Categories
Authors Emi Zegers

Concert Program

TEATRO DEL LAGO

FRUTILLAR, CHILE

10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY CONCERT

Introduction:

This performance will feature composers ranging from the eighteenth century and the twentieth century, and timeless pieces that seem to be foreshadowing later stylistic techniques. Ludwig van Beethoven, Béla Bartók, and Dmitri Shostakovich are all composers that have created renowned quartets that have shaken the musical world. Dmitri Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 brings forth elements from his own previous compositions, such as symphonies, opera’s, and concerto’s that symbolize key points in his personal life that have been reflected in his music. This quartet ranges through a spectrum of emotions from deep distress to optimism and joy. Béla Bartók, often considered as the father of ethnomusicology, composed his String Quartet No. 5 using styles from both Bulgarian folk music and Beethovian techniques. The Scherzo movement displays rhythmic techniques used as a bridge between folk and national styles of music, and his own techniques as a composer. Ludwig van Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 Op. 131 is considered to be one of his greatest works, the fourth of the five late string quartets. In this quartet, Beethoven alludes to themes from all movements alike, creating connections between them, and successfully brings the quartet full circle. At first glance, these composers and their pieces may seem to have no relationship at all, but when one hears closely and attentively, all the connections come together in the mind.

String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110.

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eighth Quartet was composed in three days, following his tour of the bombed-out ruins of Dresden, Germany. During this tour, Shostakovich came to reevaluate the meaning of life, and stated in a letter to a friend, “I started thinking that If some day I die, nobody is likely to write a work in memory for me, so I had better write one myself”1. He proceeded to write a dedication in the Quartet, “to the memory of the composer of this quartet”2, and used a motive in the piece that symbolized his musical signature, DSCH, which translated to German note names, is D – E♭- C – B. This motive is set in motion by the cello at the very beginning of the piece, and subsequently appears at different times in the later movements. This motive also evokes themes from Ludwig van Beethoven’s late String Quartet No. 14 Opus. 131, which is the last quartet that will be played in this concert. 

Figure 1: Figure 1: Dmitri Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 8, movement 1, mm. 1 – 8. 3 

Each movement in the quartet features musical representations of different points in his life. Some optimistic and some that are borderline tear-jerking, as he was experiencing a tumultuous relationship within the culture and politics of the Soviet Union. 

The quartet includes multiple references to other composers’ styles and works, as well as some of Shostakovich’s own previous pieces. Some of the allusions of his past pieces include Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1932), The First Symphony (1925), The Eighth Symphony (1943), The Second Piano Trio (1944), The Cello Concert (1959). Works from different composers were also alluded to, such as Wagner’s The Funeral March from Götterdämmerung (1876), Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony First Movement (1893), and The Revolutionary song Tormented by Grievous Bondage. 

The quartet begins with a Largo movement, which is slow and contrapuntal. It is also said that the second and third movements display the optimism and hopefulness that Shostakovich was living at the time. However, these movements display these feelings in rhythm and structure, not in tone. The second and third movements possess a scherzo-like rhythm, but are partnered with a despondent and anxious tone. The third movement itself begins with a harsh and resonating DSCH motive, played by the first violin. This dramatic beginning is followed by the scherzo-like rhythm, similar structure to the second movement. However, this tone is much more sinister and on edge than the second movement. The fourth movement of the quartet includes references from one of Shostakovich’s opera’s, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1932), more specifically ‘Katerina’s’ lovesick aria. This is anticipated by an extense quotation from The Revolutionary song Tormented by Grievous Bondage. ‘The movement ends with a return of the terrifying music with which it begins, a strained stillness interrupted by sudden, sharp, repeated chords heard by some as the ominous pounding on the door in the middle of the night, when the Soviet authorities came to take someone away.’4

Béla Bartók and Ludwig van Beethoven primarily brought different themes and techniques of other composers and styles, different to Shostakovich who for the majority alluded to his own past works. Dmitri Shostakovich seems to have composed a self-written obituary, bringing in both tragic and hopeful aspects of his life into one piece. 

“It is a pseudo-tragic quartet, so much so that while I was composing it I shed the same amount of tears as I would have had to pee after half-a-dozen beers. When I got home, I tried a few times to play it through, but always ended up in tears.” 

Dmitri Shostakovich 5

Intermission

String Quartet No. 5 in B♭Major, Scherzo. 

