Bach connections : Mahan Esfahani at Cambridge Music Festival (work in progress)

Bach connections : Mahan Esfahani at Cambridge Music Festival (work in progress)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2019 (17 to 24 October)
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20 October

Bach connections : Mahan Esfahani at Cambridge Music Festival (work in progress),

Wednesday 20 October 2021 at 7.30 p.m. at Downing Place United Reformed Church

To-night was hpschd at @Downing_Place for @cammusicfest :

Is John Cage - though not on the programme - still re-Tweeting ?

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 20, 2021

The Sonata in G Minor (Wq65/17) by C. P. E. Bach – a somewhat fractured and fissile work ? – was played with due theatricality and considerable poise for, apart from the so-called London Bach, he was the son of Johann Sebastian's who had most caught the imagination of generations after his father's, with a compositional style that was quite other than that of the master of the complexities of counterpoint and of how to craft and interweave fugal-subjects :

Mahan Esfahani gave an unfamiliar work, whose movements appeared to end with the same somewhat casual gesture (as if endings were so 1750 ?), pacing and plenty of space in which to talk, before J. S. Bach's Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue (BWV 903), where there was more scope, and therefore more need, not to adopt some 'accepted' approach to performance, which can lead to oxidization and rust.

The Fantasia and Fugue had been known, first, to #UCFF from inclusion in Blandine Verlet's intense 2-LP set of Sämtliche Toccaten (The Complete Toccatas) from 1978, listened to, o'er and o'er (though latterly by making a recording on a C120 audio-cassette, rather than playing and turning and playing the vinyl) : such things, and the means that were then relatively limited for knowing more about the performer / music (beyond the immediate sleeve-notes), inevitably colour one's relations, for good or ill, to a repertoire or a piece.

Or thus hear him play on this Jukka Ollikka instrument, with a carbon-fibre sound-board*, which - depending on where one might have been listening in the performance-space - probably sounded as if the sound had been amplified, or otherwise 'processed'.

* https://t.co/D8LgwyznX8

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 20, 2021

Esfahani could initially be heard, slowing down the musical flow of the Fantasia in favour of its rotational or pausal elements – which was, perhaps, done in a nod both back to the affect of Emmanuel Bach², whose work he had just played, as well as forward, to that of Johann Kuhnau's Sonata, as it was to be presented to us (as one has to doubt how many there already knew or had specifically come to hear it ?).

Towards its end, Esfahani adopted a very lively, non-U manner to Bach in the energetic and vigorous delivery of notes (which some might typically call 'pounding' on the instrument's manual ?) – its vivid impressions of drama, and in no conceivable way to be mistaken (in its euphemistic sense) for authentic performance, with someone who plays so-called early music, but does not see himself as an early-music performer.


In the opening of the fugue, Esfahani was playing at a fairly modest tempo, and then, in the course of the work, started introducing special emphases, and what seemed to be² deliberate hesitations or changes of direction. At later points, he was playing very densely, such that we were presented 'a wash' of echoic sound :

To the extent that one might not have envisaged outside a piano forte and employing the sustain-pedal, or otherwise possible without the sound's being amplified or modified, and with a very pronounced bass register. (All of this began to set one wondering whether a sound-desk and speakers were in operation in the venue.)

The conclusion of the work was met with a roar of enthusiasm – though it was unclear whether for a rendition of a familiar work, from the novelty brought to it, or both. However, to judge from which Esfahani certainly seemed not to have been exaggerating, in telling Katie Derham² that there was something different about music in this city from its university rival that consisted in how audiences listen.






















End-notes :

¹ When he spoke to the audience, after the BWV 903 and pacingly inhabiting the front of the performance-space, there was, as well as a suavely provocative or subversive content, a pedagogic tone to how he addressed us :

Mahan Esfahani knew, because he not only underlined the point, but also drew attention to it, that we assuredly did not know whether, in addition to having been a lawyer, etc., Kuhnau had, in fact, written a novel about a harpsichordist who was or may have been, as he put it, 'a quack' - in that there was not only a twinkle in saying that, but a sort of off-hand and slightly sotto voce 'Make of that what you will...' afterwards.


