Satie and the poet who must have died on a Thursday, in a rainstorm.

Satie and the poet who must have died on a Thursday, in a rainstorm.

Erick Satie was a French composer and pianist who were born in Honfleur, France in 1866. Since he was young, he developed a curious character, perhaps as a result of the union of Normand and Scots blood or perhaps, according to some scholars, because he suffered with Asperger’s syndrome.  

Although in his early music education at the Paris Conservatoire he was labeled in negative terms by his teachers he developed a love for composition that no one could deny. In his first years as a composer he start to develop his eccentric personality, he is always described as a shy, discreet and reserved man, well-mannered and bohemian. His personality made him a lonely man, his character although is described as charming and lovable was also violent and unpredictable. 

His first compositions are full of his influence and love for medieval church polyphony, they are slow and solemn, full of successions of seventh and ninth harmonies, this give us the idea that the chords could continue for hours and yet the pieces remains in the realm of almost-miniatures. The Satie that we see in these early compositions, is a cerebral sensualist man, the use of solemn chords give to his music a vague mysticism, almost superficial but full of symbolism.

In 1890 He write his Gymnopedies, this composition spring away from the first mystic works and begun to show us a more heavy, a-rhythmic Satie, who  started to experiment with static harmonies, which characterizes his work latter. The pieces are presented in a set of three, like the Sarabandes which precede them, each one representing a different facet. This concept gives to the pieces a sense of unity although each gymnopedie supplies a variant.

The use of the number three was a peculiarity and an obsession for Satie and it is manifested over and over in his works that commonly are arranged in sets of three.  The popularity of this pieces remains in the singular music, its modality and stark simplicity and also in their enigmatic nature express in the mysterious and bizarre name that Satie chose for them.

The name came from a Greek word; Gymnopaidia, who is defined as a dance in which naked boys performance gymnastic exercise and that was part of a Spartan festival. The word was adapted by Satie supposedly in an attempt to describe his music as graceful arabesque painted by naked boys under an early-morning sky. When he wrote his Gymnopedies, he was part of the symbolist movement, mostly as a result of his work as a pianist at the Chat Noir cabaret (favorite place of the symbolist).  We can find this influence in the Gymnopedies, because Symbolism movement was characterized by the use of strange words, derived mostly form Latin or Greek and full of mysticism and esotericism. We can find also a lot of musicality in the word itself that refers us directly to the mood of the piano pieces. They are almost like silent poem, full of ancient happiness outlined by a transparent texture that serves also as a basic harmonic structure for the three pieces.

Cesar Vallejo, one of the most remarkable Latin American poets of that time and perhaps the only one that was labeled as a symbolist without being French, called Satie  the most “Great musician of France”. He was introduced to him by Vicente Huidobro. For Vallejo, Satie was  a dark man, poor inglorious and genius, sensitive and full of a peculiar sense of humor. In a music review published in 1926, by a Peruvian magazine called Revista Variedades, Vallejo ask himself how French people can ignored such a musician as Satie. By the time that this review was written Satie was already died in Paris.  For Vallejo, Satie was in his way to become the most recognized of the French musicians. And as he said, “Satie died poor, humble and lonely on a Wednesday of July 1, in his way to make the act of excite, a natural one.” He didn’t die a Thursday, like Vallejo himself, who died on April 5 on a Friday.

I shall die in Paris, in a rainstorm,
On a day I already remember.
I shall die in Paris-- it does not bother me--
Doubtless on a Thursday, like today, in autumn.

C.V

Kurt Weill, the stranger.

Kurt Weill the “stranger”

  The Jewish-european composer seems to have many facets that even today are difficult to classify.  Weill was the socialist composer, who truly believe in the social function of the music and work hand to hand with Berthold Brecht in works who’s mainly objective was to expose and criticized the capitalism and bourgeois societies. On other side we have the so called “American” composer who wrote Broadway musicals and who was a fervent nationalist in the war against his natal Germany. And finally we have the pure composer, the modernist highly intellectual who wrote operatic, orchestral and chamber music that we rarely get chance to hear. Which of this is the “true” Weill?

In his history we can find the tragedy that thousands of German Jews shared in the first fifty years of the twenty century, a tragic history of survival and fate that determines Weill’s intellectual development and his devote to the social responsibility of the artist. At the end, all of his musical statements are part of the substance of his compositions.

