Song of the Angel by John Tavener (b.1944)

Back when I was an undergraduate and taking a 20th century music class, my instructor introduced us to modern composers who were still writing fantastic music. One of those was a lovely work for Cello and Strings called The Protecting Veil. I was pretty enamored of the work and so, some time later, when I visited Tower Records in New York City and was on the outlook for more 20th century music, I went to see what they might have by John Tavener.

I found a recording called Eternity's Sunrise and lucky for me, the recording was one I was able to listen to. I immediately went to the second track of the album. Why? Because it was called Song of the Angel and I will admit this up front: I was into a huge Phantom of the Opera obsession at the time (one of the many times my Phantom obsession has taken ahold of me). The "Angel of Music" reference is fairly strong in Phantom. Christine believes Erik (the Phantom) is her Angel of Music and (in the musical at least) the Phantom also refers to her as his Angel of Music.

I was absolutely transfixed by this particular piece from the moment I first heard it while standing there in the middle of Tower Records. I listened to the entire work (it's only 4:55) at least twice before my friend came to find me.

The work is written for soprano, violin, and strings. It is a setting of only the vowel sounds of the word "Alleluia." John Tavener says of it: "This music should be sung and played with a restrained ecstasy. It should not bring pounding of the heart, nor should it lead to melancholy. Like all the music of the East, it should reveal in tranquility an eternal, angelic, ecstatic breath which liberates and humanises."

For me, it was about more than that. Let me allow you to show how my imagination runs wild on occasion. Christine, of course, was a soprano and so I imagine her singing up in her dressing room to Erik's violin far below in his home by the fifth cellar lake. The work has a sort of eerie resonance that immediately put this imagery in my head.

So for all my Phantom friends, I say "definitely give this a listen." For everyone else I will say the same. It's a beautifully serene work.

You can listen to it here. (I will note that this is the same recording I have of it, so you'll be listening to the same sounds I first heard!)

Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan-Williams (1872-1958)

For some reason, I just really wanted to hear this work today so you, too, get to hear about this one! I can't remember the first time I heard this work. It's always just "been there" somewhere in the back of my mind.

Vaughan-Williams, a British composer, wrote the work in 1910 and it was premiered in the same year. It's probably Vaughan-Williams's most famous work, but that doesn't make it a lesser work by any means. It is, to sum it up succinctly, amazingly gorgeous.

The theme the title references was a melody written in 1567 by Renaissance composer Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585). It was originally a contribution to a Psalter (a collection of psalms for liturgical use) for the Archbishop of Canterbury. The original words to the hymn tune are:

Why fum'th in fight the Gentiles spite, in fury raging stout?
Why tak'th in hand the people fond, vain things to bring about?
The Kings arise, the Lords devise, in counsels met thereto,
against the Lord with false accord, against His Christ they go.

Somehow those words aren't quite what I expect when I hear this lovely tune.

You can hear the original sung here, if you'd like to.

I have to say I like this tune because it's in a somewhat unusual mode: Phrygian. *puts on theory hat* For those who don't know what the heck I mean by that, Phrygian is a modal scale (not major or minor) that begins on the 3rd scale degree, so on white keys it would run from E to E. Go ahead and play it on a piano. It has a distinctly odd sound due to the half step between the first two notes of the scale. You might also notice right away that it is a minor-related mode. But the truly fun thing is that the Phrygian cadence (the ending of a Phrygian tune) tends to end on a major chord despite this. It's a fun mode and one of my favourite of the more unusual modes.

So Vaughan-Williams is editing the English Hymnal of 1906 and comes across this tune. The result was a Fantasia (or a fantasy) on the theme. Vaughan-Williams wrote his piece for a string orchestra that he divided into three sections:

(1) The full orchestra
(2) A single desk from each section(a "desk" in an orchestra is the pair of musicians who read off the same music stand...so in this case you would have two each of Violin I, Violin II, Viola, Cello and Bass for a total of 10 musicians)
(3) String Quartet (Violin I, Violin II, Viola and Cello)

So you have three groups of varying size from the small (4) to the large (full orchestra).

The score specifics that each group should be SEPARATE (if possible) and so the performing forces are fairly large. His goal here was to imitate the sound of an organ.

It is an amazingly intricate and gorgeous piece and despite its length (around 15 minutes long) the beauty of the work should enthrall you so that time passes without your even realizing it.

Here's a great version you can listen to by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Missa pro Defunctis by Michael Haydn (1737-1806)

Today I'm going to introduce you to a piece that I only just recently discovered. I've heard a lot of classical music in my life, obviously, but on Monday evening I was introduced to a work I'd never heard before by a composer I don't know much about. That's pretty rare these days.

