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) 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.

I’m celebrating the week by book-ending the week with performances of the Cello and Violin concertos. Schumann seems in many ways to be sinned against more than almost any other major composer- what is it about his voice that again and again leads performers and listeners to take short-cuts in getting to know and to understand his music?

Schumann had one of the most sophisticated, unique and distinct voices of any composer. His music spans a huge range of expressive characters, from dreamy introspection to learned severity to naïve exuberance. Understanding his choices is not always a quick process, but I can honestly say that I can scarcely think of a choice in any of his music that doesn’t prove to be the right one on careful reflection.

Of course, one of the most frequently repeated, and completely wrong-headed, criticisms of Schumann is that he was somehow an inept or unimaginative orchestrator. I remember buying Lynn Harrell’s recording of the Schumann as a teenager and reading in the liner notes by one Lionel Salter that “Schumann wrote his concerto rapidly within a fortnight: it is true that the solo part is not very grateful to play, and that he solved the question of balance by allotting a markedly subordinate role to the orchestra (in fact, the accusation of “drabness” in the orchestral color led Shostakovich to re-score the work)”

Hmmm….

First, having just played it, I want to go on record as saying that it is tremendously challenging but absolutely wonderful to play- it has everything for the cellist, from lyrical passages that are unmatched in the repertoire to pure virtuoso writing to keep the fingers busy. You get to seduce, sing, cry, scream, bellow, scamper, sigh, roar and laugh through the instrument. What could be more grateful?

But, this question of Shostakovich’s re-orchestration has haunted me for over 20 years since I read about it. On the one hand, Shostakovich is my hero. On the other hand, I think the Schumann Cello Concerto is a perfect piece, and flawlessly orchestrated, full of the most original and subtle touches of color. I couldn’t imagine an improvement on Schumann’s own work, but everyone knows  and agrees that Shostakovich was a great orchestrator- even those who dislike his music.

Finally, 2 years ago I was conducting the Schumann and a member of the orchestra brought in a sketchy looking Russian disk of the Shostakovich orchestration of Bobby’s Cello Concerto. At last, I had the chance to hear what one genius could do to improve the work of another.

Not much, it turns out.

In fact, the expression “does more harm than good” would come to mind if, in fact, it did any good anywhere in the piece.

I’ll settle on “does more harm.”

Now, two caveats before we proceed…. First, this recording is pretty bad- the orchestra doesn’t even make a very good case for the existence or orchestras, let alone for the existence of this arrangement. Second, although the disc clearly claims to be the Shosty orchestration, I still haven’t gotten my hands on a score, so it could be Krennikhov or someone like that.

First, Salter’s comment that Schumann didn’t give the orchestra enough to do while the soloist is playing isn’t really addressed in this orchestration. Most of the big, bad and insane changes are in the tuttis and interjections between soloist and orchestra.

But the real point is that this orchestration shows again and again that the arranger didn’t understand the piece on many, many levels. Take the first orchestral tutti- it’s quite short, but feels like it covers a huge amount of ground as it carries the narrative from the agitation of the first subject to the tender introspection of the second. Shostakovich sexes up the orchestration by passing the tune around from section to section, changing every few bars, which destroys the sense of this tutti as a single passionate and long-breathed epic outpouring and instead creates a sense of a distracted and impatient child as he jumps from wind choir to strings.  The winds sound so much less passionate in the melody in DS’s version than the violins do in RS’s

First Tutti- DSCH

First Tutti- RS.

Note that while Schumann’s orchestration is less varied, with the melody staying primarily in the first violins, the whole tutti sounds like a single unit, and the countermelodies in the low strings are heard as more equally important, where in the Shostakovich, only the top melodic line is really treated with any care or interest. One sounds like film music, the other like art music, one pleases the ear (sort of) the other shakes the soul.

The next solo section emerges from delicate reverie into a moment genuine virtuoso triumph- an outpouring of confidence that is immediately shattered by the second orchestral tutti. In Schumann’s original, this tutti alternates between claustrophobic agitation with the triplets in the violas and second violins to violent explosions of anguish in the whole orchestra. It is music that applies incredible psychic and emotional pressure. Shostakovich gives the triplets to the clarinets, which sounds simply comical and grotesque. Then, he goes beyond re-orchestration into re-composition, adding ludicrous Rimsky-Korsokov-esque scale flourishes in the forte outburst. It sounds like we’re alternating between bits of The Nose and Scheherezade. But it’s not the complete lack of style that is most upsetting, it is the fact that, as in the first tutti, Shostakovich lowers the emotional intensity by several levels of magnitude because the focus is on making something that is pleasing- this is music that is supposed to be shocking, upsetting, anguished and extremely tense, not film music.

Second Tutti- DSCH

Second Tutti- RS

Schumann’s sublime 2^nd movement fairs even worse. I find this very strange, as I’ve never heard a criticism of this movement from anyone, ever (other than cellists, myself included, remarking on the difficulty of sustaining the dbl stop passage when playing with orchestra). I find it hard to believe that Shostakovich had anything to do with this travesty- he replaces the delicate and very Schumann-ian pizzicato string accompaniment with a  gaudy portato arco rendition. Then, wait for it—– he adds harp.

HARP!?!?!?!?!??!??!

Why not just add Wagner tubas while you are at it?

It really all sounds like an entr’acte from a Glazunov ballet played by a provincial Russian pit orchestra. One of the most personal, honest, intimate and moving movements in the repertoire is transformed into a saccharine, sentimental, cheap and self-indulgent sounding travesty. It also significantly dimishes the impact of the dialogue between the soloist and the principal cellist, a duet that is the concerto’s most memorable and touching feature, and one that has a powerful symbolic impact on all listeners

2^nd Mvt- DSCH

2^nd Mvt- RS

In the 3^rd Mvt Shostakovich’s concern for the welfare of his fellow man comes to the fore. In particular, his profound concern for the attention span of trumpet players. I have a number of dear friends amongst the world’s trumpet sections, and I too hate to think of them as not getting enough chances to shine and showcase their mighty chops. But I wonder if this was the piece to do it in? In the first tutti, there are brief worrying signs that we’ll be hearing more trumpet that we are used to- perhaps more than we want to-

Finale Tutti 1- DSCH

Finale Tutti1- RS

But it is at the recap that his purpose becomes apparent, when suddenly, we find ourselves not in the Schumann Cello Concerto, but the Artunian Trumpet Concerto, or something like that. In Schumann’s original, this is a very moving and powerful transition- in this arrangement, it is more comic relief.

Finale Tutti 3 DSCH

Finale Tutti 3 RS

I think this is as good a place to stop as any. I don’t want this post to be read as a rant- Shostakovich will always remain one of my favourite composers, but he himself wrote in his memoirs that “composers should orchestrate their own music.” He refused to take on the completion of Mahler 10 for that very reason, and most of his work on music not his own is on Mussorgsky, whose language he understood better, it seems.

The point I really wanted to make is that everywhere Shostakovich makes a change we can argue whether or not it is in good or bad taste (although I doubt it will be a long argument). What seems certain, however, is that each change lowers the emotional temperature of the piece as a whole. Schumann himself could have added piccolo and harp (his piccolo writing in the Konzertstucke for Horns is quite brilliant!), but he knew that to do so would make the music less intense, less moving and less original.

Of course, Schumann’s original is challenging to pull off. Shostakovich shows how easy it is to get things to leap of the page in Technicolor, if that is what you want. In fact, I’ve chosen a recording I don’t like for that very reason. In the tuttis in the first movement, the orchestra doesn’t sustain out fortes before subito pianos very well. In the Finale, the balance is not good, and the chords are rushed. However, those are not Schumann’s fault but those of the performers. Just because something is difficult, it does not follow that it is bad. If something doesn’t work in Schumann’s music, as in Shostkovich’s, the fault is always with the performer.

Tune in next time, when I play extracts from Satie’s re-orchestration of Shostakovich 7.

A few places remain for the 2010 Orchestral Summer School at Harlech College in North Wales. We’re working on an astounding collection of repertoire in a truly idyllic setting, complete with castle and the most beautiful beach in Britain.

