Down under, but not out: the Australian Festival of Chamber Music is coming soon to a computer near you

The Australian Festival of Chamber Music gets into gear...

Photo: Andrew Rankin

The pandemic is reaching the point at which we almost don’t dare to plan ahead at all, for fear of hopes being dashed yet again. If you are the director of an international festival, though, you can’t really afford to think like that. You have to hope and plan for the best, while also being prepared for the worst, doing all you can to anticipate likely troubles and short-circuit them before they happen. The Australian Festival of Chamber Music is a case in point.

I’d hoped to go last year, but of course that proved impossible, and the initial rescheduling for this year bit the dust when the organisation reluctantly but necessarily took the step of revising the schedule to use only those artists already in Australia, rather than importing the large contingent of “internationals” as originally planned. This weekend – starting tomorrow, Friday - they’re holding a three-day online festival to showcase a few of those internationals and bring their devoted audience some delicious musical offerings, even if not quite on Orpheus Island yet.

Kathy Stott at Orpheus Island in 2018
Photo: JD

The festival’s artistic director for the past few years has been the British pianist Kathryn Stott, and the Covid-19 reshuffles have chiefly landed in her inbox. She was to be handing over to the incoming new director, violinist Jack Liebeck this year, but when her last festival had to be postponed, Jack gallantly offered to defer taking up his appointment too, allowing her to go out in style.

“It was really generous-spirited of him,” Kathy says, “and I’m very grateful.” Whether she can be there herself, though, is still in question: the borders of Australian states have been closed very quickly at various times during the pandemic and with international travel all but impossible, Kathy has had essentially to write herself out of the programming to be on the safe side.

Cheryl Barker
Photo: Keith Saunders

Keeping the musical schedule as planned as far as humanly possible, she has reassigned the pieces she would have played to other pianists, drafted in the presenter Russell Torrance from ABC to conduct the morning musical chats with festival artists that are a regular and extremely popular part of the proceedings, and as hosts for the evening concerts, Australia’s operatic “golden couple”, Cheryl Barker and Peter Coleman-Wright, will be on location (I’m delighted that Cheryl will also take over my script for the Immortal Beloved concert, though am of course sick as the proverbial parrot about not being there in person). An unexpected bonus that’s arisen from the state of international travel is that Piers Lane, who was artistic director for 16 years before Kathy, is spending most of this year in Australia and will be returning to AFCM for the first time since standing down from the post.

“As far as I’m concerned,” Kathy declares, “it is still Beethoven’s anniversary year, it is still the Goldner String Quartet’s 25th anniversary and although I’ve had to pull out the odd piece here and there, the festival is still its whopping, ginormous self!”

It was certainly whopping and ginormous when I went in 2018. Glittering seas, palm trees, Australian wine under the stars, the best seafood ever and a wonderfully convivial atmosphere among the large team of performers, to say nothing of the audience and the devoted festival Friends who come to absolutely everything – it was the festival of a lifetime. “That was a wonderful year for building new friendships and musical relationships,” Kathy says, pointing to several new associations among her colleagues with invitations to Norway, new commissions for some of the composers from various performers and plenty more to look forward to when “all this” is finally over.

The online Festival Overture from 16 to 18 April brings music from morning til night, as is always the case at the main AFCM, and features three special recitals from musicians based in London, where they are being streamed from the Voces8 Centre: Jack Liebeck and Katya Apekisheva, Carolyn Sampson & Joseph Middleton, and husband and wife duo Alexander Sitkovetsky and Wu Qian. These events can be accessed via the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall’s site, which is partnering with AFCM for the occasion (you’ll need to buy tickets). Morning and lunchtime concerts feature artists who will be appearing at the festival in August, plus a special performance by Kathy herself. Meanwhile you can feast on South Pacific travels from the comfort of your own home through the Destination Dreams videos of the landscapes around Townsville, Far North Queensland and the surrounding islands. Find the full schedule here.

