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1’48”
Intro’
Botsford/Atwell
1’52”
B
Botsford
2’07”
A
Botsford
2’24”
Outro
Atwell
Ragtime piano compositions were never intended to be performed exactly as written. A published composition in this genre should be understood as a set of guidelines for performance. The composer supplies the basic material, but the performer is invited to reorganize and elaborate upon that material. The recording16
selected for this text was made in 1951 by the Trinidadian pianist Winifred Atwell (1914-1983). It proved a hit, selling millions of copies in the UK and launching a craze for Atwell’s style of ragtime piano playing. Atwell prefered the sound of an authentic “honky-tonk” piano, as heard in this recording. This is not a specific type of instrument, but rather a general aesthetic that is associated with the sound of early-20th century barroom pianos. Such instruments were generally cheap, damaged, and out of tune. The piano in this recording has a tinny quality, while the Page | 71
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multiple strings that are struck each time
the player depresses a key are not in tune
with one another.
Atwell takes a typically improvisatory
approach to her performance of Botsford’s
composition. She plays his introduction
and A section essentially as written,
although she does not repeat the A after
the first time through. Then she plays the
B section, followed by a repeat of the A
section. Atwell omits Botsford’s C section,
however, and instead interpolates her own
material. The new music, which includes
several contrasting phrases and transitional
passages, fits well within the performance
but bears no relation to what Botsford
wrote. To conclude, she plays the B and A
sections once more, adding a final tag of
her own creation. Atwell’s performance, Image 3.17: Pianist Winifred Atwell therefore, can be diagrammed as follows, became a sensation in the 1950s.
with her original contributions in brackets: Source: Flickr intro A B A [trans D E F intro’] B A [outro]. Attribution: User “Aussie~mobs”
License: Public Domain
In sum, therefore, this is a performance of
a piece composed half by Botsford and half by Atwell.
The syncopated, danceable rhythms of ragtime are easy to hear in Williams’s barroom music for Star Wars. The texture of ragtime—regular pulses in the low range, lively melody in the high range—is also evident. The instrumentation, however, echoes that of another African American dance music tradition, one that burst onto the scene just as ragtime was becoming passé: Dixieland jazz.
Dixieland Jazz
The style that would come to be known as
Dixieland jazz developed in New Orleans in
the early years of the twentieth century. Like
ragtime, Dixieland jazz was heavily influenced
by marching band music. Street bands
provided an important form of entertainment
in the city, and formal ensembles regularly
processed between the various neighborhoods. Image 3.18: In this photograph, Less disciplined musicians, known as “second Dixieland musicians march in a line” players, would tag along behind the 2016 parade in Dresden.
bands, improvising syncopated melodies on Source: Wikimedia Commons Attribution: User “SchiDD”
top of those being played by the ensemble. License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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This practice resulted in a new performance
style, and small groups of musicians began
gathering together to play syncopated music
on traditional band instruments—usually
clarinet, trumpet, trombone, and tuba, with
banjo to provide the rhythmic underpinning.
Dixieland jazz is also sometimes referred to Image 3.19: Dixieland jazz is still as polyphonic jazz, due to the fact that all of popular today. Here, we see a US
Army band performing in Leipzig.
the musicians play independent melodies at Source: US Army Europe Band & Chorus the same time. The term polyphonic means Attribution: Valerie Avila
“many sounds,” and is used to describe music License: Public Domain in which all parts carry melodies of equal importance.
One of the first great Dixieland band leaders was the cornet player Joseph Nathan “King” Oliver (1881-1938). Despite having established a formidable reputation in New Orleans, King Oliver moved to Chicago in 1918, hoping to secure a better life for himself and his family. He was not alone: millions of other African Americans living in the post-bellum South made the same trip in what is now termed the Great Migration. In Chicago, King Oliver was able to recruit the finest players for his band. These included a young Louis Armstrong, who had also learned his craft growing up in New Orleans. Oliver played first cornet, while Image 3.20: Louis Armstrong was one of the most influential jazz musicians of the 20th century.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: World-Telegram staff photographer
License: Public Domain
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Armstrong played second cornet and slide trumpet. The other musicians in Oliver’s band were clarinetist Johnny Dodds, Honoré Dutrey on trombone, Lil Hardin (later Armstrong) on piano, Bill Johnson on banjo and string bass (in place of tuba), and Baby Dodds on drums. King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band quickly gained popularity, and the recordings that they began to release in 1923 sparked a national craze for jazz.
King Oliver, Dippermouth Blues
Dippermouth Blues
Composer: Joseph Nathan “King” Oliver
Performance: King Oliver and his Creole Jazz Band
(1923)
Time
Form
What to listen for
0’00”
Intro
All the melody instruments play a descending
arpeggio
0’07”
Head
All of the melody instruments contribute different
parts to the main theme
0’43”
Solo 1
The clarinet improvises a solo while the other
instruments provide a stop-time accompaniment
1’19”
Solo 2
All of the instruments improvise at the same time
1’37”
Solo 3
The cornet player improvises with a plunger mute;
other instruments are heard improvising in the
background
2’29”
Solo 4
All of the instruments improvise at the same time
One of King Oliver’s most influential compositions was Dippermouth Blues, which his group recorded twice in 1923 for two different record labels. We’re going to examine the first recording, made in April for Gennett Records. The way this recording was made had a significant impact on how it sounds. Before the electric microphone was invented in 1925, music was recorded using acoustic technology.
The musicians would gather around a horn that looked much like those you see on old gramophones. Those who played quiet instruments would stand close to the horn, while those who played loud instruments would stand further away, sometimes behind a barrier. The sound waves that entered the horn would cause a stylus to vibrate, which would in turn carve a groove into a rotating wax cylinder.
The limitations of this technology meant that certain sounds could not be recorded.
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Image 3.21: This photograph captures a recording session in the acoustic era.
Source: Library of Congress
Attribution: Library of Congress
License: Public Domain
In particular, instruments and voices that were very high, very low, or very loud caused the stylus to skip and ruined the recording. This explains why we don’t hear string bass or very much percussion in this recording of “Dippermouth Blues.” A live performance would have been slightly different.
After a brief introduction, we hear an excellent example of the Dixieland style as both cornets, the clarinet, and the trombone all play unique melodies at the same time. It is impossible to say who has “the” melody, for the music being played by each instrument seems to be of equal importance. The various instruments also take turns emerging from the texture. At one moment the clarinet seems to stand out, while at another your attention is drawn to the trombone. After a while, the clarinet really does take the melody, while the other instruments play a repeated rhythm in the background. Later, the cornet similarly takes a lead role. Near the end of the recording, we once again hear the polyphonic texture that marks this style. This music is busy and complex, but in a way it is also simple. Its object, after all, is to make you want to dance. If you feel compelled to tap your foot or otherwise respond to its syncopated rhythms, then the players have accomplished their goal.
The title of this selection also provides us with valuable information.
“Dippermouth” was simply a nickname for Louis Armstrong (a fact that has led Page | 75
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some to believe that Armstrong
wrote this tune, not Oliver). The term
“Blues,” however, describes several
important characteristics of the music
we are about to hear. The blues was an
influential style of African American
popular music that emerged on the
vaudeville stage and later flourished
among musicians of the Mississippi
delta region. There is much to say
about the blues style, but here we will
focus on two elements that found their
way into Oliver’s composition. The
first has to do with harmonies. Upon
listening to “Dippermouth Blues,”
you might notice that you hear the
same chords pattern again and again.
This pattern repeats every forty-eight
beats (listen to the percussion), or—if
we group those beats into measures—
every twelve measures. What you are
hearing is called the twelve-bar blues,
and it provides the structure for most
blues compositions.
The other element from the blues
that we hear in this example is the
blue note. All of the harmonies
used in the twelve-bar blues chord Image 3.22: This map indicates the region progression are in the major mode, of Mississippi that is often referred to the and the melodies therefore ought to as the Mississippi delta.
be in the major mode as well. In the Source: Wikimedia Commons Attribution: User “Philg88”
blues tradition, however, performers License: CC BY-SA 3.0
sometimes lower certain melodic
notes (an act known as “blueing” the note). These are usually the third, fifth, and seventh degrees of the scale, although other notes can also be blued. Because of this, the melody occasionally clashes with the harmony as the music pulls alternately towards the major and minor modes. This gives the music a particularly expressive dimension and encourages the listener to get physically involved. Whether or not you can identify the blue notes in this recording, you certainly feel their impact.
When we examine John Williams’s use of ragtime and Dixieland styles in Star Wars, we see how music intended for a purely practical purpose—in this case, dancing—can be used to tell a story. Ragtime and Dixieland jazz are not storytelling genres, but their sounds communicate many layers of information to Page | 76
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the modern listener. They suggest dancing, nightclubs, drinking, and excitement.
They might also suggest the story of African American contributions to American popular music, or the historical eras from which these styles emerged. In this way, we might consider all music—not just film scores or theatrical works—to have storytelling potential.
RESOURCES FOR FURTHER LEARNING
Audissino, Emilio. John Williams’s Film Music: Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the Return of the Classical Hollywood Music Style. University of Wisconsin Press, 2014.
Berlin, Edward A. King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era. Second edition.
Oxford University Press, 2016.
Brothers, Thomas. Louis Armstrong’s New Orleans. Reprint edition. W.W. Norton
& Company, 2007.
Greene, Richard. Holst: The Planets. Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Hill, Peter. Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring. Cambridge University Press, 2000.
John, Nicholas, ed. Die Walküre (The Valkyrie). Overture Publishing, 2011.
Lehman, Frank. Hollywood Harmony: Musical Wonder and the Sound of Cinema.
Oxford University Press, 2018.
Wald, Elijah. Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues.
Amistad, 2004.
Online
Frank Lehman, Complete Catalog of the Musical Themes of Star Wars: https://
The Leitmotifs of Wager’s Ring: https://pjb.com.au/mus/wagner/
Not Another Music History Cliché!, “Did Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring incite a riot at its premiere?”: https://notanothermusichistorycliche.blogspot.
com/2018/06/did-stravinskys-rite-of-spring-incite.html
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4Sung and Danced Drama
Esther M. Morgan-Ellis and Alexandra Dunbar
INTRODUCTION
The notion that characters in a staged drama might periodically break out into song or dance is fundamentally strange. All the same, sung and danced dramas permeate our lives, and they have for a long time. Even if you do not regularly visit the opera or ballet, you have likely seen Frozen or The Little Mermaid. Films such as these fit squarely into a tradition of musical theater that extends back for hundreds of years.
Musical drama, as the examples in this chapter will demonstrate, is highly diverse. It can be tragic or comic. It can be realistic or self-consciously artificial. It can be emotionally compelling or merely entertaining. It also encompasses endless variety in musical style, and it can be difficult to draw lines between genres. The examples in this chapter might variously be described as “musical theater,” “opera,”
or “ballet” (a term that both European and Javanese performers use to describe their dance drama traditions). However, there are many overlaps between these categories. European ballet first developed as a part of opera, for example, and many operatic traditions include dancing. Dance dramas often include singing—
something that is true of both examples in this chapter.
The most difficult categories to differentiate are “musical theater” and “opera.”
For example, one does not hear Frozen—even in its live, staged version—referred to as an opera. But why not? Because it is in English? Lots of operas are in English.
Because it has spoken dialogue? So does Mozart’s The Magic Flute, discussed below. Because the music is written in a popular style? The Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi was responsible for the greatest hit tunes of his day. The most substantial difference between “musical theater” and “opera,” as those categories are understood today, has to do with the training of the performers on the one hand and the venues in which they perform on the other. However, these categories are already shaky, and they will continue to change as new styles of sung and danced drama are developed and popularized.
We encourage the reader of this chapter to approach each example on its own terms, without undue preconceptions about genre. Whether we are talking about New York City in 2015 or Mantua in 1608, it is always helpful to consider the Page | 78
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cultural context in which the work was created. Who was the audience, and how were they prepared to understand and appreciate what they saw onstage? Although our examples are diverse, each effectively uses music to enrich the storytelling.
SUNG DRAMA
LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA, HAMILTON
Hamilton is considered by many to be the
greatest American musical theater production
of the current era. The musical tells the story of
Alexander Hamilton, an immigrant who travelled
from the West Indies to the American colonies
before the time of the American Revolution, and
who came to be one of the founding fathers of
the United States and the first Secretary of the
Treasury under George Washington. The musical
is based upon the biography by Ron Chernow (b.
1949), Alexander Hamilton, published in 2004.
Miranda and Hamilton
Hamilton is the singular creation of the actor,
writer, and musician Lin-Manuel Miranda (b. Image 4.1: Ron Chernow 1980), who, in addition to premiering the title role, published his biography of wrote the music and lyrics. Miranda is one of the Hamilton in 2004.
biggest musical theater celebrities of his generation, Source: Flickr Attribution: Nathan Hughes Hamilton
having won multiple Emmys, Grammys, and Tony License: CC BY 2.0
Awards for his music, lyrics, and performances.
Much of Miranda’s work is influenced by his origins.
As the child of parents of Puerto Rican descent,
he grew up in a largely Latino neighborhood in
Inwood, New York City, regularly visiting family
in Puerto Rico. His musical preferences—Miranda
grew up listening to salsa and American musicals
(such as West Side Story)—reflected both an early
interest in his musical heritage and a fascination Image 4.2: Lin-Manuel with the stage. Miranda was gifted musically and Miranda in the title role of academically, attending the highly competitive Hamilton.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
primary and secondary schools at Hunter College Attribution: Steve Jurvetson before enrolling at Wesleyan University.
License: CC BY 2.0
In his theatrical work, Miranda foregrounds
his multi-cultural upbringing and Latino identity. As a director, he has always made a conscious decision to cast actors from various cultural and racial Page | 79
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Image 4.3: This photograph, taken in 2015 by White House photographer Pete Souza, captures the diversity of the Hamilton cast.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Pete Souza
License: Public Domain
backgrounds. This feature of Hamilton has created some controversy, given the historical fact that the men and women represented in the musical were primarily white. Miranda, however, has defended this
approach by drawing parallels between his
casting and musical decisions. Just as he did
not attempt to write music in the style of the
1770s, he did not attempt to create a visual
image representative of the 1770s. Miranda’s
Hamilton was created to represent America in
the current age. He makes the point that the
United States was founded by immigrants.
The founding fathers themselves—despite
their skin color—were either immigrants or
the children or grandchildren of immigrants.
Hamilton himself was born in the West Indies,
coming to America at a young age to make a
name for himself. What is more American Image 4.4: Alexander Hamilton was the first US Secretary of the
than that?
Treasury, serving from 1789 to
The musical numbers in Hamilton 1795.
incorporate hip-hop beats and rap. The use Source: Wikimedia Commons Attribution: John Trumbull
of popular styles in a musical is not unique to License: Public Domain Page | 80
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Hamilton: Hair (1967) and Jesus Christ Superstar (1970) were the first modern-era musicals to incorporate rock styles, and Lin-Manuel Miranda had already used rap and hip-hop in his first musical, In the Heights (on Broadway from 2008
to 2011) . In writing Hamilton, Miranda found that rap was not only musically exciting but also very useful, for he was able to fit more words into a shorter span of time. Hamilton the man was known for being poetically loquacious. In addition, rap allowed Miranda to incorporate a large amount of information from Chernow’s biography, in addition to Hamilton’s own words. The entire musical is 150 minutes long, but includes over 20,000 words.
