Kenneth Woods- A View From the Podium

Don’t Beat

2010-08-27T21:57:15Z

I don’t know if I can say this definitively, but as far as I know, Vftp is the oldest conductor’s blog still going, and when I first started I couldn’t find any examples of other substantial blogging projects by any other conductors.

While it’s nice to be first, we all need models and in those days, conductors didn’t tend to write about or discuss their craft- “better to be a little mysterious” was the generally accepted best practice. One early exception to this was Ivan Fischer, conductor and founder of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. His website had some very interesting and frank “conductor’s journal” entries and a few short articles exploring different aspects of the life and craft of a conductor. The website has been offline for many years now, which is a pity- there were a number of things up there I would have liked to have pointed my students towards. One such article I remembered vaguely as being very interesting was “Ninety-two Thoughts for Young Conductors.”

An archived version of the site has re-appeared on webarchive.org (a reminder that once something is online, it is there forever, whether you want it there or not), and there was one section of the “92 Thoughts” that sounded eerily like what I’ve been telling the students at the Rose City International Conductor’s Workshop the last few summers-

About beating

Don’t beat.

Don’t show anything.

Don’t anticipate.

Don’t correct.

Beating is an insult to musicians.

The orchestra sounds better without beat.

You must radiate music.

Ivan is saying what I’ve learned from hard and painful experience- I thought I’d figured it out for myself, not read it (it’s frightening how much we forget we’ve heard or read before). In fact, you can read a thing like this, but you’ve still got to figure it out for yourself or it means nothing

In any case, it’s worth taking an hour or two to explore the archive- it’s an interesting snapshot of an important conductors working life a decade ago. Maybe one day, he’ll find time to start his own blog….

Urtext Myths 3- You’re seeing exactly what the composer wrote

2010-08-26T16:43:40Z

A while back, I started a little series here called Urtext Myths (part I here, part II here). While preparing for my recent performance of Mahler’s 5^th Symphony at the Harlech Orchestral Summer School, I came across something in the Preface that got me thinking about a new article in the “myths” series. This is possibly the biggest myth of them all-

“An Urtext edition meticulously reproduces exactly what the composer wrote, free of editorial interpretations or interpolations.”

What? I hear you say…. Isn’t that pretty much the definition of an Urtext- a clear and mistake free rendering of the text of the work as the composer wrote it, not as some performer or scholar though he or she should have written it?

I hate to burst anyone’s bubble, but we don’t live in that world.

When I started preparations for my previous performance of Mahler 5 with the Oregon East Symphony in the spring of 2009, I struggled for some time over whether it was really necessary for me to invest in the new Critical Edition of the score. After all, I already had 3 scores (the Dover reprint of Mahler’s original version, the Philharmonia pocket score of the first version of the Critical edition by Ratz and the 1988 correction of the Critical Edition by Fussl). Especially given that we were going to be playing from Kalmus parts (which are a reprint of an early version of the symphony and don’t contain many of his later changes and corrections) as a matter of budget necessity (it came down to Kalmus or losing 2 stands of strings to pay the high rental costs for the Critical), I wondered if that was the moment to invest over $100 in a study score of Rheinhold Kubik’s new Critical Edition.

In the end, I’m glad I did! The new edition provides a lot more depth of content and context, corrects many errors and gets one a little closer to seeing the piece through Mahler’s life at the end of his life. Worth every penny!

However, when I was preparing the work this time, I was reminded of this line from the Preface-

“A further alteration concerns the clarinet parts. Mahler had the 3rd clarinet play the D or E-flat clarinets. Today, however, it is general practice that the high clarinets are played by the second player, and the low clarinet (bass clarinet) is played by the third player. The edition makes allowance for this fact and divides the clarinets accordingly in score and parts. The clarinet in C is today hardly used any more; therefore the passage at the beginning of the second movement (up to b. 30) has been transposed to B-flat in the parts.”

Kubik is dealing with two separate issues here- first, one of doubling assignments. Mahler’s assignments of doubled parts are often rather baffling to modern players. As a result, it’s not unusual for librarians to do a bit of photocopying so that, for instance, the same player is playing English Horn throughout a work, rather passing those duties on to a colleague in a movement with more players. In this sense, Kubik is basically making permanent a common performance practice- no great sin, but it is certainly not simply presenting the text as the composer wrote it. Practical? Yes. Critical? Not convinced.

The second question involves the transposition of the C clarinet parts into Bb. First, I think this is un-necessary. Any clarinettist good enough to play Mahler 5 can transpose. More seriously, it calls into question whether we should alter the text to conform with performance practices of the modern day.

Granted, the SCORE still has those parts written for C clarinet, so the conductor is still aware of Mahler’s original intentions, but the player isn’t (unless the parts present the passage in both C and B flat, which might have been handy- not having seen the parts, I can’t be sure from his description). Even if a player is going to perform the part on a Bb clarinet, might they not keep in mind the thinner and brighter sound of the C clarinet that Mahelr originally asked for if they know that was his intention?

Also, more and more clarinet players have good C clarinets. They make a great noise, and Mahler loved them and used them often. Now, if a conductor insists on C Clarinets (not unreasonable in a major orchestra or a period band), the player has to re-transpose the part back, or use the Kalmus parts, which seems perverse.

There is a parallel situation in his trumpet writing- he loved the F trumpet, and it seemed to have a specific character in his mind. Should we change the scores to being all for C trumpet in America and Bflat trumpet in the UK simply because the majority of players use exclusively those instruments instead of switching between F and Bb instruments as Mahler often asks? Again- a player may stay on the same instrument but be mindful of a change in sound or character the composer had in mind, but only if he or she knows that change was there. (I should be clear- Kubik has not changed the trumpet parts)

Another piece with C clarinets is Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Beethoven, like Mahler, tends to get editors and performers quite fired up, and there are always lots of disagreements, some heated over various readings in various critical editions. Fair enough- controversy sells sheet music! But, the many differences between the Barenreiter and Breitkopf Urtext editions (made at more or less the same time) are, if anything, proof positive that assembling an Urtext edition is not a science.

As a case in point, look at the last bar of the piece. In the old edition, the timpani notation was a little unusual- a tremolo for one half note, then a trill for the 2^nd.

(My old score of Beethoven 5- in my parts it is marked > then sf, rather than 2x >. I have done it just as a roll, too)

In spite of this, in my youth, I never heard a performance that rendered this as anything other than long, loud roll until I heard the Cleveland Orchestra and Dohnanyi do it on tour. When the timpanist re-articulate the C on the 2^nd half of the last bar and intensified the sound, the effect was electric. I went to library and got the score (before I owned it- that was a different age!) and, sure enough, that was what was written.

(Dohnanyi and Cleveland with the fancy timp ending)

When I got the score for Jonathan Del Mar’s new edition, however, I was a little bummed to see that the timpani in the final bar only read as a whole note trill-

However, in Clive Brown’s new edition for Breitkopf, it reads as it always has-

In both cases, the authors deal with the bar in the Critical notes. Clive Brown notes-

“Mvt IV, bar 444- Timp SPH semibreve (whole note) with tr, A ES, EP as in present edition”

SPH refers to the earliest hand copied manuscript set of parts, while A is Beethoven’s autograph, ES is the first printed edition of the parts and EP is the first edition of the score

Del Mar has more to say in his Critical Notes.

Pk notation in B, P, E, BR releasing a storm of controversy among percussion players who either concoct or, on the contrary deried, different (often fanciful [emphasis added]) interpretations of what Beethoven could conceiveably have meant. See for example Norman Del Mar 1992:102… On one level, A appears to confirm precisely the reading in these later sources (see facsimile on p 19). On the other hand and entirely different, and manifestly more plausible solution is suggested by all the deletions in A as follows…..

