Fear of the Bach: Classical Sounds for Metal Ears

Angry Russians and Dancing Skeletons

2010-09-04T17:30:00.005-04:00

This post has come about in a slightly different way than usual. The bit of music it focuses on is a favorite of mine, and I have planned from the get-go to introduce it here in my narcissistic musical playpen. Yet it is a particular performance that got me off my ass to actually write something, this performance:

This is the Greenwich Trio playing Shostakovich's piano trio no. 2, op. 67, and holy berzerkers do they nail it. I would suggest actually watching the video for this one instead of just listening to the music in the background. The Greenwich Trio personify what those of us in the academic world might call 'embodying the performance.' In other words, they get in to it in a major way; the cellist can even be seen basically headbanging at some points. In short, this is intense music and the Greenwich Trio play it intensely.

So, a little background is perhaps in order. Shostakovich was born in Russia in 1906 and wrote this particular work in 1944, meaning he had witnessed two world wars and the Bolshevik Revolution by this time. That's enough to make anybody a little cynical, and as if that wasn't bad enough, the Soviet Union kept their artists on a fairly short leash. If art, whether it be literature, music, painting, etc., was considered 'degenerate,' it was banned, and artists ran the risk of imprisonment, exile, or if lucky they could 'rehabilitate' themselves to better fall in line with Soviet doctrine. This situation is one Shostakovich struggled with his entire life, suffering multiple denunciations by the state and constantly toeing the line, inserting musical jabs 'in code' and consistently aligning and re-aligning himself in relation to the Soviet government. While composers having to 'play a part' is no new situation (Gustav Mahler had to convert to Catholicism to maintain a job, whether or not that conversion was 'authentic' is something I will not speculate on here), it is particularly poignant in Shotakovich's case due to his visibility (he was on the cover of Time magazine) and the extremely turbulent, 'world-stage' manner of Soviet politics.

Little surprise, then, that this piece is what one might call 'angsty.' The last movement shown above is, I think, particularly turbulent. It invokes a 'danse macabre,' literally 'dance of death' (like the Iron Maiden album without the crappy cover art). The danse macabre has a long literary and visual arts tradition (often portrayed as a group of skeletons dancing), and when combined with the Jewish melody quoted in the movement can be seen as a man reflecting on the horrors of World War II and the 'world-as-it-was' in 1944. Though this is not a definitive interpretation, it certainly gives reason for the 'angst' and downright heaviness of the work.

Shostakovich would return to the Jewish melody quoted in the fourth movement again in his 8th string quartet, written nearly 20 years later and soon after he officially joined the Communist Party. The quartet is full of quotes from Shostakovich's earlier works and has been thought by some to be a kind of musical suicide note by the very melancholy composer. And for my money, something about the way the bit is quoted makes it even more 'grotesque' and a bit more frightening than its employment in the 2nd trio. This plan of suicide was not carried out, but the music he wrote for his epitaph was too good not to publish, and the 8th quartet has become one of Shostakovich's most popular works and quite possibly the most performed string quartet of the 20th century. Thus, I will leave you for now with the 2nd movement of the 8th quartet (the reason it seems like it just 'cuts off' out of nowhere is because the quartet is written to be played start to end with no breaks between movements, so get off your lazy bum and go check out the whole thing).

P.S. - If you dig this, you might want to check out Shostakovich's 10th quartet or 5th, 7th, and/or 15th symphonies. It's also quite possible that I'm gonna jam out on some of Shostakovich's Russian contemporaries in the not-so-distant future, so yeah, watch out!

Back in the Village

2010-07-17T19:34:00.003-04:00

So, after a long absence which came right after my genesis as a blogger, I am going to start updating this beast again. I got kind of bogged down during the semester, and have been doing several different things and re-charging my batteries so far this summer, and I kind of let this business slip. The good news is that I have quite a few new ideas for pieces and things to talk about and ways to approach classical music, so be ready. We have some symphonies, violin insanity, and the ubiquitous, omniscient and omnipresent Beethoven to contend with in the near future! Stay tuned.

Schoenberg and classical cover tunes

2010-02-28T12:55:00.005-05:00

It occurred to me recently that arrangements/transcriptions are kind of the classical world's equivalent to cover songs. Somebody wants to play a bit of music that they didn't write and which is not necessarily written for the set of instruments they have at their disposal, so they arrange it. I mean, personally, I have always wondered what would happen if a band like Mercenary covered "Reach Out (I'll Be There)" by The Four Tops; I personally think that song is just reeking of metal-ness, especially in the 'ha's preceding the verses and the drum bit before the chorus.

