Musical Invective

Lexicon of Musical Invective: Critical Assaults on Composers Since Beethoven's Time.

I found it in the library the other day. I'm quoting some of my favorites.

"We were afflicted by Preludes, poeme symphonique by the miserable Liszt."

(George Templeton Strong's Diary, May 4, 1867)

"I can compare Le Carneval Romain by Berlioz to nothing but the caperings and gibberings of a big baboon, over-excited by a dose of alcoholic stimulus."

(George Templeton Strong's Diary, December 15, 1866)

"To one critic, the music of Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces suggested feeding-time at the zoo; also 'a farmyard in great activity while pigs are being ringed and geese strangled.' On another the identical section of the work produced the impression of 'a village fair with possibly a blind clarinetist playing at random.' The same listener heard sounds as of 'sawing steel' and the 'distant noise of an approaching train alternately with the musical sobs of a dynamo.'"
(London Daily Telegraph, January 24, 1914)

And my personal favorite:

"Poor Debussy, sandwiched in between Brahms and Beethoven, seemed weaker than usual. We cannot feel that all this extreme ecstasy is natural; it seems forced and hysterical; it is musical absinthe; there are moments when the suffering Faun in Debussy's Afternoon of a Faun seems to need a veterinary surgeon.

(Louis Elson, Boston Daily Advertiser, January 2, 1905)

I want to be a music critic just so I can be paid to describe pieces as "musical absinthe."

(I picked some particularly cruel ones, but the whole book is delightfully mean-spirited.)

Beethoven Variations Op. 34

I promised to write about the music I'm playing in my recital, so here goes! I'm starting with this piece because it's what I've been working on for the last few weeks. And by "working on," I mean, "furiously memorizing because I can't perform anything well unless it's been in my brain for at least four months." I told Dr. Marks last semester that I wanted to play a variation set, and this is one of the few he suggested. It's lovely. I know I use that word too often, but it is truly lovely. I mean it.

I like particularly that the piece is dedicated to Princess Barabara Odescalch, one of Beethoven's pupils. Why do I like that so much? Because I pretend I'm a princess every time I play this piece. (Sometimes it's hard to let go of little-girl dreams)

The theme is beautiful, and almost Mozartian. There are sweet little trills and turns. It's very docile and pretty. It's worth noting that the theme is in F Major, Beethoven's pastoral key. However, the piece doesn't stay in that key, and that's what makes this variation set so interesting.

Each of the variations is in a different key. The variation set rotates through mediant relationships. This means that, if the theme is in F Major, then the first variation is in D Major, the second variation is in B-flat Major, etc. It's essentially a pattern of falling thirds. I should mention that I chose to play this variation set because of mediant relationship bit. I think mediant relationships are God's special gift from heaven. Really. I think God invented mediant relationships to make the world a happier place.

The variations themselves are fairly tame, for the most part. They all sound a bit flowery and sweet. It's the kind of piece fit for a stereotypical princess. It all flows along very prettily until the fifth variation. The fifth variation is like reading Hans Christian Anderson's The Little Mermaid. Where she dies at the end instead of marrying the handsome prince like Disney always told you? That's the best comparison I have for how the fifth variation comes across.* The previous variation ends in sunny E-flat Major. Then you hear these murky c minor triads way down in the bass, followed by crescendo-ing, descending arpeggios in octaves (so Beethoven-esque!). The middle section contains broken octaves arpeggios in the bass over a gut-wrenching melody. It's so dramatic, and I feel that it foretells Beethoven's more mature style.

You can hear the piece here. I'm giving you the Gould version, because he makes some entertaining faces.

*Actually, no. The closest comparison I can think of is this: Patrick Rothfuss recently wrote a children's book called The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle. The subversive ending? Where the princess eats everything?! That's the fifth variation.

A Question

I would apologize for not posting, but May is a terrible month for students. I'm sure you'll understand. I've been busy taking finals and playing for juries. I also earned credit for that silly freshman comp. class that I never took. That adventure involved forays into subject-verb agreement and the proper use of capital letters. It was truly riveting, and I did not feel at all that I had wasted two weeks of my life.

The good news is, now I have a glorious summer ahead of me! I'm using it primarily to practice for my junior recital in the fall. There will be lots of lovely music: Scarlatti, Hovhaness, Beethoven, and Kabalevsky. By the end of the summer, I will have written excitedly about all of it. I will also be brushing up on my French and fostering my morbid fascination with the Soviet Union. (I'm starting with this.)

Speaking on Russians, I've been falling more deeply in love with Kabalevsky. I also want to know why I can't find much of his choral music here. Is it a silly copyright law? Is it because America thinks of it as Soviet propaganda? He did adhere much more strictly to socialist realism than either Prokofiev or Shostakovich. Is it because so much of it was composed during the Cold War? We weren't exactly buddy-buddy with Russia during Kabalevsky's lifetime. (Van Cliburn was greeted with ticker tape parades when he won the Tchaikovsky competition in Moscow in 1958. Generally, pianists don't get parades. It's like Cliburn was a war hero or something. He went into battle and stole that first place from the Russians! Hooray!)

In all seriousness, though, I really would like to know why so much of his music is not available to me. If anyone knows, please tell me!