Hand It to Handel

 

George Frideric Handel was born on February, 23, 1685, in Halle, Germany. One of the most prolific composers, several later composers have created variations of Handel’s works:

• ·       Beethoven’s 12 Variations in G major is based on Handels’ Judas Maccabaeus.
• ·       Brahms’ Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Handel Opus 24 is based on Handels’ second harpsichord suite.
• ·       Philippe Gaubert’s Petite Marche for flute and piano is based on Handel’s Trio Sonata Opus 5, No. 2 fourth movement.
• ·       Luis Gianneo composed Variations on a Theme by Handel for piano.
• ·       Arnold Schoenberg’s Concerto for String Quarter and Orchestra in B-flat major is based on Handel’s Concerto Grosso Opus 6/7.
• ·       Percy Grainger composed Variations on Handel’s ‘The Harmonious Blacksmith’. Later, he reworded the first part of that piece to create Handel in the Strand, including a piano version.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then Handel has been greatly flattered.

Music and Politics

Music can draw people together and build solidarity. It can evoke a sense of patriotism – or revolution. In this election season in the US. we have seen politicians use music to influence voters – sometimes as part of an election speech event and sometimes without the musician’s permission. Music’s influence on elections has a long history. Here are some examples.

Handel’s “See, the Conquering Hero Comes!” from his oratorio Judas Maccabeus was performed by bands and singers throughout England as political winners were carried on chairs throughout the streets in celebration.

One way to popularize a politician or an issue is to sing about it. In 18^th and 19^th century, ballad singers would take a popular song and write new, political lyrics to it. Then the singers would perform those songs in public places. Sometimes those songs affected the election outcome.

In other cases, composers expressed their political views through their music. Shostakovich exemplifies his changing politics – and reaction by the Soviet government. His second symphony’s finale was a pro-Soviet choral movement, but his politically satirical opera The Nose was attacked by the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians. Five years later his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk reflected “the correct policy of the Party.” However, Stalin was not impressed so the music critics turned around and denounced it. His fifth symphony was more conservative musically so the Soviet reviews were more popular. His seventh symphony contributed to the country’s war efforts, and was performed in Leningrad while it was under siege as a way to keep the people’s morale up. On the other hand, his 1945 ninth symphony was considered to light and amusing for the times. After the way, his formalist music was denounced as being too Western, and his works were banned. Indeed, all Soviet composers were mandated to write only proletarian music for the masses.

The freedom to express one’s political opinions through music is a vital right – and its use needs to consider the composer’s wishes.

Musical Pranks

It's April Fools' Day.: a day of (hopefully harmless) pranks. Musicians and composers have been known to play pranks on the piano. Probably the most famous playful piano perforrmer was the Danish-American pianist and comic Victor Borge.

One piece that Borge liked to perform was a version of Liszt's Second Hungarian Rhapsody (especially the friska section), which is considered a musical comedic classic and has been featured in animated cartoons.

Mozart once wrote an aria for a soprano who tended raise her head for high notes and tuck in her chin for low notes. Mozart hated her, so the nicknamed piece, “The Chicken Dance” in Cosi fan Tutte, featured dramatic fluctuating low and high notes; Mozart took delight in watching the soprano bob her head repeatedly.

More recently, Leroy Anderson is known for his lighthearted compositions, such as The Syncopated Clock. His pieces sometimes featured unlikely instruments such as a typewriter.

Debussy's Carnival of Animals is charming, but how many people realize that his “Tortoises” is actually a very slow version of Offenbach's “Can-Can”?

P. D. Q. Bach is a comedic alias for contemporary composer Peter Schickele. He creates parodies of baroque and classical music, which often employ unusual instruments such as kazoo and slide whistles and even fictional instruments such as the left-handed sewer flute and pastaphone. His humor often draws from odd key changes and inserts of popular music into classical sections.

Violinist Fritz Kreisler played “lost” classical pieces, which she later admitted writing himself. Another violinist, Henri Gustave Casadesus, also wrote faked compositions, supposedly created by Handel and Boccherini.

Some musicians also played practical jokes. For instance, Brahms sketched a fake Beethoven manuscript, and had a street vendor wrap it around a sausage to sell to one of Brahms' friend, who thought he had discovered a lost composition.

Who says composers don't have a sense of humor?

Praising Easter through Music

When Tomoko was in college, she played the organ for Catholic masses. Easter is the most important event in Catholicism, and music has been an important part of Mass throughout the ages, including at Easter. Here are some representive samples of classical pieces for Easter.

Probably the most famous classical piece played at Easter is Handel's Messiah, particularly the “Hallelujah” chorus. The entire composition, which traces the highlights of Jesus's life, took Handel 14 years to finalize, in 1741.

Over a hundred years earlier, in the 1630s, Italian composer Gregorio Allegri set the Latin text of Psalm 51 to music, Miserere mei, Deus, for two choirs. Pope Urban VIII first used it for Holy Week services in the Sistine Chapel.

Bach's first major composition for Easter was St. John Passion, written in 1724 for that year's Good Friday Vespers service. Bach used John 18 and 19's account of Christ's crucifixion as the basis for his masterpiece.

St. Matthew Passion, also written by Johann Sebastian Bach, is often played at Easter because it is the story of Christ's suffering and death. It was performed only three times in the 18^th century, and not performed again until almost a hundred years later.