I’ll be writing more about AFCM in the run-up to the 2021 festival, so do stay tuned, and keep your fingers firmly crossed that everything can go ahead as intended when we finally reach August.

Booking for AFCM2021 is now OPEN and you can find this, along with full details of the programme, here: https://www.afcm.com.au

Playlist for IMMORTAL

When Immortal was published last October, I made a playlist to go with it on Apple Music. This was originally intended for the subscribers to the novel. As they've now had exclusive access to it for quite a few months, I'm happy to open it up to interested readers. It's a substantial quantity of music, lined up in the order you'll need it. Below is a list of which pieces go with which chapter. Hope you enjoy it.

The pieces are by Beethoven, unless otherwise indicated: I have included pertinent works by Mozart, Marianna Martines, Schubert and Schumann. Wherever possible they illustrate events in the book. In the instances where they are not directly connected to the narrative’s timescale, they should illuminate particular points, such as the “Josephine” motif, a similarity between two different works, or a dedication e.g. to Count Razumovsky. 

Mostly I’ve chosen one movement of a work - in the hope that you’ll want to source and listen to the rest as well. For some of the crucial piano sonatas, however, I’ve included the whole piece. It was, after all, by playing the piano sonatas that our narrator, Therese, would have best known Beethoven’s music. I’m sending herewith a list of which works go with which chapters.

 

There’s a lot of piano music here, so I’ve selected several different recordings. For the early sonatas, we have András Schiff’s live recording - not least because he is one of few to play the entire first movement of the ‘Moonlight’ Sonata as indicated, in one long pedal. For the ‘heroic’ period and the final trilogy, we have Daniel Barenboim and for the ‘Hammerklavier’ the magnificent recording by Murray Perahia. In the Andante Favori I picked Mari Kodama for her clear, Josephine-like phrasing.

 

The utterly splendid Takács String Quartet perform all the quartet extracts - and as I’ve named the Brunsvik family coachman after them, it seems only fair. The Cello Sonata in A major is played by Miklós Perényi (cello) and András Schiff (piano). The symphonies are variously represented in a classic recordings by conductors including Carlos Kleiber, Iván Fischer and Claudio Abbado; the latter also conducts the Piano Concerto No. 3 with the one and only Martha Argerich. The Beethoven songs are from a recording by baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Jan Lisiecki in a recording released for the Beethoven 250^th anniversary in 2020. As for Fidelio, from which extracts appear at various points, this is conducted by Abbado with Nina Stemme as Leonore and Jonas Kaufmann as Florestan, a performance filled with ‘namenlose Freude’. 

 

I hope you enjoy the mix of reading and music. 

 

https://music.apple.com/gb/playlist/immortal/pl.u-yZyVE31CYVPPga

IMMORTAL: Playlist

 

CHAPTER 1

24 Variations on ‘Venni amore’ by Righini

 

CHAPTER 2

Marianna Martines: Cantata ‘Il nido degli amore’ - aria ‘Sarà più dolce assai’

 

CHAPTER 3

Piano Trio Op. 1 No. 1

Eleven Dances WoO 17 No.1 - Walzer

 

CHAPTER 4

Piano Sonata in D, Op. 10 No. 3, 2^nd movt

Mozart Fantasia in F minor for mechanical organ, 3^rd movt

 

CHAPTER 5

Piano Sonata in E flat, Op. 7, 1^st movt
Piano Sonata in C minor, Op. 13,  ‘Pathétique’, 2^nd movement

Variations for piano duet on ‘Ich denke dein’

 

CHAPTER 6

Septet in E flat, Op. 20, 1st movt

String Quartet in F, Op. 18 No. 1, 2nd movt

Piano Sonata in C sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2, Moonlight, 1^st movt

 

CHAPTER 7

Piano Concerto No. 3 in C minor, 1^st movt

Piano Sonata in E flat, Op. 31 No. 3, minuet

 