(Facsimle of LvB’s autograph with the offending note circled by the author)

Del Mar then goes on to outline how a series of changes to and deletions from the timpani part mean that the first half note with the tremolo slashes above it is actually deleted (ie- the slash marks indicate it has been delete.

Continuing, he writes

“He converted the quarter note into whole note with tr, simply assuming the new version to suerpsede all of the quarter, even though the stem was not, in fact, crossed out. (There are, of course, plenty of examples in A of portions of earlier versions being only partly, or not all, deleted). And in fact it is this simple whole note tr that is found in the manuscript parts, suggesting that Klumpar (the copyist) may have consulted Beethoven…We then have to accept that (a) Klumpar forgot Beethoven’s advice when he came to copy B- again, as on other occasions- and (b) Beethoven overlooked the error while correcting B (copyists score). Similarly, this is wholly plausible; he overlooked much more serious errors than this… Our text, therefore from PX”

Now, I’m not qualified to say that Del Mar is wrong, but if you think that an Urtext edition is a nicely printed version of what the composer wrote, as opposed to one man’s opinion of what he thinks the composer meant, this is close to a perfect example. Even though the autograph and all sources other than the manuscript parts agree with the “old” reading of two half notes with different roll notations (Del Mar is correct that Beethoven’s notation for a roll is tr, not slash marks), such a reading is “fanciful” and, even though A appears to confirm that reading precisely, a “manifestly more plausible solution” is that Beethoven didn’t write what we see on the page. What we see on the page is a caliographic accident resulting from a number of changes and deletions. The proof of this is that Beethoven may have told his copyist of the change when the handwritten parts were written at great haste, but later overlooked the point in the manuscript score and the first edition. In other words, it is “wholly plausible” that Beethoven took more care with the rendering of this note in the handwritten timpani part used for the first performance than in the engraved edition.

I find that a bit of a stretch, but Del Mar could absolutely be correct. Where there is doubt, there is doubt, and opinion, however well grounded in scholarship, is no substitute for evidence.

Assuming Del Mar is correct, I think the more honest thing to do would be, ideally, to put both versions in the score and parts with a footnote calling attention to his analysis in the Critical Notes. Failing that, since the “old” reading is in the Autograph and all but one of the sources, I think the correct thing to do is to put that old reading in the materials with a note that the editor thinks it is wrong so that the performer can read why. *

My current ideal Urtext edition is the Barenreiter box set of the Bach Cello Suites. Included in the box are facsimiles of all the existing sources from Bach’s era (his manuscript is lost) and a nicely engraved printed score. In the printed score, where ever there is a variation in the sources, the editors put in all the existing readings, EVEN ONES WITH CLEARLY WRONG NOTES. In other words, any time there is a discrepancy, even one we can be sure of the correct reading to 99.99999% certainty, they put the cards on the table so the performer can clearly compare the variations in the sources.

Brown does this sort of thing occasionally in his Beethoven editions. There is a note in the 1^st Mvt of the 2^nd Symphony which is different in Beethoven’s own trio arrangement of the piece. Since both versions are from Beethoven, Brown includes both notes. When I did the piece last year at Cambridge, I took advantage of the brainpower of that formidable orchestra and asked them to do the note one way the first time, the other way on the repeat. I hope someone in the audience noticed!

I’m not sure that the idea of the timpanist doing something quite soloistic and independent from the orchestra is so ludicrous. Timpanists in Handel’s day often improvised at final cadences (few listeners would guess how boring the timpani part is in the score at the end of Messiah, because they’ve probably always heard a variation of it). It’s not unusual to carry this practice through to Mozart and Haydn- I have the timpanist do some ornamentation at the end of the Mozart Requiem. It seems especially appropriate since the Cum Sanctis is lifted almost verbatim, albeit switched from major to minor, from a Handel anthem. Could Beethoven have been simply alluding to an existing tradition?

(The last timpani note in the Genoveva Overture- everyone else has a whole note. Was Schumann referencing Beethoven 5?)

Certainly, other composers seem to have noticed this moment. Robert Schumann uses similar notation in the timps at the end of his Genoveva Overture and the 2^nd Sympony- to half notes when the rest of the band have whole notes. The fact that both these works end in C major, like the Beethoven, makes this look like an obvious shou-out.

(Last note of Schumann’s 2nd Symphony from Clara Schumann’s edition. Everyone else has a whole note. Note the trill is only on the first half note- does the roll stop on the half bar?)

Exactly what Schumann wanted isn’t clear- in his scores, the half notes are tied, but in the 2^nd Symphony, the tr is only on the first note, but this has been changed in the new Critical Ed by Joachim Draheim.

(Draheim has the trill going through the bar. Why? The notes don’t say)

Unlike Del Mar, Draheim offers no rational for the change. He says in the Preface his edition is based on the first edition, not the autograph (which is in existence), nor the Collected Works edition, edited by Clara Schumann. He doesn’t discuss why he doesn’t trust Clara’s edition as much as the first edition, either. Given that there is a discrepancy, should he tell the performer of it and offer a rationale? Again, we can only start to guess at what Schumann meant if we know what he wrote. Perhaps too often, an editor is tempted to save the poor performer having to figure these things out, and fair enough, what do we know.

But on the other hand, that’s not really an Urtext edition anymore, is it? The lovely Bach edition gives the performer all sorts of starting points for further enquiry and discussion, while these examples show the editor slightly wanting to take the performer’s critical faculties out of the equation.

*I put the question of this final note to Clive Brown, who wrote-

“By the way, I’m sorry I never got round to responding to your question about the timpani at the end. I presume you know Del Mar’s rather prolix attempt to explain that this is not what Beethoven intended to write. Perhaps he’s right, but I’m not convinced. What it means, on the other hand, is unclear. There is still much we don’t know about how 19th-century timpanists interpreted the notation.”

Daily Mail on Gal Violin Concerto, Concertino and Triptych

2010-08-20T17:31:06Z

The Daily Mail

20 August 2010

GAL: VIOLIN CONCERTOS, ETC. (AVIE AV 2146)

HANS GAL’S Violin Concerto, written in 1931-32, when he was head of the conservatory in Mainz, is beautifully performed by young German soloist Annette-Barbara Vogel.

By the time Gal wrote his Concertino, in 1939, he was a refugee here from Nazi Germany. This is all lyrical, romantic music in a conservative modern idiom. Kenneth Woods conducts the Northern Sinfonia.

TULLY POTTER

****

Now available from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Janacek’s blood-stained flowers

2010-08-20T17:02:11Z

Olin Downes, New York Times “Which composers have influenced you most?”

Leos Janacek “None.”

Last week, I had the good fortune and privilege to conduct a workshop of Janacek’s Taras Bulba at the Harlech Orchestral Summer School in North Wales.

Since so much of Janacek’s life’s work is bound up in his operas, there isn’t a vast amount of music by him for conductors whose life is mostly centred (at the moment) in the concert hall. Even taking into account my dual life as a cellist, there still aren’t enough pieces- the magnificent Pohadka for Cello and Piano, the two extraordinary String Quartets, the Sinfonietta and Taras Bulba- those are the mainstays that don’t involve finding soloists and choirs.

Jancek is a composer I would qualify as an “ecstatic” voice. In my nomenclature, this means a composer who has a gift for creating individual musical events that are somehow supercharged. In Janacek, again and again we find chords and melodies that in other hands would simply be memorable- in his, they become iconic and awe-inspiring.

Alongside this gift for creating music that burns off the page like the sun itself, one also has a sense that like a great religious visionary, Janecek comes from nowhere and leads to no one. There is simply no music before or after Janacek that sounds like his. He is infinitely easy to recognized and completely impossible to replicate.

