Goodbyes and Reflections

The semester is coming to a close and so is this blog. I have to admit that it was quite a roller-coaster ride. I started out ignorant about much of the context and and musical devices explored in this course, and if I remember correctly, I believe that I strongly disliked the first piece I ever analyzed: Monteverdi's l'Orfeo. It is amazing to see how much has changed since that first blogpost and how much still remains the same. Firstly, I no longer hate l'Orfeo, in fact, I love it and regularly play it on my computer--especially Orfeus' deeply touching and beautiful recitative "Tu sei morta." The beauty of the singer's voice, the expressiveness captured by the recitative style and lack of distracting music makes it one of my favorites. I get wonderful thrills when I hear an episode of madrigal-like or word painting. I am surprised at the change.

I feel that ever since that first negative experience with l'Orfeo, I have gained a new level of appreciation for musical pieces different from what I am familiar with and I have become a bit more appreciative of what I perceive as dissonance and rise up to analyze it instead of backing away. I do not feel however, that I have completely changed; my experience with the last piece for this class, Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, showed me that there still exist a very real limit as to what I can accept as beautiful or even striking. However, although I feel that although I do not like the piece, I have made my peace with it. 

I don't think I will ever call this piece a masterpiece--I am still not convinced that Stravinsky had a clear understanding of what he was attempting to portray or who he was presenting it too--and I believe that it is this generous nature of music and this interaction between material, composer, and audience which makes a piece come alive. Nevertheless, I can concede that it is a masterpiece to some people. However, I think that it has become a masterpiece and musical to many not because of a particular quality or gesture in the piece which attempts to engage its listeners but because Stravinsky's acknowledged talent as a great composer and his audience's desire to understand this talent and experience it for themselves has created a new type of connection between the music and its listeners--an educational one-- which has allowed Le Sacre du Printemps to survive into present times because there exists a following which has made an active effort to understand it and connect with it. 

I feel that if I have learned anything from this course, it is that t a musical piece's status as a masterpiece or a failure depends heavily on its audience's perception and that in many cases the composers who have been successful in fixing their name and works in history have done so either by deeply touching their audience at a fundamental level, or by inciting their listeners to take a second listen and seek to form a connection on their own accord. Both approaches seem to be effective and I honestly cannot say that one approach is more acceptable than the other.

Savage Beauty: Le Sacre du Printemps' Lost Potential

In Le Sacre du Printemps, Stravinsky attempted to do bring his audience on a musical journey which would transport them to a prehistoric time whose barbaric existence is at once jarringly cruel and irresistibly captivating. He attempts to do this by interjecting a harsh overbearing score—which at times can sound downright ugly in its metrical irregularity, uncomfortable instrumentation, unpleasant stacking of chords, and painful dissonance—with short interludes of airy breathtaking beauty.

One example of this juxtaposition can be found in the first few measures of the piece with an oboe solo accompanied by a bassoon in a thin texture. The texture soon thickens however with the addition other uncomfortably high pitch wind instruments. The piece which had started as almost peaceful, soon takes on a disturbing quality with metrical irregularities of melody and the piece overall. This quiet introduction, however, is quickly broken by the dissonant pulsing chords of string instruments and horns.

Other examples of a delicate beauty attempting to break through the garishness of the rest of the piece can be found throughout the piece. At the beginning of the Round Dances of Spring, right after the sacrificial victim has been chosen and abducted we hear brief clarinet solo. This light solo occurs over a tremolo of a high string in a very thin musical texture. Clean and simple it constitutes only of a few closely related alternate notes repeated in an almost sing-song pattern. This abrupt solo amidst the general heavy orchestration and thick texture of this piece is like a breath of fresh air and stands out all the more in comparison. Its clean sound is almost innocent and ephemeral; its haunting sound—perhaps representative of the individual voice of the sacrificial dancer or more generally of the beauty of nature among the tribe’s barbarism—disappears almost as abruptly as it started. This brief clarinet solo is repeated just one more time at the end of the Round Dances of Spring, this time however, it ends with an abrupt shift to another orchestra heavy piece.

