Elliott Carter

Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. (born December 11, 1908) is an American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music. His compositions, which have been performed all over the world, include orchestral and chamber music as well as solo instrumental and vocal works.

Elliott Carter Podcast One

Carter's father, Elliott Carter, Sr. was a businessman and his mother was the former Florence Chambers. The family was well-to-do. As a teenager he developed an interest in music and was encouraged in this regard by the composer Charles Ives (who sold insurance to his family). In 1924 a "galvanized" 15-year-old Carter was in the audience when Pierre Monteux conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the New York première of The Rite of Spring, according to a 2008 report. Carter was again in attendance (see below) at Carnegie Hall, on the occasion of his 100th birthday in 2008, when the orchestra, now under the baton of James Levine, again performed the Stravinsky piece as part of its tribute to Carter. [1] Although Carter majored in English at Harvard College, he also studied music there and at the nearby Longy School of Music. His professors included Walter Piston and Gustav Holst. He sang with the Harvard Glee Club. He did graduate work in music at Harvard, from which he received a Master's degree in music in 1932. He then went to Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger (as did many other American composers). Carter worked with Mlle Boulanger from 1932-35 and in 1935 he received a doctorate in music (D Mus) from the Ecole Normale in Paris. Later in 1935 he returned to the US where he directed the Ballet Caravan.

From 1940 to 1944 Elliott Carter taught courses in physics, mathematics and classical Greek, in addition to music, at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland. On July 6, 1939, Carter married Helen Frost-Jones. They had one child, a son, David Chambers Carter. During World War II, Carter worked for the Office of War Information. He later held teaching posts at the Peabody Conservatory (1946 - 1948), Columbia University, Queens College, New York (1955-56), Yale University (1960-62), Cornell University (from 1967) and the Juilliard School (from 1972). In 1967 he was appointed a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Carter has lived in Greenwich Village since 1945[2].

Carter continues composing. Interventions for Piano and Orchestra received its premiere on December 5, 2008, at Symphony Hall, Boston by pianist Daniel Barenboim with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Levine. The same musicians also played the work at Carnegie Hall in New York in the presence of the composer on his 100th birthday.[2] According to John Link, Carter "is now working on a song cycle on Ezra Pound's Pisan Cantos."

Elliott Carter Podcast Two

Carter's earlier works are influenced by Stravinsky, Harris, Copland, and Hindemith, and are mainly neoclassical in aesthetic. He had a strict and thorough training in counterpoint, from medieval polyphony through Stravinsky, and this shows in his earliest music, such as the ballet Pocahontas (1938-9). Some of his music during the Second World War is frankly diatonic, and includes a melodic lyricism reminiscent of Samuel Barber. Interestingly, Carter abandoned neoclassicism around the same time Stravinsky did, saying that he felt he had been evading vital areas of feeling.

His music after 1950 is typically atonal and rhythmically complex, indicated by the invention of the term metric modulation to describe the frequent, precise tempo changes found in his work. While Carter's chromaticism and tonal vocabulary parallels serial composers of the period, Carter does not employ serial techniques in his music. Rather he independently developed and cataloged all possible collections of pitches (i.e. all possible 3 note chords, 5 note chords etc.). Musical theorists like Allen Forte later systematized this data into musical set theory. A series of works in the 1960s and 1970's generates its tonal material by using all possible chords of a particular number of pitches.

Elliott Carter Podcast Three

The Piano Concerto (1964-65) uses the collection of three note chords for its pitch material; the Third String Quartet (1971) uses all four-note chords; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969) all five-note chords; and the Symphony of Three Orchestras utilizes the collection of six note chords. Carter also makes frequent use of "tonic" 12-note chords. Of particular interest are "all-interval" 12-tone chords where every interval is represented within adjacent notes of the chord. His 1980 solo piano work Night Fantasies utilizes the entire collection of the 88 symmetrical-inverted all-interval 12 note chords. Typically the pitch material is segmented between instruments, with a unique set of chords or sets assigned to each instrument or orchestral section. This stratification of material, with individual voices assigned not only their own unique pitch material, but texture and rhythm as well, is a key component of Carter's musical style. Carter's music after Night Fantasies has been termed his late period and his tonal language has become less systematized and more intuitive, but retains the basic characteristics of his earlier works.

Elliott Carter Podcast Four

Carter's use of rhythm can best be understood within the concept of stratification. Each instrumental voice is typically assigned its own set of tempos. A structural polyrhythm, where a very slow polyrhythm is used as a formal device, is present in many of Carter's works. The solo piano work Night Fantasies, for example, uses a 216:175 tempo relation that coincides at only two points in the entire 20+ minute composition. This use of rhythm is part of his goal to expand the notion of counterpoint to encompass simultaneous different characters, even entire movements, rather than just individual lines.

