Music from the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

Study guide for Orpheus recordings by Ravel, Fauré, and Stravinsky

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Get to know Orpheus…Orpheus was founded in 1972!

What Makes Orpheus unique?In most orchestras, a single figure—the conductor—directs the musicians in all aspects of the music, including entrances, speed, and time. However, Orpheus rehearses and performs without a conductor.

The Orpheus Process®In this unique process, the members of the orchestra work together to make the interpretive decisions that are usually the work of a conductor. Each musician has a voice and is expected to express their interpretation to make the performance better.

Orpheus is Grammy® Award winning! The Stravinsky album Shadow Dances featured in this playlist won the Grammy for Best Small Ensemble Performance in 2000!

Orpheus is a chamber orchestra. We perform music written for 20-40 musicians and larger-scale orchestral works that have been adapted for a smaller ensemble.

Historical Context

The influenza pandemic began at the end of World War I (1914-1918). The First World War was a global war centered in Europe between the Allies - The British Empire, France, Belgium, Russia, and eventually the USA – and the Central Powers – Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and the Ottoman Empire. World War I was the first major war to use new weapons and vehicles such as machine guns, chemical weapons, and fighter planes.

World War I caused major changes to warfare and to global politics. The war marked the end of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires, confiscated territories from Germany and Russia, and incited many political uprisings including the Russian Revolution, which began in 1917.

This playlist explores music by Maurice Ravel, Gabriel Fauré, and Igor Stravinsky composed or orchestrated during the influenza pandemic of 1918.

Terms:• A composer is a person who writes music.• Orchestration is the combination of instruments a composer uses to create the music.• A pandemic is a global outbreak of a disease.

Historical Context continued

The 1918 Influenza (or Flu) Pandemic was caused by an unusually deadly version of the flu virus. The pandemic started in the spring of 1918 and lasted until the summer of 1919.

It infected over 500 million people, or about one third of the world’s population at the time, and death tolls are estimated at between 17 and 50 million people.

Like today, there were bans on public gatherings, school closures, and mandated mask wearing to help stop the spread of the virus.

As we know, life continues despite conflict and illness: people find ways to learn and love, and even if concerts are cancelled, musicians will still make music.

We hope you enjoy this playlist of music written during a different pandemic 100 years ago, and we hope to see you in the concert hall again someday soon.

Note: Why not the “Spanish Flu?” Though the origin of the 1918 Flu is unknown, it is sometimes referred to as the Spanish Flu since the French blamed Spain for spreading the flu across their shared border. Because this name is based on national prejudice, we’ve chosen not to use it here.

1923192219211920191919181917191619151914

1917: Stravinsky writes Five Easy Pieces for piano duet

1918: Stravinsky composes Ragtime and Duet for Bassoons

1919: Fauré composes incidental music for Masques et Bergamasques

July 1914 – November 1918: World War I

March 1917 – June 1923: The Russian Revolution & Civil War

1914 – 1920: Stravinsky in exile in Switzerland

March 1918– June 1920: 1918 Flu Pandemic

1914-1915: Stravinsky writes Three Easy Pieces for piano duet

1921: Stravinsky orchestrates the Three Easy Pieces and Five Easy Pieces to become Suites No. 1 and No.2 for Small Orchestra

1914-1917: Ravel composes Le Tombeau de Couperin for solo

piano

1919: Ravel orchestrates four movements of Le Tombeau de Couperin

Maurice Ravel1875– 1937

Maurice Ravel was one of the best-known French

composers of the early 20th century

Some words to describe Ravel’s music:

• Colorful • Exotic• Complex

Ravel was inspired by many musical styles, including baroque,

neoclassicism, and jazz

Baroque: A style of music composed from around 1600 to 1850. J.S. Bach composed during the Baroque period!Neoclassicism: A 20th century music style that drew inspiration from 18th

century music, especially from the Classical period (1730-1820)Jazz: A music genre developed in New Orleans by African-American musicians around the turn of the 20th century, with roots in the Blues and Ragtime.

