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Pre-Raphaelite II: March 8th, 2008 The Creation: A Guided Tour
Pre-Raphaelite II: March 8th, 2008 The Creation: A Guided Tour | The Creation: Audio Tour |
Page 4 of 4 Here is another point of entry into Brickle's piece. Anyone who knows the sound of Stravinsky's neoclassical period will be reminded of Stravinsky occassionally in Brickle's Creation. Brickle's organization of his surfaces is nothing like Stravinsky's, however. Brickle's evokation is a thorough usurpation of surface elements for his own purposes. Composers are always doing such. The way Brickle builds his argument around a few key intervals is very Brahmsian. Throughout the work, there are clear instances of minor thirds succeeded by major thirds. That these intervals are important on the large scale as well as on the surface (small scale), is a Brahmsian tactic. Some examples--> This is just before the 5th day begins: This is at the end of the excerpt, before the last piano chord: when you mix minor thirds and major thirds you get the blues: That's just a wee snippet of a tune by Django Reinhardt. In the Creation, the blues comes abruptly in the 4th day: I hope it's clear that the bluesey quality of this passage comes about through the mixing of major and minor thirds, the slippery sliding from one to the other. The note on which the singer ends this excerpt (on the word "be") is the major third (the sweet happy one). The cello subsequently slides to her last note from the minor third in a gesture that we could reasonably call "bluesey" Here's that gesture, ----> The word "be" is sung on an E#. The cello slides to E# from E natural. E, the note on which the piece begins, has become the "blue note". Notice that this spicy blue note is loud and its resolution to E# is softer. The spicy notes jump out and the expected notes recede. That ends my tour. I want to make one little observation--the last chord is a C# chord. All the "structual" 5ths in the piece create a minor third and a major third. The structual harmonies are the ones that keep recurring and gain significance through their persistence. I mentioned the 5ths built on E and C. E to C is a major third; E to C# is a minor third. The piece elaborates these bluesy intervals both locally and on the large scale. We call the large scale the background; the local we call the foreground. I find Brickle's background and its relation to his foreground clearly Brahmsian. I'm also privy to some inside information. Brickle has great respect for Brahms' approach to large scale structure. Now, please listen to the entire excerpt a couple times. Follow text by returning to this page and clicking on "creation.pdf": [New window will open. Click on this window again and click on link below to open text.]  Creation Text Gloss (90 kB)After this guided tour, please see if "Brickle on Brickle" makes any sense. I hope that the tour adequately prepares you for the more in-depth discussion. Brickle on Brickle is back here: Brickle interview **The great pianist Robert D. Levin provided me with another example of a deliberate archaism--In Schubert's Death and the Maiden string quartet, Schubert omits the 7th in the V chord at the end of the first phrase. In the V-I cadence of Schubert's time, the V chord was usually decorated with an extra note, the 7th note above the root---V7 - I. As musical conventions evolve, possibilites for deliberate archaisms arise. It can be done well, and is more often done badly and in poor taste. |
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