Elliott Carter Podcast Five

Carter developed his technique to further his artistic goals. His use of rhythm allows his music a structured fluidity and sense of time perhaps unique in classical music. The music also is overtly expressive and dramatic. He has said that "I regard my scores as scenarios, auditory scenarios, for performers to act out with their instruments, dramatizing the players as individuals and participants in the ensemble." He has also talked about his desire to portray a "different form of motion," in which players are not locked in step with the downbeat of every measure.

Elliott Carter Podcast Six

He has said that such steady pulses remind him of soldiers marching or horses trotting, sounds that are not heard anymore in the late 20th century, and he wants his music to capture the sort of continuous acceleration or deceleration experienced in an automobile or an airplane. While Carter's atonal music shows little trace of American popular music or jazz, his vocal music has demonstrated strong ties to contemporary American poetry. He has set works of Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery, Robert Lowell, William Carlos Williams and, most recently, Wallace Stevens. Several of his large instrumental works such as the Concerto for Orchestra or Symphony of Three Orchestras are inspired by Twentieth Century poets as well.

Among his better known works are the Variations for Orchestra (1954-5); the Double Concerto for harpsichord, piano and two chamber orchestras (1959-61); the Piano Concerto (1964-65), written as an 85th birthday present for Igor Stravinsky; the Concerto for Orchestra (1969), loosely based on a poem by Saint-John Perse; and A Symphony of Three Orchestras (1976). He has also written five string quartets[4], of which the second and third won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1960 and 1973 respectively. Symphonia: Sum Fluxae Pretium Spei (1993-1996) is his largest orchestral work, complex in structure and featuring contrasting layers of instrumental textures, from delicate wind solos to crashing brass and percussion outbursts.

In spite of a usually rigorous derivation of all pitch content of a piece from a source chord, or series of chords, Carter never abandons lyricism, and ensures that a text is sung intelligibly, sometimes even simply. In A Mirror on Which to Dwell (1975) (based on poems by Elizabeth Bishop) Carter writes colorful, subtle, transparently clear music; yet almost every pitch in the piece is derived from the content of a single sonority. While Carter seems to set up rigorous systems for deriving the pitch content of a piece, he deviates from them on occasion: not every note can be explained with the same rigor as can be done, for example, in Webern. Most of Carter's music is published by either G. Schirmer/Associated Music Publishers (works up to 1982) or Boosey & Hawkes (works since 1982).

Maria Tanase

Born in the Bucharest suburb of Cărămidari, Maria Tănase studied at the Şcoala primară nr. 11 Tăbăcari making her first stage debut in Caramidarii de Jos, then on the stage of Ion Heliade Rădulescu High School. In 1934, she joined the Cărăbuş Theatre of Constantin Tănase on the advice of newspaper writer Sandu Eliad. Her debut took place on June 2, 1937 with the stage name of Mary Atanasiu in the musical hall theatres, Alhambra and Gioconda. She represented Romania at the International Exhibition in Paris in 1937. Together with George Enescu, George Vraca and Constantin Tănase, she organized a series of shows for the injured soldiers on the battlefield.

On February 20, 1937 she made her radio debut and fame came shortly after in 1938, when she made her first recordings for Romanian Society of Radio. These recordings were destroyed in 1940 by the anti-semitic Iron Guard.

In December 1943, she sang at the Christmas festivities at the Royal Cavalry Regiment, where King Michael I of Romania, Ion Antonescu, Mihai Antonescu and all the members of the government were present as guests. After World War II, she performed in the Review Ensemble and the Satirical and Musical Theatre Constantin Tănase. She had parts in the plays The Living Corpse by Leo Tolstoy in 1945, and Horia by Mihai Davidoglu in 1956. In 1944 Maria Tănase sang in Edmond Audran's operetta Mascota (The Mascot). In 1946 she held the main part in the musical comedy The Hollywood Sphinx, by Ralph Benatzky. She sang in the movie Romania in 1947, and in 1958 she performed in both Ciulinii Bărăganului (The Thistles of the Bărăgan), and the short-reel film Amintiri din Bucureşti (Memories from Bucharest). In 1952, Maria Tănase was offered a position at the Music School No. 1 in Bucharest, in the newly created folk song department; 1962 found her guiding Taraful Gorjului (The Gorj Folk Music Band) in Târgu Jiu and the artists there, at her own request. On May 1, 1963, after a concert in Hunedoara, she had to leave the long tour of the famous folk ensemble, because of illness.

In 1955, she received the State Prize and in 1957 she was honored with the medals Ordinul Muncii (The Order for Activity), Premiul de Stat (The State Award), and the title Artistă Emerită (Honoured Artist of the Republic) for her contributions to the arts.

