Contemporary Music in Evolution; 1; 1899

This is Gunther Scholer with the first program in a new series called contemporary music in evolution. Program and contemporary music are few and far between. And when they do occur they present modern music in an arbitrary haphazard fashion that generally leaves the uninitiated listener baffled and bewildered. The various schools and musical lineages are somehow never delineated and to some layman listener all modern music starvin Skee by Schoenberg Veron or Boulez all sounds like so many wrong notes. And the listener is never really given it much of a chance to find out the whys and wherefores of contemporary music. You know this by the way that I did not say the house of contemporary music. How composers put their pieces together is really only important to other composers and theoreticians to the prose to speak not to the average listener. Ultimately it matters little if a piece is in the diatonic system or the 12 tone system or a whole tone or electronically conceived. Our only concern is that with whatever

system used does it communicate in terms of the world of sound. I was speaking a moment ago of the whys and wherefores of contemporary music. And when I was asked to do this program I remembered the hundreds of occasions I've been asked. Being a composer to explain the music let's say a journey of a BN or a neo classic middle period Stravinsky. And sooner or later such discussions always would come down to two basic points two basic obstacles that make the appreciation of contemporary music a problem to so many people. A. The fact that the great majority of performances of contemporary music are woefully inadequate. And B that very few people ever have the chance to take a particularly knotty work by a 20th century composer and trace it back through the composer's own development. If people could for instance trace the gradual unfolding of at anality through the

late stages of chromaticism and palate anality one can do this with hundreds of works of the first two decades of our century. Then they would hear with their own ears the logic and inevitability of this development. The same kind of historic tracing could be done in terms of rhythm orchestration and other aspects of the art of composing. Now I intend to do this kind of thing on this program in the hope of clarifying many of the so-called mysteries of contemporary music. As regards point A the end adequacy of performances. I intend to play only the finest recordings finest in terms not of Hi-Fi necessarily not in terms of the Grand Appeal of some name conductor but rather finest in terms of performances that come closest to carrying out the intentions of the composer. Unfortunately the uninitiated listener does not know when a Stravinsky or Schoenberg performance is bad. And all too often what

he takes to be the ugliness or irrationality of a composer's imagination is simply the result of the ineptitude of a conductor in fathoming the composer's intentions or the lack of sufficient rehearsal time or any number of other reasons. In a Schubert or a Beethoven symphony the lay listener can tell when a performance is bad and can compensate instinctively for this. In a modern piece he cannot do this and that is why I feel the performance of let's say a piece must be of anything more perfect than that of a Schubert piece. Well I wanted to get that much off my chest to give my listeners an idea of what this program hopes to achieve in terms of aims and standards. In trying to decide where contemporary music starts I of course had to pick an arbitrary date some musicologists a contemporary music started with my show inserting 80 others say it began with the chromaticism of Bach. Others think it started with the romantic individual ism of Beethoven.

Still others feel that modern music started with Richard Strauss and because of Mahler. Well of course in a way they're all right to a degree. But I pick the turn of the century because it seems to me that people begin to have trouble assimilating works written around 900 519 as thick 7 and 8 and thereabouts and from there on to the present. Starting with 1900 therefore gives me and you the listener a chance to set the scene so to speak for the radical changes which altered the course of music around the time of the First World War. On each program I will play important or innovation or works composed during a given year. And we shall thus proceed through the 59 years of our century up to the present certain years will of course require more than one program. Tonight's program will give us a last glimpse back over the 19th century the year 1899 in the three works. I shall play.

You will hear both the heritage of the 19th century past and the seeds of the 20th century future. In 1899 the conservative listener was just about catching up with Schumann Wagner and belly us and was gritting his teeth to the new music of Mussorgsky Mahler and Richard Strauss. But already new musical trends were in the air and pointing to a new future. Rimsky-Korsakov in 1909 was finishing his opera the bride in it a relatively new harmonic language developed from Liszt and Wagner in Germany and by Kiev and bought again in Russia can be heard as well as the remarkable coloristic orchestration which was to have such a profound influence on famous people Igor Stravinsky and of course through him on the music of our time. The music for the ride is still relatively conservative for its time and represents

the accepted operatic tradition of Russia in the 1890s. I am playing two short excerpts because in the programmes of the next several weeks we shall hear Korsakov developed harmonically and melodically into the realm of Polytone ality and will also hear how his orchestra palette becomes enriched in a span of about 10 years. Let us listen first then to the introduction of the fourth act with its strangely juxtaposed brass and string chords and ominous beats in the horns. And after that we shall hear from the fourth act. Marcus is a kind of Russian mad scene from the war in the fourth act being delirious as she sings this aria. The soprano is Elizabeth and the

orchestra is the theatre theatre opera orchestra conducted by Vladimir Duff. Let's listen to these two short excerpts from him because like us it's our pride. And you're.