Compare this with Schoenberg- his music clearly comes from Mahler and Strauss and leads to Berg and Webern. Dvorak is often cited as an influence on Janacek, but I think he was more an inspiration than a model. Does anything in mature Janacek sound like Dvorak could have gotten there in the same way that one could imagine Mahler writing the 1^st Schoenberg Chamber Symphony, Or Webern writing Pierrot Lunaire?

The composer Janacek reminds me most of is Messiaen, also an ecstatic who comes from nowhere and leads to nothing. Like Janacek, Messiaen had a gift for the magical and electric sonority.

In both cases, this gift for the billion dollar chord was hard earned. Records of Messiaen’s teaching and Janacek’s writings indicate that they both approached chords with a maniacal attention to the possibilities of detail, and had a keen forensic eye for what made a special chord special in music of other composers.

Janacek’s gift is not for inventing new chords, but is for making known chords sound new, even revelatory. He understood that a chord cannot really be reduced- a C major chord is not just a C major chord. Each chord in Janacek is a unique outgrowth of where it is placed in time, how it is spelled, how it is spaced and how it is scored.

Take the F# minor chord at the beginning of Taras Bulba- from the moment the chord sounds, we are in another world. The scoring seems simple- only strings. So too the context- there isn’t any. Yet the chord sounds like it is already a departure from something- the instant the piece starts, we are in another world and another time.

Janacek builds the chord with double basses on the low F# (sounding) below the staff, the cellos and octave above on the F# below middle C. Just a third above them are the violas on the third of the chord, A natural. However, after these two closely spaced notes, there is another full octave of space before the 2^nd violins on the A above middle C. So- thus far, you have octave F#s, then starting a 3^rd above them, octave A’s. Above the 2nds, the first violins play a minor 3^rd (divided), of F# a 6^th above the 2nds and the A above the staff. There’s no 5^th in the chord at all, and there’s a lot of open space, but with a very small interval at the top,

The chord sounds for just a split second before the Cor anglais solo begins, characteristically on the 9^th- ;it is only at the end of the bar that he finally completes the triad with the C# in the Cor.

Mahler is all about perfect fourths- if you understand what fourths meant to Mahler, you are some way to understanding him. Schubert is all about 3rds, particularly 3^rd relationships between keys (he was the undisputed king of the chromatic submediant modulation). If you understand what the relationship between G major and E flat major means to Schubert, you are on your way to understanding him.

For Janacek, it is the 9^th and the 13^th that hold the key to his inner world. It is interesting that even most of his instrumental music is programmatic, because as well as telling the tale of the Kreutzer Sonata or Taras Bulba, all those 9ths and 13ths are telling the story of Leos Janacek- who he was, what he longed for and what he believed music was for.

Most of Janacek’s music is technically difficult to play. The Czech school of string playing has always been one of the world’s greatest, and Janacek clearly writes for players who were raised on Sevcik exercises. What makes his music even more challenging is his distinctive rhythmic language- just as he goes to great lengths to arrange pitches to create maximum burn even in triadic and dyadic harmony (especially so!), so too, he places ideas in time to create the maximum level of energy. His music is as super-charged rhythmicically as it is harmonically.

He loves to start rhythmic passages and ostinatos off the beat- you can see players working at Janacek counting at frantic speed “hmm two, three, hmm five six!” or “and ah! — and ah!” over and over again.

At the end of “Death of Ostap” as Taras Bulba is watching his son being executed, Janacek has the orchestra playing at high speed in one beat per bar. The last 3 bars are 3 loud tutti E-flat minor chords (amazingly scored, as always) on the beat, followed on the 2^nd and 3^rd subdivisions of the beat by the timpani playing Bb and Eb. In other words, in half a bar, you have a beat divided in 3 parts with everyone but the timps playing the 1 and the timps playing the 2 and 3. It would be a bit harrowing for the timp to catch this, but Janacek pushes the envelope even farther. Instead of placing the chord on the down beat of the bar, it’s on the half bar, and remember, we’re in one. That means the timpanist has to enter on the 5^th and 6^th subdivisions of the bar, judging the timing exactly from the conductors beat, as there isn’t enough time to react to the tutti chord. If the timpanist waits for that chord to start their motion, the notes will always be late. But Janacek understood that having the orchestra play “FOUR! five- six!” is more intense than “ONE! two-three!”

At a moment like this, if one can get everyone playing at the same time (not easy- listen to 4 recordings and 2 or 3 will be fudged here. It took us about 5 minutes on those 3 bars with a fine timpanist last week), it’s going to sound pretty electric. However, in other passages that aren’t as obviously super difficult, one has to constantly encourage the musicians to remember that this is ecstatic, elemental, extraordinary music in which every note is alive and white hot.

Explaining this to an orchestra can lead to some scepticism of the “oh god, Ken’s feeling a little intense today” variety. Fortunately, Janacek said it all better than I can.

“By the analysis and elimination of affects—the source from which the chord is born, whose rippling waves carry it forth, through which it is revealed, through which it shines, rings out, changes, grows and dies away—through this I learn the reason for the chord’s existence.

“For me, a chord is a being come alive: a blood-stained flower of the musical art. I know when I write it that pain grips m haer; that the heart moas, wails, falls hard on the ground, crushes, is fragmented by the mist, hardens into granite. What do I care for the borrowed attributes beautiful or ugly!

In a flash of life, the chord’s essence corresponds to my being.

Even the tame look of a chick, the searching eye of a hawk, and ardent kiss, and handshake grown cool, even the dreaming, pale blue of the forget-me-not, even the burning fire of the wild poppy evoke a chord within me”

And from later in the same essay

“Within a chord, the affects are divided. The roots of its individual compenents draw upon the emotional ingredients, exalted by their passion.

“Had the mind not been burning within the chord, I would compare the chord to the floweres conjured up for us on the window pane by the frost.

“Against the expressive chord stands a chord acoustically calculated, smoothed out, ascetically refined, grown cold, a chord made glib through education.

“To choose out of these chords?

“If you reach for the latter, you are reaching for someone else’s reading made work.

“You are withdrawing fomr the living source of expression; you are getting nearer the graphic rather than the expressive.

“A crossroads, indeed”

And from a later essay

“Who is so foolish as to get it into his head to stop a ray of sunlight in its course? I may deflect it, break it down into a rainbow, reflect it and yet it will run on into infinity. The same with a note. I may tie it in a chord of passions: it will dissolved and the note will roam about on its own. It may gather colours within the universe. I may tie it in a knot in my mind. But the note, the only certain thing, peters out alone; yet there is no end to chords.”

Quotations are taken from Janacek’s Uncollected Essays on Music, translated by Mirk Zemanova. It’s an extraordinary book.

Expert’s Perspective- Mahler 5, an Ass and Two Birds

2010-08-16T18:29:55Z

“The donkey found it pleasing, and only said
Wait! Wait! Wait! I will announce my judgement now.

Well have you sung, Nightingale!
But, Cuckoo, you sing a good chorale!”

On Friday, the intrepid musicians of the Harlech Orchestral Academy performed Mahler’s Fifth Symphony- a performance that was every bit as hot as the auditorium we were playing in. Although we’ve had a lot of Mahler on the blog this year, there is always more to discuss, and more to learn. One topic that came up was the use of Mahler’s Wunderhorn Song “In Praise of Lofty Intelligence” in the Finale. What is he up to, crowing such a massive and serious work with a movement based on such a silly song? Although many writers reference the presence of this song in Mahler’s Finale, I’ve come across very little material that offers any thoughtful analysis of what Mahler was up to. With this in mind, I thought we might turn to Mahler scholar Peter Davison again to share his thoughts and discoveries–

“In praise of high intellect”

Have you ever wondered why the Wunderhorn song, Lob des hohen Verstands – In praise of high intellect, provides the thematic seed for the Rondo Finale in Mahler’s fifth symphony? One school of thought views such borrowings in fairly abstract terms. It is a good, perky little tune and Mahler could see some symphonic potential in it. So, along with other random musical sources, Mahler threw it into the melting-pot of his symphony and hoped for the best. Readers of this blog will by now know that this is not a view held by Ken Woods or myself. We take the view that Mahler always did things for very good reasons and understanding his motives will often reveal dense layers of meaning in his work.