See below for registration details and course information. The workshop is open to advanced students over the age of 18 (or those accompanied by a guardian), young professionals and amateurs of high standard.

Orchestral Summer School – course details

August 7th – 14th 2010

Conductor: Kenneth Woods
Course Organiser: Janet Minot

How to Apply

Book and Pay Online

Application forms should be returned as soon as possible along with the appropriate non refundable deposit (£25 resident, £10 non resident) to Julie Roberts, Student Admissions Officer at Coleg Harlech. If you prefer to pay by cheque you can download an application form here.
Please note the minimum standard required for wind and brass is Grade 8, for all other players Grade 7.

Applicants should be 18 or over, unless accompanied by an appropriate adult. The closing date for applications is 30th April 2010, and those who are accepted will be notified soon after this date. Late applications may be accepted if there are still vacancies in the relevant section. Acknowledgement of a deposit does not necessarily mean acceptance.

The Orchestra

The symphony orchestra usually has over 80 players. The age range is wide and many different occupations and backgrounds are represented. Over the years this established orchestral summer school has been host to a number of distinguished conductors, such as, Baldur Brönnimann, Michael Lloyd, Gareth Jones, Vilem Tausky, John Pryce Jones and Wyn Davies. This year we are delighted to welcome Kenneth Woods with whom the orchestra will be meeting twice daily.

Daily Sectionals

In addition to the full orchestra rehearsals, the specialist tutors take the daily sectionals.

Chamber Music

A wide selection of musical groups meet each day, such as chamber, string and wind orchestra, and brass ensemble. Some of the items rehearsed are performed in the concerts. There is also the opportunity to play chamber music informally (participants should bring their own chamber music). If you play more than one instrument, you may be able to play in both string and wind orchestras so bring as many as you can carry! A pianist will be available to play trios, piano quartets etc. These sessions are not officially timetabled and afternoons are often free for relaxation and exploring the beach and the fascinating village of Harlech itself.

Repertoire August 2010

The repertoire for full orchestra will include the following works:

• Arnold- The Inn of Sixth Happiness
• Hoddinott – Investiture Dances
• Janacek- Taras Bulba
• Mahler – Symphony No 5
• Nicolai- Overture to the Merry Wives of Windsor
• Prokofiev- Selections from Romeo and Juliet Suite no.2
• Rachmaninov – Isle of the Dead
• Ravel – La Valse
• Rozsa – Suite from Ben Hur
• Shostakovich – Symphony No 6
• Walton- Variations on a Theme of Paul Hindemith

There will also be a wide selection of music for Chamber, String and Wind orchestras and brass ensemble.

Wind Orchestra
Amongst the varied repertoire for the week will be a specially commissioned item by Duncan Stubbs.

String Orchestra
There will be the opportunity to play a number of pieces including Variations on a theme by Tchaikovsky (Arensky) and Five variants of Dives and Lazarus (Vaughan Williams).

Chamber Orchestra
The two main works will be Czech Suite (Dvorak) and Pelleas and Melisande (Fauré).

Concerts

There will be two public concerts during the week:
a Chamber concert on the Wednesday, performed by the professional tutors with some items from students, and a symphony concert on the Friday evening.

What to bring with you?

Please note that participants are required to bring their own music stands. Cello and double bass players must also bring end-pin rests. Evening dress is not required for the concerts. Dress code is smart casual. Please remember to bring a bath towel. Hand towels are provided.

Accommodation

Accommodation for all residential guests will be in the Hall of Residence. All rooms have washbasins and there are bath and shower facilities on each floor. Launderette facilities are also available.
There is a communal lounge in the halls of residence, which is available to short course guests this has an occasional residents’ bar subject to demand. If you prefer to look for alternative accommodation details can be found on www.secretsnowdonia.co.uk.

For more information about the following tutors follow the links below

• Return to booking page
• Conductor – Kenneth Woods
• Course Director – Janet Minot
• Violin 1 – Nic Fallowfield
• Violin 2 – Peter Lilley
• Viola – Philip Heyman
• Cello – Dale Culliford
• Double Bass – Mary Condliffe
• Woodwind – Chris Swann
• Brass – Bob Hughes
• Deputy Course Director and Co-Librarian – Fiona Hughes
• Co-Librarian – Huw Hughes
• Alexander Technique – Patrick Grundy-White

(The ghosts of Leningrad, now St Petersberg, as captured by the great Alexey Titarenko

I think it is fair to say that a great composer never wastes an idea- be it a musical motive or a technical concept. Everything is explored and developed. We all know that the rhythmic cell at the beginning of Beethoven 5 (3 short notes and a long note) becomes the basis of themes in every movement of the symphony. However, that’s not all he extracts from that opening- as you may remember, after the first four notes, there is a fermata, and after the 2^nd four notes, a longer one. This means that the rhythmic flow of the music is immediately interrupted. Beethoven returns to this idea of interruption and discontinuity throughout the symphony, from obvious small examples like the many rests and feramatas in the opening movements to bigger and less obvious examples like the interruption of the Finale with a return of the Scherzo. Everything is explored and developed.

The opening of the first movement of Shostakovich’s 7^th Symphony is shocking because it is not what we expect- it’s confident when we expect something stormy, tonally secure when we expect something unstable.

After the cataclysm of the invasion theme, and the long requiem theme that follows, it is hard to imagine that the second movement of the symphony would be anything but a lament. So, just as the opening of the symphony seems inappropriately cheerful, so too does the opening of the Scherzo. I wouldn’t call it cheerful, but it is certainly enigmatic and quirky, even whimsical.

Humor played a big role in the Allegretto, and so it does here as well. This long opening section is very enigmatic music- dry, elegant, funny, ironic, sophisticated. From bar to bar we’re not sure if we’re supposed to take it at face value or not. It is music that is outwardly accessible, but fundamentally perplexing. Critics of the work find this ambiguity intolerable- reading their assessments of this movement is like sitting in a movie theatre with someone who can’t follow the plot or deal with the unknown. If they don’t know if a given character is a baddie or a goodie, they don’t want to follow the story.

Shostakovich doesn’t call this movement a Scherzo, and the musical material is just ambivalent enough that a listener might not know if it was a dance movement or not. Generally, minuets and scherzos are monothematic. The typical form is Scherzo-Trio-Scherzo. The Scherzo section will be in two parts (each repeated), but both parts are generally  made of the same stuff. The second section works with the same thematic ideas, usually just elaborated, before returning to more familiar ground just before the end. In this movement, Shostakovich creates the expectations of a Scherzo when he repeats the opening thematic ideas, but it is not a literal repeat- instead, the 1^st violins take over the theme from the 2nds.

Then instead of the 2^nd section being an elaboration of the repeated first section, he introduces a completely new theme in the oboe. Again, our expectations, which he has carefully cultivated, are challenged. Are we back in the world of sonata form? Is he making up for the damaged form of the first movement? This second theme certainly sticks in the head, largely through its distinctive scoring. The long melody is set at the top of the oboe register, very high, over a repeated string ostinato.

After this long oboe episode, he seems to confirm our suspicion that this is a sonata movement by introducting a 3^rd group of ideas with a mournful cello melody. Is this a closing theme- proof positive that we’re in sonata form? Wouldn’t that be interesting?!?!?!

Finally, things wind down, and first violins restate the opening theme in pizzicato- which further confuses the issue. Is it just a Scherzo after all, and are the 2^nd and 3rrd themes just part of the b-section? What is going on here?

Suddenly the mood shifts. Is this the Trio of a Scherzo, or the Development of a sonata form? Humor was a big part of the 1^st movement- remember that the invasion theme seemed to use humor to mask its maeleveolent nature. There have been elements of wit and humor throughout the 2^nd movement, but suddenly, the humor, as in the 1^st mvt, turns nasty. Where the first section of the movement was soft, whimsical and low key, here the music becomes bitterly sardonic, aggressive and caustic. There are shrieking high tunes for E-flat clarinet and oboe, and buffoonishly aggressive low melodies for conrtra bassoon and low strings. Later there are quasi-millitary outbursts in the trumpets, which are usually doubled by the low tuba, a very interesting, agressive and distinctive sound.