Miranda also uses music to communicate with the Hamilton audience in ways that both complement and transcend the script and stage action. One of his favorite techniques for doing so is allegory, or the use of musical sounds to signify hidden meaning. We will address several ways in which Miranda employs instruments or musical styles in an allegorical manner.
Allegory
“You’ll be Back” from Hamilton
Composer: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Performance: Original Cast Recording (2015)
Time
Form
What to listen for
0’00”
Introduction
King George III of England addresses America
“You say…”
to a homophonic accompaniment of sustained
piano chords in a four-chord descending
pattern
0’33”
Verse 1
The accompaniment switches to short
“You’ll be
harpsichord accents; the overall tone of the
back…”
text becomes more sinister, which offers an
unusual juxtaposition with happy music
1’15”
Hook
This catchy passage is sung to nonsense words
“Da-da-da-da-
and is reminiscent of the outro of The Beatles’
da…”
“Hey Jude,” which is similar in terms of key
and melodic arc
1’29”
Bridge
“You say
Stop-time accompaniment; double entendre on
our love is
the word subject at 1’46”
draining…”
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2’12”
Verse 2
Same musical material as Verse 1; harpsichord
“You’ll be
returns to the front of the mix, one octave
back, like
higher than before; tempo slows, emphasizing
before…”
text, until the word “Love” at 2’36”
2’46”
Hook/Outro
The performer is joined in this catchy tune by
“Da-da-da-da-
the rest of the cast members on stage
da....”
There are several additional musical allegories in Hamilton. Let us consider, for example, the number “You’ll Be Back,” which is sung from the perspective of King George III. The music for this number is in the style of 1960s British Invasion pop. (Incidentally, The Beatles—the most famous and influential of the British Invasion bands—prominently featured harpsichord in their 1967 album Sgt.
Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.) Again, Miranda makes a connection between a British musical style (an invasive one at that) and an imperialistic British character. But that’s not all: Miranda further uses the pop genre to heighten the impact of his character’s words. King George sings this number to a personified America. The music is relentlessly upbeat, as if expressing the emotional state of a delirious ex-boyfriend who cannot grasp that the relationship is over. The text, which is quite disturbing at times, is hilariously juxtaposed with the some of the happiest and tuneful music of the show.
Let us also consider Miranda’s use of
the harpsichord. Miranda writes for two
keyboard instruments in his musical:
the harpsichord and the piano. The two
instruments really did not coexist in
history. During the course of the 1700s,
the harpsichord was gradually replaced by
the fortepiano, which was itself an early
predecessor to the piano. In Hamilton,
however, we do not hear a fortepiano but
rather a modern, 20th-century piano—an
instrument historically separated from the
harpsichord by over one hundred years.
The harpsichord, therefore, represents an
old way of life—and, more particularly, an
old way of conducting politics. Specifically,
Miranda uses the harpsichord to represent Image 4.5: This French harpsichord British rule before the revolution.
was built in 1780.
The sound of the harpsichord was, Source: Wikimedia Commons Attribution: Gérard Janot
historically speaking, the sound of the License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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Image 4.6: This 1795 fortepiano
Image 4.7: A modern piano is considerably
looks like a harpsichord, but, like a
larger than the fortepiano and has a metal
modern piano, it creates sound by
frame, which allows the string tension to be
striking the strings with hammers.
greater. As a result, the instrument is much
In a harpsichord, the strings are
louder.
plucked.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Carl Bechstein
Attribution: User “JaGa”
License: CC0
License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18th-century British monarchy. In order to draw a historical comparison, we might consider the music of George Frederic Handel. Handel served as music director (German: Kapellmeister) to the German Prince George of Hanover, who later became King George I of England. While living in London, Handel composed many great works for the King, most notably his Water Music and Music for the Royal Fireworks 1 . Handel was also one of the best-known and highly celebrated harpsichordists of his time. It is therefore fitting that the harpsichord should represent King George III, England, political oppression, and a deranged narcissistic ex-suitor.
We encounter this allegory in several musical examples. In “Farmer Refuted,” 2
Bishop Samuel Seabury, accompanied by harpsichord, defends his decision to remain loyal to England and begs Hamilton to do the same. “You’ll Be Back”
begins with King George III singing to a subdued piano accompaniment. When his lyrics turn sinister, however, we hear the harpsichord enter. In both of these cases, therefore, the sound of the harpsichord is a symbol for the old-fashioned values of the British monarchy.
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G.F. Handel’s Music for the Royal Fireworks incorporates 1.
the harpsichord in a way that is typical of 18th-century
European music.
In “Farmer Refuted,” Miranda uses the harpsichord to
2.
symbolize loyalty to England.
Cyclicism
“I Know Him” from Hamilton
Composer: Lin-Manuel Miranda
Performance: Original Cast Recording (2015)
Time
Form
What to listen for
0’00”
Introduction
Same introductory chords as the original
“They say…”
introduction, despite plot changes
0’24”
“I’m
Unusual harmonies
perplexed...”
0’42”
“John Adams…” is spoken in surprise.
0’45”
Verse 1
Begins with the same tune and feel of Verse
“I know
1 from “You’ll Be Back,” but there is no
him…”
harpsichord; instead, the texture consists
of plucked strings, which recall the sound
of the harpsichord but offer a warmer
timbre; harpsichord returns to the mix in the
background at 0’54” on the words, “Years ago”
1’18”
Hook
Only one iteration of this, unlike before, and
there is no “everybody” joining in
King George later returns to perform “I Know Him . ” This song is a musical reprise of the first number he sang (“You’ll Be Back”). At this point in the musical, the Revolution is long over and John Adams has been elected president. The harpsichord can still be heard, but it is less prominent than it was in “You’ll Be Back.” Instead, it is lurks behind a texture that consists primarily of strings played Page | 84
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pizzicato. This is significant: England (harpsichord) has lost the war and King George (harpsichord) no longer rules over the Americans.
“I Know Him” is not the only example of a musical reprise. Indeed, in crafting the score to Hamilton, Miranda sought to unify the various parts of the work using cyclical techniques. Hamilton contains many musical ideas that harken back to earlier points in the work. This approach to creating a narrative can be compared to Wagner’s use of leitmotifs. For example, the opening of the musical begins with a narrative rapped by Aaron Burr: “How does a bastard [...] grow up to be a hero and scholar?” Miranda treats this passage from Aaron Burr’s opening number, which is entitled “Alexander Hamilton,”3 as a leitmotif, which later returns in “A Winter’s Ball,” “Guns and Ships,” “What’d I Miss,” “The Adams Administration,” and “Your Obedient Servant.” Despite the recurrence of musical material, however, each of these numbers has a distinct character. In “What’d I Miss,” the borrowing takes on a swinging feel as the once-straight sixteenths of the opening become dotted.
In “Your Obedient Servant,” on the other hand, the tone is darkened by tremolo strings and the omission of the snaps that were previously heard on offbeats: Burr, now downright angry, is resentful of Alexander Hamilton.
The opening phrases of “Alexander Hamilton” become a
3.
leitmotif and return throughout the work.
Success
Upon its Broadway premiere in 2015, Hamilton immediately sold out. As of 2019, it continues to be nearly impossible to secure a ticket, the aftermarket prices of which have soared to record-breaking levels. The musical is currently on tour to cities across the globe, including Puerto Rico and London, England. It has won numerous awards, including ten Lortel Awards, three Outer Critic Circle Awards, eight Drama Desk Awards, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best New Musical, and an Obie for Best New American Play.
CLAUDIO MONTEVERDI, ORPHEUS
In Chapter 2, we examined a classic opera: Richard Wagner’s The Valkyrie.
Wagner was contributing to a tradition of staged musical drama that had existed for about 250 years. Here, we will encounter one of the very first European operas ever created, Claudio Monteverdi’s Orpheus. First, however, we will consider the social structures and values that gave rise to opera in the first place, and we will address the new ways of writing music that made sung drama possible.
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The Origins of European Opera
European opera was born in the
city of Florence in the late 16th
century. Beginning in the 1570s, a
group of intellectuals began meeting
in the home of Count Giovanni de’
Bardi to discuss artistic matters. They
called themselves the Camerata (a
name derived from the Italian term Image 4.8: This map shows the walled city for “chamber”), and today are referred of Florence about 100 years before opera was born there.
to as the Florentine Camerata. The Source: Wikimedia Commons members of the Camerata were Attribution: Hartmann Schedel courtiers, composers, poets, and License: Public Domain
scholars, and they were concerned
with the modern development of artistic forms. In particular, they believed that the arts had become corrupted, and that artistic expression could only be revived by returning to the principles of ancient Greece. Where music was concerned, however, ancient Greece could offer only limited guidance. While many theoretical and philosophical treatises on music survive, very few compositions were preserved, and we don’t really know what those would have sounded like. Resurrecting the musical practices of ancient Greece, therefore, is a tricky endeavor.
The members of the Camerata drew much
of their inspiration from the work of Girolamo
Mei (1519-1594), a Roman scholar and the
leading authority on ancient Greece. In his 1573
treatise On the Musical Modes of the Ancients,
Mei argued that all ancient Greek poetry and
drama had been sung, not spoken. He also wrote
about the extraordinary power that music had
Image 4.9: Music was very
over the listener. His descriptions fascinated
important in ancient Greece,
both in the context of theater
the Florentine intellectuals, who felt compelled
and as everyday entertainment.
to develop a modern approach to sung drama.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Their aim was to recapture the emotional impact
Attribution: Colmar Painter
License: Public Domain
that, according to Mei, sung plays had once had
on audiences.
The leading music theorist of the Camerata was none other than Vincenzo Galilei (1520-1591), father of the famous astronomer Galileo Galilei. In order to facilitate sung drama, Galilei sought to develop a new approach to writing vocal music that imitated dramatic speech. It would be modelled on the way in which actors used variations in pacing and pitch to expressively declaim text from the stage. Such music would be free of repetition, of course, since every note would be uniquely tied to the word it illuminated. The rhythms would be derived from the text, while the melodies and harmonies would portray the emotional content.
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Today, this style is termed recitative, for it
more closely resembles dramatic recitation
than typical singing.
Of course, a solo singer needs
accompaniment. Although Galilei and his
colleagues did not invent basso continuo,
they did adopt it as the ideal vehicle for
supporting sung text. The term “basso continuo”
(which translates to “continuous bass”) refers
to a style of accompaniment that came to be
used in almost all music of the Baroque period
(ca. 1600-1750). When a composer writes an
accompaniment in the form of basso continuo,
they indicate only the bass line and harmonies,
which are usually to be played by at least two
instruments. They do not usually specify
instruments or exact pitches of each chord,
which are chosen on the spot by the performers. Image 4.10: Here we see the An instrument that can play chords—
cover of Galilei’s 1581 treatise,
harpsichord, organ, and lute were most On Music Ancient and Modern.
common—is required, while an instrument that Source: Wikimedia Commons Attribution: Vincenzo Galilei
can play a bass line—cello or bassoon, perhaps—
License: Public Domain
is usually included.
Members of the Camerata began experimenting with short sung dramas in 1589, while the first full-length opera—now lost—was composed by Jacopo Peri (1561-1633) in 1597. In 1600, Peri created Euridice, an operatic portrayal of the Orpheus myth. This work, which survives, consists almost entirely of recitative, as does a second version of Euridice produced by another member of the Camerata, Giulio Caccini (1551-1618), in 1602. (The two
men were colleagues and collaborators, but also
saw themselves as being in competition with
one another.)
All of these developments took place in
Florence, and were supported by the Medici
court. Peri’s Euridice, for example, was created
and staged to celebrate the marriage between
King Henry IV of France and Maria de Medici.
Image 4.11: This photograph
From its inception, opera was understood to
of the interior of the Medici
be aristocratic entertainment. It upheld noble
Palace in Florence captures the
splendor in which the family
values and catered to refined musical tastes.
lived.
It also offered the opportunity for luxurious
Source: Wikimedia Commons
spectacle in the form of fantastical costumes
Attribution: User “Sailko”
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
and scenery. Musically, however, these early
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operas were a bit boring, and the art form might have lived and died in Florence had not one of the great composers of the century developed an approach to sung drama that was truly compelling.
Orpheus
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643) was born in Cremona—an Italian city most famous for its legendary violin makers. He secured a position at the Mantuan court in 1590, where he served the Gonzaga family. Although Monteverdi flourished under the employment of Duke Vincenzo I, he was abruptly dismissed by the Duke’s son and successor in 1612. The next year he won the prestigious post of music director at St. Mark’s basilica in Venice, where he remained for the rest of his long life—despite a 1620 invitation to return to his post in Mantua, which he gleefully rejected. Although we will examine an opera that Monteverdi produced early in his life for the Gonzagas, he returned to the genre in his old age, creating three operas for the Venetian public in the 1640s.
Image 4.12: This portrait of Claudio
Image 4.13: This portrait of Duke
Monteverdi was painted around 1640 by
Vincenzo I was produced around
Bernardo Strozzi.
1600.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Bernardo Strozzi
Attribution: Studio of Frans Pourbus the Younger
License: Public Domain
License: Public Domain
The oldest opera still to be regularly performed and enjoyed is Monteverdi’s Orpheus (Italian: L’Orfeo). We will begin with the occasion for which Monteverdi created this masterpiece. Then we will summarize the story before examining several musical excerpts.
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Like the operas developed by the Florentine Camerata, Orpheus was intended for the private enjoyment of courtiers and their guests. This opera was among the festive entertainments on offer for the 1607 Carnival season. Carnival is celebrated in Catholic countries around the world during the days or weeks preceding Ash Wednesday, which marks the beginning of the liturgical season of Lent. During the forty days of Lent, Catholics are expected to give up earthly pleasures and demonstrate penitence for their sins. Lent culminates in Holy Week, when the story of Christ’s crucifixion is told, and ends with Easter, which celebrates the resurrection. Carnival, therefore, marks the last opportunity for the faithful to enjoy food, drink, and entertainment. Although Orpheus was one of the first operas written for Carnival, the genre would be associated with the Carnival season for centuries to come. Opera would also come to be prohibited during Lent.
Orpheus, like other early operas, served a dual purpose. On the one hand, it provided dazzling entertainment to accompany a courtly celebration. On the other, it put the wealth and splendor of the court on display for the purpose of impressing those in attendance. Because he was tasked with exhibiting the affluence of the Gonzagas, Monteverdi did not need to worry about keeping his production within budget. For this reason he was able to write for an enormous orchestra and cast, and the original staging would have been extravagant.