We should begin by finding out what this Wunderhorn song is all about. It tells the story of a singing competition between a nightingale and a cuckoo. An ass is appointed at the cuckoo’s request to be the judge, because its long ears allow it supposedly to hear very well. The nightingale then warbles its elaborate song, but this makes the ass dizzy. He can’t cope with all the subtle changes of pitch and rhythm. The cuckoo sings his song, and the ass, with some reluctance awards him the prize, because his melody is so easy to grasp. On the surface, this is just an amusing fable which tells us that asses are rather stupid, but, as ever in Mahler, the symbolism of the text is highly relevant to his ideas about music and the world around him.

The name, nightingale, actually means “songstress of the night” and in mythology, the bird’s elaborate and finely nuanced song is often associated with lament. For the Romantics, the nightingale was the melancholic voice of the poet who gives voice to the suffering soul trapped in the physical world. Think of Keats and Shelley. The cuckoo on the other hand is often treated as an interloper and trickster, because that bird lays its egg in other birds’ nests and deceives its rivals. The bird is for this reason associated with adulterous betrayal; to be cuckolded is to be the victim of a cuckoo which has invaded the intimate space. The cuckoo is a clumsy opportunist, while the nightingale is lonely, sensitive and profound; more likely the victim of the cuckoo. The ass, as we all know, is traditionally stupid, and his appointment as a judge mocks all dull authority figures. The ass cannot cope with the song of the nightingale because it gives voice to sadness and eternal longing. The cuckoo on the other hand does only what is simple and predictable.

How does all this work in the context of the fifth symphony? Mahler begins his work with a devastating expression of public and personal grief, which is followed by defiant anger. His inner being is in a state of great agitation, and he expresses this in music of heightened subjectivity. He longs to escape his torment and glimpses release in the form of a chorale which emerges tantalisingly in the second movement, before the music sinks back into the abyss. In the symphony’s Scherzo, as Ken has previously suggested, melancholy prevails. Time is the fleeting measure of our mortality and life is full of seductive deceptions. The music alternates between Dionysian wildness and gloomy introspection. This is again very much the territory of the romantic poet; the song of the nightingale.

Part Three of the symphony at first continues the introspection and subjectivity. We experience a state of bliss; a mingling of the spiritual and the erotic in a wordless song about intimate closeness. The Adagietto manages to be both passionate and serene, and it is very much music of the night. Again we might say, this is the territory of the romantic poet achieving a state of transcendent beauty, after enduring pain and melancholy. Mahler could have ended the symphony here. He did after all on several occasions finish his symphonic works with a slow movement. But the Adagietto proves to be merely an introduction to a more conventional symphonic finale, and it is now that the song, Lob des hohen Verstands is the focus of attention! All the material of the work’s Rondo Finale is somehow derived from it, except perhaps the Adagietto quotations which fill the more reflective episodes. But even then, the themes are closely related.

The Finale opens with a sense that dawn has arrived after a night of love. As activity picks up, the symphony’s hero enters the daytime world of people and ordinary business. We might also conclude from the many references to Lob des hohen Verstands that this finale re-enacts the song’s singing competition in some way. By implication the audience is invited to play the role of the ass who must judge what they prefer. They have heard the lament of the nightingale and the secrets of the night, but now there is a parade of much simpler melodic lines conforming to established formal and contrapuntal procedures, which are the province of the cuckoo. Or is it?

The Adagietto is not a lament, yet it is very poetic, mixing the bliss of the moment with sublime longing. So while it belongs to night, it is not sad or doom-laden. Thereafter, in the Finale, Mahler treats us to such a virtuoso display of counterpoint and orchestral brilliance, it is hard not to conclude that he relishes the chance to put lament and night-time behind him. What is more, the virtuosity of the Finale suggests something of the nightingale’s complexity. It is a celebration of ingenuity and invention, not some crude two-note whistle. Thus Mahler enters the world of day, the world of real music-making with considerable swagger. His hooligan wilfulness sweeps away the precious sensitivity of the symphony’s earlier movements. “You want a symphonic finale”, he seems to say, “then I will give you one of the very best.” Yes, we all love the exuberance of this music; its wit and cleverness, its boundless creativity. This is wonderful music for talented musicians, for good conductors and for sophisticated audiences. And we should enjoy it, not succumbing to any Adorno-ian pessimism that says, Mahler does not mean it or that he is being merely ironical. This is a real triumph of the musical imagination, which posits not a resolution of what went before, but suggests instead a different relationship to it. It sets a limit to the degree of introspection and negativity, because these would otherwise paralyse our ability to act effectively in the outside world.

Some may notice more than a hint of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger in the narrative of the Fifth Symphony, something that becomes more overt in the Seventh. This can be no coincidence. The singing competition in the Wunderhorn song that pits natural spontaneity against dull convention repeats the confrontation between Walther and Beckmesser which takes place in Wagner’s opera. The unconventional Walther wins the prize in the Wagner, thereby renewing the lives of the ordinary people. He expresses true Nature in his song, which he knows through his love for Eva and through the mysteries revealed to him in dream-like states. Walther is an outsider who adapts the rules of the guild to his inspiration. Under the guidance of Hans Sachs, his new kind of song is made compatible with the traditions and conventions of the other masters. The rule-bound Beckmesser is humiliated for his poor judgement and lack of sensitivity, so that justice appears to be done. But in the Wunderhorn song, there is no wise Hans Sachs, only a donkey whom the cuckoo has appointed out of self-interest. The assumption must be that, in Mahler’s case, the song of night, the song of the nightingale will not be understood and the people will lose touch with the dynamism of true Nature. Mahler undoubtedly identified with Walther as the outsider with the unconventional song, while his allusions to Wagner, Beethoven, Bach and even Brahms at the end of this Fifth suggest that he considered himself one of the great masters of the Austro-German tradition. Yet Mahler had limited confidence in his audience and the critics to judge him fairly or to understand what he was saying. He directed this mistrust of his audience into having a joke at their expense.

So how does the end of the fifth symphony relate to the text of the Wunderhorn poem which inspired it? These are the crucial lines:

The cuckoo then quickly began

his song through thirds and fourths and fifths;
The donkey found it pleasing, and only said
Wait! Wait! Wait! I will announce my judgement now.
Well have you sung, Nightingale!
But, Cuckoo, you sing a good chorale!
And you keep the rhythm finely and internally!
Thus I say according to my high intellect,
And, although it may cost an entire land,
I will let you win!

The last bars of Finale might suggest victory for the cuckoo’s brand of simple music – lots of primary intervals and the “good chorale.” The chorale is a symbol of conventional religious faith and hints at conformity to religious authority. It has a moral imperative; you shall believe, because you are told to! The chorale has more than a passing similarity to the famous chorale, “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern – How brightly shines the morning star.” It is a religious song by Nicolai from the late 16C expressing the joy of faith and the gift of divine grace. It has frequently been set to music because of the musical references in its text. Mahler’s version is no more than a discreet parody of the original melody, but it successfully evokes J.S.Bach whom Mahler so revered and looks back to his time when faith was much more firmly embedded in European culture than in early 20C. It is further evidence of Mahler’s penchant for ambiguity that the “Morning Star” is both a symbol of Christ and a new dawn, yet also represents a remnant of night persisting in the daytime. Christ is in truth an ambiguous figure; a symbol of sacrifice and suffering, as well as the bringer of new life and heavenly joy.

