20th-century Compositions with a Theme: World War II in Music
Introduction:
World War II saw most of the world’s populations on their feet, willing to provide for whichever country or moral cause they saw fit. Many common themes surrounding the following musical works — that of life, death, love, sorrow, remembrance — are all humanistic in nature. Some estimates say 75 million people perished in the war between military personnel, civilians, and prisoners. Needless to say, everyone worldwide was in some way impacted.
My original intention with this project was to create an anthology showing how composers adapted to these radical changes within their lives. Many already-popular musicians, such as Dmitri Shostakovich and Richard Strauss, were forced into political associations they wanted to escape. Others were writing pieces in the middle of their career yet felt their contribution to the war effort would be music — such is the experience of Olivier Messiaen, Aaron Copland, and Arnold Schoenberg. These five composers, although they were of different nationalities, musical associations, and in different times in their compositional lives; all wrote some of their most timeless works during these few years.
The societal impact of the war cannot be understated. Families were torn apart, entire cities were bombed flat, and civilian life was largely converted to provide for the war efforts. Instead of looking entirely at works from the war period, I found it to be just as meaningful, if not more so to look at the music composed after the war, reflecting on this global crisis. When taking these post-war works by Ohki, Penderecki, Britten, Górecki, and Reich as their own entity, they speak to me in remembrance — not for a specific side per say, but for the massive loss of life at the hands of a select few. Each work has its own specific influence, helpfully documented either by the composer or through news sources covering music premieres.
In summation, what I found was that music became more personal to audiences. Music was not written simply for the sake of making one’s career more successful, but instead, it was making music to portray a message when words are not enough. During this time period, I personally can hear a shift in composers’ purpose for new music. It can be used to aurally document and share one’s experiences through a now-household item, the radio. Recorded live Western Art Music performances were all over the radio waves throughout the war period, and this just like any news source, had the power to influence the public. I will be frequently referring to the following example from the New York Times throughout this post.
Olivier Messiaen, Quartet for the End of Time, 1940.
The first composer I will introduce to you today is none other than French 20th-century composer, Olivier Messiaen. Eric Salzman in the New York Philharmonic’s archived concert program from 6/24/1975 describes Messiaen as “An organist, a Catholic mystic and a musical original.” (New York Philharmonic Archives, Page 5, Fourth Paragraph). Not only are his widely-performed works unique in their sound; but they, like any musical works are a byproduct of the composer’s life experiences. This is not to imply that every piece of music is autobiographical — not in the slightest — but better yet to say that the composers examined throughout this anthology all write music based on their interpretation and experience with a global catastrophe, that being World War II. From the earliest composition on this list (Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, 1940) until the most recent, (Steve Reich’s Different Trains, 1988), each composer experienced World War II at a different part of their lifetime. This led to some dramatically different compositions through a variety of compositional styles — from an expanded western tonality, to aleatoric, to minimalist.
One of Messiaen’s most famous works, Quartet for the End of Time, was his first piece to utilize bird songs, and was written in a unique place — at a POW camp in then-Germany (now Poland) in 1940. In a documentary I viewed about Messiaen from the United States Marine Band “The President’s Own”, the narrator states the dual forces present in this work: on one side, there is the absence of time (denoted by the fermatas with musical action involved, such as crescendos); and living in the present, by the use of birdsong. The work undoubtedly reflects Messiaen’s time at the POW camp and the sounds of his experience, many of which are birds who sing at daybreak (such as the first movement, entitled Liturgy of Crystal, which features a blackbird and nightingale). The story is told that Messiaen wrote sketches to the piece while on transit to the camp, and it premiered in the freezing cold (January 15, 1941) using the instruments on hand, including a violin, cello, clarinet, and piano.
This particular setting brings up a complicated question about how we define originality in music: is originality dependent on one’s unique circumstances in which they compose; or is it dependent on their ideas and compositional process alone? The reason I ask is because of how Messiaen wrote this piece: the story goes on to say many of the keys of the piano were broken, the cello only had three strings, and if one knows anything about wooden instruments, they were all likely damaged due to the cold where they were performed. (NYP Archives, Page 5, Sixth Paragraph) Messiaen thus had many limitations he had to adhere to, which other composers using the same instrumentation did not have to. (Hindemith for one composed Quartet for Clarinet, Violin, Cello, and Piano, 1938).
