Preludophilia: Slonimsky's Preludes and Fugues

Sergei Mikhailovich Slonimsky was born in Leningrad 1932, the son of the well-known "Serapion Brotherhood" author Mikhail and nephew of the prolific musical emigré Nikolai. Every genre is represented in his long list of compositions, including operas (one entitled "Mary Stuart") and symphonies (the Tenth Symphony subtitled "Circles of Hell after Dante"). His pieces make use of his experience as an ethnomusicological researcher in Russian folk musics, his improvisational concertizing à la nineteenth-century preludists, and his use of both dodecaphonic techniques and jazz styles. One word that has been used to describe his compositions is the term "poly-art", a holistic aesthetic that freely and unexpectedly combines influences from all historical periods, including popular and folk styles. More info at the Saint-Petersburg Contemporary Music Center.

Slonimsky in what appears to be a cozy little study. His face suggests that the photographer was laden with finger sandwiches.

Slonimsky wrote a set of preludes and fugues in every major and minor key in 1994, published in 1996 (Saint-Petersburg: Kompozitor), and recorded in 2000 (Nikita Fitenko, Altarus). The CD is particularly good as it was performed under the composer's supervision and really brings to life the notes on the page. It takes about an hour and a half to play or listen to. The pieces progress in "Bach Order", that is chromatically with each major key followed by its parallel minor (C c Db c# D d etc.). Each prelude is marked attacca and various cyclical properties exist between preludes and their accompanying fugues. The majority of fugues have 3 or 4 voices with one 2-voice fugue and two with 5-voices. The fugal expositions tend to introduce the answering voice in the subdominant, and you can read more about it at this doctoral thesis by Yun-jin Seo.

There are definite aesthetic challenges to "poly-art" music, especially in those instances where our expectations of "serious" music (especially something in the tradition of J.S. Bach's WTC) come up against overt simplicity, vagueness, or even awkwardness. At times I am reminded of the improvisational antics (read: sloppiness) of 24 Preludes by Zhelobinsky or the (sometimes forced) folksiness of 24 Preludes by Kabalevsky. But this is not an attempt at socialist realism from the 1930s, nor is it a patriotic overture to Russianness during WWII. It seems far removed from those sorts of cultural-stylistic arguments. I feel myself relaxing even as I write that last sentence. It's all going to be ok.

This is an excellent print called "Piano Men" by Vasco Morelli (buy it here). It's all about space.

Here's a few more specific observations.

Catchy: I've had some serious ear-worms with this music. Especially engaging, Fugue 6 in D minor and Fugue 20 in A minor get the toes tapping with snappy rhythms. I also tend to hum the opening melody of Prelude 1 in C Major, a gorgeous but slightly manic hymn.

Contrapuntal: Fugue 1 in C Major can't leave it alone with constant 2-voice stretto, but pulls out all the stops with simultaneous 4-voice stretto with two voices in inverted augmentation and one in augmentation, and a final 4-voice stretto with one voice in augmentation. It's saturated with theme! As if that weren't enough, the theme also makes use of a 32nd-note turn that recalls Bach's WTC1 C Major fugue. Also the 5-voice fugues are crazy-sauce (to use a technical term)!

Neo-Something: Prelude 11 in F Major could be called a Neo-Baroque romp that reminds me of Bach's Italian Concerto III. Prelude 6 in D minor is a genuine passacaglia in almost functional harmony with four embellishments. Prelude 13 in F-sharp Major is almost completely pentatonic with definite appeals to "exotic" gestures (see below). Prelude 18 in A-flat minor (so many flats!) has no measure lines and functions like some free-floating Renaissance recitative. Prelude 19 in A Major could have come right out of Bach's Inventions and many other pieces make use of Baroque-flavored, melodic inversion. The most intense moment of Prelude 7 in E-flat Major upsets an otherwise charming aria with activated bass motion with a harsh shift into bursts into a disjunct section redolent of serialism and melodically coming close do dodecaphonic writing.

Time Signatures: Shostakovich's single 5/8 fugue from the Preludes does not prepare you for Slonimsky's rampant and consistent use of interesting time signatures. By the time you're done, 5/4 (5/8) and 7/8 don't feel nearly as foreign when compared to Fugue 15 in G Major's use of 9/8 (2+3+4) or Fugue 23 in B Major's squirrelly alternation between 3/2 and 4/2 or Fugue 21 in B-flat Major constantly switching between major and minor prolation (thank you Hoppin!) in 6/8.

