Mikołaj Henryk Górecki was one of the greatest composers of our time. He certainly was famous on the worldwide scene for his „Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” that was a global hit comparable only to popular music hits. But all his works, including those commissioned by Kronos Quartet place him among the giants of music like Olivier Messiaen, Charles Ives, Arvo Part, John Taverner or Giya Kancheli. He practiced something I call, by the term I coined: „rich minimalism” — where the musical language is simple but the meanings and depths are rich.
If you haven't heard about Górecki, it is also for the fact that he was very modest and private person who always shunned publicity.
Whenever I can, I listen to music on Saturdays. Today, my musical experiences were under the spell of German composers. I started with Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. This cantata was written in 1937. On the textual level it is based on secular German poems, embracing the nature of life, joy of nature, common pleasures and perils. „Wine, Women and Song” was the title of 1884 publication of the most of the poems contained in the cantata.
This is beautiful music, no question about that. However, always after I listen to the great German music, particularly of the early XX century music, I cannot avoid deep question how this highest emanation of culture could live with the silent acceptance of all Nazis atrocities committed at that time. What is the value of culture, music and literature, if it cannot help people to resist the blatant crime?
How can we listen to beautiful tunes and chords of great musical works when we know that their authors, openly supported the regime that coldbloodedly killed millions of people?
How can we enjoy it when:
„...German music, which had sought sublimity, transcendence, disengagement from the ordinary world, must bear responsibility for what happened down below as it roamed through higher realms. Mann hinted further that this very “musicality of soul” was the key to Germany's fall; the aesthetic had triumphed over the merely human. In Nazi Germany, music became either a weapon of hate or an opiate of indifference.” (Alex Ross: World War II Music)
So, while I enjoyed it, I had the feelings that spoiled my experience.... It is hard to forget that Orff, accepted Nazis' commission to write a replacement score for Mendelssohn's “Midsummer Night's Dream” — what certainly was one of the darkest deeds in all musical history.
Later today, I switched to older German music. Johannes Brahms and his symphonies. Dramatically different world — warm and great. Melodious and architectural. And listening it under the baton of Leonard Bernstein — is always a great experience....
Why? Is it because Brahms lived long BEFORE the dark times? Is he better than Orff and Strauss who openly collaborated with the Nazis? If so — what to think about Wagner?
I think, that the deep reflection on the German culture, its music, its literature, in all its highs and lows has been, and still is, the very important part of our intellectual life...
In this context, it is worth to read the entire Alex Ross article: "In Music, Though, There Were No Victories". You can find it here....
Seven years ago I had a chance to listen to Mahler's VII Symphony live in my town. It was a performance of Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of famous Zubin Mehta. That was the event that triggered my almost narcotic clinging to Mahler's music. See these posts.
This was great performance. Ingo Metzmacher was passionate and energetic. He conducted in most like Bernstein's style - and the result was astonishing.
Mahler's VII Symphony is a special piece of symphonic art. I once called it "No programme - sheer beauty" Symphony - and this seems to be true - for all of this piece performances.
Mahler tells us some story - "shaken" and disturbing story - yet the story of immense beauty...
If you have a chance to listen it - I strongly recommend it....
Mahler did not live up even to listen his IX. For him, it existed in his imagination only. Yet, it is one of the most incredible of his composition. Very intense, deep and thick - moves on a brink of tonality and so-called "classical" sonority, getting close to atonality of new-music-to-come. Mahler must have been in a difficult part of his life when writing it. We must remember, that formally his "Das Lied Von Der Erde" is his 9th Symphony. However, in addition of his attempt to avoid "The curse of the 9th" with "Das Liede..." it was also such different from all his other symphonies, that the real "Symphony No 9" deserves to be his true IXth.
Mahler drives us from slow Andante Comodo, where joy & sorrow of the music is tightly linked, through grotesque Scherzo and very intense, very "mahlerian" Rondo to incredible Adagio (Finale). In this last part we witness a thick, intense, almost "stony", music that , at the end, recedes into sorrowful slow tones that finalize the Symphony. It is in this last part, we hear the low tones of basses and - separated by several octaves - violins. The effect is incredible - one can feel goose bumps...
If you want to hear this passage go to minute 4 of the following recording:
The very fact that Mahler did not listen to his IX is remarkable. This great music, truly unheard-of, was also really unheard by the composer.
After listening to IX, it is natural to listen to the parts of unfinished Xth. However, Bernastein only performed Adagio from that, last of Mahler's compositions. It is also very "Mahlerian" in its sonorities - in some parts it's so intense that it gets quite close to dissonances of atonality. However, the ultimate meaning of Xth is for me - the mature joyfulness, the appreciation of life and readiness for death - death with which Mahler seems to be finally reconciled. Needless to say, I, with many "Mahler lovers" await with great hope the finalization of years-long project of Yoel Gamzou, aimed in complete restoration and recreation of missing parts of Mahler's Xth... Read this.
Mahler's VIII Symphony was written for thousands musicians. "The Symphony of a Thousand" is its second name.
