More on KW and Orchestra of the Swan from Classical Music Mag
February 9th, 2010
Performer’s Perspective- Mahler 3, a shout-out
February 9th, 2010
The Bridgewater Hall- Mahler in Manchester
Mahler in Manchester continues on February 12, 2010 at The Bridgewater Hall. The BBC Philharmonc and Vassily Sinaisky perform Mahler’s Symphony no. 3 in D minor and the premiere of Cerha’s “Like a Tragicomedy.”
On its most basic level, what most musicians, musicologists and listeners call “interpretation” is, when done right, basically a 3 step process.
1- Observation. What is there in the score?
2- Examination. Why is it there?
3- Application. What do we do with knowledge we’ve gained in the first two steps?
What do you see in the score, why is it there, and what do you do with it?
Performer’s Perspective- Let’s Dance
January 29th, 2010
Tomorrow I am conducting a Viennafest concert with the Surrey Mozart Players. It’s been several years since I did a proper Viennafest show- the last time was in 2005. I programmed that event partly as a warm up for our first Mahler symphony (the 2nd) which we did at the end of that season with my former orchestra, the Oregon East Symphony.
It was interesting that almost nobody in the orchestra or the audience twigged to my hidden purpose- of course, these concerts can and should always be wonderful musical occasions in their own right, but I also think that understanding the language of Viennese music- not just the Strauss family, but Suppé, Niccolai and Kalman, is essential for understanding the performing language of Mahler.
For all that Mahler was incredibly precise in his notation, we know from the surviving piano rolls of his playing that his approach to rhythm was far from literal. In the piano roll of the 1st Mvt. of his 5th symphony he seems to play the dotted rhythms differently every time. I mentioned the other day how he asks for some rhythms, like the waltz rhythm in the 3rd mvt the same work, to be stylized, but I’m sure there are many other places in his music where a really stylistically sensitive performance would go far beyond a mathematical rendering of the rhythms on the page.
Performer’s Perspective- Mahler 2, a roadmap
January 28th, 2010
The Bridgewater Hall- Mahler in Manchester
The Hallé perform Mahler’s 2nd Symhony,’Resurrection ,’ this Thursday, the 28th of January at 7:30 PM in the Bridgewater hall, under the direction of Marcus Stenz.
As you are getting ready to hear this week’s performance of Mahler 2 (live, or on the radio in April), you may wish to read over the essays I wrote on the work in 2006, complete with lots of musical examples. It’s a pretty comprehensive roadmap to Mahler 2, if I say so myself.
Click here to start the interactive Mahler 2 Notes
Performer’s Perspective- Das Lied von der Erde, a rebirth
January 28th, 2010
The Bridgewater Hall- Mahler in Manchester
Saturday the 30th of January is Mahler day at the Bridgewater Hall. Manchester Camerata are performing the exquisite chamber version of Das Lied von der Erde, Beethoven’s 6th Symphony and the premiere of a new work by Bushra El Turk under the baton of their music director, Douglas Boyd. The concert is at 7:30 PM
The concert is the culmination of a day of exploration that begins at 1:30 PM with a study day hosted by Peter Davison, Artistic Consultant to the Bridgewater Hall (and a distinguished expert on the music of Mahler) and Professor Julien Johnson, author of the new Mahler study “Mahler’s Voices.” At 5:00 PM, Stephen Johnson hosts a taping of a special episode of Discovering Music, exploring the piece with live demonstrations from the members of Manchester Camerata and soloists Jane Irwin and Peter Weld.
It’s probably no coincidence that the two most popular composers of the 20th Century, Shostakovich and Mahler, are also the two whose autobiographies are most intimately associated with their work. However, although their musical work may have been shaped in part by the circumstances of their lives, it is also important to remember that both of them wrote a great deal of music for reasons that transcended the events and influences of their day-to-day existence.
The biographical story behind Das Lied von der Erde, or The Song of the Earth is well known. We often read that Mahler wrote the piece in response to the news that he had a fatal heart condition, and that the final song in the cycle “Der Abschied,” or “The Farewell,” was, in effect, his farewell to life itself.
At the beginning of 1907, Mahler was probably the most famous and successful musician in the world. He had been the music director of the Vienna Court Opera for 10 years, a record for durability which still stands 100 years later, and he had finally become widely recognized as one of the great composers of his time. However, the never-ending anti-Semitic attacks in the press and within the opera house that he had always dealt with drove him from the job in May of that year. In June he and his family went to their summer retreat Maiernigg where Mahler did almost all of his composing, but within days of their arrival his oldest daughter, Maria, had contracted scarlet fever. Mahler was devastated by her death. During the last stages of her illness a doctor examined Mahler himself and found that he had a heart-valve problem that, in those days, was invariably fatal.
