Aaron Copland: Appalachian Spring

I have a love for the anthropomorphization of mechanical objects and buildings. It mostly has to do with anything larger than your typical human being, and particularly toward objects meant to act as a means of conveyance or habitat. For example: I have a 2001 Ford Taurus. As of yesterday evening it has been driven approximately 220,001 miles, 18,000 miles shy of the average distance between the Earth and its moon. The Ford Taurus in general has a bit of a stigma regarding its drivetrain. Many owners of this vehicle have found themselves replacing their transmissions at one point or another throughout the ownership cycle and thus it has earned itself a bad name for that reason. My Taurus, thankfully, has avoided the need for such a costly repair.

Other costly repairs however...

I also tend to love my house. It was a foreclosure that my wife and I bought as a first home. It had sat vacant for approximately one year and the passage of time had taken its toll on the structure. I've spent the past year and a half fixing, replacing or upgrading various aspects of the house such as repairing the irrigation system, remodeling the master bathroom, fixing many electrical issues related to poor repairs by the previous owner, fixing leaky faucets, improving the upkeep on the lawn, many things related to the image (read: curb appeal) and functionality of the home.

Inside is all chickenwire and duct tape.

I love the theatre where I work. It is a large building, with a capacity of 700, it features counterweight rigging system with 29 linesets, a large pit orchestra lift, a fully complemented workshop, and all the accoutrements that one might find in a well-built and operational performing space. I have been here for about half a year now and have spent a great deal of time establishing a maintenance program and attempting to repair or upgrade the equipment we keep on hand for running theatrical, musical and formal events.

Ostentatious!

I tend to adopt a view of working with these large structures and my car as a cooperative effort between myself and the object. It is a mutually beneficial and complimentary relationship. Both of us could exist without the other, but life somehow wouldn't be the same. It might not be better or worse, but it would be different. I like to think that within these certain objects is a spirit or a will to continue to exist and be useful. I fully acknowledge that the reality of the situation is that I myself most likely am the only one imparting such a notion upon the objects, and any sense of sentience is purely a manifestation of me projecting emotional capability on steel, wood, and plastic.

But dammit, I like it.

So it goes with Aaron Copland's (1900-1990) "Appalachian Spring". Originally a suite for orchestra, Copland adapted the work for ballet about a year after its premier. The ballet itself is the story of a American pioneers in Pennsylvania during the 19th century. They build a farmhouse, have a wedding and experience all the fullness that life has to offer such bold individuals of the 1800's. Copland originally wrote it without thinking of a title, but came up with Appalachian Spring shortly after Martha Graham (who was the lead dancer in the ballet) shared a poem written by Hart Crane:

O Appalachian Spring! I gained the ledge;
Steep, inaccessible smile that eastward bends
And northward reaches in that violet wedge
Of Adirondacks!

 The rest, as they say, is history.  Copland later found it funny that so many people exclaimed how well he captured the spirit and essence of the the Appalachian region in his writing, since he didn't know he was actually writing for it until Martha shared that with him.

The suite is broken down into 8 sections, the 7th of which will be our target for today's example.  It is desrcibed by Copland thusly:

Calm and flowing/Doppio Movimento. Scenes of daily activity for the Bride and her Farmer husband. There are five variations on a Shaker theme. The theme, sung by a solo clarinet, was taken from a collection of Shaker melodies compiled by Edward D. Andrews, and published under the title "The Gift to Be Simple." The melody borrowed and used almost literally is called "Simple Gifts."

"Doppio movimento" means that this movement will move approximately twice as fast as the preceding one. The Shaker theme, "Simple Gifts", was first written by a Shaker elder named Joseph Brackett (1797–1882) in 1848. He lived in Maine his whole life and helped build a farm with his father that became the center of a Shaker community.  The Shakers are an off-shoot of early American Protestantism that promoted communal living and celibacy. They earned their moniker by an observation of the enthusiastic nature of their worship. Often centered around dance, as a community they have written thousands of songs throughout their existence.  

