Later Nationalists
Within the Mainstream of early Twentieth Century Music there are a group of composers who:
- Moved by the spirit of nationalism
- Blended folk music or other national characteristics into a cosmopolitan musical style, or
- Provided leadership within their home countries toward either a musical renaissance
1)Manuel de Falla (1876-1946)
a)Spanish music had inspired French and Russian composers who used Spanish elements (dances, rhythms, melodies which were either borrowed or emulated Spanish folk song). Examples include Bizet (Carmen), Chabrier (Espana), Rimsky-Korsakov (Capriccio Espagnol), Glinka (Nights in the Gardens of Spain), Lalo (Symphonie Espagnol), Ravel (Bolero), and many others.
b)Falla was the principal Spanish composer of the early 20th century. His major works include:
i) La vida breve (1904-1913), opera
ii) El Amor brujo (1915), ballet
iii) El Sombrero de tres picos (1916-1919), ballet
iv) El Retablo de maeso Pedro (1919-1923)
2)Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
a)The first great English composer had been Purcell, after whom the British tended to import their composers from the Continent, as they did with Handel, attempted with Haydn, and followed with the championing of the music of Mendelssohn, Dvorak, and others.
b)The British musical renaissance began with Edward Elgar (1857-1934). Elgar’s most successful work was Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), which he composed at age 42. Other important works of Elgar’s include the Pomp and Circumstance Marches, Symphonies Nos. 1 and The Dream of Gerontius, a choral work inspired by Wagner’s Parsifal, based on a poem by the Catholic poet John Henry Newman. Elgar also composed important violin and cello concerti.
c)With Vaughan Williams it took a nationalist direction. Williams:
i) Studied from Ravel
ii) Collected and published 100s of English folksongs
iii) Used authentic folk melodies in numerous original compositions, including Variants on Dives and Lazarus. The composer wrote that these variants are not “replicas” of traditional tunes, but are reminiscences of different versions of the folksong. Vaughan Williams composed the piece while he was working on his Fifth Symphony. It was premiered at the World’s Fair of 1939. The English ballad Dives and Lazarus is associated with the English folksong is known as The Star of the County Down.
iv) Vaughan Williams was also the editor of English Hymnal
v) In Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis, he used a Tallis hymn in the Phrygian mode, using antiphonal effects, modal scales, and chord streaming.
3)Leoš Janáček (1854-1928)—the leading Czech composer after Smetana and Dvorak. Janáček was Moravian by birth, and used the rhythms and inflections of his native language to construct a highly individual musical style. His principal works include the operas Jenǔfa, The Cunning Little Vixen, The Makropulos Affair, and From the House of the Dead. His most famous instrumental work is Sinfonietta (1926).
4)Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)—the leading Scandinavian composer after Grieg. Like Verdi, Sibelius’s music became identified with the Finnish cause. Sibelius composed tone poems such as Kullervo and The Swan of Tuonela based on Finnish legend. His tone poem Finlandia became the national anthem. Sibelius composed seven symphonies, a violin concerto, and incidental music to a number of plays including Shakespeare’s Tempest and Maeterlinck’s Pelléas et Mélisande. Sibelius’s symphonic style is in marked contrast to Mahler’s. Sibelius was initially influenced by Wagner and attended performances at Bayreuth Sibelius’s first two symphonies, the most popular, are indebted to Tchaikovsky in the heroic stance. After these works, Sibelius moved steadily toward a more individual style which emphasized gradual thematic metamorphosis instead of contrast. His later style is more akin to Bruckner than Mahler. There was a rumored eighth symphony which never materialized which the composer either never really completed or destroyed. Sibelius had a brush with death in about 1911 with a surgery for suspected throat cancer. Whether it was depression, alcoholism, debt, or the feeling that the musical world had passed him by, Sibelius’s output as a composer nearly ceased after about 1926, which only a few works after that. He and his wife retired to Ainola, a home which Sibelius had built north of Helsinki and where the family (wife and six daughters) which was designed by a famed Finnish architect and is now a national museum.
5)Sergei Rachmaninov(1873-1943)—trained as a pianist, composer and conductor. He was born near Novgorodinto an aristocratic family. Both of his parents were amateur pianists. His talent was recognized when he was a boy, but he was thought of as lazy. He became acquainted with Tchaikovsky, who encouraged him. Rachmaninov studied at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory with Arensky and Taneyev (both were students of Tchaikovsky) and with Siloti (who was a student of Liszt’s). At least two things contributed to a bout of depression: 1) the disastrous reception of his first symphony (which was poorly conducted by Glazunov, who may have been drunk, and attacked by Cui in the press), and 2) the Eastern Orthodox Church’s objection to his marrying his cousin Natalina Satina. Rachmaninov sought the help of the psychologist Nikolai Dahl, who used hypnotherapy. Rachmaninov overcame his writer’s block and composed his second piano concerto which was a great success. He dedicated the work to him. Rachmaninov first toured the USA in 1909. After the Revolution in 1917, Rachmaninov fled Russia for the west, settling first in Europe and later in the United States. His compositional output slowed because of his extensive performing career as a pianist. He played over 1000 concerts in the United States and made over 100 studio recordings. There are 39 opus numbers. Among his works are three symphonies, a set of symphonic dances, four piano concerti, a Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, several early operas, numerous piano works, choral works and chamber music.
6)Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) began composing along the lines of Chopin. His music became gradually more chromatic and exotic as he absorbed the influences of Liszt, Rimsky-Korsakov and Debussy. He replaced conventional harmony with a synthetic kind of tonality in which a complex chord served as the source material for a complete composition, acting as a kind of tonic. These chords usually contained one or two tritones and were often related to the octotonic scale. Unlike the Tristan chord, however, they were static structures. Scriabin had a complex love life. He was married and had several children, but left his wife for one of his students with whom he relocated to Switzerland. He was a theosophist, followed the theories of Friedrich Nietzsche, and believed in synesthesia (a condition in which the individual experiences response in one sense—in this case color—from another sense—music or sound). Scriabin worked toward a multimedia performance in which a piece of music of his would be performed in the foothills of the Himalayas accompanied by lights, dance and scent. The performance was supposed to bring about worldwide bliss. Scriabin wrote nine piano sonatas (the last five without key signature), three symphonies, and orchestral works including The Poem of Ecstacy, and The Poem of Fire, which includes a part for the color organ, which projected light onto a screen in the concert hall. On Scriabin’s color organ, for example:
i) C = red
ii) D = yellow
iii) E = white
iv) F = brown
v) G = tan
vi) A = green
vii) B = blue
There are colors for the chromatic steps as well.
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