Ravel during World War I

Ravel tried to enlist in the French armed forces at the start of World War I but was turned away because of his small size and bad health.

In 1916 he got a job as a truck driver for the French army, but he became sick with dysentery and was discharged in 1917.

The war years were hard for Ravel. Between his time as a truck driver, his recovery from illness, and the death of his mother in 1917, Ravel was mostly too busy, sad, and sick to write music. However, one of his only compositions from 1914-1918, Le tombeau de Couperin, would go on to be one of the best-known works of the War period.

Ravel’s health declined after the death of his mother. When the flu pandemic began in 1918, many of his friends were worried the delicate Ravel would catch the new flu and die. Yet Ravel survived the pandemic and would live nearly 20 more years, composing many more works including the famous Bolero.

Ravel

The title of Le tombeau de Couperin, meaning “The Tomb of Couperin,” refers to the 16th and 17th century French practice of writing “tombeaus”—short poems or musical works to commemorate the dead—and to the French composer Francois Couperin (1668-1733). Each movement is written in a different Baroque musical style and honors a different friend of Ravel's who died in the war. The original solo piano piece was 6 movements; Ravel shortened the orchestrated version to four.

1: Prelude, in memory of First Lieutenant Jacques Charlot: A prelude is an introductory piece of music. This ornamental piece has a lot of winding movement including a famously difficult oboe part.

2: Forlane, in memory of First Lieutenant Gabriel Deluc: A forlane is a type of Italian folk song. This piece is in the complex form of a rondo - A-B-A-C-A-D-A (i.e., one theme is repeated four times, with different sections between each repetition).

3: Menuet, in memory of Jean Dreyfus: A menuet is a slow dance in 3/4 or triple meter (three beats to a bar). The oboe stars again in this stately piece; the mysterious middle section features plucked strings and harmonics.

4: Rigaudon, in memory of Pierre and Pascal Gaudin: A rigaudon is a type of French baroque dance that is lively and in duple meter (or two beats to a bar). In this fast movement, the strings and winds alternate in importance. Listen for how each solo wind instrument is showcased.

Gabriel Fauré1845-1924

Gabriel Fauré was a French organist, pianist, and composer. Though

he was best known as an organist and teacher

until middle age, by the end of his life he had

become one of France’s most popular composers.

Fauré’s music is often seen as a stylistic link between the musical

periods of Romanticism and

Modernism.

Romanticisim was a musical period spanning the 19th century with an emphasis on emotion and song-like melodies.

Modernism was an era at the beginning of the 20th

century where composers began to challenge the traditional ways of composing music.

Fauré’s music is:

• Full of melodies and harmonies

• Often rambling, like a long walk in the woods

Fauré 1914-1920

In 1905, Fauré became head of the Paris Conservatoire. He upset many professors by including contemporary music in the curriculum and changing how students were admitted and graded. The Conservatoire stayed open during World War I, but there were fewer students because many young men were in the armed forces.

During the war, Faurébegan to lose his hearing and he would eventually become completely deaf. Despite ill health and worry for his son fighting in the army, Fauré composed a lot of music during the war.

In January 1920, at the age of 74, Fauré became seriously ill with the new influenza. He survived but retired from his position at the Conservatoire later that year because the flu had made him weaker.

Terms:• Conservatoire is the French word for conservatory.

A conservatory is a university where people study art, like music, theatre, or visual art.• Contemporary means occurring at the same time.

Music contemporary to Fauré means music written while he was alive. Contemporary music for us is music that is being written now.

Fauré: Masques et Bergamasques

Masques et Bergamasques was composed as incidental music for a one-act comic play adapted from Verlaine by René Fauchois about Italian comedians on their day off. The play premiered in Monte Carlo in 1919 and the sheet music was published that same year. The play was first performed in Paris in March 1920, after Fauré recovered from influenza.

The music for the play had 8 pieces, including several songs sung by a tenor or a chorus. The published orchestral suite leaves out the movements with singers and is only four movements. It is one of the only orchestra works by Fauré, who is better known for chamber music.