Béla Bartók (1881 – 1945) 

Throughout his years, Béla Bartók came to be acknowledged as one of the most important Hungarian national composers of the twentieth century. Before traveling abroad to perform in Berlin, Paris and Vienna, the gifted pianist, composer and later ethnomusicologist Bartók initially studied at the Budapest Academy of Music. After his extensive travels abroad, he returned to the academy and taught piano in 1906, but then immigrated to the United States in 1940 given the growing alliance between Hungary and Nazi Germany6.

Bartók was deeply invested in the art of folk music, and believed that it was a gateway into a concoction of modern music with styles from his native soil. He publicly criticized other Hungarian composer’s failed attempts to create an authentic national Hungarian style, signaling that the pieces were based on stereotypical Roma-style melodies and also based on non-Hungarian cultures. He shows prominent influence from the unique rhythms of Bulgarian folk music, ‘with meters made up of irregular groupings of two and three beats, as reflected in the 4+2+3 over 8 time signature in the Fifth String Quartet’7 (Figure 2). These rhythmic techniques are combined with metrical conflict, a style made famous by Ludwig van Beethoven. Similar to Beethoven, Bartók presents themes in the first movement that are revisited in the finale, not presented in this performance. However, in the Scherzo, the groupings and placements of dissonance that are presented at the start of the movement are revisited again. Bartók used these rhythmic influences as a bridge between folk and national styles of music, and his own techniques as a composer. To further accentuate this, Bartók inserts a rhythmic indication at the beginning of the Scherzo Movement ‘Alla bulgarese’, meaning ‘In a Bulgarian style’. 

Figure 2: Béla Bartók, String Quartet No. 5, movement 3, Scherzo, mm. 1-4.8 

Dissonance is something that never ceases to surprise in Bártok’s works. The starting theme seen in Figure 2 is just one of the many instances where the motive is repeated through dissonant variations. The cello seems to follow the shape of a stereotypical tonic-dominant alteration, but has some irregularities. It goes from a D♯to an A (a tritone away) and then there is an A♯as the lowest notes in the patterns. The short arpeggiated theme Figure 2 is answered by a lively, irregular dance melody. In the middle of the movement, the arpeggiated theme is intervallically modified, becoming a high ostinato on the violin, while a simple tune is sounded alternately by the other instruments. Throughout the entire Scherzo, in addition to the metrical conflicts, there is significant rhythmic uniqueness originated from Bulgarian musical techniques. There are various times throughout the piece where the phrasing and stepwise notes, such as shown in measure 3, is repeated chaotically by all of the instruments at different times, creating a prominent polyphony. This is Bártok combining Bulgarian folk rhythmic techniques into his own stylistic influences from Beethoven, such as some ‘country-dance tunes’. Bartók is successfully showing how folk music is now part of his ‘mother tongue’ and successfully integrating it with traditional music techniques.

‘The implication that a mother tongue is not something you are born with but something you have to master is a stark reminder of the challenges composers faced during these years in forging a sense of identity and wholeness’9.

String Quartet No. 14 in C♯minor, Opus 131. 

Presto; Adagio quasi un poco andante; Allegro

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827)

The C♯minor quartet is the fourth of Beethoven’s five late string quartets. This quartet was composed the year before Beethoven’s death, and is also considered to be one of his greatest works. Similar to Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5 and Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8, Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14 is a multi movement piece. The whole quartet possesses striking contrasts of style and feeling within the seven movements, but show a full circle when themes from the first movement are revisited in the finale. This performance will delve into the last three movements, (V) Presto, (VI) Adagio quasi un poco andante, (VII) Allegro. The Presto movement is an exuberant scherzo starting in E Major, the relative minor of C# minor. The slower, more legato theme of the Presto movement is originally presented in E Major, and seems to work as an outline for the fast paced cut-time quarter notes to work around. An ironic technique, similar to Shostakovich’s way of distributing themes. This is played by the first violin in the higher octave, and the second violin an octave lower (Figure 3).

Figure 3: Ludwig van Beethoven, String Quartet No. 14, Opus. 131, movement 5, Presto, mm. 69-84.10.

