What I am looking forward to in the Cambridge Classical Concert Series… (Part IVB)

What I am looking forward to in the Cambridge Classical Concert Series… (Part IVB)

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9 April

What I am looking forward to in the Cambridge Classical Concert Series… (Part IVB)

Part IVA was a preview of Beethoven, with his familiar Symphony No. 3 in E Flat Major, Op. 55, which is being brought to us (at 7.30 p.m. on Saturday 11 April 2015) at The Corn Exchange, Cambridge (@CambridgeCornEx), by celebrated conductor Christoph Koenig (coupled with Elgar’s less-performed concerto, for violin and orchestra, played by Pinchas Zukerman, a truly legendary soloist) – this is a resting-place for a gratuitous Epilogue to that preview...


One will notice that the preview itself steered quite clear of the question of the (rescinded) dedication to Napoleon Buonaparte – for several reasons. One is that [the nature / meaning of] commissions or dedications, such as that which gives us the name of The Razumovsky Quartets (for the three that his Opus 59 comprises) – or, with Bach, BWV 988 and BWV 1046 to 1051 (respectively, the so-called Goldberg Variations and Brandenburg Concertos) – are sometimes pretty questionable.

What appears to be the title-page of the autograph score

Another is that it is arguably more interesting to realize of the poet whom William Wordsworth became that, from 1792 (and not for a little while afterwards), he did far more to support The French Revolution and [notions of] La République française than Beethoven probably did in, say, flirting with offering his work in progress to Napoleon (what does this actually tell us about the 3rd ?)*.

The last, and most persuasive, conjoins these points, i.e. that the music – as any music worth its name – transcends such temporal considerations : the Op. 59 quartets may have been dedicated to Razumovsky (and have sought to please / flatter him), but what does that really tell us other than about the patronage that supported Beethoven as a composer (and what scholars choose to try to read into the works on the basis of having this knowledge) ?


I should like to suggest that we might get as much understanding of this ‘Eroica’ symphony (completed in early 1804) by turning to the heroism of Leonora in Fidelio (whose character gave us no fewer than three overtures [link to, and data from, All About Ludwig van Beethoven]: No. 1, Op. 138 (1805), No. 2, Op. 72a (1805), No. 3, Op. 72b (1814).

Or by asking what impulse in Beethoven (in 1807) gave us, with another heroic (but also tragic) figure, his overture Coriolan** (Ouvertüre zu Coriolan), Op. 62 ?


End-notes

* Or, maybe, that Byron wrote an 'Ode To Napoleon Buonaparte', which Schoenberg set as his Opus 41 (initially in 1942, in versions (with narrator and piano) for string quartet, and string orchestra, the latter of which was first performed in November 1944).

** Also mentioned here, earlier in the season.


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I am to Mozart (and Haydn) as Schubert and Brahms are to me

This reviews Noriko Ogawa’s interpretation of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3

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5 November

This is a follow-up to the posting What I am looking forward to in the Cambridge Classical Concert Series… (Part III) : a mini-review of Noriko Ogawa’s (@norikogawa's) performance / interpretation of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Minor, Op. 83, at Cambridge's Corn Exchange (@CambridgeCornEx) on Wednesday 3 December 2014

This performance set one thinking (concentrating throughout on Noriko's rendition of the solo part (after contact on Twitter, one cannot write 'Ogawa', which would seem unnatural)) :

What if Beethoven felt about Mozart (and, maybe, about Haydn) as we know that, in turn, Schubert and Brahms felt about Beethoven himself – at least with regard to orchestral / large-scale writing – which is to say, in his shadow ?

Might not Beethoven, in his early thirties (we believe) when he composed his Piano Concerto No. 3 (in C Minor, Op. 83), have been comparing himself to Mozart - a composer who, at his death at the age of nearly thirty-six*, may not have completed his famous Requiem**, but the main theme of which Beethoven appears to allude to here... ?

The autograph title-page of Mozart K. 626, Requiem

Yes, the list itself of works without Opus Number ascribed to Beethoven after his death is lengthy, but he could well have been more than keenly aware of Mozart, both as a prolific composer and as one who, even as a teenager*, had not had trouble finding his own voice with works for orchestra in what resembles his mature style.


