Chapter 1

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Lighter Classics in Music This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: The Lighter Classics in Music Author: David Ewen Release date: September 20, 2021 [eBook #66346] Most recently updated: October 18, 2024 Language: English Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/66346 Credits: Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LIGHTER CLASSICS IN MUSIC *** _The Lighter Classics in Music_ [Illustration: glyph] _A Comprehensive Guide to Musical Masterworks in a Lighter Vein by 187 Composers_ _by David Ewen_ [Illustration: glyph] _Arco Publishing Company, Inc._ NEW YORK _Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 61-17781 Copyright 1961 by Arco Publishing Company, Inc., New York All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America, by H. Wolff, New York_ Contents Joseph Achron 1 Adolphe-Charles Adam 2 Richard Addinsell 4 Isaac Albéniz 5 Hugo Alfvén 7 Louis Alter 8 Leroy Anderson 10 Daniel François Esprit Auber 12 Johann Sebastian Bach 15 Michael Balfe 18 Hubert Bath 19 Ludwig van Beethoven 20 Vincenzo Bellini 23 Ralph Benatzky 24 Arthur Benjamin 26 Robert Russell Bennett 27 Hector Berlioz 29 Leonard Bernstein 31 Georges Bizet 33 Luigi Boccherini 37 François Boieldieu 39 Giovanni Bolzoni 40 Carrie Jacobs Bond 41 Alexander Borodin 42 Felix Borowski 44 Johannes Brahms 45 Charles Wakefield Cadman 48 Lucien Caillet 49 Alfredo Catalani 50 Otto Cesana 51 Emmanuel Chabrier 52 George Whitefield Chadwick 54 Cécile Chaminade 55 Gustave Charpentier 56 Frédéric Chopin 57 Eric Coates 61 Peter Cornelius 63 Noel Coward 64 César Cui 65 Claude Debussy 66 Léo Delibes 68 Gregore Dinicu 71 Gaetano Donizetti 72 Franz Drdla 75 Riccardo Drigo 76 Arcady Dubensky 76 Paul Dukas 77 Antonin Dvořák 79 Sir Edward Elgar 83 Duke Ellington 86 Georges Enesco 87 Leo Fall 89 Manuel de Falla 90 Gabriel Fauré 91 Friedrich Flotow 92 Stephen Foster 94 Rudolf Friml 95 Julius Fučík 98 Sir Edward German 98 George Gershwin 100 Henry F. Gilbert 109 Don Gillis 111 Alberto Ginastera 112 Alexander Glazunov 113 Reinhold Glière 116 Michael Glinka 117 Christoph Willibald Gluck 119 Benjamin Godard 120 Leopold Godowsky 121 Edwin Franko Goldman 122 Karl Goldmark 123 Rubin Goldmark 125 François Gossec 126 Louis Gottschalk 127 Morton Gould 128 Charles Gounod 131 Percy Grainger 134 Enrique Granados 136 Edvard Grieg 137 Ferde Grofé 141 David Guion 143 Johan Halvorsen 144 George Frederick Handel 145 Joseph Haydn 147 Victor Herbert 149 Ferdinand Hérold 154 Jenö Hubay 155 Engelbert Humperdinck 157 Jacques Ibert 158 Michael Ippolitov-Ivanov 159 Ivanovici 160 Armas Järnefelt 160 Dmitri Kabalevsky 161 Emmerich Kálmán 162 Kéler-Béla 165 Jerome Kern 166 Albert Ketelby 169 Aram Khatchaturian 170 George Kleinsinger 171 Fritz Kreisler 172 Édouard Lalo 175 Josef Lanner 176 Charles Lecocq 177 Ernesto Lecuona 179 Franz Léhar 180 Ruggiero Leoncavallo 183 Anatol Liadov 185 Paul Lincke 186 Franz Liszt 187 Frederick Loewe 189 Albert Lortzing 191 Alexandre Luigini 192 Hans Christian Lumbye 193 Edward MacDowell 194 Albert Hay Malotte 196 Gabriel Marie 196 Martini il Tedesco 197 Pietro Mascagni 198 Jules Massenet 199 Robert McBride 203 Harl McDonald 204 Felix Mendelssohn 205 Giacomo Meyerbeer 208 Karl Milloecker 211 Moritz Moszkowski 212 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 213 Modest Mussorgsky 215 Ethelbert Nevin 218 Otto Nicolai 220 Siegfried Ochs 221 Jacques Offenbach 222 Ignace Jan Paderewski 225 Gabriel Pierné 226 Jean-Robert Planquette 227 Eduard Poldini 228 Manuel Ponce 229 Amilcare Ponchielli 230 Cole Porter 231 Serge Prokofiev 233 Giacomo Puccini 235 Sergei Rachmaninoff 238 Joachim Raff 240 Maurice Ravel 241 Emil von Rezniček 243 Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov 244 Richard Rodgers 247 Sigmund Romberg 253 David Rose 256 Gioacchino Rossini 257 Anton Rubinstein 261 Camille Saint-Saëns 262 Pablo de Sarasate 267 Franz Schubert 268 Robert Schumann 272 Cyril Scott 274 Jean Sibelius 274 Christian Sinding 277 Leone Sinigaglia 278 Bedřich Smetana 280 John Philip Sousa 283 Oley Speaks 285 Robert Stolz 286 Oscar Straus 287 Eduard Strauss 288 Johann Strauss I 289 Johann Strauss II 291 Josef Strauss 298 Sir Arthur Sullivan 299 Franz von Suppé 311 Johan Svendsen 313 Deems Taylor 314 Peter Ilitch Tchaikovsky 316 Ambroise Thomas 322 Enrico Toselli 324 Sir Paolo Tosti 325 Giuseppe Verdi 326 Richard Wagner 332 Emil Waldteufel 338 Karl Maria von Weber 339 Kurt Weill 341 Jaromir Weinberger 343 Henri Wieniawski 345 Ralph Vaughan Williams 346 Jacques Wolfe 347 Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari 348 Sebastian Yradier 350 Carl Zeller 350 Karl Michael Ziehrer 352 _The Lighter Classics in Music_ Joseph Achron Joseph Achron was born in Lozdzieje, Lithuania, on May 13, 1886. He attended the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied the violin with Leopold Auer and theory with Anatol Liadov, graduating in 1904. After teaching at the Kharkov Conservatory for three years, he toured Russia, Europe and the Near East as a concert violinist for about six years, and settled permanently in the United States in 1925. Some of his most ambitious and significant compositions were written in this country. Among these were three violin concertos, two violin sonatas, the _Golem Suite_ for orchestra and the _Stempenyu Suite_ for violin and piano. Achron died in Hollywood, California, on April 29, 1943. When Achron was twenty-five years old, and still living in Russia, he became a member of the music committee of the Hebrew Folk Music Society of St. Petersburg. Its aim was twofold: to encourage research in Hebrew music, and to direct the enthusiasm of gifted Russian composers toward the writing of Hebrew music. It was as a direct result of this association, and the stimulus derived from the achievements of this society, that in 1911 Achron wrote a popular composition in a Hebraic vein which to this day is his most famous piece of music. It is the _Hebrew Melody_, Op. 33, for violin and orchestra. The melodic germ of this composition is an actual synagogical chant, amplified by Achron into a spacious melody following several introductory measures of descending, brooding phrases. This melody is first given in a lower register, but when repeated several octaves higher it receives embellishments similar to those provided a synagogical chant by a cantor. The composition ends with the same descending minor-key phrases with which it opened. This _Hebrew Melody_, in a transcription for violin and piano by Leopold Auer, has been performed by many of the world’s leading violin virtuosos. Adolphe-Charles Adam Adolphe-Charles Adam, eminent composer of comic operas, was born in Paris on July 24, 1803. He attended the Paris Conservatory, where he came under the decisive influence of François Boieldieu, under whose guidance he completed his first comic opera, _Pierre et Catherine_, first produced at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on February 9, 1829. His first major success, _Le Chalet_, was given on September 25, 1834, enjoying almost fifteen hundred performances in Paris before the end of the century. Adam subsequently wrote almost fifty other stage works in a light style. With Boieldieu and Auber he became founder and leading exponent of the opéra-comique. His most celebrated work in this genre was _Le Postillon de Longjumeau_, first given at the Opéra-Comique on October 13, 1836. This work was frequently heard in the United States in the 1860’s and 1870’s, but has since lapsed into obscurity. Adam was also a highly significant composer of ballets, of which _Giselle_ is now a classic; of many serious operas; and of a celebrated Christmas song, “Noël,” or “Oh, Holy Night” (“_Cantique de Noël: Minuit, Chrétiens_”), which has been transcribed for orchestra. In 1847, Adam founded his own theater—the Théâtre National—which a year later (with the outbreak of the 1848 revolution in France) went into bankruptcy. From 1849 on he was professor of composition at the Paris Conservatory. Adam died in Paris on May 3, 1856. _Giselle_ is one of the proudest achievements of French Romantic ballet. Through the years it has never lost its immense popularity. With choreography by Jules Perrot and Jean Coralli, it was introduced in Paris on June 28, 1841. Carlotta Grisi appeared in the title role. _Giselle_ was an immediate triumph. Since then, the world’s foremost ballerinas have appeared as Giselle, including Fanny Elssler, Taglioni, Pavlova, Karsavina, Markova, Danilova, Margot Fonteyn, and Moira Shearer. “What is the secret charm of this ballet?” inquires the famous scenic designer, Alexander Benois. He goes on to answer: “It is mainly due to its simplicity and clearness of plot, to the amazingly impetuous spontaneity with which the drama is developed. There is barely time to collect one’s thoughts before the heroine, who but a moment ago charmed everybody with her vitality, is lying stiff and cold and dead at the feet of the lover who deceived her.... It is deeply moving, and the magic of a true poet ... consists in making us accept without question any absurdities he may choose to offer us.... No one is inclined to criticize while under the spell of this strange idyl.” The ballet text was the collaborative creation of Théophile Gautier, Vernoy de Saint-Georges, and Jean Coralli. Gautier had read a legend by Heinrich Heine in _De L’Allemagne_ which described elves in white dresses (designated as “wilis”) who died before their wedding day and emerged from their graves in bridal dress to dance till dawn. Any man an elf met was doomed to dance himself to death. Gautier, recognizing the ballet potentialities of this legend, decided to