The Waltz VII: The Waltz Heads East

As Dvorak's interest in the form tells us, the Slavs certainly took to the waltz, generally speaking. It's right to speak generally because a composer like Smetana didn't concern himself (as far as I can see) with the waltz at all, preferring more specifically Czech forms of dance. 

Mikhail Glinka set the ball rolling in Russia, as he so often did. His Valse-Fantasie in B major of 1856 is one of his best orchestral pieces and has a very Russian-sounding main melody allied to the traditional rhythms of the Central European waltz and to more general-sounding waltz tunes. 

You can hear the origins of certain strains of Tchaikovsky's music in Glinka's Valse-Fantasie. Besides the great symphonic waltzes described in an earlier post, Tchaikovsky's output is full of delicious waltzes, making him one of the greatest of all waltz kings. His first surviving work was a waltz - the Anastasie-Valse of 1854. The rest of his output for piano brings such things as the Valse caprice, Op.4, the Valse-Scherzo No.1, Op.7, the Valse in A flat major, Op.40/8 (played in the link by Rachmaninov no less) and the Valse in F sharp minor, Op.40/9, the Valse from Album for the Young, Op.39, the Valse de salon Op.51/1 and Valse sentimentale, Op.51/6, not to mention the Valse bluette, Op.72/11, the Valse à cinq temps, Op.72/16 and December from The Seasons. You will almost certain also enjoy the Valse-Scherzo, Op.34 for violin and orchestra from 1877. I think it's fair to s, ay that none of these waltzes quite matches the delights provided by the second movement of the much-loved Serenade for Strings, Op.48. The second movement of the Second Orchestral Suite, Op.53 and the second movement of the Third Orchestral Suite, Op.55 are both (in their different ways) enchanting, and the Second Act of his masterly opera Eugene Onegin contains a waltz straight out of the composer's top drawer. Of course, the three great ballets give us some of Tchaikovsky's finest waltzes - and what waltzes they are! From Swan Lake comes this from Act I and this from Act II. From Sleeping Beauty comes the Garland Waltz. Finally, from The Nutcracker comes the Waltz of the Flowers and the Waltz of the Snowflakes. Everyone loves the Waltz of the Flowers but many a critic has a real downer on the Waltz of the Snowflakes. I've seen it described as "gormless". Call me a man of bad taste, but I've always had a real soft spot for it. All together now: "AH, AH, ah-ah, AH"!

A composer sometimes maligned (or, in some works, fairly described) as producing 'watered-down Tchaikovsky', Anton Arensky, produced one of the best of all Russian waltzes - the Valse from his Suite No.1, Op.15 for two pianos - a number that combines considerable brilliance of technique and elegance of invention with a first-rate tune, which comes around and is decorated and dissolved again and again. 

Alexander Glazunov's Concert Waltz No.1 has more than a little of Tchaikovsky's waltzing spirit about it and, unsurprising, this beautifully-scored and melodically enticing slice of Tchaikovsky-style orchestral writing has become one of its composer's most played pieces. One success is, understandably, likely to make a composer try again and hope for a second success. His Concert Waltz No.2 isn't really in the same league as its predecessor but it is far from unattractive.  His loveable ballet The Seasons contains another endearing waltz, the Waltz of the Cornflowers and Poppies, and his other popular ballet, Raymonda, contains waltzes like the Valse fantastique and the Grand Waltz.

I'm saving one the best of Sergei Rachmaninov's waltz-inspired pieces for another post, but there are other gems from his pen that will slot in nicely here. There's a charming Valse and Romance for six hands (piano) from 1890-1, the Valse from the solo Morceaux de salon, Op.10 the excellent Valse from the Six Morceaux, Op.11 for piano duet and the Valse from the Suite No.2, Op.17.

Yes, the Russians write good waltzes. That was to continue into the Twentieth Century, though two of its most pioneering figures weren't really waltz kings.

Alexander Scriabin pretty much began composing by writing waltzes. His Valse in F minor, Op.1 was composed at the age of 13. He didn't sustain that interest, however, and later efforts, like the Waltz in A flat major, Op.38, though entertaining, seems out-of-place and old-fashioned in the context of everything else he was writing at that time.

