Ever since childhood I’ve been more fascinated with musical pieces attached to a story or image than those not. Symphony number 9 doesn’t tell me much, but adding a title, “From the New World,” says a lot. Or enough to get my imagination running from a starting point.
From there, I remember seeing The Pines of Rome when I was in college. Twentieth century composers describe a lot in their titles: Mysterious Mountains, Blue Cathedrals, things like that.
A close friend from years ago preferred Bach. And yes, the music of J.S. is fun to play. (It certainly was fun to hear my brilliant friend play the composer on piano and organ.) One of my top ten concerts of all time was a Brandenburg marathon. Edge of the seat stuff for nearly two hours. And yet, I prefer a reference point.
Recently, I was listening to a lunchtime concert from Australia and stumbled across this piece by the Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, Fairytale Poem. A description from the ABC Classic platform featuring the concert:
(The composer) wrote Fairytale Poem for Soviet radio in 1971. It’s based on a story which was a clever allegorical foil for the life of a creative person under an oppressive regime — the modern fairytale “The Little Piece of Chalk,” by Czech writer Miloš Mazourek. Its hero (the chalk) is forced to inscribe dull lines on a blackboard until a child takes it away to draw castles and gardens. Gubaidulina’s score is vividly imaginative — a wonderful piece of musical escapism.
The window on the link isn’t actual concert video. If you want to jump ahead to the piece, the announcer introduces it at about 51:50. So many instruments featured and minimal orchestration. I feel the freedom and the play as well as the menace of unjust authority. Artists sniping at the 1% from the orchestra hall, the children’s book, or other places of culture: excellent.
Image from the Seattle Municipal Archives from Seattle, WA – Seattle Municipal Archives, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=122982181
Catholic Sensibility 