The Charm Of The Baroque--Nothing Discreet About It

[dulcinea]

MUSIC CHOICE just played the Stokowski orchestration of the Tocatta and Fugue; as I always do with those orchestrations of Baroque pieces, I turned the volume OFF. Where did the musicians of the 19th and early 20th centuries get the absurd idea that the Baroque is garish and bombastic?
But that is not my question today; rather, I would like to know why the Baroque has such an unique and distinctive color, flavor, sound and aroma. THE SEASONS of Glazunov is recognizably modern; there are composers alive today whose work clearly follows the same style that Gospodin Aleksandr followed. THE SEASONS of Vivaldi is obviously of another era--an era that did not know Beethoven, Wagner or Czajkowski--, and yet Padre Antonio Lucio is now beloved to an extreme that would likely surprise the Red Priest himself!

[John F]

Every major period in music history has its distinctive qualities. Music of the high Classical era is very different not only from the Baroque but from the high Romanticism of Berlioz and Tchaikovsky, not to mention Verdi and Wagner; and Modernism, with its high dissonance and renunciation of the Classical forms, is unlike anything that came before. (I don't know what you think is "modern" about Glazunov's ballet, which is as Romantic in style as it can be.)

[dulcinea]

Every major period in music history has its distinctive qualities. Music of the high Classical era is very different not only from the Baroque but from the high Romanticism of Berlioz and Tchaikovsky, not to mention Verdi and Wagner; and Modernism, with its high dissonance and renunciation of the Classical forms, is unlike anything that came before. (I don't know what you think is "modern" about Glazunov's ballet, which is as Romantic in style as it can be.)

Some Baroque characteristics are easily identifiable, such as small orchestras that are not Mahlerian. What other distinctive qualities should I look for, please?
Glazunov lived into the 1930s, and knew well several of the 20th century masters. As for his ballets, if people like Williams and Zimmer also wrote ballets, the spirit of Gospodin Aleksandr would likely be evident in them.

[jserraglio]

"Garish and bombastic" would not be not the first words that come to my mind about Stokowski's conducting of the likes of Gabrieli, Bach, Vivaldi, Handel or Monteverdi. I would call his treatment of Baroque composers, and he opened many concerts with baroque works, mellifluous, coherent and smoothly articulated.

"Garish", though, would aptly describe much of the sound world foisted upon the Baroque in the name of authenticity by the first generation of EM practitioners: playing that was astringent, shrill, screechy, out of tune, faultily intoned.

The un-Mahlerian small size of an orchestra is not a distinctive trait of the Baroque, unless the works of Haydn, Mozart, Schubert and Beethoven are to be called baroque.

Elgar lived into the '30s, Bax into the '50s, Hanson into the '80s. Is their music by that token to be called modern?

[jbuck919]

Every major period in music history has its distinctive qualities. Music of the high Classical era is very different not only from the Baroque but from the high Romanticism of Berlioz and Tchaikovsky, not to mention Verdi and Wagner; and Modernism, with its high dissonance and renunciation of the Classical forms, is unlike anything that came before. (I don't know what you think is "modern" about Glazunov's ballet, which is as Romantic in style as it can be.)

Some Baroque characteristics are easily identifiable, such as small orchestras that are not Mahlerian. What other distinctive qualities should I look for, please?
Glazunov lived into the 1930s, and knew well several of the 20th century masters. As for his ballets, if people like Williams and Zimmer also wrote ballets, the spirit of Gospodin Aleksandr would likely be evident in them.

John said Romantic in style. It was not until after the period of early modernism that styles became, well, confused. In some ways it's a wonder that we have a pre-1950 canon at all that includes figures as diverse both disparately and within their own works as Bartok and Stravinsky, let alone the consistently neo-Romantic Mahler and the modernism-abjuring Strauss.

Dulcinea and I have gone back and forth about Baroque music since we both joined CMG at approximately the same time, and I will say again what I have said many times before. Hon, you are looking for something that is not there. Mature Baroque (which eliminates Monteverdi, for instance), like mature Classical, only has three important composers, and all your piety and wit will not change that. I still play early Baroque almost every Sunday because it fits my little organ, is not especially difficult, and can be downloaded free in historic editions from IMSLP. Nothing I have played from that huge and pleasant enough but hardly smashing repertory after years of exploiting it has changed my mind.

[jserraglio]

Handel: I'd put his music right up there with that of immortals like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert.

[Belle]

Handel: I'd put his music right up there with that of immortals like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert.

Would absolutely agree with that, though I'd exclude Mozart from that list!!

Jbuck, I don't know how to access that free music library IMSLP online where you can get scores; I've tried in the past but been unsuccessful.

[John F]

The size of the performing ensemble doesn't relate to when the music was written. Composers of all ages have written major works for a single keyboard instrument, and some early music is scored for large ensembles - Handel's "Music for the Royal Fireworks," for example, with its 24 oboes, 12 bassoons, 9 trumpets, 9 horns, and 3 pairs of timpani:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUMh126Pt2g

As jserraglio has suggested, when a composer died does not say much about the period in which he lived and composed. Glazunov's "The Seasons" was written in 1899 and choreographed by Marius Petipa, who had worked with Tchaikovsky on "Sleeping Beauty" and "Nutcracker" in 1890 and 1892. Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring," the quintessential modern work, was composed only 14 years later, while Glazunov still had 17 years to live.

