Musical Movements

Classical or High Art Music and Vernacular or Popular have influenced each other in various ways throughout the twentieth century. Discuss the work of three musicians whose work draws upon Classic.

This essay will discuss three Artists from the twentieth century who were influenced by classical music in some form or another. The order of discussion will be: Modest Mussorgsky from the turn of the century, Sir Paul McCartney and his influence in The Beatles and his other works, and Damon Albarn of split Brit pop specialists Blur. These musicians were all influenced by Classical music and this will be explained throughout the essay, using material on each artist from the internet and the Cambridge music guide, lecture notes and my own knowledge through the years.

Modest Mussorgsky was a postmodernist with a romantic view to life.He was born in Russia in 1839 and died in 1881, aged 42. Again, a great young composer who died young as did Mozart, Schubert and Jimi Hendix, England's very own Henry Purcell and John Lennon were all huge musical talents but lived a short life.

Mussorgsky was the son of a Russian noble family so he was not short of expenses during his childhood and had a normal happy childhood, with a piano to his disposal. (Britannica 1881) After leaving the Army, he held a post for the government due to lack of family estate funds. His mother was a keen pianist and she began teaching him his first notes when he was just six. Like some of Mussorgsky's predecessors, he learned rapidly and by the age of nine he was performing to family and friends the works of Liszt. Already this nine year old was being influenced by predecessors of a classical/romantic origin. His mother saw his potential and arranged private lessons with Anton Herke, a great pianist and pupil of Henselt. Mussorgsky also used to play piano with a German nurse who may have been heavily influenced and aware of Bach, Haydyn, Beethoven and Mozart. Modest even lived up to the name, being too modest; he did not really see himself as a pianist virtuoso and at times was thought by others as not serious enough about his music. He was even described as 'an elegant piano dilettante' by the age of seventeen (Britannic 2012). He then left cadet school and destined for the Army, he joined Preobrazhensky Imperial Life Guards. He later left to become a clerk in the civil service; this was when he actually became a musician, doing live performances whilst working for the government. Unfortunately it was a short career due to his alcoholism, which is thought he developed after the death of his Mother. (Britannic 1881)

Liszt was born in the latter part of the Classical era, although a large part of his work derives from the Romantic era. Therefore, Mussorgsky was to be influenced in a classical way just by learning Liszt at an early age when he was performing difficult works. Mussorgsky played Beethoven pieces too. It can be imagined that Mussorgsky played piano like Liszt or wanted to be as good as the greats he would have heard through his childhood, adopting his mother's approach and influences. In addition, he would improvise Russian folk tunes; and he would have talked over and shared music with a group of people known as 'The Mighty Handful' who changed versions of Liszt' structures. To imagine this, the author of this essay would have to go back to when first deciding to play guitar in 1997, aged 29. At that age the author was just establishing his own genre in music and was certainly not educated enough to understand the good from bad. It could be said: a good melody could be recognised; who does not recognise a good melody! Only when deciding a desire to pursue music as a living, did the author really start to look deeply into the learning side of composition and musical technique. Being a mad Brit-pop, Indie fan who loved anything sounding English, the first chords the author would strum would be Champagne Supernova from Oasis. But the author wanted to learn a bit more in depth to greater the musical thirst for knowledge, to understand composition and structure, maybe learning to play a new instrument and experimenting with synthesizers and electronically created music. The author enrolled on a music management course to learn how to sell music and the business aspects of the music industry, ranging from touring, artist management, reviewing to event management. Appreciation of a wider range of music developed. At the same time, the author became a manager for the band, Rawcuss, moving from being a producer of music to a music manager. Rawcuss are a three-piece indie rock band from Manchester, consisting of a lead guitarist, singer bass player and drummer, producing a Britpop sound which can be heard in their music, showing the influence of bands such as Radiohead and Blur.

Radiohead and Blur, who established them selves as a High Art talent, used a far wider arrangement of progressions and interesting chords. Their influences can be seen as writing music for Britain in an English manner using Romanticism values, as their predecessors had done so before. Music which is very English and romantic and sometimes melancholy, for example the track "Karma Police" works around values of life in England. Radiohead and Blur are influenced by their predecessors of a Classical form, including their lookout on the surroundings, though with a less classical form, that is if the word 'classical' is used these days as the 'opposite to pop' in British language today. Mussorgsky is a musician who is less influenced than most but more original and authentic than most. Not forgetting Rimsky-Korsakov finished and edited a lot of Mussorgsky's works; Rimsky-Korsakov was a patriotic Russian with romantic views about ancient Russia and wanted to incorporate in his music elements from village songs he had heard; from Cossack and Caucasian dances, from church chants and the tolling of church bells (to the point where the bell tolling became a cliché). The Five's music became filled with imitative sounds of Russian life. The structures still used the classical form although Mussorgsky would try to put a real sense of Russian nationalism into his work and was very influenced by his visit to Moscow. Modest Mussorgsky appreciated childhood influences in his approach to music, and became self-taught, developing his final results, some of which he did not finish. As Mussorgsky spent most of his career in the Army, it is questionable whether he really wanted a full time music career. The author of this essay was accepted into the army in 1997 but was turned down as a mechanic in the Engineers due to being colour-blind,