Hi-Yo, Silver, Away!

How did a 19th-century Italian composer become inextricably intertwined with a 1930s radio cowboy? Economics.

When The Lone Ranger premiered on January 30, 1933 on Detroit's WXYZ radio, the producers were working on a tight production budget. Instead of commissioning a composer to write a new theme, and incidental music for each episode, producers turned to classical music.  It was a cheap solution to their budgetary woes. There was no living composer to pay because all of the music was in the public domain--available to anyone to use for free. So, the radio show's music was "written" by great composers like Liszt, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Bizet. The main theme was adapted from the finale of the overture to Gioachino Rossini's opera William Tell.

Gioachino Rossini

Premiered on August 3, 1829, William Tell was the last of Rossini's 39 operas. Rossini based the opera on an early 14th-century Swiss legend about Tell, a folk hero who was deadly with a crossbow. Tell proved his expertise when he was arrested for failing to bow to the hat of a tyrannical Austrian ruler, which the ruler had placed on the top of a pole in the village square. Tell's punishment was to shoot an apple off of his son's head. If he refused, he would be executed. If he succeeded, he would be set free.

Tell removed two arrows from his quiver, successfully using one to split the apple. The ruler asked why he withdrew two. Tell replied that if he had killed his son, he would have used the other to kill the ruler. Tell was bound and put on a ship to be taken to the ruler's castle. Tell escaped during a storm, arrived at the castle by land, and shot the ruler. His action sparked a rebellion against Austria.

The opera is mostly remembered for the famous overture. In addition to The Lone Ranger, portions of it were used in the movie A Clockwork Orange. Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich quoted the overture in the first movement of his 15th symphony.

The overture is divided into four, continuous parts:

1) Prelude: A slow introduction, played by the cello section (divided into five parts), and the double basses. A solo cello plays the theme, which is reminiscent of I've Been Working on the Railroad.

2) Storm: A drammatic section, featuring forceful trombones.

3) Ranz des Vaches: (call to the dairy cows) - This is the second most famous portion of the overture, featuring solo English horn and flute. It is often used in cartoons to signify daybreak.

4) Finale: A cavalry charge, heralded by trumpets and horns. It is this section that was used as The Lone Ranger theme.

Re-live your childhood with the Lone Ranger opening sequence.

Listen to Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops play the finale to the overture. The first minute of the recording puts you in the mood for the overture with cow mooing, galloping horses, and cowboy "yipees"!

Chorus Lines and Cowboys

Jacques Offenbach

The next two choices to be presented at Orchestra Kentucky's October 25th concert, You Be the Judge!, are Offenbach's Can-Can and the portion of Rossini's William Tell Overture known as the theme to the Lone Ranger. So, will it be music for chorus lines or cowboys that evening? We begin with the first candidate, Offenbach's contribution to the world of dance halls.

Jacques Offenbach was born Jacob Offenbach on June 20, 1819 in Cologne, Germany. He died in Paris on October 5, 1880. When Jacob was fifteen, his father took him to Paris to study the cello at the conservatory. It was then that he took his French name, Jacques.
Money problems forced Jacques to drop out of the conservatory and take a job playing cello in the Opera-comique. After a career as a virtuoso cellist and conductor, Offenbach began a successful career composing operettas. Operettas are synonymous with light opera or, in the English speaking world, musical theatre. Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld (1858) was his first full-length operetta from which the Can-Can is derived.  He went on to write nearly 100 operettas.

Actually, the can-can is a physically demanding dance performed by a chorus line of female dancers, wearing costumes of long skirts, petticoats, and black stockings--in fashion in the 1890s. The dance is characterized by the dancers lifting their skirts, kicking high and suggestively moving their bodies for patrons. Offenbach's galop from Orpheus is the music most closely associated with the can-can. The music was perfect for the can-can because the can-can is actually a more lively galop.  Can-can dancers were favorite subjects for the French painter Toulouse-Lautrec (see painting on right).

Jane Avril Dancing





For a video demonstration of the can-can, danced to Offenbach's galop, click here. WARNING: This video is rated PG.

Tomorrow, we will examine Rossini's overture that has become closely associated with TV and film's Lone Ranger.

A One-Hit Wonder of the Opera Kind

Pietro Mascagni

What do Edison Lighthouse, Five Stairsteps, Terry Jacks and Pietro Masagni have in common? Give up? They are all one-hit wonders. That is, they wrote (or recorded) only one piece of music that made it big.

Poor Pietro. He wrote seventeen operas, but is only known for one: Cavalleria rusticana ("Rustic Chivalry"). But, boy was it a hit.

