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Swans

10/28/2019

Seeing swans swimming on lakes, ponds and canals in Europe was a new experience for me. I had seen swans before, but only at Disneyland. They were as common as ducks and geese in Germany and the Netherlands. I guess I have admired swans from the time I learned to play "Swans on the Lake" in the John Thompson 1st Grade Piano Book when I was a child.

But after going to visit Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles in Bavaria, and learning about the Swan Prince legend of Lohengrin that was painted all over the walls of the castles, seeing swans swimming elegantly on the nearby lakes --- well, it all just made sense.

I had to refresh my memory on the details of the mythology of Lohengrin. He was a knight who went to provide protection to the Princess Elsa when her father died. Lohengrin arrived crossing the river in a boat pulled by a swan. He kept his identity and place of origin a secret and, although he marries the Princess, she is told she can never ask where he came from. Here is a brief synopsis of the tale as told in Wagner's opera:

"In 1848, Richard Wagner, drawing on the contemporary work of Ludwig Lucas, adapted the tale into his popular opera Lohengrin, arguably the work through which Lohengrin's story is best known today.[5] While King Henry the Fowler tries to assemble forces in Brabant to combat the Hungarian invasions, Lohengrin appears on the Scheldt River to defend Princess Elsa from the false accusation of killing her younger brother Gottfried (who turns out to be alive and returns at the end of the opera). According to Wagner, the Grail imbues the Knight of the Swan with mystical powers that can only be maintained if their nature is kept secret; hence the danger of Elsa's question. The most famous piece from Lohengrin is the "Bridal Chorus" ("Here Comes the Bride"), still played at many Western weddings."

Other famous music came to mind as I saw more swans swimming around in the Netherlands. The ballet music of "Swan Lake" by Tchaikovsky started playing in my mind, and also "The Swan" from Saint-Saens from his "Carnival of the Animals." And then of course, being that close to Denmark, I also thought of the "The Ugly Duckling" song sung by Danny Kaye in the Hans Christian Anderson movie.

Swans really are elegant birds. I sure enjoyed seeing them in their natural habitat. I also really enjoyed reviewing the great music that has been written inspired by swans.

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In Mozart's Footsteps

10/19/2019

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"Mozart's Family" painting hanging in the Mozart Geburtshaus in Salzburg

While traveling in Austria last week, I was privileged to visit the house where Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was born and lived as a child in Salzburg, some churches, palaces and concert halls where Mozart actually performed, the apartment house where Mozart lived during the height of his career in Vienna, and the cathedral where Mozart's unfinished Requiem was played as a memorial service after he died. I saw manuscripts and letters in his own handwriting. I even saw a few of the instruments he owned and played and used to compose his incredible music. This painting shows the boy prodigy accompanying his father and sister when he was so small his feet just dangled from the bench.

Mozart lived in a time when musicians usually depended on having a patron or sponsor who provided work and a stable income for them. Mostly, the patron dictated what kind of music the composer would produce. Composers also needed some kind of post such as choir master of the local church or conductor of the court orchestra in the palace of the local duke in order to survive. They wrote music for the particular group or organization, and tried to thrive and be happy within the confines of their situation.

This type of arrangement was too restrictive for young Mozart. His genius could not be confined to particular parameters for very long. As a young man, he set out on his own to Vienna to work as a freelance composer --- a novel idea at that time. He wanted to write the music he wanted to write when and for the voices or instruments he wanted. There in Vienna he composed the great bulk of his music. He sometimes even hired a hall and the musicians himself to premiere his new works. He actually acquired quite a following and became famous in his own lifetime. Too bad he lived beyond his means and racked up debts which contributed to his early death.

I feel like I can understand his music better as I absorbed the setting and culture of where he lived and worked. Mozart lived during a time when Baroque ornamentation was literally everywhere --- in the highly decorated painting and statues in the cathedrals and palaces, to the flowery embroidery on the clothing, and yes, particularly in the music. Heavy embellishment had been THE fashion in the Baroque Period (1685-1750). During the Classical Period (1750-1820), fashion began to dictate that the lines be lighter and clearer, but there were still a lot of notes and performers with egos who clung to the Baroque styles. Mozart, being a transitional composer, left no room for the performers to take liberties with his music. He wrote out just what flourishes he wanted and did not allow for other interpretations. In fact, some say that he even foreshadowed the Romantic Period for his later works had more depth of emotion and extended harmonies. He was a composer way ahead of his time.

The most amazing displays to me were the original design concepts for the scenery and costumes of Mozart's many operas. I wonder if any of those original sets were actually made. I could not imagine how the "magical" effects indicated in the sketches could be accomplished without modern technology. They blew my mind! Wow!

"Queen of the Night" from "The Magic Flute" concept by Simon Quaglio

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Searching for Interpretation

10/1/2019

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Sometimes when writing music, it is difficult to decide how many clues to interpretation to try to notate. Do you just put in a few dynamic marks here and there? Maybe you should try to dictate every phrase or every time changes in dynamics, feel, or tempo occur? Or do you leave most of the "interpreting" up to the conductor and performers?

I recently watched a television program on PBS where a violinist went in search of how to interpret Bach's Violin concerti and partitas. He had been avoiding playing Bach in his performance repertoire because he felt that he just did not understand Bach's music well enough to give it the right interpretation. So, he decided to go to Germany to immerse himself in the places, history and culture of Bach's time to help him understand the "riddle" of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Johann Sebastian Bach 1685-1750

To most musicians, J.S. Bach might as well be God. His genius is truly monumental. What Bach did for music in his own day and for generations yet to come was enormous. Not only did he write incredible music, he figured out the system for even tempering of keyboards so that those instruments can play equally in tune (or equally out of tune) in every key. He left a body of written music that literally wrote the book on the system of theory we use in Western Music today. But, no audio recordings exist from 1685-1750. So even though we know that Bach himself was known as a great performer in his day, we don't know exactly how he intended his music to be interpreted. During the Baroque Period, interpretations were done according to cultural conventions and not well notated in the score.

What the Violinist in the documentary did was go to visit and learn from Bach scholars working in the towns, palaces and churches where Bach's influence has been passed down from generation to generation for nearly 300 years. He learned, for example, that Bach enjoyed the melodies and violin virtuosity of Italian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741). He also learned that Bach wrote a lot of music for Court dancing -- the style of dancing made popular by the French King Louis XIV and had spread all over Europe during the Baroque Period. After learning about these influences and hearing and seeing examples demonstrated, the Violinist finally felt that he knew enough background details to channel the spirit of Bach into his own performances of Bach's works.

We owe a great debt to scholars who make it their life's work to document, record, and otherwise keep alive the works and interpretations of great masterpieces of the past. So until some scholar makes it his life's work to document how to interpret my music, I will continue to try to strike a balance between "enough but not too much explanation" notation in my own musical scores. I will say that I am delighted that "Ring! Glad Christmas Bells" which definitely possesses a bit of Baroque panache, has been rather popular this Christmas musical season. I am happy that especially the flute quartet version will be performed in many far-flung places in Europe and Australia as well as in Northern America. Hope my notations leave room for some personal interpretation but include enough to breathe life into the work.

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Swans

In Mozart's Footsteps

Searching for Interpretation

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