Twentieth Century

Remembering Helmuth Rilling

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Helmuth Rilling, an acclaimed German choral conductor and influential interpreter of Bach, passed away last Wednesday, February 11. He was 92. Rilling founded numerous ensembles including the Gächinger Kantorei (1954), the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart (1965), the Oregon Bach Festival (1970), and the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart (1981). He served as professor of choral conducting at the Frankfurt Musikhochschule from 1965 to 1989 and led the Frankfurter Kantorei from 1969 to 1982. “Music has to …

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Debussy’s “Hommage á Rameau”: A Dreamy Remembrance of the Baroque Sarabande

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For Claude Debussy, the ghost of French Baroque composer Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–1764) loomed large. An innovative composer of opera and harpsichord music, Rameau’s influential 1722 Treatise on Harmony earned him the nickname, the “Isaac Newton of Music.” In 1903, Rameau’s 1737 opera, Castor et Pollux, was performed in Paris. Debussy, in the audience, was heard to exclaim, “Long live Rameau, and down with Gluck!” Hommage à Rameau is the second piece in Book …

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Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 2, “Company”: Brooklyn Rider

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In Samuel Beckett’s 1979 novella, Company, a man lies on his back in the dark and listens to a Voice. According to Thomas J. Taylor, The central narrative revolves around the complex relationship between the voice, the listener, and the elusive “another,” highlighting the ambiguity of identity and presence. As the anecdotes unfold, they reveal a deeper commentary on the nature of existence and the inevitability of loneliness, suggesting that while memories and …

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Sibelius’ “The Origin of Fire”: A Cantata Based on Finnish Mythology

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The Kalevala, the national epic poem of Finland, contains a myth with overtones of Prometheus. Ukko, the life-sustaining god of thunder, weather, and fertile fields, recreates fire after Louhi, the goddess of death and disease, steals it, along with the sun and moon. The story is the subject of Jean Sibelius’ 1902 cantata, The Origin of Fire (“Tulen synty”), Op. 32, scored for baritone, male chorus, and orchestra. The work was written for the opening …

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Bartók’s Violin Sonata No. 1: Ancient Folk Influences and Strange New Sounds

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Describing Béla Bartók’s Violin Sonata No. 1, Sz. 75, violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja notes The power in the first movement, the loneliness of the violin melody and the states of panic in the second; the almost grotesquely joyful and folk-like character of the third — it’s a special joy if you can play it with pleasure and without stress, without worrying about all its terrifying difficulties. It’s technically extremely difficult, with all the …

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Martinů’s Three Madrigals for Violin and Viola: Bohemian Renaissance

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Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) was born in the tower of St. Jakub Church in the small Bohemian town of Polička. He was a notoriously bad student at the Prague Conservatory, where he studied violin but was more interested in composing. Briefly, he was a member of the second violin section of the Czech Philharmonic. In 1923, he moved to Paris, where he studied with Albert Roussel and began to compose extensively. Following the …

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Vaughan Williams’ “Household Music” (Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes): Music for the Waiting Hours of War

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The Blitz, a bombing campaign conducted by the Nazi German Luftwaffe against the United Kingdom, began in September of 1940 and lasted eight months. Its climax brought a firestorm which became known as the Second Great Fire of London. It was during this dark period, when professional concerts were in limited supply, that Ralph Vaughan Williams suggested that composers write music for “combinations of all manner of instruments which might be played …

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