We've already encountered Igor Stravinsky's Lanner appropriations for his Petruskha waltz. His other waltzes are similarly distanced in tone, such as the Waltz (beginning at 1.46) from The Soldier's Tale, the deliciously mechanical-sounding yet wacky Waltz (beginning at 1.31) from the Three Easy Pieces (a little gem) and the somewhat similar Valse pour les enfants.

The lack of Romanticism in Stravinsky's waltzes is hardly surprising. Shostakovich's waltzes are hardly likely to sound like Glazunov either, though they are bound to be a bit warmer. We've already met his less than straight symphonic take on the waltz and now it's time to introduce his popular waltzes from the feel-good Jazz Suites. If you click on any on the following numbers it will bear you hot-foot to a Shostakovich waltz - one of which is particularly well-loved. (How teasing of me!): 1, 2, 3, 4. The first three are somewhat cut from the same cloth, aren't they? It's a cloth it's fun to have pieces cut from though! The charm of the fourth is rather different, and it leads me on to the Waltz-Scherzo from The Bolt via the Ballet Suites - a top-notch piece of light music that does seem to have a little Tchaikovsky (and something of Petrushka) about it. If you don't know this Waltz-Scherzo, I strongly recommend it to you. It might make your day. The other waltzes from the Ballet Suites are the Waltz from The Human Comedy and the Waltz from The Limpid Stream. Such enjoyable music! (The complete Jazz and Ballet Suites can be relished here - and should be, if you want to give yourself an hour or so of non-stop fun).

Prokofiev's waltzes are just as tasty. Who could resist Since We Met from War and Peace? Prokofiev arranged the same number for piano, here played by Richter. Fabulous in either version. Another waltz from the opera may be enjoyed here and more Richter, this time playing the Grand Waltz from the ballet Cinderella, really ought to be listened to here. The utterly magical orchestral version of this waltz is available here - music so good it brings a lump to my throat. This version even has a slow introduction to match any by the Strausses for sheer enchantment. This is one of my favourite pieces of music. The other waltz from Cinderella brings another glorious tune.  As these four waltzes (in their various incarnations) demonstrate, Prokofiev is one of the supreme masters of waltz. Less familiar - and less special - are the two Pushkin waltzes, written to mark the poet's 150th anniversary in 1949. Less special, but still likeable. There's one more waltz-gem by Prokofiev but, as with that special piece by Rachmaninov, I want to save it for another post.

Alfred Schnittke wrote music for a TV programme called The Waltz. I've no knowledge as to whether the programme was about the waltz or not, though the movements (1.Building plot, 2.Coach, 3.Factory & 4.Vovka) suggest possibly not. You'll recognise a borrowed tune from a certain Viennese waltz composer (now who could that be?) though. The score is rather dream-like (nightmarish at times). It seems to be written in much the same spirit as Rodion Shchedrin's contemporary Carmen Suite. It's a fascinating find. Mysterious and sinister waltzes about in Schnittke's music - numbers like the waltz from The Story of an Unknown Actor (like a creepy take on a Shostakovich 'jazz'-waltz) or the rather obsessive waltz from Clowns and Children or the grotesque waltzes The Portrait and The Ball from the Gogol Suite. Aren't they all excellent? The Tempo di Valse movement from his great Piano Quintet offers another of these hallucinatory visions...

....and it's to the sinister side of the waltz that I will be turning next. Do you smell the sulphur yet?

Stravinsky and the Muses

Stravinsky's neo-Classical ballet Apollo has a very attractive and individual soundworld - melodies worthy of Tchaikovsky or Delibes dressed in the string sonorities of the orchestras of Haydn and Mozart and spiced with the unique harmonies of Igor Stravinsky. It's one of my favourites Stravinsky works and, if you don't know it, I hope you will give it a try.

The 'Prologue: The Birth of Apollo' is a particularly enjoyable passage. Appropriating the form of a French Overture, right down to the stately dotted rhythms and the lithe Allegro, it begins ever so gracefully - those Baroque-sounding trills! -, gently climbing, falling away deliciously after an exquisite modulation, before presenting its main theme - an enchanting melody that I'm sure Tchaikovsky himself would have been proud to have written. Being Stravinsky, this tune is presented chastely over a semi-detached accompaniment. The Allegro is spry and springs upon us more beautiful tunes amidst athletic figures based on arpeggios and scales. (This seems to have been something of the spirit that Michael Tippett was to try and capture after the end of the war). It climaxes in a wonderful passage of cross-rhythms before the enchanting main theme sings out again. The final chord (as so often with Stravinsky) is magical. 