Following the styles that many have mimicked, Beethoven revisits this theme later in the movement, but with a key change variation. The third and fourth movements of the quartet are in D major and A major, respectively. The theme of the Presto is revisited in these keys later in the movement, which actively shows the continuity of the piece. The sixth movement, Adagio quasi un poco andante, is a short and somber movement, which serves as a type of introduction into the final movement, the Allegro. The final movement begins with a remarkable ruthlessness, ‘the finale burgeons with country-dance tunes, of a kind associated in the other late quartets with the interior dance movements’11. This shows yet another contrast with the supreme seriousness of the opening of the C♯minor: an antique fugue. Resemblances to the ‘country-dance tunes’ can be heard in Bartók’s String Quartet No. 5 Scherzo, and in some aspects of Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8. This last movement is a combination and recapitulation of all the previous movements, especially themes from the first movement, Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo. It also includes references to different motifs in different keys, from the previous middle movements. Because of this, the Allegro emits a constant feeling of uncertainty, not fully knowing where the piece is resolving. The crucial partnership between the first and final movement shows how the seven movements come back together as a final circle. However, when the Allegro ends on the final cadence in C# Major, it feels as if there is more to come. Beethoven leaves the listeners wanting more. Considering that he composed his greatest works the year before he died, and that the quartet possesses such intensity and dramaticism, it is impossible not to wonder what was going inside Beethoven’s mind at this time.  

Works Cited

Auner, Joseph. Music in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. 67-184. New York; London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013.

Bártok, Béla. String Quartet No. 5, Scherzo, 33. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1936. Reissue – London: Boosey & Hawkes, 1939. 

Beethoven, Ludwig van. String Quartet No. 14, Opus 131, Presto, 139. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1863.

Grove Music Online. Beethoven, Ludwig van. Retrieved December 17, 2020. Kerman, J., Tyson, A., Burnham, S., Johnson, D., & Drabkin, W.  (2001).

Categories
Authors Emi Zegers

Berg: Modernist or Obsessed with the Past?

Towards the beginning of the twentieth century, composers started to actively choose to move beyond and break away from the Post-Romantic idiom, and make room for new musical possibilities, such as Expressionism. Alban Berg (1885-1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School, founded by Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951). While we often think of Romanticism and Expressionism  as opposed, and thus of musical history as a series of discrete ‘periods’, in fact there are always continuities despite absolute breaks. Berg was part of both Expressionism and Romanticism, and therefore is neither the cause nor the effect of the transition from one to the other. This change was not a passive process, but rather an active one. Composers felt the need to break away from Romanticism, into something completely different, that the public most definitely did not accept completely. This new musical era opened new possibilities in music creation, such as integrating connections with the past, and even variously manifesting these connections via allusions to older forms, techniques, and even pieces. Berg’s Violin Concerto of 1935 is the perfect example of his use of romantic lyricism and combination with Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method. The twelve-tone method was the culminating break from the Romantic period, a direct result of composers seeking to impose order that gave meaning to an excess of choice. As stated previously, Berg incorporates older forms and sounds into his twelve-tone works, through elaborate compositional devices. Alban Berg alluded to traditional schemes of tonality, form and expression through the use of themes and variations based on previous musical traditions to produce a positive ambiguity out of the same tonal and atonal contradictions that Schoenberg and his pupils faced. 

Alban Berg openly criticized the backlash that Expressionism music often received. He released a statement of aims entitled Society for Private Music Performances in Vienna (1919). The society was founded by Arnold Schoenberg in Vienna in 1918, with the objective of separating twentieth-century music from concert culture and life, as well as from the musical public as a whole. In the statement, Berg critiques the way expressionist music is perceived by the public, as the works are “therefore valued, considered, judged, and lauded, or else misjudged, attacked, and rejected, exclusively upon the basis of one effect which all convey equally ー that of obscurity”1. He also states how it not only affects the composers and the production of music itself, but also anyone who’s opinion is ‘worthy of consideration’. There is a recurring theme of alienation that is thrusted upon these modernist composers and their pieces, which roots from the public’s lack of understanding of the music itself, which they then associate with discomfort and unpleasantness. These composers now seek to avoid public scrutiny, and mark the idea of approval as irrelevant. Berg additionally states that through the achievement of “preparation and frequent repetition”2, the obscurity is replaced by clarity which only then can an “audience establish an attitude towards a modern work that bears any relation to its composers intention”3. Given Berg’s suggestion that these new pieces were of necessity unfamiliar and even difficult, it’s surprising to discover that some of his music is nevertheless filled with familiar forms, sounds, and procedures. His Violin Concerto of 1935 offers a remarkable combination of new and old, including twelve-tone rows, Baroque forms, allusions to familiar-sounding tonal patterns, and even a quotation from one of Bach’s most celebrated chorale harmonizations.

