We toured with the piece in 2009, and played it many times. Happily, the feedback we got was extremely positive, but I don’t think we ever quite felt satisfied. Generally speaking, the older the music, the less is notated in terms of how one should play it, and the more the performance depends on a sense of style and intuition, and in trying to accommodate each other’s ideas, I felt like we’d ended up with a performance that didn’t express a single point of view with enough clarity of purpose.  I found our reading a bit “neither fish nor fowl.” This time, with much more time together as a group under our belts, we all felt more emboldened to stick to our guns. The upshot was probably quite a few more spirited discussions, but a more interesting performance.

I suppose the obvious, if simplistic, question facing a modern-instrument group playing Bach is “how ‘Baroque’ are we going to be?” All of us have experience playing early music in the Historically Informed manner–playing without vibrato and using a vocabulary of bow strokes that try to approximate the articulations one would get with a baroque bow, but all of us also play with colleagues who play early music with an unashamedly modern-instrument approach.

I firmly believe that the answers almost always lie in the scores. If there is a compelling reason to use the faster tempi and lighter sound associated with a HIP approach, it’s to be found in the music, not in a treatise or a diatribe (not even this diatribe). Ultimately, one’s personal taste should be subservient to what you understand the music requires from you as a performer.

Ultimately, it’s about finding out what works. In this sense, the Goldberg Variations are fraught with danger, because every single bar is so beautiful and so perfectly organized, than you can play it in virtually any tempo and with any sound at any time and get a good result as long as you are in tune and together (or playing the right notes on a keyboard). The danger of the Goldbergs is that the piece is so huge, and it shouldn’t be boring for one single second.

To me, there are a few fundamental truths I always try to keep in mind in Bach-

1-    As with all Baroque music, there is almost always some element of dance in the rhythm

2-    This means that the meter of the music must always be heard and felt. There has to be some differentiation between strong and weak beats, and some hierarchy between big musical impulses that launch or carry the music forward, and interior beats that simply allow the continuation of the musical momentum

3-    Just as there is a hierarchy of strong and weak beats, there ought to be a parallel hierarchy of bars- generally speaking, the beginning of  a phrase needs a sense of impulse. Even numbered bars, like even numbered beats, tend to be lighter

4-    We call them “contrapuntal voices” for a reason. All of the voices in a Bach work, whether a melody, bass line or fugal development should make sense when sung independently.

5-    This means that you ought to play the music on your instrument in a tempo in which it could be sung. A single, complete musical thought ought to be something you can express vocally in a single breath, and something that holds together for the ear and has shape in the absence of the other parts.

In the case of the Goldberg Variations, the first trap is right at the beginning. The Aria is so beautiful that it sounds magical at almost any speed, but played too slowly, the richness of the material that Bach is going to develop for the next hour or so  becomes obscured. Bach even gives us a big clue by calling it an Aria- it’s explicitly meant to be sing-able. In the 20^th c. I think too many musicians equated “cantabile” with a voluptuous approach to sound and a turgid approach to tempo. The wrongheadedness of such an approach should be self evident- for a singer, a more voluptuous sound uses more air, not less, which means they can’t schlepp along. We string players, especially cellists, like to wallow, at leisure, in our cantabile sound.

Also, in the case of the Goldberg Variations, it seems like the Aria should be able to sing on the instrument for which it was conceived. Bach’s music is the most transcribe-able ever written, and he often transcribed his own works for different instruments, but he clearly expected that the Aria, played on harpsichord rather than Steinway or modern violin or trombone, would sing and have line. Yes, a violinist, or even a pianist, can sustain a singing line at almost any tempo, but pity the poor harpsichord player trying to make his or her line sing.

How often does one hear the opening of the Bach played (whether on keyboard or by a trio) at a speed where someone singing the violin/top part would have to gasp for air every bar, or at best, every other bar. Of course, you can make an argument that the first two bars of the melody constitutes a single , complete musical thought… But only if you don’t attempt to sing the bass line (the cello part in the trio version).

My part, the lowest voice, descends stepwise from G down a G major scale, moving basically one note per bar. That means that at the end of the of the second bar, I’m sitting on an F#, a very unstable note in G major. It’s not a place to breathe between phrase-lets. In fact, there’s no good place for me to breathe until the end of the first 8 bar phrase.  At a speed where I can sing that, my line finally has shape and direction, and you can sense some differentiation between the strong and weak bars in my part.

It also means that the melody starts to dance, and as I said, dance rhythm is almost always central to music of the Baroque.

Does this mean I’m saying that your beloved Goldberg Variations recording with the Aria ala Molto Adagio is wrong?

Well, yes, I suppose it does. (I just don’t think anyone else need worry about my judgement).

I’m not suggesting it’s not beautiful, it probably is. But at such a slow tempo, much of the material that Bach is introducing comes across as shapeless and anonymous. For instance, Bach does a LOT with my bass line in the ensuing variations, but if you can’t perceive it as thematic, as having shape and structure, that connection is lost. And, of course, people tend to start as they mean to continue, and if someone isn’t hearing the structure of the bars and the structure of the beats in the Aria, they’re probably not going to hear and project them in the rest of the piece. If the first bar of the Aria sounds like three beautiful, static downbeats, chances are, your audience will be asleep faster than the nobleman Bach wrote the piece for.

