Kenneth Woods- A View From the Podium

I remember my first encounter with Elgar 1 very vividly. I’d only known Enigma, Falstaff and the Cello Concerto for many years when I learned he’d written two symphonies. Excited and curious, I went hunting recordings and found only two- one by Haitink (which I still haven’t heard!) and one by Solti, which I bought and took home (I had fond memories of a live Falstaff he conducted with the CSO when I was in high school, which I had taped and listened to many times.

When I got home and popped in the disc, that huge opening tune made a huge impression on me- on the one hand, it sounds so simple and majestic, yet it seemed to conjure up not just one emotion but a whole storm of intense and contradictory feelings. There seemed to be hope, sadness, regret, resignation, resolve, nobility, uncertainty and serenity.

That impression has stayed with me through the long years it took to get a chance to finally conduct the piece and has only intensified as I’ve repeatedly rehearsed and performed it. I wrote the other day about how the place of the theme in the symphony, but I thought it would be interesting to see if I could identify why the theme has the power to create such contradictory and complex emotional reactions. The score is here.

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A view from the podium, Nuts and bolts elgar

I’ve had so much to say about Elgar 1 lately in the run up to my recent performance of it with the UW Symphony that I haven’t been able to channel it all into readable form, especially while continuing to travel.

Finally, with a slightly calmer schedule, I thought I would share a few thoughts about this most remarkable piece. What better place to begin than at the beginning.

Program notes for this symphony (you can get the score in pdf format from Petrucci here) often refer to the fact that it begins with a long and majestic theme (referred  to here as the “motto theme”).

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Nuts and bolts elgar

Well…. What an interesting afternoon.

Those of you who have read the last installment here on Vftp will know that my master plan for world conquest today involved stretching out our time on two Mahler songs that use few or no strings to maximize time for sectionals. I was then planning to focus solely on the other 3 Mahler songs on Thursday. Take a little risk with Mahler, get more sectional time for Elgar….

The good news is that the sectionals, even though not very long, were hugely helpful, and I think that once the individual players take a little time to apply what we’ve worked on today  in their private practice that they will get even more out of that little bit of sectional time.

However, Um Mitternacht can’t wait until Saturday. I had long pegged it as the most difficult item on the program. In some ways, I was pleasantly surprised with how it went, but it needs more time and more continuity- it’s in music like this that the difference between an outstanding student orchestra and a professional orchestra is most apparent. In the more athletic and virtuosic bits of the Elgar, a young orchestra with chops and fire in the belly can even surpass a more mature ensemble, but in something like the Mahler, which is sparse, soloistic and severe, experience is a huge plus. I think we’ll get there, but these talented young players need to hear  Paul sing it a few more times and need to further develop their understanding of how their parts fit together.

So, does that make me half right or half wrong, or just wrong?

At least we still got more sectional time in than if I had planned just a few minutes Tuesday and a few on Thursday, and the Mahler needed the extra time. Let’s hope Elgar doesn’t  miss the time.

The Elgar is huge and hugely demanding, but it’s taking shape as we work on it. There’s a lot of detail, but much of that was helped by the sectional this afternoon. The huge technical challenges of the 1^st, 2^nd and 4^th mvts are just the sort of red meat that young players love to devour, so the real work is on style, balance and particularly rhythm.

I could write a book about Elgar’s rhythmic language (I could, if I was more disciplined and structured), which is worrying because I don’t think I’ve ever heard it discussed. No, he’s not one for Stravniskian games of mixed pulse, but his rhythmic language is quite unique, complex and subtle. When all the twos and threes are really underlined with a secure inner subdivision, the music takes on this amazing tensile strength, but when that discipline is missing and dotted rhythms droop into conformity with the surrounding triplets, the music turns into tepid mush. We’re getting there, but there’s still ground to cover.

The third movement is a whole different set of problems- color, mood, atmosphere and getting right to the emotional core of what the piece is about- something that’s essential, and can’t really be done through words.

Happily, I haven’t felt the need for a lot of extra-musical quasi-inspirational talking so far- it feels, from a listener’s perspective, that the musicians are starting to “get” old Eddie’s style and vibe.

A view from the podium elgar, Mahler, rehearsal

It’s been a quiet couple of days here at Vftp- these silences are sometimes the result of not having anything to say and being wise enough to recognize it, sometimes the result of having something I need to say and not knowing how to say it or having too much to say and not knowing when to say it. I’m sure all three are in play right now.