Throughout most of his adult life, Mahler had used the summers to walk in the mountains and compose, and for him the two activities were inextricably intertwined. He often said that he did all of his composing while hiking, and that the time at his desk was the purely clerical and technical work of writing down what he’d heard while out and about in nature. Under doctor’s orders to avoid exertion of any kind, and in shock at the loss of his daughter, his creative output was completely stalled.
In October of 1907, the poet Hans Bethge published The Chinese Flute, the collection of free translations of ancient Chinese poems that Mahler used as the basis for Das Lied von der Erde. The working year of 1907-8 saw Mahler going to New York to start a new professional life. When he returned to Europe for the summer of 1908, he was faced with a mixture of familiarity and strangeness. The long walks, which had been so central to his life for so long, were now strictly forbidden, and so he feared he would be unable to compose, but as the summer went on, he found his muse returning. By late July, the individual songs had begun to come to him, starting with the second “The Lonely One in Autumn.” Within the amazing period of six weeks, he’d completed all six songs, gradually moving from the idea of a song cycle into the new world of a song symphony.
Tempting as it is to see this great work simply as Mahler’s commentary on his own impending death, it is worth remembering that it was also creative rebirth for him. After the cataclysms of 1907, Mahler had found a new job, a new future and a new way of composing. In every sense, Das Lied von der Erde marked a huge move forward for Mahler- his harmonic language had grown enormously since the Eighth Symphony, his use of the orchestra had become even more daring and visionary, and he had found a whole new way of integrating language and musical form. The last three years of Mahler’s life were one of his most productive periods- the late triptych of DlvdE, the Ninth and the very-nearly finished Tenth symphonies together represent a huge proportion of his life’s work, in terms of what he accomplished artistically, the progress he made in developing his musical language and technique, and in terms of the sheer volume of music he composed.
There is absolutely no evidence that he viewed any of these pieces as his last. Appearances of autobiography in Mahler’s music can be misleading. Remember, he wrote Kindertotenlieder, or Songs on the Death of Children, well before his daughter’s death, and he even said that he could not have written the piece after Maria died. The tragic Sixth Symphony was written at the high point of his personal and professional life. It is entirely possible, even highly likely, that the contemplation of mortality in Das Lied was also intended to be perceived as universal, and not limited to his own experience. Mortality is a central issue in every one of Mahler’s symphonies, from the Funeral March in the First Symphony to the ecstatic final pages of the Tenth.
These late works represent a progression for Mahler, but not a departure- he continued to deal with the same questions that had been central to his work throughout his life. Mahler wrote for the future, and for all humanity- I don’t think it was ever his intention to limit the scope of his music to simply being a diary of his own fears and tragedies. I find the message of Mahler’s late music, of all of Mahler’s music, to be profoundly universal- personal, yes, but never self-obsessed.
Yet, near the very end of The Farewell, when Mahler takes the pen from the poet’s hand and writes “My heart is still and awaits its hour,” he knew all too well that the hour was coming when his heart would be literally still forever. At this moment introduces a modified (written with a whole-tone scale instead of in E flat major) quote of the music he used in the Second symphony to set the words “Sterbern werd ich, um zu leben!” or “I shall die so that I may live again.”
Is it autobiography?
These were the last words Mahler ever set to music, and, unlike the rest of the Song of the Earth, they were not those of an ancient poet, but his own. Mahler, the master of contradiction and paradox, ends a work that is so universal in scope with just the briefest hint of autobiography- almost a secret confession, hidden in this epic panorama.
(A slightly different version of this essay appeared here in 2007).
Performer’s Perspective- Mahler 2, a moment
January 25th, 2010
The Bridgewater Hall- Mahler in Manchester
The Hallé perform Mahler’s 2nd Symhony,’Resurrection ,’ this Thursday, the 28th of January at 7:30 PM in the Bridgewater hall, under the direction of Marcus Stenz.
My wife and I call Mahler 2 “the Mahler symphony of “this is the best moment in the piece” moments.”
From the bracing opening to the shattering climax of the first movement, from the infinitely elegant pizzicato return of the theme of the 2nd movement to the bizarre and jarring opening of the 3rd, from the serene beauty of Urlicht, the astounding song that makes up the fourth movement, to the portentious and awe inspiring first pages of the Finale, it is a piece that again and again has you saying “I love this bit- this is the best moment in the piece.”