It is not difficult to guess why Monteverdi chose the Orpheus myth as the subject for his opera. To begin with, by doing so he set himself up for favorable comparison with the Florentine composers who had already produced operas on this topic. Monteverdi’s boss, Duke Vincenzo, had in fact seen the production of Jacopo Peri’s opera Euridice, which had inspired him to commission a similar sung drama from his own court composer. The story itself is also particularly well-Image 4.14: Orpheus and his lyre have been the subject of countless paintings. In the work from the 1630s, we see him captivating woodland creatures with his musical ability.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Theodoor van Thulden and Frans Snyders
License: Public Domain
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suited to an operatic telling. The Orpheus myth is, in essence, a story about the power of music to sway emotions. This, of course, was exactly what the architects of opera wanted to accomplish with their new art form.
Monteverdi set a libretto (the text for a sung drama) written by another member of the Mantuan court, Alessandro Striggio, who crafted a narrative in five acts. In the first part of the opera, Orpheus—a legendary musician fathered by the god Apollo—weds Euridice, a wood nymph. A raucous celebration follows, but the revelers are interrupted by Euridice’s friend Sylvia, who reports that she has died as the result of a bite from a venomous snake. Orpheus is at first devastated, but soon resolves to pursue her into the underworld and bring her back to life. Using the power of song, he convinces the boatman Caronte to carry him across the river Styx. He then persuades the rulers of the underworld to release his beloved. She is permitted to follow him back to the Earth’s surface, but Orpheus is warned that he must trust that she walks behind him, for he will lose her forever if he looks back.
Unable to control himself, he looks—and she is once more taken away from him.
Orpheus returns home distraught, but is comforted by his father, who carries him away to the heavens. (This is a relatively happy ending: In a more authentic telling, Orpheus is torn to pieces by the Furies.)
Image 4.15: In this 1862 painting by Edward Poynter, we see Orpheus leading Euridice out of the underworld.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Edward Poynter
License: Public Domain
Perhaps because they were working in a different city, Monteverdi and Striggio departed from the dogmatic prescriptions of the Florentine Camerata. Instead of setting the entire story in recitative, they interspersed recitative with different types Page | 90
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of structured vocal music, including folk-like strophic songs (in which many verses are sung to the same melody), choral refrains (interjections by the choir), and a massive, ornate aria (a highly formalized song) for Orpheus. The resulting opera is full of variety, although it still relies on recitative to convey emotion at all of the key dramatic moments.
Toccata
The first thing the audience heard at the premiere of Orpheus was not singing but instrumental music. This would become typical of opera and other types of sung theater, which always begin with an orchestral overture. Monteverdi described his overture as a “toccata”4, an Italian term that translates to “a thing that is touched” and was used at the time to indicate music for instruments. The toccata is very simple, for it served a simple purpose: It alerted the audience, with appropriate grandiosity, that the show was about to start. For his toccata, Monteverdi composed a repetitive melody in the style of a bugle call. It contains only the first six notes of a major scale, and consists primarily of ascending and descending stepwise motion. The melody is played three times using different sets of instruments. In our recording, it is heard first in the brass, second in the strings, and finally in the brass again.
“Toccata” from Orpheus
Composer: Claudio Monteverdi
4.
Performance: Le Concert des Nations and La Capella Reial
de Catalunya, directed by Jordi Savall (2002)
This recording—and Orpheus in general—provides us with an excellent opportunity to encounter instruments of the Baroque era. As one can see and hear, they are similar to modern instruments, but not entirely familiar. The instrumentation in Orpheus is particularly interesting because, counter to common practice, Monteverdi specified it himself. Up until the Baroque era, it was typical for composers to write generic “instrumental” music that could be performed on any instrument. Monteverdi, however, took special concern with the sound qualities of his opera. In particular, he specified that the scenes on earth were to be accompanied by strings and flutes, while the scenes in the underworld were to be dramatized by the sounds of brass and the reed organ. The resulting timbres reinforce the darkness of Hades.
Most modern productions, including both referred to in this text, use what are termed period instruments. These are usually copies of instruments that were built in the Baroque era. In the first pass through the toccata, we see a drum, a trumpet that is a bit different in shape than the modern instrument, and two sackbuts—small predecessors of the modern trombone. During the repeat by the full orchestra, we see a variety of additional instruments: Baroque violins, which Page | 91
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can differ slightly in shape and are played with arched bows; cornetti, which sound somewhat like trumpets but look like oboes or clarinets; recorders (the predecessor to the modern flute); a Baroque harp; theorbos, which are lutes with long necks and additional bass strings; and bass viols, which look a bit like cellos but are different in shape and have frets. The ensemble sounds familiar, but has a timbre that is notably different than that of a modern orchestra.
We will continue to address instrumentation throughout the opera, for it plays an important role. The richest area for discussion, however, is not the orchestra but the basso continuo section. Monteverdi provides a diverse selection of continuo instruments, including harpsichord, theorbo, harp, pipe organ, reed organ, bass viol, and cello. These can be combined in a variety of ways to produce a nuanced palette of sound colors. As a result, even long passages of recitative are full of variety, as accompanying instruments enter and leave the texture.
Act II
Act II from Orpheus
Composer: Claudio Monteverdi
Performance: Das Monteverdi-Ensemble des
Opernhauses Zürich, directed by Nikolaus
Harnoncourt (1978)
Time
Form
What to listen for
22’27”
Ritornello & Ritornello: strings and flutes
Aria A
Aria: Orpheus, one verse
23’10”
Ritornello & Ritornello: violins
Aria B
Aria: a shepherd, two verses
23’50”
Ritornello & Ritornello: violins
Aria C
Aria: a pair of shepherds, two verses
24’49”
Ritornello & Ritornello: flutes
Aria D with
Aria: a pair of shepherds, one verse
Chorus
Chorus: one verse
25’44”
Orpheus’s
Orpheus sings a four-verse aria; the ritornello is
aria
a lively dance tune played by the strings
28’20”
Recitative:
Basso continuo: harp and cello
Shepherd
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29’01”
Refrain:
The Messenger enters with a melodic refrain that
Messenger
will return throughout Act II
Basso continuo: theorbo, organ, and cello
29’27”
Recitative:
Basso continuo: harpsichord and cello
Shepherd
29’24”
Recitative:
Basso continuo: theorbo, organ, and cello
Messenger
[...]
Recitative:
Basso continuo: various
various
34’17
Refrain:
One of the shepherds repeats the Messenger’s
Shepherd
refrain
35’29”
Recitative:
Basso continuo: theorbo and cello
Orpheus
37’41”
Refrain:
The chorus repeats the Messenger’s refrain,
Chorus
which is extended into a choral lament
38’47”
End of listening guide
We will skip the wedding and start at the beginning of Act II with the party. In this scene, Orpheus is celebrating with the nymphs and shepherds who reside in an unnamed rural paradise. As might be expected on such an occasion, they sing and dance together. Monteverdi took the opportunity to abandon the solemn recitative of the previous act and compose a string of folk-like songs to be performed by Orpheus and his friends. Almost all of the songs are strophic, meaning that two or more verses of text are sung to the same melody. In between the songs, different assortments of orchestral instruments provide ritornellos, which are repeating instrumental themes. The performing forces slowly grow: first we hear a solo, then a duet, then the entire chorus. Finally, Orpheus himself sings the longest strophic song of all—containing four verses—on the topic of his extreme happiness.
All of this music can be heard in a diegetic framework. That is to say, we can understand the characters on stage to really be singing. This interpretation makes sense in the dramatic context. Orpheus in particular is a famed musician who would be likely to sing for his friends, while the setting—a wedding celebration—
suggests the presence of music. The folk-like attributes of the songs also make them particularly appropriate for the characters to sing. However, we must also assume that the characters are not hearing exactly the same music that we are.
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at their disposal. Monteverdi treads the line between the realistic portrayal of a party and the fantastical world of opera, in which everything happens to musical accompaniment.
At the conclusion of Orpheus’s song, the music suddenly changes. The orchestra drops out, leaving only basso continuo in support of a solo singer (one of the shepherds). This is recitative. Suddenly, the scene is interrupted by Sylvia, who comes bearing the news of Euridice’s death. In our production, her entrance is marked visually with the descent of a black cloth over the backdrop, but also musically with a change in basso continuo instrumentation. While the shepherd had sung with an accompaniment of harp and cello, Sylvia sings with theorbo and organ. The new timbres contrast with the pastoral scene, making her message all the more disruptive.
Following interjections from several of the other characters, each marked with a change in basso continuo, Sylvia tells her story. It might seem strange that one of the most dramatic scenes in the opera is not portrayed onstage, but rather described in a lengthy monologue. Compared with the party that opened the act, the next few minutes are a bit drab. Sylvia’s recitative lacks variety in texture and instrumentation, and it contains no melodic repetition—indeed, it contains no memorable melodies whatsoever. However, it does allow Monteverdi to exhibit his skill at expressing emotion by means of harmonized text declamation.
We might see Monteverdi’s technique at work by examining the emotional high point of the recitative, which arrives when Sylvia recounts Euridice’s final words: “Orpheus, Orpheus!” These are the highest pitches that she sings, and her delivery of the text closely mimics Euridice’s unsung cry, which the listener can easily imagine. The harmonies are stark and surprising. Throughout this passage, the listener is kept ill at ease as Monteverdi leads the singer through countless harmonic twists and turns. The devastating development of the story is paralleled by unpredictable, dark, and even ugly chords.
After a response from the shepherds, the first of whom repeats Sylvia’s text and melody from her entrance (“Ah, bitter blow!), Orpheus finally speaks. His opening words are low, set to a murky, chromatic melody and accompanied by gut-wrenching harmonies. As he moves from disbelief to anguish, his melody becomes higher, louder, and faster. Soon, however, his mood changes again as he resolves to bring her back from the underworld. Orpheus engages in a bit of text painting as he sings the words “I will surely descend to the deepest abyss” to a melody that itself descends into his lowest range. His final passage, in which he bids farewell to the sun and sky, in turn ascends into his highest range.
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Act III
Act III from Orpheus
Composer: Claudio Monteverdi
Performance: Das Monteverdi-Ensemble des
Opernhauses Zürich, directed by Nikolaus
Harnoncourt (1978)
Time
Form
What to listen for
51’30”
Recitative:
Basso continuo: reed organ
Caronte
53’13”
March
Played by cornetti, sackbuts, and harp
54’31”
Orpheus’s
Basso continuo: theorbo and organ
aria - Verse 1
Accompanied by a pair of violins
56’31”
Orpheus’s
Accompanied by a pair of cornetti
aria - Verse 2
57’50”
Orpheus’s
Accompanied by harp
aria - Verse 3
1:00’38”
Orpheus’s
Accompanied by orchestral strings
aria - Verse 4
1:03’25”
End of listening guide
We will briefly visit Act III to hear the sounds of the underworld. Caronte, the boatman who is responsible for transporting deceased souls across the river Styx, sings to the somewhat horrible accompaniment of reed organ. This instrument’s aggressive timbre underscores Caronte’s gloomy job and belligerent character, expressed in his refusal to transport to Orpheus. Next we hear the music of Caronte’s world: a funereal march performed principally on sackbuts.
After the march, Orpheus sets about the task of convincing Caronte to carry him across the river. He does so, of course, using the power of music. Orpheus sings a magnificent aria, “Mighty spirit and formidable god,” that lasts for nearly ten minutes. Unlike his joyful song from the wedding party, this aria is slow, grandiose, and expressive. As in recitative, his singing is mostly unmetered. There is a fixed melody, and although it varies between the first three verses, the bass line remains the same. The listener, however, would be forgiven for failing to observe the repetition, for the bass line is so long and complex that it is difficult to Page | 95
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recognize even upon repeated hearings. Recognition is made more difficult by the fact that the singer heavily ornaments the melody, and does so differently on each repetition. Ornamentation refers to the practice of adding notes according to accepted rules.
Orpheus’s aria also provides us with one more opportunity to encounter some of Monteverdi’s more interesting instruments. Each verse of the aria is decorated with instrumental interjections and completed by an instrumental refrain. First, we hear two violins: one playing from the stage or pit, and the other echoing from a distance. (Monteverdi was particularly fond of this echo effect, and used it in several dramatic contexts.) Next, we hear similar music from a pair of cornetti. This instrument—now almost extinct—employs a trumpet-like mouthpiece connected to a narrow tube, traditionally made from an animal horn and wrapped in leather.
Finally, we hear from the double harp, a Baroque instrument with two rows of strings (modern harps have one row). The fourth verse of Orpheus’s aria, which is accompanied by strings, is different—an indication that he is gaining control of the situation. He wins his argument with a concluding passage of comparatively simple and straightforward singing.
As with the dance songs that open Act II, we can understand this aria to be diegetic: Orpheus the character really is singing. Whether or not he has in fact conjured up cornetto and harps to accompany his singing, however, is up for debate. It is more reasonable to interpret these instruments as belonging only to the theater orchestra, not to the scene in the underworld. The double harp in particular can be heard as a symbolic stand-in for Orpheus’s own instrument, the lyre, which is a type of small harp used in ancient Greece. This scene is expressly about the music, however, for it is Orpheus’s hypnotic singing and playing, in combination with his eloquence, that wins over the reluctant Caronte.
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART, THE MAGIC FLUTE
During his lifetime, Monteverdi saw opera become mainstream popular entertainment in Venice. Over the next few centuries, opera became the most prominent form of public entertainment across all of Europe. Although the practice was first developed in Italian-speaking cities, it soon spread to France, England, and Germany, where new forms of opera were developed that catered to local tastes and languages. Italian opera remained so dominant, however, that it was performed—most often in its original language—in every European country.
Opera was not truly dethroned as the West’s favorite form of entertainment until talking pictures became mainstream in the 1930s.
Although the variety and riches of the European opera tradition can reward a lifetime of study, we will examine only one more example here. This example was chosen for its historical significance, its intrinsic interest, and the many ways in which it contrasts with Orpheus. While Orpheus is a serious opera written for court performance in the early Baroque style, The Magic Flute (1791), composed Page | 96
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nearly two hundred years later, is a comic opera
created for commercial, public performance, and
it exemplifies the pinnacle of the Classical style.
It is also the work of the most important opera
composer of the era: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791).
Mozart’s Career
Mozart was born into a musical family in the
city of Salzburg. His father Leopold was a composer
and violinist at the court of the Archbishop of
Salzburg. Leopold was successful in his career, but Image 4.16: This portrait, he soon realized that his children possessed greater titled The Boy Mozart, was talent than he did. He subsequently abandoned painted in 1763 by Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni.
composing to focus on their education. Mozart had Source: Wikimedia Commons an older sister, Marianne, who was his equal as a Attribution: Pietro Antonio Lorenzoni child prodigy. Both children mastered the License: Public Domain harpsichord and fortepiano (a predecessor to the modern piano), while Mozart also became an expert violinist. Beginning in 1762, Leopold took his children on extensive tours to perform for heads of state across Europe. Marianne, however, was forced to abandon public performance when she became old enough to marry.
Although there is some evidence that she composed music later in life, she was never given the opportunity to pursue a career.
