In 1940, Ralph Vaughan Williams suggested that composers should write works for “combinations of all manner of instruments which might be played by people whiling away the waiting-hours of war.”
Putting this into practice, he composed “Household Music” in 1940-41. The work exists in a version for string quartet, but the parts can also be played by flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, bass clarinet, saxophone, recorder, cornet, euphonium, or anything else at their respective pitches.
The work bears the subtitle “Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes.” This should not be confused with an earlier, more popular triptych of that name, composed in 1920, for solo organ. The tunes are totally different.
Here are flutist Kathleen Nester and violist Brett Deubner of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and cellist Bronwyn Banerdt of the Pittsburgh Symphony, to perform the third movement, “Aberystwyth”:
Vaughan Williams also arranged the piece for medium-sized orchestra:
PHOTO: “Household Music,” performed by isolating rabbits, on lute, clarinet and autoharp.
What was Franz Schubert’s less-than-flattering nickname? Find out when you read my program note on this week’s “At Home with the PSO.”
“At Home with the PSO” is the Princeton Symphony Orchestra’s gateway to original online content, including performance webcasts, photo albums, a virtual gallery, musicians’ recipes, and more, with fresh material being added weekly.
Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 – also known as “The Great” C major symphony – is the focus of this week’s PSO “Play It Forward.” Watch music director Rossen Milanov’s spoken introduction, read my program note, and enjoy a complete performance from the PSO archive.
HOT TIP: In the amount of time it takes to listen to the symphony, you could actually bake double-bassist Dan Hudson’s “Dangerously Easy Blondies.” Simply open another window and call up princetonsymphony.org on a second screen. (You’ll need two screens, because if you back out of the page, the audio will stop!) Look for the recipe listed under “Cooking with the PSO.” More musician recipes are archived at the bottom of the page.
DON’T MISS: The PSO will present a special “At Home” event, this Sunday at 4 p.m. EDT.
The virtual get-together will include performances by violinist Daniel Rowland and cellist Maja Bogdanović, a conversation with Milanov, and an appearance by PSO concertmaster Basia Danilow. Registration is free. Details are available on the PSO homepage, princetonsymphony.org.
If it’s “Great,” it must be pretty good. Check out Franz Schubert’s “Great” C major symphony on this week’s “At Home with the PSO.”
Here’s a complete schedule of this week’s Met “Live in HD” encores. You know the drill. The operas stream free, for approximately 23 hours, beginning each day around 7:30 p.m. EDT at metopera.org. Though I have noticed that the switch more often takes place around 6:00. That said, once you hit play, even if it’s 5:00 or 5:30, it’s been my experience that you can watch until the end, provided you don’t try to break. “Manon” is available, allegedly, through 6:30 this evening.
Here’s a complete schedule of this week’s offerings. You’ll find teasers and bonus materials when following the link.
Monday, May 25
Berlioz’s La Damnation de Faust
Starring Susan Graham, Marcello Giordani, and John Relyea, conducted by James Levine. From November 22, 2008.
Tuesday, May 26
Verdi’s Ernani
Starring Angela Meade, Marcello Giordani, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, and Ferruccio Furlanetto, conducted by Marco Armiliato. From February 25, 2012.
Wednesday, May 27
Puccini’s Manon Lescaut
Starring Renata Scotto, Plácido Domingo, and Pablo Elvira, conducted by James Levine. From March 29, 1980.
Thursday, May 28
Berlioz’s Les Troyens
Starring Deborah Voigt, Susan Graham, Bryan Hymel, and Dwayne Croft, conducted by Fabio Luisi. From January 5, 2013.
Friday, May 29
Viewers’ Choice: Bellini’s La Sonnambula
Starring Natalie Dessay and Juan Diego Flórez, conducted by Evelino Pidò. From March 21, 2009.
Saturday, May 30
Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore
Starring Pretty Yende, Matthew Polenzani, Davide Luciano, and Ildebrando D’Arcangelo, conducted by Domingo Hindoyan. From February 10, 2018.
