Chapter 29: National Monuments I. Introduction A. Modernism Existed

Chapter 29: National Monuments I. Introduction A. Modernism existed in places other than Austro-Germany or France. B. After the defeat of Germany in 1918, music became increasingly international in Europe and the United States. II. Outskirts of Western Europe A. Sibelius 1. Sibelius was one of the earliest of these composers to become famous internationally. 2. His life established a pattern that many subsequent composers followed: traditional music training abroad, study with Modernist composers, interest in his own national traditions, fame at home that resulted in an international reputation. 3. From Finland and speaking Swedish (because of Swedish domination of Finnish culture and politics), Sibelius studied with Busoni in Helsinki. 4. He then studied in Berlin and Vienna. 5. Wagner was an early influence, later Strauss and Debussy. 6. Sibelius’ native interest followed similar strains in music by Tchaikovsky and Grieg. 7. He used Finnish native literature, such as epic poetry (see his Kalevala), in his music. 8. Sibelius’ most famous tone poem was Finlandia (1900). a. It aided in Finland’s struggle for independence from Russia. b. It became an unofficial national anthem. 9. His symphonies and Violin Concerto owe some debt to Tchaikovsky. 10. Sibelius wrote less and less as he got older, even though he became something of a national monument (his birthday is a national holiday). He came to be seen as the embodiment of “The North.” B. England 1. Since the eighteenth century, England’s musical life was dominated by imported composers. This changed in the late nineteenth century. 2. Elgar was the most prominent English composer at the turn of the century. 3. The famous conductor Hans Richter promoted Elgar’s music. 4. The most prominent composer of the next generation was Ralph Vaughan Williams. a. He studied at Cambridge with Charles Villiers Stanford and Hubert Parry. b. He then went to Berlin, where he studied with Max Bruch. c. Vaughan Williams also studied with Ravel (who was three years younger than he was). 5. Vaughan Williams frequently used English folk songs and early music (Tudor). a. He collected over 800 folk songs, which he acknowledged as the “common stem” of English music. b. These became the sources for many of his pieces. 6. His Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis exemplifies his use of early music. a. Based on a work by the sixteenth-century English composer, the tune was in a hymnal that Vaughan Williams encountered in 1906. b. The scoring reflects both the liturgical set-up of the English choir (responsive) and the English tradition of the viol consort (from the seventeenth century). 7. His first two symphonies contain aspects of sounds from English landscapes. a. The first incorporates voices and folks songs. b. The second, London, includes sounds to mimic such things as Big Ben and street cries. 8. Vaughan Williams thought it important to cultivate a national style. C. Spain 1. Spain’s musical heritage stretches back centuries. 2. Falla met leading figures in Paris in 1907. 3. He did not quote directly from folk songs but chose to combine indigenous folk material with international compositional techniques. III. Eastern Europe A. Folk and Modernist Synthesis: Béla Bartòk 1. Bartòk was one of the first ethnomusicologists. 2. His early works are influenced by German music. 3. He soon turned to his native Hungary for inspiration and study of folk music. 4. With Kodály, Bartòk sought to find “real” Hungarian music, not the typical “Gypsy music” heard in cafes and the like. 5. The two transcribed peasant songs and published them in 1906. 6. Bartòk said that this act “liberated” him from having to use only major or minor keys. 7. He sought to transplant the new with the old, adding life to the new with the old. B. Folk Ways 1. Bartòk developed theories about the relationship between “peasant” and “modern” music, which he published in Budapest. 2. Of the three ways detailed in the text, Bartòk’s third way relates to some of the others we have studied. a. Adopt characteristics of folk music without copying it. 3. Bartòk did not stick to Hungarian music but broadened his interests to include a larger geographical area that included Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovakia. He even extended into Turkey and North Africa. 4. Bartòk felt that Modern music needed a foundation in “nature.” a. This idea set him apart from some of his contemporaries. b. He wrote pedagogical works. 5. An early example of how Bartòk incorporated folk elements into his Modern music is the fourteen Bagatelles for piano, Op. 6. a. These reflect the ideas in his published essay mentioned previously. 6. The Dance Suite does not use folk songs but references folk elements, bringing several different nations together in the final dance. 