Kenneth Woods- A View From the Podium

The Bridgewater Hall- Mahler in Manchester

The Hallé will be performing Mahler’s 4th Symphony with their principal guest conductor, Marcus Stenz, this Thursday, the 18th of February. Also on the programme is “Blumine,” originally part of the 1st Symphony of Mahler, and the premiere of Schubert’s Einsamkeit, as orchestrated byDetlev Glanert.

Gustav Mahler is the composer of contradictions and paradoxes. He is the composer of ambiguities, contrasts, complexities and cognitive dissonance.

Nothing could make this truth more evident than the move from the 3^rd Symphony to the 4^th. *

Read more…

Interactive Program Notes, Mahler, Mahler in Manchester contradiction, Erwin Stein, himmlische Leben, how not to, Mahler, Mahler in Manchester, paradox

“You can only analyze music from beginning to end, because the listener can’t know what they haven’t heard.”

Those words were spoken by my friend David Hoose at the RCICW a few years ago. At first, I thought “that can’t be entirely right,” but as the years go by, I can see more and more that he’s right. I might add this post script

“Or hear what isn’t in the score.”

So, let’s analyze a classical symphony. I’ll tell you which one later.

It begins with an explosion of violent energy- no slow introduction here. The first violins range across octaves with a disjunct theme, underpinned by relentless churning eighth notes in the violas, cellos and basses and syncopations in the seconds. At this temp (Allegro assai), the combination of syncopations and eights creates incredible tension, as the combined effect feels anything but stable. The only sense of stability comes from the phrase structure, which, at first, is predictably four-square.

But there is something else strange and menacing about this opening. It is in a most unusual key- F# minor. The appearance of that key signature tells us that this is not going to be an ordinary work- F# minor is a key that usually only appears in works of high drama, of existential crisis.

The exposition is essentially mono-thematic. The opening melody gradually morphs and evolves into something else, but we never get a clear cut sense transition to a new section or key area or a new theme, instead only the sense of departure, as the evolution of the material gradually makes the theme less and less recognizable, and the general impression more uneasy. Alongside this process of thematic evolution is a progressive breakdown of predictability in the phrase structure. While the first half of the exposition is entirely built of four bar phrases, the second section begins in the middle of a four-bar phrase and has phrases of 4, 5,1, 6, 4, 2, 4,5 and 4 bars. No two consecutive phrases are the same length.

At the end of the exposition, the music simply disintegrates- all of that energy simply evaporates into thin air, leaving nothing but a question mark.

The development starts with a reprise of the opening, now in A major instead of F# minor. Will we see more of A major in this piece? The fact that he underlines this event with a fortissimo (a rarity in classical works and the first in the symphony) seems to point to importance of this particular harmonic turn. As with the exposition, the composer initially creates an impression of familiarity and stability- most of what we hear we have heard before, just in a different key or sequence.

Of course, surprise awaits. Somehow, the tonality works its way back to F#, but this time cadencing very strongly on F # major, a key even rarer and more rarified than F# minor. This arrival precipitates a crisis, as the music collapses again into silence. After a moment’s hesitation, a surprise- we lurch back from the edge of the tonal abyss to the cozy confines of D major and a brand new theme. It is only at this moment that we fully understand the genius of the mono-thematic exposition. The composer has saved this contrasting theme until 2/3rs of the way through the piece.

It is elegant music, and reassuring in the way it restores a sense of order, with perfectly proportioned four bar phrases. Predictable, comfortable and comforting until the theme traps itself in a sequence and extends itself into a 6 bar phrase. In a moment, all that stability disintegrates yet again, as the music drifts off into silence. Again, the music has disintegrated. The silent chasm  opens before us for longer than before, then, again, into the silence comes the furious anger of the opening. We’ve reached the recap.

On the next page is an adagio in 3/8. It is in the key of A major- that fortissimo at the beginning of the first movement development was no accident. Again, the opening of the movement seems orderly and benign- all four bar phrases, all simple harmonies. Little can we imagine from this opening that ahead of us lies one of the most mysterious and haunting movements in all symphonic music. Sequences carry us off into oblivion. Again and again we experience this sense of disintegration. This is true music of twilight, heightened by the use of muted strings, which gives the sound of the orchestra an even more nocturnal color.

Next, a Menuet. Genial enough, except it is in F# major, a strange, exotic key. It has a disquietingly, dislocated glow- as if one is experiencing life in a heightened and altered state, or perhaps watching the ordinary events of a far-away world. Again and again, there are strange harmonic shocks, and interesting thematic references to the slow movement that just preceded, particularly the third-beat ties across the bar lines in long sequence. The trio is even more otherworldly- it begins with a generic horn call, but a horn call from another plane of reality. The composer had to order a special set of F# horn crooks from the local blacksmith in order to make possible this color. It is a sound no audience would ever have heard before- ultimately formulaic material, set in a completely unfamiliar tonal context.

At last, we reach the Finale. So far we’ve had three movements that are alternately stormy, disquieting, strange, angry, contradictory and in which nothing turns out to be what we thought it would be. Music of serene simplicity leads from pleasant country gardens into malevolent forests. Genial dances seem to come to us from another world, as though we watch skeletons dancing. The logic of sonata form is torn to shreds as the 2^nd theme is held back until the end of the development. By this point in the work, we’ve come to expect the unexpected, so the composer must know that to shock us one more time, he must come up with a twist of unprecedented daring.

The F# minor Presto takes us back to the Sturm und Drang world of the opening movement. It’s terse, fiery, dramatic and virtuosic. Without a single wasted bar, the music drives forward with relentless, dispassionate focus. The only surprise seems to be that there is no real surprise- the entire exposition and development unfold on intense form, but more or less as expected, and the recap is telegraphed and terse, but logical. Is there to be nothing more? Is the final surprise the lack of a final surprise?

