Notes on the Program
Certainly, there were certainly compositions called fantasies before the 19th century. Bach and Mozart’s Fantasias come to mind immediately. What sets apart Schumann’s Fantasiestücke or ‘Fantasy Pieces’ from Bach and Mozart’s Fantasias is that Schumann’s are inspired by literature. More than a compositional form which is charged with virtuosic passion, as one could describe Bach’s Fantasias, Schumann’s Fantasy Pieces are certainly passionate, but perhaps more connected to his other compositions bearing such titles as Papillons (Butterflies), Faschingsschwank aus Wien (Carnival from Vienna), Davidsbündlertänze, Romanzen, Noveletten, Märchenbilder (Pictures of Fairy Tales), Humoresque and Kreisleriana, all of which take extra-musical imagery.
The last example, Kreisleriana for solo piano was inspired by Kapellmeister Kreisler, a character who sprang from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novel Die Lebensansichten des Katers Murr, or The Life Chronicles of Tom Cat Murr.
Pen drawing by E.T.A Hoffmann of Kapellmeister Kreisler (1822)
This novel has pages from Kreisler’s personal journal interspersed with the brilliant ‘scrawl’ of his beloved cat. In this novel Hoffmann often allows the reader to view the world through the eyes of this lofty animal who is quite astonished to find that the entire species of two legged upstanding beings, i.e., man, feels quite superior to his own feline self – hardly accounting for the evolved intuitions and instincts that set him far beyond his human ‘superiors’. He sees with his clear cat vision how humans fool themselves into believing in their superiority and furthermore how they fail to see their inherent shortcomings. Hoffmann is thus expounding on how, in his time, the rational, Apollonian realm become noticeably dominant in Western thought, and the Dionysian realm of imagination had been atrophying noticeably in Western psyches for many ‘advanced’ centuries: all in all, a good argument for the purpose of – the need for -- art. This is a cry for balance that permeates the Romantic era.
The Romantic writers, composers and other artists were involved in probing the possibilities of thinking ‘outside the box’. Hoffmann, to continue using his example, was fascinated by Near Eastern and Eastern philosophy; this paved the way for Nietzsche’s later attempt to probe Zoroastrianism (Thus Spake Zarathustra) and Herman Hesse’s interest in Hindu philosophy (Siddhartha). As the prior Classical style of the 18th century had a discerning ‘matter of fact’ either/or mentality behind it (this is a generalized statement), the Romantics knew that there was more than ‘what meets the eye’; Plato’s Allegory of the Cave comes to mind as perhaps an ancient guide for the Romantics to probe far beyond what is immediately observable, as does a line from Hamlet: ‘there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy’. This perspective is Romantic ‘clarity’ through which one eventually sees the forest for the trees, or at least ones perceptions become somewhat less ‘bushy’.
Much has been written about Schumann’s schizophrenia, including endless deliberations about what compositions were written at what juncture of his malady, ad nauseum, such that one loses sight of how brilliantly he transformed his imagination into music. With all this expert psycho-babble one loses sight of how deliberately Schumann signed off on his compositions and writings as these works reflected the personae of his noms de plume – Florestan, Eusebius and Master Raro.
Known also as an important music critic, Schumann founded Die Neue Zeitschrift für Musik to have his say against artistic philistinism of his time. Davidsbündlertänze for solo piano (also later choreographed by Balanchine) portrays the allegory of David slaying the giant philistine Goliath as expressed through music. Movies wouldn’t be made for several decades in the future; this music seems akin to book adaptations. He also founded a circle called Davidsbund which included many artists of various disciplines, not to mention some honorary members: ‘imaginary friends’ such as Kapellmeister Kreisler and some deceased greats, including Mozart. Hoffmann wrote that Mozart and Haydn were Romantics, despite their allotted century. Schumann, for that matter, also wrote:
“It is difficult to believe that music, an essentially romantic art,
can form a distinctly romantic school within itself.”
and it is signed by Florestan, the more outgoing, perhaps more Apollonian of his characters.
In ‘Notes from Isador Hillyer – Romanticism and Ecology’ published in the Vista Lirica web site, Mr. Hillyer takes his cue from the Romantic tradition. The term ‘Romantic’ itself comes from the French word for novel (roman). In the 19th c. a novel was a pastiche of prose, poetry, woodprints, etc. -- Synæsthesia was alive and well, and fully realized through the 19th c. Romantics. Hillyer mentions the aforementioned Life Chronicles of Tom Cat Murr before launching into his ‘cadenzas’ as he calls them. Likening this part of his writing to a cadenza in piano concerto, that is to say, a point of a concerto where the soloist improvises upon the material of the composition, Hillyer takes two settings both occurring in 1828: The first is a Navajo (Eusabio) from Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop and the second is Ferdinand Schubert taking care of his famous dying brother Franz and he improvises which avengence. (Cather’s Eusabio, Schumann’s Eusebius. Coincidence? Have you read Hillyer’s piece yet?) He is directing the reader, I believe, to understand the vantage point of the Romantic artist – a perspective that soars beyond common vision to the eyes of all knowing, the realm of the akashic records, higher spiritual self, the superego that Freud described, the inner place that we have and we all often ignore or have trouble accessing.