To me, Messiaen’s situation implies while not the direct definition of ‘originality’, that a composer’s unique circumstances and limitations could contribute to a piece that could be understood as original. In the balancing act between sonic result and motive for composing, is there common ground that music consumers could find to specifically define the word ‘originality’? What plays more of a role in the compositional process: the inspiration, or a composer’s knowledge of writing in a specific style? For Messiaen, he undoubtedly draws upon his experiences being a prisoner of war and recreates the struggles within the confines of his compositional style. The question then becomes, will the experience of being involved in a global conflict change a composer’s style outright?
Dmitri Shostakovich, Symphony №7, “Leningrad”, 1941.
One aspect of performing new large-scale works which often escapes criticism is the amount of preparation necessary on both sides, meaning the ensemble and music director. As a performer, I can certainly sympathize with receiving a piece of music at the last minute then expected to perform it to a high caliber, and such was the experience with Hans Lange and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in late October, 1942. Author Claudia Cassidy writes in “Chicago Hears Shostakovich’s Seventh Again”, that despite the fact that Shostakovich’s Symphony №7, “Leningrad” was premiered in America some three months before under Toscanini, “Mr. Lange had less than a week — and a tragic week — to prepare the huge and sprawling score.” (Paragraph 1) The piece performed directly before Shostakovich, Brahms’s Tragic Overture directly forecasted the mood of the new-to-America work.
The audience, presumably knowing about the battles on the Eastern European front, would have viewed Shostakovich’s work not only as a musical representation of the Siege of Leningrad (now Saint Petersberg). Musical symbolism, such as the snare drum’s ever-increasing intensity in the first movement provides a clear parallel to the Axis’s invasion and subsequent destruction of the city. This is often compared in a purely musical sense to Ravel’s Bolero, despite their clear differences. There is minimal thematic development, however the same themes are repeated with increased orchestration and intensity. This has a clear relationship to the invasion of Leningrad which began on September 8, 1941 and lasted until January 27, 1944.
Many viewed Leningrad as both the cultural capital of the U.S.S.R., and as a symbol to the country’s political influence in Europe. The city’s name derives from Vladimir Lenin’s name, the word Leningrad translating to “Lenin’s City. Therefore, to destroy the Soviet’s spirits, it was imperative that the Axis Powers take Leningrad by any means necessary. This resulted in a 3-year long German-led siege of the city resulting in over a million civilian lives lost, as well as the near-total destruction of the city. There was a similar attack that occurred at Stalingrad which functioned as a turning point in the Eastern Front — after the German retreat, the Soviets were in a prime position to fight back.
In the often-discussed conflict between Dmitri Shostakovich and Josef Stalin, compositions were often seen on a black / white spectrum — either they were Pro-Soviet or Anti-Soviet. With Shostakovich’s Symphony №7, the subtitle, “Leningrad” stated the obvious Pro-Soviet influence, even more notably because it was written in the middle of the siege. On an international scale however, the piece was viewed from both sides of the coin: popular due to its function as a symbol of resistance to fascism, but criticized (likely) due to the orchestras’ lack of preparation and premieres. Larry Wolters, in the December 13, 1942 edition of the Chicago Daily Tribune writes, “[Shostakovich’s Seventh] symphony is an intensely emotional work and critics have fallen into sharp disagreement over its merit. Several, who saw little in it at first, have now reversed themselves.” (Paragraph 4)
A brief look at the aforementioned “Concerts the Microphone Presents” will show a number of Russian composers, such as Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich. The radio’s presentation of these then-new compositions were integral to its dissemination, and these performances helped classify these works into what we now would consider orchestral standards.
Aaron Copland, Fanfare for the Common Man, 1942.
Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man is one of many Western Art Music pieces that most audiences recognize, yet few know the history behind. It has been used in a variety of musical settings and has in recent years been arranged for a wide array of ensembles. The original conception of the piece was a part of a project by Eugene Goossens, conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, to have eighteen American-composed fanfares, each of which would begin each new concert cycle. Copland’s selected title, Fanfare for the Common Man, reflects back to a 1942 speech given by Vice President Henry A. Wallace in support of the common man’s power to provide money for the war effort. The United States’ 1941 entry into World War II put a harsh strain on middle-class American wallets, particularly in the form of income taxes, so the work was aptly premiered on March 12, 1943 — three days before the income tax payment deadline for that year.
Not only was the premiere of the fanfare successful, but it appeared to be a hit at subsequent performances as well. In the December 19, 1944 edition of the New York Times, an author only abbreviated M.A.S. writes in reference to a performance by Leopold Stokowski and the New York City Symphony, “Probably the most thoroughly successful performance of the evening was that given Mr. Copland’s short “Fanfare,” which is scored for brasses and percussion only.” (Paragraph 2). The complete article can be found here.
A few years later, Copland used his Fanfare for the Common Man as structural material for the final movement of his Symphony №3. In searching for primary sources about this symphony, which as a whole includes many intense moments for brass, I found a December 19, 1947 article by well-known contributor to the New York Times, Olin Downes. This particular article also highlights one of the most famous conductors to lead an American orchestra — specifically the Cleveland Orchestra from 1946 until his death in 1970. Though this is a different opinion than that previously mentioned by M.A.S., Olin Downes writes, “The symphony has patches of striking beauty and felicitous development. But now and again the structure sags; a kind of special musical ideology, owing in part to Mahler and to the Stravinsky of the Octuor period, is substituted for the organic growth of germinal ideas.” (Paragraph 3). This is especially true of the final movement, where the Fanfare for the Common Man’s theme is present and in musical focus throughout. As we have seen with many of Olin Downes’s articles, perhaps this is a sign of musical preference changing (in the direction of minimalism?) before his eyes, without his acceptance yet. He is no doubt a traditionalist, and subsequently in the article goes on to call out Szell’s conducting of Brahms’s first symphony, “Certainly, in the sum of it, it failed to be a great reading of the symphony.” (Last Paragraph).
The Score to Fanfare for the Common Man can be found here.
More history on the Fanfare’s political purpose can be found here.
Richard Strauss, Metamorphosen, 1945.
Richard Strauss’s Metamorphosen was written for a unique ensemble, comprised of ten violins, five violas, five celli, and three basses. Robert Bagar, in the program notes for the New York Philharmonic’s first performance writes, “It was the nature of the work in hand which led [Strauss] into the new way, into the new expressive form and means.” (Second Paragraph). Ensemble choice and orchestration plays a major factor into the development of a work’s emotional qualities as well as the composer’s purpose in writing a work. It is a recurring theme the more we dive into 20th-century musical development — creativity can be found outside just the compositional systems. However, the case for Strauss is that this work appeared to be the first major symphonic work (symphonic-poem?) for a string ensemble. This particular ensemble variation was somewhat replicated in a work fifteen years later by Krzysztof Penderecki which I will discuss shortly.
This was one of Richard Strauss’s last works, as it was completed on April 12, 1945 — incidentally when the European Front of World War II was coming to a close, and sharing the date when then-President Roosevelt passed away. There is a lot of debate surrounding this piece, specifically referring to the final page of the score, where Strauss wrote, “In Memorium”, following a few musical quotations of the Funeral March from Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony. Adding to the mystery, the words’ specific meaning was never confirmed by Strauss, leading to a few possible interpretations. Given the timing of the work’s completion — two weeks prior to Germany’s surrender, one could theorize this statement “In Memorium” to be referring to the Third Reich’s falling. Another possibility is that, with the frequent quotations of Beethoven’s Erocia Symphony, Strauss’s Metamorphosen was written to express the loss of German culture, particularly during the Allied forces bombing campaign, often intentionally striking cultural epicenters such as Munich and Dresden. Lastly, one could interpret this work’s dedication “In Memorium” to Beethoven himself, who represented the development of Austro-German culture.
