Asuka is the name for the region around the present-day village of Asuka in Nara Prefecture. Now a quiet rural village (and unfortunately increasingly a bedtown for Osaka), in the 6th and 7th centuries, this was the political and cultural center of Japan, before a true capital on the Chinese model was established first at Fujiwarakyo in 694 and then at Heijokyo in 710. The compact area called "Asuka" in the Asuka period is thought to have been
centered on the Asuka Basin and a small area on the east side of the
Asuka River (about 1.6 km from north to south and 0.8 km from east to
west). Today's Asuka Village is larger and includes both the upper reaches and
lower reaches of the Asuka River, and the Takatori River basin area
(which was called "Hinokuma" in the Asuka period).
From about 400 CE the Asuka region was settled largely by branches of the Aya family, immigrants from Korea. In the mid-6th century, Buddhism was introduced to Asuka and its surrounding area, and continental culture developed. The residences of most Japanese sovereigns before the 8th c., such as the Toyoura Palace of Empress Suiko and the Kiyomihara Palace of Emperor Tenmu, were located in Asuka. There was no fixed capital and the palace was rebuilt on a different location in the wider Asuka area for each new sovereign. The word "palace" is in fact too gorgeous: we are talking about big wooden halls with thatched roofs on the model of for example the Ise Shrines.
[Asuka area seen from Okadera]
Many of the events described in the chronicle Nihon Shoki (720) took place in the area, but except some foundation stones, none of the original palace or temple buildings remains. Sites that attract visitors are tombs as the Ishibutai tomb and the Takamatsu tomb; ancient temples (although many times rebuilt) as Asukadera, Okadera and Tachibanadera; and the Asuka Historical Museum.
The origin of the word "Asuka" is not clear, but it may have been derived from a foreign word (such as the ancient Korean "suka, "village")
or from the name of a topographic feature (such as a river being shallow). The kanji for Asuka are also
interesting: 飛鳥, "tobu tori," "flying bird" or 明日香, "is it tomorrow?" The first is a pillow word in the Manyoshu and the second invites to wordplay.
The Manyoshu contains many poems set in the area - from a total of about 900 Manyoshu place names in Nara Prefecture, about a quarter are concentrated in Asuka. So this certainly is the place to go for anyone who wants to visit spots related to the Manyoshu! However, the name "Asuka" itself does not appear very frequently in the Manyoshu, as always the geographical names for the actual places are used, such as "Ikazuchi no oka," "Makami no hara" or "Kiyomihara no miya." It is only after the capital moved out of the area that we find poems in the Manyoshu mentioning Asuka - and then with a feeling of nostalgia. The most famous example is the poem Prince Shiki (d, 715) wrote after the move from Asuka Palace to the Fujiwara Palace:
MYS I.51
winds of Asuka blowing back the sleeves of the palace women - now the capital is far away and you blow in vain
uneme no | sode fukikaesu | Asuka kaze | miyako wo tomi | itazura ni fuku
采女の袖吹きかえす明日香風都を遠みいたづらに吹く
The shift from Asuka to the Fujiwara Palace took place in 694, 8 years after the death of Emperor Tenmu, who had ruled from the Kiyomihara Palace in Asuka. From the compact Asuka area to the new Fujiwara capital was only a short walking distance, but the psychological distance seems to have been quite large as it meant abandoning the old capital.
A more specific case is given in the next poem, by Empress Genmei:
MYS I.78 Empress Genmei
"In the Third Month of Wado 3 (710), when Her Majesty, on the way from Fujiwarakyo to Nara, had her palanquin halted at Nagaya no hara; looking back at Fujiwarakyo, she composed this poem:"
when I leave behind the land of Asuka of the Flying Birds I won't be able to see My Lord's resting place anymore
tobu tori no | Asuka no sato wo | okite inaba | kimi ga atari wa | miezu ka mo aramu
飛ぶ鳥の明日香の里を置きて去なば君があたりは見えずかもあらむ
This poem was written when leaving Fujiwarakyo for Heijokyo (Nara) in 710 - to Empress Genmei, Asuka was so close to Fujiwara, that she considers them as one and the same place - but Nara is another story. "Tobu tori," "Flying Birds," is an utamakura for Asuka. "Kimi ga atari" (my Lord's neighborhood) points at the tomb site of Prince Kusakabe, the husband of Empress Genmei. Prince Kusakabe (662 – 689) was the second son of Emperor Tenmu; he married Princess Abe (the later Empress Genmei), but he died suddenly at age 28 before ascending to the throne after leading the funeral rites for his father Tenmu (Hitomaro has written a beautiful choka lamenting his death).
In later ages we still find a handful of poems waxing nostalgic about Asuka, but in the Heian period attention shifts to the Asuka River (Asukagawa) as a subject for poetry. The Asuka River, one of the tributaries of the Yamato River, flows upstream through a valley lined with terraced rice paddies; after passing through the hilly Asuka Village, the river travels through the countryside of the Nara Basin. A swift, winding stream, it was famous for its changeable flow, with shallow places and rapids, as well as deeper pools.
[Asuka River at the confluence of Kayamori]
In the Manyoshu, various aspects of this river are addressed, such as the noise made by its rapids:
MYS X. 1878
I wish I could go and listen to this one thing: the roaring sound the rapids make when spring rain falls on the Asuka River
ima yukite | kiku mono ni mo ga | Asukagawa | harusame furite | takitsu se no oto wo
今行きて聞くものにもが明日香川春雨降りてたきつ瀬の音を
Another aspect is addressed in the following poem, also from the Manyoshu:
MYS III.325 Yamabe no Akahito
like the rising mist that hovers over the pools in the Asuka River my love is not something that will soon vanish
Asukagawa | kawa yodo sarazu | tatsu kiri no | omoisugubeki | koi no aranaku ni
明日香河川淀さらず立つ霧の思ひ過ぐべき恋にあらなくに
This poem by Akahito starts the association of the Asuka River with the theme of love. But here we find mist that keeps hovering over the Asuka River, in other words, an image of constancy. That will soon change, for in the Heian period the Asuka River became a symbol of transitoriness, of changeability. For example:
Kokinshu 933
in this world of ours what is there that does not change? yesterday's deep pools in the Asuka River have become today's shallows yo no naka wa | nami ga tsune naru | Asukagawa | kino no fuchi zo | kyo wa se ni naru
世の中は何か常なるあすか川昨日の淵ぞけふは瀬になる
And linked with the love theme:
Kokinshu 687
though this is a world like the Asuka River where pools turn into shallows I shall not forget the one I fell in love with
Asukagawa | fuchi wa se ni naru | yo nari tomo | omoisometemu | hito wa wasureji
明日香川淵は瀬になる世なりとも思いそめてむ人は忘れじ
[Stone Bridge over the Asuka River]
Another famous waka linking the Asuka River with the changeability of the world:
Kokinshu 341 Harumichi no Tsuraki
"yesterday" we say and "today" we live days and months slip past as swiftly as the flow of the "Is It Tomorrow?" River
kino to ii | kyo to kurashite | Asukagawa | nagarete hayaki | tsukihi narikeri
昨日といい今日と暮らしてあすか川流れてはやき月日なりけり
Tsuraki plays on the name of the Asuka (Is it tomorrow?) River and also uses it as a makurakotoba for "nagarete" (flowing).
Many poems were written on this theme, but in later collections as the Shin Kokinshu, we find a final change, away from transitoriness and other symbolical meanings. In the 12th and 13th centuries, Japan's early Medieval period, we find a change to pure nature poetry:
Shin Kokinshu 541
on the Asuka River colored maple leaves flow; on Mt Katsuragi, it seems, the autumn wind has blown
Asukagawa | momijiba nagareru | Katsuragi no | yama no akikaze | fuki zo shimerashi
飛鳥川もみじ葉流れる葛城の山の秋風吹きぞしめらし
This same period saw the popularity of honkadori, to base a new poem on an older one (also called "allusive variation"). Here is a new waka based on the previous one:
Shin Kokinshu 542 Fujiwara no Nagakata (1139-1191)
on the Asuka River waves approach the shallows in deep red - the cold storm wind from Mt Katsuragi
Asukagawa | seze ni nami yoru | kurenai ya | Katsuragiyama no | kogarashi no kaze
飛鳥川瀬瀬に波よるくれないや葛城山の木枯らしの風
Although this is nature poetry, we should not imagine that the poet actually visited the Asuka River to see the red autumn leaves and then composed the above poem. Most nature poems were written after scenes on painted screens, or as in the above based on older poetry - very few poets did travel, as very few courtiers wanted to leave their comfort zone in the capital - with only a few famous exceptions such as the poet monk Saigyo. But that does not negatively influence the quality of the poems!
Translations: Levy, Ian Hideo (1987). The Ten Thousand Leaves: A Translation of
the Man'yoshu. Japan's Premier Anthology of Classical Poetry, Volume
One. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-00029-8. Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai (2005). 1000 Poems From The Manyoshu: The Complete Nippon Gakujutsu Shinkokai Translation. Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-43959-3. Kokinshu,
A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern by Laurel Rasplica Rodd and
Mary Catherine Henkenius (University of Tokyo Press, 1984); Kokin Wakashu, The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry, by Helen Craig McCullough (Stanford University Press, 1985); One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each, by Peter MacMIllan (Penguin Classics); Traditional Japanese Literature, an Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, ed. Haruo Shirane (Columbia U.P., 2007) Traditional Japanese Poetry, An Anthology, by Steven D. Carter (Stanford University Press, 1991); A Waka Anthology, by Edward A. Cranston (2 vols, Stanford U.P. 1993 and 2006); Studies: Brocade by Night: Kokin Wakashu and the Court Style in Japanese Classical Poetry, by Helen Craig McCullough (Stanfors U.P., 1985) The Cambridge History of Japanese Literature, edited by Shirane / Suzuki / Lurie (Cambridge U.P., 2016) History of Japanese Literature by Jun'ichi Konishi (3 vols, Princeton U.P., 1991) Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, by Haruo Shirane (Columbia U.P., 2012) Japanese Court Poetry, by Robert H Brower and Earl Miner (London 1962) The Making of Shinkokinshu, by Robert N. Huey (Harvard U.P., 2002) Pictures of the Heart, The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image by Joshua S. Mostow (University of Hawai'i Press, 1996); Seeds in the Heart, Japanese Literature from the Earliest Times to the late Sixteenth Century, by Donald Keene (Columbia U.P. 1999) Utakotoba Utamakura Daijiten, Kubota Jun and Baba Akiko (Kadokawa Shoten) Utamakura, Allusion, and Intertextuality in Traditional Japanese Poetry, by Edward Kamens (Yale U.P., 1997) Waka as Things, Waka and Things, by Edward Kamens (Yale U.P., 2017) Waka bungaku jiten, by Ariyoshi Tamotsu (Ofusha)
The above hokku was written in 1688, during Basho's second long journey to Western Japan. On
November 29, 1687 Basho left his hermitage in Edo for the tour described in his Knapsack Notebook. After that trip, he twice visits his family in Ueno. First he spends New Year
of 1688 with them, arriving at the end of January 1688 (in our calendar, so before the lunar New Year). After a visit to the Ise Shrines, he returns to Ueno on March 19 to take
part in the 33rd anniversary of his father's death.
A "navel string" (heso no o) is the umbilical cord which in Basho's time was kept as a memento. When a baby was born, the parents would set aside the umbilical cord and store it away with a record of the date of birth. For Basho, the umbilical cord is a metaphor for his blood relation to his parents. When he accidentally finds it during his visit home (perhaps during the cleaning at the end of the year), he tearfully recollects all the years of indebtedness to his parents, especially to his mother.
[The walls of Ueno Castle]
many many things they call to mind these cherry blossoms
samazama no | koto omoidasu | sakura kana
Also during his return to his hometown in 1688, Basho was invited to a cherry blossom viewing party at the villa of Todo Yoshinaga (haikai name: Tangan), the lord of Ueno Castle at that time, and the son of Sengin under whom Basho had served in his youth. "Everything was as it used to be," Basho writes in his head note.
Seeing the cherry blossoms at the place where Basho, now 44 years old, had served in his youth, stirs up all kinds of thoughts in the poet's mind. The cherry tree is blooming as in the old days and perhaps Tangan resembled his father Sengin, who had been in his early twenties when Basho knew him. Basho saw his own youth and remembered how he used to wrote hokku with Sengin under the blossoms.