Sunday, May 31
Strauss’s Salome
Starring Karita Mattila, Ildikó Komlósi, Kim Begley, Joseph Kaiser, and Juha Uusitalo, conducted by Patrick Summers. From October 11, 2008.
“Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
It is frustrating to log on to the internet every day and find the concepts of “patriotism” and “liberty” being so perverted. “Freedom,” or the children’s book version, is used as a cudgel by the selfish and self-righteous, and insecurity and division are sewn by unscrupulous politicians, who wave “America” like a red cape in a bull ring.
So many have sacrificed so much for this country and the living dream of how great America can be. Now, it seems, we can’t even manage to be decent, compassionate, and respectful of our neighbors. Clearly, the important lessons need to be re-learned. The question is, why have they not been handed down?
The bravery and sacrifice of the soldier at war is unfathomable. I think especially of those souls who were called up in the days of the draft, or who volunteered. What horrors were thrust upon them, and how well they acquitted themselves. I am thankful to those, like my grandfather, who did the heavy lifting, so that the rest of us wouldn’t have to.
The least we can do now is assume responsibility as a nation, pull ourselves together, and ensure that their sacrifices continue to resonate.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Carl Sandburg was the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes: two for his poetry, and a third for his biography of Abraham Lincoln. He was also known for his 1927 anthology “The American Songbag,” espousing our native folk song and anticipating the folk song revivals the 1940s and ‘60s. On top of everything else, he was awarded a Grammy for his recording of Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait.” When Sandburg died in 1967, at the age of 89, Lyndon Johnson observed that “Carl Sandburg was more than the voice of America, more than the poet of its strength and genius. He WAS America.”
This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll hear music inspired by this popular – and populist – figure, with two works especially appropriate for Memorial Day and, in between, a piece after a poem evocative of the American heartland.
Philadelphia composer Romeo Cascarino (1922-2002), who had served in the U.S. Army, composed a plaintive elegy, “Blades of Grass,” in 1945, just after World War II. He expressed a preference, on several occasions, that Sandburg’s poem “Grass” be read before performances. You’re probably familiar with it:
Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.
And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?
I am the grass.
Let me work.
Leo Sowerby (1895-1968) was born in Grand Rapids, MI, and spent much of his career in the Midwest. Sometimes referred to as the “Dean of American church music,” he was the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1946 for his cantata, “The Canticle of the Sun.”
The published score of his symphonic poem after Sandburg, titled “Prairie,” from 1929, bears the following lines:
“Have you seen a red sunset drip over one of my cornfields, the shore of night stars, the wave lines of dawn up a wheat valley?
“Have you heard my threshing crews yelling in the chaff of a strawpile and the running wheat of the wagonboards, my cornhuskers, my harvest hands hauling crops, singing dreams of women, worlds, horizons?”
Last, but certainly not least, Roy Harris, who shared Lincoln’s birthday (though born 89 years later), was reared in a log cabin in Lincoln County, OK, only adding to his sense of destiny. Indeed, he went on to become one of America’s greatest composers.
Harris’ Symphony No. 6 is subtitled “Gettysburg.” It’s one of a number of works the composer wrote with a Lincoln connection. Each movement of the symphony bears a superscription taken from the Gettysburg Address: the first, “Awakening (‘Fourscore and seven years ago…’);” the second, “Conflict (‘Now we are engaged in a great civil war…’);” the third, “Dedication (‘We are met on a great battlefield of that war…’);” and the fourth, “Affirmation (‘…that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain…’).”
Prior to composing the work, Harris read – you guessed it – Sandburg’s biography of Lincoln.
I hope you’ll join me for “Lincoln Logger,” an hour of music inspired by Carl Sandburg, this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
Although not on tonight’s show, here, as an added bonus, is Sandburg narrating Aaron Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait”:
