The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Today is Memorial Day – a good time to remember the civilian dead as well as the military dead. The Ear likes Ravel’s “Le Tombeau de Couperin.” What music would you listen to to mark the holiday?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day, 2019, when the nation honors the men and women who died in military service. The Ear would like to see much more attention and remembrance paid to the huge number of civilians — much higher than military personnel and soldiers — who have died in wars and military service, whose lives weren’t given but taken.
In fact, why not establish and celebrate a separate holiday to honor civilian deaths in war? Perhaps it would help to know the detailed history and background of the holiday, since it is not as straightforward or modern as you might expect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day
What piece of classical music would you listen to in order to mark the holiday?
There is a lot to choose from.
The Ear especially likes “Le Tombeau de Couperin” by the early 20th-century French composer Maurice Ravel. It is a “tombeau” – a metaphorical “tomb” or “grave” used by the French to mean paying homage to the dead – in two senses.
Its neo-Classical or neo-Baroque style recalls the 18th-century world of French composers and harpsichordists including Jean-Philippe Rameau and Francois Couperin. But in a second sense, Ravel (below, in 1910) dedicated each of the six movements to a friend – in one case, two brothers — who had died during World War I. So part of its appeal is that it is a very personal statement of grief.
Here is more detailed background about the piece:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_tombeau_de_Couperin
The work was orchestrated later, which added sonic color but cut out two movements. The Ear prefers the original piano version, which seems a little more percussive, austere and straightforward — less pretty but more beautiful, and more in keeping with the holiday by evoking sentiment without sentimentality.
In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear it in a live performance by Canadian pianist Angela Hewitt.
But there are lots of other works to choose from by many composers: John Adams (“The Wound Dresser” after poetry of Walt Whitman); Samuel Barber (Adagio for Strings); Ludwig van Beethoven (slow movements of Symphonies 3 and 7, and of the Piano Sonata Op. 26); Johannes Brahms (“A German Requiem”); Benjamin Britten (War Requiem); Frederic Chopin (Funeral March from Sonata No. 2, polonaises, preludes and the “Revolutionary” Etude); Aaron Copland (“Fanfare for the Common Man” and “Letter From Home”); Edward Elgar (“Nimrod” from “Enigma Variations”); Gabriel Faure (Requiem and Elegy for cello); Franz Joseph Haydn (“Mass in Time of War”); Paul Hindemith (“When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d – A Requiem for Those We Love”); Charles Ives (Variations on “America” and “Decoration Day”); Henry Purcell (“When I Am Laid in Earth”); John Philip Sousa (“Honored Dead” March); Ralph Vaughan Williams (Symphony No. 3 “Pastoral”); and many others, including Johann Sebastian Bach and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Here is a list from the British radio station Classical FM:
Here is a list of patriotic music from Nashville Public Radio:
Here is another list from an American source:
http://midamerica-music.com/blog/five-classical-works-memorial-day/
Here are more sound samples from NPR:
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104341851
And here is another one from Northwest Public Radio:
https://www.nwpb.org/2015/05/22/memorial-day-music-commemorate-celebrate/
What do you think of a holiday commemorating civilian deaths in war?
What favorite piece of classical music would you play and listen to as you mark Memorial Day?
Let us know, with a YouTube link if possible, in the COMMENT section.
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: The new opera “Fallujah” is based on the Iraq War. Will the Madison Opera or the University Opera be interested in staging it? Plus, this afternoon is your last chance to hear “Carmina Burana” performed by the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Chorus. Read three rave reviews.
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ALERT: This afternoon at 2:30 p.m. in Overture Hall is your last chance to hear the Madison Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in “Carmina Burana” in the MSO’s spectacular season-closing program. Read three rave reviews by local critics:
Here is what John W. Barker wrote for Isthmus:
http://isthmus.com/music/big-orchestra-monuments/
Here is what Greg Hettmansberger wrote for Madison Magazine and his blog WhatGregSays:
https://whatgregsays.wordpress.com/2016/04/30/farewells-to-a-season-and-some-friends/
And here is what Jessica Courtier wrote for The Capital Times:
By Jacob Stockinger
Who says you can’t mix art and current events?
Especially if the current events also count as history, which has often been an inspiration for fiction and art.