Last time out, we were probably all thinking along these lines, but were a little cautious and over-reverential about letting the music dance, at least from my perspective. I felt we needed to take bigger risks as a group, and forget how we’ve heard it in the past and instead really engage boldly with the score.

As always, it’s the score that holds the key to figuring out how to play a piece. In the end, I prefer the transparency and fluidity of a more HIP sound concept in Bach because I think it let’s the music dance and take flight. If you’ve grown up playing Brahms and Wagner, you’re always likely to think in terms of sustaining and developing the sound. In Bach, we have to release the sound, free the sound, let the music take flight and not love it to death.

Remember- playing Bach slowly, loudly and voluptuously is not the same thing as playing it beautifully, let alone vibrantly.

Ultimately, we have to free ourselves of the fear that we’re going to lose that reverential beauty we’ve become used to in familiar and beloved performances if we try to let the music take flight at a tempo that makes more sense of the harmonic rhythm, meter and phrase structure. Bach, happily, doesn’t force you to give things up- he rewards you with the every greater beauties that the music is always ready to reveal if you just keep struggling to understand it.

Peter Grahame Woof, Musical Pointers

Cellist Antonio Meneses and the Northern Sinfonia have just made a stunning recording of Elgar and Gal’s cello concerti with his longtime friend and collaborator, conductor Claudio Cruz. Although I wasn’t involved in the recording, Avie Records asked me to write the liner notes for the CD, which I was very happy to do.  The upshot of this project is that we’re very happy to present expanded versions of the Gal and Elgar essays as special Explore the Score features, including clips from Antonio’s new CD, due out in June. You can read the essay on the Elgar Cello Concerto here..

______________________________________________________________

‘Why does one write a concerto?’ Hans Gál asked himself this question in the unlikely context of the 1954 BournemouthWinter Gardens Society Magazine. His pointedly personal response is simplicity itself. ‘A concerto, to my mind, is one of the most thrilling, most fascinating problems of composition, a problem of form, style and expression that demands the utmost experience and technical resourcefulness.’

Hans Gál was born in 1890 just outside Vienna, where he studied with Richard Robert and Eusebius Mandyczewski. He rose to great prominence in 1920’s and 30’s Germany and Austria, particularly as an operatic composer, but when Hitler came to power in 1933, Gál lost his position as director of the Coservatory in Mainz and his music was banned. The war years brought great challenges and personal tragedies, but he continued to compose prolifically throughout. He eventually settled inEdinburgh, where he would go on to teach atEdinburghUniversityfor many years.

The Cello Concerto was composed primarily in 1944. The early 1940s had been difficult for Gál. In March 1942 his mother died. The following month, his aunt and sister took their own lives to avoid deportation toAuschwitz. The strain of such upheaval and tragedy evidently became too much for Gál’s youngest son, Peter, who took his life in December 1942 at the age of only 18. Like many of Gál’s wartime works, including the Second Symphony, the Cello Concerto was composed with no promise or immediate hope of performance.

Cellist Antonio Meneses

The Concerto was premiered by the Göteborg Orchestra in November 1950, with cellist Guido Vecchi, conducted Armando La Rosa Parodi. Gál uses an orchestra of Beethovenian proportions- double wind, two horns, two trumpets, timpani and strings. Gál neatly summed up the central challenge of the genre: “This problem has been solved by the great composers in different ways, but its essence remains the same… how to arrive at an ideal balance of symphonically-conceived music and the relaxed playfulness of a brilliant solo part as the central, commanding feature.”

There is no questioning the brilliance of the solo writing in Gál’s Cello Concerto, which particularly exploits, as so often in Gál’s writing for the instrument, the uppermost reaches of the cello tessitura. Gál’s precise balance of symphonic conception with improvisatory playfulness is manifest immediately in the Concerto’s opening paragraph, a soaring melody which encompasses almost the entire register of the solo cello over lush orchestral accompaniment, followed by a cadenza. Here the soloist muses on the accompanimental figure played by the orchestral celli in the previous passage- a telling first example of Gál’s clever integration of symphonic and concertante writing. The first movement is conceived on a broad scale, with textures ranging from the extended duet for cello and solo oboe to a central orchestral tutti of shattering intensity. In spite of the tightly knit connections between musical ideas and the symphonic scale of the movement, Gál was keen to avoid “a symphony with a solo instrument obligato… This conception of a concerto, to my mind, contradicts the very meaning of a type of composition, the purpose of which is to give a noble setting to a spirited, fascinating individuality on the platform.”

After the austere E minor of the first movement, the flowing Andante opens in A-flat major, with a tender oboe melody over the simplest of accompaniments, a gentle tread of crotchet chords in the strings. This is one of Gál’s favourite textures- for instance, the Third Symphony, written not long after the Cello Concerto, begins in almost exactly the same sound world. The cello takes up the oboe tune, but rather than repeat the complete melody, soon breaks off into a gently ruminative cadenza, a perfect example of Gál’s wish that the solo writing always maintain “a most stimulating element of improvisatory spontaneity.” “However closely built the musical substance may be, there must always he sufficient scope and time for the graceful or expressive or dreamy or purely brilliant exuberance of that capricious character who is the centre of events…”

The final Allegretto Vivace e con spirito opens with a gruff swagger and restless energy that is worlds away from the tender song-without-words of the Andante. The heroic tone and 2/4 time signature may bring to mind the last movement of the Dvorak Concerto. After a playful second subject, the soloist embarks on the longest and most dramatic of the work’s many cadenzas. When the orchestra rejoins, it is not with the march that opened the movement, as might have been expected, but with a melancholy reminiscence of the Concerto’s opening theme. However, the protagonist is not to be drawn into nostalgic reveries, and quickly reasserts the heroic tone of the Finale’s opening.  “The success of a concerto,” said Gál, “depends… upon whether the composer has been able to make this central character stand out as an interesting, original figure.” Gál’s “central character” indeed stands out for the way in which the soloist strides effortlessly between whimsy, fantasy, ecstatic lyricism, fiery virtuosity and heroic striving. In the Concerto’s coda, Gál lightens the works tone with a shift of tonality to E major, and a shift of mood to Allegretto grazioso, alla marcia, and the concerto ends on a buoyant, spirited note.