She toured many times in the last 15 years of her life, including over forty trips to New York City. She died of cancer on June 22, 1963 and is buried at St.Vineri cemetery in Bucharest, Romania.

Rosa Balistreri

Rosa Balistreri was born in Sicily in 1927, not exactly the Belle Epoque on the island. This was a province, still in the grip of a feudal system of incomprehensible brutality that is hard to come to terms with. Her life has much more in common with the tales of Charles Dickens, the same sense of having no control whatsoever over your life, especially if you had the double bad luck of being born both poor and a woman.



In her sincere discussion with Giuseppe Cantavenere, published as a little book "Rosa Balistreri: Una grande cantante folk racconta la sua vita" (Rosa Balistreri: A great folk singer recalls her life) in Italian by La Luna Editions, one can find her life's story, a life that was full of sorrow, poverty, famine, inhumanity but also pride and singing. A life that revolved around a mother who was sharing the same stream of bad luck and need to survive, and men (father, brother, husband, lovers) of little courage, much drinking, little money, many debts, little humanity, many faults, little culture, much exploitation. A life where a job as a maid became tolerable if she was allowed to share the same dinner table with the host family.

She broke out of this circle of violence and intolerance, when in the early Sixties things got so bad for her that she got on a train and fled to Florence. It was there that life first smiled at her, when she found herself, partly by luck and partly by sheer talent, hanging around with a circle of liberal friends who for the first time treated her as a human being and as an equal. Her battered self-esteem needed that break and she embraced her only chance with all her strength. Suddenly, her only escape from a dire life became her window to a better world, and her unique talent thrived in the environment of a much more prosperous Italian north, where the feudal system was far less strong; she was becoming someone.





A few years later she was back in Palermo, this time, however, away from the suffocating environment of rural ignorance and everlasting poverty where she grew up, but instead as an equal in a circle of intellectuals of the Left who allowed her to express herself without fear. The records kept on coming, the music that was brewing inside her for all the previous years, now finally coming out. Her music moved from traditional songs to songs written especially for her, some of them her own compositions.

Following the late Seventies, she moved away from the public eye, establishing an axis with Florence, where she also moved again for a period.

She died in 1990, the time when Sicily (as the whole of the Italian south) was finally catching up with the spirit of the Italian north, a time of great upheaval in Italy and great changes, when the Sicily of her youth was finally coming to an end as well.

The unique voice of a unique past had nothing more to say, except those words in a song which is also something of her testimony:

"When I die
act as I'm still amongst you
tell everyone
what I have told you myself
When I die
Don't feel alone
For alone I shall not leave you
As solely my body will be away" - "Quannu moru"

Rosa Balistreri possessed a voice whereupon her whole life was depicted: the trouble, the pain, the clear cloudless skies of the Mediterranean summer, love and desire, the happiness of finding dignity and respect when you had given up. It is truly a voice from another timespace, as strange to our ears as it is familiar in its timelessness.

I find it very difficult to describe Balistreri's music in a detached manner. It seems highly inappropriate, as she is truly a 'folk' singer, rather than a vernacular one: her style has more in common with Joan Baez than a lady in the street. Her guitar was more than an accompaniment, it was also a way for her to describe what she was singing about, when her voice was busy recounting stories. Her renditions of vernacular songs, therefore, are on one level rather too faithless to the tradition - no fancy vernacular instruments for her or passionate research of original sounds. Her repertoire was partly researched songs and partly her own memories of vernacular songs from her youth. What it may be missing in ethnomusicological fidelity, however, is more than made up with this voice, hastily recorded sometimes but deeply penetrating, that speaks of times and places as faraway as a fairytale, but equally real.

It is, therefore, a bit strange to consider that the records that Teatro del Sole has issued (a full list here) will probably most appeal to those who are most interested in researching the roots and the history of traditional music, than the general public who just want some beautiful or thought-provoking music to listen to. This is, however, music that is impossible to reproduce today: it is Sicily itself singing through Rosa Balistreri, this is the voice of a people and of a land that has seen a lot of injustice and a lot of pain, but also a place where (perhaps for that reason) the simple pleasures of life somehow were projected at the appropriate grandiose dimensions. There are love songs from people who were never able to be with the ones they desired, protest songs of those who could only protest (and not too loudly) as there was no chance of putting right the wrongs, lullabies by those for whom the only hope was that their children might end up living better. And all those songs came true through a person who lived long enough to accept that fate for herself, before somehow miraculously being able to rise above her fate and become the person that she knew she could be.

One should also note the excellent job done by CieloZero and Teatro del Sole, the record and publishing companies responsible for the re-release of Balistreri's oeuvre. It is clear they have a deep affection for Balistreri and have treated her work with dignity and love, the two things she was most respectful of.

