Title: The Lighter Classics in Music
Author: David Ewen
Release date: September 20, 2021 [eBook #66346]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
A Comprehensive Guide to
Musical Masterworks in a Lighter Vein
by 187 Composers
by David Ewen
Arco Publishing Company, Inc.
NEW YORK
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-17781
Copyright 1961 by Arco Publishing Company, Inc., New York
All rights reserved.
Manufactured in the United States of America,
by H. Wolff, New York
Joseph Achron was born in Lozdzieje, Lithuania, on May 13, 1886. He attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied the violin with Leopold Auer and theory with Anatol Liadov, graduating in 1904. After teaching at the Kharkov Conservatory for three years, he toured Russia, Europe and the Near East as a concert violinist for about six years, and settled permanently in the United States in 1925. Some of his most ambitious and significant compositions were written in this country. Among these were three violin concertos, two violin sonatas, the Golem Suite for orchestra and the Stempenyu Suite for violin and piano. Achron died in Hollywood, California, on April 29, 1943.
When Achron was twenty-five years old, and still living in Russia, he became a member of the music committee of the Hebrew Folk Music Society of St. Petersburg. Its aim was twofold: to encourage research in Hebrew music, and to direct the enthusiasm of gifted Russian composers toward the writing of Hebrew music. It was as a direct result of this association, and the stimulus derived from the achievements of this society, that in 1911 Achron wrote a popular composition in a Hebraic vein which to this day is his most famous piece of music. It is the Hebrew Melody, Op. 33, for violin and orchestra. The melodic germ of this composition is an actual synagogical chant, amplified by Achron into a spacious melody following several introductory measures of descending, brooding phrases. This melody is first given in a lower register, but when repeated several octaves higher it receives embellishments similar to those provided a synagogical chant by a cantor. The composition ends with the same descending minor-key phrases with which it opened. This Hebrew Melody, in a transcription for violin and piano by Leopold Auer, has been performed by many of the world’s leading violin virtuosos.
Adolphe-Charles Adam, eminent composer of comic operas, was born in Paris on July 24, 1803. He attended the Paris Conservatory, where he came under the decisive influence of François Boieldieu, under whose guidance he completed his first comic opera, Pierre et Catherine, first produced at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on February 9, 1829. His first major success, Le Chalet, was given on September 25, 1834, enjoying almost fifteen hundred performances in Paris before the end of the century. Adam subsequently wrote almost fifty other stage works in a light style. With Boieldieu and Auber he became founder and leading exponent of the opéra-comique. His most celebrated work in this genre was Le Postillon de Longjumeau, first given at the Opéra-Comique on October 13, 1836. This work was frequently heard in the United States in the 1860’s and 1870’s, but has since lapsed into obscurity. Adam was also a highly significant composer of ballets, of which Giselle is now a classic; of many serious operas; and of a celebrated Christmas song, “Noël,” or “Oh, Holy Night” (“Cantique de Noël: Minuit, Chrétiens”), which has been transcribed for orchestra. In 1847, Adam founded his own theater—the Théâtre National—which a year later (with the outbreak of the 1848 revolution in France) went into bankruptcy. From 1849 on he was professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory. Adam died in Paris on May 3, 1856.
Giselle is one of the proudest achievements of French Romantic ballet. Through the years it has never lost its immense popularity. With choreography by Jules Perrot and Jean Coralli, it was introduced in Paris on June 28, 1841. Carlotta Grisi appeared in the title role. Giselle was an immediate triumph. Since then, the world’s foremost ballerinas have appeared as Giselle, including Fanny Elssler, Taglioni, Pavlova, Karsavina, Markova, Danilova, Margot Fonteyn, and Moira Shearer.
“What is the secret charm of this ballet?” inquires the famous scenic designer, Alexander Benois. He goes on to answer: “It is mainly due to its simplicity and clearness of plot, to the amazingly impetuous spontaneity with which the drama is developed. There is barely time to collect one’s thoughts before the heroine, who but a moment ago charmed everybody with her vitality, is lying stiff and cold and dead at the feet of the lover who deceived her.... It is deeply moving, and the magic of a true poet ... consists in making us accept without question any absurdities he may choose to offer us.... No one is inclined to criticize while under the spell of this strange idyl.”
The ballet text was the collaborative creation of Théophile Gautier, Vernoy de Saint-Georges, and Jean Coralli. Gautier had read a legend by Heinrich Heine in De L’Allemagne which described elves in white dresses (designated as “wilis”) who died before their wedding day and emerged from their graves in bridal dress to dance till dawn. Any man an elf met was doomed to dance himself to death. Gautier, recognizing the ballet potentialities of this legend, decided to adapt it for Carlotta Grisi. He interested Vernoy de Saint-Georges in assisting him in making this ballet adaptation and Jean Coralli in creating some of the dance sequences. “Three days later,” Gautier revealed in a letter to Heine, “the ballet Giselle was accepted. By the end of the week, Adam had improvised the music, the scenery was nearly ready, and the rehearsals were in full swing.”
The ballet text finds Giselle as a sweet, carefree peasant girl. Betrayed by Albrecht, the Duke of Silesia, she goes mad and commits suicide. Her grave is touched by the magic branch of Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis. Giselle arises from the grave as a wili, and performs her nocturnal dance. Albrecht, who comes to visit her grave, is caught up by her spell and must dance to his doom.
A master of expressive and dramatized melodies, Adam here created a score filled with the most ingratiating tunes and spirited rhythms, all beautifully adjusted to the sensitive moods of this delicate fantasy. From this score the 20th-century English composer Constant Lambert extracted four melodic episodes which he made into a popular orchestral suite: “Giselle’s Dance”; “Mad Scene”; “Pas de deux, Act 2”; and “Closing Scene.”
From the repertory of Adam’s operas comes a delightful overture, a favorite in the semi-classical repertory, even though the opera itself is rarely heard. It is the Overture to If I Were King (Si j’étais roi). This comic opera was first performed in Paris on November 4, 1852; the libretto was by D’Ennery and Brésil. In Arabia, the fisherman, Zephoris, has managed to save the life of Nemea, beautiful daughter of King Oman. But Nemea is being pursued by Prince Kador, who does not hesitate to employ treachery to win her. Nemea is determined to marry none but the unidentified man who had saved her life. Eventually, the fisherman is brought to the palace, placed in command of the troops, and becomes a hero in a war against the Spaniards. Kador is sent to his disgrace, and Zephoris wins the hand of Nemea.
The oriental background of the opera permeates the atmosphere of the overture. A forceful introduction for full orchestra and arpeggio figures in harp lead to a skipping and delicate tune for first violins against plucked cello strings. The flutes and clarinets respond with a subsidiary thought. A crescendo brings on a strong subject for the violins against a loud accompaniment. After a change of tempo, another light, graceful melody is given by solo flute and oboes. The principal melodic material is then amplified with dramatic effect.
Richard Addinsell was born in Oxford, England, on January 13, 1904. After studying law at Oxford, he attended the Royal College of Music in London and completed his music study in Berlin and Vienna between 1929 and 1932. In 1933 he visited the United States, where he wrote music for several Hollywood films and for a New York stage production of Alice in Wonderland. He has since made a specialty of writing music for the screen, his best efforts being the scores for Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Blithe Spirit, Dangerous Moonlight, Dark Journey, and Fire Over England. During World War II he wrote music for several documentary films, including Siege of Tobruk and We Sail at Midnight.
Addinsell’s most frequently played composition is the Warsaw Concerto, for piano and orchestra. He wrote it for the English movie Dangerous Moonlight (renamed in the United States Suicide Squadron). Anton Walbrook here plays the part of a renowned concert pianist who becomes an officer in the Polish air force during World War II and loses his memory after a crash. The Warsaw Concerto, basic to the plot structure, recurs several times in the film. It first became popular, however, on records, and after that with “pop” and salon orchestras. Though the composer’s indebtedness to Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto is pronounced, the Warsaw Concerto has enough of its own individuality and charm to survive. Structurally, it is not a concerto but a rhapsody. It opens with several massive chords, arpeggios, and scale passages in the piano. This dramatic opening leads to the sensitive and romantic principal melody, heard in the strings. Later on there appears a second lyric thought, but the rhapsodic character remains predominant. The composition ends with a final statement of the opening phrase of the first main melody.
Addinsell is also sometimes represented on semi-classical programs with a light-textured and tuneful composition called Prelude and Waltz, for orchestra. This also stems from a motion picture, in this case the British screen adaptation of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit.
Isaac Albéniz, one of Spain’s most distinguished composers, was born in Camprodón, Spain, on May 29, 1860. He was a child prodigy who gave piano concerts in Spain after some spasmodic study in Paris with Marmontel. In 1868 he entered the Madrid Conservatory, but in his thirteenth year he ran away from home and spent several years traveling about in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the United States, supporting himself all the while by playing the piano. He was back in Spain in 1875, and soon thereafter undertook music study seriously, first at the Brussels Conservatory and then at the Leipzig Conservatory. He settled in Paris in 1893, where he wrote his first important works, one of these being his first composition in a national Spanish idiom: the Catalonia, for piano and orchestra, in 1899. After 1900 he lived in his native land. From 1906 to 1909 he devoted himself to the writing of his masterwork, the suite Iberia, consisting of twelve pieces for the piano gathered in four volumes. Iberia is a vast tonal panorama of Spain, its sights and sounds, dances and songs, backgrounds. Albéniz died in Cambo-Bains, in the Pyrenees, on May 18, 1909.
Albéniz may well be regarded as the founder of the modern Spanish nationalist school in music. This school sought to exploit the rhythms and melodies and styles of Spanish folk music within serious concert works, thus providing a musical interpretation to every possible aspect of Spanish life.
Albéniz’ first work in the national style is also one of his rare compositions utilizing an orchestra. It is the Catalonia, written in 1899, and introduced that year at a concert of the Société nationale de musique in Paris. This work is sometimes erroneously designated as a suite, but it is actually a one-movement rhapsody. A single theme, unmistakably Spanish, dominates the entire work. A brief rhythmic middle section for wind, percussion, and a single double bass provides contrast. This middle part is intended as a burlesque on a troupe of wandering musicians playing their favorite tune: the clarinet plays off key and the bass drum is off beat. The original dance melody returns to conclude the work.
Córdoba, a haunting nocturne, is the fourth and most famous number from the Cantos de España, a suite for the piano, op. 232. Córdoba is a vivid tone picture of that famous Andalusian city. Sharp chords, as if plucked from the strings of a guitar, preface an oriental-type melody which suggests the Moorish background of the city.
Fête Dieu à Seville, or El Corpus en Sevilla (Festival in Seville) is the third and concluding number from the first volume of Iberia. Besides its original version for the piano, this composition is celebrated in several transcriptions for orchestra, notably those by E. Fernández Arbós and Leopold Stokowski. This music depicts a religious procession in the streets of Seville on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. At the head of the procession is the priest bearing the Host, or Blessed Sacrament, under a lavishly decorated canopy. As the procession moves, worshipers who crowd the streets improvise a religious chant.
Fête Dieu à Seville opens with a brusquely accented march melody, against which emerges an improvisational-type melody similar to those sung by worshipers in the street. The march melody and the improvised chant alternate, but it is the chant that is carried to a thunderous climax. Then this chant subsides and fades away into the distance, as the composition ends.
Navarra is a poignant tonal evocation for piano of the Spanish province below the Pyrenees. Albéniz never completed this work; it was finished after his death by Déodat de Séverac. This composition is perhaps best known in Fernández Arbós’ transcription for orchestra. Against the provocative background of a jota rhythm moves a languorous and sensual gypsy melody.
Sevillañas (Seville) is the third number from Suite española for piano; it has become famous independent of the larger work and is often heard in transcription. The heart of the piece is a passionate song, typical of those heard in the haunts of Seville. As a background there is an incisive rhythm suggesting the clicking of castanets.
