“In his epochal review of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor (1808), Op. 67, E. T. A. Hoffman praised it as ‘one of the most important works of the time.’ … Beethoven started to sketch the Fifth Symphony in 1804, almost immediately following the completion of Symphony No. 3, Eroica … During the long four-year period of composition, Beethoven broke convention on several aspects,” (esm.rochester.edu). “Most particularly, it was the first symphony that Beethoven wrote in a minor key—C minor. Minor-keyed symphonies were not unheard of, but were not the norm at the time.”
The second movement begins with a lighter mood than its infamous introduction, the symphony’s first movement: ” … (it) begins piano with a noble, restrained theme in A-flat in the lower strings before bursting into a brief forte contrasting C-major militaristic theme, featuring trumpets and timpani.” In this performance by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, this modulation occurs at 1:17; other shifts in tonality follow.
“Before he left for a triumphant tour of North America in January 1928, (French composer) Maurice Ravel had agreed to write a Spanish-flavoured ballet score for his friend, the Russian dancer and actress Ida Rubinstein … Ravel had long toyed with the idea of building a composition from a single theme which would grow simply through harmonic and instrumental ingenuity,” (ClassicFM). “Boléro’s famous theme came to him on holiday … He was about to go for a swim when he called a friend over to the piano and, playing the melody with one finger, asked: ‘Don’t you think that has an insistent quality? I’m going to try to repeat it a number of times without any development, gradually increasing the orchestra as best I can.’
… By Ravel’s standards, the piece was completed quickly, in five months – it had to be ready for Rubinstein to choreograph. ‘Once the idea of using only one theme was discovered,’ he asserted, ‘any conservatory student could have done as well.’ The relentless snare-drum underpins the whole of the 15-minute work as Ravel inexorably builds on the simple tune until, with a daring modulation from C major to E major, he finally releases the pent-up tension with a burst of fireworks.” In this live recording from the 2014 BBC Proms, those fireworks arrive at the 13:22 mark, although C major makes a boisteous return shortly thereafter to end the piece.
“Boléro was given its first performance at the Paris Opéra on November 20, 1928. The premiere was acclaimed by a shouting, stamping, cheering audience in the midst of which a woman was heard screaming: ‘Au fou, au fou!’ (‘The madman! The madman!’). When Ravel was told of this, he reportedly replied: ‘That lady … she understood.’ … Although Ravel considered Boléro one of his least important works, it has always been his most popular.”
“Sibelius is without doubt one of the Last Romantics. Along with his younger contemporary Rachmaninov, he kept faith with the common building blocks of music in the latter half of the 19th Century well into the 20th,” (Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment). “But both had a non-conformist streak and began to find ways to move away from the prevailing styles of their time …”
“Sibelius composed the first version of his Fifth Symphony late in 1914, introducing it on his fiftieth birthday, December 8, 1915 …” (bso.org). “He conducted a revised version of the symphony a year later … on December 14, 1916. Still dissatisfied with the work, he withdrew it for a second time, leading the premiere of the final version only on November 24, 1919 … When the horns take flight in the finale … it is the Romantic gesture par excellence. A soaring melody in the heroic key of E flat, a moment that profoundly stirs the listener, conjuring swans winging across imagined Nordic skies … amidst the romantic gestures and almost Mozartian figuration we can also see the emergence of a progressive approach to musical form that set the bar for the century ahead, the layered textures of Ligeti and the orchestral sonorities of the generations of Finnish composers who came after Sibelius.”
The Swedish Radio Orchestra’s performance featured here is conducted by fellow Finn Esa-Pekka Salonen, who is known as both a conductor and a composer. The movement begins in Eb major but pivots exquisitely to C major at 2:24.
“‘I compose music’, said Camille Saint-Saëns, ‘as a tree produces apples,'” (DeutscheGrammophon.com). “A child prodigy, virtuoso pianist and accomplished travel writer, the prolific French composer came to embody the spirit of Classicism in an era of high Romantic creativity … Saint-Saëns took pride in his family’s Normandy roots, but his father had moved to Paris before his birth and Camille was thoroughly Parisian in his upbringing and outlook.
