Through These Ears

Proms 73: Vaughan Williams, Xenakis, Holst

(Following from this preliminary post)

Sometimes I have to admit that I'm guilty of being the kind of listener about whom Thomas Beecham said, "The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes."  I'm not English, obviously, but I can't deny that there are times when I just like the cool sounds.

Proms 73 was one of the better programming decisions I've seen in a while, obvious as the them was.  The Planets and Sinfonia Antarctica are not exactly galaxies apart in their character and perspective, and I would imagine that a space-themed work by any composer other than someone of Xenakis's unique vision would have made this program seem much more mundane.  Taking a trip to the Plëiades provided enough separation in time and soundspace to make the Holst sound more fresh than it would have otherwise.  That's what good programming is supposed to do.

Vaughan Williams's Sinfonia Antarctica sounds exactly like what it is:  a score trying to depict musically what a movie is showing visually.  Without knowing this was specifically about an Arctic expedition ("Scott of the Antarctic"), the otherworldly sounds - even the wind machine - could evoke any kind of alien landscape.  In the end it's all a bit too blatant for me, but that's just my own attitude towards the composer in general.

The performance was very straightforward, took the music at face value, and Brabbins even had a bit of fun with it.  This wasn't exactly an inspired performance overall, but for the most part well-played and directed.  Brabbins created the necessary tension most of the time, and mostly let the music do what it does. I was taken to that alien landscape more by the sounds of Vaughan Williams's music than I was by anything special in the performance.  Perhpas I was too busy anticipating the Xenakis to appreciate this properly, but that's how it goes.

There certainly are plenty of cool sounds in Xenakis's Plëiades, and right from the start he creates an entrancing soundworld.  But there's so much more going on that makes these sounds work in the ear, so it doesn't get tedious within two minutes.  It's the shifting patterns that does it; that, and the composer's attention to the details of sound.  There is a wide variety of instrumental color.  The first three sections feature instruments of a particular kind.  The first movement uses metallic sounds, in this case a microtonal instrument Xenakis invented for it called a sixxen - from SIX players and XENakis.  The second movement uses mallet/keyboards (such as the vibraphone).  Next the music combines sixxen and mallet instruments with skins (drums), and the final movement uses drums of different sizes. if figures are repeated, the kaleidoscopic palette of sound keeps it fresh.  This only happens, though, when the composer is extremely skilled, and has the imagination and craft to put it together.

Speaking of skill, the musicians of 4-MALITY and O Duo were pretty outstanding.  They dedicated a lot of effort to this, which is the only that this kind of music ever happens.  Anyone who saw or heard the concert will know that they spent four days of intensive rehearsal with a Xenakis expert (who's name I didn't catch), and played with a click track in their ear for the performance.  That's probably the only way anyone could get through all those polyrhythms and aural textures.

Interestingly, one of the reasons why Xenakis composed in this rather exotic soundworld is because he was interested in working outside of the standard realm of pitch and harmony.  I'll let the composer's own words speak here:

"Linear polyphony is self-destructive in its current complexity. In reality, what one hears is a bunch of notes in various registers. The enormous complexity prevents one from following the tangled lines and its macroscopic effect is one of unreasonable and gratuitous dispersion of sounds over the whole sound spectrum. Consequently, there is a contradiction between the linear polyphonic system and the audible result, which is a surface, a mass.

This inherent contradiction with polyphony will disappear only once sounds become totally independent. In fact, since these linear combinations and their polyphonic superpositions are no longer workable, what will count will be the statistical average of isolated states of the components’ transformations at any given moment."

In other words, cool sounds.  (The above quote is from here.)

The sounds were so inspiring that someone in the audience was apparently moved to vocalize his enthusiasm at the top of his lungs (approx. 9:10 into it).  Because the music had reached one of several ecstatic plateaus, and the sounds were so...well...otherworldly, this extra spontaneous noise hardly even seemed out of place.  I'm sure there plenty of people in sympathy with the feelings of the noisemaker, who in almost any other circumstance would be (quite rightly) shushed within an inch of his life.

The Planets was something of a let-down after all that.  Brabbins did not get the best from the BBC SO players.  Ragged wind entrances and what sounded to me like a lack of enthusiasm in the upper strings much of the time kept this from being anything more than an average performance.  He has some fine ideas for the piece, but the musicians needed to do more than just wallow in the spacey orchestra sounds.  This is one of those cases where I was definitely enjoying the composer much more than the performer(s).

One of these days, I'm going to get someone to organize a concert program featuring excerpts from famous film scores and the serious works from which they were stolen inspired.  Both the Vaughan Williams and the Holst are good examples, even more so because theSinfonia Antarctica is actually a film score turned into a concert piece.  As for the connection between the The Planets and film music, all I can say is that I remember when we played this piece back in my university orchestra days.  So many of the student musicians were muttering, "Man, this is ripped off from Star Wars," that the conductor had to actually stop rehearsal and make the announcement that the piece was was completed in 1916.  I used to have fun with this stuff in my record store (remember those?) days as well.  Any title for this program probably shouldn't include the term "Human Xerox Machine", but I'm sorely tempted.

I must add one comment about the overly intrusive applause between every single movement.  Putting aside for the moment the argument about whether or not anything should be permitted between movements, one thing has become clear to me.  Either my suggestion about encouraging the "shuffle", or any other idea of some way to acknowledge the moment besides clapping would certainly prevent loud noises from stepping all over the last note, as happened at the end of Uranus.  Even if someone just can't wait, or perhaps in the event that someone just couldn't tell the music wasn't over, the soft shuffling of feet or a light murmur definitely wouldn't have killed the moment.  That's really what it's all about anyway. 

