"Clair de Lune"

Gettin' back to basics.  Either that or I finally was able to actually find an iconic scene from a movie that features a piece of classical music.  The ending scene of Ocean's Eleven is one that is quite well-known indeed, and Claude Debussy's "Clair de Lune" (or, at least, one of the orchestrations of "Clair de Lune" - but we'll get there soon enough) is a piece that is instantly recognizable - not just from this movie, of course, but in just about anything where a feeling of languid reverie is desired.  Not too shabby for a man who was never really seen as more than a bizarre little composer by Those That Know More About Music Than You in his time.

Debussy, looking rather smug and Gallic.

Claude-Achille Debussy was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France, in 1862 to a family who was non-musical but supportive of their son's burgeoning talents.  He began taking piano lessons at the age of 7, and enrolled in the Paris Conservatoire at 10.  As a student, he was that kid - instead of just sitting back, learning the fundamentals of harmony The Way They Were Always Taught and then futzing with them later, he insisted on adding odd harmonies and dissonances into his exercises.  Even so, he did manage to win the Prix de Rome (for those who have forgotten, a competition for young composers in which the first prize was a musical education in Rome) in 1884, and studied there for three years.

In 1888, Debussy traveled to Bayreuth in what appeared to be a rite of passage for young composers by this time, and was floored by what he saw there.  Though his music never featured the extreme emotional highs and lows of Wagner, he was still influenced by his unusual harmonic progressions (though in a particularly sassy moment, he did turn the beginning of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde into a big ol' joke - to great effect, no less, even including a bout of the giggles played by the piano accompaniment immediately after the quote).  Around this time, he met and became friends with Erik Satie, another French composer who shared Debussy's somewhat iconoclastic musical tastes.  He had several tumultuous love affairs, but as a personality, was never particularly well-known during his own lifetime (though he was able to afford a rather comfortable lifestyle).  In what he saw as a rather grave insult, he was given the adjective "impressionist" as a way to describe his music; however, the similarities between his music and impressionist art can't be denied (for one, his lack of orthodox harmony leads to a sort of blurred-around-the-edges quality to his music).  His music ended up being incredibly important in the grand scheme of music history exactly because of that lack of orthodox harmony - he ran with what Wagner did in terms of breaking away from classical harmonic theory and introducing things like the whole-tone and pentatonic scales, as well as bringing back the medieval modes.

Useful Image #2!!

Very quickly: the major and minor scales (the ones used in most music heard on a daily basis) are comprised of a pattern of whole and semitones.  For instance, in C major, because there is a note in between C and D (C sharp or D flat, depending on whether your glass is half full or empty), the interval between C and D is a whole tone.  There is nothing in between E and F, so that is considered a semitone.  For the record, the difference between a minor scale (a natural minor scale, anyway) and a major scale is simply the placement of the semitones - in major scales, the first semitone is between the third and fourth notes and the second is between the seventh and first notes, and in minor scales, the first semitone is between the second and third notes and the second is between the fifth and sixth notes.  It's this combination of whole and semitones that makes those lovely major and minor chords that almost every pop song ever uses (with the notable and distinct exception of "Single Ladies" by Beyonce, but that's an entirely different story...).  The whole-tone scale, true to its name, has no semitones, and if it started on C, the rest of the scale would follow as D-E-F#-G#-A# (or Bb)-C.  It has no tonal center, so to speak, and so is often used in dream sequences in movies as well as underwater scenes.

And #3!!  Man, this is getting downright educational...

The set of medieval modes is yet another way of creating harmony.  Instead of 'major' and 'minor,' there are seven modes (each named after an ethnic group that lived around ancient Greece).  The names of the modes are the same now as they were then, but they have been shuffled around a bit so that the Dorian of today was not the Dorian of 300 B.C.  The easiest way of visualizing the modes is to - once again - take our trusty C major scale.  Conveniently enough, the C major scale is also the first mode, called Ionian.  To get the other modes, all you need to do is take the C major scale - C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C - and start it on a different note in that scale.  The next mode, Dorian, starts on D (unfortunately, that is the only one whose name matches its starting note), and is then D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D, and it goes on for every note in the scale.  For the record, the names of the modes are Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian (a favorite of folk singers and the 1960s in general), Aeolian, and Locrian - in that order.

