War Games
Gustav Holst.
On Thursday, 11th September
1591 John Baldwin added the finishing touches to his elegantly hand-written
collection of keyboard music, entitled My Ladye Nevells Booke.
Baldwin was one of the
most famous music calligraphers of the day and this heavy, oblong volume of
nearly two hundred pages must have been a gargantuan undertaking. It’s one of
the finest Tudor music manuscripts in existence and contains forty-two pieces by
William Byrd, the greatest English composer of the age. But strangely enough,
the identity of Lady Neville (to use the modern spelling) remains a mystery.
She could have been one of several people, but she was clearly of noble birth
because the coat of arms of the Buckinghamshire Neville family appears on the
title page. And that’s about as much as we know for sure.
The book contains music
written by Byrd during the previous fifteen years and most of the works are
short pieces of dance music including some sombre galliards and pavans. But
more importantly, the book also contains some of the first descriptive pieces
ever written, a suite called The Battell. There are nine short movements
with names like The Souldiers Sommons, The Marche of Footemen,
The Marche to the Fighte and so on.
To modern ears it sounds
charmingly naïve, especially as the pieces would have been played on a
tinkly-sounding clavichord. Nevertheless, the notion of music actually
describing something must have seemed a novel idea at the time. Even four
hundred years later, it’s safe to say that most music doesn’t describe anything
at all.
In the byways of musical
history there are other pieces of music which attempt to describe warfare of
some kind. The 1620s saw the first performance of Monteverdi’s Il
combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda, a work for voices and instruments that
contains a theatrical battle scene. Then there’s Beethoven’s crowd-pleaser,
written for huge orchestra called Wellington’s Victory and Tchaikovsky’s
old pot-boiler, the 1812 Overture. Liszt wrote a heroic symphonic poem
called The Battle of the Huns and Prokofiev wrote several works
influenced by war themes. Oh, and let’s not forget Britten’s impressive War
Requiem. But perhaps the most disturbing music that depicts the horrors of
war is by an English composer with a foreign-sounding name.
Gustav Holst
(1874-1934): Mars - the Bringer of War (The Planets).
BBC
Philharmonic
Orchestra cond. Charles Mackerras (Duration: 07:22; Video 480p)
The Planets
is Holst’s largest orchestral work and it’s also his most popular. But if Holst
hadn’t gone on holiday to Mallorca with a group of friends in the spring of
1913, it may never have been written.
In Mallorca, Holst was
introduced to astrology by Clifford Bax, the brother of composer Arnold Bax. It
was evidently Clifford who gave Holst the idea for the composition. He started
the work in 1914 and completed it two years later. After its first performance
in 1920, it became a huge success and has remained so until the present day,
with its brilliant orchestration and rich melodic invention.
The first movement Mars
– The Bringer of War has been described as the most devastating piece of
music ever composed. Unusually, the piece has five beats to the bar and an
ominous insistent rhythmic pattern dominates the entire movement.
At the opening, the
strings play this rhythm col legno which involves hitting the string with
the wood of the bow, producing an eerie percussive sound. The movement builds
up tension throughout, with a menacing quieter middle section. This is not a
battle with bows and arrows; it’s about the horrors of mechanized warfare
emphasized by the composer’s use of pounding percussion, grinding, clashing
harmonies and of course the incessant relentless rhythm. Gradually the music
lumbers towards its inevitable climax, leaving us with a sense of poignant loss
and desolation.
Ottorino Respighi
(1879-1936): The Pines of the Appian Way (The Pines of Rome).
Stuttgart Radio Symphony
Orchestra, cond. Georges Prêtre (Duration 05:40; Video 360p)
This is the last movement
of Respighi’s 1924 suite in which the four movements depict pine trees in
various parts of Rome at different times of the day. Ottorino Respighi is best
known for his orchestral music and especially the three symphonic poems: The
Fountains of Rome, The Pines of Rome and Roman Festivals.
This final movement,
superbly conducted by Georges Prêtre, begins very quietly and portrays the
Appian Way in the misty dawn, while in the far distance a massive legion marches
under the brilliance of the rising sun. The soldiers get closer and closer as
the intensity of the music increases. Respighi wanted the “ground to tremble
under the footsteps” of the advancing army and uses an organ playing its lowest
notes. The piece is a gradual crescendo which rises to a thunderous climax with
joyous brass fanfares, as the army triumphantly marches towards the Capitoline
Hill.