Curiously, there was no applause between movements in the Vaughan Williams.  That only started in the Holst.  Did someone, merely intending to show their appreciation for just that moment, unintentionally cause a cascade effect?  It sure got worse and worse after every movement.  Of course, once it becomes obligatory and uniform, the whole point of applauding just for that one bit gets lost.

If one little friendly, polite, non-snobbish, inclusive and encouraging remark had been made beforehand about what sort of gestures or sounds were appropriate in these situations, it would most likely have prevented the most egregious moments,as well as enabled whoever it was to actually communicate his appreciation of the moment to the players. As for the incident of stepping all over the last note, even if one is going to allow clapping for the lack of any other inspired choice, the mere mention of, you know, waiting for a moment before bursting into applause would have helped immensely.  But we're afraid to do that because we don't want to appear snobbish or contribute to the oppressive, stuffy atmosphere that supposedly scares people away, etc.  Argh.  Rant ends.

My recommendations for recordings of all these works are:

Vaughan Williams from the complete set conducted by Adrian Boult (can't find an individual release),

The Xenakis performed by the musicians for whom the piece was written,

and for the Holst, Boult again, or Gardiner with an added bit of fun from Percy Grainger.

Classical Music Radio Broadcasts This Week - Attempting Something Different

(UPDATE:  Apparently today's (Monday) Gergiev concert on Klara doesn't start until 2pm EDT.  My apologies.)

I wrote something a while back about trying to find new and different ways to do music criticism and concert reviews.  With a bit of inspiration from Norman Lebrecht's take on more involved coverage of concerts and festivals, I'm going to try something a little different.

Rather than just a dry listing of a handful of interesting progams - which anyone can find through sites like this one - I'm going to list a couple of concert broadcasts and briefly discuss why I want to hear them, and what I might be listening for.   Afterwards I'll post a review, not only to give my view on the concert, but to follow up on my preliminary comments.  This should be a fun experiment, and we'll see how this kind of music commentary looks at the end of the week.

First, though, a bit of cheating.

I actually heard this concert months ago, but NRK is rebroadcasting it, and it's well worth hearing again, for a couple of reasons.  The program is:

Sept. 7 from 11:00am to 1:00pm EDT, broadcast on NRK Altid Klassik

Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 in B, op. 83
Franz Liszt: From the Cradle to the Grave (Symphonic Poem)
Alexander Skriabin: Le Poème de l'Extase

Leif Ove Andsnes, piano
New York Philharmonic
Riccardo Muti, cond.

Other than one brief moment of chamber music, it's been a while since I've heard Leif Ove Andsnes play.  I'm not the biggest fan of the Brahms 2nd Concerto, but I'm always happy to hear Andsnes, as well as that famous cello solo in the second movement.  The main reason I want to hear this concert again, though, is for the Liszt.

From the Cradle to the Grave is the last of his symphonic poems, a form which he invented.  Written from 1881-82, the original title was From the Cradle to the Coffin, but Liszt's long-time lover/companion/editor/advisor/troublemaker advised him to soften the title (a little bit more about the Princess Carolyn can be found here).  I prefer the original title.  It's an odd piece right from the start.  Liszt had already been experimenting with the outer edges of tonality and form, and had even gone so far as to compose a Bagatelle sans tonalité, and had begun to think about breaking free of tonality entirely.  This symphonic poem opens with a haunting line, which is in fact a full-on twelve-tone row.  The piece itself is not atonal, of course, and well within the Late Romantic harmony of his other works of his last years.  But it is, I think, more personal and moody than any of his other orchestral works.  That's no surprise since he wrote it near the end of his life, with declining health.  Forget about the Faust Symphony or Les Préludes. I think I find more interesting things in this piece than in any of his other symphonic poems.  I don't know why Ricardo Muti decided to resurrect this piece, but it's almost a "must hear", I think.

(Anyone interested in seriously learning about his absolutely amazing, heroice life should check out the incredible three-volume biography by Alan Walker.  Even if one doesn't care much for his music, Liszt was superhuman and led an amazing life.)

Scriabin's Poème de l'Extase is a good compliment to the Liszt work, and is one which Muti knows really well and has been championing for a long time.  Combine all that with the excellent sound of the of the NY Phil., and this is a good evening of music.  Yes, I've heard it already, but the Liszt especially deserves attention.

(UPDATE:  Review - sort of - is here.)

Sept. 8 from 1:00pm - 4:00pm EDT, broadcast on Klara

Galina Ustvolskaya: Symphony No. 3 "Jesus Messiah, save us"
Peter Tchaikovsky:  Violin Concerto in D, Opus 365
Valentin Silvestrov: Symphony No. 6 "Pathètique"

Sergei Krilov, violin
Maryinsky Theater Orchestra
Valery Gergiev, cond.

This is from the end of the Klara Festival (Flemish radio).  Gergiev, as usual, has been all over the place this summer, with varying results.  Even though he's doing music by composers from his homeland, there's no guarantee he'll know the scores very well.  The Tchaikovsky, of course, he'll know cold.  I've never heard Sergei Krilov before, so it'll be good to be exposed to a new artist.  As for the other two works, they're both fairly recent (written within the last 25 years or so), and I'm always keen to hear works I don't know by interesting composers.