One more Bach piece, his Easter Oratorio, was first conceived as a cantata for Easter Sunday in 1725.

Even though Haydn was an Austrian composer, his orchestral work The Seven Last Words of Christ (which Haydn also approved in piano version) was written for the 1786 Good Friday service at Oratoria de la Santa Cueva in Spain.

Mahler's 1894 Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, evokes the beauty of that event. At the same time, this piece has both its light and dark moments.

Rimsky-Korsakov's 1888 Russian Easter Festival Overture evokes a grand Easter morning service.

While it is often associated with the American South, the song “Amazing Grace” dates back to 1779, written by John Newton: a clergyman in the Church of England. Poet William Cowper collaborated with him on this hymn.

The more contemporary hymn “How Great Thou Art,” often sung at Easter, was actually based on a traditional Swedish folk tune.

Compose a Museum

 In her travels, Tomoko has visited several museums: Tokyo museums, the Palais Museum in Paris, a Medici house museum in Florence, and Mozart's birthplace in Salzburg, to name a few. She has even performed in museums such as the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Of special note for her are museums about composers. In fact, when she travels she takes opportunities to play on historic pianos for herself, such as performing Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude on his piano within the Chopin Museum in Majorca, Spain. 

Here are some fascinating museums of piano composers whom Tomoko likes.

The Composers Quarter in Hamburg consists of six museums, each of which features one or more classical composers who lived in the areas. Each museum is housed in a restored historical building, and each museum contains a multimedia collection of the composer's works and life. See the list and details of each museum at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Composers_Quarter_Hamburg

The Museum of the Johann Strauss Dynasty in Vienna has collected artifacts of Strauss gnerations, from the “Biedermeier” era to the 1880s. The museum includes fourteen themed areas, which are accompanied by related audio music. See more at http://www.strauss-museum.at

Speaking of musical families, the Bach Museum in Leipzig honors this family of musicians. Bach's organ and a violin from his orchestra are seen here – as well as many other family artifacts. The museum is interactive and offers summer concerts. See details at https://www.bachmuseumleipzig.de/en/bach-museum

Also located ins Leipzig is Schumann-Haus: the restored home of Clara and Robert in their first years of marriage. Visitors can experience how the couple lived and entertained, and the museum's sound garden provides interactive fun. See more at https://schumannhaus.rahn.network/en/museum/

A third composer's museum in Leipzig is Felix Mendelssohn's home. Visitors can see illustrated letters and music sheets as well as Mendelssohn's own watercolor efforts. The museum also includes a salon where morning concerts are held. See details at https://www.mendelssohn-stiftung.de/de/

The Beethoven House in Bonn features his life and work, and is located in Beethoven's birthplace. It includes a research center and a chamber music hall, and its garden showcases several busts of Beethoven. The museum was opened for the first time in 1893 during the second chamber music festival in the area. Now it includes digital collections for visitors to examine. See details at https://www.beethoven.de/

Handel's childhood home in London now holds exhibits about him. It even contains a miniature baroque theater stage that shows a virtual Handel performing “live.” See information about the museum, which also houses Hendrix, at https://handelhendrix.org/

Preserving the works and artifacts of classical piano composers keeps them alive and enables generations to experience them almost first hand. 

The Secret Facts of Composers

Piano teachers need to know their music, and it’s useful to know about the composers themselves. Tomoko likes to read biographies – especially those of composers. And she relates stories about them to her students, providing context for the compositions as well as making those composers more human. Here are some of the lesser known facts about some of them.

Vivaldi became a priest when he was 25, and served as a master of violin at an orphanage. Vivaldi suffered from bronchial asthma throughout his life, which kept him from playing wind instruments.

Liszt was very popular when young, and he was quite the playboy. One of his illegitimate daughters become Richard Wagner’s wife. Nevertheless, throughout his life he considered becoming a priest, and took four minor religious orders when 54.

Schubert was famous for his musical parties, which sometimes lasted until dawn. Yet he was very prolific; he wrote more than 20,000 bars of music, including 600 songs. He wrote 8 songs in one day. 

Rachmaninoff's fingers could span 12 keys.  On the other hand 😉, Schumann ruined his performing career by practicing with a homemade finger-stretching device; then he would plunge his hands into slaughtered animals’ entrails to heal himself.

Frederic Handel loved rich food and wine. He would order enough food for three people – for himself. The food caused him gout, and the wine may have caused him lead poisoning. 

Johann Sebastian Bach frequented Leipzig’s Café Zimmermann where he would drink several cups of coffee (which was a luxury beverage at the time). He liked coffee so much he wrote the Coffee Cantata about a woman who was trying to stop her coffee drinking habit.  Bach was also an amateur mathematician, which is evident in his compositions, especially his canons.

Speaking of coffee, Beethoven was so meticulous that he would measure exactly 60 beans when making coffee.

Mozart’s life included many interesting facts. He could write music before he could write words. He could listen to a piece of music just once and be able to write it down from memory perfectly. He wrote half of his symphonies between the age of 8 and 19. was a big cat fan. He would imitate cats when bored during rehearsals. In fact, he liked cats so much that he wrote a song called "The Cat Duet,” in which the husband asks his wife questions and she answers back in meows.