A note on contemporary music
Elmo Fernando
MUSIC: The common assumption that contemporary music lends
itself to indiscipline and indiscreet technique was taking root in
Europe, at the turn of the century when composers made a radical
departure from the conventional modes of musical expression.
The tendency was to abandon the established practice of confining
their compositions to duple, triple or quadruple metre and return to
non-symmetrical patterns, based on odd numbers: five, seven, eleven,
thirteen beats to the metre.
Earlier it was customary to use a single metre throughout one whole
movement or section. Instead, now the metrical flow shifts constantly,
more often with each bar as evidenced in certain excerpts from one of
Stravinsky’s early works, “The Rite of Spring”.
Complexity and suppleness
This brings us to the concept of ‘polyrythm’, a kind of innovation
more akin in complexity and suppleness to the Asian and African rhythm.
Thus the early compositions of Sibelius, Debussy, Bartok, Stravinsky
and other 20th century composers found expression in the form of a
rebellious, elemental rhythm of brutal force and tension.
In this new musical idiom the repetition of a striking rhythmic
pattern over and over again had an inherent hypnotic power. Essentially
it was, in other words the revitalisation of rhythm, which constitutes
one of the major achievements of contemporary music.
This short note only attempts to outline briefly a few of the major
works which symbolised this new trend in the first half of the century.
Musical idiom
Debussy’s “Pelleas Et Melisanda” brought in a complete and perfect
realisation of this new musical idiom within the form of opera. In it a
libretto so resourcefully suited to the central theme was created.
Maurice Maeterlinck’s play inspired Debussy to embark on this venture.
An ancient theme “Petteas...” depicts King Arkel’s son Goland meeting
the charming Melisanda at a fountain and bringing her to his castle as
bride. Thereafter Goland’s brother Palleas falls in love with Melisanda.
Goland realises this clandestine love and kills both lovers.
Beautiful blend
Quite an explosive theme to introduce Debussy’s unorthodox
lascivious, polytonal rhythms. In its astonishingly beautiful blend of
word and sound, impreionism in music came into vogue and evoked immense
enchantment, the spell of which is irresistable, continuous from the
first bar to the last.
Potential source
In the Oscar Wilde play “Salome”, Richard Strauss found a potential
source for an opera. This biblical theme reveals Salome the voluptuous
daughter of Herodias making love to prophet Jokanaan, her
stepfather-Herod’s captive. Herod himself who is in love with Salome
promises her anything she demands if only she dances for him.
She dances and demands the head of Jokanaan. Jokanaan is killed and
his head brought to Salome who sensually caresses the head. Herod unable
to stand his step-daughter’s perversion orders her death.
The provocative nature of Wilde’s play provided ample scope for
Strauss to experiment on a wider range of sounds. His composition,
perceptive in its character delineation, rich in harmonic colours and
polytonal dissonance brought out its sensuality and neuroticism,
brilliantly.
Such was Strauss’ contribution which aroused a storm of a threatened
strick by the principal singers due to the complexity of the music, the
premier performance eventually evoked deafening applause from the
audience, that it is said Strauss had to answer twenty five curtain
calls.
Likewise Stravinsky’s score for “The Rite of Spring” created a major
breakthrough in ballet music. Based on a ritual of Pagan Russia where a
girl dances herself to death as a form of sacrifice.
“The Rite of Spring” opens with a piquant orchestral rendition of
seventy-five bars denoting the arrival of spring, after which earth is
reborn and life regenerated. Then the Ballet of the Adolescents is
enacted followed by another ceremonial at which the Sage of the tribe
appears to consecrate the soil.
Thereafter follows a pagan night of overwhelming poignancy when the
Mysterious Circle of Adolescents begin a frenzied dance. Finally one of
the Adolescents is chosen as the sacrifice and she dances herself to
death.
Traditional forms
Here Stravinsky employed a kind of rapidly changing metres and the
counterpoint of different rhythms which had a devastatingly captivating
appeal, although the unorthodox instrumentation giving rise to the
tension of music developed from dissonance and polytonality appeared to
some as a kind of savage sound, these melodies had an overwhelming
impact, later as Stravinsky grew up in stature.
Berg’s “Wozzeck” stirred the imagination of many because of its
atonal musical idiom which has been inspired by traditional forms and
produced by an unusual instrumental ensemble, including a chamber
orchestra, a military band and a restaurant orchestra of high-pitched
violins.
Of the many remarkable features of this opera the most extraordinary
is the sprightful way which music is woven into the drama catching the
subtlest inflections of this grim tragedy of Wozzeck, the ridiculed
soldier who kills his sweet heart for being in love with the drum major
of the regimental band.
Falla’s ballet score from “El Amor Brujo” (The Magician’s Love) was
directed by Fernandez Arbos as a suite, which has since been hailed as
one of the most popular works in the contemporary symphonic repertoire.
In it “The Ritual Fire Dance” is one of the profoundest pieces of
Falla and one which represents the contemporary Spanish school. Falla’s
music had its roots in the Spanish folk tradition and everything he
wrote thereafter sprang from the rural milieu and the folklore of his
native soil.
Hindermith’s most illustrious work “Mathis Der Maler” (Mathis the
Painter) Symphony was inspired by the life of the 16th century painter
Mathis Grumewald. Mathis who paints religious pictures for Cardinal
Albreeht withdraws to support the cause of the Peasant’s Rising of 1524
against the church.
In the throes of the rebellion Mathis sees for himself the rampant
murder and injustice that he escapes with his love Regina, when he is
confronted with beautiful visions reminiscent of the panels from the
Isenheim Alter, which causes him to return to his vocation.
Thereafter he leaves his lover behind and goes into a life of
seclusion. Hindermith in this symphony recreates the emotions aroused in
a discerning observer of Mathis’ paintings of the Isenheim Alter at the
Colmar museum.
Making use of a flexible style based on a harmonic blend of medieval
modes and the twelve tone system, Hindermith created a symphony of
polytonal rhythms that crystallised the inherent mysticism and religious
fervour of the paintings.
Coherence and unities
Maurice Ravel’s score for Diaghilev’s “Daphis Et Chloe” astonished
critics. It maintained the coherence and unity of a vast symphony. Based
on a Greek Pastoral the “Daphis Et Chloe” ballet score has been
performed as two orchestral suites.
David Scriabin’s piano sonatas and symphonies have a truly
Chopsinesque flavour. He saw a new kind of music steeped in mysticism
which he said should blend all social, religious, philosophic and
artistic thought to one harmonious whole.
His Divine Poem (Symphony No. 3 in C Major op. 43) is really not a
symphony but more a tone-poem, which unfolds the evolution of the human
spirit, in three movements-Struggles, Delights and Divine Play.
Gershwir’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ was a very resourceful work in the
jazz, idiom, which proved to be good music, unmistakably American. Its
reverberating rhythms captured the American mood, the robustness of
youth their optimism and neuroticism.
America was, evidentially moving into an age of technology and faster
communications. The few works outlined here are by no means
comprehensively representative of the contemporary trends in music, nor
is a discussion of such compositions within the scope of this article. |