Hah.  "Very quickly," indeed.  Hey - it's not my fault that Debussy was into all this weird musical stuff.

This is perhaps not what Debussy had in mind.

"Clair de Lune" itself is, like most pieces featured on this blog, part of a larger work - in this case, the Suite Bergamasque, a piano suite written in 1890 but revised and not published until 1905.  A suite of music, for our purposes, is simply a collection of pieces that can each be performed alone but has some sort of unifying theme.  In the case of the Suite Bergamasque, each piece is a musical illustration of a poem by Paul Verlaine - sort of like a symphonic poem minus the orchestra.  "Clair de Lune" means "moon shine" (without the alcoholic connotation, of course), and the piece does really sound like a moonlit night.  Much like our man Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody, the piece is most well-known in its orchestrated form - having that dripping harmony played by strings oozing with pathos is much more conducive to big cinematic scenes at the Bellagio, of course - one orchestrator being Leopold Stokowski (among other things, he was the conductor in Fantasia).

So there you have it - a piece that represents quite a lot in the theory world.  I hope I didn't get too pedantic with the theory; I know that's really not the most interesting thing in the world to read.  But hey, the school year's starting again, and perhaps someone will Google "just how the hell do modes make sense?" and this entry will help them out.  Debussy might even be a little proud of that, but then again, he was always a little bizarre.

Further listening:

Didn't know the French had a sense of humor?  They sure do, when they make fun of Germans!  Try his "Golliwog's Cakewalk" (the joke being at around 1:15): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnkBhv5WsRw&feature=related

Interested in hearing why Debussy hating the term 'impressionist music' is a little silly?  Try "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_7loz-HWUM

Want to hear the most brazen example of the whole-tone scale in Debussy's work?  Try "Voiles" from Preludes, book 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVV0jkZC4jI

A new way of getting Where'd I Hear That posts!

Hopefully, of course.

I've just set up a Google Group - if any of you so choose, you can opt to get any new posts made e-mailed to you instead of having to look at the blog itself. To become a member of the group, e-mail wheredihearthat@googlegroups.com, and if all goes well, you'll get your twice-weekly dose of classical music knowledge in no time!

"Largo al factotum" from "Il barbiere di Siviglia"

That's right, going with this week's apparent theme of "Posts I Should've Written Ages Ago," as well as in honor of the Metropolitan Opera's Summer HD Festival, today's piece is the reason this blog exists.  A decidedly silly piece of music written by a very impressive young man, "Largo al factotum" from Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia (or, for the less pretentious among us, The Barber of Seville) has been relegated to Looney Tunes and the Jersey Shore, but what it represents in music history is so large it's almost ridiculous.  Not only is Il barbiere di Siviglia considered the archetypal opera buffa (a genre of opera that spawned its own voice type, no less), but Rossini is one third of what is known as the bel canto era.  All of these italicized, Italianate terms will be expounded upon, of course, but suffice it to say, "Largo al factotum" is much bigger than the sum of its parts.

Every picture of Rossini has this "I know something awful about you" look to it.

Gioachino Antonio Rossini was born in 1792 in Pesaro, Italy to a family of musicians; his father was a horn player and his mother was a professional singer.  His childhood was somewhat turbulent - his father was jailed for his political leanings, and his mother would often have to travel to perform and keep her son fed and clothed.  He learned the fundamentals of music from Angelo Tesei, and his first compositions were six string quartets, written at the age of twelve.  Gioachino really, really liked Mozart, to the point that his classmates would call him "The German" in jest.  His first opera was written when he was fourteen, but was not premiered until he was twenty.  His first premiered opera was La cambiale di matrimonio (or "The Marriage Contract"), produced when he was just eighteen.  He found international acclaim with the premiere of Tancredi at twenty, and from that moment on, he never lacked in fame or finance.

