout
of depression: 1) the disastrous reception of his first symphony (which was
poorly conducted by Glazunov, who may have been drunk, and attacked by
Cui in the press), and 2) the Eastern Orthodox Church’s objection to his
marrying his cousin Natalina Satina. Rachmaninov sought the help of the
psychologist Nikolai Dahl, who used hypnotherapy. Rachmaninov overcame
his writer’s block and composed his second piano concerto which was a great
2
6)
success. He dedicated the work to him. Rachmaninov first toured the USA in
1909. After the Revolution in 1917, Rachmaninov fled Russia for the west,
settling first in Europe and later in the United States. His compositional output
slowed because of his extensive performing career as a pianist. He played
over 1000 concerts in the United States and made over 100 studio recordings.
There are 39 opus numbers. Among his works are three symphonies, a set of
symphonic dances, four piano concerti, a Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,
several early operas, numerous piano works, choral works and chamber
music.
Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) began composing along the lines of Chopin.
His music became gradually more chromatic and exotic as he absorbed the
influences of Liszt, Rimsky-Korsakov and Debussy. He replaced conventional
harmony with a synthetic kind of tonality in which a complex chord served as
the source material for a complete composition, acting as a kind of tonic.
These chords usually contained one or two tritones and were often related to
the octotonic scale. Unlike the Tristan chord, however, they were static
structures. Scriabin had a complex love life. He was married and had several
children, but left his wife for one of his students with whom he relocated to
Switzerland. He was a theosophist, followed the theories of Friedrich
Nietzsche, and believed in synesthesia (a condition in which the individual
experiences response in one sense—in this case color—from another sense—
music or sound). Scriabin worked toward a multimedia performance in which
a piece of music of his would be performed in the foothills of the Himalayas
accompanied by lights, dance and scent. The performance was supposed to
bring about worldwide bliss. Scriabin wrote nine piano sonatas (the last five
without key signature), three symphonies, and orchestral works including The
Poem of Ecstacy, and The Poem of Fire, which includes a part for the color
organ, which projected light onto a screen in the concert hall. On Scriabin’s
color organ, for example:
i)
C = red
ii)
D = yellow
iii)
E = white
iv)
F = brown
v)
G = tan
vi)
A = green
vii)
B = blue
There are colors for the chromatic steps as well.
3