Pietro Antonio Stefano Mascagni (prounounced "mas-ka-knee") was born in Livorno, Tuscany, Italy on December 7, 1863.  He died in Rome on August 2, 1945. He wrote Cavalleria rusticana in 1890. It had one of the biggest impacts on opera history, single-handedly beginning the verismo movement in Italian operan. The verismo movement stressed realistic depictions of contemporary, everyday life, especially among the lower class. The movement rejected Romanticised or mythical subject matter. Cavalleria rusticana centers on themes of adultery, betrayel and revenge.  It doesn't get any more realistic than that. The opera caused Mascagni to enjoy great success during his lifetime as a composer and conductor of his own and other people's music.

To read the story line of the opera, click here.

The famous Intermezzo is played between two scenes of the opera. It is scored for woodwinds, organ and strings. After a quiet introduction, the organ and strings play a soaring melody, which eventually winds down to a quiet ending.

Watch conductor Riccardo Muti (recently named as the Chicago Symphony's music director) in a performance of the Intermezzo from the orchestra pit of the 1996 Festival de Ravenna. He is conducting the Orquesta del Teatro Comunale di Bologna. Watch here.

Round four of our face off begins tomorrow: Offenbach versus Rossini.

Barber or Mascagni?

Samuel Barber

Today, we begin to explore the next two choices in our You Be the Judge! lineup. On Monday, October 25th, Orchestra Kentucky will present the audience with a series of choices between two compositions. They will decide at the concert what they want to hear.

One of the choices will be between Barber's Adagio for Strings and Mascagni's Intermezzo from his opera, Cavalleria Rusticana. Both are beautiful, slow, single-movement compositions that feature the string section (exclusively, with the Barber). This is going to be one of the more difficult decisions the audience will have to make.

Samuel Barber was born on March 9, 1910 and died on January 23, 1981. He composed orchestral, operatic, choral and piano music. He won the Pulitzer Prize in music for his opera Vanessa and his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.

Barber was born in West Chester, Pennsylvania into a musical family. His mother was a pianist, his aunt was a famous contralto, Louise Homer, and his uncle, Sidney Homer, was a composer of art songs. Barber wrote his first musical at the age of seven and tried to write his first opera at ten. He entered Philadelphia's prestigious Curtis Institute of Music at fourteen, where he studied voice, composition and theory. I've taken the time here to point out Barber's vocal influences because of the effect they had on his compositions, especially the Adagio.

The Adagio began as the second movement of Barber's String Quartet, Op. 11, which he composed in 1936 while spending the summer in Europe. In January 1938, Barber sent the full string version of the Adagio to the legendary conductor, Arturo Toscanini. Toscanini sent the score back to Barber without comment. This upset Barber, who avoided meeting with Toscanini. Toscanini sent word through Barber's Curtis friend and composer, Menotti, that he planned to perform the piece. Toscanini returned the score because he had already memorized it! The full string version of the Adagio was premiered on November 5, 1938, when Toscanini conducted the NBC Symphony Orchestra in a radio broadcast from New York.
The piece has enjoyed immense popularity ever since its premiere as a sort of requiem for the famous. It was played at the funerals of FDR, Einstein, Princess Grace, and JFK. It was also played at the last night of the Proms, a popular London music festival, to commemorate the victims of 9-11. In popular culture, it has been used in the soundtrack of the movies Platoon and The Elephant Man.

Barber's vocal background comes to the fore with the Adagio. The work is a series of long, singing, melodic lines which slowly work up to the highest registers of the string section. The emotional peak is when the string body plays its loudest, suddenly followed by silence. Barber must have also heard his work vocally. In 1967, he transcribed the piece for eight-part choir as a setting of Agnus Dei ("Lamb of God").

Here is a link to the aforementioned 9-11 performance broadcast from London's Albert Hall on September 15, 2001. American conductor Leonard Slatkin leads the BBC Orchestra. Listen here.

A Fiedler Favorite

Arthur Fiedler

Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler recorded a collection of his favorite marches and called it, appropriately, Fiedler's Favorite Marches. As a teenager, I loved listening to this recording. It always lifted my spirits. My favorite march of Fiedler's favorites was Norwegian composer Johannes Hanssen's Valdres March.

The march will face off against Copland's Hoedown at our October 25th concert, You Be the Judge! The audience will be presented with a series of two choices and will vote at the concert on which of the two they want to hear.