Ouverture: Ouverture means opening and is usually the first movement in a suite of music. This movement is playful and fast!

Menuet: A menuet is an elegant and stately piece based on a 17th century dance in A-B-A form (i.e., the end of the piece echoes the beginning)

Gavotte: A gavotte is also a Baroque dance in A-B-A form, but it is in common time (4 beats to a bar), beginning on the third beat of the bar.

Pastorale: Pastorale is music that portrays the countryside. This is calm, melodic piece using a gentle rocking rhythm.

Incidental music is music composed for the background of a play or film to create a mood or feeling (like a film score)

Igor Stravinsky1882 - 1971

Igor Stravinsky was a Russian composer, pianist,

and conductor, considered one of the

most important composers of the 20th

century

Stravinsky is best known for the music

he composed for ballet, including The Firebird and The Rite

of Spring

Stravinsky composed in many different styles including neoclassicism,

modernism, and serialism.

Serialism is a composition technique that uses a fixed series

of notes.

Stravinsky’s music is:

• Cutting-edge• Colorful and dramatic• Rhythmically complex

Stravinsky in Switzerland: 1914 – 1920

Stravinsky had his first big period of success from 1910-1913. The Ballet Russes, a Parisian ballet company formed by Russian artists, premiered three ballets with music by Stravinsky: Firebird, Petrouchka, and The Rite of Spring.

When World War I started Stravinsky and his family moved to Switzerland . In 1917, the Russian Revolution broke out and all of Stravinsky’s property in Russia was confiscated. Stravinsky’s French and Russian sponsors were losing money, too, and there was no funding for the big ballets that Stravinsky had been writing.

Stravinsky began composing works for smaller groups that were cheaper to perform. One was L’histoire de soldat (A Soldier’s Tale), a theatrical production with a small group of musicians and actors that was scheduled to tour Switzerland.

After L’histoire premiered in September 1918, members of the cast and crew became sick with the new flu and the tour was cancelled. Stravinsky himself caught the flu in early 1919.

Stravinsky composed many other works for duets (two instruments) , quartets (four instruments), and small ensembles while he lived in Switzerland. In the summer of 1920, Stravinsky and his family moved to France. They lived there until the start of World War II in 1939, after which they moved to the United States.

Stravinsky: Suites No. 1 and No. 2 for Small Orchestra

Suite No. 1 and Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra are orchestrations of a series of piano duets Stravinsky

composed to teach his young children while they

were living in Switzerland.

Three Easy Pieces (1915) and Five Easy Pieces

(1917) were written so that one of the two piano parts was easier than the other, allowing Stravinsky

and his children to play together.

In 1921 Stravinsky arranged the works for chamber orchestra. The

first four movements of Five Easy Pieces became Suite

No. 1, and the fifth movement was added to the end of the Three Easy Pieces

to round out Suite No. 2

Stravinsky: Suite No. 1 for Small Orchestra

Suite No. 11. Andante: A short piece made from repeated small rhythmic and melodic building blocks.2. Napolitana: A minimalistic fast piece based on an Italian folk dance form, with a comic ending.3. Española: Different instruments play their own melodies, which are layered in a mash-up.4. Balalaika: Strings accompany the wind instruments, and there are occasional outbursts from the whole orchestra.

• Andante means at a walking pace.

• A Napolitana is a 16th century dance from Naples, Italy.

• Española means Spanish. This movement was inspired by Stravinsky’s travels in Spain.

• A Balalaika is a Russian stringed instrument that is plucked like a guitar.

Stravinsky: Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra

Suite No. 21. March: Solo winds are featured one by one in this rather sinister sounding little piece.2. Waltz: Clarinets play an endless loop while the flutes have bird-like melodies.3. Polka: Trumpet and clarinet are featured soloists in a fast piece that seems to run out of energy.4. Galop: The entire orchestra plays in this exuberant fast piece, interrupted by comical slow sections.

