A Riddle Wrapped Inside an Enigma

Concert Notes

The Unanswered Question
– Charles Edward Ives
Born October 20, 1874, in Danbury, Connecticut
Died May 19, 1954, in New York City

This work was first performed on April 5, 1946, by the New York Little Symphony Orchestra conducted by Lou Harrison in a concert at New York’s Carnegie Chamber Music Hall. It is scored for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, two horns, two trombones, and strings, with optional timpani and church bells.

Possibly the most overlooked American composer, iconoclast Charles Ives was the son of a New England cornetist who had served as a bandmaster in the Civil War. Ives’s reputation as a renegade came largely from his experimentations with harmony; he composed a few pieces with tone rows a decade before Arnold Schoenberg began to move away from tonality. Showing an interest in the science of music, Ives composed a few works for a microtonal piano, tuned to intervals smaller than a half-step. It was Ives’ father who introduced him to this type of musical freedom with numerous exercises in tonal independence. One such drill consisted of young Charlie singing a familiar song in one key while his father changed keys in the accompaniment. The youngster was expected to maintain his key regardless of what his father played.

Ives attended Yale University from 1894 to 1898, where he studied with the illustrious composer Horatio Parker. Parker, a student of Brahms, was very conservative in his musical views and never fully understood Ives’ interest in the more arcane areas of the discipline. However, Ives complied, to a degree, composing a decidedly Brahmsian First Symphony in 1898, the year of his graduation. His music would take drastic dissonant turns in the next eighteen years until 1916, after which he would compose little else. Anyone familiar with Ives is aware of his extensive borrowing of musical materials from other sources – most often patriotic songs, folk tunes, and popular melodies of the 1890s. This should not be viewed as plagiarism, but as a technique of pastiche – akin to the use of fabric scraps to make a quilt. As with a comfortable old-time quilt, the various fabrics of his sources are often apparent, but they fit so well that it is unimaginable that they could be assembled in any other way. It is also important to remember that Ives’s world was one of Civil War veterans’ brass bands performing in park gazebos, ragtime, barn dances, and patriotic Americana. Assimilating all of this into his music, Ives wrote four symphonies, numerous works for chamber ensembles, piano, voice, chorus, and independent orchestral works.

Always a pragmatist, Ives did not pursue composition as a profession. He chose the field of insurance as a money-making endeavor, and teamed with Julian Myrick in 1907 to form Ives and Company at 51 Liberty Street in New York – one of the most important companies of its type on the Eastern Seaboard. Despite his profession, Ives composed on evenings, holidays, and weekends, producing a large number of brilliant and influential works. When asked why he did not choose music as his profession, he replied, “If a composer has a nice wife and some nice children, how can he let the children starve on his dissonances?” In 1910 he married the appropriately-named Harmony Twitchell, who was his partner and helpmate.

Ives’ The Unanswered Question represents a departure from his usual pastiche method. As in the Fourth Symphony, this work is a philosophical argument. There is no musical borrowing in The Unanswered Question. Ives composed this work, subtitled “A Contemplation of Something Serious,” in 1906 at the same time he composed is Central Park in the Dark, subtitled “A Contemplation of Nothing Serious.” The second work consists of extensive borrowing.

The composer provided his own program note for The Unanswered Question in his unmistakably cynical style:

“The strings play pianississimo throughout with no change in tempo . They are to represent the ‘Silence of the Druids — Who Know, See and Hear Nothing.’ The trumpet intones ‘The Perennial Question of Existence,’ and states it in the same tone of voice each time . But the hunt for ‘The Invisible Answer’ undertaken by the flutes and other human beings, becomes gradually more active, faster and louder ... ‘The Fighting Answerers,’ as the time goes on and after a ‘secret conference,’ seem to realize a futility, and begin to mock ‘The Question’ — the strife is over for the moment. After they disappear, ‘The Question’ is asked for the last time, and ‘The Silences’ are heard beyond in ‘Undisturbed Solitude.’ ”

Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Opus 43 – Sergei Rachmaninoff

Born April 1, 1873, in Oneg, Russia
Died March 28, 1943, in Beverly Hills, California

The work was given its premiere on November 7, 1934, in Baltimore, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski with Rachmaninoff as soloist. It is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, harp, and strings.

Born into an aristocratic family in Tsarist Russia, Sergei Rachmaninoff led a varied life. His first compositional successes were piano pieces he composed for his numerous recital appearances. The piano figures prominently in his output with four concerti, two sonatas, the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini and numerous smaller works for piano solo. As his fame as a soloist spread throughout the world and his music reached a larger audience, his reputation as a composer grew. Rachmaninoff once told his editor that he did not know which was his “true calling – that of a composer, pianist, or conductor . . . I am constantly troubled by the misgiving that, in venturing into too many fields, I may have failed to make the best use of my life.”

