Morbid Lullabies : ballads, folk song, art song and creative vision

Thomas Rawlinosn The Ballad Singer

What "is" folk music ? Since the term didn't even exist until the 20th century it's wiser to understand how popular music evolved over the centuries. Quite possibly the Greeks sang ballads of some form, and certainly in medieval Europe they were extremely  common.  Norse and Icelandic sagas are an extended form of ballad. The rich had their troubadors, the poor had itinerant musicans who performed at fairs, market-days and gatherings.  Ballads are possibly the oldest form of vernacular music, since they're portable and can be performed anywhere with or without instruments. Moreover, they're strophic, so they're to remember and to adapt  to changing situations and individual variations.  By their very nature, oral traditions evolve and change - they can never be rigidly confined to authoritarian categories. That's what keeps oral tradition alive !

In Western Europe, ballads and songs were collected from very early on. Chaucer included some in The Canterbury Tales and there are references in other literary works.  By the 18th century ballads were big business, printed on broadsides and  displayed for sale on the streets, and collected in published books. The genre made its way into more formal literary circles - Goethe and Schiller wrote ballads, too.  Ballad form entered the classical music mainstream in the wake of Early Romantic fascination with an idealized, Arcadian past, and with the interest in wild places and "non-civilised" ways of life.

Ballads are an integral part of "folk" music. Music travelled between different regions adapting to new locations.  Printed texts and oral tradition existed in symbiosis, each form adapting and influencing the other.At the end of the 19th century, a song might hve morphed over many generations. Gottfried Herder wrote a poem based on a gruesome Scottish ballad, which Carl Loewe set as Edward, Edward. Gradually the song morphed and changed, and connects to the Country and Western hit Knoxville Girl (Please read more here).  The idea that folk song can be separate from human development is an artificial modern construct.  Basically, there's no such thing as dogmatic gold standrad.

One ballad I'm particularly fond of is The Trees They Grow So High, which may or may not be a 16th/17th century Scottish ballad.  Though it comes in different variations, it tells the tale of an arranged marriage between a child and an older woman. The protagonists aren't poor, (the kid goes to school) so it might have been a transaction for money and status.  Trees grow high but the boy, who marries so early is killed aged 18. "Cruel death put an end to his growing". Ralph Vaughan Williams recorded this in the field.  In his version, the woman  begs her father not to marry her off, but her father seems to think the boy's some kind of trophy.  Yet the woman seems OK with this and accepts  widowhood and single-parent status.  But it's a horrible tragedy. Perhaps, over the centuries before it was collected, the song was cleaned up so it wouldn't disturb conventional mores.

Since oral traditions vary all the time, depending on performer and circumstances, it's perfectly natural that they should evolve further when approached by artistic minds. Britten's version of the song, from the beginning of 1942, addresses the tragedy more directly.  The piano part is lyrical, lilting lines suggesting vernal freshness, making the text all the more poignant.  The loss of innocence, for both partners in the marriage, and for the orphaned infant :  characteristic Britten. "Growing, growing  (intoned wth tenderness) as I  watch over his child,while he's growing".  Though the song is understated, gentle and rhythmic, like the rocking of a cradle, the suppressed motions are quite horrific when you think about them.

Another good example of how a song can adapt accordingbto the vision and creativity of a composer.  W B Yeats called Down By the Salley Gardens "An Old Song Re-Sung", quite specifically his own version of a song he heard  was W B Yeats's attempt to capture the spirit of a ballad he heard an old woman sing to herself in County Sligo.  in the ballad, a man recounts a long lost love who "bade me take life easy, just as the leaves fall from the tree, but I being young and foolish, with her did not agree ". It's a song of loss and nostagia with a mysterious, otherworldy quality. In Britten's version, the piano part begins tentatively, as if anything too forceful might breaknthe spell, later, it affirms the vocal line with richness and depth, as if the lovers are reunited in spirit.   Ivor Gurney's version is even more "art song". The voice leads from the start, the line curling tenderly, "When I was young and foo-o-olish and now am full of tears".  Nothing whatseover crude and "folksy" here.  And in any case, we can't assume that Yeats’s old lady was either, though she seems to have been a poor peasant.  Both Britten’s and Gurney's settings are ravishingly beautiful, so delicate that that they capture the gossamer fleeting feel of the monment.   They're very different, too : but that's what art is about : creative vision adapting to individual responses.

Matt Hancock Policy Planning

Viruses don't discriminate : Mass with the Pope at the Vatican

Viruses don't choose people by who they are, what they  believe or how important they think they are. In time of pandemic all of us are equal.  The worst virus of all is hate.  Indeed, we might not be in this situation hadn't we been exploited politically in the first place. Pope Francis said Mass on Palm Sunday at the Vatican. Usually it's packed with worshippers who come from all over the world.  This year, only key celebrants, carefully spaced apart.  In crisis, we are all alone. But thanks to international livestream we can all participate, including billions who don't have to share the religion but appreciate universal basic human values.

In his sermon, the Pope addressed  the COVID crisis and its impact.  Jesus was betrayed by his own friends, which is much more hurtful than being persecuted by strangers.  In the Garden of Gethsemane, he faced up to mortality, and made his choice: to save others by giving up his own physical life.  "My God, my God, why have thou abandoned me?".  But he wasn't  abandoned, however hard it must have felt. The Pope specifically mentioned the heroes who are putting themselves selflessly in danger, for the sake of others.  In  Britain  where the National Health Survice is dependent on immigrants, and the descendants thereof, that means Muslims, and others too. So much for blaming minorites.  Many others sacrifice, too, like transport workers, delivery systems personnel, social carers, underpaid cleaners, and ordinary people whodse jobs may never come back. And sadly the vulnerable, with health conditions who can't get basic needs fulfilled.  It's easy to say, like Our Dear Leader Boris, that "every family should be prepared to lose someone".  Indeed the statistics behind the Herd Immunity model are bogus.