Although in many cases, the songs of Rosa Balistreri sound dated, a product of their times, as well as far removed from our times, there is still an incomprehensible power associated with them.

Although her voice is not exactly what might be called 'beautiful' or 'haunting,' it is nevertheless unique and overcomes our presumptions and removes the barriers between people; it touches us on a subconscious level, making us aware of a past more inhumane than most people have experienced, coupled with the deep love of life that only one who has been through the worse can attest to. Her songs remind me time and again of the original American blues, or the Greek rembetika, music of people who life had dealt a raw hand, but who were fighting on, unwilling to give up.

Joan Baez, feudal societies, the blues, arranged marriages, rembetika, a powerful Left, Amalia Rodrigues (who some have considered Balistreri to be the equal of): there is something deeply old-fashioned about Rosa Balistreri, a sense of "they don't make them like that anymore." It's funny, that a radical person like her would be associated with nostalgia. It's also strange because then you think again of her life and realize that there is nothing to be nostalgic about, that it is wonderful that the life she encountered as a child has been blown away, never to come back. Nonetheless, you are glad that someone first thought of teaching her to play the guitar and someone else to record her, before the life she knew would become the realm of fairytales.

"When I die
act as I'm still amongst you
tell everyone
what I have told you myself
When I die
Don't feel alone
For alone I shall not leave you
As solely my body will be away"

Alemdar Karamanov

The foremost living Russian composer is, by common consent, Alfred Schnittke. Ask Schnittke, and he will tell you that the outstanding Russian composer of our day is Alemdar Karamanov. Who's Karamanov? A composer unlisted in reference works, unheard on the radio, unrecorded on disk. He is as near to being a non-person as any musician can possibly be in the Internet era.

Not, however, for much longer. Within the next year, three major labels will record Karamanov syphonies, each believing it has cornered the next Gorecki. Schnittke, in a forthcoming biography, will restate his startling conviction that "Karamanov's gift as a composer is no less significant than of Messiaen or Ligeti." And the music will speak for itself- strong, spiritual, pungently original. The first British performance of any of Karamanov,s orchestral works is being played tomorrow in the off-centre setting of Central Hall, wesminster.

Karamanov, now 61, was silenced in the Soviet Union because he proclaimed the supremacy of God in a voice so compelling that even Politburo members took note. He remains in limbo in Yeltsin's Russia because his message is still unpalatable. "Russia is being commercialised,' he grubbies in a deep, emotonless voice, "and my music does not fit in."

A misfit from boyhood, Karamanov almost starved after his Turkish-born father was purged by Stalin in 1937 as head of the Crimean regional government. Under Germsn occupation, he harrowly escaped being shot for stealing apples. A Wehrmacht officer, billeted in the Karamanov's home, brought him music paper and put him on the radio at seven years old to make his debut as pianist and composer. When the Germans retreated they tried to take the Wunderkind back for a Berlin education, but he mother resisted. When the Red Aemy returned, his father was exiled to Central Asia as Stalin cleansed the Crimea of non-Russians.

The shabby orphan from Simferopol drew sniffs from professors at the Moskow Conservatoire- until he played them Beethoven's Fifth Symphony on the piano without ever having seen a score. The morning after the premiere of Shostacovich's Tenth Symphony, he repeated the work note-perfect from memory. Shostacovich, who attended college concerts of Karamanov's music, described him in a article as " one of the most original and unique composers of our time".

Karamanov was then writting what he calls "avant-garde music", reflective atonalities influenced by Western trends and anathema to doctrines of socialism realism. He formed a philosophical friendship with Schnittke, who convinced him of his duty to compose.

On January 7, 1965, Karamanov was walking down Gorky Street when he heard a trumpet sound from the top of telegraph building and saw a vision of his Saviour. " It was as if I had returned home," he says. "From that moment, Christianity, my music and myself became one."

He wrote a cycle of four symphonies based on the gosples, and another six with such titles as He Who Loves Us, Let It Be and I am Jesus - provacatively unperformable stuff an atheist state. "I always heard the music in myself," he says. "I didn't squeeze it out from my fingers like accountacy books. I don't play depraved political games, smile at mediocrity, or touch the dirty hands of dirty musical businessmaen."

In the early 1980s, anticipating political changes, his teasher Tikhon Hrennikov got the radio conductor Vladimir Fedoseev to prepare an audition tape of two Karamanov's symphonies for the composer's Union. To the composer,s mortification, the playback was sabotaged by party engineers.

Listening to Fedoseev's semisamizdat tape of Blessed Are the dead, Karamanov's 2, one quickly discerns the reasons for Soviet alarm and Schnittke's praise. Karamanov has a knack of devising sugarsweet Tchaikovsky melodies that decompose seditiously into the chaos of modernity, before finding comforting resolution in a simple, quasi-minimalist affirmation of devout tonality.

