The Fine Art of Listening

Halloween is coming! Time for some spooky music,

There are so many great works of Art Music that are frightening that I had to schedule some of them throughout the year just to make sure we get them all. So before we begin our countdown to Halloween, you might want to check out some of the other pieces that fit the holiday:

• a song about dead children
• a classic morose song of death
• ride of the valkyries, of course
• more morose death, this time of a maiden
• vampire music
• this spooky dance
• everyone’s favorite funeral march
• an Italian thunderstorm
• the song of the Elf King
• a night on bald mountain, of course
• music for beheading people
• a journey to the underworld
• another journey to the underworld, except this one is a happy, fun underworld
• some more moroseness
• a reminder that you will die someday
• ghost pirates! Need I say more?
• weighty moroseness

Well, now that we have that out of the way, let’s continue with the countdown to Halloween!

Let’s go straight into the Wolf’s Glen. This truly frightening opera scene comes from Der Freischütz, an opera by Carl Maria von Weber. Weber is credited with making German Opera a unique genre through this work. Featuring the supernatural, gods and goddesses, mythology, monsters, and magic, this genre was great for the musical imaginations of composers; you can draw a line from their influence all the way from Der Freischütz (1821) to the most recent Star Wars (2015).

To sum up this opera scene: A guy needs to “win” a girl (sorry, I know that’s sexist) by proving himself as an expert marksman. A cursed man convinces him to use magical bullets to prove his shooting abilities (naturally, this means that he would have to sell his soul to the devil, but men will do these things when they want to win a girl). And how does one acquire magic bullets? You go into the Wolf’s Glen at midnight and call upon the demon hunter. Of course.

Note: early German Operas were not unlike broadway plays – there was spoken dialogue between musical pieces. The speaking eventually disappeared in the genre, but you’ll hear it in the recording below.

I’m ending this year’s Jewish High Holy Days with a meditative, minimalist work from a unique source.

John Zorn is … interesting. He might be the most eclectic musician ever. On one hand, he writes instrumental metal. And, he has a sense of humor, as can be seen by his song and album titles, which include Lovecraftian Lore and Jewish puns. He also wrote film scores, plays jazz, and composes concert music.

Kol Niedre is the declaration of Yom Kippur, the day of atonement. Yesterday’s piece used this traditional Jewish melody as well, but today’s clear texture makes it much easier to hear. A low and high pitch E is sustained for practically the entire piece, breaking only in the middle for a brief hymn. The effect is timeless and mystical, simple yet profound.

The Jewish day of atonement, Yom Kippur, begins tonight at sunset.

Please read my previous blog post to learn about the brave life of Jacob Weinberg, whose work I recently discovered while seeking art music related to the Jewish High Holidays.

This piece comes from the same string quartet as my previous post; this time, we hear the second movement. Like the first movement, this one uses a traditional Jewish melody, this time based on the Kol Nidre – a declaration on the day of atonement, Yom Kippur. There is something magical about this melody and it’s short, pleading phrases, so much so that Protestant Christian composer Max Bruch wrote a concert piece for cello and orchestra based on it. But whereas Bruch simply uses a Jewish melody as the basis for a piece, Weinberg weaves the holy mysteries of the holiday into his music.