Weill was an extrovert character, reserve and modest, and in a way, according to many biographers, a workaholic. He subject everything on his art, even though his marriage with Lotte Lenya, who always complain for occupying a second place in Weill’s life.  He was a “highly conscious” musician who was aware of the important role of art in society and the artist’s obligations to that society. In all the works that he developed from Berlin to Broadway, we can sense the socio-aesthetic position that pops out and that was Weill’s special touch.

In 1933, when he was officially denounced for his socialist views and became a target for the Nazis, he was forced to leave Germany. He spent some time between Paris and London promoting some of his works and finally he decides to settle in the United States and is when Weill starts his American adventure.  He begins to study the American popular stage music and became fascinated with jazz.  Is in this scenario is where Weill’s came with the idea of One of his Broadway’s hit, “A touch of Venus”, who was written between 1942 and 1943. The show was a contemporary play that satirizes the contemporary American suburban values of romance and sex and takes the Pygmalion myth to illustrate this theme.  

Although is ironic how Weill managed accommodated himself in the most capitalist entertainment industry, he converted the American experience of being exile into a compelling musical statement, just as he did with his previous works. Besides the creations of Broadway’s musicals we can find also in his works during the American years, a composition moment when in a way he reconciles the German and Austrian musical tradition and start to create Lieders.

And what can we read between the lines of his Brodway’s musical works? In the play “A touch of Venus”, who talks about a statue of the goddess Venus who comes to life and become the object of affection of a good-hearted window dresser who happens to be engaged, we can find some of Weill statements.  When the female protagonist, Venus herself, sing a beautiful almost-aria called “I’m a stranger here myself”.

Tell me is love still
A popular suggestion,
Or merely an obsolete art?
 This simple question;
I'm unfamiliar with his heart,
I am a stranger here myself

Are the misadventures of Venus and her inability to understand the local idiosyncrasies an allegory of what Weill’s was living in the exile? Venus sense of estrangement was the melancholy that perhaps chased Weill in his American exile.  Like Camus allegory in his Novel “L’Etranger” (the stranger, the outsider), that happens to be published one year before the premier of Weill’s play. Kurt Weill, like Mersault, Camus principal protagonist who kills an Arab just because; Weill was also an outcast, an outsider.  How can he possible refuse? When he was a stranger himself.

It's "Summertime" George.

George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist who were born in Brooklyn, New York in 1896. His Parents were Jewish immigrants from Odessa (Ukraine). He is known for his incursion in both genres, classical and popular. He was as discipline as genius. He always also, had the feeling of insecure about his musical education and was always ready to learn more. Wherever he had a chance, he always asked for advice and lessons from almost every accredited composer he met. His musical education began at an early age and soon he displayed his true interest in music. According to Alex Ross in “The rest is noise”, Gershwin’s teacher, Edward Kilenyi, was the one who introduce to him the idea of winning and audience by making a name in the popular arena rather than in the academic realm of composition. However, in Gershwin, his personal taste and approach to the popular genres, although it was full of success from the beginning, was also avid of being filled with the academic knowledge in which he worked so hard.

Gershwin Rise to fame was quick. He published his first song at eighteen and by the time he turned twenty-one he had already contributed music to several stage shows and had composed the whole score for another. His fist first song, “Swanee”, was written in 1919, ant the early 20s saw him established in the first rank of popular music composers. However he was also, an enthusiastic fan of Debussy and Ravel’s music. He was fascinating with Schoenberg’s approach to music and also Berg’s, and, he was  willing to learn theory and composition with Stravinsky, All this background give the especial “touch” that we can heard in some of his compositions.

His first approach to give to popular genres like “jazz” a respectful place in the concert halls was definitely “Rhapsody in Blue”. The piece is full of syncopated melodies emulating the urban “jazz mood”. All of this mixed with open harmonies, blue notes, dominant-seventh chords and also, a Rachmaninovian love theme in the middle section. All of this creates a new language in American music and gave Gershwin the opportunity to gain high-level admirers.

Arts patron, Otto Kahn, chairman of the board of the Met, spurred Gershwin to write a “jazz grand Opera”. Is in this context that he got the idea of compose an Opera based on an American novel called “Porgy”. The book tells the story of Porgy, a crippled street-beggar in the black tenements of Charleston, South Carolina in the 1920s.  Gershwin began to work in the piece in 1933 with Dubose Heyward, the original author of “Porgy”, The reception of the opera was full of mixed reactions. Some of them claimed to label Gershwin’s piece in the “folk realm” rather than in the academic. Others called the piece a True Opera, full of power and vigor. The controversy was immediate too, because of the African American theme and the use folk tunes, some of them based on real folk and spiritual tunes. The opera had problems also, within the racial aspect. Some of the critics claim that the Opera portrayed racist aspects of African American life.

