Gypsy Music in European Culture: From the Late Eighteenth to the Early Twentieth Centuries

9 | Gypsy Motifs in Instrumental Works

chapter nine ••••• Gypsy Motifs in Instrumental Works Across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, one area in which Gypsy motifs were generally absent was longer-form concert works, a gap that may be attributed to composers’ inadequate knowledge of Romany music. Exceptions include Henryk Wieniawski’s use of a Gypsy-sounding name (à la Zingara) to subtitle the third and final part of his II Violin Concerto in D minor (op. 22; first presented in public in 1862 but published in 1879)—with the violin being the link to the Gypsies—a piece that incidentally was dedicated to Sarasate, who so willingly employed Gypsy themes in his compositions. In 1924, Maurice Ravel’s orchestral poem “Tzigane”—initially for violin and piano and then for violin and orchestra—alluded to Hungarian Gypsies both in its title and by employing the augmented second interval. Even more strikingly, the piece placed considerable technical demands on the solo violin performer, recalling Gypsyviolinvirtuosity.Thepiecestartsslowlywithanelaborateviolincadence aboundinginflageolets,doublestops,pizzicato,andothervirtuosiceffects.The work’ssubsequentfrequenttempochangesrecalltheczardas,althoughthecomposition is sometimes referred to as a rhapsody, a genre associated with Gypsy connotations and also utilized in 1844 by Constantin Julius Becker (1811–1859) in his Die Zigeuner Rhapsodie (op. 31). The modest sampling of orchestral compositions linked to Gypsy material make characteristic use of genres such as capriccio and fantasy. In 1894, for example , Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873–1943) wrote Caprice bohémien for orchestra, with the variable moods associated with the title’s “capriccio” readily linked to a Gypsy trait. Sergei Prokofiev likewise composed his Gypsy Fantasy (op. 127; 1951) in the context of his own ballet The Stone Flower (mentioned in chapter 7). The instrumental miniature, and particularly the piano miniature, peaked as a form in the nineteenth century, as we saw earlier. And this form would be the springboard for many composers to explore Gypsy subject matter. References Motifs in Instrumental Works 201 included geographical nods to Spain, Hungary, and Russia as well as romantic allusions to the figure of the wanderer and, by extension, the artist type as a peripatetic Gypsy, including in piece’s titles. The zingarella, for its part, developed in a sort of parallel with the miniature, and thus the two forms would influence each other. Two other nineteenth-century trends would eventually affect the development of the miniature on Gypsy themes, with one resulting in “songs without words” and another in compositions set to dance rhythms. Also, musical stage works (mainly opera and, later, operetta) influenced Gypsy instrumentalminiaturesbyinfusingthemwithportrayalsofGypsynessthatwere conventional within European culture. Finally, the style brillant would leave a clear mark on instrumental miniatures with Gypsy connotations. Earlynineteenth-centuryfascinationwithGypsycontentgravitatedtoSpanish culture. Then, for a period in the later nineteenth century, attention drifted toward the Hungarian Gypsy tradition, thanks largely to the publication of Liszt’s bookaswellasthebroadermusicalactivityofHungarianGypsiesacross Europe. Such an orientation would be strengthened by the Hungarian content in Viennese operetta, a form that would enjoy great popularity well into the twentieth century. By the later nineteenth and, particularly, the early twentieth century, however, attention would recenter on Gypsy flamenco themes within the national Spanish idiom, a focus reflected in the miniatures of the day. Early Instrumental Miniatures with Gypsy Connotations The earliest so-called Gypsy miniatures often quoted opera works that only referred to Gypsies in their titles. In certain harpsichord works dating to the eighteenth century, titles suggested some connection with Gypsy culture through the word bohémienne. For example, in the collection Premier receüil de contradanses et la table par lettre alphabétique et chiffree (1737), by Jean Leclerc, the title “La Boëmiene” is assigned to number 99 on page 37. ThecollectionMorceauxpourclavecin,byacertainLegrand(acommonname among musicians in France at the time) also dates from the eighteenth century (Fuller 2001, 483); on page 5, we see “La Bohémienne: Air italien.” As in other selections from the volume, this piece is brief and based mainly on reprises and variations, in G minor with a 2/4 meter, with the melody playing an overriding role.Thework—whoseharmonychangesrelativelyrarely,movingbetweenthe chords of the triad—possesses certain characteristics typical for the zingarella, which would not experience its heyday until early in the next century. 202 19th- & Early 20th-Century Composers Published in the 1760s, Charles-François Clement’s Journals de clavecin comprised twelve booklets, with one for each month of the year and two suites in each. The subtitle announced these pieces to be Ariettes des Comedies; Intermedes ; et Opera Comiques, qui ont eu le plus de...