At the climax of this middle section, the trumpets shout their fanfares, answered by triumphalist declarations of the strings and woodwinds over thundering accompaniment in the timpani, low strings and bassoons. Over and over again, they hammer out the same 2 note figure: C-G-C-G. It’s the first two notes of the symphony, but possibly more telling, the same interval as that repeated punctuation in the timpani and trumpets at the beginning of the piece. Gradually, our questions about the opening of the symphony are being answered- the melody of the beginning of the work is so soulful when it returns at the end of the first movement that we can accept it as quite sincere in nature, but this section seems to confirm our suspicion about those early timp and trumpet interjections. There is something violent and evil in that simplistic, hammering fourth. In this passage in the 2^nd Mvt, Shostakovich seems determined to shake the music free of that hammering fourth, by shifting meters, scoring and keys, but nothing seems to work.

So, we’ve had another movement in which a sense of stability is shattered by a violent outburst. Another movement in which something that could have been a sonata form is interrupted by a middle section built of unrelated ideas. What then to expect of the 3^rd panel of this movement?

I think it is fair to say that a great composer never wastes an idea- be it a musical motive or a technical concept. Everything is explored and developed.

In the first movement, the recapitulation is like a dark mirror image of the exposition. A heroic first theme becomes a scream of anguish. A hopeful second theme becomes a desolate lament. It is not a validation or a culmination, but a melancholic reminiscence. Likewise, in the final panel of the 2^nd movement, Shostakovich creates another mirror image. Where the 2^nd theme of the first movement is heard originally in soulful tutti violins, the recapitulated on lonesome, plaintive solo bassoon, the 2^nd theme of the 2^nd movement is first heard on painfully high solo oboe, and recapitulated on painfully low bass clarinet. In fact, a good chunk of this solo is written below the register of a standard bass clarinet- one needs either a special bass clarinet of a contrabass clarinet to get the lowest 3 notes.

In the end, we’re left unsure of what we’ve just heard. A symphonic Scherzo? An Intermezzo, or break in the action? The Sonata movement we should have heard originally? On the surface the mood is very different from the 1^st mvt, yet we seem to be falling into the same traps, reliving the same catastrophes. Perhaps the tempo marking tells the story “Moderato (poco allegretto),” or “differently (but a little bit the same as the first).”

Is this our destiny- to repeat the same tragic patterns, day after day, war after war?

Still think this piece is all film music and feel-good propaganda?

(The ghosts of Leningrad, now St Petersberg, as captured by the great Alexey Titarenko)

By this point in my life, the vast majority of works I’m conducting are ones I’ve already been thinking about for a long time, and already have very strong convictions about. However, one of the delights of the job is that there are always pieces you can leave to discover and explore when an opportunity to perform them comes along. As long as you continue to study and learn new works, the opportunity for a genuine revelation is there.

I’ve always been a Shostakovich nut, but some of the symphonies I’ve known backwards since I was quite young- no.’s 1, 5,8, 9, 10, 12, 14 and 15. The others I have certainly long been aquainted with, but not in the same way- I know them more as a fan, and haven’t had the chance to really figure out what I think about them. This made it all the more exciting when I got the chance to do number 7 last month with the Wrexham Symphony Orchestra.

When I was young, the Leningrad was better known for the crap and nonsense American critics had written about it than for the music itself. The level of sheer invective, usually paired with carefully selected musical excerpts, used out of context, was almost impossible to resist. We grew up being told it was propaganda, that it was film music, that it was banal, self-indulgent, poorly crafted and worse. The “invasion theme” was a huge mistake- a grave manifestation of a lack of taste and professionalism by the composer. Others blamed the material- as if the poor composer was somehow pressured into writing a symphony based on inferior melodies and motives.

I never believed that, but I never quite bonded with the piece as I did with its sister work, the 8^th. The 8^th begins with a kind of ruthlessly focused angst, while the 7^th sounds a bit naïve at the beginning. The meanderings of the 2^nd mvt of the 7^th seemed a little perplexing to me, compared to the ferocity of the inner movements of 8.

However, over the years, I heard enough good performances to think I had to figure it out for myself- there was the legendary Bernstein-Chicago recording, which every music lover owned at one point, and I also remember a broadcast of the World Orchestra for Peace and Gergiev at the Proms that was pretty awe-inspiring. I gradually became convinced the piece worked, but I wasn’t sure how or why.

Still, it is possible to enjoy a piece while having reservations about it as a work of art- that’s why we call them guilty pleasures. I knew when we programmed the 7^th that it would be fun to play and exciting to hear, but I didn’t really know how the whole work would fit together, what it would say, or how I would feel about  it.

Months before the first rehearsal, I was talking with two colleagues- one, who is a Shostakovich agnostic, asked me if it was a great piece or not. I told him I thought it might be, but I didn’t know yet. My other colleague, usually a Shostakovich evangelist, told me in no uncertain terms, that no matter how good most of it was, the “invasion theme” was just “not right” and ruined the piece for him.

Much about the history of the work’s creation and early performances are well known. Shostakovich had been working on the piece long before the war, but started writing it down at speed during the early months of the siege of Leningrad. In such horrible circumstances, one would expect an opening like that of the 5^th or 8^th symphonies- something bracing, violent, dramatic. Instead, we get a bright, energetic, rather tuneful opening in C major. It sounds kind of cheerful- bordering on triumphalist. The texture is extremely simple- the strings play the melody in octaves, punctuated by the trumpets and timpani, who again and again play the notes G and C. It turns out that those notes, and that interval of a fourth, are going to be very important throughout the symphony.

Is this opening ironic? Is it a depiction of naivety before a cataclysm? What is the relation of the melody to the trumpets and timps- they seem simplistic to the point of being belligerent. Throughout the piece, questions like this come up that musicologists and conductors like to argue about- is this theme the good guys or the bad guys? You don’t have to decide whether or not to take this music at face value. The way he has scored it makes one think it’s likely that some of it is innocent, cheerful and even naïve, while other aspects- notably the trumpets and timps, are more manipulative and cynical.  One thing is for sure—this opening clearly establishes C major as the tonic key of the symphony, far more clearly than the openings of the 1^st or 5^th do. By the 11^th time the trumpets and drums play that G-C, we’re pretty damn sure this is a symphony in C major.

If the opening of the symphony seems on first glance to be quite orthodox, the 2^nd theme is even more so. It’s almost like a textbook 2^nd theme- in the dominant (G major), lyrical, spacious and long-breathed. It’s also beautifully integrated with what we’ve already heard- where the first theme begins with a falling fourth, this one begins with a rising one. How much more perfect and comfortable can you get- a 2^nd theme that, in every way, is the perfect contrast to the first.

I think this second theme achieves a second aim- anyone familiar with Shostakovich’s style is likely to hear the opening with some skepticism. It just doesn’t seem like him to write something so muscular and upbeat without any hint of a double meaning or an ironic undertone. However, the 2^nd theme is so gorgeous, and he plays it very straight- there is nothing like the bizarre trumpet timpani interjections of the opening to indicate that we should view this music with suspicion.

Again, as in a textbook sonata-allegro movement, we have a closing theme, which emerges almost seamlessly from the 2^nd theme, carrying forward the lyrical and serene mood. There are long, dreamy solos for piccolo and violin- this is something we’ll hear more of throughout the piece, these moments of near stasis, where the music becomes meditative and still. Here, that stillness is calm, genuinely beautiful, and profoundly peaceful- the only sign of mischief in the air is that the exposition doesn’t end in the dominant, as we expect, but on a third relationship- E major.

I’ve used the word “expect” many times already. One reason critics get this piece so wrong as that the don’t understand the ways in which Shostakovich is intentionally manipulating our expectation. Some writers have dismissed the exposition as too neatly fulfilling our expectations- as if it was all a little too “text book.” How sad that they’ve missed the point- which is that this is exactly the effect that Shostakovich wants us to experience. He wants us to feel secure about where the piece is going.