You want your. Money. Was. Was.

Was. Was was was. Was was. Word.

Was. The introduction to the fourth act and Martha's mad scene and also

from the fourth act Korsakoff's opera the bride sung by the soprano Elizabeth. And the Kiev theater opera orchestra conducted by Vladimir Putin and off. So much for a ski Korsakov in 1899. Claude Debussy was 37 in 1899 at first caught up in the Wagner's Ring craze that spread all over Europe fanned by the famous Brahms Wagner feud engineered by the Viennese critic Hans lake soon became influenced by a variety of other artistic sources not only the influence of the Russian composer such as boding with softy energy cost like us but also all manner of Oriental and exotic musics and above all he became influenced by the French painters and poets. In 1909 deputy finished his three Nocturnes for orchestra which already lead away from the solid harmonically strongly rooted

music of Wagner and Brahms to a more French transparent orchestral texture and a more suspended kind of harmonic melodic organization. This is especially true of the last of the three Nocturnes van. Here we hear for about ten measures an example of the influence I spoke about and more importantly we hear music which represented an entirely new sonic experience in 1899 especially through the use of female voices singing without words. Sometimes humming and used and orchestrated completely like instruments and therefore having in 1899 I'm sure an almost otherworldly effect. Yeah.

Uh huh. Look.

What was. With you.

Claude Debussy. See you then. The third of his Nocturnes

for orchestra played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. With women of the Berkshire Festival Chorus. And the entire group conducted by. Arnold Schoenberg was another young revolutionary in 1899. He was only 24 at the time. And that was the year when he wrote for clef and not transfigured night. Based on a poem by the German poet they had they met. Schoenberg has often been characterized as a post Wagnerian composer. While this is true it is certainly not the whole truth. Just as composers in our time were often torn between the styles let's say of Stravinsky and Schoenberg which were thought to be irreconcilable opposites until a few years ago. So Schoenberg's allegiance was also split between Brahms and Wagner. Also thought to be stylistically Irag irreconcilable. That the Brahms

Ian bent to great formal and expressive control where the subject of serious study on the part of young Schoenberg is evident above all if one compares for Collette and not with certain late chamber music works of Brahms especially the clarinet Quintet and string quintet. This is not of course to say that for Clapton out is as mature a work as the Brahms pieces nor is the conflict between Wagner's Tristan chromaticism and the writer's ism. And the North German coolness of Brahms classicism by any means resolved in this piece. But perhaps it is just this conflict which drives the piece with such useful and unabashed exuberance. In any case it is a work of great imagination. Conceptually and instrumental and its weaknesses are perhaps more the weaknesses of an era than of a composer. What about the recording.

Unfortunately mostly conductors and performers with the super expressive approach gravitate towards her clit and not very few of the Apollonian more intellectual types seem to be attracted to it. So that recordings where the orgiastic bad Neary and elements are overplayed are plentiful and recordings emphasizing the Brahms EON chamber music aspects and the Brahms Ian contrapuntal writing are very rare indeed. But last year just such a recording was finally produced and it is to my mind not only the finest recording of this difficult work but on the terms previously outlined. The only authentic recording I have ever encountered. The only recording which starts with the score with the music itself rather than some stylistic preconception. Technically it is remarkably sure and clean and the expressive. Nuances

are not willful super impositions but controlled nuances derived from the musical content itself. I think most of the credit for this remarkable achievement must go to Felix gal Amir who plays first violin on this recording and leads the ensemble an ensemble made up of faculty and students at the Marlboro Music Festival of which Rudolf Serkin is the director. The full personnel on this recording consists of. Felix gallant Mir and Ernestine breeze Meister violinists Harry's Arathi and Samuel Rhodes realists. Michael grab an ear and Judith Rosen cellists. Here is Schoenberg's for Clinton out as played by string sextet from the mild world music festival. Way.

E e.

You are a. Man.

Ya. Ya. Know.

Really. I am.

The King. The. KING The. Head.

Yes. And who. Knows. Why.

You're.

The One. Yes.

Your. One.

On. One. Sure.

He just heard a recording of Schoenberg's for clipped and

knocked as played by an ensemble of string players from the music festival. That concludes my program for tonight and I'll be back next week with music from 19:00.