Peter Maxwell Davies – Eight Songs for a Mad King

This is one of the most bizarre pieces of music I’ve ever heard.

This 8-part composition is based around words uttered by King George III (who in the later stages of life suffered from severe mental illness) and a group of tunes played by a mechanical organ which was actually owned by George III. The King used this organ to try and train birds to sing music. When this composition is being performed, musicians are required to act as the birds, going so far as to perform in bird cages.

The composition is scored for piccolo, clarinet, violin, cello, percussion, piano, harpsichord, and of course voice. As mentioned above, all instruments, along with having their usual accompanying role, also act as the birds that the King is trying to teach to sing. Clearly he is not having much success in his endeavours, as the birds seem all over the place; in fact, they appear to be doing whatever they want. For most of the time instruments (birds) play almost randomly, creating extreme dissonance through vibrato, clashing pitches, rapid glissandos and uneven rhythms. However, there is of course some organization involved in that the instruments reflect and extend whatever it is the King is ranting on about. At various points throughout the composition, the King has conversations with individual musicians/birds. The composition and indeed the performance of it culminates in the King becoming so frustrated that he grabs a violin off one of the musicians/birds and smashes it to pieces. Essentially, as Maxwell Davies puts it, the instruments are ‘projections stemming from the King’s words and music, becoming incarnations of facets of the King’s own psyche.’

And there is something definitely wrong with that psyche. Maxwell Davies has scored an extraordinarily difficult vocal part which involves a range of more than 5 octaves, and requires the vocalist to use a variety of extended techniques such as overtone singing and Sprechstimme (speaking the notes instead of singing them). It would be a mammoth task to learn this; the part is extremely disjunct and involves regular wide leaps, the dynamics and articulation change rapidly, and of course the vocalist would also need to pretend that he was insane. A freakishly weird piece but I would definitely go and see a performance of it.

– Tully

Darius Milhaud – La Création Du Monde

La Création Du Monde is a ballet in six parts which outlines the Creation of the World. The distinct jazz elements of this piece were the result of a trip Milhaud made to America in 1922, where he heard authentic jazz for the first time on the streets of Harlem.

The overture of the composition is quite slow but still contains a steady rhythmic pulse, based around an ascending-descending quarter note theme (F-E-D-E-F-E-D-E) played by strings and piano. Despite appearing to be in D minor, some interesting dissonance is created by having the contrabass and piano regularly play held F# notes. Another interesting aspect of this opening section is that a saxophone takes the main melodic line. Nothing against saxophones, but in 1922-23 when the piece was composed, I’m assuming this would have still been quite unusual. Milhaud’s decision was likely a result of his journey to the United States.

The first section, titled ‘The Chaos before Creation’ is such a contrast that it makes the overture look rather bland. Everything about the music here is much more agitated and energetic, beginning with rapid ascending motifs on piano and syncopated rhythms on percussion. A bright jazz-influenced melody then enters and is developed firstly by the contrabass, followed by the trombone, saxophone, trumpet, oboe and clarinet. When these instruments combine, all playing at different points in the melody line, a tremendously rich texture is created, punctuated by splashes of colour from the percussion. Descending thirds at a pianissimo dynamic in the flute and clarinet signal a sudden end to the section.

The second section is called ‘The slowly lifting darkness, the creation of trees, plants, insects, birds and beasts.’ It initially involves similar themes from the overture, with the same slow, legato quarter-note pulse. A solo oboe then takes over a blues-like melody which I thought was slightly reminiscent of Gershwin’s Prelude No. 2 (although that obviously hadn’t been written yet). The end of the section blends into the next, becoming more agitated again through flutter tonguing in the flutes.

A much more animated rhythm presents itself in the third section, ‘Man and woman created’, through pizzicato quarter notes in the contrabass and cello. An ostinato-like melody is shared by the clarinets, bassoon and violins, developing in an energised period which again involves syncopation and rapid playing. The fourth movement, ‘The desire of man and woman’ is dominated by a lively clarinet melody, although it actually sounds more like an impressive improvisation around the A flat blues scale. After a brief interlude again involving themes from the overture, the jazzy rhythms and melodies return again, more exciting than ever.