So, what we now expect is the development section, where the three thematic groups will conflict and intermingle and where he will develop their motivic possibilities, and explore some interesting tonal regions. What we get instead is one of the most infamous passages in 20^th c. music, the so-called “invasion theme.” It is actually a theme and 12 variations, loosely modeled on Bolero, complete with a snare drum ostinato and a gradual crescendo. We now know beyond doubt that Shostakovich was already working with this theme long before the war. Early on, he apparently called it the “Stalin” theme, it was later called the “Hitler” theme, and in his later year, he simply called it a depiction of evil. He was aware of the inevitable comparisons to Bolero, but remained unapologetic- “this is what evil sounds like to me,” he said.

That evil is not immediately apparent. Perhaps the theme is a little banal, but it is harmless enough- a simple march theme in E-flat major. Through the first few variations, it evolves into something a little bit funny, outright silly, and later completely absurd. If we are to see in this music a sort of political critique, the example couldn’t be more apt. Despots and dictators have long snuck themselves into power by pretending to be fools. A recent American president was a master of this ruse- hiding a ruthless nature behind a buffoonish exterior. His British contemporary might still be in power had he understood the benefits of letting yourself go “misunderestimated.”

As the variations unfold and the volume builds, the music becomes genuinely exciting, even triumphant. It may be a depiction of evil, but it’s quite, well, fun- we are being made complicit it something.  As the music increases in volume, however, we’re no longer so sure we want to cheer along with the music- the evil is getting closer to the surface, and yet it is exciting, it is cathartic. And, when we reach fortissimo, Shostakovich unveils the first real obvious masterstroke- he makes us realize that he has completely altered our perception of time.

Throughout the invasion theme section, he moves very, very slowly. Each variation treats the entire theme from beginning to end, but adds only one new trick. My favorite example is the variation for oboe and bassoon, where the oboe plays a fragment of the theme, which the bassoon simply parrots back exactly the same. Since everything is played twice, it turns a long theme into a very long variation. This is exactly the sort of thing that infuriates many critics of the piece, but it achieves several things- first, it is funny. Second, it builds incredible tension. Third, it’s stretching your attention span.

When the crescendo finally reaches fortissimo, he keeps us there or above not for a bar, or four bars, or 16, but for 204 bars. If the previous variations had unfolded at a more economical pace, or been more richly embroidered, I doubt our attention span could withstand this. Stretched as it is by what precedes, now we’re not only able to follow it, we can’t seem to avert our attention from it.  I find it hard to explain the effect of this section, but it is as if a film maker has a camera focused on a single horrifying act for a painfully long time, then gradually pulls back with a crane shot. Instead of one tragedy we see two, then ten, then fifty, then 200 hundred, then an uncountable multitude. And when we finally see the scale of the cataclysm, we don’t get to look away, but just as the piccolo and violin were free to mediate on things peaceful before, now we must absorb and contemplate the horror before us.

In the midst of all this fortissimo, we finally escape the invasion theme-  again, the camera pulls back and we see humanity. What we hear is the recapitulation- the return of the opening of the symphony. However, what was bright, hopeful, swaggering C major is now apocalyptic,  wailing C minor.

One of the reasons I wanted to do this piece long before I understood it was a masterpiece was because Shostakovich himself seemed to have a special place in his heart for it, alongside the 8^th. He called it his Requiem. These pages, this epic unfolding, give voice to something truly horrifying- people who argue about whether it was the Stalinist terrors or the siege of Lenningrad that he was depicting miss the point entirely. What we will see throughout the symphony is that today’s hero is tomorrow’s villain. It’s a requiem for humanity. The message is universal.

In a sonata form, the recapitulation is typically the point in the music where that which has been unstable is made stable. Where the exposition takes us from a home key to a point of departure to unstable tonal regions, we expect the recapitulation to solve the problems of the exposition. Although the exposition of this movement modulates, it doesn’t really have problems. Shostakovich wrote an exposition that is already stable, so, of course, his recapitulation becomes almost a dismantling of what we’ve heard before.

Technically, this achieves something quite fascinating- it makes up for the fact that the invasion theme essentially ate the development. This may seem a rather academic point, but Shostakovich had a profound respect for the need for rigor in his music. He may lead us to think he is being purely theatrical, but there is always a sense that part of what makes symphonic music dramatic and emotional is the intellectual discipline with which one explores and develops ideas. So, on a dramatic level, the cataclysm of the development has created a mournful atmosphere, but on a technical level, the need to transform hopeful, serene and confident material into music that is lamenting, desperate and despairing means that he is back in the world of developmental technique.

His treatment of the 2^nd theme is perhaps the most starting example- instead of soulful and glowing first violins, he gives the melody to the solo bassoon. Where the first occurrence of this music is in the dominant (G major), this return, which should be in C major, is instead in F # minor. Instead of unfolding with confident regularity, the phrases are distorted and distended over a strange 7 beat ostinato. The first statement of the 2^nd theme lasts 16 bars, divided into 2 even 8 bar phrases, all in cut time, with a lovely chord shift exactly half way through. In the recap, he stretches the same material to 27 bars, and the meter changes every measure. It’s profoundly sad, genuinely heart-wrenching music, but it is also very clever and sophisticated.

In the coda, Shostakovich gives us a pretty literal re-statement of the beginning, back in C major, but this is surely not a re-assertion of confidence, but a longing memory of what has been lost. It turns out that opening melody really was innocent, and now it is lost. When the snare drum sneaks back in, and the trumpet plays the invasion theme on last time, the effect is devastating- all this tragedy, and it was just a joke.

(The ghosts of Leningrad, now St Petersberg, as captured by the great Alexey Titarenko)

For all that readers are seeing a lot about Gustav Mahler on these pages, the work on my desk right now is Dmitri Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony, which I am conducting next week.

I hope that I’ll have time to write in detail about the piece, which is proving to be a revelation in spite of the fact that I’ve loved Shostakovich’s music all my life. As I try to unravel the layers upon layers of references, meanings, allusions and ciphers in the piece, I’ve been scouring books, articles and webpages for help and insight- mostly in vain. In spite of the fact that Shostakovich is probably the most performed composer born in the 20th century, and probably also the most written about and discussed, most of what is out there is not very helpful. There is too much ranting about politics and not enlightening enough music.

I did, however, find a remarkable article on the Guardian website (originally published in The Observer in 2001) by Ed Vulliamy. The rather lame title, Orchestral Maneuvers, doesn’t give you any sense of what the lenthy two-part feature is about- a dramatic retelling of the story of the Lenningrad premiere of Shostakovich 7. It’s a story that, in it’s sanitized and shortened form, appears in almost every program note for the piece, but this account shook me. I link to it today as I know some of my colleagues in the orchestra read this blog, and I’m sure they’ll want to read it before we perform the piece next week.

So, how bad was the winter of 1941-2, the peak of the siege of Leningrad? Part I sets the scene in horrifying detail.

‘There was not a trace of joy in a single face,’ said Parfionov. ‘Everyone thin, exhausted, starving. I was on Troisky Bridge one day when a man collapsed in front of me. He looked into my eyes and pleaded for help; I told him there was nothing I could do for him, and walked on. The only thing anyone thought about was the next meal. Even in the military canteen, soldiers crawled around the floor to see if anyone had allowed crumbs to drop before going out to trenches in the cold.’ Temperatures reached 35 degrees below zero.

The horror of cannibalism has been mentioned by some Western historians, but is taboo in Russia, a blackout in Soviet and post-Soviet memory. One Westerner mentions such details as the arrest of one woman on her way back from a graveyard with the bodies of five children in a sack, but notes: ‘The memory of trauma – of minds and bodies frozen by fear and by the horror that everyone was forced to see – has been almost entirely lost.’ Mrs Matus turned the stone a little: ‘I remember a neighbour, a woman, used to come knocking at the door of our apartment shouting at mother, “Let me in!” And she would run through the door, because her husband was trying to kill her to eat her.’