This was the closest I came to a funny picture referencing Shakers.  Sorry.

So, Copland is trying to explore a day in the life of your prototypical American family, which turns out to be anything but simple.  The variations he cycles through range from melodic and soothing to raucous and thrilling.  Concluding with a magnanimous celebration of the original theme with full orchestra at about 1/2 the speed of the original statement.  

At the end of the day, the car is just the sum of its parts.  The house and the theatre are just buildings that will one day be torn down, either intentionally or by the course of nature or human events.  They do not think.  They do not breathe.  They do not live.  However, when I hear Copland's suite, I can feel the nature of the inanimate.  They objects that we amass and surround ourselves with.  I think about what a family in the 19th century might accumulate in order to make life more livable, in order to devote more time to what they might hold more valuable.  I think of them working with their hands to give rise to a home. Standing back, looking over their completed work with awe. How can you not project a sense of life upon such a thing?  When I listen to Copland, every bit of this rock, upon which we ride about through the vast infinity of stars, seems to come to life.

I swear when you hear it, if you listen closely, you can hear the Earth turn.




See you next Friday.

-ED






Sources:
www.youtube.com
www.wikipedia.com

Igor Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring

You're in Paris.  It's 1913 and you've just entered the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Within the large and beautiful theatre the crowd is tightly packed, all eagerly anticipating the premier of a young composer's new ballet.  The energy is thick in the humid air, and you can sense that this night is not going to be just any sort of of performance.

The house lights dim and the curtain is drawn quickly up into the fly space and you hear an ethereal, unworldly voice singing out high above the rustling bodies in the hall.  Unfortunately, that's the last bit of the music you'll hear tonight because you're sitting in the premier of Igor Stravinsky's (1882-1971) latest ballet, the "Rite of Spring" and half the audience just lost their damn minds.

Or just an average week in Springfield

There is a science that goes in to determining the point at which crowd mentality takes over and all hell theoretically will break loose.  Humans tend to be incredibly intelligent working in groups of 2 or 3. Any larger than that and a certain..."element" is introduced that alters the climate.  My college band director would refer to this as a personification of stupidity, humbly known as Mr. Stupid.  He's really not a bad guy, per se, perhaps misunderstood.  He's your friend, your brother, your father and your distant Aunt Gertrude. Mr. Stupid is that little voice that comes out when the momentum is not quite shifted entirely off the cliff of sanity into the valley of asinine, that simply says, "Do it."

And that is pretty much what happened on the April evening in a Parisian theatre.  Shortly after the introduction of the ballet, the crowd began jeering and heckling the orchestra, giving suggestions on how to proceed and lamenting the unarguably unique style of both music and dance to which they were being treated.

Within the crowd were two main schools of thought.  You had your upper-crusters who wanted to hear some pretty, inconsequential ballet and watch some chick with blocks in her shoes bounce around the stage for a few hours.  The other camp was essentially in favor of anything that would piss off the old geezers in the balconies.

I'm not sure today's culture can relate...

So, to explain what went wrong we do have to look at the choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky as well as the overall plot of the ballet.  The Rite of Spring explores Russian paganism and delves into a ritualistic homicide of a young girl who literally dances to death.  It's sharp, angular and violent.  The music was wholly representative of that.  If we look back into the growing trends from the Romantic era, music had become much more tactile and palpable.  It was being developed into more than repetitive themes and truly was arriving at a point where literally anything was fair game.  Stravinsky felt this, and was given the opportunity to explore the extent of his own abilities by his employer with the ballet company. Despite the creative team's anticipation, the French crowd was not completely ready for the musical affront they were to endure.

Fueled by the dichotomy of classes, they began fighting amongst themselves, eventually turning their mutual wrath upon the orchestra, who never stopped playing.  The dancers on stage couldn't hear their musical cues over the roar of the angry crowd turned mob.  It got so bad that at one point Nijinsky was shouting the counts from the wings.  Over 40 people were removed by force from the concert hall that had erupted in a riot.