I have always been a big fan of Gershwin’s music and his ability to fuse together jazz and classical elements, but I have not heard much Milhaud. I found this composition very enjoyable, especially the contrasts Milhaud achieves by swapping back and forth between jazz and blues influenced sections and more traditionally classical moments.

– Tully

Peter Sculthorpe – Kakadu

Sculthorpe wrote this piece as a reflection on his feelings towards the Kakadu National Park in Northern Australia, which is well known for its environmental extremes and its Aboriginal heritage.

The piece begins in an extremely energetic matter, with an ongoing eighth note pulse in the timpani and syncopated rhythms in the strings. This driving rhythm is punctuated by occasional striking chords from the oboes in their upper registers.

A contrasting section with less movement then develops, although a constant underlying pulse remains in the cello. The other strings continue with their syncopation, while horns take over the main melodic line. It is not so much rhythm but texture which builds this section as parts overlap and interweave into a dense, rich sound. A lovely dissonant chord signals entry to a new phase.

An expressive oboe solo takes over, while underneath other instruments play quite eerily. This section evoked images for me of the hollowness and emptiness of the Australian desert. Sculthorpe also makes clever use of the strings to create very authentic bird calls and insect sounds. The latter is developed further through the use of continuous quarter-tone vibrato and glissandos. This leads into a very mysterious, quite chilling part of the composition, with the harsh string sounds interspersed with brief tom-tom rhythms and fast, random motifs in the oboes.

The following section makes use of soft, steady rhythms in the strings before a cor anglais solo appears. I know little about this instrument, but it does have a particularly memorable sound which permeates into the texture of the music. As this section diffuses, the huge rhythmic energy of the opening stanza returns, this time held together by semiquavers in the bongos and syncopated stabs from the horns.

Sculthorpe demonstrates just how memorable rhythm can be in any composition. It directly affects how the listener interprets Kakadu, perhaps slightly more than the other musical elements. I found that different images of the Australian environment came to mind depending largely on what was happening rhythmically at the time. That said, texture is also incredibly important in conveying the sights and sounds of the natural environment in this piece. Once again, I am astounded by a composer’s ability to reflect what it is they are envisaging through their music. This is something I strive for in my own composing.

-Tully

Jeux, Poeme Danse – Debussy

This “danced poem” was composed for a ballet and is an example of late Debussy, it was his last orchestral work. In this work Debussy highlights the erratic mood changes and fragmentary nature of his music, he does not flood them with subtle, atmospheric string harmonies like his earlier works, instead saying “here is a melodic phrase. Did you hear it? I’ll repeat it once for you. Okay forget about that, listen to this one. Did you hear it? I’ll repeat it once for you.” And so on until the subdued, genius ending.

My imagined Debussy ramblings mean that in Jeux a prominent feature is short melodic phrases, mostly played twice and rarely returned to. This piece is quite playful and it could be suspected that because Debussy did not take the ballet’s premise seriously he decided to be slightly ridiculous (in a good way) with the music. The constant tempo changes, sudden mood switches, the lack of tonal centre, the absurd amount of climaxes all decorated with continuous “scale” runs on all the instruments, leaves the listener uncertain whether the work is brilliantly innovative or clumsy, this was my feeling anyway…

With Debussy I always have to remind myself to let go, to just listen and experience it and with Jeux this is very much the case.

For me, I find earlier Debussy pieces such as La Mer or Nocturnes far less confronting as, although they don’t follow the musical structures the ear is used to, the changes are handled delicately and, generally, subtle sustained strings can make almost any music cohesive.  This piece is much more aggressive in it’s changes and requires multiple listenings to grasp any notion of form.

Although Jeux jumps around in mood and tempo, there is a structure. The piece begins almost without you noticing (because it begins so quietly) and ends without you noticing (because it sounds as though it ends halfway through a phrase). Between these two points there is a rise and fall of climaxes, gradually getting louder and more dramatic until reaching the final, most dramatic point at “[78] Tres Modere”.

