Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Nadia Boulanger

Copland’s Vampire Ballet Secret

I would venture to guess that most admirers of Aaron Copland are unaware that, as a young man in Paris, he wrote a vampire ballet.

That’s right, the composer of “Billy the Kid” and “Rodeo,” who basically codified the sound of the American West, first tipped a toe into the world of dance by way of the undead.

It was Copland’s teacher, Nadia Boulanger, who suggested he undertake a ballet to cash in on the success – or notoriety – of recent Ballets Russes premieres like the riot-inducing “The Rite of Spring.”

It was F.W. Murnau’s new film, “Nosferatu,” freely based on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula,” that provided just the inspiration he was looking for. Just as Murnau tweaked Stoker’s novel – enough, he thought, to skirt the possibility of a lawsuit from the author’s estate (he was wrong) – Copland and his scenarist, Harold Clurman, jettisoned most of Murnau, but hung on to the Expressionist elements and some of the Gothic iconography.

It’s been observed that the ballet’s narrative shares more in common with another German Expressionist classic, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.” Either way, Copland’s first ballet is very far away from high-kicking buckaroos and Appalachian springs.

Copland and Clurman created as their antihero Grohg, a necromancer, a “sorcerer who loves the dead and vainly seeks affection among them. He can make them dance in so far as he does not touch them.”

Like Nosferatu, he bears a hooked nose and bulging eyes. He is a figure of desperate yearning. The four dead he calls forth to dance for him are an adolescent, an opium-eater, a streetwalker, and a beautiful young girl.

When he loses control and gently kisses the latter, she awakens from her trance and repulses him, and he’s set upon by his servitors. Grohg hurls the streetwalker into the mob and then wanders into the shadows gloomily. It seems like a scenario that Béla Bartók would have loved. (Bartók was already at work on “The Miraculous Mandarin,” but his ballet would not receive its premiere until 1926.)

Copland’s ballet, composed between 1922 and 1925, was never produced. He and Boulanger played through the score at the piano, and he cannibalized portions of the music for other works (including the even more obscure ballet “Hear Ye! Hear Ye!”).

Eventually, the score was lost, and the only bits that could be heard were those recycled in Copland’s concert pieces “Cortège macabre” (1923), which the composer withdrew, and the “Dance Symphony” (1929). “Grohg” was finally rediscovered, miscatalogued at the Library of Congress, and given its first performance in 1992, two years after the composer’s death.

The original title of the piece was “Le Nécromancien.” According to Copland, the spelling “Grohg,” with the peculiar inclusion of an “h,” was “to avoid an alcoholic connotation.”

So the first orchestral work by a figure who came to be known as the “Dean of American Composers” was inspired by a vampire movie released 100 years ago.

This year, for its centennial, special showings of “Nosferatu” abound. This weekend, organist Brett Miller will accompany a screening at The Colonial Theatre in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

The Colonial gained notoriety for its use in the 1958 film “The Blob,” when the title menace oozes into the theater, setting off a panic, which is reenacted every summer during Phoenixville’s Blobfest. (FUN FACT: the film-within-a-film, shown during that sequence, is “Daughter of Horror,” also known as “Dementia,” which features a demented film score by Trenton’s own George Antheil.)

The Phoenixville showing of “Nosferatu” will take place this Sunday at 2 p.m. On Saturday, Miller will accompany a showing of the film at the United Palace, 4140 Broadway, in Washington Heights, New York City, at 5:56 p.m. (sundown!).

For more information, follow the links.

In NYC

https://unitedpalace.boletosexpress.com/nosferatu/66149/

In Phoenixville

https://thecolonialtheatre.com/events/theatre-organ-performances/nosferatu-1922-with-live-theatre-organ-accompaniment/

Aaron Copland’s “Grohg”

Happy 100th, “Nosferatu”!

October 25, 2022
Nadia & Lili Boulanger: Musical Sisters

Merveilleuse was the “Boulangerie” that produced sisters Nadia and Lili.