Despite of all this, we still have the wonderful chance to heard every time the genius introduction of the opera. The orchestra introduction is dotted with a modernism style. We can hear a Wozzeck wink with the use of a two-chord as an ostinato. The great crescendo filled with dissonant harmony and the great climax falls in the first notes of “summertime”.

It’s summertime and the livin’ is easy, the fish are jumplin’ and the cotton is high. This marvelous lullaby serves to introduce the opera and also as a unifying element since we can hear the song three times in different moments of the opera. The song mixes elements of jazz ant the song styles of African-Americans in the southeast of the United States. Its initial chords become a steady-state environment who serves as reference for the performer to play with it and move around them. This characteristic element of free improvisation makes the song into an independent being and is because of this that many renowned artists made “summertime” their own. My personal favorite interpretation is with “Lady Day” queen of the ‘bop’ and the ‘beatniks’, but perhaps, that is a different story. 

Falla y sus siete canciones populares

Siete Canciones Populares Españolas

Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish composer who along with Albeniz, Rodrigo, Granados and Turina, formed the nationalist Spanish school in the first half of the twenty century. His initial musical education was in charge of her mother and grandfather, both piano players. When he was a child his nanny use to sing him old nanas or lullabies and Spanish popular songs, this definitely make a mark in his future composition style.

He was very interesting in the flamenco and cante jondo of his country, both traditional music genres of the region of Andalusia and known for being very energetic, staccato and deep music styles. In June of 1922, Falla organized a festival with an especial focus on cante Jondo which turned to be a memorable series of flamenco performance that included many classical musicians, cultural and literary figures, including the poet Federico Garcia Lorca.

His interest in the local musical traditions of Spain formed in him a composition style which was full of folklorist echoes. His inspiration was the tradition settled in the Spanish golden age but we can also perceive a neoclassic influence as a result of the years spent in Paris.

Some of his work suffered a lot or criticism and attacks of part of the music critics who questioned his expression of national identity and considered him incapable of distinguish between popular and serious genres. All this was the result of his love for the flamenco and other popular musical expressions.

Falla’s response to this was to write another explicitly Spanish work. In 1914 he finished the Siete Canciones Populares Españolas which, according to Michael Christoforidis, a musicologist specialized in Falla’s life and work, were “the most popular set of Spanish songs ever written”. Is in this work where Falla truly affirms his musical personality. The melodies that conformed the song cycle come from late-nineteenth and early twentieth-century printed sources, including Jose Inzenga’s Ecos de España, and Eduardo Ocon’s Coleccion de aires nacionales y populares.

Subtlety and simplicity are the songs’ most appealing features. Falla’s manage to create an elegant reinterpretation of the original sources and in a way, he illuminates their essential qualities. The harmonic structure of the songs emphasizes the romantic frustration and the torment that the original cante jondo is full of. In the songs we can sense the importance of the rhythm according to the tonality and the melodic intervals. His unique way to manage the undulations and cadences of the songs make them an ingenious imitation of what they originally set out to do. The songs were composed under the influence of the “natural music”. This idea came of Felipe Pedrell, a Spanish Catalan composer who stated in the preface of his Cancionero that the folksong should be based on ancient modes and not simply subject to the laws of major and minor modes.

The songs were presented in January 14 of 1915. The work had an enormous success and since then it had been transcribed many times for various musical mediums. This songs are also an example of the necessity of many composers from Romance and Slavonic nations that in that time, wanted to cast away of the Musical Germanic influence. The songs are a recovery of the ancient Spanish traditions and they are also part of the classical western tradition.

Romantic Schoenberg....

Pierrot Lunaire

Dreimal siben Geichte aus Albert Girauds ‘Pierrot Lunaire’ Op.21 are a collection of songs composed by Arnold Schoenberg in 1912. They are based on 21 selected poems of the German translation, performed by Otto Erich Hartleben about Albert Giraud’s cycle of poems. The protagonist of the poems is Pierrot, a comic servant of the French Commedia dell’Arte, which was created in Italy in the late 17^th-century.

