Twentieth Century

David Diamond’s Music for Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”: Atmospheric Vignettes

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The music of American composer David Diamond (1915-2005) is distinct and recognizable. Built on tonal and modal harmony and wide open voicing, often it develops through fleeting motivic fragments which combine to form a landscape as expansive and majestic as the American frontier. Although a longtime member of the faculty of the Juilliard School, Diamond was a maverick who was out of step with prevailing musical trends. In 1949, when he approached …

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Ives’ “The Gong on the Hook and Ladder” (“Firemen’s Parade on Main Street”): An Experiment in Rhythm

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Born in Danbury, Connecticut in 1874, Charles Ives conceived of a brash, previously unimaginable kind of 20th century music. He experimented with collages of sound and rhythm in brief chamber music fragments which he called “sets” or “cartoons.” One such experimental work is The Gong on the Hook and Ladder, or Firemen’s Parade on Main Street. The music originated as a section of Ives’ Pre-Second String Quartet, composed between 1904 and 1906 and …

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Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto: A Musical Affirmation

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For three years, following the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony, Sergei Rachmaninov was unable to compose. “I believed I had opened up entirely new paths,” Rachmaninov later recalled. At the work’s premiere in St. Petersburg on March 28, 1897, the 23-year-old composer hid in a backstage fire escape with his ears plugged as a possibly drunk Alexander Glazunov led the underrehearsed orchestra through a passionless reading. The audience reacted with catcalls, …

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Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time: Visions of Eternity

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One of the 20th century’s most mystical and transcendent works was created in a frigid, overcrowded German prisoner-of-war camp during the gloomy second winter of World War II. It was not his captivity, nor premonitions of a coming fiery apocalypse that inspired Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) to compose the provocatively titled Quartet for the End of Time (“Quatuor pour la fin du temps”), but serene spiritual visions of the “eternity of space and …

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Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 9 in E-flat Major: A Poignant Musical Diary

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Musicologist Kai Christensen describes Dmitri Shostakovich’s fifteen string quartets as “a personal diary of poignant reactions, reflection, and dark visions.” Nowhere is this more apparent than in the middle quartets. Shostakovich dedicated his Seventh Quartet to the memory of his first wife, Nina, who died in December of 1954 at the age of 46. Outwardly, the iconic and emotionally raw Eighth String Quartet was “dedicated to victims of war and fascism.” Privately, …

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Bartók’s Études, Op 18: Daring Technical Exercises for Solo Piano

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Béla Bartók’s three Études, Op 18 for solo piano are daring, both technically and musically. Composed in 1918, they were intended to push the limits as pedagogical studies. The influence of Chopin, Debussy (whose piano Études were written three years earlier), and Schoenberg is evident. The three brief Études follow the traditional fast-slow-fast format. The first unleashes an exhilarating, demonic motor, punctuated with the accents of Hungarian folk music and language. In …

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Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4: Fearful Symmetry

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The greatest music requires deep, active listening. You can’t just put it on in the background and allow it to waft over you as you go about other tasks. It demands undivided attention. Initially, it may seem wildly incomprehensible. Its meaningfulness may be revealed gradually over the course of repeated listenings. Béla Bartók’s String Quartet No. 4, composed in Budapest during the summer of 1928, is one of those mysterious and monumental …

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