7. His six quartets show how Bartòk used traditional, established genres and imbued them with his own aesthetics of folklore, newness, and advancement. C. Szymanowski and Enescu 1. Small Central and Eastern European countries experienced oppressive control from stronger outside forces. 2. The pre-eminent early Modernist composer from Poland was Szymanowski, who also featured elements of his native land in his music. 3. Born in the Ukraine, Szymanowski studied in Warsaw, Berlin, and Vienna. He also developed interests in Asian music, Impressionism, and Russian music (in different guises). 4. Enescu was the prominent Romanian composer of the early twentieth century. 5. He too studied in Vienna (noticed by Brahms) and Paris (Fauré and Massanet). D. The Oldest Modernist: Leoš Janáček 1. A Czech composer (born in Moravia), Janáček came into his own as a composer late. 2. He was initially seen as a provincial composer. 3. The work that brought him international fame was Jenůfa, a “Czech verismo shocker.” a. Composed between 1895 and 1903, it premiered in 1904 in Brno. b. The opera was not well known until 1916 when it was given successful performances in Prague. c. The opera eventually was performed in Vienna and New York (at the Met). 4. The success of Jenůfa when he was sixty-two caused Janáček to compose many more works, including several operas. 5. Janáček felt that music should be stylistically accessible to the people from whom it draws its themes. E. Speech-Tunelets 1. Janáček felt that music should also reflect speech patterns. 2. In the 1890s he began writing down “speech-tunelets,” known in English as “speech melodies.” 3. These followed melodic curves and rhythms of speech. a. Janáček saw them as reflecting a person’s soul. 4. Janáček sought to capture the rhythmic style of the Czech language in his music. a. This aspect of his music can be detected even in music without text. F. Scriabin: From Expression to Revelation 1. Maximalism in Russia reached its height with Scriabin. 2. He traveled extensively in Western Europe and the United States, and showed no interest in Russian folk music. 3. Scriabin was involved in “mystical symbolist” groups and avant-garde theology, and he joined the theosophy movement. a. Theosophy seeks to bring together Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. 4. For theosophists, art was a medium of Gnostic revelation. They saw Scriabin as a prophet. a. He consciously changed his style to fit the ideals of theosophy. 5. Scriabin’s early music is mostly for piano—not surprising, as he was a child prodigy. a. His piano pieces move (chronologically) from Chopinesque preludes to single- movement sonatas based on octatonic and whole-tone scales. b. He eventually quit using key signatures. c. The late preludes demonstrate a bond with Symbolism, a particular Russian- hued Symbolism that is characterized by maximalized religious ecstasy. 6. Scriabin’s music moved from mystical (sometimes sublime) to revelatory. 7. His symphonies show a penchant for maximalism in the same vein as Strauss and Mahler. a. His Le poème de l’extase is his most famous work (Symphony No. 4). b. The Fifth Symphony, Prométhée, le poème du feu, opens with the famous “Prometheus chord” or “mystic chord,” which Scriabin called “the chord of pleroma.” (“Plenitude” or all encompassing of the physical universe) 1) This chord was supposed to reveal what was beyond the mind’s capacity to envision. 2) It represents a hidden otherness. 8. Scriabin moved away from the diatonic scale (which represents the known human world), although the circle of fifths and other remnants of tonality remain in some ways. 9. Vers la flamme (1914) is a late work that depicts Scriabin’s juxtaposition of harmony with visionary aspirations. a. The composition moves from dark, quiet to loud, bright through very slow- moving harmonic progressions. b. It incorporates whole-tone and octatonic scales, as well as parallelism and other familiar devices. c. The conclusion is marked by a completion of a pattern, not a dominant-tonic defined conclusion. G. Mysterium and the Ultimate Aggregate Harmonies 1. Toward the end of his life, Scriabin was working on a piece he called Mysterium, which he felt would be his ultimate statement. 2. He wrote a text for it that summed up theosophist doctrine. 3. He came to envision the work as something that would last for seven days and bring the participants to a state of enlightenment transcending humanly time and space. Ultimately it would end human history. a. Scriabin realized that, as a human, he could not bring off such a piece/experience. 4. The sketches that exist for the work that substituted for Mysterium, Acte préalable show where Scriabin was headed harmonically. a. They contain a series of aggregate harmonies: “ultimate” chords that contain all twelve pitches. (By including all pitches, they represent the entire universe.) b.

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