Finally, the moment arrives. The music cadences on the dominant, ending squarely on C#, and once again collapses into silence. After a moment of reflection we hear music of sublime consolation, once again in A major. Once we’ve heard the full expanse of the theme, we begin to get variations- first is a witty dialogue for 1^st oboe and 2^nd horn. When they finish, there is a brief silence, and the two players leave the stage.

Strange as the piece has been, nothing has prepared us for such a coup-de-theatre as this.  Next, the remaining winds, oboe 2, bassoon and horn 1 get their moment of glory. Then they leave. Gradually, the entire orchestra departs in silence, leaving only two solo violinists, who bring the work to an enigmatic close, not in F # minor, nor in A major, but in that most enigmatic and otherworldly of all keys, F # major.

You may have guessed early in this post that the work in question is Haydn’s Symphony no. 45. You may also be aware that there is a quaint story attached to this work. You may not realize that this story was not known in the early years after the works’ completion. The reason I’ve written this long post as I have is that every program note I’ve ever seen about this work begins with reference to that quaint story, which treats the enigmatic ending as a harmless joke, and the previous four movements an innocent prelude. We’re told the first movement isn’t really tragic and angry, just playfully so. The Adagio is described only in terms of its genteel opening, and not its disorienting interior. The bizarre key of the Menuet becomes an insignificant by-product of the overall scheme of the piece.

Perhaps I risk repeating myself if I refer to my post about Schumann from the other day. Popular misconceptions, whether that Schumann’s orchestration is second rate or Haydn’s music is harmless, can lead to serious loss of meaning in the music, because it lures us into skipping  over trying to figure out what the music is from the score and instead, we contextualize and water down the notation. We don’t bother to ask hard question, to wrestle with the music as a listener- reading from beginning to end. When the silence precedes this symphony is shattered by an outburst of F# minor, we don’t know about the theatrics to come. We shouldn’t.

If, after you’ve really experienced the piece from beginning to end, you still choose to think of the work as a study in geniality, that’s find. If you find the ending humorous in a naïve way, that’s your prerogative. On the other hand, if you’ve experience a symphony in which disintegration seems to be waiting around every corner, a Finale in which the orchestra itself seems to disintegrate seems to be much more than a simple plea to start summer vacation.

A view from the podium, Haydn, Interactive Program Notes, Nuts and bolts

When Shostakovich began work on his Fourth String Quartet in 1949 his life and career were at a low ebb.

After spending most of the late 1930’s in fear for his life, painfully aware that Stalin was watching his every move, Shostakovich had become somewhat used to a bit of creative freedom in the war years. The worldwide success of the 7^th Symphony, which the Soviet government welcomed warmly as a pure propaganda coup in spite of its subversive content, had emboldened him to write the deeply tragic 8^th and the bitterly satirical 9^th symphonies.

However, after the war, things quickly turned to the worse for him. Stalin had taken the 9^th, which was the antithesis of the epic glorification of the triumphant Soviet/Stalinist victory in the war, as a personal insult, and in 1948, Shostakovich was subjected to a second humiliating public denunciation by as part of the Zhdanov decree.

He was forced to turn his hand to propagandistic hack work like the Song of the Forest, but, unknown even to his close friends, continued to compose a private series of remarkable masterpieces “for the drawer.” These were works that would have to wait until after the death of Stalin to be heard at all.

Also in the years after the war, Shostakovich watched with deepening horror and revulsion as Russian society rapidly forgot or chose to ignore the horrors and lessons of the Holocaust, and as the cancer of anti-Semitism returned in it’s most vile and form. Shostakovich is quoted in Testimony, his memoirs as dictated to Solomon Volkov, speaking of his love of Jewish folk music and his horror at the return of anti-Semitism-

I think, if we speak of musical impressions, that Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me. I never tire of delighting in it; it is multi-faceted, it can appear to be happy while it is tragic. It is almost always laughter through tears.

This quality of Jewish folk music is close to my idea of what music should be. There should always be two layers in music. Jews were tormented for so long that they learned to hide their despair . They express their despair in dance music… Many of my works reflect my impressions of Jewish music.

This is not a purely musical issue, this is also a moral issue. I often test a person by his attitude towards Jews. In our day and age any person with pretensions to decency cannot be anti-Semitic. This seems so obvious it doesn’t need saying, but I’ve had to argue the point for at least 30 years….

Despite all the Jews who perished in the camps, all I heard people saying was “The kikes went to fight in Tashkent.” And if the saw a Jew with military decorations, they called after him “Kike, where did you buy your medals?” That’s when I wrote the Violin Concerto, the Jewish Cycle and the Fourth Quartet.

None of these works could be performed then. The were heard only after Stalin’s death.

Today, the Surrey Mozart Players and I are performing Rudolf Barshai’s arrangement of the Fourth Quartet, which he called (with Shostakovich’s blessing) “Chamber Symphony op 83a.”

By the way, Barshai has been a vocal supporter of Shostakovich’s memoirs, saying of Testimony “I can hear the authentic voice of Shostakovich.”

Thanks to Maestro Barshai and his assistant Walter for taking the time to clarify some textual matters via email this week. It’s a stunning arrangement.

A view from the podium, Interactive Program Notes

When I first got to know the music of Gustav Mahler, I was fascinated by the story of his last years. His most perfect symphony, the Sixth, is also his most tragic. Written at the height of his personal and professional life, its Finale depicts a hero who suffers three terrible blows of Fate, the last of which fells him. Not long after it was premiered, Mahler himself suffered three such blows- the death of his beloved daughter, the loss of his position as Director of the Vienna State Opera and the onset of a fatal heart condition. Nearly destroyed by these events, his last works- Das Lied von der Erde, and the Ninth and Tenth symphonies- were long believed to be a painful document of his coming to terms with his own death.