CHAPTER 8

Symphony No. 3 in E flat, ‘Eroica’, 1^st movt

Andante Favori

Sonata in C, Op. 53, Waldstein, complete

 

CHAPTER 9

‘An die Hoffnung’, Op. 32

 

CHAPTER 11

Fidelio - ‘Abscheulicher’ 

String Quartet in F, Op. 59 No. 1, 1st movt

 

CHAPTER 12

Piano Sonata in F minor, Op. 57, ‘Appassionata’, complete

 

CHAPTER 13

Cello Sonata in A, Op. 69, 1^st movt

 

CHAPTER 15

Piano Sonata in F sharp, Op. 78 ‘A Therese’, complete

 

CHAPTER 16

Für Elise

Fidelio - ‘O namenlose Freude’

Piano Sonata Op. 81A ‘Das Lebewohl’, 3^rd movt

 

CHAPTER 17

String Quartet Op. 95, 3^rd movt

 

CHAPTER 20

Symphony No. 7, 2^nd movt

 

CHAPTER 21

Symphony No. 6 ‘Pastoral’, 2^nd movt

Fidelio - ‘O welche Lust…’

Fidelio - ‘Gott, welch’ Dunkel hier’

 

CHAPTER 23
Piano Sonata Op. 90
String Quartet Op. 59 No. 2 

 

CHAPTER 24

Schubert: ‘Erlkönig’

Piano Trio in B flat, Op. 97, ‘Archduke’, 1^st movt

 

CHAPTER 25

‘An die ferne Geliebte’ - No. 6, ‘Nimm sie hinn denn, diese Lieder’

 

CHAPTER 26

Piano Sonata in B flat, Op. 106, ‘Hammerklavier’, 1^st movt

 

CHAPTER 27

Schubert: ‘Death and the Maiden’

Piano Sonata Op. 109 3^rd movt

Piano Sonata Op. 110 (complete)

Piano Sonata Op. 111 (complete)

 

CHAPTER 28

Symphony No. 9 4^th movt

Grosse Fuge

 

CHAPTER 29

Schumann: Fantasie in C, Op. 17, 1^st movt

 

 

 

Welcome to (what remains of) the JDCMB Chocolate Silver Awards 2020

It's 21 December! Welcome back to our cyberposhplace, with a difference. Nowadays we are all living permanently in cyberplaces. Paradoxically, I considered holding this year's JDCMB Chocolate Silver Awards ceremony in the flesh for the first time, because now a real cybermeetingplace exists called Zoom and we'd be able to invite readers to join in from all over the world. This time last year nobody would even have thought of such a thing. That's just one way that Covid-19 has changed our world. The others are worse.

One thing I've learned in 2020, though, is that presenting an event online is still real. It takes, in fact, a lot of organisation, forward planning and slick technical support. And you know something? I'm tired. 

Many of us are. Unable to see our friends and family, deprived of the concerts and theatres on which our imaginative and social life centres and watching our towns crumbling as unit after unit gives up and shuts down, is depressing enough. Seeing even household-name musicians and actors struggling to make ends meet while excluded from the government's self-employment support schemes - that's horrifying. And guess what, we've got Brexit in 10 days' time and still nobody knows what's going to happen. Since I first drafted this post yesterday, a new crisis has emerged, which you can read about in all the papers rather than here.

While I could be all positive and "hello sun, hello trees," and "isn't music wonderful," I don't want to pretend. I'm doing my best to keep my nose above water. As regular readers will have noticed, blogging is not uppermost. I hit a largish birthday this month and it seemed time to take stock. It's not only a question of not being as young as one used to be, but also of longing to create something worthwhile, something that has a chance of lasting. Blogging is ephemeral. I wrote a novel about Beethoven called Immortal, it's more than 400 pages long and you can always read that instead. (For a taster, here's the video presentation that the Wigmore Hall filmed in September, in which I introduce the book and read extracts, and the wonderful Mishka Rushdie Momen plays the Piano Sonata in F, Op. 10 No. 2.)

Now, on with our awards ceremony, or what remains of it.

Come on in! Grab a glass of cyberbubbly. Here in our imaginary virtual venue, we can hug our friends without fear. This time we're outdoors, but it's a beautiful warm Mediterranean-style night. Strings of fairy lights glitter in the trees. The moon shines bright over the water, a string quartet is playing Irving Berlin and Cole Porter in the background, there's a buzz of conversation punctuated by the piccolo of joyous laughter (remember that sound?), and Ricki and Cosi are ensconced on their silken cushions in front of a large photo of Solti the Ginger Cat, ready to present the winners with their prize purrs and a cuddle of their lovely chocolate-silver and usual-silver Somali cat fur. 

Our guests of honour have scrambled up through the back of the centuries' wardrobe to join us from far-flung times. Ludwig van Beethoven has made an exception to his hatred of parties and is present to celebrate his 250th birthday. We can't change his otosclerosis, but we can give him a state-of-the-art hearing aid, so he's with us, smiling, laughing and joking, with Josephine by his side and little Minona in her party dress. Times have changed, they remark; if only they could be alive now instead, this is how it could have been. And we'd have had nine more symphonies. Only Therese, in her habitual black, is little changed. Don't say I didn't tell you, she twinkles. 

Alongside them, here are our friends of the present day, gathering from everywhere in the world: New York and Sydney, Paris and Berlin, Tuscany and Switzerland, Leipzig and Warsaw. Barnes, Manchester, Glasgow and Camden. We haven't seen each other the whole damned year. Love you. Miss you. Here's to next time...

Quiet please. Grab a refill and come over to the cushions. Now, would the following winners please approach the podium. And let's have a huge round of applause for every musician who has soldiered on bravely during 2020 and still manages to touch our hearts and souls, despite everything.

ICON OF THE YEAR

Thank you, Luigi. You help us to be resilient. There could have been no better anniversary to mark in this of all years. And I'm glad to see that in Germany they've decided your celebrations are going on next year too. Hopefully we'll do the same here. Thank you for letting me put you in a book. Thank you, too, to those marvellous people who have paid sterling tribute to you in their top-notch series: John Suchet on Classic FM and Donald MacLeod on BBC Radio 3, respectively available now as podcast and audiobook. And a huge thank you to my publishers, Unbound, for your faith in Immortal and for making sure that it could still come out in time for the anniversary even when so much else was being put back to 2021. Roxanna Panufnik's choral piece Ever Us, with my libretto, fell victim to the pandemic back in May - it should have been in the Berlin Philharmonie - but all being well it might instead be heard in 2022.

ARTISTS OF THE YEAR

-- Krystian Zimerman

I've met many musicians, and plenty of the finest, but only two who I believe deserve the title "genius". One was Pierre Boulez. The other is Krystian Zimerman. Thanks to a booklet notes commission, I've spent part of December pursuing Zimerman and Simon Rattle around corners of east London and attending some of the rehearsals for their incredible series of the Beethoven piano concertos at LSO St Luke's. It has provided an insight into what it actually takes to be such an artist: as TS Eliot said, "A condition of complete simplicity (Costing not less than everything)." Yes: everything, every hour, every cell, every emotion and every last scrap of spirit. Most of us have simply no idea... The concerts are being streamed on DG's new online concert platform, DG Stage (the last is the 'Emperor' Concerto, being shown tonight - you can still catch part 2, nos. 2 and 4, as well). The audio recording will be out in the spring. Perhaps one of 2020's biggest surprises was finding that he's on Instagram. (Photo above by Kasslara.) 

