Henri Wieniawski was born in Lublin, Poland, on July 10, 1835. When he was eight he entered the Paris Conservatory, from which he was graduated three years later with first prize in violin-playing, the first time this institution conferred such an honor on one so young. Sensational appearances as child prodigy followed throughout Europe. After an additional period of study at the Paris Conservatory between 1849 and 1850, he initiated his career as a mature performer, and as one of the world’s foremost violinists, with performances in Europe and Russia. In 1872 he toured the United States with the pianist, Anton Rubinstein. Meanwhile, in 1859, he was appointed solo violinist to the Czar of Russia, and from 1862 to 1867 he was professor of the violin at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 1874 he succeeded Vieuxtemps as professor of the violin at the Brussels Conservatory where he remained fourteen years. He suffered a heart attack while performing in Berlin in 1878, and died in Moscow on March 31, 1880.
Wieniawski produced a rich repertory of music for the violin which is still performed extensively. This includes the famous Concerto in D minor and many smaller compositions. Among the latter can be found pieces which have become favorites with salon orchestra in transcription. These, like other major works by the composer, are characterized by broad and expressive melodies and brilliant technical effects.
TheKujawiak, in A minor, op. 3 is a brilliant rhythmic number—a spirited mazurka which derives its name from the fact that it has come out of the Kuawy district of Poland. TheLégende, op. 17, on the other hand, is outstanding for its sentimental lyricism. This piece is an eloquent song, originally for violin and orchestra, that seems to be telling a romantic tale. ThePolonaise brillante, in D major, op. 4, like theKujawiak, is a successful attempt to incorporate within a concert work the characteristics of a popular Polish dance. This composition is appealing for its sharp accentuations on the half beat, syncopations, and brilliant passage work. TheSouvenirs of Moscow(Souvenirs de Moscou), op. 6, is a fantasia on famous Russian airs, the most important of which is “The Red Sarafin.”
Ralph Vaughan Williams was born in Down Ampney, England, on October 12, 1872. After attending the Royal College of Music, he studied composition privately with Max Bruch in Berlin. In 1901 he was appointed organist of the St. Barnabas Church in London. For the next few years he devoted himself mainly to church music. His interest in the English folk songs of the Tudor period, first stimulated in 1904, proved for him a decisive turning point. Besides dedicating himself henceforth to intensive research in English folk music (much of which he helped to revive from neglect and obscurity through his editions and adaptations) he found a new direction as composer: in the writing of music with a national identity, music absorbing the melodic, harmonic and modal techniques—at times even the actual material—of these old songs and dances. This new trend first became evident in 1907 with hisNorfolk Rhapsodies. After an additional period of study with Maurice Ravel in Paris, Vaughan Williams embarked upon the writing of his first major works which included the famousFantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis,London Symphony, and the operaHugh the Drover. Subsequent works in all fields of composition placed him with the masters of 20th-century music. These compositions included symphonies, operas, concertos, fantasias, choral and chamber music. For more than thirty years, Vaughan Williams taught composition at the Royal College of Music in London; from 1920 to 1928 he was the conductor of the Bach Choir, also in that city. He paid two visits to the United States, the first time in 1922 to direct some of his works at a music festival in Connecticut, and the second time a decade later to lecture at Bryn Mawr College. He received the Order of Merit in 1935 and the Albert medal of the Royal Society of Arts in 1955. He died in London on August 26, 1958.
Only a meagre number of Vaughan Williams’ compositions have popular appeal. One of these is theFantasia on Greensleeves, for orchestra. “Greensleeves” is an old English folk song dating from the early 16th century, and mentioned in Shakespeare’sThe Merry Wives ofWindsor. In the 17th century it became the party song of the Cavaliers. Americans know it best through a popular-song adaptation in 1957. Vaughan Williams’ delightful fantasia appears as an orchestral interlude in his operaSir John in Love(1929), based onThe Merry Wives of Windsor. A brief episode for flute leads to “Greensleeves,” which is harmonized opulently for strings. Two brief variations follow. Then the opening flute episode is recalled as is the folk song itself—the main melody in lower strings with embellishments in the upper ones.
The March of the Kitchen Utensilsis an amusing little episode for orchestra, part of the incidental music prepared by the composer for a production of Aristophanes’The Waspsin Cambridge in 1909. This march opens with a humorous little theme for the wind instruments in the impish style of Prokofiev. The theme is taken over by the strings. The middle section is much more in the identifiable national style of Vaughan Williams with a melody that resembles an old English folk dance.