My Favorite: By far the one I enjoy the most in playing is Prelude and Fugue 10 in E minor. They work excellently as a pair and each use melodic themes that are capable of various moods and conjure beautiful thoughts in my imagination. Nice use of augmentation in the fugue, which is nevertheless not forced, and almost happens imperceptibly.

For the history of the prelude-fugue set, Slonimsky's combination of styles fits right into the genre's age-old mandate to present unified diversity. His frequent changes in style, sometimes within a single piece or between a prelude and its fugue, constantly open the imagination (and critical faculties. The added accessibility of his style with an emphasis on rhythm and harmonic color allow listeners of all types to find something to enjoy. Prelude and Fugue 13 in F-sharp Major performed by Anton Tanonov below. Enjoy!

Boris on Butterfly Beach

The past week and a half has been quite eventful. Jess and I pulled the trigger and came down from Roseville to our new duplex in Santa Barbara. We made due for the first few days with two chairs and a mattress on the floor - just until my bargain huntress of a wife found a free dresser, free bed frame and box spring, free couch, and $10 bookshelf. Things are starting to look like a house. Santa Barbara is starting to look like a home as well, with familiar beaches and streets, new discoveries and surprises, and the constant bumping into old friends in the most providential places.

Butterfly Beach Sunset Arch by Chris Potter. 

Amidst looking for summer employment and networking, I'm trying to keep loose by brushing up on my German ("shadowing" and "dictation" with a podcast), rereading some history books in preparation for the UCSB placement tests (history, theory, and musicianship), and going on very long walks with Jess and Numi on various beaches and through various parks (Numi is a complete nutter for the waves!). Check out Jess's blog for upcoming pictures that attempt to capture something of the outrageous beauty that overflows everywhere in this place. I'm going to write a bit on Boris Goltz and his Twenty-four Preludes, Op. 2 (1934-35), getting some mileage out of my thesis and keeping up those writing and analyzing skills for the two months before school starts.

Boris Grigorevich Goltz (1913–1942) was born in the city of Tashkent. I wish there was more information on his family - their ancestry, how long they had lived there, why, what they did during the 1916 Basmachi Revolt, or where their sympathies lay in the violent anti-Bolshevik riots that lasted into late 1920s. All we know (thanks to a short monograph by Rafael Frid) is that thirteen-year old Boris moved to Leningrad in 1926. He worked, like Shostakovich several years earlier, as a silent movie accompanist, and took piano lessons, again like Shostakovich, from Leonid Nikolayev. It wasn't until the Leningrad harmony professor Venedict Pushkov saw the young pianists sketches for twenty-four preludes that Goltz gained the confidence to pursue composition. He graduated from the Conservatory in piano in 1938 and composition in 1940. Within that time he had composed or sketched out quite a wealth of pieces (almost all completely lost), got married to a piano colleague, and had every mark of excelling as a composer.

In 1941 Russia entered into WWII. Goltz, apparently not senior enough to be shipped off to one of those artistic refuge communities in Siberia, joined the Baltic Fleet Political Administration, a group of composers stationed in Leningrad, charged with the task of writing patriotic songs and plays for performing groups and military choirs. His songs in particular enjoyed wide success, one-hit-wonders like “The Song of Anger,” “The Song of Vengeance,” and “Shining Star in the Heavens.” Despite the idealized texts, Goltz and his colleagues worked in debilitating hunger and cold, crammed into a small room and composing without the aid of a piano. Seven months into the Siege of Leningrad, Goltz died of malnutrition.

It's a little ironic to write about the tragic, 1942, shivering-in-the-Leningrad-winter death of a Soviet composer with the sunny Pacific Ocean breezes wafting through my 2012 window. I can only hope that as I write about this composer and his music that I not be disingenuous and that I attempt to come from as good a place as I can - that of breathing a small measure of life into the memory of a nearly forgotten, but ultimately noteworthy individual.

The Writing of a Master's Thesis: A Series in Nine Photos

Someone discovered Instagram filters! And also wrote his Master's Thesis! Eternal thanks to my wife for reminding me to eat.

The thesis begins in relative cleanliness, nourishing itself on a diet of tea and succulent fruits.

The chaos of disorder is held at bay by the addition of decorative flowers.

Though at first sight suspect, honey-avocado sandwiches give the thesis the energy it needs.

A battery of orchids, cinnamon-swirl bread, and inspirational quotation pictures buoy the thesis in perseverance. 

