Ambroise Thomas once said of Chaminade: "This is not a woman who composes, but a composer who is a woman." (C19) How exactly the world of female composers would take that remark today, I’m not sure, but it was clearly meant as a complement. It implies that, at that time, women composers in general were regarded as mere dabblers, but Chaminade was a genuine, respected, working composer of great productivity; her gender irrelevant. She is the most cited composer in lists of great woman composers and also appears in lists of most neglected composers. One could argue that, without our cultural bias, she might have landed in the top-100.
Chaminade was well-known during her lifetime, with over 400 published works to her credit. She wrote one opera, La Sévillane, an early work of which I have not yet found a recording, and several symphonic works. She is best known for her Concertino for flute and orchestra, a beloved piece among flutists. She maintained a romantic, tonal style throughout her career, which no doubt contributed to her dismissal by the musical establishment. She was in that boat with both Mahler and Rachmaninnoff. Though she lived until 1944, she composed very little after World War I. She is of the French school of Saint Saens and Gounod, but one hears a definite Wagnerian influence in her music. The beginning of the Konzertstück is strongly reminiscent of the Flying Dutchman Overture.
So her music remains a source of delight for any fan of romantic music.
Ruggero Leoncavallo could be the poster boy for the perils of writing opera. His opera Il Pagliacci was his first of eleven operas, and ironically the only one to be performed frequently today. And is it performed! It is number 9 on the Metropolitan opera most performed list, above any by Wagner or Mozart, having been performed 738 times. Il Pagliacci is a short, one-act opera, and is often paired with Mascagni’s similar Cavallaria Rusticana, which is number 10 on the Metropolitan’s list, so their rankings are largely hitched together. Each is sometimes paired with other short operas.
The story of Pagliacci is indeed lurid, what I call Carmenesque, with the lead character who ends up killing his wife. As part of the Verismo (reality, sensationalism) opera movement of the late 19th century, it has a simple, raw earthiness to it, with many catchy choruses and arias. The signature aria, Vesti la Giubba, is possibly the most famous tenor aria ever written. It has been recorded by virtually every great tenor since recording began. Il Pagliacci is indeed a masterpiece, well worthy of its popularity.
Despite that, Leoncavallo is not ranked within the top 100, though I think unfairly, given the obscurity of many who did make it. We have to bring bad luck into the picture, or more precisely bad timing. Leoncavallo’s next opera after Pagliacci was La Boheme (1897). No, that’s not a typo. Leoncavallo did write an opera of that name, just not the one we usually listen too. Unfortunately for Leoncavallo, a young composer named Giacomo Puccini came out with his version of the story just the year before. Maybe still riding high after his success with Pagliacci, Leoncavallo thought he could beat out his rival. It was not to be so. The opera world could not accommodate two operas with the same name, at least not at the same time. Puccini’s was already a hit, and arguably better than Leoncavallo’s.
Puccini followed up with two smash hits, Tosca and Madame Butterfly, and became the superstar of Italian opera, while Leoncavallo tried to play catch-up. George Bernard Shaw had declared after hearing Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, a few years before La Boheme, that “Puccini looks to me more like the heir of Verdi than any of his rivals.” Leoncavallo (as well as his contemporary, Pietro Mascagni – see below) continued to earn their living – the appetite for opera in Italy and elsewhere was huge, but his operas, except for Pagliacci, have now been virtually forgotten. Was he one of those mediocre composers who just got lucky once? I’m not sure he deserves that. His La Boheme is not bad at all, just the wrong opera at the wrong time at the wrong place. It is a little darker, more dissident, and a little more verismo than Puccini’s version, but lacked the soaring lyrical melodies of the latter. I like the musical texture, if anything, better than Puccini’s. He was also a victim of the operatic economics that continually pares down the repertoire to a handful of favorites. Several other of his operas have been recorded, and are worth exploring. Leoncavallo was unquestionably a brilliant composer.
La Boheme (Leoncavallo’s ill-timed version)
An overlooked post-Wagnerian romantic composer, Ethel Smyth had a productive career, with six operas, six string quartets, a variety of other orchestral works, songs, pieces for piano and organ, and religious music. Her opera, the Wreckers, was considered by at least one critic [1] the most important British opera between those of Purcell and those of Britten. On the side, she was a major player in the suffragette movement in England, spent time in jail, and remained a champion of women’s issues throughout her life.
Mascagni had a successful career writing operas, most of which have been neglected since his death. His single hit, Cavallaria Rusticana, is part of the standard opera repertoire, most often played as a double bill with Leoncavallo’s Il Pagliacci. Of the remaining 14, Amico Fritz and Iris are performed occasionally, more in Europe than in the U.S.
MacDowell was largely forgotten in the early 20th century’s mad dash to modernism. On the American scene, he was also eclipsed by composers like Copland, who more fully expressed American idioms. Only recently has his work been reassessed, and come into greater esteem.
His music is charming
and well worth a listen, particularly if you enjoy others from the late
romantic era, and are tired of listening to the standards over and over again.
In Disney’s Fantasia marvelous animated film Fantasia (1940), the signature segment, seemingly written for Mickey Mouse himself, was the Sorceror’s Apprentice. The segment was built upon a tone poem composed by Dukas in 1897. So was it a mediocre piece that happened to give Disney a great story idea, or did Disney recognize a great piece of music when he heard it?
