Barber’s “Excursions”: A Celebration of American Musical Vernacular

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Completed in 1944, Excursions, Op. 20 was Samuel Barber’s first published work for solo piano. Using traditional compositional forms such as the rondo and theme and variations, its four brief movements venture deep into American musical vernacular. Barber referred to the collection as “nothing but bagatelles.” He wrote, These are ‘Excursions’ in small classical forms into regional American idioms. Their rhythmic characteristics, as well as their source in folk material and their …

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Aulis Sallinen’s “Winter Was Hard”: Ode to a Bleak Finnish Landscape

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Humor, stoicism, and Scandinavian winter gloom emerge in the brief song, Winter Was Hard, Op. 20 (Vintern var Hård) by Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935). Composed in 1969, the song became the title track of a 1988 album by the Kronos Quartet. Their version, featuring the San Francisco Girls Chorus, includes a pump organ: Here is another version featuring the Tapiola Choir: A translation of the text: There wasn’t much for the ducks. …

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Arvo Pärt’s “Fratres”: Activity and Stasis

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Fratres, meaning “brothers” in Latin, has been described as “a mesmerizing set of variations on a six-bar theme combining frantic activity and sublime stillness.” Composed in 1977 by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935), Fratres is set in three parts, without fixed instrumentation. With the serene timelessness of medieval organum, a chant-like melody floats over a drone made up of the pitches A and E. A percussive motif recurs between chord sequences. The structure …

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Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten: Sound and Silence

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“How we live depends on our relationship with death: how we make music depends on our relationship to silence,” writes Paul Hillier in his biography of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935). Sound and silence meet in Pärt’s Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, scored for string orchestra and a single bell, sounding on the pitch of A. Composed in 1977, the work employs Pärt’s tintinnabulation style, rooted in Gregorian chant. It is …

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Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat Major: Music Born of Friendship

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In his catalogue, Mozart referred to the Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat Major, K. 495 as “a hunting horn concerto for Leutgeb.” (“Ein Waldhorn Konzert für den Leutgeb”). Joseph Leutgeb (1732-1811) was Austria’s preeminent horn player. While employed as a court musician in Salzburg, he had known Mozart as a child. Later in Vienna, the two became close friends. Composed in 1786, the Concerto is filled with warmth and good humor. …

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Bernstein on Schumann: An Analysis of the Second Symphony

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Through the years, conductors have tampered with the works of Robert Schumann, occasionally doubling instruments. Schumann’s works can be taxing for the orchestra, and some commentators cite weaknesses in the orchestration. In a 1953 analysis of Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61, Leonard Bernstein shatters this myth. He suggests that Schumann’s orchestration is, in fact, innovative. For example, there is the magical introduction in which the strings (traditionally at …

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Gabriella Smith’s “Maré”: yMusic

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“Maré” translates as “tide” in Portuguese. It is the title of a brief chamber work by American composer Gabriella Smith (b. 1991). Scored for flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, viola, and cello, it was written in 2017 for the New York-based sextet chamber ensemble, yMusic. It is included on the group’s fourth album, Ecstatic Science. Smith explains, I wrote it on an island in Brazil when I was staying at an artists’ colony. …

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