All this seems somewhat at odds with Mahler’s reputation as a free-thinker and as someone who struggled with orthodox belief, although we know Mahler was attracted to Christianity. In that sense, Mahler’s chorale and antiquated contrapuntal style give us the Finale we want to hear and which the audience of his time would have expected, rather than a true summary of the whole symphony. All those primary intervals, contrapuntal devices and the triumphant chorale are shout-outs which say “I am a great musician”. In the background, the Adagietto, the Scherzo and the Funeral March all subvert this conventional position. They are like residual memories which refuse to go away and which say, “I am a mortal man with fears, doubts and vulnerabilities.” Mahler indeed wants to impress us with his gesture of faith, his masterful virtuosity and his wit, but the crucial lines of the Wunderhorn text are the last ones; “And, although it may cost an entire land, I will let you win!” In other words, for this musical victory there is a considerable price to pay in what gets left out. This is Mahler’s Meistersinger moment, when he asks us – are you a Beckmesser, who will judge my work by conventional standards, or will you remember the night-time song and its deep and sometimes troubling meaning?

The finale is a romp and we are meant to enjoy Mahler’s reconciliation with the daytime world. But he does not want us to forget the rest of the work with its darkness and lament, its sublime poetry and deep sensitivity. This is laughter that hides a few tears. That is not some trick , but a reflection of how life is. Because we are sometimes sad, that does not mean we can never laugh. We laugh with hindsight at how seriously we have taken things, and we also just forget that we were once sad. Sometimes the hustle and bustle of everyday life is good therapy for getting through gloom and melancholy. Life goes on. So Mahler has his fun, and the joke is on us. We are all turned into asses because we love this noisy, carefree ending and would choose it every time, even at the expense of the Adagietto which comes in for some rough treatment in the Finale.

But is Mahler wagging a chiding finger at us? Even this is not certain, for Mahler may want us to know that making a choice between dark and light, introspection and extroversion, simplicity and complexity is a false way of thinking. Human Nature is a fickle thing, and we like to enjoy the moment and forget the suffering that is around us. Indeed, it is perhaps necessary for us to suppress our doubts and worries to stay well-balanced. The Finale marks a moment of good feeling that could just as easily pass, if hostile fate intervenes and takes us right back to the beginning of the work. Besides, much of the movement’s impact is governed by its context, especially following the Adagietto with its deeply personal content. That movement provides the soul-nourishment which allows the work’s hero to face the outside world with confidence and emotional distance. Yet, though nothing in this music is ever quite what it seems, we still find it convincing. Mahler is a master craftsman and technician, who takes primary intervals and spins them round and around in dazzling combinations. But he does this always with playful ambiguity and a degree of subtle subversion. These are the hallmarks of Mahler’s genius as an artist and as a connoisseur of the human condition. For his extraordinary vision, we should praise Mahler’s high intellect.

Peter Davison

Rock ‘n’ Rozsa

2010-08-03T15:05:40Z

Many years ago, I first played a pops show in Columbus that was made up entirely of us playing extended excerpts of classic films scores from the golden age of film music while the originally films were shown on a giant screen behind the orchestra. It’s a great show, and went on to become one of those franchises that for years was on every orchestra’s pops series once every other year or so.

On my first encounter with the show, however, I was just wildly excited to play some of these scores that I could remember from Sunday afternoons as a child, when old movies were the only real choice on TV outside of football season. Gone With the Wind (Max Steiner) was on the list, as was Psycho with Bernard Hermann’s matchless music, and the classic Robin Hood with Korngold’s score. One of the highlights for me, though, was playing Rosza’s score to Ben Hur, which we’re playing next week in Harlech. Hearing, and playing that remarkable score really brought back a lot of happy memories watching these big epic films. When you’re a little kid, you hardly have any idea what it’s about- you just think it’s a good lazy way to spend an afternoon. Eventually, if you are musical, you can’t help but dream of playing those great scores.

Rehearsing with Ken can feel just like this

Another thing about the Rozsa that really struck me at the time was how unbelievably loud it seemed. I still think it was one of the loudest pieces I’ve ever played- it’s pretty amazing just how loud a symphony orchestra can play.

My other funny memory of that show was the end of Robin Hood- the director of the film wanted to create a supercharged atmosphere in one fight scene, so he ordered the score to be sped up electronically quite a bit. Replicating this effect live with all of Korngold’s notes is challenging to the point of being comical.

Well, as I said, this was many years ago, and soon enough, one felt like that show was everywhere you looked- I probably played it with 5 or 6 orchestras and heard it at many others, but all that seems a long time ago. I don’t know if it is still making the rounds or not (let us know with a comment- maybe you’ve played it), and it’s been a good 10 years or more since I came across it.

When I got the score of the Rozsa, I was a little disappointed that it was just printed on paper. I remember as being so loud that one would expect it to be printed on steel. However, I did track down a recording of Rozsa conducting it with the RPO, and my recollection hasn’t failed me- it is a fantastically loud piece. Rosza achieves this extraordinary sense of power and scale through a pretty modestly sized orchestra- more Tchaikovsky sized than Mahler. He just seems to know how to get a huge sound out of the band through the way he voices chords and how he doubles voices.

Believe it or not, I’ve been told more than once by orchestra musicians “I sweat more for you than for any other conductor.” I take this as high praise, but I shudder to think what might happen next week when the world’s sweat-makin-est conductor meets the world’s loudest piece.

Of course, when I hear the piece now, I’m no longer reminded of lazy Sunday afternoons watching old movies on my folks’ shag carpet. I’m reminded of playing that damn pops show- of getting out the earplugs for the Rozsa and racing like mad to catch the end of the Korngold. Being a musician is a funny mix of living out your dreams and killing them off at the same time.

Why Walton?

2010-08-02T13:46:54Z

As a musician who likes to explore the rare and odd byways of the repertoire as well as play the hits, I’m often asked what has drawn me to program and perform this or that unusual piece.

Depending on the venue and the listener, threshold at which “a piece” becomes an “unusual piece” might be anything from anything less well known than Beethoven 5 (like, er, Beethoven 4) to the 2^nd version of an unpublished juvenile ballet suite by Schnittke’s next-door neighbour’s dog sitter.

Next week I am conducting a piece that I think we can all agree is a rarity for most concert goers, if not all music nerds- William Walton’s Variations on a Theme of Paul Hindemith. So, I thought I would answer the question- why this piece?

The reason is profound and compelling

In about 1994 or 95 I was on a break between rehearsals of the excellent Columbus Symphony and wandered over to the local sheet music store. They had a bin of orchestral scores on sale for 50% off the last marked price. I picked up a few things, including this work. The original price had been marked in pounds (not often you see a £ sign in Ohio shops). At one point it had been going for $35 bucks, a medium price for a study-sized score. There where then about 4 sale stickers, gradually reducing the price to $5.25, so I got it for $2.12.

Although I’d always loved Walton, ever since I got to know the Cello Concerto (still my favourite piece of his), I’d never encountered this work, so as I plunked down 6 quarters, five dimes and 3 nickels and got my 3 cents change, I vowed to program the piece someday in honor of this random occasion.

There wasn’t a recording in CCM’s vast library at the time, but I was finally able to order one through a record store. It was a good piece! My resolve was strengthened!

16 years later, here we are.

In all those years, I kept an ear out for the piece- I finally heard it live last spring here in my adopted home town of Cardiff, when my friend James Judd conducted it with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. It was a great piece of programming- pairing this masterpiece of Walton with the wonderful and rarely heard Cello Concerto by Paul Hindemith, the very work from which the theme of the Walton is taken. The orchestra and soloist were on brilliant form that afternoon, although there were only a few waifs and strays in the audience. Why is it that the better the program, the smaller the crowd? Not to complain- my joy at hearing the piece live was tempered only by my very slight disappointment that James and the band beat me to the Walton.