The first run continued unabated with a few performances following, but the pallor of that opening night cast a deep shadow upon the work at large.  Nijinsky was later cited by Stravinsky for completing his vision almost to perfection, thus placing him side by side with the criticisms lodged solely with the so called "ugly dancing".

However, Stravinsky's music was also not spared from the slings and arrows from the pens of many critics of the day.  The score itself sounds to me very metallic in nature.  It's like a gigantic machine that's not quite running properly, and the results are sometimes catastrophic. The artists at Disney interpreted it as the beginning and the end of the dinosaurs, embracing the earthen and pugilistic nature of the work.

Today, it's considered a great turning point into the modern era of music, and is often cited by many composers who have come forth since, bringing unique and often initially unpopular ideas to the forefront of musical culture. The choreography to such abrasive music is a challenge to both the dancer and the audience, but I feel Stravinsky truly captured the anguish and despair that one might exhibit when exposed to such a heinous and vile act as human sacrifice.

And how

So today, you get two examples.  The first is a recording of the Atlanta symphony with no video.  The second is a dramatization of what the BBC interprets happened during the performance.  Youtube's being weird though, so I think you have to go to the site to watch it.  It's pretty good though, so it's worth your time.  If for some reason it doesn't start right, jump to 45 minutes in for the fun part.  

Homework: Listen to the first example with your eyes closed.  Picture how one might actually dance to this.  After you've had enough, watch the second example.  Bonus points if you listen/watch the whole thing.

See you next Friday.

-ED






Sources:
www.youtube.com
www.wikipedia.com

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan- Main Title: James Horner

I think I have to give a co-author credit to this week's LF.  This one is borne of a conversation I had with a dear friend of mine who is a band director.  I won't include his name in order to protect the innocent, but if he actually reads this and wants credit I'll gladly edit this to reflect it.

So, our conversation was centered around movie scores and how much new ones tend to suck pretty bad.  We were working on a project in his garage and he had a Pandora radio station for movie soundtracks going, specifically those relating to Star Trek.  A few cycled through and then came the JJ Abram's reboot score by Michael Giacchino.  We both agreed that the melody of the main theme was really well done, but we both fell short of calling it a masterwork.  It has all the ingredients that make up a good sci-fi flick score:

1. Lot's of French Horn in SPAAAAACE
2. It's pretty loud
3. Bass trombone (see #2)

But the problem we had with it really centered around the simplicity of the theme.  It didn't really go much beyond what you heard at the beginning of the movie.  Texturally, rhythmically, spiritually it kinda when stagnant.  Without saying it got repetitive, I have to say it said a lot about the same thing. Now, I'm really not knocking Giacchino too much here, because the guy obviously gets work.  He's also responsible for "The Incredibles", which quite frankly that score set the tone for the movie.  The Hollywood studio orchestra revival thing puts you in the driver's seat of an Aston Martin and says to hell with the gas prices.

But overall, I never felt like he did enough with his beautiful melody there either.  Yeah, we get it. Incredibles!  West-coast Jazz! Robots!  Give me another theme I can sing on my way home though.

The new Trek scores seem to have a lot of the same flaws.  Great melody, no development.  There are moments where he chops it up a bit to kind of go with the action more, but it still sounds like one note. And in my humble opinion, by dissecting it in this manner it then became more of a sound effect than that of a musical score.  It became less of a character in the movie and more of ambiance.

And I think if we compare movies within the past 20 years or so to movies that are 20-50 years old, that's a big part of the difference.

Suspension of disbelief is a phrase that is kicked around in creative circles, especially the visual arts. The whole goal of any work of art is to really transform the viewer into whatever the artist is wishing they could be. Some do it better than others. The suspension occurs the moment you stop realizing that you're not actually sitting in a stinky movie theatre next to an old lady and a fat guy, eating popcorn that tastes like motor oil and drinking flat soda.  You become part of the action, you care about the characters on the screen and genuinely understand and empathize with their plight. John Williams, whom we've discussed, believed that the score was a much a character as the leading lady. Without a strong, motif-laden track, the movie wouldn't fully engulf the viewer into that magic space between reality and fantasy.