-- Tasmin Little

It's hard to believe that Tasmin Little is retiring from the stage, but she insists that she is. I attended her last Southbank Centre performance, watching from among a smattering of guests distanced in the back stalls; it included among other things, her astounding performance of Brahms's D minor sonata with the stunningly fine Russian pianist Andrey Gugnin. Tasmin, I said later, did you know that Margot Fonteyn decided against retiring when she met Rudolf Nureyev? Hint hint. Tasmin laughed, but her bright smile hardened a little. She says she regrets having to discontinue such a partnership, but she is stopping, and that is that. So you can't say I didn't try. She'd already had to postpone her farewell concerts from summer to autumn and is busy giving the last ones right now, in those places where concerts haven't been knocked out of the water yet again by Tier 3 or 4. Here's to your pastures new, Tasmin, whatever they may be. Come and have a purr from Ricki and Cosi. (Photo by Paul Mitchell.)

LOCKDOWN HEROES

There are quite a few of you who meet this description. Step forward, Elena Urioste and Tom Poster (pictured right)! Your UriPoste Jukebox, violin and piano music for all seasons daily from your home, has brightened the year. Hello Daniel Hope, whose living room concerts were pounced upon for televising by Arte and spread the music-making of fabulous colleagues in Berlin far and wide. Welcome, dear Kanneh-Mason Family, who have brought us hope and inspiration at every turn - from your home concerts on Facebook to Sheku and Isata's gorgeous Proms recital to Jeneba playing Florence Price's Piano Concerto in One Movement with the ever-more-marvellous Chineke! Orchestra at the Southbank, plus the enchanting Carnival of the Animals album with Michael Morpurgo. I also loved Kadiatu's book House of Music, charting in graphic detail what it takes - oh yes - to raise such a family. Gabriela Montero, Angela Hewitt, Igor Levit and Boris Giltburg are among the many fabulous pianists who have been playing for us online. The Wigmore Hall blazed a trail in getting live concerts going again, while they could, and streaming them into our homes for free. It is up to us to do better at paying for this, and really you should if you can. Kings Place hit on an inventive and empathetic way to tempt nervous audience members out of their houses and into to the concert hall for the first time in the summer, offering one-to-one 10-minute sessions with Elena and Tom among others. That was my own first trip on the tube in four months, and they performed a piece selected especially for me ("We heard you were coming in, so we dug out some Fauré..."). And jolly wonderful it was. (Pictured above, photo by JD.)

This list could continue. What's astonished me is the amount of imagination, resourcefulness, determination, understanding, urgency and passion that so many in the music world have shown in the face of catastrophe. They don't call us "creative industries" for nothing. Perhaps the only good thing to come out of 2020 is the fact that we will never, ever take music for granted again. And if some do, we can say to them "Remember the pandemic, when the music stopped..." Could we live without it? No, we couldn't. Never forget.

Oh, and one Turkey of the Year: the British government marching us smack onto the rocks of Brexit despite the existing devastation. What a phenomenally stupid waste of time and energy it all is. We'll have to spend the years ahead putting ourselves back together. 

We are all connected. We all affect one another. There are positive forces that unite and inspire us: music, art, logic, poetry, science, learning, wisdom, generosity, honesty, kindness, love. There are negative ones, which divide us: greed, wanton destruction, lies, superstition, ignorance, heartlessness, hatred and indifference. 

Perhaps the best we can hope for is that destruction really will bring creative opportunities (as the disaster capitalists would say - admittedly that's not a great advert...) and that we can turn the collapse of old structures to good by creating new ones, re-establishing as our driving values the qualities that represent the best of humankind, rather than the worst. 

Speech over. Grab some more cyberbubbly and let's dance while we still can. Merry Christmas.

Here in our haven...

It's been a hectic few weeks and a bout of tonsillitis didn't help. So from the tranquility of a plane-less Monday morning, in company with a snoring cat and a violinist practising Paganini downstairs, here's a quick update and some links for a catch-up.

First of all, because of a sudden, belated and unexpected lockdown (thanks, Boris...) everyone's carefully laid plans for distancing audiences at concerts went up in smoke and everything for November got cancelled. There's been a scramble to rethink, reimagine and reschedule. The Up Close and Musical festival at the Fidelio Orchestra Cafe has been moved to May, my 'Immortal' concert with Piers Lane for the Barnes Music Society has been rescheduled for 16 January, and the Nordern Farm performance has unfortunately had to bite the dust. There are a few other dates in the diary for June, but let's cross that bridge when we come to it.