… In 1871 he was the driving force behind the new Société Nationale de Musique, formed to promote instrumental music in the face both of German pre-eminence – this was the year after the Franco-Prussian War.” Regarding his most prominent piece, ‘Carnaval des Animaux’ (‘Carnival of the Animals’), “Saint-Saëns would only allow this satirical piece to be played in private in his lifetime, as he feared its light-hearted character would tarnish his reputation as a serious composer. All, that is, except for one movement: ‘The Swan’. Played by a solo cello and piano duet, the lyrical melody has a depth of feeling that is unusual for Saint-Saëns … Living on for half a century after he founded the Société Nationale, Saint-Saëns was able to witness the great flowering of French chamber music that took place during the period, led by his pupil (Gabriel) Fauré.”
From the video’s description: “‘Cyprès et Lauriers,’ Op. 156, for Organ and Orchestra was written … in 1919 to celebrate the Allied victory in World War I and dedicated to then President of France, Raymond Poincaré.” The gravity of The Great War was still reverberating throughout Europe at that time; the artistic community did its best to respond to the tremendous shock waves which the war set into motion. The piece’s chromaticism can at times obscure its modulation points (the first takes place at the 2:15 mark), but the video’s score format is useful for keeping track, via changing key signatures!
“Copland’s fanfare is in the strong open-fourth and -fifth harmonies that cause it to sound open,” (LeoQuirk.com). “Also allowing it to sound open are the unisons in each instrument group, and the slower rhythms; for a fanfare, it is uncommonly slow, and is marked ‘Very deliberately.’ Copland alters rhythms and harmonies to great effect in this piece. He could have easily repeated the same theme in the same way each time, but the piece is much more compelling thanks to his changes. This piece is also effective because it doesn’t have frills or flourishes. It is powerful in its simplicity, and ‘simplicity’ does not equal ‘boring.'”
Debuting in 1943, “The Fanfare has ecome a kind of national anthem for so-called ‘common’ men and women — like public radio listener Lynne Gilbert, who spoke with NPR from Bristol, Maine. ‘In spite of the current political landscape,” she says, ‘I guess I still believe that there is an American dream of peace and prosperity for everyone. Music that soars and inspires like this piece does bring hope for the future. It’s powerful, it’s direct and it’s really just American.'”
The piece is written in Bb major overall, but its majestic, stable bearing shifts at 2:47. From that point on (amounting to the final 20% or so of the piece), we continue to hear familiar intervals and phrasing. But the tonality has gone off in an entirely new direction, at times featuring E-natural and C# notes.
“In the summer of 1880, Brahms … composed two concert overtures. ‘One weeps, the other laughs,’ he commented to his biographer, Max Kalbeck,” (IndianapolisSymphony.org). “The laughing piece referred to his rollicking Academic Festival Overture, Opus 80, filled with light-hearted student songs, written to acknowledge his doctoral degree bestowed by the University of Breslau, introduced by soft trombone chords. The weeping piece was his Tragic Overture, Opus 81, and a heavy counterpoise to the first. Brahms explained his motivation saying, ‘I (simply) could not refuse my melancholy nature the satisfaction of composing an overture for tragedy.’
Though it was not written for any specific tragedy, speculation has suggested Tragic Overture was possibly written in contemplation of a commission to write incidental music for Goethe’s Faust. (This did not materialize.) Another possibility is that the composer had read Nietzsche’s work The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, published in 1872. This Overture is dramatic commentary on the spirit of tragedy in human life.
Tragic Overture begins with two slashing chords, which preface the solemn main theme, orchestrated within low strings and low winds in D minor. Trombones and tuba build a bridge to a contrasting F major theme, but relief is short. A third main subject stemming earlier sketches is also introduced. Writing in sonata form, the composer moves directly into a convulsive development. Brahms scholar Walter Niemann wrote, ‘The fleeting touches of thrilling, individual emotion in this overture are not to be found in conflict and storm, but in the crushing loneliness of terrifying and unearthly silences in what have been called dead places.‘ Themes surge and spin in a tempest of emotion. A traditional recapitulation, introduced by two fortissimo chords, summarizes the main ideas with certain alterations. Opus 81 premiered on December 20, 1880 in Vienna …”
A half-step key change, partially camouflaged by extensive chromaticism, takes place at 8:07. At 10:59, the piece reverts to its original key of D minor.
