Horatio Parker - "A Northern Ballad"
A precocious young composer, the teacher of Charles Ives, and a NON-nationalistic Scottish work undeniably influenced by Tchaikovsky (even though it may have been intended to do the exact opposite), are all headline descriptions of the topic for this episode of the American Muse podcast: Horatio Parker and his work _A Northern Ballad_.
###Background
####Bio
- Youngest of the “Boston 6”, Horatio Parker was born 1863 in Auburndale, MA, a rural area at the time, now subsumed by the Boston city limits. He studied with George Whitefield Chadwick at the New England Conservatory of Music (NEC) and eventually, like most serious musicians at the time, went to Europe and studied with Josef Rheinberger at the Royal Music School in Munich. A similar comment by both these teachers points to a characteristic that Parker carried throughout his compositional career. Chadwick, speaking of the young Parked, roughly aged 17-19, says:
> He was far from docile. In fact, he was impatient of the restrictions of musical form and rather rebellious of the discipline of counterpoint and fugues. His lessons usually ended with his swallowing his medicine, but with many a wry grimace.
- This quote probably says as much about the youthfulness of Parker as it does the fastidious Chadwick and his own workmanship-like character. Yet, while later studying with Rheinberger, also a former teacher of Chadwick, an observation by the Boston music critic William Apthorp would confirm Parker’s temptation to go against the grain:
> It is said of H. W. Parker that when he was a student in Munich under Rheinberger he was repeatedly introducing some new wrinkle, some unheard of effect... Certain of these musical inventions were distasteful to the master... and others were railed at playfully but secretly endorsed and even imitated by Rheinberger himself.
- Upon returning to the United States, Parker moved to New York and bounced around several church positions. This is where Parker found the strongest market for his compositions, as any choral, organ, or piano work he wrote was quickly performed and highly praised. At the end of his time in New York, Parker spent one, lone year teaching at the famous National Conservatory of Music in America. Famous mostly because this is the school at which Antonín Dvořák taught during his highly publicized visit to the “New World”. And, that lone year, 1892-1893, overlapped with Dvořák’s first year.
- Eventually, Parker returned to Boston, having a substantial reputation as a composer, mostly of choral works. In an ironic twist, relating to the observations of Parker as a young man, musicologist and biographer William Kearns found in Parker’s diaries that one of the reasons he left his church position was “problems of discipline among the boys in the Holy Trinity Choir... he complained that they are a ‘burden’ to the choirmaster and expressed the hope that the adult mixed choir at his new appointment would leave him more time for the important work of composition.” I am sure Chadwick had a laugh about that!
- Parker’s stay in Boston only lasted one year, as he then took a teaching position at Yale. There, Parker developed a long legacy of composition students, punctuated by Roger Sessions and the inimitable Charles Ives. Parker developed _The History of Music_ course, served as editor of _Music and Drama_, served as dean of the School of Music, conducted and developed the New Haven Symphony Orchestra as both a professional ensemble and lab orchestra for Yale music students, all while continuing to compose. It was from this position that the rest of his life would be based. Also, this move towards academia would nudge Parker to analyze his own thinking about music, it’s place in society, and cause him to make definitive statements on the subject. Near the end of his life, Parker wrote in the _Yale Review_:
> In truth there are two very different kinds of taste. May I call them high and low to save space?... I think an enormous part of our national common progress is made by breaking down barriers between such types. Training the lowly to enjoy exalted music is known to be meritorious. I never heard anyone commend the reverse process of training the fastidious to recognize vulgar excellence.
- The man comes full circle! A somewhat rogue youth, tamed by well-disciplined teachers, now embracing the diversity of musical options. And as can be seen, these phases manifest in his composition as well
###Analysis of piece
- And the main event: Parker’s tone poem _A Northern Ballad_
- Written over the 1898-99 winter, the symphonic poem was premiered by the New Haven Symphony, conducted by the composer himself.
- Overall, Parker’s pure orchestral output is limited, though what he did produce was compelling. _A Northern Ballad_ being one of his most mature works elicited quite a review from a New York newspaper in 1901:
“The impression left by the whole is that if Mr. Parker would give up writing church music he has the stuff in him to turn out most effective secular material. His music is virile and full bodied, and its eclecticism is not greater than that of most music now being written.”
