A Spiritual Awakening: Verdi, Simon, Ives
What to listen for
Four Black American Dances: listen for the distinct character of each dance; three (Ring Shout, Holy Dance, and Tap!) feature strong percussive and rhythmic patterns and embody life-affirming energy. The Waltz blends the formal structure of a European dance with blues-inflected bent-note melodies and jazz harmonies.
Te Deum: Verdi’s innate feel for drama, alternating quiet a cappella passages with powerful declamations for choir and orchestra
Symphony No. 2: How many quotations of other music do you hear? Ives references hymns, popular 19th century tunes by Stephen Foster (listen for “Camptown Races” in the last movement), and fragments of ragtime and brass band music throughout all four movements of his second symphony.
Other works by these composers
Simon: Fate Now Conquers; Amen!; Breathe
Verdi: Requiem; Stabat Mater and Ave Maria from Quatro pezzi sacri (Four Sacred Pieces)
Ives: Symphony No. 3, “The Camp Meeting;” Three Places in New England
Carlos Simon: Four Black American Dances
Composer: born April 13, 1986, Washington, DC
Work composed: 2022. Commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Andris Nelsons.
World premiere: Andris Nelsons led the Boston Symphony Orchestra on February 9, 2023, at Symphony Hall in Boston, MA
Instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones, bass trombone, tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, hand claps, large wood stick on a wooden floorboard, marimba, shaker, 2 snare drums, splash cymbal, suspended cymbal, tambourine, tam-tam, tom-toms, triangle, tubular bells, vibraphone, 2 whips, wood blocks, xylophone, harp, and strings
Estimated duration: 14 minutes
A native of Atlanta, GA, Carlos Simon’s music ranges from concert works for large and small ensembles to film scores with influences of jazz, gospel, and neo-romanticism. Simon is currently the Composer-in-Residence for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and writes frequently for the National Symphony and Washington National Opera. In 2023, Simon was nominated for a Grammy award for his album Requiem for the Enslaved.
“Dance has always been a part of any culture,” Simon writes. “Particularly in Black American communities, dance is and has been the fabric of social gatherings. There have been hundreds, perhaps thousands of dances created over the span of American history that have originated from the social climate of American slavery, Reconstruction and Jim Crow. This piece is an orchestral study of the music that is associated with the Ring Shout, the Waltz, Tap Dance, and the Holy Dance. All of these dances are but a mere representation of the wide range of cultural and social differences within Black American communities.
I. Ring Shout
“A ring shout is an ecstatic, transcendent religious ritual, first practiced by enslaved Africans in the West Indies and the United States, in which worshipers move in a circle while shuffling and stomping their feet and clapping their hands. To evoke the celebratory nature of this dance, I have asked the percussionist to use a large stick on a wooden floorboard paired with fast moving passages in the strings and woodwinds.
II. Waltz
“Cotillion balls existed for ‘upper-class’ families, as they allowed aristocratic families to vie for better marriage prospects for their daughters. However, cotillion balls were segregated and expensive, and did not include Black Americans. Debutante balls finally appeared in Black social circles during the 1930s, in large part due to the efforts of Black sororities, fraternities, and growing number of affluent Black Americans. The waltz was the dance of choice in these environments.
III. Tap!
“Tap dance is a form of dance characterized by using the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion. For this movement, I have emulated the sound of the tap with the side rim of the snare drum in the percussion section. The strings play in very short, disconnected passages alongside the brass, drawing on jazz harmonies.
IV. Holy Dance
“Protestant Christian denominations, such as The Church of God in Christ (C.O.G.I.C.), Pentecostal Assemblies of God, Apostolic, and Holiness Church, among many others, are known for their exuberant outward expressions of worship. The worship services in these churches will often have joyous dancing, spontaneous shouting, and soulful singing … [and] is a vital vehicle in fostering a genuine spiritual experience for the congregation. This movement calls on [that] vibrant, celebratory character that still exists in many churches today. I have composed music that mimics the sound of a congregation ‘speaking in tongues’ (murmuring in an unknown spiritual language) by asking the orchestra to play in a semi-improvised manner. Often referred to as a ‘praise break,’ the music propels forward continuously with the trombone section at the helm. The section moves to a climatic ending with the plagal ‘Amen’ cadence.”
Giuseppe Verdi: Te Deum
Composer: born October 9 or 10, 1813, in Roncole, near Busseto, Italy; died January 27, 1901, Milan
Work composed: 1895-96
World premiere: Paul Taffanel conducted the orchestra and chorus of the Société des Concerts du Conservatoire on April 7-8, 1898, at the Paris Opera.
Instrumentation: 2 SATB choruses, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 4 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 4 trombones, timpani, bass drum, and strings
Estimated duration: 12 minutes
In the last years of his life, Giuseppe Verdi turned his attention to church music. The Te Deum is one of four sacred works he wrote between 1886 and 1896; in 1898 all four were issued under the name Cuatro Pezzi Sacri (Four Sacred Pieces); although published together, Verdi did not intend them to be performed as a group.