For the moment, I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts as I get ready for my 2^nd rehearsal with the UW Symphony for our concert this weekend. The orchestra is off to a fine start, and there’s no doubt in my mind that it will be a fantastic concert. Nonetheless, there are a lot of tricky little issues that have come up with this program that I thought it might interesting to mention.

I have 3 rehearsals and a dress with the orchestra, and they had a few with student conductors (both very good) before I arrived. That’s not a lot of time to work with, so I’m keen to maximize every second. The longest of the Mahler songs, Um Mitternacht, is unusual in that it uses no strings, and Ich atmet einen linden Duft only uses first violins and violas. Rather than waste the time, I thought it would be good to do a short string sectional today. Where it got complicated was in how to maximize the time of our sectional coaches- in the end, I decided for a longish session on those songs today, then doing the other 3 songs on Thursday so that we can have as much sectional time as possible. The only negative of this approach is that we only have one session for each of the songs before the dress, which means I’ve really got to trust the players to not let anything backslide between now and Saturday. The Mahler is not technically too hard, but it is incredibly detailed, exposed and refined and demands extraordinary concentration.

This is the first time the Elgar 1^st has been done in Madison- it only took 101 years to get it here. Most of these very-gifted players know little, if any, of his music- maybe Enigma, Pomp and Circumstance and the Cello Concerto (did he write anything else, I hear my American friends asking?).

I’ve got two jobs here- first to prepare a good concert, but second to provide a good educational experience for the students. The second can’t happen without the first, but it is probably the more important goal nonetheless. One hopes that with great, great music like this, that if you get the musicians playing it really well, they will warm to and come to understand the language, but I mustn’t take that for granted. When to talk about Elgar- his personality, his sound world, his world view and his sublime melancholia is going to be an interesting question throughout the week.

In the end, a conductor telling an orchestra “this is one of the great works in the literature” ain’t gonna count for much (conductors have been able to make musicians doubt the greatness of Brahms symphonies when we’re off our game), but we can use the rehearsals to let them come to that conclusion on their own. That work really begins in earnest today.

Mahler, Nuts and bolts, Performing Life brahms, elgar, Mahler, rehearsal

In about 2 hours, I’m going to start rehearsals for my concert next week with the UW-Madison Symphony.

There are gigs, and then there are gigs- this is really a gig of gigs  for me. I’m a Madison native and a faculty brat (my dad is still teaching from the same office in the Chemistry building he moved into the year before I was born), and as it happens, not only did I more or less grow up going to UW Sym concerts, it was probably the first orchestra I heard in concert.  I couldn’t begin to count how many concerts I went to hear, how many I played in, or how many pieces I heard for the first time as a kid on that stage.

I guess I don’t have much more to say than that- it just seems like a moment that should be treasured. I intend to enjoy every minute of it.

If you’d told a six year old Ken that one day I’d be conducting that very orchestra (or the same orchestra with 100% different personnel!) in a concert of Elgar and Mahler, you can only imagine what I’d have said….

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A view from the podium elgar, journeys, Mahler

Real insights tend to be so simple and so blindingly obvious once they’re found….

Elgar Enigma Variations, Variation 2….

A nasty, highly chromatic little perpetual motion study.

Hardest movement in the piece…..

I’ve played it and conducted it many times, and covered it a few others….

Everyone (in my experience), including me, rehearses it the same way. Go slowly, beating in 3 and work it up to tempo, which is in one.

Because the notes are awkward, and they pass back and forth between the two violin sections there is a tendency for each section to rush. This means you get little gaps at the end of each phrase where one section has finished it before the other can beging.

The nasty moment in rehearsal is when you’ve done it slowly a few times and everyone is feeling confident and then you switch into one. Suddenly, everyone freaks out, especially in the first 9 bars, which are the most difficult for the violins.

INSIGHT! As you are reaching the realm of the fast-ish “three” you can simply slip into one maybe a quarter of the way through. That way, when you go back to the beginning for real in one, everyone is used to feeling the larger pulse unit and feels totally secure. No panics!

Okay, I know some of you out there claim that you already do this, but I’ve never seen this movement rehearsed this way- that is to say I’ve never seen that moment of truth handled that way, and I’ve seen a lot of people do it…. I’m  probably  the only person who was there tonight  who is excited about this!

It’s stupid little insights like this that make the long drive home tolerable….

A view from the podium, Nuts and bolts elgar, genius, rehearsal technique