Always a proponent of the Romantic style, Rachmaninoff's music is filled with longing melodies and lush harmonies – an idiom he retained long after more experimental techniques became the norm. Rachmaninoff developed a personal idiom of keyboard writing, patterned somewhat after Chopin and Liszt but strongly individual and drawn from his own tendencies as a pianist. His large works for piano and orchestra are characterized by their rich beauty, as well as great technical brilliance and difficulty.

The young composer had to overcome several emotional hurdles, but none was as troublesome as the one he faced in his mid-twenties. Despite his great promise as the leader of a new generation of Russian composers, the harsh reception of his First Symphony (1897) could not have been more brutal. Cesar Cui declared that the work sounded like the product of “a conservatory in Hell.” The depression that ensued caused an unusually dry period in Rachmaninoff’s compositional output. After three years, he decided to seek help, eventually settling on hypnosis. The composer received considerable relief with Dr. Nicolai Dahl and was so grateful he dedicated the Second Piano Concerto to the hypnotist. However, the idea of composing another symphony simply terrified Rachmaninoff. Balancing this fear with the void he felt by not composing for orchestra, Rachmaninoff decided on another approach to restore his creative flow – seclusion. In 1906, he left his conducting position with the Bolshoi Opera and went to Germany. In an isolated house near Dresden, he immersed himself in composition. Surprisingly, the first work he wrote was the Second Symphony. The premieres in St. Petersburg and Moscow in February of 1908 (accounts differ as to which was given first), both conducted by the composer, met with great popular and critical acclaim. He had finally overcome the horrors of 1897.

Rachmaninoff’s creative life continued to be successful for nearly two decades. New works poured from his pen, but the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 changed everything. Rachmaninoff and his family fled Russia again, eventually settling in California. His career also took a new direction, as he had to perform as a full-time concert pianist in order to earn a living. Rachmaninoff’s frequency of new works dropped from several each year before the war to just five works between 1918 and his death in 1943. Undoubtedly, the most popular of these is the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini from 1934.

The Rhapsody is a set of twenty-four variations on Nicolò Paganini’s Twenty-Fourth Caprice from 1805. Although the work is not designated as a piano concerto, it behaves like one with the variations organized to produce the illusion of the customary three-movement fast-slow-fast concerto framework. Paganini’s theme appears only after a fleeting introduction and the first variation – itself a fragmented version of the theme . Rachmaninoff’s rapid-fire approach presents one variation after another, each exploring a different feature of the original melody. Perhaps the most notable occurrence is the use of the Dies Irae (Day of wrath) chant from the Latin Requiem Mass of the Roman Catholic liturgy . For Rachmaninoff, this theme represents the darker side of superstition and hearkens back to the many legends surrounding the lanky, dark, and mysterious figure of the devilishly virtuosic Paganini.

The middle section of the Rhapsody begins with an ethereal cadenza, giving way to one of Rachmaninoff’s most beloved melodies. Lush and romantic, the eighteenth variation begins with the piano alone, but is joined by the orchestra and builds gradually to a breathtaking and emotional fortissimo . With the next variation comes a brisk tempo and the start of Rachmaninoff’s final movement. As in the early part of the work, the variations proceed quickly. As the theme gradually reassembles from its fragmentation, so returns the Dies Irae chant in the brass, this time fortissimo . The Rhapsody ends with one final concise gesture, reminiscent of the very beginning.

Variations on an Original Theme (Enigma), Op. 36
– Sir Edward Elgar
Born June 2, 1857, at Broadheath, near Worcester, England
Died February 23, 1934, at Worcester, England

This work was first performed on June 19, 1899, in St. James Hall in London, England, with Has Richter conducting. In addition to solo violin, it is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, three bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, organ (optional), and strings.

Sir Edward Elgar is considered by many to have been the quintessential English composer. His music is filled with the stirring themes that make one think of all the pomp of circumstance of coronation, the beauty of the English countryside, and the reserved sophistication that represents British-ness in the minds of many. However, his own countrymen were slow to accept his music. He was nearly fifty years of age before his reputation was sealed with the premiere of one work – the Enigma Variations.

