Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

1893 IN THE STYLE OF THE

??7 ighteenninetythreesome of independentlylaboured with JtjKiermosthardie aswellasthe dual-duel-jewelaffordedby franc(incensed?)russian and now trulyallied. Cheerfor Hansel greetall by humperdinck, englebert - names alongsidedly decidedly HenryBenzKarlaFord and backagain. Oh, moveover newartnouveau-ver, the tolling bellextolling 'gone Gounod, hear Coalport, gone petrilichtchaikovskyite'. Man reaches Manchester-le streets run with watercanal, while materialmatters in matabele materialize in rabelaisian rebellion. A lady, Margaret Scottfree is a woman with little importance-or-less, at once the same time.'

Good. Clear as a bell. Actually, let me just pick one partially concealed item from that litany of nonsense, namely 'gone Gounod, hear Coalport, gone petrilichtchaikovskyite'. That was meant to be something like 'Gounod^ dies (in 1893), but Cole Porter is born, whereas Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky dies.' True enough. In exchange for one of the greatest songwriters ever, we had to part with Gounod and Tchaikovsky in 1893.

Earlier in the year, Tchaik had travelled to Cambridge to receive an Honorary Doctorate of Music from the university, and, not long after, conducted the premiere of his new symphony, the Sixth, presumably with one hand firmly on his crown so as to spare the people in the front row the distasteful spectacle of his head falling into their laps. (Well, it would be awful, wouldn't it? I mean, just think of the dry-cleaning bills, alone.) He'd labelled his Sixth Symphony the 'Pathetique', and its first night audience would prove to be more than a little unimpressed. But let's not get on to that.

Cut now, instead, to Ellis Island, where Dvorak had recently landed - not long after Tchaikovsky had left - with the firm intention of making America his home. Spookily, he, too, had an Honorary Doctorate in Music from the University of Cambridge in his case.

So. It's 1893 - I know, I know, I keep saying that - and two very different composers have come up with two very different symphonies. I mentioned chalk and cheese earlier, and here it is again: these two symphonies, heads firmly above the parapet, as if to prove not only quite what a melting pot of different styles and sounds 'late romantic' really was, but also quite what a different hand life had dealt their two creators. On the one hand, you have Tchaikovsky's Sixth, the 'Pathetique', complete with a quote from the Russian Requiem J» Gounod, Charles: French composer, mainly remembered today for his reworking of Bach's First Prelude to make the 'Ave Maria'. In his time, he thought he might turn out to be a priest, but, eventually, composing got the upper hand. He won the obligatory Prix de Rome (didn't they all) and even spent five years in London, where he went on to found what is now the Royal Choral Society. Sorry to put Gounod in a footnote, but, well, space is at a premium. service and described variously as one of the greatest of the genre, 'a homosexual tragedy', and 'the most pessimistic utterance in all music'. On the other hand you have Dvorak's Symphony No 9, 'From the New World', complete with quotes from Negro spirituals and Native American tunes, and so full of optimistic exuberance for a new beginning. 'Pathetique', and 'From the New World' - just their titles say it all. Within months, the depressed composer of the 'Pathetique' would, some say deliberately, help himself to a glass of cholera-infected water and die. Within years, the optimistic composer of 'From the New World' would return to Prague, become boss of the Conservatory, and be made a life peer in the Austrian House of Lords. Two symphonies, two composers, two vastly different outcomes; but both high romantics at the height of their powers, producing simply fantastic works. Incompletely and utterly yumerouslyness.