Music and Architecture, Part 2

In this post, I talked about how certain pieces of music were associated with specific buildings. In those cases, they were both churches. But the story continues. In a work in direct historical descent from those of Giovanni Gabrieli that I discussed in the previous post, in 1837 Hector Berlioz (1803 - 1869) wrote a Grande Messe des morts, op 5 for huge orchestra with four independent brass ensembles placed at the four corners of the performing space. It is hard not to imagine him inspired by Gabrieli's music for separate ensembles answering one another between the two choir stalls of St. Mark's in Venice. But Berlioz' work, commissioned to honor those who died in the revolution of July 1830, was performed in the mammoth chapel of Les Invalides, national monument to France's war heroes, Napoleon among them. Here are photos of the exterior, the interior, and of the dome:

That is certainly spectacular enough to inspire some spectacular music. The extra brass ensembles are reserved for the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) section. There are also eight pairs of tympani in addition to the huge orchestra and six-part chorus. I have heard the Requiem in concert and it is really not possible to record the impact of it. But here goes:

Just imagine this echoing around the dome! The only orchestral piece I can recall hearing that might be more terrifying than that is the first movement of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7, which feels a lot like experiencing a Nazi invasion.

My next example was a very close collaboration between an architect and two experimental composers. In 1958, for the World's Fair in Brussels, the Philips electronics company commissioned Le Corbusier to design a pavilion to house a multimedia spectacle celebrating technological progress. The two composers were Iannis Xenakis (1922 - 2001), who was also a mathematician and engineer and assistant to Le Corbusier, and Edgard Varèse (1883 - 1965). Here is a picture of the building itself:

Though it was Xenakis, in collaboration with Le Corbusier, that did much of the design of the building itself, the music specially created for performance inside was by Varèse and entitled Poème électronique. It was a composition for tape alone, to be delivered through an installation of over four hundred speakers inside the space. The tape was made up of a mixture of pre-recorded sounds and synthesized ones. A mere two channel recording of this music is even less likely to sound anything like the original than my previous examples. But here it is:

I'll bet that was a lot nicer than you were expecting, right? Quite a few interesting moments/sounds. I'm curious about the structure--how does one structure this kind of music? By 'structure' I mean, just, how do you decide what comes first, second and so on. There is no 'narrative' flow, no emotional arc, so...?

My last example is Music for Wilderness Lake by the Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer. Alas, I can't provide the example. There is nothing on YouTube. But I can give you the description from the company that markets the film of the performance:

Twelve trombonists positioned around the shores of an unpopulated lake play meditative music across the water to one another at two specific times of day -- dusk and dawn. The music is cued by Mr. Schafer himself from a raft in the middle of the lake, while the natural inhabitants of the surrounding landscape respond and contribute to the music in their own way.

'Unpopulated' would seem to indicate that the only audience for the piece are loons and beavers. As a commercial proposition, it's not likely to catch on! I guess the real audience was the film crew. As a consolation, here is a piece for choir by R. Murray Schafer that I'm sure sounds nothing like the Music for Wilderness Lake, but is very nice, nonetheless:

Music and Architecture

One of the things I love about blogging about music as opposed to writing a book, is that I can provide all the musical examples within the text itself--courtesy of YouTube. But for this post, the examples will not really give you an idea of the original effect. I am going to talk about several instances in which a particular piece of music is associated with a particular building.

The first dates back to March 25, 1436 and the consecration of the Cathedral of Florence, under construction since 1294. Guillaume Du Fay (ca. 1397 - 1474) was commissioned by Pope Eugene to write a motet for the occasion at which the Pope himself, temporarily exiled from Rome, officiated. The motet is "Nuper rosarum flores" (Garlands of roses), the text chosen in honor of both the city (the name means 'flowering') and the cathedral whose formal name is "Santa Maria del Fiore" (Holy Mary of the Flowers). A theory was long accepted that the very structure of the motet reflected in some way the proportions of the cathedral. Alas, this has been pretty thoroughly refuted. In fact, the structure of the motet is far more complex than that. The score is written out in a musical shorthand that requires a bit of sorting out to understand. The rhythmic proportions of the music actually refer to Pythagoras, the Greek philosopher who discovered the relationship between harmonic proportions and mathematical ratios. Du Fay is translating these proportions into durations. The idea is to represent the metaphysical harmony of the universe in sound. But there is far more than this kind of symbolism in the motet: the musical proportions also refer to the proportions of the Temple of Solomon as described in the Old Testament in the second book of Kings. The feast of dedication of the temple lasted seven plus seven days. Du Fay's motet is based on a fourteen note chant which is realized in the piece with two tenors, each singing groups of seven notes. The text is also in a poetic meter with seven syllables per line. Seven, in Christian symbolism, represents the Virgin Mary. There is more, but this should give you the sense that the music has many layers that refer symbolically to the cathedral, the city, the Virgin Mary and the Temple of Solomon! According to an earwitness to the ceremony of consecration, Giannozzo Manetti,

all the places of the Temple resounded with the sounds of harmonious symphonies as well as the concords of diverse instruments, so that it seemed not without reason that the angels and the sounds and singing of divine paradise had been sent from heaven to us on earth...

Here are two photos of the cathedral, the first of Filippo Brunelleschi's enormous dome and the second of the interior.

And now, finally, the music. "Nuper rosarum flores" by Guillaume Du Fay. Wikipedia has a good article on the piece if you want to know more.

My second example takes us to Venice, the Basilica Cattedrale Patriarcale di San Marco, known as St. Mark's Basilica. Giovanni Gabrieli was principal organist and composer there from 1585 to about 1606 when ill health began to prevent him from performing his duties. He was the master of what is known as the Venetian polychoral style and this style, with its use of multiple choirs and groups of instruments, is directly related to the cathedral itself which uniquely has two choir lofts facing one another. A third choral/instrumental group was often placed on a stage in the center, near the altar. The possibilities of spacial separation were exploited by both Giovanni himself, and his uncle Andrea before him. Here are photos of the cathedral and its interior:

Now here is a recording of a Gloria in 12 parts that was recorded (in the 1960s, I believe) in San Marco:

I think I will save my other examples for another post as this one is running rather long! I'll leave you with one more piece by Giovanni Gabrieli, who was a huge influence on later Baroque composers. This was written for and recorded in the Scuola Grande de San Rocco, the other great musical venue in Venice where he worked.