Program notes
In the first part of today’s program, we offer a selection of works that we either know – or strongly suspect – to have been among Marcel Proust’s (1871-1922) musical world.
Reynaldo Hahn is hardly a stranger to connoisseurs of Proust, yet his music is much lesser-known than the nature of his relationship with the writer. Part of a tradition of French mélodie from the mid-century to the fin-de-siècle, Hahn’s music offers a sense of how the musical culture of fin-de-siècle France may have shaped a young and talented compositional voice. Born in Venezuela and arriving in France as a young child, Hahn was quickly steeped in the world of Parisian salons, and institutions like the opera and ballet. He wrote his first songs at age 8 and entered the Conservatoire at age 10, where his teachers included Massenet, Gounod, and Saint-Saëns.
The three songs on today’s program – Si mes vers avaient des ailes, Mai, and À Chloris – offer a sense of Hahn’s musical aesthetic and his approach to text setting. With speech-like vocal lines that are nonetheless lyrical, and a fluid and complementary piano accompaniment, the songs tap the emotional resonance of their poetic texts in remarkable ways.
Claude Debussy, on the other hand, is one of the best-known composers of fin-de-siècle French music. He was also a key figure in the Symbolist movement, being a regular attendee at Stéphane Mallarmé’s Tuesday gatherings (Les Mardistes). Debussy was also an active critic, writing for La revue blanche, among other places. He used these platforms not just to review concerts but to express opinions about contemporary music, either through his own voice or that of the invented interlocutor, Monsieur Croche. In terms of musical language, Debussy is often credited with a movement away from rigid tonality and a fuller exploration of multiple aspects of musical sound, including timbre and form. That many of his innovations were seen in response to the music of Richard Wagner was something that he would embrace, deny, and generally struggle with throughout his later life.
Claude Debussy’s two books of piano preludes have puzzled scholars since their composition (1910 and 1913). Each prelude ends with an epigraph, and whether meant as an evocation, explanation, or something else altogether remains a riddle that scholars continue to attempt to unravel. The two selections on today’s program are from the first book of Preludes. The title “Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir” is taken from Charles Baudelaire’s “Harmonie du soir.” Like the poem, the piece seems to evoke the almost drugged state of the broken-hearted. Indeed, the disorientation and imbalance referenced in the poem seems to be differently evoked, yet altogether present, in the irregular phrasing of the piece. Minstrels concludes the first book. Its name and musical gestures could refer to 19th century blackface minstrel shows or circus and vaudeville entertainments.
Gabriel Fauré, perhaps the master of French mélodie, made his mark on the world of fin-de-siècle French music through the genres of song, solo piano, chamber music, and in his role as a teacher. Still best known for his over 100 songs and his Requiem, Fauré’s musical aesthetic across genres displays a much- celebrated French clarity and simplicity, while also anticipating some of the tonal revolutions of the early 20th century.
Tonight’s program features a selection of some of Fauré’s most well-known (and lovely!) pieces, set to texts by some of his favorite poets: Paul Verlaine and Armand Silvestre. Across the four pieces (Clair de lune, Mandoline, Chanson d’amour, and Notre amour), you will hear some of Fauré’s characteristic vocal writing and text setting. Lyrical, yet light, sometimes strophic yet always dynamic, the songs engage the singer and pianist equally. By evading strong harmonic progressions and blurring regular meters, Fauré creates a plurivocal relationship between the voice and piano. The ambiguity that arises from his innovative musical gestures often complements similarly multivalent moments in the texts.
No program of music of fin-de-siècle France would be complete without a work by Maurice Ravel. Born near the Spanish border, his Basque roots (from his mother) would continue to figure largely in his biography and historiography. A student of Fauré’s (despite leaving the Conservatoire twice), Ravel was also an incredibly original compositional voice. Indeed, Ravel’s musical signature is difficult to pin down; across his many works, he manages to take on an equal number of voices. He embraced such criticism, asking if it had not occurred to any of his critics that he was “artificial by nature.”
Seen another way, Ravel’s piano and chamber works represent musical approaches to numerous intellectual and artistic currents of the time. The Menuet antique showcases an interest in classical and historical forms, here seen through the filter of modernism. Though it was his first published work, the piece already displays intricacy in sound and voice leading, and offers a sophisticated interpretation of the minuet form, its historical legacy, and ingenious use of the timbres of the piano. In its orchestrated form (1929), the Menuet antique, like the “Menuet” of his Tombeau de Couperin, is enlivened further by Ravel’s incredible use of orchestral colors and his remarkable talent for orchestration.