Even in his early career, he was transforming the operatic world - in Tancredi, he began the practice of writing out ornaments for singers instead of letting them come up with them for themselves.  This doesn't sound like a huge deal, and it wouldn't be if not for the fact that no one did that before.  In Baroque opera, a defining feature was the da capo aria, in which was contained a melody to be sung through relatively straight the first time, a contrasting second section, and then a repeat of the first in which the aim was to sing the hell out of that melody, adding as many displays of virtuosity as possible.  Writing out the ornamentation made the arias less showpieces (though, clearly, they were still showpieces that could stand alone in recital) and tied them closer to the dramatic aspects of the opera.  Il barbiere di Siviglia premiered in 1816, when Rossini was twenty-four, and that is where our biography of the man will end for now (though he did live to the age of 76).  For one, I've got to keep enough to write about when we get to the overture of Guillaume Tell...

Apparently this is from a Haydn opera buffa.  Very silly indeed.

Il barbiere di Siviglia is what some have called the most perfect example of opera buffa ever.  In the literal sense, "opera buffa" simply means "funny opera," and it is true that opera buffa does tend to be quite a bit funnier (and shorter!) than its counterpart, opera seria (meaning exactly what you think it does).  More than that, though, opera buffa is opera designed at least in part to be enjoyed by the masses, with lower-class people dealing with lower-class problems, instead of the mythological or royal origins of opera seria's plot lines.  Opera buffa created its own voice type as well, the basso buffo.  These parts are often given very silly parts, and quite a lot of patter, or fast-paced wordy vocal lines, thrown in for good measure.  Furthermore, Il barbiere di Siviglia is one of the first examples mentioned when one is disucssing bel canto.  Meaning "beautiful singing," bel canto is both a style of singing (with a focus on lightness of tone and agility) and also a categorization of operas by Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini.  The term bel canto to describe a genre of opera did not spring up until later in the 1800s in contrast to - surprise, surprise - Richard Wagner, whose weightier subject matters and style of singing stood in direct opposition to that of the light, comparatively 'shallow' bel canto composers.

If you forget the second 'f' when typing buffo, this is what you find. 

The play itself was written by Pierre Beaumarchais, the first part of a trilogy of "Figaro" plays.  The Marriage of Figaro, one of Mozart's most well-known operas, is based on the second play.  "Largo al factotum" is the first entrance of Figaro, a, well, barber who lives in Seville.  Nothing like a good case of truth in advertising, right?  The aria itself is a boast on Figaro's part i which he talks about how he is the most-desired barber in all of Seville.  He calls himself an expert with beards, hair, wigs and leeches (since barbers in the 18th century, when the play was written, were also small-time doctors, and a favorite remedy was bloodletting via leech), and the iconic "Figaro!  Figaro!" is Figaro's imagined throng of people clamoring for his attention and razors.  Perhaps, since it is a puffed-up five minutes of a barber's boast, "Largo al factotum" is perfect for the Looney Tunes world, but it really is what it represents in the larger picture of music history that makes it so much more interesting than Jersey Shore may give credit.

Further listening:

Want to hear one of the best (and earliest) examples of basso buffo?  Try "Madamina, il catalogo è questa" from Mozart's Don Giovanni (performed by Richard Cassell): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYUlCropCGY

Equally interested in da capo arias with some truly delightful choreography?  Try "Non disperar" from Handel's Giulio Cesare (performed by Danielle de Niese): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhLluWn3UKY

Hungarian Rhapsody #2

Ah, the good old days, when entertainment meant for children thought nothing of making a cartoon based solely off a piece of classical music over five minutes long.  What an interesting concept.  It certainly wouldn't work these days, but ah well.  What can you do?  I will say, though, that I have a feeling that Franz Liszt (yes!  I've finally done the post I've been promising for the past month) would not have objected too strenuously to the over-the-top performance done here by Messrs. Tom and Jerry.

