Everyone seems to want a piece of May 1st. Is it just about spring, or is it a religious festival, or day to celebrate the labor movement?

It’s a bit confusing, but then again, so is the Second Symphony of Dimitri Shostakovich. Written when the composer was barely 21 (which means, as a Russian, he was had been drinking vodka legally for only 9 years), it portrays the story of the October Revolution – not about May, but about the Soviet revolution, and therefore the labor movement. Shotakovich himself was a bit confusing, too, since he started his career as the Bolshevik poster boy, then he was shunned by the Soviets, then he was loved again, then he was hated again. Then he joined the communist party. Whatever, I’m confused; but so were audiences when the Second Symphony was first performed. The Russian laborers were baffled by the modernist, murmuring beginning that was void of any traditional melody or harmony – but were moved by the rousing revolutionary chorus that concludes the piece. Meanwhile, western European audiences loved the progressive beginning part, but were turned off by the cheesy revolutionary chorus.

Now I’m completely confused. I’m going to go back to circling a Maypole.

Rainbows! (did you expect something else?)

American composer Christopher Theofanidis‘ best known work is Rainbow Body. Its title comes from Buddhism, when an enlightened soul becomes one with the universe at death.

What I find important about this piece (as well as much of Michael Daugherty‘s works) is its blatant dismissal of the Art Musical styles that dominated the latter half of the 20th century. Gone are the games of playing with dice to write music, number grids and matrixes, electronic beeps and farts; these pseudo-intellectual approaches to composition had slowly eroded away the Art Music audience by the late 70’s.

Rainbow Body shows a real attempt to reconnect with audiences who had become suspicious of modern music (it’s Copland-esque at times), but also has some neat effects which mark it as new and forward looking.

Oh man, there are soooooo many good Viola jokes. How many, you ask? So many, that Wikipedia has a an entry for “Viola Jokes“.

The viola is definitely the black sheep of the string family. Essentially, it’s an oversized violin – but it’s out of proportion to the violin and the cello – the body is larger than the violin, but the neck isn’t proportionally longer, and so the strings aren’t as tense as the violin or cello, giving it a sound distinct from its family members (a subtle difference, but it’s there.) Historically, violinists who couldn’t cut it on the violin were “demoted” to viola, which tended to have boring, easier parts to play.

But that was soooooo 1700. Nowadays, violists might still be the black sheep, but they can play just as well as their violin/cello counterparts, and have even managed to score a handful of pieces specifically for their instrument. Carl Maria von Weber was attracted to the dark, muted timbre of the instrument, and churned out this little two-movement Hungarian dance for the instrument.