Viktor Koslov is bolder. Born in Briansk, near Moscow, he had become a clarinetist like his father and, in 1935, joined the illustrious Kirov Ballet in Leningrad. He has a vivacious, easy-going face, but when he conjures up that winter in his mind’s eye, his muscles tighten. ‘Some were dead, others half dead, sometimes from injuries they had done to themselves. People were cutting off and eating their own buttocks. We only really saw what winter did when the snow began to melt. “Look, here comes spring!” But what did it bring? Decomposing, dismembered corpses in the streets that had been hidden under the ice. Severed legs with meat chopped off them. Bits of bodies in the bins. Women’s bodies with breasts cut off, which people had taken to eat. They had been buried all winter but there they were for all the city to see how it had remained alive.’

During this nightmare of life-in-death, Shostakovich was torn between brooding distress over his native Leningrad, anxiety for his mother and sister who had remained, and a struggle to finish his symphony. Work on a final movement, intended to envisage ‘a beautiful future time when the enemy will have been defeated’, eluded him.

But, finish it he did.

In Part II, Vulliamy tells the amazing story of wht it took to put together a performance with conductor Karl Eliasberg of this massive symphony in famine stricken Lenningrad-

The Seventh is a colossal work. It demands battalions of strings, but what worried Eliasberg most were the voluminous arrangements for woodwind and brass in a city short of breath. Eliasberg procured a list of musicians, of whom 25 were already blacked out, dead. Those known to be alive were circled in red and ordered to report for duty.

Of the orchestra of 100 people, there were only 15 left. I didn’t recognise the musicians I knew from before, they were like skeletons. I don’t think Eliasberg called the first rehearsal to look for musicians. It was evident we couldn’t play anything, we could hardly stand on our feet! Nevertheless, he said: “Dear friends, we are weak but we must force ourselves to start work,” and raised his arms to begin. There was no reaction. The musicians were trembling. Finally, those who were able to play a bit helped the weaker musicians, and thus our small group began to play the opening bars. And that was the beginning of the first rehearsal.

‘I remember the trumpeter didn’t have the breath to play his solo and there was silence when his turn came around. He was on his knees, poor man. Eliasberg was waiting; he said: “It’s your solo. You’re the first trumpet, why don’t you play?” The trumpeter replied: “I’m sorry, sir, I haven’t the strength in my lungs.” There was a terrible pause. Everyone asked him to try. Eliasberg said: “I think you do have the strength,” and the trumpeter took up his trumpet and played a little. And so the rehearsal continued. Everybody did their best, but we played badly, it was hopeless, and the first rehearsal broke up after 15 minutes.’ It had been scheduled to last three hours.

Eliasberg walked the length of Nevsky Prospekt to military headquarters at Smolny Palace, with a simple request: he needed reinforcements from the front, anyone who could play an instrument. The order went out from commander-in-chief General Leonid Govorov himself: military bands and anyone capable should report to the studio….

‘Rehearsals,’ Parfionov recalled, ‘were from 10 to one o’clock. No time for fun or to ask anyone who they were; we came, did our job and left. People were in a terrible condition. Often Eliasberg would have to repeat instructions two or three times before people could understand. We went over the same passage of music over and over, simply to get it strong enough. To be honest, no one was very enthusiastic’.

‘We would start rehearsing,’ recalls Viktor Koslov, one of Parfionov’s men, ‘and get dizzy with our heads spinning when we blew. The symphony was too big. People were falling over at the rehearsals; we might talk to the person sitting next to us, but the only subjects were hunger and food – not music.’

…And ‘some of our orchestra died,’ said Parfionov. ‘Three, as I recall, including a flautist called Karelsky. People were dying like flies, so why not the orchestra? Hunger and cold everywhere. When you are hungry, you are cold however warm it is. Sometimes, people just fell over on to the floor while they were playing.’

Eliasberg would remain working on the score long after his musicians had left. ‘He was very strict,’ said Mrs Matus, ‘He would allow for no mistakes, or delays. If a musician played badly or was late, they would lose their bread ration. If someone was late because of a bombing raid, he would accept the excuse only if there had been no warnings from the siren. One day, a man came late because he had to watch them bury his wife that morning. But Eliasberg said that was no excuse, and the man would lose his ration.’

Koslov remembers the episode well. ‘He said: “This must not happen again. If your wife or husband dies, you must be at the rehearsal.” He demanded absolute commitment and attention. When people said, “It’s no good, I can’t play it,” Eliasberg would reply, “Go on. No complaining!”

I  quote that last bit lest anyone ever accuse me of being tough again….

The description of the concert itself is deeply moving. A must read.

(More Alexey Titarenko)

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

Participants work under the guidance of a distinguished team of coaches, and the workshop culminates in a final concert, which this year will include La Valse and Mahler 5. The Academy is known for fine playing and a spirited atmosphere.

The course website will be updated in a few weeks, meanwhile, email the office at info@kennethwoods.net if you are interested or have any questions.

From the Barenreiter website

 For some time now, I’ve been meaning to write a little something on the myths and misunderstandings surrounding Beethoven Urtext editions.

 First, before I create a lot of misunderstanding, let me affirm that I must be about the best customer either Breitkopf or Barenreiter have- I own scores to both editions of all 9 symphonies and sets of parts to one or the other of all but the 9^th. None of what is to follow should be taken as my discounting the value of these publications. Rather, to explain what that value is and isn’t.

It’s a wonderful thing that in the last 15 years we’ve had a revolution in Beethoven materials, with 2 new Urtext (Breitkopf and Barenreiter) editions now available for conductors (and one more, Henle, in progress, albeit possibly infinitely slow progress).

At the same time, there has been a parallel rise in the influence of performance practice research in Beethoven, which has led to a whole new generation of recordings and performances.

Unfortunately, when scholarship meets marketing hyperbole, self-promotion and the messy business of music criticism, confusion can only ensue.

So, here are a few misconceptions about these new editions that I’ve come across more than once.

1-       Metronome markings.

Here’s a quote from a recent review of a recent box set of Beethoven symphonies by a well known critic (made google-proof by a slight shift of prose)

 “These recordings make use of Beethoven’s controversial metronome markings, one of many revelations in Jonathan Del Mar’s new Urtext edition for Barenreiter, which formed the basis of these performances.”

Neither the Del Mar nor the Breitkopf Urtext editions are breaking any new ground by including Beethoven’s metronome markings. Those are all available in the old editions (Dover, old Breitkopf, Peters, etc), and have been for over a hundred years. If anything, Del Mar, in particular, treats the metronome markings with a greater degree of skepticism than his anonymous predecessors. Beethoven added metronome markings for the first 8 symphonies in 1817 in an article published in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. Where the old editions reproduce all those metronome markings next to the tempo markings in the scores, Del Mar puts them in footnotes for symphonies 1-6 on the grounds that they were afterthoughts and not part of his original compositional process. In other words, if one was looking for a reason NOT to consider Beethovens metronome markings, Del Mar gives more basis for skepticism than previous editors.  However, for the 7^th and 8^th Symphonies, he includes them in the tempo markings, explaining in the Critical Notes that

“Since hardly a year earlier Beethoven was making his final revisions to op 92 and 93 in preparation for its publication- so that the work was still relatively fresh in his mind- it seems justifiable to accept these metronome markings as having been determined in the same spirit of creation, as it were, as that of the Symphony itself: and we according present these as  an integral part of the text.”

I find this a quite arbitrary rationalization- how can a mere mortal begin to guess when a genius like Beethoven ceases to have a score of his own creation “fresh in his mind?” I am reminded of the story of Shostakovich’s attendance at the long-delayed premiere of his 4^th Symphony, written in 1935 but premiered in 1961. Shostakovich came to the rehearsals empty handed (without a score), not having looked carefully at the score in 25 years, but was able to fix notes, correct mistakes by the players and give out rehearsal numbers to the conductor from memory without a single mistake. His memory of every single note and dynamic in the huge piece was absolute. For minds like Beethoven and Shostakovich, it’s probable they still had as perfectly vivid a mental image of a work 30 year later as the day they finished it.  On the other hand, the 9th Symhony, which has metronome markings dating to the actual period of comosition, has the most problematic metronome markings of any symphony (and the most concluded by modern scholars to be wrong).

