Classics 1: Electrifying Colors



Maurice Ravel
1875-1937

Maurice Ravel
Bolero

“I have written only one masterpiece,” remarked Maurice Ravel to fellow composer Arthur Honegger, “that is Bolero. Unfortunately, it contains no music.” Ravel’s self-irony notwithstanding, Bolero is one of the most popular musical compositions of all time. It was created for the dancer Ida Rubinstein, who was the inspiration for numerous artists of the 1910s and ‘20s, including Claude Debussy, Igor Stravinsky, André Gide and Darius Milhaud. In 1927 Rubenstein asked Ravel to orchestrate for her some of Isaac Albéniz’s dances from Iberia, but the composer discovered that someone else was already working on those.

Bolero was born out of this confusion. Its premiere on November 22, 1928, with Rubinstein as the solo female dancer and 20 male dancers mostly standing around ogling her, created a sensation. The whole piece consists of the insistent repetition of a single melody of slightly irregular phrasing, accompanied by an ostinato rhythm on the snare drum.

Its magic is almost childishly simple: repeating the melody, changing the instrumentation, gradually increasing the volume, and adding more instruments. But the true genius of the piece is in its “punch line,” a sudden unexpected and drastic change of key, at which point the whole meticulous structure explodes.

The Spanish bolero is usually a couples dance of moderate tempo in triple meter, different from the Cuban dance by the same name, which is in duple meter. According to tradition it was invented by the dancer Sebastian Cerezo in 1780. In the nineteenth century it became popular with classical composers, including Beethoven, Chopin, Weber and Berlioz.

It is said that the best Spanish music has been written by Frenchmen, and Maurice Ravel was a prime example. His first “Spanish” composition was the “Habañera” for two pianos in 1895, which was followed by many others, including Alborada del gracioso, the opera L’heure espagnole, Tzigane, Rapsodie espagnole and, in 1928 Bolero.



George Gershwin
1898-1937

George Gershwin
Concerto in F for Piano and Orchestra

The musical idiom of jazz evolved in New Orleans in the early part of this century from ragtime and from the blues. It was however in Europe, where American dance bands were very popular, that composers first incorporated the new American idioms into their classical compositions: Claude Debussy in Golliwog's Cakewalk (1908); Igor Stravinsky in Ragtime (1918); and especially Darius Milhaud in the ballet La création du Monde (1923).

George Gershwin was the first American composer to make jazz acceptable to the classical music audience. The performance of his Rhapsody in Blue at the Paul Whitman concerts in 1924 made history as a groundbreaker. It was however his Concerto in F, commissioned by Walter Damrosch for the New York Symphony and which premiered in December 1925, which was the first large-scale jazz composition in a traditionally classical form.

Gershwin, who by that time was already a famous composer of songs and musical comedies, had no experience in orchestration. In the Broadway tradition, this was usually left to professional orchestrators. Even the Rhapsody in Blue had not been orchestrated by Gershwin, but by his colleague Ferde Grofé. But for the Concerto in F he decided to score it himself. From the telling results we can see what a fast learner he was.

Although billed as a concerto for the concert hall, the Concerto in F adheres only to the most basic elements to the classical models for form and structure: three movements, fast-slow-fast. There is no attempt at recreating sonata form in the movements themselves, although the finale is a rondo.

Gershwin employed different jazz styles in the three movements. The First movement, Allegro, employs the quick and pulsating rhythm of the Charleston. The unusual opening is for timpani and trap set, which sets the prevailing rhythm of the movement and announces in no uncertain terms: This is jazz!

The main theme, introduced by the piano, becomes a motto for the concerto, recurring in the Finale.

Instead of developing core thematic material, the tunesmith Gershwin rolls out a series of melodies in contrasting rhythms and moods, expanding each one in the manner of a jazz riff, the first a Charleston,

the second more Latin in feel

and the next, another Charleston.

The climax of the movement is full orchestral repeat of the main theme.

The slow second movement has, as Gershwin himself explained, “...a poetic nocturnal atmosphere which has come to be referred to as the American blues...” It is about two big themes, both of which are delayed to produce a sense of expectation that drives the movement and reflect the melancholy sense of longing that characterize the blues in general. The movement begins with a long introductory section for solo winds, including clarinets, saxophone, trumpet and oboe based on a small rhythmic motive that sets the bluesy atmosphere and contains little hints of the important themes to come.

