Classical music

Review: Year of Wonder

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Cover image of "Year of Wonder" by Clemency Burton-Hill

Year of Wonder, Clemency Burton-Hill. Harper (ISBN: 9780062856203) 2018.

Summary: A guide to classical music introducing readers to one selection each day with a short introduction to the composer and work.

Maybe you’ve heard a few classical music pieces like Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons or Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker and thought to yourself, “I’d like to explore more classical music but have no idea where to begin.” Year of Wonder is written for you, although it offers wonders for listeners of many years as well. The book is a day by day guide focusing on one piece and one composer each day. Most of the music selections run 3-10 minutes. The introductions are a page or so.

Clemency Burton-Hill, the author of the book, is best known for her writing and programs on the BBC. She has been host of Radio 3’s Breakfast program, a host for the BBC Proms and also Creative Director, Music and Arts, at WQXR-FM in New York, perhaps the leading classical music station in the United States. She is also a musician, having performed all over the world, including playing under Daniel Barenboim. In 2020, she survived a near life-ending brain hemorrhage while in New York City.

What makes this such a marvelous book is really several things. Firstly, she writes chatty yet informative and well-researched introductions to each piece. Writing about Johann Sebastian Bach on January 1, she gives us a description of him I’ve never come across before:

“Bach was the daddy: without him there would be no jazz, funk, or hip-hop; no techno, no house, no grime. He basically wrote the blueprint for everything that was to come. His stuff is wise and witty and capacious enough to contain more than just multitudes: it contains all of everything.”

Makes you want to listen to Bach, doesn’t it?

Secondly, her love of the music comes through. She comes back to Bach on February 14 writing that his Concerto for two violins in D Minor, BWV 1043 is her “desert island disc” and that her love for it knows no bounds. Equally, she can express fury when a woman composer like Fanny Mendelsohn fails to get the recognition she deserves for her music. Burton-Hill defies the stereotype of the snobby-stuffy classical music host.

Thirdly, she doesn’t just stick with the familiar heavy hitters. She introduces us to over 240 composers. Over 40 are women. A number are people of color. They span nearly 1000 years from Hildegard of Bingen in the twelfth century to Alissa Firsova, a millennial born in 1986. She includes gay and transgender composers, and those, including Beethoven, with disabilities.

I also appreciated her candor as she introduced religious music (which is a lot of classical music!) in both acknowledging her own agnosticism yet deeply respecting the efforts of composers to express the transcendent. (I personally hope her experience will be something like that of C.S. Lewis, recounted in Surprised by Joy, who was moved by Wagnerian opera (!), among other things, to seek the transcendent.)

Never heard of Clemency Burton-Hill? Meet her in this book trailer as she introduces the book:

The daily selections are available on playlists on most music streaming platforms. Unfortunately, in my Kindle version, this information was at the end of the book. (I found the playlists both on Apple Music and Spotify by searching “Year of Wonder.” On both platforms each month is its own playlist. I also discovered that there are playlists for Another Year of Wonder, a sequel to this work, published in 2021.

Reading this was a journey of delight. There were pieces I’ve sung, pieces I’ve loved, and those that were new discoveries. Because I was reviewing the book, I took much less than a year to go through it and I didn’t listen to everything on the playlists. Perhaps in January I’ll return to spend a year of wonder with this book.

Review: Between Two Sounds

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Cover image of "Between Two Sounds" by Joonas Sildre, translated by Adam Cullen

Between Two Sounds, Joonas Sildre (text and illustrations) Adam Cullen (translation). Plough Publishing House (ISBN: 9781636081342) 2024.

Summary: A graphical biography of Arvo Pärt tracing his faith, musical journey and clash with Soviet artistic censorship.

In the first two decades of the twenty-first century, the works of two living composers have been performed more than any others. John Williams and Arvo Pärt. Of the two, the music of Arvo Pärt, with its distinct tintinnabuli style is by far the most distinctive. This graphic biography of the composer was first published in Estonia, the native country of Arvo Pärt. Now, thanks to Plough Publishing, the story of Arvo Pärt’s musical journey, struggle with Soviet repression, and underlying faith, is available to an English-speaking audience.

The account begins with his birth in 1935, the family’s struggle during the war, the discovery of Arvo’s love of music and his early musical training. From early on, we see his love of playing for children. Military training interrupts the journey, although he was able to fulfill his service in a military band, playing drums! With his entry into the Talinn Conservatory in 1956, we observe the beginnings of serious work as a composer under Heino Eller. He experiments with twelve tone music, earning him his first ban from having his music performed in public.

Subsequently, much of his work in the 1960’s involved composition for film, including children’s films. He also worked as a recording engineer, affording him extensive time in musical libraries. He experiments with avant-garde and polyphonic styles. A composition in the latter style, Credo, earned him another ban in 1968, and led to an extended period of silence until 1976, and the emergence of his distinctive style.

During this period, he meets Nora. Both are baptized in the Orthodox Church, and subsequently married. He studies early music and Gregorian chant, and composes single melodic lines for each of the Psalms. Then he has the inspiration to add a second note, creating a tension between two voices, in the space between the two notes. It is this that he calls tintinnabuli (from the sound of bells). But as he performs, the religious content of his music once again brings him in conflict with Soviet authorities. Sildre traces the buildup to his emigration to Vienna. They will live there and later in Berlin, until returning to Estonia in 2010.

The black and illustrations fit the black and white keys of a keyboard, and convey the space and tension between notes of Arvo Pärt’s style. It also seems particularly apt to convey his struggle to find his style, and his “leap of faith.” This minimalist palette is in keeping with that of Pärt. I thought this particularly effective in conveying the impact of the performance of his different compositions. The most moving scene for me was the last night in their apartment with friends, giving each a little bell.

I received the book as a Christmas gift from my son, accompanied by a collection of Arvo Pärt recordings. It helped to listen to his work as I read. Plough provides tracks of three of the pieces mentioned in the book on the book’s website. Together, these make for a wonderful introduction to one of our most significant contemporary composers, who is also a man of deep faith.