2010 has been declared Chopin year!September 18th, 2009
Each year represents an opportunity to honor a particular composer, and 2010 has been prepared actively. Indeed, pianist and composer Frédéric Chopin was born in 1810 and next year will be HIS year. We will “discover” the genius of Chopin and his complete works will be played over and over again. Not that it bothers me, Chopin is a composer with whom I have a particular connection, but why would 2010 serve as a pretext to highlight Chopin’s work as it could help to better know less “media-friendly” composers but at least equally interesting ?
Leafing through my history of the twentieth century, I could find at least three significant anniversaries. Perhaps a centennial is any less impressive than a bicentennial, but in 1910 were born Samuel Barber and Pierre Schaeffer, for example, and also died Mily Balakirev. Wouldn’t these people be enough significant in the history of music to celebrate the 100th anniversary of their birth or death? Or is it easier and more mainstream to decree that we should celebrate a composer already known to all and played a lot?
For 2010, I invite you to (re?) discover the work of these three illustrious personages. I already spoke about Pierre Schaeffer in details in an article about the musique concrète, but let me remind you what he basically did. Pierre Schaeffer has deeply changed the perception of sound and influenced all the music of the second half of the twentieth century. Father of concrete music, he used for the first time electronics as an interpreter. His theory of musical objects is a real jewel and his work has fundamentally influenced a whole generation of revolutionary composers: Stockhausen, Nono, Berio among others (let’s thank here Donaueschingen) or more directly Henry or Mâche. Other composers used his approach to move toward areas still unknown: Messiaen and his work Timbres – Durées (First work to implement spatial slicing performed on three tape trays), Varèse and Déserts, the first work combining acoustic instruments (in this case an orchestra) and tape, and even Boulez with his symphonie mécanique in 1955.
Samuel Barber has been considered by many as one of the most important American composers of the twentieth century. You certainly know his famous Adagio for Strings, but if it has somewhat overshadowed the rest of the work, we should go dig a little deeper. As a pianist, I focused on scores for my instrument and I learnt that Barber studied piano at the Curtis Institute, and payed homage to this instrument many times during his career. You should listen to his sonata or Piano Concerto, true masterpieces too little played today. Try also his fabulous excursions.
Finally, the last name of my list, Mily Balakirev, who died in 1910, is a central figure of Russian musical life. Islamey will certainly remind something to pianists… Balakirev extended and developped the thought of Glinka : Glinka had transmitted to Balakirev his strong nationalism and convinced him of the need for Russia to have a school independent from those of Europe. In 1857, after Glinka’s death, he founded one of the most important group of composers during the Romantic period: the Five. Balakirev met 4 other like-minded composers to reach his aim: Cui, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky. Struggling against academic education of composers, his magnetism and personality inspired his comrades to improbable heights of musical creativity.
I let you gather and listen to tracks and wish you a marvelous time with three composers not as media-friendly as Chopin, but who also could mark the year 2010.
02/7/10 - 07:36
We also have Robert Schumann, born in 1810. I believe Mendelssohn and Liszt were born in 1810 as well (or within a year or two). In honor of Chopin I think I might try to tackle all of his nocturnes on the piano again. I tried this years ago, but only made it halfway through.