Mozart, on the other hand, was expected to follow in the footsteps of his father, and upon the conclusion of his final tour in 1773 he took a job at the Salzburg court.
Mozart, however, was dissatisfied with the provincial life he led. His exposure as a child to the great cities and courts of Europe had whetted his appetite for cosmopolitan excitement. He also wanted greater personal freedom, and resented being subservient to an employer. In 1781, he quarrelled with the Archbishop of Salzburg and was released from his position. Although his father was disappointed and concerned, Mozart was elated. He immediately moved to Vienna, an important Image 4.17: The Austrian city of Salzburg as it appears today.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Henry Vagrant
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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center of politics and culture in the German-
speaking world, and set out to build an
independent career for himself.
In the late 18th century, there were few
opportunities for a freelance musician to make
a living. Most composers were employed by a
court or church. Mozart, however, was able to
capitalize on his fame as a child prodigy, and
he had many marketable skills. He taught
private piano lessons—although only to the
elite young ladies of the city, and for a high fee.
He wrote music for publication and accepted
commissions. And he put on regular concerts
of his music, each of which featured an
appearance by the composer himself at the
piano in the performance of a new concerto.
Finally, Mozart wrote operas in every genre
Image 4.18: This 1764 painting
of his day. He was fluent in various operatic
captures Leopold Mozart
performing with his two
styles and experienced in the conventions
prodigious children.
of the musical stage: Mozart, after all, had
Source: Wikimedia Commons
composed and premiered his first opera at the
Attribution: Jean-Baptiste Delafosse
License: Public Domain
age of 13. In Vienna of the late 18th century,
there were audiences for both Italian and
German opera. Italian opera was divided
into the old-fashioned opera seria (“serious
opera”), which told heroic stories of gods
and kings, and the newer opera buffa (“comic
opera”), which portrayed characters from
various social classes in humorous situations.
The Magic Flute, however, is an example of a
Singspiel (“sing-play”): a German-language
comic opera with spoken dialogue and catchy
songs. Of the three genres, Singspiel was the
least respectable and sophisticated.
Mozart poured most of his energy into
opera buffa. In collaboration with the court
librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, he created three
Image 4.19: Although this 1819
works— The Marriage of Figaro (1786),
painting by Barbara Krafft was
produced some time after Mozart
Don Giovanni (1787), and All Women Do
had died, his sister approved of it.
It (Italian: Cosí fan tutte; 1790)—that have Source: Wikimedia Commons
maintained a central place in the operatic
Attribution: Barbara Krafft
License: Public Domain
repertoire ever since. Although all three of
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these operas contain comical characters and situations, each conveys a moral and is essentially serious in its purpose. The same is true of Mozart’s last opera, The Magic Flute (1791).
In the final years of his career, Mozart struggled to make a living. Despite early success, he found that his audiences had largely evaporated by 1787. This was due both to the vagaries of fashion and economic difficulties. Whatever the cause, he was no longer able to sell concert tickets, and was forced to abandon his rather lavish lifestyle. He and his wife moved to less expensive lodgings, gave up their carriage, and sold many of their belongings. At the time Mozart received the commission to write The Magic Flute, therefore, he was eager to increase his income. Although 1790 saw a general improvement in Mozart’s fortunes, he became ill while in Prague for the premiere of his final opera seria, The Clemency of Titus (1791), and died on December 5, just a few weeks after the premiere of The Magic Flute.
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute was largely conceived by the man who commissioned Mozart’s participation in the project, Emanual Schikaneder. Schikaneder was the head of a theatrical troupe that performed at the Theater auf der Wieden, which was located in the Wieden district of Vienna. He and Mozart had known each other for many years, and Mozart had contributed music to several of his collaborative productions. Acting in his role as impresario,
Schikanader had a hand in every step of the
opera’s development: he came up with the idea
of staging a series of fairy tale operas, wrote the
libretto for The Magic Flute, assumed financial
responsibility, acted as director, and played one
of the leads. He is even reported to have made
suggestions to Mozart that were incorporated
into the score.
Although The Magic Flute can certainly be
described as a fairy tale, it is a fairy tale with a
embodies Enlightenment values, celebrating
the triumph of reason over superstition and
the moral equality of individuals from different
social classes. It also contains multiple references
to Freemasonry, which, in late-18th century
Image 4.20: This 1784
Vienna, was committed to the furtherance
engraving captures
Schikaneder in one of his
of Enlightenment ideals. Both Mozart and
theatrical roles.
Schikaneder were Freemasons. The Masonic
Source: Wikimedia Commons
elements include various symbols that featured
Attribution: Hieronymus Löschenkohl
License: Public Domain
in the original set design, references to the four
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elements (earth, air, water, and fire), fixation on the number three, and the tale’s setting in Egypt. Mozart also incorporated the rhythmic knock of the Masonic initiation ritual into his overture.
The plot, in a much simplified form, is as follows: The curtain rises on Prince Tamino fleeing from a serpent. Although he is rescued by three female attendants to the Queen of the Night, he awakens to find Papageno, a bird catcher, who takes credit for defeating the monster. When the women return, they chastise Papageno and show Tamino a portrait of Princess Pamina, the Queen’s daughter. He immediately falls in love with her, but is told that she has been kidnapped by the evil sorcerer Sarastro. The Queen herself appears to tell Tamino that he can marry her daughter if he rescues her. The Queen’s attendants give each of the men a magic instrument to help in their quest: a flute for Tamino and a set of bells for Papageno.
Image 4.21: This 1815 painting captures a stage set for an appearance by the Queen of the Night.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Karl Friedrich Schinkel
License: Public Domain
At the end of Act I, Tamino finds his way to Sarastro’s temple, but there he learns that the sorcerer is in fact benevolent, and that it is the Queen of the Night who has evil intentions. Sarastro had taken Pamina in order to protect her from her mother’s influence. Tamino and Pamina finally meet, and Pamina Page | 100
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reciprocates his affection. Sarastro, however, refuses to permit the union before Tamino has completed a series of trials (based on Masonic ritual) to prove his spiritual worthiness.
Act II sees conflict between Pamina and her mother and suffering as Pamina awaits Tamino’s successful passage through the trials. The magic flute and bells each serve their respective holders as they seek personal fulfillment. In the end, the two lovers reject the evil influence of the Queen of the Night and join Sarastro’s enlightened brotherhood. And Papageno, who mourns his lonely existence, is rewarded for his faithfulness with a wife: Papagena.
The Magic Flute is rich with comedy, provided by Papageno (and, in a few scenes, the equally ridiculous Papagena), and the opera as a whole is highly entertaining. Most of the characters, however, are serious in purpose, and the story itself certainly carries a message.
The Queen of the Night represents forces that seek to suppress knowledge and clarity in favor of fear, insularity, and irrationality. Some scholars have identified her with the Roman Catholic Empress Maria Theresa, and have interpreted the opera as an attack on Catholicism. This is contentious, however: On the one hand, the Catholic Church was opposed to Freemasonry, but on the other, Mozart himself was a devout Catholic. Whatever the specifics, the Queen of the Night certainly embodies anti-Enlightenment values. Sarastro, on the other hand, is the wise, generous, and benevolent head of state. He exemplifies the political principle of rule by an Enlightened monarch, which many at the time believed to be the ideal form of government. He grants agency and freedom to his subjects, but demands that they hold themselves to high intellectual and moral standards. In the end, the protagonists—Tamino and Pamina—choose modern, Enlightened thinking over the beguiling superstitions of the past.
The opera conveys other messages as well—not all of which are so palatable.
Women are certainly not portrayed in a positive light. The realm governed by the evil Queen is entirely female, while the light-filled court of Sarastro is predominantly male. Although Pamina eventually joins Tamino in his trials, her role is to support him: The couple’s salvation relies primarily on his strength of character, and several musical numbers reinforce the idea that a wife must be subservient to her husband. The other female lead, Papagena, is literally a gift to a male character.
Likewise, the opera takes an ambivalent stance toward class distinctions. On the one hand, it portrays low-class characters in an essentially positive light. Papageno might be a buffoon, but he is on the side of good and capable of exhibiting strong moral character. This is an advance on previous operas, in which servants existed only to serve. At the same time, the low-class and high-class characters are kept at a distance from one another. Although Pamina and Papageno are friends and at one point sing a duet about the value of marriage, there is no question of them ending up together. A princess must marry a prince, while a bird catcher must marry within his own social class. Papageno is treated with the loving condescension that all members of his class supposedly deserve.
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The Magic Flute, like many operas, also has a race problem. The synopsis above omitted the character of Monostatos, a black man who repeatedly threatens Pamina with sexual assault. Although he initially serves Sarastro as head of his slaves, he defects to the Queen’s side in hopes of winning Pamina for himself. And of course, the fact that Sarastro keeps slaves should also raise eyebrows.
The Magic Flute was a product of its time and place, but all of these issues must be addressed in modern stagings. One of the strengths of live theater is that scripts can be reinterpreted by directors and actors. The challenges of doing so, however, have not been trivial. Many operatic narratives promote social values that are no longer widely accepted. Many also portray non-Western characters or societies in demeaning ways. The inclusion of non-white characters also provides interpretive challenges. While the practice of blackface performance, in which a white actor uses make-up to portray a character of African descent, has been condemned as racist in almost all spheres for the past half century, it is still sometimes used on the opera stage.
Opera companies continue to perform The Magic Flute, however, because the music is delightful. (A clever director can address most of its messaging problems—for example, Monostatos does not have to be black.) The arias that Mozart produced for this opera are unusually diverse and entertaining. This was the case for several reasons. To begin with, he was writing for a commercial theater that attracted a middle-class audience. Most of his listeners were looking for a fun night out, not a transcendent artistic experience. In addition, not all of the actors in Schikanader’s troupe had equivalent musical capabilities. Some were highly-trained opera singers, but others—including Schikander himself, who played Papageno—could barely carry a tune. Mozart, therefore, carefully tailored his writing to each individual singer.
“I am a bird catcher”
With this in mind, we will examine four selections from The Magic Flute. We will begin with Papageno’s first number, “I am a bird catcher.” 5 This is the aria that Papageno sings to introduce himself to Tamino. In it, he sings about his simple life, wandering the countryside in search of birds, and expresses his wish to be equally adept at capturing the hearts of young women. The music created by Mozart effectively communicates Papageno’s character, for he writes what is effectively a strophic folk song. It is in a cheerful major mode and contains only the simplest of harmonies, while the jaunty tempo establishes Papageno’s carefree attitude. We hear Papageno’s flute, which he uses to attract birds, in the second half of each of the two verses.
“I am a bird catcher” from The Magic Flute
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
5.
Performance: Hermann Prey with the Staatskapelle
Dresden, conducted by Otmar Suitner (1967)
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In addition to being dramatically appropriate, this music is also easy to sing.
The orchestra begins by playing the entire melody, and the singer, upon entering, is doubled by the violins. Both of these features would have greatly helped Schikaneder give a successful performance. In addition, the vocal range is very small, spanning only a single octave, and positioned comfortably for an average male (not too high or low). Finally, the melody moves mostly by step, with few difficult leaps. Although the role of Papageno is always sung by a highly-trained professional in modern productions, his arias could easily be learned by almost anyone.
Other members of Schikaneder’s troupe were more skilled. In fact, the unusual capabilities of the actors who played the Queen of the Night and Sarastro inspired Mozart to write arias that continue to challenge modern singers. At the same time, the music sung by these two characters accurately reflects their respective roles in the drama.
“O Isis and Osiris”
The role of Sarastro was created for the bass singer Franz Xaver Gerl. Gerl had trained in Salzburg, and might have studied with Mozart’s father. He had an unusually low voice, which Mozart took into consideration. Sarastro’s introductory aria, “O Isis and Osiris,” 6 comes at the beginning of Act II, and its music and text both serve to establish his noble character. Sarastro calls upon the ancient Egyptian gods, Isis and Osiris (both prominent figures in Masonic lore), to guide and protect Tamino and Pamina in their pursuit of wisdom. The text exhibits his profound spiritual commitment to Enlightenment principles and his generous concern for others. The music is slow and deliberate, emphasizing Sarastro’s stability and power. Although this is a strophic aria in two verses, like the one sung by Papageno, it is certainly not a folk song—the melody and harmonies are both too sophisticated. Finally, the extremely low range makes this aria inaccessible for any but a trained singer with unique capabilities.
“O Isis and Osiris” from The Magic Flute
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
6.
Performance: Kovács Kolos with the Orchestra of the Hungarian State Opera House, conducted by Pál Varga (1970)
“Hell’s vengeance boils in my heart”
The music that Mozart created for the Queen of the Night is different in every respect. Once again, we must start by considering the original singer, soprano Josepha Hofer (and Mozart’s sister-in-law). Hofer was a singer of extraordinary skill, and she possessed an unusually high vocal range, of which Mozart took full advantage. We will examine the Queen of the Night’s Act II aria, “Hell’s vengeance boils in my heart,”7 in which she threatens Pamina for refusing to kill Sarastro.
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While Sarastro exhibits self-control with his singing, the Queen enacts her all-consuming rage. The most remarkable passages of her aria have no words at all, but rather require the singer to leap from pitch to pitch in the highest range using only repeated vowel sounds. Here we encounter a paradox: Although the Queen of the Night is the opera’s villain, her dazzling displays are the highlight of the show.
Sarastro’s music is drab and forgettable in comparison.
“Hell’s vengeance boils in my heart” from The Magic Flute Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
7.
Performance: Sumi Jo with the Berlin Radio Symphony
Orchestra, conducted by Roberto Paternostro (2009)
“Ah, I feel it, it is vanished”
Finally, we will hear from Pamina. This role was created for Anna Gottlieb, who was only 17 when The Magic Flute premiered. (Later in life, Gottlieb specialized in parody roles that required her to ridicule operatic sopranos.) Pamina’s major aria, “Ah, I feel it, it is vanished,”8 comes in the middle of Act II. She has just been in the presence of Tamino. When she tried to speak with him, however, he refused to respond. She believes this to mean that he no longer loves her. In fact, Tamino is undergoing one of his trials, which requires a vow of silence. Pamina does not know this, and sings a mournful aria about her heartbreak and desolation.
“Ah, I feel it, it is vanished” from The Magic Flute
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
8.
Performance: Dorothea Röschmann with the Mahler
Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Claudio Abbado (2005)
A sparse orchestral accompaniment combines with the minor mode to convey her emotions. The soprano solo soars unaided into the heights, for Gottlieb certainly did not need to be doubled by an instrument. Unlike the Queen of the Night, however, Pamina keeps her emotions under control: She is despairing, but noble.
Speaking more broadly, we can hear the ideals of self-control and rationality in all of Mozart’s music. These are hallmarks of the Classical style. Composers working in this period preferred balanced phrases, sparse textures, predictable chord progressions, and elegant melodies. Just as the Enlightened individual placed a high value on rational discourse, the music of this period valued orderliness over emotional expression. Mozart certainly sought to convey a wide range of emotional states, but he never abandoned the rational parameters of his art.
