Alexander Zemlinsky Lyric Symphony
Alexander Zemlinsky’s life overlapped the Romantic and 20th century eras, and because of this, his compositions reflect the various compositional styles of the time. One of the styles that he used to overlap these genres is the ability to have a vague tonal center, taking this stylistic trait from his mentor, Johannes Brahms. Zemlinsky passed on this quality, which had a profound impact on his students of the Viennese school, which included Berg, Webern, and Schoenberg. Despite this modern use of tonality, Zemlinsky has not made it in to the Canon because he did not allow himself complete innovativeness.
The Lyrische Symphonie was composed during Zemlinsky’s time in
Orchestration throughout the Lyrische Symphonie can be related to other Romantics of the time, and is used by Zemlinsky to bring the text across to the listener. In the first movement, Ich bin friedlos, Zemlinsky opens with a choral like introduction from the strings and the brass section. This is an effective orchestration because right from the beginning the composer catches the attention from the listener. It sounds at times like the man’s passion is at war with the orchestra. An example of this is the second section in the first movement where the orchestra is playing with a much thicker texture and at louder dynamics, while the man struggles to be heard above the orchestra.
Mutter, der junge Prinz, is a complete contrast to the first movement in terms of texture. The orchestration is much lighter with a variety of smaller ensembles interacting throughout. For example, the first group of instruments in this movement is the upper strings, with solo violin, and the woodwinds. They are mostly in there upper registers, making the texture seem much like the text, which is discussing a girl (solo violin and female voice) who is under torment because she longs for a prince who will inevitably ride by her door, which is represented by a loud dissonance. Zemlinsky also uses the solo violin in the fourth movement to demonstrate the woman that the man longs for. His use of texture in these movements demonstrates his overall concept of what he wanted to convey to the listener, and he incorporates Brahms’ ideals in this section with his unique use of smaller chamber ensembles.
The adagio third movement is not a typical third movement that would have a beautiful melody, but on the contrary, this movement’s text is very aggressive for a love song. This movement, like the end of the second movement, embraces the softer dynamics, giving the movement a somber quality. The text of this movement refers to a man who is passionately longing for the woman in his dreams, and at the end of the movement, he aggressively takes her. If the listener pays close attention, one can hear the whole-tone scale. This allows the listener to have some comfort of tonality during this movement. Zemlinsky uses the whole-tone scale to keep the listener in a confused state. Like the third movement the ambiguity of the tonality in the forth movement it helps to demonstrate to the listener that the woman is in the woods lost and longing for her love’s touch. Zemlinsky, much like Wagner, utilized the whole-tone scale to keep the listener in an unstable tonal state and has Wagner’s aggression shining throughout this movement.
Befreimich von den Banden is the first movement that largely contrasts the rest of the movements. This movement is not only the shortest and most intense, but it also is the only movement in the symphony that has the tempo on a noticeably quicker side. The entire movement is dynamically on the strong side with the brass sections blazing throughout the movement. It is quite an exciting movement discussing a man’s love for a woman that is so passionate that he must be freed. This movement relates back to the aggressive state of the adagio, once again demonstrating his Wagner-like style of composition.
Completeness is the theme of the last movement. The entire movement builds to the end of the piece, but not as a Bruckner symphony does with loud commanding brass sections, but with the intensity of the orchestra at the softer dynamics. The text demonstrates that the man is finally at peace with his life and the orchestra demonstrates this all the way to the final measure with instrumentation slowly dropping out and the dynamics dying down. The man is no longer yearning for anything; he is content with “peace” in his heart.
Zemlinsky, throughout this work, reveals innovations and techniques that his later pupils would perfect, such as the ability to generate a vagueness of tonality for the listener. To me this work reminds me of what Debussy does with the tonality and disregards the conventional tonality. I believe that this work, despite all of the creativeness, has not made it in to the Canon because he did not allow himself complete innovativeness like his later pupils Berg, Schoenberg, and Webern. He took the ideas of the time and exploited them to their fullest but did not create new techniques. I enjoyed this work because of all of the programmatic elements within each movement. He did a great job at reflecting the poet’s characters. I listened to this work the first time not knowing anything about it or the poetry and all of my feelings towards the individual movements reflected what was going on in the text. I believe anyone with an educated ear would take this piece and enjoy it for the coloristic ideas that he portrays in each movement.