- Now, the first question I had about the title of this piece was “what North is Parker referring to?” Apparently, it is nothing to do with America at all, but that of Scotland, a nod to his own Anglo-Saxon roots. There are some noticeable Scottish folk-like resemblances, and while one performance review describes the piece as quote “Celtic rather than distinctively Norse,” another notes its use of “Scotch melodies and instrumental coloring.” Rather than a nationalistic nod, it is possible this is a reaction to Dvorak's controversial statements about American music during his tenure as Director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York, where, as I mentioned earlier, Parker and Dvorak overlapped for one year. In his biography on Parker, William Kearns suggests that “Both its title and content suggest another step in Parker’s move away from German influences”. Ok, maybe the title. But, content? Uh... as you will hear, and I will point out specifically, there are quite a few elements that bear a striking resemblance to Tchaikovsky’s iconic _Romeo and Juliet_ overture. Yes, I know, Tchaikovsky is of course Russian, not German. However, Tchaikovsky’s style is a composite of MANY different influences from all over Europe, not the least of which is German, Italian, and French, all in addition to Russian. So, I have to say I disagree with Mr. Kearns, but let’s listen and see what you think.
####Excerpts
- The recording of Parker’s _A Northern Ballad_ you will hear is performed by the Albany Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Julius Hegyi, recorded on the New World Records label in 1986.
- Tchaikovsky’s _Romeo and Juliet_ Overture recording is a video recording of the Orchestra della Radio della Svizzera italiana conducted by Leopold Stokowski.
- Parker begins with an open sounding woodwind chorale, not displaying either urgency or haste, merely a state of ancient being.
- This is unmistakably similar to Tchaikovsky’s opening bars of the Romeo and Juliet Overture.
- As Parker opens up the dynamic range of the opening section, he adds the strings and sweetness of melodic inflection
- Again, this compares closely to the Tchaikovsky, in a similar moment of the introduction just as the sound increases from the opening darkness.
- As Parker concludes the introduction, he moves immediately into a quick section introduced by a pithy riff in the strings that will become a main motive of the rest of the work. This quickly builds to a driving rhythmic undercurrent in the horns and violas, covered by another motivic remnant of the opening, played in canon between the violins and cellos. This finally arrives at the climax with a brass canon on the same rhythmic theme, and flows back down just as smoothly as it ascended.
- Another very close resemblance to Tchaikovsky, the quicker section jumps out with a tight rhythmic motive, quickly builds tension with a canonic theme, and surges to the first climax.
- Back to the Parker. As he closes out this opening portion of the Allegro, Parker he briefly introduces a light motive (light as in airy, free; not as in Wagner’s “leitmotif”) in the flute and clarinet that while fleeting serves to break up some of the tension created so far. It is also quite probably a stylistic element Tchaikovsky would never have used in quite the same way. Parker then uses this lower moment to fake a recap, only to roar into a developmental section, alternating strings and winds with brass and percussion. At the very height of tension, Parker mixes declamatory chords and a decidedly off putting rhythmic configuration with an emerging melody in the horns, once again originating from the slow introduction of the piece itself.
- As Parker finally comes down off the high of the development, he gives us a very partial recap of the slow introduction with some modifications. Then we get a brilliant and very creative surprise. We do get a restatement of the main Allegro section, but it has now taken on the more anxious rhythmic motive underneath a sped up recap of the INTRODUCTION melodic material in the brass! Generally speaking, an overture type piece will not always recap a slow introduction section. But in this case Parker has merged the two parts together to dramatic effect!
- When the piece builds to a final moment of climactic tension, Parker utilizes another recognizable element, not EXCLUSIVE to Tchaikovsky, but certainly recognizable in many of his ballets, and, once again, his _Rome and Juliet_ Overture. As the melodic line in the strings develops and rises, the woodwinds and eventually horns alone begin a quick triplet pulse, giving a sense of nervous energy which drives to the overflowing moment at the top of the phrase.
- And here is a corresponding moment in the Tchaikovsky, that heart breaking melody, a mix of love, lust, and impending death... that iconic moment when you say to yourself “oh THAT’S the piece!”
- At long last Parker gives us a coda. Here he sets the complete work at peace, expanding the long melodic lines that have come before, filling out the orchestration, and arpeggiating chords in the harp, all lightening the air as if floating to it’s final rest at the concluding bars.
###Closing
- Ok, to be completely honest, despite my many comparisons to Tchaikovsky’s _Romeo and Juliet_ overture, I am NOT equating the two pieces in quality. I do believe the Tchaikovsky has more depth and ability to transport the listener to a superior experience. That is NOT to detract anything from _A Northern Ballad_ and Parker’s individual way of accomplishing this same task. My purpose is to both compare and differentiate the two composers, their styles, and above all show how Parker’s music is of high value to anyone willing to give it their time and ears. If you are one of those people I trust you will come to a similar conclusion, and live a better life for the experience.
Music:
“A Northern Ballad” by Horatio Parker from the album Parker: A Northern Ballad/Chadwick: Symphony No. 2. New World Records #80339.
(p) & © 1986 Anthology of Recorded Music, Inc.
Used by permission.
https://www.newworldrecords.org/products/parker-a-northern-ballad-chadwick-symphony-no-2
Overture to 'Romeo and Juliet'
By: Pyotr Tchaikovsky
Performed by: Orchestra della Radio della Svizzera italiana; Leopold Stokowski, conductor
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