'Variation of Apollo (Apollo and the Muses)' is pure chamber music - though chamber music to be danced to! It begins with a beautiful Bach-like violin solo before the three Muses join the dances and the movement begins to sing winningly over a pizzicato accompaniment. 

The 'Pas d'action' is another favourite bit of Stravinsky for me, boasting another absolutely gorgeous main theme, again presented over a de-romanticising accompaniment but, countering this, joined by a counter-melody based entirely on triadic arpeggios. Later it sings again, even more warmly accompanied by a Tchaikovsky-style figure on cellos and later still a solo viola takes on the song's burden. So beautiful!

The 'Variation of Calliope (the Alexandrine)' is built on a particular rhythm but is so charming that you may not even notice - especially its Delibes-like second half where a warm cello solo sings amidst graceful balletic gestures.

The 'Variation of Polyhymnia' is lively and utterly endearing, somewhat Mozart-like in its unison gestures yet, again, Delibes-like in the springy writing of the main section.

The 'Variation of Terpsichore' may win over Apollo but I would have chosen one of the other two Muses, as this movement appeals to me least!

The second 'Variation of Apollo' is a captivating movement with rich, succulent 'ripieno' writing contrasting with lovely 'concertino' writing.

The heart truly belongs though to the ravishing 'Pas de deux (Apollo and Terpsichore)' where Stravinsky creates something that manages miraculously to evoke Tchaikovsky and Delibes at their most magical while remaining wholly Stravinskyan. Take its harmonies. The sound - in part because they are - romantic and diatonic but they are also touched throughout by palette-cleansing dissonance - the kind of dissonance that barely registers as being dissonance. I'd say it's the loveliest thing he ever wrote. 

The 'Coda (Apollo and the Muses)' is delightful, bringing in a lighter-hearted element and jazz. It doesn't sound like Poulenc but it's not far from his spirit, exulting in syncopations and hinting at light music as it does whilst sticking with Classical models.

The loveable ballet ends with the 'Apotheosis' of Apollo, a slow movement which brings back the enchanting main theme of the 'Prologue', rocking it gently like a lullaby. The harmonies throughout are wonderful and the ending is as beautiful as can be.

'Apollo' certainly earns his place in the pantheon!

Elegies

One of Edward Elgar's loveliest pieces is his Elegy for Strings, Op.58. Written in memory of his close friend and publisher August Jaeger, it feels like (and is) a very personal piece. It doesn't gush but contents itself with mourning in a dignified way, striking a peaceful tone. In its use of poignant suspensions and its harmonic fluidity, it inhabits a world that is quite close in spirit to the Mahler of the Adagietto or the young Schoenberg of Verklärte Nacht - though it's considerably shorter than either. The opening of Elgar's little masterpiece consists of a sequence of tender chords on upper strings falling against a funereal pizzicato accompaniment from the cellos and basses. It's a beautiful beginning. Then the violins sing the gorgeous 'cantabile' melody - a melody that doesn't sob but sighs (and makes me sigh too). 

The Elegy wasn't, of course, the only piece Jaeger inspired. He was also famously the inspiration behind Nimrod from the Enigma Variations. We have a lot to thank him for.

I love Romantic elegies and one I feel particularly passionate about is Tchaikovsky's Elegy in memory of Ivan Samarin - one of his finest pieces, for all its unfamiliarity. Like the Elgar, it has a main melody of exceptional beauty, is written with great imagination for a string orchestra and strikes a dignified, peaceful tone (for the most part). It also makes poignant yet heart-easing use of harmonic suspensions. The central passage is more anguished, shuddering with grief. That there is no comparable outburst in Elgar's piece might be thought to say a good deal about the characters of their respective composers and perhaps also about the cultures of their respective countries at the time - except for the surprising and inconvenient fact that this piece did not begin as an elegy. It was written as a 'grateful greeting' to Samarin, an actor, on the occasion of his 50th birthday. Only after Samarin's death did Tchaikovsky re-christen it as 'Elegy'. 