I want to talk about one of those moments today: perhaps one that on first glance is not as obvious as those above, but one that, once you become aware of it, changes your whole sense of the shape of the piece.
To talk about this spot, I need to speak for a moment about keys.
Discussions of keys are one of those things that many listeners find to be a little too technical. They often say “I don’t have perfect pitch, I can’t tell C minor from D minor, so what does it matter to me what key something is in? I just want to enjoy the music and not be reminded of what I don’t understand or can’t hear.”
Well, have no fear- this is not going to be an ear training test.
Conductor Conversations- Gianandrea Noseda on Mahler
January 17th, 2010
The Bridgewater Hall- Mahler in Manchester
Our first “conductor conversation” for Mahler in Manchester took place on Friday at Studio 7 in Manchester. I met Gianandrea after his final rehearsal of Kurt Schwertsik’s Nachtmusiken- the orchestra was on great form, and the new piece is very good.
He’s been called “the conductor who could save us all.” Since joining the BBC Philharmonic as Principal Conductor in 2001, he has amassed an impressive array of recordings and broadcasts, and his 2005 series of Beethoven symphony mp3’s made for the BBC Radio 3 website remain the most popular collection of downloads in music history.
In 1997 Gianandrea became the first foreign Principal Guest Conductor at the Mariinsky Theatre, whose forces he has conducted both in St Petersburg and on tour. In 2002 he made his debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York (returning in 2006 and 2007). In September last year he became Music Director at Teatro Regio in Turin, one of Europe’s leading opera houses, and he has also appeared with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, and La Scala, Milan. Gianandrea is Principal Conductor of the Orquesta de Cadaqués in Spain and Artistic Director of the Stresa Festival on the shores of Lake Maggiore, near his home in northern Italy.
Through his association with the BBC Philharmonic, Gianandrea is an exclusive artist of Chandos Records. He has released 16 recordings, which include his ongoing exploration of Liszt’s orchestral music, as well as discs of Dallapiccola, Dvorák, Karlowicz, Mahler, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff, Respighi, Shostakovich and Smetana. All have been favourably reviewed worldwide.
Vftp- Gianandrea Noseda Mahler Podcast 128
Performer’s Perspective- Mahler 1, a riddle
January 14th, 2010
The Bridgewater Hall- Mahler in Manchester
Mahler in Manchester begins this weekend, as Gianandrea Noseda leads the BBC Philharmonic in Mahler’s 1st Symphony. The performance takes place at 7:30 PM on the 16th of January, 2010 in The Bridgewater Hall
I promised, or at least hinted at, a riddle in Mahler 1 to be discussed, and sure enough, I’ve chosen one of the many.
In the previous post, I mentioned that in earlier generations many listeners and performers would not have known the other Mahler symphonies very well, and would instead seen it in primarily in relation to other late 19th. C symphonists. Just as it was the first Mahler many of us heard as audience members, it was also the first Mahler many of us learned as performers. Now that many of us know most of his music, it seems likely that that familiarity changes how we hear Mahler’s First Symphony. What once seemed gargantuan now seems more modest (but hardly modest!), what once seemed wild and experimental now seems far more classical (but hardly classical!).
The question is, does our knowledge of and understanding of the later Mahler symphonies change how we perform Mahler’s 1st?
A view from the podium, Mahler, Mahler in Manchester, Nuts and bolts
Performer’s Perspective- Mahler 1, a challenge
January 13th, 2010
The Bridgewater Hall- Mahler in Manchester
Mahler in Manchester begins this weekend, as Gianandrea Noseda leads the BBC Philharmonic in Mahler’s 1st Symphony. The performance takes place at 7:30 PM on the 16th of January, 2010 in The Bridgewater Hall
Even today, the First probably remains Mahler’s most popular piece- a generation ago, it was probably his only popular piece. How times have changed. It was the first Mahler work I heard in concert, and it made quite an impression on me.
A generation ago, a performer might have been tempted to compare it first to other symphonic works by Dvorak, Brahms, Beethoven or Tchaikovsky. A musician today is more likely to compare it to the other Mahler symphonies, and the works of people like Bruckner and Shostakovich. In comparison to the symphonies of his predecessors, Mahler 1 looks gargantuan in every way. Longer than just about any symphony since Beethoven 9, the wind section for Mahler’s first symphony is nearly twice the size of that for any of the Brahms, Dvorak or Tchaikovskys- 7 or 8 horns instead of the usual 4, 4 of each woodwind instead of the usual 2-3 and so on.
