Discover… Passion

Richard Strauss, Don Juan, TrV156, Op. 20

It is difficult, indeed, to think of a composer more possessed of an overweening ego than that of Richard Strauss (other than that of Wagner, that is). Thankfully, his was not malicious, and was to some degree justified. Strauss is almost unique in that his long life (unlike that of, say, Verdi) spanned remarkable changes in musical style, not to speak of world history. He is known both as a master of late romantic symphonic style in his large tone poems for orchestra, composed mostly in the late 1880’s and 90’s, and also for his modern, often strikingly dissonant operas of the twentieth century. On the one hand his operas can still seem jarringly challenging–witness the sordidness of Salome (1905) with its lust, incest, decapitation, and necrophilia (including the controversial total nudity in the “Dance of the Seven Veils at the Metropolitan Opera, not long ago). On the other, few musical compositions are more beautifully romantic and serenely appealing than the Four Last Songs (all of which treat the graceful acceptance of death after a long and rich life) that he wrote in 1948, the year before his death.

Don Juan is a tone poem, a genre whose creation was largely spearheaded by Bedřich Smetana (remember the opera, The Bartered Bride?) and Franz Liszt. The musical premise is simple–write a single movement composition for orchestra that tells a story about something in the “real” world. The “stories” of Strauss’s tone poems vary: MacBeth; the final moments of an old man dying in delirium and the transmigration of his soul; Don Quixote; the escapades of a medieval scamp; the life of an anonymous hero (read Strauss, himself, some would say); and a musical depiction of several of the subsections of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra.

Strauss was a master of writing for the orchestra. He knew exactly how to extract the most from its instrumental resources–so much that generations of players complained of the “difficulty” of his works. He thought nothing of depicting the silverware on his breakfast table or the sheep in Don Quixote. All of his music is a challenge to perform, but players love to do so. The story of Don Juan is familiar, and Strauss’s work, written in 1888, firmly established his reputation as a young composer to be reckoned with. Combining elements of both rondo and sonata structure, it evolves as a series of musical illustrations from episodes in the life of the seducer. At the time, the work seemed a bit explicit, even garnering criticism from his admirer, Cosima Wagner. Nevertheless, Strauss, as so with many of his musical characters, simply thumbed his nose at the world.

–Wm. E. Runyan
©2021 William E. Runyan

Maurice Ravel, Tzigane, rapsodie de concert

Ravel is clearly in the camp of those classicists who adroitly re-interpret the genres, forms, and musical syntax of the past. Only a cursory review of many of the titles of Ravel’s works will bear out his deep fascination and appreciation for the musical past as a basis for imaginative, original contributions to a musical future. And yet, his music smacks not at all of the reactionary. Rather, while he definitely didn’t storm the ramparts of startling change in musical style as did so many of his early twentieth-century compatriots, his music just “sounds” modern. As did so many seminal intellects of romantic and post-romantic Europe, Ravel knew and appreciated the works of the American poet, Edgar Allen Poe—which fact may surprise most Americans these days, who have consigned Poe and his raven to the dusty closet of school-house poetry. But, interestingly, Ravel considered him his “third” teacher after that of actual French musical models. For Ravel, Poe’s stress on craftsmanship, as well as his ideas on the process of artistic conception and creation, was strongly influential. Ravel also admired Poe’s thoughts on proportion, economy of means, beauty, and perfection. And that, of course, aptly characterizes Ravel’s own creative efforts–from beginning to end, a succession of infinitely subtle, sophisticated, and attractive compositions. Ravel, was the son of a Basque mother and a Swiss father, but was quintessentially French in his elegant, stylish artistic imagination. And yet, he is known for his deft touch in evoking the style and spirit of other cultures—especially Spanish. In Tzigane, however, Ravel is inspired by things Hungarian.

Tzigane (the word means Gypsy, more or less, in French) is in some ways an odd little piece. It was written in 1924 after an informal social evening with the accomplished Hungarian violinist, Jelly d’Arányi, during which she entertained with a dazzling informal improvisation in the Gypsy style. She was emphatically not a Gypsy violinist, rather a well-respected artist who just happened to be the grand-nice of the celebrated virtuoso of the nineteenth century and collaborator with Brahms, Joseph Joachim. Impressed by the little performance, Ravel was inspired to write a short piece in the improvised style for violin and piano. A rather special piano, as it turns out–one that had some kind of attachment that allowed it sound more or less like the traditional Hungarian hammered dulcimer, the cimbalom. (Anyone who has seen the old movie “The Third Man,” will have heard that instrument all the way through it.) Anyway, the unusual piano attachment soon disappeared into total obscurity, and the ordinary piano is used today. Shortly after having written the original composition Ravel orchestrated it, employing his impressive skills to artfully evoke the sound of the cimbalom, as well as Gypsy atmospherics in general, in the orchestra.

