Read Ebook: The Lighter Classics in Music A Comprehensive Guide to Musical Masterworks in a Lighter Vein by 187 Composers by Ewen David

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Ebook has 459 lines and 145531 words, and 10 pages

Robert Russell Bennett

Hector Berlioz

"The Dance of the Sylphs" is graceful waltz music, its main melody assigned to the violins. It appears in the second part of the "legend." Faust is lulled to sleep by sylphs who appear in his dream in a delicate dance which brings up for him the image of his beloved Marguerite. "Minuet of the Will-o'-the-Wisps" comes in the third part of the legend. Mephisto summons the spirits and the will-of-the-wisps to encircle Marguerite's house. The dance tune is heard in woodwind and brass. After the trio section, the minuet melody is repeated twice, the second time interrupted by chords after each phrase. The "Rak?czy March" is based on an 18th-century Hungarian melody. It is logically interpolated into the Faust legend by the expedience of having Faust wander about in Hungary. A fanfare for the brass leads to the first and main melody, a brisk march subject begun quietly in the woodwind. It gains in force until it is exultantly proclaimed by full orchestra. A countersubject is then heard in strings. After the march melody returns, it again gains in volume until it is built up into an overpowering climax.

Leonard Bernstein

Whether writing in a serious or popular vein Bernstein consistently reveals himself to be a master of his technical resources, endowed with a fine creative imagination, a strong lyric and rhythmic gift, and a restless intelligence that is ever on the search for new and fresh approaches in his writing. High on the list of favorites in the semi-classical repertory are the orchestral suites he adapted from his two popular and successful ballets.

When this Suite was first performed, in Pittsburgh in 1945, with Bernstein conducting, the composer provided the following description of what takes place in the music. "From the moment the action begins, with the sound of a juke box wailing behind the curtain, the ballet is strictly Young America of 1944. The curtain rises on a street corner with a lamppost, side street bar, and New York skyscrapers tricked out with a crazy pattern of lights, making a dizzying background. Three sailors explode onto the stage; they are on shore leave in the city and on the prowl for girls. The tale of how they meet first one girl, then a second, and how they fight over them, lose them, and in the end take off after still a third, is the story of the ballet."

Georges Bizet

This music was written for a play of the same name by Sardou.

Luigi Boccherini

Luigi Boccherini was born in Lucca, Italy, on February 19, 1743. After studying music with various private teachers in Rome, he gained recognition as a cellist both as a member of theater orchestras in Lucca and later on tour throughout Europe in joint concerts with Filippo Manfredi, violinist. He served as court composer in Madrid from 1785 to 1787, and from 1787 until 1797 for Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia. His last years were spent in Madrid in poverty and poor health, and he died in that city on May 28, 1805.

Boccherini, a contemporary of Haydn, was a prolific composer of symphonies, concertos, and a considerable amount of chamber music which were all-important in helping to develop and crystallize a classical style of instrumental writing and in establishing the classic forms of instrumental music.

Fran?ois Boieldieu

The overture opens with a mellow song for strings. When the tempo changes, a sprightlier tune is heard in strings and brought to a forceful climactic point. The music now assumes a dramatic character after which a new subject, again in a sensitive lyrical vein, is offered by the strings.

The vivacious overture is made up of several of the opera's principal melodies. The introduction begins with a motive from the first-act finale, and is followed by the melodious and expressive "Ballad of the White Lady." The Allegro section that follows includes the drinking song and several other popular arias, among these being the ballad of "Robin Adair" which appears during the hero's first-act revery and as a concert piece in the third act.

Giovanni Bolzoni

Giovanni Bolzoni was born in Parma, Italy, on May 14, 1841. He attended the Parma Conservatory, then achieved recognition as a conductor of operas in Perugia and Turin. In 1887 he became director of the Liceo Musicale in Turin. Bolzoni wrote five operas, a symphony, overtures, and chamber music, but all are now in discard. He died in Turin on February 21, 1919.

About the only piece of music by Bolzoni to survive is a beguiling little Minuet which comes from an unidentified string quartet and which has achieved outstanding popularity in various transcriptions, including many for salon orchestras with which it is a perennial favorite.

Carrie Jacobs Bond

Carrie Jacobs Bond knew how to write a song that was filled with sentiment without becoming cloying, that was simple without becoming ingenuous, and which struck a sympathetic universal chord by virtue of its mobile and expressive lyricism. Besides "I Love You Truly," "Just a Wearyin' for You" and "The End of a Perfect Day," her most famous songs included "His Lullaby," "Life's Garden," "I've Done My Work," and "Roses Are in Bloom." Her songs are so popular that they have been often heard in various transcriptions for salon orchestras and band.

Alexander Borodin

Alexander Borodin was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on November 11, 1833. He was trained in the sciences, having attended the Academy of Medicine in St. Petersburg and in 1858 receiving his doctorate in chemistry. He continued after that to devote himself to scientific activities, both in and out of Russia. He produced several significant papers and, from 1859 to 1862, served on an important scientific mission.

The peaceful Russian song is given by the clarinet, while the "melancholy strains of Oriental melodies" is an expressive song for English horn. These two melodies are the core of a composition that is free in form.

Felix Borowski

Johannes Brahms

The dances range from sentimental to passionate moods. They abound with abrupt contrasts of feeling and dynamics; they are often vital with vertiginous rhythms and changing meters. These gypsy melodies, both the gay and the sad, warm the heart like Tokay wine; the pulse of the rhythm is similarly intoxicating. As Walter Niemann wrote of these dances: "They are pure nature music, full of unfettered, vagrant, roving spirit, and a chaotic ferment, drawn straight from the deepest well springs of music by children of Nature. It seems impossible to imprison them in the bonds of measure, time, and rhythm, to convert their enchantingly refreshing uncivilized character, their wild freedom, their audacious contempt for all order into a civilized moderation and order."