I believe that through such examples that Stravinsky attempts to play with our understanding of what is beauty and ugliness by placing them in harsh juxtaposition. Unfortunately, I believe that Stravinsky attempts to separate that beauty from the harshness of the rest of the piece—perhaps to highlight the cruelty of the barbaric tribes. I feel, however, that this is perhaps where he and I must part company, because I do not believe that the beauty of the scenery he attempts to paint is separated from the actions of the tribes—after all to its participants, the pagan rituals holds some type of captivating beauty which entices them to repeat it every spring . This seemingly philosophical point has very important implications for how Stravinsky chose to use his musical innovations. His separation of the beautiful and familiar from what he might have seen as revolutionary in its barbarity also separated his musical innovations and insights from his audience. 


In my opinion, the separation that Stravinsky created between his music and his audience hampered him from demonstrating a level of sophistication which would have been truly spectacular.  I believe that Stravinsky failed to effectively capture the savage appeal the sacrifice holds for the barbaric tribe in his rite of spring and in turn failed to make an immediate connection with his audience on a fundamental level. This is a shortcoming which he felt soundly through his audience's initial resistance to his music at Le Sacre du Printemps' first performance; a resistance which I also exhibited when I first heard this piece. This simple lack of a connection for a human impulse which is as old as time could have been avoided if the composer had had more empathy for his audience and perhaps for the tribe he described. Unfortunately, in my opinion, this shortcoming of the piece has hampered and continues to hamper it from unlocking its true potential.

Islands of Peace Amidst Stravinsky's Chaos

Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps can often appear overwhelming in its cacophonous complexity. It's irregular meter and quickly changing rhythms, overlapping contrapuntal passages, unpleasant instrumentation, discordant chords, and overbearingly thick musical texture are only a few of the tools Stravinsky uses liberally to create a score which can sounds harsh and unpleasant.

At first, I was extremely put off by what I perceived to be unnecessary excesses in the use of standard musical techniques. In a manner similar to Berlioz's tampering with orchestration, Stravinsky had turned upside down and inside out musical concepts such as a discernible meter, a clear key, and familiar chords which I had come to take for granted after a few weeks in this course. To see these specific concepts and my general understanding of what constituted as music distorted and twisted beyond recognition to no understandable effect or justifiable musical innovation was incredibly unpleasant. I could not understand why Stravinsky had made these changes and I could see no other reason for what I perceived to be superfluous modifications than the fact that Stravinsky felt he could.

When Monteverdi had used the recitative, when Handel had enhanced the importance of choruses and differentiated the recitativo secco from the accompagnado, when Beethoven had turned traditional forms of orchestra music (such as the sonata) on its head , when Berlioz had revolutionized traditional orchestra instrumentation, when all these breaks from tradition were made, I could see a progression; I could see a connecting thread leading to new heights of musical appreciation. I could see that by breaking with the old in new innovative ways, these composers may help liberate our conception of what music should sound like and allow us to visualize new musical possibilities. In Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, I felt that I have lost this connecting thread and all that remains is chaos. How is that for a first impression?

After listening to this piece in its entirety and replaying large portions of it, I have begun to see some order in the chaos, and more importantly, I am finding short snippets of beauty amidst the sometimes ugly cacophony. I feel that perhaps by analyzing these small islands of peace, I may be able to anchor myself long enough to gain perspective of the entire piece and perhaps even regain the thread of comprehension which may connect it to earlier composers we have seen in this course.This comparative approach has not necessarily always been the focus of this course, but gradually I feel that is has become critical to understand the more recent musical pieces and Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps is no exception.

Berlioz: Master of Orchestration?

Berlioz' Symphonie Fantastique is filled with eerie musical passages and sounds that often seem to overwhelm our senses. As complex as his music may be to a listener, however, the oddity of Berloz' sounds may lie in the instruments he uses and how they are arranged together in the symphony. Berlioz has an uncanny knack for using instruments in new ways and producing new, often disturbing sounds. The slight feeling of unease one often feels when listening to his music, however, comes in part from how incredibly human some of the orchestration sounds.

In the 5th movement of la Symphonie Fantastique, particularly, we are assaulted by a series of weird, almost grotesque sounds that could truly be the cackling laughter of a goblin army. First, we have the low pitch brass instruments at the very beginning of the piece playing one note three times successively, each time backing away quickly and leaving almost an echo behind. This sounds like a deep guffaw.