It is an amazing story, but only ALMOST true. What we now understand is that, after much grieving and soul-searching, Mahler embraced a new life, knowing full well he could never know how much time he had. In his last years, he rebuilt his career in New York, and wrote his greatest, most complex and most innovative music. He continued to learn new repertoire, and to plan for future projects. He knew full well that he had a hellhound on his trail, but to the very end, he worked. When he returned to Vienna while already in the grips of what was to be his mortal illness, he was still looking to the future. In short, he spent his last years, months, weeks and days living, not dying.  He even brought with him on his last journey a number of scores he was learning for the upcoming season in New York.

One of those scores was Charles Ives Third Symphony (“The Camp Meeting”), which the Surrey Mozart Players and I are performing this Saturday at the Electric Theatre in Guildford. With his own Tenth Symphony unfinished, and knowing how ill he was, why did Mahler choose this piece to take with him on his final voyage? Why spend even a minute of his last days on this music?

Mahler was a composer with a conspicuously open mind, willing to support the innovations of younger composers even when he was unsure whether he understood or liked their music. He famously vigorously supported Schoenberg’s First Chamber Symphony (a work which I often think of as a 90 minute Mahler symphony for 100 musicians condensed down to critical mass of 15 players and 22 minutes, with a commensurate increase in dissonance) even though he admitted he didn’t entirely “get” it. Many commentators have noted that Mahler must have been fascinated by this unknown American composers’ new language- the bitonality, the dissonance, the radically complex poly-rhythms.

Indeed, I’m sure he was impressed and fascinated, but I think Mahler found something of a more personal connection with Ives. On the surface, their music could not sound much more different, and their symphonies exist on profoundly different scales. The whole of Ives 3 is just over half the length of the first movement of Mahler 3, Ives writes for a small chamber orchestra, while Mahler wrote for the biggest orchestras ever used at that time.

But remember that one of Mahler’s most important innovations, and surely the one he took the most criticism for throughout his career, was his introduction of popular, even banal or kitschy styles of music into the symphony. Imagine his surprise when reading the Ives for the first time. Where Mahler draws from Klezmer tunes, country dances and urban waltzes, military marches and ceremonial funeral music, Ives uses church hymns, Stephen Foster songs (albeit, not in the 3^rd), jaunty marches and naïve sounding chorales.

However, even their shared use of the profane (yes, in the hallowed halls of classical composition, the inclusion of American church hymns in a symphony would certainly qualify as profane!), and their shared exploration of new techniques would not, in my opinion, be enough to tear Mahler away from his Tenth for even ten minutes.

What I think must have fascinated Mahler was not the materials and techniques Ives was using, but the meaning Ives found in them. In Ives, he found another composer who was wrestling, in a very profound way, with the same questions of musical space and time, of the intersection the controlled musical world on stage with the world around it.

In the Finale of his 2^nd Symphony, Mahler gives us one of he most radical passages in any symphony (it’s Figure 22 in the score). On stage is a passionate lament, while off stage, a noisy marching band stomps by in a completely different meter, key and tempo. It is an extraordinary inversion of reality- we perceive the onstage (which should be the most public of spaces!) music as intimate and private, as if a man stricken with grief seeks a moment to weep alone, while outside (backstage- unseen by the audience) the world bashes on, mocking the pain and the loss, making that loss all the more real, the pain that much agonizing.

Ives was the first other composer Mahler found to fully understand this- that those intrusions into moments of deepest feelings actually make those emotions truer, more powerful and more difficult. At the end of the 1^st mvt of the 3^rd, Ives writes the most beautiful and simple chorale in all its pristine perfection. In a piece that is ultimately about the idea of pilgrimage and the quest for spiritual enlightenment and peace, it is a deeply moving evocation of reverent prayer, of focusing all one’s energy, with ferocious gentleness, on seeking quiet and clarity. However, all around this chorale, Ives weaves unrelated music, first in the flute then in shadow lines on the solo violin. In the tent of the revival, we may have peace and perfection throughout the congregation, but in the night outside, the world is still wild and unknowable.

And surely Mahler must have loved the marches in the 2^nd mvt of the Ives. Again and again, a march that begins with true country-bumpkin naivety disintegrates into something menacing and dangerous and rather complex, with bar lines obscured by strange metric shifts. Ives called this movement “Children’s Day.” Mahler’s own musical depictions of childhood, such as the third movement of the First Symphony or the first movement and Finale of the Fourth remind us that childhood is experienced in a world that combines wonder and terror, innnocence and menace in ever changing proportions. So too, does Ives’ movement.

Inspired as the first two movements are, I’m sure it was the Finale of the Ives (Ives called this movement “Communion”) that most fascinated Mahler. Most of the first two movements of the Symphony are quite tonal- we hear any dissonance as an intrusion into or a disruption of the world of simple hymns, easygoing songs and cheery marches. The Finale is more chromatic, denser, much more contrapuntal and altogether more weighty. Coming in the midst of such an overtly religious symphony, perhaps Mahler was reminded of his friend, the greatest of all religious symphonists, Anton Bruckner. It is far too facile and simplistic to write of Bruckner as a “devoutly Catholic composer,” for if he were only that, his music would hardly be worth listening to. It is not the expression of faith that draws us again and again into Bruckner’s symphonies, it is the expression of doubt.