Figure 1: Opening of the Bach Chorale, Cantata 60, Es ist genug, mm. 1-24.

The second movement of the Violin Concerto, Berg integrates phrases and harmonies from the very famous Bach Chorale “Est ist genug” from the Cantata No. 60. Berg rearranges the chorale into a twelve-tone composition, and uses the original harmonization in different parts of the piece, joining the new with the old. The integration The integration of the Chorale comes at a time of heavy climax composed by a harsh mixture of sounds. As these sounds subside, we can start to hear subtle hints of the four note phrase of the chorale being played by the woodwinds, gradually becoming more distinct. This is also accompanied by the Bach harmony itself. The whole process is very interesting, as Berg alludes to a renown chorale phrase and harmony from an older time, as if he were reaching into the listener’s comfort and showing it in a different context. One could try to imagine how it would be to listen to this piece at the Society for Private Music Performances in Vienna, listening to Berg’s subtleties through the woodwinds and moving us closer and closer to the message he is trying to convey. Berg uses these techniques in order to transition the public into new music, while still respecting and using older music. It is as if Berg is trying to tell us something through these techniques; perhaps that Bach is quite modern, or that Berg himself isn’t as modern as he seems to be?

Figure 2: Alban Berg, Violin Concerto, Movement 2, mm. 141-1435.

As mentioned before, Berg alludes to this chorale and harmony style through the woodwinds, and we can now see in Figure 2, where the Bach chorale is showcased in plain sight.  What is also quite interesting, is that the fragment is in fact a segment of a Whole Tone scale, which brings to question whether Berg is telling us that in reality Bach was modern, or that Berg himself was not as radical as the public thought. Berg uses the Bach chorale as a way to allude to traditional forms of harmony and themes, subsequently producing positive ambiguity out of the same tonal and atonal contradictions that Schoenberg both produced and was criticized for. The use of variations of traditional forms of harmony and melodies creates a mild sense of comfort for the listeners. As Berg clearly states in his statement of aims, composers are subject to ridicule, mis judgement and rejection solely because their music is ‘obscure’. This particular passage (Fig. 2) is in the midst of a very tumultuous and possibly ‘uncomfortable’ composition; Berg cleverly incorporates the Bach chorale subtly, as if opening a window into the traditional and comfortable style of music. The chorale is then repeated more and more, until the solo violin plays it as a theme. The use of the chorale seems to work as a breath of fresh air for the traditionally coddled ears of the public, possibly because it takes them back to a time of musical comfort and conformity. 

Leonard Bernstein, The Unanswered Question: The Twentieth Century Crisis6.

Bernstein’s wonderful analysis then shows a totally unexpected event in a twelve-tone work, which is that the same Bach Chorale is then repeated again. The Chorale is repeated by four clarinets, in pure B♭Major “Bachian” harmony. Bernstein also emphasizes the adjective of “pure” which can be inferred as untouched and not modified in any way, keeping the chorale itself intact. The clarinets play for three whole phrases, and then the violin plays in dissonant counterpoint, and the clarinets subsequently answer with the “Bachian” harmony. The unexpectedness of this whole process is what makes this incredibly interesting. The way Berg uses themes and variations of the Bach Chorale shows the very intentional integration of the old in the new. 

Berg differs from Schoenberg and his other pupils, as he succeeds in producing this positive ambiguity, despite the same tonal and atonal challenges his peers and mentors faced. The Violin Concerto solves this ever present tonal obscurity in a very satisfying way, through the hints of familiar themes and harmonies. Alban Berg’s twelve tone theme in the first movement of his Violin Concerto was a dodecaphonic series that spelled out a series of triads: minor, augmented, major and diminished. The ‘row’ gives the familiar sounds a new meaning.

 Figure 3: Alban Berg, Violin Concerto, movement 1, violin’s twelve-tone theme, mm. 15-187.

This row is based on the opening melody of the Bach Chorale, because the whole pattern is ‘hidden’ in notes 9 – 12 (B, C♯, D, E♭, F) in the row.  “In suggesting that Bach’s music is so closely connected to his own, Berg underscores the insistence by the Second Viennese School that their music, as Schoenberg wrote, was a “truly new music, which being based on tradition, is destined to become tradition””8. Is Berg telling us that the familiar can be modern?

