“La Paloma” by Sebastian Yradier [1863], performed by La Banda de Zapadores de Mexico on Edison Gold Moulded cylinder 18734 [1905]

Highlights of Latin Music in the U.S., Day 2

Yesterday I wrote that the habanera rhythm was the first form of Latin music exported from any of the Latin American nations to international audiences. Yesterday’s example, the “Habanera” aria from the opera Carmen, showed the music’s expansion into western Europe (Bizet was a French composer). Sebastian Yradier, a Spaniard, had actually composed the melody Bizet used after he visited Cuba in about 1860. Yradier composed another important habanera around the same time. “La Paloma” (“The Dove”) became especially popular in Mexico, where Emperor Maximilian (of Habsburg lineage) supposedly loved it. (Perhaps his connection to Old World relatives helped popularize the song in Germany, where it first appeared in 1865.) 

Some forty years later, the song was apparently still relevant when Thomas Edison recorded a Mexican band on one of his early commercial cylinders. Two things are of note for our purposes. First, the Cuban habanera rhythm supports the song throughout. Second, the instrumentation and the band’s name give this away as a typical turn-of-the-century military band. To be in the band’s repertoire, “La Paloma” must have carried national significance (despite its history as a Spanish interpretation of Cuban music).  

It is easy speculate on the connections between the music of imperial Mexico (and Spanish Caribbean world in general) and the music of New Orleans, the first and foremost American melting pot. That’s where we’ll follow the story of Latin music in America tomorrow. As for “La Paloma,” the song refuses to die. Artists from around the world have recorded interpretations in many genres in every decade since the 1890s.

For anyone interested in the variety of music performed in the early years of recorded music, check out this wonderful, descriptive website that explores fifty early recordings. 

“La Flûte enchantée” from Shéhérazade by Maurice Ravel [1904] performed by Hans-Martin Schneidt and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra with Gisella Pasino [1991]

An Exploration of Music and Poetry, Day 5: Layers

In the introduction to this music and poetry playlist, I said we would skip over most of classical art songs that set published poetry to music. I lied. I swapped in this early Ravel work because it highlights just how entwined the two art forms can become. 

Ravel first composed a work around the Persian story Shéhérazade in 1899. In fact, that overture was his first major concert piece. A few years later he returned to the theme with a short three song cycle for soprano, based on the poetry of multi-dimensional artist Tristan Klingsor (whose pseudonym comes straight from Wagnerian opera). The middle movement gave Klingsor’s poem “La Flûte enchantée” (“The Enchanted Flute”) an appropriate musical setting.

The shade is sweet and my master sleeps,
Wearing a conical silk bonnet,
With his long yellow nose in his white beard.
But I, I wake again
And hear outside
The song of a flute pour forth
By turns sadness and joy.
A song by turns languorous and frivolous
Which my dear lover plays,
And when I approach by the window.
It seems to me that each note steals away
From the flute toward my cheek
Like a mysterious kiss.

In other words, we have a poem about a musical subject, set to music. Moreover, the words of the poem describe the ebb and flow of the flute’s melodies, which mirror the tempo and rhythm of the poetic phrases themselves.

See? Layers. I think you get the idea. 

Pelléas Et Méllisande, Op.46 - 9. “Mélisande’s Death” by Jean Sibelius [1905] performed by Paavo Berglund and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra [2001]

I just posted a couple days ago about coming to terms with saying a final goodbye to my grandmother last weekend. Well, she passed away earlier tonight, still sooner that we expected. This sublime Sibelius piece conveys my and my parents’ emotions all too well so I’ll leave it at that tonight.

“Mario Cavaradossi? A Voi” from Act 3 of Tosca by Giacomo Puccini [1900] performed by Luciano Pavarotti and John Tomlinson with Nicolà Rescigno and National Philharmonic Orchestra [1978]

“You have one hour [to live].” 

Puccini masterfully drives home the despair of Illica and Giacosa’s libretto:

A jailer with a lantern mounts the stairs from below. He goes to the casemate and lights the light in front of the crucifix, and then the one on the table He sits down and waits, half drowsing. Soon a picket of guards, led by a Sergeant, emerges from the stairway with Cavaradossi. The picket halts as the Sergeant leads Cavaradossi to the casemate and hands a note to the jailer. The latter examines it, opens the registry book and writes, as he questions the prisoner. 

JAILER 
Mario Cavaradossi? 
Cavaradossi bows his head in acknowledgement. The jailer hands the pen to the Sergeant. 
For you 
to Cavaradossi 
You have one hour. 
A priest awaits your call. 

CAVARADOSSI 
No … but I have a last favour to ask of you. 