[jbuck919]

Handel: I'd put his music right up there with that of immortals like Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert.

Would absolutely agree with that, though I'd exclude Mozart from that list!!

Jbuck, I don't know how to access that free music library IMSLP online where you can get scores; I've tried in the past but been unsuccessful.

Although everything on IMSLP is supposedly in the public domain, some scores are preceded by a disclaimer, which frankly I have never read because I've never been prevented from getting to the music. This is just a guess, but Australia might have restrictions on the site that don't apply in the US.

Another possibility is that someone might be doing something "special" to access IMSLP when nothing is needed except to do a Google search on a work of music and add IMSLP to the search field. For instance, if you enter "Brandenburg concertos imslp" and don't get a whole bunch of stuff, then yes, you have a problem that I don't have. You can ignore the relatively new membership page. For now it is not necessary to pay for IMSLP, though you'll have to wait a few seconds for your download to start, a very minor inconvenience.

[dulcinea]

Every major period in music history has its distinctive qualities. Music of the high Classical era is very different not only from the Baroque but from the high Romanticism of Berlioz and Tchaikovsky, not to mention Verdi and Wagner; and Modernism, with its high dissonance and renunciation of the Classical forms, is unlike anything that came before. (I don't know what you think is "modern" about Glazunov's ballet, which is as Romantic in style as it can be.)

Some Baroque characteristics are easily identifiable, such as small orchestras that are not Mahlerian. What other distinctive qualities should I look for, please?
Glazunov lived into the 1930s, and knew well several of the 20th century masters. As for his ballets, if people like Williams and Zimmer also wrote ballets, the spirit of Gospodin Aleksandr would likely be evident in them.

John said Romantic in style. It was not until after the period of early modernism that styles became, well, confused. In some ways it's a wonder that we have a pre-1950 canon at all that includes figures as diverse both disparately and within their own works as Bartok and Stravinsky, let alone the consistently neo-Romantic Mahler and the modernism-abjuring Strauss.

Dulcinea and I have gone back and forth about Baroque music since we both joined CMG at approximately the same time, and I will say again what I have said many times before. Hon, you are looking for something that is not there. Mature Baroque (which eliminates Monteverdi, for instance), like mature Classical, only has three important composers, and all your piety and wit will not change that. I still play early Baroque almost every Sunday because it fits my little organ, is not especially difficult, and can be downloaded free in historic editions from IMSLP. Nothing I have played from that huge and pleasant enough but hardly smashing repertory after years of exploiting it has changed my mind.

Would you give up on LES BARRICADES MYSTERIEUSES because F Couperin is not F Chopin?

[jbuck919]

Every major period in music history has its distinctive qualities. Music of the high Classical era is very different not only from the Baroque but from the high Romanticism of Berlioz and Tchaikovsky, not to mention Verdi and Wagner; and Modernism, with its high dissonance and renunciation of the Classical forms, is unlike anything that came before. (I don't know what you think is "modern" about Glazunov's ballet, which is as Romantic in style as it can be.)

Some Baroque characteristics are easily identifiable, such as small orchestras that are not Mahlerian. What other distinctive qualities should I look for, please?
Glazunov lived into the 1930s, and knew well several of the 20th century masters. As for his ballets, if people like Williams and Zimmer also wrote ballets, the spirit of Gospodin Aleksandr would likely be evident in them.

John said Romantic in style. It was not until after the period of early modernism that styles became, well, confused. In some ways it's a wonder that we have a pre-1950 canon at all that includes figures as diverse both disparately and within their own works as Bartok and Stravinsky, let alone the consistently neo-Romantic Mahler and the modernism-abjuring Strauss.

Dulcinea and I have gone back and forth about Baroque music since we both joined CMG at approximately the same time, and I will say again what I have said many times before. Hon, you are looking for something that is not there. Mature Baroque (which eliminates Monteverdi, for instance), like mature Classical, only has three important composers, and all your piety and wit will not change that. I still play early Baroque almost every Sunday because it fits my little organ, is not especially difficult, and can be downloaded free in historic editions from IMSLP. Nothing I have played from that huge and pleasant enough but hardly smashing repertory after years of exploiting it has changed my mind.

Would you give up on LES BARRICADES MYSTERIEUSES because F Couperin is not F Chopin?

You actually listen to that sleeping pill? What is there to give up on? I've been playing the Couperin organ masses for 40 years. They are also not great music, but they remain useful. Like much French baroque organ music (not to mention that of other countries), they sound better than they are for being played on one of the extraordinary instruments of the period. But nothing can rescue a work whose title I would like to think might just be Coupérin's sly admission that he knew the limits of his art.

[John F]

Earlier I found just part of Charles Mackerras's great recording of Handel's "Fireworks" music in the original scoring. Now I've found the whole thing, and here it is.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYESzM5Hul4

The jacket note for the original release said that since the recording required just about every professional oboist in London, it had to be made after midnight when all the city's orchestras' and opera companies' performances were over. I can well believe it. What a glorious noise they make! Mackerras rerecorded this for EMI 18 years later, also on YouTube; it's essentially the same performance but sounds just a bit tame compared with this one.