So, Tchaikovsky wasn't channelling feelings of grief and loss when he first wrote it (however sincere and heartfelt it sounds) and this outburst might much more accurately be seen as an example of its composer's dramatic genius. Note also how the coda brings in major-key harmony as a gesture of hope. Tchaikovsky didn't help himself with some of his his own pronouncements - such as saying that he wept while writing the finale of the Pathetique Symphony, even while all the other evidence from the time of writing shows him to have been generally cheerful at the time - and that has distorted how many people think of the composer. From all my reading about him, I'd say he was far less heart-on-sleeve than many people think and what people might take to be him emoting is much better seen as him writing music that evokes emotion. If great authors and playwrights can do that, why can't great composers?

Moving away from the Romantics, Igor Stravinsky, that other great Russian composer, wrote several elegiac works, ranging from the masterly Symphonies of Wind Instruments following the death of Debussy to the considerably less masterly Elegy for JFK. Few composers chose to be less heart-on-sleeve than Stravinsky, yet do you not find his 1944 Elegy for solo viola touching? It was composed in memory of Alphonse Onnou, founder of the Pro Arte Quartet. It's in ternary (three-part form) with a two-part invention as its outer panels and a fugue at its centre. The two-part invention sets two lines of melody in intimate counterpoint - one a lament that strikes a strong note of Russian chant, the other a tender tune based around tonic triads. The fugue is also in two parts (unlike most fugues). The solo viola plays suitably muted throughout. Sometimes consonant, sometimes dissonant, the harmony is pleasingly unpredictable. Formally perfect it may be, but its emotional impact is strong too. Or at least I find it so. 

Canons to the left of them, Canons to the right of them

A few years ago, BBC Radio 3 broadcast 'A Bach Christmas', playing all the works of old Sebastian, and having enjoyed a feast of counterpoint I thought I might surprise the family with a little canon based on Bach tunes. They're not really into classical music (to put it mildly), but as I recorded it using the 'Bells' sound on our electric organ, it sounded very festive - like having our own cathedral to ring in the new year. It grabbed their attention for at least a couple of minutes. Yes, that was one wild new year!

I love trying to write canons but, no, I'm not going to share them with you. Instead, I want to try to give a short overview of what canons are.

You'll certainly all know what canons are anyhow (if you don't already know) if I tell you that they're also called 'rounds' (or 'catches') and you may have sung them at school. Popular examples are Frère Jacques, Row, Row, Row Your Boat and Three Blind Mice. 

A round is a piece of music where one voice (or instrument) begins the tune and two or more other voices (or instruments) join it later, singing the same tune, note for note, overlapping the first voice. The result is that different phrases of the tune are sung simultaneously. The result should sound harmonious. 

This definition (my own) of a round can serve just as well as the definition of a canon, as the round is only the simplest form of canon, known as a canon at the unison - that is when the second voice (and then the third voice and the fourth voice, etc) begins the tune on exactly the same note as the first voice. A canon at the octave is very nearly the same thing (and will sound pretty much identical to the listener, especially when a mixed choir is singing), except that the second voice begins...and I think you might guess where I'm going with this one...an octave higher. All my attempts so far have been canons at the unison or octave. 

The first-ever (known) piece of counterpoint was a canon at the unison: Sumer Is Icumen In (Summer is here!), dating from around 1260. Even if you don't read music, comparing the shapes of each of the lines in the score below should give you a good idea of how a canon at the unison looks on the page, and perhaps how it might work in practice:

With Sumer Is Icumen In, it's not very difficult to hear the process in action. Even the accompanying figure (which you can see beginning in the tenor part at the end of printed score) doesn't distract the ear. 

That's not always the case. A well-known later example of a canon at the octave is the eight piece, God grant with grace, in Tudor composer Thomas Tallis's extremely beautiful Nine Psalm Tunes for Archbishop Parker's Psalter, a piece known as Tallis's Canon, or as the hymn Glory to thee, my God, this night. Here the soprano follows four beats behind the tenor and begins an octave higher. The other two voices do their own thing, though occasionally echoing parts of the canon. Whether you listen from 6.10 in this video or 6.07 in this one or 6.08 in this one, can you hear the canon being sung between the tenor and soprano? I'm afraid I just seem unable to hear the piece as anything other than a soprano tune accompanied by three other voices providing harmony. For me, the tenor's tune gets lost in the lines and harmony of his two non-soprano companions. I can see the canon in the score but can't hear it in performance. Possibly if some performances brought out the tenor part out more (got Placido Domingo to sing it maybe!) then I might hear the process of Tallis's canon in action, but I'm not so sure about that. 

