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– iwo come along at once. Isn't it always the way? Anyway,. more of that in a moment. On to 1868 first, the year of the last Shogun. Yes, following the abdication of Shogun Kekei and the abolition of the Shogunate, the Shoguns are no more. 'The abolition of the Shogunate', what a fantastic phrase. In fact, there's something about the word 'Shogun' itself which inspires feelings of awe and, I think, fear. Not surprising, then, to find out that the word is simply the Japanese for military dictator, an abbreviation of'sen tai shoЈfun\ which means 'great barbarian-conquering general.' Wow. Does that come with baggage, or what. This is also the year that Disraeli became PM, and also the year that Disraeli became NOT PM again, as he was out a few months later. It's the year of the brand-new in sport, devised and named after the Duke of Beaufort's residence in Gloucestershire, Badminton, and the year of the first TUC conference in Manchester. Wow, do they not seem to go together. It's also the year of Darwin's flop follow-up to The Origin of Species, namely The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication. Ooh, I say, what awful branding, eh? Really needs work, darling. I can just see him bringing in the '80s ponytailed brand consultants to advise him.
'Charlie, baby, people don't want all this Animal/Plant scene any more, man! It's so last year. You've got to sex it up a little. The boys in the focus groups have come up with another title that retains the key elements of yours but… well, you know, just… cranks it up a gear, yeah? Try this.
The Animal UNLEASHED or You Can't Keep a Good Plant Down - From the writing team that gave you "Species 1 - the Origin!"
'What do you think, C? Wicked, huh? That'll be 50K.??. Hey, Neville, get me another latte, yeah…' This was also the year of Marx and Das Kapital, Renoir's The Skaters and Degas's VOrchestre, as weU as the first twitchings of the soon-to-be-named art movement, 'Impressionism'. All this, and two of the greatest concertos ever written. One was by Grieg, the other by Bruch.
Edvard Grieg came from quite a musical family - his mother was a good pianist. And if the name 'Grieg' seems a little out of place in Norway, it's because it was actually from the composer's Scottish great-grandfather, who had emigrated after the Battle of Culloden, setting up a small enclave of Griegs in Bergen. The young Edvard had always wanted to pursue music, except a brief time when he considered the priesthood, and was eventually sent to study at the Leipzig Conservatory, where his contemporaries included Arthur Sullivan. After Leipzig, he settled in Denmark for a time, in Copenhagen, where he became friends with the grand old man of Scandinavian music, Niels Gade, under whose influence he set up the Euterpe Society to promote Scandinavian music. Just the year before he wrote his only piano concerto, he'd married his cousin, Nina. Their only child, a daughter, died in the year that the concerto was premiered, 1869. Bruch is a completely different kettle of fish. He was born in Cologne, and, in his day, was considered to be one of the greatest German composers. Then, his highest achievement was thought to be his choral works, many of which he had composed by the time he was in his mid-twenties. They brought him fame and some fortune, and he travelled across Germany, conducting and teaching as well as composing. The year before he wrote the Violin Concerto of 1868, he'd been made Director of the Court Orchestra in Sonderhausen, midway between Dortmund and Leipzig, where he spent three happy years before returning to Berlin. Still to come, at this stage, were the three unhappy years as director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, where his abrasive personality went down like a performance of John Cage's Silence (see page 287) at a Hard of Hearing Conference.
Both, however, gave birth to concertos in 1868, and both concertos can still claim to be among the most popular in the field - Grieg's by dint of a stunning first movement and mesmeric slow movement, and Bruch's by way of a delicious slow movement and a breathtaking finale. Both are fine examples of how MASSIVE popularity cannot ruin truly great works. Both as delectable a couple of concertos as you're ever likely to come across in a dark alley on a Friday night. Gorgeous. Now, it's over to our man in Russia, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
BRING ME THE HEAD OF PYOTR ILYICH TCHAIKOVSKY!
T
he Tchaikovsky Mini-Quiz: Before we get on to Russia, where is Tchaikovsky? I don't mean geographically, I mean in the general scheme of things? (a) Where does he fit in? (b) Why did he write what he did? (c) Who were his mentors? (d) And did he really think his head was going to fall off?
Well, let me see if I can answer all those. Award yourself ten points each if you gave the answers, (a) sort of in-between, (b) er, why not? (?) oh, a bunch of people, really (I'll accept 'a number of people, actually') and (d) yes, apparenriy. Good. Quizette over. Now, let me magnify.
A litde overview, first. Wagner… is still HUGE. Gi-NORmous, with a capital NOR. So much so that a lot of composers are under his spell - Bruckner, for example. Many, though, aren't. One of many in the 'aren't' camp is Brahms, a very 'classical' romantic, shall we say? In fact, Brahms did everything that Wagner didn't, when you think about it. Brahms did chamber music, concertos, variations and symphonies, all without the huge, what he considered to be 'over the top', excesses of the real Wagnerian 'high romantics'. Beyond Wagner, though, the big thing is still 'nationalism' in music - that is to say, putting the sounds, smells, ideas and even tunes of your own country into your music. It's no longer just a 'colour', as it once was. It's now everything. Well, it would be - these are revolutionary times, still, and it is almost the done thiijig, de rigueur, to reflect your country's roots and traditions in your music. In the Russia of 1869, compos;rs divided straight down the middle. There were die Nationalists, led by the five composers whom Russian critic, Vlad Stasov, had dubbed 'The Mighty Handful', namely… On the other side, there were the 'Europeans', shall we say, who preferred to write in the western tradition. In this group, there was… er… Tchaikovsky. Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. As you can see, Tchaikovsky was the only significant member of the latter group. His music was much more a case of what HE, Pyotr Uyich Tchaikovsky, was all about, not what Russia was all about. By 1869, he had already lost the mother he doted on, and was living in the house of Nicholas Rubinstein, the pianist and composer, brother of Anton Rubinstein, the pianist and composer. (Musical lot, the Rubinsteins.) He was making his living as a teacher of harmony^ at the Moscow Conservatory. He had also been on the verge of marrying a Belgian soprano, Desiree Artot, which would have been somewhat disastrous for three reasons. Firsdy, he was gay. Secondly, Desiree was as famous for her sexual flings as she was for her voice. Thirdly, it's not good for a composer to be married to someone named after a potato. They parted company with no real harm done to the very sensitive Mr Tchaikovsky, although it was immediately following this episode that he produced his overture to Romeo and Juliet. Ironically, it was Balakirev who had put the idea of writing an R amp;J overture into his head, and it was to him that Tchaikovsky turned for help and advice as he was completing it. Tchaikovsky called the finished work a 'fantasy overture', which basically means it's not an overture in the strict sense of the word - with all the 'overture rules', etc - but more a flight of fancy in music. An overture where the composer is allowed to go off on one, whenever he wants. It has that gorgeous, lush tune in the middle, which has been used, ever since, when a film director has been in need of portraying something ULTRA romantic.