His
Symphony in C, which I happened to hear on a classical music station one
day, turns out to be an interesting piece of music. If you came of age during the past 20 years
or so, you may very well have heard pieces by Dukas on the radio, for by now
music scavengers have found, performed, and recorded nearly every piece of
notable classical music in existence. Not a day goes by when I don’t hear
something by a composer I’ve never heard of before on the radio. It is a marvelous time to live in.
Several other surviving pieces have
been occasionally performed, including an opera,
a ballet, and a piano sonata. We were not mis-led by the
Sorceror’s Apprentice – this other music good as well.
Italy in the late 19th century was still largely preoccupied with opera, so the rise of a great pianist and composer at that time is remarkable. Busoni did write several operas, which are little known today (who could compete with Verdi and Puccini?), but also much piano and orchestral music, concertos, songs, and chamber music. His career mirrors more the German model than the Italian at that time. His opera, Turandot, came out 9 years before Puccini’s, ironically with a German libretto. One can guess why it disappeared from the repertoire for many years (think about Leoncavallo!).
His style was essentially post Wagnerian/Verdian romanticism, but with some atonal nuances here and there in his later career. So he is added to our growing list of overlooked late romantics who can provide hours of great listening.
I can’t help repeating Busoni’s own remarkable assessment of the nature of musical creativity, as it adds to our understanding of what makes great music great:
"Music is so constituted that
every context is a new context and should be treated as an 'exception'. The
solution of a problem, once found, cannot be reapplied to a different context.
Our art is a theatre of surprise and invention, and of the seemingly
unprepared. The spirit of music arises from the depths of our humanity and is
returned to the high regions whence it has descended on mankind." [according to Alfred Brendel 1976]
One only has to listen to a few minutes of one piece of music to totally demolish the myth of the musical incapability of women. Listen to the Gaelic Symphony by Amy Beach, written in 1896. Actually, you will have a hard time stopping after only a few minutes. It’s a beautiful, sophisticated piece in the grand late-romantic period. One hears the influence of Beethoven, Schubert, and Wagner throughout, and with the lucid orchestration of Berlioz. It is fully the equal of Franck’s one symphony, which though full of good romantic melody, is not as sophisticated in its orchestration. I first thought of Anton Bruckner when listening to it the first time, but it is more often compared with the symphonies of Rachmaninoff. It is beautiful, rich, tonal music, with no more dissonance than usual during the romantic era. To me it’s more soul-refreshing than the agonized lamentations of a Mahler symphony.
Amy Beach was highly
respected in her day. Her symphony, and a grand piano concerto from around the
same time were both premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and her Mass in
E flat major was the first by a woman ever played by the Handel and Haydn
Society. However, her large-scale works were hardly ever played during the rest of the 20th
century, shelved by the modernists who considered it old-fashioned. Mahler and Rachmaninoff were similarly treated, though continued to have a following. As a woman, Beach had two strikes against
her going forward. The third would come
from her husband.
Amy Beach was a child piano prodigy with abilities rivaling
Mozart. Her parents however, unlike Leopold Mozart, limited her public activity
as a child. After she got married, her
husband took over. Dr. Henry Beach
allowed her only one charity concert per year, and did not allow her to study
with a teacher. She was therefore
largely self-taught, and evidently did a good job of it. When her husband died
in 1910, she resumed a more active life of composing and touring on concert,
but with her symphony already collecting dust, did not attempt any more
large-scale works. Her one opera, Calbide, written in 1932, employed
folksongs and creole tunes, and was scored only for a few accompanying
instruments. It was not performed until a year after her death.
The Gaelic Symphony was Beach’s one and only symphony, and her Piano Concerto was her only work in that genre. How many of the great composers were so recognized based on just one symphony or one piano concerto? Suppose Amy Beach had been able to write the magic number of 9 symphonies? I believe we would have seen something stupendous. But she did not.
Like Brahms, Max Reger was a backward-looking composer, consciously continuing the formal traditions of not only Brahms, but also Bach and Beethoven, but with great influence from Wagner. He was adept at counterpoint, and as a writer for organ, he even employed titles that could have been straight out of Bach’s list of works. He had a prolific output for a relatively short career, with a variety of works for orchestra, piano, organ, chamber music, and voice, but no formal symphonies or operas.
Aside from studying with teachers in Frankfurt and Leipzig, it appears that Senfter lived her whole life in Oppenheim, Germany, and very little has been published about her life. She was a dedicated, prolific composer, with 134 works to her credit, including nine symphonies and concertos for piano, violin, viola, and cello. Senfter was a masterful composer of fugue.
Italians had dominated all forms of music in the Renaissance and Baroque eras, but from the classical period to the end of the Romantic Era, were largely preoccupied by opera. Opera was a lucrative form of show business, especially in Italy, throughout the 19th Century, and so symphonic music was virtually abandoned. With the death of Puccini in 1926, the Italian operatic hegemony collapsed. It did not end, but those who continued failed to achieve lasting fame or attention. Not until the appearance of Gian Carlo Menotti, several decades later, did we see an Italian name successfully associated with opera, though he worked primarily in the U.S.
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