Galina Ustvolskaya is a rather unusual composer.  She's sometimes described as the heir to Shostakovich, but I think that's more because of the personal connections (teacher/student, alleged lovers) than because of her music.  I don't know too much of her stuff, but from what I have heard (only chamber music, now that I think about it) her music can be both energetic and dark, with rough textures and moods.  The same could be said about Shostakovich, I suppose, but the personalities are quite different.  In any event, I haven't heard any of her music in quite some time, and have no idea how her Third Symphony, from 1983, will sound.

I've only heard a couple of orchestral works by Valentin Silvestrov, and it seemed like he was all over the place.  HIs musical language is wide-ranging, and can be appealing, from what I remember.  Perhaps doing film scores led him to be more cosmopolitan?

In any case, I'm always on the lookout for new and interesting music, as well as new artists, and this concert looks like a good fit.  Will Gergiev be able to fly in from wherever he is now on his insanely hectic schedule and make all this music work?  Does he know the Ustvolskaya and Silvestrov works well enough to get this orchestra through them with his usual cavalier approach to rehearsal?  Who knows.  I hope so.  His conducting technique is beyond reproach, but I sometimes worry about his focus and ability to bring out the details in difficult works.

Sept. 10 from 1:30pm - 4:50pm EDT - BBC Proms #73, broadcast on BBC Radio 3

Ralph Vaughan-Williams:  Sinfonia Antarctica
Iannis Xenakis:  Plëiades
Gustav Holst:  The Planets

Elizabeth Watts soprano
4-Mality
O Duo
Holst Singers (women's voices)
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Martyn Brabbins conductor

There's obviously an otherworldly theme going on here.  The Vaughan-Williams piece has not worn well with me as I get older, but if Brabbins gets a little excitement out of his players and doesn't fall into that lugubrious, ham-fisted film music style that too many people use for this, I might like it again.  I kind of doubt it, but I'll still give it a shot, just because I like Brabbins.

On the other hand, I can't wait to hear the Xennakis.  It took me a very long time to be able to hear all the things he tries to do in his works, and I'm sure I'll discover new things about this one as well.  He wrote several works contemplating space and other worlds.  Plëiades is for massed percussion (to borrow from Percy Grainger) and can be both maddening and enlightening.  The percussion quartet 4-Mality (get it?) and the O Duo lads will take center stage for this big work.  I don't know if they'll be joined by any percussionists from the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

I have to say that I'm not the world's biggest fan of music strictly for percussion ensemble.  I find that too many composers rely on bursts of sound and dense layers, and assume that it's enough to just move these gestures around the different instruments without worrying about real complimentary colors or exploring the varieties of combinations available.  The results are often too episodic, less than deeply thought out, and lacking in direction for my taste, but that's certainly never the case with Xennakis.  This should be fun.

There's not much that needs to be said about The Planets, other than what I already mentioned about the Sinfonia Antarctica.  There's some good music here, which I like a lot better than Vaughan-Williams.  They had different approaches to sound and color, though, and Brabbins will know that and direct his musicians accordingly.

So that's three interesting concerts for the week, and some things to look forward to while listening to them.  I'll post separate reviews for each one, and we'll see how this approach to concert reviews develops.  Any reactions are welcome.

Listening to Alan Gilbert and the NDR Sinfonieorchester, plus René Pape

I remember when both Alan Gilbert and René Pape were up-and-comers in their respective fields.  Pape was obviously a rising opera star to be watched.  Even after hearing his earliest efforts on disc, it was clear that this was a solid musician with a very rich instrument, one which would develop into something pretty outstanding.

Gilbert, on the other hand, was hardly on my radar at all.  I've heard him a few times over the years with various orchestras, at least twice on the radio with the band he led for the last eight years, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra.  They were so happy with him that they just made him their conductor laureate, apparently only the third one ever named by that group.  Based on what I've heard, I'd considered him to be quite competent and very musical, with the ability to shape phrases clearly and get his ideas across.  But I could always think of a handful of conductors of a similar age and point in their career trajectory whom I would much rather hear.

When I finally saw him live with the New York Philharmonic earlier this year, they were doing Ein Heldenleben.  This was just after the official announcement of his appointment to take over as Music Director from Lorin Maazel next year, and it seemed like they were eager to please.  Of course, this is the kind of music the NY Phil loves to do, and I could tell why they like Gilbert (family issues aside):  he let's them flex their muscles, and to play loud and fast.  Some music commentators have described the orchestra as a well-tooled fancy sports car, meaning that this is a high-quality, luxurious, highly efficient machine.  But there's always a subtext hinting that maybe that sleek exterior masks a less than profound inner core.  I've had similar feelings sometimes, and that was why I knew they would pick Maazel when they did.  They just didn't realize what it would be like to have such a fussy, relentless driver for a full season or three.  We know how that ended up.

So now they have Gilbert.  The orchestra was pretty much allowed to play all-out as much as they wanted, but the overall interpretation was definitely his.  I could tell when there were clearly rehearsed phrases and gear changes which seemed ever so slightly at odds with the rest of the big-boned blasting (although that's kind of in the music already).  But there was something a bit strange about his technique which caught my eye.

Much of the time his elbows stick out at the sides, sometimes almost parallel to the floor.  With his broad shoulders and (kind of) stocky frame, he resembled at times a blocker for a New York football team.  That's just a superficial observation, of course, and none of that should affect his ability to conduct the orchestra.  However, I'm starting to feel that it just might do.