Iraq and Afghanistan — the United States’ longest wars — are back in the news again making big headlines. And PTSD or Post-traumatic Stress Disorder is a story that never goes away.
But not all of the news has to do with politics, suicide bombings, increased troop commitments and fierce fighting in a civil war.
It also has to do with art.
Specifically, opera — that potent combination of theater and music.
The Long Beach Opera commissioned and recently premiered a new chamber opera based on the Iraq War and PTSD (Posttraumatic Stress Disorder), and us based on the life and work of U.S. Marine Christian Ellis . It is called “Fallujah” and it is the first such opera to be written. (A photo below is by Keith Ian Polakoff for the Long Beach Opera.)
You can hear librettist Heather Raffo and composer Tobin Stokes discuss the opera in the YouTube video at the bottom.
It makes The Ear wonder if it might find its way into an upcoming season of the Madison Opera, which tends to use its smaller winter productions to stage works that are newer, smaller, more adventurous and more exploratory.
Or maybe the University Opera at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music might find it a good choice for a student production?
Anyway, here is a fine write-up that you can find on NPR or National Public Radio:
Tags: 2003 invasion of Iraq, Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda, Art, Arts, Baghdad, blog, choral music, Christian Ellis, Classical music, critic, current events, Falluja, Fallujah, fiction, Greg Hettmansberger, Heather Raffo, historical fiction, History, Iraq, Iraq war, Isthmus, Jacob Stockinger, Jessica Courtier, John W. Barker, Long Beach Opera, Madison, Madison Magazine, Madison Opera, Marine, Music, NPR, opera, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Treatment, Post-Traumatic Stress DIsorder, Posttraumatic stress disorder, PTSD, review, Saddam Hussein, suicide bombings, The Capital Times, theater, Tobin Stokes, U.S., United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, University Opera, US, vocal music, war, Weapon of mass destruction, Wisconsin, YouTube
Classical music: What music will you listen to on Memorial Day? The Ear offers several stirring stories about music and Memorial Day, from Walt Whitman and the Civil War through World War II to the Twin Towers and the War of Terrorism in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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By Jacob Stockinger
Today is Memorial Day, 2014
My Mom always referred to it as Decoration Day
I liked that name. It seemed to fit the occasion better.
To be honest, The Ear has always liked the idea of honoring military service, but is much less inclined to celebrate unabashed militarism with parades and flag-waving (below is a photo of a Memorial Day parade in Chicago).
I think of Memorial Day as a sadder, more introspective and memory-driven holiday, as well as the traditional start of summer -– which, especially after a Wisconsin winter like the last one, is nothing to apologize for.
In any case, here is a link to an informative but very accessible history of the holiday that also highlights the important difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day
But putting history aside for a moment, how would you celebrate the holiday artistically, especially musically?
That is what The Ear wants to know.
Every year, the excellent blog “Deceptive Cadence” on NPR offers its musical take on Memorial Day. This year is no different and NPR has chosen some moving words and music that you should check out:
But over the past years, The Well-Tempered Ear has also offered previous blog posts – some offering suggested listening, others seeking it — that still seem relevant and still invite readers to participate.
Here is one from last year:
And here is a link to memorable 2011 posting, which made a lot of suggestions for composers and specific works, then asked for reader feedback and also featured the moving version of Sir Edward Elgar’s beautifully poignant “Nimrod” Variation from the “Enigma” Variations (heard in the original orchestration at the bottom in a YouTube video that has almost 2,5 million hits and features Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra) and Norah Jones in her “Hymn to America,” both used convincingly and touchingly in Ken Burns’ mammoth documentary film “The War”:
Finally, here is a stirring story, much of it previously unknown to me, about the history of “Taps” that appeared on NPR:
What music comes to your mind and heart when you think of Memorial Day?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: 9/11, Afghanistan, Arts, Chicago, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Civil War, Classical music, Daniel Barenboim, Decoration Day, documentary, Edward Elgar, Gulf War, Iraq, Jacob Stockinger, John Adams, Ken Burns, Korean War, Korrean War, Memorial Day, Music, Naval Hymn, Norah Jones, NPR, On the Transmigration of Souls, Second World War, Taps, The War, Twin Towers, United States, Veterans Day, Vietnam War, Walt Whitman, Wars, Wisconsin, World Trade Center, World War I, World War II, YouTube
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