In any case, what is interesting is that there is a whole generation of critics and listeners who think that conductors nowadays are taking the metronome markings more seriously because of the Del Mar edition (the Breitkopf has only been recorded once, by Kurt Masur, and he’s always been a slow Beethoven conductor). In fact, working from Del Mar would tend to make one more skeptical, not less, of the metronome markings.

The whole topic of metronome markings in Beethoven is bigger than this post or this thread, but Toscanini and Erich Kleiber, not to mention Mendelssohn, were taking those markings very seriously a long time ago. Furtwangler, the most often cited example of a pre-metrnome marking conductor, was quite aware of them. Almost all of his recordings express a range of rubato or urgency and repose that goes from far below to far above the metronome markings. Simply checking the first bar’s tempo in Furtwangler won’t do. Conductors and scholars have argued about and struggled with these markings for nearly 200 years, and will continue to do so. If a modern-day conductor is conducting a movement faster than you’re used to, it’s not because of Jonathan Del Mar, Clive Brown or Peter Hauschild (with the exception of the Turkish March in the 9^th).

Also, just because a conductor advocates “brisk” tempos or claims fidelity to the metronome marking doesn’t mean that their performances validate those claims. I recently came across a box set with a passionate note from the conductor advocating strict adherence to LvB’s metronome markings, but he’s far under the markings in almost every instance. His scholarship and his heart rate seem to be incompatible!

I’m generally very open to arrangements and transcriptions, as were Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schoenberg, Liszt and Ravel. I see nothing at all wrong putting a string quartet into the more-public arena of an orchestra concert, or bringing a Mahler symphony into the parlor, or even to playing Elgar with a baroque orchestra.

In these and many other instances, we become aware of a conversation between the composer and the arranger- even when selflessly executed, a good arrangement does represent a creative response to the original work. What is fascinating about this particular arrangement of Shostakovich’s Fourth String Quartet by Rudolf Barshai is that Barshai, by this point in his life, had digested Shostakovich’s quartet and orchestral languages so deeply that he has managed to make his own contribution seem to disappear. It is an arrangement so idiomatic that it ceases to feel like an arrangement- the sense of dialogue between composer and arranger is lost, and we’re left with something that sounds and feels shockingly like original, vintage Shostakovich. No wonder he allowed Barshai to use his opus numbers.

(Interestingly, to those of you who know this arrangement through Barshai’s classic recording with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe on DG, you might have been surprised to hear some significant changes in orchestration. It turns out that Maestro Barshai’s thoughts have continued to evolve on this piece in the 20 or so years since that recording was made. Fortunately, I was able to track Barshai down and get some clarification as to his preferences, although there is one change I wouldn’t have made)

However, I think there’s more to the uncanny success of op 83 as and orchestra work than simply Barshai’s skillful transcription. Plenty of works fit into a particular genre because that is the only one in which the musical idea would work. Shostakovich’s own 7^th Symphony is the classic example- the musical content demands a huge orchestra, and would never work with smaller forces. Many of the chamber works also are suited exclusively to their home forces, like the Blok songs, the 2^nd Piano Trio and the Piano Quintet.

However, there were other works in Shostakovich’s catalogue that seemed to be assigned to a given genre not because of their musical content, but because of their extra-musical content. Shostakovich knew full well, and said, that the Jewish themes in the 4^th Quartet meant it could never be played during Stalin’s lifetime (and it was not premiered until 1953, despite being finished in 1949). He also knew that even post-Stalin, it’s message was too direct and too dangerous for the spotlight that always shone on his symphonies. A quartet about anti-Semitism might stir a bit of controversy among the Russian intelligentsia, but a symphony was sure to cause a firestorm. When he finally wrote such a symphony, the 13^th, just such a firestorm did occur, in spite of the much more lenient times it was written in.

After a nearly Shostakovich-free 2008, I’m doing tons of his music in the current year, and I can feel my old Shosty-mania coming back to the surface. As I learn the 6^th and 7^th symphonies, I’ve been spending a lot of time re-reading the 30 or so Shostakovich books on the shelf that survived the PDT fires. Sadly, this has not been a completely satisfactory experience. The “Shostakovich Wars,” as many call them, have not done performers and listeners any favors, and it would be lovely if some of these scholars would pull their heads out of their bottoms and do some real research and suspend the food-fights. What we really need is a systematic, bar-by-bar catalogue of all the use of quotation in the music of Shostakovich, referenced to all surviving letters, sketches and drafts. Arguing over who signed what is easy, real analysis takes time, patience and clarity. Every time I learn a Shostakovich score, or return to one I’ve studied before, I’m struck by how many more quotes I find, but I’ll never spot all the Russian drinking songs and folk songs, because I’m not from that culture. This is where scholars can be an invaluable support to performers.

Anyway, I’ll long remember the last note of the concert Saturday- a single thread of sound disintegrating into molecules, then atoms and finally quarks, and an audience for once not breathing, not coughing, not clapping, just waiting…..

I thought I would take advantage of the painstaking efforts of my research assistant, former Lehman Brothers Executive VP Flurp Van Doogle and make some comparisons between this year and 2007, as well as some general observations on trends on this year’s list.

It goes without saying that for many of you, this will be the most boring, naval gazing exercise you have ever encountered, but I hate to let Flurp’s efforts go un-used.

First off, by some crazed coincidence, both the 2007 and 2008 lists contain exactly 75 pieces. I’m actually sending Flurp off to peruse some websites in hopes of determining just how many pieces a really famous conductor typically conducts in a year. A quick survey of this lists, however, shows only 7 pieces in common for the two years, so that is 143 pieces over the last two seasons. Still, that’s not a lot of pieces compared to what a reasonably busy London free-lancer might play- probably less than half! Leonard Slatkin told me in 2001 that he’d done almost 200 pieces that year- I’d be curious to tally up from his website and see how many he’s doing this year.

In 2007, one of my primary areas of concern was the lack of chamber music- I wrote that “2007 had the least chamber music for me of any year in my life- that’s a terrible trend.” Happily, that trend has abruptly reversed itself, with some memorable performances of the Schnittke String Trio, Brahms Clarinet Trio, Janacek 2^nd Quartet and the Schubert C Major Quintet counting as highlights of the year. That trend looks to continue next year- the group that performed the Schnittke has taken on a new life of its own as Ensemble Epomeo- we had such a blast working on the Schnittke we decided to call ourselves a real group. We’ve got mini-tours planned in the UK in March and May, a return to the Ischia Festival in May and a tour of the East Coast in early June.

I also wrote of 2007 that “Not surprisingly, Mahler and Beethoven seem to be the most featured. I was sad to see no orchestral music of Debussy, and fewer new pieces than in most years.” To my delight, I returned to Debussy, one of my loves, with the Nocturnes in September with KCYO, but Mahler, represented by four symphonies and Das Lied von der Erde in 2007 was completely absent (unless you count his arrangement of the Beethoven Serioso Quartet)  from my list in 2008. Happily, I’m doing the 5^th Symphony twice in 2009. Also surprising and worrying is the fact that I performed no Shostakovich in 2007- he’s always been a mainstay and a passion of mine. Thank goodness I’m doing the 2^nd Piano Concerto with Lancashire Chamber Orchestra in a few weeks for their 40^th Anniversary concert, and the 6^th Symphony, which is new for me, with the Harlech Orchestral Academy. Most excitingly, I’m doing the Shostakovich/Barshai Chamber Symphony op 83a with the SMP later this spring. Performing op 73 a Chamber Symphony was one of the high points of our collaborations over the last several years.

And, what about “fewer “new”pieces?” Well, 2008 was a rich year with 9 premieres of one type or another. There was Gordon Downie’s brand new and extremely challenging forms 7, hot off the presses, but then there was the UK premiere of the Gal Violin Concerto, written in 1932. Having the chance to bring a masterpiece like this to the country in which Gal lived the majority of his long life was something I will always remember, and I’m so excited I’m recording the piece later this year (more on that soon!). Philip Sawyers and Jennifer Higdon were, like Gordon, composers whose music I had admired for many years and who I got my first chance to perform this season.

