Ever since I learned some years ago that Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) – who share a birthday on May 7 – actually met on several occasions, and that Tchaikovsky’s initial suspicion of, and contempt for, his colleague and rival softened into a genuine admiration for the man (if not his music), I haven’t been able to resist revisiting the story of this classical music true bromance.
This year, I’ll put a different spin on it by sharing the observations of English composer Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) and the antics of her exuberant dog Marco. Smyth, whose steely determination to become a composer, in a day when it was the sort of thing that women simply didn’t do, wore down the opposition of her father – a major general in the Royal Artillery! – and enrolled at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1877.
When the conservatory didn’t measure up to her expectations, she acquired further polish through private studies with Heinrich von Herzogenberg (and fell in love with his wife). Her adventures in Germany brought her into contact with Dvořák, Grieg, Clara Schumann, and Herzogenberg’s friend, Johannes Brahms.
It was at a private performance of Brahms’ Piano Quintet, with the composer in attendance, that Smyth’s St. Bernard mix, Marco, burst through a door, toppling the cellist’s music stand, which, much to everyone’s relief, the notoriously prickly Brahms found hilarious.
Smyth also became friendly with Tchaikovsky, another visitor. Her first-hand accounts of her interactions and correspondence with both composers make for enjoyable reading. According to her, Tchaikovsky was “secretly terrified” of Marco, but whenever he wrote, he never failed to ask after him.
Brahms also kept in touch. It’s said that he carried a photo of Smyth with him until the time of his death.
In his diary, Tchaikovsky had characterized Brahms as a “scoundrel” and “a giftless bastard.” He was elated to find him, in reality, to be full of warmth and good humor. His preemptive hatred likely had more to do with the over-the-top and widely-broadcast veneration of establishment figures, such as Eduard Hanslick and Hans von Bülow, who hailed Brahms as the rightful heir of Beethoven.
“I’ve been on the booze with Brahms,” Tchaikovsky wrote after their first meeting. “He is tremendously nice – not at all proud as I’d expected but remarkably straightforward and entirely without arrogance. He has a very cheerful disposition, and I must say that the hours I spent in his company have left me with nothing but pleasant memories.”
I always find it oddly endearing that Brahms and Tchaikovsky were able to look past their personal aversions to one another’s music to actually grow to appreciate their individual qualities as people. There’s a lesson to be learned from that, I think. You can read more about it – and Marco! – at the links below to the website Tchaikovsky Research.
Happy birthday, boys. I’m glad it all worked out in the end.
Igor Stravinsky famously stated that “music is, by its very nature, essentially powerless to express anything.…” However, it seems anymore that in order for music to be taken seriously, especially by the Pulitzer committee, that it has to be “about” something. There is no room for the working out of abstract ideas within traditional forms. Opera wins because it’s representational – it has words and stories or ideas that even people who know nothing about music can get their heads around – but when was the last time the prize went to a symphony? I believe Jennifer Higdon’s Violin Concerto, recognized in 2010, was the last time it was awarded to a concerto.
That’s not to say there shouldn’t be points for originality. Caroline Shaw’s “Partita for 8 Voices,” the 2013 winner, is dizzyingly inventive, engaging, and entertaining. I feel rewarded, even exhilarated, when I listen to it. But most Pulitzer winners in recent decades, despite hitching themselves to big ideas, have been, from a purely musical standpoint, frankly pretty vapid. That’s not to say I don’t appreciate some of them, but do they maintain their power? Was there any power to begin with?
I wouldn’t mind if some kumbaya slipped through now and again – I have fairly diverse tastes and I’m open to new experiences – but once in a while toss me a bone and wow me with the fact that someone still knows how to actually write “serious” Western music that isn’t minimalist. How many “Anthracite Little Match Girls Become Ocean” are honored before they start to lose their luster?
One’s heart can be in the right place, and one can make a valid artistic statement in whatever way one chooses, but it doesn’t automatically follow that it qualifies for a Pulitzer, or at any rate attains the level of achievement that the Pulitzer standard once represented.
But perhaps there just isn’t anyone out there anymore that can still compose in a manner that does honor to centuries of tradition, contributing a verse to Whitman’s powerful play, with a personalized balance of inspiration and rigor? (And yes, I know, the Pulitzer music prize has only been around since 1943.) Can that race of giants truly have died-out? Perhaps. But it’s also probable that the quality of the judges has dropped. How many devote their lives to classical music anymore? Even people “in the business” fritter away their brain cells on popular garbage.