Cue the Joe-Joe's! Maybe the bag of rock-hard dry apricots balance out the jolt of sugary goodness.

Peanut butter/banana smoothie... fresh in the blender!

When the sun comes out, the thesis would be completely daft not to take advantage of it. It feels perfectly at home with other animals, such as the noble, grass-devouring labrador, with whom the thesis has a symbiotic, don't-bother-me-now relationship. 

At this stage in the life of the thesis, trail mix can either be eaten by the handful, or all the dried cherries can be picked out individually. Just be careful of drinking water with all that dried fruit.

The printed thesis seems harmless enough. All the books, blenders, cups, plates, and orchids have been packed. Even the table is being sold. Look for your own copy of the thesis wherever unpublished academic resources are sold/loaned/provided online.

Conserted Consort: "And all the while sweete Musicke did apply Her curious skill, the warbling notes to play."

Although set in the faerie world of celestial Muses, medieval pageantry, and piping rustics, the historical context of Spenser’s “The Faerie Queene” plays a slightly different tune. Among the many industrious and illustrious composers of the 16th century I find the English composer William Byrd to have particular import to the audience and fairy world of Spenser’s epic.

Detail of Queen Elizabeth I's "Armada" Portrait (unknown artist, 1588).

The political/religious climes of England during the late 1500s were tense to say the least. Protestant England was beset on all sides by Catholic neighbors (Ireland, sometimes France, Spain, Scotland) in a highly hostile and competitive world (think the looting of the New World and Burt Lancaster as the Crimson Pirate). In Book V Spenser wrestles allegorically with the trial and execution of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots by Protestant Queen Elizabeth in 1587, an event that shook the current understanding of the divine justice of absolute monarchy.

Add to this mix William Byrd (1543-1623): virginalist, sheet music baron, CoE anthem composer, musician of the Royal Chapel, and Catholic. It is an outstanding testament to the favor that he somehow achieved with Queen Elizabeth that he retained his faith in the face of so much hostility. The same mind that wrote beautiful motets for the Church of England also wrote exquisite Latin Masses for three, four or five voices to be sung in secret. I’m listening to the Mass for four voices now. The texture is so private and supplicating and earnest. I love the declamations of the Gloria. Gorgeous. And the historical context lends it such honesty– far removed from the posturing of the courtiers.

I have known and enjoyed Billy Byrd primarily through various compilations of his keyboard pieces for virginal. In collections such as the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and My Ladye Nevells Booke we observe the composer in more a posturing role. If not outright composing pieces dedicated to powerful patrons, he is at least contributing to the culture of the refined lord and lady, masters of the arts and yet disdainful of excess. (That being said it must have been a hard blow for the gallant duke or duchess who picked up the Fitzwilliam and found John Bull’s 30 Variations on Walsingham yawning like Charybdis before them!) I particularly enjoy such song variations of Byrd as Jhon come kisse me now, 16 variations on a lovely, mushy love song with modal, hexachord spices. The Bells extracts 9 variations out of a two note bass figure with something of a minimalistic, meditative rhythm. Ut, re mi, fa, sol, la and Ut, mi, re show Byrd at a very pedantic and ambitious mode, exploring distant tonalities with all manner of strange accidentals.

Vermeer's Young Woman Seated at a Virginal (1670-72). And after that scales and arpeggios on the viol. Then lunch.

So check out Byrdman when you can. The Petrucci Music Project has a lot of his virginal pieces as well as his Mass for five voices in sheet music form. (Love that Petrucci and his projects!) The virginal as an instrument is surely a strange and acquired taste. (I believe Stravinsky compared it to the sound of two skeletons copulating on a tin roof.) I love it and would encourage you to listen to a good recording from a skilled musician with life in their fingers and hearts. Kathryn Cok plays an extremely amazing Walsingham on her Lyrichord Early Music album entitled “Dr. Bull’s Jewel”.

Lastly an excerpt from a contemporary of Spencer and Byrd, the dashing and tragic Sir Phillip Sidney: “Astrophil and Stella”, Sixth Song.

Music doth witness call
The ear his truth to try;
Beauty brings to the hall
The judgment of the eye;
Both in their objects such
As no exceptions touch.

The common sense, which might
Be arbiter of this,
To be forsooth upright,
To both sides partial is;
He lays on this chief praise,
Chief praise on that he lays.

The reason, princess high,
Whose throne is in the mind,
Which music can in sky
And hidden beauties find,
Say whether thou wilt crown
With limitless renown?