Anyways, an arrangement is half of what we're dealing with on the Trio Jean Paul's recording of Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht (or "Transfigured Night"), originally for string sextet, but recorded here in a piano trio arrangement by Schoenberg's student Eduard Steuermann. For those who, at the very mention of Arnold Schoenberg, find themselves cringing and running in the opposite direction with images of free atonality and 12-tone madness swirling in your ears, I say fear not! This early work of his is not only tonal, but quite lovely in places, an undervalued aspect of Schoenberg's musical output that the Trio Jean Paul do an excellent job in bringing out in their recording. And for those who are all about some wild and wacky 20th century 'emancipated dissonance' Schoenberg, you should allay your fears as well; dig on this gem, and I promise you that I will return screaming for vengeance with some later Schoenberg soon.

Anyways, the work is what is known as a tone poem, which is where a composer tries to relay specific scenes and sensations and such through purely musical means. In this case, Arnie is taking the poem by the same name by Richard Dehmel. Some of the passion in the work may also be attributed to the fact that this bit of tune-age was begun and finished in the 3 weeks after Schoenberg met Mathilde von Zemlinsky, the sister of his teacher and his future wife.

The piece is broken into 5 sections relating to the structure of the poem. A couple are walking along when the woman tells the man she is pregnant with another man's child. Thus begins the stormiest section in the work, with a highly chromatic section relating to the turmoil of the man upon hearing this news. After much reflection, the man decides his love for the woman can overcome the situation, and swears to raise the child as his own. The poem and work derives its name from the final section, where the man claims his love will transfigure the child, making it his own.

The recent recording of the piano trio arrangement by the Trio Jean Paul presents the work in a very accessible manner. By reducing the number of different voices from 6 to 3, a listener can more easily hear the conversational and turbulent programmatic content. Plus, it seems like some of the harsher dissonances are smoothed out with the addition of the piano. What's more, it's paired with the original version of Brahms's 1st piano trio, another turbulent but oh so rockin' love song, only in the Brahms it is a man's private love song to his best friend's wife.

You can pick up the Trio Jean Paul's recording of the work at Amazon, and if you're looking for a good entry into Schoenberg (or Brahms), I would say this is as good a place as any. To be honest, I have probably listened to this album more than any metal recording released this year. If you're looking for some slightly more dissonant Arnie Schoen music, something that deals less with dramatic love stories and more with jagged dissonances and atonal jams, stay tuned, I am actually going to start updating this place again!

Papa Haydn's "Farewell"

2010-02-05T16:04:00.005-05:00

Ok, so maybe this is slightly more punk rock than metal, but today we are going to look at some music that was written to, and did, have a direct impact on the living situation of the people involved; we're talking old-school social protest (and by old school I mean 1772). First a little background. Franz Joseph Haydn, known often as the 'father of the symphony,' 'father of the string quartet,' or simply Papa Haydn, was a composer in the second half of the 18th century. He was part of what is often thought of as the holy trinity of classical music with his friend Mozart and his student Beethoven. However, unlike the other two, Haydn had a long-standing full-time gig with the Esterházy court, and this relationship provides the background for Papa Haydn's "Farewell Symphony."

Haydn and the musicians in his symphony spent the summer of 1772 with the Esterházy family at their summer estate. The sojourn in the country lasted a fair bit longer than they had anticipated, however, and the musicians began getting restless to return home to their families. Thus, if I may be allowed a cliche, Haydn decided to let his music do the talking.

The first movement of the symphony opens with a stormy, minor-key (and might I add heavy) theme in the violins. The music is agitated, arresting, and has something of a one-track mind - the theme that opens the movement just refuses to go away. At about 3 minutes in the video below, the dense texture of the rest of the movement melts away and a brief, lighthearted section (perhaps invoking the country estate) is heard. This respite is short lived, however, as the bucolic setting is interrupted, and quite brutally might I add, by a loud, aggressive return of the main theme. I think by this point Esterházy might have gotten the point that Haydn and his musicians were at least mildly irritated and ready to go home.

Yet Haydn did not stop with an expression of frustration. To the contrary, in true '60s style (only 200 years earlier), Haydn staged a musical walk-out. Near the end of the last movement, there are a series of short, light solos for the various instruments in the symphony. As musicians were playing by candlelight at the time, after each musician had finished his solo, he would blow out his candle and walk off the stand. By the end of the symphony, only two violinists were left playing, and at the first performance one of these was supposedly Haydn himself. You can still hear the same effect in performances today, as the performing forces gradually get smaller and smaller toward the end of the piece. It seems the Prince of Esterházy got the point; the court returned home the following day.

On a final note, this is Haydn's 45th symphony, out of 104 published! By any measure, this guy was more prolific than Gene Hoglan and James Murphy combined. Not to mention he was foundational in establishing a musical language that persists to this day. A consummate joker, a witty rebel, and one creative guy, let's give it up for Papa Haydn.

