Twentieth Century

Prokofiev’s Sixth Symphony: Shadowy and Austere

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If the popular Stalin Prize-winning Fifth Symphony of Sergei Prokofiev, composed in 1944, delivers triumph, heroism and emotional catharsis, the Sixth, by comparison, is shadowy, austere, and enigmatic. It reveals itself fully after repeated attentive listenings. Arriving at the height of post-war Soviet Stalinism, Symphony No. 6 in E-flat minor, Op. 111 was initially well received when Evgeny Mravinsky led its premiere in Leningrad on October 11, 1947. A month later, when …

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William Walton’s “Portsmouth Point” Overture: Thrillingly Chaotic

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Portsmouth Point, an 1814 etching by the satirist Thomas Rowlandson, depicts a bustling and bawdy port scene on England’s southern Hampshire coast. The thrillingly chaotic scene inspired William Walton, in 1925, to compose an exuberant overture of the same title. The opening bars came to Walton as he rode through lively London streets atop a double decker bus. Led by Volkmar Andreae, the premiere took place in June of 1926 in Zurich …

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George Butterworth’s “The Banks of Green Willow”: A Musical Illustration

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It is hard to read the biography of English composer George Butterworth without imagining what might have been. A close friend of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Butterworth traveled England’s “green and pleasant land,” collecting more than 450 folk songs. Butterworth’s music was influenced by these songs, and by the land itself. Butterworth signed up for military service enthusiastically at the outbreak of the First World War. Before leaving home, he took inventory of …

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Remembering Sofia Gubaidulina

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The renowned Russian composer, Sofia Gubaidulina, passed away yesterday at her home near Hamburg, Germany. She was 93. Born in the rural Tatar region of the Soviet Union, Gubaidulina graduated from the Kazan Conservatory in 1954. Soviet authorities conducted raids in the school’s dormitories, in search of Western contemporary music scores, which were banned at the time. Gubaidulina later recalled, “We knew Ives, Cage, we actually knew everything on the sly.” While …

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Judith Weir’s “Heroic Strokes of the Bow”: Music Inspired by Art

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English composer Judith Weir’s Heroic Strokes of the Bow (“Heroische Bogenstriche”) was inspired by a work of twentieth century art. The Swiss-born artist Paul Klee’s 1938 work of the same title, currently displayed at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, is a blue and black painting on pink newspaper. “Said to be a tribute to the famous violinist Adolph Busch, whom Klee knew personally, it seems to show a simple pattern of violin …

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Vaughan Williams’ “The Lark Ascending”: A Communion with Nature

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Begun in 1914 on the eve of the First World War and completed in 1920, Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending is a shimmering, impressionistic ode to the serene English countryside. Gently rising ever higher, the solo violin depicts the courting flight of the skylark, which glides over the green hedgerow-stitched landscape during spring and early summer. Wordsworth described the bird as the “ethereal minstrel.” Filled with a sense of nostalgia and lament, …

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Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini: Virtuosity with a Twinkle in the Eye

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As a musical form, the “theme and variations” is pure fun. For the composer and performer, it can represent the ultimate display of cleverness—as if to say, “listen to what I can do!” We can imagine Mozart, Beethoven, or Schubert showing off at a party with a series of increasingly intricate keyboard variations on a given theme. Sergei Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 is filled with this kind …

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