One of the events that I was most sorry to lose this year was the staging of the youth opera The Selfish Giant by the composer John Barber, for which I did the libretto. It was meant to happen in July. Now we are hoping that it will be able to enjoy a performance in some way, shape or form next summer instead. Like The Happy Princess with composer Paul Fincham in 2019, it's a commission from Garsington for their youth companies, and this time it is also a co-commission from Opera North. The story is a transformation of an Oscar Wilde fairytale. It is all about the beauty of nature, how much we need it, how much we need to be at one with it, and how completely stupid it is to build walls between different peoples and different generations. We need to work with nature and with each other to build a better world - because one day we will leave it, and then what is our legacy?

"Here in the garden, our haven, here in the garden, our heaven; here we can be who we're meant to be, where we find ourselves and are free..." When we wrote the piece we had no idea that this year the beauty of nature would become what would sustain our young performers who were indeed cut off from their friends, their schools, their rehearsals and their joy in singing together. They made a film about it, using some songs from the opera. It's called Our Haven and Garsington released it on Friday for National Children's Day. Here it is: https://youtu.be/jJK1Rc1DdFU

Meanwhile, the Zoom launch for 'Immortal' went off with much more zing than I'd thought possible. We had more than 50 attendees from all over the world, which was astounding, and the support of Joanna Pieters, who presented and interviewed, Simon Hewitt Jones, who produced, and Mishka Rushdie Momen, who played, was absolutely incredible. Although I was alone in the study, and Ricki slept in a chair behind me all the way through, I felt as if we'd had a real party. If you didn't see if and you'd like to, the whole thing is now on Youtube, here.

Soon afterwards, I found myself roped into a reimagining of an event for the wonderful Wimbledon International Music Festival, a favourite calendar highlight of mine here in south-west London. Normally the inimitable Anthony Wilkinson brings world-class music to live stages on his own doorstep, but of course this time everything had to be moved online and replanned for the format. You can see the lot for a small fee at their website - and yes, one should have to pay to watch music online, because making these things costs and otherwise there soon won't be any. The festival includes some amazing concerts such as a cello and piano recital of Beethoven by Raphael Wallfisch and John York, a typically thoughtful and eclectic programme from pianist Clare Hammond and a star highlight filmed at Wigmore Hall with Paul Lewis performing the Beethoven Diabelli Variations. If you think there's a Beethoven theme, you're right; the event into which I was parachuted was a discussion with pianist Piers Lane, actor/director/writer Tama Matheson and festival director Anthony Wilkinson exploring the magic of Beethoven and, beyond that, what the arts really mean to us, why we need them and where we go from here. All details here.

Next, a call from The Sunday Times. There's a new biography of Mozart just out, by the splendid Jan Swafford, the musicologist and composer who seemed to capture the nation's hearts when he appeared in the BBC series Being Beethoven. This latest book is 800 pages long, which I didn't completely realise until after I'd agreed to review it, but it is such a lovely read that I felt a bit bereft when I'd finished. The review was in yesterday's paper and is online (£) here.

Yesterday, too, I was on Talk Radio rabbiting about Beethoven and 'Immortal'. There's been an enthusiastic blog tour of book site reviews, and we're waiting with slightly nibbled nails for further reviews to appear in print. In general, though, I would advise any budding novelists to check in advance that their release date does not coincide with a very important American presidential election, because firstly nobody will have eyes for much else, and secondly nothing that you write will ever be able to match up to the bizarre reality unfolding in front of our eyes there.

As the divine Joni Mitchell sings, "something's lost and something's won, in living every day... I really don't know life at all."

Let's keep on keeping on, and remember the beauty in the garden. 

To which end, I've just ordered 80 daffodil bulbs. 