For almost the first half of the composition, the violinist plays alone, exploring just about every technique and figuration possible in the Hungarian Gypsy style in a freely rhapsodic fashion. Don’t look for a series of authentic folk melodies, but rather a kaleidoscopic succession of ideas that sounds rather like a long cadenza. Finally, the orchestra joins in, and you can hear right away in the harp Ravel’s cimbalom-like concept. A series of wild dancing passages ensues, with Ravel’s inimitable sparkling orchestration playing a perfect foil to the maniacal violin. Before you know it, it’s over—a charming salon piece that, as usual, is taken to a higher level by the ever-sophisticated Ravel. Truly Hungarian, it really is not. Rather, a distant look at the style through French eyes.

–Wm. E. Runyan
© 2015 William E. Runyan

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4, G major, Op. 36, TH 27, F minor

Tchaikovsky completed six symphonies, of which the last three are concert staples. The fourth is a product of a particularly tumultuous time in his life, centering around his relationship with two women. They are the wife of his short, disastrous marriage, and his patroness—whom he never personally met. He began composition of the symphony in 1877, shortly after he had been “adopted” by Nadezhda von Meck, the wealthy widow of an engineer. Von Meck had begun generous financial support of Tchaikovsky, and perhaps, more importantly, had entered into a long, personal relationship via correspondence that lasted more than a decade. They exchanged at least two letters a week in a relationship that probed philosophic and artistic matters. While remote and superficially formal, this affiliation obviously served deep emotional needs of Tchaikovsky. They may have encountered each other on the street, but never spoke face to face. He agreed in the summer of 1877 to dedicate the symphony to her, his “best friend.”

At this point, his life took a turn that most now agree can only be characterized as bizarre, if not perverse. In short—the facts still provoke controversial interpretations—he abruptly married Antonina Milyukova, a women he hardly knew, proposing marriage only a few days after having met her. Tchaikovsky’s diffidence was well articulated in a letter to von Meck: “ [I have] lived thirty-seven years with an innate aversion to marriage . . . in a day or two my marriage will take place . . . . What will happen after that I do not know.” Work on the symphony stopped, understandably, while this precipitous relationship rocketed to its dénouement. The loveless marriage was doomed from the beginning, complicated by Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality—the attendant psychological motivations will never completely be understood. The next couple of months were hell, he tried to commit suicide by wading up to his waist in the Moscow river, hoping for pneumonia; ultimately he fled the country. Distance from Antonina obviously worked its charms, for he finished the symphony by January of 1878. He dedicated the work to von Meck, and a well-known letter to her tells us much about what the composition meant to him.

While Tchaikovsky was averse—like most of the musical intelligentsia—to imbuing a symphony with extra-musical “stories” and meaning, after the composition’s completion he complied with a request of hers to tell her what the work was about. He wrote at length, somewhat emotionally and with no small hyperbole, but the gist of his response is instructive. Fate is the subject and focus of this symphony:

“The introduction is the seed of the whole symphony, undoubtedly the main idea. This is fate, that fatal force which prevents the impulse to happiness from attaining its goal, which jealously ensures that peace and happiness shall not be complete and unclouded, which hangs over your head like the sword of Damocles, and unwaveringly, constantly poisons the soul.”

Thus, the first movement opens with a powerful unison from the horn section followed by the rest of the brass announcing the “fate” motive; it returns at each division of this sonata form to remind us. The first theme is in the string section, cast in a waltz rhythm; Tchaikovsky’s ballets are eloquent testimony to his mastery of that dance. The second main theme is announced by the solo clarinet, offering some hope, but is dashed by the recurring motive of fate. The movement ends in emotional depths. The second movement is a lyrical reminiscent that Tchaikovsky called “ . . . feeling that enwraps one when he sits alone at night in the house exhausted by work . . . It is sad, yet sweet to lose one’s self in the past.” The scherzo that follows is a testament to the composer’s reputation for skill in orchestration. The strings play pizzicato all the way through, opening the movement by themselves. The middle section begins with woodwinds alone, playing a kind of little village band tune. The brass, staccato, follow with their contribution, with the movement ending somewhat as it began, again with pizzicato strings. The famous finale begins with a raucous, virtuoso rip followed by the main theme, a Russian folksong called “In the Field a Little Birch Tree Stood.” The words to the song allude to marriage, women, solitary existence, and the divergent fates of those who marry—or do not. The fate motive from the first movement intrudes upon the festivities yet one more time, but is swept away by the exuberance of the coda. Tchaikovsky’s words inform: “Rejoice in the happiness of others—and you can still live.”

–Wm. E. Runyan
© 2015 William E. Runyan