Schnittke was hailed as a pioneer when he deconstructed musical sequences in this fashion a decade later in such 1980s scores as Kein Sommernachistraum.Gorecki made his breaktrough with prayerful music of a kind that the unknown Karamanov had apparently been writting for two decades.

A fornight ago, a performance of the 23rd Symphony by Vlsdimir Ashkenazy and the Deutshces Sinfonie was ovated in Berlin and is deing recorded by Decca. Sony have booked Winchester Cathedral next May to capture the 20th Syphony and Stabat Mater, and Naxon are planning to release a recent Moscow performance of the Seventh Symphony. Recognition is beginning to dawn. Asked if he is composing at the moment, Karamanov nods, but adds: "I don't write anything down. I believe I am now composing my greatest works."

Debussy, The Snow Is Dancing

Achille-Claude Debussy (pronounced [aʃil klod dəbysi]) (August 22, 1862 – March 25, 1918) was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel he is considered the most prominent figure working within the style commonly referred to as Impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions. Debussy was not only among the most important of all French composers but also a central figure in all European music at the turn of the twentieth century.

Debussy's music virtually defines the transition from late-Romantic music to twentieth century modernist music. In French literary circles, the style of this period was known as Symbolism, a movement that directly inspired Debussy both as a composer and as an active cultural participant.




Debussy Préludes Book1 - Des pas sur la neige

"Des pas sur la neige" (Footprints in the Snow)is the 6th piece of Claude Debussy's first set of preludes. It evokes a stark, glacial landscape of resigned sadness and solitude. The melancholy of the fragmented melody is superimposed by plodding ostinato figures.

Maurice Hinson considered this piece the saddest and most moving of any of Claude Debussy's preludes.





With his Préludes Debussy continues the development of a form that has flourished since the Baroque, first serving as an introductory movement and then acquiring life of its own, particularly in a sense of conveying a single concentrated thought, emotion or impression. The fact that the titles appear only at the end of each prelude confirms that music is in the foreground and the titles are there not to give programme but to indicate the suggestion of an impression and make a contribution to the overall listening pleasure.

"Des pas sur la neige" (Footprints in the Snow)is the 6th piece of Claude Debussy's first set of preludes. It evokes a stark, glacial landscape of resigned sadness and solitude. The melancholy of the fragmented melody is superimposed by plodding ostinato figures.

Maurice Hinson considered this piece the saddest and most moving of any of Claude Debussy's preludes.


The complexity of the suggested imagery necessitated advances in the tonal language: these preludes bridge the transition from complex tonal through non-functional triadic to post-tonal.

The first set of twelve Préludes appeared in 1910. Danseuses de Delphes uses parallel chords in counterpoint with pentatonic melody to portray figures from Greek vases depicting dancers from Delphi , a city at the foot of Mount Parnassus , which had a temple of Apollo (god of oracles, poetry and arts).

Voiles (translated as either "Veils" or "Sails") presents an extreme case in Debussy's language: it is based on a whole-tone scale plus the pentatonic scale in B. Alfred Cortot saw in this music "the flight of a white wing over the crooning sea towards the horizon bright with the setting sun".


La vent dans la plaine is written in toccata style but is always of a light (indication "as light as possible" at the beginning) and non-intense nature. Its middle section is based on a whole-tone scale.
The title of Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l'air du soir (Sounds and perfumes swirl in the evening air) is a quote from Harmonie du soir , Baudelaire's poem in Les fleurs du mal , set by Debussy for voice in 1888.
Les collines d'Anacapri combines a Neapolitan song with tarantella fragments. Anacapri is a town on the island of Capri (Capri=goats), in the Bay of Naples, 500 meters above sea level, known already as a Greek colony in 400BCE.
Debussy indicated that the prelude Des pas sur la neige "should sound like a melancholy, snowbound landscape". Its repeated rhythmical pattern suggests the image of footsteps fighting with deep snow, while its fragmented melody and stark harmonies give an impression of a study in black and white.

In Ce qu'a vu le vent d'Ouest , virtuosic technique of Lisztian proportions is applied to Debussy's harmonic language, based here on the pentatonic and whole-tone scales. It is an illustration of nature's powers unleashed and a portrait of the wind of destruction on the French west coast.

La fille aux cheveux de lin is a title from Leconte de Lisle's Chansons écossaises , set by D. in 1880. Its recurring lines elucidate well the poem's ambiance: "L'amour, au clair soleil d'été/Avec l'alouette a chanté".

La sérénade interrompue commences with an imitation of guitar strumming as the background. The superimposed melody makes only one truly emotional break (at librement there is an instance of the Andalusian canto hondo . The interruptions suggest some kind of intervention (water thrown, window shut, fear?) and the piece ends in a defeated retreat.

