Bartók, Piano Concerto No. 1
Bartók's 'Piano Year' of 1926 saw the creation of his first Piano Concerto, alongside other important piano works, most notably the Out of Doors suite, and the Sonata. The works mark a stage in his compositional development where he was forming the musical language of his advanced maturity- A synthesis of the traditional western cultural tradition, in particular Bach, Beethoven and Debussy, with the study of (his native) Hungarian and Balkan traditional music. These folk elements are not utilized in a 'fancy' or ornamental form of shallow exoticism, but are key components in the formulation of a new musical language.
The acute burst of creative energy from June to November which spawned The Piano Concerto broke a compositional dormancy during which Bartók had composed almost nothing for three years, (despite the fact that during this time, he was aware that a piano concerto was 'sadly lacking' in his output as a composer). Although the exact reason for Bartók's near silence is only theorised, the suggestion is that it was mainly due to pragmatic reasons; Bartók became a father for the second time in 1924 with the birth of his son Peter, as well as having commitments to the Royal Academy of Music and a heavy international concert schedule.
Not a year after it's completion, the Piano Concerto No.1 had its first performance at the ISCM Festival in Frankfurt on 1st July 1927 with Bartók himself as a soloist and Wilhelm Furtwängler conducting. The reception- almost a cliché in the history of Western Classical Music- was cautious. At worst it was met with incomprehension and derision, misunderstood for abandoning the traditional concept of theme and instead working with more basic levels of expression- motifs or note-cells, with narrow range and simple rhythmic impulses.
Compositionally, the Piano Concerto can be looked upon as Bartók's response to the compositional trends which dominated the 1920's. Die Neue Sachlichkeit, in English The New Objectivity was the counteraction to the early 1900's 'romantic hangover' of intense expressionism and hyper romanticism, and the resurgence of interest in Classical and Baroque compositional forms. This influence, as well as the aforementioned folk influence manifests itself in Piano concerto No.1, (as Bartók himself stressed to musicologist Edwin Von der Null) as a more striking use of counterpoint, unseen in his previous compositions.
Although the work looks to the past, it clearly veers away from pastiche, and is utterly dissimilar from the dry stylisation of Stravinskian neo-classicism. At least in it's character it is more akin to the early, folk-driven Stravinsky. The writing is harsh and the music highly charged with a momentous, even barbaric energy. The piano itself takes on the role of a percussion instrument, and for long stretches, the piano is left with only percussion as it's accompaniment. The once-radical writing exudes the innovative characteristics we have now come to regard as Bartók idioms: angular melodic lines, nervous rhythms, imaginative writing for percussion, arresting sonorities and – above all – complete formal control.
Even after it's initial exposure, the new percussive style aroused antagonism; several years later conductor Constant Lamber was still criticizing these works for their 'lack of report' between melodic and harmonic elements. Bartók himself realised the style of the work as difficult for the orchestra, and indeed public, and although he considered the First Concerto to be a success, of his second said: 'I decided to compose my second concerto with fewer difficulties for the orchestra and with lighter, more pleasing themes.'
Brahms, Symphony No. 2
Brahms composed his Second Symphony over the course of one summer in 1877, this marks a striking contrast from the tumultuous gestation of his First Symphony (which took 15 years to complete, Brahms continually fearing the pressure of living in Beethoven's shadow). After the First's great success, prominent conductor Hans von Bulow going as far to dub it as 'Beethoven's Tenth', Brahms appears to have written his Second Symphony with much greater ease. The general tone of the Symphony has been likened with the cheerful, pastoral mood of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony and it is possible to speculate that this is due to the new confidence Brahms had gained in his symphonic abilities. In fact, so enthusiastic seems Brahms that he had completed the symphony within a year of finally completing the First.
The decade of the 1870s was a happy and productive period in Brahms’s life. After the premiere of his German Requiem in 1868, his international reputation was secure, and honors, commissions, and job offers came in an ever-increasing stream. The completion of his Symphony No.1 in 1876 marked the end of a long self-imposed apprenticeship in symphonic writing—a period of intense study and self-criticism that had produced works such as his two orchestral serenades, his first piano concerto, and the Variations on a Theme by Haydn. In some sense, the happy nature of the Symphony No.2 was a reflection of Brahms’s own happiness over the end of this apprenticeship. The “Pastoral” designation may also be an accurate description: according to his own accounts, Brahms composed the symphony as a reaction to the beauty of the countryside surrounding Pörtschach.
The first movement, Allegro non troppo, is a very interesting movement. It almost seems to be an entire movement based on variations of the lullaby motive which is introduced in bar 74 and continually brought back, shaped and changed both rhythmically and harmonically. What is further interesting is his decision to write the opening movement in 3/4 which is highly uncommon in the symphonic repertoire.
