This Week in Classical Music: March 31, 2025.  Pierre Boulez.   Last week we were preoccupied with Naples and missed a very important date: March 26^th was the 100^th anniversary of Pierre Boulez’s birth.  It is hard to overestimate Boulez’s importance in the development of moder music in the second half of the 20^th century (we can only think of Karlheinz Stockhausen and maybe Bruno Maderna being on the same level).  Grove Music writes: “Resolute imagination, force of will, and ruthless combativeness secured him, as a young man, a position at the head of the Parisian musical avant garde.”  But it was not just the Parisian avant-garde that he conquered, it was the whole musical word that he reigned for at least 30 years, from the early 1950s to the early 1980s.

Also this year is the 70^th anniversary of the premier of one of Boulez’s most important works, Le Marteau sans maître (The Hammer without a Master).  It premiered in June of 1955 in Baden-Baden and the work was met with interest by the listeners and praised by the critics and fellow composers.  Even Stravinsky, who wrote very little in the serail mode, was enthusiastic.  The piece, despite its difficulty, was then played around the world; Boulez brought it to the US in 1957.  Le Marteau sans maître epitomized Boulez’s experimentation with the serialism, which he expanded to include not just the series of pitches, but also the duration, tone color and intensity of each sound.  Seventy years later, and you cannot hear this seminal composition being played live.  Something happened to classical music.  Seventy years is a long period, it’s the time, for example, between the completions of Beethoven’s Ninth and Mahler’s Second symphonies (1824-1894), with the whole Romantic period in between.  Both composers were celebrated in 1894, while Boulez almost disappeared from the musical scene.  And who are the composers of his stature working today?

Boulez was born in a small town of Montbrison, about 100 km west of Lyon.  In his youth his interests were split between the piano and mathematics.  Upon leaving Catholic school in 1941 he spent a year in Lyon studying higher math.  In 1942 he moved to Paris.  Pierre’s father wanted him to attend the Ecole Polytechnique, but instead he went to theParis Conservatory where he studied harmony with Olivier Messiaen.  The Paris Conservatory was a very conservative place in those days.  Even Messiaen, himself a modern composer of huge talent, didn’t teach Mahler and Bruckner.  Later on, Boulez would mention in an interview that at that time in his mind “there were two twins: Mahler, Bruckner.”  In the same interview he said that “German music stopped at Wagner,” so the Second Viennese School wasn’t taught at all.  Boulez learned about atonal music from René Leibowitz, a student of Arnold Schoenberg.  He had already felt the need to expand his music language and immediately adopted the new techniques.  A year later, in 1945, the young Boulez wrote his first atonal piece of music, a set of twelve Notations for piano.  He also wrote two piano sonatas, the second one, large in scale, published in 1950.  His music was performed by the pianists Yvette Grimaud and Yvonne Loriod (at that time, Messiaen’s wife), but it was the circulation of the scores among musicians that brought Boulez fame among avant-garde musicians.  In 1952 Loriod performed the sonata in Darmstadt to great acclaim.  Thus started Boulez’s association with a group of tremendously talented and adventuresome composers and theoreticians that became known as the Darmstadt School.   Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music were held from the early 1950s to 1970.  Every other year young musicians gathered in the city to present and discuss their music.  Formal courses were taught both in composition and interpretation.  Even the abridged list of the attendees looks very impressive: in addition to Boulez, there was Bruno Maderna, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luigi Nono, Luciano Berio, György Ligeti, John Cage – composers who shaped the music of the second half of the 20^th century.  Philosophers and critics such as Theodor Adorno, presented their ideas.   It was around that time that Boulez came up with his famous aphorism: “Any musician who has not felt … the necessity of the dodecaphonic language is OF NO USE.”  In 1952 he wrote a seminal piece, “Le Marteau sans maître” (The hammer without a master) for voice and six instruments.  Still difficult, even after half a century of music development, it could be heard here.  Pierre Boulez conducts a small ensemble consisting of the flute, the guitar and several percussion instruments.  Jeanne Deroubaix is the contralto.  The period between 1950s and 1970s was the most productive for Boulez as a composer.  In the following years he continued to write but dedicated much time to reworking some of the compositions of the earlier period.

In 1970 President Georges Pompidou, bound to create a cultural legacy, asked Boulez, who was spending most of his time outside of France, to create an institute dedicated to research in music.  The result was the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique, or Institute for Research and Coordination Acoustic/Music).  It was set in a building next to the Center Pompidou.  With the addition two years later of the Ensemble InterContemporain, IRCAM became a major research and performing center for avant-garde music. 

