Music and Art - "Transformations" PART FOUR (May 2009)

My friends (Michael Schultz and Chad Hudson) and I started doing what we called "Music and Art" day where we pick a theme, listen to music (my mixes), have a few cocktails, and create something on our separate 12" x 12" white canvases...

This was our third session on the theme of "Transformation" and here are our three pieces of art created on May 30, 2009:









Here is a playlist (the last of four) of the music that I put together, edited, and re-mashed for us to listened to, discuss, and be insprired by that day, along with notes and comments about each section (in yellow):

Transformations Mix No. 4
“Will Compassion Transfigure the Hero?”

(Note on the first section: This opening section acts as a prelude to the first half of this mix, hinting at Charles Ives’ Unanswered Question, Richard Straruss’ Transfigured Night, and Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis. It was at the last minute that I discovered that the Ives and the Vaughn Williams both began with an open-spaced G Major chord… The voice-overs also establish the links between the works in this mix.)

(1)

• Third Tune for Archbishop Parker's Psalter “Why fum'th in sight” — Theatre of Voices, P. Hillier
• The Unanswered Question (Ives) — Tomita
• Discussing Verklärte Nacht “Transfigured Night” — Christopher Cook (BBC Radio)
• Discussing Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis — Charles Hazlewood (BBC Radio)
• The Unanswered Question (Ives) — Orchestra of St Luke's, J. Adams
• You'll Never Walk Alone from Carousel — Orchestra of St. Luke's, P. Summers / London, E. Kohn
• Verklärte Nacht “Transfigured Night” (A. Schoenberg) — Bozen String Academy Orchestra, F. Bernius
• The Unanswered Question (Ives) — Tomita
• Discussing Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis — Charles Hazlewood (BBC Radio)
  

(Note on the next section: Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis is truly one of the great works of the 20th Century. Only through research on this mix did I learn how “modern” it was, all the while sounding so ancient.)

(2)

• Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (Vaughan Williams) — St. Louis, Slatkin

(Note on the next section: I’ve revered Wagner’s 5-hour epic Parsifal ever since I was lucky to get free tickets to a Met production in the 1990s. Many scholars believe the story -- whose characters are members of the Knight of the Holy Grail and their adversaries -- is less about religion and more about the lesson of compassion. In this part of the Prelude, the motive linked to the act of communion, the “Pain” of Amfortas motif, and “the Grail” theme -- actually an old chorale also used by Mendelssohn in the Reformation Symphony and used in many hymnals today -- are transformed and melded together.)

(3)

• Parsifal Prelude, Act I (R. Wagner) — The Hallé, M. Elder

(Note on the next section: Arnold Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night of 1899 was written for six strings in one movement and inspired by a poem by Richard Dehmel. The powerful poem is about a man and a woman walking through a dark forest on a moonlit night, wherein the woman shares a dark secret with her new lover; she bears the child of a stranger. After sections that depict the sadness of the woman's confession and the man reflecting upon the confession, the final section reflects the man's bright acceptance (and forgiveness) of the woman: see how brightly the universe gleams! There is a radiance on everything. Thus the night has been transformed, the unborn baby has been transformed, and the couple’s lives have been transformed. That Schoenberg, known as the “father of the twelve tone technique” could write such a powerful, Romantic work it to “transform” his imagine and reputation.)

(4)

• Discussing Verklärte Nacht “Transfigured Night” — Christopher Cook (BBC Radio)
• Verklärte Nacht “Transfigured Night” (A. Schoenberg) — Bozen String Academy Orchestra, F. Bernius
  

Two people walk through a bare, cold grove;
The moon races along with them, they look into it.
The moon races over tall oaks,
No cloud obscures the light from the sky,
Into which the black points of the boughs reach.

A woman’s voice speaks:
I'm carrying a child, and not yours,
I walk in sin beside you.
I have committed a great offense against myself.
I no longer believed I could be happy
And yet I had a strong yearning
For something to fill my life, for the joys of Motherhood
And for duty; so I committed an effrontery,
So, shuddering, I allowed my sex
To be embraced by a strange man,
And, on top of that, I blessed myself for it.
Now life has taken its revenge:
Now I have met you, oh, you.

She walks with a clumsy gait,
She looks up; the moon is racing along.
Her dark gaze is drowned in light.

A man’s voice speaks:
May the child you conceived
Be no burden to your soul;
Just see how brightly the universe is gleaming!
There's a glow around everything;
You are floating with me on a cold ocean,
But a special warmth flickers
From you into me, from me into you.
It will transfigure the strange man's child.
You will bear the child for me, as if it were mine;
You have brought the glow into me,
You have made me like a child myself.

Their breath kisses in the breeze.
Two people walk through the lofty, bright night.

(Note on the next section: Originally, Mix No. 4 was only instrumental music until Beverly Sills sings around the 30 minute mark, but this seemed a little too much without a break. After searching for just the right singer to insert at this point, I listened to Barbra Steisand’s Classical Album again and was surprised at how her version of Hugo Wolf’s Verschwiegene Liebe fit perfectly. I was also surprised to learn that this song was completed just a year before Schoeberg wrote Verklärte Nacht. Since both lived and worked in Vienna, Schoenberg no doubt knew of this song as well and might have even been inspired by it.)

(5)

• Verschwiegene Liebe “Silent Love” (H. Wolf) — Barbra Streisand, Claus Ogermann
  Set to the poetry of Josef Karl Benedikt von Eichendorff
  

Over treetops
and into the splendor —
who may guess them, (the secrets)
who may overtake them?
Thoughts go floating,
the night is silent;
thoughts run free.