Now, the ending, the ending! It has two, almost. The actual ending is preceded by a few bars of the violin and harp exchanging quiet single notes and after a silence, the wind section sustains a slow melody while the violins play very, very fast, and very, very quiet downward runs. These runs are barely audible; yet create such an interesting orchestral atmosphere. The piece ends with 3 quick notes from all the instruments, occurring quickly after a single unaccompanied tambourine hit, which to me is a bizarre and quirky way to end a piece that is so bizarre and quirky.

– Jamie-Leigh

Toru Takemitsu November Steps

I must have been in the right mood when I took the time to study this score. Despite a general ‘meh’ness towards crazy contemporary composition I found this to be quite interesting. Not to the point that I will listen to it every night before I go to bed, but I would listen to it again. In fact I would be most keen to attend a performance of this piece if someone was brave enough to perform it in Melbourne.

Looking at the score opens up thousands of potential questions, not just the “what does that mean?” ones, but the “how does that work?”, “Why does that work?” and “how can you reach a point in your writing where you can freely compose in this manner?”.

The piece is written for an orchestra that is to be set up on stage almost in mirror image with 2 strings sections, 2 harps and 4 percussion evenly divided either side and brass and woodwinds more conventionally at the rear. Everything on the instrumentation list is familiar to me, except the solo parts for Shakuhachi and Biwa. Both Japanese instruments, the first a flute and the later a lute.

The score includes detailed guides for the special notation of not just the Japanese instruments, but also for the Harp and String parts with string players expected to play quartertones. Other than the non conventional notation, which for the cadenza looks more like a electronic circuit board to me than music, the thing that really stood out for me as being really interesting is the vertical scoring of dynamics. It seems to have been mostly used simply as a means of fitting in the information on the already crowded pages yet I imagine from a conductor’s point of view it would slightly change the way they think about it. The notes mostly look sporadic but after a few listens I wasn’t scared and quite capable of following the score despite the appearance of lots of crazy hemidemisemiquaver tuplets. Vince, it’s possible you are onto something with this!

On an interesting side note, I also borrowed another Takemitsu piece at the same time titled ‘Garden Rain’. November Steps + Garden Rain = November Rain! I wonder if he was a GnR fan?

Warren.

Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite

Howdy,

Well, this I think is going to be a rather interesting post for both me – and also possibly, the blog. Typically, I think this blog engages in a bit of hero worship – which, as an educational activity, is probably both reasonable and to be expected. We look and listen to works written by past composers who are commonly recognised as leaders in their field; and our posts highlight the educational merits of studying their works. This implies that the works prescribed are without faults – and whilst past posts may indicate that a student disliked the work; on the whole, critiques have been positive (and, dare I venture, there has been an implicit expectation that critiques WOULD be positive). This is where I have a problem. Stravinsky’s Firebird is a very clever display of orchestration and use of tonality; but rhythmically, I found it to be far too static.

The scenario for this ballet was based on a Russian folktale about a magical creature known as the Firebird. I believe that, to this end, Stravinsky attempted to capture the magic through chromaticism and orchestration. The first few bars are an example of this: the lower strings play a repeated ostinato which alternates between suggesting a tonality of Ab minor and D minor (which are a tritone apart); and whilst most strings play a legato arco, two contrabasses have the same line which is played pizzicato. Later, the sound is enriched by violas singing in unison. Subsequent sections of the music feature alternations between the woodwinds which highlight each relevant instrument’s favoured tessitura, and muted brass are contrasted with brass senza sord.

This creates a striking effect: the tonal structure is somewhat ambiguous, and the very character of the sound is constantly changing. This appears to be evocative of magic. But this whole approach is undermined by the rhythmic structure. The lower strings enter at the start of the bar in the introduction. The shifts in tonal content are made on the beat. When new sections of the orchestra enter, they typically do so en masse on the first beat of a bar. The unpredictability and fluctuating nature of magic, so vividly captured by Stravinsky in his orchestration and melodic content, is deflated like a punctured balloon with a static rhythmic structure. The compositional lesson we can garner from this is that whilst you can use tonality and instrumentation to draw interest in creating an engaging work, static rhythmic structures can have a harmful effect on any composition.