The first four notes of the twelve-tone theme correspond to the first notes that are played by the violin in the piece. The last four notes, starting from the B♮, compose the tritone chord. What makes this so intriguing is how there is a clear transition from the romantic style to the expressionist style. The twelve-tone row begins with a series of traditional intervals, and then ends with an outline of the tritone, which is widely considered as atonal and disruptive. Interestingly enough, this piece was dedicated to the memory of Alma Mahler’s daughter, and therefore representing the peaceful acceptance of death9. Berg, however, portrays death as atonal and disruptive, but with these subtleties that make it peaceful in the end.   

In contrast to Schoenberg and his other pupils, Alban Berg uses traditional themes and techniques in his compositions in order to create a positive ambiguity within the twelve-tone method. In Berg’s Violin Concerto, he incorporates themes and variations of the famous Bach Chorale “Es ist genug” from Cantata No. 60, which in turn creates a shift between the expressionist and the traditional aspect of the piece. Berg absorbs tonality within his twelve-tone composition, by using the recurring themes of Bach’s chorale, as a way to familiarize the listeners with techniques that they are and were previously accustomed to. As was mentioned earlier, his suggestion that these new pieces were of necessity unfamiliar and even difficult, it’s surprising to discover that some of Berg’s music is nevertheless filled with familiar forms, sounds, and procedures. Through this, Berg successfully achieves this positive ambiguity, a goal rooted by a genuine obsession with the integration of traditional forms into new and modern music compositions. Berg felt the need for a new foundation of music, and believed similar to Schoenberg, that “truly new music which, being based on tradition, is destined to  become tradition.”10

Works Cited

Auner, Joseph. Music in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. 134-136. New York; London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013.

Bach, Johann Sebastian. O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort BWV 60, Es ist genug, 22. Leipzig: Breitkopf und Härtel, 1863.

Berg, Alban. “Society for Private Music Performances in Vienna”. In Strunk’s Source Readings in Music History, rev. edn, ed Nicolas Slonimsky, Music Since 1900, 4th ed, 191-192. New York:  Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971.

Berg, Alban. Violin Concerto, 6. Vienna: Universal Edition, 1936.

Bernstein, Leonard. The Unanswered Question: The Twentieth Century Crisis. PBS, 1976. 

Categories
Authors Emi Zegers

Composers vs. Listeners: Do they really need each other?

In Milton Babbitt’s 1958 article The Composer as a Specialist, the issues between contemporary music composers and listeners were addressed in depth. Babbitt acknowledges the “musical and societal isolation” of contemporary music and the composers who executed it. There is a rough relationship between composers (and performers) and the listeners. This can be seen especially in “new” contemporary music.

Robert Hilferty, Laura Karpman, Portrait of a Serial Composer, 2011, 30:36-31:19.

In traditional music, the listener is put on a pedestal, because somehow their opinions are considered the highest form of feedback. How is this possible, considering that most listeners do not even possess the slightest amount of knowledge regarding the process of composing music? Babbitt makes the interesting comparison to physics and physicists. No one would dare to tell a physicist or a mathematician that they ‘don’t like’ their theory, because how could they come to that conclusion without any real knowledge about the research? This can be applied exactly to music. What gives listeners the right to openly opine about music that they ‘don’t like’, when in reality they simply do not understand it? Humans are scared of discomfort and uncertainty in knowledge, but this does not justify the dismissiveness that is allotted to “new” contemporary music. Listeners with traditionally coddled ears feel the need to associate past music with comfort, and new contemporary music with ‘decadence’. This is like bringing theoretical physicists research to a halt. It is stunting music evolution. 

Babbitt comes up with a solution. Why the need for listeners? Well, in reality if the composer isn’t trying to convey a message or an idea to the public, why should they need listeners? Do theoretical physicists need the public’s opinion on new theories? I don’t think so. So why should musical composers? Why should composers depend on a public that will criticize and degrade their music because they simply do not understand it and won’t make the effort to evolve their musical standards? The fact is, they shouldn’t. Music should, and sometimes does come from a composer’s calling to create. I don’t see physicists proving theories to make the public happy. They do it to solve the never ending questions of the natural world, much like composers do to understand the infinite musical possibilities. If this new music is not supported, these entitled members of the public will not be affected in the slightest. “But music will cease to evolve, and, in that important sense, will cease to live.” (Strunk, 41).

