Great works of the 1920s

Started by vers la flamme, October 23, 2020, 12:55:11 PM

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vandermolen

#40
I'd like to add Holst's 'Egdon Heath' (1927), arguably his finest work and Holst's own favourite.

I think that it might have been influenced by Sibelius's 'Tapiola', written the previous year.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

DaveF

I knew you'd find something British, Jeffrey.  What was the third member of the 1934 Club (Delius) up to that decade?
"All the world is birthday cake" - George Harrison

Pohjolas Daughter

Kodaly was in fine form in the 1920's:

Stage works
Háry János, Op. 15 (1926)
Székelyfonó (The Spinning Room) (1924–1932)

Orchestral
Háry János Suite (1926)
Dances of Marosszék (1929; orchestration of the 1927 piano set)

Chamber or instrumental

Szerenád (Serenade) for 2 Violins and Viola, Op. 12 (1920)
Marosszéki táncok (Dances of Marosszék, piano, 1927)

Choral
Psalmus Hungaricus, Op. 13 (1923)

I must admit, though, that my favorite work by him, Sonata for Solo Cello, was written in 1915.   :)

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

pjme

#43
Yes, PD, Kodaly, another good find - and so is Holst's Egdon heath. Just like Sibelius they stayed at the artistically more "serious" side of that quickly changing era.

As for the British composers, possibly Constant Lambert's The Rio grande (1927) alines well with the more extravagant, unorthodox aspects of that period: it combines influences of jazz, South-American rythms, plenty of percussion.
From Wiki:
Lambert noted in a 1928 article:
The chief interest of jazz rhythms lies in their application to the setting of words, and although jazz settings have by no means the flexibility or subtlety of the early seventeenth-century airs, for example, there is no denying their lightness and ingenuity ... English words demand for their successful musical treatment an infinitely more varied and syncopated rhythm than is to be found in the nineteenth-century romantics, and the best jazz songs of today are, in fact, nearer in their methods to the late fifteenth-century composers than any music since.

Music critic Christopher Palmer said of this piece that
Lambert would be the first to concede, today, that some of the harmonic and rhythmic clichés he decried in others had slipped into his own work. Yet, for all that, The Rio Grande retains a pristine quality. Now hard, now soft, it sparkles and glitters one moment, then seduces us the next with the kind of bluesy urban melancholy to be found in deeper, richer measure in a quite different context in Summer's Last Will and Testament. It is above all the work of a poet, and Lambert's poetic sensibility has ensured the survival of his best music. The free-fantasy form is simplicity itself: first section (allegro) – cadenza for piano and percussion – slow central section, in the style of a nostalgic tango – recapitulation – tranquil coda.

The poem refers to a river in Brazil, although there is no Brazilian river called Rio Grande. :D :D :D

https://youtu.be/rGmIfkoZbZQ

Now it's time for Ballet mécanique (1923-24) by George Antheil.

vandermolen

Quote from: DaveF on October 26, 2020, 04:52:44 AM
I knew you'd find something British, Jeffrey.  What was the third member of the 1934 Club (Delius) up to that decade?

I don't listen to that much Delius Dave but, of the works that I like (In a Summer Garden, North Country Sketches, Piano Concerto, Requiem) none of them were composed in the 1920s
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Pohjolas Daughter

Quote from: vandermolen on October 26, 2020, 04:35:20 AM
I'd like to add Holst's 'Egdon Heath' (1927), arguably his finest work and Holst's own favourite.

I think that it might have been influenced by Sibelius's 'Tapiola', written the previous year.
I do like Egdon Heath.  Hadn't heard that about the Tapiola influence; I'll have to look into that now as you've piqued my curiosity!

PD
Pohjolas Daughter

Irons

Two thoughts come to mind of the period, jazz and the aftermath of the Great War. My choice is cheating (only slightly) as composed 1929-30 but historically significant. Memories of the Great War must have been raw during the 20's and Frank Bridge's Oration echoed that. 
You must have a very good opinion of yourself to write a symphony - John Ireland.

I opened the door people rushed through and I was left holding the knob - Bo Diddley.

Karl Henning

Quote from: pjme on October 24, 2020, 01:18:49 AM
The roaring twenties!
A great mix of jazz, singing machines, locomotives , football games, religious ecstasy, sex,
the invention/presentation of the ondes Martenot, Art Déco, drugs and alcohol!

Darius Milhaud: La création du monde (1922-1923)
Alexander Mosolov: Iron foundry, Honegger: Pacific 231, Knudage Riisager: T DOXC, Poeme mécanique, Op. 13 (1926),
Martinu: Half time, Le jazz
Prokofiev: Le pas d'acier, Stravinsky : Les noces
Carl Ruggles: Men and mountains, Suntreader, Angels, Portals, Copland : Organ symphony
Honegger's Judith and Le roi David, Roussel's Psaume LXXX
Poulenc: Les biches

Puccini: Turandot
Janacek: Symphonietta and Glagolitic mass

And from the Low Countries:

Willem Pijper's 2nd and 3rd symphonies
Matthijs Vermeulen: 2nd and 3rd symphonies



Le pas d'acier is truly great!
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

aukhawk

Has nobody mentioned Shostakovich's 1st Symphony? 

vers la flamme

Quote from: aukhawk on October 26, 2020, 10:53:42 AM
Has nobody mentioned Shostakovich's 1st Symphony?

