This week, we have a show that's positively made in heaven (or hell, depending on your point of view). We're hell-bent on looking at music from beyond the grave, as we knock on heavens door, go to hell in a hand-basket, and bring you a show we're calling "Afterlife."
Here's our eternal playlist:
- Hector Berlioz (1803–1869), Symphonie Fantastique: "Dream of the Witches' Sabbath" – One of the most nightmarish scenes in all of classical music, the "Dream of the Witches' Sabbath" is the concluding movement of Hector Berlioz's utterly fantastical Symphonie Fantastique. In the program for the work, the protagonist (the "artist") has been struck with a nasty case of unrequited love. His idée fixe haunts him so profoundly that he attempts to poison himself with opium. In his opium-induced nightmare, the artist dreams that he has been sent to the scaffold for his lover's murder. When the guillotine comes down, he finds himself in hell at a witches' sabbath, surrounded by all sorts of ghouls and monsters. Worst of all, his beloved shows up as one of the witches, dancing in delight at his hellish funeral. The work was inspired by Berlioz's own unrequited love for the Irish actress Harriet Smithson, as well as his own experiments with opium.
https://youtu.be/sHsFIv8VA7w?t=52m25s
- Gustav Mahler (1860–1911), Symphony No. 2 "Resurrection" – Gustav Mahler's day job was as a conductor, so when he composed, he had to do it during the summer, between the typical opera or symphony performance seasons. His second symphony, the most popular of his works during his life until he finished his 8th symphony, took him six summers to complete. Written on the theme of resurrection and his life-long belief in the beauty of the after-life, Mahler originally expected this work to include a printed narrative that audience members would read as they listened to the work. He wrote several variations of this narrative but ultimately withdrew the idea completely. The Dresden premiere in 1901 was the only performance to include a version of his programmatic notes, and he indicated that the Finale was a "fervent hope for everlasting, transcendent renewal." He would later transfer this theme into another of his most popular works, Das Lied Von Der Erde.
- Franz Liszt (1811–1886), Dante Symphony – Dante's great Divine Comedy was an inspiration for the Romantics, who found their own "modern" thinking prefigured in this medieval masterpiece. Of the poem's three parts—Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso—the Inferno is the most famous, particularly for its depiction of famous historical and political figures suffering in Hell. Oddly, Liszt stopped composing after he finished the Purgatorio. Originally, he had planned to depict all three sections of Dante's work, but supposedly, he was admonished by his fellow composer Richard Wagner, who said that it would be futile and presumptuous to attempt to musically depict Paradise. Liszt may have cheated a bit, however. He used a beautiful choral "Magnificat" for the final movement of Purgatorio, which, while not exactly programmatic, gets the same general idea across.
- Gabriel Fauré (1825–1924), Requiem: "In paradisum" – In the 19th century, Requiem masses, like those of Berlioz and Verdi, were often large, dramatic depictions of the Day of Judgment. Fauré, on the other hand, wrote what he called "un petit Requiem," focusing on eternal rest and consolation. He, in fact, omits most of the Dies Irae from his version of the requiem, the section that talks about the day of wrath and the looming judgment. In the concluding "In Paradisum" movement, Fauré makes the afterlife look pretty nice. The text describes the souls of the departed finding peace and eternal rest in the Holy City, where they are safe from the trials of the world. Gabriel Fauré spent his life working in a different kind of holy city: Paris, France. Among other responsibilities, he was a director of the Paris Conservatory and worked for years as an organist in La Madeleine, a church in Paris.
- Johann Strauss II (1825–1899), Mephisto's Calls From Hell Waltz, Op. 101 – This waltz from the Waltz King Johann Strauss Jr. is one of his most curious. Its title, "Mephisto's Calls From Hell," is very evocative, referring to the cries of the devil Mephistopheles from the depths of hell, after he had been banished from heaven into the land of fire and brimstone. However, the work was originally titled "Journey Into The Lake of Fire." The waltz begins devilishly enough with hellish diminished seventh chords, but then transforms into a jovial major-key waltz, only occasionally interrupted by sinister chromatic gestures. The work premiered to 3000 people at a benefit concert in Vienna's Royal-Imperial People's Garden in 1851. The work was so successful that when it premiered it received not one, not two, but three encores.
- Olivier Messiaen (1908–1992), Quartet For The End of Time – The unusual instrumentation of Messiaen's quartet for violin, cello, piano, and clarinet, was dictated by circumstance. In 1940, the composer was interned in a German POW camp in Silesia. This work was written and performed in the camp by Messiaen and a small group of musicians who had managed to acquire instruments. Despite the adverse conditions of the work's composition, it is not particularly grim, nor does it bear any thematic connection to the war or his captivity. Rather, it is a deeply religious work based on images from the Book of Revelation. Messiaen, a devout Catholic, was fascinated by the end of time not as a period of strife, but of beauty and mystical transcendence. The work was premiered to what Messiaen recounted as a raptly attentive audience. After this performance, Messiaen and his friends were re-listed as non-combatant musician-soldiers and were allowed to leave prison and return to France.
- Charles Ives (1874–1978), General William Booth Enters Into Heaven – Ives's song General William Booth Enters into Heaven is a setting of fantastical poem written in 1912 by Vachel Lindsay. If you know anything about Ives's music, you can see why he was attracted to this poem. In the poem, Lindsay indicates that it is to be sung to the hymn tune The Blood of The Lamb, with quotations of the hymn text interspersed and even indications of which instrument (bass drum, flute, banjo, etc) should accompany each section of the poem. Ives generously accommodates Lindsay's instructions. William Booth, the subject of the poem, was a Methodist minister who founded the Salvation Army in 1865 in England with Catherine Booth. The group was originally called the East London Christian Mission. The name was changed to the Salvation Army in 1878, and the first American branch of the organization was founded two years later.
- Aaron Jay Kernis (b. 1960), String Quartet ("musica celestis") – In 1990, the New York-based Lark Quartet asked composer Aaron Jay Kernis to compose a string quartet that challenged tradition, following the story of the Lark Quartet itself. They appeared on the classical music scene in 1985 as one of the first all-female professional string quartets. Kernis took inspiration for his composition from the medieval concept of musica celestis or the music of the Heavenly Hosts. In his own notes on the quartet, Kernis cites a passage by Aurelian of Réöme, a Frankish writer from the 9th century who may have written the earliest known medieval treatise on music. He writes "The office of singing pleases God if it is performed with an attentive mind, when in this way we imitate the choirs of angels who are said to sing the Lord's praises without ceasing."
- Squirrel Nut Zippers, "Hell" – Let's travel back in time for a moment to the late 1990s. Bill Clinton is president, Friends is the biggest show on television, and on the radio, swing music has strangely made a comeback. The swing revival movement—a retro movement that hearkened back to the swing music of the 1930s and 40s—actually began back in 1980s with the retro rockabilly band the Stray Cats and their leader Brian Setzer. But swing revival hit its peak between 1996 and 1999. The band the Squirrel Nut Zippers (named after the old caramel candy) had a platinum hit with their song "Hell" in 1996, followed by other hits from swing revival artists Cherry Poppin' Daddies and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy in 1997 and 1998. Then in 1999, the movement hit its pinnacle when The Brian Setzer Orchestra won a Grammy Award for their cover of Louis Prima's song "Jump, Jive, an' Wail." It was a simpler time.