Then there's those happy few who choose not exist in either...

So, old movies and newer movies both rely on suspension of disbelief, but I think the difference in how they do it is important to note.  Older movies cling to the era of live performance.  You walk in, the band's playing light house music.  As we get close to curtain, they bring on the overture.  From there as each character is introduced we hear motifs that attach a multi-sensory approach to defining our impression of each person.  As they grow and struggle, so does their theme.

Newer movies don't work this way.  They are much more immersive and follow more of the ride on rails approach to cinema.  In the previous model, the audience is treated like an audience.  Tacet participation is all that's required. When we watch a movie today though, we are pulled into the film and made to believe that we are actually sitting within the action itself.  The fourth wall still exists, but it is more transparent and flexible than ever before.

Now, I'm not getting out my curmudgeon cane and banging my fist on the table claiming that back in my day it was better.  Because in many ways it was not.  However, with this newer style of filmmaking, I don't think the old style of composing film scores completely jives with what's going down onscreen.  The motif model is dangerous, because if done poorly it can much more easily fracture the suspension of disbelief and then the fourth wall becomes an iron curtain.  In bad movies it makes us feel like Aunt Gertrude playing "Oh Danny Boy" at the Sopchoppy Elementary School Fall play.

The risk though, is worth the payout, because when it's well-done- it can make a movie great.

Such is the case with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.  James Horner (b. 1953) was a young composer at the time, but was tasked with creating an environment within which a franchise would venture beyond its television birthing ground. This was important because the first Star Trek movie was pretty terrible.

And did they let George Takei design this poster?

From my research, the only criteria given to Mr. Horner was to make it sound nautical. If Star Wars was cowboys in space, then Star Trek was to be sailors in space.

Of course there's Mel Brooks...

It's fitting, because even in the earliest days of the original series, Star Trek has always taken a certain nautical quality to it, harkening to a naval tradition adopted by it's many space-going vessels. It works I suppose on many levels, but the last time mankind really was in an unknown world (before space that is) was when we were mapping the open seas in sailing vessels.

So with Mr. Horner, he did in fact generate a pretty ocean-going score without going all Cole Porter. He also managed to build the theme into a broad swath of color as opposed to one line that sits around and is punctuated by a lot of percussion and attacks.  He also developed character themes, that grew and developed much as the characters did themselves on screen.  I would argue that the closing scene between Kirk and Spock would not have had the same dramatic impact without the underscoring to bring us to that point.

C'mon Spock...Scotty's looking, don't make this weird.

So, sit back and enjoy it.  Immerse yourself in the music and see what springs to mind.

Homework: Put on some good headphones.  Close your eyes.  Write down what your mind shows you.

See you next Friday.

-ED




Sources:
www.youtube.com
www.wikipedia.com

Lucia di Lammermoor- Il Dulce Suono: Gaetano Donizetti

It's the late 1800's.  You're in Scotland.  Your name is Lucia and you're in love with a guy named Edgardo.  Your brother, Enrico, is kind of a jerk and really hates this guy.  You end up vowing to get married to your love, Edgardo, even though some dead chick's ghost tells you it's totally a bad idea.

Your brother, being a jerk, forges a letter from Edgardo that says he's totally not into you and that whole vow thing was a big joke. Plus, he's totally into this new chick who's way hotter than you are anyways. Enrico and your chaplain both agree that Edgardo is a loser and that you really should marry this other guy Arturo instead.  You agree, but still feel weird about it.

Suddenly, Edgardo returns!  But you've already signed the marriage contract with Arturo because your brother's a jerk!  Edgardo gets super mad and tramples his ring you gave him into the dirt and storms off. You kinda black out from this point forward.  Something about Edgardo and your brother fighting, but you're not really sure what you're doing or what's going on around you for a bit.  Everything's wishy-washy and in Italian (but sometime later French).

So, you finally come to and you're in the middle of your wedding reception! Yay!  All of your friends and family are here!  And the best part?  You're totally married to Edgardo after all! But where's Arturo?  