Another composer who had long been on my list was Xenakis- 2008 seemed to be his year. Suddenly he was everywhere in the blogosphere, and it was about time. Hopefully, I can program more of his music soon, although I hope it is easier to read than the score of Akrata was- I was not impressed to have to blow up a rental score buy 200% just to have any chance of seeing the notes. Fortunately, it was worth the effort. Paul Mefano’s Interferences was also worth the effort- even though Paul himself started our conversation about it by saying it was “impossibly notated and 30 years ago it was impossible to perform.” I think I spent the most hours of study per minute of music ever in my life coming to terms with his flexible fields of time.

It was a year of pairs- 2 back-to-back Beethoven 5’s and 2 back-to-back Mozart Sinfonia Concertantes. The Beethoven fared well in that setting, but the Mozart simply made obvious the difference between working with two complete artists and two youngsters who are slightly winging it. Twice this year I paired Sibelius and Wagner- the 2^nd Symphony with Rienzi and the 5^th with Tristan. The latter combination worked better, but in my defense, the Rienzi was a replacement for Pines of Rome, which we had to cancel for lack of brass. It was also great to do a pair of Bloch works for cello and orchestra- my old favourite, Schelomo, and the might Suite for Cello and Orchestra- which may have been the first performance of that version of the piece originally called Suite for Viola and Piano. In February, we paired The Firebird and the Elgar Violin Concerto- two works written within 6 weeks of each other that seem to exist in separate universes. I bet they’ve never appeared on the same program before, but I thought it was a fun match.

In 2008, I performed about 38 pieces which were new to me. It’s a little imprecise counting, because some pieces I had done bits of before, or had done them in semi-performance settings. Frankly, I could have easily have done 200 pieces this year if that list had included all the standard rep works I feel at home in while adding maybe another small handful of new works, but probably 50 new works in a year would be my max right now, whether they were part of a list of 75 or 175.

The year began with Kodaly’s Summer Music and ended with Rachmaninoff’s Symphony no. 1- they’d make a great program if paired with a suitable concerto, don’t you think? How about the Bartok 1st Piano Concerto? Any takers?

The 2007 list contains the skeletons of two rather ambitious cello recital programs. No recitals in 2008, and I suppose the Brahms Double in November 08 about balances the Elgar from Feb 07. Sadly, all my favorite pianists are far away and/or very busy, which makes organizing a satisfying recital tough going, and at this age, I’m not too excited about doing a recital with a pianist I’m not comfortable with.

2008 was a banner year for musical anniversaries, but I missed a few of them- I managed some Vaughan Williams (Lark Ascending) for the 50^th of his passing (and am looking forward to the 5^th Symphony with the Cheltenham Symphony in May- my first complete RVW symphony). Messiaen got only the briefest tribute- the” Louange” from the Quartet from the End of Time. I tried like  crazy to get a performance of Turangalila organized, but to no avail. No Elliot Carter, either- I almost did the Cello Sonata on my masters recital many years ago, but there are few pianists out there who are able and willing to take it on.

I hope that 2009 offers the chance to tick a few more boxes of composers’ music that I’ve always wanted to perform and never had the chance- Daron Hagen is high on that list, Christopher Rouse and James MacMillan as well. We’ll see what opportunities arise. In addition to getting Shostakovich and Mahler back on the menu, I’m aching to do more Bruckner next year- the 5^th, 7^th, 8^th and 9^th are all learned and waiting for the right orchestra. Hopefully I will be brave enough to do a couple of recital programs this year- I’d like to repeat my Prokofiev/Shostakovich/Rachmaninov sonata program under better circumstances soon, but it’s been a long time since I’ve played a Beethoven sonata. Why not do all of them? My colleague in Delaware, Larry Stomberg, who hosted my masterclass there, was doing a great Hungarian-ish program the week after I left. For years, I’ve wanted to do the Kodaly and Dohnanyi sonatas on a program with the Bartok First Rhapsody and the Janacek Pohadka, which is almost the program Larry did….

Anyway, with the rep report now out of the way, I may try to organize a few podcasts of 2008 hightlights- little moments here and there over the year that I’ve particularly enjoyed….

Shostakovich- I think the message got through. No coughing at the end, instead complete silence as the orchestra really found an amazing pianissimo, and the last chord was breathtakingly in tune. We had a long, long silence at the end before a very enthusiastic response. However, much earlier in the movement someone was unwrapping a candy so loudly and for so long that I nearly turned around.

Afterwards in the bar I was talking with a mixture of musicians and audience members. One woman, who said she was quite shaken by the piece, said “the why and what for are so much harder to think of today, when we’re back at war.”

The sad conclusion of the entire table was that we’ve learned nothing. Why and for what? Because and for nothing. More people need to hear this music.

I’m usually not in a social state of mind in rehearsals and need to head home afterwards, so with the SMP, the only chance we really get to visit and chat is after the concerts. In addition to being good musicians, they’re an interesting and brilliant bunch of people.

As soon as I said my goodbyes, I was plunged into an entirely different world. Guildford is a beautiful old market town, but on a Saturday night, like so many towns and cities across Britain, it’s a violent and crazy place. Just yards outside the concert hall were fist fights, road rage, and all matter of mayhem.

We’re hearing a lot from the government about how they’re going to “get tough” on this kind of behavior, but there were an army of cops on the street, and it was still chaos. At some point, adding hundreds of cops to a riot just means more insanity as they try their best to break things up and calm things down.

The real question is what happens to all these people between Monday morning and Friday evening. Where does all this rage come from? What’s happening to society? Guildford, like Cardiff and London and Manchester can give you the feeling of being on the brink of a complete abyss of violence and social breakdown.

Then again, perhaps it’s always been this way. Muriel, one of our cellists, said it well about the forgotten lessons of the war years. “Man is man. Humanity never changes.” Humanity may not, but humans can change. I’ve got to believe that. Why and for what? The meditation on the question is the only possible answer.

c. 2007 Kenneth Woods

The biographical story behind Das Lied von der Erde, or The Song of the Earth is well known. We are told that Mahler wrote the piece in response to the news that he had a fatal heart condition, and that the final song in the cycle “Der Abschied,” or “The Farewell,”was, in effect, his farewell to life itself.At the beginning of 1907, Mahler was probably the most famous and successful musician in the world. He had been the music director of the Vienna Court Opera for 10 years, a record which still stands 100 years later, and he finally become well-known as one of the great composers of his time. However, the never-ending anti-Semitic attacks in the press and within the opera house that he had always dealt with drove him from the job in May of that year. In June he and his family went to their summer retreat Maiernigg, but within days of their arrival his oldest daughter, Maria, had contracted scarlet fever. Mahler was devastated by her death. During the last stages of her illness a doctor examined Mahler himself and found that he had a heart-valve problem that, in those days, was invariably fatal.

Throughout most of his adult life, Mahler had used the summers to walk in the mountains and compose, and for him the two activities were inextricably intertwined. He often said that he did all of his composing while hiking, and that the time at his desk was the purely clerical and technical work of writing down what he’d heard in nature. Under doctor’s orders to avoid exertion of any kind, and in shock at the loss of his daughter, his creative output was completely stalled. In October of 1907, the poet Hans Bethge published The Chinese Flute, the collection of free translations of ancient Chinese poems that Mahler used as the basis for Das Lied von der Erde. The working year of 1907-8 saw Mahler going to New York to start a new professional life. When he returned to Europe for the summer of 1908, he was faced with a mixture of familiarity and strangeness. The long walks, which had been so central to his life for so long, were now strictly forbidden, and so he feared he would be unable to compose, but as the summer went on, he found his muse returning. By late July, the individual songs had begun to come to him, starting with the second “The Lonely One in Autumn.” Within the amazing period of six weeks, he’d completed all six songs, gradually moving from the idea of a song cycle into the new world of a song symphony. 

