Today I leave for a much-needed vacation. I intend to continue this blog while away because it is a big source of joy in my life. But there’s also a chance that I’ll have no internet access … and if that’s the case, there will be one of these:

There’s a great classical music story about the need for vacation. Back in the 18th century, Art Musicians were essentially servants to the aristocracy. You found yourself a royal patron, and you did whatever he said. When the king says, “write me music for a fireworks party I’m throwing,” you wrote music for the royal fireworks. When the king asks you to improvise a fugue on his own five-note theme, you write the most complicated, amazing music ever composed (accompanied by copious amounts of royal-ass-kissing.)

And when the prince demands you stay at his summer-house much longer than expected, even though you’re exhausted and dying to travel back home and see your family whom you haven’t seen in weeks … well, you have to stay and continue to play for the prince. Franz Joseph Haydn‘s “Farewell” Symphony was written under these circumstances – and only someone as awesome as Haydn could get away with this level of cheekiness. His musicians appealed to him for help – “maestro, please, we need a vacation!” Haydn wrote a symphony in which the musicians leave the stage, one by one, until at last, only two players remain. The message was clear, and the very next day, the prince let the musicians go home.

You might have had this discussion with a number of friends – if you could transport yourself to a different era, which would you choose? Which would you avoid? It’s all a game, but good party conversation.

I’m drawn to the explosion of musical achievement in the mid-to-late 19th century – the blossoming of German opera, the evolution of the tone poem. I’d stay away from the Enlightenment. And then there’s the 1910’s, leading up to the outbreak of World War I. I wish I could watch the events of that decade from a safe spot – sort of like watching a shark’s feeding frenzy from a steel cage. It’s completely fascinating, and equally scary.

The world had become modern and much more complex. Romantic sensibilities were shunned. The individual as a hero with a purpose was traded for the absurdity of existence in an human insect-hive. Would any of the “old ways” be relevant in the 20th century?

In the same way that militaries were rushing to be technologically one-step ahead of their enemies, artists were pushing boundaries to the extreme. The term avant-garde means just this – the “advance soldiers” who are doing the riskiest work, but with the greatest promise of reward (if they are successful).

The Austrian musical military was the Second Viennese School, who had created a new musical technology which was years ahead of France and Italy (and decades ahead of England, Russia, and the US). To oversimplify, the old tried-and-true approach to tonality was abandoned, and a new system of organization put into place. If you’ve never heard atonal music before, you might find it difficult to listen to – but if you are able to approach it with an open mind, you might find it quite beautiful, but in very different ways from tonal music. (side note – today’s piece is pretty tame as far as atonality goes …)

Alban Berg (arguably the best composer of the Second Viennese School, though not as famous its founder, Arnold Schoenberg) wrote a set of songs for orchestra and voice in 1911 (the same year as the Rite of Spring). When they were premiered, the audience began to riot – but this was fairly normal for this decade (again, see the Rite.) I would love to have been there – but inside inside a steel cage with bullet-proof glass, of course.

Gustav Mahler was a composer of superlatives. Why have one hundred musicians on stage when you could have one thousand? His Fifth Symphony‘s famous slow movement, Adagietto (meaning “just a little slow”) has a tempo marking of Sehr Langsam (meaning “very slow”).

Teasing aside, the music is marvelous and it’s easy to hear why it is his most played piece. There’s a touching story that this was a love-song he composed for his new wife. Mahler wrote this poem for her, and attached it to this movement:

“How much I love you, my sun, I cannot say to you in words.
Only through my lamenting can I show my longing and love.”

Musically, it’s a very slow lyrical song, played by the warm sound of the strings playing very slowly; the harp provides a sense of rhythm and motion through its arpeggios. The sense of longing comes through as practically every phrase is ripe with instances where you expect a certain note at a certain time, but are denied that expectation for an extra beat or two.*** And at a slow tempo, the wait for the musical fulfillment can be painful – that kind of wonderful pain of wishing yourself in your lover’s arms.

*** need a specific example? Right at the beginning – you’ll hear the violin melody come in at 0:10. It plays sol – la – ti – do … a simple musical idea that most anybody will recognize and know (think the theme song of the Adams Family, just very very slow.) You expect to hear the final note “do” at 0:15 … but you are denied that pleasure until 0:18. It’s only 3 seconds, but practically every phrase in the piece uses this compositional trick. And there’s even a marvelous 7-8 suspension at 0:58.