This year his disciples in Iga-Ueno built a hermitage for him (one of five) and Basho named it "Minomushi-an" through the following haiku:
come and listen to the voice of the bagworm in my hermitage
minomushi no | ne wo kiki ni koyo | kusa no io
A "bagworm" is a sort of moth, which certainly doesn't chirp or make any other sounds, but Sei Shonagon had written in her Pillow Book (written around the year 1000) that the bagworm chirps "chichi yo, chichi yo", or "father, father." Basho here makes a humorous use of classical literature.
[Minomushi-an in Iga-Ueno]
Basho returned to Ueno at the end of
his Oku no Hosomichi trip. He arrived in November 1689 and stayed for
the rest of the year. On April 10 1690 he was again in Ueno
for blossom viewing, and also in 1691 he continues to use Ueno
as base for trips to neighboring areas.
In 1690 Basho was in Iga-Ueno at cherry blossom time. During a kasen held at a blossom viewing party at the residence of Ogawa Fubaku, a samurai from Iga, on April 10 he wrote:
under the tree soup and vinegared fish salad with cherry blossoms
ki no moto ni | shiru mo namasu mo | sakura kana
The above is said to be a good example of Basho's "karumi," lightness.
In December of the year before that, Basho had also been in his hometown, where he wrote another "light" haiku. This haiku was written on December 12 at the house of Tomoda Kakuzaemon, another Iga samurai who dabbled in haiku:
come, children, let's run about in the hail
iza kodomo | hashiri arikan | tamaarare
Basho was apparently in a happy mood, as if he had returned to his own childhood.
[Basho, lonely on a pedestal in his hometown]
In 1694 Basho makes his last
journey, leaving Edo on June 3. On June 20 he arrives in Ueno; then,
after a visit to Kyoto, he returns the end of August to Ueno and stays a few
months - local students had built a cottage for him at the back of his
brother's house.
That Basho felt the passage of time is demonstrated by a haiku written on September 25, 1694, at the house of the Iga merchant Katano Bosui:
the village has grown old not a single house without persimmon trees
sato furite | kaki no ki motanu | ie mo nashi
And a final haiku, written on October 23, 1694, just before Basho's scheduled departure from Iga-Ueno:
departing autumn their hands opened wide chestnut burs
yuki aki ya | te wo hirogetaru | kuri no iga
The opened chestnut burs on the tree look like opened hand palms, as if trying to stop the departing autumn - or to stop Basho from leaving. He would next go to Osaka, where he would fall ill and die on November 28.
Basho spots in Iga-Ueno:
Ueno Castle was built in 1585 by Tsutsui Sadatsugu, on the site of a
temple which had been torched by Oda Nobunaga, who broke the medieval
power of the large monasteries. In 1608 Todo Takatora was sent by
Tokugawa Ieyasu to this strategically important town. He was to build a
massive castle, but the five-story donjon was flattened by a typhoon
before its completion. In the meantime, the threat to the Tokugawa
regime had been diminished thanks to the victory over the Toyotomi
forces and the donjon was never rebuilt.
As the castle never had a
donjon, the present three-story tower possesses no historical
significance. It was built in 1935 by a local tycoon turned politician,
Kawasaki Koji, to boost the greatness of Iga-Ueno. Although it is not
historically correct, one thing must be admitted: the castle tower was
built from wood and not from concrete.
The first two stories act
as a small museum, showing the usual suits of armor, swords, helmets,
palanquins, scrolls, lacquer boxes and other daimyo possessions. The
variety of helmets and 'face protectors' is quite interesting, as are
the suits of armor sitting gloomily in their glass cases. The top floor
affords a good view of the town and surroundings, a fertile plain
encircled by mountains on all sides. The shikishi set into the ceiling
of this top floor were painted or calligraphied by famous poets and
painters of the day, such as Domoto Insho (a falcon in flight). After
leaving the castle, walk around (momentarily leaving the park) to have a
good look at the great castle ramparts. Only part of the thirty meter
high fortifications still stands, but these are at least as Basho saw
them. 9:00-17:00. Cl. Dec. 29 - 31. Tel. 0595-21-3148
Minomushi-an, or the Bagworm Hermitage, stands a 15 min. walk
from Iga-Ueno-shi station. It is the only surviving of five such
hermitages belonging to Basho's disciples in Iga-Ueno. The present hut
was established by Hattori Doho (1657-1730) and named after a poem Basho
sent the owner after the completion of the hut in 1688 (see above). If is a
beautifully rustic place under dense trees and Basho is supposed to have
stayed here when he visited Iga-Ueno in later life. After the master's
death, Doho compiled Basho's sayings in this hut. ¥300. 8:30-17:00. Cl. Mon., day after public holiday, Dec. 29 - Jan. 3. Tel. 0595-23-8921.
Translations and Studies of Basho: Basho's Haiku, 2 vols, by
Toshiharu Oseko (1990 & 1996, Maruzen); Basho and his Interpreters,
Selected Hokku with Commentary, by Makoto Ueda (1992, Stanford U.P.);
Traces of Dreams, Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho,
by Haruo Shirane (1998, Stanford U.P.); Basho's Narrow Road, by Hiroaki
Sato (1996, Stone Bridge Press); Basho's Journey, The Literary Prose of
Matsuo Basho, by David Landis Bamhill (2005, State University of New
York).
te ni toraba kien | namida zo atsuki | aki no shimo
手にとらば消んなみだぞ あつき秋の霜
Basho
[Haiseiden, Iga-Ueno]
Basho's place of birth, Iga-Ueno, boasts many monuments celebrating its most famous citizen. Although there were long absences as well, Basho loved his home town and the family of his older brother and sisters still living there. After his move to Edo, he visited at least eight times and often used the town during longer stays as a base for trips in the vicinity. We will make a tour through the city and the haiku Basho wrote here in two parts.
Basho was born in Ueno in the old province of Iga (modern Mie Pref.) in the year 1644. The day and month of his birth are unknown. His name as a child was Kinsaku; he had an older brother Hanzaemon and four sisters. His father, Matsuo Yozaemon, was probably a landed farmer who was allowed some of the privileges of a samurai, such as having a family name. About his mother we only know that her parents had emigrated from Iyo Province (now Ehime prefecture). The family status was respectable, but not particularly high.
In 1656, when Basho is 13, his father dies. Within the next several years (the precise date is not known) Basho enters the service of Todo Yoshikiyo, a relative of the feudal lord ruling the province. As no record of his service survives, his official rank may have been low and his duties minor. But he soon joined the circle of Yoshikiyo's son, Yoshitada, who was two years Basho's senior and who wrote haikai as a pastime under the pseudonym Sengin.
One of the earliest surviving documents referring to Basho, shows that he, under the haikai name Sobo, participated in a haikai gathering headed by Sengin on December 19, 1665. Sengin's haikai teacher, Kitamura Kigin (1624-1705), sent a verse to the gathering. Kigin belonged to the Teimon school of haikai, the most influential one at the time, which aimed at an elegant, witty style with wordplay and allusions to classical court culture. This was the type of haikai Basho learned when he began writing himself.
On May 28, 1666, Basho's young master Todo Yoshitada died suddenly; he was only 25. It is not clear what Basho did during the next six years, from 1666 to 1671. Although he left the service of the Todo family, Basho probably continued to live in Ueno, occasionally visiting Kyoto and other cities nearby. In haiku written at this time, he refers to himself as "Sobo of Ueno in Iga Province." We have a sprinkling left of haiku written in those years, which appeared in haiku anthologies compiled by reputed masters.
On February 23, 1672, Basho dedicated a poetry contest book Kai Oi ("Shell
Matching") to the Ueno Tenjingu shrine near his
parents' house (see below for Basho's haiku). The book, probably handwritten by Basho himself, paired 60 hokku composed by 36 local poets. Basho served as referee and passed judgement on all 30 matches. The dedication of Kai Oi may have been Basho's way of bidding farewell to his native town. In the spring of 1672 Basho moved to Edo to become a professional haikai master, taking students and correcting their verses for a fee.
[Basho-o Seika (the house where Basho was born)]
Basho's mother had died in 1683, but at that time he didn't have the financial means for the long journey to Ueno. But the next year Basho traveled to the Kansai area on a long trip (later described in his Journal of Bleached Bones in a Field), and he visited his family on October 16, staying a few days. He had been away for eight years. At that time, the haiku at the top of this article was written. Basho also wrote a long explanatory note: 'At the beginning of the Ninth Month I came back home. Nothing of my late mother remained there anymore. All had changed from what I remembered. My older brother, now with white hair in his side-locks and wrinkles around his eyebrows, could only say: "How lucky we are to meet alive again." Then he opened a keepsake bag and and said to me: "Pay your respects to mother's white hair. They say the legendary Urashima's hair turned white the instant he opened the souvenir box he had brought back from the dragon palace. Now your eyebrows look a little white, too." We wept together for some time.' (quoted from Basho and His Interpreters, p. 112)
"Urashima" refers to a famous legend, in which a young man visits the Dragon Lady's palace under the sea. After many years he finally returns to his old village, and finding nothing he can remember, he disobeys the lady's order and opens a jewel box she has given him. Instantly, he turns into an old man.
Basho says that he can not take the white hair in his hand, because if he were to do so, his hot tears would melt it away like autumn frost.
[Ueno Tenjingu shrine]
The first haiku by Basho that has been preserved for us, was written on February 7, 1663. It is a bantering poem in the Teimon school style:
was it spring that arrived or the year that went away? still December 29 today!
haru ya koshi | toshi ya yukiken | kotsugomori
In the lunar calendar, February 7 (in our calendar) was the 29th of the 12th month (also known as Second Last Day, kotsugomori). Normally, spring would start on the lunar New Year's Day, but in rare cases, the first day of spring (also called Risshun) arrived one or more days earlier. In other words, the beginning of spring sometimes fell within the old year, and that inspired Basho to this witty, but also rather rhetorical verse. Also in style with the Teimon school is that he is in fact parodying a well-known waka which opens the Kokinshu:
springtime has arrived before the old year is gone what about the rest of the year - are we to talk of 'last year' or are we to say 'this year'?
toshi no uchi ni | haru wa kinikeri | hitotose wo | kozo to ya iwamu | kotoshi to ya iwamu
The haiku is mainly noteworthy for its bantering tone.
The same is largely true of the following haiku, which Basho wrote for Kai Oi, the book with the haiku contest he refereed as a farewell gesture to Iga-Ueno just before leaving for Edo in 1672.
come and look put on a Jinbei robe and admire the blossoms
kite mo miyo | Jinbe ga haori | hanagoromo
Here, too, wordplay is central: "kite" has the double meaning of "come" and "wear" and "haori" means both "robe" and "surrender to (the beauty of the blossoms)." A haori is a half coat without sleeves, as worn by men during the winter in Basho's time; a Jinbe-baori is a padded haori. "Hanagoromo" is a flowery costume, a kimono used for viewing cherry blossoms. The first two phrases of the haiku are taken from popular songs of the day. So technically this is a very intricate haiku.
When Basho left for Edo that year, he wrote the following farewell haiku to a friend who remained in Ueno:
friend beyond the clouds - just like wild geese we part from each other
kumo to hedatsu | tomo ka ya kari no | ikiwakare
Although this is a much better poem (it has real feeling), it still engages in wordplay: "kari", wild goose/geese also has the meaning "temporary," so Basho expresses his hope he will see his friend again in the future. Wild geese are migratory birds that leave Japan in spring and return in autumn.
Basho spots in Iga-Ueno:
Haisenden Hall, a sort of shrine dedicated to Basho and built in
1942. Inside sits a Basho statue in a meditative pose made of Iga-yaki
pottery, but the hall can not be entered. In fact, it is most
interesting for its weird shape: the upper cypress bark roof resembles a
sedge hat, and the first story roof a straw raincoat: Basho in
traveling attire. On October 12 (the day of Basho's death) the Basho
festival is celebrated here, with a haiku contest and pilgrimages to
places associated with the poet. Grounds free. The hall can not be entered.
Basho
Memorial Hall. The small museum displays scroll paintings, calligraphy
and old book editions all related to Basho's haiku. There are no English
labels, but you will find several haiga
paintings here with famous Basho haiku. 8:30-17:00.