Yet Brahms was able to discipline this music with modern techniques without robbing it either of its personality or popular appeal. "He has maintained," continues Niemann, "and preserved the essential, individual genuine features of gypsy music in his musical idiom: the dances sound like original Hungarian folk music ... and for this reason they delight and enchant everybody: the amateur by their natural quality, the specialist by their art."

The most famous of these dances is the fifth in F-sharp minor, its passionate, uninhibited dance melody released at once by the strings against a strong rhythm.

The following are some other popular dances.

No. 1, in G minor. A slow and languorous dance unfolds in strings, and then is contrasted by a slight, tripping theme in woodwind; a second languorous dance melody follows in the strings.

No. 6 in D-flat major. A slow syncopated melody begins sensually but soon gains in tempo and volume; a second arresting dance tune is then offered by strings against strong chords in the rest of the orchestra.

No. 7 in A major. This dance opens with a vivacious melody in strings, but through most of the piece a comparatively restrained mood is maintained.

No. 12 in D minor. The first dance melody is presented in a halting rhythm by the woodwind against decorative figures in the strings. This is followed by two other dance tunes, the first in strings with trimmings in the woodwind, and the second in full orchestra.

No. 19 in B minor and No. 21 in E minor. Both are fleet and graceful both in melody and rhythm.

Charles Wakefield Cadman

"At Dawning" is one of Cadman's two most famous songs. It sold millions of copies of sheet music and records, and has been translated into many languages. Though originally published in 1906, it reposed forgotten and unknown on the shelves of the publisher until John McCormack sang it at one of his recitals in 1909 and was given an ovation. "At Dawning" was transcribed for violin and piano by Fritz Kreisler.

Lucien Caillet

Lucien Caillet was born in Dijon, France on May 22, 1891. After attending the Dijon Conservatory he came to the United States in 1918 and settled first in Pennsylvania, and later in California. He has distinguished himself by his skilful symphonic transcriptions of compositions by Johann Sebastian Bach, Mussorgsky, and others. In his own works he frequently makes skilful use, and astute adaptations, of some famous pieces of popular music.

Alfredo Catalani

"The Dance of the Waves" takes place in the last act. After Anna's funeral procession passes by, Walter comes to the edge of the Rhine, grief-stricken. Out of the waters come the sprites to dance seductively before Walter and to beckon him on into the river. "The Waltz of the Flowers" is a graceful, even gentle, dance performed in the second act, during the wedding ceremonies of Walter and Anna.

Otto Cesana

Otto Cesana was born in Brescia, Italy, on July 7, 1899. He came to the United States in boyhood and studied music with private teachers. After working in Hollywood, where he wrote a considerable amount of music for motion pictures, he came to New York to become arranger for Radio City Music Hall, and for several important radio programs. In his own music he has been particularly successful in using within large forms popular American elements, at times folk idioms. In a more serious attitude he has produced half a dozen symphonies and various concertos for solo instruments and orchestra.

Emmanuel Chabrier

While in his operas he revealed his profound indebtedness to the Wagnerian idiom, Chabrier was at his best either in music that interpreted Spain or to which he brought a natural bent for laughter, gaiety, and the grotesque.

George Chadwick

Chadwick was a prolific composer of symphonies, concertos, and various other orchestral and choral works. He never freed himself from the influence of German Romanticism, with which he had been infected during his student days. He wrote with a sure craftsmanship, usually filling his classical structures with winning melodies and often lush harmonies and orchestration.

C?cile Chaminade

Gustave Charpentier

Fr?d?ric Chopin

Fran?ois Fr?d?ric Chopin, genius of music for the piano, was born in Zelazowa Wola, Poland, on February 22, 1810. He began to study the piano at six. One year later he made his first public appearance and wrote his first piece of music. His later music study took place privately with Joseph Elsner and at the Warsaw Conservatory from which he was graduated with honors in 1829. In that year he visited Vienna where he gave two successful concerts of his works. He left Poland for good in 1830, settling permanently in Paris a year after that. He soon became one of the most highly regarded musicians in France, even though he gave only a few public concerts. In 1837 he first met the writer, George Sand, with whom he was involved emotionally for about a decade, and under whose influence he composed some of his greatest music. Always sensitive in physique and of poor health, Chopin suffered physically most of his adult life. He died in Paris on October 17, 1849 and was buried in P?re Lachaise.

Chopin produced 169 compositions in all. Practically all of them are for the piano, and most within the smaller forms. In writing for the piano he was an innovator who helped change the destiny of piano style and technique. He is often described as the poet of the keyboard, by virtue of his sensitive and deeply affecting lyricism , his always exquisite workmanship, and his profound emotion. Many of his works are nationally Polish in expression.

The Etude in E major, op. 10, no. 3 is one of two of Chopin's most famous works in the etude form. While an etude is essentially a technical exercise, Chopin produced twenty-seven pieces for piano which, though they still probe various technical problems, are nevertheless so filled with poetic thought and musical imagination that they belong in the realm of great art and must be numbered with his most significant compositions. That in E major is one of his most beautiful melodies, a soulful song rather than a technical exercise; Chopin himself regarded this as one of his most inspired pages. One of the many transcriptions of this composition existing is for the voice.

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