I shall explain this further, as I have been requested to do so, through the first image of the web site, also the image on the postcard announcements: In this image one sees the eye of Horus on top of the pyramid emitting light. This light passes through Orpheus’ lyre (excerpted from Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot’s ‘Orpheus Leading Eurydice from the Underworld’ (1861)). This light is then refracted through Orpheus’ lyre to spell ‘Vista Lirica’ set upon a projection of the lyre.
One could write volumes on symbolism the pyramid. A few thoughts come immediately to mind: the Freemasons – the American founding fathers were freemasons, so was Mozart. They were drawing from ancient esoteric knowledge; knowledge preserved in mystic traditions of all religions – Gnostics, Sufis, Essenes, Qabbalists, dervishes, etc. and also in great art and music.
If you were to peruse the VL web site, you would find a series of connecting ‘vantage points’ or ‘bird’s eye views’: (1) the top of the pyramid (the light source), (2) the ‘highest cliff’ from which Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock soliloquizes, and (3) Eusabio’s experience: In Hillyers writing, Eusabio, from Willa Cather’s novel undergoes a rite of passage in which he experiences shamanism first hand, seeing the world through the eyes of a cat. At one point he scurries up a totem and -- perhaps inspired by Hoffmann’s Kater Murr -- wonders why these bipeds (Homo sapiens) feel superior when they seem noticeably lame especially when he has the opportunity to look down upon them from on high, literally.
Hillyer writes quite a bit about Shepherd on the Rock in the web site article; I defer to his passionate output.
This is pretty trippy stuff. I have always wondered why these Romantics were not the poster boys of the 1960’s. They were doing the heightened consciousness ‘thing’ way before the Beatles. This is the heightened consciousness from which Einstein saw that matter and energy are only dissimilar in binary either/or common perceptions. This heightened consciousness is allowing for quantum physics and string theory to take root. Only trippy physicists could allow themselves to talk about consciousness in relation to the all and everything of science. What this entails is at once a balance between Apollonian and Dionysian parts and a knowledge of an intersection point between the two – where matter and energy are merely man made words in the greater scheme of things and where we find the source of great art.
As Schumann had taken the essence of literature to compose music, Granados was similarly involved in transforming the essence of painting into music, in particular, the paintings of Francisco de Goya. Originally a solo piano work, his Goyescas is imbued with the sultry richness of his sun-breathing homeland, Spain. It’s an interesting mix: Goya’s dark moods expressed through blood reds and deep yellows and Granados’ Spanish flair.
The intermezzo presented tonight is a ’cello solo from the opera Goyescas which grew out of the piano works. These works are certainly Romantic, as are the songs presented tonight. The songs, however, also reflect Granados’ affinity for Scarlatti and for earlier styles. El Mirar de la Maja and El Majo Discreto are from the ‘Colleción de tonadillas, enscritas en estile antiguo’ (Collection of tunes written in an ancient style).
Granados was mostly known in his time as a pianist and harpsichordist, although his composition were widely acclaimed, thanks in part to his performances of his own music at the Salle Pleyel in Paris and American concerts including one for President Wilson. Unfortunately, we will never know the full potential of his compositional talent. The boat which brought him back from America to Europe was torpedoed by the German navy. In Goya’s painting "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" (1798), the artist has collapsed at his desk while owls, bats, and large cats descend upon him. Goya subtitled the piece "Imagination abandoned by reason produces impossible monsters; united with her, she is the mother of the arts." It’s as though he had created a center piece for a banquet to herald the forthcoming Romantic century.
When Brahms was shown the manuscript of Alexander Zemlinsky’s Trio, Opus 3, he immediately recommended the youthful work to his publisher Simrock, and Verlag N. Simrock did publish it. I can assure that there was no proofreading in this publication. Perhaps the Simrock firm did not have the same belief in the young Zemlinsky as Brahms did – there are more mistakes of all kinds in this edition – wrong notes, expressions markings that occur at dissimilar points in the clarinet, ’cello and piano parts, ritard and ritenudo are often both abbreviated (rit.) leaving the performers to make experienced guesses as to what’s what -- che casino!!!
What we hear in this work is fin-de-siècle Vienna. It’s hard not to see Gustav Klimt’s ‘The Kiss’ in the slow movement. One further thinks of Mahler’s harmonic palette and Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht. It has an almost over-indulgent emotional quality that lends charm to late Romanticism. Zemlinsky wrote many operas, ballets, orchestral works and chamber music.
Zemlinsky knew Alma Schindler before she became Alma Mahler. In fact, we can add Zemlinsky to the famed list of her paramours: Gustav Mahler, Oskar Kokoschka, Walter Gropius and Franz Werfel. Zemlinsky was also Schönberg’s counterpoint teacher and later his brother-in-law. There were many important artists of the time who supported his music; there is now speculation as to why he didn’t achieve greater international acclaim.
Zemlinsky was among those who fled from the growing fascism in Europe. He and his family moved from Vienna to Prague and then in 1938 to New York City and finally Larchmont, NY.
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Please also visit our web site www.vistalirica.com for biographies of the performing artists, the Auction Room and further reading on Romanticism.
Special thanks to:
Our host: Alexander Kostakis at AC Pianocraft
and
Harriet Bernbaum Onomé Ekeh Gabriel Guimarães
Isador Hillyer Michael Holtermann Tali Makell
Estelle Rynston Gary Sevitsky Linda Weissman
