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Responses to 20 th Century Tragedy
Laura Bock
Music 375
Dr. Pedro Aponte
Fine Arts Junior/Senior
(Second Place)
2
Concerto, as an agonized response to a world forever changed. Nearly a century later, American
composer Christopher Rouse published his Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, examining the
world through the lens of a single horrific event. Through an analysis of the first movement of
the Cello Concerto and the third movement of the Flute Concerto, it becomes clear that in spite
of differences in specific compositional techniques, the two composers share a tremendous
amount of common ground in utilizing the concerto as a medium for expressing a sense of loss
and grief experienced both introspectively and internationally.
Compared to the majority of Elgar’s works, his Cello Concerto in e minor is an abrupt,
offroad departure from much of his previous music, not merely in terms of style, but also in
regard to subject material and overall mood. Elgar is best known for his dignified, ceremonial,
and quintessentially English compositions. They exude the sense of order, pride, and prestige
describes him as “a post Wagnerian tonal composer, one whose principal concert works were
written with the explicit intent of gaining power and prestige both for himself and for
England.” 1 Deborah Heckert cites J.H. Grainger to make a case that Elgar eventually played the
significant role of a “public poet” for the middle class and, “reminded, reassured, mobilized,
sang praises, and identified enemies within an objective, easily recognized world.” 2
In describing Elgar’s overall style Leon Botstein notes that “His musical phrases
conveyed the personal and intimate but, presented in an elegant and refined manner, avoiding the
1
Harper Scott, 1.
2
Adams, 307.
3
raw intensity of the confessional.” 3 However, this conservative characterization is largely
unapparent in the passionate, grieving first movement of the cello concerto. To explain this
sudden change, Franck Beck offers this depiction of post World War I Britain:
“The scale of the war was apocalyptic, and, before it happened, few people had thought
such destruction were even possible. In Britain…the public's notion of modern warfare had been
formed by the Boer War, in which 22,000 British troops had died over a period of twoandahalf
years. In this new conflict [World War I], nearly that many British soldiers were killed on a
single day: July 1, 1916, the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Over the course of four years,
more than 900,000 people from Britain and the Empire countries lost their lives not only men,
but women, too, serving as nurses. Submarines and longrange artillery made no exceptions on
grounds of gender. Even as the conflict raged, many people recognized that they were now living
in a changed society. Writing in 1916, D.H. Lawrence felt that two thousand years of civilisation
were collapsing before his eyes: ‘so much beauty and pathos of old things passing away and no
new things coming: my God, it breaks my soul.’”
Based on records of his correspondence with family and friends 4 , it seems that Elgar
shared these same sentiments and was also experiencing his own personal losses as many of his
friends were claimed by the war. He expressed, in a letter to Lady Stuart of Wolsey, that,
“Everything pleasant and promising in my life is dead I have the happiness of my friends to
console me as I had fifty years ago. I feel that life has gone back so far when I was alone & there
was no one to stand between me and disaster health or finance now that has come back & I feel
more alone & the prey of circumstances than ever before.” 5 This acknowledgement of his own
3
Ibid, 366.
4
Kennedy, Portrait.
5
Kennedy, The Life of Elgar. 147.
4
decline is underlined by the fact that the Cello Concerto was the last major work the composer
completed. 6 Music critic Neville Cardus called the piece “a swan song of rare and vanishing
beauty” and conductor Sir Neville Mariner said that it is “a lamenting farewell to beauty.” In this
interpretation, Elgar’s loss extends beyond the tangible realm and delves into the idea that
humanity is capable of extinguishing all that a human being can hold dear.
In the opening of the first movement, Elgar wastes no time before launching the audience
directly into despair with violent quadruple stops from the soloist. Sorrow is expressed as a raw,
initial outburst, the cello slowly remerges until it catapults the orchestra into the first peak. In a
contrasting central section which begins in the major mode, the cello continues to be pulled
along by the orchestra, although it is frequently overcome by longing and makes plaintive
diversions into other tonalities. Finally, the ensemble returns to an unstable repetition of the
opening theme and is launched with renewed intensity into another uproarious fit before dying
away in the midst of tonal descent. The work seems to revolve around the soloist’s resistance of
an inevitable force. Paradoxically, this heightened expression of unbarred emotion exhibited in
the climaxes of the movement suggests a relative turn toward the direction of realism for Elgar,
while, at the same time, the reoccurring ruminations of the cello’s nostalgia are smothered in
idealism and untarnished sentiment. And while the music offers many a fleeting glance
backward, the movement comes to rest with such a grave finality that one can almost hear the
“public poet” Elgar prophesying that the world is changed irrevocably and forever.