In New York in the 1980s, Gerard Schwartz programmed this version in a Mostly Mozart concert. I suppose this is one of the few places beyond London where enough professional wind players could be found, and July is one of the few times of year enough of them would be available to play in a live weekday concert.

[John F]

And for jbuck919:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxKPeQiU3c0

And why not? Handel was an organist himself.

[Belle]

jbuck, many thanks as I was finally able to get the scores from IMSLP!!

[jbuck919]

And for jbuck919:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxKPeQiU3c0

And why not? Handel was an organist himself.

That works, but then so does Wotan's farewell on the Wanamaker organ, which if I recall correctly you didn't care for when I posted it after hearing it live last summer. For me, it was thrilling.

The situation with Handel vis-à-vis the organ is complicated. I have read that he was considered the second-greatest organist in Europe of his time, though how that can be concluded from what he left us I do not know. His concertos are minor works, the most important parts of which are probably his improvisations of the slow movement, which do not survive. Twice in my life I've been the organist for parts of Messiah with a full orchestra, and in both cases the "organ part" consisted of a reduction of the full score, surely not what Handel intended in using the organ in his oratorios. "His Yoke Is Easy" is anything but and, along with other highly fugal choruses that are not organ-idiomatic, becomes an extreme virtuoso piece if one wants to get in all the notes, not to mention problems with voices crossing etc. (I dealt with it by cheating.) It is a bit like playing a piano reduction of a late Beethoven quartet.

That having been said, as you have indicated, there are huge passages in Handel that do lend themselves to an organ rendition, and a case can be made from internal evidence that he sometimes composed at the organ. (We know from temporary accounts that he used the harpsichord in the feverish days of putting together Messiah.) Perhaps you've seen the movie Farinelli, whose premise is that the castrato of that name wanted to sing music of the quality only Handel was producing. He stumbles in on Handel in a church and hears him playing one of his overtures on the organ to check it for corrections. The scene is probably fabricated, but it's pretty convincing.

[John F]

All I know of Handel as an organist is that he was an organist, having played in churches in his youth; that he led performances of his oratorios from the organ; and that the organ concertos were played as interludes in the oratorios. At least I believe I know that. I make no claim for Handel's virtuosity on the instrument or the quantity or quality of his surviving compositions for it.

I remember that organ transcription of Wagner, and still don't think much of it. (I just refreshed my memory.) Without the words and a singer, the music simply doesn't work. The same is true of Stokowski's "symphonic syntheses" from Wagner operas, though they're for Wagner's orchestra with the vocal parts given to various instruments. This Handel arrangement does work because the grandiose original has no words and indeed is scored for wind instruments, the organ being the most grandiose of wind instruments.

[jbuck919]

All I know of Handel as an organist is that he was an organist, having played in churches in his youth; that he led performances of his oratorios from the organ; and that the organ concertos were played as interludes in the oratorios. At least I believe I know that. I make no claim for Handel's virtuosity on the instrument or the quantity or quality of his surviving compositions for it.

I remember that organ transcription of Wagner, and still don't think much of it. (I just refreshed my memory.) Without the words and a singer, the music simply doesn't work. The same is true of Stokowski's "symphonic syntheses" from Wagner operas, though they're for Wagner's orchestra with the vocal parts given to various instruments. This Handel arrangement does work because the grandiose original has no words and indeed is scored for wind instruments, the organ being the most grandiose of wind instruments.

Not to argue but just to make conversation, I actually have the same "problem" with non-vocal excerpts from operas. For example, I can't stand the Habañera from Carmen without the words, though it has often been performed that way. (Also, organists have always hated the range of compromises they must make to perform the wedding march from Lohengrin, which in the opera is a chorus with words. Wagner IIRC sanctioned some orchestra-alone excerpts from his operas so that the music could become known in the days before recordings. Of course, in the case of, say, the prelude to Tristan, the compromise consists mainly in bringing the piece to a cadential end against the principle of Gesamtkunstwerk. You would know more about this than I do.

There are organs that are grand enough to "fit" Wagner if voices and percussion were brought in to deal with our common reservation. In fact, a great church could be made into a suitable staging area for an actual performance, I realize that I am engaging in pure fantasy, if for no other reason than that the rare voices that can be brought together for a Wagner opera are not going to make themselves available for a performance in a church accompanied by an organ.

[John F]

Have you ever used the opening section of the "Fireworks" music as a processional? Quite a few YouTube clips of the music say something like that in the caption.

This thread began with dulcinea complaining about orchestral arrangements of Bach organ works. I'm not wild about them, but can't object to them in principal. Bach constantly arranged his own and others' music for different instruments and combinations of them. The most famous arrangements since Bach are undoubtedly Leopold Stokowski's orchestrations of organ music, and these are coming back into the orchestral repertory. Not only did Stokey know everything there is to know about orchestration, but he began as an organist himself, in London and New York, one of the few modern conductors who has.