Now that we live in an age where almost every musician not only knows all of the Mahler symphonies but probably has a set of recordings (or several) at home, the First looks more modest. Compared to Bruckner or Shostakovich, it doesn’t look that massive. It is his shortest symphony, one of his smallest orchestras (although the 4th and 5th are smaller), and in many ways the most accessible technically and musically. How times have changed.
Still, every Mahler symphony has its challenges and its riddles for the performer to come to terms with. It is not a work to underestimate.
Performer’s Perspective- Is Mahler’s music hard(er) to conduct?
January 12th, 2010
“Is Mahler’s music more difficult to conduct than that of other composers?”
When I was asked this question just the other day it was by no means for the first time.
It is not hard to understand why a listener might suspect that Mahler’s music is harder to conduct than that of most other composers- he writes much of incredibly complexity, subtlety and variety on a vast scale. There is a lot going on all the time, and it goes on for a long time. The sheer psychophysical impact of a work like the 2nd Symphony is so powerful that it seems that it must be the most difficult thing in the world to perform.
So is it uniquely hard to perform?
Well….. Mahler is a composer of paradoxes and dichotomies, so it probably won’t surprise you if I tell you that it is, and it isn’t….
Vftp- Official Blog of Mahler in Manchester
January 11th, 2010
We’re very excited to announce that A View from the Podium is going to be the official blog of The Bridgewater Hall’s “Mahler in Manchester” festival. You can visit our welcome page here.
Mahler content is nothing new at Vftp, and you can continue to access all of it by visiting the “Mahler” category. The focus of the new series for The Bridgewater is “A Performer’s Perspective,” and we’ll have a new, narrower category for that series here.
I think this is going to be an exciting project. I’m hoping to lure some friends and colleagues into contributing. The festival begins on January 16th with a BBC Philharmonic performance of Mahler 1 conducted by Gianandrea Noseda. Weather permitting, I’ll interviewing Gianandrea later this week, and that will be available as a podcast here.
The basic goal of the series is to focus on one unique challenge, question or problem at a time that is somehow unique to the piece at hand.
The BBC Phil are pairing Mahler 1 with the premiere of Nachtmusiken by Kurt Schwertsik- every symphony in this year’s cycle is being partnered with a new work commissioned by the resident orchestras. What could be a more appropriate celebration of a composer whose music remains forever modern and forever fresh?
I hope I can make this series a fresh one- I’m taking my inspiration from the great John Madden, the legendary American football coach and commentator. In addition to having a tremendous repertoire of vocal sound effects at this disposal, he had a gift for helping viewers to understand the decisions of the players and coaches in the game. Who knows, maybe I’ll even bust out a telestrator for one of these posts…
We really love Gramophone
January 9th, 2010
If one happens to be thumbing through the February issue of Gramophone, you might notice a nice mention of my Orchestra of the Swan appointment on page 14- we even got a picture. You can find me right next to the piece on James Galway. I only mention this because I’ve never been in a position to say- “you can find me right next to the piece on James Galway.”
In other media news, heaven help me, I’ve finally started to use the Twitter account someone talked me into setting up over a year ago. It is strangely addictive and a nice way of sharing links to interesting bits of new and writing. My profile is here- http://twitter.com/kennethwoods.
3 Months
January 9th, 2010
* When conductors (particularly guest conductors) ask for specific things to be put into the parts, they should have the good manners to do so well in advance of the first rehearsal. And that doesn’t mean two weeks, it means THREE MONTHS OR MORE. In most major orchestras, the organization gets in touch with the conductor many months in advance to inquire (usually through a questionnaire) whether they are providing materials, requesting a particular edition, or requiring any cuts, special markings, etc. If the conductor does not answer the questions until a week or two before the rehearsals/performances, then he/she cannot expect additional work to be done. By then the parts are out to the players having long-since been bowed and prepared by the library, and we don’t have the time to stop other preparation to un-do and re-do work that we already spent weeks working on. Please don’t put us in that position, or, if you do, please be gracious when you are told that it is too late!
Words for every conductor to remember from “From The Orchestra Library,” the marvelous blog of Karen Schnackenberg, librarian of the Dallas Symphony
Kindertotenlieder I- Tempo?
January 6th, 2010
I had an email from a very gifted composer friend the other day which seemed fodder for a blog post……
Hey Ken,
I recently turned on some Korean and Japanese composers to western dramatic music, and directed them specifically to Mahler. Interestingly, I told them to start with Kindertotenleider, and they all ran into your recordings.