Contributor Allan Kozinn discusses these questions in his August 25, 1992 New York Times article, “The World of Richard Strauss, Murky and Not So Honorable”. His interpretation is that these words represent a combination of all the aforementioned ‘sides’. Beethoven’s third symphony, Eroica, was originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte, hero of the French Revolution, but was later rescinded when Napoleon declared himself Emperor. As it relates to this, Beethoven was “disappointed” in Napoleon (closer to being filled with rage), in a parallel sense that Richard Strauss was disappointed in Hitler for taking a love of country and turning it into a fascist state. “Strauss was lamenting the destruction of German culture, physically by Allied bombing and spiritually by the Nazis. And in quoting Beethoven’s ‘Eroica’ near the end, he was expressing a disappointment in his Führer equivalent to Beethoven’s disappointment in Napoloen’s transformation from savior to tyrant.” (Page 2, Paragraph 1). This could also answer why Strauss called the composition Metamorphosen, specifically in the plural form, implying more than one transformation. Though the questions are not directly answered, the information provided by both Robert Bagar and Allan Kozinn help create a very solid argument showing Richard Strauss’s true allegiance. However, the unfortunately reality is, we will never know for sure.
Arnold Schoenberg, A Survivor from Warsaw, 1947.
Arnold Schoenberg composed his cantata A Survivor from Warsaw in between 1946 and 1947, just after World War II ended. In the April 13–14, 1950 program notes for the New York Philharmonic’s performance of the piece, author Cecil Smith provides a clear overview of how Schoenberg created this work from a Jewish Warsaw ghetto survivor’s experience. Given the American public’s knowledge of past Schoenberg compositions, it is not surprising that a 12-tone analysis is present in Smith’s description. However, Smith restates Richard S. Hill’s analysis, saying a 12-tone row “can be determined only with considerable difficulty, since it is first stated clearly in measures 47–49 in the ‘cello.” (Paragraph 14). Despite this piece clearly violating the strictest of rules in 12-tone composition, I would argue it shows how dependent we are on finding some sort of structure within a piece of music, regardless of what (or how clear) the message is. When it comes to meaning in musical performance, do we as an audience ever disregard the obvious by instead obsessing over finding some abstract meaning that likely was not intended? In other words, are we just overcomplicating the obvious meaning of this work? (Granted this was written seventy years ago).
There is a moment at the climax of A Survivor from Warsaw when a men’s chorus sings in unison the Jewish prayer “Shema Yisroel” in Hebrew, meaning “Hail, O Israel”. In the recording that follows, this event occurs at 5:50. Given my own experience growing up as a member of a Jewish Synagogue, I am curious if the tones Schoenberg utilized in this setting were selected to match the 12-tone style of composition he (arguably) utilized, or if they were representing a version of the “Shema” he was familiar with. I only ask this because this seems incredibly difficult to sing, and I personally recall a much different (tonal) melody to accompany this chant. There are also many differences in chant style and interpretation from synagogue to synagogue, so some variance would not be unlikely — this seems very different, almost rewritten in that case.
One may notice that the text of A Survivor from Warsaw is in English — a language few composers wrote for, especially when considering the depicted events taking place in Poland. The only exception is for the text mirroring the words the survivor remembers the Nazi sergeant saying, which is in a colloquial German. As author Louis Stanley writes in “The Warsaw Ghetto” within the April 9, 1950 edition of the New York Times, “Schoenberg has been so absorbed with transmitting a meaningful message that surprisingly the largest portion of his music . . . is associated with verbal texts.” (First Paragraph). Many are already familiar with this spoken word style of composition, particularly in Schoenberg’s 1912 work Pierrot Lunaire. The significance of A Survivor from Warsaw is that Schoenberg had friends translate the original English text into German and French. In a sense, one could interpret this as a piece more about the verbal message than the sounds — the ensemble’s sounds are complementary to the message.
Masao Ohki, Symphony 5, “Hiroshima”, 1953.
As a now second-year doctoral student, I have spent the last nine years studying music from both an educational and a performance-oriented perspective. Though these experiences and the fortune I have had to take a wide range of courses, a lot of the information is redundant from year to year. We study composers such as the Baroque masters, the First Viennese School, the Romantics involved in programmatic music, and 20th-century innovations as if they are their own separate entity, having miraculously ‘appeared’ over the course of music history. I see this as a terrible injustice, as we are simply repeating the same information from a single perspective. This is a primary reason why in this class so many historical anecdotes always assumed to be true were shockingly refuted by primary sources. Within the span of this anthology, I have discussed a variety of composers’ works and how they were influenced by World War II. In my experience, a seldom-researched point of view is that of the Japanese. Is this lack of discussion and research because they were (technically speaking) the United States’ first enemies after the bombing of Pearl Harbor? Are there other political factors at play?
