The superstar saint

In another post, we met Mr. Pergolesi who died at the age of twenty six and was the composer of sacred music.

This time, we meet the first composer whose biography is known; a woman, also a saint, and a superstar -- Hildegard von Bingen. Also composed sacred music.p

Saint Hildegard was a German abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary and polymath. And some 800 years after her death, she also turned a pop icon.

So what type of music did she write?

She wrote chants -- monophonic compositions which always have a

A great friend

A lesson for me: you can have worries, yet make beautiful things. And the inspiration comes from Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), a composer who inspired music itself.

Not just me, Beethoven's life inspired another popular composer between 1898 and 1899, the Englishman Edward Elgar. Persist despite worries; here's what happened:

"'I was very down in the dumps; everything seemed to be going wrong. I was feeling very wretched... and told him (his friend Jaegar) I was going to give it all up and write no more music.' Jaegar had leapt to the defence: 'He said that Beethoven had a lot of worries, and did he give it all up? No. He wrote more, and still more beautiful music--"And-that-is-what-you-must-do"'" [Edward Elgar: A Creative Life]

"Jaeger... sang the theme of the second movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 Pathétique. Elgar disclosed to Dora (a close friend) that the opening bars of 'Nimrod' were made to suggest that theme. 'Can’t you hear it at the beginning? Only a hint, not a quotation.'" [wikipedia]

August Jaeger was Edward's close friend. They loved

Pastorale

Pastorale in classical music is best defined by the feeling. It is slow, and reminds you of the pastoral lifestyle, particularly the shepherds. It is supposed to evoke country scenes - considering that the country is clean and tidy and people are stress-free. Does this seem idealized? It may to the urban readers. It may also touch their heart, make them want to lead simpler yet richer lives. It is not a fantasy.

My definition of Pastorale is -- that which makes you reach within the peace of your heart. The pastorale music reminds you of that peace. It soothes you, makes you remember what you always wanted. Therefore, it is not a fantasy. It may be fantasy for people who have given up in general.

Here are some instances that will tell you about the pastoral lifestyle.

Chôro -- foot tapping lament from Brazil

(We check out a musical genre borrowed from classical music) 

Image Source

Much before jazz originated -- and was taken to be the true improvisational genre -- there was festivity in Brazil in the form of Chôro, a genre of music. It was like bringing together the polkas and waltzes of European classical music and the African style drums played by slaves on boats and in dormitories.

Chôro means lament. But the music is mostly pleasant and peppy. Reminds you of married life doesn't it? And it's improvisational -- born in 19th century Brazil -- much before American jazz. You don't hear about this genre in popular Brazilian culture and assume Samba to be the great Brazilian sensation. Chôro is, in fact, closer to Brazil's soul.

Your life is a cadenza

Finesse: violinist Renaud Capuçon 

There is so much chorus in your life, so much orchestra -- there are so many people around you, each person an instrument, singing along. You enjoy this coming together, this orchestra, and yet you wish for a solo tune.

You wish for a cadenza.

You wish for your tune to stand out, you wish to reach out to people, reach out to the collective -- the people.

Have you ever been to a rock concert and heard the guitarist or drummer do a solo? A cadenza is kind of like that, except it’s part of the classical-music tradition. Cadenzas are for virtuosos: extremely talented, expert players of their instruments. [source]

Love song of the lute

Image courtesy 

For at least two hundred years, this was the most popular instrument in the renaissance period of Europe.
It is the sultan of instruments for the Arabs and the origin of lute is perhaps the Arabian oud, a pear shaped instrument.

From the Arabs it came to Europe who made it their own.
Now what exactly is a lute?
In simple words, it is any instrument that reminds you of the guitar. Same properties -- long neck, strings running parallel to the sort of round sound body, strings that can be plucked, a long neck and a sort of roundness to the body. Our lute looks somewhat like

Coming together, coming apart

Symbolism represents the common human experience.
Which is why we find certain style of music as sad and tragic or happy and vivacious. It's like the musician has understood how humans feel when they are sad, and has translated that feeling onto his musical sheet.

The strings that we listen to today evoke nostalgia, sadness, and the music is generally considered 'dark' by many listeners.

You will hear and watch a get-together of voices that are fused yet disparate -- united yet alone. Every instrument (voice) echoes a similar sentiment. The sentiment is well-known. But still, the coming together offers respite.

