Music: Tracks 8-12 (pgs 65-83)

1
Music Tracks 8-12 (pgs 65-83)

• By ShaDe Phoenix

2
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky-the first Russian
composer to gain a large amount of popularity
outside of Russian

• Criticized for producing cosmopolitan music
  rather than Russian
• -It was even stated that he should not be
  regarded as a Russian composer at all, but rather
  as a composer of the German School
• -Tchaikovsky was insulted feeling that he was a
  Russian composer and should not need to conform
  to Russianness in order to prove that he was.
• Admired Balakirev and adopted some of his
  techniques

3

• Romeo and Juliet, the first major success of
  Tchaikovsky entails some signs of Balakirevs
  ideas
• -ex the main keys are B minor and D flat
  (because they are Balakirevs favorites
• - They lie very far from each other in the
  circle of 5th resulting in this song having an
  abrupt shift (a bold stroke that Balakirev
  admired)

4

• Tchaikovsky managed to portray human emotions
  with large emphasis resulting in listeners
  feeling as though they are witnessing the story
  of a human (psychorealism)
• - an evident characteristic in his symphonies
  4,5,6 (which lack names)

5
Track 8

• Title Sixth Symphony, Beginning of the Finale
• -Tchaikovskys final symphony
• -Begins descending violins and ends as if to
  question what was happening in the symphony
• -when the song reaches its climax the symphony
  turns to descend back into the original soft
  melody

6

• Tchaikovsky is best known as a symphonist
  however, he also composed 10 operas and 3 ballets
  
• His opera Eugene Onegin is his most famous and
  one of few Russian operas to be preformed
  internationally
• -A love story

7
Sergei Rachmaninoff

• A composer, virtuoso pianist, and a conductor
• For his most popular piece, Second Piano
  Concerto, Beginning he conducted and played the
  piano

8
Track 9

• Title Second Piano Concerto, Beginning
• -introduced by a piano solo playing a series of
  chords (each more tense then the first)
• -the melody moves stepwise, often doubling back
  on itself (a common characteristic of the
  melodies of Rachmaninoff)
• - the rhythm is march-like until the piano takes
  over and it becomes lyrical building to a climax
  (similar to pieces of Tchaikovsky)

9
Sergei Diaghilev

• Organized series of concerts in Paris featuring
  Russianness music as part of his (Russian Seasons
  later Russian Ballets)
• -The success of his concerts led to his
  production Boris Godunov in 1908
• Among Boris Sergei Diaghilev also staged Prince
  Igor, Scheherazade, and The Golden Cockerel
• -all of these pieces went on to become the
  best-known Russian pieces in the world
• In 1910 he presented his first specially
  commissioned ballet The Firebird by Igor
  Stravinsky

10
Boris Godunov

• The leading role was performed by Fyodor
  Chaliapin
• -he was a powerful actor who caused the audience
  to feel the same way he felt when he would
  perform
• Still one of the best Russian operas

11
Russian influence on the French

• French composers valued the Russian style for its
  originality and non-Germanic influence
• -The same qualities the Handful valued
• French critics heard Tchaikovskys music as
  Germanic so, they didnt value his work as much
  as they valued the work of Handful composers
• French composers Debussy and Ravel (inspired by
  the Handful) used Russian ideals to produce
  non-Germanic nationalistic music

12
The Silver Age

• The age of private sponsorship and new aesthetic
  trends, such as symbolism (1880-1920)
• Business people had more say in the development
  of high arts

13
Savva Mamontov

• A wealthy railway owner who loved music and
  painting
• Founded a private opera troupe in 1885
• -showed off the legendary Feodor Chaliapin
• -had Rachmaninoff as a conductor

14
Mitrofan Belyayev

• Another private sponsor of the arts
• Owned several wood-processing plants
• An amateur violist
• His passion was string quartets

15
Symbolism

• A trend that originated in France by the poets
  Stephane Mallarme, Charles Baudelaire, Guillaume
  Apollinaire and in the plays of Maurice
  Maeterlinck
• The idea that art and life were one in the same
• -avoided concrete images replacing them with
  ellipsis and ambiguity

16
Alexander Scriabin

• A symbolist
• His early works showed signs of influences by
  Frederic Chopin (his inspiration at the time)
• He focused on tension not resolution in his music
  pieces
• His intended audience were other people who were
  interested in symbolism

17

• He became a follower of Madame Blavatsky (founder
  of Theosophical Society)
• -a movement geared towards universal
  brotherhood, discovering the mysteries of nature,
  and realizing human potential
• His symphonic works include The Divine Poem, The
  Poem of Ecstasy, and Prometheus The Poem of Fire
  
• - as if he was trying to transform the ideals of
  the Theosophical society into music

18

• Scriabin was famous for his synesthesia
• -different chords brought different colors to
  his mind
• - he tried use that ability with performance of
  Prometheus but lacked the technical means in his
  time period
• He died from an acute infection in 1915 before he
  completed the Preparatory Act
• -Scriabins music often has some hint to future
  violence against the earth or purifying the earth
  via fire
• - 5 years after his death symbolism faded away

19
Track 10

• Title Prometheus The Poem of Fire
• 25 minutes long, stating short melodic fragments
  and repeating them in a rising or falling
  sequence
• -At the beginning of an abstract a woodwind ends
  on a trill
• -then a solo trumpet sets up a fanfare
  introducing the orchestra
• -the solo violin followed by the piano is
  symbolic of the fire Prometheus takes from the
  gods to share with the humans

20
Igor Stravinsky

• A private student of Rimsky-Korsakov
• He took up the changing-background variation
  principle, happy to repeat of delete fragments
  of his melody
• He went out of his way to use songs that were
  commonly sung by drunks
• The comical and grotesque elements of his music
  started grotesque elements being common in modern
  music

21
Track 11

• Title Petrushka The Shrove-tide Fair (scene 1)
• Stravinsky didnt want Petrushka to be
  representative of the ideals of the Handful
• The same melody is cast in 2 different meters 7/8
  and ¾ (for the basses)
• The music is interrupted by a tritone, to make
  way for a speech (in the actual play)
• The barrel-organ serves as a foreshadow
  (accompanied with a player and dancer, in the
  play)
• The song is once again interrupted by the cries
  of the carnival baker (Balagannyi ded) who made
  the speech

22
Arseny Avraamov

• There are no scores or recordings of his work
• His Symphony is said to be the soviet equivalent
  of Scriabins Mysterium
• - Arseny put on a successful performance of
  Symphony in 1922
• -it was democratic/collective because it was
  open to everyones participation
• -and, it was urbanist because it relied on
  machines (celebrating an industrialized future
  that would bring prosperity)

23
Alexander Mosolov

• A provocative modernist
• He used the absence of tone for both
  expressionism and industrial music

24
Track 12

• Title The Iron Foundry (Zavod)
• Originally part of a ballet (Steel)
• Depicts the work noises from a large factory
• The piece begins which several repeats sounds
  (representing different machines)
• The key signature is 4/4 (common time) and
  centered on the note C