² Then again, appearing in conversation with Katie Derham by telephone on Monday's Radio 3 In Tune (on air between 5.00 and 7.00 p.m. BST), Esfahani had not left for the UK, but, as he told us, had finished packing to travel for the recitals in Cambridge (on Wednesday), and then at Wigmore Hall (Thursday ?). [Regrettably, for some reason doubtless to due with construing the pandemic-related risk, the former was confined to one bill of fare, i.e. with no interval, despite four works on the bill (as one had heard had been the case at other CMF concerts).]

With a pair of tickets booked for the @cammusicfest gig on Wednesday evening, good to hear @MahanEsfahani in a brief chat with @thekatiederham on @BBCInTune ! :https://t.co/9fG1aB6L4A https://t.co/9FcOzaDTfn

— THE AGENT APSLEY #ScrapUniversalCredit #JC4PM2019 (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 18, 2021

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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

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

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

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2014 (28 August to 7 September)
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13 October

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

On Friday 17 October at 7.30, Cambridge Corn Exchange (@CambridgeCornEx) hosts the first in its annual Cambridge Classical Concert Series

The series opens with the excellent Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (@rpoonline), again as The Corn Exchange's Orchestra in Residence (reviewed here, at the end of the previous series (earlier in the year), when Nicholas Collon conducted them in an all-British programme of Elgar, Britten, and Vaughan Williams…)


The programme for Friday is as follows:


First half

Robert Schumann (1810–1856) : Manfred Overture (please see below for a more accurate title) [mainly written in 1848, but first performed in 1852]

Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943) : Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43 [apparently written in July / August 1934, and first performed that November]


Second half

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) : Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73 [more than fifty years earlier, in 1877, but otherwise as with the Rachmaninov : started in the summer, and first performed later that year – please see below]


Extra : Please look here for a further connection, of sorts, between Brahms and Rachmaninov (plus a plethora of other Opus Numbers !)…

This posting – much delayed by the exigencies of trying to write up The 34th Cambridge Film Festival (@camfilmfest) – looks essentially at the reasons why we have the Overture as an isolated piece, whereas those about the Brahms is now linked here, and about the Rachmaninov here, are more personal responses (plus some more music history)


If one stops to investigate the phenomenon, it is remarkable that some pieces achieve a life beyond the work for which they were written :

Not so much in the case of a lovely aria, such as the famous ‘Erbarme dich’ (in Bach’s St Matthew Passion, BWV 244) or Gluck’s equally well-known ‘Che farò senza Euridice’ (from his Orfeo ed Euridice (from 1762)), where it is obvious that the strength of the writing has given birth to a lovely expression of feeling – although it is probably still best understood (first of all, at least) in context.

No. One has in mind, say, Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture, Op. 62 – or, as the Germans more style it, Ouvertüre zu Coriolan (Overture to Coriolan). The question of naming apart (though as true of the Manfred Overture in this concert), the music was written in 1807 for Heinrich Joseph von Collin's drama Coriolan.

Here, nothing suggests that there was any other incidental music. The complete works of von Collin (Gesammelte Werke, in six volumes) appeared between 1812 and 1814, and are still in print (so presumably still studied), but what really seems to survive with any life is the Overture*.


In the case of Schubert**, maybe his incidental music to Rosamunde*** (Op. 26, D. 797) has survived a little better. Yet the production, withdrawn after two nights, scarcely deviated from his other general lack of success in writing for the stage. Regarding this programme’s piece by Robert Schumann, it is, yet again, an extract – seemingly surviving largely on its own.

The ‘Overture’ is taken from Manfred : Dramatic Poem (with Music) in Three Parts (in the original German, Manfred. Dramatisches Gedicht in drei Abtheitungen), Op. 115, and is a setting of the dramatic work of that name by George, Lord Byron (published in 1817), mainly written in 1848.