Categories
Authors Emi Zegers

Schoenberg: “The Unity of Musical Space”

“Alas human creators, if they be granted a vision, must travel the long path between vision and accomplishment; a hard road where, driven out of Paradise, even geniuses must reap their harvest in the sweat of their brows.”

Schoenberg, Auner (128)

The father of the twelve-tone method faced criticism and prejudice as a consequence to his vision of breaking tonality and traditional music norms. He himself felt the need to draft Composition with 12 Tones (1941), as a way to justify his brusque change from his earlier work and musical beliefs. In efforts to showcase the twelve-tone method, he released Opus. 33a, one of the most analyzed twelve-tone works, is based on a row notated in the treble clef of the piece: Bb-F-C-B-A-F#-C#-D#-G-Ab-D-E (Auner 129).

Arnold Schoenberg, Klavierstück, Opus 33a, with Glenn Gould, Sony Classical, 1972, disc 1, track 20, 0:58-1:51.

Schoenberg executed the twelve-tone method in a very particular way, by writing out the different types of rows with the use of tables, card files and the 12-by-12 matrix. “In a twelve-tone piece, the composer derives all the melodic and harmonic material of the work from the row” (Auner, 130). Schoenberg described this as “The unity of musical space”.

Schoenberg structured his rows in specific ways, in order to create various combinations of intervals between the pitches, which then opened the gate to many harmony possibilities. In Schoenberg’s mind, what mattered most was the “richness and unity of the material that could be generated form the row in interaction with its various transformations” (Auner 131). Is this richness and unity easily identified and appreciated by the common and traditionally coddled ear? Schoenberg emphasized that the goal of the twelve-tone method was the comprehensibility of the mind to grasp the logic of musical development. Did it succeed to be comprehensible? Something to consider additionally, is Schoenberg’s publicly released statement entitled “My Enemies”, which included some of the ways his music had been received and interpreted in political aspects:

I. a) Nationalistic musicians regard me as international b) but abroad my music is regarded as too German II. a) National Socialists regard me as a cultural-Bolshevik b) but the communists reject me as bourgeois III. a) Anti-Semites personify me as a Jew, my direction as Jewish b) but almost no Jews have followed my direction.

Auner (126)

Was the goal of the twelve-tone method ever achieved? Or was it simply meant to be a method that could only be fully appreciated by those who were open to understand it?

Categories
Authors Emi Zegers

Alienation within the Twentieth Century

Twentieth century composers found themselves at the limit of traditional music norms. Composers found themselves alienated by the laws of traditional music because of their beliefs. Charles E. Ives (1874-1954) was a renowned modernist American composer whose works, for most of his life, were either unknown, unperformed or unpublished. He was a well known insurance specialist by day, and a revolutionary composer by night. Ives didn’t believe in musical restrictions, therefore isolating himself from musical society and its norms. Similarly, Béla Bartók (1881-1945) also believed in breaking away from traditional music conceptions through the use of folk music. The Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist was considered to be one of the founding fathers of ethnomusicology. His extensive appreciation and research on folk music led him to transcribe nearly 10,000 folk melodies into scholarly books1.

Ives and Bartók believed in the use of folk music in their compositions, which then alienated them from traditional musical norms. How did these two different composers in radically different contexts make connections and use what they heard in order to break out of these musical alienations? Both of these composers believed that in order to create music, one must be completely immersed in the environment that they are portraying. Do they create their environments in hopes of getting in touch with something that is authentic to them, to break the alienation?

Ives experimented and fused musical contradictions such as “complexity and simplicity, innovation and conservatism, radical experimentation along with quotation of popular tunes and hymns”2. Ives never believed in participating in music conformity, in any shape or form. He was on his own path, setting aside the traditional structures and categories of music. In his music, Ives fused various aspects such as nature and spiritual hymns with popular music, which come together musically as well as bringing into question the importance of physical space and distance. Because of his studies at Yale, he strayed away from traditional music structures and styles, diving in to folk tunes, hymns and marches. These are usually considered traditional, but Ives uses them in ways that make it unorthodox. Different from Bartók, Ives mixes the streams of hymns and marches within his compositions, instead of developing them. The individual streams are traditional, but the structure of the music itself is unconventional. This can be seen in his collection 114 Songs, and more specifically in The Things Our Fathers Loved (Fig. 1).

