Per Nørgård, who was widely regarded as the most prominent Danish composer since Nielsen, passed away last Wednesday, May 28 in Copenhagen. He was 92. Nørgård left behind a catalogue of music which includes eight symphonies, six operas, and numerous chamber and concertante works. He said that his music resides within “the universe of the Nordic mind.” In his youth, he corresponded with Jean Sibelius. Beginning in the 1960s, Nørgård developed a …
Unlike the traditional “theme and variations,” Aaron Copland’s Piano Variations do not unfold as a frolicking and far-reaching episodic journey. Instead, they are unrelenting, declamatory, and haunting. The seven-note theme, equally reminiscent of Arnold Schoenberg’s tone rows and Bach’s C-sharp minor Fugue from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 849), permeates the entire work in a way which makes it feel severely organic. While Beethoven and Schubert improvised variations on a theme as a …
In 1917, Charles Ives composed a series of songs in response to the entrance of the United States, that year, into the First World War. The final song, Tom Sails Away, involves a dreamy childhood memory, experienced as a vivid hallucination. The text, written by Ives, begins with images of a springtime sunset over a New England mill town. The hustle and bustle of the day has faded. The final haunting moments …
In 1962, following the success of Bye Bye Birdie, composer Charles Strouse and lyricist Lee Adams teamed up with book writer Mel Brooks (largely unknown at the time) to create a new Broadway musical called All American. The show, which starred Ray Bolger, closed after 80 performances, and quickly faded from memory. But one song endured and became a standard, performed by the likes of Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Tony Bennett, and …
Warmth, sincerity, and nobility are words which have been used to describe the artistry of the Soviet Russian violinist, David Oistrakh (1908-1974). My teacher, Oleh Krysa, who was a student of Oistrakh, commented that “In his playing there had never been any pointedness of expression or surgery sentimentalism, there had never been a trace of affectation aimed at winning over the public.” (The Way They Play, Book 14) Instead, Krysa found that …
Charles Strouse, the American composer of such Broadway musicals as Bye Bye Birdie (1960), Applause (1970), and Annie (1977), passed away last Thursday, May 15, at his home in Manhattan. He was 96. A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Strouse studied composition with Arthur Berger, David Diamond, Aaron Copland, and Nadia Boulanger. It was Boulanger who urged Strouse to cultivate his talent as a composer for the musical theater. At …
Sergei Prokofiev’s Waltz Suite, Op. 110 for orchestra is a magical musical potpourri. Composed and compiled in 1946 in the wake of the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War, it is a collection of six waltz excerpts from three of Prokofiev’s dramatic works. At times, the music is hauntingly atmospheric. It is filled with quirky, sardonic harmonic turns, dreamy tonal colors, and the graceful airborne motion inherent …