Pictured is the title-page of the edition of Manfred that was prepared by Clara Schumann, Robert’s wife (and then widow), and it indicates that it had pretensions to be amongst his greater vocal works. Despite Hugo Wolf’s apparent appreciation for Manfred (Wolf lived from 1860 to 1903), its availability as a score (although modern scores are of the 'Overture' alone) and even as a recording, and the fact that academics are still writing about it (and, inevitably – it appears – with Schumann, his mental state at the time of writing it), the focus remains this ‘Overture’.

Curious creature, @thekatiederham - in introducing Lunchtime Concert, interchangeably pronounced Wolf as if written Wölf, @onradio3now...
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 12, 2014

Can I guess, though, that Schoenberg may creatively become Schonenberg, @thekatiederham @onradio3now... ?
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) October 12, 2014

The result, seemingly, is that the whole Manfred is not allowed to stand alongside compositions such as Liederkreis, Dichterliebe and Frauenliebe und -leben (all earlier, being from 1840).


So it is does not even seem, after all, that this 'Overture' was separated from its musical home quite in the same way as for the other works considered above : they were attached to something that has not really survived, whereas this piece, by being picked out as the best part, has been severed from the body of Manfred and kept alive before us on the concert platform...


End-notes

* Likewise, to stay with Beethoven, his score to the ballet The Creatures of Prometheus, Op. 43 – the Overture is certainly in the concert repertoire, but what about the rest of the score (maybe only on Radio 3 (@BBCRadio3), where it has been broadcast), let alone the ballet itself ?

** If one does not check, Schubert (1797–1828) may seem more contemporary with Schumann (1810–1856) than with Beethoven, but Schubert’s life in fact much overlapped with that of Beethoven (1770–1827), since Schubert died before he was 32, and Schumann lived for more than 25 years beyond him. (As is well known, Schubert both felt himself in Beethoven’s shadow (as did Brahms (1833–1897), and was one of the great man’s torch-bearers.)

*** In full, the play Rosamunde, Fürstin von Zypern [Countess of Cyprus], by Helmina von Chézy.


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Unless stated otherwise, all films reviewed were screened at Festival Central (Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge)

Naomi Campbell performs her Sonata for Piano (according to Samuel VII and YouTube)

More views of - or before - Cambridge Film Festival 2012
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3 March

And a cracking performance it is!

Shunning designer wear for a frock borrowed (on the sly) from Katie Derham, Campbell cuts a stunning figure, as she sits silently, contemplating the black interleaved with the white.

Then, in a shot of her actually at the piano, we see her hesitate, before unleashing this piece of compressed energy. For the entire sonata, although in two quite different movements, lasts just 15 seconds, without repeats. (With repeats, which are intermeshed in a complicated way, it could take days, which is longer than can be uploaded to the relevant web-site.)

In a naive act, as if of rage, we are reminded of nothing so much as Bartók's Allegro barbaro, and then, in the contrasting mood, of his well-known nuance for 'night music'. How good, then, that Campbell turned down, in favour of this work, a commission for a Theme and 57 Variations on an Original Melody by Thomas Adès!

Just the first in a strand dubbed 'Supermodels play Sonatas'*.


End-notes

* Although, personally, I'm with Nietzsche still - and waiting for the hypermodel to emerge.


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That damn' Derham attitude!

More views of - or after - Cambridge Film Festival 2011
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11 February

It's not exactly an oral swagger, but an over-hasty, confidential familiarity - no, an overfamiliarity - from one who is making quite clear who's boss in the presenter / listener relationship, IF you let her (which she wants you to do, and almost assumes that you will).

Yesterday, she said as if it were an expletive, or, rather, admiration of someone's bum, Gorgeous piece!, then whiffled off into some - perhaps more scripted (and, to be honest, I do not know whether these presenters write their own material) - string of information. As ever, briskly, with almost unnecessarily precise diction, which reinforces the message I know what I'm talking about, you should listen to me.