Figure 1:  Measures 1 – 4 show the dissonance between the two melodies played by piano and voice through the accidentals and the phrasing3, which can subsequently be heard throughout the whole piece4.

The vocal section follows its own melody while the piano accompaniment simultaneously follows another. The mixture of hymns creates a dissonance and uncertainty, showing Ives’s ambivalence towards traditional musical structures5. There seems to be a disconnect from melodies that are usually traditional and the way that Ive’s streams them together. In this situation Bartók would have used a different approach,  using folk elements and integrating them in his compositions; not making them clash. Additionally, Ives emphasizes spatial effects with the hymns, given that individually they would be perceived differently, but together they create a powerful and intentional effect. Is it possible that maybe the importance Ives gives the distancing of sounds reflects his detachment from society?

Much like Bartók, Ives was trying to get back to something real through the incorporation of folk music in his pieces, as a way to overcome the twentieth century alienation. These composers tried to create an identity within the twentieth century musical movement. In Ives’s mind, ‘real’ is a construct of musical freedom that strays from traditional music laws completely, and is not fueled by external stimulants like money and recognition. In this construct, Ives characterizes music with gender by associating what he believes is genuine to masculinity. He describes rough folk and vernacular music as masculine, and music of urban or cultivated concert music as effeminate. Perhaps this sexist characterization reflects his use of folk music, with the objective of showing the ‘masculine’ authenticity of his career. By characterizing urban/cultivated music as effeminate, he rejects a whole element of modern music, therefore alienating himself as well. 

Ives believed that people started getting too comfortable with music and that they started familiarizing beauty with comfort. 

Is not beauty in music too often confused with something which lets the ears lie back in an easy-chair? Many sounds that we are used to, do not bother us, and for that reason are we not too easily inclined to call them beautiful?6.

Ives would say that the composers who succumbed to this habitual way of composing must have “been drugged with an overdose of habit-forming sounds”7 that takes away true creativity. In terms of creative expression and lack thereof, Ives believed that the external stimulants harm more than help individual creative work8. Through the commercialization of art, these stimulants take away the true purpose of music creation.  Both Ives and Bartók believed in the conservation of peasant and folk music, trying to avoid the commercialization and loss of these tunes over time. Knowing what we know of these composers, this can also be interpreted as a way of conserving music that is genuine to them. Their methods, however different, possess the same desire to protect the genuineness of music and use it to break out of their alienation. 

Béla Bartók was constantly open to different styles of music, more specifically Bulgarian folk music, and was heavily criticized by those who believed in national purity. He believed that in order to respectfully and successfully interpret peasant and folk music, a composer must fully immerse themselves into the environment they are trying to portray. In Two Articles on the Influence of Folk Music he constantly criticizes composers like Stravinsky, who would interpret folk music simply from books without means of contextualizing them. He would criticize them because given that they didn’t live or experience folk music, their interpretations weren’t genuine and didn’t respect authentic folk. Ives used folk melodies simply the way they were, joining them in a nontraditional manner. The melodies weren’t themselves distorted, but the way Ives structured them transformed them into dissonance, making his works seem unorthodox. Contrastingly, Bartók believed in learning from folk music, studying it with the objective of using it as a “musical mother tongue”9. He used the methods and techniques of folk music in his works, in efforts to keep folk alive.

Similar to Ives, Bartók also experimented with dissonance, non-harmonic contexts, polytonality, among others. This can be seen especially in his piece “Major Sevenths and Minor Seconds” No. 144 in Volume 6 from his famous Mikrokosmos collection. This piece shows how he uses sharp dissonant combining melodies with similar notes and close intervals. He uses folk music characteristics such as polytonality, chromatic and dissonant harmonies, as well as unorthodox melodies and harmonies10.

Figure 2: Measures 11 – 14 show the dissonant minor seconds and major sevenths in each staff11. The polyrhythms can be heard especially in these measures, as well as in the rest of the piece12.

Bártok’s objective was to master the forms and techniques of folk and peasant music in order to integrate it in his music subconsciously.

“This implication that a mother tongue is not something you are born with but something you have to  master is a stark reminder of the challenges composers faced during these years in forging a sense of identity and wholeness”13.

