Erwin Schulhoff barely garners a passing mention in most histories of 20th-century music, but the Czech composer cut a significant figure on the international new-music scene between the world wars. He belonged to the select group of “degenerate” musicians banned by the Nazis, a distinction he owed partly to his Jewish heritage, partly to his outspoken left-wing politics, and partly to such flagrant breaches of aesthetic propriety as the Sonata erotica, in which the solo singer grunts and groans orgiastically, and the opera Plameny (Flames), a freewheeling pastiche that mixes characters from Mozart’s Don Giovanni and the commedia dell’arte with a Greek-style chorus.
Schulhoff’s service as a conscript in the Austrian army during World War I radicalized him both artistically and politically. Settling in postwar Dresden, he thrived in the permissive atmosphere of the Weimar Republic. He flirted with the frivolities of Dadaism and the sober expressionism of the Second Viennese School, developed a passion for ragtime and jazz, and generally thumbed his nose at the cultural establishment. Stylistically, Schulhoff’s musical output ran the gamut from cool Neoclassicism to hot jazz, and from Berg-like atonality to folkish modal harmonies. He wrestled with a Native American ballet titled Ogelala and even wrote a silent piano piece à la John Cage.
The Concertino for Flute, Viola, and Bass, composed in 1925, falls squarely in the middle of this period of heady experimentation. The music’s transparent, linear textures and melodic and rhythmic ostinatos—as well as its historically evocative title—bespeak a Neoclassical impulse, while the slithering chromatic lines, metrical displacements, and other elements come straight out of the modernist playbook. Each of the two slow movements alternates between even and odd numbers of beats per measure, imparting a sense of fluid irregularity, while the two fast movements are zesty and folk-like in character. The contrast between low and high registers, inherent in the Concertino’s unconventional instrumentation, is further accentuated by the substitution of piccolo for flute in the Furiant and Rondino movements. The entire work is notable for its rhythmic variety and vitality, qualities that Schulhoff prized above all others.
—Harry Haskell
Matthew Aucoin—a conductor, pianist, writer, and, most notably, composer—is an emerging force in music and served on the Metropolitan Opera’s music staff from 2012 to 2014. Honored with a MacArthur Fellowship in 2018, he was LA Opera’s first-ever artist-in-residence, and, in addition to the Met, has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and Harvard University. His first two operas, Crossing and Second Nature, have been produced across North America at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Canadian Opera Company, and elsewhere.
Eurydice—created with librettist and playwright Sarah Ruhl, on whose play the opera is based—is a contemporary reimagining of the ancient myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. As the story traditionally goes, after Eurydice dies on their wedding day, Orpheus’s lamentations are so moving that the gods allow him to venture into the Underworld to lead her back to life. But he must not speak to or even look back at Eurydice on their journey homeward, and when he does, she is lost forever. This new version relates the story from Eurydice’s point of view, and in doing so, offers new aspects to its infinite analytic possibilities. For instance, what is Eurydice’s perspective? To which world is she more powerfully drawn, and why? To animate these various contemplations of myth and psychology, Aucoin has developed a musical language appropriate to the human character, simultaneously complex and approachable, eerie and familiar, unsettling and seductive.
Aucoin’s score for Eurydice creates a world analogous to the tale, equally at home in both the realm of appearances and in the deep subconscious. The sense of eeriness depicting a soul’s disembodied journey is created more by rhythmic and metrical originality than by dissonance or shock effects. There are references to the myth’s ubiquity in European literature (some choral passages sound like Gregorian chant) and in previous operas (Baroque flourishes and even a Wagnerian “descent into the Underworld” suggestion). There are also familiar sound-saturation crescendos that remind the listener of more recent techniques employed by Philip Glass, John Adams, and their contemporaries. The impressive vocal solos range from the witty to the emotional, and the orchestral and choral writing are notable for their rich coloration.
In “There was a roar”—Eurydice’s first aria after arriving in the Underworld—the title character recollects the experience of dying but struggles to remember some of the details (including her husband’s name), having lost her memory by passing through the River of Forgetfulness. Eurydice’s second aria in Act II, “Orpheus never liked words … This is what it is to love an artist,” features one of the score’s most virtuosic vocal displays. In it, Eurydice reflects on her relationship with Orpheus, lamenting that his obsession with music and art kept him from being fully present in their life together.