C. 2012 Kenneth Woods (www.kennethwoods.net)

This Thursday, May 24, 2012, American Public Media’s “Performance Today” is going to broadcast the Orchestra of the Swan’s concert performance of Has Gál’s Fourth Symphony, recorded December 2011 in Stratford-upon-Avon.

We also recorded a short interview last week, in which we talked about Gál and the orchestra which will be broadcast on Thursday.

The program will be available on the PT website for at least one week following the broadcast. Performance Today is broadcast in syndication on over 260 Public Radio stations nation wide. Check your local listings for broadcast times, and remember, you can listen on line at your convenience.

This Sunday, I’ll be offering my own window into the world of conducting at the always-staggeringly-interesting-and-innovative Two Rivers Festival in Birkenhead (the last concert there, by pianist Clare Hammond, might have been the most interesting recital in Britain this year, with five world-premieres in celebration of the Debussy anniversary). This event, called “Magicians of the orchestra: revealing the conductor’s art” begins with a short chat from me about how conductors shape sound, with some interesting video samples of a few great masters of the past. Then, three exciting young conductors take their turn conducting the Orchestra of the Swan in masterclass on Brahms’ Serenade no. 1 in D major (as arranged for nonet by Anthony Bousted). Finally, after some Q&A and the chance for a few brave and curious amateurs in audience to try their hand, I’ll step up to the plate, ready to take it all on the chin, and conduct four movements of the Brahms, which we’re also recording that day for a new SOMM CD.

Once you get past any simplistic parallels regarding the waving of magic wands, the comparison of conductor and magician is surprisingly apt. After all, a great magician is a mixture of engineer, technician, and performer, who must not only have a relatively deep practical understanding of what he or she is doing, but also a profound psychological understanding of how their audience perceives it. We call modern magicians “illusionists,” but it would probably be more honest to call them “impressionists.” After all, the performance you experience is real, not an illusion- your eyes don’t lie- but it creates an impression of something more “magical” than what you are really seeing.

So it is in all forms of music making, but especially in conducting- the most awe-inspiring fortissimo in a Mahler symphony is not any louder than a household power tool, but it creates the impression of something of super-human scale. When we speak of the conductor as an “interpreter,” we’re talking about that part of our job in which we judge how to create impression- how the performance is shaped and paced, and how we convince the listener that the pianissimos are magically (that word again) soft, the fortissimos overpoweringly loud, the passagework impossibly fast and the legato flawlessly seamless. Of course, achieving a literal realization of any of those effects is just as impossible, and un-desirable, as sawing a woman in half.

Like the magician, a conductor makes an impression on the audience, but unlike an illusionist, the primary audience for the conductor is the orchestra onstage, not the punters in the house (although some of us are more fixated than others on playing to the crowd). The basic tools of gesture are simple- one can beat slower or faster, bigger or smaller, higher or lower. Ultimately, the difference between the tiniest possible beat and the largest manageable one is infinitely more limited than the range between the most hushed pianissimo and the most volcanic fortissimo. Between the two, also, there must also be a near-infinite range of varieties of colours, articulations, intensities and dynamics. Really accomplished conductors are fascinatingly adept showing or evoking a huge range of sounds. How one creates that range of expression is where one’s musicianship, technical understanding and showmanship come together.

It’s hard to guess where the discussion will lead on Sunday. I’m sure we’ll find the chance to explode a few misconceptions, like “most of the conductor’s work is done in rehearsal.” I’m sure audience members will be fascinated to see how the orchestra’s performance changes entirely the moment a new conductor gives an upbeat- no rehearsal required.  We all work hard in rehearsal, but conducting, for all its limitations (which can be maddening) is something that very much happens in real time.

I’ve got a pretty vast library here of historic footage of important conductors at work. I haven’t yet decided which conductors to feature- it all depends on what, at the end of the day, I decide are the most important, or illuminating things I can focus on in a relatively limited time. How a conductor uses their eyes? How one shows intensity? How to get incredible precision? If you had to pick one bit of film of a favourite conductor that all practitioners could study and learn from, what would it be?

The Two Rivers Festival was created in 2008 by Andrew Thomson and Peter Davison to bring performers of international quality to Wirral. Since its inception, the festival has gained a reputation for presenting informal concerts in intimate settings, attracting high-calibre artists such as The Tallis Scholars, Martin Roscoe, Natalie Clein, Noriko Ogawa, Emily and Catherine Beynon, Dame Emma Kirkby and Craig Ogden. Details of the 2013 Festival will be announced in the autumn. For further information about future events, please speak to one of our staff or leave us your contact details. Information is also available via our website www.tworiversfestival.co.uk or call (0151) 651 3095.