Zoom launch event for 'Immortal' on Tuesday

"O friends, not those tones!" That particular dog has had its day: soon a new day will dawn. Congratulations to our friends over the Pond for electing President Biden and Vice-President Harris! I've been out in the park this morning and everyone is smiling, despite lockdown. America's big moment can bring hope to us all: change is possible. 

Meanwhile...

All the book events I had lined up for November have had to be cancelled/postponed due to the new lockdown (details in the sidebar, which I'll update as necessary). So we're having an online celebration instead. It's on Tuesday 10 November at 6pm UK time for round about an hour, and there'll be an interview, a reading, Q&A and hopefully even some music. If you'd like to join in, please register here to receive an email containing the Zoom link, and then just show up in cyberspace with a glass of something or a cuppa or whatever. We will do our best to make it as festive as possible! Hope to see you there.

'Immortal': the difficult stuff

I was saddened to hear the other day that the celebrated musicologist Maynard Solomon has died, aged 90. I have admired his writings for many, many years, I love his book on Mozart and have found his articles about Beethoven absolutely invaluable when working on Immortal, especially his explorations of the composer's conversation books. He sounds a fascinating person and I am only sorry that I never had the chance to meet him. Here is an excellent obituary from the New York Times.

This is a good moment to put some "difficult stuff" about Immortal briefly under the spotlight and get it, hopefully, out of the way.

Maynard Solomon's theory of the Immortal Beloved was that the woman in question was Antonie Brentano, the wife of one of Beethoven's closest friends and supporters. There were two principal reasons: first, that she was definitely in Prague on the right day in 1812; secondly, that Solomon undertook a sort of posthumous psychoanalysis of Beethoven which seemed to support this theory. His suggestion has been much approved and amplified, notably by the writer and scholar Susan Lund, who has worked on Beethoven since the 1970s and has written a novel, a play and a factual book about it. 

Josephine - 'Pepi'

The theory has also been widely contested, even objected to, the alternative being that the Immortal Beloved was Josephine Brunsvik. Chief among the scholars exploring in this direction was the late Rita Steblin, whose articles and books have been a mainstay of my own information (I was devastated to hear that she died a year ago, leaving some important research unfinished). Before that, Marie-Elisabeth Tellenbach had written a fascinating, extremely detailed book on the Josephine theory and the zealous John Klapproth translated into English some crucial early texts on the subject, including La Mara (1920s) who had published some of Therese's memoirs. Some of these writers entered into spirited and occasionally angry exchanges with Solomon on the Josephine v Antonie topic. 

But if you saw the BBC's Being Beethoven series recently, you will have noticed (or you might not - it went by very fast and in almost sheepish tone) that one of the Viennese academics acknowledges, after much "we don't know who she really was", that they do now think there is a 90 per cent likelihood that the Immortal Beloved was Josephine. Ninety per cent is not a small figure. The doubt remains because the traces of this affair were extremely well concealed at the time. It's impossible to prove the final ten per cent without digging up Beethoven and the person - or indeed more than one person - who may have been his illegitimate child and doing a DNA test. I doubt that is going to happen any time soon. 

The fascinating thing about either theory, Antonie or Josephine, is that both present Beethoven with a possible "love child" at the crucial moment. Antonie's youngest son was born about three weeks before Josephine's daughter in spring 1813. So whichever of these infants was the one to whom he could never be a father, the likely outcome - his obsession with adopting his nephew - still applies and makes sense.

It's true, too, that we don't know for certain, and that last 10 per cent of doubt is why I have tackled Immortal in the way I have: a fictional first-person narrative from a not necessarily reliable observer, leaving a little room for a question mark around the potential of Antonie. I'm not a zealot about this (I've died on a few hills before and this isn't going to be another, especially not when we are facing the biggest crisis to hit the world in my whole lifetime...). I do know that the Josephine theory looks, walks and quacks like a duck; the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn favours her as the likely solution; and I can't deny that I am not wholly in favour of psychoanalysing someone who is not present to speak for himself, though I find the nephew explanation perfectly plausible. 

