If you are of a certain age (let's say between twenty and sixty), you will instantly remember the strains of this piece as the background of juicy slabs of perfectly-cooked steak glistening on television screens across the world. It made beef - of all things - seem exciting and patriotic, and that's quite a feat in itself. Of course, the fact that the piece itself is from a ballet score written by a socialist sympathizer does tend to soften the red-blooded blow a bit. Premiered in 1942, "Hoe-Down" from Rodeo, composed by Aaron Copland, has become as iconic as, well, beef.
"Oh hey! A blog post all about me!" ~Aaron Copland, posthumously
Copland was born in 1900 and died in 1990 (dates that always seemed to me wonderfully symmetrical). The youngest child of Jewish parents, Aaron spent his childhood reading and learning about music from his older sister, Laurine. At the age of eighteen, he decided to spend a year in Paris to study with Nadia Boulanger, who then became the most noted music teacher of the twentieth century. Before her death in 1979, she taught Philip Glass, Virgil Thomson and Joe Raposo (of "C is for Cookie" fame, as well as the Sesame Street theme itself).
In his youth, Copland composed more avant-garde music, designed (purposely) for a more 'elite' audience. However, during the Great Depression, Copland switched tack and began composing pieces that were designed to be far more accessible than his earlier pieces. It was during this time that he began composing for ballet as well. In 1934, his first ballet, "Hear Ye! Hear Ye!" was premiered, which was followed by "Billy the Kid" in 1939 and "Rodeo" in 1942.
And ain't she excited to show ya.
"Rodeo" was conceived, choreographed, and performed by Agnes de Mille. Because the entire piece was choreographed before de Mille talked to Copland about composing music for it, Copland used a technique often employed by Igor Stravinsky (don't know Stravinsky? Shame. On. You.); he took entire folk tunes and simply arranged them for orchestra. Indeed, the main theme Hoe-Down itself is an actual fiddle tune called "Bonaparte's Retreat," and the other melodies heard in the movement are taken note-for-note from other folk tunes. Though some criticized him for taking these melodies without giving much recognition to their origins (and the practice of swiping folk tunes can get tricky; Stravinsky ended up having to pay royalties every time his ballet Petrouchka was performed due to one of the 'folk tunes' he had transcribed actually being a popular song that had been released only a few years before the ballet premiered), it was clear that "Rodeo" struck a chord with audiences. A later symphonic version of the ballet score (again, something often done with ballets) proved to be even more successful.
In the 1950s, during the Red Scare, Copland (though his music at that point was firmly ensconced in the American psyche) was blacklisted by Joseph McCarthy and made to testify in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee. However, though Copland's leftist leanings were well-documented, nothing was ever proven and he was let off with essentially a warning. And, of course, only fifty years later, his music was being used to advertise beef. That most American of meats.
Like ballets that swipe folk melodies, as well as everything good in the world? Try the finale of Stravinsky's "The Firebird": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erOEatu5aH8
Beethoven's 9th Symphony is that rare piece of classical music that can be found anywhere; the Die Hard movies, the Muppet Studio, and the fingers of just about any seven-year-old that proudly announces "I can play the piano!" And, if you will forgive this bit of editorializing, it deserves every bit of recognition it gets. Premiered in 1824 after a six-year composition period by Ludwig von Beethoven, it is a masterpiece in every sense of the word, and was unprecedented in almost every way.
Beethoven sees. And he does not approve.
Ludwig von Beethoven was born in December, 1770 to a musical family in Bonn, Germany. Ludwig's father, seeing his early talent, began to groom him to be the next child prodigy in the vein of Mozart, but this never really panned out in Beethoven Sr's favor (potentially due to Senior's burgeoning alcoholism).
After moving to Vienna in the early 1790s, Ludwig began to study under Joseph Haydn. This is, as we call it in the business, a big deal. Haydn was one of the most beloved composers of his era, and was widely considered to be the father of the symphony (which is, of course, rather important to this post). Unfortunately, Beethoven and Haydn did not get along so well (though Beethoven's famously stormy demeanor did not truly manifest itself until much later in his life), and though Beethoven respected Haydn a great deal, their professional relationship was brief.
Beethoven's first symphony was premiered in 1800, when the composer was thirty years old. The history of the symphony, much like most histories, is long and quite convoluted, so for our purposes we will distill the term to this: it is a four-movement orchestral work that is generally divided like so.
1. An opening, usually allegro (quickly and brightly)
2. A slow movement
3. A minuet with trio or scherzo (another quick movement)
4. An allegro or rondo (in which a primary theme alternates with one or more other themes)
And he's looking right back.
Beethoven, of course, came and messed everything up, which then gave other composers to mess things up even further (I'm looking at you, Mahler).
First, Beethoven's 9th symphony was the longest symphony at that point. It was so long, in fact, that when the CD was being created, it is said that a 1951 recording of the symphony that clocked in at 74 minutes became the standard length of the CD. This story is, as all good ones are, disputed.
Second, the final symphony used a choir and a setting of a 1785 poem by Friedrich Schiller called Ode to Joy. This gave composers such as Mahler the license to use singers and choirs in his symphonies as well (and often to wonderful effect, if I do say so myself).
In terms of the music itself, the final theme of the symphony is actually quite interesting. The romantic notion of originality did not yet apply to Beethoven (though he is often considered the first Romantic composer...), and so he was free to borrow from himself - a technique he used quite often. The Ode to Joy theme - perhaps the most recognizable melody in the world - can be traced back to 1795, in an unassuming lied (which is simply "song" in German) called "Gegenliebe," or "Requited Love." It then shows up again in 1808 in his Choral Fantasie, which can be heard in this video from 4:40 on (as played by the phenomenally talented Hélène Grimaud):
There is a famous story tied to the premiere of the 9th Symphony that is well-attributed enough that it is rarely disputed. When Beethoven conducted the symphony, he was so deaf that the performers only looked to him for the tempo cues. As such, they finished the piece before he was done conducting it. As the Kärntnertortheater in Vienna, packed to capacity, began to cheer wildly, Beethoven continued to conduct, and one of the soloists had to turn him around so he could see the adoring crowd.
