Did English music find its own voice in the 20th century? A question posed by Giorgio Sollazzi

This blog will be regularly updated on this page. Hopefully this will make the discussion easier to follow.  As it is an edited e-mail conversation between Nurtan and myself sometimes our initials are used to outline a particular view, sometimes they are blended (as in the Holst choral symphony).

KH

That is a huge question in less than a dozen words. I will make every effort to keep the English plain so I can offer some views that might be read by people outside the UK and Nurtan's USA.
Before Elgar (and perhaps including some of Elgar's music) the view is that English music followed the conventions and interests of the European masters. We think of the influence of the Baroque masters on Thomas Arne, the inescapable influence of Beethoven and Brahms on the symphonic writers like Charles Stanford. I notice that you use 20th century, that is helpful, there is so much activity by UK born composers that is harder to share because of availability of recordings and scores, though programmes like "Here and Now" on Radio 3 Saturday nights at 10.00 - 12.00 is a wonderful resource.
So, we have a wide choice, from the conservative Frank Bridge, the operatic Britten, the religious Tavener, the eccentric genius of Maxwell Davies, the precision of Jonathan Harvey. Where to begin?
I will share this with Nurtan who no doubt will touch on R. V. Williams, Walton, Bax and others. Wherever possible we shall include Youtube references as examples.

NE

The twentieth century was a strange mixture of influences and trends that both highlighted and blurred the national identities of composers. I would argue that British music found its voice in that it was influential in the development of several styles - not necessarily in Britain. R.V. Williams, Walton, Bax, Finzi, Arnold contributed to the lyrical expressiveness that came to dominate much of film and stage music. Tippett's use of folklore and spirituals in A Child of Our Time influenced the integration of the past with the current as well as the introduction of expressive psycho-drama from theatre to concert stage. Lesser know but immensely influential composers such as Alun Hoddinott, who provided examples of dark, dense, aggressively rhythmic music and precision in modern orchestration that went beyond Mahler in managing the huge modern orchestra. I can continue this long list, but that would not be necessary. Yes, Britain found her voice in the 20th century.

KH

That is a very clear response and outlines many areas where the British composers have contributed to art music. I notice you avoided the whole folk song tradition which is one unique area, and one which for many paints a picture of sentimentality which it doesn't always deserve. I don't know if Italy had a similar folk song to art music period, perhaps Giorgio could help us out there. Then we have Tudor influences to consider as well. It may be the case that the pre WW2 music was the period of finding ones voice and post WW2 losing it again, I shall have to dwell on that.
It might be valuable to consider the influence of the sea on British music too, there are so many works, right up to the present that return to this subject. Perhaps it is a knock on effect of Debussy writing the greatest symphony in "La Mer". Just consider though the great music reflecting this subject matter, Bax Tintagel, Bridge "The Sea" Britten "Peter Grimes", several Maxwell Davies works.
I have a notion that UK composers adapted serialism and avoided the austere language, you mentioned Hoddinott and he is a perfect example of this.
There is still a wealth of material to be explored in literature, composers are still mining Shakespeare and the Mabinogion is still a resource for several composers far more competent than myself.
Perhaps we are still searching for a voice rather than having found one. When you consider how many accents there are in the UK it isn't surprising that we might have more than one voice.
I would like to explore this question further, perhaps by looking at some specific areas, symphonic writing before 1945, and then the modern British symphony for example.
I might be able to offer some links to examples of what I consider to be the best examples of British orchestral music to help develop a sympathetic view of this art form.

It might be useful to consider this question in two sections, he first up to the second world war, and the second post WW2 extending a little into the 21st century when required.

There is a period of folk song collection which has to be considered because it is one way to establish a voice.  There are Welsh and Scottish composers who use folksong in art music but the bulk of recognised music at this time is English,

Alongside this there is a group of composers occupied with exploring a mix of tonal (in its widest sense) and modal music.  Several of these composers wrote symphonies, and as the symphony consists of a balanced presentation of several aspects of music where tonality plays a significant part, I would like to focus on these to answer the question.

There is a crossover between the composers of orchestral and the folk inspired music, the majority of these crossover works are symphonic poems. 

To make a start on this enormous task here is a partial timeline of British symphonic writers up to the 1940's.  The links do not indicate that one symphony is better than another but are a suggested listening list.

1900.   Gustav Holst               Symphony in F

1903    R.V. Williams              Sea Symphony           https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPLJ2fSDfJI

1907    Edward Elgar             Symphony no 1

1911    Edward Elgar             Symphony no 2          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4oLNgPj8sA

1912.   R.V. Williams              Symphony No 2         

1923.  Gustav Holst               First choral symphony

1921.  R.V. Williams              Pastoral Symphony    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAi65Fmbn0A

1922   Arnold Bax                  Symphony No. 1

1926    Arnold Bax                  Symphony No. 2

1927    Havergal Brian            Gothic Symphony      

1929    Arnold Bax                  Symphony No. 3         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TEnKBkvVHZ4

1930   Arnold Bax                  Symphony No. 4

1931    Havergal Brian            Symphony No. 3        

1932    Arnold Bax                  Symphony No. 5

1934    R.V. Williams              Symphony No. 4         ps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xLJqXanVM8

1934.   William Walton            Symphony no 1          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dsiDa5RQOk

1937.   Edmund Rubbra         Symphony No 1

1937.   Edmund Rubbra         Symphony No 2

1937    Havergal Brian            Symphony No. 5         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jzSZK8b7OU

1939.   Edmund Rubbra         Symphony No 3          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sm0CTLqHRmg

Musicians who use filters understand their value is bringing a focus on a particular part of a sound.  Astronomers and musicians both appreciate the necessity to remove certain areas of information to reveal the wealth of data which would otherwise be missed.  In one sense the table provided of symphonic works is a filter on the music of the British Isles in the 20th century.

I stress this point because the notion of presenting a group of works may be viewed as some sort of beauty pageant with the notion of selecting a winner and runners up, which is not its intention.

