Dr. Gerre Hancock (above) died last week at the age of 77. He was choirmaster and organist at Saint Thomas Fifth Avenue in New York from 1971 until 2004. Often he was accompanied at the organ by his faithful wife Judith. His time there was spent enhancing a beautiful tradition of music spanning back nearly 100 years. Gerre was known for his inspired improvisations, and overall energy with the choir which he dearly loved.
Saint Thomas is having a Solemn Requiem Service on Saturday featuring music from the choir. The service will start out with nine (yes, nine) organ preludes. Works spanning from Bach to Dr. Hancock’s own pieces and more. The sung service will be the Duruflé Requiem. More information will be posted on the church’s website throughout the week.
The Times put out an interesting article the other day suggesting some paths for the reinvention of the New York City Opera. It compares it to some of the up and comping companies starting around the city such as Gotham Chamber Opera – the same company that premiered Nico Muhly’s new opera “Dark Sister”. While inspiring and wonderful to see new companies rise, the City Opera has an establishment appeal that it should use for good.
While the City Opera has gone through some tough patches in the past few years, they are not yet dead. With cutting its budget for singers and production, leaving its home in Lincoln Center, the door is wide open for local freelance musicians, artist and directors to leave a new mark on the opera world.
There are plenty of people throughout the New York area that can support productions, with the right push. Its apparent. What City Opera has is an incredible opportunity to fill a void left by the Met.
While the Met is broadening its horizons with HD broadcasts and new productions that push the envelope (some that have scare the white hairs away) they are left without some of the staple productions, which at the time of their runs, were the best world. New productions of Tosca and Don Giovanni at the Met, operas of supreme importance to the opera world, have all but flopped under the new vision of Peter Gelb.
The New York City Opera needs not to be concerned with cost. We know the money is there (somewhere). It is just a matter of finding the right person(s) that will actually invest or help find investors to build a local, cultural alternative to the Met.
City Opera needs to find artists and musicians who are willing to create a contrasting alternative to the vastly left field direction that the Met is taking (I don’t mean that negatively). As Wolfe mentioned in the article, there needs to be a solid outlet for young singers and musicians in New York and that simply doesn’t exist with the Met organization.
The folks over at NYCO have an unbelievable chance to become reacquainted with their NYC roots and help develop performing arts around the area. They need to focus on outreach as well as building inspiring productions in cooperation with the resources that exist throughout the area. With the right nudge and some open thinking, anything can happen.
Friedrich Gulda - Prelude and Fugue
Friedrich Gulda, pianoThe Austrian classical and jazz pianist Friedrich Gulda (1930 - 2000) was born 81 years ago on this day, May 16. A vibrant and eclectic figure, he earned accolades as one of the premier musical talents and authorities of his generation—with his work in Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven especially—but was also something of an outcast from the Viennese establishment because of his forays into jazz and popular music, which brought him into collaboration with figures like Joe Zawinul and Chick Corea. Among his most celebrated pupils are pianist Martha Argerich and conductor Claudio Abbado.
Larry Peyton King (1932-1990) - Transfiguration & Song of Mary
Upon hearing the name of composer Larry King the first thing that came might come to mind is the long-time television journalist who claimed the airwaves for a number of years. Despite the confusion in name, composer, Larry Peyton King, has not received anywhere near the amount of acclaim and popularity that the journalist has accumulated. Little known in much of the musical world, King has recently broke the ranks of many modern sacred music composers and is now becoming one of the most performed American sacred music composers in the world. His popularity has been enhanced by his students and former pupils who have now risen to their own positions of power inside some of the most prominent churches in the United States and England.
King was organist and music director at Trinity Episcopal Church, Wall Street, New York for nearly 21 years. In that time, King’s reputation as a composer became synonymous with an experimental, electronic music scene that became popular during the 1970’s and 1980’s. King’s compositions are almost exclusively written for liturgical use: including fanfares, service music and anthems for choir, organ, accompanied many times by synthesizer, prepared tape as well as colorful orchestrations of brass and bells. The affect of these techniques, when executed correctly, are atmospheric and create a textural dialogue which can be interpreted as spiritual - especially when they are performed in the acoustics for which they were written.
In 1990, King died from malignant melanoma, according to his family. In his death he left behind many works that were either unpublished, or not formally transcribed for wide performance. Many of the scores that have been obtained have been from performances of the works. The condition of some of these scores are in bad condition: often times photocopied from other photocopies, annotated from prior use or in some cases even handwritten. This makes the analysis of these works difficult because they’re grainy and hard to read. Luckily, the works that I’ve obtained are from my own performance experience and I’ve received guidelines from people who worked for Larry while he wrote and performed these pieces.