In 1993, Christopher Rouse completed his Flute Concerto as a commission for world
renowned flutist Carol Wincenc. A Washington Times review describes the Baltimore native as a
6
Grimley and Rushton, 166.
5
composer who “writes contemporary music that speaks to contemporary audiences in an original,
accessible way.” 7 He received degrees from Oberlin Conservatory and Cornell University and
also studied with contemporary composer George Crumb between his time at the two schools.
Although he is a Pulitzer Prize Winner, a Guggenheim Fellow and the 2009 Musical America
Composer of the Year, most of Rouse’s works have yet to become standards in the orchestral
repertoire.
In his own program notes to the Concerto, Rouse describes the overall concept of the
complete concerto as, “my reactions and reflections upon the Celtic tradition,” and says that he
uses “musical sources as distinct as Irish folk songs, Scottish bagpipe music, and English
coronation marches.” Although there is some parallelism to be drawn between Elgar in terms of
the theme of English history, the main focus of this paper is of the third, central, movement.
According to a Temple University Doctoral Thesis by Adeline Tomasa, the Flute Concerto falls
and death. 8 In his notes for the Elegia Rouse writes:
“In a world of daily horrors too numerous and enormous to comprehend en masse, it
seems that only isolated, individual tragedies serve to sensitize us to the potential harm man can
do to his fellow. For me, one such instance was the abduction and brutal murder of the twoyear
old English lad James Bulger at the hands of a pair of tenyear old boys. I followed this case
closely during the time I was composing my concerto and was unable to shake the horror of
these events from my mind. The central movement of this work is an elegy dedicated to James
Bulger's memory, a small token of remembrance for a life senselessly and cruelly snuffed out.” 9
7
Washington Times. “BSO Sells Rouse’s Flute”.
8
Tomasa, 4.
9
Christopher Rouse.com
6
In 1993, the young toddler, James, went missing from his mother on a shopping trip in
Liverpool, England. It was later determined that he had been lead away by two ten yearold boys,
Jon Venables and Robert Thompson, who beat and bludgeoned the toddler to death, then left his
body under rubble across nearby railway tracks where it was later severed by an oncoming train.
This gruesome and malicious act received international media attention as people around the
world were stunned that such an atrocity could be committed by children. 10
The movement begins with a plaintive bassoon solo and proceeds to wade through a sea
of dark, murky dissonance. There are two tonal focal points with clearly defined meter in this
third movement, which suggests that the heavy progression of time is the only certain element in
the midst of shock and confusion. Each time David Gutnam of Gramophone notes, “the third
movement sets up a frankly emotive hymn in wideeyed D major and inevitably snuffs it out.” 11
Because of the way that Rouse builds harmonic intensity through the two tonal sections, Marin
Alsop, conductor of the Baltimore Symphony points out that she somewhat paradoxically “finds
the consonant more painful than the prior dissonant.” 12
different cumulative styles, the respective techniques of the composers are often used toward the
same means. As either movement reaches a climax, the solo instrument is silent. This choice
suggests the soloist’s primary role as a vehicle or catalyst for the development. Once the
orchestra is sent on its way and the soloist becomes an observer rather than an active participant.
This is certainly a departure from the idea of the soloist being the obvious focal point as in most
10
BBC, Guardian.co.uk
11
Christopher Rouse.com
12
Lodico.
7
concerti. Interestingly, both composers appear to have balanced virtuosic solo parts with
orchestral complexity and expression.
Both movements also seem to share a common form. While Alsop describes the
structure of the Rouse Concerto as an “arch form,” Tomasa’s dissertation makes a strong case
that the work consists of a descent and reascention, a sort of reverse arch, both tonally and
formally. She describes that “Narrativelly, this movement provides both the apex and nadir of the
concerto descending to the key area of B, the root of the augmented chord underpinning the five
movements as the composer describes it. This is fitting, as Elegia travels to the depths of despair
and tragedy mined by the entire concerto. Concurrently, however, this movement also contains
the work’s emotional high points, presenting the work’s most intense and affecting music at the
concerto’s midpoint.” 13 Similarly, Christopher Mark identifies both the first movement of the
Elgar as being in arch form as well as each individual A section. 14 The use of this form magnifies
the audible distinctions between vast the ranges of emotion and presents familiar, previously
introduced material to the audience without becoming repetitive.