If one was unwise and used commercial values as a filter then English music is heard with a distinctive voice.  These are among the most popular works:

·         The Lark Ascending                                                            1914 (rev. 1920)

·         Nimrod / Enigma variations                                            1899

·         Jupiter / Planets                                                                  1914 - 1916

·          Jerusalem                                                                             1916

·          The Angel’s Farewell / Dream of Gerontius 1900

·          Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus                               1939

·          The Banks of the Green Willow                                      1913

I have added the dates because they show that the most popular English music comes from a short period of time, and even if the list was extended to a hundred of the most popular pieces of music the trend would still be evident.  In answering Giorgio’s question about the English voice this has to be taken into consideration.

To accept the melancholic and hymn like melodies as the English voice is folly, but so is turning ones back on the characteristics that pervade these works.  There is a hymn like quality to parts of the fourth movement to the Sea Symphony:

O we can wait no longer,

We too take ship O soul,

Joyous we too launch out on trackless seas.

and the slow movement "On the beach at night alone" is undoubtedly touched with melancholy and the brooding about the conflict between the moment and the eternal:

All lives and deaths, all of the past, present, future,

This vast similitude spans them, and always has spann’d

And shall forever span them….

Yet, despite its sympathy with the “English” sentiments of the more popular music this remarkable symphony is not well received.

The list has already been filtered, not every symphony of the period (1900 - 1939) is included, time has made certain names less familiar or less popular, there are works which could be symphonic but are not named symphony, Bridge's "The Sea" like Debussy's "La Mer" should be considered in the classification.  There are great composers with a distinctive voice who are filtered out, Delius for example, could the North Country Sketches be considered as a symphony?  Four movements, each contrasted, and yet there is nothing of the symphonic argument here, however broadly we consider the term.

Let us substitute another word for ‘list’, and replace it with ‘sample’.  This should satisfy our requirements to explore areas of commonality which may offer at least a partial answer to Georgio's question.

Once our sample is in place the task of repeated listening takes place.  Refreshing one's perception of this group of works throws up an avalanche of observations, but the one that stood out was how did a work like Holst's "First Choral Symphony" fade into near obscurity compared to "The Planets"? This is a remarkable symphony, consistently well written, the choral writing is notable for its clarity, the harmonic language is never pedestrian and the orchestration well controlled.

Holst’s First Choral Symphony was written after WW1, Holst had been prevented from enlisting and taking a military role on the battlefield.  The term survivor guilt is usually placed on those who have firsthand knowledge of war, but both Holst and Frank Bridge display responses that suggest the term should be used more generally to any experience of war.

There is a musical point to be made of this; German music had dominated British thought and style, the war created tensions which influenced every artistic endeavour.  Holst and R. V. Williams wrote about national identities and there was a near necessity to express oneself outside the German tradition.

If an art is to live it must spring direct from the life and character of the people from where it had its origins. 

We shall not evolve great music by trying to fit our home made ideas to foreign forms.

RVW article on British Music.

That tradition had been upheld by two earlier symphonists, Parry and Stanford, the latter in particular having considerable influence through his role as a teacher of composition as well as composer.

Using the literature of a particular country is one way of developing a unique voice, the usual advice for selecting poetry is to take a poem of lesser quality, advice that Holst ignored completely.

The “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is one of the great poems, not just for its language but for its theme.

Holst took the poem and other samples of Keats writing as his text and used the poem as the core expressive content of the symphony.  The poem if full of musical imagery

“What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape? / What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?”

But the life of the poem is in its contradiction, it is a frozen moment in time, a reflection of the ideal where the music in unheard

Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard

Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;

Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,

Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:

There are many extra-musical themes here which become hallmarks of British music in this period.

It is impossible to discuss the voice of British composers without some discussion of harmony, and the second movement has a particularly clear example of the use of open fifths, static harmony and slowly oscillating chords.  In an earlier blog I referred to R. V. Williams’ use of these three ingredients in the last movement of the sixth symphony, one of the most distinctive passages of symphonic writing in the 20^th century (though outside our time period here).

Holst the man appears reserved, shying away from publicity, happiest in study.  In his music there is introspection but there is also red-blooded fervour and this symphony has it all. Although the world premier of the  symphony in Leeds seem to have been well received, its London opening seems to have been panned,  It is difficult to reconstruct the London critics surprising reaction, we might take a wild guess  on what happened. It seems that the literary critics were offended by Holst’s re arrangement of the poem. Obviously, this is a gross misunderstanding of the reasons behind the re-arrangement through juxtaposition of parts of Keats' other poems. They are simply musical.

The added material extends the Ode in a manner to accommodate the balanced flow of music to conform the required format of a symphony. According to Holts' biographer Jon C. Mitchell, the rehearsals for the challenging choral and solo voice parts were rushed and wholly inadequate. It appears that, the resulting less than stellar performance's criticism fell on the composition of the symphony.

1.       It contained a literary outrage – "How dare a mere composer change the work of an immortal poet" .

2.       The great choral symphony – Beethoven's ninth had only one movement as an exposition of a poem – this is all singing, thus not a symphony in reality.

3.       Challenging became impossible. Examined dispassionately and with the first choral symphony in mind, of course these criticisms are nonsense, and should not have been accepted by the knowledgeable orchestra directors who choose the works that are played.  This regrettable incidence created an aura of impossibility of a satisfactory performance and led to the undeservedly diminished stature of the work. Shy, and to some extend reclusive, Holst did not seem to have advocated for the symphony to counter the London reaction. Probably, these  circumstances are the main contributory factors for the rare performances of this wonderful work. 

Before I close this section of the blog I would like to include an observation sent to me by Nurtan while I was considering the Holst Symphony:

After I read the introduction to Holst's piece and listen to the first choral Symphony again – I must admit for the first time in many years – I remembered how beautiful it was and how much the general public is missing by its rare appearance on the concert stage. I think (sharing) it would be a service to the public.

As I am thinking about the possibilities and the vastness of a blog on (this) music, I have a picture of two Don Quixotes sitting by the seaside with teacups in hand trying to empty the ocean. For me, It is fun, second childhood and better than thinking about the ills of the world. I hope it is the same for you.