The composer in question is Michael Haydn, the younger brother of the somewhat more famous Joseph Haydn. It seems that Michael might have had the problem that younger siblings tend to: he followed someone who was great at his craft and while being great himself, was a bit overshadowed by his brother.

Joseph and Michael attended the same singing school when young and it appears that the teachers admired Michael's singing more and found him the brighter student of the two, though it was really Joseph's abilities that paved the way for Michael to be able to pursue music as his career.

Michael Hayden ultimately ended up the music master in Salzburg, a position he held for 43 years (must have been a family thing to have these long-standing positions...Joseph held a position with the Esterhazy family for nearly 30 years).

One of my students actually introduced me to this work. The Missa pro Defunctis, written in 1771, is a Requiem Mass (one of the few I don't know! Shame on me!). In listening to it, the first thing I was struck by was that it had some similarities to Mozart's Requiem, which was written in the 1791. Mozart knew Michael Haydn and was present at the first three performances of the Missa pro Defunctis. It is considered to be an "important model" for Mozart's work.

The work was written for the death of Count Archbishop Sigismund von Schrattenbach. However Michael Haydn had recently lost his infant daughter and many historians believe the real motivation for writing the work was his own personal bereavement.

You can find this work on Youtube. Here are some links to listen to!

I. Requiem aeternam
II. Dies irae (My favourite movement of all Requiems -- here I think Haydn actually gets the right feel for it!)
III. Domine Jesu Christe, IV. Hostias et preces and V. Sanctus
VI. Benedictus and VII. Agnus Dei

Garrit Gallus... by Philippe de Vitry (1291-1361)

I'm reaching WAY back here for one to showcase for you today. I know this won't be everyone's cup of tea but perhaps you'll give it a chance.

Most people know this, but if you don't, I have an absolute love for Medieval and Renaissance era music. It was why, when I had a chance to go to a Renaissance Faire back in high school I was SO EXCITED. I mean, I was going to hear people sing motets! And play recorder consort music! And hear CRUMHORNS!!! And, as anyone who goes to a Renaissance Faire knows, I got none of that. Even though I've gone since and even played at the Faire one summer, I still feel oddly disappointed at the lack of real Renaissance music.

Anyway...moving on...

I was introduced to Philippe de Vitry's music in a music theory class in which we analyzed music of all eras. This Ars Nova ("New Art") music of the 14th century acquired much more polyphonic (many-voiced) sophistication than earlier music, thanks in part to advances in notation. Composers could move beyond simple rhythmic modes that had followed the monophony of plainchant. Now, composers during this time got a little carried away with this new-found freedom, sometimes so completely obliterating the text that folks who listened probably had no idea what the songs were about. Some had each singer singing a different, related text. And some even had them singing in different languages! Craziness, I tell you!

Ok in all seriousness, as soon as I learned about them, I fell totally in love with the whole concept of the isorhythmic motet.

What the hell is that? you ask. Sure no problem. Let me try to explain this!

The heart of isorhythm lies in the tenor, that slow-moving voice you'll hear in the midst of the piece I'll link you to shortly. Isorhythm is made up of two parts:

(1) A repeating pattern of rhythms (called the talae)
(2) A repeating pattern of pitches (called the color)

Often the rhythm would be one amount of notes and the pitches would be a different amount of notes, thus causing them to overlap until finally coming back together. In general, the work would take longer to cycle through the pitches than to cycle through the rhythms (for instance, the color might be 28 notes long while the talae only 4 notes; that means it would take 7 repetitions of the talae before the color is completed!).

Fun, right?

Ok maybe only for theory nerds.

At any rate, above the tenor were often 2 (sometimes more) voices that moved in free-form against them, creating that polyphony I was talking about earlier. These voices are called the motetus and triplum. Because we have to name EVERYTHING in music theory.

The tenor voice, by the way, is sometimes played on instruments and sometimes sung. People nowadays are unclear as to which is historically accurate (both may have been).

Here's a recording of this work. The full name, which is "Garrit Gallus flendo dolorose / In nova fert animus" is drawn from opening lines in the two top voices. Here is the translation of the text.