The Tango in D major, op. 165, no. 2, for piano, is not only the most famous one by Albéniz but one of the most popular ever written. With its intriguing flamenco-like melody and compelling rhythm it is Spanish to the core—the prototype of all tango music. The original piano version as written by the composer is not often heard. When it is performed on the piano, this tango is given in a brilliant but complex arrangement by Leopold Godowsky. But it is much more famous in various transcriptions, notably one for violin and piano by Fritz Kreisler, and numerous ones for small or large orchestras.
Triana is the third and concluding number from the second book of Albéniz’ monumental suite for piano, Iberia. Triana, of which this music is a tonal picture, is a gypsy suburb of Seville. In the introduction, random phrases bring up the image of various attitudes and movements of Spanish dances. A triple-rhythmed figure leads to a light and graceful dance melody against a bolero rhythm. As the melody is developed and repeated it gains in intensity and is enriched in color until it evolves climactically with full force. A transcription for orchestra by Fernández Arbós is as famous as the original piano version.
Hugo Alfvén was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on May 1, 1872. His music study took place at the Stockholm Conservatory and, on government stipends, with César Thomson in Brussels, and in Germany and France. From 1910 to 1939 he was musical director and conductor of the student chorus at the Uppsala University. Alfvén was a nationalist composer of Romantic tendencies who wrote five symphonies together with a considerable amount of orchestral and choral music. He died in Faluns, Sweden, on May 8, 1960.
Midsummer Vigil (Midsommarvaka), op. 19 (1904), a Swedish rhapsody for orchestra, is his best known composition. It was produced as a ballet, La Nuit de Saint-Jean, in Paris on October 25, 1925, where it proved so successful that it was given more than 250 performances within four years. As a work for symphony orchestra it has received universal acclaim for its attractive deployment of national Swedish folk song idioms and dance rhythms. The music describes a revel held in small Swedish towns during the St. John’s Eve festival. The work opens with a gay tune for clarinet over plucked strings. This is followed by a burlesque subject for bassoon. Muted strings and English horns then offer a broad, stately, and emotional folk song. Repeated by the French horns, this song is soon amplified by the strings. The tempo now quickens, and a rustic dance theme is given softly by the violins. The mood gradually becomes frenetic. The violins offer a passionate subject over a pedal point. A climax is finally reached as the revelry becomes unconfined.
Louis Alter was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, on June 18, 1902, where he received his academic education in the public schools, and his initial instruction in music. Music study was completed with Stuart Mason at the New England Conservatory. In 1924 Alter came to New York, where for five years he worked as accompanist for Nora Bayes, Irene Bordoni and other stars of the stage; he also did arrangements for a publishing firm in Tin Pan Alley. Between 1925 and 1927 he wrote his first popular songs and contributed a few of them to Broadway productions. Since then he has written many song hits, as well as scores for Broadway musicals and Hollywood films. His best known songs include “A Melody from the Sky” and “Dolores,” both of which were nominated for Academy Awards; also “Twilight on the Trail,” such a favorite of President Franklin D. Roosevelt that the manuscript, together with a recording by Bing Crosby, repose in the Roosevelt Museum in Hyde Park, New York.
Alter has been successful in writing skilful compositions for piano and orchestra in which the popular element is pronounced, encased within a symphonic structure. Some of them are now staples in the symphonic-jazz repertory. His best compositions were inspired by the sights, sounds and moods of New York City.
Jewels from Cartier (1953), as the title indicates, was inspired not by New York but by one of the city’s most famous jewelers when Alter was one day allowed to inspect its collection. In his suite, Alter attempts in eight sections to translate various jewels into tones. The first movement is “Emerald Eyes.” Since many beautiful emeralds come from South America, this section emphasizes the rumba beat and other Latin-American rhythms. “The Ruby and the Rose” is a romantic ballad in which voices supplement the instruments of the orchestra. “Pearl of the Orient” consists of an oriental dance. “Black Pearl of Tahiti” exploits exotic Polynesian rhythms and its languorous-type melodies. “Diamond Earrings” is a swirling waltz while “Star Sapphire” is a beguine. In “Cat’s Eye in the Night,” the music suggests a playful kitten darting about in a room. The finale, “Lady of Jade,” is in the style of Chinese processional music.