Following my comments on the popular voice of English music in the period up to 1939 Nurtan offered the following thoughts on two of R.V. William’s most popular works.

Many of the concert attending, classical music enjoying public would associate Ralph Vaughan Williams with two works, “The Lark Ascending” and the “Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis” and consider them as pleasant but not too complicated pieces that can be enjoyed without much thought. Alas, those who believe that would be missing much in these two works. I don't mean to insult the intelligence of audiences and/or suggest that these two works are hard to follow. In fact, for me, listening to Lark Ascending played by a very high calibre violinist, for example Hilary Hahn or listening to Fantasia, Andrew Davis conducting BBC Symphony (my favourite performance) is something to behold. My main point is that there is much more to these two short pieces than one might expect.

Lark ascending (Lark) is easier to explore because there is a version, which happens to be the original version, written for solo violin with piano accompaniment. In this format, the intricacy of the violin solo especially about 4 ½ minute into the score and the last 30 bars are violin writing at its delicate best. I think, if you like to listen to violin music or better still if you are a violin player, you would appreciate the score for violin with piano reduction. Frequent use of pentatonic scales and free-form cadenzas provide an impressionistic tone painting of a skylark.  This work was described as a Romance for violin and orchestra, and it has a literary quotation from Meredith’s Poems and Lyrics of the Joys of Earth.

The latter part of the quotation reads:

For singing till his heaven fills,

‘Tis love of earth that he instils

And ever winging up and up,

Our valley is his golden cup,

And the wine which overflows

To lift us with him as he goes.

Till lost on his aerial wings

In light, and then the fancy sings.

There is a less well known work, Romance for Viola and Piano, found after the composer’s death which may be taken as a parallel work to the Lark in many ways, and it expands our perception of V.W’s voice in this particular mode of expression.  It was written in or about the start of WW1 and has an extraordinary quality of space and stillness in the outer sections.  Stillness is a characteristic which pervades both these popular works. 

There is a sense of ecstasy in the poetry which comes through the music of the Lark in the rhapsodic pentatonic figures, this is a very different ecstasy to that heard in the fourth movement of the Sea Symphony. There is a tendency to soul searching in R. V.’s music, he understands that man sins and fails but that there is a possibility of redemption, as for Pilgrim and for Job. It may be this that results in the dramatic extremes of the 3^rd to 6^th symphonies, extremes which left many audiences baffled.

For the orchestral performance of the Lark, I have heard a number of very good performances. I think Hilary Hahn's interpretation with the LSO under Colin Davis is a very good choice for those who are familiar or unfamiliar with the piece.

Fantasia is another matter. In its premiere, conducted by the composer, was apparently to a quiet reception by the audience and ecstatic appreciation by musicians such as Howells. It is full of interesting innovations and a musically fascinating structure.

Before considering the Fantasia it is valuable to listen to the Tallis original

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cQoE4yb7NM

This performance is without the glitter of studio techniques but offers in its simplicity a valuable insight as to how the composer may have heard the music performed.

The strings in the Fantasia are put through every timbral nuance, they are divided into two sections, preferably located away from each other and the principals form a quartet. There are a number of solo passages which are treated to counterpoint while the full strings weave an organum-like texture which is to be reworked many times in later works. These are functional composition devices. In an intricate arrangement, the divided orchestra plays the themes with call and response (as in church antiphony), a quartet announces and joins the orchestra. It is a delicate dance, an echo and the presence of two choirs in a cathedral. This makes it a difficult piece to conduct. Heavy-handed conducting simply won't do. Beyond the usual accuracy requirements, the sensitivity to and understanding of this structure are the most important reason. Andrew Davis' conducting stands out as the best in my opinion, but I would strongly recommend comparing other performances. The call and response has to be just right to provide the intended effect and it should not be an echo – that is an intangible which is hard to communicate in a score.

The use of spatial music comes and goes as a fashion, The Vespers of 1610 is a remarkable example after which the attention to its use wanes, and this is the work that stands out in V. W.’s output for making serious use of the technique.  With the use of loudspeakers in concert halls the interest is rekindled, but this isn’t the composer being far sighted, it is a response to the traditions of the church.  As a side issue one may consider Ives (another composer with strong links to organised religion) to be a more powerful influence on this technique.

There is little doubt that audiences (and programme note writers) regard these as quintessentially English works as being the English voice, yet the works tend to stand alone, it is hard to draw parallels between R.V. Williams and the other composers of the same period, unless we take a non-musical link in the expression of melancholy which is conveyed so well in his music. 

Tallis is a very creative dead-end – once done it is inspired, original, exciting but end of the road. I don't think that it can be replicated in a way that it does not look like Tallis lookalike. I cannot think of a composer one might consider as his disciple. I'm not claiming an encyclopaedic knowledge of all English-speaking country composers, but I think I would have heard one or two voices that took his work and advanced it. Butterworth was his contemporary, Frank Bridge, Holst, even pastoralist Finzi were not stylistically like him.

Tallis- BBC Symphony this Andrew Davis conducting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihx5LCF1yJY

Lark – Hahn with London Symphony Orchestra Colin Davis conducting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ATFC1OAZT4

Violin and piano score International Music Score Library (Not public domain)

PMLP49679-Vaughan-Williams - The Lark Ascending (piano red.).pdf

The composer’s toolbox – How to find your muse.

In a practical guide such as the manual for the Skoda Octavia you would expect to find the details of components, how to assemble and disassemble them and even such matters as comfort (seating and heating), but a chapter on how to drive your car with panache in not its concern, and a chapter on how to fall in love with your Skoda, or even more bizarrely how to get your Skoda to fall in love with you, belongs to another world.

I don’t want to go down the road of suggesting that a composer is like a car mechanic or designer, though there would be some fun to be had in stretching the analogy.  However, if there is a composer’s toolbox, then there must be tools, and these require knowledge of their use. With knowledge comes mastery of the form.

Here we have our wall. 