Boulez started conducting in 1957.  First it was mostly his own music and that of his young colleagues, but eventually he expanded his repertoire to Stravinsky, Debussy, Webern and Messiaen.  In the late 50’s he became the guest conductor of the Southwest German Radio Symphony Orchestra and took residence in Baden-Baden, to a large extent in protest to the conservativism of the French musical culture (that was before the IRCAM).  A big break came in 1971 when he was, rather unexpectedly, hired by the New York Philharmonic.  During the following years he conducted every major orchestra, expanding his repertoire to include most of the classics (though he never conducted either Tchaikovsky or Shostakovich).  Boulez became one of the greatest interpreters of Debussy; we also love his Mahler.  Here’s a tremendous interpretation of the 4^th movement (Adagio. Sehr langsam und noch zurückhaltend) of Mahler’s Symphony no. 9 with the Chicago Symphony at its best.

This Week in Classical Music: March 24, 2025.  Naples.  Last week we promised to get back to the music-related impressions of our recent travels.  We should state upfront that they were somewhat disappointing.  Classical music is not being played in Italy as often as one would hope (and expect), either live in concerts or on the radio.  Of all the cities we visited, the one with the richest musical tradition was Naples.  Naples is a very old city, going back to the Greek settlement in the 6^th century BC, but the history of classical music is much shorter, so those two intersect in the Kingdom of Naples in the 15^th century when the King’s chapel had more musicians than any other court in Italy.  That was also the time when Tinctoris, a famous composer and music theoretician, stayed with the court.  Early in the 16^th century, the Aragonese Spanish took over Naples and made it a viceroyalty.  Carlo Gesualdo, Price of Venosa, stayed at the court and influenced generations of Neapolitan musicians.  The talented Giovanni de Macque was one of them.  The Royal Chapel and several major churches were important musical centers; then, in the mid-16^th century, the first Conservatory was created.  Initially, it was a shelter for orphans where music was one of the subjects taught to children.  Eventually, music became the most important subject, and conservatories (soon there were four) attracted talented teachers.  Alessandro Scarlatti taught there briefly, as, sometime later, did Nicola Porpora and Leonardo Vinci. 

Opera played a very important part in the musical life of Naples.  The genre was invented in the early 17^th century in northern Italy, Venice in particular, and by midcentury Naples had regular performances of operas by Claudio Monteverdi, Francesco Cavalli and others.  Till 1737, the main venue was the San Bartolomeo Theater, when the grand San Carlo Theater was inaugurated (San Bartolomeo was eventually converted into a church).  The main figure in the history of the Neapolitan opera was, without a doubt, Alessandro Scarlatti, who lived in the city from 1679 to 1721 and composed more than one hundred operas, of which 70 are extant.  With the construction of San Carlo, Naples turned into one of the most important opera centers in Italy, with the best companies presenting their shows.  Early in the 18^th century, a new style was invented in Naples, that of Opera Buffa, or comic opera.  The major composers writing in this genre were Vinci, Scarlatti, and the young Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, who was born in 1710 but lived only 26 years.  Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona is regularly staged these days.  Many of the operas were written on the libretti of the famous playwright Carlo Goldoni, the best of them by Baldassare Galuppi, Niccolò Piccinni, Giovanni Paisiello and Domenico Cimarosa.  Later in the 19^th century, Gaetano Donizetti, a Bergamasque by birth, lived in Naples for many years.  He was the director of the San Carlo from 1822 to 1838 and presented 17 premiers of his works there, including Lucia di Lammermoor.  

Some of the most famous castrati were born or trained in Naples and performed in the operas of Porpora and Scarlatti.  Among the best-known are Farinelli, whose real name was Carlo Broschi, and Caffarelli (Gaetano Majorano).  Metastasio, one of the greatest opera librettists of all time, had lived in Naples for years. 

As vigorous as the musical life of Naples was from the early 17^th to the late 19th century, it thinned out by the 20^th, at least in its “classical” form.  Nonetheless, it left a treasure trove of great music, of which we’ll present a couple of samples.  Here’s the achingly beautiful aria Sussurrando il venticello from Alessandro Scarlatti’s Tigrane, which premiered in Teatro San Bartolomeo, Naples, in February of 1715.  And here’s the aria Le faccio un inchino from Domenico Cimarosa’s  1792 opera Il matrimonio segreto. 

This Week in Classical Music: March 17, 2025.  Bach, abbreviated.  Our trip is over, but we’re not ready to resume our musical journeys.   Of all the places we visited, only one was musically notable – Naples.  Next week we’ll write about some composers who lived and worked in the city and made it famous.