In the case of Valdres versus Hoedown I can pretty much guess that the audience will pick the Copland. After all, how many people know Hanssen's march? And people just can't get enough of the Beef Tune. Today, however, I want to plead my case for the Valdres March. I hope you will take the time to listen to the recording below and give old Hanssen a chance.

Johannes Hanssen

Johannes Hanssen was born December 2, 1874 in Ullensaker, Norway, a small town near Oslo, and died on November 25,1967 in Oslo. A Norwegian bandmaster, composer and teacher, he led the Oslo Military Band from 1926 to 1934 and again from 1945 to 1946. Hanssen received the King's Order of Merit in Gold and King Haakon VII's Jubilee Medal.

His most famous composition is his Valdres March (1904), a march celebrating the beautiful Valdres region in Norway that lies between Oslo and Bergen. The main theme is the signature fanfare for the Valdres Battalion, which is based on an ancient melody formerly played on the medieval lur, an uncoiled wooden wind instrument. The melody of the trio section derives from a fiddle tune traditional in Hardanger and a pentatonic folk tune, above a typical Norwegian drone bass line. It was first performed in 1904 by the band of the second regiment of Norway, with the composer playing the baritone horn himself. Numerous settings for brass band exist in addition to various arrangements for concert band and orchestra. (From a wikipedia article on Hanssen)


What I love about the Valdres March is its novelty. First, it is more stately than, say, a march of John Philip Sousa's. Instead of a typical four bar introduction, it begins with the first theme, played by the clarinet, which is also unusual. Also, the trio theme, played by trumpet, does not have the usual oom-pah accompaniment of a Sousa march. Instead, there is a syncopated figure that gives it a floating or more relaxed feeling. My favorite moment is towards the end of the dogfight or break strain, where the French horns blast out a triumphant figure that propels us back into the first theme. The march ends, but without a "stinger," the final note that ends most marches.

Unfortunately, orchestras rarely play marches anymore (except on July 4th programs). It is part of the orchestra's heritage: Beethoven, Schubert, and Mendelssohn composed marches. In addition to Fiedler, great conductors like von Karajan and Kleiber conducted them. Let's not neglect these little gems. Attention conductors: let's not leave it to our colleagues in the band world. Play more marches!

Listen to a performance by the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra.

Tomorrow, I will discuss Barber's Adagio for Strings.

"Where's the Beef?"

Aaron Copland

Several years ago, the National Beef Council chose Aaron Copland's Hoedown for its ad campaign, "Beef: It's What's for Dinner". You might remember it. One ad showed a couple dining in a restaurant (presumably on an expensive cut of beef), while an orchestra "serenaded" them with Copland's rousing music. The campaign was so successful, some people refer to Copland's work as the "beef" music.

Although Copland wrote film music (winning an Academy Award in 1950 for his score to The Heiress), he did not write the above mentioned music for a beef commercial. Instead, Hoedown was written as part of a larger work, Rodeo. Rodeo (which Copland pronounced "roh-dee-o" instead of the snobbish "roh-day-o") was the second collaboration between Copland and choreographer Agnes de Mille. The first resulted in a ballet, entitled Billy the Kid, which was based on the life of the Wild West outlaw. De Mille wanted Copland to write another "Cowboy" ballet and Rodeo was the result.

The popularity of both ballets is due, in part, to the folksiness of the music and story lines. In fact, Copland usually turned to folk music for inspiration. With Hoedown, he did more than that. He actually adapted a traditional fiddle tune, Bonaparte's Retreat. Listen here to the original fiddle tune played by Salyersville, Kentucky fiddler William Hamilton Stepp, which was recorded in 1937 for the Library of Congress.

What accounts for Hoedown's enduring popularity? In addition to its memorable tune, I believe it is because of its inherent American sound. Perhaps this is Copland's greatest contribution to the history of music. He created a sound that is uniquely American. A story illustrates my point.

In 2003, I conducted a concert with the St. Petersburg (Russia) State Symphony Orchestra. At the conclusion of a concert of Beethoven, Reinecke, and Tchaikovsky, we played the Hoedown as an encore. I was surprised to learn in rehearsal that the orchestra had never heard or played the piece!  I spent a lot of rehearsal time teaching them about American fiddling technique ("No," I told the strings, "you don't use big bows like you use in playing Tchaikovsky!"). After learning of the orchestra's ignorance of the piece, I was concerned that the audience would not know it either. Maybe this wasn't the best music to choose for an encore. But I needn't have worried. The audience immediately recognized it's American-ness and leaped to their feet at its conclusion. I believe it has the same effect on American audiences. And that's the reason the Beef Council chose it for its ad campaign.

