Schonberg on Sibelius

[Homo Aestheticus]

Hey folks,

Is this the same Virgil Thomson who wrote:

"Debussy is the summit toward which during the two centuries since Rameau's death, French music has risen...Internationally viewed he is to the musicians of our century everywhere what Beethoven was to those of the nineteenth - our blinding light, our sun, our central luminary..."

Wait, I like this guy !

:-)

[karlhenning]

Again:

The thread is taking an unexpected turn.

[jochanaan]

Hey folks,

Is this the same Virgil Thomson who wrote:

"Debussy is the summit toward which during the two centuries since Rameau's death, French music has risen...Internationally viewed he is to the musicians of our century everywhere what Beethoven was to those of the nineteenth - our blinding light, our sun, our central luminary..."

Wait, I like this guy !

:-)

That's only batting .500 in my book.  And that's only among the remarks quoted on this thread.

[Kullervo]

To my knowledge, he has not. My memory of hearing him talking in Edinburgh some years ago was that he respected the music but didn't connect with it enough to want to conduct it.

That's better than my previous assumption of his opinion — that Sibelius wasn't "radical" enough to join his shortlist of composers whose music he can be bothered to conduct (a list that seems to get longer as he gets older).

[M forever]

You are right on target. A true Sibelius hater was Virgil Thomson, who wrote one of the stupidest and most vicious reviews ever when he dismissed the 2nd symphony as "vulgar" and "provincial" , and used the review to dismiss the New York Philharmonic as "not part of the intellectual life of New York" because of one concert he happened to hate.

I think you place far too much importance on the ramblings of NY critics, be it in this case, or in the case of them writing silly stuff about "HIP". All that doesn't matter that much.

And furthermore, this review defamed the New York Philharmonic for decades.

I don't think it "defamed" the NY Philharmonic at all. Certainly not "for decades". Again, these ramblings don't matter much.

Also, composer and conductor Rene Leibowitz, a confirmed serialist, called Sibelius "The world's worst composer".  Oh well, some people just don't get it.

Comments like this have to be taken and understood in context. The 20th century was an epic battleground of ideologies, philosophies, political and artistic concepts which tried to understand and define a radically changing world. For historical and good reasons, many "intellectuals" rebelled against any form of "conservativism", "romanticism", "subjectivism", any form of ideological or artistic thinking which wasn't intellectually "quantifiable" because these forms of thinking - in their mind - stood in the way of urgently needed reforms and renewals of thinking and led to some of history's worst catastrophes in the clashes between social classes, ideologies, and political systems.

Review and renewal against the opposition of conservative irrationalism in many forms was an essential attitude for many people, and artists like Sibelius or Rachmaninoff who followed no quantifiable, rationally defineable, "logical" paths but their own, deep intuition and personal logic were simply "red flags" for such "intellectuals" for whom the critical review and rejection of *any* form of historic subjectivism was the No.1 priority - understandable against the historical backgrounds of the times they lived in and the conclusions they had to draw from that.

I think the vehemence with with such composers as Sibelius or Rachmaninoff were opposed by some "modernistic" critics testifies to the compelling individuality and persuasiveness of their music - if it hadn't been that impressive, it could easily have been ignored - and that sharp criticism is mostly a "desperate" reaction against that compellingness which defied intellectual understanding and therefore everything that was important to some thinkers at that time.

However, I'm not quite with M on the smaller pieces; too many of them seem to be mere craft exercises.

...on a very high level, displaying great, solid craftsmanship and taste. Which is why I find them so impressive. Sibelius was a great musical craftsman who could apply his "golden touch" even to the smallest musical forms and pieces. His unique musical intuition was based on, defined and refined by that solid craftsmanship. Which is why his greatest works are not just the "random" musical inspirations and inventions of a "random" genius - they are superbly crafted musical visions of a higher nature. Without that solid basis, his music would never have gotten beyond highly inspired rambling - the fate of too many half-geniuses among composers.

[Superhorn]

    Actually, Thomson's withering dismissal of the  NY Phil as"not part of New York's intellectual life" DID have a negative effect on the orchestra's reputation.

   Some other critics, I can't remember offhand blindly accepted Thomson's claim and  have used it as an excuse to belittle the orchestra. And I read something in a book of writings by the the late Erich Leinsdorf, where he quoted Thomson's arrogant dismissal and excepted it blindly too.

   And even to this day, many critics, including  Anthony Tommasini of the NY Times, routinely accuse the orchestra of "stodginess", and "cautiousness" in programming, no matter what it plays. They make it sound as though the orchestra does nothing but endlessly recycle the same old handful of warhoreses every year, and  from some of the reviews I have read, you would think that the orchestra hadn't played a single new work in the past 30 years.