With that brooding stare, you'd want his gloves too.  Don't lie.

Franz Liszt was born in 1811 in Hungary.  His father was a musician, and a relatively well-known one at that - he counted Josef Haydn and Ludwig von Beethoven as acquaintances.  Franz started learning piano from his father at the age of seven, and by nine, was giving concerts of his own.  With his newfound (if still rather local) fame, he moved to Vienna to study with Carl Czerny and Antonio Salieri (the man who, according to Amadeus, worked and frightened one Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to death - though, of course, this claim is absolute nonsense).  Upon his father's death, Liszt and his mother moved to Paris where they would live for some time.  Like his father, Liszt was good at cultivating relationships - during his early adulthood, he became friends with Hector Berlioz and Frederic Chopin, to name but two.

Liszt married rather young and had three children with his first wife in rapid succession.  His daughter, Cosima, became rather well known for, y'know, marrying Richard Wagner and starting the Bayreuth festival.  (It's truly fascinating how tight-knit the musical world can be sometimes, isn't it?)  In the 1840s, Franz took up a touring life to support his growing family, and to say that it was a success is to put it far too mildly.  Liszt was a phenomenon - of the likes of Elvis.  Women (and, I'm sure, at least a few men) went absolutely wild over his performances, and would grapple for souvenirs of silk gloves and handkerchiefs.  He was so successful that he was able to retire from concert life at the age of 35, not only financially set for life but able to quit at the top of his game, so to speak.  He moved to Weimar and stayed there for quite some time, but the death of two of his children and a failed romance sent Liszt to Rome, where he lived in solitude for several years.  For the last ten years of his life, Liszt split his time between Rome, Weimar, and Budapest, composing and giving master classes.  He died at Bayreuth in 1886, during the festival his daughter started.

Though he probably should've bit the bullet and cut his hair later in life...

Though Liszt is known mostly for his piano music, it must not be forgotten that he was also the inventor of the symphonic poem, a genre of music without which 2001: A Space Odyssey would be decidedly less epic.  However, since Hungarian Rhapsody #2 is indeed a piece of piano music (or at least was originally a piece of piano music), it is there we shall stay.  Because Liszt was Hungarian, it only followed that he was strongly influenced by Romani music and made use of the Gypsy scale.  This scale is formed by taking an A minor scale (A B C D E F G) and raising the fourth note of it, giving A B C D# E F G.  This can clearly be used in any key - the Hungarian Rhapsody is in C# Minor - but for the sake of not having a million #s, A minor is the easiest to see.

The Rhapsody itself was composed in 1847 and published in 1851 as part of a set of 19.  Originally arranged as a piano solo, the overwhelming popularity of the pieces gave Liszt the opportunity to arrange it first for piano and orchestra and then for piano duet.  It became part of the standard piano recital repertoire very quickly, and for a time, almost every recital ended with the piece due to its outstanding virtuosity.  This near-ubiquity gave companies like Warner Brothers and Hanna-Barbera the license to use the piece all over the place; apart from the Tom and Jerry cartoon, there is a Bugs Bunny short, a few Disney cartoons, and even a song in Animaniacs.  I can't say that this would be the first piece of music I would personally pick to become the unofficial cartoon anthem, but it seems to have worked for the past 75 years or so.  Go figure.

Further listening:
Like Liszt, and also Mozart?  Try Reminiscences de Don Juan, performed by Valentina Lisitsa:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xSZ860AbOw

Like Liszt, and also having lots of feelings?  Try Liebestraum no. 3, performed by Daniel Barenboim: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4XEPdYO5mM&feature=related

And in honor of the beginning of school years across the world (but mostly Vassar's), here's his Gaudeamus igitur paraphrase: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0s4zCFSLcw

And finally, for creepiness' sake, a cast made of his hands:

Peer Gynt

In an odd way, this post is a bit of a culmination of quite a few posts that I have made over the past month or so.  First off, it's another case of a multi-movement piece of music having more than one movement become wildly popular.  Second off, it's another case of incidental theatre music far outstripping the play itself in terms of being well-known.  And thirdly, the second piece illustrates a freaking sunrise.  Not a bad way to cap off a month of blogging, I'd say.  The piece, incidentally (I'm going to get so much griegf for this...) is called Peer Gynt, and the composer Edvard Grief.  I mean Grieg.