Some composers have an ability to communicate and reach out to an audience and some don’t.  Is this the fault of the tools we use, the way we use them, or is it as the Bard suggests

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves…

If you feel the need to compose like a hunger then music rather than instant success is your primary goal.  There are barriers to composing, the first is that you have to learn the basics of music making in your culture and later perhaps other cultures as well.  It may be said that books on harmony, counterpoint and orchestration are lacking in excitement, for me they are less stimulating than a dictionary, but they are a necessity.

 

Is this blog about music theory rather than muses, no it isn’t, but before we understand inspiration we must accept that we require the knowledge of how to divine the inspiration.  Now there’s a word (divine) with double meanings, these are taken from the Chambers dictionary, much loved by crossword solvers who know a thing or two about inspiration:

Proceeding from a god, holy.

Excellent in the highest degree.

To forsee or fortell as if divinely inspired.

To guess or make out.

To search (as for underground water).

Let us take the most unlikely entry, the last one, and change the word ‘water’ for ‘source’.  Here we are, skilled musicians, proficient in harmony, melodic construction, counterpoint and the like, pen (or keyboard) in hand.  What happens next?  This is an account of Mahler on reading a copy of “Veni creator”:

"I saw the whole piece immediately before my eyes, and only needed to write it down as though it were being dictated to me."

Such an event would be welcomed by musicians, there being a sense of play rather than work in the process.  He finds a source and that source permits his energies to flow freely.  (In our analogy with water it is worth considering that underground rivers flow because they have channelled through rock over eons).

Now the first definition, proceeding from a god, and from god /  goddess take the term ‘muse’.  Chambers lists the nine Greek Goddesses whose skills encompass history, astronomy, tragedy and comedy, epic, love sacred and lyric poetry, and dancing.  Euterpe doubles lyric poetry with music, (there is a whole other blog in that pairing).  The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology has some additional information

Muse v. think, meditate….from Old French muser to ponder or loiter; literally, stay with one’s nose in the air.

(muse muzzle, from Gallo-Romance musa snout).

As the English say, to follow one’s nose.  So is inspiration nothing more than following a hunch?  One moment, there is more punning here, inspiration may be associated with the terms ‘flash’ and ‘brilliance’ but it is also the intake of breath, and we are all aware of that action of drawing breath on a sudden insight, the eureka moment.

The eureka effect (also known as the aha! moment or eureka moment) refers to the common human experience of suddenly understanding a previously incomprehensible problem or concept.

This is an unexpected outcome resulting from pondering a problem for a considerable time. Following a period of intense work the person contemplating takes a step back and is “blessed” by an insight which resolves the puzzle, which is often followed by a period of equally intense, and often lengthy, explanation.  Perhaps the “Veni creator” hymn was the vehicle for Mahler’s aha! moment, and the problem may have been more prosaic, “how do I marry counterpoint with a Latin text and still express a world in a symphony?”

This doesn’t help the reader who dropped in on the blog hoping for inspiration, but, take a deep breath, it may do so yet.

Many years ago I was drawn to read Robert Graves “The White Goddess” a book about poetic inspiration.  Being a Welsh speaker I was delighted to see many references to Welsh (and Irish) poetry and intrigued by his vision of religion and nature.  This extract from the Wikipedia entry makes my task a little easier

Graves's The White Goddess deals with goddess worship as the prototypical religion, analysing it largely from literary evidence, in myth and poetry.

Graves admitted he was not a medieval historian, but a poet, and thus based his work on the premise that the

language of poetic myth anciently current in the Mediterranean and Northern Europe was a magical language bound up with popular religious ceremonies in honour of the Moon-goddess, or Muse….

Let us not forget the dual role that Euterpe plays.

The self-imposed limit of a thousand words curtails the exploration of this dense and difficult book disregarded by many who may be deterred by its interplay of literal and poetic values.  

Let us summarize the role of and associations with the muse:

The muse is feminine.

Inspiration is of the breath and a realisation preceded by study.

The areas of study are drama and poetry expressed as music and dance, with an awareness of our past, (history), and our place in the greater environment, (astronomy).

It is divine.

At this time of the year many religious groups make great use of lights, I hope that this blog may act as a candle, sparking a little insight here and there.

Have a restful time, whatever your beliefs, and cherish the gifts of music, song and dance.

Illustration:  The final movement of R. V. Williams' 6th symphony displayed as an audio file.

Composer's toolbox: shades of grey.

In photography, painting, and other visual arts, middle gray or middle grey is a tone that is perceptually about halfway between black and white on a lightness scale.

Wikipedia

For composers contrast is the life blood of their music, there is no difficulty in pairing musical devices and articulations, f and p, staccato and legato, tranquillo and furioso.  Going back many years to listening to Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony for the first time I remember thinking about the contrasts as the music played, when I heard the third movement pizzicato opening I was captivated by the pp sound and then stunned by the changes of texture that follow all preparing for the even greater surprise with the full orchestral opening of the fourth movement. 

There is a satisfaction in contrast, and in extremes.  It doesn't surprise me that in modern art we have a blank, white canvas and a black canvas;

Robert Rauschenberg:

https://www.sfmoma.org/artwork/98.308.A-C

Ad Renhardt

http://www.moma.org/collection/works/78976

I am not going to enter the discussion on the shades of black, having had several lengthy discussions on tone in weaving with Mrs. H, but to say the matter is complex is an understatement. The artist Gerhard Richter helped clarify the direction of the discussion between my wife and myself before completing this blog, he writes:

‘Grey is the epitome of non-statement…it does not trigger off feelings or associations, it is actually neither visible nor invisible... Like no other colour it is suitable for illustrating ‘nothing’.

To avoid getting into cyclic arguments about tone and colour it may be more useful to use the term intensity, there is for example a probably that some agreement can be found in the idea that music can ‘sparkle’, a feature which can be related to the intensity of sound and touch; the delicate use of a triangle or staccato arpeggio as in Holst's "Mercury"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CilfBWvCSXI

and Liszt's “Les jeux d’eaux a la Villa d’Este”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DoGOGS3lC8

With ‘grey’ we are discussing a midpoint of emotions, black and white becomes the ultimate contrast, like the chessboard a venue for drama conflict, war, grey is nihilism and loss. On Adobe Photoshop software there is a tool to work with contrast, and anybody who has played with this feature knows that life can be drained out of an image by its use. Black and white photography has the power to raise a portrait of a person to high art because it plays on shadows, heightens lines and emphasises pattern, so releasing the tension between the two extremes would be counter-intuitive, (and for that reason a challenge).