Cl. Mon, day after public holiday, Dec. 29 - Jan. 3.
The House of Basho's Birth (Basho-o Seika) is a two kilometer walk from
Ueno Park, on one of the main arteries leading into town. It is a
well-preserved 17th c. townhouse, narrow and deep. The rooms are small,
but the kitchen space is large. Basho was born here in 1644 and lived in
the house until he was 22, and perhaps even until he was 26 - at that
time he permanently moved from the Kansai to Edo. At the back, in a
garden, stands a separate cottage called Chogetsuken ('Moon Hanging
Eaves') where Basho used to stay when he visited home in later life. 8:30-17:00. Cl. Tuesday, Dec. 29 - Jan. 3. Tel. 0595-21-2219.
Ueno Tenjin Shrine (Ueno Tenjingu, also called Sugawara Jinja) has a
special connection with Basho. When the poet was 29, he had compiled his
first anthology, a series of 30 verse matchings from haikai friends in
the Iga area with his commentaries. This work, called Kai Oi (Shell
Matching) was dedicated to the shrine by Basho and subsequently taken to
Edo where it served to introduce the new poet as an arbiter of
taste. Although based on an older village shrine, the Tenjin shrine was
established in its present form by the first castle lord in the early
17th century, at the same time that Ueno as a town was given form. The
shrine is famous for the greatest annual festival in Iga-Ueno, the 400
year old Tenjin Matsuri, celebrated on Oct. 25 Grounds free.
Translations and Studies of Basho: Basho's Haiku, 2 vols, by
Toshiharu Oseko (1990 & 1996, Maruzen); Basho and his Interpreters,
Selected Hokku with Commentary, by Makoto Ueda (1992, Stanford U.P.);
Traces of Dreams, Landscape, Cultural Memory, and the Poetry of Basho,
by Haruo Shirane (1998, Stanford U.P.); Basho's Narrow Road, by Hiroaki
Sato (1996, Stone Bridge Press); Basho's Journey, The Literary Prose of
Matsuo Basho, by David Landis Bamhill (2005, State University of New
York).
In this first installment: late-Romantic war horses by Stojowski and Alnaes, giant and complex concertos by Busoni and Reger, quirky concertos by Stravinsky and Janacek, jazzy concertos by Gershwin, Copland and Lambert, and lyrical concertos by Delius, Palmgren and Tveitt - not to forget the magnificent "Dynamic Triptych" concerto by John Foulds.
1. Ferruccio Busoni, Piano Concerto in C Major Op 39 (1904, Italy)
In its grand Wagnerian conception (there is even a male chorus in the operatic last movement) this is in fact still a very 19th c. concerto, although there are also associations with the gargantuan Mahler symphonies. Busoni conceived his concerto in five movements. The first, third and fifth movements are large, serious conceptions - the third slow movement is the emotional heart of the work. The second and fourth movements are both Italian dances, tarantella, each using Neapolitan folk song. The last movement incorporates an (invisible) male chorus. In this way, the concerto both possesses great nobility and dignity while on the other hand remaining brilliant fun. One could call it a combination of the native Italian and German-influenced sides of Busoni. But while it is huge, it is also modest, as much of the piano line remains hidden as part of the orchestral texture. A sincere and heartfelt concerto.
[Performance listed to: Garrick Ohlsson and the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by Christoph von Dohnanyi on Telarc]
2. Frederick Delius, Piano Concerto in C Minor (1904 / 1907, Britain) Delius is an acquired taste. When I first listened to him, in my early twenties, I felt lost in the formless, lyrical soup of his music and hankered after clearer contours. But today his music fits me like a glove - we probably get more mellow and lyrical with the years... The piano concerto was the first concertante work Delius wrote and it had a rather troubled genesis, going through various versions. Today, the version in three movements from 1904 is generally considered as the most interesting and most typically "Delian" (in the last and "standard" version of 1907 the piano part was at Delius' request rewritten by a pianist-friend, but it is more Chopin than Delius). It is a full-blooded romantic concerto, but without any empty pianistic display, so although this is an early work, we already can hear Delius' mature lyrical and meditative style. Both themes of the first movement show the influence of the Afro-American sounds which influenced Delius so much during his Florida sojourns. The central Largo movement has a sonorous piano part, and the third movement (which was discarded in the 1907 version) ends with a grand tutti in Delius's finest orchestral splendor. Perhaps because of the many revisions, Delius' piano concerto is less well-known than his violin concerto or cello concerto, but it is an appealing piece of music that certainly deserves to be heard more.
[Performance listened to: Howard Shelley with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Sir Andrew Davis on Chandos (three movement version 1904)]
The revised edition can be heard at YouTube, played by Justin Bird and the IU Adhoc Symphony Orchestra, Nick Hersh, Conductor:
3. Zygmunt Stojowski, Piano Concerto No 2 in A flat major 'Prologue, Scherzo and Variations' Op 3 (1909-1910) Zygmunt Stojowski (1870–1946) was hailed throughout Europe as one of Poland’s most outstanding composers at the fin de siècle, a symphonist of European calibre and one of the great late-romantic composers. However, when the "long 19th century" ended in the ashes of WWI, he was overtaken by the development of music and stopped composing. The Second Piano Concerto, written in 1909-1910 in Chamonix, was in that regard one of his last works, before Stojowski directed his energy into performance and teaching. The concerto was initially titled "Prelude, Scherzo and Variations." The manuscript and sketches for it were recently found in son Henry's family archive in New York. Henry donated it to the University of California's Polish Music Center. It was premiered in London at Queen's Hall in 1913 with the composer at the piano. The piece was published by Publisher Heugel in Paris. The American premiere in New York with the New York Philharmonic with the composer at the piano was in Carnegie Hall in 1915. The piece was dedicated to Jan Paderewski.
Paderewski's performance of the second piano concerto, also at Carnegie Hall but with the New York Symphony Orchestra conducted by Walter Damrosch in 1916, caused a sensation. Demand for tickets to the March four concert was so great that an open rehearsal was scheduled on March two. After the March four concert, the audience refused to leave. Only after huge applause that lasted for minutes did the hall dim the lights again and Paderewski returned to play Stojowski's Chant d'amour. In doing so, he violated the Symphony Society's rule not to play encores after a piano concert. [Performance listened to: Jonathan Plowright (piano), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Martyn Brabbins (conductor) on Hyperion]
4. Max Reger, Piano Concerto In F Minor Op 114 (1910, Germany)
A sprawling, serious, three-movement concerto lasting roughly 40 minutes, with a tempestuous first movement, an elegiac and delicate second movement and a vigorous third movement full of "clenched teeth" exuberance. The heroic first movement starts with a portentous orchestral introduction and bold first statement by the piano. The piano is fully integrated with the orchestra. The thick-set textures and chromatism are typical of Reger. In dramatic seriousness and complexity this work is equal to the second Brahms concerto. Few composers however have been as misunderstood as Max Reger, whose music has often been regarded as heavy and unrelievedly contrapuntal. This is a massive, tragic concerto.
[Performance listened to: Barry Douglas with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Marec Janowski on RCA Victor]
5. Selim Palmgren, Piano Concerto No. 2 Op. 22 "The River" (1911, Finland) Selim Palmgren (1878–1951) was born in Pori, Finland. He studied at the Conservatory in Helsinki from 1895 to 1899, then continued his piano studies in Berlin with Ansorge, Berger and Busoni. He conducted choral and orchestral societies in his own country and made several very successful concert tours as a pianist in the principal cities of Finland and Scandinavia, appearing also as a visiting conductor. In 1921, he went to the United States, where he taught composition at the Eastman School of Music, later returning to Helsinki.
Palmgren wrote his second piano concerto, Op. 33 between 1907 and 1912. The concerto is inspired by the Kokemäenjoki River, along which Palmgren boated during his boyhood. The River concerto is probably the most popular and most played of Finnish piano concertos. In its day, its success was triumphant; in the fall of 1913, the concerto was played in Helsinki, Stockholm and Berlin and received an ecstatic reception. [Performance listened to: Juhani Lagerspetz with Turku Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jacques Mercier on Finlandia]
6. Eyvind Alnaes, Piano Concerto in D major Op 27 (1914, Norway) Eyvind Alnæs (1872-1932) received his early musical education at the predecessor of the Oslo Conservatory, but he was only really influenced by his further education at the Felix Mendelssohn School of Music and Theater, his teacher there was Carl Reinecke, who thus became a major influence on classical music in Norway. Subsequently, Alnaes was able to enjoy further training with Julius Ruthard in Berlin. His musical career seemed to have a prosperous start with performances of, for example, his First Symphony. Yet he was more or less forced to limit himself to conducting choirs as there was hardly any orchestra available in Norway. He also previously held positions in all kinds of organizations, such as the Norwegian Composers' Union and TONO (Norwegian Copyright Association). Because of that busy life and the lack of a real orchestra, he hardly had time to compose major works, half of his oeuvre consisting of songs or works for piano solo. The only two major works after 1900 were the Piano Concerto in D Op.27 and the Second Symphony.
The first movement of the piano concerto, in a brilliant D major, has a large-scale character - a true late Romantic concerto. Glittering virtuoso piano passages alternate with orchestral writing that has a Wagnerian force. In contrast, the second movement has a tragic character in the mood of a funeral march. The last movement is a tribute to the Viennese waltz and a great mixture of popular melody and virtuoso piano-writing.
[Performance listened to: Piers Lane and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andrew Litton on Hyperion]
7. Ernst von Dohnányi, Variations on a Nursery Theme for Piano and Orchestra (1916, Hungary)
This is pure fun, a tongue-in-cheek humorous and playful concerto: an introduction, statement-of-theme and then eleven variations on the nursery rhyme tune “Twinkle, twinkle, little star” ("Ah, vous dirai-je, Maman"). The pompous introduction is full of Wagnerian gestures and faux pathos, until a cymbal clash brings the piano on stage with the nostalgic old nursery tune, an unexpected contrast which will make you smile. What follows is a witty set of variations often alluding to the musical style of other composers. The first variation is simple and innocent, the third one romantic, bringing to mind Brahms's Second Piano Concerto, the sixth variation scampers along, the seventh variation is a boisterous waltz, variation eight alludes to the march from the second movement of Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony and the pathos-laden tenth variation hearkens back to the Wagnerian opening. In contrast, the eleventh variation sports ethereal harmonies which allude to Debussy. Dohnányi aptly wrote on the score "to the enjoyment of friends of humor, to the annoyance of the others."
[Performance listened to: Howard Shelley with BBC Philharmonic conducted by Matthias Bamert on Chandos]
8. Sergei Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No 2 in G Minor Op 16 (1913 / 1923, Soviet Union)
This concerto carries two dates: it was originally written and performed in 1913, but in WWI the score was lost, and in in 1923, after writing his Third Piano Concerto, Prokofiev reconstructed it from memory, but also altered so many elements, that it became in fact a new work, his real "fourth concerto." Prokofiev gave the new version more depth, but he also kept the original piano-athletics, making this one of the most challenging of all piano concertos. Perhaps that is why it has always been in the shadow of Prokofiev's other concertos, at least until the 1970s, when it crept to the edge of the repertoire. The concerto is in four movements, the second movement a devilish perpetuum mobile and the third a sinister march and another piece of fierce motorism. In a sense both these movements are intermezzos between the more expansive first movement and finale, both of which feature huge cadenzas as their focal point. The whole concerto is imbued with something like the grinding harshness of Prokofiev's Scythian Suite of 1915. It is a dark concerto (dedicated to the memory of a friend of Prokofiev's at the St. Petersburg Conservatory who had committed suicide) imbued with a wild temperament.
9. Erich Korngold, Piano Concerto in C Minor for the Left Hand (1923, Austria)
In the 1920s, Korngold stood at the apex of his fame (he was the most performed composer after Richard Strauss in Austria), when he was approached by the Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein to compose a concerto for the left hand. Paul Wittgenstein, who was the elder brother of the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, had lost his right arm in that terrible European war, WWI, but instead of giving up the piano, he devised novel techniques that allowed him to play chords previously regarded as impossible for a five-fingered pianist. He also actively commissioned works from well-known composers of his day, including Maurice Ravel, Richard Strauss, Sergei Prokofiev and Paul Hindemith, but he first approached Erich Korngold, who had just written his great opera Die tote Stadt. This concerto shows Korngold at his most experimental and features a very large and colorful orchestra. It is in one movement and so concentrated in form that it makes repeated listening necessary. Harmony and tonality are highly original. As a serious composer, Korngold was almost forgotten after he fled for the Nazis and had to build up a new career as film composer in Hollywood, but today he has been fully rehabilitated. Another factor limiting the popularity of this highly unique concerto was that Wittgenstein possessed the exclusive performing rights until his death in 1961. By the way, Wittgenstein was so pleased with this work that he commissioned another composition from Korngold, the Suite for Left Hand Piano and Strings.