TRIPLUM
The rooster (Gaul) chatters with bitter weeping;
indeed the whole flock mourns,
for it is stealthily being betrayed
by the satrap even as it keeps watch.
And the fox, like a grave-robber,
flourishing with the cunning of Belial,
reigns with the full consent of the lion himself.
Alas, what anguish!
Behold how the family of Jacob
once again flees from another Pharoah:
no longer able, as before, to follow
the path of the Jews, it weeps.
In the desert it is tortured by hunger,
its arms and armour lack a helper.
If it cries out it will be despoiled;
the voice of the wretched exiles,
near death, is harsh.
O sad chattering of roosters!
Since the blindness of the lion is subject
to the shadowy deceit of the treacherous fox,
whose arrogance encourages sin,
you must rise up:
otherwise what is left of your honour
slips away and will continue to slip away:
with only late avengers it will soon turn into villainy.

MOTETUS
My mind is bent to tell of bodies changed anew:
that evil dragon
whom glorious Michael once conquered thoroughly
with the miraculous power of the cross,
again is living, now fortified
with the grace of Absalom,
gloating with the eloquence of Ulysses,
armed with the teeth of a wolf
as a soldier in the army of Tersitis -
in fact changed into a fox.
Deprived of his sight by deceit,
the lion is subject to this ruling fox,
who sucks the blood of lambs,
sates himself with chickens, and never stops;
rather he thirsts on.
He comes to weddings with his hunting dogs.
Woe to chickens and woe to the blind lion;
but in the end, woe to the dragon when he must face Christ!


At least both texts were in Latin? Anyway...

You can listen to the work on youtube here.

Bright Blue Music by Michael Torke (b.1961)

How about a little light fun music for a Friday afternoon?

I was introduced to this piece during a class session my 20th century analysis professor taught on music by composers who are still alive. He wanted us to get to experience some of where music was NOW instead of just 50 years earlier. I think the idea was that we spent SO MUCH TIME studying music of "dead white guys" that he wanted us to realize that people were still writing this music.

I was honestly expecting some crazy stuff that was entirely unlistenable and instead heard some music that I immediately ran out to buy. This was one of the works he played that day.

Michael Torke is a fairly young composer. He was born only in 1961 (making him only 2 years older than David!) and when he wrote this piece he was all of 24 years old. This composition is one of a series of "Color" music that he wrote (also included are Ash, Ecstatic Orange, Purple and Green).  Torke apparently has Synesthesia, a neurological condition which for him means that music and color are closely intertwined. One key or combination of sounds will appear as a color to him.

The work is uplifting, happy. Nothing you'll usually see me recommend! One reviewer said of it: In Bright Blue Music, we find Torke revelling in the sheer pleasure of creating music for pure enjoyment, at once immediate and appealing.

I find that an apt description.

You can download and listen to the work here.

Der Leiermann by Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Der Leiermann which is alternately translated either as "The Organ Grinder" or as "The Hurdy-Gurdy Man" is the final song in a 24-song cycle called Winterreise (Winter Journey). Though one might consider the song cycle more "atmospheric" there is a fairly loose plot: A young man (more of an anti-hero, than hero) travels to an idyllic town during the month of May. There he is invited to live with a family and falls in love with their daughter, who he believes returns his love. However, in true Romantic era fashion, one cannot remain happy! She ditches him to marry a wealthy guy who is approved of by her family. In despair and in the dead of winter, our young anti-hero departs and begins a painful journey full of longing for his previous happiness, forshadowings of death (a raven), and finally arrives at another town. The song cycle ends on a bleak note.

Over there beyond the village
Stands an organ-grinder,
And with numb fingers
He plays as best he can.

Barefoot on the ice,
He totters here and there,
And his little plate
Is always empty.

No one listens to him,
No one notices him,
And the dogs growl
Around the old man.

And he just lets it happen,
As it will,
Plays, and his hurdy-gurdy
Is never still.

Strange old man,
Shall I go with you ?
Will you play your organ
To my songs

I was introduced to the song cycle through this final song in an analysis class I took while working on my doctorate. The music is as bleak as the words and fits it perfectly. It follows a strict strophic form (same music for each stanza), which one would expect when you envision an organ grinder playing the same music over and over again.

Here's a beautiful version done by Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake. They've done the WHOLE song cycle this way and they're all amazing to watch.

Prelude in Db Major, Op. 28, No. 15 by Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

At first glance you may not realize you probably know this work.  Or, at the very least, you've heard of it.  This prelude is more commonly known as "The Raindrop Prelude."  I can't remember when I first heard this work, but the first time I did, the middle section of it caused the hair on the back of my neck to stand up.

It still does every single time I listen to it.

The work is one from a set of 24 preludes Chopin wrote and while they're all lovely, this is certainly the most famous.  It's a beautiful, fairly straight-forward work in ABA form.  The opening and closing sections are a sweet and lovely Db major.  The middle, more dramatic section, switches to its parallel minor (C# minor).