Of the four, Verdi was most attached to the Te Deum, and requested that he be buried with the score. Verdi described the music in a letter to Giovanni Tebaldini, director of music in Padua: “It is usually sung during grand, solemn and noisy ceremonies for a victory or a coronation etc. ... Humanity believes in the Judex Venturus, invokes Him in the Salvum fac and ends with a prayer, ‘Dignare Domine die isto,’ which is moving, melancholy and sad even to the point of terror.”
Verdi used his innate feel for drama to craft the setting of this laudatory hymn, and blended 19th century grand operatic style with elements from Italian sacred Renaissance music, such as a double chorus. Verdi also featured different combinations of voices – men alone, women alone, unison vs. harmony, and a single soprano voice, representing humanity, proclaiming “in te speravi” (in You do I put my trust) – to reflect the changing meaning and emotional mood expressed in the words. When Verdi employed Gregorian chant, as he did at the beginning and periodically throughout the Te Deum, the unison vocal line is intoned by the men, while the full orchestra and choruses are reserved for the most dramatic utterances, such as the first exclamation, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth/Heaven and Earth are full of Thy majesty.” The text praises God the Father, Christ the Son, the Apostles, the Prophets, and the martyrs, and ends with the plea, “O Lord, have mercy on us … Oh Lord, in Thee have I trusted: let me never be confounded.”
Charles Ives: Symphony No. 2
Composer: born October 20, 1874, Danbury, CT; died May 19, 1954, New York City
Work composed: 1897-1902; rev. 1907-09
World premiere: Leonard Bernstein led the New York Philharmonic on February 22, 1951, at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Instrumentation: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, bass drum, snare drum, and strings
Estimated duration: 40 minutes
In the mid-1940s, Aaron Copland wrote, “It will be a long time before we take the full measure of Charles Ives.” Copland’s assessment of Ives was prescient. More than 70 years after his death, Ives’ music continues to challenge and astonish.
Symphony No. 2 is an early work, begun just after Ives graduated from Yale, and it reflects a young man’s mastery of compositional tools, particularly counterpoint, and the creation, development, and creative treatment of contrasting themes. For listeners more familiar with Ives’ later music, the typical late 19th-century sound of Ives’ second symphony may come as a surprise. It abounds with singable melodies – in fact, Ives incorporates fragments of several tunes familiar to the audiences of his time in each movement – and, especially in the first movement, reflects the conscientiousness of a young composer adhering to the music lessons he absorbed at Yale. The first movement begins with a sober theme in the cellos, which Ives dutifully develops and expands in the manner of a typical first movement symphony of, for example, Antonín Dvořák. About six minutes into the first movement, Ives makes a sharp detour and begins “borrowing” bits of pre-existing melodies: popular tunes of the day, church hymns, and brass band music. This borrowing soon became one of the most recognizable signatures of Ives’ music, as the composer sought to celebrate American musical vernacular within an artistic tradition that evolved in Europe. In this movement, Ives paraphrases fragments from “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean;” a fiddle tune, “Pig Town Fling,” the hymn “Bringing in the Sheaves,” and a popular song by 19th-century American composer Stephen Foster, “Massa’s in de Cold Ground.” Foster’s melodies appear in all four movements of Symphony No. 2; the finale features bits and pieces of “Camptown Races.”
A note here about Ives’ use of Foster’s music. Many of Foster’s most famous songs – some still familiar to many Americans – are considered offensive today for their depictions of Black people as racial stereotypes, including the use of “dialect” speech. Contemporary listeners may view the use of these songs as evidence of racism on Ives’ part, but that was not Ives’ intention. In Ives’ time, Foster’s songs, such as “I Dream of Jeannie,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “Oh Susanna” were popular tunes of the day, and Ives used them as such. They were not considered deliberately racist by most White people, and Ives knew audiences would immediately recognize them. By “borrowing” Foster’s songs and other identifiably American melodies, Ives was, in a way, agreeing with Dvořák’s opinion that “the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition [in the United States]” must be founded on an American vernacular language. Dvořák praised Black and Native American music in particular, declaring, “These beautiful and varied themes are the product of the soil. They are the folk songs of America and your composers must turn to them. All of the great musicians have borrowed from the songs of the common people.” Ives expanded on Dvořák’s conception of an American vernacular musical tradition with his addition of hymns, popular ditties, and other familiar tunes. Beginning with Symphony No. 2, Ives honored America and its multitudinous, richly varied soundscape by using uniquely American vernacular sources as fundamental components of his own work.
As the symphony progresses, more borrowed fragments emerge, both American and recognizable quotes from European masters Brahms, Beethoven, and Wagner. By the closing Allegro molto vivace, Ives is in full celebratory mode. We hear the Reveille; “Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean,” “Camptown Races;” a reprise of “Bringing in the Sheaves,” and “Turkey in the Straw.” But Ives has a final surprise in store: the last chord is a blatty mess of brassy discord, a musical rendering of an inkblot. Is this Ives thumbing his nose at tradition, or at us? Or merely a humorous ending? You decide.
© Elizabeth Schwartz