In the musical world the reduction of contrast also decreases the emotive impact of the composition, but wasn’t emotive impact was the concern of the 19th century? When Satie decided to write music that negated tensions and contrasts there was a full red-blooded rebellion, and this is one reason why many regard him as the father of the avant-garde. 

Let us examine the associations with grey; indecision, a psychological state of numbness, loss, inactivity, there are two outstanding reasons in the 20th century why such psychological states should interest the musician and artist, wars. R. V. Williams presents us with a succession of symphonies that deal with contrast, viz. peace and war, rural and urban, tension and relaxation.  In the last movement of the sixth symphony R.V. W. produces music that takes us to a barren place, the grey mid-ground with which this article is concerned.  The theme could be examined in a number of ways, I hear it as being built from an oscillation of E minor and F minor 7, the music is locked into the swaying motion between the chords and never escapes.  Entrances of voices are controlled so that the music is near seamless and the contrapuntal nature of the music only enhances that characteristic. 

There are changes; in nine and a half minutes of music one would expect that.  The brass at figure 4 plays with the two chord idea moving from F7 to E9 producing a texture that wouldn’t be out of place in previous symphonies, but here context is all, and it produces little more than a glimpse of an outline in a dense fog.  Other notable orchestral colours are the string tremolos and harp harmonics at fig. 8 and towards the close of the movement the bass clarinet almost offers a respite particularly as it progresses through string oscillations to the oboe solo, but there is no break in the spell.  The music closes on two chords with A’, D’, G moving to B, E, G (in effect E flat major to E minor and not in root position).  An oscillation like this could go on forever; it is a written “fade out”.  

The musical concept is not difficult to understand and David Cox’s description in The Symphony that it is “one of strangest journeys ever undertaken in music” is justifiable but needs taking with a pinch of salt. I find the comparison he makes between this movement and Holst’s “Saturn” more puzzling, there is a periodic phrasing in Saturn that puts the two movements poles apart, perhaps it is the oscillating chords that makes a connection between the two in his mind.

The opening movement of Bartok’s “Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste” makes for a far better comparison in all respects, counterpoint, the merging of orchestral colour, the dynamic range is of course wider as may be seen from the audio clipping shown below.  To play both movements side by side is a revelation and shows two great minds exploring a similar musical preoccupation.

To conclude this short exploration of grey I have to refer to the landscape I grew up in here in Wales, one might consider it to be a land of green and brown, but in reality the castles, the slate, the sea and very often the skies are grey, perhaps that is why I appreciate landscapes which feature the alteration of fine detail.

The simplicity of Nielsen's Symphony No 5.

In a previous blog in the composer's toolbox series I looked at the use of ostinato and delved into a number of works which have an improvisatory character where the use ostinato is the binding force. Since posting the blog I have been drawn to Nielsen's symphonies and in particular the fifth.  I was lucky enough as a student to play the cello part with our university orchestra and after rehearsals I asked our professor if he would consider conducting the fourth which I thought at that time the superior symphony.  He declined, and put me in my place about the 5th being the only great Nielsen symphony, without giving any further details.  Several decades on I still hold both symphonies in equal regard.  With the passing of time there is a difference in the way I understand and listen to these two symphonies, I now hear the music as large scale paragraphs rather than layers of superimposed detail, which was in essence the way we were taught to think about music.

To hear these large scale paragraphs we have to understand how the fifth symphony has at its core the most satisfying uses of ostinato in 20th century music. In primarily focusing on this feature many musicians will argue that I am missing the two most important aspects, melodic invention and key change.  Like many great composers Nielsen has the gift of turning a scale or equally simple figure into an arresting texture. There are fascinating details in the use of the scales which by means of simple interlocking patterns permits the construction of new and less conventional modes.  As to the use of keys, far too much ink has been used describing Nielsen’s progressive tonality to repeat that process, and the description of key movement can produce some of the most turgid writing in music.  However these matters are the detail of the work and I would prefer here to focus on the larger scale planning and execution of the music.

The following makes reference to the music extracts above, which if taken as a “reduced” score is sufficient to guide the listener through the first half of the symphony, I have given rehearsal numbers and bar numbers if this blog inspires the reader to get a score.  Most musicians discuss the use of ostinato at the start of the symphony, and how it develops over the course of the work. The A/C minor third could be taken as remnant of Classical thinking where ambiguity plays a significant role, is it an F major or A minor chord, or D7, when will I know which key I am in? No composer completely turns his or her back on the past, in my opinion I am almost certain that it is impossible. Nielsen’s 5^th retains many aspects of Classical thought e.g. the repeat and development of material is of considerable importance.

The second ostinato figure is for horns and flutes, a scale and cadence figure, so simple that it is instantly recognisable in its many transformations and tonal settings.  If we need a label on this figure we could describe it as pastoral. With the introduction of the cello ostinato on open fourths the whole sound world alters and the music becomes increasingly aggressive. If the attention was on detail a case could be made for the evolution of each ostinato figure from the previous one, the pastoral figure is rich in the use of the interval of the fourth, which has been emphasized in the melody over the ostinato.  With the flute and oboe ostinato on D, A flat, G we have a second development of the ostinato figure, enhanced by the augmented fourth and its resolution down a semitone, which is used as a progressive tension builder. The following ostinato figure in crotchets is a variant on the opening minor third character now on D and F with a change of orchestration to follow with cellos and timpani paired. This takes us to the rhythmic ostinato on snare drum which is later to become the driving force behind the fist main climax of the work. 

After the percussion figure there is a recap of the ostinato figures.  To begin the flute and clarinets develop the first minor third figure, altering the semiquavers to triplet semiquavers and playing with the minor third / fourth intervals uses D, C, A, the woodwind are exchanged for violas to confirm the repeat, a tranquillo passage follows where the pastoral figure returns now played by bassoons.  The change of texture is a fine stroke of orchestral colour made all the more striking because of the careful use of repetition.  As expected the open fourths figure follows played by the horns.