As in the first movement, the piano introduces the main theme,

the accompaniment to which contains the motivic germ of the movement's second big theme

that will come into its own a full eight minutes into the movement.

Note that both main themes contain within them no harmonic resolution. This Gershwin further delays until the end of the movement.

The Finale, the only movement with a classical structure, is a rondo, actually a toccata consisting of rapidly repeated notes. From a pop music perspective, the movement is a quickstep.

The first episode brings back in variation the motto from the first movement.

The theme of the next episode is original to this movement.

In the third episode, Gershwin brings back the main theme from the second movement as a quickstep.

The climax of the movement is a near repeat of the fully orchestrated motto. A rapid coda recalls the rondo theme with a timpani flourish and jazz trill for the horns.



Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov
1844-1908

Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov
Scheherazade, Op.35

In the development of the tradition of Russian national music, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov fulfills a place of honor. Musically self-taught, he trained originally as a naval office, serving in that capacity from 1862 to 1873. Throughout his naval career he studied music on the side until 1871 when he won a faculty position at the St. Petersburg Conservatory in spite of the fact that he had little formal training. From then until his death, he taught and encouraged nearly every young Russian composer from Alexander Glazunov and Anton Arensky to Igor Stravinsky and Sergey Prokofiev.

Rimsky-Korsakov’s inspiration derived from the operas of Mikhail Glinka, whose music combined Russian melodies with oriental modes. Together with César Cui, Aleksander Borodin, Mily Balakirev and Modest Mussorgsky, he formed the group called “The mighty five,” whose aim was to promote Russian national music. Although largely self-taught, Rimsky-Korsakov was by far the best-trained musician among them. His use of instrumental color and masterly orchestration was so famous that any Russian composer with serious aspirations – and many foreigners – made the pilgrimage to his orchestration and composition classes, some, like Ottorino Respighi, coming from as far away as Italy. After the death of Borodin and Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov edited and completed their manuscripts – especially their operas – and had them published. Unfortunately, he had a habit of “correcting” everything that he considered over the top, from harmonic progressions to the order of scenes. Putting side-by-side Musorgsky’s original score of A Night on Bald Mountain with Rimsky’s changes is quite a revelation; one wonders which is worse, completely changing someone else’s work and leaving his name on it, or borrowing someone else’s work and putting ones own name on it.

The symphonic poem Scheherazade, based on A Thousand Nights and One Night (commonly called the Arabian Nights) was composed in 1888 and premiered in November of that year. It is among the most colorful works in the orchestral repertoire, glowing with brilliant orchestration and lush solos. The frame story of A Thousand Nights and One Night tells of a Khalif who was in the habit of killing his wives after a single night of lovemaking. His latest bride, Scheherazade, avoids that fate by telling him suspenseful stories, ending each evening with a cliffhanger. After years of such nightly entertainment, the Khalif finally decides to keep her.

The Suite has four tableaux, in which the yarn-spinning Scheherazade “speaks” through virtuoso passages for solo violin that tie the tableaux together, and are occasionally incorporated into a tableau.

None of the four tableaux refers specifically to any of Scheherazade’s tales; rather, they allude to the types of characters and incidents that make up the vast body of stories. The tone poem begins with a blast of the low brasses with the theme representing the Khalif,

followed by a passage that Rimsky snitched from Mendelssohn to denote the world of fiction and fairytales.

The first tableau, “The Sea and Sinbad’s Ship,” includes a combination of rhythms and changing dynamics that imitate the motion of the waves in two principal themes,

the second one a transformation of the Khalif's theme. Scheherazade's theme is transformed to fit the rocking of the waves.

“The Tale of the Kalendar Prince” constitutes the second tableau. It changes the pace to reflect a number of loosely bound battle episodes, including a main theme introduced in an English horn solo,

as well as virtuosic fanfare passages for solo trumpet.

The third tableau, “The Young Prince and the Young Princess,” is the most romantic. The violins introduce the first intimate theme,

followed by an Oriental dance.

The final tableau is a passionate conversation between The Khalif's and Scheherazade, as she readies herself for her last chance at survival.

The tableau actually recalls a number of episodes, marked in the score “The Festival at Baghdad,

” The Sea,” (reprise of the theme from the first tableau)“The ship founders on a rock topped by the bronze statue of a warrior,”

and “Conclusion.” The music is fiery and exciting until the conclusion, when Scheherazade’s stories come to a quiet and plaintive end while she awaits the life or death decision of the Khalif, whose theme finally moderates to a gentle section solo for the cellos.