In the emptiness of that grand basilica, the fundamentals of faith spoke out even more clearly than  before. The architecture means nothing in comparison to simple sincerity. No offertory procession which does matter, but not in these circumstances. Instead, a frail old man in his 80's performing the ceremony itself, by himself : an act of humility.  Those acres of white marble are symbolic : purity, and great endurance.  That's what faith's about - any true faith.  When the Pope blessed the poor and the sick on Ash Wednesday, many went apoplectic. But why should he hide and save himself ? The Jesus he believes in gave himself that others might live. Miss that and miss the whole message of love and compassion.  This year Holy Week is more personal and vivid than ever before, as those who wish can follow Jesus on his journey from death to life.

 

Richard Tauber stars with Jimmy Durante - Forbidden Music !

Not an April Fool !  Richard Tauber statrs with Jimmy Durante in Land without Music aka Forbidden Music.  In a tiny principality somewhere in Mittel-Europa, the peasants make music all te time. The cattle in the field plough their furroughs unatteneded, whike the peasants make music - a farmer playing a (concert bassoon) and an old man in nightgown a horn.  Somehow the country exists in a time warp from the late 18th century - elaborate military uniforms for the rich, bucolic blouses for the poor.  Because the locals have other values, a bigger, more aggressive country threatens  to take them over. Princess-Regent Maria Renata (played by Diane Napier, Tauber's real-life wife) decrees music should henceforth be banned in Look-a , with severe penalties.  Since the film was made in 1936 the political parallels are obvious. This isn't just a comedy.

Jonah J Whistler, an American newspaperman, arrives in Look-a driving a horse-drawn carraige with his daughter Sadie. She wears early 19th century dimity, but she's utterly "modern" with her wisecracking repartee.   Since the secret police are cracking down on music, there's a mixup at customs. Jonah and Sadie's trunk has been swtched for a cache of musical instruments which include violin, balalaika, trumpet and much, much else.  "But I don;'t even know what a harpishord (sic) is" snorts Jonas.  Enter too,  Richard Tauber as Mario Carlini, a tenor with golden upper notes which he can extend almost to a scream, with a habit of bursting  into song at the oddest moments. The brigands are so impressed that they protect him from the secret police. Now that the people of Look-a have instruments again, they can organize concerts, just like dissidents getting together underground. While checking out the forest for  a meeting place, Tauber, who remains  Tauber whatever role he's playing, meets Princess Maria Renata and charms her, against her better judgement.

To cut a long story short, the son of the head of the Secret Police, Count Strozzi, falls in love with Sadie and she with him. when Tauber, Durante and the peasants are arrested and put into prison, Strozzi junior helps them.  From his cell, Tauber sings, so loudly that the whole principality can hear and join in. Revoution ! The population storm the gates of the prison and the musicians march out, heading the cheering masses. The scene is a fairly pointed take on the Solidarity Song sequence in Kuhle Wampe, which the Nazis didn't like, one bit.  So the princess relents and orders Look-a to make music its local industry.  Gold coins fill the coffers ! Music is OK, as long as it serves commerce and politics.

Dvořák Requiem, Jakub Hrůša in memoriam Jiří Bělohlávek

Antonín Dvořák Requiem op.89 (1890) with Jakub Hrůša conducting the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.  The Requiem was one of the last concerts Jiří Bělohlávek conducted before his death and he had beeen planning to record it as part of his outstanding series for Decca, (much of this reviewed by me - please see links below). Hrůša, a close associate of Bělohlávek, conducted the Czech Philharmonic's memorial to Bělohlávek in September 2017 (Dvořák Stabat Mater). The performance of Dvořák Requiem on this recording was made in Spetember 2017 at the start of the Dvořák Festival in Prague, also in honour of Bělohlávek. Although Bělohlávek himself was only able to record the Dvořák Biblical Songs op 99 (with another Bělohlávek regular, Jan Martinik) this recording is effectively a monument to Bělohlávek, and a worthy successor to the rest of the Decca series. Hrůša's Requiem, capturing the full emotional intensity of that memorial concert in the Rudolfinium, Prague, where everyone on the platform and in the audience had personal knowledge of Bělohlávek and what he meant.

Requiems commemorate the dead, and for those who believe, encapsulate the central tenet of Christianity. Dvořák's religious beliefs were profound, shaping his Requiem as a testament of faith. The Kyrie, by far the longest part of the first section, is a funeral march, the pace measured and dignified.The strings create a reverential hush,  but one lit by luminous, transcendental light. This reflects the text :  "Requiem aeternum dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis". The promise of eternal light, even in the depths of anguish.  "Kyrie eleison" thus has context.  In the second Requiem aeternum, a solo emerges and the pace picks up : lines pulsate, as if in anticipation.  

The Dies Irae marks a transition : powerful chords underline a sense of violent change. A trumpet calls forth, the "tuba mirum spargens sonum" whose baleful sound heralds the Day of Wrath that marks the End of Time and the mass resurrection of all who have died. Thus the tenor part, with its prayer-like intonation, and the fierce outbursts from choir and orchestra. The plaintive Quid sum miser states that mankind is weak but salvation lies through "Rex tremendae majestis". With the Recordare, Dvořák's identity re-asserts itself in the loosely Bohemian personality inn the orchestral line, here highlighted by the sensitivity of Hrůša and this orchestra who understand it so well. The soloists, Michael Spyres, Jan Martinik, Ailyn Pérez and Christianne Stotjin form an ensemble like a garland.  With the Confutatis maledictus and the Lacyrmosa, (particularly beautiful singing and playing) this constant interplay of turbulence and tenderness creates inner momentum, intensifying a sense of forward thrust. 

This underlines the structure of this Requiem, the first part building up to the second.  With the Offertum, the bass part, haloed by harps and choir, suggests depth and profundity, the female soloists and tenor enhancing this new mood of confidence. "Sed signifer sanctus Michael reporesentet eas in lucern sanctum". Vigorous rhythms replace the funereal tread of the first Requiem Aeterum. the trumpet now introduces a Hostias where the soloists ring out pure and the chorus (Prague Philharmonic Choir) very well parted. With the Sanctus, yet another change. As this Requiem reaches its conclusion, its spirit transforms.  Even the Pie Jesu is affirmative, multiple voices together welcoming Eternal Rest.  This Agnus Dei is a wonder, the luminous textures of the first Requiem Aeternum now illuminating the singing and playing transcedent glory.  Delicately paced diminuendos create the image of heavenly peace. Truly "lux perpetua luceat eis". And truly Hrůša's Dvořák Requiem truly establishes the significance of the piece in our appreciation of the composer himself. 