Mahler himself knew something about doubt, and about the sometimes desperate struggle for faith, for something to believe in. In Ives 3, he would have seen a composer who’s first two movements are in many ways touching evocations of a naïve faith in spirituality revealing himself in the Finale as full of doubt, full of uncertainty, full of existential terror and unable to find his faith. From the slow, chromatic and contrapuntal opening, in many ways evocative of Brucker or late Beethoven, the music moves inexorably towards a shattering cataclysm of the kind of searing dissonance that was still new and shocking in 1911. It is a journey full of longing, full of sadness, even despair and one in which there is never a sense that we know where we are going or what awaits us.

After the devastation, anguish and terror of the climax of the movement, we are left without any reason for faith or for hope. And it is at this very moment that faith reasserts itself- when we can no longer assert it ourselves. It is a moment not unlike the end of the Adagio of Bruckner 9.

The coda is imbued with tremendous tenderness, and as the final lines disintegrate into ever more infinite shades of softness and slowness (so close in spirit and technique to the last page of Mahler 9!), we finally feel that we are at peace and that we can believe- not even that we can believe but that we find ourselves again believing. And, perfection attained, Ives allows one last intrusion from the outside world. No noisy band this time, nor sounds of ambivalent nature. Simply the gentle ringing of nearby church bells.

Ives transcribed “Communion” as a song called “The Camp Meeting.” The text of the Coda (from the hymn “Woodworth”) seems to speak of this idea of surrender and of faith as something given, not something made-

“Just as I am without one plea,

But that Thy blood was shed for me,

and that Thou bidd’st me  come to Thee,

O Lamb of God,

I come,

I come

A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Interactive Program Notes

In exactly one week, the Surrey Mozart Players will take the stage for our first concert of the season, featuring a work that has become very dear to me these last few weeks as I’ve come to know it well, the Violin Concerto in D minor of Robert Schumann.

As regular readers will know, the SMP is in the midst of a multi-season survey of the major works of Robert Schumann- we’ve recently done the concertos for piano and cello and the 2^nd and 3^rd Symphonies as well as some shorter works. Later this year we’re playing the Konzertstucke for Four Horns and the Fourth Symphony (final version). When this project first came to mind, I knew the violin concerto would have to be part of it, if only because, after a lifetime as a professional musician, I had yet to hear a live performance of it.

In fact, it was nearly lost to history completely thanks to the intrigues of Joseph Joachim, for whom it was written. Schumann wrote it in 1853 and Joachim read it with his orchestra that year, but had not learned it properly, and claimed his arm was tired from conducting (I’ll remember that one for my own use). He promised to give Schumann a better hearing, admitting “I did it such injustice,” but despite repeated promises to play it to Schumann at the asylum in Endenich, Schumann never heard it again. Joachim did occasionally read parts of it with colleagues, and played the piece through with Clara Schumann in 1855 in celebration of the Schumann’s 15^th anniversary.

However, Brahms, Joachim and Clara eventually came to the conclusion that the Violin Concerto was a failure- Joachim went so far as to use phrases like “mental lassitude,” “bewildering passages,” “morbid brooding,” and “tiresome repetitions.” Together, the three decided the piece should never be published, and the manuscript was finally bequeathed by Joachim to the Prussian State Library with the stipulation that it not be published until 100 years after the composer’s death.

It was Joachim’s niece, Jelly d’Aranyi (for whom Bartok wrote both of his violin sonatas and Ravel wrote Tzigane) who first brought the lost concerto to the world’s attention. An avid spiritualist, she claimed Joachim had told her about it in a spiritual visitation. In the end, however, her Jewish heritage meant she could never give the first performance in Germany in 1937. Instead, the utilitarian Georg Kulenkampf premiered the piece, but with cuts and with the solo  part extensively re-written by Hindemith (whose contributions had to remain uncredited because he had since become labeled as a degenerate musician by the Nazi state).

The first performance of the score as Schumann wrote it was finally given a month later by Yehudi Menuhin , first in a violin and piano reduction at Carnegie Hall, then with the New York Philharmonic under another great violinist, Georges Enescu.

Since 1937, the work has had its champions, notably Joshua Bell and Gidon Kremer in recent years, but it remains a rarity. Even now, there is no full score available(UPDATE- as of 10.10.2009 Breitkopf has finally published a new Urtext edition of the work, which is wonderful news), only a pocket score. As I’ve gotten to know the piece, I’ve found that I completely disagree with Brahms, Clara and Joachim- it’s a wonderful, deeply moving piece, although I think that had Joachim come through on his promises of a premiere while Schumann was still well enough to hear it, he might have made a few small revisions.

Its continuing neglect may be the lingering effects of a painful birth. Perhaps the piece was a reminder of a painful time that the three friends wanted to forget- there is too much great music in it for them to have mistaken it so badly otherwise. Critics and commentators have always been tempted to outbursts of rare stupidity on the subject of Schumann in general, and his late music in particular, and it is very difficult to play for the soloist (Joachim obviously found it too challenging, and this was the man for whom Brahms wrote all his violin music).

On the other hand, I think it will always be music for a special state of mind- like the late music of Beethoven, long passages of it seem to already be part of another world, particularly the almost unbearably tender and fragile slow movement. Like the best late music of many composers, Schumann already seems to be living partly in the beyond.

Though I knew I wanted desperately to program the piece with the SMP, I was doubtful as to whether I could find a soloist- Josh and Kremer are out of our budget and few fiddle players have the time or technique to learn a work that so daunted Joachim and that they may never play again. Impressed by her performance of the Prokofiev G minor Concerto with us two years ago, I asked the young British violinist Alexandra Wood if she was interested in learning an impossibly hard piece she might never get to play again for a very modest fee. To my delight, she wrote back that she loved Schumann and would be delighted to take it on.