Nielsen Clarinet Concerto
Carl Nielsen lived at a time when Jean Sibelius was the most prominent Scandinavian composer. Unlike Sibelius, he did not achieve international success during his lifetime. During his career, Nielsen established a close relationship with the Copenhagen Wind Quintet. Nielsen composed concertos specifically for members of the ensemble and worked closely with the soloists for the realization of each work. For instance, the Concerto for Clarinet and Orchestra, Op. 57 was composed for Aage Oxenvad. This work is one of the most difficult works in the entire clarinet repertoire. Because of its repetitive nature and lack of direction, this work does not fall within the accepted classical canon.
Nielsen composed concertos with the performer’s personality in mind. For example, Oxenvad was known to be a short-tempered person, with a good sense of humor. Nielsen depicted this in his concerto by constantly changing the texture and stylistic traits within the music. In the introduction, the snare drum interrupts the clarinet’s sense of direction. Nielsen also depicts Oxenvad’s personality with motifs that vary throughout the movements. These motives are varied primarily through ornamentation, specifically with the use of arpeggiations and rapid articulations. Nielson successfully depicts Oxenvad’s seemingly bi-polar personality but in so doing created a piece that is disjointed and lacking in musical direction.
The odd thing about this concerto is the fact that it is not the soloist against the orchestra like many of the concertos of the time, but instead the clarinet is arguing with the snare drum. The snare drum is such a prominent part that even in the piano reduction of this work the snare drum is still called for. The snare drum could be described as assertive in the work because of its constant abrupt nature throughout the clarinet’s melodic material. It could be assumed that in Nielsen’s desired to emulate the instrumentalists, he might have thought that Oxenvad had a slight case of bi-polar disorder, and thus tried to incorporate this disorder into his abrupt stylistic changes, high-lighting this ideal within the snare drum. This technique is quite effective in keeping the listeners attention, but, like most of the techniques used by Neilson, is over used and looses its effect.
During the first and the last sections of the concerto, the cadenzas are used in a much different way than the usual set of instrumental acrobatics that many of the composers like Rachmaninov and Liszt had used. Nielsen takes already existing themes and develops them for the later sections through the cadenzas. This is an effective technique for creating new material and introducing it into the sections that appear soon after. These cadenzas happen incredibly abruptly during the concerto. This could be an example of Nielsen’s attempts at emulating Aage Oxenvad’s bi-polar nature by introducing the cadenzas without warning.
This piece demonstrates techniques that Brahms used in his fourth symphony. The developing variation helps carry this work through the different sections and cadenzas by connecting thematic material through the variations. One can hear this easily by paying attention to the motive that is first stated in the beginning with the low strings and tracing it throughout the concerto. The concerto can be seen as a classical style concerto in the setting of the form and also in the tonality. The primary exposition of the piece is in F major, and during the development it travels to numerous keys, with E major being the predominant. In the final recapitulation, he brings the listener back to the F major. This is one of the few aspects about the concerto that the listener appreciates; he starts and ends in the same key giving the listener something to hold onto.
In spite of Nielsen’s attempts at gaining access to the Canon, while he was alive, I understand why he was not. Despite all of the techniques he uses to keep this piece interesting, I feel this work is difficult to understand and enjoy. It seems to be music composed with the instrumentalist’s technique in mind and nothing else, such that this concerto sounds difficult for the sake of being difficult. The virtuosity adds nothing to the music; if anything, it takes away from the moments of good melodic writing he has accomplished within this piece. This piece should not be in the Canon because this concerto captures Oxenvad’s manic personality too well. It is overwhelmingly intense for too long a time for both the listener and the performer, which results in frustration for both of them because of the intensity of the work. Despite both the listener and the performers need for breaks from the intensity and the repetition, resulting in lack of direction, Nielsen never allows a moment of relaxation.