Dvořák's Biblical Songs op 103 enhance the impact of the Requiem. The songs set texts from the Book of Psalms. The vocal line is dignified, even austere, emphasizing the enduring power of these verses which have inspired people for thousands of years. The orchestral line is restrained, letting the voice ring out with Biblical portent. Bělohlávek and the Czech Philharmonic have the Dvořák idiom in their genes, bringing out the distinctive rhythms and character, which enlivens this performance without dominating. I'm very much taken with Jan Martinik, whose voice has natural richness and colour, and delivers with understated power. He worked very closely with Bělohlávek and the Národní divadlo and regularly featured in Bělohlávek's numerous concerts in London. Definitely a recommended recording, even though there is much competition. 

In this performance of Dvořák's Te Deum op 99 recorded by Hrůša in December 2018, the brass are bright and assertive, the rhythms confident and distinctively idiomatic. There are echoes of the composer's ninth symphony, but it is essentially a celebratory showpiece for large orchestra and massed voices, and presented here with great verve. The baritone is Svatopluk Sem, another Bělohlávek favourite and Národní divadlo regular, and the soprano is Kateřina Kněžíkov. Much is made of the high profile premiere in 1892, but the sad truth is that Dvořák was never paid.  When a cheque finally arrived, it failed to clear.  Oddly enough that fits in with the idea of a Requiem. No matter what worldly status might bring, at the end we all end up the same so what you believe might make a difference.

Please also see more about the Bělohlávek Decca series

Monumental Josef Suk : Asrael Symphony 

Janacek Glagolitic Mass, Sinfonietta

Life-affirming Smetana Ma Vlast

Dvorak Stabat Mater

Support independent media - Mark Berry on Mozart

Here is a link to Mark Berry's article Power and patronage in Mozart's La clemenza di Tito and Die Zauberflöte in Boulezian - please read iut - very informative 1 support independent mdedia !

Prince Nico Mbarga and his Sweet Mother

A few years back  someone did a "life satisfaction" survey and Nigeria came out tops. Despite the poverty and disorder !  People chase material wealth but where do real values come from ?  Back in 1976 Price Nico Mbarga wrote Aki Special, an instant hit fusing  West African music from the time with traditional styles. His introduction expresses things which might explain how some people retain good values despite the chaos of  the world around them.

"This life is wonderful, but don't be proud because you have it, it comes from God" (ie fate)  "Almighty" he sings after a short pause "Pickin-o good-o, if you get, if you no gettem.... . "Money is good-o, money good-o, we know, if you get, but don't laugh, many people no get's...but if you no gets, make you no cry, first time is the best. Opportunity comes but once in this world. Who knows tomorrow, my friend? Nobody knows tomorrow...."

Prince Nico Mbarga (1950-1997) didn't make any money from his hits, not even from his Sweet Mother the all-time iconic African classic because the business model there is different.  Though records sell, they;re often pirated copies and artists don't necessaruily get royalties. Sweet Mother was played everywhere and adapted naturally into many cultures, since it captures the spirit of women who keep society going, no matter what. Strong women suffer, but they aren't selfish.  For sure women are oppressed and don't have equal opportunities, but their values keep the world going. In Africa, women do everytrhing - farming,  business, child care etc  and still somehow they carry on.  Prince Nico didn't live cocooned in luxury. Born in Ikom in Nigeria, he lived in Cameroon, where his father came from, at 17 was forced to leave start all over again in Nigeria, where his mother came from.  He stayed in Ikom more  or less permannetly, not being a model husband or father, but middle class western values do not apply to everyone.  At the age of 47, he was killed in a motorcycle accident.

Sweet Mother begins with a swanky guitar riff - very 70's ! - but the words are down home  traditional.  "Sweet Mother, I never forget you, the way you suffer for me - yeah, yeah. When I get get cry, my mother go carry me, she says, my pickin-o, stop, stop, so you no cry again-o".  "You can get another wife, you can get another husband, you cannot get another Mother, so "

A friend said. "Pickin-o means child in West African pidgin, and may come from the Portuguese pequeno. Prince Nico was very family oriented, so to him having children was maybe more valuable than having money."
 
Please read Sami Kent's article HERE,which is by far the best researched and informative of all, written by someone whose perspective is not western but African, which makes all the difference. 

My contribution to stopping COVID - Pappano, Britten, Vaughan Williams

As my contribution to not spreading COVID, knowingly or unknowingly, I refrained from going to what would otherwise have been a perfect programme for me, Antonio Pappano conducting Britten's Violin Concerto (soloist Vilde Frang, whom I've heard doing this piece before) and Ralph Vaughan Williams Symphony no 6. at the Barbican with the London Symphony Orchestra. But in times like these that's when background counts.  No concert ever exists in limbo. Context matters, absolutely. Pappano's programme is particularly relevant in these times, too, because both pieces deal with almost apocalyptic situations, so bleak that even the power of music cannot articulate.

Britten, like so many others knew all too well what the rise of Hitler meant for Europe. Our Hunting Fathers, his op. 8, was a specific response to the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, which dehumanized Jews, gays, intellectuals and "modernists". Indeed there are very specific references embedded in the text.  As a protest against cruelty and madness, Our Hunting Fathers is so powerful that it perhaps says more about listeners still who don't get it.  Franco's victory in Spain, supported by Nazi aeroplanes and strategists intensified that sense of despair.  For many, it was traumatic, as if European civilization was doomed.  Britten's Violin Concerto is a product of that period of intense despair.  The Violin Concerto was never meant to be easy listening. It takes moral courage to write a deeply uncomforting statement like this, and know it might never be understood.  Perhaps this is why it has only relatively recently entered its status in the canon of major works by a composer who thought deeply about society and the human condition.