I happened to be sitting very close to the front, and way off to the right side.  This is very much the same vantage point I'm used to from playing in orchestras, so I spent much of the time watching Gilbert and trying to see just how well I could follow him as a player (part of the fun for me).  His elbows were not really so distracting, but the combination of those with his too-often clenched fists did make it difficult to read some cues.  I put this down to something that I would get used to soon enough if I played under him regularly.  After all, most (if not all) conductors have their little idiosyncrasies which players have to adjust to.  There are as many anecdotes about this for the biggest names around as there are for anyone.  Sometimes it's something as major as, "Where the hell is his beat?", but it's usually more in the details where one has to figure out if the beat is on the rebound, or "was that supposed to be my cue", or whether the conductor is showing the pick-up beat or not.  This is where Gilbert lost me a few times, and twice he lost the entire viola section as well.  Unfortunately, the second time was a the return of the same section solo that got screwed up earlier.  He also got lost and missed a big trumpet cue.  He knew it was coming and prepped it with an upturned finger, but when the time came he had his head in the score and the trumpets played without him.  He realized he still had his finger up and quickly retracted it with such a big shake of his head that the front desks of the strings (including his mother) burst out in big, big smiles.  I think Glenn Dicterow (the concertmaster) was giggling for another minute and a half.

In any case, it was a very strange, jerky cue from Gilbert which lost both me and the entire viola section.  I'm not exaggerating when, after the first time it happened, I actually sat on the edge of my seat waiting to see if maybe he'd be more clear, or maybe the violas had figured it out next time.  Oops.  He just shook his fists even more, and it was worse than before.  I don't think this is something I could ever just "get used to".  The violas had been working with him enough by that point - and they all know the piece cold anyway - that this shouldn't have been such a death spot.  Clear gestures are key, even when one is working with the same orchestra for a long period of time.  I got the sense that I was hearing more odd things from his technique than from any lack of good musical sense.  That's one main reason I was eager to hear this concert:  to see how the NDR - who play under all kinds of different conductors rather often - would deal with it in works which require quite a bit of give and take, especially the Mahler.

The program:  René Pape singt Wagner, Alan Gilbert dirigiert Mahlers 5. Sinfonie

The Meistersinger prelude was a pretty straightforward reading, as was the 'Was duftet doch der Flieder' monologue from its second act (except for a balance problem at the start).  I must admit I don't find a whole lot of substance in this music, but Gilbert and Pape made the most of the more interesting moments. Maybe Gilbert's elbows caused those rough edges at the end, when the music fizzled out rather than ending coherently.

The famous Prelude to Act 3 of Die Walküre went well enough.  This orchestra has a good sound for this kind of music. Although, there was an annoyingly heavy "gallop" feel most of the time.  That ubiquitous dotted figure was thumped too hard, and it added too much weight to any sense of upward motion.  The hooves of the Valkyries horses should not be clomping so hard when they're supposed to be riding through the air.  Are those elbows showing more than he intends them to?

Immediately, though the stark change in mood between between the previous big gestures and the melancholia of Wotan's Abschied was enough to cleanse the palate.  Gilbert got just the right sound and balance out of the orchestra.  René Pape caught just the right mood as well, demonstrating his fine sense of phrasing and steadiness. Gilbert proved to be a very sensitive accompanist here, although Pape has no trouble staying above just about any orchestra.  Nothing had to be forced, and there were some very lovely, perfectly timed moments where the tension and volume momentarily rises only to be held back by Wotan's reluctance to express his own emotions.  All natural, all coming directly, honestly, from the music.  Once again, I like Gilbert's ideas about phrasing and shapes.  Pape's sound was clear and warm and full, the way polished oak would sound if it could sing.  Of course, I didn't get quite the sense of humanity and pathos I want out of this bit, but it's hard for a singer to get deeply into character for these 'concert' performances of opera scenes.  I can, however, imagine just how great he might be when he's sunk deeply into this role for a real Ring Cycle.

It's only been about two years since Pape announced that he was going to add Wotan to his repertoire, with the goal of a first attempt in 2010.  Definitely something to watch out for.

Now to Mahler 5.

After a smooth opening section, maybe just a hair slower than I wanted it, but somber and lilting in all the right places, there is a sudden gear shift.  The first violins play this vigorous, angsty line, and Mahler writes instructions for them to play as violently as possible.  The seconds answer with an ascending figure of triplet sixteenth notes.  This was a very ragged entrance, and I was reminded of that problematic viola section moment from the Strauss.  But I can momentarily put that down to just a passing rough moment, which can happen even at the best of times.  Both violin sections do this a couple bars later, and it was just as ragged in both.  Seeing as how this is a similar figure to that Heldenleben spot, I wonder if it's just the way Gilbert is showing it?  When other sections take up that "after-the-beat" triplet figure a few moments later, it's not any better.  Late, even. But the main triplet figure which starts the whole thing off and is a recurring gesture here always seems to be very clear and consistent.  Hmm.

Hey, what's that?  Timid applause after the first movement?  From the smart, suave, culturally educated audience of the Schleswig-Holstein Festival?

Everything proceeds just right in the next movement.  No glossing over details here.  There's plenty of musical intelligence on offer, along with some fine playing from the NDR members.  I've been aware of just how good this orchestra really is for some time, and it's always a pleasure.  Maybe I would have liked a little more bite in the brass at times, but they do have that good German sound which works so well in this music, and play with the right amount of heft and emotion.  Clarity and attention to detail are vitally important in Mahler, and sometimes people forget this amongst all the notes and noise that goes on.  That wasn't a problem at all.  Gilbert led them with a sure hand, with plenty of rubato and sharp turns, although with a feeling of inevitability rather than mannered.  I suppose I could quibble about the interpretation of Pesante (it's not the same thing as "scrappy").  And there were some sour clams from the horns at unfortunate moments, something Gilbert is going to have to get used to in New York.