The figure of Pierrot was very emblematic and serves in the late 19^th century as an alter-ego for some of the most remarkable artists. Pierrot represents the growing materialism and crude reality that characterized late nineteen-hundreds. The narration immerses the artist into an interior world that worships the disturbance of the senses by the ecstasy of music and the use of drugs.  This creation of art, just because of art, was one of the main ideas in Giraud’s works.  His view took away all philosophical, religious, or social implications form art creation. The atmosphere that surrounded the work is also full of the aesthetics conveyed by Schopenhauer.  The poems are conceived by the idea that art has a purpose to provide a temporary refuge from the world and its misery, one of Schopenhauer main thoughts. The poems are also filled with this new definition of love and art, full of the skepticism of the era.
 All of this was used by Schoenberg for the creation of his Pierrot Lunaire. According to him, it was more than a musical piece. It was an attempt in the drama field. The piece has some echoes of Schoenberg’s time in Berlin. In 1902, he moved to Berlin to serve as musical director for high-minded revues at the Uberbrettl Cabaret. The cabaret was founded by Ernst von Wolzogen who wanted to bring to Germany the Parisian Cabaret concept. The idea did not work, and Schoenberg returned to Vienna.

The work was commissioned by Albertine Zehm., who used to recitate dramas accompanied by music in Cabarets. The music in the piece is atonal, which represents Schoenberg resistance to maintain the popular mainstream. The piece was conceived by Schoenberg to get the main attention on the text and its literal context. It was conceived as almost background music. The work consists of three groups of seven poems each. The numerology plays an important role in the genesis of the piece. It was conceived by Schoenberg in March 12 of 1912.  Is his opus 21 and contains 21 poems, and his musical motifs consist of 7 notes each. The main topics in the first group are love, sex, and religion .The second group of poems are all about violence and crime. The third group reminds us of the journey home by Pierrot and the implications of his latent past. The premiere of the work was surrounded by criticism. The music quality and the blasphemy contained in the lyrics made the audience react in mixed ways. Although all this, the premiere was a success.

The Sprechstimme style that Schoenberg uses to highlight the drama factor introduces the listener to Pierrot’s world and maintains the attention on the significance of the work. Pierrot’s duality, the inner hero and the buffoon, are perfectly synchronized with the music that we heard. The piece was original commissioned for vocals and piano but Schoenberg felt the necessity of expand the sound spectrum. At the end the piece was composed for Flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano, conductor and vocals.
In the version of Sally Burguess, a South Africa-born British operatic lyric mezzo-soprano, we can find all that reminiscences of the original premier of the piece. The musicians are hidden behind the scenario in order to maintain the mystery and the mood of the original idea. Burguess, more than a singer, is presented to us as a drama narrator. She is dressed as Pierrot with a dark suit and white face. The melancholy disposition of the character is suggested by the first chords on the piano. They formed a downward sequence that sets the atonality and dark character of the music. From then on, she guides us from irony to bad taste and also from sentimentalism to horror. The cabaret character of the piece is maintained by Schoenberg with the use of an atonal composition in which we can find shocks, traumas, and a language that is direct and does not hesitate. All of this converted the work in an extravagant piece that is exhibited with spectral melancholic, hysterical and modern. But, deep down, with a close relation with romantic ideals.

Freude¡¡¡¡¡

Quizá todos recordemos cuando en la primaria, en la clase de música, nos hacían tocar infamemente una y otra vez la oda a la alegría, ya fuera en flauta dulce o melódica, si si do re re do si la sol sol, una melodía sencilla pero pegajosa que nos aprendíamos de memoria para el examen o recital y que después de masacrarla decidíamos archivarla en nuestros recuerdos o algunas veces, olvidarla para siempre.

Curiosamente esa melodía tan sencilla pertenece a una de las mas grandes obras hechas por el hombre, la novena sinfonía de Beethoven. 
Compuesta durante la efervescencia del Sturm und Drang, movimiento cultural que anticipaba los ideales que mas tarde marcarían el romanticismo. esta sinfonía representa la ruptura del riguroso racionalismo que imperaba en la época y hace un llamado a la libertad y a la fraternidad.
En su movimiento mas conocido, el cuarto o coral, Beethoven impresiona al romper con los modelos de la sinfonía tradicional y utilizando un poema que Friedrich von Schiller escribio en 1785, construye un himno que celebra la alegría en su mas fiel representacion.

O Freunde, nicht diese Töne!

Sondern laßt uns angenehmere anstimmen,

und freudenvollere.

Freude!

Oh amigos, este tono no!

Mejor prorrumpamos más agradable

y alegremente.

Alegría!

Hoy que la escucho nuevamente,  pienso en ella como una obra imprescindible.

A escuchar y Freude¡¡¡ para todos.