As an African American woman in the field of classical music, Florence Price faced a double challenge. “I have two handicaps—those of sex and race,” she wrote matter-of-factly to conductor Serge Koussevitzky in 1943. The Chicago Symphony Orchestra had premiered the first of Price’s four symphonies 10 years earlier, and her vocal music was championed by the likes of Marian Anderson. Yet she was forced to eke out a living by composing popular songs under a pseudonym, teaching piano, and making choral and orchestral arrangements for a Chicago radio station. Price—who had moved to the Windy City in 1927 to escape the toxic racial environment of her native Arkansas—eventually compiled a catalogue of some 300 works, nearly all of which remained unpublished for decades.
Adoration is an exception, having appeared in a magazine for church organists in 1951, two years before Price’s death. A short, shapely arioso, it’s among her most fetching and frequently performed pieces, both in its original version for organ and in numerous arrangements. The tenderly wistful G-major melody lends itself naturally to the violin: Set against a simple chordal accompaniment and enriched by double-stops, it rises higher and higher, eventually reaching an impassioned climax four bars before the end. Price’s conservatively tonal harmonic language, lightly spiced with chromaticism, discreetly limns the theme’s flowing contours. Adoration is preceded on tonight’s program by an even shorter specimen of her lyrical art. Despite its simple A-B-A song form, The Deserted Garden shows considerable sophistication in its use of modal harmonies and pentatonic scale patterns. A sprinkling of blues notes highlights Price’s interest in African American vernacular music.
—Harry Haskell
Like Schulhoff, Pierre Gabaye moved with ease between the worlds of classical and popular music. After studying at the Conservatoire de Paris, he won the Prix de Rome in 1956 for a cantata based on Molière’s 1664 comedy Le mariage forcé (The Forced Marriage). For the next two decades, Gabaye produced a steady stream of well-crafted works, almost exclusively instrumental, in a variety of genres and idioms. But while his concert music was well received, he never broke into the first rank of French composers. In 1975, Gabaye virtually stopped composing and embarked on a second career as director of light music for Radio France. Nevertheless, several of his earlier works continued to be widely performed, including this 1958 quartet for trumpet, horn, trombone, and piano.
As the title implies, Récréation was clearly intended to entertain both audiences and performers. Gabaye’s ingratiating idiom falls somewhere between music hall and concert hall—light in spirit but with just enough substance to hold the attention of sophisticated listeners. The jazzy vitality and mild harmonic quirkiness of the opening Allegretto give the music an appealing swagger and panache. The slow middle movement switches gears, with the brass instruments’ lyrical, long-breathed melodies set against a gently swaying piano accompaniment that blossoms into rippling cascades of fast notes. High spirits return in the triple-time finale, a rambunctious romp complete with “dirty” trombone glissandos—a fitting finale for a composer-pianist who won first prize in a competition sponsored by the French magazine Le jazz hot.
—Harry Haskell
Opening in the “tragic” key of G minor, Mozart’s K. 478 charted new vistas in chamber music, a realm traditionally dominated by lighter fare. Mozart had recently cemented his reputation as a chamber music composer with a set of six string quartets dedicated to, and inspired by, Haydn. Upon hearing them, the senior composer declared to Mozart’s father: “Before God and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name.”
The G-Minor Piano Quartet is one of three works commissioned by Vienna-based publisher Franz Anton Hoffmeister in a bid to capture the burgeoning amateur market for chamber music. But the piano quartet was a new genre, one that Mozart virtually invented, and he was understandably keen to explore its potential free of commercial constraints. K. 478 makes few concessions to amateur-grade technique; the bravura piano writing, in particular, was designed to show off Mozart’s own virtuosity. The Allegro features two themes—one dark, driving, and peremptory, the other light, chipper, and nonchalant—but the drama really begins in the development section, where Mozart ratchets up the harmonic tension to a fever pitch. By contrast, nary a hint of tragedy beclouds either the B-flat–major Andante—warm, lyrical, and demure—or the tuneful, happy-go-lucky Rondo. In the end, tragedy is not so much banished as sublimated, as in one of Mozart’s tragicomic operas.
Hoffmeister criticized the Piano Quartet in G Minor as excessively difficult to play—and hence difficult to sell to the music-buying public—and urged Mozart to “write in a more popular vein, otherwise I shan’t be able to publish and pay for any more of your works.” The headstrong composer apparently responded to this ultimatum by wiggling out of his contract and placing his second piano quartet in more appreciative hands. Published by Artaria, the Quartet in E-flat Major, K. 493, soon became all the rage in Europe’s fashionable salons.
—Harry Haskell