The Scherzo movement was very tastefully executed (barring the odd ragged wind entrance or horn honk).  This was, as it should be, a country dance, with some very pretty, almost Brucknerian lines in the strings.  Gilbert is good at creating the tension between the more agitated moments and the softer, lyrical passages.  There were another couple of rough spots in the bustling eight-note passages that made think "elbows" again (and maybe with a couple of sectional unisons which almost weren't), but over all it was tight enough.  That "chamber music" section, where it's just the string section leaders have these delicate, yet slightly menacing pizzicatos accompanying an oboe was very nicely done, but again I felt a couple of forced moments when the players seemed just the tiniest bit unsure of when the phrase should start.

Those elbows were back in the famous Adagietto, though.  Every time there was a gorgeous, melting line, it got stepped on at the chord change.  This went on throughout some rather long lines.  One string section would be late, or somebody plunked too hard on it.  I kept picturing the gestures I saw Gilbert do in New York, and I'm not surprised.  It's too bad, really, because I could tell it was some beautiful, expressive playing otherwise.

Fortunately, these problems seemed to mostly vanish in the last movement.  The real activity gets started in the cellos and then spreads elsewhere.  No jagged entrances here, no moments of uncertainty or ham-fistedness.  This was consistent throughout a thoroughly enjoyable finale.  All of Gilbert's positives - as well as the orchestra's - were on display.

There was a smattering of audience applause between all but the last two movements.  Maybe enough harsh glares were finally cast at the offenders?  Surely something can be done about this.

All in all, I have to say I'm still looking forward to what Alan Gilbert does in New York.  Maybe his musical ideas will be enough to get the NY players out of that cold, highly-engineered machine mentality, and he'll clean up whatever that odd hitch is in his technique.  I heard just as many excellent musical thoughts in this concert as I have in the last two or three times I've heard him combined, so that's encouraging.  But can he control the musicians without boring them?  Quite a few of the NY players have watched him grow up, and there is very obviously a great rapport there.  We shall see.

Elliott Carter's Recent Works At Tanglewood - Online Video

The Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival have generously made performances available online of several recent works (plus the  the Double Concerto for Piano and Harpsichord from 1961) by Elliott Carter.  The performers are all Festival Orchestra players and resident Fellows at Tanglewood, and the footage comes from a few concerts at "The Shed".  These are full performances, not extracts, and in fine quality.

Carter's music from the last ten years has gotten my attention more than his output from the last 50 years combined, including the Double Concerto.

Tanglewood WebTV

There's a drop-down menu at the bottom to go to the different videos.

Parsifal at Bayreuth - Wagner Mad Libs?

The Mostly Opera blog has a great roundup of this year's production of Parsifal at Bayreuth.  I actually liked the broadcast of the premier I heard on the radio.  But it looks like I should be grateful I didn't have to watch it:

No controversy in Stefann Herheim's new Bayreuth Parsifal: Myriads of Ideas, but ultimately disappointing

Judging from this description, with supporting evidence from several reviews (also collected on the Mostly Opera blog), this sounds like one of those Mad Libs.  I guess I'm even more glad I didn't pay the $80 to see it on-line. Maybe next year.

In hindsight, I wonder if audience was actually hissing at either the orchestra or at Gatti for his rather glacial pacing, which caused the horns to bleat badly at the end of Act I?  Unless, as I suspected at the time, the musicians didn't like what he was doing, and showed him.

The Last Word On Messing With Composer's Intentions

I believe Kenneth Woods, on his blog A View from the Podium, has given us the last word on this whole Norrington/Elgar/no vibrato thing:

“I like it this way” is a perfectly fine reason for doing things. I would just have hoped that the conductor would have tried to not sacrifice so many wonderful details in the score in pursuit of that sound."

That about sums it up for me.  Consider this the short version of my posts about Gustavo Dudamel's Berlioz, Valery Gergiev's Mahler and, of course, Norrington's Elgar.

¡Sinfonia Fantastica! - Gustavo Dudamel and Berlioz from Proms 37

I've heard and seen (on TV) Gustavo Dudamel four or five times now, both with his Venezualan youth orchestra doing the Latin program, and with mainstream professional orchestras doing standard repertoire.  The impression I've had so far is that Dudamel is somebody who clearly has the talent to get what he wants out of an orchestra, has an acute ear, but is also one of those maestros who often confuses "exciting and interesting" with "fast and loud".

His interpretation of Berlioz's ¡Sinfonia Fantastica! - as I will refer to it from now on - pretty much confirmed all of that, except he seems to have improved a bit in the "too fast" department.

It's funny:  here I am all proud of myself for being so open minded about Bach with drums, and then I hear something which makes me shout angrily at a pair of speakers because someone messed around with Berlioz.  And Dudamel didn't even add extra instruments.  What he did do was make the fine musicians of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra sound more like the Venezuelan Symphony Orchestra.

The Berlioz was the second half of the program, and before they went back to the stage, they broadcast a brief interview with Dudamel recorded before the concert.  He was very enthusiastic about the work (and who isn't?), calling it "crazy music", and also discussing the influence of opium.  Since this piece is played so very often, he said, he wanted to find new things in it, find new ways to play it so the musicians didn't get bored.  He spoke of finding new "colors" and ways of expressing the music.

Sounds good so far.  Then the music started.  The opening sequence was quite good, with nice tone and shaping of dynamics and the lazy, descending figures.  The upper strings played a very appropriate strong-weak in their little "sigh" just before the Plus vite, and this slight exaggeration of the written dynamic markings worked very well.  Dudamel lets the fast bit speak for itself, then uses lots of extra rubato to evoke a waltz-like feeling to the ascending runs in the lower strings capped of by a high long note in the violings, with woodwinds chugging along in gentle triplets in the background.  I don't mind that they lean way, way too heavily on that note.  