While checking out your performance in Mexico City, I couldn’t help notice the tempo on the first movement. Its more brisk/slightly-faster than other recordings I’ve heard. I found an unexpected anxiety that comes form the music at that pace, which was unexpected….but I wonder what what guides your impulses for that movement? Anything you do that is out of the ordinary for most??
I ask because of an ever growing curiosity in Mahler’s perplexing music, and how its led….
Hope all is well!!
~Chris
Chris-
Great to hear from you, as always.
I can’t claim too much for my tempo in Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n- I’m sure there are even faster performances as well as many that are slower. I suppose Jesus Suaste and I arrived at that tempo through a mixture of artsy-fartsy deep thinking, simple obedience and mundane practicality.
On the “mundane practicality” front, we had to consider that Toluca (where this was filmed- we did it again in Mexico City the next day) is more than a mile above sea level (2,667 m (8,750 ft)) , and Jesus lives on the sea, which means there were places were we couldn’t go as slowly as we might have at a lower altitude. In this case, our preferred tempo was the one we ended up at, which gave him plenty of air for the phrase even at that altitude. However, there were other spots where we had to be more cautious, especially early in the week- in some instances, after a few days and a bit of acclimatization, we could take more time.
Then, there is simple obedience- Mahler makrs the movement “Langsam und schwermutig” (slowly and melancholy), but also “nicht schleppend” or “not dragging.” What is the threshold of “schleppend.” It’s hard to define the threshold of schlepping as a scientific matter, but I know it when I feel it. Often in Mahler, when we advises us to not do something, it is his way of gently suggesting we do the opposity. “Nicth eilen,” or “not hurried,” can mean to relax, “nicht schleppend” can mean to move it along. In this instance, I wanted to be true to Mahler’s instruction by avoiding any hint of stasis.
There are interesting features in the opening that hint at why Mahler asks us not to schlep- the long sequences need to hang together, the harmonic rhythm is fairly slow, and we need to hear the phrases as coherent units.
Also, the text of the song and its setting is telling. The narrator sings “Now will the sun brightly rise as if no misfortune came in the night.” However, the musical line does not rise- it is a descending sequence. It seems that the poet is not simply melancholy, but still deeply conflicted- trying to assert some sense of hope and failing. This friction, this tension between what the poet says (now the sun will brightly rise) and what we know the truth of his situation to be, all of this seems to argue for a slightly more agitated mood at the beginning.
Readers can check out the performance in question here-
There is lots more on Kindertotenlieder around the blog-
http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2007/01/18/kindertotenlieder-3-spot-the-ghost/
http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2007/01/10/kindertotenlieder-3-wenn-dein-mutterlein/
http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2007/01/10/ktl2-so-what-do-all-those-notes-really-mean/
http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2007/01/09/ktl-2-i-can-feel-it-in-air-tonight/
http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2007/01/07/kindertotenlieder-2-nun-seh-ich-wohl/
http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2007/01/07/kindertotenleider-1-snapshots-of-a-first-rehearsal/
http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2007/01/04/kindertotenlieder-1-nun-will-die-sonn-so-hell-aufgehn/
http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2007/01/02/kindertotenlieder/
2009 Repertoire Report- Bernard Haitink
January 6th, 2010
Well- it turns out that these days, even the king has a website.
My associate and I just had a look around www.bernardhaitink.com and were able to assemble a 2009 repertoire report for the planet’s greatest living conductor.
It’s very much the list you would expect of a maestro at Haitink’s stage of life- made up mostly of the works he is closest to- Beethoven, Bruckner and Mahler lead the way, followed by Haydn, Mozart and Schubert. I’ve got fond memories of seeing him do Britten’s Albert Herring, so it’s no surprise to see he’s been conducting Les Illuminations, which is one of my all-time favorite Britten works (and one I’m doing in a few months for the 2nd time). Haitink has always been committed to Debussy, and he’s done La Mer and the Nocturnes many times this year.
One thing that has always set Haitink apart from other big-time maestros has been his low-key nature and care for being a good colleague. One piece that really jumps out on this list is the Ibert Flute Concerto. Cute piece? Yes. A piece that Haitink is probably desperate to play again in his 80s? Probably not. Still, it was what the orchestra needed from him, and so he did it- ever the unselfish pro.
Forty-two pieces this year. As readers may remember, 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe and Everything.
1- Beethoven- Leonore Overture No. 1
Recent Comments