JAILER 
If I can … 

CAVARADOSSI 
One very dear person 
I leave behind me. Permit me 
To write her a few lines. 
taking a ring from his finger 
This ring is all that remains 
Of my possessions. 
If you will promise to give her 
My last farewell, 
Then it is yours. 

JAILER 
hesitates a little, then accepts. He motions Cavaradossi to the chair at the table, and sits down on the bench. 
Write. 

CAVARADOSSI 
begins to write, but after a few lines a flood of memories invades him. 

“Nuages” from Trois Nocturnes by Claude Debussy [1900] performed by Pierre Boulez and the New York Philharmonic [1973]

Random Music History Song of the Day

Two days of classical music in a row… that’s a first for this tumblelog.

“I am trying to do ‘something different’ - in a way realities - what the imbeciles call `impressionism’ is a term which is as poorly used as possible, particularly by art critics.” - Claude Debussy, 1908 (source: Impressionist Influences on Claude Debussy).

Claude Debussy never liked being tagged an “impressionist” composer. While he felt the term may in some ways capture the inspiration and emotion contained in certain period paintings (the art form which the term was first and most often used), instrumental music was by its very nature symbolic and impressionistic, whether traditional program music or Debussy’s own “something different.” The label, therefore, contains no substance. 

It is, however, quite easy to see how critics and the public applied the label to Debussy and his works. His set of three symphonic poems, Trois Nocturnes, composed between 1897 and 1899, was inspired by paintings of the same title by impressionist painter James McNeill Whistler. Furthermore, Debussy wrote the following preface to the musical score of Trois Nocturnes: 

“The title Nocturnes is to be interpreted here in a general and, more particularly, in a decorative sense. Therefore, it is not meant to designate the usual form of the Nocturne, but rather all the various impressions and the special effects of light that the word suggests. ‘Nuages’ renders the immutable aspect of the sky and the slow, solemn motion of the clouds, fading away in grey tones lightly tinged with white. ‘Fêtes’ gives us the vibrating, dancing rhythm of the atmosphere with sudden flashes of light. There is also the episode of the procession (a dazzling fantastic vision), which passes through the festive scene and becomes merged in it. But the background remains resistantly the same: the festival with its blending of music and luminous dust participating in the cosmic rhythm. ‘Sirènes’ depicts the sea and its countless rhythms and presently, amongst the waves silvered by the moonlight, is heard the mysterious song of the Sirens as they laugh and pass on.” (source)

He even used the word “impressions.” If he truly wanted to avoid the label, one would think he would have avoided the word itself. On the other hand, the word captures the essence of the work better than any other.

Debussy’s note gave an expressive description of the first movement, titled “Nuages,” so I won’t add too much here except to say that the music matches his intent. Just as clouds appear from nowhere, change only in subtle ways, and never settle into a stable condition - they either disappear just as they were born, implode in a violent storm, or simply drift out of view over the horizon - “Nuages” floats along on minor-ish chords using a non-tradition scale (I can’t quite tell which type), rarely settling on the home note. I’d say it gives quite the impression of clouds. Wow, OK, terrible wordplay. I know. I’m done.

“On Wisconsin” (with intro) by William T. Purdy [1909] performed by the University of Wisconsin Marching Band [1990].

More UW-Madison music history!

100 years ago, William Purdy wrote a march to submit in a contest to select the official fight song for the University of Minnesota football team. An alumnus of the University of Wisconsin, Minnesota’s biggest rival then and now, convinced Purdy to instead offer the march to Wisconsin. Wisconsin recognized the sheer awesomeness of the song immediately and accepted the offer. The winner of the song contest at Minnesota was the very average “Minnesota Rouser,” which remains the school’s fight song.

“On Wisconsin” has since become one of the most ubiquitous fight songs mostly because hundreds of high schools have adapted it for their own use. One high school to do so was Hawthorne High School in Hawthorne, California. The Wilson brothers and Al Jardine, four-fifths (4/5) of The Beach Boys, attended Hawthorne High and included a few measures of “On Wisconsin” into “Be True to Your School,” a Top Ten hit from autumn 1963.

A version of “On Wiscosin” also appears in the 1973 Disney animated film Robin Hood in association with Friar Tuck, who appears as a badger. USC’s “Fight On” plays during a different fight scene, when the action mimics a football game.

In my (slightly biased) opinion, “On Wisconsin” stands among the best college fight songs. My Top 5, in no particular order, are “On Wisconsin,” “Fight On” (USC), “Hail to the Victors” (Michigan), “Notre Dame Victory March,” and “Fight for LSU.” If we need to choose one, though, we can simply look to the March King, John Philip Sousa, who declared that “On Wisconsin” is “the finest of college marching songs.” On Wisconsin for another century!