APO Livestream - The New Zealand Herald Premier Series: Enduring Spirit- Listening Notes: Experienced Listener

PREMIER
SERIES
ENDURING
SPIRIT
LISTENING
NOTES
FOR EXPERIENCED LISTENERS
ZOLTÁN KODÁLY
The Dances of Galánta
DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH
Violin Concerto No.2
CARL NIELSEN
Symphony No.4

ZOLTÁN KODÁLY
(1882 – 1967)
COMPOSER PROFILE
• Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, music
educator and linguist
• Played a prominent role in Hungarian public life, held
several public posts and was a member or head of
numerous boards and committees
• Much of the music he composed was based on folksongs
he collected on his travels around Hungary
• He formed the ethnomusicological branch of the
Hungarian Academy of Arts and Sciences
THE DANCES OF GALÁNTA
Inspired by his pleasant childhood experiences, Kodály
returned to Galánta as an adult in 1905 and transcribed
at least 150 melodies from the region. These songs,
together with an album of old Hungarian folk music that
was compiled in the 1800s, comprise the main source
material for the Dances of Galánta. They were written as
a follow-up to the successful Dances of Marosszék of a
year before, which were composed initially for piano and
then orchestrated.
On one level, the Dances of Galánta are a medley of folk
tunes, skilfully wrought into a suite lasting around 15
minutes, making it the perfect filler for a typical concert
programme. On another, more symbolic level, they form
a symphonic poem celebrating the resurgence of a
Hungarian nation after years of Austrian oppression.
The Dances of Galánta unfolds in five sections. In its length
and breadth (typically a quarter of an hour in performance),
the suite could be compared to a brief symphony of the
Classical era. In capturing and transmuting ethnographic
musical sources, “dances” such as these are not always for
dancing; instead, we can listen as we would to the dances
of a concerto grosso that come together in a well-paced
suite of movements.
The music is episodic, sometimes in ternary form but also
adding short new episodes. As with any folk music, there
is much repetition of melodic and rhythmic ideas and the
main solos are given to the violin or clarinet/tárogató. As a
device to build tension, the violins often play busy stepwise
semiquavers over a pedal point. Syncopated rhythms
are common in the faster dances, with the ‘short-longshort’
figure being a favourite. Dramatic dynamic contrast
features often in the first sections.
DID YOU KNOW?
A typical Google search for ‘Kodály’ will yield the top
results for him as an educator, not a composer. He is often
referred to as the most important and influential music
educationalist of the 20th century.
OTHER FOLK INSPIRED MUSIC
YOU MIGHT ENJOY:
Aaron Copland excerpts from Rodeo (Western folk tunes)
Frederic Chopin various mazurkas (Polish folk dances)
Bela Bartok Three Rondos or excerpts from 15 Hungarian
Peasant Songs
A common misunderstanding is to attribute Kodály with the
creation of the hand signs that accompany pitch and singing.
These signs were actually developed by John Curwen, a
British priest and music educator. Kodály made use of them
along with other physicalisations of musical language to help
young children understand pitch and embody rhythm.
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DMITRI
SHOSTAKOVICH
(1906 – 1975)
COMPOSER PROFILE
• Soviet composer and pianist
• Stalin famously attended a performance of his
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsenk District. Afterward,
an anonymous condemnation of the opera was
published in the Soviet newspaper Pravda. It accused
Shostakovich of composing abstract music counter
to Soviet ideals of accessible and intelligble art and
warned that the composer would be punished if he did
not change his ways. Shostakovich’s pre-eminence was
toppled practically overnight
• Shostakovich immediately accepted Stalin’s criticisms,
and withdrew his ‘difficult’ Fourth Symphony in
response. He was careful to publicly position his later
compositions as composed in accordance to more
patriotic ideals
• Shostakovich was always shy and vulnerable, but after
his run-ins with official criticism of his work, he became
even more fragile and obsessive
• Succumbing to pressure to join the Communist Party,
he used his official position and pre-eminence to
petition on behalf of artists
VIOLIN CONCERTO NO.2
Shostakovich composed his Violin Concerto No.2 in
1967 for David Oistrakh, to whom the score is dedicated.
It was intended as a gift for the violinist’s sixtieth birthday
on 30 September 1968. Shostakovich actually finished
the work much sooner than he had expected—in fact, in
time for Oistrakh’s fifty-ninth birthday.
The key of the Violin Concerto No.2 is C-sharp minor.
Its “awkwardness” initially bothered Oistrakh, but after
becoming acquainted with the work ‘he appreciated it
as the ingenious stroke of a composer who genuinely
understood the expressive capabilities of the instrument.’
The work has a traditional outline of three movements.
The first, and longest, begins with an extended section
growing out of the soloist’s expressive initial melody and
its insistent accompaniment in the cellos and basses.
The second movement is very slow, in which the solo
violin plays virtually without pause through a first section
presenting a sequence of melodies.
The third movement finale follows without a break: after
a short slow introduction; there is a lot of repetition
on the main theme. At the heart of the movement is
an extended solo, beginning with a call back to the
introduction and later harking back to the accompaniment
at the start of the whole work. After the last return of the
main theme, the soloist’s virtuosity drives the movement
to an emphatic conclusion.
DID YOU KNOW?
OTHER VIOLIN CONCERTOS YOU MIGHT ENJOY:
Bartok Violin Concerto No.2
Berg Violin Concerto
Sibelius Violin Concerto
Shostakovich loved football (his favorite team was Zenit
Leningrad). He was a certified referee and he watched
matches on TV for relaxation. He also liked card games.
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CARL NIELSEN
(1865 – 1931)
COMPOSER PROFILE
• Danish composer, conductor, violinist and trombonist
• Was a trombonist for the regimental band of the city
of Odense at age fourteen
• Alongside his work as a military musician, he played
string quartets with his friends
• Nielsen’s works did not gain sufficient recognition for
him to be able to support himself
• Nielsen played in the second violin section at the
premiere concert of his First Symphony in 1894
• The inspiration for the names of his symphonies
came when he visited a pub with his wife and friends.
On the wall of the room hung an illustration divided
into four sections in which ‘the Temperaments’
were represented and furnished with titles: ‘The
Choleric’, ‘The Sanguine’, ‘The Melancholic’ and ‘The
Phlegmatic’
SYMPHONY NO.4,
‘THE INEXTINGUISHABLE’
“The title The Inextinguishable … is meant to express
the appearance of the most elementary forces among
human beings, animals, and even plants. We can say:
in case all the world was to be devastated by fire, flood,
volcanoes, etc., and all things were destroyed and dead,
then nature would still begin to breed new life again. …
Soon the plants would begin to multiply, the breeding
and screaming of birds would be seen and heard, the
aspiration and yearning of human beings would be felt.
These forces, which are ‘inextinguishable,’ are what I
have tried to present.” Carl Nielsen
Nielsen insisted that the Fourth Symphony did not
follow a specific narrative: rather, it was purely a
musical drama in which the bright key of E Major,
representing Life, wins an ultimate victory over an
unstable minor tonality, representing chaos and
destruction. He also conceived the symphony as one
continuous 40-minute flow without pauses, though we
can detect four distinct movements within.
DID YOU KNOW?
He was one of the first composers to take selfies (he
loved the camera), and until recently he graced the
front of the Danish hundred-kroner banknote.
OTHER SYMPHONIES YOU MIGHT ENJOY:
Beethoven Symphony No.3
Mozart Symphony No.41
Mahler Symphony No.9
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