The indications in La cathédrale engloutie , such as "in a gentle, harmonious haze", "gentle and fluid" and "emerging from the haze gradually", demonstrate well the sfumato technique implemented by the composer to evoke mysticism and supernatural, in what is really a study in exploration of chordal sound. The legend that served as inspiration is one of Cathedral of Ys, sunk off Brittany 1500 years ago as a punishment for impiousness, which occasionally rises at sunrise as an example. The use of the story proves Debussy's continuing fascination with the sea. His recording of the piece is characterised by the use of long pedal that preserves the bass pedal notes.

The hero of La danse de Puck is the mischief-maker of Danish and Swedish legends. He was immortalised by Shakespeare as the page to Oberon in Midsummer Night's Dream . This is an ethereal and fleeting dance of a fairy creature with interjections of a horn motive.

Minstrels conclude Debussy's exploration of music-hall song begun in Golliwogg's cake-walk and The little nigar . Banjo chords, drum beating, a sentimental song - all of these find their place in this sketch of an exotic (for Europeans) performance, brought to Europe after 1910 by travelling troupes.

Felix Draeseke

Felix August Bernhard Draeseke (October 7, 1835 – February 26, 1913) was a composer of the "New German School" admiring Liszt and Richard Wagner. He wrote compositions in most forms including eight operas and stage works, four symphonies, and much vocal and chamber music.

Life

Felix Draeseke was born in the Franconian ducal town of Coburg, Germany. He was attracted to music early in life and wrote his first composition at age 8. He encountered no opposition from his family when, in his mid-teens, he declared his intention of becoming a professional musician. A few years at the Leipzig conservatory did not seem to benefit his development, but after one of the early performances of Wagner's Lohengrin he was won to the camp of the New German School centered around Franz Liszt at Weimar, where he stayed from 1856 (arriving just after Joachim Raff's departure) to 1861. In 1862 Draeseke left Germany and made his way to Switzerland, teaching in the Suisse Romande in the area around Lausanne. Upon his return to Germany in 1876, Draeseke chose Dresden as his place of residence. Though he continued having success in composition, it was only in 1884 that he received an official appointment to the Dresden conservatory and, with it, some financial security. In 1894, two years after his promotion to a professorship at the Royal Saxon Conservatory, at the age of 58, he married his former pupil Frida Neuhaus. In 1912 he completed his final orchestral work, the Fourth Symphony. On February 26, 1913, Draeseke suffered a stroke and died; he is buried in the Tolkewitz cemetery in Dresden.


Music and Styles

During his career Draeseke divided his efforts almost equally among compositional realms and composed in most genres, including symphonies, concertos, opera, chamber music, and works for solo piano. With his early Piano Sonata in c-sharp Sonata quasi Fantasia of 1862–1867 he aroused major interest, winning Liszt's unreserved admiration of it as one of the most important piano sonatas after Beethoven. His operas Herrat (1879, originally Dietrich von Bern) and Gudrun (1884, after the medieval epic of the same name) met with some success, but their subsequent neglect has kept posterity from understanding Draeseke as one of the few true successors to Wagner and one of the very few who could conceive dramatically convincing and musically compelling examples of "Gesamtkunstwerk".

Draeseke keenly followed new developments in all facets of music. His chamber music compositions make use of newly developed instruments, among them the violotta, an instrument developed by Alfred Stelzner as an intermediary between viola and cello, which Draeseke used in his A major String Quintet, and also the viola alta, an instrument developed during the 1870s by Hermann Ritter and the prototype of viola expressly endorsed by Richard Wagner for his Bayreuth Orchestra.

A master contrapuntist, Draeseke reveled in writing choral music, achieving major success with his B minor Requiem of 1877–1880, but nowhere proving more convincingly his powers in this direction than in the staggering Mysterium Christus which is comprised of a prolog and three separate oratorios and requires three days for a complete performance, a work which occupied him between the years 1894–1899 but whose conception reaches back to the 1860s. Of all the symphonies from the second half of the 19th century which are unjustly neglected, Draeseke's Symphonia Tragica (Symphony No. 3 in C major, op. 40) is one of the very few which deserves repertory status alongside the symphonies of Brahms and Bruckner, a masterful fusion of intellect and emotion, of form and content. Orchestral works like the Serenade in F major (1888) or its companion of the same year, the symphonic prelude after Kleist's Penthesilea have in them all that is declared necessary for audience success: rich melodic invention, rhythmic vivacity, and extraordinary harmonic conception. Draeseke's chamber music is equally rich.