Manhattan Masquerade (1932) is the most dramatic of Alter’s New York murals. It consists of a Viennese-type waltz played in fox-trot time, a suggestion on the part of the composer that Vienna and New York are not too far apart spiritually.
Manhattan Moonlight (1932) is, on the other hand, atmospheric. It opens with four chords in a nebulous Debussy vein. The core of the work is an extended melody for strings against piano embellishments. A light and frivolous mood is then invoked before the main melody returns in an opulent scoring.
Manhattan Serenade (1928) is the most famous of all Alter’s instrumental works and the one that first made him known. He published it first as a piano solo, but soon rewrote it for piano and orchestra. Paul Whiteman and his orchestra made it popular in 1929 on records and in public concerts. This work is extremely effective in laying bare the nerves of the metropolis through syncopations, and jazz tone colorations. Its main melody is a plangent song to which, in 1940, Howard Johnson adapted a song lyric. Manhattan Serenade is often heard as background music on radio and television programs about New York.
Side Street in Gotham (1938) attempts to portray the city from river to river. The composition begins with a few notes suggesting “London Bridge Is Falling Down,” which is later elaborated in a vigorous and amusing tempo; the reason this theme is here used is because it is referred to in the lyric of “The Sidewalks of New York.” Some of the mystery of New York’s side streets can also be found in this music.
Leroy Anderson is one of America’s most successful and best known composers of light orchestral classics. He was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on June 29, 1908. His early musical training took place at the New England Conservatory, after which he studied the bass and organ with private teachers. In 1929 he was graduated from Harvard magna cum laude, and one year after that he received there his Master’s degree in music on a Naumberg Fellowship. For the next few years he served as organist and choirmaster in Milton, Massachusetts; as a member of the music faculty at Radcliffe College; and as director of the Harvard University Band. In 1935 he became a free-lance conductor, composer and arranger in Boston and New York. As orchestrator for the Boston Pops Orchestra, for which he made many orchestral arrangements over a period of several years, Anderson completed his first original semi-classical composition, Jazz Pizzicato, successfully introduced by the Boston Pops Orchestra in 1939. Since then the Boston Pops Orchestra has introduced most of Anderson’s compositions, many of which proved exceptionally popular in concerts throughout the country and on records. Anderson has also appeared frequently as guest conductor of important American symphony orchestras and has conducted his own compositions with his orchestra for records. In 1958, his first musical comedy, Goldilocks, was produced on Broadway.
Beyond possessing a most ingratiating lyric invention and a consummate command of orchestration, Anderson boasts an irresistible sense of humor and a fine flair for burlesque. He is probably at his best in programmatic pieces in which extra-musical sounds are neatly adapted to and often serve as a background for his sprightly tunes—ranging from the clicking of a typewriter to the meowing of a cat.
Blue Tango is the first strictly instrumental composition ever to achieve first place on the Hit Parade. For almost a year it was the leading favorite on juke boxes, and its sale of over two million records represents Anderson’s healthiest commercial success. Scored for violins, this music neatly combines an insistent tango rhythm with a sensual melody in a purple mood. Bugler’s Holiday is a musical frolic for three trumpets. A Christmas Festival provides a colorful orchestral setting to some of the best loved Christmas hymns, including “Joy to the World,” “Deck the Halls,” “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,” “Silent Night,” “Jingle Bells,” and “Come All Ye Faithful.”