Jacques Wolfe, composer of songs in the style of Negro Spirituals familiar in the repertory of most American baritones, was born in Botoshan, Rumania on April 29, 1896. He was trained as a pianist at the Institute of Musical Art. While serving in the army during World War I, a member of the 50th Infantry Band, he was stationed in North Carolina where he first came into contact with Negro folk songs. This made such a profound impression on him that he devoted himself to research in this field. After the war he made many appearances on the concert stage both as a solo performer and as an accompanist. For several years he was also a teacher of music at New York City high schools.
Wolfe’s two best known songs in the style of Negro folk songs appearedin 1928. One is “De Glory Road,” words by Clement Wood, a work of such extraordinary fervor and dramatic character that it has proved a sure-fire number with concert baritones throughout the country, and notably with Lawrence Tibbett with whom it was a particular favorite. The other was “Short’nin’ Bread,” to Wolfe’s own words. The latter in all probability is not original with Wolfe but an adaptation of one of the melodies he discovered in North Carolina. Several Negro composers have been credited with being its composer; one of them was Reese d’Pres who is said to have written the melody in or about 1905.
Among Wolfe’s other familiar songs are “God’s World,” “Goin’ to Hebb’n” and “Hallelujah Rhythm.”
Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was born in Venice, Italy, on January 12, 1876. Originally planning to make art his career he went to Rome, but while there became so fascinated by opera that then and there he decided to become a musician. He completed his musical training in Munich in 1895 with Josef Rheinberger. In 1899 he returned to his native city where his first major work—an oratorio,La Sulamite—was successfully performed. His first opera,Cenerentola(Cinderella) was introduced in Venice in 1900. His first comic opera (or opera buffa) came to Munich in 1903:Le Donne Curiose. He achieved world renown with still another comic opera,The Secret of Suzanne, first performed in Munich in 1909. This distinguished achievement was followed by an equally significant achievement in a serious vein, the grand opera,The Jewels of the Madonna, first heard in Berlin in 1911. One year later Wolf-Ferrari paid his first visit to the United States to attend in Chicago the American première ofThe Jewels of the Madonna. He wrote many operas after that, both in a comic and seriousstyle, but his fame still rests securely onThe Secret of SuzanneandThe Jewels of the Madonna. From 1902 to 1912 he was director of the Benedetto Marcello Conservatory in Venice. He died in that city on January 21, 1948.
FromThe Jewels of the Madonna(I Gioielli della Madonna) have come several familiar orchestral episodes. This tragedy—libretto by the composer with verses by Carlo Zangarini and Enrico Golisciani—was successfully introduced in Berlin on December 23, 1911. Rafaele, leader of the Camorrists, and Gennaro, a blacksmith, are rivals for the love of Maliela. After Rafaele appears to have won Maliela’s love, Gennaro wins her away from his rival by stealing for her the jewels decorating the image of the Madonna. Maliela confesses to Rafaele and other Camorrists about this theft, then rushes off into a raging sea to meet her death. After Gennaro has returned the jewels to the Madonna, he plunges a dagger into his own breast.
Two melodious intermezzos for orchestra are often played by salon and pop orchestras. The first comes between the first and second acts and is in a languorous mood. The second, heard between the second and third acts, opens with a light subject and continues with a broadly lyrical episode. A third popular orchestral excerpt from this opera is the dramatic “Dance of the Camorristi” during a revel in the Camorristi hideout in the opening of the third act.
As an operaThe Secret of Suzanne(Il Segreto di Susanna) is a trifle. The libretto by Enrico Golisciani concerns a terrible secret harbored by the heroine, Suzanne: she is addicted to smoking. Since her husband finds cigarette butts in their house he suspects her of entertaining a lover during his absence. Spying on her through the window, one day, he learns about his wife’s secret to his infinite relief, and does not hesitate to join her in a smoke. Light, breezy, infectious, and unpretentious, this little opera has been a favorite with operagoers everywhere since its world première in Munich on December 4, 1909.
The overture is as gay and as capricious as this merry tale. It begins vivaciously with the main theme in first violins and the woodwind. After this idea has been elaborated upon, a second melody is heard in the flute and clarinet accompanied by strings. The two melodies are soon merged contrapuntally, with the first theme heard in woodwinds and trumpet and the second in the strings.
Sebastián Yradier was born in Sauciego, Álava, Spain on January 20, 1809. Little is known of his career beyond the fact that his music instruction took place with private teachers; that in 1851 he was appointed singing master to the Empress Eugénie in Paris; and that for a period he lived in Cuba. He died in Vitoria, Spain, on December 6, 1865. He was a successful composer of Spanish songs. The most famous is “La Paloma,” which is in the habanera rhythm, its melody in the sensual, sinuous style of a flamenco song. “El Arreglito,” also a habanera, was borrowed by Bizet for his operaCarmenwhere it re-emerges as the world-famous “Habanera”; Bizet made only minor changes in the melody while retaining Yradier’s tonality and accompaniment. A third popular Yradier song, in a style similar to “La Paloma,” is “Ay Chiquita!”
