This week on Ether game, the Brain Trust leaves the concert hall and enters the salon for a show all about music for leisure.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) Sonatina in c, WoO 43a By the time a young Beethoven had come to Vienna to make a name for himself in 1795, the mandolin had made its way from Italy to many of the musical hubs of Europe. Italian mandolin virtuosi moved to Paris and Vienna and began teaching and performing for the nobility, making the mandolin a popular instrument among amateurs and connoisseurs in salons. This put the instrument on Beethoven’s radar, who was looking for wealthy patrons. Another motivation might have been a woman that Beethoven seemed to have a crush on, Josephine Clary, the Countess Clam-Gallas, who was well-known in Viennese salons as a mandolinist. Beethoven’s mandolin sonatina (which was dedicated to Josephine) originally called for a harpsichord. Although the piano was becoming more popular by Beethoveb’s time as a concert instrument, the harpsichord was still the instrument most often found in parlors and salons, where private and amateur music making was done.  

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) Music for Amateurs and Connoisseurs: Keyboard Sonata in A Major, Wq. 55/4, H. 186: I. Allegro assai Between 1779 and 1787, CPE Bach published two collections of keyboard music which included sonatas, fantasias, and rondos and was subtitled “fur Kenner und Liebhaber,” which translates to “for connoisseurs and amateurs.” This intriguing subtitle hints at an aesthetic principle that preoccupied many composers during this period. An “amateur” in this context  also means “enthusiast,” and doesn’t have any negative connotations. A musical amateur could appreciate the works in this collection on a more authentic level, because they do not necessarily have the technical training and knowledge which would cause them to treat these sonatas too analytically. This gets to the heart of the empfindsamer stil or “sensitive style” developed by German composers in the late 18th century, which valued intimate and unpredictable emotionality. 

Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) Bagatelles, Op. 47 No. 3 Antonin Dvorak wrote the piece we just heard for a cellist and friend: Josef Srb-Debrnov, for a private concert at Debrnov’s home. Debrnov regularly held chamber music concerts at his home, although surprisingly he did not have a piano for use in these concerts. Instead, he owned  a harmonium, a small, single manual pump organ with hand or foot-operated bellows. Consequently, Dvorak included this instrument in his collection of Bagatelles, and probably played the harmonium part when the work was performed at Debrnov’s home. We know for sure that Dvorak performed on the harmonium when the piece was premiered publically at a concert in Prague in 1879. Dvorak was not the only famous composer to write for the instrument. Camille Saint- Saens, and Giacomo Rossini both wrote chamber music for it, and Cesar Franck wrote an entire collection of 59 pieces for solo harmonium. 

Henry Purcell (1659-1695) Fantasia upon One Note The Fantasia is the most popular type of piece written for viol consort, especially in Renaissance England, where viol playing was a pastime amongst amateurs, nobility and professionals alike. The height of the viol consort’s popularity was the Tudor era, and Henry Purcell’s career came slightly after that period, sitting squarely in the Baroque era. Thus, his viol consort music, though written in the style of earlier music, has some unusual elements more aligned with Baroque music and is very technically demanding. You may have noticed this piece’s unusual feature (the title gives it away), the tenor part only plays one note for the whole piece. It’s believed that Purcell wrote this fantasia for a friend who wanted to play in a viol consort, but that this friend didn’t know how to play the viol, so they were only given the responsibility of one, very important, note.

Ned Rorem (1923-2022) Day Music: III. Extreme Leisure Ned Rorem has lived two parallel artistic lives. On the one hand, he’s the Juilliard-trained, Pulitzer-prize winning composer, known for his 500+ songs, 10 operas, and countless other works. On the other hand, he’s the famed essayist, whose published diaries have given readers an inside look at the often licentious lifestyle of the contemporary creative artist, his travels, and the celebrated people he met along the way. Rorem has commented that fans of his literature are often not even aware of his music, and vice versa. His Day Music from 1971 is his third composition for solo violin, and was eventually followed by Night Music. Both works are self-contained sets of eight etudes. The third etude of Day Music, titled “Extreme Leisure”, features a melodic line that nearly languishes over a pendulous and repetitive accompaniment which, with its alternate title “The Gallows Revisited”, clearly hints at something more sinister.

Percy Grainger (1882-1961) Walking Tune Grainger was born in Australia, yet from an early age, he was a world traveler. In the summer of 1900, when he was 18 years old, he accompanied his mother on a European tour that took him to the Scottish Highlands of Western Argyleshire. His Walking Tune, as the name implies, was written while the composer was out walking through the highlands of Scotland during that trip, as a quote, “whistling accompaniment to my tramping feet.” He was inspired by Celtic folk music and immediately arranged the piece for a wind quintet—although Grainger cheekily referred to the ensemble as a “wind five-some.” Grainger later wrote that he was especially proud of the final chord: a G-major triad with added sixth. That chord became a common 20th-century ending (it’s the exact same final chord heard in The Beatles’ “She Loves You,” for instance), but at the time, it was an innovative sound.

Jacobs-Bond, Carrie (1862-1946) I Love You Truly, Nothin' But Love The combination of a growing middle class and technological developments in sheet music publishing and sound recording led to parlor music emerging as a major genre of light and popular music in the 19th century. Geared towards the amateur musician performing at leisure in a domestic setting, parlor music was characterized by lyricism and simplicity, often expressing themes based on nostalgia and sentimentality. Most arrangements were for voice and piano or melodeon, often with interchangeable parts for guitar, flute or violin as circumstances required. As popularity for this music grew, publishing and writing parlor music became a lucrative career for songwriters like Carrie Jacobs-Bond, who set a record when her 1901 song “I Love You Truly” sold a million copies, making her the first female songwriter to do so. Her 1910 composition “A Perfect Day” would sell 8 million copies and 5 million recordings, and she would write some 175 parlor songs for her self-started music publishing company, which she promoted by performing her own works. Her final song “Because of the Light” was copyrighted in 1944 when she was 82.

May Aufderheide (1888-1972) Dusty Rag Indianapolis native May Aufderheide showed an interest in popular music from an early age, and composed her first rag in 1908 while she was still a teenager. Dusty Rag was published by an acquaintance in Indianapolis, but was not successful due to limited distribution. However, when May returned from finishing school in New York to settle into married life in Richmond, Indiana, she composed several more rags. These were published by her father who was also musical, and had become a prominent banker. Using his considerable resources, he established J. H. Aufderheide & Co. which published rags, waltzes and parlor songs by his daughter and many other regional Indiana composers. With around a dozen of commercially successful works, including a re-issue of Dusty Rag, May Aufderheide became the most published female ragtime composer. Though her musical career was short, a span of four years after which she ceased composing when she turned 23, she remains an important figure in jazz history 

Bill Haley (1925-1981) Kentucky Moon Waltz It remains a mystery exactly when or where Lena Hughes recorded eleven tracks of parlor music on solo guitar, but it was likely in Arkansas in the mid-1960’s. She likely paid for the recordings herself, and only pressed a few hundred copies to hand out at fiddle gatherings. However in later decades, collectors who managed to stumble across her album at flea markets and rummage sales recognized that she was a master of a genre of music that had barely survived beyond the 1880’s. When it was considered fashionable for women to learn parlor music, the guitar was considered a more affordable alternative to the piano. In Lena’s recordings, she uses open tunings, plucking out the haunting melodies and using down strokes to give the arrangement a warm, golden tone. Her album was re-released for the first time in 2013 as “Queen of the Flat-Top Guitar.”