The words of the poem speak of universal brotherhood:
Alle Menschen werden Brüder, Wo dein sanfter Flügel weilt.
All men become brothers,
where your gentle wing rests.
It was with this spirit that the EU adopted the Ode to Joy as their official anthem, and - if I may be so bold - it is a spirit that we could all stand to see a bit more.
I figured for the first post with actual content, I might as well go for possibly the most iconic marriage of music and film in the history of cinema. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the past forty years, the above video is the opening of Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The music accompanying the video has become so tied to the film that it is often subtitled as "(from 2001: A Space Odyssey)," and to be fair, with a name like Also Sprach Zarathustra, I can understand why. However, in the spirit of the blog, the piece's original title and composer must be given their due.
Also Sprach Zarathustra was composed in 1896 by Richard Strauss, son of Franz Strauss, a horn player who - despite his own distaste for Richard Wagner - played in several of the latter's most famous opera premieres, including Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. Interestingly enough, Richard was not related to that other great Strauss of waltz fame, Johann, a composer whose works you most certainly know. (Don't believe me? Try this one out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTqlLKBKFhg )
Richard Strauss, proofreadin' my text.
Richard was born in 1864, and was largely schooled in music by his father (though he later went to university to study philosophy and art history). In 1885, at the age of twenty-one, Strauss became acquaintances with Alexander Ritter, who convinced the young man to begin writing more musically progressive tone poems.
A tone poem, or symphonic poem, is a single-movement work of music that is based off a preexisting work of art, theatre, or poetry. Instead of form, the focus is on evoking a feeling or image in the audience members' heads. The symphonic poem emerged in the first half of the 19th century partially due to the Romantic desire to express deep emotional ideas free from constraint of form, and partially due to the nagging thought that no one could ever top Beethoven's 9th symphony in terms of evoking the sublime. There are some today who would agree with the latter statement. The symphonic poem saw a sharp decline in popularity in the 1920s, which is (not coincidentally at all) right around the time that film became an affordable form of entertainment for the masses. As the symphonic poem was essentially a film score without the film, once film came into its own, the music had no need to stand alone anymore - though in recent years, there has been a bit of a trend in the opposite direction, with the most notable example being the "Lord of the Rings Symphony," a concert piece derived from the film score of the same name.
Also Sprach Zarathustra was not derived from a poem, play or painting, but rather from a treatise by Friedrich Nietzsche of the same name. Translated into "Thus Spake (or Spoke) Zarathustra," the book contains many of Nietzsche's central teachings, such as the idea that God is dead and the hypothesis that human beings are a transitory step between animals and Übermenschen, or over-humans. Roughly thirty minutes long, Strauss' symphonic poem is divided into nine sections, each titled after a chapter in Nietzsche's treatise. The Einleitung, or introduction, is the section used by Kubrick to such effect in 2001: A Space Odyssey. One of the reasons the marriage of image and sound in this opening is so effective lies in Strauss' subtitle for this section, found in his program notes; "Sunrise." Indeed, there may never be a better aural depiction of a sunrise ever composed.
This is what triumph looks like, 29th-century style.
Several years after 2001: A Space Odyssey was released, Also Sprach Zarathustra had become so ingrained in the public consciousness that Eumir Deodato could release a decidedly '70s-sounding rendition of the piece in 1972. Even now, Also Sprach Zarathustra can be almost guaranteed to be heard in one big-name film a year, having been featured in The Simpsons Movie, Toy Story 2, Wall-E, Zoolander, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. So the next time you're in a movie theatre and a heart-wrenching work of unbearable epic-ness begins playing underneath a scene, take a moment to remember Richard Strauss and his 115-year-old tone poem.
Keep smiling, Gioachino. What you don't know can't hurt you.
Date: 16 July, 2011.
Time: Roughly 8 PM.
Place: My living room.
After a hectic, hectic few weeks, all I'd wanted was to watch some television and turn my mind off for a while. I had turned the TV on to some station or another - I had no preference - and to be honest, I wasn't even paying attention to the screen when suddenly, I heard the familiar strains of Rossini's "Largo al factotum" from The Barber of Seville wafting over my ears.
On a commercial for Jersey Shore.
Now, I like to fashion myself as something of an anti-snob, particularly where classical music is concerned. However, I will be damned if "Largo al factotum" becomes "That music I heard on the Jersey Shore commercial," having barely avoided the "That song Robin Williams sings in Mrs. Doubtfire" mantle.
I'd love to see this guy tackle a baritone aria.
My philosophy is simple: I only believe that the pieces featured in films, television, and advertisements deserve to have their original, given names known. This blog, updated on a weekly basis (hopefully!), will aim to do just that. Along the way, biographical information of each composer will be given, as well as explanations for the dozens of terms known only to the geekiest of music geeks (after all, who knows what may happen if more people knew the minute differences between a symphony and a symphonic poem?). Every so often, there will be posts focusing on a single film that incorporates many classical pieces into it (some unlikely films that are chock-full of classical music are Daddy Day Care and Runaway Bride, to name but a few). And above all, these topics will be discussed with a healthy dose of humor; I figure there is enough tutting and head-shaking about the state of classical music in the world today, so we might as well celebrate one of the few venues where classical pieces are regularly played and heard.