   But the truth is that the New York Philharmonic actually offers some of the most varied and interesting programming of any orchestra in the world. Ironically, it has actually played MUCH  MORE new music in the past 30 years or so than many other orchestras in the US and Europe. And not exactly easy listening.
 
   The orchestra has played music by Carter, Boulez, Henze, Saariaho, Corigliano,Adams,Glass, Bolcom, Lutoslawski, Messiaen, Harbison,Lieberman, Maxwell Davies, Rihm, Tan Dun, Kernis, and many other prominent living composers. Many other orchestras, such as the LSO and Philharmonia etc in London, don't come remotely close in playing as much new music.
 
   In addition, it has also revived many interesting rarities from the past that had been long neglected.  That's why it's so disingenuous for critics to accuse the orchestra of stale,unimaginative programming by  citing the cycles of the symphonies of Beethoven,Brahms and Tchaikovsky the orchestra has recently done, conveniently ignoring all the new or unusual repertoire.  Critics can be stinkers at times. 

[karlhenning]

Excellent post.

[Homo Aestheticus]

Sibelius was a great musical craftsman who could apply his "golden touch".

[...]

Displaying great taste.

[...]

Not even a single phrase or passage, which isn't superbly crafted and original and unique.

M,

A suggestion:

If you want to experience superb craftsmanship, originality, uniqueness, great taste and a 'golden touch' in music you really should become intimately familiar with  Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande.

If I remember you still don't know it, correct ?  I really believe it will completely and permanently transform your whole outlook on music.

Send me a private message and I will gladly send you the 1978 Berlin Philharmonic recording under Karajan (EMI). Or if anyone else would like a free copy do not hesitate to PM me. 

Here to get you started is a marvelous review (excerpted) of the opera by a favorite of mine, Lawrence Gilman.



****

'Pelléas et Mélisande' exhibited not simply a new manner of writing opera, but a new kind of music—a new way of evolving and combining tones, a new order of harmonic, melodic and rhythmic structure. The style of it was absolutely new and absolutely distinctive: the thing had never been done before, save, in a lesser degree, by Debussy himself in his then little known earlier work.

It was, for all who heard it or came to know it, a revelation of the possibilities of tonal effect—this dim and wavering and elusive music, with its infinitely subtle gradations, its gossamer fineness of texture, its delicate sonorities, its strange and echoing dissonances, its singular richness of mood, its shadowy beauty, its exquisite and elaborate art—this music which drifted before the senses like iridescent vapor, suffused with rich lights, pervasive, imponderable, evanescent. It was music at once naïve and complex, innocent and impassioned, fragile and sonorous. It spoke with an accent unmistakably grave and sincere; yet it spoke without emphasis: indirectly, flexibly, with fluid and unpredictable expression. It was eloquent beyond denial, yet its reticence, its economy of gesture, were extreme—were, indeed, the very negation of emphasis. Is it strange that such music—hesitant, evasive, dream-filled, strangely ecstatic, with its wistful and twilight loveliness, its blended subtlety and simplicity—should have been as difficult to trace to any definite source as it was, for the general, immensely astonishing and unexpected?

There was nothing like it to be found in Wagner, or in his more conspicuous and triumphant successors—in, so to speak, the direct and royal line. Richard Strauss was, clearly, not writing in that manner; nor were the brother musicians of Debussy in his own France; nor, quite as obviously, were the Russians. The immediate effect of its strangeness and newness was, of course, to direct the attention of the larger world of music, within Paris and without, to the artistic personality and the previous attainments of the man who had surprisingly put forth such incommensurable music...

You can read the whole thing here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/1/6/4/8/16488/16488-h/16488-h.htm

****

I look forward to reading your thoughts/opinions on the music of  P&M  in the near future, hopefully.

[Kullervo]

So Eric, which piece by Sibelius have you heard?

[Homo Aestheticus]

So Eric, which piece by Sibelius have you heard?

Symphonies that I know well - 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7... (The sixth I simply do not "get" and never will)

Tone poems - Finlandia, Oceanides and Tapiola

(And his 'Pelleas et Melisande', of course...  )

[greg]

I look forward to reading your thoughts/opinions on the music of  P&M  in the near future, hopefully.

Me, too.