In the second half of today’s program, we join the year 1913. A watershed in music history, the year saw the premiere of major works, including Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps. While Proust may or may not have known these works intimately, we hope to offer a sense of what might have been in the air at the time of the publication of Du côté de chez Swann.
Federico Mompou may be the least known name on today’s program, but that is more as a result of historiography than because of his music. Born in Barcelona to a Spanish father and French mother, Mompou studied in Spain and France. Like the travels and stories of other composers of the time, Mompou represents the kind of networks across national and linguistic boundaries that flourished at the turn of the century. At the same time, his citizenship raises questions about Frenchness and how that figures into our understanding of the arts, especially at the dawn of the Grande Guerre.
The set of pieces on today’s program, from Impresiones intimas, are the work of a young, yet already musically mature, composer. Just 20 years old when he wrote them, Mompou already displays some of his signature improvisatory-sounding style. The four pieces are short –like much of Mompou’s work – and convey the intimacy of their title both through their miniature form and through delicate musical gestures.
We return to Claude Debussy in the Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé. Mallarmé, torch-bearer of the Symbolists, was a natural choice for Debussy, arguably the most Symbolist of composers (despite the more common label of “musical impressionism” for his work). Debussy’s settings of these poems departs from the mélodie style of Hahn and Fauré we heard earlier, leaning instead towards the dissolution of tonality that would characterize much music of the time. In these experiments, the text- setting plays a fascinating role, as Debussy’s versification works actively against Mallarmé’s own.
Any visit to 1913’s musical world must include Arnold Schoenberg. A leader of the Second Viennese School, along with Anton Webern and Alban Berg, Schoenberg was a giant on the musical scene of the early 20th century. By 1913, some of his most influential works had already made significant impact, including Verklärte Nacht, Erwartung, Der glückliche Hand, and Pierrot Lunaire. In these and other works, Schoenberg led a revolution of musical language: from an expansion of tonality via late Romanticism, to an expressionist style of high chromaticism (often called atonality), and to a serial and dodecaphonic (commonly called twelve-tone) technique in which no tonal center was to dominate and other forms of order were to prevail.
Written in two days in 1911 (the first five in a single day!), the Sechs kleine Klavierstücke was published in 1913. Though usually described as atonal, the pieces predate Schoenberg’s dodecaphonic experiments. Principles of expressionism can be heard clearly in opus 19. Each piece is extremely short, and can be seen in clear contrast to Schoenberg’s more large-scale and dense works that pick up more directly on various strains of Romanticism. In these and other miniature pieces, Schoenberg can be seen to be reaching beyond the idea that harmony and form should dictate a work. In these “expressions of feeling” rather than the “perception of ‘conscious logic,’” Schoenberg seems to communicate the material of a longer composition in a condensed way.
We close today’s program with the music of Erik Satie. One of the Nouveaux Jeunes (a precursor to the Groupe de Six, which formed after Satie withdrew), Satie was known for his absurdist (including Dadaist and Surrealist) approaches to music and narrative. Working across the genres of opera, ballet, and chamber music, Satie’s music raised questions about music’s very nature and its powers of expression.
The set of pieces on today’s program follows in Satie’s trend of radical confrontation with the styles and practices of earlier periods and other composers. In Embryons desséchés, we have three short pieces named after crustaceans in their fossilized forms (hence the title of the set). Whether as a reference to the ossification of past musical styles and Satie’s rejection and parody of them, or as a reference to parallel currents in evolutionary biology and the life sciences, Satie’s signature provocations and winks and nods are present in abundance. Among them are a number of unusual non sequitur performance directions. Though Satie does not explicitly indicate their oration, we present the performance directions spoken aloud to emphasize the eccentricity inherent to Satie’s aesthetic.
We hope that today’s performance offers you a sense of the many and contrasting musical currents of Proust’s time and perhaps an opening into thinking about the kinds of networks that may have informed his own writing and his concept of music in the larger world of the arts.