Estimation

During his life, and the period shortly following his death, the music of Draeseke was held in high regard, even among his musical opponents. His compositions were performed frequently in Germany by the leading artists of the day, including Hans von Bülow, Arthur Nikisch, Fritz Reiner, and Karl Böhm. However, as von Bülow once remarked to him, he was a "harte Nuß" ("a hard nut to crack") and despite the quality of his works, he would "never be popular among the ordinary". Draeseke could be sharply critical and this sometimes led to strained relations, the most notorious instance being with Richard Strauss, when Draeseke attacked Strauss’s Salome in his 1905 pamphlet Die Konfusion in der Musik — rather odd as Draeseke was a clear influence on the young Strauss.

Draeseke's music was promoted during the Third Reich and Draeseke joined the ranks of Anton Bruckner, Max Reger and Louis Spohr to enjoy Nazi patronage. After the Second World War, changes in fashion and political climates allowed his name and music to slip into obscurity. But as the 20th century ended, new recordings spurred a renewed interest in his music. An ever widening audience seems to be developing for Draeseke at last and the phenomenon is based on perception of individuality, inventiveness and stylistic integrity, music which truly rewards attention.

Obertura “Gudrun” (10’46”). Orq. Sinf. de Wuppertal. Dir.: G. Hanson. Landschaftsbilder, Op. 20 (Selec.) (11’05”). I. Danz (con.), R. Trekel (bar.), C. Garben (p.). Serenata en Re mayor, Op. 49 (27’35”). Orq. Fca. de la Radio de Hannover. Dir.: J. P. Weigle. Mitternacht, Op. 24 (4’02”). I. Danz (con.), C. Garben (p.).

Dubbed a "giant" by Franz Liszt, Felix Draeseke was one of the leading composers of the new-German school. From the late 19th- to early in the 20th-Century, the music of Felix Draeseke was performed and held in high regard by leading artists including conductors Arthur Nikisch, Hans von Bülow, Fritz Reiner, and Karl Böhm. Changes in fashion and political climates allowed his name and music to slip into relative obscurity, but as the 20th Century ended, new recordings spurred a renewed interest in his music.

The Internationale Draeseke Gesellschaft (IDG) and International Draeseke Society/North America (IDS/NA) have established the Felix Draeseke Pages to provide an opportunity to discover and explore the works of this remarkable composer. Here you will find detailed biographical information, catalogues of Draeseke's works, essays on his music, as well as lists of publications and recordings; audio examples are available in both mp3 and RealAudio formats.

The Silent Forest

Erkki Melartin (February 2, 1875–February 14, 1937) was a Finnish composer and pupil of Martin Wegelius from 1892-99 in Helsinki, and Robert Fuchs from 1899-1901 in Vienna. Interestingly enough, he shares identical birth and death years with more famous composer Maurice Ravel.



As well as composing, Melartin also taught and directed music at the Helsinki Music College, later the Helsinki Conservatory. As conductor of the Viborg Orchestra in 1908-11, and despite chronic health problems, Melartin toured extensively (as far as North Africa and India), conducting the first performance of Gustav Mahler's music in Scandinavia, a movement of the Resurrection symphony in 1909 (see the Finnish Music Information Centre link, [1].)

Although Melartin was chiefly a lyricist, the symphony was central to his musical output. He wrote six symphonies (1902–1924) and was the first Finnish composer to bear Mahler's influence. The fourth symphony uses a vocalise like that of Carl Nielsen's Sinfonia Espansiva. The fifth is a Sinfonia brevis ending in a fugue and chorale, while the sixth, harmonically more advanced than the other five, advances stepwise from a C minor first movement — with evocations of Mahler's seventh symphony — to an E-flat major finale. His musical output also includes an opera, Aino (based on the character from the Finnish national epic), a violin concerto, four string quartets, and many piano pieces. His works therefore are divided mainly into large-scale works for orchestra, and chamber pieces for much smaller groups and soloists. In spite of working in the same time period as Jean Sibelius, he was not influenced by the more famous composer's style, and subsequently his work has been largely overshadowed by Finland's most revered composer.


Erkki Melartin — A Man of Many Talents

The most versatile of Finland’s Late Romantic composers was Erkki Melartin (1875—1937). His oeuvre comprises several hundred works with an exceptionally wide stylistic range. Although a Romantic at heart, he would sometimes switch to an Impressionist or even Expressionist idiom.

His versatility was reflected in other walks of life as well. An eminently practical man, he was a conductor and, from 1911 to 1936, director of the Helsinki Music Institute (the Conservatoire from 1924 on). But he also had a meditative streak, published a collection of aphorisms, and had a penchant for theosophy and mysticism.

Melartin’s most important works are his six symphonies, which reflect the influence of e.g. Bruckner and Mahler and range from adaptations of folk music to complex counterpoint and the Modernist idiom of the Sixth Symphony.