Then we hear the high pitch, grating sound of an e-flat clarinet playing one long note, followed by a series of shorter formulations of that one note; this pitch which is then held out one last time and allowed to slide  and decay as it ends. This passage by the e-flat clarinet which is repeated several times over the course of the movement distinctly sounds like an unpleasant high-pitched cackle.

Then as the texture of the movement becomes more thick, we hear these instruments again that we now associate with a certain character (cackling witch, guffawing ogre, or even snickering woodsprite) and we come to hear them almost as voices, speaking and shouting amidst the cacophony. In the 5th movement, we can hear this babble especially well at 3:26 after the first set of bell tolls and the coupling of the two brass instruments (one of a slightly lower pitch) in a passage that mimics the inflection of a human voice. It sounds like a demonic chant straight from the depths of hell.

The human qualities we give to these instruments stems from the fact that we have been given some context via the program, but also because our ears have been trained by Berlioz in the earlier segment to pick out certain instruments and associate them with some type of monster. This connection, which occurs mostly in our minds is what truly brings this piece to life. Berlioz may be an exceptional composer, but I do not believe that this piece would be as disturbing and consequently as powerful if he had not prepped our imagination to leap ahead and enrich his music with our own personal interpretations.

And now that we understand the power of visualization, here is a potential visual image of the scene that Berlioz describe from one of my childhood favorites, The Black Cauldron. Skip to 1:18, the goblins are pretty convincing.

Podcast

Podcasts seem to be the new response paper. Everywhere I turn, there they are. But as they say, if you can't beat them, join them.

Here's a short (and hopefully entertaining) podcast on an excerpt from the second movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony. Sit back, relax, and enjoy.


Beethoven9 Podcast by herrissasol

Passionate Scenes

"Reverie--Passion!" Doesn't this title for the first movement of Berlioz's "Symphony Fantastique" remind you of one of those overly passionate steamy love scenes from black and white film from the 50s? In fact it reminds me of one specific clip from the film Phaedra I found on youtube with a steamy scene between Anthony Perkins and Melina Mercouri. It is ironic how well this story line fits with Berlioz' narrative. A man lost in reverie, perhaps of an old flame, is brought back to reality by his passionate current lover.






















This clip, similarly to the first movement of Symphonie Fantastique narrates a change in the protagonist's frame of mind.  We start the piece (and the clip) with the composer in a pensive mood reflecting on pleasant memories (perhaps with an old lover). The music also reflects this sweet "Reverie" with smooth, long phrases by the string instruments and a slow tempo.

This sweet "Reverie," however, is abruptly cut off by the presence of a new love interest. This love differs greatly from the sweet, gentle souvenirs of an innocent love. It is raw and wildly passionate. The music suddenly furiously increases in tempo, then slows down only to rise and wane in a crescendo, only to increase again. New woodwind instruments as well as lower strings are brought in and the chords played by the strings are more dissonant. This new unpredictable and passionate music defines the rest of the movement and ends in an abrupt culmination of the building tension and feverish expectation of the later part of the piece.

It is surprising how well the first movement fits this video clip. I guess passionate love is not reserved only for romanticism.

Dynamic Beethoven

The focus of First Nights has shifted once again and we are now exploring the first performance of Beethoven's 9th symphony. This type of instrumental music is very different from anything that we have seen previously. The most obvious difference is the lack of words and the consequent greater focus on instruments.

I am still unsure as to how I should approach analysis of this type of music, but right away, something that stood out as something I can potentially latch on to are the changes in dynamics (louder or softer) that are much more obvious in an orchestra than in an aria or even a chorus.



Here is a sample from Beethoven's 9th symphony. The changing dynamics are very obvious (especially with the added crashing sound of the drum that comes in at 3:05). This part begins softly with only the strings and some wind instruments (flutes?) playing quietly, and smoothly become louder almost more urgent. The strings decrease in volume only to increase in volume again, this time with greater participation from the flutes.

This game of some sort continues throughout this entire piece (even including the occasional crashing sound of a drum towards the end of this segment (3:30 onwards)), pulling and letting go, growing and hushing. Keeping its audience at the edge of its seat, somehow managing a sense of tension and urgency in the louder parts and releasing that tension with the more quiet peaceful music.