Fiddle-Faddle is a merry burlesque-escapade for the violins, inspired from a hearing of Paganini’s Perpetual Motion; this, then, is a modern style “Perpetual Motion.” In Horse and Buggy, the music nostalgically evokes a bygone day with a sprightly, wholesome tune presented against the rhythms of a jogging horse. The Irish Suite was commissioned by the Eire Society of Boston, and is a six-movement adaptation of six of Thomas Moore’s Irish Melodies. They are: “The Irish Washerwoman,” “The Minstrel Boy,” “The Rakes of Mallow,” “The Wearing of the Green,” “The Last Rose of Summer,” and “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” Jazz Legato and Jazz Pizzicato are studies in contrasting moods and dynamics. The Jazz Pizzicato consists of a jazz melody presented entirely by plucked strings; its companion piece is a broader jazz melody for bowed strings. Plink, Plank, Plunk also makes effective use of pizzicato strings, this time attempting to simulate the sounds suggested by the descriptive title. Saraband brings about the marriage between the very old and very new in musical styles. The old classical dance in slow triple time and accented second beat is exploited with a quickening of tempo and with modern rhythmic and melodic embellishments.
In Sleigh Bells, jangling sleighbells and the sound of a cracking whip, provide a delightful background to a jaunty tune that has the bite and sting of outdoor winterland. This piece has become something of a perennial favorite of the Christmas season. In The Syncopated Clock, the rhythm of a clicking grandfather’s clock, presented by percussion instruments in a modern rhythm, is placed against a bouncy, syncopated melody. This number has become popular as theme music for the CBS-TV “Early Show.” The Trumpeter’s Lullaby is a sensitive melody with the soothing accompaniment of a lullaby.
The Typewriter permits members of the percussion section to imitate the incisive, rigid rhythm of a functioning typewriter, punctuated by the regular tinkle of the bell to provide the warning signal that the carriage has come to the end of a line. Against this rhythm moves a vivacious message in strings. The Typewriter was played in the motion picture But Not for Me, starring Clark Gable, released in 1959. In The Waltzing Cat, an imaginary cat dances gracefully to a waltz melody made up mainly of meows.
Daniel François Esprit Auber, genius of opéra-comique, was born in Caen, Normandy, France, on January 29, 1782. In his youth he lived in London, where he studied both the business of art, in which he hoped to engage, and music. There he wrote several songs which were heard at public entertainments. After returning to France and settling in Paris in 1804, he gave himself up completely to music. Two minor stage works with music were privately performed between 1806 and 1811 before his first opera received its première performance: Le Séjour militaire in 1813. His first success came seven years after that with La Bergère châtelaine. From then on he was a prolific writer of both light and grand operas, many to texts by Eugène Scribe. La Muette de Portici in 1828 was a triumph, and was followed by such other major successes Fra Diavolo (1830), Le Cheval de bronze (1835), Le Domino noir (1837) and Les Diamants de la couronne (1841). His last opera, Rêves d’amour, was completed when he was eighty-seven. Auber was one of France’s most highly honored musicians. From 1842 until his death he was director of the Paris Conservatory, and in 1857 he was made by Napoleon III Imperial Maître de Chapelle. Auber died in Paris on May 12, 1871.
With Adam and Boieldieu, Auber was one of the founding fathers of the opéra-comique. He was superior to his two colleagues in the lightness of his touch, surpassing wit, and grace of lyricism. But Auber’s charm and gaiety were not bought at the expense of deeper emotional and dramatic values; for all their lightness of heart, his best comic operas are filled with pages that have the scope and dimension of grand opera. As Rossini once said of him, Auber may have produced light music, but he produced it like a true master.
Overtures to several of his most famous operas are standards in the light-classical repertory.
The Black Domino (Le Domino noir), text by Eugène Scribe, was introduced in Paris on December 2, 1837. The central character is Lady Angela, an abbess, who attends a masked ball where she meets and falls in love with Horatio, a young nobleman. Numerous escapades and adventures follow before Angela meets up again with her young man. Now released from her religious vows by the Queen, Angela is free to marry him.
In the overture, a loud outburst for full orchestra emphasizes a strongly rhythmic theme. A staccato phrase in the woodwind and a return of the initial strong subject follow. This leads into a light dancing motive for the woodwind. Another forte passage is now the bridge to a melodious episode in the woodwind. A change of key brings on a gay bolero melody for clarinets and bassoons in octaves. After this idea is amplified, a jota-like melody is given by the full orchestra. The closing section is a brilliant presentation of a completely new jota melody.