Melartin’s piano oeuvre: a mixture of styles

Melartin’s extensive oeuvre for piano also incorporates a wide variety of elements. He composed some 250 piano pieces in all, most of them in the Romantic style fashionable in his day. Some of these are clearly associated with Finnish folk music, others point to the world of the European salon.

Sometimes Melartin’s Romanticism takes on an added flair from Impressionist or Expressionist touches. It is, however, difficult to give any general characterization of his piano music, as neither the dates nor the order of composition are fully known.

Melartin: Pieces in Romantic style

Melartin’s Romantic style is represented by the early ballad "Kaksi joutsenta" (Two Swans, Op. 5/1), several collections of pieces entitled "Lastuja" (Chips), and the serenely lyrical "Three Piano Pieces" Op. 8. The duet suite "Marionetteja" (Marionettes, Op. 1), which also exists as an orchestral arrangement, is another example of Melartin’s Romantic piano poetry.

Like Palmgren, Melartin composed a full set of "24 Preludes" (Op. 85), published in three albums, the first in 1916 and the two latter in 1920. Although rather uneven, they provide a good general idea of the range of the composer’s Romantic piano style. In accordance with convention, each prelude is confined to rather limited textural matter.

A more Classical aspect of Melartin’s music is heard in the "Piano Sonatina" in G major Op. 84 and the "Piano Sonatina" no. 2, also arranged by the composer as a Sonata for flute and harp.

Melartin: Surullinen puutarha Op. 52

One of Melartin’s best-known piano compositions is the five-movement suite "Surullinen puutarha" (The Melancholy Garden; Op. 52). The work is dedicated to Sibelius, and the first movement, "Me kaksi" (We Two) has a certain archaic Sibelius sound. A rather mixed effect is produced by the way in which the suite combines Romantic and drawing-room touches with Impressionist elements.

The dominant mood is poetic meditation, interrupted by the Impressionistically tinged fourth movement, "Sade" (Rain). One of the high points in Melartin’s piano oeuvre, this movement has a transparent texture reminiscent of Ravel, and yet is unmistakably Finnish in mood. The closing movement, "Yksinäisyys" (Solitude), is also impressive in its sombre intensity.

Melartin: Noli me tangere Op. 87

A more coherent, though pianistically less varied work is "Noli me tangere" Op. 87. Its five contemplative movements are more austere but delve deeper than the earlier work. The fourth movement, "Kuolinhetki" (Moment of Death) soars to a brief, anguished climax punctuated by dissonances.

It is followed by "Syystuuli" (Autumn Wind), built up of fleeting, virtually shapeless octave unisons; as the closing movement, Syystuuli inevitably invites comparison with the finale of Chopin’s Sonata in B flat minor.

Melartin: Op. 98

Impressionist elements predominate in two of the pieces in Op. 98, among Melartin’s finest. "Hiljainen metsä" (The Silent Forest, Op. 98/1) evokes a mysterious, contemplative mood. "Korkeuksissa" (In the Heights, Op. 98/3), notated without bar lines, is an intensely meditative piece, with a powerful, painfully dissonant climax in the middle. "Hämärän kuva" (Image of Twilight; Op. 110/4) also has Impressionist touches.

Melartin: Six Piano Pieces Op. 118

The "Six Piano Pieces" Op. 118 (published 1923) are among the high points in Melartin’s piano oeuvre. The first of these, "Syyskuva" (Autumn Image) is still rather conventional, but the five others make highly individual use of Impressionist elements.

Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of the album is its dramatic construction, consisting of quick gestures and abrupt transitions. The contemplative opening of "Salaperäinen metsä" (The Mysterious Forest) gives way to sudden dissonances. "Noita" (The Witch) glitters in shifting, transparent colours. The Kalevala-type melody of "Loitsu" (The Spell) is lost in a harsh eruption of sound. "Virvatulet" (Will-o’-the-wisp) is a swift-moving study of perpetual motion, and the sharp, hard-hitting "Peikkotanssi" (Trolls’ Dance) ends with a haunting flageolet effect.

Melartin: Fantasia apocaliptica Op. 111

Melartin made his most significant contribution to Finnish Modernism in the 1920s with the piano sonata "Fantasia apocaliptica" Op. 111 which, however, seems never to have been performed in the composer’s lifetime.

The work was long lost, and took on an aura of Modernist legend. In a single movement, the "Fantasia apocaliptica" has a fairly free, not entirely balanced construction, in which one may detect the influence of both Liszt and Scriabin.

The work introduces an Expressionist strain into Melartin’s music. It consists largely of heavy, rolling chord sequences and roaring octave unisons, only briefly relieved by more lyrical moments. The harmony ranges from monophonic recitative and freely combined triads to more complex harmonies. The final Maestoso, however, brings the work to a triumphant close in E major.