All that said, there is one anniversary that is impossible to miss: Johann Sebastian Bach was born on March 21^st of 1685 in Eisenach.  What music are we to present to celebrate this event?  Out of Bach’s vast and magnificent output, we’ll opt (almost at random) for one clavier piece and an excerpt from one of his grandest creations.  The former is French Suite no. 1, performed here by Murray Perahia.  The latter, the aria Erbarme dich (Have mercy), from Part 2 of the St. Matthew Passion, is here.  The alto is Anne Sofie von Otter, Georg Solti conducts the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

This Week in Classical Music: March 10, 2025.  Still on the road.  Georg Philipp Telemann was born on March 14^th of 1681 in Magdeburg.  He was the godfather of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, whose birthday was last week.  CPE Bach’s second name, Philipp, was given in honor of Telemann, Johann Sebastian’s close friend.  We hope to play some of Telemann’s music next week.  And Arthur Honegger, a member of Les Six, was born on this day in 1892.  He was Swiss but born in France, in Le Havre.

This Week in Classical Music: March 3, 2025.  Travel.  Three great composers were born this week: Antonio Vivaldi, on March 4^th of 1678, in Venice; Maurice Ravel, on March 7^th of 1875, in Ciboure, near Biarritz in France; and the notorious Carlo Gesualdo, on March 8^th of 1566, most likely in Venosa, where Gesualdos were the princes (Venosa is located in the southern Italian region of Basilicata).   To the list of the greats, some would add Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, born on March 8^th of 1714, in Weimar, where his father was the organist at the court of William Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Weimar.  Unfortunately, we cannot delve into the lives and art of these composers, as we are ready to embark on a trip that will bring us close to Venosa, among other places.  It seems there are no museums dedicated to Gesualdo in Venosa, the town’s most famous son.  Still, there are old churches and even Jewish catacombs from around the 5^th century AD: apparently, there was a Jewish community in Venosa, well integrated with the local population.

This Week in Classical Music: February 24, 2025.  Chopin interpretations.  Frédéric Chopin, one of the greatest composers of the 19^th century, was born on March 1^st of 1810.  We’ll celebrate him through the works of pianists whose anniversaries fall around this date: we’ve been neglecting the interpreters for quite a while, and this is a good time to catch up.  Most of these pianists are of the older generation when Chopin’s piano music was more popular and more often played than it is today.  Their lives coincide with the early era of the recording industry, so the technical quality of some of the pieces we’ll hear today is not high, while the musicianship is, even if their approach may seem very different than what we hear today.

We’ll start with Benno Moiseiwitsch, born February 22^nd of 1890 in Odessa (now Odesa), then in the Russian Empire and now in independent Ukraine.  He started his studies in Odessa, then moved to Vienna to study with Theodor Leschetizky and eventually settled in England.  Moiseiwitsch had a flourishing international career and for a while taught at the Curtis Institute of Music.  Here’s Benno Moiseiwitsch performing Chopin’s Barcarolle, Op. 60.  We like it a lot: the playing is elegant, the tone is singing.  We don’t know the exact recording date but think it was made around 1950.

Alexander Brailowsky was also born in Ukraine, then part of Russia, and like Moiseiwitsch, he was Jewish.  He was six years younger (his birthday is February 16^th of 1896) and born in Kiev (now Kyiv). After studying at the Kiev Conservatory, he also went to Vienna to take lessons from Leschetizky.  He then studied with Ferruccio Busoni in Switzerland and eventually settled in New York while getting French citizenship sometime later.  Brailowsky was known for his interpretation of Chopin; in 1924 in Paris, he played 160 of his compositions in six concerts; then in 1938, he repeated the same program in New York (no established pianist would even consider such a programming choice these days).  Here he is playing Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 1.  We believe the recording was made around 1957.

Nikita Magaloff was born in Saint Petersburg on February 21^st of 1912 into a noble Georgian family.  His family left Russia in 1918, following the Bolshevik Revolution.  He studied at the Paris Conservatory where he befriended Ravel.  Prokofiev also lived in Paris during that time and gave Magaloff composition lessons.  Like Brailowsky, Magaloff was a “Chopinist”: he also performed all the piano music of Chopin in six concerts, but if Brailowsky did it twice, Magaloff did it many times.  Magaloff was a noted teacher, starting in 1949 with a masterclass he picked up from his friend, the ailing Dinu Lipatti; Martha Argerich was one of his students.   He married the daughter of the violinist Joseph Szigeti and often performed with the great violinist.  Here’s Nikita Magaloff plays Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9, No. 2.  The recording was made in 1974.

Our last pianist is the only one not born in the Russian Empire: it’s Myra Hess.  She’s also not famous for her Chopin, even though she played him a lot.  Hess was born in London on February 25^th of 1890.  She was known for her interpretation of Bach and the Viennese classics, and even more so, for the free concerts of classical music she organized during WWII at the National Gallery.  Here is her early recording of Chopin’s Nocturne in F sharp major, Op 15, No. 2.  It was made in 1928.