[Performance listened to: Marc-André Hamelin with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conductor Osmo Vanska on Hyperion]
10. Igor Stravinsky, Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments (1923–24, Russia / France / America)
After the Russian extravagance and barbaric Impressionism of his famous ballets in the years before WWI, Stravinsky became a Neo-classicist, in contrast working with small ensembles and in more traditional forms, although he also looked for novelty in for example the interesting combination of the piano with only a wind orchestra. In this highly original concerto, eighteenth century gestures may be employed to tease the ears, but basically, this is hard driven, aggressive and percussive music, undeniably Stravinskian. In contrast, the slow movement is extremely simple and therefore all the more memorable. There is a playful episode at the end of the third and last movement, where the music stops and the piano just repeats a single chord, as if the pianist had forgotten what to play, before the final chase to the end. A vigorous and brilliant concerto.
[Performance listened to: Steven Osborne (piano), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ilan Volkov (conductor) on Hyperion]
11. Paul Hindemith, Kammermusik No 2 for Piano and 12 Instruments, Op 36 no 1 (1924, Germany)
Another Neo-classical concerto, with a small orchestra consisting of flute, oboe, clarinet, bass clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, trombone, string trio and double bass. It is Baroque in spirit, each movement is carried forward irresistibly by a basic pulse. The piano writing is not only highly rhythmic, but also very contrapuntal. The first movement is toccata-like, with busy motoric figurations; in the slow movement the piano spins melodic variations above an ostinato bass theme; and after a tiny scherzo the Finale resumes the energetic style of the opening movement. A very fine work, like all Hindemith's eight "Kammermusiken."
[Performance listened to: Ronald Brautigam with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Richard Chailly on Decca]
12. Ottorino Respighi, Concerto in modo misolidio for piano and orchestra (1925, Italy)
After writing his large-scale symphonic poems, Respighi looked for a way to create typically Italian music and found it in Gregorian chant. This interest is evident in his 1921 violin concerto, Concerto gregoriano, and in the present piano concerto. The piano concerto makes use of the seventh of the church modes ("modo misolidio") and carries a flavor of plainchant in its material, the source of its inspiration. It opens with a passage for the piano based on the Introit for the Mass of Ascension Day. Also the beautiful slow movement features a Gregorian melody, brought as a dialogue between piano and orchestra. The third movement is a Passacaglia, with eighteen variations, inventively bubbling music. The concerto ends with an impressively romantic climax.
[Performance listened to: Konstantin Sherbakov with Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Howard Griffiths on Naxos]
13. George Gershwin, Concerto in F (1925, U.S.A.)
This is very fine music, a response to demands for a "proper concerto" after the success of the Rhapsody in Blue, avoiding programmatic content. The many themes are both uplifting and nostalgic. The concerto has been called "a masterpiece of unity under a veneer of medley," an integration achieved through cyclic form and thematic transformation. In fact, virtually every tune in the Gershwin concerto is linked to the big melody that follows the introduction to the first movement. The finale, in rondo form, also acts as a grand recapitulation of the whole work, again tying things together. With its snappy rhythms and jazzy dissonances layered over a diatonic foundation, this concerto is the avatar of the Jazz Age.
On YouTube played by Yuja Wang and Michael Tilson Thomas:
14. Aaron Copland, Piano Concerto (1926, U.S.A.)
Jazz was in the air and Copland's concerto of 1926 forms a sort of dialogue with the Gershwin concerto. Copland starts of with a brash, dissonant fanfare, a typical "wide spaces" opening, followed by a calm if astringent Andante sostenuto. After this more traditional 1920s music, the soloist erupts with a variety of rhythmic and intervallic invocations of jazz. In other words, like in Copland's (later) clarinet concerto, a song-like first movement is linked by a cadenza to a fast and rhythmically complex final movement. But as the jazz element is not so much present in the tunes but rather as the underlying harmonic and rhythmic basis of the score, the concerto is very different from Gershwin. In this concerto we find the harder-edged Copland from the time before he deliberately popularized his style in the 1930s.
[Performance listened to: Noel Lee with Orchestre National de France conducted by Aaron Copland on Etcetera]
15. Leoš Janáček, Capriccio for Piano Left-Hand and Chamber Ensemble (1926, Czech)
Another concerto for the left hand, not for Wittgenstein, but the Czech pianist Otokar Hollmann (indeed another WWI victim). The work is scored for chamber ensemble consisting of flute and piccolo, two trumpets, three trombones and a tenor tuba, resulting in an even more original sound than Stravinsky's concerto discussed above. The Capriccio consists of four movements. Privately, Janáček called it "Defiance," either referring to the attitude of the pianist who continued playing despite his loss of an arm, or to the "defiant" combination of a piano with mainly brass instruments. The virtuoso brass sound looks back to the military sound of Janáček's Sinfonietta, but is of course much more transparent here. All the same, unusual demands are placed on all individual players, not only the piano. The overall effect is indeed "capricious": whimsical and full of "willfulness and witticisms," as Janáček himself said. Delicious music in Janáček's late style.
[Performance listened to: Rudolf Firkusny with Czech Philharmonic conducted by Vaclav Neumann on RCA Victor]
16. Nikolai Medtner, Piano Concerto No 2 in C Minor Op 50 (1927, Russian)
Nikolai Medtner wrote three concertos, the second of which is my favorite, an energetic and entrancing piece of music. Medtner was a pianist-composer like Rachmaninoff, and he also left Russia after the Soviets came to power, emigrating to the U.K. The concerto is in three movements: Toccata, Romanza and Divertimento. The outer movements are ebullient and full of kinetic energy, the central Romanza is delightfully lyrical. In the first movement there is much dialogue between piano and orchestra and the tireless motor rhythms also show Medtner loved his Scarlatti. The Divertimento plays with themes from the previous movements in a dancing style that culminates in a riot. Medtner's music is not as gripping as Rachmaninoff, but it grows on you, and you will not tire of it as soon as of that of his fellow emigre-countryman. A concerto that deserves to be better known.
[Geoffrey Tozer with the London Philharmonic conducted by Neeme Jarvi on Chandos]
17. Geirr Tveitt, Piano Concerto No. 1 in F major, Op. 1 (1927) Geirr
Tveitt (1908-81) was, along with Harald Sæverud, the most important
Norwegian composer of his generation. Tveitt was an ardent folklorist
who obsessively collected and used folk tunes - his most popular
surviving collection of music, the Hardanger Tunes, consists of straight-forward transcriptions of folksongs. The
first piano concerto which Tveitt wrote at age 19 (when he was a
student in Leipzig) is more cosmopolitan in outlook - only the second
movement has a decided Norwegian flavor. The work is Neo-Romantic in
tone, full of consonance and melody. It is a very quiet work.
opening with a haunting modal tune introduced by the piano with minimal
accompaniment. Some intensely beautiful passages follow as the horns
and woodwinds trade phrases with the piano. The central movement is a
dancing scherzo. The work again ends very quietly. It has a compact,
arch-like structure.
[Performance listened to: Håvard Gimse, piano; Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Bjarte Engeset, cond. on Naxos]
[Henriette Bosmans, 1917]
18. Henriëtte Bosmans, Concertino for piano and orchestra (1928, The Netherlands) Henriette
Bosmans is considered one of the most important female Dutch composers
of the 20th century. Before the war, Henriette Bosmans already enjoyed a
well-established reputation in Dutch musical life, especially as a
pianist. During the war she was not allowed to appear in public and had
to support herself with underground house concerts. Her considerable
oeuvre includes orchestral works, chamber music and many songs. Her most
famous piece is the sparkling and lyrical Concertino for piano
and orchestra (1928), created during the time she took composition
lessons with Willem Pijper. Bosmans, as a formidable pianist, promoted
the concertino herself through many successful performances. It has a
French flavor (Poulenc?) as all Dutch music from that time, but there
are also Oriental elements. Read more about Henriette Bosmans in my article on her cello sonata in the series Best Woman Composers.
[Performance listened to: Ronald Brautigam with the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra conducted by Ed Spanjaard]
19. John Foulds, Dynamic Triptych for Piano and Orchestra (1929, Britain)
This is a truly magnificent concerto that for long years was completely forgotten. Foulds was popular in the 1920s for his A World Requiem in commemoration of the war dead, but was soon forgotten after his death from cholera in India in 1939. The Dynamic Triptych was only performed once (in 1933) and then lay forgotten until Howard Shelley dusted it off for this Lyrita performance in 1984. It is dramatic and experimental music, written under the influence of exotic music theories. The first movement is called "Dynamic Mode," the second "Dynamic Timbre" and the third "Dynamic Rhythm." The writing for both piano and orchestra is exuberant. The slow movement is the most romantic, Foulds inhabits a very shadowy world and the use of slithery quarter-tones is really disturbing in effect. The last movement is a sparkling dance. Jazz plays its part here, we hear cross-rhythms and changes of meter, clusters and complex chords. It is virtuoso music full of unstoppable energy which will blow the mind of anyone who hears it for the first time. Foulds may well be one of the most undervalued composers of the 20th century.
[Performance listened to: Howard Shelley and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley on Lyrita]
20. Maurice Ravel, Piano Concerto in D for the Left Hand (1929–30) In 1929, a year after completing the Bolero, Ravel received two commissions to write a concerto at about the same time. The first assignment came from orchestra conductor Serge Koussevitzky on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This commission resulted in the Piano Concerto in G. The second commission came from Paul Wittgenstein. This pianist, brother of the famous philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, had lost his right arm in World War I. He nevertheless wanted to continue playing as a performing pianist and encouraged many great composers to write a work for the left hand: so did Richard Strauss, Benjamin Britten and Sergei Prokofiev. The latter wrote his Fourth Piano Concerto (for the left hand) in response to that request.
The Concerto for the Left Hand is is a violent and dramatic work, one of Ravel's most rhythmic and energetic. As Ravel mentioned: "In a work of this nature, it is essential that the texture not give the impression of being thinner than that of a part written for two hands. So I have resorted to a style that is much closer to the rather imposing style of traditional concertos. After the first part of the piece, an episode in the character of an improvisation appears, which gives rise to jazz music. It is only later that one realizes that the episode in jazz style is actually built on the themes of the first part." Percussion plays a fundamental and haunting role throughout the work. The concerto is also a work of sonic outbursts, the likes of which Ravel rarely produces. For the soloist, facing this monument can be a challenge: the solo part is extremely difficult, the left hand alone having to cover the territory of both hands.
It is a work that is both exhilarating and fatalistic, a whirlwind of anxiety and perplexity in the face of a world that, at the dawn of the 1930s, seems once again destined for disaster. The end is truly unforgettable: the piano, which has just completed a cadenza in chiaroscuro, intensely poetic, of formidable technical difficulty, is finally joined and swallowed by the orchestra, to die under a final pounding of the percussion.
On YouTube: Yuja Wang with Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Lionel Bringuier conducting:
21. Reynaldo Hahn, Piano Concerto in E major (1931, France) Reynaldo Hahn (1874 – 1947) was a Venezuelan-born French composer. Following the success of his song "Si mes vers avaient des ailes" (If my verses had wings), written when he was aged 14, he became a prominent member of fin de siècle French society. Among his closest friends were Sarah Bernhardt and Marcel Proust. After the First World War, in which he served in the army, Hahn adapted to new musical and theatrical trends and enjoyed successes with his first opérette, Ciboulette (1923). During the Second World War Hahn, who was of Jewish descent, took refuge in Monaco, returning to Paris in 1945 where he was appointed director of the Opéra.
Hahn was a prolific composer. His vocal works include secular and sacred pieces, lyric scenes, cantatas, oratorios, operas, comic operas, and operettas. Orchestral works include concertos ballets, tone poems, incidental music for plays and films. He wrote a range of chamber music, and piano works.