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TIAN HAN, THE TALE OF THE WHITE SNAKE
Europe and the United States are, of course, not alone in developing sung drama traditions. Examples of musical drama can be found around the world. Here we will examine two, each of which has a unique set of characteristics and each of which—like European opera—requires years of dedicated training for those who desire careers as performers. Each of these traditions—also like European opera—
is highly heterogeneous. Different styles and forms have dominated in different eras, and one can encounter a variety of contemporary practices.
Beijing Opera
The form of musical theater known as Beijing opera is the most popular of the many forms of Chinese opera. Although the roots of Chinese opera extend back thousands of years, Beijing opera dates only to 1790—about when Mozart set to work on The Magic Flute. This particular form is said to have emerged when four regional opera troupes visited the Beijing court simultaneously to celebrate the 80th birthday of the Emperor. Although Beijing opera (like Italian opera) was available only as courtly entertainment for several decades, it soon found favor with the broader public, and by 1845 its conventions were both firmly established and widely enjoyed.
Image 4.22: Beijing is located in the Northeast of China.
Source: MapsWire
Attribution: MapsWire
License: CC BY 4.0
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Beijing opera combines a variety
of different art forms, and its
practitioners must be well-versed not
only in singing but also in gesture,
dance, makeup application, and
acrobatics. Traditionally, children were
apprenticed to travelling troupes. They
were offered little formal education,
and were instead expected to learn
through imitation. Today, this system
Image 4.23: Aristocratic female
has been replaced by formal schooling.
characters have ornate headdresses,
fancy apparel, and complicated sleeves.
Other changes have also shaped the
Source: Flickr
tradition. Until the 1890s, all Beijing
Attribution: Gustavo Thomas
opera performers were men, many of
License: CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
whom specialized in female roles. When
women first began to perform, they
were confined to all-female troupes—
some members of which, naturally
enough, had to take on male roles.
Troupes were integrated following the
founding of the Republic of China in
1911, but men continue frequently to
perform female roles, especially that of
the beautiful young woman.
The roles in Beijing opera are highly
standardized. There are four character
types: Sheng (the lead male), Dan
(any female), Jing (a forceful male),
and Chou (the clown). Each character
type has a variety of subtypes based on
age and social status. An actor must
specialize in playing a specific character
type, for each has a distinct manner of
speaking, singing, and moving. The
Jing types also wear special face paint,
Image 4.24: The Jing, or “painted face,”
the designs of which reveal facets of
character is always powerful. This is the
their character and mark them as being
historical figure Xiang Yu, who was King
on the side of good or evil.
of Western Chu in the second century
BC. His final battle is the subject of the
Many genres of Chinese music,
piece Attack from All Sides discussed in including Beijing opera, are categorized
Chapter 6.
into “civil” and “martial” works. Civil
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: User “G41rn8”
operas concern the court intrigues and
License: CC BY-SA 4.0
love interests of the aristocracy, while
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martial operas contain scenes of
military conflict. Plots of both types
are drawn from history, traditional
stories, and novels, all of which are
already familiar to the audience. A
single opera will usually present only
a few episodes from a much longer
story, and it is typical to combine Image 4.25: In a Beijing opera orchestra, serious and comical elements.
only one person plays each type of
instrument. The additional jinghu fiddles Like the operas themselves, the sitting at the feet of the performer are orchestra that provides music for probably tuned to different modes.
Beijing opera is divided into civil and Source: Wikimedia Commons Attribution: Xavier Serra
martial instrument groups. The civil License: CC BY-SA 2.0
group contains string instruments.
The most significant of these is the jinghu, a high-pitched bowed fiddle after which the genre itself is named. The other principal instrument is the yueqin, a moon-shaped lute with four strings. The martial group—which might also be described as the percussion section—contains gongs of different sizes, cymbals, and a pair of instruments known as guban that consists of a high-pitched drum and a wooden clapper. These last are the most important, as they are played by the ensemble director. This person has a challenging task, for the percussion section Image 4.27: The yueqin lute dates
to the second century BC. Its name
Image 4.26: The jinghu is held upright
derives from its shape: “Yue” means
on the left knee.
“moon” in Chinese.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Metropolitan Museum of Art
Attribution: Queensland Museum
License: CC0
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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must accompany action, punctuate speech, and provide sound effects—all of which requires precise timing. The orchestra might also contain additional lutes and wind instruments.
The division of the Beijing opera orchestra into string, wind, and percussion sections mirrors the European orchestra. However, there are significant differences both in the makeup of the ensemble and in its function. A Beijing opera orchestra usually contains only one player per instrument, and the music performed by the orchestra is heterophonic in texture, meaning that all of the instruments play the same melody, but not in perfect unison. Instead, each player interprets the melody in a way that is appropriate to the instrument, contributing ornaments or adding/removing pitches as considered suitable.
Beijing opera performances contain various types of orchestral and vocal music. None of this music, however, is composed for a specific opera. Instead, the melodies all belong to the tradition in general, and they are used by individual performers to characterize specific roles. Certain instrumental pieces, for example, are always played to accompany certain scenes, such as a banquet or the arrival of an important character. Onstage characters sing short arias in one of two modes: xipi for happy or energetic lyrics, and erhuang for serious or heroic lyrics. Each mode arranges the pitches of the pentatonic scale (degrees 1 2 3 5 and 6 of the major scale) in a different way, and the melodies in each tend to have different shapes.
For this reason, individual operas in this tradition do not have composers.
The plots and dialogues are crafted by playwrights, but the music is drawn from a communal store. The same arias and instrumental numbers will be heard in a variety of different works. The singers themselves also have a great deal of control over the music, which will reflect their training, style, and vocal range.
It is generally considered desirable to sing the arias as high as possible, so it is the onstage performers who determine what key the music will be in. While this level of flexibility will seem unusual to someone who is used to Western opera or musical theater, Beijing opera is in fact remarkably rigid when compared to other Chinese opera forms. The Shenqu opera of Shanghai, for example, can be completely improvised, with plots based on the news stories of the day.
The vocal timbre used in Beijing opera is one of its most remarkable features.
Singers strive to produce a piercing, nasal sound with a slow, controlled vibrato.
They will sometimes slide between pitches, each of which is carefully placed. The speech in Beijing opera is also highly stylized, and is often delivered in high range.
To accomplish this, male actors frequently employ falsetto when singing and speaking. Actors employ an ancient dialect that is not always intelligible to modern listeners, but they communicate as much with their gestures and steps as with their voices. The Chou (clown) is the only character permitted by tradition to speak in modern Beijing dialect or to improvise onstage.
Finally, a word about the trappings of the stage. Costumes are often elaborate, and they always reflect the social status of the character. Sleeves are especially Page | 108
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important, and are carefully managed by the actors for expressive purposes. Stage sets, however, tend to be minimal or non-existent. Audiences are expected to imagine the scene, which is brought to life through the use of symbolic props. A table, for example, might serve as a wall, a mountain, or a bed, while a single oar is enough to suggest the presence of a boat.
Image 4.28: Although the costumes used for Beijing opera are elaborate, the stage sets are minimal.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Chen Wen
License: CC BY 2.5
The Tale of the White Snake
We will see all of these elements at play in our example, Tian Han’s dramatization of The Tale of the White Snake. The source of this opera is a legend concerning a white snake spirit that transforms into a young woman named Bai Suzhen after consuming a substance that grants immortality and wisdom. The legend contains many episodes, but Tian chose to focus on events that lead up to and follow Bai’s marriage to Xu Xian, who through a twist of fate was originally responsible for her powers. Tian himself was a leading playwright in the first half of the 20th century, but he was condemned by Mao’s government in 1966 for writing a play that was considered to undermine Communist values. He died in prison two years later.
We will examine two scenes from The Tale of the White Snake, which, as a typical martial opera, contains both civil and martial scenes. The first, a civil scene, comes from near the beginning of the opera. Bai Suzhen and her friend Xiao Qing (also previously a snake) have been caught in a downpour when they meet Xu Xian.
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The three of them share a boat, and Bai and Xu proceed to fall in love. This excerpt will allow us to hear a variety of speech and song types, to hear the orchestra in its various roles, and to witness the conventions by which actors communicate their emotions and conjure up absent settings and props.
The second scene, which is martial in character, concludes the initial episode of the couple’s romance. A few months after their marriage, Xu dies of fright after seeing his wife in her snake spirit form. Bai has journeyed to Mount Emei, home of the immortals, where she hopes to obtain a magical fungus that will bring Xu back to life. This scene contains almost no singing, but instead features acrobatics and martial arts as Bai battles the guardians of the sacred shrine.
Our first scene9 begins with the entrance of Xu Xian, who sings an aria to explain his recent activities, describe the weather, and clarify that he has no interest in love. He sings in a high, falsetto range, as is typical of Sheng-type characters. The orchestra both accompanies and doubles him, following the contour of his melody and arriving at the same final pitches. The orchestra, however, does not play only what he sings, but also tacks on repeated motifs that add rhythmic and melodic interest. Although the aria has a regular pulse for the most part, it slows at the end as the singer adds ornaments to draw out the final notes.
First excerpt from The Tale of the White Snake
9.
Playwright: Tian Han
Performance: Chinese National Peking Opera Company
Xu’s aria is followed by spoken dialogue between the characters, which is punctuated by percussive bursts. Soon, however, they are interrupted by singing from offstage. This aria, performed by a boatman, is quite different in character from Xu’s lively aria. It is slower and the notes more connected to one another—a style that would be described in the West as legato. Also, the boatman’s aria is accompanied by the dizi, a bamboo flute, in addition to the standard instruments.
Finally, the heterophonic texture is more clear, since the orchestral instruments double the voice without adding any additional pitches.
Image 4.29: The dizi is a Chinese bamboo flute.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Metropolitan Museum of Art
License: CC0
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Xu engages the boatman to take him and the
two ladies to their destinations, and the boatman
invites them to board. There is, of course, no
boat. Instead, the actors help us to imagine it
using carefully choreographed actions. After
Bai and Xiao step into the boat, for example,
they sway back and forth in perfect unison, as
if being rocked by gentle waves. The journey of
the boat is accompanied by appropriate music
from the orchestra, to the melody of which the
boatman sings a suitable Chinese proverb.
During the journey, all three characters
engage in an extended accompanied musical
number that combines singing and speaking.
Again, the conclusion of the aria, sung by Bai,
slows gradually to a stop as she makes the vital Image 4.30: The sheng, or observation that Xu is a very nice young man. mouth organ, is a Chinese wind Pantomime and speech follow as the boat arrives instrument.
at its first destination. The scene concludes Source: Wikimedia Commons Attribution: User “PraktykantSiM”
with another musical sequence, in which Bai License: CC BY-SA 4.0
thanks Xu for his aid. Her final warning that
he not break her heart is particularly effective: She draws the words out, singing unaccompanied for some time and concluding with a long series of ornaments. The phrase “gaze through autumn waters” is an idiom that indicates that one is waiting expectantly for another with tears in one’s eyes.
The scene ends with orchestral music to accompany Bai and Xiao’s departure from the stage. We now hear another instrument clearly: the sheng, or mouth organ.
The sheng consists of a series of vertical reed pipes attached to a mouthpiece. The instrument is held with both hands, and the player positions their fingers over openings to sound the various pipes. The sheng will be heard during interludes such as this throughout the opera, although it seldom accompanies singing.
The scene we have just examined includes a typical mix of song, speech, and instrumental music, accompanied by symbolic movement and punctuated with percussive sound effects. As in European opera, speech (often cast as recitative in the Western tradition) moves the plot along, while song provides an opportunity for characters to express their emotions or reflect on what has happened.
Our next scene10 is quite different. Because this scene is martial in character, the focus is not on speech or song but on action. Bai sings to mark her entrance onto the stage, but she then executes an extended martial display to percussion accompaniment. Next she sings an excited aria about her mission to save her husband. When the guardian of the shrine blocks Bai’s way, she begs his mercy using speech. He refuses to assist her, and they enter into a long physical battle accompanied only by the percussion section. The battle features remarkable Page | 111
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acrobatics from both of the guardians, who represent a Chou character type known as Wu Chou, or “military clown.”
Second excerpt from The Tale of the White Snake
10.
Playwright: Tian Han
Performance: Chinese National Peking Opera Company
Bai is ultimately defeated by the guardians, but the scene ends with an elder immortal gifting the magical fungus to Bai and sending her away to revive her husband. The two characters do not sing, but their dramatic and highly melodic speech is executed over orchestral accompaniment featuring both the dizi and sheng. After the long stretch of percussive music, the entrance of the full orchestra effectively underscores the emotion of the scene, communicating both the mercy of the immortal and the grateful joy of Bai.
DANCED DRAMA
PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY, THE NUTCRACKER
We’ve already encountered one ballet by
a Russian composer: Igor Stravinsky’s The
Rite of Spring. Now we will examine another.
Stravinsky and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikvosky
(1840-1893) are, after all, two of the best-
known ballet composers. The most famous
choreographers and dancers have been
mostly Russian as well. Ballet, however,
originated not in Russia but in France. We
will begin, therefore, with the story of how
this art form ended up thriving nearly two
thousand miles away from its birthplace.
Ballet
Ballet’s origins can be traced to European
courts of the 15th and 16th centuries, where
dance became increasingly formalized and Image 4.31: This photograph of dramatic. Early ballets, however, were quite Tchaikovsky was taken near the different from the art form we might be end of his life.
familiar with: Dancers wore regular shoes Source: Wikipedia Attribution: Unknown
and clothing, the steps were taken from License: Public Domain Page | 112
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participatory court dances, and spectators usually joined in for the finale. Court ballet reached its pinnacle under Louis XIV, who ruled France from 1643 to 1715.
He was an avid dancer, and frequently took leading roles in the productions. Louis XIV also sponsored the first professional ballet company, which was attached to the Paris Opera. The two genres—opera and ballet—were closely related in this period: French operas always contained extended dance numbers, while court ballets included singing.
Image 4.32: These students at Escuela Superior de Música y Danza are performing the Dance of the Snowflakes from The Nutcracker in 2010.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Gabriel Saldana
License: CC BY-SA 2.0
Ballet as we know it today emerged in the second half of the 18th century, when a series of reforms were enacted by ballet master Jean-Georges Noverre. Noverre sought to make ballet more expressive and realistic by replacing the heavy costumes with light, form-fitting apparel, doing away with masks, and introducing the use of pantomime and facial expressions to communicate dramatic elements. The early 19th century saw the invention of the pointe shoe, which allows female dancers to balance on their toes, and the tutu, which accentuates their graceful movements and reveals the legs.
Soon, however, ballet in France was faltering. In seeking to compete with opera, ballet promoters were not successful. Ballet’s association with the aristocracy made it distasteful to French audiences of the late 19th century, and it was generally considered to be less expressive than opera—and therefore inferior.
Ballet might have vanished completely were it not for Russian interest in the art Page | 113
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form. Beginning in the late 18th century, Russian courts sought to establish their cultural credentials by importing European art forms. First, they brought in Italian opera. In the mid-19th century, they turned to French ballet.