Particularly in the first movement, Noriko deliberately held back in handling the initial material, not so much using legato as, in the more direct passages and motifs, not making them as expressive as moments where the heart of the music clearly lies for her : there was, thus, a double-contrast between the slight abruptness to Beethoven’s diction in ‘the cooler places’, where it felt as though he might be dutifully paying his respects to the earlier performer / director / composer (since, of course, Beethoven – as long as his hearing allowed – was another such), and where he appeared to break free in language that we know to be his.

As to the question of the cadenzas, they were brought to us with such freshness as to seem spontaneous, and it mattered little whether they were a later addition, or Beethoven's seeking to notate what he may have performed in 1803. They had a natural creativity to them and were alive, when some bring them to us in ‘studied’ form, maybe note perfect, but lacking warmth.



As Noriko played it for us, the opening of the second movement, for piano alone, felt as though it was not just recognizably Beethovenesque, but also capable of founding and fostering the rest of the movement, laying a sure basis for it, almost as if Beethoven were saying :

Look, this is my calling-card ! Here, I can write in this style – and, here, I can seamlessly integrate it into the orchestral texture, for which I have prepared the ground with it.


For composers or performers acclimatize to and acquire their craft, technique, approach and skill with and through others, at conservatoires and colleges of music, who have gone before, and homage across wider generations then becomes part of what, say, Stravinsky is about, in relation to Tchaikovsky, with Le baiser de la fée (The Fairy’s Kiss) in 1928 (and when he revised the piece in 1950) – or Schoenberg, orchestrating Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 (in G Minor, Op. 25)****.

The reflective moments in the second movement, alongside those that were less inward, made the more celebratory liveliness of the Rondo - Allegro feel an innate progression, an inevitable development from it : with great music, just as with a powerful film or play, one does not even hesitate to imagine how it could have been other when it has been well conceived by those playing it, complete with, as one would expect, passing-notes and elisions executed with ease.

thank you @THEAGENTAPSLEY for coming to the concert @CambridgeCornEx great to see you, hope you enjoyed the evening.
— Noriko Ogawa (@norikogawa) December 4, 2014

Noriko may not have intended to make the exact journey suggested above with her audience, for, with a chance to speak to her briefly in the interval, she suggested that Beethoven, if he were indeed trying to exorcize the spirit of Mozart, is not as chromatic as Mozart (assuming that he could be writing in homage to Mozart in order to move forward).

In this kind of way, Brahms clearly established his inner confidence with works for larger ensembles when he both wrote and had his Symphony No. 2 performed in six months, hard on the heels of the successful performance of his Symphony No. 1, which had taken much more than a decade in the writing – and whose predecessor he had transmuted into the poorly received Piano Concerto No. 1.

It does not matter, in a way, if this sort of account has truth outside the concert-hall, for the feeling from many commentators that Beethoven is being, especially in this concerto, so Mozartian must have some sort of meaning, and why should that, in this kind of fantasy, not go along with the pianist’s interpretation – even if it were never in Noriko's head to convey it ?

Many a writer has viewed him- or herself as a conduit*****, just as we have in the legend of Mozart’s compositional ease, perpetrated by history and perpetuated – as if he were God’s amanuensis, along with the Mozart / Salieri story – in such accounts as Peter Shaffer’s play (from 1979) and the huge film of the same name derived from it, Amadeus (1984).


End-notes

* To the day, Mozart died 223 years ago yesterday (in 1791). It appears that Beethoven was 56 / 57 when he died.

** In D Minor (K. 626).

*** When he wrote his five glorious Concertos for Violin and Orchestra (respectively (as numbered), K. 207 (in B Flat Major), K. 211 (in D Major), K. 216 (in G Major), K. 218 (in D Major), and K. 219 (in A Major)).