The Piano Concerto is a light-weight piece (the second movement lasts less than three minutes), but also an utterly charming work with a lyrical opening theme that leads to variations full of sparkling contrasts.
"The Piano Concerto’s opening movement, marked Improvisation: modéré, begins in an almost devotional manner before broadening out to embrace material that has a rather cosy French provincial rustic flavor. The brief central Dance: vif, is full of wit and sparkle. The substantial final movement is cast in the form of a triptych: first a lovely, sighing Schumann-like Rêverie that truly haunts; the tempo accelerates into the unruly self-mocking Toccata and the whole is rounded off with a return, after a cadenza, to a dignified close with an allusion to the opening material. A delightful work." (From the booklet by Stephen Coombs)
[Performance listened to: Stephen Coombs with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Jean-Yves Ossonce on Hyperion]
[Reynaldo Hahn in 1906]
22. Ralph Vaughan Williams, Piano Concerto in C (1926-31, Britain)
A concerto full of drama and turbulence, like Vaughan Williams' music from the same period as the Fourth Symphony and Job. The three movements are titled Toccata, Romanza and Fuga chromatica con Finale alla Tedesca. The Toccata is characterized by two "blocks" of music, a driving piano solo set against a rising theme in the orchestra with which the concerto starts, and a more scherzo-like idea, shared between piano and orchestra. A thunderous piano cadenza forms the link to the slow movement which starts without a break, a delicate Romanza. The third movement again follows without a break and begins with a fugue that is linked to a waltz finale. In this concerto, Vaughan Williams treated the piano as a percussion instrument, as did Bartók and Hindemith during this period - the orchestral texture is at times very thick. The composer took the advice of well-meaning critics to rework his music into a Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra (1946), adding more texture to the piano parts, but today the original version is considered as superior.
[Performance listened to: Howard Shelley and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vernon Handley on Lyrita]
[Constant Lambert by Christopher Wood]
23. Constance Lambert, Concerto for Piano and Nine Players (1931, Britain)
This a deliciously jazzy concerto, but one which also becomes unexpectedly serious as the music advances. The nine players are flute (doubling piccolo), three clarinets, trumpet, trombone, cello, string bass and percussion, leading to contrast-rich music as in the Stravinsky and Janacek concertos. It is a starkly incisive, even abrasive work. The style of this concerto moves away from the "symphonic jazz" of Gershwin to something much more tense and urban, with popular and formal elements of composition closely integrated, rhythms jagged and extreme, and harmony sometimes approaching atonalism. The three movements are called Overture, Intermède and Finale (Lugubre) - and the ending is sad and silent. It has been called "a form of musical parable that investigates every phrase of language, to discard them all, little by little, so as to arrive at something which comes near to an invitation to silence. All this by a route that starts from an apparent rhythmical vital attack, progressing to the final desolate notes of the blues - subtitled "Lugubre" - through all of which, from time to time, can be recognized the echoes of jazz..." (from the sleeve notes by Silvio D'Amicone). A very original work.
Lambert is also known from his book Music Ho! A Study of Music in Decline (1934), which remains one of the wittiest, if most highly opinionated, volumes of music criticism in the English language. Lambert was not happy about twelve tone music or even the Neo-classicist works of Stravinsky, but professes to be a great fan of Sibelius - and jazz.
[Performance listened to: Alessandro de Curtis with Harmonia Ensemble on ASdisc]
24. Francis Poulenc, Concerto for Two Pianos and Orchestra in D minor (1932, France) From beginning to end a very entertaining concerto. The concerto's recurring moto perpetuo, modally inflected figurations
are clearly inspired by Poulenc's encounter with a Balinese gamelan at
the 1931 Exposition Coloniale de Paris. Additionally, the work's
instrumentation and "jazzy" effects are reminiscent of Ravel's G major
Concerto, which was premiered at Paris in January 1932.
In the Allegro ma non troppo in D minor, Poulenc chooses to
bypass the conventions of sonata allegro in the opening movement in
favor of ternary form, with a slower middle section. If this first
movement is meant to evoke Mozart, it is the blithe composer of the
delightful Divertimenti and Serenades. Between the two fast movements, the Larghetto's graceful, classically simple melody and gentle, regular accompaniment is reminiscent of the Romanze of Mozart's D minor Piano Concerto, K. 466. Poulenc commented, "In the Larghetto of this Concerto I permitted myself, for the first theme, to return to Mozart, because I have a fondness for the melodic line and I prefer Mozart to all other musicians. The final Allegro molto is again in D minor. It is a syncretic Rondo that merges the insouciance of a Parisian music hall and the mesmerizing sonorities of a gamelan orchestra. Its scintillating patter and energetic rhythms produce a vivacious, effervescent effect. Poulenc creates a dramatic yet charming dialogue between the two keyboards and the supporting orchestra ensemble. Unusually, his orchestration foregrounds the woodwinds, brass and percussion, relegating the strings to a secondary role. [Performance listened to: Francois-Rene Duchable and Jean-Philippe Collard with Rotterdam Philharmonic conducted by James Conlon on Erato]
the wild geese that left us, veiled by the springtime haze, now we hear them calling again above the mists of autumn
harugasumi | kasumite inishi | karigane wa | ima zo naku naru | akigiru no ue ni
春霞かすみていにし雁が音は今ぞ鳴くなる秋霧の上に
In spring the wild geese leave Japan to spend the sumer in the north, and are called "kigan" 帰雁, "returning geese"; in autumn they come again to Japan and are called "raigan" 来雁. "Karigane" originally meant "the call of wild geese," but later came to mean just "wild geese." Note also the interesting fact that two different words are used for the mist in spring and the mist in autumn: the one in spring is called "kasumi" 霞, the one in autumn "kiri" 霧. Because of the mist the poet doesn't see the wild geese, but he is alerted to their presence by their call. It is interesting how this autumn poem combines autumn with a scene from spring!
[Belling deer stag]
Mibu no Tadamine (KKS 214)
"From the poetry contest held at the residence of Prince Koresada."
in a mountain village autumn is the loneliest season - all through the night the belling of the stags keeps rousing me from my sleep
yamazato wa | aki koso koto ni | wabishikere | shika no naku ne ni | me wo samashitsutsu
ただみね - これさだのみこの家の哥合のうた
山里は秋こそことにわびしけれ鹿の鳴く音に目を覚ましつつ
The belling of the deer for their mates reminds the poet of his own longings, and of the sorrows of autumn, the season of death and partings.
[Cricket shrilling on a spider lily, a typical autumn flower]
Anonymous / Topic unknown (KKS 186)
it isn't for my sake alone that autumn comes - yet when I hear the shrilling insect voices, I am the first to be saddened
waga tame ni | kuru aki no shi mo | aranaku ni | mushi no ne kikeba | mazu zo kanashiki
わがためにくる秋にしもあらなくに虫の音聞けばまづぞ悲しき
During the hot summer, the cicadas create a veritable din in Japan, but autumn has its own insects, such as the evening cicada or higurashi, or the bell crickets or suzumushi in autumn. There is a beautiful scene in The Genji Monogatari, in which Genji releases bell crickets in the garden of the Third Princess on the night of the full harvest moon. contemporary city dwellers don't hear insects anymore, on the one hand because trees have become scarce, but also because everybody closes the windows on behalf of the air conditioning. The ancient Japanese, however, paid close intention to the singing of insects and knew exactly what time of the year it was by listening to the songs of insects. Many traditional poets have composed poems about them.
[Chrysanthemums]
Ki no Tomonori (KKS 270)
A poem from the contest at Prince Koresada's residence.
to wear in my hair I plucked chysanthemums with dew still clinging - may the autumn season of longevity last for a long long time!
tsuyu nagara | orite kasazamu | kiku no hana | oi senu aki no | hisashikarubeku
きのとものり - これさだのみこの家の哥合のうた
露ながら折りてかざさむ菊の花老いせぬ秋のひさしかるべく
Chrysanthemums first arrived in Japan by way of China in the 5th century. In China, the poet Tao Yuanming had already in the 4th c. written a famous poem about chrysanthemums, which he used in a wine infusion as a sort of long life elixer - chrysanthemums were considered as providing long life. . The chrysanthemum has been used as a theme of waka poetry since around the 10th century, most famously in the Kokinshu. It was considered as the aristocrat of flowers, as it possessed a strong but refined fragrance, and it became a flower that symbolized autumn in Japan. During the Edo period, the cultivation of chrysanthemums became popular; many cultivars were created and many chrysanthemum exhibitions were held - and that still continues today.
The Chrysanthemum festival, held on the ninth day of the Ninth Month, was the occasion for various activities and events promising longevity. See Basho's haiku about Nara's 9/9 festival in the Haiku Travels section of this blog.
Sosei (KKS 309)
Composed on a mushroom-hunting expedition to the northern hills with Archbishop Henjo
I would like to stuff the colored leaves in my sleeves and carry them back home for those who think autumn is at an end
momijiba wa | sode ni kokiirete | moteidenamu | aki wa kagiri to | mimu hito no tame
そせい法し - 北山に僧正へんぜうとたけがりにまかれりけるによ める
もみぢ葉は袖にこきいれてもていでなむ秋は限りと見む人のため
Kitayama refers to the hills north of the capital. Bishop Henjo was the father of Sosei. Colored leaves are of course the symbol par excellence of autumn in Japanese poetry.
While in the capital of Heiankyo the colored leaves have already fallen, so that people may think the season of autumn is at an end, in the hills to the north of the city, where temperatures are lower, the poet still comes across plenty of colored maple leaves. He breaks them off and stuffs them in his sleeves as proof for the city dwellers that it is still autumn. But all the same this poem foretells the end of autumn, and is therefore one of the last poems in the autumn section of the Kokinshu.
Translations: The Ise Stories, by Joshua S. Mostow and Royall Tyler (University of Hawai'i Press, 2010); Kokinshu,
A Collection of Poems Ancient and Modern by Laurel Rasplica Rodd and
Mary Catherine Henkenius (University of Tokyo Press, 1984); Kokin Wakashu, The First Imperial Anthology of Japanese Poetry, by Helen Craig McCullough (Stanford University Press, 1985); One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each, by Peter MacMIllan (Penguin Classics); Traditional Japanese Literature, an Anthology, Beginnings to 1600, ed. Haruo Shirane (Columbia U.P., 2007) Traditional Japanese Poetry, An Anthology, by Steven D. Carter (Stanford University Press, 1991); A Waka Anthology, by Edward A. Cranston (2 vols, Stanford U.P. 1993 and 2006); Studies: Brocade by Night: Kokin Wakashu and the Court Style in Japanese Classical Poetry, by Helen Craig McCullough (Stanfors U.P., 1985) History of Japanese Literature by Jun'ichi Konishi (3 vols, Princeton U.P., 1991) Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons, by Haruo Shirane (Columbia U.P., 2012) Japanese Court Poetry, by Robert H Brower and Earl Miner (London 1962) The Making of Shinkokinshu, by Robert N. Huey (Harvard U.P., 2002) Pictures of the Heart, The Hyakunin Isshu in Word and Image by Joshua S. Mostow (University of Hawai'i Press, 1996); Seeds in the Heart, Japanese Literature from the Earliest Times to the late Sixteenth Century, by Donald Keene (Columbia U.P. 1999) Utakotoba Utamakura Daijiten, Kubota Jun and Baba Akiko (Kadokawa Shoten) Utamakura, Allusion, and Intertextuality in Traditional Japanese Poetry, by Edward Kamens (Yale U.P., 1997) Waka as Things, Waka and Things, by Edward Kamens (Yale U.P., 2017) Waka bungaku jiten, by Ariyoshi Tamotsu (Ofusha)
25 post-war symphonies from France, Germany, The Netherlands, Britain, the United States, Poland, Finland, Sweden, Japan, Turkey and so on... Listen to the overblown "Hollywood" - like music in Messiaen's Turangalila Symphony; the spiritual mountain music in Hovhaness' Mysterious Mountain; the bell-like sonority and Buddhist chorus in Mayazumi's Nirvana Symphony; the haunting funeral voice in Kancheli's Third Symphony; the quotations and extreme alaeatoric music in Schnittke's First Symphony... and many other fascinating pieces.