Their mother, Raissa Myshetskaya (Mischetzky), was a Russian princess, who married Ernest Boulanger, a teacher and prize-winning composer at the Paris Conservatory. His associates included Charles Gounod, Jules Massenet, and Camille Saint-Saëns. Their grandfather, who had also taught there, was a notable cellist. Their grandmother sang at the Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique. Suffice it to say, from their earliest years, the girls were exposed to the finest musical minds of Paris.

On Nadia Boulanger’s birthday, much respect to these marvelous musical sisters.

Nadia (1887-1979) became what has been described as the most influential teacher since Socrates. Her students included everyone from Dinu Lipatti to Igor Markevitch, from Aaron Copland to Elliott Carter, from Astor Piazzolla to Philip Glass, from Michel Legrand to Quincy Jones, from Leonard Bernstein to “What Makes It Great?” radio host Rob Kapilow.

Her influence on American music, in particular, has been incalculable. Hopefuls flocked to her American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, where she accepted applicants from all backgrounds, provided they were determined to learn. It was Virgil Thomson who quipped, “She was a one-woman graduate school, so powerful and permeating that legend credits every United States town with two things: a five and dime and a Boulanger pupil.” The five and dimes may have faded, but not so the legacy of the “Boulangerie.”

Beneath those grey hairs and pince-nez lurked an iron will that brooked no nonsense, yet Boulanger was surprisingly accepting, astonishingly objective, and generally dead-on in her assessments.

Nadia’s younger sister, Lili (1893-1918), was one of the great hopes of French music, the first woman to win the Prix de Rome composition prize. She won the prize in 1913, at the age of 19, for her cantata “Faust et Hélène.” It was actually Lili’s second attempt. The year before, she collapsed during her performance.

Unfortunately, Lili suffered from chronic ill health, contracting bronchial pneumonia at the age of 2. Her compromised immune system left her vulnerable to Crohn’s disease, which ended her life in 1918 at the age of 24.

Nadia too had had ambitions to compose. She attempted to win the Prix de Rome (as their father had done in 1835), but was repeatedly frustrated. She got as far as second place in 1908. It became evident that her sister was the real talent in that regard, so Nadia pursued organ and, of course, pedagogy.

Both sisters were greatly influenced by Gabriel Fauré, who was director of the Paris Conservatory – Lili, a musical prodigy, had been accompanying her sister to the conservatory from before the age of 5 – and of course Debussy’s impact in those days was inescapable. Like Debussy, Lili gravitated toward a kind of indirection in her music, more characteristic of Symbolism than the evocative sorts of atmospheres often attempted by the Impressionists (a classification, by the way, Debussy disliked).

Lili was greatly affected by the death of her father in 1900, and many of her works are marked by grief and loss. Ernest fathered his children quite late in life. He was 72 when Nadia was born, and 77 at the time of Lili’s birth. The girls’ mother was 41 years his junior. Despite the inherent melancholy that pervades much of her music, Lili displayed a colorful mastery of harmony and orchestration.

Often she was perceived as destined for greatness. Her music has actually been programmed fairly frequently for a woman composer of her era. But now with greater sensitivity to male dominance in the world’s concert halls, we are bound to hear even more Lili Boulanger. It’s just a pity she didn’t leave us more.

Nadia’s life was as long as her sister’s was brief. She died in 1979 at the age of 92.

Fascinating documentary about Nadia Boulanger, including first-hand accounts, historical footage, and terrific insights. Leonard Bernstein is interviewed in French, beginning around the 7-minute mark:

Nadia conducts Fauré’s Requiem

Nadia’s own “Fantaisie variée” for piano and orchestra

Lili Boulanger’s “Faust et Hélène”

“D’un soir triste” (“Of a Sad Evening”)

“Vieille prière bouddhique” (“Old Buddhist Prayer”)

BREAK BREAD WITH THE BOULANGERS ON NADIA’S BIRTHDAY: Nadia, left, with Lili in 1913. The bread was baked fresh this morning.

September 16, 2022
Staying Home with Nadia Boulanger at Bard

I confess, when it comes to my health, I’m a bit of a milquetoast.

