Twentieth Century

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

by

“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 …

Read more

Remembering Helmuth Rilling

by

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 …

Read more

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

by

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 …

Read more

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

by

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 …

Read more

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

by

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 …

Read more

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

by

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 …

Read more

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

by

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 …

Read more