It is once again in these developmental phrases that the two movements are most similar,
this time in terms of orchestration. In the Flute Concerto, “The orchestration of this chorale’s
growth demonstrates Rouse’s mastery of the large ensemble. Rather than simply adding
instruments to the cycling bass line to achieve the crescendo, he builds in a manner that increases
the drives and energy as well.” 15 Elgar also employs his own repetition in the rhythms that create
a sense of build, as the orchestra takes over the cello’s first theme to continue the harmonic
ascension.
13
Tomasa, 26.
14
Grimley and Rushton, 167.
15
Tomasa, 2930.
8
Malone writes of the Flute Concerto that, “The movement comes to a climax when the
strings and brass play a hymn at once both celebratory and tragic that recalls Elgar in its scoring
and nobility.” 16 While Rouse cites many influences on his compositional style, it would be
interesting to further investigate whether his intentions included channeling Elgar in his lyrical
sections. In another parallel Kennedy describes that “It is sometimes said that this Concerto is
Elgar’s war requiem. Here…is the elegy for an age…the musical expression of his bitterness
about the providence that was ‘against great art’ and the Heavenly Sprit that was ‘cruelly obtuse’
to individual sorrow and sacrifice.” 17 If this characterization is correct, then perhaps the title of
“Elegia” would have been just as fitting for the Cello Concerto.
A key point of departures between the two composers seems to be found upon the
examination of both Concertos in their entireties. While the disheartened Elgar definitively
signed the conclusion of the Cello Concerto, “R.I.P. Finis,” Rouse seems to take a more
optimistic stance by including the Elegia as part of a cyclical work. In this way, Rouse
acknowledges the Elegia as merely one facet of the human experience from which life continues.
The comparison between these two pieces presents some interesting questions. How does
Both of these pieces suggest the power of a less idealized and more therapeutic purpose
for music. Instead of adhering to the contemporary concept that music should dull pain or offer
solace, these works of these composers seem to suggest that music can be used to unshroud our
losses so that we can fully experience them, fully participate in the grieving process, and,
perhaps, someday, go on. Since the Industrial Revolution, the Westernized world has been
16
Malone.
17
Kennedy, 283. 1987.
9
changing at an exponential rate with the advent of new inventions, philosophies, and discoveries.
In today’s fast paced society, so many of us find it easiest to ignore our pain when given a
choice. Ultimately, however, both of these composers remind us that no experience is meant to
be pushed away, but rather confronted, acknowledged, and lived along with the rest of our
human existence, hardship and all.
10
Works Cited
Adams, Byron. Edward Elgar and His World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.
“A Death that Shocked the Nation.” BBC News.16 December 1999. Available from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/297023.stm
Beck, Frank. “Creating a Classic: How Elgar Came to Write the Concerto.” Available from the
Elgar Society Web Page http://www.elgar.org/3celloc.htm.
“BSO Sells Rouse’s Flute.” Washington Times. 8 March 2008. Available from
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/mar/08/bsosellsrousesflute.
Fjordstone Website Design. “Christopher Rouse.”Available from www.christopherrouse.com
(accessed November 21, 2009).
Grimley, Daniel M. and Rushton, Julian. The Cambridge Companion to Elgar. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004.
HarperScott, John Paul Edward. Elgar Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Harrison, David. “Agony of following Jamie's final footsteps: No details spared as toddler's loss
relived.” Guardian.co.uk. 7 November, 1993. Available from
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/1993/nov/07/bulger.davidharrison
Lodico, Michael. “Alsop Leads Rouse’s Flute Concerto.” 10 March 2008. Available from
http://ionarts.blogspot.com/2008/03/alsopleadsrousesfluteconcerto.html.
Malone, Andrew L. “Composition Description.” Available from
www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=42:234073~T1
Kennedy, Michael. The Life of Elgar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
11
Sharratt, Tom. “James Bulger 'battered with bricks'” Guardian.co.uk. 2 November 1993.
Available from http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/1993/nov/02/bulger.tomsharratt.
Tomasone, Adeline. “Christopher Rouse’s Flute Concerto: Origins, Observations and Analysis.”
Doctoral Dissertation. Temple University. (2007).