From a hushed string introduction, the violin rises, against an understated but ominous background of percussion and brass. Despite the lyricism of the violin line, the idea of war lurks, with menace.  Hollow pizzicato suggest agitation.  The second movement has the character of nightmare scherzo, a battery of strings, brass and percussion battling with the violin, which remains detached.The tumult is shaped carefully, bringing out the huge, angular blocks of sound, booming bassoons,  spikey details in the strings, rumbling drums, creating contrast with the violin. In the cadenza, Frang has in the past lit up the dizzying diminuendo : not a defeat so much as a “tactical withdrawal".  In the passacaglia, descending notes from the brass moved in careful procession. Now the violin line is haunted by other strings, mumuring as if heard from afar. Eventually an anthem builds up, the brass no longer against the soloist, but leading forwards.  Tense, brittle figures suggested gunfire, but the violin remains uncowed.  A particularly full-throated tutti section,  almost a chorale, violin and orchestra united in common cause.  From the strings, a suggestion of guitars : the ghosts of the dead in Spain, rising again, led by the violin, marching quietly onward.

Vaughan Williams would not be drawn on what his Symphony no 6 might be "about", but that in itself suggests how difficult it was to express the traumas he'd witnessed.  Of his third symphony, he  explicitly stated that it was "wartime music", inspired by his experiences as a stretcher bearer in France. "It’s not really lambkins frisking at all, as most people take for granted". Thus the sixth has no cosy title to throw the unwary off track. The onus is on the listener to listen sensitively, and understand the piece from within. To hear music as no more than sound is to deny emotion and humanity. Last year, Salonen conducted the introduction so the brass seemed to scream in a communal wail of anguish. The quieter "pastoral" themes on strings, woodwinds and harps felt haunted, swept away in the tumult.  In the second movement tension built up steadily, the three-note ostinato figure at first muffled, the cor anglais offering a moment of contrast before the relentless fusillade of brass and percussion. This  gives context to the saxophone solo in the scherzo, enhancing its strange, alien nature. Its jazziness is seductive, yet it suggests disorder, the breaking-up of safe structural certainties. The bass clarinet served as lament.  The final movement, with its ambiguous pianissimo, suggests not peace, but perhaps a numbness so great that even music cannot fully express. Unlike the third symphony, there's no room even for wordless voice. Muted flutes in unison, rather than the fanfare of brass with which the symphony began.

Defeating COVID-19 by human decency - Rattle, Berliner Philharmoniker

Simon Rattle (Photo : Doug Peters)

Disastrous as COVID-19 is, can we learn from it ? At the Philharmonie, Berlin, Simon Rattle conducted Berio and Bartók to an empty hall, streamed internationally free of charge. Inevitably sneers from those who still don't know there's a pandemic around, and above all, cannot understand the role of music in difficult times.  It wasn't just any concert : of course there was no encore or applause.  An empty house brings home the message : millions might suffer and die. We can't take life or anything else for granted. And even those who survive will be scarred. (and lose their livelihoods in the economic downturn).  Concerts are live experiences, influenced by circumstances around them. To dismiss the human side of communication is to dismiss the whole point of music.

As Rattle said, there are connections between Berio Sinfonia and Bartók Concerto for Orchestra.  Both deal with memory, and the multiple threads that influence the way composers and listeners absorb their response to life and to music.  Berio's Sinfonia covers a sprawling range of human experience, questioning the way we process  that experience in music.  It is such a seminal work that it gets done very often indeed, and most people know it well, but it's not at all easy to pull off properly. (there are some lousy ones).  It's a Rattle speciality. Of the numerous performances I've heard,  this was a high point : sharper and tighter, extremely focussed.  Berio's  singers were English, establishing the tradition of British-sounding accents, which is relevant because it distances the voices from the German, Italian and other influences in the work. The soloists Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart are "English" enough but also "musical" enough to fit in with the music.  Even if this wasn't a special event concert, this performance would be up there near the top.

Rattle's introduction to Bartók Concerto for Orchestra was typically understated but that made it all the more powerful.  In this world it's not all me, me  me.  Good peoiple don't fight over toilet paper and abuse strangers.  Possibly even worse than the virus is the way it's revealed how deeply entrenched xenophonia is in this world, so endemic that even seemingly normal peopleshow their evil side.

The performance is superb, as to be expected since he's done this dozens of times, but make the time to listen to what Rattle says.  In these times of crisis, this is utterly relevant; humanity and  empathy for others is all the more important. That's why msuiciands are sacrificng their livelihoods and carrers, so the virus doesn't spread. No-one should have to die because some people want to go out.

In 1940, Bartók was a refugee in a new land, cut off from his creative roots. He was despondent, and broke. He was unknown and unwell. Smasll boys used to tease him in the street, as small boys do, alas.  He became ill,  and might have died in obscurity like so many others in his position. Fortunately, Serge Koussevitzky cared about him, aranging that he be treated with  a new experimental drug then only available to military personnel. One man helping another : passing on the flame as in Berio's Sinfonia. The Concerto for Orchestra  was another act of kindness, since it gave Bartók an income and new inspiration.  

Once he began writing, his mood lifted as if he were rejuvenated.  Although there are familiar "Hungarian" themes in the piece, it's not fundamentally nostalgic.  Bartók was looking back on his past, well aware of what was happening in the Europe he'd left behind, and of the right wing extremism in Hungary, whose government aligned itself with Hitler.  Rattle understands the granite-like inner strength in the piece and the firm lines beneath the nostalgia. Perhaps Bartók was drawing on sources in his psyche that went much deeper than folkloric colour. The ethereal opening theme developed until it emerged with expansive confidence. The music seems to oscillate, highlighting the more disturbing undercurrents in the work, alternating with moments of expansive feeling.  Rattle negotiated this constant flux, tempi spiriting along as if propelled by winds of change. This concert's being repeated on the Berliner Philharmoniker Digital Concert Hall regularly, in the absence of regular programming. 

COVID 19 and music - the implications ? Gürzenich Orchester Köln

When the world seems headed for lockdown - at least in places where COVID 19 is being taken seriously,  what are the implcations for classical music ?  Overall the economic impact will be huge and long term too.  This is not the time for inciting race hate nor for scoring politicsal points.  Viruses happen, and mutate all the time - we're all on a learning curve. So respect science, not ill-informed media hysteria. Unfortunately COVID 19  has come at a time when anti-science barbarism seems to be taking over from basic common sense, and not just in medicine, politics and environmental change.