Japanese composer Masao Ohki (1901–1971) composed his Symphony №5, “Hiroshima” in 1953, eight years after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which led to Japan’s surrender formally ending World War II. It is a little-known fact that while Japan’s surrender ended the war, the United States maintained occupation of Japan until 1952 — an action which undoubtedly irritated the Japanese public. Symphony №5, “Hiroshima” was notably influenced by six paintings by Iri and Toshi Maruki, entitled “The Hiroshima Panels”; the corresponding paintings are where the names of the six middle-movements come from. The piece was premiered on November 1, 1953 by the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra.
Despite this work being recorded by the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra under Takuo Yuasa (2005) and being readily available on YouTube (shown below) and Naxos Music Library, there is very little evidence saying that either Masao Ohki or this work were ever introduced to the Western masses. With a lack of primary source material available through newspapers or interviews, I view the most reliable information to come via ‘program notes’ found inside the audio recording’s case. In these notes, Morihide Katayama writes about Ohki’s struggles with having his works performed, “The outbreak of war prevented the performance of [Ohki’s award-winning Five Fairy Tales (1934)] in Europe, which were to have been conducted by Felix Weingartner.” (Page 2, last paragraph). Because Ohki was a Japanese composer, the ability to present music internationally was becoming increasingly unlikely as the Axis powers’ fundamental beliefs described fascism and other countries would join the Allied forces. In Japan itself, Katayama writes, “Democracy and international socialism were gradually replaced by the idea that eliminating political influences from Europe and the United States would bring happiness to the people in all Asian countries as well as in Japan.” (Page 3, Left column, Paragraph 2).
As was the general belief among Americans post-war, the Japanese had become strong nationalists under Hideki Tojo’s military rule. As shown in the later naval battles in the Pacific theater, the Japanese were instructed to fulfill their duty at all costs. It is primarily for this reason — to risk a bloody guerilla warfare via land invasion — that the United States decided to drop the atomic bomb. Whether or not this was a morally-just decision is a question that could never be definitively answered, in my opinion. “[Ohki’s] inclination to Japanese traditional and popular music was. . . not so much to be linked with his concern for Japanese laborers and peasants, . . . as with his sympathy with Asian people oppressed under colonialism by Europe and the United States.” (Page 3, Left column, Paragraph 2)
As mentioned before, this work has not received international acclaim, and information about the piece is hard to come by. A few answers as to why are answered when one considers the events that take place after the end of World War II, namely the Red Scare. As Katayama writes, “The Hiroshima Symphony had a striking impact on Japanese audiences, establishing Ohki as a left-wing composer fighting against imperialism.” (Page 4, Right column, Paragraph 2). Regardless of how Americans would have portrayed it, the rise of McCarthyism in the United States (and similarly in other Allied countries) would have made international performance impossible immediately post-war. As time passed however, a few performances occurred outside Japan, including Arvid Jansons leading the Leningrad Philharmonic in the Soviet Union. Though I could not say for sure, I believe there are countless works out there showing World War II in a different light than what the history books tell us. As they say, history is written by the winners. However, it is our job as researchers to seek out these works and see how they influence our own perspectives — histories we have been taught are correct, yet we rarely question as a society.
Krzysztof Penderecki, Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, 1960.
Krzysztof Penderecki’s Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima is, in my opinion, one of the more hauntingly beautiful, yet simultaneously powerful works discovered over this past semester. Written for a very specific string instrumentation provided Penderecki with enough sound for proper balancing of parts. It calls for 24 violins, 10 violas, 10 celli, and 8 contrabasses. Whereas these numbers are undoubtedly intentional for Penderecki’s vision of how parts interact throughout the piece, I am curious if there is another motive (such as, could this instrumentation be hypothetically doubled, or is this a functional structure of the music?)