The more one listens, it becomes clear that changes in dynamics are not the only tools being used to create impart feelings. The speed at which the instruments, the types of instruments playing, the interplay between the different instruments all to a large extend come together to drive this piece. I hope that i will learn how to better listen for these things. In the meanwhile, for this post, I make do with what I can hear- the change in dynamics, and amazingly this has already given me greater enjoying from this piece than when I listened to it passively.

The Hallelujahs

Just for laughs (and maybe some educational purposes), here is a youtube video of Handel's 'Hallelujah' performed by "silent" monks. I think Professor Kelly may have mentioned it in class. It is pretty funny:




















And just to keep it academical, here is another Hallelujah by Rufus Wainwright. Try to see if you can spot some ritornellos and try comparing their use.

The Evolution of the Ritornello (Part 2)

Last time we discussed the similarities in the ritornello across time, from Monteverdi to Handel. In this blog post, I would like to speak to some of the differences, which constitute in my opinion an evolution of some sort.

When listening to Handel's Messiah, it is pretty obvious that the oratorio (a descendant of the opera) has become much more organized and standardized, and much more complex since Monteverdi. When we look at these changes as they pertain specifically to the ritornello we can identify two main changes: 1) the closer musical ties between the ritornello and the following song and 2) the increased interaction or exchange between the song and ritornello.Let us go back to our examples from Act II of Orfeo and Part I of the Messiah. We will compare one aria from each: Orfeo's stunning aria "Vi ricorda" in Act II, and the song of Part I, scene 2 in the Messiah: "Ev'ry valley shall be exalted."

In Act II of Orfeo, the ritornello provides little more than an idea of the tempo, the range of notes, and phrasing for the aria Orfeo goes on to sing. It does not give us a clear accurate picture of how Orfeo will sound. It bears much more resemblance to Handel's accompanied recitative than to his arias. In addition, the ritornello follows a very rigid patter in which it repeats once between each verse. Ritornello followed by verse followed by Ritornello and so on. All very predictable.

In the Messiah, on the other hand, the ritornello has become a much more complex affair and has acquired a much more interactive role in the songs. In the first few notes of the ritornello, not only are we provided with the typical tempo and phrasing, we are actually being indicated how the rest of the song will sound like. The notes pretty distinctly play out the music for the phrases "Ev'ry valley shall be exalted" and the distinctive fluctuations of the phrase "the crooked straight;" the arguably catchiest parts of the song.

Even more surprising, however, the ritornello does not have a predictable designated place when it comes in. It comes in all over the place and is repeated in its entirety or in part. Only parts of it are played throughout the song, and the complete ritornello is played again at the very end of the song. The ritornello has taken on an interactive quality and acts almost as an echo, repeating the notes previously song by the singer in "ev'ry valley" at 3:19 and then "shall be exalted" at 3:24. At other times, instead of repeating, it is almost as if the ritornello is interacting with the song almost like a call and response. The vocalist would sing "shall be exalted" and the ritornello would interject with the music for "ev'ry valley" (3:50). And in other places it would anticipate what the vocalist would sing and play it beforehand such as at 3:58 when it anticipates "the crooked straight" phrase. It is almost like a game of tag, when the vocalist and the ritornello chase, interrupt, and at times such as in 4:21, they complement and support one another beautifully. The ritornello in this sense is no longer a passive passage but an interactive musical tool.

In some ways, Handel's ritornello grew in complexity, however, it also lost some its complexity by tying the ritornello very closely to the rest of the song. The fact that the ritornello musically became composed of patches of notes from the song may in fact represent a simplification and a restriction in what it can be musically.

What about the ritornello now? I think we have kept something from both traditions and have developed ways to combine aspects from both.

The Evolution of the Ritornello (Part 1)

In spite of an initial rough start with Orfeo, I am a bit sad to see the focus of the class material (and thus this blog) shift to another musical piece. In this post, I am going to cheat a little bit and continue to discuss segments from Orfeo, however, this time I will try to deepen the analysis through a comparison with our latest musical work, Handel's Messiah.