The first movement shares some of the rhapsodic and otherworldly qualities of the first movements of the Schumann Piano and Cello concertos, but the key of D minor (Schumann was very conscious of the historical associations of keys in the music of the past, and this movement has references to D minor works including the first movement of Beethoven 9 and the Bach Chaconne) gives the music an extra dimension of  power, existential dread and struggle. The brief slow movement, on the other hand, is intimate and fragile- one of the most beautiful in the repertoire. This is music that lives in a twilight realm of ephemeral visions, longings and hauntings. However, as in the other two concerti, Schumann leaves behind the sensitive and vulnerable side Eusebian side of his nature in the Finale, in which his confident, extrovert and optimistic Florestan persona comes to the fore in a jolly, virtuosic finale that pushes the soloist to the limits of the possible.

KW

Advice for the curious- the best resource on this work I know of is the marvelous essay by my drinking buddy Michael Steinberg in The Concerto, on which I have leaned heavily in writing this.

Here is a brief sample of the slow movement from Joshua Bell’s fine recording- buy it.

A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Interactive Program Notes, Nuts and bolts joachim, Konzertstucke, schumann

I thought David Yang’s script to accompany our performance of Janacek’s String Quartet no. 2, “Intimate Letters,” would make a great blog post and a wonderful primer on a rarely heard masterpiece, so with his permission I’ve edited and reformatted it to fit these pages. Enjoy.

A hero in his native Czechoslovakia, and one of the greatest and most original composers of the 20th C., Janacek had a hot-blooded disposition and a decided liking for the fairer sex. In 1917, after a particularly public and humiliating affair with the opera singer Gabriela Horvatova, his wife, Zdenka Janackova, took the 61-year old composer to court. The result of that settlement dictated that the couple would remain wedded on peaceful terms, continuing to keep house together but sleeping apart. It was at this time that Janacek met the 25-year old (and very married) Kamila Stosslova. Janacek fell instantly in love and she was to become the direct inspiration for many of his last works. Jancek’s wife, in her memoirs, wrote perhaps a somewhat objective description of her young rival….

On my desk today is Schumann’s 2^nd Symphony. If you had assembled a panel of experts, including every major composer from 1825 to 1899, at the end of the 19^th century to pick the most important symphony after Beethoven, Schumann 2 would probably have been the one, beating out all the Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohns easily.

One reason the piece was so highly esteemed in its day was that it is what I call a “crafty” piece- that is, it is not only exciting and emotionally shattering music, it is also music that contains an extraordinarily rich array of musical touches of compositional craft.

For instance, the piece is full of ciphers, codes, quotations and references to other music. The master of cipher and quotation is, of course, JS Bach, and, as it turns out, Schumann 2 is the most Bach-ian of the Schumann symphonies, and one of the most Bachian of all symphonies ever written.

Read more…

A view from the podium, Interactive Program Notes, Nuts and bolts bach, Beethoven, Haydn, musical offering, quotation, schumann

I’ve been putting a lot of work in on Paul Mefano’s Intererences in the run up to this weekends sessions. Because of the open form techniques Gordon described in Part II of our interview, the notation is about as thorny as it gets. The challenge for the conductor is in managing the intersection of events that float in time and those that need to intersect at particularly moments.

The piece is in 3 “Fragments” (numbered IV, V and VI because the piece was originally much longer). It is the middle fragment which poses the most challenges for the conductor…

  Read more…

A view from the podium, Interactive Program Notes, Nuts and bolts

What a frustration it must be for those composers who live to see their music go out of fashion. Mahler famously said just before his death that “my time will come,” but for his contemporary Strauss, it was not easy being something of an anachronism in his later years. Even had Mahler lived another forty years, he might not yet have seen his music become fashionable. Saint-Saens had been one of the most famous and successful composers in the world at the height of his career, but by the time of his death in 1921 had come to be seen as an irrelevant relic of a bygone era.

His Cello Concerto no. 1 had been written at the height of his celebrity, and was instantly taken into the repertoire, and has remained a favourite with cellists and audiences ever since. By the time his Concerto no. 2 was premiered in 1902 his fame was beginning to change to infamy. With the rise of Debussy and Ravel and the emergence of a new harmonic vocabulary, Saint-Saens was quickly becoming known as a reactionary, desperately out of touch with the zeitgeist of the turn of the century. He was even one of the original rioters at the premiere of the Rite of Spring. This public perception was only furthered by an intense personal dislike between Saint-Saens and Debussy. Possibly as a result, the critical reaction was rather vicious, with one review saying of the concerto that it contained “de la mauvaise musique bien écrite,” or the worst music well written. Born into a hostile environment, the piece never really gained a foothold in the repertoire, even as the first concerto has remained popular.

Also contributing to the piece’s obscurity is a solo part that has scared off many cellists. The cello writing is so acrobatic that Saint-Saens wrote it on two staves throughout- he himself later described it simply as “too difficult.” The first movement is written in a Spanish style, full of bravura and vigorous dance rhythms. The second follows without pause and is a languid and songful movement, with some luxurious, even Wagnerian, harmonies. The Finale is a brisk virtuoso perpetual motion study which climaxes in a long cadenza and a return of the Spanish theme of the first movement. Finally, as in the First Concerto, Saint-Saens ends the concerto with a brand new, very lyrical theme.  

A view from the podium, Interactive Program Notes

Next week, the Surrey Mozart Players kick off their season (more on that soon). As the Strauss Romanze is something of an oddity, the orchestra asked if I would write some notes for the program.