So why "raindrop"?  Where did that come from?  Chopin himself did not subtitle the work.  In fact, Chopin was far too much of an "absolute" composer to give any of his works subtitles.  ("Absolute" music is music written for music's sake alone, as opposed to program music which is intended to tell a story or give the listener some sort of atmospheric idea.)

There are two thoughts, both of which combined have given it this name.  The first came from George Sand, his lover of many years, who said upon arriving home in a rainstorm one evening that she came across a distraught Chopin who had had a horrible dream when he fell asleep at the piano.

He saw himself drowned in a lake. Heavy drops of icy water fell in a regular rhythm on his breast, and when I made him listen to the sound of the drops of water indeed falling in rhythm on the roof, he denied having heard it. He was even angry that I should interpret this in terms of imitative sounds. He protested with all his might – and he was right to – against the childishness of such aural imitations. His genius was filled with the mysterious sounds of nature, but transformed into sublime equivalents in musical thought, and not through slavish imitation of the actual external sounds.

Chopin himself vehemently denied that any of his music had such a picturesque idea.  But the idea of the "raindrop" aspect persisted.  He was certainly working on some prelude during this time.  But which one?  Why did this one end up with the subtitle and not another one?

Well, the other aspect of this piece that gives it its name is the near constant repetition of the pitch Ab (which turns into G# in the middle section).  It floats through nearly the entire work, coming in and out through the quieter A sections and becoming insistent in the middle.  If you concentrate though you can almost always pick it up.  Some have said this mimics the "gentle patter of rain."  Chopin would likely argue otherwise.  Unfortunately for Chopin, it is likely to always retain this nickname.

No matter which way you look at it, it's a lovely piece of music.

You can listen to it here on youtube.

Symphony No. 1 "The Lord of the Rings" by Johan de Meij (b.1953)

I will start this off by saying if I had to pick any single work as my #1 favourite work of all time it would be this particular piece.

I still remember my introduction to the work: Marian Catholic's 1991 marching band show. I remember watching it from back field at the BOA Grand Nationals in Indianapolis after getting the photos of our band taken. And I remember thinking "Wow this is boring." Despite that, they came in 2nd place to our 7th place finish (a great disappointment as we put on a much better show at Prelims than Finals).

Then my senior year of high school (the following year) I heard rumors of OUR marching band doing the same music and thought "Oh God that was so boring!" And to top it off, our wind ensemble instructor decided we were going to play the first and fifth movements of the work. The day we pulled it out in band and played the first chords of the first movement I was HOOKED. I couldn't believe I found the music boring and I knew that our arranger would rock the house with it.

I immediately ran out and bought a recording of the work. I have so many fond memories of it. It was done in band the year AFTER I graduated, but I was at rehearsals many times throughout the summer and into the fall. I went to States. I knew that show better than a lot of people did and still, to this day, I get chills down my spine. Strangely enough it means even more to me than the 1992 show we did my senior year.

To top all this off, my junior year of college, the Crane wind ensemble that I was a part of played the entire work. I auditioned for and was granted the Eb Clarinet part and got to play a huge solo in the 2nd movement. It was one of my three dream pieces to play on Eb Clarinet (the others being Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastic and Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks, neither of which I've had the chance to play).

Suffice it to say, this work brings back a lot of fantastic memories!

The work was written in 1984-1987 and was premiered in 1988. Johan de Meij is a Dutch conductor, trombone player, and composer. If you go look for recordings for the work you'll find one by the London Symphony Orchestra and ones by The Royal Military Band, The Amsterdam Winds, and other wind groups. So naturally you'd want to get the original, right? You might assume that the original Symphony was written for a SYMPHONY Orchestra, but you'd be wrong. This is one of the truly outstanding and beautiful works written originally for a wind ensemble. I own the Royal Miltary Band's recording, as well as the arrangement for orchestra and both are fantastic in their own right. But I still prefer the power and majesty of the original.

My only disappointment with the work? They didn't use de Meij to compose the score for the movies!

You can listen to the movements on youtube.

I. Gandalf This movement is AMAZING.
II. Lothlorian The Eb Clarinet solo starts around 3:20, echoed by the Bb Clarinet a moment later. The other absolutely fantastic, chills up my spine moment, starts around 4:42. The way the brass cross over and take over from the woodwinds. DEAR GOD.
III. Gollum I think the slithering soprano sax solo is PERFECT here.
IV. Journey in the Dark (Made up of two subsections: The Mines of Moria and The Bridge of Khazad-Dûm)
The Hobbits This is a great happy ending to this piece.