As many have explained, there are actually three puzzles in this work. Elgar’s main theme , which returns in various guises throughout the work, is entitled “Enigma,” but no solution is given as to its meaning. Most scholars believe that the puzzle is simply a musical setting of the rhythm of the composer’s own name. Elgar’s other two enigmas are perhaps best explained using his own words:

“It is true that I have sketched for their amusement and mine the idiosyncrasies of fourteen of my friends, not necessarily musicians, but this is a personal matter and need not have been mentioned publicly. (The initials, however, appear in the printed score.) The variations should stand simply as a ‘piece’ of music. The Enigma I will not explain. Its dark saying must be left unguessed and I warn you that the apparent connection between the variations and the theme is often of the slightest texture. Further, through and over the whole set another and larger theme ‘goes,’ but is not played. So the principal Theme never appears, even as in some late dramas – e.g. Maeterlinck’s L’Intruse and Les Sept Princesses – the chief character is never on the stage.”

As to the larger enigma, it remains unsolved. However, the smaller puzzle of connecting initials to Elgar’s friends was cracked by the composer himself when he revealed the solution in 1920. Presented below, each musical variation reflects certain defining characteristics of each of its subjects.

Variation I (C.A.E.) : Caroline Alice Elgar was the composer’s wife. The tender and sentimental quality of this variation blends seamlessly with the theme.

Variation II (H.D.S-P) : Elgar’s pianist friend Hew David Steuart-Powell was a pianist who played trios with Elgar (violin) and Basil G. Nevinson (cello). The pianistic type of runs in the violins at the opening suggests the exercises of Steuart-Powell, warming up his fingers.

Variation III (R.B.T.) : Richard Baxter Townshend was an actor whose voice was capable of unusual changes of pitch. He was also known for his incessant ringing of a bell as he rode a tricycle around Oxford. Upper strings and woodwinds state the variation, followed by growling basses.

Variation IV (W.M.B.) : R.B.T.’s brother-in-law, William Meath Baker, was a man of great energy and one fiery in argument. His eccentricities, especially his habit of slamming doors in anger, are expressed in this musical portrait, relying on brass and heavy timpani.

Variation V (R.P.A.) : Richard Penrose Arnold, son of Matthew Arnold, was a man of changing moods and comic witticisms. His characteristic laugh is heard in this variation.

Variation VI (Ysobel) : Isabel Fitton was a very tall viola student for whom Elgar wrote a set of practice exercises. Both the exercise and her stature are reflected in this viola-centric variation.

Variation VII (Troyte) : Arthur Troyte Griffith was an architect who designed Elgar’s house at Malvern. He was a man of excitable and tempestuous temperament, who dabbled as an amateur pianist. Elgar gave noble effort to help this dear friend learn to play the instrument, but these efforts led inevitably to an exasperated slam of the keyboard lid.

Variation VIII (W.N.) : Elgar’s neighbor, Winifred Norbury, is honored with a variation that pays homage to her gracious old-world courtesy. It leads without pause to the most famous of Elgar’s variations.

Variation IX (Nimrod) : This most eloquent of all the variations is a tribute to the composer’s close friend, A.J. Jaeger, editor of The Musical Times and adviser to the firm of Novello, which published many of Elgar’s compositions. (In German “Jaeger” means “hunter – thus the reference to “Nimrod” the mighty hunter.)

Variation X (Dorabella - Intermezzo) : Dorabella refers to Miss Dora Penny, the daughter of a local parson. Elgar favored the nickname “Dorabella” because of the reference to the bright practicality of Mozart’s character in Cosi fan tutte. Even her pronounced stammer is reflected in this variation.

Variation XI (G.R.S.) : Dr. George Robertson Sinclair was the organist of Hereford Cathedral, who was also known for his loveable bulldog named Dan. The chordal brass suggests the sound of the organ, while the playful and puckish string writing represents Dan. A delightful story relates how Dan rolled down the bank of the River Wye, only to swim upstream to the shore where he barked loudly.

Variation XII (B.G.N.) : Basil G. Nevinson was cellist who played in Elgar’s piano trio. Elgar described this variation as "a tribute to a very dear friend whose scientific and artistic attainments, and the wholehearted way they were put at the disposal of his friends, particularly endeared him to the writer."

Variation XIII (***) : The original inscription of a trio of asterisks was later found to mask a reference to Lady Mary Lygon, who was at the time en route to Australia. For the intimate group of friends to even hope to understand the reference, Elgar inserted a clarinet solo with a phrase from Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage. The pulse of drums are said to represent the hum of the ship’s engines.

Variation XIV (E.D.U.) : The Finale, elaborate and heavily orchestrated, is both a self-portrait and a musical culmination. (“Edoo” was the composer’s wife’s nickname for her husband.) The work ends in a broad presentation of the theme in a stately major key.