Saint Nicolas? Oh, you mean SANTA CLAUS!

He’s the patron saint of materialism, putting chocolate in shoes, and giving cheap plastic toys to undeserving brats … right?

 St. Nicolas is one bad-ass saint; the legends about him range from the mildly interesting to the outrageous. The legend from which Santa Claus comes originated as Nicolas giving a poor man coins to pay for his daughters’ dowry, thus preventing them from being forced into prostitution; in order to be discreet, Nicolas tossed the purses through a window and into the man’s house at nighttime. It is also said that he punched the leader of the Arian heresy at the council of Nicaea (a meeting where the early Christians sought to clearly define their faith, resulting in the Nicene creed). Just your typical meeting of bishops, ending in a brawl, that’s all. And then, the greatest legend of them all … the pickled boys.

There’s a famine throughout the land – everyone is hungry. A desperate cook kills three boys, butchers them, and pickles their flesh. Nicolas shows up in town, and the people offer him some tasty meat. Nicolas, in a vision, realizes what is being served – he stops the feast immediately. He calls to the barrels containing the pickled boy flesh, and the meat comes back together and becomes three boys again. Naturally, the resurrected boys begin to sing the praises of God.

Benjamin Britten wrote a cantata based on the legends of Nicolas in 1948. He could have ignored  these impossible-to-believe legends and produced a work of religious piety. Instead, Britten sets the legends in a fun way which pokes fun at the exaggerated medieval stories and the difficulties of modern faith. The result is in a marvelous work which is both pious and frivolous, serious and fun, sincere and goofy.

We humans like to organize, categorize, and label things. This is usually a good thing. Organizing food into specific groups (meat, vegetables, grains, etc.) helps to prepare our tongues for what we are about to eat. Labelling a piece as “French Baroque” helps us know what sort of sounds we will be hearing. On the other hand, it takes no stretch of the imagination to see how social categorization of human beings can cause huge damage.

So, what about the word “modern“? Does it mean turn-of-the-20th-century, or just current/contemporary? When exactly was (or is) “modern music” written? Is it an intellectual concept rather than a time period? Or perhaps it’s just coded talk for “ugly”? I offer no answers here – the best I can do is point out that the context of the conversation changes how we use the word.

I’m imagining your average high school or college level music appreciation class. The time comes for the 20th century – “modern music”! Without a doubt, the Rite of Spring is played, and enthusiastic discussion ensues. If it’s a high school class, the performance is probably accompanied by the dancing dinos of Fantasia, while college students get to hear stories of riots, orgies, human sacrifice. What ends up happening is that the Rite ends up becoming the piece that defines what modern music is supposed to sound like. Later, when these students hear Stravinsky‘s later works (labelled “neoclassical” and “serial“), they are shocked that it sounds so completely different.

There might have been a riot at the premiere of the Rite, but not because of the ground-breaking modern sound. Five years before, Arnold Schoenberg (who, as a Jew, was labelled by the Nazis as “degenerate”) wrote his Five Pieces for Orchestra. Knowing this piece came first, the Rite almost seems like a step backwards toward romanticism. Fifty years later, Pierre Boulez would label Schoenberg as not modern enough.

Be careful with labels.

This is just the first movement. Listen to the full 5 pieces here.

On this day in 1851, Moby Dick was published in the US. It is one of the greatest books ever written – highly recommended reading! First, you learn that all sailors are lunatics. Then, you’ll learn all sorts of useless whale facts as you crawl through chapters of classification and lore. Lastly, you get to endure tens of thousands of words devoted to the slow mental deterioration of an already bonkers-crazy ship captain. (Joking aside, it is a truly marvelous work.)

George Crumb is an American composer whom I deeply admire for his ability to be avant-garde without being off-the-deep-end. He uses all sorts of unorthodox instruments (e.g. toy pianos, tape loops, electronic effects) and extended techniques (i.e. using an instrument in a non-traditional way, like singing into a flute or bowing on the wrong side of a violin bridge) in his music. Many composers have done this, but most fail at making music, and instead make something more akin to organized noise (if you like organized noise, that’s fine. I don’t. When I want to listen to organized noise, I turn on my washing machine.) Crumb, on the other hand, makes music – it is otherworldly, but often astoundingly beautiful.

Among his more famous works is Vox Balaenae, or voice of the whale. On one hand, it’s exactly what you might think – weird underwater “moos” like Dory does in Finding Nemo. But once you get past that, it’s oddly pleasing, calming, and brilliant. The entire work lasts 20 minutes, and is for masked performers (seriously) playing flute, cello, and piano. This video is the beginning of the piece, a flute solo with a little piano to set the mood – both using a lot of extended techniques!

And, unlike Moby Dick, you don’t have to invest hours into it before deciding you don’t like it and quitting. (Joking aside, it is a truly marvelous work.)