Tchaikovsky’s Career
At first, the Russian ballet establishment was managed by French choreographers, scenarists, dancers, and composers. Gradually, however, Russians took over, and ballet became a distinctively Russian art form. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was among the first Russian ballet composers, and his three masterpieces— Swan Lake (1877), Sleeping Beauty (1890), and The Nutcracker (1892)—are still frequently performed today.
Tchaikovsky, however, did not particularly care for his ballet scores, and he disdained their popularity. He would much prefer to have been remembered for his six symphonies, which he considered to be his greatest works. Tchaikovsky also wrote programmatic orchestral pieces, operas, and chamber music—in fact, he composed in all of the prominent European genres of the 19th century.
Unlike Russian composers such as Modest Mussorgsky (discussed in Chapter 6), who rejected European influence, Tchaikovsky sought to follow in the European tradition.
Tchaikovsky was firmly entrenched in Russia’s European-style musical establishment. As a young man, he was at first frustrated in his desire to pursue a career in music by the fact that there were no opportunities to study music in Russia. He instead embarked upon a career in the civil service, but in 1862 was able to enroll in the first class at the newly-opened St. Petersburg Conservatory. He impressed his teachers, and upon graduating was offered a teaching position at the Moscow Conservatory, which opened in 1866. Tchaikovsky went on to establish an international reputation as a composer, although he faced criticism at home for not being “Russian enough” in his musical expression.
It is no surprise that Tchaikovsky did not care for ballet work, for in the creation of a ballet, the composer found himself at the bottom of the hierarchy. Most of the creative work was completed by the scenarist (who outlined the dramatic contents of the ballet) and the choreographer (who designed the dance). The Nutcracker was conceived of by the renowned scenarist Marius Petipa, who chose and adapted the story, decided how it would be told through the ballet medium, and established a character for each of the dances. He went so far as to provide Tchaikovsky with the exact tempo and duration for each number, leaving the composer with little opportunity for creative expression. All the same, Tchaikovsky—who, while working on The Nutcracker, wrote to a friend that “I am daily becoming more and more attuned to my task”—was able to produce distinctive music that has charmed listeners for over a century.
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The Nutcracker
The short story on which The Nutcracker was based required a great deal of alteration to become appropriate for the ballet stage. Indeed, the plot of The Nutcracker bears little resemblance to E.T.A. Hoffmann’s “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” (1816), which can be categorized as a horror story. In Hoffmann’s account, a young girl, Marie (Clara in the ballet version), is subjected to terrifying nighttime encounters with the seven-headed Mouse King, who repeatedly threatens her. The tortuous plot hinges on a curse that transforms characters into hideous creatures with giant heads, gaping smiles, and long white beards. At the end of the story, Marie breaks the curse by pledging her love to the toy nutcracker that was given to her at Christmas by her godfather, the mysterious inventor Drosselmeyer.
Petipa (following an earlier adapta-
tion by Alexandre Dumas) stripped this
narrative of its horror elements, thereby
transforming it into a family-friendly
story about Christmas magic. The first
act takes place at the home of Clara
Stahlbaum, where guests have assem-
bled for a Christmas Eve celebration.
Drosselmeyer provides wonderful gifts for
all of the children, including a nutcrack-
er, to which Clara immediately becomes
attached. After the party, Clara returns to
Image 4.33: This scene, taken from a
the parlor to visit her nutcracker, where
2014 production by the New Mexico
she witnesses a ferocious battle between
Dance Theater, includes Drosselmeyer,
the nutcracker—grown to life size and
Clara, and the Nutcracker Prince in his
human form.
revealed to be a prince—and the Mouse
Source: Wikimedia Commons
King. She intercedes on the nutcracker’s
Attribution: Larry Lamsa
behalf and he emerges victorious.
License: CC BY 2.0
In the second act, the Nutcracker
Prince takes Clara to his kingdom, the Land of the Sweets, where she is welcomed and celebrated. The courtiers put on a show for her to demonstrate their gratitude, presenting a series of dances while she and the Prince sit upon thrones. At the end of the ballet, Clara returns to her home—awakening, perhaps, from a fantastic dream.
The Nutcracker was premiered as part of a double-bill at the Imperial Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. The other item on the program was Tchaikovsky’s newest opera, Iolanta, making for a complete evening of entertainment lasting about three hours. The premiere was not a success. Critics lambasted the dancing, the choreography, the adaption of the story, the sharp contrast between the acts, the prominence of children onstage, and the neglect of the principal ballerina, who, as the Sugar Plum Fairy, does not dance until nearly the end.
The music, on the other hand, was well-received, and Tchaikovsky was quick to salvage his work by transforming it into an orchestral suite that could be performed Page | 115
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on concert programs. It was in this form that The Nutcracker first became popular.
The Nutcracker was not staged again as a ballet until 1919, and did not enter the regular repertoire until 1934. A 1944 production by the San Francisco Ballet introduced it to American audiences. The New York City Ballet began offering annual performances in 1954, and the tradition of staging The Nutcracker during the Christmas season soon began to take hold across the United States. Today, The Nutcracker attracts millions of patrons every year, and is responsible for a large portion of the ticket sales by American ballet companies.
We will be taking a look at Act II of The Nutcracker. We will begin with the opening scene, in which Clara and the Prince arrive in the Land of the Sweets. Then we will examine part of the “Grand Divertissement” (that’s “grand entertainment”
in English) that is staged for their amusement.
Act II: Introduction
Excerpt from Act II of The Nutcracker
Composer: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Performance: Semperoper Ballett
Time
Form
What to listen for
Introduction Clara and the Prince are welcomed to the Land 45’30”
to Act II
of the Sweets
The Prince tells the story of his victory over the
51’25”
Mouse King; we hear music from Act I
The dancers for the “Grand Divertissement” are
52’51”
introduced to Clara and the Prince
Chocolate
The melody is introduced by the trumpet, while
53’38”
(Spanish
castanets are heard throughout
dance)
A chromatic melody, heard first in the violins
Coffee
and later in the double reeds, floats above
55’04”
(Arabian
a droning rhythmic ostinato punctuated by
dance)
tambourine strikes
This dance pairs a flute/piccolo melody with
Tea (Chinese
59’00”
pizzicato strings and a simple ostinato in the
dance)
bassoon
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The fast-paced Trepak, which uses the entire
Russian
1:00’16”
orchestra, grows in intensity before culminating
Trepak
in a raucous final chord
1:01’31”
End of listening guide
Tchaikovsky opens Act II with harp arpeggios and a sweeping, romantic melody in the violins. Sustained pitches in the brass create a sense of calm and repose. When Clara and the Prince arrive onstage, they use pantomime and facial expressions to indicate their wonder at beholding the magical kingdom, while the music intensifies in excitement with the addition of ascending flourishes in the flutes and piccolo. Magical sounds are created by violin harmonics (a technique by which the player lightly touches the string to produce a high, wispy sound) and celesta, a keyboard instrument that produces bell-like sounds when hammers strike resonant metal bars. Tchaikovsky associated this instrument, invented in Paris in 1886, with the Sugar Plum Fairy, and he was the first to use it in a major work.
The entrance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, who has been ruling the Land of the Sweets in the Prince’s absence, is marked by another special effect (flutter tongue) in the flutes. She proceeds to greet Clara and the Prince, as do the subjects of the court. Next, the Prince tells the story of his battle with the Mouse King. He cannot use words, of course, so he reenacts the conflict in pantomime. He is aided by the orchestra, which repeats music from the battle scene—music that the audience heard only twenty or thirty minutes before and will easily recognize.
There has been dancing throughout the procedures thus far, of course, but nothing that could be described as a formal dance number. One of the challenges faced by any scenarist in designing a ballet is coming up with excuses for carefully-choreographed dance numbers. Ballet audiences enjoy the drama, but they want to see some good solo and ensemble dancing, not just pantomime. Petipa solved this problem by crafting a “Grand Divertissement” in which a series of dances are performed for Clara and the Prince. This “show within a show” is ostensibly put on for the benefit of the couple, but is in fact directed at the audience in the theater.
The “Grand Divertissement” consists of a diverse collection of themed dances.
The first three dances are named after foods appropriate to the Land of the Sweets: chocolate, coffee, and tea. For each of these, Tchaikovsky drew inspiration from the lands from which these foods came: Spain, Arabia, and China. These are followed by a Russian dance, the “Dance of the Reed Flutes,” and a dance known as “Mother Ginger and the Little Clowns.” We will focus our attention on the first four dances for the purpose of considering how Tchaikovsky approached the task of representing national identity in music.
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Act II: Chocolate
The Spanish dance is vibrant and exciting.
The melody is first heard on the trumpet—an
instrument that is not necessarily associated
with Spanish music, but which introduces
a bright timbre and sets the number apart
from what has come before. The harmonies
are simple and repetitive, suggesting a sort Image 4.34: The Spanish dance often features flamenco-inspired
of generic “folk” style. What really marks the costumes.
music as “Spanish” is the use of castanets, Source: Flickr which are heard nowhere else in the ballet. Attribution: Gabriel Saldana License: CC BY-SA 2.0
Castanets are a simple percussion instrument
that consists of two concave pieces of wood. These are held in one hand and clapped together. Castanets are particularly associated with the Spanish tradition of flamenco, which encompasses unique forms of guitar playing, singing, and dancing. By prominently featuring castanets, Tchaikovsky clearly signalled to his audience that the music and dancing were meant to be Spanish.
But how successful was he in replicating the sounds of flamenco music? We might compare Tchaikovsky’s music to a performance by flamenco musicians of the folk song “El Vito,” 11 which dates to the 16th century. This rendition is typical of Spanish music in several ways. It is in a minor mode, with the melody supported by characteristics harmonies. The guitar player executes dissonant strums. And the castanet player provides complex accompanying rhythms. The performance of flamenco most often incorporates dance12 as well, and there is a rich vocabulary of movements and rhythmic steps that accompany and express the music. Next to these examples, Tchaikovsky’s Spanish dance sounds comically cheerful and simplistic.
In this example, a guitarist and castanet player perform “El 11.
Vito.”
In this example, the guitarist is accompanied by hand
12.
clapping, singing, and the rhythmic footwork of the dancer.
Act II: Coffee
Next is the Arabian dance. This time, Tchaikovsky employs a variety of compositional techniques to signal to his listener that this is “Middle Eastern”
music. The low strings play a repeating rhythmic ostinato that produces a hypnotic Page | 118
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effect. The ostinato features the interval of
an open fifth, which leaves the question of
mode open: we could be in major or minor.
The ostinato also eliminates the possibility of
complex harmonies, for we are to dwell on the
same partial chord for the entire piece. Over
the top of this, we hear a modal violin melody
Image 4.35: The Arabian dance
that incorporates both the raised and lowered
often emphasizes sensuality
seventh scale degrees and is characterized by
and mystery. These dimly-lit
unusual rhythms and phrasing. The melody
performers are wearing typical
costumes.
prominently features the interval of an
Source: Pexels
augmented second, which is seldom heard in
Attribution: Ermelinda Maglione
European music, and it is scattered with trills.
License: Pexels License
The melody is bookended by a repeated motif
from the clarinets and double reeds and punctuated by the jingle of a tambourine.
Later, the melody is echoed in the oboe and the bassoon. A modal shift concludes the dance on a major harmony.
For an example of authentic Middle Eastern music, one can refer to the discussion of Turkish makam music in Chapter 8. Many of Tchaikovsky’s strategies for representing the Middle East in sound are indeed rooted in genuine practice.
The tambourine, for example, features prominently in Persian and Turkish music.
Likewise, Middle Eastern compositions use modes other than major and minor, and their melodies often feature augmented seconds. The trill is not an uncommon ornament in some instruments, such as the flute, and an ostinato sometimes provides a musical backdrop for improvisation. Finally, double reed instruments such as the sorna are native to the Middle East.
In short, Tchaikovsky captures the sound of Middle Eastern music with considerable success. The main differences between the genuine article and Tchaikovsky’s imitation are the different timbres of the instruments, the inauthentic complexity of Tchaikovsky’s orchestration, and the Western intonation of the orchestral players, who do not tune their pitches in the same way as members of a takht ensemble.
All the same, Tchaikovsky contributes to a musical stereotype that casts Middle Eastern music as static and hypnotic. While it can have these characteristics, it usually does not. Unfortunately, these have become the hallmarks of Western imitations, with the result that a rich music tradition is reduced to a handful of cliches.
Act II: Tea
Next up is the Chinese dance, representative of tea. Tchaikovsky again makes use of an ostinato—this time, a rapid oscillation between the first and fifth scale degrees by the bassoon player. Above this we hear a high melody in the flutes and piccolos, punctuated by pizzicato from the strings. As the music grows in intensity, clarinets provide an arpeggiated accompaniment while bells sparkle alongside the flutes.
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For an example of authentic Chinese music, we need only look to the previous example in this chapter. Any listener will immediately note that the Tchaikovsky’s dance has little to do with actual Chinese music. His choice of flutes for the melody might bring to mind the bright timbres often favored in Chinese music, but the similarity ends there. The steady rhythm, choice of scale, texture, and repetitive form all suggest that he had never actually heard Chinese music at all—or at least had no interest in creating a faithful reproduction.
Creating a faithful reproduction, of course, was never Tchaikovsky’s goal in any of these cases. Whether or not he accurately reflected the music of the cultures he parodied was purely incidental. Tchaikovsky’s only task was to entertain the Moscow audience members that purchased tickets to see the ballet. His audience was Russian, and he knew that they enjoyed exotic escapism as part of their theatrical entertainment. They were not alone.
Exoticism—the use of stereotypes to portray other cultures as exciting or mysterious—has a long history in European music, and especially in music for the opera stage. European audiences of the 18th and 19th centuries were intrigued by the cultural practices of distant lands,
and they had a limitless appetite for their
representation in the arts. The East held
particular fascination, such that the term
orientalism has been coined to describe
the stereotyped representation of Eastern
cultures. Such representations, however,
are seldom accurate or flattering. Instead,
exoticism dehumanizes its subject so as
to provide an escapist experience to the Image 4.36: These dancers, consumer. Europeans often perceived who appeared in a 2012 concert exoticized subjects as sexually licentious, performance of the Chinese dance, primitive, and driven by their emotions—
are wearing typical costumes and
making a hand gesture that is
or, to put it another way, free from the often incorporated into Nutcracker
strictures of society. In this way, exoticized choreography. At what point do subjects became an object of both adoration these common presentational tactics become offensive, or downright
and loathing. They could give in to racist?
temptations that were denied to European Source: Marine Corps viewers, but only because they were less Attribution: Isis M. Ramirez License: Public Domain
than human.
All of this might seem a bit tangential to The Nutcracker, which, after all, tells a charming story set in an imagined candy land, but it is not. The ballet’s representations of exoticized others—whether Romani people of Spain, or Arabs, or Chinese—contributes to a centuries-long practice that can still dehumanize these people today. This is best exemplified by a current controversy surrounding the performance of Tchaikovsky’s Chinese dance, which usually relies on stereotyped costumes, makeup, and choreography that many people find offensive.