To astound or to enchant

Orazio Gentileschi: young woman playing a violin

Pardon me, if while writing, I shut my eyes and breathe in a few sequences of Vivaldi's 'La Stravaganza, Concerto No. 2' 

There is so much told. There is so much music. And it's packed into ten minutes or so. Try picking a main theme. In fact, listen to the first four minutes and see if you can identify a clear main theme. It's a process, and a continuous one -- this composition.

And then teach your self the art of contrast -- notice the change of pace and information conveyed in the second piece (second movement) at the 4:00 minute mark.

The flute as philosopher

(This time, we shall listen to the sound of flute in Hindi songs. It's markedly different from the sound in western classical.)

Listen to the flute in this song. It's used sparingly, yet presents the pathos of the man struggling for love. The flute is the man itself. The other instruments bring out the high ended grief, the restlessness. Until keeping all that aside, the man decides to say another stanza, and it's the flute that leads him to it. (Listen to the flute parts. This is considered a landmark song in Indian films. Else, you can jump to the flute parts at 0:48 2:11 3:36 and the strains during the last line of every stanza, like at 1:29)

Music for the world

Audio Only Link

You are invited to the world music parliament and must take with you a piece of music, under five minutes. A piece that presents the awesomeness of the genre. For classical, what would you play to the audience?

Sure, there are innumerable pieces you can choose from. One of them I would take with me is the second movement of Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's 'Flute concerto in G Major'.

I would listen to this melody soar in the parliament and attract listeners and lovers.
How brilliant and how modern, and what else is modernity if not brilliance? How does it matter if the rice is cooked on coal flames or on an electric heater as long as it tastes good, and is made with love?

The melody, this love-gift of Pergolesi is

Harp strings the heart

Every hidden cell is throbbing with music and life, every fiber thrilling like harp strings. 

-- John Muir

Source

The harp requires care and patient treatment. Like life. And if we are so impatient with daily life, we will never be patient with the harp. If we made a habit of avoiding television, tuning a harp would not seem a chore.

The harp, or even the bassoon, will bring us closer to life than television or the habit of indoors.

And then the quotation above will resonate within. I tell myself while consoling my spirit.

I focus today on a composition that is much loved, but little heard. A strange contradiction! In fact, online links to this music are few.

A vision for guitar

Guitar is not an everyday member of classical music family. It's soft, so it may get lost with the orchestral sounds. Here is a bang-on reason:

Guitars are often solo instruments, but before the days of amplification, they wouldn't project over full sections of strings or winds. [source]

Yet, we will see that it sounds magnificent with the orchestra. Today, we listen to a guitar concerto, and probably the most popular one.

Wikipedia tells us straight

Rodrigo's music is among the most popular music of the 20th century. In particular, his Concierto de Aranjuez is considered one of the pinnacles of Spanish music and of the guitar concerto repertoire.

When classical music is a poem

Classical music connects with your soul, I often say. It can remind you of a story of the past or it can inspire you to create a new one.

Today, a cello has an important and exciting story to tell you. The story is continuous -- sometimes rhythmic, sometimes the cello tells you a sad event, sometimes he fills you with hope and the orchestra joins him in fervour.

The music, rondo for cello and orchestra by Daniel François Esprit Auber, is like a poem. The 'starting lines' are repeated throughout, as are a few other musical themes. It's like this:

Minimalist music

I listened to Arvo Part's composition of Salve Regina (Hail Holy Queen) on new year's day. It countered beautifully the nonsensical Bollywood music played out in celebration for the day. This is the second time this blog features Salve Regina; the first time was for a composition by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi. Pergolesi lived between 1710-1736, while Arvo Part is an important member of contemporary classical music.

I went on to his symphony no. 4. And the first piece (movement) of this minimalist work will introduce to you the simplicity of modern orchestral music - minimalism is an important

Sudden embrace

Those old-time composers, without their smartphones, computers, cars wrote glorrrious music. They had dance and melody, and were we not so numbed by modern day repetitive sounds, we would find them fun and energetic.

They lovingly attacked you with emotion. Imagine meeting a man/woman who is very happy to see you and embraces you with joy immediately, or sometimes tells you a story of his/her heart straightaway, without the formality of modern day life.

Why shouldn't we speak from our soul?

No strange friend

Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry lived between 1848 and 1918. He was English.
We will listen to the orchestral arrangement of his anthem 'I was glad'.
Anthems come under the label of patriotic music but this is an orchestral arrangement of the same. This work is very popular and was played during the wedding of Kate Middleton and Prince William.