adapt it for Carlotta Grisi. He interested Vernoy de Saint-Georges in assisting him in making this ballet adaptation and Jean Coralli in creating some of the dance sequences. “Three days later,” Gautier revealed in a letter to Heine, “the ballet _Giselle_ was accepted. By the end of the week, Adam had improvised the music, the scenery was nearly ready, and the rehearsals were in full swing.” The ballet text finds Giselle as a sweet, carefree peasant girl. Betrayed by Albrecht, the Duke of Silesia, she goes mad and commits suicide. Her grave is touched by the magic branch of Myrtha, Queen of the Wilis. Giselle arises from the grave as a wili, and performs her nocturnal dance. Albrecht, who comes to visit her grave, is caught up by her spell and must dance to his doom. A master of expressive and dramatized melodies, Adam here created a score filled with the most ingratiating tunes and spirited rhythms, all beautifully adjusted to the sensitive moods of this delicate fantasy. From this score the 20th-century English composer Constant Lambert extracted four melodic episodes which he made into a popular orchestral suite: “Giselle’s Dance”; “Mad Scene”; “Pas de deux, Act 2”; and “Closing Scene.” From the repertory of Adam’s operas comes a delightful overture, a favorite in the semi-classical repertory, even though the opera itself is rarely heard. It is the Overture to _If I Were King_ (_Si j’étais roi_). This comic opera was first performed in Paris on November 4, 1852; the libretto was by D’Ennery and Brésil. In Arabia, the fisherman, Zephoris, has managed to save the life of Nemea, beautiful daughter of King Oman. But Nemea is being pursued by Prince Kador, who does not hesitate to employ treachery to win her. Nemea is determined to marry none but the unidentified man who had saved her life. Eventually, the fisherman is brought to the palace, placed in command of the troops, and becomes a hero in a war against the Spaniards. Kador is sent to his disgrace, and Zephoris wins the hand of Nemea. The oriental background of the opera permeates the atmosphere of the overture. A forceful introduction for full orchestra and arpeggio figures in harp lead to a skipping and delicate tune for first violins against plucked cello strings. The flutes and clarinets respond with a subsidiary thought. A crescendo brings on a strong subject for the violins against a loud accompaniment. After a change of tempo, another light, graceful melody is given by solo flute and oboes. The principal melodic material is then amplified with dramatic effect. Richard Addinsell Richard Addinsell was born in Oxford, England, on January 13, 1904. After studying law at Oxford, he attended the Royal College of Music in London and completed his music study in Berlin and Vienna between 1929 and 1932. In 1933 he visited the United States, where he wrote music for several Hollywood films and for a New York stage production of _Alice in Wonderland_. He has since made a specialty of writing music for the screen, his best efforts being the scores for _Goodbye, Mr. Chips_, _Blithe Spirit_, _Dangerous Moonlight_, _Dark Journey_, and _Fire Over England_. During World War II he wrote music for several documentary films, including _Siege of Tobruk_ and _We Sail at Midnight_. Addinsell’s most frequently played composition is the _Warsaw Concerto_, for piano and orchestra. He wrote it for the English movie _Dangerous Moonlight_ (renamed in the United States _Suicide Squadron_). Anton Walbrook here plays the part of a renowned concert pianist who becomes an officer in the Polish air force during World War II and loses his memory after a crash. The _Warsaw Concerto_, basic to the plot structure, recurs several times in the film. It first became popular, however, on records, and after that with “pop” and salon orchestras. Though the composer’s indebtedness to Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto is pronounced, the _Warsaw Concerto_ has enough of its own individuality and charm to survive. Structurally, it is not a concerto but a rhapsody. It opens with several massive chords, arpeggios, and scale passages in the piano. This dramatic opening leads to the sensitive and romantic principal melody, heard in the strings. Later on there appears a second lyric thought, but the rhapsodic character remains predominant. The composition ends with a final statement of the opening phrase of the first main melody. Addinsell is also sometimes represented on semi-classical programs with a light-textured and tuneful composition called _Prelude and Waltz_, for orchestra. This also stems from a motion picture, in this case the British screen adaptation of Noel Coward’s _Blithe Spirit_. Isaac Albéniz Isaac Albéniz, one of Spain’s most distinguished composers, was born in Camprodón, Spain, on May 29, 1860. He was a child prodigy who gave piano concerts in Spain after