“The Adagietto is undoubtedly the single best-known piece of Mahler’s music,” (MahlerFoundation.org). “Its popularity skyrocketed primarily as a result of its use as background music for Visconti’s film Death in Venice. There was some controversy, however, about what Mahler intended the adagietto to communicate. Villa Mengelberg, an intimate friend and colleague of Mahler and an early champion of his music, claimed that Alma Mahler had confided to him that Gustav sent a manuscript of the finished work to her as a love letter when they were courting. Certainly, the romantic nature of the music can support this contention … like an orchestral song without words … Mahler’s work orchestration is spare, employing only strings and harp to enhance the music’s lyricism and give it a serenade-like quality … “
The Mahler Foundation continues: “Inner harmonies are subtle and harmonic progressions are frequent for such a short movement … Mahler uses overlapping sustained tones in transition passages … The stream-like atmosphere begins with vague harmonies that lend a sense of weightlessness, and end with a long suspension of sustained chords that very slowly progressed to closure, creating a feeling of endless time.” It’s difficult to overstate the prominence of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony (1902) within the composer’s overall body of work. It’s “sometimes compared with Beethoven’s own of that number,” (The Guardian).
In addition to several transient key-of-the-moment passages, the overall key of F major shifts to C major at 7:47 before reverting at 8:13 to F for the movement’s dramatic ending.
From the memoirs of Austro-Bohemian composer Gustav Mahler’s wife Alma (UtahSymphony.org), on the topic of the Sixth Symphony:
“No other work came so directly from [Mahler’s] heart as this one. We both cried . . . So deeply did we feel this music and what it foretold us. The Sixth is his most personal work and is also a prophetic one. In Kindertotenlieder and in the Sixth, he musically anticipated his life. He, too, received three blows from fate, and the last felled him. But at the time, he was cheerful and conscious of the greatness of his work; he was a tree in full leaf and flower.
In this passage from her 1940 memoirs, Alma Mahler suggests that autobiographical meaning informs the content of her husband’s Sixth Symphony, and on many levels, her words ring true. Gustav Mahler did, in fact, suffer “three blows from fate” in 1907: he felt it necessary to resign from his conducting post in Vienna, his eldest child Anna Maria succumbed to scarlet fever, and a doctor discovered the heart defect that would ultimately end the composer’s life. However, none of these incidents had transpired when Mahler penned Symphony no. 6 (in 1906). Alma’s memoirs, therefore, correctly interpret this symphony as something foreshadowing events yet to come.”
After the movement starts in a brooding A minor, 1:53 brings a gentle woodwind chorale, then another wide-ranging section with full orchestra. At 2:54, a surprisingly lighthearted but brief section in F major sounds almost like a passage from a composition for children. The simplicity of the textures doesn’t last, but the tonality does manage to endure for a quite some time before more transitions appear.
Former Baltimore Symphony conductor Marin Alsop wrote for NPR of ” … Dvorak’s melodic gifts, as well as his ability to spin a seemingly infinite number of variations on a tune. This, combined with Dvorak’s Bohemian heritage, results in music unlike any other composer’s. Symphony No. 9 is nicknamed New World because Dvorak wrote it during the time he spent in the U.S. in the 1890s. His experiences in America (including his discovery of African-American and Native-American melodies) and his longing for home color his music with mixed emotions. There’s both a yearning that simmers and an air of innocence.”
The piece is often considered to be one of the most popular of all symphonies. Astronaut Neil Armstrong took a recording of the New World Symphony along during the Apollo 11 mission, the first Moon landing, in 1969. (WRTI.org).
Among the more prominent of the piece’s many modulations is a shift from E minor to G# minor at 7:12.
“Mozart’s last three symphonies come from the extraordinarily creative summer of 1788,” (RedlandsSymphony.com) “In the space of slightly over six weeks, he composed the Symphony in E-flat, K. 543; the Symphony in G minor, K. 550; and the Symphony in C major, K. 551 …
Of the three 1788 symphonies, the Symphony in G minor, K. 550 (popularly referred to as No. 40, but probably No. 53), is the most original and has had the greatest influence on future composers. Few works from the 18th century are as intense, chromatic, and unconventional … few classical works more clearly point the way toward 19th century romanticism.”
Beginning in G minor, the movement transitions to the relative major key, Bb, for the first time at 0:27. Many other shifts in tonality follow.
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