• A March is a musical genre written with 2 or 4 beats to a measure. It originated from music written for the military to accompany soldiers marching.

• A Waltz is a type of dance that originated in Austria, in triple meter with a strong emphasis on the first beat.

• A Polka is a lively, jumping dance that originated in the 19th century in Bohemia (now part of Czechia).

• A Galop is a 19th century dance named after a gallop – or the fastest gait of a horse!

Stravinsky: Ragtime

Ragtime was an early form of jazz in the first years of the 20th century. Ragtime combined the American march with rhythms inspired by African music. Ragtime was the first African-American music to become broadly popular among people of all races in the US and in Europe.

Stravinsky’s first ragtime-inspired piece was the third dance in his theatre piece L’histoire du soldat, which was cancelled due to the 1918 flu pandemic. That same year, he wrote the standalone Ragtime for eleven instruments. While Stravinsky’s Ragtime is different from American rag, you can hear its source of inspiration in Stravinsky’s use of syncopation.

Stravinsky: Duet for Bassoons

Stravinsky composed the Duet for bassoons (sometimes called Lied ohne Name, or Song Without a Name), in 1917 or 1918, but it wasn’t published until after his death.

Syncopation is when the rhythmic accent is shifted, usually by stressing normally unaccented beats.

Questions for Discussion & Reflection (page 1 of 2)

1. If you could write a piece for Orpheus Chamber Orchestra in this pandemic, what would the title be? How would the music feel? What do you think is important to express right now?

2. Ravel is often described as an “Impressionist,” and his music seen in the same spirit as the paintings of artists Claude Monet, Edgar Degas and Georges Seurat. What about Ravel’s music relates to visual art? What pictures do you see in your mind when you listen to the music?

3. In Le tombeau de Couperin, Ravel uses music to remember his friends. What music would you use to send a message to your family or friends? How would you say "I miss you," "I love you," or "Hope you are well," through music? Would you write your own or use someone else's music?

4. Masques et Bergamasques was written as music to accompany a play. Listening to the music, what would be the plot of the play if you were to write it?

Questions for Discussion & Reflection (page 2 of 2)

5. Ravel's composition Le tombeau de Couperin reflects on the sadness of the times and the loss of his friends. Fauré, on the other hand, spent the flu pandemic composing music for Masques et Bergamasques, a fun story about clowns on their day off. Living now during the Covid-19 pandemic, do you find yourself listening more to music that makes you reflect on what you're going through, or happy music that provides a distraction?

6. Stravinsky's Suites for Small Orchestra are orchestrations of pieces he wrote to teach his children how to play the piano while they were hiding out in Switzerland during the war. Has your family come up with any creative ways to learn from home? Is there anything you’ve learned at home that you wouldn’t have learned if you had been at school?

7. The titles of all the movements in both of Stravinsky’s Suites are names of dances. If you were to write a suite for orchestra, what dances would you use? And what would be the *orchestration for the piece? *Orchestration is the combination of instruments a composer uses to create the music.

Thank you for listening!

Bibliography (page 1 of 4)

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Counts, Jeff. “Stravinsky – Suite 1 and 2 for Small Orchestra.” Utah Symphony, https://utahsymphony.org/explore/2011/08/stravinsky-suite-1-and-2-for-small-orchestra/. Accessed 30 April 2020.

Drummond, John, host. “Interrupted Cadences - Stravinsky and the Spanish ‘flu.” The Sunday Feature, RNZ, 11 December 2016. RNZ, https://www.rnz.co.nz/concert/programmes/sundayfeature/audio/201819385/interrupted-cadences-stravinsky-and-the-spanish-flu.

Fauré, Gabriel, composer. “Masques et Bergamasques.” Pavane – Ravel, Satie, & Fauré, performance by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Grammophon, 1995.

“Biography.” Fondation Igor Stravinsky, https://fondation-igor-stravinsky.org/en/composer/biography/. Accessed 30 April 2020.