At this point, even though I’m vaccinated, I’m not entirely comfortable with the idea of sitting shoulder-to-shoulder in an enclosed auditorium with folks who can’t be counted on to wear their masks over their noses, or at all for that matter.

While I very much enjoyed the livestream of Ernest Chausson’s opera “Le Roi Arthus” from Bard College last week, it was clear I had made the right decision – for me, anyway – to stay at home, as there were at least five people within the line of sight who were not masked, despite a mandatory masking policy. Sure, everyone had to provide proof of vaccination and temperatures were taken at the door. But I just don’t want to deal with getting sick, to whatever degree, if I can possibly avoid it, and I certainly don’t want to be responsible for conveying illness to my family or friends, many of whom are considerably older than myself.

It’s not just the Sosnoff Theater (where the opera was performed, and in which many of the orchestral concerts take place), which is cavernous, and I’m sure well-ventilated; it’s also the LUMA Theater (where the chamber concerts and panels are presented), a much more intimate venue, and the crowded lobbies, concession stands, and above all, restrooms, which are like cattle chutes even under the best of circumstances.

So for as much as I love the Bard Music Festival, I’ll be keeping my distance this year, in the hope that next year will be better.

THE GOOD NEWS is that because of the extraordinary circumstances – a festival held in time of pandemic – many of the programs will be livestreamed at a reduced price. Admittedly, streaming is rather thin brew next to the experience of attending live music, but it does allow the muted pleasure of experiencing lots of unusual and neglected repertoire in the context of intelligently curated programs.

And this year promises to be an especially good one, since the focus will be “Nadia Boulanger and Her World.” Boulanger, of course, was one of the great musical pedagogues of the 20th century. Her influence was incalculable. She was particularly important to the artistic development of innumerable American composers, from Aaron Copland to Philip Glass. So the festival’s repertoire will be notably diverse and, as always, intriguing.

Also of significance, Boulanger is the first woman to be selected as a focal point of the summer event (though Grazyna Bacewicz was the subject of a satellite festival in San Francisco, Bard Music West, in 2019, and works by women composers – including Nadia’s sister, Lili – have been represented as a matter of course through Bard’s characteristically diverse programming).

This year’s Bard Music Festival will take place over two weekends, August 6-8 and August 12-15. It’s a great opportunity to experience a lot of music you would otherwise probably never get to hear in concert. If you’re interested in out-of-the-ordinary programming, definitely take a few minutes to see what it’s all about. For more information, visit https://fishercenter.bard.edu/bmf/

Mme Boulanger once expressed disdain for students who missed her classes, because they didn’t want to get caught up in rioting in the streets of Paris in 1934. She felt they weren’t taking music seriously enough. In opting for the safety of these at-home livestreams, I can practically feel the withering glare through her pince-nez.

August 6, 2021
Bard Music Festival: Rediscoveries Online

I know I have a tendency to talk a lot about Bard College. But it deserves to be talked about! Always a lot of interesting things happening there, on its bucolic campus within sight of the Catskills.

Yesterday, in conjunction with Nadia Boulanger’s birthday, I mentioned its summer music festival, which is a mecca, or should be, for anyone interested in live performance of rarely-heard, largely forgotten, and totally worthwhile music, presented over an immersive fortnight of concerts, lectures, and panels. Ordinarily, there’s a lot else going on, on Bard campus, all summer long.

“Nadia Boulanger and Her World” was to have been the focus of this year’s festival. Because of COVID, that has been postponed until next summer. But as you know, Nature abhors a vacuum (even as she may adore a pandemic), so in the meantime Bard has stepped up with some very enticing virtual programs, which it is presenting under the title “Out of the Silence: Bard Music Festival Rediscoveries.”

This series of live-streamed concerts includes works by classic, though underexposed, Black composers, alongside musical staples for string orchestra by Dvořák, Mendelssohn, Bartók, and Tchaikovsky. These are performed by the college’s resident ensemble, The Orchestra Now (TŌN), under the direction of Leon Botstein and his associates. Botstein is music director of the American Symphony Orchestra and president of Bard College.