some spasmodic study in Paris with Marmontel. In 1868 he entered the Madrid Conservatory, but in his thirteenth year he ran away from home and spent several years traveling about in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the United States, supporting himself all the while by playing the piano. He was back in Spain in 1875, and soon thereafter undertook music study seriously, first at the Brussels Conservatory and then at the Leipzig Conservatory. He settled in Paris in 1893, where he wrote his first important works, one of these being his first composition in a national Spanish idiom: the _Catalonia_, for piano and orchestra, in 1899. After 1900 he lived in his native land. From 1906 to 1909 he devoted himself to the writing of his masterwork, the suite _Iberia_, consisting of twelve pieces for the piano gathered in four volumes. _Iberia_ is a vast tonal panorama of Spain, its sights and sounds, dances and songs, backgrounds. Albéniz died in Cambo-Bains, in the Pyrenees, on May 18, 1909. Albéniz may well be regarded as the founder of the modern Spanish nationalist school in music. This school sought to exploit the rhythms and melodies and styles of Spanish folk music within serious concert works, thus providing a musical interpretation to every possible aspect of Spanish life. Albéniz’ first work in the national style is also one of his rare compositions utilizing an orchestra. It is the _Catalonia_, written in 1899, and introduced that year at a concert of the Société nationale de musique in Paris. This work is sometimes erroneously designated as a suite, but it is actually a one-movement rhapsody. A single theme, unmistakably Spanish, dominates the entire work. A brief rhythmic middle section for wind, percussion, and a single double bass provides contrast. This middle part is intended as a burlesque on a troupe of wandering musicians playing their favorite tune: the clarinet plays off key and the bass drum is off beat. The original dance melody returns to conclude the work. _Córdoba_, a haunting nocturne, is the fourth and most famous number from the _Cantos de España_, a suite for the piano, op. 232. _Córdoba_ is a vivid tone picture of that famous Andalusian city. Sharp chords, as if plucked from the strings of a guitar, preface an oriental-type melody which suggests the Moorish background of the city. _Fête Dieu à Seville_, or _El Corpus en Sevilla_ (_Festival in Seville_) is the third and concluding number from the first volume of _Iberia_. Besides its original version for the piano, this composition is celebrated in several transcriptions for orchestra, notably those by E. Fernández Arbós and Leopold Stokowski. This music depicts a religious procession in the streets of Seville on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday. At the head of the procession is the priest bearing the Host, or Blessed Sacrament, under a lavishly decorated canopy. As the procession moves, worshipers who crowd the streets improvise a religious chant. _Fête Dieu à Seville_ opens with a brusquely accented march melody, against which emerges an improvisational-type melody similar to those sung by worshipers in the street. The march melody and the improvised chant alternate, but it is the chant that is carried to a thunderous climax. Then this chant subsides and fades away into the distance, as the composition ends. _Navarra_ is a poignant tonal evocation for piano of the Spanish province below the Pyrenees. Albéniz never completed this work; it was finished after his death by Déodat de Séverac. This composition is perhaps best known in Fernández Arbós’ transcription for orchestra. Against the provocative background of a jota rhythm moves a languorous and sensual gypsy melody. _Sevillañas_ (_Seville_) is the third number from _Suite española_ for piano; it has become famous independent of the larger work and is often heard in transcription. The heart of the piece is a passionate song, typical of those heard in the haunts of Seville. As a background there is an incisive rhythm suggesting the clicking of castanets. The Tango in D major, op. 165, no. 2, for piano, is not only the most famous one by Albéniz but one of the most popular ever written. With its intriguing flamenco-like melody and compelling rhythm it is Spanish to the core—the prototype of all tango music. The original piano version as written by the composer is not often heard. When it is performed on the piano, this tango is given in a brilliant but complex arrangement by Leopold Godowsky. But it is much more famous in various transcriptions, notably one for violin and piano by Fritz Kreisler, and numerous ones for small or large orchestras. _Triana_ is the third and concluding number from the second book of Albéniz’ monumental suite for piano, _Iberia_. Triana, of which this music is a tonal picture, is a gypsy suburb of Seville. In the