Quiz: Mystery scores

[Luke]

Yes, an Enlightenment take on Indian music from an Irish musician in Calcutta

BTW, I loved this - and I've seen other things like it (IMSLP is great for this stuff, as you clearly know!). Books like this are so thought provoking, for obvious reasons. It is hard to believe that this is really how 18th century European minds innocently heard those Indian melodies - translated into their own vernacular of simple rhythms, major/minor scales and primary triads as if nothing else was even possible. And that realisation is worth pondering upon.

[BWV 1080]

BTW, I loved this - and I've seen other things like it (IMSLP is great for this stuff, as you clearly know!). Books like this are so thought provoking, for obvious reasons. It is hard to believe that this is really how 18th century European minds innocently heard those Indian melodies - translated into their own vernacular of simple rhythms, major/minor scales and primary triads as if nothing else was even possible. And that realisation is worth pondering upon.

Sure, but I don't think the treatment of Indian music is markedly different than how composers took their own folk music (and not sure whether Bird's source was folk vs ICM).   The liner notes for the recent recording talk about simplifying the rhythms.  The music seems honest and without the philosophical/mystical baggage that ruins most attempts of westerners incorporating Indian influences.  Perhaps this only could have happened in the pre-Raj period.  You have to wait for Terry Riley and his peers for a better amalgamation of Indian music. 

The same lack of comprehension can be said for Indians incorporating Western - just listen to how bad most Indian pop music is, miss the days when Indian restaurants would play classical music

[Luke]

You have to wait for Terry Riley and his peers for a better amalgamation of Indian music. 

Funnily, I see a close connection between Riley and his methods and those Foulds pieces, mind you. I would love to hear Gandharva Music played on a Riley-like just-tempered piano (which is how it was 'heard,' apparently). I think its oddly bland tonic-dominant-tonic sway would be transformed.

[Luke]

Just because it is apposite, here's what Foulds' wife, Maud MacCarthy, an expert on Indian music who introduced him to it, had to say about the subject:

Oral tradition is essential to Indian music. The beauty of that music consists in its spontaneity, its exquisite sruti (microtones), its roulades and graces, the improvisational essays of the performers. Take these away, and one gets the rather banal little tunes which have been recorded in Western musical notation by Fox-Strangways and others . . .notation kills Indian music.

This was also the view Foulds had re. Gandharva Music, which he didn't write down (though he played it) for years.

[classicalgeek]

Much easier one, just to keep things moving.

This one is the Fugue in D-flat major from Shostakovich's op. 87. 

[classicalgeek]

I feel these are connected...

(there's more going on in the score here)

As far as 'Easier one no. 2'... definitely Russian... maybe Rimsky-Korsakov? Not sure about that, though...

[classicalgeek]

I feel a connection with this one too. (Just me, I guess)

And as far as 'easier one no. 3'... I've spent way too much time Googling the Russian text, to no avail! My first (and uneducated) guess was Shostakovich's 'Babi Yar' Symphony... but something tells me it's not so obvious...

[classicalgeek]

As far as 'Easier one no. 2'... definitely Russian... maybe Rimsky-Korsakov? Not sure about that, though...

Looking at this more closely... Rimsky-Korsakov wasn't far off. It's one of his students - Stravinsky! And the passage is from The Firebird, leading up to Kashchey's Infernal Dance. 

The passage starts at roughly 35 minutes in this video:

[Luke]

Those two are correct, obviously, and in a way you're close on the third, too. I chose these three because they each explore a similar idea, in a similar key. It's very possible, imo, based on a number of factors, that the third one inspired the second, at least. It's a very constructivist, symmetrical way of thinking typical of the composer of #3 when in a certain idiom.

[Luke]

The inspiration behind the first one, (the Shostakovich) may have some tangential connection with these two Russian predecessors (the key similarity supports this, maybe), but it has another, more obvious and very famous possible source - 'Easier One 4' below.

I realise that I haven't spelt out the musical feature that these three (now four) examples share, but I was assuming it is obvious - the way each radiates symmetrically from a central point, as if the composer is merely playing with musical patterns.

[Luke]

OK, this one is connected in a couple of ways to that group of three I posted yesterday - really to #2 and #3. It might help.

[classicalgeek]

The inspiration behind the first one, (the Shostakovich) may have some tangential connection with these two Russian predecessors (the key similarity supports this, maybe), but it has another, more obvious and very famous possible source - 'Easier One 4' below.

I realise that I haven't spelt out the musical feature that these three (now four) examples share, but I was assuming it is obvious - the way each radiates symmetrically from a central point, as if the composer is merely playing with musical patterns.

