Classic Ross Amico

Category: Daily Dispatch

Pierre Boulez at 90: From Iconoclast to Icon

Pierre Boulez, the angry young man who once suggested that in order to liberate music, the first thing we need to do is blow up all the opera houses, turns 90.

Though his dogmatic approach had the effect of impeding the careers of many composers who didn’t adhere to his particularly rigid philosophy, his importance is undeniable. And some assessments seem to indicate that Boulez was not so dogmatic, in some respects, after all.

Boulez appreciation in The Guardian:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/mar/20/george-benjamin-in-praise-of-pierre-boulez-at-90

Deutsche Welle:
http://www.dw.de/pierre-boulez-the-new-music-evangelist/a-18263555

The Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/11493943/The-modernist-maverick-Pierre-Boulez-at-90.html

The L.A. Times:
http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/

Here’s probably Boulez’s most famous work, “Le Marteau sans maître” (“The Hammer without a Master”), after surrealist poetry of René Char:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS82nF85_gA

Perhaps more easily disgestible in this live performance (with translations posted):

Boulez, metamorphosed from contentious revolutionary to Grand Old Man of the Podium, conducting Mahler – characteristically devoid of histrionics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqFwWah5ioE

Happy birthday, Pierre Boulez.

PHOTO: Even despots can have their lighter moments

March 26, 2015
Béla Bartók Hungarian Master Composer

Today is the birthday of Béla Bartók (1881-1945), considered, alongside Franz Liszt, to be the greatest composer Hungary ever produced. In fact, he was one of the most important composers of the 20th century.

Bartók had a gift for absorbing the music of the villages and the countryside of Central and Eastern Europe and filtering it through his own distinctive sensibility. His was a musical nationalism very much of his time and far removed from the 19th century model as exemplified by composers like Mikhail Glinka and Bedřich Smetana.

He was one of the first to take a scientific approach to the collection and classification of folk music. His absorption of indigenous techniques led to the breakdown of diatonic harmony, which had dominated western art music for centuries, and opened up a world of possibility for those who followed. He also loved eerie dissonances, which he often employed as a backdrop to nature sounds and desolate melodies.

Bartók wrote music of varying degrees of difficulty, from a listener perspective, ranging from the opulence of his early Richard Strauss-influenced orchestral works, to the primitive savagery of his percussive piano writing, to the edgy dissonance of his six landmark string quartets, to the sweeping synthesis of Western art music and European folk music in mature masterworks like his “Concerto for Orchestra.”

Happy birthday, Béla Bartók.

Bartók speaks (in Bela Lugosi-accented English):

Bartók performs one of his most popular (and accessible) works:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW4AHmTzyMo

PHOTO: The composer among Turkish tribesmen in Anatolia

March 25, 2015
Roy Douglas Arranger of Les Sylphides Dies at 107

I am very sorry to share the news that Roy Douglas has died at the age of 107. Douglas, best known for his arrangement of Chopin keyboard works into the ballet “Les Sylphides,” was the longtime personal assistant of both Ralph Vaughan Williams and Sir William Walton. Until the day of his death, he was listed as vice president of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society. God speed, Mr. Douglas.

http://www.kentnews.co.uk/news/tributes_paid_to_one_of_britain_s_most_distinguished_musicians_roy_douglas_after_he_dies_aged_107_1_4007351

PHOTO: Douglas (with pipe) and RVW in 1953

March 25, 2015
John Antes American Moravian Missionary and Musician

Today is the birthday anniversary of John Antes (1740-1811), who was born in Frederick, Montgomery County, Pa.

Antes was the first American Moravian missionary to travel to Egypt. He is also credited with being one the first composers born on American soil to have written chamber music, and the creator of perhaps the earliest surviving bowed string instrument made in the American colonies. Antes’ violin, made in 1759, is housed in the Museum of the Moravian Historical Society in Nazareth, Pa. A viola, made by Antes in 1764 (again believed to be the earliest surviving of American origin) is housed in the Lititz Moravian Congregation Collection in Lancaster County. Antes created at least seven such instruments.

In 1752, Antes attended school in Bethlehem, Pa. In 1760, he was admitted into the Single Brethren’s choir there. From Bethlehem, he travelled to Herrnhut, Germany, the international center of the Moravians, to prepare for a career as a missionary. In the meantime, he also took up watchmaking. He was ordained a minister in 1769, then set out for Egypt. There, he served as a missionary to the Coptic Church in Grand Cairo. After a largely uneventful decade, he was captured and tortured by followers of Osman Bey.

During his convalescence, he occupied himself with the composition of three string trios. He also sent a copy of six quartets to Benjamin Franklin, whom he had known in America. The quartets are lost (nice job, Ben), but the trios survive.

Antes returned to Germany, then England, where he married and spent the remainder of his working life in Fulneck. The best-known of his musical accomplishments are his anthems, especially “Go, Congregation, Go!” and “Surely He Hath Bourne Our Griefs.”

PHOTO: The Antes violin (which sounds more like a creation of Salvador Dali), now in Nazareth, Pa.

March 24, 2015
Dvořák with Sinfonietta Nova

There are seven weeks until the next Sinfonietta Nova concert, an all-Dvořák program, which will feature the Cello Concerto in B Minor and the Symphony No. 7. The season’s theme is “The Magnificent Seventh.” Each Sinfonietta Nova concert has included at least one seventh symphony, so far by Haydn, Beethoven, Prokofiev, William Boyce and Niels Wilhelm Gade.

Since I’ve been providing the program notes for some of the concerts, I was asked by the group’s music director, Gail Lee, if I would come up with seven fun facts about Dvořák that might be featured on the orchestra’s Facebook page in the weeks leading up to the concert. The first was posted today. You’ll find it by following the link, Sinfonietta Nova.

Sinfonietta Nova performs at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Princeton Junction. The Dvořák concert, the orchestra’s season finale, will take place on May 9 at 7:30 p.m. This year’s Sinfonietta Nova Youth Concerto Competition winner, Chase Park, will be the soloist in the Cello Concerto.

More information at http://www.sinfoniettanova.org.

March 23, 2015

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