The programs are presented on Saturdays at 5:30 pm EDT, with preconcert panels offered an hour before. Since it is not always the best hour for me to be listening, I am delighted to find that past concerts in the series are being archived online.

Here’s Program Two, with an introductory composers’ round table, featuring Adolphus Hailstork, Jessie Montgomery, Alvin Singleton, and Joan Tower. The music-making – which includes Montgomery’s “Strum,” Singleton’s “After Choice,” Hailstork’s “Sonata da Chiesa” (highly recommended), and Dvořák’s “Serenade for Strings” – begins around the 58-minute mark.

As you can see, they’ve figured out a way to present these concerts safely, outdoors, with strings appropriately distanced, and no potential for airborne contagion by way of plumes from wind or brass instruments.

Again, the next program in the series will be presented this Saturday. Here’s a link for free reservations for the remaining concerts:

https://tickets.fishercenter.bard.edu/2392/2396

Since the coronavirus shutdown, Bard has been extraordinarily generous with its archival material, sharing video of orchestral and opera performances from past festivals. In many of these, Botstein conducts the ASO. You’ll find much to choose from here:

https://fishercenter.bard.edu/upstreaming/

Times are tough for artists, as they are for everybody else. If you enjoy these offerings, or any of the virtual streams posted by other musicians and organizations, please consider supporting them with your contribution. Even a little bit means something, if everybody chips in.

Masked and distanced: The Bard musicians in rehearsal

Fisher Center at Bard

September 17, 2020
Nadia Boulanger: Influential Music Teacher
Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) has been described as the most influential teacher since Socrates.

Her students included everyone from Dinu Lipatti to Igor Markevitch, from Aaron Copland to Elliott Carter, from Astor Piazzolla to Philip Glass, from Michel Legrand to Quincy Jones, from Leonard Bernstein to “What Makes It Great?” radio host Rob Kapilow.

Her influence on American music, in particular, has been incalculable. Hopefuls flocked to her American Conservatory at Fontainebleau, where she accepted applicants from all backgrounds, provided they were determined to learn. It was Virgil Thomson who quipped, “She was a one-woman graduate school, so powerful and permeating that legend credits every United States town with two things: a five and dime and a Boulanger pupil.” The five and dimes may have faded, but not so the legacy of the “Boulangerie.”

This summer, Boulanger was to have been the focus of “Nadia Boulanger and Her World,” a two-week celebration of her music and influence, at the Bard Music Festival, held on the campus of Bard College in upstate New York, since sensibly postponed to next year, because of COVID concerns. The concerts, talks, and panels will examine not only Boulanger’s own contributions, but also those of her sister, the tragically short-lived composer Lili Boulanger, and representative works by her innumerable students and contemporaries.*

In the meantime, I stumbled across this fascinating documentary a few months back. It’s full of great stuff – first-hand accounts, historical footage, and terrific insights. Bernstein is interviewed in French, beginning around the 7-minute mark:

Beneath those grey hairs and pince-nez lurked an iron will that brooked no nonsense, yet Boulanger was surprisingly accepting, astonishingly objective, and generally dead-on in her assessments. When asked if a hierarchy could be established among composers – Beethoven being more important than Max Bruch, for instance – she suggests the pointlessness of such comparisons, stating it is like comparing the Himalayas to Montmartre.

She accepts the philosophical breadth of her pupils as a matter of course: “It’s very different to confront a work you don’t know yet, or a work in which you have to recognize some worth, while secretly saying to yourself, ‘that’s a trend I would never follow.’ That’s a matter of personal taste. Cannot culture allow us to go beyond personal taste and see the beauty of an object? I may not want to buy it, but I can see that it’s beautiful.”

Clearly, she was an extraordinary person. Happy birthday, Nadia Boulanger!
- There’s always something interesting going on at Bard. Check out the Bard Music Festival “Rediscoveries” series, featuring underplayed works by classic Black composers on the same programs with beloved masterpieces for string orchestra by Tchaikovsky and Bartók, now streaming on Saturdays:
https://fishercenter.bard.edu/bmf/

Fisher Center at Bard
September 16, 2020

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