About Magicians of the Orchestra

 In this afternoon’s comprehensive examination of the art of conducting, we will ask the question, what do orchestral conductors do? Are they wizards with magic wands or overpaid time-keepers? How do we know if they are good, bad or indifferent? What musical techniques must they master? Is success down to personality or skill? During the afternoon, Kenneth Woods, principal guest conductor of the Orchestra of the Swan and founder of the Rose City International Conductors’ Workshop in the USA, will discuss the great conductors of the past, before putting a group of aspiring conductors through their paces in a masterclass. Afterwards, there will be a chance for several members of the audience to try conducting for themselves. The event will conclude with a performance of the first four movements from Brahms’ Serenade No.1 in D, which will also be recorded live by SOMM for a commercial CD, offering a unique opportunity to glimpse behind the scenes of the professional musical world.

A tribute to Kathleen Ferrier

Peter Davison

(based on an address made at Kathleen Ferrier: an Ordinary Diva, an event presented on 3 March 2012 at The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester.)

The much-loved contralto, Kathleen Ferrier, was born a century ago on 22 April 1912 near Blackburn in the heart of Lancashire. She gave many of her most memorable performances in Manchester with the Halle orchestra under Barbirolli and she felt at home in the city, where perhaps she could resolve the tension between her provincial roots and her creative abilities. It is highly appropriate for us to commemorate her in this city, where her memory still lives on so tangibly. Her reputation endures, almost sixty years after her untimely death, because of her wonderful legacy of recordings and because of the remarkable and moving story of her life and death which continue to capture the public imagination.

The peak of her success occurred just after the Second World War; a time characterised by austerity, but also the burgeoning of hope. As a beautiful and gifted classical singer, Kathleen Ferrier was, for many, a beacon of that better future – a sure sign that the nation’s culture would soon flourish once again. For that reason, her loss at the age of just 41 in 1953 was a bitter blow. She had been greatly admired for her sincerity and the warmth of her personality which always shone through in her performances. Yet, in the distinctively rich colour of her voice, there was a hint of deep sadness; a vulnerability belying her happy-go-lucky exterior. In the post-war period, the country needed to grieve the many social upheavals of the preceding decades, and Ferrier articulated that grief with compassionate humanity. Her melancholy found its most sublime expression in her interpretations of the music of Gustav Mahler; the provincial boy who rose to the top of the musical world. His was a journey of many difficult separations, and Ferrier shared that journey, from an ordinary, provincial background to the heights of cosmopolitan culture and international success. She also had features of Mahler’s mercurial personality in common, such as an earthy sense of humour and nostalgia for lost roots. If Kathleen Ferrier remained ‘an ordinary diva ’, it was by remembering with humility her origins, even at the peak of her fame. Yet her voice was anything but ordinary. It was a rare and precious instrument, which carried her towards destiny and away from what was familiar and provincial.

While Kathleen Ferrier remained unspoilt by her rise to prominence, she nonetheless took great personal risks in pursuit of a career, paying a high price for success. Powell and Pressburger’s acclaimed film “Red Shoes” was released in 1948, telling the tragic love story of a ballerina torn between the all-consuming demands of artistic excellence and her wish for personal happiness. There could be no compromise in the eyes of her cruel mentor. Misery and self-destruction follow. While Kathleen Ferrier had no such cruel mentor behind her, her single-minded dedication to her work stretched her physically and mentally to the limit. Like Mahler, she never found happiness in a personal relationship. Her short-lived and unhappy marriage left scars which she buried out of sight and, just as Mahler’s final illness was played out before concert-goers, Ferrier’s demise was also a public martyrdom. The agony of her predicament was curiously reflected in the music of Gluck’s Orfeo which she was singing at the time. In the opera, Orpheus grieves the loss of his beloved, snatched by Pluto, god of the underworld.

What shall I do without Eurydice?
Where shall I go without my love?
Eurydice! Eurydice! O God! Answer!
I am still true to you!
Eurydice! Eurydice! Ah, for me there is
no more help, no more hope
neither on earth, nor in heaven!

The music prophesied Kathleen’s fate, but also symbolised the wider loss of soul, when Man is overtaken by senseless furies and dark shadows; never more apparent than during the two World Wars which framed her short life. She made Gluck’s aria very much her own, giving voice to her own hidden feelings and those brought to the fore by the wider human tragedy of those dark times. Some lives are emblematic, where the personal and collective meet with poignant significance and potent creative consequence. Kathleen Ferrier’s was such a life; a conflation of art and reality which can often appear implausible, like the plot of some darkly sentimental novel. Then history has a habit of repeating itself. In Manchester, where Kathleen Ferrier gave many of her most memorable performances, a rather more temperamental diva, Maria Malibran, pushed herself beyond the limits of endurance during a concert at the cathedral in 1836 and never recovered.

Bruno Walter, the great conductor and close friend of both Gustav Mahler and Kathleen Ferrier, wrote that she would want us to remember her in a major key. The sad circumstances of her passing and the pathos of her music-making undoubtedly mirrored many of the experiences of Gustav Mahler. But, like him, her great gift was to transcend suffering through moments of redemptive beauty. As we commemorate Kathleen Ferrier during this centenary year, we can be genuinely and generously grateful for a life which bore such eloquent witness to the healing power of music.