Grieg, age fifteen, wearing a wig and false mustache to appear older.

Edvard Hagerup Grieg was born in Bergen, Norway in 1843 to a musical family (though not nearly as intense about it as the Bachs), though his mother was his first piano teacher.  At fifteen, Grieg enrolled in the Leipzig Conservatory (again with the Bachs - Leipzig was, if you'll recall, where Johann Sebastian had his longest post).  His first major premiere, the Piano Concerto in A minor, was in 1869, but he was not even there due to conducting obligations in Oslo.  In 1870, he made friends with Franz Liszt (a man I've promised a post on for some time... I suppose I'd better get on that soon), and remained close with the man until Liszt's death in 1886.  Grieg's life was not marked by either great acclaim or tragedy, though he did always live in the upper echelons of musical society at the time; for one, the Norwegian government appreciated his nationalistic musical tendencies, so they supported him with a pension for the last third of his life.  He was not a particularly prolific composer either (he had great distaste for much of his work - his only symphony displeased him so much that he tried to suppress it entirely), but what is known of his is ridiculously well-known.

In 1874, Henrik Ibsen asked Grieg to write incidental music (for those who have forgotten or who have not been following this blog since its inception - and shame on you for that - incidental music is music written for a play that is not necessary for the plot's development) for his play in verse Peer Gynt, and Peer Gynt was premiered in February of 1876.  Though the play itself is performed quite often in Norway, its extraordinary length has kept it from being part of the theatrical canon pretty much anywhere else.  Besides which, as seems to be the case for much 'incidental' music, the music itself has gone on to wild international popularity.

The character Peer Gynt is a young man of rather disreputable character, often getting drunk and having to quickly leave messy situations he has created.  Booze is a central factor in many of Gynt's misadventures, be it stumbling into a wedding to try and wrest the girl he loves from her husband-to-be or, y'know, hitting his head on a rock and dreaming up an entire civilization of trolls.

What I sincerely hope Gynt saw.  Thanks, Harpsterdraws!

Which is what "In the Hall of the Mountain King" is about.  After getting well drunk with a trio of milkmaids, Gynt hits his head on a rock and dreams that he meets the daughter of the troll king.  The music accompanies them as they ride to the troll king's mountain hall.  Several other (mis)adventures occur, including Peer getting the troll king's daughter pregnant just by thinking it (the more I read about this play, the more I want there to be a production of it in the States).  Grieg did not actually like "In the Hall of the Mountain King" very much, which is not particularly out-of-character for him, but this time, his distaste includes a quote too good to pass up: "I have also written something for the scene in the hall of the mountain King – something that I literally can't bear listening to because it absolutely reeks of cow-pies, exaggerated Norwegian nationalism, and trollish self-satisfaction! But I have a hunch that the irony will be discernible."

"Morning Mood," or "That piece in every single morning scene in Looney Tunes," is the prelude to Act IV.  Also Sprach Zarathustra's more timid cousin, "Morning Mood" also tries (and succeeds, in my estimations) to paint a sunrise with music.  Though it is decidedly less epic and more pastoral than Zarathustra, sometimes that's just what is needed - particularly when milkmaids are concerned.

A small addendum: Peer Gynt also includes, much in the vein of Aaron Copland, a piece of fiddle music he couldn't seem to put down.  First he turned it into a solo piano piece:

Then he added it smack dab into the middle of the opening of Peer Gynt (skip to 1:50 to hear it):

Sometimes it's best to know when to put a good thing down, yes, but it's equally good to know when to milk it for all it's worth. 