Bibliography (page 2 of 4)

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Huscher, Phillip. “Program Notes, Gabriel Fauré - Suite from Masques et bergamasques, Op. 112.” Chicago Symphony Orchestra, https://cso.org/uploadedFiles/1_Tickets_and_Events/Program_Notes/042910_ProgramNotes_Faurq_Masques-bergamasques.pdf. Accessed 30 April 2020.

Huscher, Phillip. “Program Notes, Maurice Ravel – Le tombeau de Couperin, Suite for Orchestra.” Chicago Symphony Orchestra, https://cso.org/uploadedFiles/1_Tickets_and_Events/Program_Notes/010710_ProgramNotes_Ravel_Le_tombeau.pdf. Accessed 30 April 2020.

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Leonard, James. “Igor Stravinsky, Easy Pieces (3) for piano, 4 hands.” All Music, https://www.allmusic.com/composition/easy-pieces-3-for-piano-4-hands-mc0002523595. Accessed 30 April 2020.

Bibliography (page 3 of 4)

Nectoux, Jean-Michel. Gabriel Fauré: A Musical Life. Translated by Roger Nichols, Cambridge University Press, 1991.

Nectoux, Jean-Michel, editor. Gabriel Fauré: His Life Through His Letters. Translated by J. A. Underwood, Marion Boyars Publishers, 1984.

O’Donovan, Heather. “Music in the Time of Pandemic: Brilliant Compositions Written in the Years of the Spanish Influenza.” WQXR, https://www.wqxr.org/story/pandemic-music-spanish-1918-influenza/. Accessed 30 April 2020.

Orledge, Robert. Gabriel Fauré. London, Eulenberg Books, 1979.

Rao, Arun. Pierrots Fâchés avec la Lune: Debussy, Fauré and Ravel during World War 1. 2013. Technological University Dublin, Masters Dissertation. Arrow@TU Dublin, https://arrow.tudublin.ie/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=aaconmusdiss/.

Ravel, Maurice, composer. “Le tombeau de Couperin.” Pavane – Ravel, Satie, & Fauré, performance by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Grammophon, 1995.

Bibliography (page 4 of 4)

Stravinsky, Igor. “Igor Stravinsky: An Autobiography.” Internet Archive, https://archive.org/stream/igorstravinskyan002221mbp/igorstravinskyan002221mbp_djvu.txt. Accessed 1 May 2020.

Stravinsky, Igor, composer. “Ragtime.” Stravinsky: Shadow Dances, performance by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Grammophon, 1999.

Stravinsky, Igor, composer. “Duet for Bassoons.” Stravinsky: Shadow Dances, performance by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Grammophon, 1999.

Stravinsky, Igor, composer. “Suite No. 1 for Small Orchestra.” Stravinsky: Shadow Dances, performance by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Grammophon, 1999.

Stravinsky, Igor, composer. “Suite No. 2 for Small Orchestra.” Stravinsky: Shadow Dances, performance by Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Deutsche Grammophon, 1999.

Tobias, Marianne Williams. “Le tombeau de Couperin.” Indianapolis Symphony, https://www.indianapolissymphony.org/about/archive/program-notes/maurice-ravel/le-tombeau-de-Couperin. Accessed 30 April 2020.

Image Sources (page 1 of 2)

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Delaunay, Robert. Igor Stravinsky. 1918. Museum New Walk, Leicester. Arthive, https://arthive.com/robertdelaunay/works/508139~Igor_Stravinsky

Kheir, Fadi. Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. 2019.

Kirchner, Ernst Ludwig. Selbstbildnis als Kranker. 1918. Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich. Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ernst_Ludwig_Kirchner_Selbstbildnis_als_Kranker_1918-1.jpg

Monet, Claude. Le bassin aux nymphéas. 1919. Private Collection. Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Le_bassin_aux_nymph%C3%A9as_-_Claude_Monet.jpg

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Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Cover image. Stravinsky: Shadow Dances. Deutsche Grammophon, 1999. Amazon, https://www.amazon.com/Stravinsky-Shadow-Orpheus-Chamber-Orchestra/dp/B000V6U9FE

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