**** The LA Phil’s web-site [the work was first performed by this orchestra, under Klemperer, in 1937] tells us this about why :

Schoenberg explained the rationale behind his orchestration in a letter to Alfred Frankenstein, the music critic of the San Francisco Chronicle, almost a year after the premiere :

'1. I like the piece

'2. It is seldom played

'3. It is always very badly played, because the better the pianist, the louder he plays, and you hear nothing from the strings. I wanted once to hear everything, and this I achieved.'


***** For example, novelist Russell Hoban was pleased to see himself as a channel, and to invent characters in his books as writers in his image, e.g. Hermann Orff in The Medusa Frequency, one of his finest novels (published by Jonathan Cape, London, 1987).


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Dennis Russell Davies conducts Pärt, Glass and Adams - Cambridge, Sunday 27 April 2014

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1 May

Dennis Russell Davis was brought back to the rostrum at @CambridgeCornEx at least three times after his programme of Pärt, Glass and Adams.
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 27, 2014

Whatever the three composers whose works were on the bill on the evening of Sunday 27 April at The Corn Exchange in Cambridge (@CambridgeCornEx) may have in common (Arvo Pärt, at least, rejects the description of ‘minimalism’ (let alone ‘holy minimalism’, which he considers nonsense)), there is probably more about the music that each one writes that makes him distinctive :

Below, is a review, which follows on from the introductory posting Minimalists - or Rhythmicists ?, and there is also an edited-down version of the first half of the review here...





When large orchestras, such as from Russia, have visited The Corn Exchange in the past, the stage has seemed crammed, and this time was no different, with what seemed a massive orchestra (at full strength, there are fifty string-players alone). A little of a pity that more had not turned out to witness this spectacle and hear their impressive ensemble, but still a creditable attendance of around six hundred heard two major works by Philip Glass and John Adams, and something more modest from Pärt – as maybe the man himself may be, although works such as Passio are on a larger scale.



Arvo Pärt – These Words…

According to Universal Edition, this piece for string orchestra and percussion was composed between 2007 and 2008, and it was a commission by the Léonie Sonnings Musikfond in Denmark. (The same source says that Pärt has been awarded the Léonie Sonning Prize, the most important musical distinction in that country.)


About the piece itself, the person who wrote that entry (Eric Marinitsch) goes on to say :

As its textual basis Pärt uses the human foibles mentioned in the old Church Slavonic prayer from the Canon to the Guardian Angel, while the title derives from associations between this material and Shakespeare’s Hamlet.


Whatever that may mean, it is to be noted that, just before the scene with the play performed by the theatrical troupe, Hamlet’s uncle Claudius says to him I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet. These words are not mine. (Act 3, Scene 2). With the connivance of the leader of the players, Hamlet had interpolated the text with material designed to bring out guilty behaviour in Claudius, and then afterwards, when Hamlet confronts his mother Gertrude, she says O, speak to me no more! These words like daggers enter in my ears. No more, sweet Hamlet. (Act 3, Scene 4).


As for the work, it began with a chord full of suspense, and, after the sound of a triangle and a bass-note, the strings sometimes played piano, as a sequence was given first by what sounded like a xylophone* and then a different one by a bass-drum, before the opening material returned. Still with a feeling of suspense, a swaying sweep of the xylophone and another note from the triangle led to a statement of the same sequences, seemingly both hesitantly and thoughtfully, after the string writing had moved up and down in chords.


Yet although a triangle had been seen struck earlier, the bell-sound that next entered could have been a tubular-bell (it had more of the lasting, resonant note that characterizes a desk-bell), and preceded a progression that had an oriental feel to it, if not how it grew in intensity. Then a moment’s pause, cymbals and the bell and then a bell sounding a tone lower marked a new section, in which the interval given by the two bells recurred before a pizzicato motif with a rumbling drum-noise – a moment of haunting eeriness, which gave way to a bowed sound, and then the two bells again, the noise of the second of which held in the air.

After another pause, beats on the bass-drum led to further powerful writing for the strings, which again drifted away to a pianissimo. In what followed, heralded by triangle and xylophone, the latter did not so much interject, as juxtapose the feeling of its presence (in the spirit of Pierre Boulez) : the writing was moving as if we were tracing a very slow, but clear, life-sign, and the music conformed to its own measure. The string-sound swelled again to something fuller, and then diminished. Momentarily, for no more than a bar or two, the material took on a different rhythmic stress, and then ended, with the sound of the bell.