It’s a pretty tough piece- Walton’s orchestra writing is always extremely demanding, but this piece seems conceived almost like a concerto for orchestra. Although they were good friends (Hindemith had been the soloist in the premiere of the Walton Viola Concerto), I never really thought their music sounded similar, but it’s fascinating how Walton can blur the line between “Waltonian” and “Hindemithian” styles.

Anyway, I’m doing the piece because I bought it for 2 bucks, and that’s a damn fine reason in my book.

You can buy the critical edition of the Variations and the Partita for Orchestra in a single volume for £160 pounds if you like.

CD Review- Gramophone on Gal Violin Concerti and Triptych for Orchestra

2010-07-30T16:05:07Z

Gramophone Magazine

September 2010

Orchestral reviews

Gál

Violin Concerto, Op 39. Violin Concertino, Op 52. Triptych, Op 100

Annette-Barbara Vogel vn

Northern Sinfonia/Kenneth Woods

Avie ® AV2146 (70’ DDD)

Premiere recordings of three gloriously tuneful late-Romantic masterworks

Hard on the heels of Gil’s violin sonatas and Suite (8/10) comes this superb new disc featuring the pre-war Concerto and Concertino, separated by the invigorating late Triptych (1970) written in his 80th year. Annette-Barbara Vogel is once again the nimble-fingered and sweet-toned soloist, ably supported throughout by the Northern Sinfonia and Kenneth Woods.

Vogel’s knowledge of and sympathy for Gál’s music is manifest from her first entry in the Concerto (1931-32) following the exposition of the lovely opening theme (given to the oboe). The Concerto, scored throughout with chamber-musical clarity, is lyrical from first bar to last but no mere parade of tunes: Gál’s succession of Fantasia, Arioso and Rondo are tightly organised, no matter how relaxed or light-hearted they sound. The same attributes can be heard in the Concertino (1939), written after Gál’s protracted flight from the Nazi menace to Britain via Vienna. Scored for violin and string orchestra, its lightness of texture is a model of balance and its sense of inner calm in extreme contrast to the uncertainty of his personal circumstances at the time of its composition. While the Triptych is audibly the product of the same mind as the concertos, it does have the feel of a late work. Its spontaneity of invention was matched by its speed of composition: five weeks from sketch to full score in January-February 1970. The energetic outer movements (the concluding Comedy is a particular delight) frame a more sober central Lament in the form of a pavane and stylistically seems closer to Franz Schmidt than the Concerto. Woods directs a highly polished account but the orchestral playing throughout is most assured. Avie’s sound is excellent but it is the music that compels attention. Strongly recommended.

Guy Rickards

GRAMOPHONE SEPTEMBER 2010 p.57

Now available from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Classical Music- RECORDING OF THE FORTNIGHT, Gal Vn Concerti, Triptych

2010-07-30T16:10:41Z

From Classical Music Magazine, 31 July 2010

RECORDING OF THE FORTNIGHT

Gal: Violin Concerto and Concertino, Triptych for Orchestra
Annette-Barbara Vogel, Northern Sinfonia/Kenneth Woods
Avie 2146

Add to the rhapsodic glow of Strauss or Korngold flecks of virtuosic humour and, in the case of the Concertino of 1939, darker hues, and you have Hans Gal’s music. No wonder Vogel has recorded two discs of his muisc, it is enormously rewarding for performer and listener. Finely detailed playing, particularly of the Triptych, gives overdue credit to a composer whose genial genius was obscured by Nazism, illness and the British establishment’s neglect.

(p 43)

Now available from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

The best program you never heard in your life

2010-07-31T09:59:13Z

You can call it the best program you’ve never heard in your life. You can call it the almost revelatory program that almost happened- what you can’t call it is the program for the final concert of the Harlech Orchestral Summer School, which I’m now preparing for.

Harlech is an intense week long program that covers an immense amount of substantial repertoire. Some is simply workshopped and read, while a few pieces are selected for extra rehearsal and the final performance. This year it has been a given that Mahler 5 is going to be on that program- in this year, how could it not be? But what to pair it with?

As it turns out, part of the equation includes a premiere of a new work by Duncan Stubbs written for the winds of the academy called “Harlech Variants.” Given the massive scale of the Mahler and the presence of the Stubbs, it would seem that all that is needed is a relatively slight work to open the program.

Of this year’s repertoire, the obvious choice is Ravel’s La Valse, although one would never call it slight! The parallels with the Mahler are obvious and fascinating- the Scherzo of the Mahler seems an obvious model for the Ravel. Both use dance, notably (but not exclusively) the Viennese waltz, to delve into the darkest corners of the human psyche.

However, as we get closer to the beginning of the festival, there is another work in the repertoire I’ve longed to program alongside the Mahler. I even went so far as to suggest to my colleagues that we ought to ditch the Ravel and do it instead- in spite of the fact that it would make for a ridiculously long program and a very exhausting week of rehearsals. My associates wisely talked me down from that particular ledge.

The piece, of course, is Shostakovich’s 6^th Symphony. Why? Surely the Ravel is the obvious and perfect pairing? Is this just a case of Ken the Shostakovich nut looking for any possible chance to perform a Shostakovich symphony?

Well, I can’t rule that out, but there was more to it than that. First, the Ravel is the obvious pairing. The Shostakovich is just the more interesting pairing because it seems that putting these two great but highly unorthodox works on the same program could be much more illuminating, and could help us to hear both works with clearer ears.

Shostakovich 6 is one of those pieces that is often described as “enigmatic.” It is in 3 movements- one very long slow movement followed by two very short fast movements. It has always had its advocates (Lenny loved it and conducted it brilliantly), but many people can’t get past the fact that it doesn’t seem to do what symphonies after Beethoven are supposed to do, which is to reconcile and resolve large-scale tensions.

The Largo completely overshadows the other two movements, obviously in terms of scale, but also in terms of emotional impact. On the other hand, surely a genius like Shostakovich knew which rules he was breaking and why. Surely Beethoven taught us that what a symphony ought to do with a movement like the Largo is to balance it with a Finale of equal scale and weight? That’s what his 5^th and 9^th symphonies do so well, and it’s something Mahler mastered in his 2^nd Symphony.

In fact, Mahler 2 might be the ultimate symphonic example of a vast, tragic opening movement (like the Largo of Shostakovich 6) which is followed by some shorter intermezzo-like movements (again like the Shostakovich), which culminates and a vaster and more dramatic triumphant Finale in which all the darkness and tension of the first movement is transcended and resolved (something conspicuously missing in the Shostakovich).

If Mahler 2 is the grandest and most perfect example of that approach to symphonic form, it’s certainly not the only example. Bruckner deals with it in his 5^th, 8^th and 9^th Symphonies (we can see from the fragments where he was going with the Finale of his 9^th). And, even if the 2^nd is the most powerful and explicit example of a cathartic Finale in his music, Mahler’s 1^st 4 symphonies all treat the Finale in a similar way- as a summing up and culmination of all that precedes them.

However, in the 5^th Symphony, Mahler for the first time goes in a different and more ambivalent direction. The 5^th is written in 5 movements, which are grouped into 3 parts. The 1^st part of the symphony is unmistakably where the center of gravity of the entire work is located- two movements of unprecedented darkness, intensity and ferocity. Part I of Mahler 5 ends in as black an abyss as anything in the repertoire I can think of (like the Largo of Shostakovich 6). Dark as the Funeral March is which opens the 2^nd Symphony, there still seems to be room for the drama to continue from that point. The ending of Part I of Mahler 5 is so black and nihilistic that it seems impossible that anything could follow which would be able to balance or transcend that darkness.

