The sound of music in 1907...

As editor, I thought I would create some awareness of what was considered new music one hundred years ago. Musically, the United States was still embracing ragtime and early jazz, gospel music and blues were still in comparative infancy to today, and it was still very unclear what was ‘American ‘ music. Louis Armstrong was still a child and the recording industry as we know it today was barely existent. The seeds of the 30s and 40s big band music were being planted with the early jazz combos and the new influences in the classical genres were eclectic and becoming more extreme with the birth of impressionistic music and the shocking atonality of a few daring composers. And…there was not yet a genre of music called ‘rock and roll’, nor any of the other current styles of trance, R & B, hip-hop, or rap. There were community bands and orchestras; and families had pianos to sang songs together in addition to the enjoyment of “piano rolls” much like today’s diskclavier pianos.

More mainstream composers Alexander Glazunov and Camille Saint Saens both received an Honorary Doctorate from Oxford University in England during 2007. Also in 1907 the death of Edvard Grieg signified another romantic voice quieted. And the very gifted Gustave Mahler conducted his last performance in Vienna and soon relocated to New York City to direct the New York Metropolitan Opera.

The year 2007 marks the 300th anniversary of the passing Dietrich Buxtehude, the prominent organist of the late 1600s and also English composer Jeremiah Clarke who composed the Trumpet Voluntary so often played at weddings.

I have compiled a list of music appreciation for those of you that would like to explore the challenge of revisiting some of these pieces that now seem to our time not so unusual…and some perhaps still challenging?

Histoires Naturelles by Maurice Ravel – a song cycle based on animal fables
Salome, an opera by Richard Strauss
Kammersymphonie for 15 Solo instruments by Arnold Schoenberg
String Quartet #1 by Arnold Schoenberg
Introduction & Allegro by Maurice Ravel
La Mer by Claude Debussy
The Apostles by Edward Elgar
Souvenirs by Vincent D’Indy
1st Symphony by Igor Stravinsky
Ariane et Barbe-bleue, an opera by Paul Dukas
La Princess Maleine a tone poem by Cyril Scott
Pomp and Circumstance by Edward Grieg
3rd Symphony by Jean Sibelius
Norfolk Rhapsody #2 in d minor by Ralph Vaughan Williams
Variations and Fugue on a theme by Johann Adam Hiller by Max Reger
Piano Quintet by Anton Webern
The Wand of Youth Suite by Edward Elgar


Enjoy! I look forward to your feedback.

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