For a while the interpretation is a pretty straightforward, average performance by a very good orchestra.  Then some different colors start to drift in, first in the violins.  There's an odd swell at the end of the longer notes, and the vibrato starts to sound a bit...lazy.  Soon, things start to sound very Spanish, very Latin.  It starts to infect the flutes soon enough, then all the woodwinds.  Eventually, it all starts to sound very decidely like the music Dudamel plays with his Venezuelan youth orchestra.  He found some new colors, alright.

The string playing is much more swoopy, and instead of dreaminess we got wakefulness in a Latin dance hall.  The rest of the movement wasn't much better.  The conductor didn't really create tension where necessary, and didn't seem to see a few spots that required more of it. 

I'm not going to do a blow-by-blow description, but I will mention a few highlights.  In the second movement, Dudamel very obviously had the harpist pluck higher up on the string, creating an entirely different color from what Berlioz expected.  It sounded, in fact, like an arpa llanera.  That lazy swoopiness, with the wide vibrato, was back with a vengence, and I thought I might even hear a cuatro in the background.  This was essentially a joropo, and not the waltz that Berlioz was envisioning when he wrote this.  It was less opium dream than real live party, but the kind that I don't think Berlioz would have recognized.

In the third movement, the pastoral colors were those of Venezuela and Columbia, not of Isère in southeastern France.   Berlioz loved his countryside dearly, and had certain colors in mind when he wrote this music.  The least the conductor can do is meet him halfway.  Dudamel tweaks the balances of strings and winds just enough that, combined with the string phrasing, it's at times distractingly Latin.  The thing is that, other than a nice touch with the english horn and timpani at the end, he doesn't have much else to say about the entire movement, as otherwise it sort of plods along.

All I will say about the March to the Scaffold is that he actually didn't rush much at all, and chose a more deliberate pace to create a bit of tension.  But the moment the head gets chopped off was pretty wet and unimaginative.  I guess that's Dudamel's way of finding a new way to express the music.  "A grotesque thump is what everyone expects to hear, so I'll do it differently!"  And what happened to all those piano markings Berlioz put in eslewhere?  Too many were the same as the mezzo fortes.

The colors start out just right in the final movement, but gradually those colors from a different continent creep in now and again.  The bells - which sounded great, by the way - seemed to bring Dudamel back to the soundworld of the composer, and, fortunately, things remained there for the most part.  Balances are tricky in this movement anyway, and I have to say he navigated them pretty well otherwise.  Of course, it was fast and loud when appropriate (Berlioz wrote the bass drum part for himself, so it ought to be), although Dudamel did gloss over a few details.  He let the fast and loud music speak for itself to conclude the performance.

All in all, it was just too much, and the foreign accents tended to detract from the music Berlioz wrote, rather than enhance or shed new light on it.  This was less inspired visionary and more mischievous schoolboy.  Orchestras seem to love playing for him, though.  I guess it's not boring, and he's efficient in rehearsal.

It should be available for a few days through BBC's iPlayer here.

Otherwise, some great interpretations of Symphonie Fantastique can be found here, here, and, for an interpretation by a conductor who really does find some great new colors through which to hear Berlioz's music, here.

A Refreshing Bit of Programming at The Proms: Messiaen and Manchicort

I actually had my reservations about this program:

Proms 32:  BBC Singers

The idea to mix old and new is one of the many tricks in the concert programmers trade.  Usually it ends up being safe choices, and often doesn't quite work as a coherent program.  I'm not one who believes that all concerts should have some sort of theme or connection running through the pieces being performed.  If the music director wants to do a theme program, though, it had better make some sort of sense.

My main concern was not that there was no connection between Messiaen's Messe de la Pentecôte and PIerre de Manchicourt's Missa Veni sancte spiritus, as they're both obviously religious works with "Mass" in the title.  It's just that I have to be in a certain mood to enjoy Messiaen, and in an entirely different mood to enjoy Renaissance Polyphony.  I was worried about a little too much aural whiplash to properly enjoy the Manchicourt, really.

I was wrong about that.  This was an ingenious combination, even with the vast chasm between the soundworld of the two composers.  One subtle touch was the way that the Messiaen movements would often (possibly always - I didn't even notice until half way through) begin on the same note with which the preceding Manchicourt movement ended. At times it almost felt like an elided cadence.

This made the leap into Messiaen's organ colors easier, yet enhanced the differences all the same.  The sharp turn into the murky, ecstatic world of the modern composer seemed all that more menacing, all that more passionate when the starting point originated in the purer tones of 15th Century Flemish polyphony.  The BBC Singers under Andrew Carwood sounded lovely.  That group can do just about anything, and Carwood is one of my favorite choral mavens working in music of that period.  I've been familiar with his work for a long time from his top-notch series of English polyphony, including Byrd, and Carwood's other work with his regular group, The Cardinall's Musick.  Maybe through the radio the voices weren't quite as clear as I would like in this kind of music, but very nicely shaped just the same.

James O'Donnell did some very cool work with the Messaien.  I haven't listened to the Messe de la Pentacôte in a long time, and I forgot just how fascinating (and fun, if I'm honest) this piece is.  I especially liked the way he handled the Offertoire movement, with those great low blasts (the roaring of the Apocolypse Beast) and the slowly shambling chords in the lower register, accompanied by the tart intervals in the right hand which moved up and down, and up and down, like an ostinato.  Messiaen's transposable modes almost always sound better to me on the organ.