1. Olivier Messiaen, Turangalila Symphony [1946-48, France] Set in no less than ten movements, this symphony was written after World War II and is a masterpiece of the 20th-century repertory. It explores the full resources of a large orchestra and takes the listener on an almost superhuman rollercoaster of expression from the relentless and cosmic to the intimate and deeply personal. The title is derived from two Sanskrit words: Turanga signifies ‘Time’ and Lîla signifies 'Love.'
Turangalîla was the result of a commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra by Serge Koussevitsky, who gave Messiaen the enviable instruction to ‘choose as many instruments as you desire, write a work as long as you wish, and in the style you want’. Leonard Bernstein conducted the première in Boston on 2 December 1949. Yvonne Loriod, who became the composer’s second wife in 1961, was the piano soloist, and the ondes Martenot was played by Ginette Martenot, daughter of the instrument’s inventor. The "ondes Martenot" was invented in the late 1920s and was soon picked up by a number of composers, including Darius Milhaud, Arthur Honegger and Edgard Varèse. The slithery sound can be ethereal, but in Turangalîla it often sings like a goddess, very much in keeping with Messiaen's philosophy of spirituality.
Turangalîla is further unified through the use of cyclic themes, a principle that links with Messiaen’s symphonic predecessors such as César Franck and Albert Roussel. The symphony reflects Messiaen’s eclecticism, incorporating Hindu and Greek rhythms, as well as birdsong. It is such a large and complex work that its completion marked a watershed in Messiaen’s creative output, stimulating new directions in his increasingly birdsong-focused works of the 1950s and beyond.
On YouTube: hr-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra) ∙ Stewart Goodyear, Klavier ∙ Cynthia Millar, Ondes Martenot ∙ Paavo Järvi, Dirigent
2. Hans Werner Henze, Symphony No 3 (1950, Germany) Hans Werner Henze's Symphony No. 3 was written between 1949 and 1950. It was premiered at the Donaueschingen Festival on 7 October 1951 by the South German Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Hans Rosbaud. The three movements are entitled "Invocation of Apollo," "Dithyramb" (an ancient Greek hymn sung and danced in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility) and "Dance of Conjuration" (a magic incantation). It is bright and dance-like music, closely related to Henze's early success as a ballet composer - at the time when he wrote the symphony he was in fact artistic director of the Wiesbaden ballet. The titles Henze gave to the movements suggest an imaginary ballet based on Greek mythology. The first movement is lyrical and refined, with a quick and accelerating Passacaglia at its center. The second movement features the horn themes from the first which frame an Andantino section in which the harp stands in central position. The final movement is a wild and almost orgiastic dance, building up tremendous energy. There are also Jazz-elements. All the same, the symphony is full of fragile chamber textures and sensuous instrumental coloring.
[Recording listened to: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Hans Werner Henze on Brilliant]
[Tcherepnin]
3. Alexander Tcherepnin, Symphony No 3 in F sharp major Op 83 (1952) Russian emigre composer Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977) grew up in St Petersburg with Glazunov and Rimsky as house visitors (his father Nikolai was also a well-known composer). After the Revolution the family moved to Tbilisi in Georgia. Tcherepnin developed his own tonality system and was much inspired by Georgian folk music. In 1921 a move to Paris resulted in his joining a group including Martinu and Tansman. He lived in China and Japan between 1934 and 1937. He married the concert pianist Lee Hsien Ming and spent the war years in Paris. In 1948 he emigrated to the USA living in Chicago and New York. His output includes three operas, four symphonies, a divertimento (which is a symphony in all but name), six piano concertos, works for ballet, and a large amount of solo piano music.
The Third Symphony is shows oriental influence no doubt attributable to Tcherpnin's years in China. It has clean romantic lines. The symphony also incorporates excerpts from several ballets written by Tcherepnin (a reminder that his father Nicolas Tcherepnin was the author of several exotic ballets of beautiful workmanship). Its dance-like writing and oriental arabesques give it a charm that his other symphonies do not have. The second movement's Stravinskian marching is clever; the great adagio is impressive; and in the powerful finale we find a touch of truly glossy splendor. [Performance listened to: Singapore Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lan Shui on BIS]
4. Dag Wiren, Symphony No 4 Op 27 (1951-52) The Swedish composer Dag Wiren left a small, but fine oeuvre. He is especially famous for his Serenade for String Orchestra Op. 11, but he also left four symphonies (numbered 1 to 5, but the first one was withdrawn as being a student work). So the Fourth Symphony represents Wirén's third contribution to the form, arriving eight years after its predecessor, the Symphony No. 3.
The Fourth is one of the best Swedish symphonies of the fifties, and at 17 minutes, the shortest, most concentrated of Wirén's four essays in the genre. Stylistically, it is austere and intellectual, recalling in particular the desolate Nordic tone of late-period Sibelius. Besides that, like in all Wiren's works, influence from Neo-classicism is also clearly detectable.
[Performance listened to: Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra conducted by Thomas Dausgaard on CPO]
[Dag Wiren]
5. Karl Hartmann, Symphony No 6 (1953, Germany) The German composer Karl Amadeus Hartmann studied under a number of leading musicians, including Anton Webern and Hermann Scherchen, a conductor who worked closely with the Second Viennese School. Hartmann was influenced by Bach, Mahler, Stravinsky and Hindemith, and his works incorporate expressionist ideas, jazz motifs and Hungarian idioms drawn from his love of Bartók and Kodály. Known for his anti-fascist stance, Hartmann and his family refused to subscribe to xenophobic attitudes throughout the 1920s and 30s. When war broke out, Hartmann withdrew entirely from German musical life, refusing to let his music by played; his refusal to comply with the Nazi regime resulted in his music being denigrated as ‘atonal’ and ‘degenerate.’ Hartmann completed his Symphony No. 6 in 1953, but as several of his symphonies it harks back to an older work. In this case that is “L'Œuvre” (1938) named after the eponymous novel by Émile Zola, about an artist in self-imposed isolation, a parallel with Hartmann's life during the Nazi regime. The symphony is in two movements, an adagio and a toccata variata. The
adagio has an airy texture but also warm warm intense romanticism, crashing climaxes and a soaring melody line. In the finale a fugue gives way to an essay of majestic power, ongoing motion and stirring timpani attacks.
[Performance listened to: Indo Metzmacher and the Bamberger Symphoniker on EMI Classics (containing the first 6 symphonies of Hartmann)
[Hiroshima Peace Memorial]
6. Masao Ohki, Symphony No 5 "Hiroshima" (1953, Japan) It goes without saying that this is tragic music - the composer's personal attempt to come to terms with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. But Masao Ohki didn't directly depict the explosion of the first nuclear bomb, he based himself on a series of large paintings by a couple of painters, Iri and Toshi Maruki, the husband Iri a Japanese-style painter and the wife Toshi Western-style. They stayed in Hiroshima just after the bombing and witnessed the scene. See the website of Maruki Gallery for their impressive Hiroshima Panels.Starting in 1950, over the next 32 years they gradually worked towards completion. Masao Ohki was inspired to write his programmatic symphony after seeing the first six panels. Ohki is too subtle to "depict" the actual impact of the bomb. After starting with unsettling calm in a Prelude, the second movement is a meditation in the lowest registers of winds and strings, a solo trumpet adding a sort of cry of anguished disbelief. Perhaps the most defining feature of the tragic symphony is the sound of ghost-like, eerie strings playing high pitched notes: the images of survivors and wounded walking silently and mindlessly through the flattened landscape. The next movement depicts waves of fire, expressed by rapid chromatic runs and trills, tremolos and glissandos. In the strange and disturbing fifth section, Rainbow, Ohki depicts the black rain that suddenly poured over the survivors. The seventh section depicts a boundless atomic desert with skulls. This is a deeply felt symphony, and a dire warning for our own times. [Performance listened to: New Japan Philharmonic, conducted by Takao Yuasa on Naxos]
[Hiroshima 2 months after the nuclear attack, October 1945]
7. Henk Badings, Symphony No 7 "Louisville Symphony" (1954, The Netherlands)
Almost unknown, Henk Badings (1907-87) was a composer of considerable substance. His Seventh Symphony, commissioned by Robert Whitney and his Louisville orchestra in 1954, is a flat-out masterpiece. There is a strong French influence (as was often the case with Dutch music in the first half of the 20th century), particularly in the theme for muted trumpet in the first movement. The music is basically tonal but also remarkably fresh in its harmonic language, and its four short movements are gorgeously scored.
The first movement starts a bit mysterious but also very powerful, and continues with a wonderful scherzo, then a delicate and lyrical third movement with highly memorable melodic development, while a dance-like finale brings it all to an effective end.
Henk Badings (1907-1987) was born in the Dutch East Indies. As his family did not approve of a career in music, he studied mining and paleontology at the Delft Polytechnical Institute, but dedicated himself completely to music from 1937. Badings was largely self-taught. Badings first musical success already dates to 1930, when he wrote his First Cello Concerto. He used unusual scales and harmonies and composed a large oeuvre, in which fourteen powerful symphonies take a central position. He also excelled in concertos and chamber music. See my survey of 20th century Dutch classical music.
[Performance listened to: Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by David Porcelijn on CPO]
8. Ahmed Adnan Saygun, Symphony No 1 Op 29 (1954) Ahmed Adnan
Saygun (1907-91) wasn’t only Turkey’s preeminent composer of “classical”
music; he was a major figure in 20th century music. Saygun was a master
of neo-classical form and a superb writer for orchestra. Colorful and
atmospheric, Saygun's First Symphony is tradition-based in terms of
western symphonic design while sympathetically integrating the Turkish
heritage, creating a satisfying synthesis rich in pulsating rhythm and
languorous melody. Saygun’s vivid orchestration plays a significant part
in achieving an alluring aural tapestry
His melodic style
clearly derives from the folk music of his homeland, but Saygun employs
elements that permit him to expand his harmonic vocabulary rather then
emphasizing primitive or merely nationalistic traits.
The First
Symphony requires small orchestral forces but never sounds inhibited
because of the fresh way that Saygun uses his carefully chosen
instruments, with particularly bold writing for horns and solo
woodwinds. The heart of the work is the haunting second-movement Adagio,
austere but also very expressive.
[Performance listened to: Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz conducted by Ari Rasilainen on CPO]
9. Walter Piston, Symphony No 6 (1955, United States) The Sixth Symphony is regarded as the summit of Piston's symphonic achievement. Piston composed the symphony to mark the 75th Anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. There is a particular Frenchness, an Impressionistic quality, to much of the Sixth Symphony, a reminder of the composer's years of study in Paris with Nadia Boulanger.
The work is in four movements. The first movement is written in the classical sonata form. It begins with a broad theme modestly presented by strings and woodwind. Descending scales of the harps lead us to a lyrical second theme that develops through a rich and varied orchestration. The second movement is a brief but witty Scherzo. The main theme is energetic, full of irregular rhythms and percussive effects. The third slow movement is a rondo based on two themes. The main theme is firstly presented by a somber solo of the cello, which later passes to other instruments. The second theme is widely lyrical, featuring a bright solo of the flute. In the finale, which gives the illusion of lightness and transparency, one hears echoes of jazz influence in its syncopated forms. It's based on two themes without following the sonata form. A brilliant coda closes the bright and optimistic work.
[Performance listened to: Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Leonard Slatkin on BMG Classics]
[Alan Hovhaness in the 1970s]
10. Hovhaness, Symphony No. 2 "Mysterious Mountain" op. 132 (1955, United States) This symphony was a commission by conductor Leopold Stokowski and the Houston Symphony; it was premiered live on NBC television in October 1955. The symphony is composed in three movements and blends elements of Western hymns, pentatonicism, and polyphonicism reminiscent of Renaissance music. The music is composed in the Eastern church scale systems, a style Hovhaness used most of the time. In part 1, the main melody consists of a hymn, part 2 is a double fugue and part 3 goes back to the hymn, which is interrupted by a thirteen-count raga and then closes with the hymn. It remains one of Hovhaness's most popular works. "Mountains are symbols, like pyramids, of man's attempt to know God," said the composer. His spiritual purpose is expressed in the modal writing of the Andante outer movements, with overtones of Vaughan Williams' pastoral style as well as of Thomas Tallis, framing a central fugue characteristically smooth in its lines. The finale culminates in a chorale leading to a grandiose conclusion.