If you're interested in our marching band show, here's a youtube video I ripped off an old VHS tape. It's not a fantastic recording, but you can still see the show pretty well.

Symphony No. 7 in A Major by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

I can't really remember when or how I was introduced to this piece. It very well might have been through Mr. Holland's Opus. There's a heartbreaking scene in the movie where the main character discovers his son is deaf and discusses Beethoven's deafness with his class. Playing in the background is the second movement of the Symphony No. 7.

Strangely enough, this was not the only movie to make use of this particular movement to highlight their child's deafness. Some years later, I discovered it was used in the Nicolas Cage movie, Knowing.

At any rate, whatever drew my attention to it, I found myself instantly in love with it. Enough so that I ended up using it as my senior music theory project. That's right, I spent an entire semester analyzing the work back in the Fall of 1996. I guess it's always had a special place in my heart.

The work was written in 1811-1812. Despite the emphasis on deaf children, Beethoven was not completely deaf at this time, though he had given up performing by this time and was almost entirely focused entirely on his inner world of composition. (If you want to envision what Beethoven's hearing might have been like around this time, check out this page).

Immediately after its first performance (which Beethoven himself conducted), Beethoven remarked that it was one of his best works and the second movement, marked Allegretto, was so popular at the time that it was immediately encored (ahh the days of people applauding between movements of a piece!) and was often performed on its own even though it begins and ends on an entirely unstable cadence.

Richard Wagner described the work as the "apotheosis of the dance."

I have a special affinity for Beethoven, as many folks here know. I've always loved his works but somehow losing my hearing, quite possibly from the same malady that afflicted Beethoven, has drawn me even more into his music. I've spoken of my love for Beethoven's music here many times before (check my Beethoven tag) and so it should come as no surprise to find something by him high on my list of great works that everyone should know.

My favourite performance of the work is the one done by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, which is no doubt blasphemy in some Beethoven circles. The 2nd movement is technically marked "Allegretto" (moderately fast), while Bernstein takes it closer to Andante ("walking tempo"). But I admit to liking it slower better. Somehow it draws out the beauty of it even more for me.

You can listen to each movement on youtube if you would like to.

I. Poco sostenuto – Vivace This movement begins with a very long slow introduction before launching into the faster part of the movement...Vivace means "lively and fast." One contemporary thought that the chromatic bass line at the end of this movement meant Beethoven was "ripe for the madhouse."

II. Allegretto (Though played more Andante here!) Listen for the awesome buildup starting around 6 minutes in -- the syncopation, those off the beat notes, used to build up tension is just sublime.

III. Presto – Assai meno presto (Presto means "very fast") Thomas Beecham, a 20th century conductor said of this movement: "What can you do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about."

IV. Allegro con brio ("Fast with vigor and spirit")

Stabat Mater by Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (c.1525-1594)

I'm going to kick off this off with one of my absolute favourite pieces of music.

Palestrina was born in a small town near Rome (called Palestrina) sometime around 1525 or 1526. Like many composers of his time, his exact birth date is still somewhat of a mystery. He was an Italian composer of the late Renaissance and is sometimes credited with saving polyphonic music (polyphonic means "many voiced") from being banned from the Catholic Church by the Council of Trent. It's a romantic notion, but alas no solid evidence of this has been shown.

Suffice it to say, the beauty and clarity of his polyphony has survived the ages. Johann Fux, an Austrian composer and contemporary of Bach, codified and created the "rules" of such polyphony and for many centuries, students have studied the works of Palestrina to gain a better understanding of that perfectly serene, perfectly clear music he wrote.

The Stabat Mater Dolorosa ("The sorrowful mother stood") is a hymn about the sorrows of Mary.

I was introduced to it (which was my first exposure to Palestrina) when I was a freshman in college. The choir I was in was singing a piece from the Renaissance and the conductor played it as an example of Renaissance-style singing (the beauty of no vibrato!). I was instantly in love with the work and asked the conductor to make me a copy of the recording (on cassette tape back in the early 1990s!). I listened to it a lot throughout my college years.

Many years later, I was determined to find it on CD. I knew who the work was by. I knew the name of the work. But I couldn't find THE recording. I found many other ones, but none had the spark this particular recording did. What was so different? Ornamentation. Most performances of Palestrina's works are entirely without ornamentation, but some musicologists believe that, like other music of the era, not everything sung was written into the music. Andrew Parrott and Tarverner Choir put out a recording that included ornamentation.

It is, by far, my favourite recording of the work. Lucky for all of you, someone has uploaded this fantastic version to youtube!