Timothy

Mondnacht (Moonlight)- Robert Schumann

Mondnacht is a German lieder, written in 1840 by Robert Schumann. Featuring solo piano and voice.

The piece begins with a descending chromatic motif in the bass (treble clef, A-G#-G), which is then imitated in the treble part (C#-C-B-A#), also interweaving with a sustained E in the upper register. This motif is then repeated in the bass part, before transitioning into the first verse.

Mondnacht is written in the fairly traditional style of German lied (art song) style, with a clear homophonic texture between the piano and voice and a distinctive foreground/background relationship, with the voice taking prominence whilst the piano supports with harmonies and some other melodic embellishments.

Schumann also utilizes the technique of word painting to emphasise certain sections in the text. One notable ascending melodic motif occurs several times during the piece (C#-D#-E#-F#), being coupled with adjectives such as ‘serenely,’ ‘bright,’ and ‘gently,’ evoking a calming and peaceful atmosphere. Much like a tone poem, the recurring motif illustrates a pictorial idea, establishing context for the lyrics. This helps emphasise certain points in the text more clearly and makes the relationship towards the piano more relevant. Dynamics also play a part in dramatising the work, with crescendo/decrescendos in the piano part, accentuating in unison with the text.

Shannon Barnes

Ophelia- John Cage

Ophelia is a solo piano piece written in 1946, its title is most likely in relation to the Shakespeare character of the same name from the play Hamlet.

The piece is very reminiscent of expressionist music, with stark contrast in dynamics, variations in articulation and an unclear sense of tonality. The overall form and structure of Ophelia is sectional based, with different themes undergoing several variations and transformations throughout the piece. Giving a basic structure of A1-B1-C1-B2 etc.

This block form structure is also relevant to how he incorporates articulations into the work. Some sections make heavy use of the pedals and feature wide ranging crescendos/de-crescendos, whereas others are more staccato and static in terms of dynamics.

On first listen, this makes the piece sound like a combination of fragments, rather than a cohesive idea. However, themes and motifs from the initial stages of the piece re-occur in a transformed state throughout, giving a point of reference and a sense of direction in the music.

Shannon Barnes

Michael Daugherty’s “Sing Sing: J. Edgar Hoover”

Perhaps the thing that I most appreciate about Daugherty’s work is its unique cultural focus: previously, I examined his “Dead Elvis,” a piece which engaged with the cultural sensation of American popular music and Presley’s longstanding performative influence on the musical industry. Today, I listened to this piece – the subject material of which being Hoover, who as the first appointed director of the FBI served from 1924 until 1972. His reign was virtually unchallenged, yet his career was marred by controversy: essentially, he used his extroadinary powers to tap the phonelines of anyone who “opposed his own political and moral agenda.”

My admiration for Daugherty lies in the simplistic, yet effective, construction and premise of the piece. It is structurally organised around a series of recordings of speeches made by Hoover himself. These are played in combination with a string quartet which engages in a variety of roles. Firstly, the quartet primarily acts as a reproduction of the sounds associated with the FBI: a wailing siren, gunshots. Combined with Hoover’s deep, reassuring tone, this instrumental accompaniment reminds the audience in quite a stark manner that despite the best intentions of the intelligence community to maintain a peaceful American lifestyle, violent methods must be utilised.

The strings also act as a beautiful representation of the composer’s opinions regarding this subject. The positivity and eloquence of the recorded  Hoover clashes with the wails, the harmonic dissonance, and textural sparsity of the strings. You cannot help question Hoover’s fundamental, if hidden, nature when listening to a speech designed to elicit social security and comfort when the least stable form of compositional accompaniment is being produced simultaneously! Wierdly, the barrier between the recorded sounds and live perfromance is broken occaisionally, particularly noticeable during a performance of the American National Anthem. Despite the fact that Hoover protected the safety of American interests, this music strongly suggests that his methodology was not aligned with American interests at all.

