Music from 1900-1945 Listening Journal

Mary Ann Lucas

Listening Journal

Marion Bauer

While most composers around the world were steering towards serialism and atonality at the beginning of the twentieth century, Marion Bauer’s music never completely broke with the tradition of Romanticism and Impressionism. To me, her music is a style in between early twentieth-century expression and the new varied approaches to dissonance that characterized modernism in the late 1920s, especially because of the abundant textures and tainted harmonies.

The CD I chose exclusively contains Marion Bauer’s works, of which I listened to the Symphonic Suite for Strings op. 33 and the American Youth Concerto op. 36. The first of the two pieces is Bauer’s Symphonic Suite for Strings, a short three-movement, fifteen minute piece composed in 1940. While the piece is not lengthy, it does not sell itself short of making an impression on the listener. Bauer had Jewish parentage; some of her family had moved from Europe to the United States in the nineteenth century, while others stayed in Alsace, France, which was later conquered by Germany. Her family that stayed in Europe was slaughtered by the Nazis, which sets the tragic mood in her Symphonic Suite’s first movement, “Prelude.” This movement, which contains many unsettling chromatic intervals, sets the deep sense of loss for her family. Despite the discomfort, it is still beautiful music, because it is so raw with emotion. The rich string chords make the movement well-expressed and eloquent.

The second movement, “Interlude” has gorgeous textures, although the beginning sounds quite similar to the first movement. This movement possesses the same sort of despair and grief that the first movement has, yet it is not as unsettling. Towards the middle of the movement, her anger towards the Nazis manifests in the rhythmic conflict. Bauer brings us from anger back to sadness by recapitulating the melody that commenced the movement.

The “Finale,” is written in a fugue style and differs greatly from the previous movements both in style and effect. Bauer also uses various techniques such as inversion and augmentation in this movement. She carries the moods from the previous movements over, but with a larger stance and confidence. To me, the convoluted fugue in this movement demonstrates how complicated emotions can really be. The complex counterpoint relates to the feeling of chaos and uncertainty Bauer must have been feeling at the time.

Written in 1943, American Youth Concerto is approximately fifteen minutes long and was composed for the High School of Music and Art in New York. Opening the first movement with piano arpeggios and the orchestra in unison, Bauer creates a majestic and romantic disposition. The piano is extremely Rachmaninov-like, which is especially comparable to his second piano concerto. She incorporates all of the wind instruments in this movement individually to have change in timbre and texture. The movement continues with an Allegretto march, which starts out with dancing dotted rhythms from the piano. The orchestra enters in unison once more, even more majestically than the beginning, to end the piece prominently.

The second movement is a luscious Andante that has a mix of Impressionistic and bluesy harmonies implanted in the chords from the strings. This movement moved me with passion, as it is filled with romance and sadness, as if a young girl in love cannot be with the one she loves. Anyone who knows what unrequited love feels like can identify with this movement. It feels as if Bauer wants to pour her heart out, but cannot find the words to do so. The movement ends with zeal, as if she just cries to the sky with every ounce of strength she has in her.

The third movement features many styles such as the Cakewalk, a Blues and a Hoe-Down (similar to Aaron Copland’s “Hoe-Down” from Rodeo.) Bauer also adds the saxophone to create a bluesier feel. She ends the piece with a Hoe-Down, to end this American piece with gusto.

Marion Bauer’s music is definitely excellent, but I am not so sure I would add her to the Canon. It is great that she is a woman that made an impression with her music and passions, but her music is in between the styles of romanticism and early twentieth-century styles. While this may not be a main component in the reason certain pieces are in the Canon, it helps to have a certain style and genre that the piece can be put in to. I think that is why she is not in the Canon now, and probably will not be, because her music has no set style or genre. However beautiful or “cool” her music may be, it does not shout out as music that necessitates a lot of attention.

Gian Francesco Malipiero

Gian Francesco Malipiero was born to an old Venetian family in 1882, which had produced a number of famous musicians. It was his discovery and resulting love of old Italian music that was to set his life’s course in music. He was a prolific composer, who created many operas, symphonies, tone poems, choral works, concerti, ballets, piano music, songs, and chamber music. He was also a distinguished musicologist who prepared editions of the complete works of Claudio Monteverdi and Antonio Vivaldi, as well as editions of works by Cavalieri, Galuppi, Marcello, and Tartini.

For my second entry, I chose Gian Francesco Malipiero’s Vivaldiana. This work is a beautiful transcription for classical orchestra of excerpts from six different Vivaldi concertos that are gathered into three double movements, each of them subdivided by a change of tempo and disposition.

The three movements of the piece are extremely Vivaldi-like in style, harmony and rhythm. This colorful piece is about fifteen minutes long, with the movements arranged in a fast-slow-fast order. Malipiero is both dramatic and lyrical, but his lyricism has its own quality and flavor. He is also frequently more contrapuntal than homophonic; his contrapuntal writing derives its personality from the Gregorian Chant.

The first movement starts out slow and lyrical, but then shifts to be especially contrapuntal with a quicker tempo. The second movement is entirely lyrical, while the third movement is majestic and playful-especially when the oboes play. The whole piece is beautiful as a whole, but is nothing out of the ordinary for me. I wish I knew exactly which six Vivaldi concertos he chose to transcribe and put into his piece, so I could actually compare them for real. There were no books in the library or articles online that were helpful with this particular piece. However, whether or not I know which of Vivaldi’s concertos he selected, I still do not see much of a point to transcribing them, other than to put them in a different orchestra setting. Although the classical orchestra setting is pleasant, he did not change the music’s form, harmony, or rhythm. I understand how not altering these things is considered excellent, however, I do not understand how a composer can transcribe a work (or works) of another composer, and then call it his own. This is not to say that all of Malipiero’s works are not commendable, because he composed many works that are purely original. Nevertheless, I do not feel that this particular work deserves to be in the Canon, because it is not original enough to me to be recognized as a fantastic work.