Richard Strauss- (1864-1949)

Romanze for Cello and Orchestra in F major, op 13 (1883)

Cellists are often reminded by our violinist and pianist colleagues of just how small our solo repertoire is in comparison to theirs. In our defence, we are often quick to mention that our Dvorak concerto is better than either of theirs, and that we also have the best Schumann concerto.

However, cellists have only themselves to blame for not recognizing the many wonderful pieces that haven’t made it into the repertoire. Such a work is the Strauss Romanze in F major heard this evening. Few composers ever wrote so much and so well in their old age as Strauss- one has only to think of Metamorphosen, the Four Last Songs and the Oboe Concerto (to be heard on the next SMP concert). However, equally few wrote so much and so well in their teens– when the nineteen year-old Richard Strauss set to work on this piece he, already had several masterpieces under his belt, including the Cello and Violin Sonatas and the Horn Concerto no. 1. While the Horn Concerto has become a staple of the repertoire and the two sonatas are at least well known, the Romanze nearly disappeared from the repertoire for over 100 years.

Its earliest champion was the cellist Hans Wihan, who was also the dedicatee of the Dvorak Cello Concerto.  Wihan, to whom Strauss dedicated the piece, seemed to understand the key to musical immortality- he championed new music. The piece shows the young Strauss as an inventive melodist and a master-orchestrator.  After over 100 years of neglect, this gem of the Romantic era is finally becoming known again

-KW 

A view from the podium, Interactive Program Notes

Dmitri Shostakovich- Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and Strings, op 35

In many ways, Shostakovich was a quintessentially Russian composer. As a symphonist one can certainly hear the influence of Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky and even, to an extent, Rachmaninoff in their powerful orchestration and epic forms. On the other hand, in the concerto medium, and particularly in the piano concerto, he moves about as far away from the great Russian models as one can. Compare the Shostakovich concerto heard tonight with those of Rachmaninoff or Tchaikovsky and it’s hard to accept they’re in the same genre. It’s even harder to reconcile the fact that Rachmaninoff was still active when this piece was written in 1933.

Where Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky and even Brahms had expanded the piano concerto into something like a symphony for piano and orchestra, huge, dramatic works over 40 minutes for vast orchestras, with piano writing that made the instrument itself sound like an orchestra, Shostakovich turned the genre into something completely new. His work is brimming with wit and sarcasm, clean and transparent where his predecessor’s were lush and voluptuous.

Shostakovich composed the work for his own use. He had been a very accomplished pianist as a student, even playing the Hammerklavier Sonata, perhaps the ultimate test for any pianist, on his graduation recital. Once he’d made the choice to dedicate himself to composition, piano playing became an essentially private activity for him. Throughout most of his life, until motor neuron disease left him unable to play, he continued to read chamber music with friends and to play and study at home. However, in his early career, as his reputation was expanding rapidly, he began to get requests to appear as a performer, so in 1933, he set to work on his first piano concerto, which he later premiered with the Leningrad Philharmonic and Yevgeny Mravinksy.

In the 1920’s Shostakovich’s piano skills had enabled him to feed his family by playing for silent movies. The experience obviously shaped this piece, which is full of music that sounds like it was ripped from a Charlie Chaplin film.

Throughout the work, the piano writing is extremely sparse- much closer to Mozart than Rachmaninoff, rarely going beyond two parts at once. It intentionally never even approaches the orchestral fullness of earlier Russian composers. The orchestration is also minimal- only strings and solo trumpet, who helps highlight the comedic content of the work. Shostakovich wrote the trumpet part with the principal trumpet player of the Leningrad Philharmonic, Alexander Schmidt, in mind.

Even in this early work, one can detect the unlikely influence of Mahler in the way Shostakovich constantly juxtaposes humor and grotesquerie on the one hand with the deepest tragedy and vulnerability on the other. The second movement, a Lento, is one of his saddest and most heart-wrenching creations, and yet the piece ends with a musical joke that surely would have drawn a smile from the ultimate musical humorist, Haydn.

Kenneth Woods

The Lancashire Chamber Orchestra performs Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto on Saturday, June 16 at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls with pianist Ivan Hovoroun and trumpet soloist John Bush.

c. 2007 Kenneth Woods

A view from the podium, Interactive Program Notes

The Lancashire Chamber Orchestra will perform Mahler’s arrangement of Beethoven’s Quartet in F minor “Serioso” this Saturday, March 17 at Christ Church in Lancaster. More concert information here. 

 Beethoven (arr. Mahler)- String Quartet in F minor, op. 95 “Serioso”

We are taught to think of Beethoven as having three basic styles that he went through in his career- the early style of the op. 18 quartets, the early piano sonatas and the 1^st and 2^nd symphonies, then the great middle style typified by the 3^rd and 5^th symphonies as well as the op 59 quartets, the Violin Concerto and the 4^th and 5^th piano concerti, and finally that late style as heard in the op 110 and 111 piano sonatas, the 9^th Symphony and the late quartets.

In doing so, listeners might easily overlook a small, but vitally important and fascinating, period of Beethoven’s career that took place during the difficult years of transition between the middle and late periods of his life. It is fascinating to look through the catalogue of Beethoven’s middle period and to see where the most astonishing masterpieces must have been sitting on his desk at the same time. The Fourth, Fifth and Sixth symphonies and the Violin Concerto, for instance, were all written at virtually the same time.

However, after this flowering, Beethoven faced an extended personal and professional crisis, and during this nearly-decade-long struggle, he wrote very little. What he did write, however, remains fascinating. Perhaps the greatest typical feature of the middle period, particularly works like the Violin Concerto, was Beethoven’s tendency to stretch forms to their absolute limit. The first movement of the Violin Concerto is 30 minutes long, nearly twice the length of the F minor String Quartet performed this evening.