This was a great bit of programming, and a thoroughly enjoyable concert.

Norrington and Elgar As I Heard It

I think we've all been had.

I finally heard the rebroadcast of Norrington's Prom, and I heard vibrato adding life to Rossini and Haydn, followed by a lifeless Elgar that could really have used some.  Before I get into that, I must say that I really enjoyed the Rossini, and mostly enjoyed the Haydn.  I thought the sound of the cello chords in the opening section was gorgeous.  I love that pure, organ-like sound, the perfect accompaniment which set the singing solo cello line in sharp relief.  But was Frank-Michael Guthmann taken outside and shot afterwards?  Because I sure heard vibrato in the appropriate spots.  And what about Alexander Ott?  Will he be exiled for blasphemy for his use of vibrato?

I liked the percussion sound, and the tight bounciness Norrington got from his players.  This piece certainly benefitted from HIP stuff.  Although, an odd crescendo occasionally crept into the three-note tag on the famous phrase.  There was also a strange, artificial quality about the accelerando at the end.  It sounded more like Norrington was pressing a button at certain spots, and the tempo was suddenly faster, rather than a gradual acceleration.  It reminded me of the things New York music critics have been complaining about from Loren Maazel.

The Haydn mostly benefitted as well.  I definitely felt, though, that the terrific cello soloist, Jean-Guihen Queyras, was done a disservice by slavishly adhering to Norrington's worldview.  His modern instrument just didn't always want to play those vibrato-less notes in the appropriate style.  He did use a bit of vibrato here and there for expressive purposes, always to good effect.  However, there were several spots - most notably in the second movement - when a plain open string just didn't sing right, or phrases ended coldly rather than warmly.  This was all down to the absence of a vibrato that would have made all the difference.  I'm not saying that he should have played it like the Brahms E minor.  But a bit more would have helped a lot.  Instead the dryness detracted from the necessary singing quality.  More on this idea below.

Having said all that, the absence of vibrato sucked all life out of the Elgar.  To make matters worse, it seemed to me that in order to make up for the expressiveness normally provided by vibrato, Norrington forced some abnormal waxing and waning from the orchestra that kind of intruded on the music rather than enhanced it.  The second movement benefited from a somewhat HIP-style articulation, but otherwise It all sounded a bit unnatural.  And it's not just because I'm used to hearing it with full-on vibrato more appropriate in Korngold.

Plenty of people have already said why Norrington is wrong about Elgar.  My first post about it all can be found here. Once commenter on Kenneth Woods's blog claimed that vibrato only came into regular use because otherwise the limits of recording technology at the time made strings sound weak.  Woods corrects him, adding that vibrato was certainly in regular use at the time, only not as broad and insistent as it is these days.  For those willing to jump right into the deep end, David Hurwitz's comprehensive rebuttal lays out all the evidence of the use of vibrato for long before, not to mention during Elgar's time.

There is one other factor to consider in all this, one that Hurwitz touches on, but no one else seems to really discuss:  the string instruments of the time.  Gut strings respond differently than the modern all-metal strings.  Yes, the lower strings were metal-wound from the 18th Century onwards, but that was not common for E, D, and A strings until much later.  This practice became fairly widespread once string makers (surely one of the worst jobs in history) figured out that they could save material by spreading the gut more thinly (against the law Italy at one point) and get a bigger sound by winding a bit of metal around it.  It's easier to make this work on lower strings, and by 1780 or so cheap metal for this kind of use was widely available.

Metal-wound or not, these strings respond quite differently from all-metal strings.   There's less tension, the "bloom" works differently, and the natural vibrations are not as strong.  The bows which draw on them are different as well.  The tension is much lower than a modern bow, and there is less hair.  Obviously this makes it even more difficult to get a big sound than on modern equipment, but modern vibrato doesn't quite work as well.  One key factor in this is balance and length of the bow.  Just the equipment alone affect the mechanics of playing, which in turn affects the techniques used to make music.  Composers of the day wrote for the instrumental sounds they heard, and the music of the period was written with those sounds and technical possibilities in mind.  When more was required, more instruments were added.  When something different was required, new instruments were invented.

What all this means is that the use of vibrato has always been dependant on the equipment used to produce it.  One major point of contention in this whole "To Vibrate or not to Vibrate" argument is the idea of vibrato as an ornament.  It most certainly was considered that during the Baroque period, but that doesn't mean it was used rarely.  Nor does it mean, though, that it was used often.  When one speaks of "ornaments" in music, one is generally referring to things like trills, mordents and turns, and other musical filligree.  Vibrato is one more tool in the musician's box to add expression or color to a note or passage.  So the simple defense that Baroque means "excess" in art history terms doesn't really hold up as proof that vibrato was all over the place.

One very important technique to add color or expression had nothing to do with the left hand.  Baroque period bows had less tension, less hair, and had a different balance point.  The player must hold that kind of bow in a different place as well.  The older style bow enabled the player to put a little more speed on the end of the stroke.  Or, perhaps more accurately, the tension of the stick itself, combined with a balance point which is further towards the tip, gives a little extra push.  This makes that little bloom at the end of longer tones that some people refer to (either affectionately or derisively) as "banana notes".  Lots of people hate this, actually.  And used excessively, or at the wrong time, can make music sound very mannered and heavy-handed.  When used properly, it can add just the kind of expression or color to a note as vibrato does today.  Modern bows just don't do this, and modern strings don't really like to respond to it as much.  So the old equipment dictates that vibrato was not as necessary as it is on modern instruments.