What is so important with a piece such as this is that a gesture of a bell or something like it should feel germane and organically have its own poise, otherwise one is just going through the motions of playing it. Davies fully knows that, and has worked with orchestras, this one included, in such a way that the atmosphere that Pärt appears to be seeking is wholly present, such that a large group of strings can bow together, and yet play piano, so that one has the density of the string-texture, but not the immediacy of the string-sound.

Those new to these composers may not have experienced this kind of sound-world before, but it was a good choice to open the concert, rather than, say, Pärt’s better-known Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten, which would have been too intense to fill this role.



Philip Glass – Cello Concerto No. 2 (‘Naqoyqatsi’)

The fourth film on which Philip Glass worked with director Godfrey Reggio, Visitors (2013) has just been released in the UK.

Glass has also turned the score for the previous film, Naqoyqatsi (2002), in which cellist Yo-Yo Ma played prominently, into his seven-movement Cello Concerto No. 2, subtitled Naqoyqatsi. Dennis Russell Davies (the conductor in this concert) has recorded the work, conducting the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and with the same soloist, Matt Haimovitz.

As with the Adams work in the second half, the movements have titles, but one wonders whether they may be more for the convenience of players, conductors, concert arrangers and the like to refer to the piece’s constituent parts, rather than just by bar-numbers, because, in both cases, there seems to be relatively little emphasis on elucidating the word(s) chosen. (In the case of Glass, of course, the cues for the film would have given rise to a need for titles, which may have (partly) survived : contrast this with how one refers to the works of artist Mira Schendel, when almost everything is sím titulo).)


1. Naqoyqatsi
The work opened with strings and ‘parping’ horns, before going down a level for the solo entry, which was marked by the intensity of drums and cymbals, and the weight of the cellos and double-basses. It was clear straightaway that the combination of instrument and cellist brought about a lovely sound, and the solo part developed to encompass a variety of moods, including, most obviously, yearning. The opening motif recurred, but now against material of shifting tonality, and, in a tutti section with contributions from tubular-bell, the modulations were thrilling. A short section for the cellos alone, before joined by the basses, led in what is almost a trademark of Glass’ music, where he does not literally inscribe a circle with complementary pairs of descending triplets, but feels as though he does (for want of a better term, circle-sounds). The movement came to an end as the cellos played at the bottom of their register, joined by basses and brass, and percussion.


2. Massman
In the opening of this movement, Glass used an alternating pattern, which modulated, before the cello gave us a short motif, and then a shorter motif, parallel to it, and the strings then played this material under the writing for cello, where Haimovitz had sharpened notes in his part, and with a tremolo effect. With the combination of interjective tutti and a climax in the percussion, the feeling that was conveyed was a little like a trudge, and, when Glass had quarter-tone writing high in the cello’s solo register, the percussion was given an oom-pah effect : we momentarily felt as if it were a further parody of one of Shokstakovich’s ‘ironic’ parodies. Another high-energy tutti section, rich in brass, brought in those ‘circle-sounds’ again, but with a slightly sickening feel to the sound of the soloist. Together with brass and strings, and a fleeting evocation of Viennese style, the movement ended, the cello at the bottom of its register.


3. New World
With some beats from the tam-tam, the soloist had a suggestive phrase that had the quality of a gypsy fiddler. For the first time seeming like a solo cello with an orchestra behind him, Haimowitz’s part ran the gamut of evoking tuning the instrument and the tradition of solo cello music of Bach, but also harmonics, slide-notes, and ghostly tremolos by the bridge of the instrument.


4. Intensive Times
Tutti passages, with a prominent place for wood-blocks and snare-drum, led to a haunting theme in the ‘peachy’ register of the brass being taken up, and to the accompaniment of struck cymbals. As the movement developed, there was a feeling of varying between driving inevitability and harmonic uncertainty, but which gave the impression of bedding down before the end.