Further Listening:

Like Grieg, and also heartbreaking works of staggering beauty?  Try "Solveig's Song" from Peer Gynt, performed by Anna Netrebko: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AZL0FcQDV0&feature=related

Like Grieg, and also piano concertos?  Guess what this is going to be, then:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ypR4VKi1TM&feature=related

Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring

Sometimes, I wonder just what I can get away with on this blog; and then I realize that I can get away with just about anything, as long as it's not factually incorrect.  Yes, that's Celtic Woman.  I'm almost sorry for posting it, but then again, after the atrocity that was "Handel's Messiah Rocks," this is just about beautiful and tasteful.  Yet another case of a piece with no delusions of grandeur becoming a beloved piece of music (and easily a Top Five contender in terms of wedding marches, though I've always privately wondered how one processes down the aisle in 9/8 time...), "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" does deserve the attention heaped upon it - though I must say, I'm not entirely sure anyone actually deserves Celtic Woman.

I've always wondered what wigless Bach looked like...

Johann Sebastian Bach was born in 1685 in Eisenach, Germany.  He was the youngest son of Johann Ambrosius Bach, a professional musician.  In fact, his whole damn family was comprised of professional musicians - his uncle taught him the rudiments of organ playing, and when he was orphaned at age 10, his older brother Johann Christoph (apparently, they were much more conservative with names in the 17th century) took him in and taught him more music fundamentals.  At 14, he received a scholarship to the St. Michael's School in Lüneburg, graduating at 18.  When he was twenty (which is a very good age for undertaking adventures such as this), Bach walked 250 miles to hear Dieterich Buxtehude, a prominent organist and composer, perform.  Buxtehude's work clearly impressed young Bach, and he stayed several months to learn from the older man.  His first grown-up job at Weimar began in 1708 and continued until his dismissal in 1717 (after being imprisoned for a solid month due to his disputes with The Man at Weimar - Bach was never particularly known for being an agreeable man).

In 1721, he met Anna Magdalena, married her that year and eventually had thirteen children with her.  Add that to the seven had had from his previous marriage and you have a very productive man.  True to the Bach heritage, many of his children became musicians and composers in their own right, including Carl Philip Emmanuel and Johann Christian (again with the Johann...), the latter of which moved to London and became friends with (and influenced) one young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.  It all comes around, doesn't it?

From 1723 until his death, Bach worked in Leipzig as the Cantor of the Thomasschule (or Thomas School) at St. Thomas Church, and as part of the job, he had to conduct a cantata each Sunday.  True to form, he took it upon himself to write new works most of the time, eventually composing upwards of 200 of them.  At the end of his life, he began to go blind and opted for eye surgery, which was a huge gamble in the mid-eighteenth century.  Unfortunately, it was a gamble that cost him his life, and he died in 1750 at the age of 65 from complications due to that surgery.  To add posthumous insult to, well, death, his music was almost entirely ignored for nearly eighty years by the general public.  Composers, for the most part, revered him (Beethoven declared him the Father of Harmony, for one), but the public saw his work as old-fashioned and even stodgy.  Between you and me, though, I don't think Bach would have minded either of those two adjectives.  In 1829, though, Felix Mendelssohn performed Bach's St. Matthew Passion for the first time since the 18th century, and that set in motion a chain of events that led to Bach becoming one of the world's best-known and most-loved composers.

Let it be known that this is the first useful picture on this blog.