- Sindhumathi Revuluri
In the first part of today’s program, we offer a selection of works that we either know – or strongly suspect – to have been among Marcel Proust’s (1871-1922) musical world.
Reynaldo Hahn is hardly a stranger to connoisseurs of Proust, yet his music is much lesser-known than the nature of his relationship with the writer. Part of a tradition of French mélodie from the mid-century to the fin-de-siècle, Hahn’s music offers a sense of how the musical culture of fin-de-siècle France may have shaped a young and talented compositional voice. Born in Venezuela and arriving in France as a young child, Hahn was quickly steeped in the world of Parisian salons, and institutions like the opera and ballet. He wrote his first songs at age 8 and entered the Conservatoire at age 10, where his teachers included Massenet, Gounod, and Saint-Saëns.
The three songs on today’s program – Si mes vers avaient des ailes, Mai, and À Chloris – offer a sense of Hahn’s musical aesthetic and his approach to text setting. With speech-like vocal lines that are nonetheless lyrical, and a fluid and complementary piano accompaniment, the songs tap the emotional resonance of their poetic texts in remarkable ways.
Claude Debussy, on the other hand, is one of the best-known composers of fin-de-siècle French music. He was also a key figure in the Symbolist movement, being a regular attendee at Stéphane Mallarmé’s Tuesday gatherings (Les Mardistes). Debussy was also an active critic, writing for La revue blanche, among other places. He used these platforms not just to review concerts but to express opinions about contemporary music, either through his own voice or that of the invented interlocutor, Monsieur Croche. In terms of musical language, Debussy is often credited with a movement away from rigid tonality and a fuller exploration of multiple aspects of musical sound, including timbre and form. That many of his innovations were seen in response to the music of Richard Wagner was something that he would embrace, deny, and generally struggle with throughout his later life.
Claude Debussy’s two books of piano preludes have puzzled scholars since their composition (1910 and 1913). Each prelude ends with an epigraph, and whether meant as an evocation, explanation, or something else altogether remains a riddle that scholars continue to attempt to unravel. The two selections on today’s program are from the first book of Preludes. The title “Les sons et les parfums tournent dans l’air du soir” is taken from Charles Baudelaire’s “Harmonie du soir.” Like the poem, the piece seems to evoke the almost drugged state of the broken-hearted. Indeed, the disorientation and imbalance referenced in the poem seems to be differently evoked, yet altogether present, in the irregular phrasing of the piece. Minstrels concludes the first book. Its name and musical gestures could refer to 19th century blackface minstrel shows or circus and vaudeville entertainments.
Gabriel Fauré, perhaps the master of French mélodie, made his mark on the world of fin-de-siècle French music through the genres of song, solo piano, chamber music, and in his role as a teacher. Still best known for his over 100 songs and his Requiem, Fauré’s musical aesthetic across genres displays a much- celebrated French clarity and simplicity, while also anticipating some of the tonal revolutions of the early 20th century.
Tonight’s program features a selection of some of Fauré’s most well-known (and lovely!) pieces, set to texts by some of his favorite poets: Paul Verlaine and Armand Silvestre. Across the four pieces (Clair de lune, Mandoline, Chanson d’amour, and Notre amour), you will hear some of Fauré’s characteristic vocal writing and text setting. Lyrical, yet light, sometimes strophic yet always dynamic, the songs engage the singer and pianist equally. By evading strong harmonic progressions and blurring regular meters, Fauré creates a plurivocal relationship between the voice and piano. The ambiguity that arises from his innovative musical gestures often complements similarly multivalent moments in the texts.
No program of music of fin-de-siècle France would be complete without a work by Maurice Ravel. Born near the Spanish border, his Basque roots (from his mother) would continue to figure largely in his biography and historiography. A student of Fauré’s (despite leaving the Conservatoire twice), Ravel was also an incredibly original compositional voice. Indeed, Ravel’s musical signature is difficult to pin down; across his many works, he manages to take on an equal number of voices. He embraced such criticism, asking if it had not occurred to any of his critics that he was “artificial by nature.”
Seen another way, Ravel’s piano and chamber works represent musical approaches to numerous intellectual and artistic currents of the time. The Menuet antique showcases an interest in classical and historical forms, here seen through the filter of modernism. Though it was his first published work, the piece already displays intricacy in sound and voice leading, and offers a sophisticated interpretation of the minuet form, its historical legacy, and ingenious use of the timbres of the piano. In its orchestrated form (1929), the Menuet antique, like the “Menuet” of his Tombeau de Couperin, is enlivened further by Ravel’s incredible use of orchestral colors and his remarkable talent for orchestration.