As is shown during the following recording of Threnody, the score is written in a distinctly abstract way, at least in comparison to traditional notation. From a pitch standpoint, it simply provides range suggestions rather than a definite sound directive (such as a note on a staff). Note that instrumentation and which lines each section is playing at a given time change, such as in the opening when six violins play each of the four lines, yet later at timestamp 6:00, each performer begins their line at a specific time. From a rhythmic standpoint, similar suggestions are given, such as a timestamp showing approximately how many seconds a gesture should last. This is my primary reason for providing an animated score recording, as I would assume it would take a lengthy amount of study to comprehend the structure of this piece — essentially impossible in a single listen.
When considering this work in comparison to others written with less performance liberties, it is necessary to analyze what the ‘aleatoricness’ of the piece contributes to the emotional reaction perceived by the audience. In this case, I personally do not hear this piece and think “It is a 20th-century work”, but instead that it describes the angst, insecurity, and tragedy being felt by those in charge of bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I interpret the symbolic meaning of Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima to at first show the Americans’ perspective, specifically those ordering this attack and the conflict they feel. At the end however, the perspective changes — nothing but silence representing those who were just killed. There is no reflection, no aural mention of Japan’s surrender a month later — just silence for those who were killed.
Peter Gorner, in the September 13, 1968 Chicago Tribune writes a description of Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, “The Threnody and St. Luke Passion made Penderecki famous, and their simplistic ease of understanding has done much to further the cause of the avant garde.” (Paragraph 3). The programmatic nature is undeniably simple; however, I would argue with Mr. Gorner that the message can be interpreted as simple if and only if the listener hears it for what it is on the surface — a string of sounds grouped and clustered together. If each instrumentalist were to play their individual part, it contributes to a more complicated meaning, showing the presumably conflicted nature of this decision. That is, if you take my interpretation of this functioning as a first-person work, however.
From a programmatic view, this work’s emotional climax (9:50) is the preparation and dropping of the world’s first nuclear bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, which occurred on August 6, 1945. As the story goes, this was seen as an act of desperation on the United States’ part, as top military generals working in the Pacific Theater knew a ground-based invasion of Japan would result in hundreds of thousands of deaths. There is evidence that then-President Harry Truman was unaware of the nuclear bomb’s creation until he was sworn in following President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s death. Anecdotal evidence describes Truman as being heavily conflicted over the use of the bombs, having known the destruction it would leave. As a result, an estimated 200,000 people were killed between the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A dense black line spanning every part of the ensemble shows the performance direction to represent the explosion, and it subsequently fades into silence. Nothing is left.
Benjamin Britten, War Requiem, 1962.
Are we guilty of buying into the egos of composers for music that is not written for us? Quoting Britten on this topic, Joan Peyser in her November 16, 1969 New York Times article “Composers Talk Too Much” transcribes Benjamin Britten’s words, “Beethoven was the first of these — a man who thought he was truly holy. I believe in the reverse of that. I believe in the artist serving society. It is better to be a bad composer writing for society than to be a bad composer writing against it.” (Right Column, Paragraph 5) Peyser then goes to write that Britten identified with other composers of similar values, namely Dmitri Shostakovich and Aaron Copland; “all composers who reject ‘art for art’s sake’ in favor of art for an audience.” (Right Column, Paragraph 6)
Considering both of these associated composers were mentioned earlier in this anthology, do you see Shostakovich’s Symphony №7, “Leningrad” and Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man as written for an audience, or for the composer themselves? I personally see composers’ intentions shifting throughout the 20th century, largely in part due to this project’s analysis. This shift is presumably due to the newfound voice that composers appear to have in society. At the time of writing this entry, every composer who used their individual voices to show how World War II affected their lives and/or homes. They were in turn writing for an audience who could sympathize with those events because they were living in the same nightmare as the rest of the world.
This idea of composing for the audiences could also be traced to the more accessible performances via devices like the radio. Not to say that live concerts are not important, but as shown by the “Concerts the Microphone Presents” excerpt at the beginning of this anthology, newer composers have increased competition with new technological advances. A concert listener now has to decide whether they want to hear the ‘classics’ or something new. If they can connect with newer music, they would obviously be more likely to listen.