In the works of this transitional period, Beethoven not only abandons extended structures, he abandons long musical gestures. Phrase lengths tend to be shortened, transitions, when there are any, are abrupt. It is as if he has removed all the padding and ornamentation from the music and left only what he felt was most essential. This “Serioso” quartet and the last two cello sonatas, which are typical of this period, are among his most direct and intense works- intense even by Beethovenian standards. It is music from a genius in the midst of an intense personal and artistic crisis.

The first movement is a brusque Allegro which contrasts a violent first theme which lasts only a few seconds with a gently lamenting chorale theme, which likewise only lasts a few bars. The movement is dramatic and explosive in a character reminiscent of the first movement of the 5^th Symphony, but all the drama is over in only four minutes- less than the length of the introductions to the 4^th or 5^th piano concerti or the Violin Concerto.

The second movement, marked Allegretto, takes the place of a slow movement, and is one of Beethoven’s most perfect creations. A simple march theme in the cellos sets up a soulful melody in the first violins, followed by a haunting fugue. These three ideas are developed with exquisite completeness in just a few short minutes.

The third movement functions like a scherzo, but Beethoven is not joking around- his tempo marking is “Allegro assai vivace ma serioso.” The theme of the main section is one of his most rhythmically complex creations, the trio is a wondrous chorale accompanied by a gentle perpetual motion in the first violin.

The finale begins with the only really slow music in the piece- seven bars of the most chromatic and despairing music imaginable. The main part of the finale that follows is in a rather sad and lyrical character- the darkness of this quartet seems boundless at times. However, the coda is one of Beethoven’s most startling turns. For the first time in the work, he turns to F major, and music that is almost frivolous in nature. The contrast is so great and the change so sudden and incomprehensible that one cannot help but feel there is a sort of bitterness in the laughter of this ending, as though Beethoven is telling us that life is a bit of a joke.

This piece was one of three string quartets that Mahler arranged for string orchestra during his early years at the Vienna Philharmonic (the others were Beethoven’s op 131, which is lost, and Schubert’s Death and the Maiden). Of the three, this is the only one to have been performed by Mahler, although the premiere was a near fiasco, with hecklers booing loudly throughout and condemning Mahler for tampering with the music of Beethoven. In fact, Mahler made the arrangement with great restraint, adding a bass part only in a few sections (the author has actually expanded the bass part considerably for this performance) and he changed none of Beethoven’s music.

Notes by Kenneth Woods

c. 2007 Kenneth Woods

A view from the podium, Interactive Program Notes

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 external 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 are told 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 which still stands 100 years later, and he finally become well-known 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, 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 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 the 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, both in terms of what he accomplished artistically 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 that the contemplation of mortality in Das Lied was also intended to be perceived as universal, and not limited to his own experience. Death 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.

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?

 ”The beloved earth everywhere blossoms and greens in springtime, anew. Everywhere and forever the distances brighten blue! Forever… forever…”

These were the last words Mahler ever set to music, and, unlike the rest of the Song of the Earth, they were his own.

c. 2007 Kenneth Woods.

A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Interactive Program Notes, Mahler, Nuts and bolts Das Lied von der Erde, kindertotenlieder, Mahler, resignation, shostakovich

As promised, I would like to try to backtrack to the time this film was shot and just throw in a bit of a performers perspective on the first song of the cycle.

It’s quite common for non-musicians to say things along the lines of “you must feel so lucky to get to do something you love… to get to perform music you love.” Of course, they’re right, but as I get older I find that the best thing about being a performer is not getting to perform, but getting to experience music in so many different ways. I suppose I would have to say that the conductor is extremely lucky in this respect- we can here the music in our head, work on it one line at a time, rehearse just this bit or that bit.

I wrote several months back something to the effect that Mahler, being a great conductor, had all but conductor-proofed his scores. I’ve also written about score marking, but Mahler basically marks your scores for your- he’s always calling things to your attention and giving very specific guidance about how things should be played.
The flip side of this is that he has conceived his music as conducted works, something Mozart and even Beethoven didn’t do. Mozart never expected his symphonies to be conducted in the sense we understand the word today, and Beethoven would have seen the roll of a conductor as purely a facilitator. Mahler, conductor that he was, write music where conducting is really a part of the music. This is maybe most obvious in things like the offstage music from Mahler 2, where alternating and overlapping meters, keys and sound stages can only be managed with a very specific conducting technique.

However, when we first read through this first song with the orchestra alone, I was amazed just how conductor-y it felt. Mitch rightly pointed out that this song in particular is largely an exercise in binary opposition- major versus minor, oboe versus horn, string versus wind. Considering this cycle was composed during the period of his career when he was writing some of his most contrapuntally intricate music, the starkness of this movement’s texture is striking.

The spare quality of the music means that every note, every color, every inflection is heard, and, interestingly, can be controlled and shaped in the moment. Mahler’s purely musical achievement in this movement is that it creates such a sense of empowerment for each musician involved. Right away in those first few bars everyone can here how the tension in the two overlapping lines and the intense separation of color between the solo horn and solo oboe mean that everything one of them does instantly effects how the other must respond. It’s true chamber music, except that somehow the conductor gets to participate in the collaboration instead of dictating from on high.

Finally, Mitch also pointed out how the text and the music are often in conflict- hopeful text set in despairing music an despairing text set more hopefully. Of course, part of what Mahler is getting at is the inner conflict of the poet who is constantly shifting back and forth between speaking to the lost child and speaking to himself. Throughout the whole song cycle, Mahler maintains this tension, as if the parent can only console himself through consoling the child. These songs are not about loss- the loss is already a fact when the first note is played. They are about coming to terms with lost, even about healing from loss, and by the end of the cycle we’ll see where Mahler feels that consolation can be found.