To a great extent  lockdown, limiting exposure and self-quarantine does work, as has been proved. As long as the basic infrastructure  operates, such as health services, transport networks, supply chains, etc, the world will not collapse into chaotic violence. .And that means people co-operating and working together to achieve the best pssible balance.  In classical music circles, venues are being closed, concerts cancelled, musicians laid off, with all the knock-on effects that brings. Many orchestras and opera houses work to very slim profit margins and freelancers don't get a safety net. In China, where millions are staying home, there's been a boost in streaming and broadcast. This keeps musicians paid, and keeps organizations afloat for when things get better. Plus, millions sitting at home, bored witless, have something different to listen to. In a country like China, where music is valued, that has the potential to grow audiences better than the dumbed-down marketing practices we see elsewhere.

As ever the Gürzenich Orchester Köln is way ahead with innovation. They're livestreaming too. Sure it's expensive, but it keeps things going. Last night I listened to them live  , with Sylvain Cambreling conducting and Antoine Tamestit as soloist in Berlioz: Les franc-juges, Charles Ives Three Places in New England and the highlight, Berlioz Harold en Italie, which Tamestit has done numerous times -  its basic core violist repertoire, and a speciality of the Gürzenich Orchester Köln.  Cambreling's been around forever too, very much a known quality. Top star attractions and free of charge too !  Listen again on the orchestra's YT channel for the repeat. So we're stuck with COVID 19 but thanks to technology we're no longer trapped in small-town isolation. Everyone can listen in and show support!

Springtime - one and two

Women in Music, on International Women’s Day

It's International Women’s Day which these year does matter more than ever, when the forces of small minded represssion are gaining power, all over the world, in many forms.  ears ago a young upstart advised me "Read more Feminist books". Uh? Like billions of others have done for millenia and are still doing today, I've learned the hard way. It isn't just about middle class western values.  Caring about people, as people, enabling them to have decent lives, these are the values that underpin the issues. And that's also why there's a backlash from those so insecure that their fragile egos need to be supported by hurting others. Real men don't need that.  At least half the world's population is female: We should be celebrating women who do what they do and their best, whoever they are.

But this is a music blog so I'll try to stick to music. We can, and should, be listening to women in music all the time.  It's impossible not to listen to musicians who are women : so many excellent soloists and ensemble players! It is an issue that sometimes they aren't paid the same as men, but they exist.   Making it to the top as a conductor or music director is tough, but that's tough anyway, and there's enormous nastiness in the business, not least of which comes from fans who don't actually listen.  It's about the music, not the ego of the listener. And there have been women composers for hundreds of years, not just in western classical music.  We need to know, and to keep learning. No bandwagon gestures, no instant fixes. No-one plays, writes or conducts with their anatomy, and that includes men. Only when gender is no longer an issue will we have reached common sense.

Picking out favourites  is invidious because good musicians are always themselves, and distinctive.  Over the years I've written a lot about a few special people, like Clara Schumann, whose greatest contribution was her pioneering role as a performer, travelling all over Europe, arranging her own gigs, transport, accommodation, publicity etc. at a time when there were few celebrity artists who supported themselves.  She's the equivalent of Chopin or Paganini, re-shaping the reception of classical music in the 19th century.  Yet still some think she needs promoting for the work she wrote to please Robert.  Hail thee, Clara, a working mother who was a breadwinner, who made Robert's career possible.

And Vítezslava Kaprálová, whi died aged only 25 yet left behind a considerable body of work.  From childhood, she came into contact with almost every big name in Czech music circles, so perhaps it was inevitable that she was something of a child prodigy. She started writing her own music from the age of 9 and entered the Brno Conservatory aged 15. She moved between Prague and Paris, developing a strikingly independent and original voice. She began conducting in her teens and worked with masters like Vítězslav Novák and Václav Talich. In her early 20's she was conducting the Czech Philharmonic and made a notable impact on her contemporaries, including schoolmate Rafael Kubelik. In 1938, aged 22, she conducted the BBC  Symphony Orchestra in her own Miliitary Sinfonieta (1937). Against the background of Nazi confrontation, it's quite a statement. Fierce, bright brasses suggest defiance, more lyrical passages suggest the endurance of more peaceful (possibly Czech)  values.. The tension between driving ostinato and themes of soaring freedom give the piece considerable sophistication. Perhaps we can even hear echoes of Janáček's Sinfonietta in the cheeky, rhythmic fanfare towards the end.  It may well be Kaprálová's humorous way of acknowledging quirky nationalist spirit.  Is the Military Sinfonietta "women's work" ? Of course not : it's a daring take on Janáček's Sinfonietta, by a young composer whose father was a Janáček specialist. She knew what she was doing. I've written a lot about her songs and piano works, which are a lot less famous.  (click on link below)

And then there's Rebecca Saunders, one of the best living British composers, which is saying something. Needs no special pleading : she's that good.  Plenty to find more about her on the net, and many opportunities to hear her music. Saunders  once described her method as being like looking at a sculpture from different angles, in different light, against different backgrounds. Yet Traces(2006,commissioned for Staatskapelle Dresden) operates on a much deeper level: hence the double basses, sounds as darkly sonorous as it's possible to get with string instruments,legato that curves and stretches and lifts off suddenly, to slide along from a different angle. It's like touching a work of art, "feeling" it intuitively. As a blind person might see, visualizing by instinct and emotion, surprisingly sensual.  In the second part,it changes tack. Sharper, brighter textures now, very high strings, though the same sense of sweeping curves, sculpting shapes in swathes of sound. It's like glissandi but created by a group of different individuals playing in such connection they move as a unit, stretching the palette beyond what a single instrument could do. Brass and woodwinds form similar blocks, so there's a sense of great forces rotating, revealing different aspects of sound as they move, leaving in their wake ripples of unpitched percussion. Towards the end the keening sounds stretch out, becoming so pure and clean the music seems to float into infinity.