The Crown Diamonds (Les Diamants de la couronne) was first produced in Paris on March 6, 1841, when it scored a major success. But it enjoyed an even greater triumph when it was first performed in England three years after that; from then on it has remained a great favorite with English audiences. The text, by Eugène Scribe and Saint-Georges, is set in 18th-century Portugal where the Queen assumes the identity of the leader of a gang of counterfeiters and uses the crown diamonds to get the money she needs to save her throne. When Don Henrique falls into the unscrupulous hands of these counterfeiters, the Queen saves his life and falls in love with him. The throne is eventually saved, and the crown jewels retrieved. The Queen now can choose Don Henrique as her husband.
The overture opens with a sustained melody for the strings that is dramatized by key changes. A rhythmic passage leads to a martial subject for the brass. Several other vigorous ideas ensue in the brass and woodwind. After their development there comes a lyrical string episode which, in turn, leads into a second climax. Contrast comes with a lyrical idea in the strings. A loud return of the first martial subject in full orchestra marks the beginning of a spirited conclusion.
Fra Diavolo was an immediate success when first given in Paris on January 28, 1830; it has remained Auber’s best known comic opera. It has even received burlesque treatment on the Hollywood screen in a comedy starring Laurel and Hardy. The text by Eugène Scribe has for its central character a bandit chief by the name of Fra Diavolo who disguises himself as an Italian Marquis. He flirts with a lady of noble birth, hides in the bedroom of Zerlina, the inn-keeper’s daughter, and is finally apprehended by Zerlina’s sweetheart, the captain of police.
This popular overture opens with a pianissimo drum roll, the preface to a march tune for strings. The march music is extended to other instruments, and as the volume increases it gives the impression of an advancing army. It attains a fortissimo for full orchestra, then subsides. The overture ends with several sprightly melodies from the first act of the opera.
The Mute of Portici (La Muette de Portici)—or, as it is sometimes called, Masaniello—is a grand opera that contributed a footnote to the political history of its times. First performed in Paris on February 29, 1828, it had profound repercussions on the political situation of that period, and it is regarded by many as a significant influence in bringing on the July Revolution in Paris in 1830. When first performed in Brussels the same year, it instigated such riots that the occupying Dutch were ejected from that country and Belgium now achieved independence.
The text by Eugène Scribe and Germain Delavigne is based on an episode from history: a successful Neapolitan revolt against the Duke of Arcos, headed by Tommaso Anello in 1647. In the opera, Masaniello assumes Anello’s part, and toward the end of the opera after the insurrection is smothered, he is assassinated.
The overture begins with stormy music in full orchestra. After the tempo slackens, a sensitive melody is presented by clarinets and bassoons in octaves. The main section of the overture now unfolds, its main theme divided between the strings and the woodwind. After a fortissimo section for full orchestra, a second important melody is heard in the woodwind and violins. The two main subjects are recalled and developed. The overture closes with a coda in which percussion instruments are emphasized.
Johann Sebastian Bach was born in Eisenach, Germany, on March 21, 1685. He was the most significant member of a family that for generations had produced professional musicians. His career can be divided into three convenient periods. The first was between 1708 and 1717 when, as organist to the Ducal Chapel in Weimar, he wrote most of his masterworks for organ. During the second period, from 1717 to 1723, he served as Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold in Coethen. During this period he wrote most of his major works for orchestra, solo instruments, and chamber-music ensembles. The last period took place in Leipzig from 1723 until his death where he was cantor of the St. Thomas Church. In Leipzig he produced some of his greatest choral compositions. Towards the end of his life he went blind and became paralyzed. He died in Leipzig on July 28, 1750.
As the culmination of the age of polyphony, Johann Sebastian Bach’s masterworks are, for the most part, too complex and subtle for popular appeal. But from his vast and incomparable output of concertos, sonatas, suites, masses, passions, cantatas, and various compositions for the organ and for the piano, it is possible to lift a few random items of such melodic charm and simple emotional appeal that they can be profitably exploited for wide consumption. In these less complicated works, Bach’s consummate skill at counterpoint, and his equally formidable gift at homophonic writing, are always in evidence.