Once metal-wound strings became ubiquitous, instrumental structure had to respond to all that tension.  Violin makers responded as the string technology developed, and today any older instruments that don't live in the Period Performance world have been modernized to compensate.  On these bolder instruments, even a little vibrato can go a much longer way.  Bowing techniques changed with the equipment, and vibrato even became a little more necessary for expression.

This leads us to the idea of Historically Informed Practice on modern instruments.  I actually like a lot of the results of this kind of thinking.  Looser fingers on bows and a little space between notes can do wonders to brighten up Mozart or Haydn, no "banana notes" required.  The old equipment does this naturally, the modern equipment not so much.  But even "mentally" placing the fingers farther up the stick, as with an old-school bow, can loosen things up.  Accents are easier to do on modern equipment, so sometimes they're taken for granted.  A little HIP thinking on accents can sometimes help, too.

Then there's the whole issue of phrasing and bowing.  Single strokes in a Bach Cello Suite work just great with a Baroque style instruments.  It doesn't work so well on a modern instrument because the equipment was made for longer, fuller lines.  But using the old ways as a starting point is going to make for much better Bach than a voluptuous, modern Romantic approach.  So modern players on modern instruments can benefit much from a little archaeology.

The thing is, while all this instrument technology was developing and improving, the music changed as well.  More expressive playing meant more expressive music could be written.  Bigger, louder, faster, more lush, more of everything was possible now.  The idea of playing Tchaikovsky with minimal vibrato would have been ridiculous to the composer.  Even though 125 years ago the equipment wasn't as strong as it was 50 years ago, there was still vibrato, although not as wide and turned on all the time.  What we would consider normal now would have been thought excessive, sometimes to the point of absurdity.  But the equipment lets us do it better now, and music written with vibrato in mind benefits.

This was going on long before Elgar, and his music benefits from it.  Norrington decided to be a contrarian, and stretched the truth considerably about what he was up to.  It's all a bit silly, really, and the terrific Stuttgart players deserve better.

Classical Music Concerts - Who Wants Live Online Video?

Lots of people.  Anne Midgette has an article in the Washington Post about two different groups doing online video broadcasts of Classical Music concerts.  One seems to be successful and growing, the other one, well, not so much:

European music fests coming to the Web

Broadcasting live music video over the web is nothing even remotely new, of course.  And it's not just that pop music has been doing it for years.  I saw an early, low-res, low fps attempt at this at the New Directions Cello Festival more than ten years ago.  Which shows the irony in all this.

Years ago, it was the contemporary music scene that was experimenting with sharing their work with audiences through new technology.  The (now defunct?) Institute for Studies in the Arts at Arizona State University used to make a big deal about getting all their commissioned works on interactive dvds.  There was much talk about interactivity, sharing, online broadcasting.  Musicians would set up concerts in which performers would be in different cities, perceived as an ensemble only to those viewing the combo on screen.  A few music and media heavyweights in Europe tried to get something like this going several years ago, which died a quick death.

So there's nothing new at all about this idea in Classical Music.   The innovators stayed in the margins, and the big boys of the music business mostly stayed clear.  Overtures were made every now and then, but there were all kinds of reasons why it never went mainstream.

The basic reasons are money and technology.  Until three or four years ago, the technology to do online video to the satisfaction of (quite rightfully) finicky Classical Music fans with very high standards didn't really exist.  That is to say, even though broadcast capabilities existed, most potential audience members didn't have the technology themselves on the receiving end (It's so easy to forget that not everybody had high-speed internet connections and decent computers at home).  Even if it was mostly free, watching violin bows saw away at 12 frames per second - choppy and barely moving, like in the worst of the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons - whle listening to semi-decent quality audio - which may or may not freeze at the worst possible moment - just doesn't cut it.  And forget it if they're asking for a monthly subscription for it, and special software must be installed, etc.

Then one has to consider all the negotiated costs with the artists.  Musicians unions nearly prevented the BBC Legends label from getting off the ground, so it's no surprise that broadcasting rights and royalties would be a nightmare to work out.  It goes on and on, of course, with the end result that it's a pleasant surprise when the Bayreuth Festival announces that it's going to do a live broadcast of Der Meistersinger. 

What is not a surprise is the fact that Bayreuth didn't get anything like as many subscribers at they hoped.  At $75 each, no less.  If they wanted 10,000 viewers, they could have easily gotten three times that at $20 a pop.  That should have been at least worth their investment in the project, and is certainly far more than they made their way.

Equally unsurprising is that Medici Arts is doing extremely well with its free broadcasts on their own Medici.tv.

How did Medici Arts arrive at their successful (so far) formula?  Years of experience in the performing arts business, dealing with every single aspect of both live and recorded music, artist management, and everything in between.  The group was founded by Steven Wright, who used to be Managing Director of IMG Europe.  He was also the brains behind BBC Legends, along with John Pattrick, a long time EMI exec.  These guys had been through it all already, and the idea of combining a music label with broadcasting and distribution.  Although they started out making arrangements with the BBC for archived material, that led to similar arrangements with other European broadcasting organizations, which in turn has led to their involvement with live broadcasting of today's concerts.

This is how you do it.  Is there an audience for this?  Yes, and for a long time now.  Is the technology ubiquitous enough for this to work?  Absolutely.

Unfortunately, the summer festivals they're offering for free have ended.  But there is still more coming, and they still have highlight clips of the festivals showing online right now.   They also offer subscriptions at a more reasonable rate than Bayreuth.

I'm adding a link to this on the left, and I because of this I've had to change the list title to "Classcial Music Online".