Huge orchestra, with off-stage brass section and three choirs of more than 800 singers, form the setting of one of the most unusual pieces of music that I ever listened to.
See the size of the orchestra on this video:
When performed first in 1910 in Munich, evoked such emotions that it was later called "one of the greatest triumphs in the history of music". But - what makes it even greater - it is far from any kind of pathos or musical hubris so typical to similar acts of Wagner or other composers of late romantic era in the Viennese-German culture of the XIX century.
Mahler selects two, at first glance, totally distant texts. First, Latin, Catholic "Veni Creator Spiritus", and second - the final scene of Goethe's "Faust". Both - deeply spiritual texts form a program for the symphony, that - because of their distance is hard to fully grasp.
Mahler, when talked about the composition process of VIII used to say about "signs from 'out there', a kind of mystical annunciations". And there is something like that. One of the most moving moment comes at Adagio in II part, exactly when the men chorus starts to sing dark Goethe text ending in "Tame about us - The holy shrine of Love".
And my last word is that Mahler's VIII is not the symphony you listen to once and grasp its gist. It is impossible. Before I watched it, conducted by Leonard Bernstein:
I listened to Antoni Wit performance many times. And still have desire to come back to it - just to discover new emotions, new affections, new spiritual reflections....
For those who live in US. You have great chance in 2009 with Mahler's and his VIII. Open THIS link.
Mahler's 7th was the first ever symphony I was happy to experience and it was live...
Today I listened to Bernstein's incredible interpretation of this unusual symphony. What makes it so unusual then? First, that it has no "programme" characteristic to other symphonies. Mahler vigorously opposed to label it as "Lied der Nacht" (The Song of the Night). There are no singers, no choir. Pure musical experience. How powerful, though !
There are many beautiful reviews about it, so instead of another lengthy post, I rather humbly refer you to one of them - by Henry-Louis de La Grange.
My own amazement comes from several reasons: the music is clearly "out-of-its-time". I had impressions similar to that I have when listen to Britten or even Penderecki, though the musical language is quite different. Then, the instrumentation is surprising, and gives surprising sound: cow-bells, tubular bells, guitar (!!!), mandolin (!!!) and all sound really non-trivial.
Mahler uses a lot of citations - a waltz, a serenade, a march like rhythm ....
No programme - sheer beauty - however - we could read something between the notes: the great stress and tension of the author - confirmed by what we know of his life between 1904 and 1908...
Readers of my blog know my fascination with Mahler's music. It started long time ago, with Zubin Mehta and Israel Philharmonic Orchestra performance of Mahler's VII symphony during the first "Festival of Four Cultures" in Lodz, Poland. This time I return to Bernstein's recording of Mahler's Third with Wiener Philharmoniker. Mahler's 3rd is the longest of all his symphonies, and one of the most beautiful. Mahler tried to provide some interpretation for this symphony, and it has a form of "messages" that we might receive: from Mythological God Pan, From Summer, from flowers on the meadow, from animals, Man, Angels and Love....
However, the sung parts of the Symphony, IV and V have amazing texts (corresponding to the messages from Man and Angels). Message from Man uses famous part of Nietzsche, "Thus spoke Zaratustra" called Zarathustra'a Roundeley, while The Message from Angels uses anonymous folk song, part of "The Youth's Magic Horn". Seemingly primitive text about St. Peter's sin and his redemption is surprising after deep and dark Nietzsche strophe. But when you dig deeper you find that all this is about the yearning for etehrnity, about fundamental discord with death, with vanishing life ...
Musically, the best are first and last part (at least to me). You will find a lot of amazing and surprising moments there. But you must immerse yourself into the music to enjoy it. For me the most amazing was the imitation of bell sounds, first by a boy choir in V part, singing literally Bim-Bam, Bim-Bom and later, the same imitation played by big drums (timpani) in the VI part - finale.
I also found fantastic article about Bernstein Mahler's fascinations. The article cites Bernstein saying: "There's no way to play three bars of Mahler without giving your all. (...) Every pianissimo is as intense as every forte. . . . Everything has to be done at full intensity."
You can here this words in the bonus to 3rd Symphony in this recording (Leonard Bernstein: The Mahler Symphonies (DVD))
opens the last part of Gustav Mahler incredible symphony "The Song of the Earth". It is based on famous Chinese poetry of Li Tai-Po. The selection of particular poems made by Mahler reflects his message hidden in the music: the hidden farewell to life. It is quite amazing that he used Chinese poetry to express it - however - for a good reason - Chinese wisdom and its contemplation of earthly beauty along with expression of rootlessness and awareness of human fate is well known. See translations of the songs.
The music itself is almost mystical, the final movement "Der Abschied" can be listen again and again and again....
Last but not least - listening to Leonard Bernstein conducting this symphonic piece is worth waiting long into the night ....
It may happen that, as time passes, I will be adding reviews of music I listen to this blog. Music plays important role in my life. I hardly can play, though. Of course, I "play" - I mean - I have fun to play several melodies on my alto- and bass- recorders, on Indian bass flute, or few tones on Jewish horn - Shofar - but it is even less than amateurish activity. However, my son, being realy amateurish guitarist, does it much better than I ever did !!!