Symphonies that I know well - 1, 2, 4, 6 and 7... (The sixth I simply do not "get" and never will)

Tone poems - Finlandia, Oceanides and Tapiola

(And his 'Pelleas et Melisande', of course...  )

Do you have a favorite? So far I like 4 the best, though I'm sure that's not a surprise at all. 

[Kullervo]

(The sixth I simply do not "get" and never will)

This piece opened up for me once I decided to just revel in the mystery. I tend to hear it as sounding very "old". The heartbreakingly beautiful beginning (few pieces have me in tears within the first few seconds) of the first movement reminds me very much of the Renaissance polyphonists, which he in fact studied. The fluttering figure in the flutes with the harp ostinato that comes afterward makes me think of snow flying through the air (I am aware Sibelius and snow/ice is a cliché). The second movement has the feeling of a funeral march for a dead king (I don't think this would be out of place in the final scene of Hamlet). The third movement is an odd sort of dance (in the widest sense of the word) which starts out with a typically Sibelian figure of a melody being whipped back and forth between the winds and strings (reminds me of the first movement of the Third), which then transforms into a very unique sort of strobe-light effect in the orchestra (a gradually alternating "background" and "foreground" — I can't describe it any other way) with an elliptic and vaguely "oriental" (very unusual for Sibelius) flute melody floating over it all. The finale starts with one of his most beautiful and sad melodies (brings tears to my eyes every time), which then cedes into the "snow" music from the first movement, which he subsequently develops to a rushing climax. Everything seems to drop off into a series of chords in the strings, which slowly die away, a pulse, then fading off into silence. I think he must have been obsessed with his own mortality when he wrote this part — nowhere have I heard anything so evocative of death.

I don't mean this to be a guide or anything, but I hoped that my observations might help you in your listening.

[karlhenning]

If you want to experience superb craftsmanship, originality, uniqueness, great taste and a 'golden touch' in music you really should become intimately familiar with  Debussy's Pelleas et Melisande.

Y A W N

[karlhenning]

This piece opened up for me once I decided to just revel in the mystery. I tend to hear it as sounding very "old". The heartbreakingly beautiful beginning (few pieces have me in tears within the first few seconds) of the first movement reminds me very much of the Renaissance polyphonists, which he in fact studied. . . .

Let's go back to the tape again:

The heartbreakingly beautiful beginning (few pieces have me in tears within the first few seconds) . . . .

Ditto, ditto.

[karlhenning]

And, actually, I've listened to the Sibelius Sixth four times in the past three days.  Can't get enough of it.

[Homo Aestheticus]

This piece opened up for me once I decided to just revel in the mystery. I tend to hear it as sounding very "old". The heartbreakingly beautiful beginning (few pieces have me in tears within the first few seconds) of the first movement reminds me very much of the Renaissance polyphonists, which he in fact studied. The fluttering figure in the flutes with the harp ostinato that comes afterward makes me think of snow flying through the air (I am aware Sibelius and snow/ice is a cliché). The second movement has the feeling of a funeral march for a dead king (I don't think this would be out of place in the final scene of Hamlet). The third movement is an odd sort of dance (in the widest sense of the word) which starts out with a typically Sibelian figure of a melody being whipped back and forth between the winds and strings (reminds me of the first movement of the Third), which then transforms into a very unique sort of strobe-light effect in the orchestra (a gradually alternating "background" and "foreground" — I can't describe it any other way) with an elliptic and vaguely "oriental" (very unusual for Sibelius) flute melody floating over it all. The finale starts with one of his most beautiful and sad melodies (brings tears to my eyes every time), which then cedes into the "snow" music from the first movement, which he subsequently develops to a rushing climax. Everything seems to drop off into a series of chords in the strings, which slowly die away, a pulse, then fading off into silence. I think he must have been obsessed with his own mortality when he wrote this part — nowhere have I heard anything so evocative of death.

I don't mean this to be a guide or anything, but I hoped that my observations might help you in your listening.

Very nice, Corey. I shall revisit it later in the week. Thanks. 

[Homo Aestheticus]

Y A W N

Is your 'yawn' directed at the opera itself ?

[The new erato]

Wow.  I have Sibelius 4th symphony as one of my favorite symphonies, and Pelleas & Melisande as one of my favorite operas. I wonder if there's any hope for me?

[Homo Aestheticus]

and Pelleas & Melisande as one of my favorite operas.

You're pulling my leg...

[karlhenning]

Is your 'yawn' directed at the opera itself ?

It's directed, Eric, at your tunnel-visioned insistence that flogging your favorite opera is supposedly an activity fit for any and every thread in this forum.  Give it a damned rest.

This is a thread on Sibelius.  So discuss Sibelius.