"Easier one no. 4" is the Fugue from J.S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in E minor for organ, BWV 548. I did notice the same pattern in all of the first three examples (and now the Bach one) - but I can't place the connection among the uniquely Russian examples.

Could "Easier one no. 3" be from an opera? By Tchaikovsky? Mussorgsky? Rimsky-Korsakov?

As for the "Mystery gliss", it appears to be Russian as well. I know there's a harmonic glissando near the beginning of Firebird, but I don't think that fits your example.

[Luke]

All good thinking here...

[Luke]

Just to clarify things

[classicalgeek]

Just to clarify things

So 'Mystery gliss 2' is definitely the passage from near the beginning of Firebird. But that's not where 'Mystery gliss' is from. Interesting...

Meanwhile, 'Easier one 3' still has me puzzled. I tried Googling the Russian words again, and only came up with an aria from Tchaikovsky's 'Maid of Orleans' called 'Chas' Nastal'... but I'm assuming that's coincidence. 'The hour has come' (the translation) is a common enough phrase that it could be used anywhere...

[Florestan]

Meanwhile, 'Easier one 3' still has me puzzled. I tried Googling the Russian words again, and only came up with an aria from Tchaikovsky's 'Maid of Orleans' called 'Chas' Nastal'... but I'm assuming that's coincidence. 'The hour has come' (the translation) is a common enough phrase that it could be used anywhere...

The French translation is more telling. A mourir pour la patrie, a punir la perfidie l'heure vient, ie The time has come to die for the fatherland and to punish the perfidy. Boris Godunov? A Life for the Tsar? The Maid of Orleans? 

[Florestan]

Definitely not The Maid of Orleans, the text of the aria Da, chas nastal doesn't match.

https://www.singrussian.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Da-chas-nastal_transliteration.pdf

[classicalgeek]

So 'Mystery gliss 2' is definitely the passage from near the beginning of Firebird. But that's not where 'Mystery gliss' is from. Interesting...

I've tried Googling 'harmonic glissando examples'... and pretty much only end up with the passage from The Firebird.

The French translation is more telling. A mourir pour la patrie, a punir la perfidie l'heure vient, ie The time has come to die for the fatherland and to punish the perfidy. Boris Godunov? A Life for the Tsar? The Maid of Orleans? 

I tried Googling the French translation too, but nothing came up. But maybe it's one of the first two operas?

[Luke]

OK, here's a few things.

Firstly, the opera and the first harmonic glissando are by the same composer. He's been mentioned as a possible and is very famous - you will all have heard of this opera.

Secondly, the first harmonic glissando was written before the second, Stravinsky one, and it is therefore abundantly clear that Stravinsky modelled the effect on this example (they are virtually identical, as you can see). This is despite Stravinsky, ever the opportunist, proclaiming it as his invention

for me the most striking effect in The Firebird was the natural-harmonic string glissando near the beginning, which the bass chord touches off like a Catherine Wheel. I was delighted to have discovered this, and I remember my excitement in demonstrating it to Rimsky's violinist and cellist sons.

Richard Taruskin was AFAIK the first to point this out, and he also pointed out that Stravinsky will also have been reminded of the harmonic glissando by a brief example in Ravel's Rapsodie Espagnole, which he was exposed to during the writing of Firebird.

Thirdly, the composer in question is known, among other things for his interest in magical sounds (such as this harmonic glissando) and symmetrical scales and structures such as the wedge-like idea in the opera example. This opera in particular is often cited for its use of a particular type of symmetrical scale which subsequent composers, including Stravinsky, found highly useful. In this work and in others, this scale is often used to suggest magic, wizardry, madness etc.

[classicalgeek]

OK, here's a few things.

Firstly, the opera and the first harmonic glissando are by the same composer. He's been mentioned as a possible and is very famous - you will all have heard of this opera.

Secondly, the first harmonic glissando was written before the second, Stravinsky one, and it is therefore abundantly clear that Stravinsky modelled the effect on this example (they are virtually identical, as you can see). This is despite Stravinsky, ever the opportunist, proclaiming it as his invention

Richard Taruskin was AFAIK the first to point this out, and he also pointed out that Stravinsky will also have been reminded of the harmonic glissando by a brief example in Ravel's Rapsodie Espagnole, which he was exposed to during the writing of Firebird.

Thirdly, the composer in question is known, among other things for his interest in magical sounds (such as this harmonic glissando) and symmetrical scales and structures such as the wedge-like idea in the opera example. This opera in particular is often cited for its use of a particular type of symmetrical scale which subsequent composers, including Stravinsky, found highly useful. In this work and in others, this scale is often used to suggest magic, wizardry, madness etc.

I have an idea who the composer in question is, as well as the opera... I've been looking at operas in Russian, with French translations, on IMSLP - and at least I think I'm on the right path...