5. Old World
Another movement that opened with solo cello in a high, aetherial stratum, a phrase then emerged with which the harp chimed with a descending interval, and the movement had a similar feeling to it to that marked New World, but exploiting a rising interval.


6. Point Blank
The opening theme had a bouncy, but sinister, aspect, with a slightly coarse rasp from the brass. Yet, as it developed, Glass seemed to pitch a descending minor third against the cello’s rising major third (?), and with a lurking snare-drum rhythm. Tutti sections followed, and, in turn, gave way to writing for Haimowitz that seemed to demand intense slurring and sawing. More ‘circle-sounds’ followed, but which appeared undercut by sneering descending writing for brass and strings. At a moment when the cello seemed to be reaching out, it felt constrained, as if required to limit itself to Semaphore against the brass and the percussion. The movement then ended, meditating on one note. [Around when, unfortunately, Haimowitz’s C-string (?) broke]


7. The Vivid Unknown (described by Davies as ‘the epilogue’ when the broken string was being replaced)
The movement, in its opening, had a very expansive theme for solo cello, which, whilst it generally strived upwards, had downwards motions. As cellos and basses contributed ‘circle-sounds’, the cello had a vivid outpouring, only brought back to earth by a pure sound from the violins. The bassoon, always there in the general texture, was given the special feature of a weighty contribution, which gave way to more solo material. The bassoons then contributed, with a rising interval (a third ?), and, on beats from the tam-tam – in conjunction, with the other percussion ¬– the concerto came to an end.


The filmic origins and nature of the concerto may have meant that the movements were necessarily of a more delineated kind than, say, in the work by John Adams (which followed after the interval), because several began with the soloist introducing thematic material, or in a different character from what preceded. In any case, it was clearly a score that Davies knew very well and was involved with, if possible, even more fully than with that of These words….

Haimowitch, whose hesitations about the idea of the work, when being invited to premiere it, could be read about in the programme, gave a highly engaged performance, and, as he says Glass had licensed, played the repeated matter in a manner as he saw fit, varying it according to context and his artistic judgement. (Haimowitch has recorded it under Davies, about which one can read here, and also listen to samples of tracks.)

All in all, with Pärt and Glass, a good first half, and one that introduced a post-modern approach to compositions that explore the dimensions of a small chosen realm in depth, but without much of the vividly atonal or even twelve-tone approaches that many composers of the last forty or fifty years have embraced :

This, if anything, sets these composers apart, but in a different way from that of other practitioners such as, from the world of choral music, Eric Whitacre, Morten Lauridsen or John Rutter, whose works are characterized by being much more highly tonal, and less rhythmically emphatic, than those of Adams, Glass, and Pärt.


Harmonielehre original version ?

John Adams – Harmonielehre

Not uniquely so, but the title of the work is that of a text by composer Arnold Schoenberg (from 1911), which roughly means Lessons in Harmonc Writing, whom Adams describes as representing ‘something twisted and contorted’ (this from the composer of Gnarly Buttons). Contrary to Adams’ claim that, as a pupil of a pupil of Schoenberg’s, he had respect for and even felt intimidated by Schoenberg, what he writes – at length – in the programme suggests something different :

That he built an image of Schoenberg of his own, as a god or ‘high priest’, and that then Rejecting Schoenberg was like siding with the Philistines. Adams has built a Schoneberg-shaped altar, according to his notion of Schoenberg, and then refused to bow down before it, citing the aural ugliness of so much of the new work being written. Yet the real Schoenberg wrote, for example, the incredibly beautiful and moving Variations for Orchestra, Op. 31…


Anyway, Harmonielehre is in three movements, but the first has no title (as to titles, please see the section on Glass’ concerto, above). It seems that the second movement has some connection with what Russell Hoban, making a Spoonerism, called Blighter’s Rock, because the programme reports that a dramatic dream broke a fallow period and gave rise to the piece – the link with The Fisher King (made famous, if not by T. S. Eliot’s notes to ‘The Waste Land’, then at least by Terry Gilliam’s film of that name in 1991) being that of woundedness, impotence even in some versions of the Arthurian story, and sometimes with a second wounded figure, the father.