Not that the judges were ever perfect, mind you. Nothing human ever is. (Hell, I’m a case in point.) The committee has always had its prejudices, as evident during that period, beginning in the mid-‘60s, when we were getting one arid, academic award-winner after another, as it is now, when extra-musical philosophy, as pertaining to environmental concerns and social justice, and the neglected ethnic origins of a given composer are valued. I get it. I’ve got a heart, and I want the world to be a more compassionate, inclusive place. But what about the actual music? Beauty may be subjective, and our priorities can evolve, but genuine craftmanship is quantifiable.
Of course, the competition was opened up and dumbed-down in 2004 and it’s no longer about what it was. But even before that, the winners were pretty hit-and-miss. The sweetest spot was at the start, the “Appalachian Spring” era. 20 years later, the winners began to reflect the rarified taste of the Ivory Tower. A few bright spots aside, it wasn’t until the mid-90s that the prize began to acknowledge music that once again might appeal to a broader audience. Sadly, so little of it offers any meat. Must the trade-off for accessibility be vapidity?
As if sensing its lost grasp on relevance, the Prize decided to take a cliff dive into identity politics and extramusical social causes. Fine. That’s evolution, but I can’t pretend any of it is as good, as “classical music,” as the stuff that was being honored in the ‘40s and ‘50s. It doesn’t have to be “classical” to be art, but we shouldn’t pretend that the Pulitzer is anything like what it once was. The standards have changed, and frankly plummeted. I try to be a fair and open person in my life and politics, and as far as I’m concerned, everyone can like what they like, even if I personally happen to think it’s crap.
I’m not saying any of this in condemnation of this year’s winner, announced yesterday. Susie Ibarra has been recognized for her work “Sky Islands,” according to Wikipedia “a piece inspired by southern Filipino gong ensembles and the rainforest ecosystems of Luzon, at New York City’s Asia Society.” The Pulitzer committee characterizes it as “a work about ecosystems and biodiversity, that challenges the notion of the compositional voice by interweaving the profound musicianship and improvisational skills of a soloist as a creative tool.”
In her official bio, the composer is described as Filipinx-American. (She was born in California and raised in Texas.) Again, from Wikipedia: “As a composer, Ibarra incorporates diverse styles and the influences of Philippine Kulintang, jazz, classical, poetry, musical theater, opera, and electronic music. Ibarra remains active as a composer, performer, educator, and documentary filmmaker in the U.S., Philippines, and internationally. She is interested and involved in works that blend folkloric and indigenous tradition with avant-garde. In 2004, Ibarra began field recording indigenous Philippine music, and in 2009 she co-founded Song of the Bird King, an organization focusing on the preservation of Indigenous music and ecology.”
It’s not like the influences of world music or ethnic traditions are anything new. Colin McPhee and Lou Harrison were at this kind of thing back when my grandparents were young. But Ibarra lends a perspective of authenticity, through her heritage and experience.
From the clip posted, the music is accessible, perhaps even enjoyable. If it is played on the radio at 10:00 in the morning, nobody is going to be offended. There’s nothing about it that should really put a bee in my bonnet. Perhaps I even agree with the composer’s perspective. I just scratch my head and wonder where all the Walter Pistons have gone.
For anyone who reads this and despairs of ever winning the prize, remember Charles Ives, who had perhaps the most sensible reaction. On receiving his Pulitzer in 1946, for the belated premiere of his Symphony No. 3 (composed nearly 40 years earlier), he observed, “Prizes are for boys… I’m all grown-up.”
Congratulations to Ibarra and best wishes for all future success. Liking what I can hear of her piece is kind of spoiling my rant.
On May 5, 1862, the Mexican army routed superior French forces at the Battle of Puebla, in the process quite possibly saving the United States’ bacon.
You see, Napoleon III was not entirely unaware of a little something raging here in the U.S. called the Civil War. It was Napoleon’s idea that by moving in while the union was compromised, he might be able to strike an alliance with the Confederacy and further advance French interests in North America. If not for the events of Cinco de Mayo, we could all be wearing berets right now and saying things like “mais oui.”