In the second half of today’s program, we join the year 1913. A watershed in music history, the year saw the premiere of major works, including Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du Printemps. While Proust may or may not have known these works intimately, we hope to offer a sense of what might have been in the air at the time of the publication of Du côté de chez Swann.
Federico Mompou may be the least known name on today’s program, but that is more as a result of historiography than because of his music. Born in Barcelona to a Spanish father and French mother, Mompou studied in Spain and France. Like the travels and stories of other composers of the time, Mompou represents the kind of networks across national and linguistic boundaries that flourished at the turn of the century. At the same time, his citizenship raises questions about Frenchness and how that figures into our understanding of the arts, especially at the dawn of the Grande Guerre.
The set of pieces on today’s program, from Impresiones intimas, are the work of a young, yet already musically mature, composer. Just 20 years old when he wrote them, Mompou already displays some of his signature improvisatory-sounding style. The four pieces are short –like much of Mompou’s work – and convey the intimacy of their title both through their miniature form and through delicate musical gestures.
We return to Claude Debussy in the Trois poèmes de Stéphane Mallarmé. Mallarmé, torch-bearer of the Symbolists, was a natural choice for Debussy, arguably the most Symbolist of composers (despite the more common label of “musical impressionism” for his work). Debussy’s settings of these poems departs from the mélodie style of Hahn and Fauré we heard earlier, leaning instead towards the dissolution of tonality that would characterize much music of the time. In these experiments, the text- setting plays a fascinating role, as Debussy’s versification works actively against Mallarmé’s own.
Any visit to 1913’s musical world must include Arnold Schoenberg. A leader of the Second Viennese School, along with Anton Webern and Alban Berg, Schoenberg was a giant on the musical scene of the early 20th century. By 1913, some of his most influential works had already made significant impact, including Verklärte Nacht, Erwartung, Der glückliche Hand, and Pierrot Lunaire. In these and other works, Schoenberg led a revolution of musical language: from an expansion of tonality via late Romanticism, to an expressionist style of high chromaticism (often called atonality), and to a serial and dodecaphonic (commonly called twelve-tone) technique in which no tonal center was to dominate and other forms of order were to prevail.
Written in two days in 1911 (the first five in a single day!), the Sechs kleine Klavierstücke was published in 1913. Though usually described as atonal, the pieces predate Schoenberg’s dodecaphonic experiments. Principles of expressionism can be heard clearly in opus 19. Each piece is extremely short, and can be seen in clear contrast to Schoenberg’s more large-scale and dense works that pick up more directly on various strains of Romanticism. In these and other miniature pieces, Schoenberg can be seen to be reaching beyond the idea that harmony and form should dictate a work. In these “expressions of feeling” rather than the “perception of ‘conscious logic,’” Schoenberg seems to communicate the material of a longer composition in a condensed way.
We close today’s program with the music of Erik Satie. One of the Nouveaux Jeunes (a precursor to the Groupe de Six, which formed after Satie withdrew), Satie was known for his absurdist (including Dadaist and Surrealist) approaches to music and narrative. Working across the genres of opera, ballet, and chamber music, Satie’s music raised questions about music’s very nature and its powers of expression.
The set of pieces on today’s program follows in Satie’s trend of radical confrontation with the styles and practices of earlier periods and other composers. In Embryons desséchés, we have three short pieces named after crustaceans in their fossilized forms (hence the title of the set). Whether as a reference to the ossification of past musical styles and Satie’s rejection and parody of them, or as a reference to parallel currents in evolutionary biology and the life sciences, Satie’s signature provocations and winks and nods are present in abundance. Among them are a number of unusual non sequitur performance directions. Though Satie does not explicitly indicate their oration, we present the performance directions spoken aloud to emphasize the eccentricity inherent to Satie’s aesthetic.
We hope that today’s performance offers you a sense of the many and contrasting musical currents of Proust’s time and perhaps an opening into thinking about the kinds of networks that may have informed his own writing and his concept of music in the larger world of the arts.
- Sindhumathi Revuluri