Festival of Friendship : George Benjamin : A Duet and a Dream

George Benjamin conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall, London on 5 March, with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, in Olivier Messiaen Le merle bleu and Benjamin Duet for Piano and Orchestra, Oliver Knussen Choral, Janáček Sinfonietta and Benjamin Dream of the Song. Interesting programme with obvious connections and some more provocative.

This concert celebrates that special bond between Benjamin, Aimard and Knussen, whose presence will be felt by many, and that of Messiaen, too.  Aimard was one of Messiaen's "sons", studying with Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod aged 12, so close to the composer he was like family.  Benjamin joined Messiaen circles when he was 16, hence their special relationship.  At Aldeburgh, and for decades before, Aimard, Benjamin and Oliver Knussen were stalwarts. I remeber an occasion when Knussen was driving Benjamin to London, waved off by friends saying "No stopping off at Little Chef on the way". Little Chef too is now long gone.

A very thoughtful choice as introduction, with Knussen's Choral (op 8, 1970-72). Choral isn't chorale, so much as an exercise in using instruments as vouces operating as a small choir.  It dispenses with high strings altogether. Four double basses march against counter processions of trumpets, horns and mournful trombones. Flutes and percussion cry out against the dirge. Eventually the different parts of the orchestra coalesce, not in unison, but in chorus.  More "chorus" in Messiaen's Le merle bleu No 3 from Book 1 of  the Catalogue des Oiseaux, written for Mme. Loriod.  Aimard would have heard her playing this, with the composer himself listening. He understands it thoroughly "from source". At Aldeburgh he performed the whole series at the right times of the day and night.  I woke in time  to greet the dawn chorus at 3 am. This consideration is important as it enhances the atmosphere, since Messiaen sought to recreate the whole environment from which the birds come. Le merle bleu is one of the more exotic sections,with scintillating moments of display, yet joyously natural, since birds sing from sheer exuberance.

More congeniality : Benjamin's Duet for Piano and Orchestra (2008) which Aimard premiered at the Lucerne Festival. Benjain has written "With its vast range and virtuosic capacities the piano is in its own right almost the equivalent of an orchestra. So this Duet is an encounter between two equal partners, partners whose capacities, however, diverge in numerous essential ways. The piano can traverse over seven octaves with the greatest ease and, with the help of the sustaining pedal, accumulate harmonies containing literally dozens of notes. These are feats with which no orchestral instrument can compete. And yet every note of the piano begins to die away immediately after being struck, a characteristic so different from the legato capacities of string and wind instruments. I have attempted to cross the divide between the soloist and the orchestra by finding compatible areas between them, specifically by dividing the piano into a few distinct registers with timbral equivalents in the orchestra. At the same time the piano remains an alien figure in the orchestral landscape and often treads an independent path through instrumental textures that can seem intentionally oblivious of it. The orchestra employed is somewhat reduced, above all by the absence of violins. A certain prominence is given to the piano's nearest relatives in tuned percussion and, especially, the harp".

Of the UK premiere in 2010, I wrote "It's a new departure for Benjamin, his first piece for piano and orchestra. Benjamin’s own notes describe it succinctly. “The piano has an enormous pitch compass and is capable of accumulating complex resonating harmonies, but each note begins to decay as soon as it it is sounded. On the other hand, stringed and wind instruments can sustain and mould their notes after the initial attack”. Thus Benjamin tries to find common ground, restricting the pitch range of the piano, avoiding the higher registers where decay occurs quickly. Percussion, harp and pizzicato create attenuated sounds that meet the piano on its own ground. The piano part isn’t elaborately flamboyant: rather it’s spare, single notes occurring in series, like flurries. It evoked the movement of birds – short, quick jerks expanding into flourish as they take flight. Duet for piano and Orchestra is a different kind of concertante, where soloist and orchestra don’t interact in the usual way, but observe each other, so to speak. Then, with a punchy crescendo, it’s over. Benjamin’s music often sounds pointilliste, like detailed embroidery, but here there’s sharpness in design, and clarity of direction. Piano and orchestra warily stalk each other's moves, so Duet is a kind of furtive, circulating dance."  Not all so different from birds calling out to each other.

Though the concerts ends with Janáček Sinfonietta  the big draw for me will be Benjamin's  Dream of the Song.  Benjamin uses texts from three poets, two of whom lived in Granada, the jewel of Islamic civilzation, where education, art and philosophy were honoured.  Samuel Hanagid (993-1056) and  Solomon ibn Gabirol (d. approx 1050) were Talmudic scholars but also fluent in Arabic, for this was a time when Granada was a haven of tolerance in a Europe plagued with prejudice. Benjamin's third poet is Federico García Lorca, the radical modernist  who was assassinated by fascist forces in Granada in 1936.  Songs silenced across the centuries: chances are that the "Dream" Benjamin is referring to is no reverie.

Significantly Benjamin blends and combines the poems into a seamless flow.Strange rustling bell sounds and a cry that sounds like the call of a mullah; "Naked" sings the counter-tenor, the word broken into fragments but reiterated. An epigrammatic opening, opening out, like a window onto another vista. "The multiple troubles of man" The oboe calls out plaintively, its firm, clear sound probing outward as if searching across time itself.  In the central section, the countertenor's lines are haloed by a chorus of female voices intoning Lorca. the words don't really matter. In Andalusian art, images aren't representational but  myriad intricate patterns and colours, in Islamic tradition, epitomized by the Palace of Alhambra.

Thus Benjamin writes patterns of sound which serve the purpose of rhymes.  Brief images float into the foreground in typical Benjamin style "A girl in a garden" elides smoothly, to suddenly switch to terse staccato "tending her shrubs".  a transition built on pizzicato - suggesting the passage of time, perhaps, or splashing water, a concept fundamental to Andalusian metaphysical thought.  The women's voices herald a change of direction - bright, sharp and urgent. Then a brief pause, the silence almost imperceptibly interrupted by quiet tapping.  The male voice returns, singing strangely abstract semi harmony  "Written", the soloist sings but the sound is  magically clean and pure, shining all the brighter against a backdrop of a murmuring horn.  "The stars....." sings the countertenor,  and suddenly, sound seems to break off.  But perhaps that is the point ; the music, the "Dream of Song" does not die with its makers, however doomed their lives.