Unfortunately, it's so forced, almost so desperate to be liked and to make ad libs full of her own opinions and 'personality', that, for me, it is an unsubtle stamp of would-be trustworthiness, not remotely the sort of underlying reassurance that is just inherent in, say, the style of Fiona Talkington.


Yet this Derham attitude is not her unique phenomenon, for Radio 3 seems 'to have bought into' this feminine style of clipped authority: to my mind, Suzy Klein is almost indistinguishable, save that she is the only person that I have heard using the word 'please' in such a barked way* that it is quite out of place in asking a performer being interviewed to answer whatever he or she is there to talk about:

It had echoes of a child begging for something that he or she knows is forbidden (or, at least, it's time has not yet come), but delivered not in quite such a wheedling way, but as if to ingratiate on some other level, but, not on her own behalf, but as the servant of the listening audience: it's as if she is a Jesus, pleading with the Father for forgiveness for the sinners on their knees before the cross - give them, I beseech thee, but the answer to this question in your almighty mercy...


End-notes

* And unnecessarily using it, to impart some sense of God knows what! - counterfactual humility?


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Written by a sixteen-year-old Mozart

Written by a sixteen-year-old Mozart : Evidence for time-travel and / or multiple selves

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8 February (8 April, emphases and Tweet added)

Written by a sixteen-year-old Mozart : Evidence for time-travel and / or multiple selves

If you were like me, you'd imagine that Mozart proudly showing the score of his new string quartet to the five-year-old Mozart, while twenty-two-year-old Mozart looks on and yawns (or, probably, worse) - just a quirky turn of phrase from Jonathan Swain, who is presenting Through the Night on Radio 3.

And it interacts with a recent realization that the daytime schedule (by chance or design) is now dominated by female presenters, and those all of a certain age and apparent class - yes, there is Sean Rafferty still, hanging on in his very enjoyable spot on In Tune, and there is the excellent Donald Macleod following on (the less-excellent DM goes and picks grapes instead), usually straight after, with Composer of the Week.

Otherwise, though, it's Sara Mohr-Pietsch (2.5h), Sarah Walker (3h), then DM for 1h (for his first airing at noon), then, this week, it was Suzy Klein as, I think, both afternoon anchor and hosting In Tune in Sean's absence, which would be I don't know how many hours.

Where are the male presenters of that age isn't my question, but why, when one goes from SW to SM-P to SK to Katie Derham, the utter death-knell of my interest in listening (if I can help it), is there - what I may not be alone in finding - a gradient of irritation with their self-satisfaction?

Added lately to a more elderly posting, a comment that might sting the adherents or acolytes of some on @BBCRadio3 : http://t.co/vMBysCSKPP
— THE AGENT APSLEY (@THEAGENTAPSLEY) April 8, 2015

I confess that I mistook SK for the dreaded KD this week - it's something, for me, not far off the renowned oiliness of the Reverend Chadband in Bleak House, it's an expression of an opinion that goes beyond the bounds and tells me what I think (or should think) of what I have just heard, or what, in the case of something to be played or to be heard, what I will think.

Sorry, but I want to make my own mind up! I don't mind the odd 'Listen out for what the piccolo does in the opening of the slow movement, which might sound like a bird / which many have thought resembles a bird', but not being told piccolo = bird = fact. Music isn't like that, and, maybe, I resent the surface knowledge that seems to claim some sort of superiority, some sort of passport to understanding a piano sonata or a concerto - we all know that presenters are just presenters, but the ones whom I mention seem to have this edge of seeming to want to be too keen to tell you what's what in case you don't think that they're doing a good job.

That, I think, might be the underlying motivation - which I can understand, as few things are secure - but I perceive it as smugness, of glad-handing it with my mates Brahms or Bach, and - if you're lucky - Tag along with me and you might learn something. To which, without saying it or putting it into words (until now), I feel like saying: I welcome being told facts or details that might enhance my enjoyment, but Please don't teach your grandma to suck eggs.


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