Bar 220 has the timpani indicate a change is afoot and a second rhythmic ostinato is taken up by the celesta.  The five note figure (here on D) is sometimes curtailed but its character is always instantly recognisable.  In fact the repeated single note figure isn't new but its significance is less prominent in earlier sections because of the layering of several ostinato figures.

There is a complete change of character in the next paragraph, expansive melodies and counterpoint dominate the music and the momentum of the passage depends on harmonic rhythm and not the use of ostinato. 

The following paragraph reintroduces and extends the opening figure and constantly interrupts the flow of the serene music and the music develops the ostinato figures until they are played simultaneously, from bar 358 to the first climax.  This is wonderful writing, and like the end of the first movement in Walton’s first symphony one wonders if there is anything more to be said or could be said as dramatically.

The whole of the drama up to this point is in effect three large scale paragraphs; only when one gets to hear Nielsen this way can the achievement of his planning be appreciated.  I am leaving the commentary unfinished, or perhaps open-ended would be better.  Does this mean that ostinato is not a feature of the remainder?  There are examples, and reiteration is a significant part of the thinking even in respect of melodic design, the best way to determine the significance of the device is to enjoy the experience of playing the music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7nCg9AwvHg

Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Neeme Järvi

Going back to the professor, if I was asked now which is the greater of the two symphonies I would answer "whichever I heard last".

6 representative works and links for contemporary composers.

K	Hannaford	Fantasy on Fragments of Frank Bridge	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kCJNr8oHT8
K	Hannaford	Abbey Arches	https://plus.google.com/u/0/+KenHannaford/posts/AyB9cyfvVwG?pid=6183261572425714114&oid=109459659443776195343
K	Hannaford	Churchill's Uncertainty	https://plus.google.com/u/0/+KenHannaford/posts/AyB9cyfvVwG?pid=6179464829219828162&oid=109459659443776195343
K	Hannaford	Odd is Love	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqACUWHZk34&feature=youtu.be
K	Hannaford	Shapeshifter	https://plus.google.com/u/0/+KenHannaford/posts/AyB9cyfvVwG?pid=6217385621308974546&oid=109459659443776195343
K	Hannaford	In Memoriam J. Harvey	https://plus.google.com/u/0/+KenHannaford/posts/AyB9cyfvVwG?pid=6136515360396409442&oid=109459659443776195343
K	Esmen	Aftershock Op. 60	https://soundcloud.com/naesmen/aftershock-op-60
N	Esmen	A Murder Mystery	https://soundcloud.com/naesmen/a-murder-mystery-op-67#t=0:00
N	Esmen	Rhythmic Variations No 1 Op. 5	https://soundcloud.com/naesmen/rhythmic-variations-please-see
N	Esmen	4 Miniatures with the Same Cadence Op.38	https://soundcloud.com/naesmen/four-miniatures-with-the-same#t=0:00
N	Esmen	Ancient Airs and Dances Op. 68	https://plus.google.com/u/0/+KenHannaford/posts/AyB9cyfvVwG?pid=6174611141482817378&oid=109459659443776195343
N	Esmen	Octet Op.52	https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/102522266104884135001
G	Sollazzi	Freud and the Moon	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP69CSEKv40
G	Sollazzi	Evoked Potential Cult	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJuPwhkhoUA
G	Sollazzi	Forse neanche il futuro (Perhaps even the future)	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3OW7IRU7Vw
G	Sollazzi	Piano Sonata the first movement	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52gOo2oqWhI
G	Sollazzi	Gelida torre (Cold tower)	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIsJhS16A8Y
G	Sollazzi	For Maurizio Pollini	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOkfOfhTOsI

Jack of all trades? The synthesiser

As the synthesiser became available to the masses descriptions of its abilities became exaggerated, it was going to make performers redundant, replace whole orchestras in film music, and cupboards were going to be full of traditional instruments and children given keyboards as their introduction to music making. 

As with all fears an element of truth existed in this view. In certain circumstances the synth could be used in place of (or in addition to) a traditional instrument, certainly not as a second violin in a string quartet, but possibly as e.g. a contrasting texture to a bass guitar.  The role of the synthesiser in film has several interesting features, it was fortunate that the sounds produced most easily on the synth invoked associations with mechanical sounds, weapons, flight, wind sounds etc. all ideal for sci-fi and combat movies.  The extension into video games was a natural progression.  Far from reducing the employment of musicians the opportunities for making capital expanded enormously.  As for our children many have learnt the basics of music making on relatively cheap keyboards. The quality of teaching and the development of technique depend a great deal on the educator but considering the numbers of children involved one has to accept that there are advantages to learning how to perform on any instrument over no instrument.

The primary concern of these blogs is to consider composing techniques, but before moving away from performing with a synth it may be useful to consider the work of a jazz keyboard player who has explored the world of synthetic sounds, Joe Zawinul.  He gave an interview to the music engineering magazine Sound on Sound and his insights make fascinating reading, two short extracts provide an oversight which may encourage reading the whole article.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jun03/articles/joezawinul.asp

I can play with a drum machine, and I can make a drum machine sound like a real drummer because of how I play around it. It's an art. You cannot be a slave... It's an art to play to sequencers or drum machines, and even some of the really famous guys can't do it.

And on composing:

(Its) about sound. And synthesizers are even more difficult, because there's a greater menu. It's much easier to choose the best dish out of five ... than out of 400."

Understanding the basics of synthetically produced sounds will illustrate why the synth has been largely employed in a relatively limited way when its potential is enormous.  The rate of change in sound production is such that composers often move onto new ideas before exploring fully the possibilities of “older” technology.  The summary is deliberately short and may be skipped by those with even a basic knowledge of the synth.

Synthesisers start with the production of a tone produced by a sine wave generator, combining several sine waves with pitch control produces more musical tones. Tone generation is produced by an oscillator which may select a variety of waveforms such as sawtooth, triangle, square or pulse.