Benjamin's Dream  of the Song is a milestone. It represents a return to the meticulous craftsmanship of his work before Into the Little Hill and Written on Skin, though the operas are distinctively Benjaminesque.  Although it's written for small orchestra, it's  ambitious  compared with some of his earlier output, utterly assured and confident.

A Ladin Saint in Imperial China

Father (later Saint) Joseph Freinademetz, seated, with fellow missionaries

From Abtei (now Badia) one of the five Ladin speaking communes in the Gardetal (now Val Badia), in South Tirol, to villages in China, Joseph Freinademetz, (1852-1908), canonized as a Saint in 2003. In 1879, he left Europe for Sai Kung, a fishing and farming community that was then part of Imperial China.  Many in the region never really took kindly to being handed over as part of a scramble for control by European countries after China was weakened in the first Sino-Japanese war. Another connection between the Südtirol and South China!  St. Joseph Freinademetz is still an example for the modern world, now rapidly disintegrating into racism and hysteria. But a true Christian should believe that all men are equal in the eyes of God. “The only language that everyone understands is the language of love” he wrote. "I love China and the Chinese. I want to die among them and be laid to rest among them.....In heaven I will be a Chinese.” In 1880, Father Freinademetz was sent to a much larger mission in Shandong (where this photo may have been taken), where he died, twenty eight years later, of typhus, in January 1908.

Tien Chu Tong, photo by Isaac Wong

Sai Kung was no backwater, even in the 19th century. The fishing community had links with other villages around Mirs Bay, further to the north, where Catholic missions were active from fairly early on.  To quote Catholic Heritage in Hong Kong "In 1864, the PIME priests, particularly Fr. S Volonteri and Fr. G Origo came along and started their evangelization and pasturing services amongst the locals. In 1866, 7 villagers were baptized in autumn by Fr. G Origo, while 33 members of the Chan family were baptized in Christmas by Fr. S Volonteri . Local Catholics donated a vacant site for construction of a chapel and school, dedicated to St. Joseph as their patron. In 1875, the villagers on the entire island were baptized".... "There were also three other active religious communities in Sai Kung during the same period, namely in Tai Long Wan, Che Kang and Shum Chung. Priests used to visit farmers and fishermen staying in remote village clusters to promote catholic faith and pastoral work." Father Freiandemetz regularly said Mass in Yim Tim Tsai, travelling by sampan or small junk.  He is commemorated in a statue in the parish church of St. Joseph's, (named after his patron saint) completed in 1890.  Though most of the villagers moved to the city or emigrated abroad (mostly to Ireland), its heritage is being preserved by the former villagers and the government. The Church is now a place of pilgrimage for Chinese Catholics. There are strict controls over building and restoration, to preserve as much of its former character. The saltpans, which gave the village its name still produce salt, sold as souvenirs.

Yim Tim Tsai played a role in my own life.  My father used to hike in the area, and built his own boat in our backyard in the 1950's so he could explore the area by sea. It's now a UNESCO designated Geopark, with unique geological formations, basalt cliffs and strangely shaped rocks, many of which you can't reach by walking and are too enclosed for larger vessels to approach.  when we were kids, we took it all for granted. We assumed all families snorkelled in coral reefs and kept live coral at home. Streng verboten today ! We used to visit Yim Tsim Tsai all the time. While my dad and uncle talked to the village elders, we'd play with the kids and dogs.  My uncle, who spoke Hakka,  told me that there was some connection too between the village and his father, who owned a boat (seized from the German Navy in 1914) and knew the area well.  By that time, a permanent priest lived in the village. In this photo, taken early 1970, my Dad is rowing to the island with his eldest brother. Photo by fifth brother on a bigger boat.  My Dad used to go shooting pigeons in the woods that cover the hills on the island. He used to make the traditional Macau dish, game pie.  He's taking his brother, to go look. Notice the kids who know who they are, esp. the kid grinning !  Where is he now ? And notice what might be nappies on the small junk, which looks lived in. The pier is still there, modernized but recognizably the same. 

Parvo Järvi, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Royal Festival Hall

Parvo Järvi, NHKSO - photo Belinda Lawley

   
By Marc Bridle : Takemitsu, Schumann, Rachmaninoff: Sol Gabetta (cello), NHK Symphony Orchestra, Parvo Järvi (conductor) – 24th February 2020 

Does an orchestra have to be centuries old for its sound to be unique and definable? In many cases the answer is yes, but there are rare instances of twentieth century orchestras which have become recognisable for their sound – the Philharmonia for their woodwind, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks for that extraordinary blend of mellowness – and the NHKSO for the monumental richness of their strings. There is a particular quality to Japanese string playing, and no orchestra represents it better than this one.

Of the two symphonies the NHKSO are playing on their current European tour it is probably the Bruckner Seventh, which they played at their first concert in Estonia, which would have better impressed on us the sheer range of their strings. But it was evident in Schumann’s Cello Concerto, and ample enough in Rachmaninoff’s sweepingly romantic E minor symphony. Indeed, there was absolutely nothing understated about that performance: It may not have been overly lush, but it was heavy on dramatic impact and it seared in a way which is unusual in performances of this work. Robert Simpson’s 1967 assessment of this symphony as a work which “lapses into facile sentiment… collapses under its own weight… and drifts towards inflation” couldn’t have seemed more inappropriate, harsh or outdated as viewed through the prism of Parvo Järvi and his players.

Järvi is not a conductor who tends to hang fire in much of what he conducts; indeed, his tendency for dynamic tempos can benefit certain composers (Bartók and Shostakovich) but it can sometimes work against others (Richard Strauss and Mahler). In Rachmaninoff he is at the extreme end of the spectrum, especially when compared to two other live recordings the NHKSO made with other conductors, Yevgeny Svetlanov and André Previn. Svetlanov’s performance from September 2000 is the slowest, with an Adagio which stretches beyond 17 minutes; Previn’s, from September 2007, is typically mainstream for this conductor. There is a consensus that this Previn is his finest interpretation of the work; there is also a consensus the clarinet solo in the Adagio is particularly weak, an indication of some of this orchestra’s weaknesses. Järvi’s soloist, the hugely expressive Kei Ito, gave a performance as fine as any I have heard, an indication this orchestra can be a chameleon when it wants to.