Listen to a performance of the Hoedown, played by the London Symphony and conducted by the composer. Listen here

Meet the Candidate: Schubert

Today we continue our discussion of pieces that will be voted upon at the orchestra's next concert, You Be the Judge!, Monday, October 25th, at 7:30 p.m. The audience will be presented with various choices and will decide, on the spot, what the orchestra performs.

Squaring off against Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, which we discussed yesterday, is fellow Austrian composer Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony.

Franz Peter Schubert (pronounced shew-bert) was born on January 31, 1797 and died on November 19, 1828. Dying at the young age of 31, Schubert wrote an amazing number of compositions: about 600 Lieder (German songs), nine symphonies, church music, operas, incidental music, chamber music and solo piano music.

He struggled for recognition during his lifetime. Recognizing his greatness, Schubert's friends threw "Schubertiads," parties where only his music was played. An alcoholic who never had any money, Schubert moved from friend to friend for support. Following his death, great composers like Liszt, Brahms, Mendelssohn and Schumann championed his works.

Although typhoid fever is listed as the cause of Schubert's death, many believe he died from syphilis. At his request he was buried next to his musical hero, Beethoven.

Perhaps Schubert's greatest work is his  Symphony No. 8 in B minor. Commonly known as the Unfinished Symphony, Schubert started it in 1822, six years before his death, but composed only two movements (there are typically four movements in a symphony): the first movement and a slow, second movement. He also wrote a third movement, scherzo, in piano score, but only orchestrated two pages of it. Some music historians believe that the entr'acte from his incidental music to Rosamunde was actually intended as the finale to the symphony. Some conductors have put together all the aforementioned works to have a complete, four movement, symphony. Most think this is a bad idea.

Various theories have been advanced to explain why Schubert did not finish the symphony. One reason he abandoned the symphony, so a theory goes, is because he had written all three movements in triple meter (the meter of the waltz). This was simply not done (or at least rarely done), causing Schubert to give up. Another theory is that Schubert had simply evolved musically. We know that he began a new composition after composing the two movements of the symphony. Maybe this caused his compositional style to grow in a different direction. Finally, another theory states that Schubert said what he had to say, only in two movements. In other words, Schubert might have intended for the symphony to be only two movements long.

Whether or not Schubert intended a two-movement symphony is best left for musicologists (music historians) to debate. Regardless, he left us with two wonderful movements of Romantic music.

The first movement begins with the low strings playing a extremely soft passage that later becomes the basis for the development section of the movement:





The strings start a mysterious ostinato which serves as the underpinning for a duet between oboe and clarinet. The great conductor ArturoToscanini called the combination a clarboe, emphasizing the need for the oboe and clarinet to blend their sounds into one. This section is in a minor mode, making the mood quite mysterious.

Things turn brighter with the second theme in G major, played by the cellos:

In his Music Appreciation Hour, on NBC radio, Walter Damrosch, conductor of the New York Symphony (not to be confused with the New York Philharmonic), added words to the theme to make it more memorable for students:



"This is a symphony, that Schubert wrote and never finished."

Schubert eventually moves into the development section of the movement, where he takes the above themes and expands on them. There are many ways composers develop themes: they may change keys, change orchestrations, use a fragment of the tune, etc. Listen to the recording of the work below and discover for yourself Shubert's techniques.

What is really odd about the symphony is that the public did not know of its existence until 37 years after Schubert's death. In 1823, the Graz Music Society gave Schubert an honorary diploma. As was the custom and to show his gratitude, Schubert dedicated a symphony to them, presenting it to his friend and society representative Anselm Hüttenbrenner. Hüttenbrenner did not have the piece performedfter Schubert's death five years later? There are torn pages in the existing manuscript. Did he damage the piece? Did he feel guilty about it, hiding the work's existence for that reason? Finally, in 1865, at the age of 76 (he died three years later), he showed it to the conductor Johann von Herbeck, who conducted the two movements on December 17,1865 in Vienna, adding the last movement of Schubert's Third Symphony as the finale.  The score was not published until after 1867. As they say, "Better late than never."

To learn more about the symphony, watch St. Louis Symphony Music Director David Robertson's excellent discussion: David Robertson discusses symphony.

Now watch a performance of the symphony's first movement: Unfinished Symphony, First Movement.

 Well, what will it be? Beethoven or Schubert? Let me know by leaving a comment on this blog.

The next two candidates, which we will begin discussing on Monday, are Copland's Hoedown and a Norwegian march by Johannes Hanssen, entitled Valdres. Lest you think there is no question about which should be played, the march was a favorite of Boston Pops conductor Arthur Fiedler.