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In 2017, yellowface.org was founded specifically to advocate for changes in how the Chinese dance is presented in productions of The Nutcracker. The organization encourages arts leaders to sign the “Final Bow for Yellowface” pledge, which is a commitment to end racist representations of the Chinese characters. It also provides resources for creating new costumes, makeup, and choreography for use in Nutcracker productions that reflect genuine Chinese cultural practices instead of racist stereotypes. The movement has gained support, but most productions—
including that associated with this text—continue to present a stereotyped visual representation of Chinese culture alongside Tchaikovky’s musical one.
Act II: Trepak
The final selection from the “Grand Divertissement” that we will examine here is the Russian dance, or Trepak. This time, Tchaikovsky took a model closer to home, for this dance is based on local Russian and Ukrainian folk practices. 13
Unsurprisingly, the Russian dance is Tchaikovsky’s best imitation of the “real thing.” Both his Russian dance and the authentic trepak are fast-paced and in duple meter, with a driving rhythm suited to high-energy dancing. We again hear the tambourine—now a symbol not of the Middle East but of native folk culture.
In this video, you can see the kind of folk dance that inspired 13.
Tchaikovsky’s Trepak.
JAVANESE TRADITIONAL, THE LOVE DANCE OF
KLANA SEWANDANA
Image 4.37: The wayang wong dance tradition developed in the courts of Yogyakarta and Surakarta, now the major cities of central Java.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: User “Gobbler”
License: CC BY-SA 2.0
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tradition, which developed in the courts of central Java, an island that is now part of Indonesia. Although wayang wong is unique to this small region, many of its musical and dramatic elements can be found across Java and throughout Indonesia.
The most important of these is gamelan music, which is played on pitched gongs and keyed metallophones (marimba and xylophone are Western examples of such instruments).
Indonesia as Kingdom and Colony
Indonesia’s performing arts traditions reflect its diverse cultural heritage.
Civilization on the islands dates back thousands of years. Indonesia was at first ruled over by a series of Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms, but the arrival of Islam in the 15th century resulted in the gradual conversion of the population. Today, Indonesia is the largest Muslim nation in the world, although many inhabitants practice a form of the religion that contains traces of the region’s Hindu and Buddhist heritage.
Javanese music is well known in the West due to the island’s colonial history.
Dutch traders began to visit the Indonesian islands in the 16th century. The profitability of trade led to an influx of Dutch settlers, who established a local government under the auspices of the United East India Company. When the company failed in 1800, the Dutch government formally annexed the Dutch East Indies—which included most of Java—as a colony. Under Dutch rule, indigenous courts were allowed to remain intact, but they were granted only ceremonial powers. While this denied Indonesians their political autonomy, it contributed to the flourishing of Indonesian art, which the Dutch encouraged. It also facilitated the spread of Javanese music and art to Europe.
During World War II, Indonesia was occupied by the Japanese, who drove out the Dutch in an attempt to claim the islands for themselves. At the conclusion of the war, the Indonesians proclaimed independence. The Netherlands attempted to reassert its claim to the territory by force, and a military conflict ensued. In 1949, however, facing intense pressure from other powers, the Dutch acknowledged Indonesia as an independent nation. The impact of Dutch colonialism on the spread of Javanese cultural products resonates into the present day, and gamelan music in particular can be heard throughout the world. Indeed, there are over one hundred gamelan ensembles in the United States alone.
Wayang Wong
The dance form we will explore here, wayang wong, developed during the colonial era and resulted from the conflict between indigenous and colonial powers.
Wayang wong was created at the court of Hamengkubuwono I, the first Sultan of Yogyakarta. Hamengkubuwono was to inherit the throne of the Mataram Sultanate from his brother, Pakubuwono II, but instead led his followers in a civil war after Pakubuwono agreed to cooperate with the United East India Company. The war Page | 122
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ended in 1755 with a treaty establishing courts at Yogyakarta and Surakarta.
Although this was nominally a victory for Hamengkubuwono, the Dutch ultimately benefited by pitting the courts against one another over the next two centuries. All the same, Yogyakarta remained a stronghold of Javanese resistance, and today serves as the capital of an independent region of the same name.
Image 4.38: These wayang wong dancers are portraying a scene from the Mahabharata.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Gunawan Kartapranata
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
Wayang wong was initially
conceived of as a decadent three-day
spectacle celebrating and affirming
the power of the newly-established
Yogyakarta court. Although the first
performance required dozens of
dancers and lasted from dawn to dusk
on each of the days, it has persisted
in scaled-down forms. The term
wayang wong literally means “human Image 4.39: This view from behind the wayang.” This is in deference to the screen shows a dhalang manipulating the shadow puppets in a wayang kulit
principal form of Indonesian theater, performance. The dhalang, who must wayang kulit, which uses shadow be highly trained, not only moves the puppets to act out traditional epics to puppets but narrates, provides dialogue, and sings. His performances usually
the accompaniment of music.
exceed eight hours in length, lasting from
All forms of wayang tell stories sunset to sunrise.
that have a long history in Indonesian Source: Wikimedia Commons Attribution: User “PL 05 SIGIT”
culture. The principal sources are License: CC BY-SA 4.0
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two Indian epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Wayang performances also draw from the Panji stories, which concern the life of a legendary Javanese prince. Each of these epics is much too long and complex to be related in a single performance. Instead, wayang performers select individual stories, which they often elaborate in ways that add novelty without disrupting the traditional narrative. Indonesian audiences are already familiar with the stories, and they appreciate seeing the characters and events presented with originality.
Gamelan
Our example presents an excerpt from the Panji stories, which we will consider in greater detail below. Before that, however, we owe some attention to the music that accompanies wayang wong dance. The instruments used in gamelan music date back to at least the 8th century, although they did not acquire their present form until the 15th or 16th century, when gamelan music became an important component of court life. Gamelan music is ubiquitous in traditional Indonesian culture. It can be performed on its own, but it is also used to accompany dance and theater. It is played for court celebrations and religious ceremonies, pursued by amateurs for their own enjoyment, and consumed by fans as entertainment.
A gamelan is a collection of bronze percussion instruments that are struck using a variety of mallets. The components of a gamelan include vertically-hung gongs of various sizes, smaller gongs suspended horizontally in wooden frames, and melodic instruments consisting of metal bars suspended over resonating chambers. The instruments of a gamelan are built together and they remain together. It is not possible for players to bring their own instruments, or for an instrument to be substituted.
This is because there is no fixed
pitch system in Indonesian
music, so gamelan instruments
Image 4.40: Although it bears a superficial
resemblance, the saron differs from the gendèr
in many ways. The bronze keys rest directly on
the instrument, and the resonating chamber
Image 4.41: The word “gong,”
is a space within the wooden body of the
several examples of which we see
instrument. The keys are also struck differently.
here, comes from Indonesia.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Tropenmuseum, part of the National Museum of
Attribution: Tropenmuseum, part of the
World Cultures
National Museum of World Cultures
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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are tuned to one another by the original builder.
Every gamelan therefore plays a distinct set of
pitches.
In addition to being communally stored and
maintained, gamelans are bestowed with names.
This not only recognizes the gamelan’s status as a
Image 4.42: The gendèr
complete ensemble but also signifies the traditional
is one of several gamelan
belief that a gamelan possesses a spirit. This spirit
instruments with bronze
resides primarily in the largest suspended gong,
keys strung over bamboo
resonators.
the gong ageng, which might be provided offerings
Source: Wikimedia Commons
of food, flowers, and incense. The blacksmith who
Attribution: Tropenmuseum, part of the
forges the bronze components of the gamelan
National Museum of World Cultures
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
instruments is traditionally understood to hold
special powers, and he is expected to prepare for
his task through fasting and self-purification. His
carefully-tuned gongs and bars are then set in
ornately-carved wooden frames.
Each instrument in a gamelan occupies a
specific place in the musical texture. The vertically-
and horizontally-suspended gongs are all used to
mark the pulses of the rhythmic cycles that underlie
gamelan music. These cycles, each of which is
Image 4.43: The kenong
named, consist of patterns of timbres provided by
and kethuk are horizontally-
the various gongs. The gong ageng always marks
suspended gongs used
to mark the underlying
the end of the cycle, which repeats throughout a
rhythmic cycle in gamelan
performance and provides the structure.
music.
The other bronze instruments—which include
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Tropenmuseum, part of the
two sizes of bonang, gendèr, slenthem (an National Museum of World Cultures
instrument that resembles the gendèr but is pitched License: CC BY-SA 3.0
lower and has fewer keys), and two sizes of saron—
play the same melody in heterophonic texture.
However, each of these instruments interprets
the melody in a markedly different way. Some
play ornate versions, some play spare versions,
and some play syncopated versions. The result is
a complex texture woven out of the brilliant and
Image 4.44: The gongs of
the bonang resemble those
resonant timbres of the many instruments.
of the kenong and kethuk, Gamelan music also uses a few additional
but are strung together and
instruments, although these are not part of the
tuned to allow the rendition
of melodies.
main gamelan ensemble. Such instruments usually
Source: Wikimedia Commons
provide improvised melodies that follow the
Attribution: Tropenmuseum, part of the
contour of the main melody but are otherwise
National Museum of World Cultures
License: CC BY-SA 3.0
independent. The instruments that might fill this
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role include the rebab (a bowed fiddle related to the Chinese jinghu), the gambang (a wood-keyed xylophone), and the suling (a type of flute). Finally, a male choir or female soloist might sing, drawing their texts from a body of poems and riddles that belong to the gamelan tradition. These texts, however, are not associated with any particular musical composition. Instead, they might be heard in a variety of contexts.
A gamelan performance is led by
the drummer, who plays three different
sizes of a drum known as kendhang. The
drummer starts and stops performances,
but his most important task is to control
the pace and to signal the dramatic
shifts in tempo that are characteristic
of gamelan music. During performance,
the ensemble will periodically slow to
half of its former tempo or accelerate to
twice the tempo. This is accompanied
by changes in how the melody is Image 4.45: A kendhang player.
interpreted by each of the instruments, Source: Wikimedia Commons which will add notes at slow tempos in Attribution: Raimond Spekking License: CC BY-SA 4.0
order to maintain a consistent texture.
The Love Dance of Klana Sewandana
The Love Dance of Klana Sewandana
Performance: The court dancers and
musicians of Yogyakarta
Time
Form
What to listen for
A few of the metallophones play a slow,
Sekartaji alone in simple melody; the rebab and solo
32’14”
the forest
female singer improvise high melodies; a
percussionist taps rhythms on a wooden box
Klana Sewandana The music at first becomes faster and more enters and
35’12”
rhythmically intense; this is followed by
attempts to
fluctuations in tempo and dynamic
seduce Sekartaji
A male solo singer enters and the rhythm
36’08
becomes more regular
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Prince Panji
arrives and
The brighter/louder metallophones reenter
37’52
fights Klana
the texture
Sewandana
The male choir enters and most of the
38’21”
instruments drop out
39’06”
The rebab enters
39’35”
The solo female singer joins the male choir
Instruments and singers continue to
[...]
leave and reenter the texture as the music
fluctuates in intensity
Prince Panji and
45’30
Sekartaji are
The music slows in tempo, then accelerates
reunited
The music slows in anticipation of the final
48’19
note
We are now prepared to turn to our example: A wayang wong performance that presents an episode from the Panji legends. Wayang wong is practiced both in masked and unmasked versions. This is obviously an example of the former.
The use of masks in Indonesian dance dates back thousands of years. The masks are symbolically significant, and their shape, color, and details carry information about the character.
Many episodes of the Panji legend concern his romantic relationship with Sekartaji, who often finds herself separated from the Prince due to the intervention of malevolent forces. To survive, she frequently disguises herself as a man, at one point becoming the King of Bali and meeting Prince Panji on the battlefield. (There is also a long history of cross dressing in wayang dance itself.) The scene we will examine opens on Sekartaji alone in the forest. She has fled from the unwanted affections of King Klana Sewandana, whose obsession with her has driven him insane. Klana Sewandana attempts to seduce Sekartaji, but she rebuffs his advances. Luckily, Prince Panji has been drawn to the scene by his great love for Sekartaji. He fights and defeats Klana Sewandana, and the lovers are reunited.
The three dancers in the scene move differently, for they represent the three character types of wayang wong. As a female type, Sekartaji keeps her feet close to the ground while executing refined movements with her hands, neck, and head.
Klana Sewandana is a strong male, as betrayed by his wide stance, large steps, and Page | 127
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aggressive movements. Prince Panji, on the other hand, is a refined male. As such, he keeps his feet close to the ground and moves fluidly.
Throughout the episode, the gamelan provides a constant musical backdrop while accentuating the dramatic contour. Klana Sewandana’s arrival in the forest, for example, is marked by an intensification of the music, which grows in volume and increases in tempo. Musical outbursts punctuate the fight scene, while a musical calm descends on the final scene between Panji and Sekartaji. From time to time we hear the rebab, the suling, and various singers, who can be seen seated behind the dancers. The words they are singing have nothing in particular to do with the drama unfolding onstage, but voices contribute an important aesthetic element to any performance.
RESOURCES FOR FURTHER LEARNING
Brenner, Benjamin. Music in Central Java: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. Oxford University Press, 2007.
Church, Michael, ed. The Other Classical Musics: Fifteen Great Traditions. Boydell Press, 2015.
Lau, Frederick. Music in China: Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture. Oxford University Press, 2007.
Riley, Roland John. Tchaikovsky’s Ballets: Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker. Clarendon Press, 1985.
Romano, Renee and Claire Bond Potter, ed. Historians on Hamilton: How a Blockbuster Musical is Reshaping America’s Past. Rutgers University Press, 2018.
Whenham, John. Claudio Monteverdi: Orfeo. Cambridge University Press, 1986.
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5Song Esther M. Morgan-Ellis and Arielle P. Crumley INTRODUCTION
Song is perhaps the most familiar and universal form of musical storytelling.
Unlike opera, it does not require a large space, costumes, or staging. It can be collaborative, but is often performed by a single person. It is also compelling, for we generally get a great deal of pleasure out of using our imaginations to visualize the characters and events of a story. In many times and places, in fact, song and storytelling have been considered inseparable: The storyteller could not imagine communicating through any means other than music.
The purpose of song, of course, is not always to tell stories. Many songs present philosophical ideas, or describe scenes, or support worship, or encourage dancing.
In this chapter, however, we will focus on songs—and collections of songs—that outline clear narratives, and we will examine ways in which the music helps to communicate the story. As we will see, it can do this in many ways.
SONG CYCLES
We will begin by looking at collections of songs that work together to tell a story that is emotionally complex, if not heavy in plot detail. Such a collection can be called a song cycle. A song cycle usually consists of about eight to twenty songs that use carefully crafted texts and music to present a cohesive narrative. Each song is distinct from the others and the order cannot be changed. While the term song cycle is most often applied to works from the art music world, it is valid across many genres. When a popular artist releases an album of songs that accomplish the purpose of a song cycle, however, the product is referred to as a concept album.
