Schoenberg: Pelleas und Melisande / Varese: Ameriques
(Many hidden threads link the two compositions on this dis...)
Many hidden threads link the two compositions on this disc, despite
the fact that they are apparently unrelated: one of them is a slightly
megalomaniac farewell to great German romanticism, the other is
a fine example of the new wave of experimentation that followed
the Rite of Spring, and about which Stravinsky himself expressed his
praise. Claude Debussy worked for ten years to create a truly French
drama from Belgian poet Maurice Maeterlinck s dreamlike drama,
Pelléas et Mélisande. It was this work that finally liberated composers
from the influence of Richard Wagner (and particularly Tristan and
Isolde). By an irony of fate, only a year after Debussy s anti-Tristan
premiere, a young man from Vienna, who had been working in Berlin
from 1901 to 1903 a certain Arnold Schönberg completed his
own score of Pelleas. Far from turning from Wagner, it seemed to
follow the escape route Wagner himself had indicated. True, it was not
opera, but rather wordless program music that Wagner s followers and
supporters took to their hearts. Edgard Varese (1883 1965) wrote only
a couple of hours worth of music in his lifetime and yet he exerted
a remarkable influence on the direction of 20th-century music. His
composition Amériques was written between 1918 and 1921.
(2011 collection. Edgard Varese, Igor Stravinsky, Claude D...)
2011 collection. Edgard Varese, Igor Stravinsky, Claude Debussy; the most influential musicians of the 20th century, each were composers of genius; innovators of daring and courage, whose work also had a great deal of influence in musical genres outside of the classical field. Varese devoted his life to a search for a new universe of sounds and Frank Zappa was his most ardent follower. El.
(For a composer who is (now) recognizably part of the 20th...)
For a composer who is (now) recognizably part of the 20th-century classical canon, the French émigré Edgard Varèse's output was astoundingly meager. Just 15 compositions from his entire life (he destroyed the compositions from his early years, and was a merciless editor of his own material in general) made it out to the listening world. Varèse was caught in the chasm between the music of yesterday and the music of tomorrow: scoring music for modified theremin, steamboat whistles, or air sirens, all balanced with the force of a large orchestra; writing pieces based on the flows of water and wind because that's what shapes the earth; using the concepts of chemical reactions and specific gravity as a basis for his music. Using extremes of contrast, dissonance, and variety in sound, Varèse's pieces had power in the way he attacked and shaped the sound he imagined. From Ionisation (1929), scored almost entirely for unpitched percussion, to the electronic-only, three-dimensionally produced Poeme Electronique (1958), he's provided a foundation that many genres, musicians, and composers were to build from not only for the next 40 years, but inevitably beyond. --Robin Edgerton
Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse was a French-born composer who spent the greater part of his career in the United States.
Background
Edgard Varese was born in Paris to Henri Varese and Blanche-Marie Cortot on 22 December 1883. Due to certain domestic difficulties, his parents sent him to live with his maternal relatives in a small town in the Burgundy region of France. There he became very close to his grandfather, Claude Cortot. As a child he never bonded with his parents and had a hostile relationship with them.
Education
When he was ten, his parents reclaimed him and relocated to Italy. There he had his first musical lessons and soon composed his first opera. However, his father, an engineer himself, didn’t approve of Edgard’s interest in music. He sent the boy to the Polytechnic University of Turin to earn a degree in engineering.
Career
Edgard Varese chose not to pursue engineering as a career and ventured into music. He moved to Berlin in 1907 where he met the renowned Richard Strauss and Ferruccio Busoni and was deeply influenced by them. He was also influenced by others like Roman Rolland and Hugo von Hofmannsthal, who guided as well as supported him at the same time.
The first performance of his symphonic poem ‘Bourgogne’ was held on 5 January 1911. He wrote several other compositions during this time, which sadly, were destroyed in a fire.
After being invalided out of the French army shortly after the First World War broke out, Edgard Varese moved to the US. A few years after his arrival, he conducted ‘The Grande Messe des Morts.
Soon he started working on his first composition ‘Ameriques’, which was finished in 1921, and premiered by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1926. This was followed by ‘Offrandes’, ‘Octandre’, ‘Arcana’ and others. He became well-known for his unconventional use of instruments as well as for his new concept of music.
He founded the International Composers’ Guild in 1921, and dedicated it to the performances of new compositions of both American and European composers. During his visit to Berlin in 1922, he founded a similar German organization, with Feruccio Busoni.
Varese returned to Paris in 1928, to make some alterations in his work ‘Ameriques. ’ Two years later, he composed ‘Ionisation’ which became one of the first concert hall compositions featuring solely percussion instruments. It also explored the possibility of new sounds as well as methods in music.
He was often criticized for his anti-Semitic and racist views. When he was asked about including jazz in his orchestra, he expressed disinterest in it, and said that not only was it not American, but it was something invented by the Negros, and exploited by the Jews.
After several other successful compositions like ‘Ecuatorial’ which was created for instruments like two fingerboard theremin, bass, winds and percussion, he went back to the United States in 1934.
Two years later, he wrote ‘Density 21. 5’, which was composed at the request of George Barrere, for the premiere of his platinum flute.
Even though Varese achieved success and gained quite a lot of fame in his lifetime, some of his works were left unfinished. He had been working on many projects, which he felt would change his life and destiny. However, some of these works were destroyed forever, and he was never able to complete them.
One of them was a stage work, which was originally titled ‘The One-All-Alone’, and was based on North American Indian legends. Though the work would probably have turned out to be an instant success, it never saw the light. Another choral symphony titled ‘Espace’ was expected to be sung by choirs at Paris. However, it was left unperformed because of some mistakes he had made himself.
Quotations:
"I don't want to write any more for the old Man-power instruments and am handicapped by the lack of adequate electrical instruments for which I now conceive my music. "
"A man is culpable in the eyes of society when he escapes from the jurisdiction of its mediocrity. "
"I do not write experimental music. My experimenting is done before I make the music. Afterwards it is the listener who must experiment. "
"There is an idea, the basis of an internal structure, expanded and split into different shapes or groups of sound constantly changing in shape, direction, and speed, attracted and repulsed by various forces. "
"Music, which should pulsate with life, needs new means of expression, and science alone can infuse it with youthful vigor. "
"I dream of instruments obedient to my thought and which with their contribution of a whole new world of unsuspected sounds, will lend themselves to the exigencies of my inner rhythm. "
Connections
Edgard Varese married the actress Suzanne Bing in 1907 and had a daughter with her. Their marriage didn’t last long and they divorced in 1913.
Later, in the US, he met Louise McCutcheon whom he eventually married.