August 27, 2015.Bruckner, Cage and many more.Several great – or at least interesting – composers were born this week: Johann Pachelbel, Pietro Locatelli, Anton Bruckner, Darius Milhaud, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Amy Beach and John Cage.Anton Bruckner, who was born on September 4th, 1824, clearly belongs to the former category, and even though we’ve wrotten about him extensively before, we cannot neglect his anniversary.This time we’ll present his Symphony no. 4 in its entirety (when we wrote about Bruckner three years ago, we played just the third movement, Scherzo).Bruckner created many versions of this symphony: he wrote the first version in 1874, then in 1878, after completing the Fifth symphony, he returned to the Fourth, revised the first two movements and completely rewrote the finale.He continued tinkering with it for several more years, and then significantly revised it again in 1887.One year later he made more changes – altogether there are seven versions, of which three are considered “principal.”We’ll hear the second of these.Claudio Abbado leads the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.
Bruckner, while a composer of genius, was sometimes verbose and repetitive.It’s difficult to imagine somebody more different than our next composer, John Cage, who is famous (or infamous, in the eyes of some) for his 4’33’’, which is “performed” without a note being played.(It’s often assumed that the point of this piece is four minutes and 33 seconds of silence; Cage was actually interested in the ambient sounds of the concert hall).John Cage was born on September 5th of 1912 in Los Angeles.He studied composition with Henry Cowell and later, in 1934, with Arnold Schoenberg.During the following 15 years he composed mostly in the 12-tone mode, writing music for different percussion ensembles (much of it in collaboration with his friend, the choreographer Merce Cunningham) and, eventually, the prepared piano (the piano is “prepared” by placing different objects between the strings, thus changing its sound).In 1949 he traveled to Europe and met Olivier Messiaen and the young Pierre Boulez who became a good friend.Six Melodies for violin and electronic piano (here) written in 1950 are from the end of that period.In the early 1950s, Cage, together with Morton Feldman, embarked on a completely new path: they introduced chance, or randomness, into the process of composing.Cage first employed it in the Concerto for Prepared Piano and orchestra: he created a set of sonorities for both the piano and the orchestra, but the sequencing of these sets were completely random and up to the musicians.To support the chance technique, Cage had to come up with his own notational principles.Some of them involved transparencies that could be mixed and matched to create the final score.The majority of the public was not convinced, and even some of the modernist composers, such as Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen heavily criticized this approach.Iannis Xenakis called it an abuse of (musical) language and an abrogation of the composer's function.Nonetheless, Cage’s influence, and even fame, were spreading, both in the US and even more so in Europe.His work with the popular Cunningham Dance Company helped in this respect.Cage continued his chance-based composition using more and more unusual instruments: one of them directed performers to mount and play 88 tape loops on several tape recorders.Cage is probably an acquired taste, but he was very influential as a composer who altered our approach to sound and modern definition of music itself.Cage continued to compose and experiment almost to the end of his life.He died in New York on August 12th of 1992.
And now as a respite from Cages’ musical experiments, something much more conventional: music by Pietro Locatelli, who was born on September 3rd of 1695 in Bergamo.An Italian Baroque composer and violinist, he wrote a number of very pleasing, if not necessarily revolutionary, compositions.Here’s one of them, his Violin Concerto in C minor op. 3.Luca Fanfoni is the soloist with the Reale Concerto.
Bruckner, Cage 2015
August 27, 2015. Bruckner, Cage and many more. Several great – or at least interesting – composers were born this week: Johann Pachelbel, Pietro Locatelli, Anton Bruckner, Darius Milhaud, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Amy Beach and John Cage. Anton Bruckner, who was born on September 4th, 1824, clearly belongs to the former category, and even though we’ve wrotten about him extensively before, we cannot neglect his anniversary. This time we’ll present his Symphony no. 4 in its entirety (when we wrote about Bruckner three years ago, we played just the third movement, Scherzo). Bruckner created many versions of this symphony: he wrote the first version in 1874, then in 1878, after completing the Fifth symphony, he returned to the Fourth, revised the first two movements and completely rewrote the finale. He continued tinkering with it for several more years, and then significantly revised it again in 1887. One year later he made more changes – altogether there are seven versions, of which three are considered “principal.” We’ll hear the second of these. Claudio Abbado leads the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.
And now as a respite from Cages’ musical experiments, something much more conventional: music by Pietro Locatelli, who was born on September 3rd of 1695 in Bergamo. An Italian Baroque composer and violinist, he wrote a number of very pleasing, if not necessarily revolutionary, compositions. Here’s one of them, his Violin Concerto in C minor op. 3. Luca Fanfoni is the soloist with the Reale Concerto.