One of the pieces I have had the privilege of performing was his setting of the Transfiguration (1977). The work is set for SATB chorus, Organ and Prepared tape. The piece begins with a cluster chord set seemingly around E-minor. The cluster sets- up a full texture which is achieved by placing pencils in the keys so the notes can be sustained for the duration of this section of the piece: this cluster assures that there is a base texture which can be later contrasted with other textures, colors and timbrel effects. King reenforces the feeling of E-minor with scales ascending as well as the pedal-E which lasts for the duration of this piece. One way that he achieves the a contrast of textures is in someway a harmonic device. The pedal-E is finally obscured when the chorus enters. When the Basses enter on scale-degree- five the piece still seems to feel as if key-center is E-minor. However, a sustained F-sharp (scale degree 2 in E-minor) leads to the men sustaining a G-natural. This tonicization of G-minor is reenforced by the B-flat that the Tenors sing in the following measures. Here, King is cleverly using the cluster as well as the dissonant key relationships of G- minor and E-minor as a tonal color effect.
It should also be noted that King uses this mutated key-center as a way of introducing another textural effect of in tape which starts (0:00) as the tenors enter. As they enter the tape begins with a ripple-like effect which obscures both the harmony and the texture of the organ and choir. The choir from there builds antiphonally until it reaches a large homophonic texture moving between open and closed chord positions. This section develops as the choir finally cadences in D-major (dominant of G-major) on the world “LIGHT” (if that isn’t great text-painting I don’t know what is).
The most compelling part of the piece, however, is when it ends and the listener is left with this motif “listen to him” as the choir fades into the tape. This is, perhaps, one of the most compelling effects heard in sacred music, as well as profoundly relevant to liturgical use. After performing this piece for the first time one might be left with the question, “Can you imagine coming to church and hearing this piece performed?” For the congregation it must have been a jaw-dropping experience if not thought-provoking.
Larry King was a master of creating soundscapes for the acoustics of his own church. His knowledge of electronic sound as it blends with acoustic sound production is unparalleled by any other sacred composer and his ideas were way ahead of his time. While King’s effects in this piece are extremely impelling when executed correctly, it may not be possible for every church choir to perform this work. The vocal music written is not particularly difficult, but the textures and timbres may throw-off those who are unexperienced with such styles of composition. However, it is encouraging to see more and more choirs and organist perform his work. In a time where theology does not necessarily represent the actions of those who preach or act as a congregation, it is refreshing to hear new perspectives in music and texts which may have been long neglected, in a medium that is inspiring and compelling.
- Daniel
Fairy Tale, Op. 14, No.1, “Song of Ophelia”; Andantino con moto
Geoffrey Tozer, piano.
Nikolai Karlovich Medtner (1880 - 1951) was a Russian composer who seems now often neglected next to his contemporaries (including his bff, Rachmaninoff). He is not, however, a composer to forget, as his music individually continued the romantic musical traditions into the 20th century. As a distinguish and accomplished pianist, his pianism’s effect on his music is undeniable. He wrote music mostly for piano (including three piano concertos). Among those works not written for piano are three violin sonatas and numerous songs.
One genre for which Medter became a champion is that of the Russian skazka, or “fairy tale”. It became one of the favorite genres among his piano works. The fairy tale genre had appeared in music literature in the first half of the nineteenth century, though no composer dedicated as much time to its musical development as did Medtner. The genre is associated with many artistic traditions, including Russian folk art. Included in the genre are various types of story telling, such as legend or bylina, an epic, narrative type of poetry. These images inspired Russian composers, including Glinka and Rimsky-Korsakov. Medtner established the genre skazka in solo piano music.
Comparatively, fairy tales are akin to other small form genres in musical literature such as preludes and impromptus. One defining characteristic and difference of Medtner’s treatment of these fairy tales as compared to other small form genres is his, sometimes indirect, use of programmatic themes. They are to be categorized as program works, even though there is sometimes no published program. His development of this small form genre is explain by Henrich Neuhaus: “One of Medtner’s favorite piano genres was fairy tale — little musical novellas. This genre is close of novelettes of Schumann and to intermezzos of Brahms, but is quite new and original due to program-poetic content, even though not indicated.”
The sources of imagery of Medtner’s fairy tales are diverse. Of 38 fairy tales, 21 pieces have some set of references, as either indicated through titles or epigraphs. These references reach from images taken from literature or poetry (“Song of Ophelia,” Medtner’s name for Fairy Tale op. 14, no. 1; “King Lear,” Fairy Tale op. 35, no. 4; and “Poor Knight,” Fairy Tale op. 34, no. 4, taken from Pushkin), to images of nature (Fairy Tale op. 34, no. 2, and op. 34, no. 3, which carries the epigraph “Forest spirit (but a kindly, plaintive one)”), and various Russian folk images (op. 51, dedicated to “Cinderella and Ivan,” Fairy Tale op. 42, no. 2, entitled “Russian Tale,” and Fairy Tale op. 48, “Dance Tale”). The themes from Medtner’s fairy tales occassionaly made their way into some of his other works, such as his third piano concerto, inspired by Lermontov’s poem Mermaid, and his Sonata-Märchen, op. 25, no. 2, which carries the epigraph “The entire piece in an epic spirit.”*
—Laura
J. S. Bach - Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008
IV. SarabandeRobby Faverey, cello banjo (built by the performer)
Just beautiful. Both of my cats had to congregate around the computer for this one—a rare occurrence.