If only he could guess,
who has thought of him
amid the rustling of the groves,
when no one else is awake
except the flying clouds —
my love is silent
and as beautiful as the night.

(Note on the next section: The original score of “Transfigured Night” called for two violins, two violas and two cellos. In 1917, Schoenberg produced an arrangement for string orchestra and further revised in 1943. There is also a version for piano trio by Eduard Steuermann. I have included recordings of all three arrangements in these sections. As mentioned earlier, the final section reflects the man’s acceptance -- and forgiveness -- of the woman.)

(6)

• “Transfigured Night” (Schoenberg, trans. for piano trio by E. Steuermann) — Wallin, Thedeen, Pontinen
• “Transfigured Night” (A. Schoenberg) — Bozen String Academy Orchestra, F. Bernius
  

(Note on the next section: The Ballad of Baby Doe is an opera by the American composer Douglas Moore to a libretto by John Latouche. The chief characters (who were real people) are drawn from Colorado lore during the end of the 1800s. The story is the “classic triangle” of Tabor, a wealthy gold mine owner, and two women. Tabor rises from rags to riches with his stoic wife Augusta and then meets the young and beautiful, but unhappily married, Baby Doe. Ultimately Tabor divorces Augusta to marry the “other woman“ and his social ostracism is followed by an economic denouement, with Tabor ending his life in rags again. (The real Baby Doe remained at his side and after his death maintained an irrational thirty year vigil at a worthless mine he had bequeathed to her.) In the finale, Tabor returns to the Tabor Grand Theater which he built, a broken man old and ill, and relives in a curious fantasy many of the happy and sad moments of his life. Baby Doe joins him as the one reality remaining. After she has sung “Always Through the Changing,” the opera closes as she moves to her vigil at the Matchless Mine. Moore’s stage directions direct that toward the end Baby Doe’s hood should fall back to show her hair completely white as she moves toward the mine to begin her vigil. The evening ends quietly as snow begins to fall.)

(7)

• “Always Through the Changing” from The Ballad of Baby Doe (Douglas Moore) — Beverly Sills
  Libretto by John Latouche:
  

Always through the changing
Of sun and shadow, time and space,
I will walk beside my love
In a green and quiet place.
Proof against the forms of fear
No distress shall alter me
I will walk beside my dear
Clad in love's bright heraldry.

Sound the battle’s loud alarms
Any foe I shall withstand
In the circle of his arms
I am safe in Beulah Land.
Passion fades when joy is spent;
Lust is lure for gold and crime.
Beauty’s kiss is transient -
Love alone is fixed in time.
Death cannot divide my love;
All we sealed with living vows.
Warm I'll sleep beside my love
In a cold and narrow house.

Never shall the mourning dove
Weep for us with accents wild;
I will walk beside my love
Who is husband, father, child.
As our earthly eyes grow dim
Still the youth song will be sung (orig. "Let the ancient song be sung"):
I will change along with him
So that both are ever young,
ever young.










(Note on the next section: I interrupt this quiet moment with Strauss’s tone poem Death and Transfiguration just as Strauss did in the original. Unusual for a composer of 25 years of age, the music depicts the death of an artist. As the man lays dying, thoughts of his life pass through his head: his childhood innocence, the struggles of his manhood, the attainment of his worldly goals; and at the end, he receives the longed-for transfiguration “from the infinite reaches of heaven.” I wanted to find a place to include Gunther Schuller’s “Twittering Machine” from 7 Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959) and this was a perfect place sonically and dramatically. I was happy to find an interview where Schuller discussed his life-long love of art and Klee’s lifelong love of music.)

(8)

• Tod und Verklärung “Death and Transfiguration” (R. Strauss) — Philharmonia, Kashif
• Discussion of Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee — Gunther Schuller
• “Twittering Machine” from 7 Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (G. Schuller) — MSM Symphony, Schuller

(Note on the next section: The segue back from the Twittering Machine fit perfectly with a section of Strauss’s Don Juan, another tone poem. And the “Hero’s theme” fir perfectly in the narrative. It seems like you can slip from one Staruss work to another if you find the right transitional section.)

(9)

• Don Juan (R. Strauss) — Philharmonia, Kashif
• Tod und Verklärung “Death and Transfiguration” (R. Strauss) — Philharmonia, Kashif
• Trumpet Excerpt from Don Juan (R. Strauss) — Philip Smith
  

(Note on the next section: I’ve always thought that the “love theme” of Strauss’ Death and Transfiguration was completely ripped off by John Williams for his Superman score. Here’s proof… It’s tied in here also by the way that Superman must transform himself each time he goes to fight crime.)

(10)

• Love Theme (“Can You Read My Mind”) from Superman (J. Williams) — Boston Pops, Williams
• Superman March from Superman (J. Williams) — Boston Pops, Williams
• Tod und Verklärung “Death and Transfiguration” (R. Strauss) — Philharmonia, Kashif

(Note on the next section: This Epilogue, brings in our final “guest star” Renée Fleming singing an inspirational You'll Never Walk Alone in a great arrangement. Interesting that her character in the musical has been left alone and pregnant -- and like other characters in these mixes, is then transformed. But will compassion transfigure the Hero?)

(11)

• Change Everything — Flojob
• You'll Never Walk Alone from Carousel — Orchestra of St. Luke’s, Renée Fleming, P. Summers
• The Unanswered Question — Orchestra of St. Luke’s, John Adams
• Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis (Vaughan Williams) — St. Louis Symphony, Slatkin

(END)