Before discussing "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," we must, unfortunately, discuss the cantata.  I say 'unfortunately' because 'cantata,' much like 'opera' and 'oratorio,' is another one of those fussy categorizing words that (in my humble opinion) tends to do less good than is hoped.  And again, much like the opera and oratorio, the roots of the musical form start with good intentions.  At the beginning of its existence, the cantata ("sung" in Italian) was a form of vocal chamber music, with one or two solo voices, a continuo and maybe a few solo instruments as well.  Continuo is usually a keyboard of some kind and perhaps a low string instrument such as a cello, playing figured bass (a bass line with notes plus numbers, sharps, and flats below each note to show what chords above the bass line should be played, assuming that a major chord, or notes 3 and 5 above the bass, is 'normal' - in the case of the picture above, the '6' below the second bass note is shown because C is six notes above E in the bass line, but the G is three notes above, which is still 'normal'... ya follow me?).

This would be a nice distinction, except for the fact that nothing can ever be a nice distinction when it comes to musical terms.  Cantatas became more and more theatrical, and in Bach's case, sometimes became indistinguishable from opera scenes and oratorios.  It is said that Bach never wrote an opera, which is technically true - he did, however, compose a 'cantata' about a young woman's coffee addiction, complete with arias, duets, and recitatives.  Furthermore, Bach's "Christmas Oratorio" is simply six separate cantatas bound into one whole.  One way cantatas can be distinguished, however, is their length - they tend to be shorter than operas and oratorios - so if you're ever presented with a short vocal piece in several movements that may or may not include a choir, you can pretty safely call it a cantata without incurring the wrath of someone who's decided they know more than you about classical music.

I didn't know people actually did this.

"Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" is the tenth and final movement of Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (Heart and Mind and Deed and Life), composed in 1716 during Bach's Weimar days.  The German title of the movement is "Jesus bleibet meine Freude," or "Jesus shall remain my gladness" - similar enough, but perhaps a bit more selfish.  The melody was actually written by one Johann Schop, and Bach liked it so much that he used it again in the St. Matthew Passion.  Its simple beauty gives it a heart-wrenching quality, and though Bach intended it to be performed at a rather brisk tempo, the slow, meditative pace used in most performances these days gives the piece an element of the sublime.  Hey - if it's good enough for Celtic Woman, it's good enough for me.

Further listening:

Interested in the advent of the cantata?  Try "Mad Bess" by Henry Purcell (sung by Drew Minter): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUwCKkDIsRw

Like beautiful pieces by Bach that aren't actually by Bach?  Try "Bist du bei mir" by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel (sung by Laura Heims): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWnEUzUizkI

Like Bach, and also happiness?  Try "Wir eilen mit schwachen" from Jesu, der du meine Seele:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY3XAPqGy_Q&feature=related

The 'Hallelujah Chorus' from "Messiah"

This piece, much like the few before it, has transcended the 'I've heard this somewhere' label and has graduated to 'I've heard this everywhere.'  Unlike the few pieces before this one, however, this was not a case of a small-scale work becoming surprisingly adored.  No, George Frideric Handel's Messiah was beloved in its time, never suffered a dip in popularity, and continues to be performed nearly constantly (particularly around the holidays).  But, as always, the story behind the piece (and of the man himself) is too good to pass up, and so here we are today.

Handel, looking only slightly incredulous.

George Frideric Handel (almost regretfully, a man with only three names given at birth) was born in Halle, Germany in 1685.  1685 was a very good year for musical births, as Johann Sebastian Bach and Domenico Scarlatti were also born in that year.  George's father, aged 63 at the time of George's birth (and also named George, but because he was German, it was Georg for him), is the star of a probably apocryphal story involving George's early musical lack-of-training.  See, Georg wanted Junior to be a lawyer, and when he discovered his son's nascent musical talents, he banned all musical instruments from the Handel houshold (while we're on the subject of linguistic accuracy, George was actually born with an umlaut over the 'a' in Händel, giving a pronunciation more like 'hendel', which explains the international sometime-spelling of Haendel.  Whew).  Little Georg(e) was having none of this, of course, and had a clavichord smuggled into the attic of his house, where he could sneak off and practice when his family was asleep.  Clavichords are very quiet keyboard instruments used mostly for household practice and play, so that part of the story holds water, but there is still the question on how a child was able to a) obtain, and b) smuggle a clavichord into an attic.  It's a good story, though, and certainly adds to the mystique of the man, so I'll take it.