Mahler follows this in Part II with an ambivalent Scherzo which you can read about here. Like the Ravel, it is in many ways a dance of death, or at the very least a dance which expresses a certain affection for oblivion. Again, Part II of the Shostakovich is similar- it is also a Scherzo, but the mood is hardly carefree.

Part III of the Mahler promises a return to life. It is now well known that in many respects, the famous Adagietto is a love song, but it is also filled with references to Mahler’s own Kindertotenlieder, or Songs on the Death of Children. Yes, it has moments of stunning tenderness and exquisite longing, but it, never mind what today’s politically correct writers tell you, includes passages of searing anguish and deep, deep pain.

In Mahler 2, the last grand and dramatic Finale is preceded like a structural upbeat by the song Urlicht. Like the Adagietto, it is intimate and tender music in which hope seems to begin to awaken, if not assert itself. However, where the Finale of the 2^nd begins with a savagely dramatic outburst (obviously related to the opening of the Finale of Beethoven 9), the Finale of Mahler 5 begins with a joke. Mahler quotes one of his own songs (Lob des hohen Verstandes, or “In Praise of Lofty Intelligence”) about a singing competition between a cuckoo and a nightingale judged by an ass. It hardly promises a Finale in which the tragedy of Part I can be overcome, and it turns out to be.

The Finale of Mahler 5 is humorous, virtuosic and passionate. The humor is sometimes warm and bright, other times black and sardonic. It makes extensive reference to the music of the Adagietto, now played in a genuinely carefree, breezy style, perhaps as if to say love is as much a game as anything else. There is only one reference to Part I, but what a reference it is- just before the end, he brings back the great chorale of the 2^nd Movement. This overpowering peroration had collapsed into abject crisis the first time it was heard, but here, it shines out in triumphant confidence. If the symphony ended here, he might just have pulled of the kind of transcendent ending we’d been hoping for all along, and what a feat that would have been!

But Mahler chooses not to do so. Instead, the piece continues just long enough to undermine the Chorale. Instead of ending in catharsis, the piece ends in laughter – perhaps, like love, triumph is also all just a game, or perhaps he is saying that the culmination of the chorale is the ending to yesterday’s story- life goes on! The piece ends with a torrent of whole tone scales- the most ambivalent of musical structures. Is it light or dark humor? Is there an edge of madness in that laughter? Those whole tone scales seem to signal we can’t be sure Do we all live happily after? Are all life’s problems solved? I don’t think so, but life goes on, and in Mahler’s world the primal force of life is extraordinarily powerful.

Likewise, the 3^rd Mvt of Shostakovich 6 doesn’t try to fix what the Largo has broken. Like Mahler’s Finale, the primary emotion is humor, both dark and light. Much as I love, and much as the world needs the Finale of Mahler 2, the Finale of Maher 5 is truer to life, hard as that is to accept. My sense is that Shostakovich 6 is also a pretty profoundly true-to-life work. Perhaps he is saying that suffer as you will (remember the Largo), don’t expect the heavens to open and for God to give you all the answers. Life goes on, in all its hilarity and insanity.

Side by side, the Shostakovich looks a little less of an enigmatic failure and much more a triumph of ironic realism, and the Mahler looks less Beethovenian and more modern.

Of course, it’s possible there is an even darker truth in the Shostakovich- we know he advertised that his original intention was to make the work a portrait of Lenin, complete with choral Finale. Maybe the work was meant to look more like Mahler 2, and the 2^nd and 3^rd movements were kindred intermezzi to the 2^nd and 3^rd mvts of Mahler 2?

However, in 1939, Russia was still waiting for the happy ending to the Lenin drama. Perhaps the deafening silence that follows the 3^rd mvt of the 6^th is the point. Shostakovich didn’t write a Finale because life hadn’t given him one to depict?

It sounds good, but I’m not convinced. The Largo seems to introverted and personal to have anything to do with politics and history- if it’s about anything other than despair, it is about music. More on that to come, I hope.

It has always bothered commentators that the ending of Shostakovich 6 doesn’t feel like an ending worthy of its beginning. Isn’t that obviously his point? Of course the piece is unfinished- he doesn’t want you to walk away from the symphony ready go out for a drink. He wants us to be thinking about what the piece means, to be struggling to make sense of its pain and contradictions. The work of the listener is just beginning when this piece ends.

Vftp Headquarters Welcomes back….. Me!

2010-07-26T11:52:24Z

Hi Vftp fans (!) and friends–

Well, as the man said, what a long, strange trip it has been.

I returned to Cardiff and Vftp International Headquarters yesterday after a full month on the road. Unusually, half of that trip was for VACATION- hence the lack of any recent posts here.

After 2 weeks of blissful sight-seeing, hiking and family time, it really struck me when I got home yesterday just how insanely busy I had been in all the weeks leading up to our get-away. I had completely forgotten that the night before we left for America, I had done a pretty big concert with the HSO (Franck D minor, Saint-Saens 3^rd Violin Concerto and Berlioz Corsaire Overture), and only been home for about 3 hours between that concert our departure for Heathrow. There was still junk from that concert in the car when we got to Heathrow yesterday, but it seemed like relics of a distant epoch.

2010 has been a very, very intense and busy year so far, and there is a huge backlog of stuff I meant to write about and hope still to write about, but I’ve been humbled enough by past failings not to promise readers too much. Much as I would like to say that this week we can look forward to posts about x, y and z, all I can really say is that it is great to be back, and that I certainly have a lot of ground to cover about June concerts, the Rose City International Conductor’s Workshop, the Gal CD and projects ahead.

Meanwhile, it is time to start learning some music again. Between May 31 and July 11, I did 8 programs with 8 orchestras, with no repeated repertoire on any of those concerts, but since finishing the workshop on the 11^th of July, I have not opened a score! It felt good.

Next up is the Harlech Orchestral Summer School, which is a mountain of rep, much of it new to me-

Arnold- The Inn of Sixth Happiness
Janacek- Taras Bulba
Mahler – Symphony No 5
Niccolai- Overture to the Merry Wives of Windsor
Prokofiev- Selections from Romeo and Juliet Suite No. 2
Rachmaninov – Isle of the Dead
Ravel – La valse
Shostakovich – Symphony No 6
Walton- Variations on a Theme of Paul Hindemith

I’ve done Mahler 5 quite recently, but it’s always a lot to take in. I usually do the Prokofiev R&J music in my own selection of music from the 3 suites, which I can make a little closer to the plot of the play than the suites themselves are, and so there are a couple of movements in the 2^nd Suite that are new. I did the Niccolai recently on the SMP Viennafest concert back in January. Everything else is new, and the Shostakovich, Janacek, Ravel, Walton and Racnmaninoff should keep me busy for the next 2 weeks.

So, maybe I can deliver a new wealth of Vftp posts this week, and maybe I can’t! Maybe it is time for a post on how to learn scores really, really freakin’ fast.

In any case, I hope readers are all having a good summer. Thanks for your comments, and please keep in touch!!

Ken

Concert Review- Surrey Advertiser on SMP Brahms 4, Tchaik Vn and Schumann Manfred

2010-07-25T11:51:34Z

From the Surrey Advertiser

July 9, 2010

Ambitious programme draws Surrey Mozart Players’ season to a close.

The Surrey Mozart Players concluded their 2009/10 season and their run of Schumann’s orchestrals works with a most ambitious programme in the Electric Theatre.

Under their charismatic conductor Kenneth Woods, they gave an inspired performance of one of Schumann’s fines works for orchestra, his Manfred Overture. The composer, mentally disturbed himself, was ideally placed to portray Byron’s tragic hero.

The performance was deliberately nervy and fevered, with plenty of dramatic tension, and the frenetic string playing contrasted sharply with the chorale-like wind chords towards the end.

