Cockaigne (In London Town), Op. 40
Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Here’s a quiz: What was the first overture dedicated to a major city? (a) Beethoven’s Ruins of Athens, (b) Elgar’s Cockaigne or (c), Copland’s Music for a Great City. Interestingly, just such a work first came along in 1901, when Elgar completed his Cockaigne overture. The title derives from an archaic, humorous name for the city of London, from which we get the word “Cockney.”
Elgar described the music as “cheerful and Londony: ‘stout’ and ‘steaky.’ ” Cockaigne gives us a vivid sound picture of life in London at the turn of the 20th century. We hear the bustle and hubbub at the opening. The lyrical second theme presents a contrasting scene: possibly couples walking leisurely in a park. The expansiveness of strings develops this idea. Snippets of something like an English folk song pop out of the texture from time to time — some of the natural music of London. A brass band marches by. The scene becomes quiet again, and then we find ourselves briefly in a church hearing a hymn. The many sounds of the street now combine in a wonderful urban counterpoint. Finally, an apotheosis of the lyrical theme brings unity and finality, as bits of London’s sounds echo good-naturedly around it.
For generations, the popularity of Elgar’s Cockaigne was second only to his famous Pomp and Circumstance March. George Bernard Shaw put it best, when he wrote humorously:
If you say that Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture combines every classic quality of a concert overture with every lyric and dramatic quality of the overture to Die Meistersinger, you are either uttering a platitude as safe as a compliment to Handel on the majesty of the Hallelujah chorus, or else damning yourself to all critical posterity by a gaffe that will make your grandson blush for you. Personally, I am prepared to take the risk. What do I care about my grandson? Give me Cockaigne.
Percussion Concerto
Joseph Schwantner (1943- )
Joseph Schwantner hails from Chicago, where he received his education at the American Conservatory and Northwestern University. After two prior academic appointments, he settled at the Eastman School of Music where he was professor of composition until his retirement in 2000. He has also taught at the Juilliard School. Since 1999, he has taught a few selected graduate students at Yale University.
About 1975, Schwantner’s musical style turned drastically from atonality (music with no key) to a more traditional approach — tonal, more eclectic and dominated by attention to sumptuous tone color. Once Schwantner’s new style had become comfortably established, he began garnering important awards for his music. The most important of these was the Pulitzer prize of 1979 for Afternoons of Infinity. His works have been performed and recorded by leading orchestras.
Between 1982 and 1985, Schwantner was the composer-in-residence at the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. Through this relationship, Schwantner produced a series of orchestral works, a piano concerto and a guitar concerto. The Percussion Concerto (1994) was written for the New York Philharmonic’s chief percussionist, Christopher Lamb, though its 1995 premiere was conducted by Leonard Slatkin of the Saint Louis Orchestra. The composer describes his music:
The Concerto, cast in a three-movement arch-like design, opens with the soloist stationed near the other percussionists. A collaborative relationship develops between the soloist and [her] percussion colleagues in an expanded ensemble that also includes piano and harp. The soloist, forcefully and propulsively, articulates the primary musical materials with a battery of timbaletas, a pair of bongos, amplified marimba, xylophone and a two-octave set of crotales [antique cymbals]. The marimba and drums are most prominently featured in this movement.
Throughout the second movement, In Memoriam, a slow, dark-hued elegy, the soloist is placed center stage while the other percussionists remain silent. The soloist employs a vibraphone (played both with mallets and with a contrabass bow), a rack of nine Almglocken (pitched Alpine herd bells), a high-octave set of crotales (played with beaters and with a bow), two triangles, two cymbals, a water gong (a tam-tam lowered into a large kettledrum filled with water), a concert bass drum and a tenor drum. Two principal ideas appear: a pair of recurrent ringing sonorities played on the vibraphone and an insistent “heartbeat” motif articulated on the bass drum.
The second movement leads directly into the fast and rhythmic third movement, which begins with an improvisatory section for the soloist. While continuing to improvise, the soloist walks back to [her] initial performance position of the first movement. As in that movement, the amplified marimba is again prominently featured, but here the soloist plays angular and strongly accented gestures in four-mallet block voicings. The final section, drawn from the drum motives of Movement I, proceeds to a high-energy cadenza and conclusion.
An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise
Peter Maxwell Davies (1934- )
Peter Maxwell Davies, one of England’s most noted composers, is best known to audiences through his “theater pieces.” Many of these he staged himself, using his own groups, the Pierrot Players and Fires of London. Probably the most notable was his 1972 work, Eight Songs for a Mad King, based on private incidents in the life of Louis XVI. Davies never fails to surprise, to move audiences — sometime even to shock them with his theatrics.
Davies composed An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s centennial. The work premiered in May 1985 under the baton of John Williams. Davies lives much of the time in Orkney on the island of Hoy, off Scotland. The idea and the music are what the composer calls, “a picture postcard of an actual wedding I attended on Hoy in Orkney.” He goes on to describe the music:
At the outset, we hear the guests arriving, out of extremely bad weather, at the hall. This is followed by the processional, where the guests are solemnly received by the bride and bridegroom, and presented with their first glass of whisky. The band tunes up, and we get on with the dancing proper. This becomes ever wilder, as all concerned feel the results of the whisky, until the lead fiddle can hardly hold the band together anymore. We leave the hall into the cold night, with echoes of the processional music in our ears, and as we walk home across the island, the sun rises, over Caithness, to a glorious dawn. The sun is represented by the highland bagpipes, in full traditional splendor.
Daphnis et Chloé Ballet Suite No. 2
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
Sergei Diaghilev, impresario of the famous Ballets Russes in the first three decades of the 20th century, was a great discoverer of talent (notably Stravinsky), who personally sponsored the creation of several modern masterpieces. One of the most elaborate of these was Ravel’s full-length ballet, Daphnis and Chloé, a pastoral based on an ancient Greco-Roman legend by Longus. Maurice Ravel worked on the ballet for about three years between 1909 and 1912, and he considered it not only a stage work but also an orchestral statement, a “choreographic symphony.” As the composer relates,
My intention in writing it was to compose a vast musical fresco in which I was less concerned with archaism than with reproducing faithfully the Greece of my dreams, which is very similar to that imagined and painted by French artists at the end of the eighteenth century. The work is constructed symphonically, according to a strict plan of key sequences, out of a small number of themes, the development of which ensures the work’s homogeneity.
The scenario of the ballet is in three scenes. The first introduces the loving couple among a group of young shepherds and shepherdesses. Chloé goes off with the group, leaving Daphnis alone. He is aroused from his thoughts by the fierce sounds of pirates who have invaded their island. The pirates abduct Chloé, and Daphnis goes in pursuit only to fall asleep in exhaustion at the entrance to the nymphs’ grotto.
The two Daphnis and Chloé Ballet Suites are essentially the music for scenes two and three, respectively. Suite No. 2 begins with a representation of sunrise — one of the most glorious passages in all Ravel’s music. The scene is the entrance to the nymphs’ grotto, where Daphnis is sleeping. Shepherds awaken him with the news that Pan has saved Chloé. The reunited couple then dances together and embraces amid the rejoicing crowd. A final bacchanal by the entire company in unusual asymmetrical rhythms rounds out the ballet. (In the first production, the dancers had great trouble keeping up with these rhythms. They solved the problem by chanting to themselves the syllables, “Ser-gei Dia-ghi-lev.”)