Now, how does Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem connect with its audiences? The piece was written by combining the Latin liturgical text of the Requiem with 13 poems by Wilfred Owen, a young English officer killed in France just before the 1918 Armistice that ended WWI. Albert Goldberg, in his October 13, 1963 article for the Los Angeles Times writes, “[Owen’s poems] were not about what soldiers gloriously did but what they had unforgivably been made to do to others and to suffer themselves.” (Paragraph 4). This could bring us back to Britten’s comments about composers’ egos, and how they write too much for themselves. Owen’s poetry was not about personal glory — instead it depicted the horrors of war. It is raw and untamed; Britten’s music is underneath the poetry, which keeps the sung word in focus. In this sense, he is practicing what he preaches. He did not write the War Requiem for personal glory, but rather to use others’ experiences as a statement of why war should never happen again.
Goldberg writes about the significance of hearing this piece in person, “While some portions are intimately directed, one might say that the address is to the multitude rather than to the individual listener. . . The effects need to be heard in open spaces and the emotional import is of a kind that requires simultaneous sharing.” (Column 2 from Left, Paragraph 3). This undoubtedly is true for today’s musician, having been in performance-limbo for the last year and a half. I think there is nothing digital that could compare to a live performance, simply because of the uniformity of experience between you and the people surrounding you. Though you may not know any of these people, you all share a common experience that brings a collective understanding into focus — uniformity that is rare in today’s lifestyle.
Henryk Górecki, Symphony №3, “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs”, 1976.
Whereas Henryk Górecki’s Symphony №3, “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” was not written in direct response to World War II, it shares undeniable connections that provide more evidence for the aforementioned mentality shift in composer influence after the war. This work took a human experience, the bond between mother and child, and set both religious and secular words to create a piece anyone could connect with, regardless of their political, religious, or social background. It is no surprise that it received widespread acclaim after it was publicized. The only question is, why did it take so long?
Written in 1976, premiered on April 4, 1977, and most famously recorded by David Zinman and the London Sinfonietta in 1992, Górecki’s work can certainly be seen as having a unique history. As Nicolas Soames writes in the February 12, 1993 edition of the London Times, “On Monday, the UK pop album chart placed the Symphony №3 by the Polish composer Henryk Gorecki at №6, sandwiched between the soul music of In Vogue and the progressive rock of R.E.M.” (Paragraph 1). Throughout the history of the Billboard Top 100, only a handful of so-called Classical works have made an appearance. Such is the case with the disco rendition of Beethoven’s Symphony №5, aptly called “A Fifth of Beethoven”, by Walter Murphy. Others, such as Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries”, and Franz Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody №2 were popular through other means (Looney Tunes, same place where I heard my first orchestral music). Rarely, if ever, did a Classical work become popular within the general population on its own merit.
In a sense, Górecki’s “Symphony of Sorrowful Songs” carries a history of inspiration, starting with his time working under Communist rule in his home of Katowice, Poland. As is well documented in the interviews conducted after his third symphony’s rise to fame, there is a Catholic theme to the piece: the first movement’s text from a lament to Mary found in Central Poland; the second movement’s from a prayer written by a young female Polish prisoner in a Gestapo prison cell; and the third movement’s from a religious-themed song of southern Poland. Though one could argue as to where Górecki’s musical influence lie, as Joseph McLellan writes in the Washington Post’s “Gorecki’s Symphonies and Sympathies”, “[Gorecki] is a master of the whole array of new musical styles, structures and gestures that have been developed in the 20th century, from atonality to minimalism and even the spacious simplicities of the new age style.” (Page 2, Middle-right Column, Paragraph 1).
In his third symphony’s first movement, one can hear the harmony expand as more voices enter. The dense writing of string parts allows for a full yet complex texture, seemingly representing a personal inner conflict. Many of the string musicians are playing one or two to a part, with very little section unity. When I first realized that this is a canon, I could not follow where the direction was going. Simply put, I think the ‘direction’ implied is through crescendo and expansion of the orchestra when the violins enter (last in the canon). It emits a chorale-like sound, personally reminiscent of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony №2, “Resurrection”, in the sense that as you get closer to Heaven, the pitch rises and becomes more consonant.