Why do you have that knife in your hand?

Why is your dress covered in blood?


And why do you feel these things are somehow related?

And that's where our Listening Friday example comes in.  Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848) was an early Romantic era composer from Italy.  He was a master of what was known as the Bel Canto style of opera composition, a style that you will probably be familiar with as the generic opera singer 'sound'.  It uses a lot of the more expressive and zealous tendencies of the operatic style (big, fancy, loud).  'Bel Canto' translates from Italian to 'beautiful singing', contrasting with the Wagnerian style of opera, which was also beautiful, but in a more Vikings and thunderbolts kinda way.  

Kill the wabbit?

Donizetti was not born into a musical dynasty, in fact his dad was the town's pawn broker. He received a good music education and eventually wrote a whole mess of operas.  He also is known for several works for piano, chamber ensemble (which is a small group of similarish instruments), a few concertos, and a handful of other orchestral and choral works.

Lucia di Lammermoor is often considered his magnum opus.  It was based on a novel (the Bride of Lammermoor) by the Scottish author, Sir Walter Scott, and follows roughly the same plot detailed above.  Donizetti was capitalizing on European interest in Scottish culture at this point in history, as well as the death and retirement of his main operatic competition around the time he composed this work.

This work is highly pervasive in modern culture, so I wouldn't be surprised to find out that you have in fact heard bits of it, perhaps even the excerpt we'll look at today.  The second act of the opera features a sextet called, "Chi mi frena in tal momento?' (Who is holding me back at this time?).  In some way, it's become a sort of anthem for mobster/gangster movies. Fans of the original Scarface will recognize it from when Tony was about to axe someone.

Hipsters liked Scarface before Pacino.

It also was used in Martin Scorsese's masterpiece, "The Departed".  One scene where Jack Nicholson is actually watching a performance of the opera and another where it's revealed that his cell phone ringtone is the sextet.  I'll include a recording of this work as well, because if you like Il Dulce Suono, you'll really like this Chi mi frena.

Il Dulce Suono is best known to most of us today through its performance in Luc Besson's "The Fifth Element".  The crazy, blue alien, Plavalaguna, performs it before getting shot in the stomach.  This rendition was actually sung by an Albanian singer named Inva Mula, who incidentally did not have to dress up like a blue alien and get shot.  That was the job of the French actress, Maïwenn Le Besco, who was for a time Besson's wife.

Luc Besson was marrying tall, blue women with tails before James Cameron even sank the Titanic.

I really like this opera in general because I feel it fully embodies every element a good opera needs: There's fighting, there's forbidden love, there's murder, and there's a chick who completely loses her freaking mind and scares the hell out of everyone at her wedding.

Il Dulce Suono is better known by its common name, "The Mad Scene".  As described above, Lucia is getting married to Arturo, but goes nuts and murders him slasher-movie-style.  After doing this she walks out to her wedding reception where basically everyone in Scotland is there.  She has no idea what's going on nor recollection of what she did, but she imagines that she is actually married to Edgardo and everything's cool.

Hey little sister!  What have you done?

Everyone is pretty much freaked out, as you might imagine, and when Enrico comes back he initially starts to yell at his sister but quickly realizes that she's not all there upstairs. She ends up dying from being hysterical or some other opera-related disease.  Edgardo, who previously agreed to fight Enrico, finds out that Lucia is dead and kills himself with his dagger, heading off life at the pass to meet Lucia in heaven.

Happily ever after?

Il Dulce Suono in operatic circles has essentially become the handbook for sopranos who want to be recognized for their extreme range, placing them in the category of "Coloratura Sopranos".  This is like being the Kerri Strug of vocalists.  Essentially, you have a super light, agile and flexible voice with incredible range and ability to sing in the stratosphere.

Interesting side note: The solo flute you'll hear in the recording was originally supposed to be a glass harmonica.  This instrument was played much in the same way that you can run your finger along a crystal glass to make it ring. Benjamin Franklin invented a horizontal version that utilized a lathe-like desk with glass rings that rotated quickly through a basin of water. By placing your fingers on the different pieces of glass you could make them ring, and play it in a similar fashion to keyboard instruments.