Mexico’s underdog victory at Puebla postponed the French advance for an entire year, plenty of time for Lincoln’s generals to score enough decisive victories that no matter what Napoleon’s designs, they likely would have had very little impact on the outcome of the War Between the States.
Since Mexico’s historic upset, acquisitive European forces have thought twice before attempting to invade any country in the Americas. So be sure to hoist a margarita to our brothers and sisters to the south.
I’ll be adding tequila to my coffee and nachos to my oatmeal for Cinco de Mayo!
¡Viva México!
“Sones de Mariachi” by Blas Galindo
“Xochipilli” by Carlos Chavez, composed for MoMA to showcase pre-Columbian Aztec instruments
Segovia plays “Sonata Mexicana” by Manuel Ponce
“The Night of the Mayas” by Silvestre Revueltas
An encore by Revueltas, “Ocho por radio”
“Huapango” by José Pablo Moncayo
I love how YouTube assumes that since I am clicking on videos of Mexican music that my ads should now be in Spanish. Mayo my!
You might think, bon vivant that I am, that a light music show would be something I can simply toss off, but “Sweetness and Light” is actually the most difficult of my three shows to produce. Even though the repertoire can often be a little on the frivolous side (by design), with so many recordings played in an hour, there are a lot of moving parts.
First, I have to settle on a theme. That’s by far the easiest. Then I have to figure out what to play. Even within a theme, I want to keep it diverse, and I want the pieces to be of different lengths, so that, musically, it’s pleasing to listen to, and I’m not breaking in with chatter every three minutes. It’s possible to play six or seven pieces an hour on a well-constructed show and to plan everything so as to keep the talk fairly unobtrusive. By extension, the musical selections often have to be shuffled until I feel I’ve achieved the optimal sequence. In the end, I always wind up with a lot of extra material, and plenty to reshelve, hopefully to remember for another time.
One of the great frustrations of brainstorming repertoire can be turning things up through searches on the internet, falling in love with a certain performance or a piece of music, and realizing that not only do I not have it in my collection, but discovering that it doesn’t seem to be available anywhere as a digital download. Perhaps it was only ever issued on vinyl, decades ago, in another country. C’est la vie! In the end, I just have to let it go, with a touch of regret and the understanding that my listeners will never know what they missed. But it is none the easier for that!
On the bright side, I sometimes turn up related gems that I had no idea ever existed. Putting together a show about birds and birdsong took me to some pretty stratospheric places. Listen to this 1959 recording of the “Nightingale Waltz” from Carl Zeller’s operetta “Der Vogelhändler” (“The Bird Seller”), with Belgian soprano Lise Rollan – totally new to me, and totally unavailable as a download – and you’ll understand why I fell instantly in love.
It was hard for me to give up the search, but in the end, I had to “settle” for the considerable charms of Elisabeth Schumann.
If you liked that, perhaps you will enjoy this 1938 film, “Nanon,” with “the German Nightingale,” lyric coloratura soprano Erna Sack. Another happy discovery.
Thankfully, a love for music is a lifelong passion that is never truly spent!
This week on “The Lost Chord,” we focus on “The Virgin Spring.” No, not the Bergman film, in which Max von Sydow exacts terrible vengeance on those who… well, nevermind. See the movie.
Anyway, the show’s not about that. The spring in the film is a body of water, a symbol of rebirth and renewal. But we’re using “spring” in the purely seasonal sense, as we enjoy an hour of vernal expressions by Swedish composers.
We’ll hear Gunnar de Frumerie’s “Pastoral Suite” and two works by Wilhelm Peterson-Berger: Book III from “Flowers of Frösö” and the “Earina Suite.” “Earina,” derived from the Greek “earinos,” meaning “spring-like,” according to the composer, conjures a world of “cult deeds and magic rites… belonging to some undefined natural religion.”
Nobody does spring quite like the Swedes. I hope you’ll join me for an hour of well-seasoned music, on “The Lost Chord,” now in syndication on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
Clip and save the start times for all three of my recorded shows:
PICTURE PERFECT, the movie music show – Friday at 8:00 PM EDT/5:00 PM PDT
SWEETNESS AND LIGHT, the light music program – Saturday at 11:00 AM EDT/8:00 AM PDT
THE LOST CHORD, unusual and neglected rep – Saturday at 7:00 PM EDT/4:00 PM PDT