Despite the second movement's (Adagio non troppo) air of calm simplicity, underneath lies one of Brahms’s most complex and original forms. Brahms bases this movement on four distinct groups of melodic material and an exceedingly complicated harmonic plan. The opening theme, stated by the cellos, sounds simple enough, but features a complicated notation that grates against the bar lines. A contrasting episode in 12/8 sets winds in syncopation above a background of pizzicato strings. Another 12/8 theme, first in the violins, and then in woodwinds and solo horn, is more placid, but no less complex. A forceful passage from the full orchestra introduces new material, based on the opening theme, and the movement comes to an understated conclusion.
Throughout the Germanic symphonic repertoire composers have drawn from or mimicked traditional Austrian folk music, this is a notable motif throughout Mahler's body of works, similarly the third movement of this symphony (Allegretto grazioso) begins with a brief Haydnesque Ländler, an echo of Austrian country dances. This quickly leads into Beethovenian scherzo in 2/4. The Ländler returns again, but is quickly overshadowed by more forceful minor-key music. Again, the texture lightens, now for an episode in 3/8. The movement closes with a densely contrapuntal passage that fades away after a sustained chord from the strings.
The finale (Allegro con spirito) opens quietly, with a subdued yet complex and contrapuntal theme stated in the strings and answered by the bassoon. This theme is subtly related to the main theme of the opening movement, tying the entire symphony together into an organic whole. The hushed opening suddenly gives way to an explosion of Beethovian force and jubilance. After urgent development and a second theme presented by the violins and violas, a point of calm and repose is reached out of which emerges the first theme quietly, in a way reminiscent of the opening. The second theme takes over for a while, and begins to drive the movement to the brilliant coda. Hanslick said of this work that "Mozartian blood flows in its veins", and it is true that the music builds to an affirmative, striking and rejoiceful conclusion.
The Second Symphony is said to have gone "straight to the hearts of the Viennese", and it enjoyed the same immediate success of the First, Brahms would go on to compose two further symphonies, cementing his reputation as an orchestral composer of great skill, and all four works remain staples of the German symphonic tradition and the entire orchestral repertoire as a whole.
John Adams 'The Chairman Dances'
John Adams, (b. 1947) is considered the most frequently performed living American composer in the Classical music sphere. Over the past 25 years, Adams’s music has played a decisive role in turning the tide of contemporary musical aesthetics away from academic modernism and toward a more expansive, expressive language. Although continually stuck with labels associated with other American composers such as 'minimalist' or 'neo-romantic', Adam's musical personality has become increasingly resistant to such pigeonholing; his own attitude being one of distaste towards formalised compositional doctrines in favor of 'aesthetic openness' with a freedom of influences.
Having won a Pulitzer Prize for his musical reaction to the atrocities of September 11th, (The Transmigration Of Souls) Adams is particularly known for his operatic works on contemporary subjects. 'The Chairman Dances was described by him as an "out take" from Act III of his 1987 opera, Nixon in China- a politically charged and satirical examination of historical, philosophical, and sociological issues surrounding President Nixon's visit to China in 1972.
The subtitle of The Chairman Dances is Foxtrot for Orchestra, although when he composed it, Adams claims he 'Did not have any idea what a foxtrot sounded like'. Perhaps we can excuse him for this compositional guesswork when we consider that the purpose of the music was to accompany the part in opera where Madame Mao gatecrashes the presidential banquet on the last night of the visit to Peking and strips off her communist uniform to reveal herself in the more provocative clothing of her former occupation of a movie actress. She motions to a poster of Mao on the backstage of the banquet hall and he steps out of the portrait to dance with her, to the accompaniment of a gramophone.
Adams states that in composing this he tried to encapsulate the type of distorted vision the 1930's Shanghai movie industry may have held of Hollywood... it didn't matter if he didn't know what a foxtrot sounded like, because, he figured 'neither did the Maos'.
The work was begun as a commission for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra before any work on Nixon in China had actually been started. However Adams, unable to get Nixon out of his head, began work without knowing the exact context and consequently found the Foxtrot 'too robust and extrovert' for the final form of the opera. The final scene of Nixon in China is essentially elegiac and poignant- fragments of the melodies of The Chairman Dances are referenced; their character transformed into the melancholic.
Compositionally, the work owes more to Western styles than the Eastern (contrary to what one might expect to find in an opera geographically placed in China). Adams has often remarked on how his 1980's works always conformed to one of two polarities, creating a kind of compositional 'split personality.' With astonishing regularity, he switched between composing sober, introspective compositions, to irreverent, brash, 'trickster' works influenced by the American vernacular music of his youth.
The Chairman Dances alludes more to the latter category; true to the time of its composition (1985), the music is representative of a combination of minimalist iterations and stylized pseudo jazz inflections, chugging rhythms, colorful orchestration and diatonic harmonies. In this work Adams synthesizes 'low' and 'high' forms of art, in complete accordance with his postmodern maxim of maintaining an 'open aesthetic'.