The second movement features a much darker timbre and a much slower harmonic pacing, beginning almost like a funeral march or lament. As the soprano moves back and forth between “Do” and “Re”, I found my own anticipation growing, waiting for “Mi” which occurs at 29:37. Please do not skip straight to this moment, but at the very least start the movement and wait for your ear to take you there. Perhaps popular culture has influenced my interpretation too much, but this sounds like it could be the ending of a drama when the protagonist tragically dies and is buried. It has a holy sound, yet as mentioned before, the context of this music comes from a prison cell, with a young girl asking God to save her.
The final movement features the same harmonic basis, alternating between a tonic-like chord and a pseudo-predominant chord that leaves the listener without a sense of finality. I find, as I mentioned before, that Górecki shares many similarities with Mahler, in the sense that the perpetual growing of musical tension creates an anticipation for the listener regardless of previous listening background. This is then released when the resolution finally occurs, resulting in a grandiose, beautiful moment. It is undoubtedly less harsh on the ears than some of the previous works I have discussed, however I find if there were readily available analyses, one could find amazing craftsmanship in the work as a whole. Górecki’s Symphony №3 certainly has the public ‘hooked’, however I think the reasons why they are in love with it are its tonal accessibility; its religious message in the face of a country where religion was practically banned for the second half of the 20th-century; and last, but most importantly, the relevance of the theme — a mother’s love for her child — after so many parents had their families torn apart after World War II.
Steve Reich, Different Trains, 1988.
Steve Reich composed Different Trains after reminiscing about his childhood experience of traveling cross country on trains between his divorced parents’ homes. In reflecting, he realized his experience riding trains occurred at the same time as Nazi prisoners’ experience riding trains to concentration camps during WWII. The score calls for a string quartet and tape-recorded samples of people speaking short phrases regarding the war. In this short interview, Reich states, “I am not making my interpretation of the Holocaust my fantasy; I am presenting people talking about their own lives.” (1:45).
Not only is this a significant statement reflecting the inspiration behind a piece written over forty years after the Holocaust, but it also brings to light the lack of publicity Americans had about these atrocities being committed as they were occurring. This article about the American response to the Holocaust highlights this lack of publicity: “The American public discovered the full extent of the Holocaust only when the Allied armies liberated the extermination and concentration camps at the end of World War II . . . Attention increasingly focused on the inadequate American response and what lay behind it.” (Paragraph 15)
Different Trains was written for and premiered by the Kronos Quartet in 1988 as part of a new music festival held in Miami, Florida. As Reich was already a nationally recognized composer, the Kronos Quartet additionally performed a West Coast premiere, the newspaper review of which is found here. This article explains Reich’s two-way inspiration of the work, being both autobiographical and a homage to victims of the Holocaust. It also presents an interesting parallel to another composer I have previously discussed — Dmitri Shostakovich and his String Quartet №8, Opus 110 — which was also on the program for this performance.
Fundamentally, Shostakovich’s String Quartet №8 and Reich’s Different Trains only share the in-person orchestration, the interesting connection comes from their inspirations, that being the impact World War II had on the composers’ lives. Shostakovich’s work was composed littered with his musical signature (D.S.C.H. becomes D, Eb, C, B), and was dedicated to victims of the Soviet regime, arguably dedicated to Shostakovich himself. It can be interpreted as an autobiographical work referencing the pains Shostakovich suffered under fascism and equally communism at the hands of his own country — a political party he was forced to join.
In compiling this anthology, it was incredible to see how different works by a wide array of composers all were somehow interconnected. Perhaps it is not too surprising to know that composers used a global conflict such as World War II to reflect on their own experiences and pay tribute to those affected by it. In my own opinion however, it is more important to see the developmental course of 20th-century music as multiple intertwined pathways. The same events, especially in an increasingly global society, will affect everyone differently based on their experiences. This will undoubtedly result in a wide range of artistic expressions all trying to reference the same histories, just portrayed through different mediums. Written documents and primary sources can provide us with factual information about events of the world, however the music shows us the emotions felt by the people as these events unfolded.