The filter removes parts of the frequencies generated, after filtering, a bright sawtooth wave can be altered to a warmer sound with reduced treble. Resonance and drive may also be used to alter the tone to replicate instrumental sounds.

The module known as an envelope controls the levels for the beginning, middle, and end portions of the sound.

The signal may require a modulator, the LFO (low frequency oscillator) is frequently employed to affect the main signal to add vibrato or create filter sweeps. Selecting the LFO waveform dramatically affects the range of vibrato etc.

In addition to the sound production there are global controls for overall loudness, glide or portamento and the bend range particularly useful for emulating small pitch fluctuations.

Noise can be added to produce percussive sounds and replicate natural sounds.

That is sufficient detail for the moment, varieties and developments will be considered in conjunction with particular pieces of music.

The use of sine waves alone is not going to produce particularly pleasing results, Stockhausen worked with combinations of sine waves processing them with reverberation in his desire to create new sonorities

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwj6ZptPnDo

the following link provides a wealth of information about the technical aspects of sine wave manipulation in the Stockhausen Studies (and some of the human responses to the work carried out).

On a personal level I find the music compelling, it is never predictable and demonstrates what many musicians understand, working within constraints assists the composing process.

Early pioneers of the synthesiser also included jazz musicians, Herb Deutsch worked alongside Bob Moog and his account of developing the attack on a tone via a door bell makes a wonderful story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jIMI3tFM2Y

There are video clips on YouTube concerning Herb Deutsch which demonstrate the pitfalls of the instrument, particularly with tuning, but which pioneer ever expected an easy ride?

The two approaches (Stockhausen and Deutsch) take us into interesting territory, was the synth going to be used as an instrument with certain acceptable sounds appropriate for melody or bass or as a source of new material to open up extensive possibilities for contemporary serious music?

The MIDI table offers an insight of one solution to being faced with a near infinite number of possible choices.  Various companies developed the sounds in these categories; I used a Roland Sound Canvas for many years and learnt a great deal even from applying basic alterations to the sounds. Before selected banks were provided a great deal of donkey work was required, and saving sounds required careful planning.  The EMS VCS 3 belongs to this pre-table period, though similar synths are now available as software versions which make recalling patches easy.  This account from the Vinyl factory of the VCS 3 is entertaining:

 It was so quirky that most musicians couldn’t even fathom how to coax actual melodies out of it, prompting some to label it as a bulky, expensive effects unit. Those that persevered were rewarded, and the bizarre-sounding synthesizer was a bottomless treasure trove of peculiar pops, clangs and whines. The fact that you could play it with a joystick, a la Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones (the keyboard was sold separately), only added to its charm.

The phrase “how to coax actual melodies out of it” speaks volumes about the way certain musicians approached this synthesiser.

As companies developed their own particular synthesiser sounds individual musicians became associated with those textures, e.g. Herbie Hancock  made use of the ARP Odyssey on “Chameleon”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejaumVVHAUQ&list=PL8BE4427589F07CA8

Keyboard players would find the limits imposed with monophonic synthesisers troubling but synths like the CS-80 opened up polyphonic play.  In terms of composition polyphony cuts both ways.  There is always the temptation with a polyphonic presentation of being lazy, and the repeated use of a lush texture can ruin a good idea.  Similarly the stacking of several voices (possibly through a chain of instruments) can make an immediate impact but fail to sustain interest. We are back to the old repetition and variation problem.

With the advent of the Fairlight CMI sampling became a source of new sounds, however the range of sounds was limited by the length of the samples taken. As PCM synthesis became a new standard in sound production, it tackled, but did not overcome the problem of authenticity with instrumental sounds.

Another development which was to stimulate the imagination of serious contemporary composers was FM synthesis.  This method modulates the frequencies of combinations of sound waves to create a new wave rich in harmonic content.  For performers one great advantage was that the digital nature of the instrument ensured that tuning was no longer a problem.  The main challenge for musicians was in the programming, and once again engineers produced banks of sounds that were a mixed blessing to the world of music.

Thankfully now there is a software version of the DX keyboard, FM8 in which one can either alter sounds on a basic level (Easy/Morph) or at a more complex level (Master), or of course one can open a ‘new sound’ which is a single sine wave and explore at one’s pleasure.

Having put in place some of the basics of the synthesiser and mentioned some of its exponents I will conclude this blog with a hint of some of the uses in contemporary music using Jonathan Harvey’s own notes on “Inner Light 3”

One of the tapes other roles is to transform one instrument's waveform into another's, often in the course of a journey round the concert hall. For instance, a trumpet sound leaves the orchestra, changes progressively into a clarinet in mid-flight, so to speak, and returns to the stage area where the orchestral clarinet takes it up. The spatial engulfment of quadraphony and the dreamlike reverberation of orchestral events are, together with the alpha wave treatment, further aspects of the 'superhuman' role of the tape. There is nothing new in regarding the mechanical as superhuman; everyone in Western tradition who has ever thought of the organ as a bearer of sacred meaning, or in the East of the gong in such a light has done the same.

The contest between live and synthetic sounds.

This blog may be read as an introduction to the 10 pieces of popular music which feature contemporary techniques.  Its focus is mainly on serious contemporary composers who pioneered many of the uses of sound manipulation adopted by recording engineers from the mid 1960’s onwards.

There is a continual process of leapfrogging played between developments in instrumental and electronic sounds, before the 1950’s the orchestra had enriched its palette of sounds through the introduction of exotic instruments, particularly percussion.  Composers like Varese extended the range further, no one will forget the first time they experience the lion’s roar in “Ionisation” or his use of sirens.  Today we can incorporate any natural sound into the theatre or concert hall to enrich a performance, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 has benefitted from sampled cannon sounds. The use of electronic instruments as in MIDI harpsichords or harps creates more controversy at this time and would be regarded as “poor form” by some musicians and audiences.

It can be delightful to play chicken and the egg games with the whole issue of orchestral textures emulating electronically generated sounds and naturally produced sonorities aping synthesized sounds in the concert hall.  Rather than list works that show these trends this blog intends to show why some of the developments came about and provide some examples which may stimulate thinking about “new” textures and their place in our toolbox of composing resources.