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From International Record Review

May 2012 (pp 32-3)

I had nothing but praise for the previous disc from Kenneth Woods with the Orchestra of the Swan of Hans Gál’s Third Symphony coupled with Schumann’s ‘Rhenish’ (reviewed in July/August 2011). I find myself in a similar position now.

Gál composed his Fourth (and last) symphony in 1973 at the age of 83; like the other works of his advanced old age it is consciously a last visitation of its genre, but in  no sense a work of farewell. Perhaps it’s better to think of it as what the Germans call a Bekenntniswerk (A work that declares a belief), instinct with a lifetime’s experience but still full of life. Gál subtitled it ‘Sinfonia concertante’ and it features a quartet of soloists- violin, cello, flute and clarinet—in addition to a severely Classical orchestra of paired oboes, bassoons and horns with timpani and strings. In  his programme note for the 1975 premiere in Edinburgh (for which he had to extract all the performing materials himself), Gál likened the result to a concerto grosso, but though the soloists have a great deal to do both individually and as a group, I feel less of a Baroque antiphony between the four soloists’ concertino  and the orchestra’s ripieno than a sense in which the soloists take part seamlessly in a constantly evolving symphonic argument, not so much displaying their virtuosity as bringing out the individual voices of Gál’s deft and intricate polyphony, into enhanced relief.

The work’s overall effect, like that of the Third Symphony, is conditioned by the rather paradoxical “serenade” character that informs much of Gál’s late music. The four movements comprise a preludial ‘Improvvisazione’ introducing an Allegro moderato, a ‘Scherzo leggiero’ that, according to the composer, is a ‘burlesque masquerade’ on the figures of Harlequin and Columbine from the commedia dell’arte, and an Adagio entitled ‘Duetto’ that spotlights the solo violin and cello, and a cheerful rondo finale entitled, as if to deflect any hint of seriousness, ‘Buffoneria’. The spirit of Busoni’s Junge Klassiztät (youthful classicality) seems to preside over the work, most of all in the Italianate leanings of scherzo and finale. The urbane and civilized surface, like a friendly, quizzical smile that never slips even if maintained in the face of long and wearisome experience of fate and human nature, does not exactly conceal great depths, but it certainly diverts the attention—at least on first hearing, so I recommend several repeated ones—from the symphony’s extraordinary richness of ideas and all-encompassing technical command. Equable but not comfortable, infused with a Haydn-like sanity, the work simply stands in principled opposition to chaos, opportunism and the vagaries of fashion. This doesn’t make it a masterpiece (its mastery does that). Throughout his career, Gál felt himself to be in the Brahmsian tradition, though his music seldom sounds particularly Brahmsian. Yet Brahms himself– usually so niggardly of praise for the efforts of the younger generation—would surely have found warm words of admiration for Gál’s Symphony no. 4.

Schumann’s C major Symphony, like the Rhenish on Woods’s previous Gál/Schumann coupling, receives a first-rate performance, perhaps a little hard-driven in places but with a wonderful sense of expansiveness and profound and delicate feeling in the slow movement. Gál, in his BBC Music Guide on the Schumann orchestral works, described this symphony as ‘not without problems’—but those problems can be compensated for by sufficiently intelligent pacing of the first movement and finale, which these movements certainly receive here. Though I wouldn’t place it, as an interpretation, quite on a par with those of Muti, Marriner or Solti (whom I find especially impressive in this work), it‘s a very fine one, and the playing of the Orchestra of the Swan is absolutely top-notch. I found its ‘Rhenish’ a little small-scale (and it is, when all’s said and done, a smallish orchestra) but there’s no hint of that here.

It remains to point out that David Le Page, Christopher Allan, Diane Clark and Sally Harrop—the concertante soloists in the Gál—play throughout with refinement, beautiful tone, an understanding of the idiom and complete understanding of their role in the composer’s polyphonic web. All in all, this is a very welcome and highly recommendable release.

Calum MacDonald

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A short sample follows:

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Alexy Titarenko's peerless photography of St Petersburg from his collection "City of Shadows"

Serge Prokofiev (1891-1953)

Symphony No.1 in D, Op.25 ‘Classical’

1. Allegro
2. Larghetto
3. Gavotta: Non troppo allegro
4. Finale: Molto vivace

Serge Prokofiev completed his Classical Symphony in 1917, the most productive year of his creative life, in which he also composed his First Violin Concerto, his Third and Fourth piano sonatas, his Visions fugitives for piano, and began work on his ever-popular Third Piano Concerto.

In the early years of his career, Prokofiev seemed to have established a reputation for himself as the new bad-boy of Russian music. His Second Piano Concerto had caused a something of a riot at its premiere in 1913. Serge Diaghilev had seen in Prokofiev a possible successor to Stravinsky, and, hoping for a succes de scandale worthy of the Rite of Spring, had commissioned Prokofiev to write a new ballet, Ala and Lolli. His Ballets Russes were in the midst of difficult times- Diaghilev’s star performer, former lover and choreographer Nikinsky, had suddenly abandoned the troupe and married. Diaghilev hoped Prokofiev, his new discovery, would re-engergize the company, but, although he and Prokofiev came to be friends, he rejected Ala and Lolli, which Prokofiev then fashioned into his purely orchestral Sythian Suite. The premiere of the Scythian Suite at least validated Diaghilev’s original instinct- it was a succes de scandale. Even before the premiere, Prokofiev joked that “the price of rotten eggs in Petrograd has gone up,” and on the night, Glazunov stormed out before the end, and the work was greeted with a mixture of cheers and boos. According to biographer Daniel Jaffé, Prokofiev “relished the furoré.”

