Twentieth Century

Old and Lost Rivers: A Soundscape of Texas Bayou Country

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The marshy topography of the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast is dotted with bayous- meandering, slow-moving streams which can suddenly spring to life and transform into raging torrents. This dynamic process was on display over the weekend amid the catastrophic flooding in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. As we keep our friends in Houston in our thoughts, let’s listen to a piece which was inspired by this unique Texas topography. American composer Tobias …

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Happy Birthday, William Primrose

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Today marks the anniversary of the birth of the Scottish violist and teacher, William Primrose (1904-1982). Primrose performed in Arturo Toscanini’s NBC Symphony in the late 1930s and formed the Primrose Quartet. He made numerous recordings with Jascha Heifetz, Gregor Piatigorsky, and Arthur Rubinstein. He commissioned and premiered Béla Bartók’s Viola Concerto, a piece which was finished posthumously after the composer’s death in 1945. As a teacher, he contributed several books on viola playing. Primrose’s singing tone …

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Michael Gordon: Trance No. 4

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On Wednesday, we considered the way three minimalist works bend, stretch, and augment our perception of speed and time. Now, let’s listen to one more gradually unfolding piece of musical minimalism- an excerpt from American composer Michael Gordon’s 1995 Trance.  A single melodic line, played by a number of antiphonal voices, begins to break into twos and threes giving us a sense of sonic “blur.” I love the brash, defiant rock-inspired soundscape of …

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Festina Lente: Three Pieces Which Alter Our Perception of Speed and Time

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“Festina lente” is a classical adage which translates as, “Make haste slowly.” Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935) chose this contradictory proverb as the title of a hauntingly mystical 1988 composition for strings and harp. Pärt’s Festina Lente has been described as a musical hologram in which the whole is contained in each part. The piece is made up of a single melodic line which is heard at varying rates of speed. Long, sustained tones in the basses …

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Berg’s “Wozzeck”: Hans Graf and the Houston Symphony

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It’s considered, by some, to be the greatest opera of the twentieth century. Alban Berg’s expressionist tragedy, Wozzeck, inhabits a darkly surreal world of alienation, dispossession, and mental and emotional breakdown. Written between 1914 and 1922, it’s based on a play by the German dramatist, Georg Büchner (1813-1837) -a work left incomplete at the time of Büchner’s death at the age of 23. Berg assembled the libretto from fifteen of Büchner’s scenes, retaining “the essential character of the …

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Discarded (and Salvaged) Ives

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Charles Ives’ Largo for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano is the result of an interesting compositional evolution. It began life as the second movement of a violin sonata Ives wrote as a student, but it was later discarded and replaced with a different slow movement based on The Old Oaken Bucket. In 1902, this music was salvaged and transformed, perhaps as part of a now lost trio. The irregular opening piano ostinato lulls us into a …

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Happy Birthday, Serge Koussevitzky

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Today marks the 143rd anniversary of the birth of the legendary conductor, composer, and double-bassist, Serge Koussevitzky (1874-1951). Born in Russia into a Jewish family of professional musicians, Koussevitzky was music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1924 to 1949. During his unusually long twenty-five year tenure, the Boston Symphony established a reputation as one of the world’s greatest orchestras. In 1937, Koussevitzky was instrumental in developing the Tanglewood Music Center, the …

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