[Performance listened to: Seattle Symphony conducted by Gerald Schwartz on Delos]
On YouTube: Bob Cole Conservatory Symphony, Johannes Müller-Stosch conductor:
11. Weinberg, Symphony No 4 in A minor Op 61 (1957, rev. 1961, Soviet Union)
Mieczysław Weinberg (Moishei Vainberg, 1919 - 1996) in 1939 fled his Polish homeland for the Nazis (who murdered most of his family), and came to the Soviet Union where he would remain for the rest of his life. – first Minsk, then Tashkent, and finally Moscow. He was befriended by Shostakovitch, who was enthusiastic about his music, and who intervened when Weinberg was arrested in 1953 for being an "enemy of the people." Stylistically, Weinberg's music is often similar to Shostakovitch's. Weinberg's Jewish heritage also plays a prominent role. Weinberg left a huge body of work: 22 symphonies, 17 string quartets, 8 violin sonatas, 6 cello sonatas, 6 piano sonatas, film music and 7 operas. Weinberg is sometimes ranked as the third great Soviet composer, after Shostakovitch and Prokofiev. Like his string quartets (see my article in the series "Best String Quartets, Part 5"), his symphonies can be divided into quiet but bleak music and music that is rhythmically driven.
A strong motoric drive is certainly present in his Fourth Symphony. There are four movements; Weinberg removed the subtitles during revision, but these are "toccata," "serenata," "intermezzo" and "rondo finale." In the first movement (sonata form) the main theme is presented above a rhythmically intense string accompaniment. The slightly melancholy serenade starts with a gentle waltz theme. The third movement sets out with a horn theme which builds up to a climax. In the rondo finale we find mazurka-like dance themes and quotations from folk music. The symphony ends with an ecstatic chase towards a brilliant conclusion.
[Performance listened to: Kirill Kondrashin with Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra on Olympia (with violin concerto)]
12. Matthijs Vermeulen, Symphony No. 6 "Les Minutes Heureuses" [1956-58, The Netherlands]
Vermeulen's musical style, besides being atonal and contrapuntal, was in the first place based on the technique of polymelodicism, the simultaneous combination of several melodic lines. Frequently Vermeulen spins long melismas into continuous melodies, in a free rhythm of flowing lines. Vermeulen saw this multi-voiced, polymelodic way of composition in a political light: for him it was the true expression of freedom, all individuals being able to freely express and develop themselves, without infringing upon the freedom of others to do the same. Vermeulen's music is filled with vitality and power, often leading to an obsessive, march-like propulsion.
The Sixth Symphony carries the subtitle "Les Minutes Heureuses," after a poem by Baudelaire, "I know the art of evoking happy minutes." On top of that, the symphony has been composed on the notes la do re, or L'adore, "the adored one." Adoration is the basis of being human and also of music. The arc the music follows is both a crescendo and a spiral. The three movements are played without interruption. The calm first movement ends with an apotheosis of la-do-re in the brass. The second movement is an Andante amoroso with a beautiful melody in the cor anglais, interspersed with brass and percussion fanfares. The last movement is fast and is propulsed upwards towards a big climax.
[Performance listened to: Residentie Orchestra of The Hague conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky on Chandos]
13. Toshiro Mayuzumi, Symphony Nirvana (1958, Japan) Toshiro Mayuzumi (1929-1997) is one of the most important Japanese composers, enjoying an international reputation in the period after World War II. In the mid-1950s Mayuzumi was inspired by the sounds of bells from
Buddhist temples in the ancient city of Kyoto. He recorded bell sounds and analyzed the structures of their
complex overtones, using newly acquired technology. He then transferred
the analyzed sounds to a symphony orchestra with sextuple winds and
combined the orchestra with a male chorus singing a Buddhist priests’
chant-like "Shomyo". Drawing on elements of Stravinsky,
Messiaen and Webern, he finally completed his Nirvana Symphony in 1958. It was performed in Berlin and New York, as well as in Japan.
The sonorous bell sounds and chanting have a hypnotic quality, and these are helped by percussive sounds on the vibraphone, tubular chimes, tam-tam and piano. The singers enter at the beginning of the second movement. Japanese Buddhist monk chanting is a phenomenal aural experience, producing harmonies encountered nowhere else. By the way, these are not real shomyo sutra chantings (of which recordings also exist) - even far from it - , but Mayazumi's approximations of them in classical music.
Next follow alternating movements for instruments (bell sonorities) and male chorus with the last movement depicting the passage into nirvana. After a tumultuous preceding passage, the chorus enters quietly with a gently melodic upward-rising phrase - and slowly the symphony comes to a majestic conclusion amid a carilloning cacophony.
This symphony is a real experience, different from anything you have heard before!
[Performance listened to: Yuzo Toyama and NHK Symphony Orchestra with Japan Chorus Union on Philips]
14. Henri Dutilleux, Symphony No. 2 "Le Double" (1959, France) This symphony was commissioned by the Koussevitzky Music Foundation for the 75th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. It is written in the style of a concerto grosso for an orchestra and a second group comprising an oboe, a clarinet, a bassoon, a trumpet, a trombone, two violins, a viola, a cello, a harpsichord, a celesta, and timpani. The work consists of back and forth between the two instrumental groups. A difference with the traditional concerto grosso is that the smaller ensemble acts as a mirror or ghost of the larger one, sometimes playing similar or complementary lines, sometimes contrasting ones. There are three movements: Animato, ma misterioso; Andantino sostenuto; Allegro fuocoso - Calmato. Henri Dutilleux’s perfectionism resulted in a distinctive and individual musical language of rare poetry and invention. The interplay of stereophonic and polyrhythmic effects and jazzy brass writing forms, in the composer’s own words, "a musical play of mirrors and of contrasting colors."
Henri Dutilleux (1916 - 2013) wrote symphonic works, concertos for cello and violin, chamber music and ballet music. Although his personal contacts with such colleagues as André Jolivet, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc and Georges Auric broadened his horizons, he never belonged to any particular group.
On YouTube: Orchestre de Paris conducted by Bertrand Billy:
15. Eduard Tubin, Symphony No 8 (1966, Estonia/Sweden) Eduard Tubin (1905-1982) was born in Estonia and studied at the Tartu Higher Music School under the guidance of the famous Estonian composer Heino Eller. Following the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1944, Tubin fled to Stockholm with his wife and sons. He remained in Sweden and became a Swedish citizen in 1961, although on occasion he did visit Estonia. He was offered work at the historical Drottningholm Palace Theatre restoring old operas. This left him time to devote himself to his own composition. Here he wrote most of his greatest works, including two operas, symphonies 5–10, a second concerto for violin, one concerto for double-bass and one for balalaika, a piano concertino, much piano and violin music, choir and solo songs etc. Towards the end of his life, Tubin slowly began to gain recognition, particularly after the conductor Neeme Järvi, also an Estonian, escaped to the United States in 1980. In his early works, Tubin often used Estonian folk music, but at the end of the 1940s a change took place in Tubin's style: the music became harmonically more astringent and shifted to a less nationalistic and more international style.
The Eight Symphony was written at Handen near Stockholm and first played in February 1967 at Estonia Hall in Talinn by the Talinn Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Neeme Jarvi. The first movement starts in a melancholy mood. The violins play a short theme which returns in the next movements. The second movement is in rondo form. Dancing music in the strings leads to a great climax. The third movement is built like an ostinato whose theme is first heard in the horns. The fourth movement starts with loud brass chords, like a choral. At the end the whole orchestra sounds like the roaring of giant waves.
[Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Neeme Jarvi]
16. Allan Pettersson, Symphony No 7 (1966-67, Sweden) Allan Pettersson (1911-1980) is considered one of the 20th century's most important Swedish composers. He has been described as one of the last great symphonists. His music can hardly be confused with other 20th-century works. In the final decade of his life, his 16 symphonies (typically one-movement works) developed a dedicated following, particularly in Germany and Sweden.
Pettersson studied at the Royal Swedish Academy of Music's conservatory. For more than a decade, he was a violist in the Stockholm Concert Society; after retiring he devoted himself exclusively to composition. Later in his life, he experienced rheumatoid arthritis and was often hospitalized.
“The Seventh is known for its easily recognizable and constantly repeated motifs, its high-pitched, whistling flute cantilenas, a brutality which nevertheless finally ends in salvation, and its heavenly writing for the strings,” as Stig Jacobsson writes in the liner notes. The symphony is almost entirely built upon an incessant, short, obsessive
2-note motif played mostly by the trombones and
tuba. What is fascinating is how Pettersson can sustain this for almost
an hour by building on it with stoic patience and brilliant writing - bleak, dark and beautiful all at the same time.
On YouTube: Norrköping Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christian Lindberg:
17. Giya Kancheli, Symphony No 3 (1970, Soviet Union / Georgia) Giya Kancheli (1935 - 2019) was a Georgian composer. Even in his early childhood it was clear that he had an aptitude for music, but it was only in his twenties that he decided to make music his profession. He studied at Tbilisi University until 1958 (where he also received his degree) and at the Tbilisi Conservatory from 1959 to 1963; later (1970) he would return there as a teacher. After the breakup of the Soviet Union he went to Berlin, and then settled for the rest of his life in Antwerp - he was house composer of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders. In his own country he earned his living for a number of years by writing of theater and film music. After he moved to the West, his fame was such that he could support himself through composition, and his work was taken up by many famous names. In his early compositions the Georgian folk music has a great influence but influences of Béla Bartók are also audible; later this Bartokian influence diminishes, but the spiritual influence of Georgia on his music remains undiminished and even increases. His chief achievement was his cycle of seven symphonies, of which the numbers 3 to 6 are considered as the best.
The Third Symphony of 1970 is haunting and atmospheric, beginning and ending with a human voice - a fragment of Georgian funeral chant, prayerfully intoned by a solo tenor voice, singing with a weird, disembodied timbre. This returns at various junctures, like an emblem of humanity in a hostile environment. There is also the strange sound of the string players letting their fingers glide along their fingerboards without playing, which produces an unearthly effect. Brass passages are at first abrupt and aggressive, but later become more like a chorale.
[Performance listened to: State Symphony Orchestra of Georgia, conducted by Dzansug Kakhidze, soloist Gamlet Gonashvili]
18. Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony No 15 Op. 141 (1971, Soviet Union) Among all Shostakovich works, I have a special fondness for his 15th and last symphony, because it is completely free from bombas (together with his sarcastic 9th). The clicking and ticking in the symphony is in my view used ironically by Shostakovitch to conjure up his stay in hospital around the time he wrote this work, attached to various monitors and electronic devices.
Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Symphony No. 15 during 1971 while staying at the spa town of Repino. It is his last completed symphony. The symphony is notable for its many musical quotations, from Gioacchino Rossini, Richard Wagner, Mikhail Glinka, but also from Shostakovich himself. From Rossini he quotes a section from the Overture Wilhelm Tell. Richard Wagner is featured with the weeping music from Siegfried and a leitmotif from Tristan and Isolde. A number of times he quotes from his own Fourth Symphony. The composer is on record of having stated that the first movement describes childhood - just a toy store with a cloudless sky above. Elsewhere he has said that the work is based on motifs of Chekhov... "a large part of Fifteenth has to do with The Black Monk, although it is a completely independent work."
As in his 14th symphony, the composer does not use the full complement of the symphony orchestra. Each time there is a soloist or group of soloists. The premiere of the 15th symphony was given in Moscow, by the Soviet Radio Orchestra conducted by the composer's son, Maksim Shostakovich.
On YouTube played by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink:
19. Alfred Schnittke, Symphony No 1 (1972-74, Soviet Union) The First Symphony of the Russian composer Alfred Schnittke was written between 1969 and 1974. Scored for a very large orchestra, the symphony is recognized as one of Schnittke's most extreme essays in aleatoric music: from the outset the piece is loud, brash and chaotic, and it imports motifs from all parts of the Western classical tradition.
Schnittke includes a choreography for the musicians, and in a manner similar to Haydn's Farewell Symphony, they leave and re-enter the stage at points marked in the score. The second movement opens with a faux-Baroque rondo which is soon usurped by a Mahlerian intervention on clarinet. This too is soon eclipsed by a sleazy percussive theme. There are also direct quotations from Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto, Johann Strauss Jr's 'Vienna Woods' waltz, and Chopin's Second Piano Sonata - amongst many others. Often the material collides in a manner similar to Charles Ives' music, but as the critic Alex Ross notes, taken to a much greater extreme.