Why did we expand the sound palette to include machine sounds and “noise”?

From the period of the First World War artists were abandoning 19^th century values turning instead to the development of technology and industry rather than nature for their inspiration.  If we need a reminder of 19^th century values there is a lengthy PDF available here from Naturopa “The Representation of Nature in Art”:

http://coe.archivalware.co.uk/awweb/pdfopener?smd=1&md=1&did=594643

Two short quotations give us a sense of the document:

There is perhaps just one common feature, and this is the need felt in every age for reference to and sustained dialogue with nature….

Primitive man made use of the natural elements; Baroque artists perceived a harmonious ideal in nature…whereas the Romantics passionately yearned to capture a nature that eluded their grasp.

The role of futurism in the promotion of industrial sounds has been well documented, here is another link http://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/2009/futurism  which outlines its early history, and again a single quotation will suffice to offer a flavour of the document.

F. T. Marinetti. “Manifeste du futurisme” [Manifesto of Futurism]. February 20, 1909
One of the most well-known and representative declarations of this manifesto, first published on February 20, 1909, in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro, is a cornerstone of Futurist thought: “We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed.”
The inclusion of noise in music was in its infancy but the introduction of machines into the concert hall was underway (e.g. Satie and his typewriters).  Included in the concept of machine sounds are those instruments which generate sounds by electrical means and the 1920’s saw the introduction of several electronic instruments of which the theremin and ondes martenot are still familiar to us today. We may be familiar with the ondes martenot  in the Turangalîla symphony but may less aware of its later use in popular music, e.g.  Radiohead have used the ondes martenot on the Kid A album, (the title track has a wonderful array of electronic manipulations and deserves study). For those composers who use Kontakt software there is a fully sampled version of the ondes martenot, http://www.soniccouture.com/en/products/24-vintage/g27-ondes/
and for less wealthy readers it is possible to use FM sounds to recreate some of its timbres (I have used FM8 for this purpose).

Popular musicians have always been willing to explore such unconventional instruments as often one novel sound will provide the ear-candy that makes their music stand out from the rest.  As an example of this consider the use of the mellotron from the 1960’s by such groups as King Crimson.  The mellotron used audio tape which had a pre recorded sound pressed against a playback head such as found in a tape recorder. Anybody who has worked with audio tape will be aware of the difficulties that performance areas produce (heat, portability and at that time smoke) and it is remarkable that performers persisted and worked around these hitches.

Though tape was a difficult medium to manipulate (splicing etc.) it held the possibility of examining sounds in detail; composers could isolate particular moments of interest. It may be argued that this was possible since the first primitive cylinder recordings, but it is with tape that the period of experimentation comes to fruition.

The pioneering years in Europe were the 1950’s and one of the great masterpieces of taped sound Stockhausen’s “Gesang der Junglinge” came from the work done in Cologne.  Such is the vision of this work that it remains fresh despite the huge number of technical advancements made in sound production, (many composers of the period recognised that limitations with electronic music resulted in banal outcomes, readers can judge for themselves the truth of this statement).

The main centres of work were Cologne, Paris and Milan, in the UK we had the BBC radiophonic workshop, which played a significant part in bringing new sonorities to the general public.

The Workshop was set up to satisfy the growing demand in the late 1950s for "radiophonic" sounds from a group of producers and studio managers at the BBC, including Desmond Briscoe and Daphne Oram. For some time there had been much interest in producing innovative music and sounds to go with the pioneering programming of the era, in particular the dramatic output of the BBC Third Programme. Often the sounds required for the atmosphere that programme makers wished to create were unavailable or non-existent through traditional sources and so some, such as the musically trained Oram, would look to new techniques to produce effects and music for their pieces. Much of this interest drew them to musique concrète and tape manipulation techniques, since using these methods could allow them to create soundscapes suitable for the growing range of unconventional programming.

As stated above tape offered the opportunity to isolate a moment of sound and Berio and Maderna used this technique with recorded speech. This was regularly achieved by deconstructing a recorded text into a series of phonemes. Examples include Berio’s Thema: Omaggio a Joyce (1958) and Visage, composed in 1961.  The techniques used by Berio included filtering, fragmenting, and multi-tracking Cathy Berberian’s voice. If the phrase “deconstructing a recorded text into a series of phonemes” suggests a dry scholastic approach the results in Visage are far from academic.

When I was composing “Visage” what attracted me was….a way to expand the chances of bringing nearer musical and acoustic processes.  This is why the experience of electronic music is so important:  it enables the composer to assimilate into the musical process a vast area of sound phenomena that do not fit pre-established codes.

Towards the end of the 1950’s a new trend emerged in electronic music, the combination of electronic sounds with live performance, moving the focus to the USA  Milton Babbitt’s “Vision and Prayer for soprano and synthesized tape” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3UoYBe30-M  was written in  1961 and it is a valuable experience to follow this with the later “Reflections” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d01fwczBHp0 .

It has been said that Babbitt was less interested in producing new timbres than in utilising synthesisers for their rhythmic precision unobtainable through live performance.

During the 1960’s the use of electronic sounds in popular composition became extensive, this interest was generated in the first place by the popularity of the electric guitar which had access to altering bass and treble, reverb, echo, delay, tremolo, wah-wah pedal, phasing and flanging. All of these were eventually used on the voice and then extended to acoustic instruments. Once again Stockhausen is at the forefront his Mikrophonie II written in 1965 uses four ring modulators to alter the source material (a choir).

Gradually the reduction in the size of synthesizers made concert performances possible, though recordings of synthesized sounds were also used. By the 1980s synthesizers had became commercially available and the next stage was the development of software which in turn brought about the growth of music produced in home studios.

When we switch on our computers today to prepare our next composition it is worth considering the evolution of the sounds that we use.  In some cases we fall back on sampled instruments without any further manipulation or use a small range of pre-programmed effects, it depends very much on our purpose and the speed at which we want a result.  There are some who enjoy the challenge of pioneering, and despite the fact that the 50’s is long in the past some of the concerns are still valid to explore today.