Tempting as it is to see this great work simply as Mahler’s commentary on his own impending death, it is worth remembering that it was also creative rebirth for him. After the cataclysms of 1907, Mahler had found a new job, a new future and a new way of composing. In every sense, Das Lied von der Erde marked a huge move forward for Mahler- his harmonic language had grown enormously since the Eighth Symphony, his use of the orchestra had become even more daring and visionary, and he had found a whole new way of integrating language and musical form. The last three years of Mahler’s life were one of the most productive periods- the late triptych of DlvdE, the Ninth and the very-nearly finished Tenth symphonies together represent a huge proportion of his life’s work, both in terms of what he accomplished artistically and in terms of the sheer volume of music he composed.

There is absolutely no evidence that he viewed any of these pieces as his last. Appearances of autobiography in Mahler’s music can be misleading.  Remember, he wrote Kindertotenlieder, or Songs on the Death of Children, well before his daughter’s death, and he even said that he could not have written the piece after Maria died. The tragic Sixth Symphony was written at the high point of his personal and professional life. It is entirely possible that the contemplation of mortality in Das Lied was also intended to be perceived as universal, and not limited to his own experience. Death is a central issue in every one of Mahler’s symphonies, from the Funeral March in the First Symphony to the ecstatic final pages of the Tenth. These late works represent a progression for Mahler, but not a departure- he continued to deal with the same questions that had been central to his work throughout his life. Mahler wrote for the future, and for all humanity- I don’t think it was ever his intention to limit the scope of his music to simply being a diary of his own fears and tragedies.

Yet, near the very end of The Farewell, when Mahler takes the pen from the poet’s hand and writes “My heart is still and awaits its hour,” he knew all too well that the hour was coming when his heart would be literally still forever. At this moment introduces a modified (written with a whole-tone scale instead of in E flat major) quote of the music he used in the Second symphony to set the words “Sterbern werd ich, um zu leben!” or “I shall die so that I may live again.”

Is it autobiography?

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

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

c. 2007 Kenneth Woods.

Nevertheless, we all find ourselves searching for the meaning of musical ideas. Wagner went so far as to assign meanings to themes through his technique of Leitmotif. He even expected his audiences to know who or what each theme stands for, and yet, what happens when Shostakovich quotes some of those same Leitmotifs in his 15th Symphony? Do they continue to mean the same thing there as they do in The Ring? Of course not.

Some themes seem so significant to the composers that use them, that one can’t help but want to understand what they meant to them. Shostakovich is a case in point- the obvious example is his DSCH motive, which appears in several important pieces, but there are actually many specific music ideas that he used in every single piece he every wrote- common gestures that are wired so deeply in the DNA of his music that they really demand our attention.

Shostakovich learned a lot from Mahler. Both of them seemed to look at their entire life’s work as a unified single project, and Mahler also has musical ideas that appear in all his music. The interval of the perfect fourth is an obsession for Mahler, and, as Donald Mithcell rightly points out, Mahler was able to build two entire symphonies (the 3rd and 4th) out of one modest song, Das himmlische Leben.

The melodic idea which opens the second song of Kindertotenlieder (and also, as Mitch pointed out, is foreshadowed in the ending of the first song) is one of those kernels that Mahler couldn’t let go of. It may be most instantly recognizable as the theme of his famous Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony, but it is also possibly the most important motive of the last movement of the same piece. It’s also the main theme of the first movement of the Fourth Symphony.

Perhaps no movement of Mahler has been more argued about than the Adagietto. For years, many commentators and performers saw it as a work of mourning, and it was even played at many a famous funeral. Then, someone very correctly pointed out that he had written it for his wife, Alma. “Aha!” everyone said, “the Adagietto is a love song! It’s not about death at all!”

Well, if the Adagietto is a love song, then it stands to reason that its main theme is a love theme. We might even call it Alma’s theme, except Mahler called the second theme of the first movement of the Sixth Symphony the “Alma” theme. In fact, the Alma theme in the Sixth is based on the exact same scalar ascent of a perfect fourth, just in a different modal placement.

Of course, you can already see that we’re quickly on complicated psychological ground when you put a theme associated with love for one’s wife into a song about the eyes of a dead child. Surely it would have made more sense to use that motive as the basis of the third song, Wen dein Mutterlein (When your dear Mother), which actually deals with the narrator’s spouse?

So maybe it’s not an Alma theme at all? We know that the Fourth Symphony is also a work about the death of a child because the song which is the last movement tells us the child is in Heaven, (although people are generally less scared of it than of Kindertotenlieder because it has a more innocuous title). Is it significant that this theme appears in the first movement of the Fourth and in this song? Maybe it is a love theme in a broader sense, not Alma specific at all? Love for a child, love for a spouse, love for a friend?

The fact is, it appears in so many contexts and in so many guises we could never know what it really means. Or perhaps, Mahler wanted it to have a complexed and multilayered meaning.

In fact, I think it appears in so many contexts and so many guises that we can safely conclude that Mahler himself,  like us, was trying to understand what it means- at least he may have been trying to understand what it meant to him. This gesture, as well as a few others, seemed to quite literally haunt him throughout all his life. They’re like musical ghosts, shadows that were always with him and yet which he could never pin down.

So perhaps that very un-knowability is the reason that he chose this song in which to use this iconic theme. After all, the poem is about haunting- being haunted by memories, and trying to understand what those memories, what those mental pictures, those “dark flames” really meant.

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

Thanks for reading, and we can move on to song 3 tomorrow.

As it happened, there were two exhibits on, both of photography. The first was by a Russian artist I had never heard of. Within moments, though, I knew we’d stumbled onto something very special, and then, less than a minute after I entered I saw two photographs in quick succession that both gave me the exquisite, heart-in-throat feeling of experiencing art that is raw, alive, terrifying, essential- that feeling of seeing an image in the world that has been buried, unseen, in your own subconscious for all your life. The first was this one

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The artist was Alexey Titarenko.

We spent the next couple of hours very quietly looking. Looking and somehow changing as we absorbed these images of life, death, despair, menace and mystery. I was so moved and impressed that I did something I never do at museums and galleries, possibly because I feared I’d never see his stuff again. I bought the book!

We kept it safe in a corner of our little car so it wouldn’t get smashed by camping equipment until we got back to Cardiff. Even then, it was a few weeks before I finally took the shrink wrap off and read the book. I was a bit nervous that the photographs couldn’t possibly be equal to that first experience where it seemed like my heart was both racing and stopping. Fortunately, these are images that endure and haunt, and I’ve enjoyed the book immensely.

Imagine, then, my reaction when I discovered that music was a huge influence on Titarenko’s work. According to the book, his picture “The Black and White of Saint Petersburg” was inspired by the Brahms Violin concerto, and that, for him each musical piece, and its conveyance of the state of mind of the composer, affects how he sees a city or a landscape. In particular, one composer seems to have had a huge influence on Titarenkos approach and that is Dmitri Shostakovich. In particular, the Second Cello Concerto has “provided the underlying rhythm for the photographer’s inspiration.” In the artists words “I was so hooked on this concerto, that I could listen to it all day, every day. During my walks around the city, I realized that St. Petersburg offered endless living illustrations of this music. The monotonous opening cello melody was one of despair, but also of expectation. The concerto was instrumental in realizing certain images.” Fascinating. To me, this is probably the greatest cello concerto ever written. For all the glories of the Dvorak and the poignancy of the Schumann, even for Shostakovich’s own, brilliant First Concerto, to me, this work is the most essential work written for cello and orchestra, because, at least to me, its message is so important. It is music that is the singing conscience of a destroyed culture, and a very precious reminder of the frailty of humanity. It’s personal and universal messages are perfectly embodied in the juxtaposition of solo cello and orchestra. Few other works, maybe the Beethoven Violin Concerto, Berg Violin Concerto and the greatest Mozart Piano Concerti find this balance so perfectly. In any case, to what extent could my powerful reaction to Titarenko’s images be due to the fact that we shared this common love of one piece of music? How does music change us, imprint its layers of meaning on us? Perhaps I was carrying these images in my subconscious, not from birth, but from Shostakovich, or perhaps all three of us, and all of you, have always carried them inside us, but that only the true artist could bring them out into the world were we could all look or listen and say, “yes, I know this.”

More on Alexey Titarenko, including an interview in mp3 format.

c. 2006 Kenneth Woods