Alfred Schnittke (1934–1998) was of Jewish-German descent. His early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. Schnittke and his music were often viewed suspiciously by the Soviet bureaucracy. His First Symphony was effectively banned by the Composers' Union. In the 1980s, Schnittke's music began to become more widely known abroad, thanks in part to the work of émigré Soviet artists such as the violinists Gidon Kremer and Mark Lubotsky, the cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, but also by the conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky. Despite constant illness, Schnittke produced a large amount of music. In 1990, Schnittke left the Soviet Union and settled in Hamburg, Germany. His health was very poor, however, after he had suffered several strokes. As his health deteriorated from the late 1980s, Schnittke started to abandon much of the extroversion of his earlier polystylism and retreated into a more withdrawn, bleak style. [Performance listened to: Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leif Segerstam on BIS]
[William Alwyn]
20. William Alwyn, Symphony No 5 "Hydriotaphia" [1973, Britain]
Alwyn's Fifth Symphony, written for the 1973 Norwich Triennial Festival, has a literary inspiration, being dedicated "to the immortal memory of Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)". Each of its sections carries a quotation from Browne's great elegy on death, "Hydrotaphia: Urn Burial, or a Discourse of the Sepulchral Urns lately found in Norfolk." The orchestration, powerful and pungent, is reminiscent of Schoenberg and Berg. Although not a serial composition, the entire work grows from a single motive of only five notes worked out on similar lines.
Although in one long movement, there are distinct sections that correspond to the traditional symphonic layout. I [Introduction] "Life is a pure flame, and we all live by an invisible sun within us". The main theme is tossed around the orchestra with great abandon.
II [Slow Movement] "But these are sad and sepulchral pitchers, which have no joyful voices: silently expressing old mortality, the ruins of forgotten time". A hiatus is broken by the foreboding sounds of bells, harp, and muted-string harmonics.
III [Scherzo] "Simplicity flies away, and iniquity comes at long strides upon us". The quiet is shattered by a shocking shriek from the winds; the air is filled with self-destructive energy.
IV [Finale] "Man is a noble animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave". The symphony ends with a solemn conclusion in which the theme blossoms into an impassioned threnody of hypnotic, grave beauty, before finally coming to rest in ambivalent serenity.
Although it isn't compulsory to observe the quotations, they do illuminate the music. The first and third sections contrast the vitality of innocent youth with the decay that follows, as life's iniquities take their toll. The second and fourth contrast the pointless futility of it all with death as part of life's inevitable pattern. The work’s strength lies in its brevity, for Alwyn concentrates his ideas in a total time-span of just around a quarter of an hour.
[Performance listened to: London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox]
[Thomas Browne, statue in Norwich city centre]
21. Henryk Mikolaj Górecki, Symphony No. 3, Op. 36, "Symphony of Sorrowful Songs" (1976, Poland) The 3rd Symphony is the most successful work of the Polish composer Henryk Mikołaj Górecki (1933-2010) - it made him something of a cult composer. Górecki composed the work, which he dedicated to his wife, in 1976 as a
commission for Südwestfunk Baden-Baden. It was premiered in Royan
(France) on April 4, 1977, by the Symphony Orchestra of Südwestfunk
Baden-Baden conducted by Ernest Bour; the soprano solo was sung by
Stefania Woytowicz.
The symphony for soprano and orchestra consists of three slow movements, building gradually up to their respective climaxes until the voice enters in a steady flow. The three movements are based on three Polish texts. The first movement is a Marian lament: Mary weeps for her crucified son. The text is preserved in a manuscript from the monastery of Heiligkreuz on the Kahler Berg, which can be dated to the second half of the 15th century. The text of the second movement is a prayer found on the wall of a cell in the basement of the Gestapo headquarters in Zakopane. The text of the third movement is an Upper Silesian folk song from the time of the Polish uprisings, in which a mother laments her dead son. The orchestration, which at first glance seems quite strong, is deceptive, for the strings determine most of the musical action.
Gorecki's music, like that of Part and others, came like a breath of fresh air after the continuous battering by dissonance and non-music during the postwar avant-garde period. Gorecki moved away from dissonance to consonance, away from harshness to harmony. In the 1970's he also underwent the influence of the American minimalist movement and fused all these ideas into his unique voice. On YouTube: Youth Orchestra of South Tirol, Stefano Ferrario, Conductor; Viktorija Miškūnaité, Soprano.
22. Per Nørgård, Symphony No 4 "Indian Rose Garden and Chinese Witch's Lake" (1981, Denmark) Per Nørgård is considered by many to be the most prominent Danish composer after Carl Nielsen. Though his style has varied considerably throughout his career, his music has often included repeatedly evolving melodies in the vein of Jean Sibelius, and a perspicuous focus on lyricism.
The Fourth Symphony was inspired by the works (20.000 pages of prose, poetry and pictures) of Adolf Wölfli (1864-1930), a Swiss artist who was one of the first artists to be associated with "Art Brut" or "outsider art." In 1895, he would be confined to the Waldau Clinic, a psychiatric hospital in Bern where he would live out the rest of his life. In the institution, Wölfli made numerous drawings, which were complex, intricate and intense. They worked to the very edges of the page with detailed borders in a manifestation of Wölfli's "horror vacui." His images also incorporated an idiosyncratic musical notation. This notation seemed to start as a purely decorative affair but later developed into real composition which Wölfli would play on a paper trumpet. In 1912 Wölfli ordered paints and paper for a planned ´Musikbüchlein´, which was to be published in 1920 under the title “Indischer Roosen-Gaarten und Chineesischer Hexensee”. The work was never completed, and Per Nørgård took it upon himself to realize Wölfli’s idea in his Fourth Symphony.
Just as Wölfli composed pictures of the world containg many smaller worlds, so the symphony employs very brief motifs (such as the call of the robin in the first movement) which yield new meanings as the work progresses. From the notes to the Chandos production by Jorgen I Jensen: "The tonal universe is transparent, lucid, but also strangely alien or exotic. In the rapid, rhythmical second movement we hear characteristic displaced rhythms which may suddenly come out with a higly folk-like, dance-like tune. The birdcall from the first movement concludes the work."
[Performance listened to: Danish National Radio Sympkony Orchestra conducted by Leif Segerstam on Chandos]
[Adolf Wölfli, Musiknotation 1930]
23. Witold Lutoslawski, Symphony No 4 (1992, Poland) Witold Lutosławski is one of Poland's best-known composers. Lutosławski grew up in a musical family. He received private piano and violin lessons at an early age, then regular music theory lessons at the Warsaw State Conservatory. Parallel to his musical education, Lutosławski pursued studies in mathematics and the natural sciences. In music and mathematics he found many similarities, which were not without consequences for his compositional career. Lutoslawski wrote music for piano, string quartet, chamber ensembles and symphony orchestra, among which four symphonies.
Lutosławski completed his Symphony No. 4 on August 22, 1992. It took two years to write what would turn out to be his last symphony - he died on February 7, 1994. The symphony was written at the request of the Los Angeles Philharmonic with sponsorship from Betty Freeman. Accordingly, that orchestra gave the premiere on February 5, 1993, conducted by the composer himself. It is a symphony in one continuous movement embodying two sections: a
preparatory section and a development section with an epilogue. The two
movements relate to one another to create a single, overarching musical
experience. The main theme of the symphony can be heard in the first bars of the work, which lingers around the tone E. The symphony contains aleatoric passages.
On YouTube: Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, Jacek Kaspszyk - conductor:
24. Einojuhani Rautavaara, Symphony No 7 "Angel of Light" (1994, Finland) The Finnish composer Rautavaara (1928-2016) absorbed a variety of influences to create a characteristically warm musical language. He was a pupil of Merikanto in Helsinki and of Persichetti at the Juilliard School in New York before pursuing further study in Germany. Composed in 1994, the Seventh Symphony, subtitled ”Angel of Light," was commissioned by the Bloomington Symphony Orchestra and first performed on the occasion of the orchestra’s 25th anniversary in 1995.
The seventh symphony completes Rautavaara's 'Angels Series' which includes the orchestral work Angels and Visitations (1978) and the double bass concerto Angel of Dusk (1980). The composer has however made clear that the reference to angels in the title should not be construed in a programmatic way; rather it functions as an archetype in the spiritual sense, radiating a purely musical energy. The association originated in the composer's encounter with Rilke's Duino's Elegies.
The symphony consists of four movements. The first movement opens with a hazy strings background, glockenspiel and vibraphone chiming chromatically-inflected motifs, before an elegiac melody emerges on violins and violas. Brass and woodwind cap the main climax, then solo winds pensively elaborate aspects of the theme as the music pursues its unhurried course. Molto Allegro, a scherzo starting with a breezily ironic idea on wind and xylophone. Come un sogno (Like a dream), the expressive heart of the work, based on a chorale-like melody in the violins, woodwind and horn responding in a warmly pastoral environment. The last movement, Pesante, opening with a commanding brass fanfare, but after the main climax the music vanishes mysteriously.
[Performance listened to: Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Hannu Koivula on Naxos]
[Rautavaara]
25. Aulis Sallinen, Symphony No 7 Op 71 “The Dreams of Gandalf” (1995-1996, Finland) This symphony arose out of music intended for a ballet based on The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, which was abandoned due to copyright difficulties, so Sallinen used the music for this symphony (in 2001, the symphony with other music by Sallinen was turned into the ballet "The Hobbit" after all, choreographed by Marjo Kuusela and produced at the Finnish National Opera. Gandalf is a wizard and the leader of the Fellowship of the Ring. The
symphony does not actually depict the events in the novel; rather it
transfers the literary atmosphere and poetry into musical expression. As Sallinen remarked, "Elements have crept into the musical content from other sources as well: for instance from the Provencal one-man flute-and-drum galoubet-tambourin music and two melodies from the medieval Finnish song collection Piae Cantiones." Although it
seems more a symphonic poem than a well-structured symphony, it is
energetic and impulsive music, full of captivating tunes cloaked in
magical orchestration.
The music of Aulis Sallinen (born 1935) has been variously described as "remorselessly harsh", a "beautifully crafted amalgam of several 20th-century styles", and "neo-romantic". Sallinen studied at the Sibelius Academy, where his teachers included Joonas Kokkonen. He has had works commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, and has also written seven operas, eight symphonies, concertos for violin, cello, flute, horn, and English horn, as well as several chamber works. He won the Nordic Council Music Prize in 1978 for his opera "Ratsumies" (The Horseman).
[Performance listened to: Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz conducted by Ari Rasilainen on CPO]
[Philip Glass, 1993]
26. Philip Glass, Symphony No. 4 "Heroes" (1996) A symphony based on the album "Heroes" by David Bowie. Within pop music, it is occasionally the case that musicians borrow from classical music; the other way around is less common. Glass already did it in his first symphony, Low Symphony, by using music by David Bowie and Brian Eno. With his fourth symphony he borrowed again, this time from the album "Heroes." Glass also wrote the symphony for ballet performances by the choreographer Twyla Tharp. As Glass himself has said, "I set Heroes as a six movement work, each movement based on a theme from the album, with an overall dramatic structure that would be suitable for dance. The result was a symphonic ballet - a transformation of the original themes combined with new material of my own and presented in a new dramatic form."
Philip Glass reworked six out of the ten tracks from David Bowie’s Heroes album into orchestral pieces that function both as independent entities and integral symphonic components: "Heroes," "Abdulmajid," "Sense of doubt," "Sons of the silent age," "Neuköln," and "V2 Schneider." It isn’t necessary to know the original Heroes in order to appreciate how Glass manipulates the essentially simplistic melodic content by way of striking harmonic juxtapositions, unpredictable rhythmic variations and a very clear orchestration. It takes some effort to recognize the typical music of Glass, but also the music of Bowie and Eno is well hidden. "Heroes" has a drive that is also present in the first movement. Bowie's voice is interpreted by the trumpets, but barely rises above the music. Part two has an exotic rhythm and scale as its basis, as the title suggests. Part 3 passes without pause into part 4. Real Glass can only be heard in part 6 with the infinite chord sequences and the descending note sequence from the middle to the bass register.
[Performance listened to: American Composers Orchestra, conducted by Dennis Russell Davies on Point Music]
All photos in this article via Wikimedia Commons.
Best Symphonies from the Twentieth Century, Part One Best Symphonies from the Twentieth Century, Part Two Best Symphonies from the Twentieth Century, Part Three
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