You never quite know with a performance of this symphony where a conductor is quite going with it during its opening 20 bars – will it be Rachmaninoff, or will it be more like Tchaikovsky’s Fifth? The opening motto on cellos and basses suggested the former, while the echo of the theme on first violins followed in quick succession on the second violins – an echo that was achieved here by antiphonal strings – confirmed this impression. It was only Järvi’s treatment of this movement’s climaxes which somewhat muddied the waters – the first suggestion of the Dies Irae on clarinets and violas, the rampant timpani, the stripping away of romanticism in the violins, woodwind and horns slipping into brutality. This wasn’t a notably balanced view of the first movement by the end of it.

 The Allegro molto – perhaps not taken at that tempo – was riotous. If the virtuosity and precision of this orchestra is a given, in the past it has sometimes leant towards being mechanical and perfunctory. That is not the case today; this is a body of players who tends to exhibit an involvement with the music, and it was notable during this performance how often they swayed gently and moved with their conductor’s beat. But this was playing which often sounded robust and muscular – those massively powerful trumpets and trombones, the chasmic basses, the yawning clarinet, and yet how sudden the orchestra could plummet into the one bar of complete silence which is unique to this movement. If the Allegro molto sometimes veers towards moments of dialogue between its instruments this was not entirely convincingly done here. But there were sections – the fugue, the coda – which pressed the lyrical side of the music.

The Adagio – very slightly more measured than it had been in the broadcast of their performance at Suntory Hall on the 5th of February – was potent and vigorous rather than inclined towards romanticism. Järvi’s willingness to strip down the intensity of slow movements in some symphonies – a notable feature of his Mahler Sixth – can sometimes make them seem indelicate; indeed, one often wonders if Järvi isn’t looking backwards to a stricter view of romanticism but forwards to a leaner kind you find in works, for example, by Bartók. The clarinet solo here was undeniably beautiful, but it was a moment of lone expression, a voice sealed inside a chorus of strings which were stripped of all sentimentality. Clarinet and oboe solos, and the duet with the cor anglais, mirrored that long first solo, but how Järvi drove the climax, the pause at its close almost toppling into the beginning of the development. If there had been a particular vision here it was in striking a contrast between this movement’s ecstasy and its crests. Some conductors certainly make this music sound excessively rich; Järvi is not one of those, and this performance of the Adagio had a freshness of expression.

The beginning of the Finale felt more like Tchaikovsky than perhaps any of the previous ones had done; and the rest of it never really deviated from that. The thrust of this movement – an Allegro vivace – often felt it was bulldozing towards inevitability. The timpani which sounded as if it were on a parade, ascending triplets shooting like gunfire, hammering trumpets and drumming horns, cellos descending into the grave, pizzicato octaves on violins and violas that were explosive – all were symptomatic of an orchestra that would eventually be sucked into a vortex. And it was never less than stunningly virtuosic.

I think Järvi ripped much of the richness and glow from this Rachmaninoff and what we were left with was a diametric view of a symphony which was leaner on its romanticism and more inclined towards drama. This wasn’t a view of the work which addressed the symphony’s conventional opulence; nor was it one which saw it dripping in pigments and tints. It was undeniably high on drama, and a view of it which was convincing only if one could open one’s ears to the strikingly different impact we got.

Sol Gabetta, Parvo Järvi. photo : Belinda Lawley

Schumann’s Cello Concerto is in some ways an enigmatic work. It eschews both a conventional structure – although its three movements are distinct, they are played without a break between them – and it lacks the virtuosity of many cello concertos written during the same period of its composition. In another sense, it might not necessarily be a piece one would wish to play with an orchestra quite as powerful as the NHKSO.

What the work has in common with some of Schumann’s symphonies is a lyricism which is suggestive of lieder. The development section of the first movement is a substantial dialogue between the orchestra and soloist; the slow movement can sometimes appear in its poetic inspiration like a series of disconnected phrases; and there is even the hint of a duet with the soloist and principal cellist. Sol Gabetta showed considerable skill in navigating much of the concerto’s challenges. There was a femininity to her playing, a vocalisation to her fingering which understood the work’s inner voices. In her duet with the NHKSO’s cellist, Ryoichi Fujimori, the difference in tonal colour worked well. But there is also a strength and force to Gabetta’s playing which comfortably rose above the orchestra’s brawnier strings; and her meditative, sometimes contemplative interpretation of the work was projected rather than understated. If not an epic performance that relied on power (but then this work hardly needs it), it was one which easily contextualised the concerto’s emotional curves.

The concert had opened with Takemitsu’s How Slow the Wind. Based on an Emily Dickinson poem from 1883, it is his only piece for chamber orchestra, and certainly different in style and meaning to another setting of this poem by the Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov who had written the piece for soprano and string quartet.

It is probably wrong to interpret Takemitsu’s orchestration of the work as being more large scale than one expects it to sound in performance. Its strings (8-6-4-4-2), and the delicacy and restraint of the writing that Takemitsu gives to them, is never going to stretch the tone of the players – not even for a string section as rich as that of the NHKSO. If this often felt more like a Japanese version of Haydn it was because it largely was. The work is grounded on repetition – rather a lot of it – and it is a balancing act for the strings of any orchestra to make the length of the piece not outstay its welcome. The NHK strings had an elasticity of colour, a delicacy of sound, and an ability to shape-shift what came before and what came after. Some of the orchestration might feel a little odd, even perhaps cluttered – the cowbells, the variegation in percussion – a vibraphone and glockenspiel – a harp, a piano and celesta but this is an orchestra which is notable for its clarity and the way it can make textures distinctly separate. That is exactly what we got here under Järvi’s knife-like and precision conscious baton.

The only encore of the concert – unlike the luckier Estonians who had been given two, the other being Sibelius’s Valse Triste – was Heino Eller’s Kodumaine viis. A reminder of Järvi’s roots, that country’s Independence Day and the NHK Symphony Orchestra’s glorious string section it perhaps settled once and for all what makes this orchestra such a special instrument.