Nobody relished a good furore or savored a succes de scandale like enfant terrible Sergei Prokofiev

Prokofiev may have relished the furoré, but it clearly annoyed him that his substantial melodic talents were not being appreciated, complaining that his “lyric line was not noticed until late. For a long time I was given no credit for any lyric gift whatever, and for want of encouragement it developed slowly. But as time went on, I gave more and more attention to this aspect of my work.”

1917 would prove to be a watershed in this respect. There are many extraordinary melodies in Prokofiev’s early scores—the melancholic first theme of his Second Piano Concerto is worthy of Tchaikovsky—but it seems his forays into explosive sonority and searing dissonance drew attention away from the lyric line. The First Violin Concerto and the Third Piano Concerto show Prokofiev moving towards a more stylistically cohesive voice, one in which he largely abandons using harmony and color for shocking effect.

It was in the midst of this transitional moment that Prokofiev completed his Classical Symphony, a work he may have been considering as early as 1913, when he first conducted a Haydn symphony.  In his autobiography, Prokofiev says he began the piece as a way of breaking himself of his dependency on the piano:

“Until then, I had always composed at the piano, but I noticed that the thematic material composed away from the piano was often better… I had been playing with the idea of writing a whole symphony without the piano, thinking that such a piece would have more natural and transparent colours.

“So that is how the project for a symphony in the style of Haydn came about. I had come to understand a great deal about Haydn’s technique from Tcherepnin [a the St Petersburg Conservatory]  and thought it would be less scary to embark on this piano-less journey  if I were on familiar stylistic ground.

“It seemed to me that if Haydn had lived to our day, he would have retained his own style. This is the kind of symphony I wanted to write: a symphony in classical style.”

Prokofiev’s achievement in writing a symphony that sounds both classical and of its time is striking. Again and again, he comes up with fresh takes on the most standard classical formulae. The symphony’s first movement, Allegro, opens with one such classical formula- the Manheim Rocket, an explosively rising arpeggio, but Prokofiev’s 20th c rocket flies by a more circuitous path than the 18^th century models did. There are harmonic shocks, as well, such as the sudden lunge from the home key of D major to C major a few bars in.  This, and many other similar bits of harmonic mischief show Prokofiev managing a very shrewd compositional balancing act. While his specific harmonic twists and turns remain specific to the 20^th c., the constant undermining of harmonic expectation is, in fact, the most Haydnesque aspect of the work.  Prokofiev’s early music consistently sounds more radical and provocative than it really is. The Classical Symphony inverts this paradigm in a way Haydn would have truly appreciated- this is music that has a charming and harmless surface layer which belies the layers of mischief and provocation that lay beneath.

The Larghetto which follows is study in elegance and wit, and is conspicuously free from the kind of overt profundity and soul-searching that listeners raised on Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff symphonies would have expected from a symphonic slow movement. The stratospheric writing for the first violins builds on the frisky athleticism demanded of them in the first movement. In fact, this work is widely considered to be the ultimate test for any violin section- it is both jaw-droppingly virtuosic and ruthlessly exposed.

It is believed that Prokofiev composed the third movement, a rustic Gavotte marked Non troppo allegro first, possibly as early as 1913. It is one of the shortest movements in the symphonic repertoire, about one-fifth the length of the Scherzo of Tchaikovsky’s Sixth. Slight it may be, but Prokofiev clearly had a soft spot for it, and later recycled an expanded version in his ballet Romeo and Juliet in 1935. Some conductors import the later, longer version from the ballet to the symphony, while others think the concise original is more in the spirit of the whole work.

Prokofiev’s breezy Finale is a lightly worn virtuoso display piece for both orchestra and composer.  Perhaps as a result of his breaking himself of his dependence on the piano, his instrumental writing here seems to consciously be taking the musicians to the edge of what is possible. Likewise, the musical jokes fly fast and furious, but always with a sense of sly understatement. Haydn would have approved.

The work has always been one of Prokofiev’s most popular, but whether it marked a turning point in his evolution to a more lyrical and integrated style, or one last act of mischievous provocation remains a question left intentionally open by the composer, who, like Haydn, seemed to believed that expectations exist to be undermined. In spite of his overall shift to a more lyrical style in 1917, his next symphony was to be his Second, possibly the noisiest piece he ever wrote.

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With the lighter No 4 (Sinfonia concertante Op 105) Kenneth Woods continues his distinguished Gál cycle recorded at Stratford-on-Avon. This, with solo flute, clarinet, violin & cello is the aged composer’s farewell to composition, a lovely work which reminds one of Haydns’ sinfonia concertante with violin, cello, oboe and bassoon soloists. It ends with a Buffoneria !