Monteverdi's Italian Opera and Handel's English Oratorio may differ in some aspects, but they share a lot in common. One of these similarities is the appearance of numerous ritornellos. While these two musical pieces share the use of ritornellos, they do not express them in exactly the same way. In fact, by comparing the use of ritornello throughout both Orfeo and the Messiah, we can clearly see that while there still exists many  similarities, the use of ritornellos has somewhat changed and evolved to a new level of sophistication by Handel's time 100-some years later. In this first part, I will discuss the similarities. Part 2 will discusses the differences, and the changes the ritornello has undergone over this time period.

Let us take two examples of the use of a ritornello. The first is the first movement of Act II of Orfeo, the other the second movement of Act I of the Messiah. These two segments are very similar in structure. They are both relatively long (approximately 6 minutes) and are composed of three main parts: the fake-out, the game changer, and the fancy stuff (I obviously don't have a degree in music, but bear with me, it starts to make sense).

The Fake-Out-- This long segment (up to 3:10 in Orfeo, and 2:54 in the Messiah) contains many ritornellos, repetitions, and other markers signaling that it is an actual song (vs. a recitative). It also contains conflicting signals which confuse us and make us wonder if we are truly listening to a song. One of these signals is the odd use of the ritornellos. In the fake-out, although the ritornellos provide structure to the music and punctuate it in specific places and in addition provides a preview of the meter and rhythm of the following vocals, in all other respects it does not feel like a regular ritornello. The rhythm may be there, but it does not give any preview as to the notes and other musical "stuff" that will follow in the songs . Moreover, the ritornello changes throughout the fake-out and introduces the meter and mood for the few verses, thus its name. This segment plays on your expectation for a repetitive song punctuated by a flowery ritornello, makes you believe that you've heard it, and then fakes you out by changing the ritornello, or providing you with an unhelpful ritornello that doesn't really give you an idea of what the upcoming song will sound like.

While I will argue that these are true arias and not merely accompanied recitatives (an argument I will go into more depth in a later post), they clearly play a different role from your standard ritornellos. They act almost more like markers than introductions or teaching tools for the rest of the music.

The Game Changer-- This usually brief segment differs form the fake-out that comes before or the fancy stuff that comes after it. It does not sound like anything you have heard in that piece or that you will hear again. In a way, it signals a transition to the main act everyone is expecting in way that makes sure you notice. In Orfeo the game changer is at 2:56 when for the first and only time a full chorus bursts out in song. It is unexpected, definitely noticeable, and immediately followed by the ritornello associated with the "vi ricorda" sung by Orfeo. In the Messiah, it is at 2:37 when the previously calm and slow "comfort ye my people," which had up to that moment been constantly accompanied by a very mellow instrumentation, suddenly does away with almost all accompaniment with the exception of very short punctuations of string instruments.


The Fancy Stuff--The fancy stuff is... just that, the fancy stuff. It is the very pleasant, unexpected song you have been waiting for. The "vi ricorda" by Orfeo and the "every valley shall be exalted" in the Messiah. A lot of repetition, a steady rhythm, embellished instrumentation, a stable returning ritornello that actually shares many aspects with the vocal music. This "fancy stuff" best represents the standard ritornello at the time, and as we will see in Part 2, it differs in Orfeo and the Messiah.

Not so insightful...

This blog attempts to document my exploration of new, more insightful ways to enjoy music. This week, I realized just how difficult it can be to basically re-learn to listen. I attempted to listen to Monteverdi's "l'Orfeo." I listened to part of the second act focusing on the Mira, deh mira segment. I had listened to the first act of l'Orfeo and I had found it pretty enjoyable. I sat down at my computer, prepared for a few minutes of enjoyable listening and twenty seconds later, I realized that I HATED it. Well, maybe "hated" is a strong word, but definitely disliked.

I feel I disliked my first listening of the piece so much because I did not realize what I was listening to. It's like going to a restaurant and asking for ice cream and getting plain unsweetened yogurt instead. Not bad, just different. After I took the time to look up some information on the piece, understand the context, the story line, and some musical devices and understood that there was a story being told, things began to make more sense. I understood the musical devices for what they were and I could not only move past them and concentrate on simply enjoying the amazingly talented singers' vibratos, I actually enjoyed some of these devices for their own sake and for what they added to my interpretation of the piece.

Long story short,  I was not prepared for my first real attempt at insightful listening. I made some hasty judgments and I missed out on some pretty important aspects of the music. Stay tuned until next time because it is definitely getting better from here!