Dammit, Jefferson!  I shall not play the Chicken Dance again!

The glass harmonica has an interesting (and persistent) story alongside it that anyone who plays it too much becomes super depressed or just plain crazy.  In the 1800's, they called it melancholia, but later on some claimed that the lead in the crystal would cause lead poisoning.  There's no science to back this up, but this instrument sounds as unsettling as anything.  The perfect accompaniment to a post-homicidal bride who loses her mind.

Homework: Think of a time your brother (or sister, I guess) wouldn't let you do something you didn't want to do.  Share this with them.  : )

See you next Friday.

-ED




Sources:
www.youtube.com
www.wikipedia.com
Natalie Dessay is performing the Mad Scene at the Met in 2011.


BONUS LF!

Here's the Sextet with Pavarotti!

Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick: Fiddler On The Roof

So a few entries back we focused on John William's and his score to "Star Wars".  It got me to thinking about the scope of this blog in general.  Originally, it was an idea for getting kids to like music they haven't heard before (if you clicked the links on the right, you'd already know this).  If you're like me then discovering new music from a friend might go something like this:

Friend- "Hey, Ed!  You've got to listen to this!  It's Stinky-Wizzleteats newest album!"

Ed- "Hmm?"

Friend- "Here!  Listen!" *plays music for approximately 5 seconds*

Ed- "Don't like it."

Friend- "But you haven't even heard..."

Ed- "Nope."

Friend- "But..."

Ed- "No."

Friend- "Ok...."

*Fast forward to a week later*

Friend- "Hey, Ed!  What are ya listening to?"

Ed- "Stinky Wizzleteats newest..."

Friend *Facepalm*


And so forth...  There is a statistic somewhere (I don't recall where, I picked it up somewhere in college) that states that we set our preferences on music within the first 5 or so seconds of hearing a new piece of it.  In that span of time, we will instantly determine whether or not this music is something we will come to love or hate.  Keep or discard.  It's quick and incredibly potent.  For a music educator, it can essentially mean life or death when programming music for your kids.  It's a lot easier to get kids excited about something they really like.

ZOMG TOMATOES!!!!!11! ROFLCOPTERS!

But, sometimes it's important to learn and know stuff that we don't necessarily like.  An example that immediately comes to mind is the Holocaust.  It is by no means a pleasant course of study, nor a very uplifting one.  For some it might even mean a great deal of grief or even shame.  However, a quality and purposeful understanding of our own history is endemic to learning from the mistakes of not just our countrymen, but from our species. Without history, we have no foundation upon which to create our society.  Everything would be starting from scratch.

Much in the same vein then is learning about and listening to music.  Everything we hear is immediately criticized against an evolving set of standards that we've subconsciously established within our minds.  Our preference has been formed over years and years of social influence and to some degree personal preference.  I don't place personal preference in the same category as social influence because I really think it's a chicken and the egg sort of relationship when it comes to musical taste.

If you think back to your earliest recollection of music, it most likely involved your parents. Perhaps a lullaby comes to mind that you were soothed to sleep to.  Later on, you might have learned to sing a few tunes in elementary school or church chorus.  As you grew older, your own friends became a driving influence on the type of music you found enchanting.  For kids, it's of significant importance to belong and feel a part of the group.  Listening to similar music is almost always an important facet of this field of inter-relations.  Your preference then, is a direct result of the changing social spheres that you moved through in your youth.  It changes drastically from generation to generation.  My parents would have primarily gotten their music through their radio, but also television as it became more commonplace. My grandparents would have had the radio, but live performances of popular music were more commonplace and accessible.  More people played instruments.  My great-grandparents might have only had access to live performances.  I have grown up in a time when music was well-known on television, but also began spreading to transmission via online means.  The birth of the mp3 (and the death of fidelity as some might say) was within my youth.  My own son will not know of a world where you can't listen to whatever you want, whenever you want at the flick of a glass screen.