No. 3 is a grander affair, and each is coupled with a Schumann symphony, Woods’ account of Schumann No 2 with his chamber orchestra overturning my disregard of it as my unfavourite of the canon…

All in all, this is a worthy endeavour, which should keep the name and music of holocaust survivor Hans Gál (1890-1987) before the public as long as CDs continue to be bought…

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A sample follows:

Schumann 2 is one of the hardest symphonies for interpreters. It’s hard not to mangle the syntax by getting the phrasing wrong; it’s hard not to bury the winds at certain points or to lose sight of other important lines – there’s so much going on. Yet I’ve heard performances where you can hear it all but don’t really want to, as the phrases have no life or shape and it all just sounds “notey.” Quite the contrary here. Part of why is the insight, nicely explained in the booklet, into how Schumann conveyed meaning through allusion to other great music: Woods points to the allusions to Haydn’s 104th, the Trio Sonata from Bach’s Musical Offering, Mozart’s Long live Sarastro! from theMagic Flute, Beethoven’s To the Distant Beloved, and one of Schumann’s own songs, Dedication. Sounds academic but it’s not; it lets Woods and his players weight what is more or less important. (And if you’re a classical music buff, you will hear all the allusions and they will be meaningful to you.)  All the many things going on form a coherent discourse in this performance. Another ingredient is how they build fearlessly not only to one climax but to an overall climax for the whole work. There is also the excellence of the players: listen to the oboe solo in the third movement, which – as a whole – receives a truly poetic performance.

But let me harp again on the divine madness – the insane glee, the visceral delight. When we’re talking about Schumann the words “insane” and “manic” are fraught, since he was one of the first great composers to be retrospectively diagnosed as bipolar… But I mean something else – that Fricsay/ Naida Cole demonic possession by Pan. Other examples: Lipatti playing Ravel’s Alborado; Glenn Gould’s first Goldbergs; any number of recordings of Bernstein or Furtwangler.  Part of it, in Swan/ Woods’  first two movements, comes from speed (Schumann’s MMs are famously fast); yet some speedy performances have sounded merely rushed, as if the players were uncomfortable and pushed. What I want, when we’re talking speed, is that sense of possession. In this performance the speed is not hectic but ecstatic. YES!

Divine madness, like this, must be experienced. On top of this, you get what is effectively (I’ve never heard it before) a new work: the Hans Gal Fourth, written in 1975, when it would have seemed “backward” in idiom -ha! The web page notes that it is pastoral and lyrical in style, which it is, but I had to read the booklet and understand the pain behind this music to find my way past its challenges, and I had to give it a few listens. Give it a chance: it will come to move you deeply. And it’s hard to imagine a better performance. If my blog had a star system, this disc would certainly get 5 of them.

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A short excerpt follows:

Woods proves in this recording to be a front rank conductor, capturing the feeling of sorrow and compassion of the symphony. The work is for a chamber orchestra made up of two oboes, two bassoons, two horns, timpani and strings. Initially, this piece sounds gentle, even pastoral, but underneath is a current of turmoil and tragedy. It most sounds like R. Strauss’ Metamorphosen  and other of Strauss’ late works.

Gál referred to this work as “…akin to a concerto grosso…with the brilliant display and competitive spirit of four soloists who act as both a group and as individuals… .” The soloists who participate splendidly are violinist David Le Page, cellist Christopher Allan, flutist Diane Clark and clarinetist Sally Harrop.

Woods has seized on the essence of this Schumann Symphony. His reading is smooth, grand and exciting and well worth the purchase of this disc. The Gál may take a few hearings to sink in, but the Schumann is right there from the start and one of the best recordings available.

The Orchestra of the Swan is resident in the Civic Hall of Stratford-upon-Avon. The orchestra performs throughout England and Wales. It has made several recordings of the music of Arnold Bax, Berlioz and Mahler. It is quite a versatile group, easily shifting between Gál and Schumann.

The Avie sound is exact and spacious. Program notes are in English, German and French. The bios of the performers are in English only.  Highly recommended!

The Home Office is launching a new “Mahler Licensing Scheme” from 2013, it was announced on Tuesday in Downing Street.

“If the tragic events of 2010-11 taught us anything” Prime Minister David Cameron said in a joint press conference with Home Secretary Teresa May and leading Mahler biographer Henri Louis de la Grange “it is that we cannot entrust some of the greatest music ever written to any turtleneck-wearing, egomaniacal hack or washed-up soloist that picks up a £10 baton from Guivier’s.”

Prime Minister David Cameron, Mahler biographer Henri Louis de la Grange and Home Secretary Teresa May announcing the new "Mahler Licence" scheme

Although the scheme will initially only affect conductors, it will be expanded by 2015 to include all orchestral instrumentalists. “It is beyond comprehension” the Prime Minister said, “that in an age in which every 15 year-old boy taking trumpet lessons can play the opening of Mahler 5 better than that old guy in the Bernstein/VPO DVD, that we should still have wind players too lazy, complacent or incompetent to do a proper “Schalltricheter auf” where Mahler asks for it. For the sake of Queen and country, people, we owe it to Mahler and to Britain, to get those bells up.” It is also expected all orchestral string players will have to know where the “griffbrett” is on their instruments by 2016, although Labour backbenchers have already derided that target as “grossly unrealistic.”

Applicants who pass their initial written and practical exams will be issued a probationary licence, good for two Mahler symphonies in a two-year time span, after which they will be evaluated. Only those scoring at least 3 tenths of an “Eliahu Inbal,” the current standard international measure of responsible Mahler interpretation,  will be granted a five-year full licence.

The scheme also includes a penalty points system, modeled on the one used for drivers. Conductors or instrumentalists who accrue more than 12 penalty points in a two-year time span, will be banned from conducting or playing Mahler for a minimum of 18 months, and be forced to into “audience compassion” training, wherein they will be forced to watch multiple live performances of Mahler conducted by 20 year-old young men who have never actually had sex or spent a night away from their parents.