As the programme tells us, Quackie is just what Adams and his wife were calling their daughter Emily at the time of composition (in the mid-1980s), and Adams had another dream, this time with her floating through space with Meister Eckhardt, a German mystic and philosopher, born in 1260. (As discussed, whether such titles and anecdotes add anything to a performance may be a matter of personal experience.)


1.
The work has an energetic, rhythmic opening statement, with tubular-bells. As in These Words…, one could hear xylophone, and brass and woodwind instrument playing high up, with plucked second violins, and also glockenspiel. The movement was one of contrasts, with bowed and plucked strings, and then with some string-players playing very long, slow notes against others with jabbed notes of much smaller duration – an exciting, bright mix of sound, which reminded of Adams’ A Short Ride in a Fast Machine, before it gave way to a moment of quiescence, against which we had the bubbling sounds of the xylophone and the luminous ones of the glockenspiel, before struck cymbals brought about a pause.

A full string-sound from cellos, double-basses and brass, with the material then passed to violas and violins : a questioning tone and a high string-sound gave a resemblance to a heavenly choir, before the direction moved down to a pulsing, with arpeggios from the strings, and solid bass-notes. In both texture and depth of sound, there was still an other-worldly sense, an almost Brucknerian sound-mood (with hints of Mahler) in the string-writing, and with the harp evident. Momentarily, Adams gave us raindrops, in the form of high notes, falling on this Alpine mood-meadow, and then the brass of tuba, trombone and horn came through. This rich and luscious feeling, changed, as the pitch descended, to sustained string-notes – the initial impression was given by some ‘snarky’ bass-notes, but overall it was one of rhythmic plasticity, with contributions from triangle and tubular-bells.

Then the tense opening motif returned, and gained in intensity, with huge rhythms from tam-tam, and the bass-drum a-booming. The moment dissolved, and re-formed, heralding anxious string and brass sounds, with high notes in the latter. Finally, fast-paced snare-drumming and tubular-bells (coupled with harp) broke through the sonority, followed by hammer-blows on the bells that brought about a close.


2. The Anfortas Wound
With grave notes on the basses and cellos, before the woodwind joined in, with the cellos playing in unison, we found ourselves in an andante in an uncertain place, where one of the five busy percussionists could be heard bowing a crotale and then seen wafting it, so that it resonated in the air.

Tonality was now quite unclear, and harmonies were straying, with brass-notes adrift amongst the bell-sounds, as a crescendo slowly built and then, as in Bartók’s mirrored ascent in the Music for Percussion, Strings and Celesta, fell away again from its zenith. The harps were given prominent rhythmic patterns as the harmonic centre, in the strings, began rising, tension being added by pizzicato playing, and by the percussion, whose bass-drum led another crescendo. With a momentary slap of the strings and a screech, the tuba-players fitted their huge mutes, and the bowed crotale was sounded again.

The tubas were just as quickly unmuted, and with anticipatory sounds from the strings, let off blasts, which signalled bell-sounds, and low notes from cellos and basses. Several times before the end, the orchestra seemed to die away, but revived – a sort of inversion of classical works that seem to have ended with a loud full close, but for a few more chords to declare insistently the approach of the real ending.


3. Meister Eckhardt and Quackie
Once again, we were in that alpine meadow for a while, with high notes from the harps, and with ambient percussion. Through it, though, came a soaring feel amongst the twittering of piccolos, and there was again a remembrance of Fast Machine, but this time inversely, a sensation of (harmonically) slowly dropping.

Mounting tension, fed by a tap-tap beat on a block, and high violin notes performed in a slicing motion (as if for Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960)), was intensified by agitated writing in very short note-values, evoking Fast Machine further with chords from the brass as if receding on a railway, and then that sinister type of horn-tone that The Matrix (1999) uses for the sentinels. With pulsing drum and glockenspiel, the energetic impulse in the ensemble rose, fell away again, and climbed back up – to end on a brief open sonority.


End-notes

* One says ‘xylophone’, because the sound did not appear to resonate, but it may have been a marimba…


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