Back in my day we had to steal our music from the radio!  Damn kids and your torrents!

The common denominator in all of this, of course, is that music is and always will be a social event.  People don't create music and then place it in a box and lock it away forever (unless you're Brahms).  Music is, by definition, a means of communicating that which is incommunicable.  It is a language that is far superior to any verbal correspondence.  So, inspired by John Williams and his Star Wars, I announce that the new series we will explore will be called:

DRAMATIC MUSIC.

And not just any old dramatic music- we're talking strictly music that is coupled with action on stage.  We'll explore opera, Broadway, movies, and everything in the middle.  Starting off with week 1, we have the Fiddler on the Roof.

Sounds crazy, no?

For those that don't know, the plot follows a poor family in Russia in the early 1900's as they hold on to their Jewish traditions in spite of a rapidly changing political climate.  Pre-World War I Russia held a disparaging view towards their Jewish population and over time it grew more openly hostile.  The main character, a man named Tevye, was the father of five children- all daughters.  A central part of the plot revolved around the marriage of his daughters and their growth away from the traditions in which they were brought up and an increasing embrace from all the characters of the cultural shifts occurring around them.

The music itself was written by Jerry Bock (1928-2010) with the lyrics by Sheldon Harnick (b. 1924).  The music features a bevy of Jewish influence and in true Musical form (as in Broadway Musical form) much of the plot is advanced through each of the musical numbers. Incidentally, our example will come from the movie adaptation, for which John Williams arranged and conducted the score. Now, the work itself is over two hours long, so we'll have to focus on one aspect of this work for today's LF.  In this case, we'll look at "If I Were a Rich Man"

Tevye is not wealthy.  He's a milk man for a poor village and makes enough to scrape by and keep his family fed.  He's a proud man and devoted religiously, despite his tendencies to regularly misquote scripture to great comedic effect.  The song itself is apparently written in the "klezmer" style.  Full disclosure- I had no idea what this means.  After researching it, I learned that it is a predominantly Jewish style with origins in eastern Europe from the mid-1800's onward.  It was transported to the United States along with the Yiddish culture by Jewish immigrants coming from the same area.  From there it interacted with the budding Jazz music of the time.

The term itself didn't come to embody this style of music until the 1970's (at one point previously, it actually was a perjorative term used to described musicians).

You know, in case just being a musician wasn't bad enough.

It was obviously popular amongst Jewish immigrants to the United States well ahead of that decade. Fiddler, incidentally, was published in 1964. The other interesting thing about the name 'klezmer' is that it translates from Hebrew to essentially mean 'musical instrument'. The style itself can be described by its imitation of Jewish liturgical singing and chant as well as very emotional ornamentation.  An example of these are called, "Krekhts", which is essentially a crying violin. The music genre experienced a bit of a revival in the 1970's (perhaps spurred by the popularity of Fiddler?) and there were several groups performing contemporary music in this style.

Meet the Klezmatics.

Here's what I like about this music.  It's highly social and has evolved considerably alongside the people that have created it.  It embodies and enhances the scene where Tevye is bemoaning his financial straits essentially because this music was born of a generation in his shoes.  I love how Tevye lists all of the fancy items he'd acquire and all of the wonderful things he'd do with his wealth, but at the center of his day dream is the chance to learn and read the scripture at his leisure.  To me, that moment truly reflects what Tevye is all about. He doesn't deny his aspirations to become a well-known and respected man in his community, but at his core he just desires more time to learn about his religion and his God. To become a better person.

So listen and enjoy this first bit of Dramatic Music, but be ready to open your ears next week to something that might be a little bit out of your social music climate.

Homework: Listen to this.  Do nothing.  Wait 3 days.  Listen to it again.  Decide whether or not you actually like it.

 See you next Friday.

-ED





Sources:
http://www.wikipedia.com
http://www.youtube.com
Fiddler on the Roof is licensed by Music Theatre International
The film adaption of Fiddler is licensed by United Artists
The Blues Brothers is licensed by Universal Pictures