On the other hand, we listen to music of many genres, ranging from ancient music, through Bach & Bethoveen, Mahler, Sibelius to Penderecki, Gorecki, Glass, Arvo Part, not to mention modern Jazz and ambitious rock & metal music. We literally live within music during our weekends and evenings.
This weekend I devoted to Mahler and his first three symphonies. Anyone who searches for the music deep in its meaning, with some dose of "programmatic" themes, which do end in banality - should listen to them:
Symphony No. 1 - As Henry-Louis de La Grange writes it is a "mixture of sorrow and irony, the grotesque and the sublime, tragedy and humor" and that was the programme added by Mahler to the symphony
Symphony No. 2 - With beautiful poem "Primeval Light" from "The Youth's Magic Horn" - collection of popular German folk poems, the symphony asks fundamental questions about life and death, depicts the importance of joyful times in our life, goes through despair of meaningless activities of life, to end in the true hope of our sould renewal. It's worth to read what Henry-Louis de La Grange wrote about 2-nd symphony
Symphony No. 3 - One of the most imposing of all Mahler's symphonies. This is the act of creativity that caused Mahler to express: "The composer who writes 'a major work, literally reflecting the whole world, is himself only, as it were, an instrument played by the whole universe' ". The symphony programme was around the answers that composer gets from Nature, its glory and from man: Summer Marches In, What the Flowers on the Meadow Tell Me, What the Animals in the Forest Tell Me, What Man Tells Me, What the Angels Tell Me, What Love Tells Me. The best illustration of this incredible music is in Mahler's own words: "My symphony will be something the world has never heard before. In it Nature herself acquires a voice and tells secrets so profound that they are perhaps glimpsed only in dreams! I assure you, there are passages where I myself sometimes get an eerie feeling; it seems as though it were not I who composed them." Again, the best ever text about it is by Henry-Louis de La Grange.
Of great importance is of course, what performance do you listen to. I did to Bernstain's... I'm not sure if there exists anything better than Bernstain recording of Mahler's symphonies. Needless to say, watching Bernstein profound dedication to music, his conductor's "body-language" is another incredible experience.
I must also say some bad words about an attempt to illustrate Mahler's music by computer graphics. I refer to "Vision Mahler" by Johannes Deutsch. The music performance (conductor Semyon Bychkov) is fine, but the illustration is primitive. I understand the need of interpretations other than the composer programme for the symphony, I understand the need for visual experiments with music, but to illustrate the glorious Mahler's Symphony No. 2 with phlegmatic shapes from XX century 90-ties computer 3D graphics was too much to me. I hope, Johannes Deutsch, who is certainly good artist will come up with something better in the future !
At this moment it is good to remind Gustaw Mahler's words: "If a composer could say what he had to say in words, he would not bother trying to say it in music". And this equally applies to words as to images !!!
Richard's Fawkes book "The History of Classical Music" is fantastic introduction for all of us who are interested in the history of music, but how do not have energy to read long treatises. Fawkes book takes us on an interesting journey from the beginnings of western music, starting from mystic chants of Hildegard of Bingen, through renaissance and baroque classical music to modern music of such giants like John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen or Henryk Górecki. It has also some interesting parts that describe opera music.
The book is certainly more scholar and more "popular" one than "The Rest Is Noise" (described here), but it gives a good ground for understanding the transformations of music through centuries. Sometimes, it lacks some deep details that could be interested for us, readers (I missed more information about Bach and/or Mozart), but my overall opinion is positive.
The book ends with beautiful short parable: "Yet, having started this journey with Greogorian chant, it seems appropriate to conculde with a world, that perhaphs, would not sound so unfamiliar with the devout of Dark Ages. Arvo Part, the Estonian composer, born in 1935 has his roots in chant, yet his minimalism is a distinctly XX century voice. The spiritual qualities, the spiritual message of the Westeren musical tradition is undimmed, even into XXI century..."
The reading of "The Rest is Noise" by Alex Rose was one of the best experiences I could have in September of 2008. As I wrote in the previous post, it shows incredible connections betweenthe music and politics or the trends of troubled XX century.But it also shows that in the later part of XX century, music became less "political" and more engaged in itself - in creation of "The imaginary country that cannot be found on a map" (Debussy). Alex Rose, shows us what makes the great music, free from politics, when he writes:"The debates over merits of engagement and withdraw [of music] has gone for centuries (...)Composition only gains power from failing to decide the eternal dispute. In a decentred culture, it has a chance to play a kind of good-father role - able to assimilate anything new because it has assimilated everything in the past".
I do not see, and I believe, the author also does not think that way - that the music CAN in fact be motivated by what happens in the world - it cannot be isolated. But, what is the great hope, thatthe music is not, and will never be played to fulfil some crazy dictator's agenda ....
I strongly recommend this book for everyone who is interested in modern music.