My-Size Clavichord, perfect for kids whose parents Just Don't Understand.

Handel did end up going to law school for a little while, but by 1703, he had a position at the Hamburg opera house, where his first two operas premiered in 1705.  In 1706, he traveled to Italy and learned all about Italian opera; but since opera was banned in the papal states (i.e. Italy) at the time, he composed Italian oratorios (more on this later) and sacred music while he was there.  1710 proved to be a red-letter year for young Georg (among other things, the final 'e' in his name was about to be appended); he became the Kappelmeister - literally meaning 'chapel master,' or someone in charge of all music-making in a certain church or court to Prince George, elector of Hanover and soon to be King George I of Great Britain.  In 1712, he decided to live in London permanently, and settled down for thirty years of near-uninterrupted musical and financial success.  He premiered Italian opera after Italian opera (and indeed, is said to be the one who brought Italian opera to England), worked in several opera companies, and culminated his operatic career with a position at Covent Garden.  Unfortunately, by the mid-1730s, English interest in Italian opera had begun to wane, and Handel's last Italian opera, Deidamia, premiered in 1741 to only three performances.

Luckily for him, however, he was about to strike musical gold.  In July of 1741, Charles Jennens wrote a letter to Handel (George by this time, having been adopted by the British as one of their own) mentioning a new libretto he had for an oratorio called Messiah.

At this point, I feel obligated to take a moment and explain the differences between opera and oratorio.  On paper, they are very similar pieces of performance art; both feature orchestral accompaniment, a chorus, and vocal soloists.  The difference - in theory at least - is in intent and subject matter.  An opera is a musical work written for the stage, while an oratorio is generally thought of as a concert work.  In terms of subject matter, operas tend to be mythological, historical, or literary, while oratorios tend to be based on sacred texts.  However, Handel's oratorios (particularly Samson) are often staged, and his oratorio Semele caused incredible consternation due to its basis on Greek myth.  If you are ever confused as to whether a work is an opera or oratorio, your best bet is to ask someone who has decided they know more about classical music than you and take their opinion as fact.  It works for me.

I can only guess (and dread) what this sounds like.

But yes.  Back to Messiah (this post is already dragging on as it is).  The music was written in a little over three weeks, which sounds incredible until the fact that that is generally the length of time Handel spent on his operas is taken into account.  That sounds even more incredible, until the fact that Handel often borrowed entire arias and choruses from earlier works is taken into account.  In an age of creative copyright and aspirations of originality, this sounds bizarre, but it was an often-used compositional technique, particularly for large, multi-movement works such as operas and oratorios.

Messiah was premiered in Dublin in 1742 to great acclaim, but when it premiered in London, receptions were decidedly more lukewarm.  Jennens himself was rather displeased, thinking that Handel's music did not do his libretto justice.  However, after a slow start, Messiah became a beloved piece of British music that has never left the repertory since.

A fun fact: the performanace of "Hallelujah" above is based off an arrangement done by none other than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in 1789 on commission from one Baron von Swieten.  Performances of Messiah got bigger and grander (one featuring a chorus of 2,000 and an orchestra of 500) until the twentieth century, when a revival in Baroque performance techniques led to an interest in hearing how it was performed at the time.

People do like things big, though, and so we can't always fault Andre Rieu - our conductor in the top video - for his excesses.

Further listening:

Like Handel, and also happiness?  Try "Happy We" from Acis and Galatea (performed by Les Arts Florissants, sung by Paul Agnew and Sophie Daneman): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESKvWcTh4AE

Interested in Handel's Italian opera?  Try "Ciel e terra armi di sdegno" from Tamerlano (sung by Rolando Villazón): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PnXEQKKp1U

Like Handel, and also really beautiful music?  Try "Un momento di contento" from Alcina (sung by Kobie van Rensburg): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrMHHGR_KR8

Yeah, I know.  I like Handel.  So should you.