The most important difference between a song cycle and concept album is that the former is most commonly conceived of with live performance in mind, whereas the latter is often developed in the studio and consumed as a recording. For this reason, a song cycle is more likely to have limited instrumentation, while producers of concept albums often have a wider variety of sound tools at their disposal. We will begin by considering a concept album that includes not only sounds but images and spoken poetry.
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SONG
BEYONCÉ, LEMONADE
On April 23, 2016, popular music
star Beyoncé released her sixth album,
Lemonade. The release was accompanied
by a 65-minute film of the same name
that premiered on the popular television
network HBO. This album, which was
influenced by a range of genres spanning
from hip-hop to country, became critically
acclaimed for its musical variety, while
the accompanying film was admired for
its astounding visual cinematography. The
work as a whole has also been lauded for
its unapologetic celebration of womanhood
and black culture.
At its center, Lemonade is a concept
album revolving around infidelity,
seemingly sparked by the infamous
accounts of Beyoncé and husband Jay-
Image 5.1: Here we see Beyoncé
Z’s marital struggles. The songs, which performing onstage in 2013.
mirror Beyoncé’s personal experiences Source: Wikimedia Commons Attribution: User “Nat Ch Villa”
with infidelity, touch on themes such as License: CC BY 2.0
heartbreak, revenge, and forgiveness. The
accompanying film follows the singer’s journey from betrayal to healing by dividing the twelve songs into separate chapters: “Intuition,” “Denial,” “Anger,” “Apathy,”
“Emptiness,” “Accountability,” “Reformation,” “Forgiveness,” “Resurrection,”
“Hope,” and “Redemption.” Though the album’s focus is on Beyoncé’s personal healing, there is also an underlying political theme, for the album recognizes the struggles of black Americans by addressing issues such as black womanhood and police brutality. Here, we will discuss several songs and consider their visual counterparts, exploring different stages of the story’s development.
“Hold Up”
One of the most noteworthy aspects of Lemonade is the poetry that Beyoncé recites between each song. These poems help to tie the story together and clarify dramatic details. Beyoncé’s recitations include excerpts from the poems of Warsan Shire, a Somali-British poet known for writing about not only personal experiences but also the struggles of women, refugees, immigrants, and other marginalized groups of people. Throughout the recitation, listeners are confronted both with abstract images and with descriptions of the emotions that prevail in each chapter.
Consider, for example, the poetry that precedes the song “Hold Up,” 1 which Beyoncé recites in eerie, whispering tones.
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“Hold Up” from Lemonade
1.
Performance: Beyoncé (2016)
Immediately following this passage, the song “Hold Up” begins. This upbeat single reflects the “Denial” chapter of Beyoncé’s journey. The song at first seems optimistic: its playful, Reggae-inspired beat and major key make the song sound like a laid-back summertime hit. The lyrics of the chorus seem to convey a positive attitude, repeating the phrase, “Hold up, they don’t love you like I love you/Slow down, they don’t love you like I love you.” However, the verses express more negative emotions. By considering the lyrics in their entirety and noticing the duality between the verses and the chorus, the listener gets the impression that Beyoncé is fighting with her emotions, bouncing back and forth between denial and anger.
The visual aspect of the song also reveals a dichotomous nature. Beyoncé herself seems to be a visual representation of lightheartedness, dressed in a long, flowing gown of bright yellow. However, her look is meant to be a representation of Oshun, a West-African goddess of fresh waters, love, and fertility (this characterization is further emphasized in the beginning of the scene where Beyoncé emerges from a building surrounded by cascading water). Although Oshun is viewed as a benevolent deity, folktales often discuss Oshun’s harsh temper when she has been wronged. Beyoncé embodies this character throughout the song, smiling playfully as she bashes windows, fire hydrants, and cars with a baseball bat.
“Don’t Hurt Yourself”
In the following song, “Don’t Hurt Yourself,”2 which is performed during the chapter titled “Anger,” Beyoncé leaves behind her playful nature for full-on vengeance. The song, which features rock musician Jack White (known mostly for his association with The White Stripes), has definite rock-and-roll characteristics, including heavy rhythms and distorted vocals. Beyoncé expresses her anger in the song’s opening lyric: “Who the f*ck do you think I is? You ain’t married to no average b*tch, boy.” The mood throughout the song remains the same: angry and vengeful. Beyoncé concludes with a final warning: “If you try this sh*t again/ You gon’ lose your wife.”
“Don’t Hurt Yourself” from Lemonade
2.
Performance: Beyoncé (2016)
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With these lyrics, it becomes apparent that Beyonce’s anger is directed toward her cheating husband. However, this song also includes one of the first instances in which Beyoncé addresses the album’s other theme: the struggles of being a black American, particularly a black American woman. In the middle of the first verse, Beyoncé interpolates an excerpt from Malcolm X’s famous speech “Who Taught You to Hate Yourself:”
The most disrespected person in America is the black woman. The most unprotected woman in America is the black woman. The most neglected person in America is the black woman.
Beyoncé’s anger seems to be not only directed at her husband but also at the mistreatment of black women in America. This continues to be an underlying theme throughout the remainder of the album. For instance, in the following song,
“Sorry” (one of the most popular singles from the album), the last lyric reads “you better call Becky with the good hair.” The term “Becky” is a popular colloquialism for a white woman, and this lyric seems to imply that the other woman was white.
This reflects the negative stereotype that black women are less desirable than other women, and it implies that Beyoncé was cheated on because of her blackness.
“Sandcastles”
The next few songs on the album, which belong to the chapters “Apathy”
and “Emptiness,” exhibit various emotions, but it is with the song “Sandcastles” 3
that Beyoncé arrives at the most difficult and important point in her journey:
“Forgiveness.” The music itself presents raw emotions, with its simple, bare piano accompaniment and expressive vocals. Beyoncé’s singing style is very different in this song, her voice at times sounding shaky or raspy, reflecting the hurt that is inevitable when confronting a cheating partner. She sings of her damaged marriage, of the fights and broken hearts, yet she reveals her reluctance to walk away from it all by singing, “Oh, and I know I promised that I couldn’t stay, baby/
Every promise don’t work out that way.” Like the music itself, the visual portion of this song is very personal, including loving scenes of Beyoncé and husband Jay-Z
laughing together and embracing.
“Sandcastles” from Lemonade
3.
Performance: Beyoncé (2016)
The following short song, “Forward,” features English singer James Blake, who sings a heartbreaking melody. With the infidelity narrative reaching its conclusion in the previous song, this interlude pulls away from the story of Beyonce’s struggles Page | 132
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and introduces a new focus on the previously-
mentioned underlying theme: the struggles of black
Americans. The visual counterpart of the song features
several important figures in the fight for equality and
justice, including the mothers of Trayvon Martin, Eric
Garner, and Michael Brown (Sybrina Fulton, Gwen
Carr, and Lezley McSpadden respectively). Each
woman is shown holding a photograph of her son who
was killed by unnecessary violence and brutality.
The final chapters of Beyoncé’s journey, “Hope” and
“Redemption,” feature upbeat and inspirational songs
such as “Freedom” and the hit single “Formation.”
Image 5.2: Beyoncé
The powerful lyrics and gospel style of “Freedom”
performing in 2007.
convey an inspirational message about continuing on
Source: Wikipedia
in the midst of adversity. This message is not only
Attribution: Cornel Pex
License: CC BY 2.0
a reflection of Beyoncé’s power to move beyond her
personal struggles while dealing with her husband’s
infidelity, it is also an anthem intended to uplift black Americans in their struggles against inequality. At the song’s conclusion, there is an excerpt from a speech given by Hattie White, Jay-Z’s grandmother, that elucidates the meaning of the album’s title:
I had my ups and downs, but I always find the inner strength to pull myself up. I was served lemons, but I made lemonade.
FRANZ SCHUBERT, THE LOVELY MAID OF THE MILL
Franz Schubert (1797-1828) lived a quiet life in Vienna, where he wrote over 600 songs for performance at intimate domestic gatherings. Although he died young, and without achieving significant fame outside of Vienna, his work became widely-known in the mid-19th century and today he is considered to be one of the finest composers of the era.
Song and National Character
Before we can look at Schubert’s songs, we need to know something about the cultural context in which he was working. In the early 19th century, new ideas about national identity were in the air. Many of these ideas were rooted in the work of German philosopher Johann Gottfried von Herder, who argued that spoken language influenced an individual’s character. He suggested, for example, that Germans all thought in roughly the same way because they spoke the same language, which in turn guided and structured their intellectual activity. From here, the notion that people who spoke the same language should participate in bounded, self-governing communities—nations, in fact—was not far removed.
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During Schubert’s time, neither Germany nor
Austria existed in anything resembling their
present forms, but the idea that communities
of people who spoke a common language
should constitute autonomous nations was
quickly taking hold.
Herder also believed that the most
authentic form of national character was to
be found among those least corrupted by
cosmopolitan influences—the peasants who
worked the land. Before the late 18th century,
impoverished rural folk were treated with
contempt. It was not believed that they had
anything to offer the ruling classes other
than labor. Following Herder, however, they
became the one true source of authentic “folk” Image 5.3: This posthumous culture, and therefore key to a nation’s ability portrait of Schubert was painted to understand itself.
by Wilhelm August Rieder in 1875.
Collectors began to scour the countryside Source: Wikimedia Commons Attribution: Wilhelm August Rieder
for folk stories, folk poetry, folk dances, License: Public Domain and folk songs. These were compiled and
published for popular consumption. Perhaps
the most famous of such collectors were the
Brothers Grimm (Jacob Ludwig Karl and
Wilhelm Carl), who were responsible for first
recording many of the fairy tales—including
Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White,
Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty—that have
been ceaselessly told and retold around the
world ever since.
All of this is important to our discussion of
Schubert for two reasons. First, the elevation
of the German language meant that German
songs had the potential to become art. Before
Schubert’s time, songs were regarded as trivial
popular entertainment. Schubert’s songs, Image 5.4: The ideas of Johann Gottfried von Herder influenced
however, were taken seriously as cultural the development of a German art expression of the highest order.
song tradition.
Second, general fascination with folk Source: Wikimedia Commons Attribution: Anton Graff
culture and art influenced Schubert’s approach License: Public Domain to writing songs. He often chose texts that
imitated folk poetry, or at least dwelt on rural subject matter, and he frequently set these to music in a folk-like style. Although some of his music seems very simple, Page | 134
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Schubert did not resort to the folk idiom because he lacked ability or imagination.
Instead, he imitated genuine folk song to augment his storytelling.
We will see all of this influence at work in Schubert’s 1824 song cycle The Lovely Maid of the Mill. Before turning to the story and music, however, we need to consider the setting in which the music was meant to be experienced.
Salon Culture
In the Vienna of Schubert’s time, music lovers supported an economy of small, in-home concerts known as salons. A salon might be hosted by a wealthy family for the purpose of advertising their cultural and social capital. The performance would take place in the family’s living room, where visitors could admire their furnishings and art. Hosting a salon was also considerably cheaper than maintaining a private orchestra, so it became the preferred means of cultural expression as Vienna’s wealth slowly shifted from a small group of aristocrats to a larger middle class.
Naturally, certain types of music were preferable for salon entertainment. Only a few performers could fit in the venue at a time, and loud instruments were not welcome. A great demand arose, therefore, for solo piano music, chamber music (two to five individuals each playing their own part), and song, all of which Schubert produced in enormous quantities.
Image 5.5: This 1897 painting by Julius Schmid shows Vienna’s upper classes garbed in their finest and crowded around the piano, at which Schubert himself is seated. All attention is clearly focused on the music, which is performed at intimate proximity.
(Of course, Schmid was born much too late to attend a Schubertiade, and he was imagining the scene in question.)
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Attribution: Julius Schmid
License: Public Domain
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All of Schubert’s songs and chamber music were conceived of with this sort of environment in mind. In fact, he became so prominent in the salon scene that a special term, Schubertiade, was developed to describe a salon performance that featured only his music. Salons were comparatively informal, and listeners would gather around the performers in close proximity. Paintings of salon performances show listeners in rapt attention.
This type of engagement with music was typical more generally of Schubert’s era, when the public held art in high regard and believed that artists were in a position to communicate profound truths. Schubert’s listeners sought not only entertainment but also enlightenment, transformation, and catharsis. The Lovely Maid of the Mill offered all.
The Lovely Maid of the Mill
The poetry for this song cycle was written by Wilhelm Müller, a prolific author of song texts. Müller was one of many German poets who looked to folk models for inspiration, and the folk-like characteristics of his verse influenced Schubert’s music. Müller’s collection of twenty-five poems was first published in 1820, and Schubert began setting it to music just a few years later while he was recovering from a severe bout of illness. Schubert’s spirits were low at the time he embarked on this project, for he feared that he would never fully regain his health. Indeed, he never did: Schubert succumbed to his illness five years later, just as he was on the brink of achieving success outside of Vienna.
In the poems, Müller tells the story of a young journeyman miller who has completed his initial apprenticeship and set out to find employment. He walks through the woods until he finds a stream, and then follows the stream to a mill, where he does indeed find a job waiting. He also finds the miller’s daughter, and falls in love with her immediately. At first, she seems to reciprocate, and he is overjoyed to have won her affection. Slowly, however, the miller begins to suspect that the girl in fact loves the hunter, who has been hanging about the mill. As his suspicion turns to certainty, the miller experiences anger, grief, and finally resignation. Having lost his true love forever, he drowns himself in the brook.
It is worth noting that Schubert and Beyonce’s songs cycles have a great deal in common. Both address the suffering that can come with love, and both express the intense emotions of the wronged party. It seems that we have never told enough stories about the difficulty of navigating a romantic relationship. The nuances of each musical story, however, are unique to the time and place in which each was crafted. Beyonce tells a tale of empowerment and reconciliation, while Schubert’s protagonist seems to give up in the face of a romantic stymy.
The story told in The Lovely Maid of the Mill, however, exhibits a variety of 19th-century values. The period extending roughly from 1815 to 1900 is referred to in the arts as the Romantic era. In the realms of both literature and music, consumers expected insight into the inner emotional lives of individuals, whether they were fictional protagonists or the creators themselves. Two of the topics addressed in The Page | 136
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Lovely Maid of the Mill—love and suicide—were especially prevalent in the Romantic era, while the tale’s rural setting exemplifies the Romantic interest in nature. While the story is not particularly interesting in its own terms, the music allows us to experience every nuance the protagonist’s widely varying emotional states.
We will examine four songs: the first, the last, and two from intermediate points in the miller’s emotional journey. In each case, we will look at how Schubert’s musical decisions amplify and communicate the emotional and dramatic contents of the poetry.
“Wandering”
The first song is entitled “Wandering.”4 The poem reads as follows:
Wandering is the miller’s joy,
Wandering!
A man isn’t much of a miller,
If he doesn’t think of wandering,
Wandering!
We learned it from the stream,
The stream!
It doesn’t rest by day or night,
And only thinks of wandering,
The stream!
We also see it in the mill wheels,
The mill wheels!
They’d rather not stand still at all