In February 1892, Mahler was in the midst of one of his most compositionally dry periods. He had gone eighteen months with very little creative output and had abandoned his usual routine of composing during the summer months at his famous forest cabin(s) (set as his solitary compositions studios). Mahler was immersed in the Vienna Court Opera, where he was serving as music director, when had decided to write again. “I now have the Wunderhorn in my hands. With that self-knowledge which is natural to creators, I can add that once again the result will be worthwhile!” What came out of this was one of Mahler’s most monumental projects Des Knaben Wunderhorn: a collection of epic “Humoresques” for voice and orchestra. With this sudden confidence Mahler composed the fifth song in the set Das himmlische Leben. This song would later go on to be the intended for Third Symphony under the title ‘Was mir das Kind erzählt’ (What the Child Tells Me). After much consideration, Mahler became conscious of this gem that was Das himmlische Leben and decided, instead, to use it for the finale of another symphony. This would later reflect Mahler’s passion for Beethoven and his Ninth Symphony (the choral apotheosis of their respective works).
Mahler started work on Symphony No. 4 at the pinnacle of his post at the Vienna Court Opera, where he had taken up residence and accepted the city as his home. Mahler had envisioned the Symphony to be very different from what was to be the final product. Even during his work on the Third Symphony he had drawn up a synopsis for the Fourth, in which almost every movement had a programatic title:
1. Die Welt als ewige Jetztzeit (The World as Eternal Present), in G major
2. Das irdische Leben (Earthly Life), in E-flat minor
3. Caritas (Adagio), in B major
4. Morgenglocken (Morning Bells), in F major
5. Die Welt ohne Schwere (The World without Gravity), in D major (Scherzo)
6. Das himmlische Leben (Heavenly Life)
As Mahler’s grand plan for his Wundorhorn symphonies was unfolding organically, he had decided to make some fundamental changes. For instance, Morgenglocken became part of the Third Symphony; the Die Welt ohne Schwere or Scherzo in D bares a striking if not identical resemblance to the movement, “Mahler later inserted into the Fifth Symphony” as well as Das irdische Leben which became an independent song later added to the collection of Wunderhorn songs.
When one is exploring the compositional elements used by Mahler to construct the Fourth Symphony, it is helpful to understand the context of the three preceding symphonies, or as Philippe Herreweghe calls it, ‘the tetralogy they form which reflects the spiritual evolution of Mahler in his first period.’ Legendary conductor and great interpreter of Mahler Bruno Walter goes further in describing the context of each symphony outlining Mahler’s “first period”:
“In the First, the music reflects the stormy emotions of a subjective experience. The Second seeks a possible meaning of the tragedy of the human condition. The very clear answer is justification through immortality. In the Third, the composer becomes convinced that the answer lies in that all-powerful love that forms everything and embraces the world. In the Fourth, a joyous dream of happiness and of eternal life promises him, and us also, that we have been saved”
In the context of the previous three symphonies offered my Mahler, the music of the Fourth represents “jubilant ecstasy, over a background of ultimate writhings of existential anguish.” To understand the Fourth Symphony one music fully immerse themselves in the music and writings of Des Knaben Wunderhorn. The freshness, cruelty and irony of the text fall in line with the romantic spirt encapsulated by the writer Jean Paul - a writer that Mahler (like Schumann) celebrated in his music.
Mahler didn’t begin to work on the Symphony until July 1899. The summer had been spent in a small spa in the Salzkammergut of Austria where he suffered a “disastrous vacation.” He found this location to be extremely irritating and detrimental to his work (the villa he had rented was close to a local bandstand). Mahler’s frustration with the location he had decided to choose for a creatively fertile vacation spot, eventually turned out success. Mahler had began reading a tremendous amount as well as taking long walks as he carried his sketchbook, so that no ideas were lost.
The final weeks of his vacation were indeed spent with “feverish activity” as the thoughts of returning to Vienna were surely fueling his fire. Mahler wrote in his journal that he had fallen on one of his walks as the music inside his head led to dizziness and stirring feeling that ‘my music will never see the light of day.’
Mahler’s effect for the final movement is significant in that he is not thinking of how to wrap-up the symphony, but rather, how to end an epic narrative that has lived in all four symphonies. His vision here is philosophical: that his symphonies are a spiritual quest that only become realized in the end of ones journey, represented here as the child-like innocence of song in this fourth movement. Jeremy Barham points out this parallel of Genisis through death in the works of Ernst Bloch:
‘the true Genesis is not at the beginning, but at the end … Once the [creative human] has grasped himself and that which is his … so there will arise in the world something that shines into everyone’s childhood, but where no one has yet been: Heimat (home)’.
- Daniel