Symphonie Fantastique

2010-01-12T22:51:00.010-05:00

Drug-induced hallucinations, love gone wrong, an execution by beheading, and a witchs' sabbath; for the early 19th century, it just doesn't get much more metal than that. Hector Berlioz wrote his Symphonie fantastique while obsessing over, you guessed it, a woman, namely Harriet Smithson, an actress Berlioz first encountered as she played the role of Ophelia in Shakespeare's Hamlet. The two eventually married for a short time, but not before Berlioz had written the masterpiece of paranoia, jealousy, and longing he is most famous for.

Symphonie fantastique is what is known as program music, which roughly means while the work is purely instrumental, attempts are made to evoke extra-musical associations such as thoughts, moods, or, in this case, a narrative. This stands in opposition to so-called absolute music, which is instrumental music that stands for itself with no outside referents. In other words, absolute music is, or aspires to be, music for the sake of music. It's more complicated than that, and arguments abound concerning these terms and distinctions, but this is neither the time nor the place for such discussions. With that fun little aside out of the way, it's on to the program and, of course, the music.

Symphonie fantastique is based around the idée fixe, a melody Berlioz used to represent Harriet Smithson. The tune shows up in every movement in different ways, having a different connotation for the 'action' of the symphony each time depending on the instrument carrying the melody and where it falls in the narrative. The first movement introduces the main character, 'the artist,' as well as the idée fixe. The artist is at various times tormented, overjoyed, and infuriated, but forevermore obsessed, with the idée fixe.

The second movement finds the artist in many different situations, or as Berlioz put it 'in the most diverse situations in life,' yet the idée fixe follows him everywhere. Both at a festive party and along in the countryside, the artist can not escape it. In the third movement, the artist is in a field listening to the duet of two shepherds. In the midst of tranquility, the artist hopes that soon he will no longer be lonely. However, these thoughts are interrupted by fear: what if she betrays me? The movement ends with thunder, then silence.

The fourth movement sees a drastic turn of events. Tormented by his love, the artist takes a near fatal dose of opium. In the hallucinations that follow, he believes himself to have killed his love and is being led to the scaffold for his execution. A march begins, symbolizing the march to the spot of execution. Just before the ax falls, a shortened form of the idée fixe returns as the last thoughts of the artist before his death. The movement ends with a 'rolling' figure in the orchestra, thought to represent the artist's head tumbling toward the basket.

The 5th and most famous movement deserves to have Berlioz's own notes shown:

"He sees himself at a witches’ sabbath, in the midst of a hideous gathering of shades, sorcerers and monsters of every kind who have come together for his funeral. Strange sounds, groans, outbursts of laughter; distant shouts which seem to be answered by more shouts. The beloved melody appears once more, but has now lost its noble and shy character; it is now no more than a vulgar dance tune, trivial and grotesque: it is she who is coming to the sabbath… Roar of delight at her arrival… She joins the diabolical orgy… The funeral knell tolls, burlesque parody of the Dies irae, the dance of the witches. The dance of the witches combined with the Dies irae."

The artist now believes himself dead, and what is worse, his beloved is now part of a grotesque ritual and no longer the elegant idée fixe of his memory. The Dies irae, a tune from the Catholic Requiem Mass, is brought in to symbolize the artist's death, but also perhaps the death of his obsession. Could it be that the artist, through the horrific visions of his opium hallucinations, was able to exorcise his obsession and move on with his life, did the death mean something more literal, or was Berlioz just giving a big end to a bad trip?

A performance of the fifth movement can be seen below. If you would like to know more about the symphony, the San Francisco Symphony has an absolutely KILLER site for the work here that includes commentary, writings by Berlioz, a more thorough explanation of the idée fixe, and more. It really is an excellent site. Until next time, lay off the opium.

By Demons Be Driven

2010-01-02T18:45:00.001-05:00

Welcome,
So I suppose some explanation is in order. Well, I've been very lucky to have been able to study music in college (and on my own time) for several years now. As such, I've been exposed to quite a bit of classical music by some extremely knowledgeable people. However, though I like enough music to perhaps be classified auditorally (my word) schizophrenic, my home base, and possibly my one and only true love, is heavy metal. My purpose here, then, is to take what I've learned about classical music, filter it through my personal perspective, and try to introduce you fine people to some music you might not come across otherwise. I also hope I can serve to demystify classical music a bit, remove some of the "Fear of the Bach," if you will. I really have very little idea how I plan to do this as of right now, so I hope if anybody actually takes the time to read this business, they will also bear with me and my ideas/selections. You may not like all the music I talk about, you may not agree with some of the things I say, but I hope you will stick it out and let me know what I can do better. Requests, suggestions, and curses are all encouraged and will be taken into serious consideration. So, yeah, enough jibber jabber on this, I'm going to go try and find something cool to talk about.