I think not, but yeah, that's a great choice. One of my favorite symphonies of his.

some guy

Numbers 2 and 3 as well, and The Nose.

Karl Henning

Quote from: some guy on October 26, 2020, 03:08:33 PM
Numbers 2 and 3 as well, and The Nose.

Of the symphonies and the opera, the opera is clearly the strongest work. Though, of course, I like 'em all.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Roasted Swan

Quote from: DaveF on October 26, 2020, 02:24:03 AM
All right, stop, enough, enough!  We were all born 100 years too late  :'( :'( :'( I can't believe that anyone, apart from the few incorrigible (and admirable) optimists among us (Some Guy), will predict similar riches from the 2020s.

I don't know if this is a "trend", and it's a feeling I've yet to back up with much research, but was the UK having a decade off in the 1920s?  Elgar had fallen silent, VW seemed to spend most of the decade on operas which are now largely unknown, Britten, Tippett and Walton were too young (although Britten's Hymn to the Virgin, written at the age of 14, is a little gem), Brian was probably scratching a living from proofreading and journalism...  Perhaps we had heard what was going on across the Channel and had all retreated to our cottages with roses round the doors and stuffed wool in our ears.  Bridge, perhaps? - I'm sure his last 2 quartets must date from the '20s.

Bliss came into his own in the 20's -
1920 - Rout
1921 - A Colour Symphony & Melee Fantasque
1923 - Li-Po song cycle
1926 - Introduction & Allegro for Orchestra / Hymn to Apollo
1927 - Oboe Quintet
1928 - Pastoral
1930 (but working on it before...) Morning Heroes - the crowning glory of his decade of developing genius

some guy

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on October 26, 2020, 03:56:15 PM
Of the symphonies and the opera, the opera is clearly the strongest work. Though, of course, I like 'em all.
Yeah, The Nose is a stunner.

pjme

#54
 :D

https://www.youtube.com/v/YotMwwixPsw

https://www.youtube.com/v/nD_oW9pb3O8

Wish I had seen William Kentridge's production!
Last year june, I saw "The head & the load" in Amsterdam. beautiful, moving, informative.

aukhawk

Quote from: some guy on October 26, 2020, 03:08:33 PM
Numbers 2 and 3 as well, and The Nose.

2 and 3 don't qualify, according to the thread title - 'Great works ...' 

pjme


DaveF

Quote from: Roasted Swan on October 26, 2020, 04:20:29 PM
Bliss came into his own in the 20's -
1920 - Rout
1921 - A Colour Symphony & Melee Fantasque
1923 - Li-Po song cycle
1926 - Introduction & Allegro for Orchestra / Hymn to Apollo
1927 - Oboe Quintet
1928 - Pastoral
1930 (but working on it before...) Morning Heroes - the crowning glory of his decade of developing genius

Yes, Bliss, of course, the missing link between the worlds of Elgar and Walton (not that they are so far apart anyway).  I've checked, and Delius composed almost nothing in the 1920s, between the collapse of his health around 1918 and the arrival of Eric Fenby to work with him in 1929.
"All the world is birthday cake" - George Harrison

pjme

#58
Rout is such a lovely work full of joy, melody and orchestral colors.
Bliss saw it as an experiment, together with Madame Noy and rhapsody. Très "chic" and "en vogue"!
https://youtu.be/qreJPHyquMo

I quote from the Lyrita booklet:

"Rout - the term is used in the sense of popular revelry. Bliss wanted to evoke  the sound of a carnival overheard at a distance. He gave the soprano(musically just part of the orchestra) a medley of made-up words to sing, scraps of song of the kind that might reach a listener watching from an open window. And carnival for Bliss meant, "Petrushka", what else?"

beautiful illustration on the score aswel:


vandermolen

Quote from: Roasted Swan on October 26, 2020, 04:20:29 PM
Bliss came into his own in the 20's -
1920 - Rout
1921 - A Colour Symphony & Melee Fantasque
1923 - Li-Po song cycle
1926 - Introduction & Allegro for Orchestra / Hymn to Apollo
1927 - Oboe Quintet
1928 - Pastoral
1930 (but working on it before...) Morning Heroes - the crowning glory of his decade of developing genius
+1, especially for The Oboe Quintet, Morning Heroes, Melee Fantasque and the Colour Symphony.

On the basis of works that were being worked on before the end of the decade, but only completed in 1930, I'd have suggested Gavril Popov's extraordinary 1st Symphony.
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).