You can have canons at any interval - at the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, etc. Pachebel's Canon, if you were wondering, is a canon at the unison, with a ground bass for accompaniment: 

Canons are fun for composers. They are a bit like doing crossword puzzles or playing chess. They take a great deal of ingenuity to pull off. Many composers want us listeners to share their pleasure in the ingenuity of their canons. They want us to hear what they're up to. We listeners can indeed find it highly satisfying to follow the different voices as they imitate each other. However, some composers are far less concerned that the listener hears the canonic process. They might even wish us not to notice the intellectual scaffolding beneath their music. Or they might care only to please themselves, or connoisseurs of scores, or performers. The anonymous composer of Sumer Is Icumen In clearly fell in the first camp, and I suspect Tallis fell in the second camp.

Where does Webern fall with his Dormi Jesu from the 5 Canons on Latin Texts, Op.16? Well, he's not exactly hiding the fact that his pieces are all canons, having chosen that title for the set. This particular tiny little piece for soprano and clarinet, however, is an example of a type of canon that is rather hard for the listener to follow as a canon - canon by inversion. Here any rising interval in the first voice becomes a falling interval in the second voice - an instance of contrary motion. It's easiest heard at the very start of Dormi Jesu, where the first four notes played by the clarinet rise through three intervals and the soprano then enters with four notes falling through the same three intervals, upside down. Thereafter I suspect you will find it harder to follow (as a listener), given the wide leaps in the two lines and the fact that you will probably hear the two parts as being completely different melodies.

Even harder not to hear as two completely different melodies is the retrograde canon, or crab-canon, or cancrizans. Here the second voice imitates the first voice by simultaneously singing/playing the melody backwards. The ear is, I would say, incapable of hearing the second voice's part as a new tune altogether, unrelated to the original tune - except to anyone reading a score. With a crab-canon, the composer is satisfying himself and score-reading scholars, but not his listeners - at least as regards the satisfaction given by following canons. Obviously, the piece can still delight us even if we don't know that there are canons at work. (That really is obvious!) This truly excellent YouTube video gives a very clear demonstration of the cancrizans at work in a movement from Bach's Musical Offering.

And there's more. Stravinsky wrote a deeply expressive Double Canon, where two canons on different themes proceed simultaneously. You can have triple canons, or as many canons going on as you like. The great American-born maverick Conlon Nancarrow had twelve of them going on in his jaw-dropping Study No.37 for player piano! Plus, as the Nancarrow example shows, canons can be played at different speeds. There are prolation canons where the tune is, indeed, played at different speeds in different voices. A beautiful recent example is Arvo Pärt's Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten. where an A minor scale falls repeatedly against itself at various speeds.

Canons have been with us since around 1260 then and continued to flourish for the rest of the Medieval period. They were very popular with the Renaissance and the Baroque. After a very short dip they rose again with the Classical era. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven all wrote them. Many were jokes, such as Beethoven's delightful Ta ta ta, lieber Mälzel (the tune of which might well remind you of this). One of Beethoven's most wonderful creations, the quartet Mir ist so wunderbar from the opera Fidelio, is also a canon. YouTube has huge numbers of these fantastic little chips from Beethoven's workshop here. Canons lasted even through the Romantic era, where they tended to become far less strict and were usually accompanied examples, such as this gem from Schumann, his Study No.4 from Op.56. Brahms was their greatest Romantic exponent, using canons in many of his works and writing a fair few stand-alone ones, such as this magical specimen, Einförmig is der Liebe Gram, based on Schubert's Der Leiermann from Die Winterreise. With the coming of the Twentieth Century, canons of the stricter and unaccompanied kind came back with a vengeance. All manner of composers relished them, from Schoenberg (you should enjoy these!) to Stravinsky (see above), from Pärt (also see above) to Ligeti (not yet on YouTube). 

In other words, they've always been loved by composers and are one of the most durable musical forms.  Long may that continue to be so!