Carl Zeller was born in St. Peter-in-der-Au, Austria on July 19, 1842. Music, the study of which he had pursued since boyhood with private teachers, was an avocation. He earned his living as an official in the Ministry of Education in Austria. Nevertheless, he managed to write many operettas, two of which were among the most successful written in Austria during his time. Among his first works for the stage wereJoconde(1876),Die Carbonari(1880), andDer Vagabund(1886).His first major success came withDer Vogelhaendlerin 1886, still a great favorite on the Continent. The second of his operetta classics,Der Obersteiger, was introduced in 1894. A later successful, though less well known, operetta,Der Kellermeister, was produced posthumously in 1901. Zeller died in Baden near Vienna on August 17, 1898.
Der Obersteiger(The Master Miner)—book by M. West and L. Held—received its première in Vienna on January 5, 1894. The setting is a salt-mining district of Austria in or about 1840. Martin instigates a strike among the miners, for which he is deprived of his job. To support himself he organizes a band of musicians from among the miners and tours the country. Eventually Martin returns to his mining town where he finally manages to regain his job and to win Nelly, with whom he has always been in love. The most popular song in the operetta is Martin’s air with chorus, “Wo sie war, die Muellerin,” and its most delightful waltz is “Trauet nie dem blossen schein.”
Der Vogelhaendler(The Bird-Seller), once again with a book by M. West and L. Held, was first heard in Vienna on January 10, 1891; but in 1933 it was presented in a new version in Munich adapted by Quedenfelt, Brugmann and Bauckner. In the Rhine Palatinate in the 18th century, Adam, a wandering bird-seller, is in love with Christel, but she refuses to consider marriage unless he gets a permanent job. He gets that job on the estate of the Elector Palatine at which point Christel is all too willing to give up a projected marriage with Count Stanislaus for the sake of her beloved Adam. The lovable melodies from this operetta—in the best traditions of Suppé and Johann Strauss II—have made it a favorite not only in Germany and Austria, but also throughout the rest of Europe, in North and South America, and in South Africa. Among the musical highlights of this operetta are the waltz “Schau mir nur recht ins Gesicht”; the “Nightingale Song” (“Wie mein Ahn’l zwanzig Jahr”); the pert march tune “Kaempfe nie mit Frau’n”; and Christel’s sprightly air, “Ich bin die Christel von der Post.”
Karl Michael Ziehrer, beloved Viennese composer of waltzes and operettas, was born in Vienna on May 2, 1843. He was completely self-taught in music. In 1863 he formed a café-house orchestra with which he toured Austria and Germany, often featuring his own dance pieces and marches. He later expanded this orchestra into an ensemble numbering fifty players with which he gave a series of successful concerts of semi-classical music in Vienna. In 1907 he became music director of the court balls. After World War I he suffered extreme poverty, his personal fortune having been lost with the collapse of the Hapsburg monarchy. He died in want and obscurity in Vienna on November 14, 1922.
Ziehrer wrote more than five hundred popular pieces for orchestra, including numerous marches and waltzes. His waltzes were particularly favored, many of these in the style of Johann Strauss II. Some are still extensively played. Probably the most famous of all his waltzes is Wiener Maedchen (“Vienna Maidens”), which must rank with Lehár’s “Merry Widow Waltz” as one of the most popular such dances produced in Vienna since the time of Johann Strauss II. Its first melody sounds like a Schubert Laendler, with the peasant vigor of its rhythm and its robust tune; but the main subject is a soaring waltz in the finest traditions of Viennese café-house music. The following are other famous Ziehrer waltzes: “Alt Wien” (“Old Vienna”), “Faschingskinder” (“Carnival Children”), and “Wiener Buerger” (“Viennese Citizens”), all three of which come closest among his works in assuming the structural outlines and the melodic identity of the Johann Strauss waltz classics. Also popular are the “Donauwalzer” (“Waltzes from the Danube”) and “Evatochter” (“Daughter of Eve”).
Ziehrer’s most famous operetta isDie Landestreicher(The Vagabonds)—book by L. Krenn and C. Lindau, first performed in Vienna on July 26, 1899. In upper Bavaria two tramps—Fliederbusch and his wife Bertha—manage to live by their wits. Disguised respectively as Prince Gilka and a dancer they visit a famous resort hotel and are involved innumerous adventures. By managing to retrieve a supposedly valuable lost necklace for the Prince they finally win his favor and enter his service. Of particular interest is the captivating waltz at the end of the first act, “Sei gepriesen, du lauschige Nacht.”
From several of Ziehrer’s other operettas there come other delightful waltzes, notably “Samt und Seide” fromDer Fremdenfuehrer(1902) and “Hereinspaziert” fromDer Schatzmeister(1904).