Some of the penalty-points infractions for conductors include

1-Failure to observe the exposition repeats in the First or Sixth symphonies:  2 points

2- Using the word “project” or “journey” in marketing any Mahler concert or concerts: 3 points

3- Re-completing the 10th Symphony: 7 points and time-management counselling

4- “Slipping” into German when rehearsing an English-speaking orchestra (applies to all non-native German speakers): 4 points

5- Changing your mind about the movement order in the Sixth Symphony based on something you read on the Internet: 6 points

6- Not being “quite sure about” the Seventh Symphony: 6 points

7- Conducting a Mahler symphony from a Dover score: 4 points

8- Copying a move from a Leonard Bernstein video: 4 points

9- Copying a move from a Gustavo Dudamel broadcast: 8 points

10- Conducting the “Adagietto” in under 8 minutes: 8 points

11- Letting the alto soloist sing the low notes in the soprano solo of Mahler 2: 5 points and mandatory casting counseling for all future vocal works conducted

12- Not crying, or at least fighting back tears, while conducting the end of Das Lied von der Erde: Instant disqualification and lifetime ban from conducting anything by Mahler

Recommendations regarding Mahler policing and enforcement have not been released, but Whitehall sources suggest that the extensive video monitor systems installed in UK concert halls by the Labour government to crack down on maestri “conducting Beethoven symphonies without vibrato because they were too insecure to risk being seen as “not trendy”” might be converted to monitor the emerging Mahler threat. “Non-vib Beethoven, especially as played by non-period instrument ensembles, is still a significant public nuisance” one Whitehall source said, “but at least the Labour scheme exposed it for the facile, attention-seeking vanity project it was. We think Mahler needs our help now, before non-vibrato Mahler evolves from its current classification as an “irritation” and becomes a something any sane person who is not hearing impaired could take seriously.”

Although the penalty-point system will only apply to transgressions committed with British orchestras, Customs and Immigration will be introducing a new “Mahler Gateway” scheme to vet conductors before they enter the country. “Conducting Mahler in the United Kingdom is a privilege, not a right” the Prime Minister said, “and it would be grossly irresponsible to continue to admit conductors into the country who have done the opening of the slow movement of Mahler One with a full double bass section. It’s well known that most nitwits are repeat offenders, and there really is no such thing as a “cured” nitwit. We are committed to working with our security partners in the USA, Europe and Asia to ensure that all Mahler interpreters entering the UK are fit for purpose.” There are also reports that Swiss maestri will be banned from conducting Mahler in the UK, on grounds that “Mahler and neutrality don’t mix.”

The Prime Minister was also asked about the state of Mahler criticism, and whether critics who fail to speak for either the music or the audience would be banned from writing about the composer. “There are of course, many Mahler critics who are profoundly knowledgeable about the composer, but it is true that even as recognition of the value of Mahler’s music has become more universal among critics, the inability of some critics to correctly identify blatant cases of bad taste, missing the point, charlatanism or even advanced senility among Mahler conductors is deeply concerning. Unfortunately,” Cameron added “some problems are too big for government, and we can only hope the profession might begin to police itself more effectively. We’d like to see an end to the practices that have led to the publication of such nonsense as “finally, the Mahler 2 we’ve all been waiting for.””

When asked what sort of reforms he would like to see within the critical establishment, the Prime Minster said “Well, for one, I think the British public, especially in these difficult times, are tired of critical complaints about the Eighth Symphony. I mean really- every time I hear some self-important hack call the Eighth “overblown,” I just want to shout “Really? Overblown? Really? How much less blowing did it need, in your opinion, Mr Critic Pants?!?!”

8.       My disappointment on your opinion on Rutter

I have a bone to pick with you. After practicing the glockenspiel part for the Rutter Requiem so much and then committing the part to memory so I could play, phrase and watch, I was horrified to hear you call it “elevator music”. After so long in the UK I was disheartened to hear you call it that. By now I’d hoped that you would realise that we call it a “lift” here

6 April 2012 Surrey Advertiser 21

Fine finale to Spring Music Festival

THE Surrey Mozart Players, under their charismatic conductor Kenneth Woods, presented a heart-warming programme to close the week-long Guildford Spring Music Festival at the Electric Theatre on Saturday March 24. .

They began with the stirring overture to Weber’s opera Oberon, commissioned by London’s Royal Opera House and performed to tremendous acclaim just a couple of months before the composer’s death. Much of the ridiculous plot is reflected in the overture, full of good tunes as it is and opening, as it does, with Oberon’s horn call bringing everyone to attention. This was a neat, well controlled and extremely enjoyable performance.

Dvorak’s Variations on an Original Theme is perhaps less well-known and it was good to hear this piece performed. It consists of countless variations on a quirky little theme containing a strange accidental: these variations are original indeed and the keys range far away from the opening and closing C major. The orchestra gave a scintillating performance.

Brahms spent some 17 years composing his first symphony, standing, as he felt he did, in the shadow of Beethoven but his second, a much sunnier work, was completed in a matter of weeks. It is a glorious work, full of good tunes, lovely orchestration and beautiful harmonies, and from time to time laced with Brahmsian pathos.

The performance was a joy to hear and it was good to have the horns, which began the programme so arrestingly with Oberon’s horn call, ending with a triumphant D major triad at the conclusion of the symphony.

Shelagh Godwin