Timothy

George Crumb: Black Angels (Thirteen Images from the Dark Land)

Threnody I: Night of the Electric Insects

A truly amazing start to the composition. This threnody begins with all string instruments at a fff dynamic, playing continuous glissandos between notes in their upper registers, while also employing an extremely rapid tremolo. The effect is immediately comparable to thousands of insects buzzing away at night. In a similar fashion to Penderecki’s Threnody to the victims of Hiroshima, the score is not set out in measures. It is instead divided into lengths of time, and the lack of any rhythmic pulse adds further to the idea of these seemingly crazed insects. Crumb also uses dynamics to great effect, changing suddenly from fff to ppp and back again numerous times, as well as adding in a number of fast crescendos and decrescendos. Sections of this threnody which really appealed to me were the brief piangendo (in a tearful, plaintive manner) passages, where a single violin (perhaps a single insect) is heard playing slower, more melancholy glissandos above the rapid strings.

2. Sounds of Bones and Flutes

After the disturbing intensity of the opening threnody, this second section decreases in dynamic and texture, but still manages to retain an overall sense of mysteriousness. Sounds of Bones and Flutes is composed for a trio of string instruments: violin, viola and cello.

The role of the violin in this section is to replicate the timbre of a flute, and on the recording I listened to, it achieves this effect with remarkable ease. The key to creating this sound on the violin, it seems, is playing col legno tratto: drawing the wood of the bow, rather than the hair, across the strings of the instrument. The amplification of the violin may also help to produce this effect. Although the violin has only four brief, chromatic, ascending-descending phrases to play in this section, they are important in acting as bridges between the phrases involving the other two string instruments.

The viola and the cello take it in turns to play various melodic and percussive motifs. At different points the musicians are instructed to make loud tongue clicks, or whisper chant-like sounds such as ‘ka-to-ko’ at the ends of phrases. Many of the viola and cello passages also involve playing col legno battuto: almost the same as the above term, but in this case the strings are struck rather than drawn with the wood of the bow. This technique results in a very mysterious, percussive staccato sound, similar, as the title suggests, to the sound of bones being struck.

6. Pavana Lachrymae

This brief section is also composed for the trio of violin, viola and cello, and at first glance you could almost consider it to be rather ordinary in comparison to some of the other parts. For a start, Pavana Lachrymae (in English: the death and the girl) is one of only a few sections in Crumb’s overall composition to contain tonality. But an interesting instruction accompanies this section: ‘Grave, solemn; like a consort of viols, a fragile echo of an ancient music.’ Viols were a family of string instruments which were popular in the Renaissance period, before going out of fashion in the early Baroque age. The violin and cello players, in this piece, must hold their instruments like a viol, meaning that they have to bow behind their left hand (due to my limited knowledge of string instruments and their techniques I unfortunately haven’t got much of an idea of whether this is difficult of not, but I’ll assume that it is reasonably challenging!).

The homorhythmic texture of this section and the chunky harmonic changes would indeed suit the musical timbre of the ancient viol family. The trio creates a lovely melancholic ambience which is somewhat of a relief from the grinding, intense sounds which have come beforehand. However, the insects won’t seem to go away totally: they continue to be replicated by the other violin, which plays rapid tremolos and glissandos in its high register above the low, slow-moving trio.

10. God-music

I found this to be one of the most intricate and haunting parts of the composition. As mentioned in one of my other blog posts, Crumb uses a solo electric cello to represent the ‘voice of God.’ Underneath the cello, the string players put down their instruments and are required to instead play a number of crystal glasses, producing what Crumb describes as a ‘glass harmonica.’ The musicians do not, however, put down their bows, as they are instructed to play the glasses col arco and legatissimo.

The sound of the crystal glasses and the single cello are an amazing combination. Crumb has devised an exceedingly beautiful melody for the cello, which sings and moves with delicate freedom. A brief glance at the score would indicate that the melody is atonal, with numerous wide leaps and plenty of accidentals. However, the tonic key of B major is only just retained throughout the section. Each set of crystal glasses for the string players has their own set of distinct pitches: an F# major scale without the C#; a chromatic scale beginning on F# but omitting B flat, B, C and C#; and the pitches E#, G#, B, C, C# and D, which I can’t really associate into a scale. The glass sounds provide some nice dissonance and keep a calm, steady pulse throughout.

-Tully