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, written in the wake of his disastrous marriage, is so difficult that Leopold Auer pronounced it unplayable, even if it has now become very popular.

Its difficulties were exquisitely surmounted by the young Russian-born violinist Alexander Sitkovetsky, who throughout produced a wonderful, warm tone from his eighteenth-century instrument.

If the long first movement and its astonishing cadenza were technically proficient, the central Canzonetta, with its touching main theme, took off emotionally, with some lovely duetting between soloist and the wind instruments.

The Finale, full of Russian folk-like themes, was driven forward with a thrilling sense of momentum.

The soloist galvanized the orchestra into their best playing of the evening, while his own part reached to the very top registers of the violin, and he drew a tremendous ovation from the audience.

Notwithstanding the dry and “toppy” acoustic of the Electric Theatre, the orchestra exuded warmth in their rendering of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony.

Described by Kenneth Woods as one of the few “tragic” symphonies in the repertoire, it is full of good tunes and fascinating harmonies, particularly in the modally inflected Andante. The descending motives of the opening, echoed near the end of the great passacaglia Finale were beautifully shaped. The bumptious Scherzo movement, with its jolly interjections from the triangle was fluent, yet exciting.

The Finale itself was imbued with some lovely phrasing, a careful pointing out of the contrapuntal niceties, and, after some effective tension and release in dynamics, concluded with a great climax.

Shelagh Goodwin

CD Review- The Strad on Gal Violin Concerti and Triptych for Orchestra

2010-07-25T11:17:24Z

From the August 2010 issue of The Strad

Gál Violin Concerto op 39, Vioin Concertino op 52, Triptych op 100

Annette Barbara Vogel, violin

Northern Sinfonia/Kenneth Woods

Here’s a real treat: a pair of long-list violin concertos from that most fecund decade for the medium, the 1930’s.

Hans Gál (1890-1987) was a Viennese-Jewish composer who managed to flee his homeland for the UK at the time of the Anschluss and spent the rest of his life as a musicologist in Edinburgh. The songful Violin Concerto was written in 1932 when he was at the height of his fame as a composer in Austro-Germany and musically falls very much within the central European tradition with hints of Bartok, Mahler and neo-Classical Strauss. The Concertino (with string orchestra) was written in London in 1939, but its lyrical ease belies the times and his precarious circumstances. German violinist, Annette-Barbara Vogel, who has already recorded Gál’s chamber music for Avie gives committed performances of both pieces and revels in the honesty of this music. She brings a winning presence to her tone and delivery, and maintains a perceptively fluid relationship with the accompanying forces of the Northern Sinfonia.

The symphonic-scale Triptych for orchestra dates from 1970, but is written in a style that seems unchanged from the time of Mahler and Korngold, whose music the pieces resemble at times. The Sage Gateshead recording is warm and supportive.

MATTHEW RYE

Classical CD Reviews on Hans Gal Violin Concerti and Triptych for Orchestra

2010-07-29T11:51:36Z

There is a new and perceptive review of the new Gal CD at Classical CD Reviews by critic Gavin Dixon here-

….Gál’s aesthetic is inherited directly from the tail-end of the Austro-German Romantic tradition. His musicbears many similarities with that of Franz Schmidt, although not the long, lyrical melodic lines that characterise so much of Schmidt’s orchestral music. Franz Schreker is another similar Viennese voice, although Gál (thankfully) avoids the excesses of Schreker’s neurotic Expressionism. In fact, it is difficult to deduce much about Gál’s personality or temperament from this music. He was presumably a very calm, centred man, for whom music came from within, rather than through conscious reactions to external stimuli. How else to explain the stylistic similarities of these three works, the Concerto written before his flight from the Nazi’s, the Concertino written in London during the war, and the Triptych written towards the end of his life, in Edinburgh in 1970….

….the lightness of the composer’s touch combines yet again with a rock-solid compositional technique, with very listenable results. The performances and the recording are of a consistently high standard. The Northern Sinfonia …… are probably better than anything he ever heard in this country. But most importantly, both orchestra and conductor Kenneth Woods are sensitive to the lightness of the textures and always elegantly balance the soloist. Annette-Barbara Vogel is about the most ideal exponent a composer could hope to have. She, too, maintains that delicate balance between thematic rigour and lightness of touch, often through very gradual changes of tone colour and a coherent approach to phrasing. Her low register is particularly impressive, a rich, immediate sound, but never overpowering or unduly woody. These works all border on the textures of chamber music at times, and the intimacy that Vogel achieves brings those quiet textures up close. This is her second Hans Gál project; her first was a disc of Violin Sonatas, also on Avie (AV2182). If you’ve heard that and were impressed, and I understand most were, then buy this. You won’t be disappointed.

Now available from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Gal on Mahler

2010-06-24T15:20:42Z

As we celebrate the release of the new Gal CD, I’m hoping to use this blog to give readers a chance to get to know a little bit more about this fascinating musician and figure. I thought we might make a nice bridge from recent topics by starting with Mahler. Here are two wonderful and telling anecdotes from an article by Martin Anderson. The first is from an interview recorded by Anderson and Gal in 1986, when the composer was 96.

I believe you heard Mahler conduct in Vienna .

Yes, it was always an extraordinary experience. In attended one of his earliest performances at the Yie Opera. It was Auber’s Fra Diavolo, curiously.

But that was in 1897!

Yes, that is correct. I was only a small boy, but in those days it was the custom for children to go to the opera with their parents, and so we went to see Fra Diavolo. We heard Mahler conduct quite often at the opera house, where he remained until 1907. It is extraordinary how these things stick in the memory. But it was the most marvellous conducting – in all these years I’ve never heard anything to equal it.

In the appendix to this article, Anderson relays a story Gal told to Malcom Smith at Boosey and Hawkes

When I was a school-lad, I lived in Vienna [he did tell me what Gasse it was, but I can’t now remember]. It was on the first floor, above a confectioner’s. I was taught by my mother to play the piano, and after a time, of course, when I was nine or ten, she couldn’t teach me any more, so I had a gentleman in from the Conservatoire there. He used to come in on a Saturday morning and leave me a couple of pieces to learn by the next Saturday.

One particular Saturday he said: ‘Hansi, you’ve done very well today – here’s a pfennig for you: go and buy some sweeties downstairs’. After he’d gone, my mother said: ‘Alright, you can go down’. So I went downstairs. I knew the people in the shop very well: a couple of daughters and an old dear, who was about 80-odd and sat behind the door and took the money; the daughters made the sweets and cakes and they served.

When I came in with my pfennig [it might have been a groschen – it was the equivalent of about a ha’penny], one of the girls said: ‘Oh, Hansi, you played very well today, we enjoyed it very much. What can we do for you?’ So I said I had a pfennig and I’d like some sweeties. They said: ‘Well, as you know, you can have ten of your choice for a pfennig’. So they made a cardboard cornet for me out of paper and I put various selections in. Then they said: ‘As you played so well, you can have two more’. So I thanked them very much and went to pay my money to the old dear.

She said: ‘You played very well. It reminds me that, when I was a young girl, I used to live in such-and-such a Gasse. We lived on the second floor, and there was a flat above us, and there was a musician there who caused us terrible trouble. I slept in one room and my parents in another, and he used to bang on the piano all through the night, and my parents had to stand on the bed with a broomstick and bang on the ceiling and shout at him to stop. Of course, I saw this chap as I went to school in the morning – he’d be coming done the spiral staircase and I used to follow him down the road. He used to wear a long black coat and a top hat, and all the children used to shout and throw things at him. After a time he moved because he didn’t pay his rent’.

I said: ‘Who was that?’

She said: ‘It was Beethoven’.

Read the whole thing here.