Again, you can see the song in WMV format here and in QuickTime here. For those of you who’ve been caught up in some of the annoying technical difficulties here over the last 36 hours, I apologize. Hopefully this will work more smoothly from now on.

This series continues with the second song, “Nun seh’ ich wohl…” here.

If you’re enjoying this series, you may want to visit my series on the Second Symphony, which begins here.

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A view from the podium, Interactive Program Notes, Mahler, Nuts and bolts

I’d like to start this voyage into Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder first with an extended excerpt from Mitch Friedfeld’s essay, followed by the video of the first song. Then, in the next post, I’ll share some of my reactions to the piece as a performer. The three main sources Mitch is referring to throughout his writing on the piece are Henry-Louis de la Grange’s extensive biography of Mahler, Peter Russell’s Light in Battle with Darkness: Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder, and Donald Mitchell’s essay from volume three of his study of Mahler
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The poem (by Friedrich Ruckert) “Now will the sun rise as brightly as if no misfortune had befallen in the night! The misfortune fell on me alone The sun, it shines on everythingYou must not enfold the night inside you You must flood it in eternal light A little lamp light went out in my tent Hail to the joyous light of the world”

“These five songs form a complete and indivisible whole, and for this reason their continuity must be preserved (by preventing interruptions, such as for applause at the end of each song).” Mahler, on the first page of the score.

From Mitch- This “indivisible whole” starts with “Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n”: “Now the sun is about to rise as brightly [as if no misfortune had happened in the night].”

Something that’s hard to avoid is the fact that this poem, very simply structured as four rhyming couplets, conveys the contradictory feelings of grief and consolation in every verse: 1. Sun rising, tragedy at night. 2. Misfortune happened to me alone, the sun shines for all alike. 3. Don’t enfold the night within you, drown it in eternal light. 4. A lamp went out in my tent, hail to the gladdening light of the world.

This is the perfect poem with which to start the Kindertotenlieder. It captures the grief-stricken parent bludgeoned back and forth between two emotions. To convey this, GM uses what Mitchell calls “alternate orchestras” to generate opposite sonorities. But Mahler does not woodenly use one sonority for one feeling; he varies the association so as to impart the maximum variation in a poem that conveys a psychological listlessness. From the first passage, solo horn and solo oboe in counterpoint, you know you have entered a somber sound world. The singer enters and the other instruments drop out, leaving the anguished parent in mournful duet with a horn, his voice descending in diminished fifths. He’s singing about a sunrise, but in a descending line. But when he sings about last night’s tragedy, his voice takes an upward line – “rising in semitones, as if with great effort,” in Russell’s memorable phrase – and is joined by consoling strings and harp.

That’s the story of this song: back and forth between grief and consolation, the numb parent propelled by Mahler’s mastery. On the last words of this phrase, Mahler uses a rhythmic figure that is repeated at the end of two more strophes and which also features in Mahler 5th, first movement (a funeral march, I hardly need add). This is followed by a plaintive horn phrase, after which the music collapses back onto the tonic with the singer, and the death knell is heard – played by a glockenspiel. Who else but Mahler could portray a death knell with a glockenspiel?

In fact, the glockenspiel was in Mahler’s mind all the time. An early draft of Nun will had only one instrument noted here: the glockenspiel. And while I can’t immediately put my hands on a source for this, I am almost sure that Mahler marked the same passage as “death knell.” But it gets even worse. While Constantin Floros notes that GM used the glockenspiel as a symbol of eternity, Mitchell suggests that Mahler used it to signify the little bell often found above an infant’s crib. I can’t listen to Nun will without thinking of that. The glockenspiel is perhaps the most symbolic instrument in the Kindertotenlieder, as in Kindertotenlieder 5 it signals unequivocally the triumph of light over darkness (Russell).

Other significant, not to be missed points: “Everything else in this lied is acutely felt but contained grief, with a deliberately monochromatic sound, and the voice always in the middle register, as if the afflicted father lacked the strength to raise his voice” (Henry-Louis de La Grange). The third of the four strophes is marked to be taken slightly faster than the first two, but strophe four is back to “tempo primo.”

The feeling Mahler is conveying here is of a parent who is trying to rouse himself, but can’t. Henry-Louis de La Grange approvingly backs Russell on the nonspecific nature of the song’s light: It is not a Christian light, nor is it an oriental light. Russell says that because Rückert had ample opportunity to make this light a Christian one, the fact that he didn’t means that he deliberately did not want to be so construed. I’m sure that is why Mahler was attracted to this song in the first place. Still more to ponder about Mahler’s spiritual beliefs.

Where is the climax in this piece? Mitchell believes it is in the long instrumental passage between strophes 3 and 4. It is hard to argue against that; I always picture the parent descending into madness here, and the next strophe is very consoling despite the concluding glockenspiel strokes. And most crucially: Look at the very last line: “Hail to the gladdening light of the world!” Optimistic, right? On paper, maybe, but Mahler has the parent sing a minor third, and the harp fails to resolve to the tonic. And there’s that glockenspiel again. So there is an ambiguity, one that will drive the whole work.”

Now, the first song from Kindertotenlieder, Nun will die Sonn’ so hell aufgeh’n, with baritone Jesus Suaste and the State of Mexico Symphony, conducted by, well, me. You can see it in WindowsMediavideo here or in QuickTime here. You can also download as podcast using your RSS syndication.

You can continue on to the next installement of the series here.

If you’re enjoying this series, you may want to visit my series on the Second Symphony, which begins here.

c. 2006 Kenneth Woods

A view from the podium, Interactive Program Notes, Mahler