The anthem has been sung at the entrance of the monarch at every British coronation since that of King Charles I. Sir Parry's version was composed for the coronation of King Edward VII in 1902, and revised in 1911 for that of King George V. [Wikipedia]

Sir Parry was a teacher, historian and composer. And he was considered 'elitist' by his critics. We are going to listen to his symphony number 3 he composed in 1889.
Here are my views on the work - His English-ness is seen in the first movement.
And here I recommend that you play the video below:

The sign of the four

What do you see in the image above? That's four bassoons together. Tarakari makes efforts to 'save the bassoon', as you may like to read here.

Today we observe how instruments of the same family sound in conflict and harmony. So if four bassoons go on a date and converse, they sound like how Antonio Vivaldi tells us in his concerto featuring four bassoons. Flit your eyes from one player to the other and take in the sound and mood.



But why the number four? We will eventually get introduced to duos and trios and other such terms. Let's just start with the four.

Classical inspires the soul

The special thing about this piece is that there's no chord progression: there's only one chord. Like the touch of a cold winter gale gently rocking wind chimes in the still of winter, this piece displays a sense of eternity and timelessness as it expounds upon the profound depths of a single moment, frozen in time, yet lasting forever. - James Becker 

I was up ridiculously early this morning and I stood at my sliding glass doors with them open. The sun was just coming up and everyone was still asleep and this came on shuffle and it blew my mind. I watched birds fly over the orange and blue sky with total silence around my other than this song. One of the most beautiful moments in my life. - Chiara Keating

These inspired lines by James and Chiara are for the video below

Harp and the Harpsichord

Bach: Johann Sebastian Bach. German Composer. Among the bosses of Western Classical Music.

Harpsichord: A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It produces sound by plucking a string when a key is pressed. The harpsichord had fallen out of popularity during the mid 18th century in favour of the fortepiano and keyboard. This is what it looks like:

Harp: The harp is a hand-plucked string instrument, usually triangular in shape, in which the plane of the strings is perpendicular to the soundboard. This is how it appears:

There are several compositions by Bach that I feel would do better without the use of the Harpsichord. Let us see

Sweet violin 'noyse'

The King's Noyse is a violin ensemble from North America founded by David Douglass [website]. I came across their music on YouTube and enjoyed the sounds.

They play 'renaissance-style'. If you don't know about renaissance, imagine a cool cultural period between the 14th and 17th century with magnificent advances in science and art. So what is this style?

"the King's Noyse plays in a manner almost certainly followed by Renaissance fiddlers, playing from memory or improvising on standardized bass lines such as those

Many moods in a melody

Image Courtesy

In the first three minutes of today's piece, you will get introduced to variety, massive variety.

Le festin d'Esope by Charles Valentin-Alkan is a singular theme surrounded by various styles. Moods of love and hate and anger around the same tune. You will identify this tune very early, and you will recognise it again as the music plays along. This process will sharpen your ear to sound.

You will see how the same child can be adorned in different clothes.
What this will do for you is help you identify in music, a main tune, and understand how 'things' play around it. You will even wait for the main tune to come back after the playing is done.
In time, you will understand the moods.

Music and mood

Winter, by Alexei Savrasov

Mood is consistency.
And often that.

Often, music sends you to some thought. Then, as the music plays, you are lost in that thought.

I use Alfred Schnittke's 'Story of an unknown actor' to drive home this thought. It is scored for a film of the same name. [Music at end of article, you may play now and read further].

Alfred was a Russian classical composer who used his talents in films. And the music he made

A note of suggestion

Composer Erik Satie's music inspired the modern day ambient music - that is music characterised by mood and atmosphere; it is music that is consistent and doesn't jump at you. You can listen to it straightaway even as you read this story. However, I'd like you to pay attention to what wikipedia calls mild dissonances in the music. This means that even though the music is consistent, and sets an ambience, some of the swaras (notes) very subtly

Soothing classical music

There is something soothing about 'uniform' classical music -- music that is mostly consistent throughout its running length. It stays peaceful, or sad or mellow. It is not mellow one instant and joyous the another. Which is why it is consistent music. You may be fans of lounge music, much of which sticks to a theme and relaxes you; it is consistent. Likewise in classical music, there is a repertoire that doesn't jump at you. You are assured that the soothing/mellow/sad or joyous quality will persist throughout the running time.

Early on, you are informed by the composer