Like Ives, Bartók was also trying to break out of the twentieth century alienation and trying to forge his identity as a scholar and as a composer. He was doing this by integrating folk elements into his music, keeping the techniques intact, but changing the style of music. It is as if Bartók were trying to create his own environment, where he renovates dissonance and traditional music as a whole. Bartók is trying to get back to something authentic and true to his perception of music. For him, folk music is his perception of authenticity, and is trying to use it to break away from alienation. 

Bartók was worried about the distance many composers possessed between the rural contexts of traditional folk music. This is because the folk melodies came to these composers through urban popular forms, or even imitations by other composers. He uses his works to integrate in musical society how folk music should be interpreted: respectfully and mindful of the atmosphere, not just the notes on the page. Bartók believed that folk music was imperative in the composition of works, not just the tunes but the atmosphere itself14. This contrasts to Ives, who used folk tunes as they were, experimenting with the crossing of tunes.  

Ives and Bartók both possessed the desire to break out of the alienations of the twentieth century. Knowing what we know about their careers, we interpret that their pieces are a reflection of the difficult times these composers have endured. Both these composers were alienated from traditional music norms, and they approached their desire to break out of it in very different ways. Ives experimented with the crossing of folk tunes and Bartók focused on the study of folk music to then apply the techniques and forms into his own compositions. Despite their radically different cultures and approaches, Ives and Bartók both believed they were in the middle of a disingenuous time, and were both trying to get back to genuine music. They were trying to get back to something authentic to them, which led to them creating their own musical environments which they portrayed in their works. 

Works Cited

Auner, Joseph. Music in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. New York; London: W.W. Norton and Company, 2013.

Bartók, Béla. Major Sevenths and Minor Seconds. With György Sándor. Sony Classical, 2020.

Bartók, Béla. Mikrokosmos, 223-26. New York: Boosey & Hawkes, 1940. https://haverford.nml3.naxosmusiclibrary.com/stream.asp?s=34055%2FHaverford19%2FGJ3749_005

Bartók, Béla. “The Influence of Peasant Music on Modern Folk Music.” In Strunk’s Source Readings in Music History, rev. edn, ed Leo Treitler and Robert P. Morgan, 167-71. New York: W.W. Norton, 1978.

Ives, Charles. “Afterword,” 114 Songs, 261-62. New York: The National Institute of Arts and Letters, 1975.

Ives, Charles. “Music and Its Future”. In Strunk’s Source Readings in Music History, rev. edn, ed Henry Cowell, 65-68. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 1961.

Ives, Charles. The Things Our Fathers Loved. With Thomas Hampson and Michael Tilson Thomas. RCA Records, 2002.  https://haverford.nml3.naxosmusiclibrary.com/streamw.asp?ver=2.0&s=34055%2FHaverford19%2F3590724

Ives Charles. 114 Songs, 91-92. New York: The National Institute of Arts and Letters, 1975.

Categories
Authors Emi Zegers

Mahler’s world within his symphonies

“To me, ‘symphony’ means constructing a world with all the technical means at one’s disposal.”

Auner, 21

Gustav Mahler was one of the most influential composers throughout the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Mahler composed works that were quite controversial, as he would use standard methods of music but applied in unorthodox ways. In Mahler’s Third Symphony, he uses basic elements to construct the vocal harmony, then introduces major and minor triads which would seem basic, but are ‘untethered from any tonal moorings’ (Auner, 18). Mahler uses conventional methods to create a false sense of security within the listener to then ambush them with elements that should, but aren’t familiar in that context.

Why did he feel the need to do this?

As a child, Mahler was considered different; he was perceived as not social and was also sensitive to noise. Gustav Mahler was an outcast in the world, who as a result created symphonies to construct his own world.

“Thrice homeless, as a native of Bohemia in Austria, as an Austrian amongst Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world. Always an intruder, never welcomed.”

Auner, 21

I found this incredibly interesting. I wonder if the inspiration to compose comes from the original desire of wanting to feel welcomed into the world? He created these chaotic symphonies full of diverse unfamiliar constructs, which I find is a direct portrayal of his life. Despite Mahler’s celebrity status as an artist, he was never welcomed by the social mainstream.

Mahler uses elemental tactics to fool the listener into thinking that they are safe within the realms of music, to then pull the rug out from under them with his lack of orthodoxy. This is a direct portrayal of Mahler’s relationship with the world around him. To this day, in a world full of uncertainties, Mahler’s music continues to be relevant and relatable, as it reflects a struggle to belong.

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