Classic Gift

My mother recently found a paper I wrote about 10 years ago to accompany a gift of 5 or 6 classical music CDs I gave my parents for Christmas. I thought it would make for embarrassing reading but it’s not that bad. I thought since it is about music it would make for a good post. Hope it’s not too long for you guys.

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I thought I would give you a little historical perspective on the music I'm giving you. I've always found it interesting to know more about the composers of the music and the eras in which they composed. Since I'm doing this chronologically, the first composer I should talk about is Johann Sebastian Bach.

The disc I've given you is a collection of organ pieces including one of his most famous works - Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Bach's birth and death dates (1685-1750) span the Baroque era and his death is generally considered the end of that period. An important compositional technique associated with music of the Baroque era is the fugue style. In the fugue style, a melody line is played, and then echoed by the player in other registers, entering at different moments and creating contrast to the original melody. Sometimes the melody is played in its original form, sometimes up-side down or even backwards. This technique forms the basis of much Baroque musical composition including the masses for chorus and orchestra Bach composed. The only difference with choral works is that you would have each voice part (SATB) singing the original melody, but entering at different times in the music to create interesting harmonic relationships. For his experimentation in musical theory and for developing a systematic treatment of tonality (key signatures), Bach is considered the father of western music.

Georg Friedrich Handel (1685-1759), a contemporary of Bach, was himself a major figure in the Baroque era. The two led quite different musical lives, however. Bach composed most of his music for Lutheran church services in Germany, whereas Handel began his career in Italy learning to write opera - a secular form. Most of Handel's life was spent writing Italian opera for audiences in London in the early 1700's. During this time, Italian opera was popular everywhere in Europe. Around the 1730's, however, it lost its popularity in England due to a new religious conservatism as well as a wave of cultural nationalism. English audiences wanted a new vocal music form, the borrowed style of the Italians having lost its appeal. So in 1741 Handel composed Messiah, and in doing so ushered in a new era - that of the sacred oratorio style.

Oratorio is similar to opera in that it features virtuoso soloists supported by a full chorus and orchestra, but unlike opera in that there is no action on stage. In light of the new religious conservatism, the texts for the oratorios were generally taken from or inspired by the Bible, and in order to please English speaking audiences, Handel set them in English. In composition, Handel continued to employ the same techniques he had used to compose opera, complete with grand choruses and aria-like melodies, some of which he borrowed directly from his failed operas. The result - a vocal music form that would become a tradition among English composers, and with Messiah a work of such tremendous popularity in the English speaking world as to warrant widespread annual performances of the work even today.

A close runner-up to the Messiah among the most popular choral works of all time is of course the fourth movement of Beethoven's Ninth symphony - the Ode to Joy. The Ninth Symphony, which sets itself apart from other symphonic works by including a chorus in its final movement, is the flagship of the German Romantic movement in music. The text of the fourth movement is taken from a poem by Heinrich Schiller, a contemporary of Beethoven, and is a testimony to universal love and brotherhood. The Ninth is considered Beethoven's crowning achievement - a heroic expression of the passions which move mankind.

Beethoven's birth and death dates (1770-1827) encompass the early to mid Romantic era, and his appearance marks the beginning of that era, due to the dramatic departure of his style from Classic period works. I didn't buy you anything from the Classic period, but just to keep things straight, it started around 1750 (remember Bach's death and the end of the Baroque period), and ended roughly around 1800. The Classic period included the short but brilliant career of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart as well as the prosperous and consistently impressive career (all 104 symphonies worth) of Franz Joseph Haydn.

Beethoven had the fortunate opportunity to study with both men early in his career, and thus developed a symphonic style strongly entrenched in Classic period form. But from this basis Beethoven would expand his style and become an innovator not only in the length of his symphonies (his Ninth is 76 minutes long compared to the average length of 20 minutes for a Mozart symphony), but in their dramatic impact as well. No longer would the symphony be a mere delightful excursion in rounded forms with the promise to be finished soon so as not to bore the aristocracy. With the rise of the middle class in many European countries (via such events as the French revolution in 1783), Beethoven was no longer required to baby his audience, but rather could hit them full in the face with a brick.

His symphonies display an intensity of emotion unprecedented in the instrumental music of or preceding his time. Who even now would fail to recognize the powerful opening of his Fifth Symphony - Da Da Da Daaaa...Da Da Da Daaaa! Beethoven also expanded the instrumentation of the orchestra to include dominant roles for horns, thus lending a unique quality to his sound, one which makes his work instantly distinguishable from his predecessors. His music has influenced nearly two centuries of composers, and its impact will likely be felt for generations to come.

Beethoven's contemporaries include such famous composers as Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Johannes Brahms, all tremendously talented in their own right and representing the impelling force behind the German Romantic movement in music. Later romantic composers include Richard Wagner, composer of many large scale operas (e.g: Tannhauser and The Valkyrie) and Gustav Mahler, who wrote symphonies even longer than Beethoven's. One of the many late romantic composers in Russia was Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943). Rachmaninoff's career extends into the Twentieth Century, but much of his music, including the Piano Concerto Number Two on your disc, represents an extension of the Romantic period style. His piano music is renowned for it percussive intensity and colorist qualities, revealing a wide spectrum of mood while exploring fantastic aural realms. Rachmaninoff was also part of a neoclassicist movement (a return to classicism) in the early twentieth century, in which he revived Russian liturgical choral music. Included in this segment of his oeuvre are some of the Russian Pieces we performed in the Grinnell Singers over the past few years.

A contemporary of Rachmaninoff, but representing a completely different cultural background and musical style is George Gershwin (1898-1937). Gershwin’s work is emblematic of the roaring twenties in America. He began as a songwriter, teaming with older brother and lyricist Ira on such works as Porgy and Bess. A master tunesmith, Gershwin was at his best writing song melodies, but in the second half of his relatively short life, Gershwin would turn to the orchestra as a large scale medium through which he could more fully realize his impressions of the Jazz Age. After receiving tutelage in orchestration from French composer Maurice Ravel (of Bolero fame), Gershwin in 1924 composed Rhapsody in Blue, a work which still stands today as one of the most representative and beloved works early twentieth century America. This, as well as other successful orchestral works such as American in Paris and his piano concertos helped establish Gershwin as a premiere American composer.

So there you have it, a rough background of composers who lives span nearly 300 years, and whose music I hope you'll enjoy.