Antonie Brentano

Let's cut to the chase: the problem with the Josephine v Antonie dilemma is that it is not really about Josephine and Antonie, or not any more. It is about today's factions. The fact is that if the Immortal Beloved was Josephine, it means Solomon's solution is not correct, which would be a painful admission for his disciples and admirers. Moreover, on Josephine's side it's unfortunate that Klapproth - who died several years ago - entered into some startlingly belligerent and rather wild-toned arguments about it, even with scholars of the calibre of Jan Swafford (whose book stays sensibly neutral on the issue, though seems unusually in favour of Bettina Brentano). It's not impossible that Klapproth harmed his own cause through sheer obsessiveness; moreover, his translations are not of the quality one could wish for, but their existence may perhaps have prevented others from producing more lucid ones. 

Rita Steblin's clear, rational, scholarly writings have clarified much, however; she confirmed that Josephine expressed a wish to consult someone in Prague at the right time, and furthermore revealed that as late as 1818 Therese was mooting to her sister a possibility that they could consider going to London with Beethoven (see her article in The Musical Times, summer 2019). Steblin's involvement was key to the turnaround. There are probably power struggles rumbling away beneath the entire situation, and it's quite likely that they could involve the reverence sometimes accorded to senior male scholars, the propensity back in the 20th century for squishing away the women who see things differently...and much more besides.

This is a topic that can get under your skin. I'm not surprised it provokes obsession - and some of the texts in existence are almost terrifying in this respect. That was one reason that I hesitated for several years before plunging into writing Immortal. It is dangerous, disturbing and disruptive. 

But it's also a fantastic story, strong and important enough to become known beyond academia, especially as it potentially casts fresh light on some of Beethoven's music. I've found that it's better recognised in Germany and, indeed, Hungary (the Brunsviks were Hungarian) than it is in English-speaking countries. Few writers of my outlook would be able to resist it, so...here we are. 

Immortal is a novel because it couldn't be anything else. It travels from the spheres of Jane Austen at the beginning towards the emotions of Tristan and Isolde at the end. If you like it, great; if not, a pity; either way, it is not intended as a definitive statement on the ultimate truth. I'll leave that to academia and, possibly, the DNA lab. Meanwhile I heartily recommend that readers should also explore the writings of Solomon and Lund, weigh up the theories and decide for themselves. In the end, that's all we can actually do. 

32 not out: a Beethoven piano festival with a few major differences

Moving music online may have reduced audiences in one way, but it's expanded them in others. Next weekend, on 3 and 4 October, you can log on from anywhere on earth to see all the Beethoven piano sonatas being played in a festival in a tiny 12th-century church in west London. Hugh Mather, who runs the series at St Mary's Perivale, has put together what looks like an extraordinary logistical feat: 32 pianists for 32 sonatas. Here he tells me why and how - and what Beethoven has meant to us in these troubled times. You can see the whole festival line-up here:  http://www.st-marys-perivale.org.uk/events-beethovenfestival3.shtml 

Amit Yahav performs at St Mary's Perivale

JD: Why did you decide to have a festival of the Beethoven piano sonatas at St Mary’s Perivale, given that Beethoven was already to be so extensively celebrated this year in the “upper echelons” of the music world?

HM: We obviously had to mark the great 250^th anniversary in some way. I had organised three similar cycles of the sonatas with 32 pianists at St Barnabas Ealing in 2009, 2012 and 2014, so I knew the format works. Our strong suit is the large number of superb pianists who live in or around London. A sonata cycle was the obvious way of giving 32 of them a chance to perform, and the opportunity for listeners to re-discover many of the lesser-played works. Unfortunately the virus has led to many other festivals being cancelled, and we are now one of the few big Beethoven events still happening. Our friends in the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe are also putting on a similar cycle, but spread over the whole year, rather than a weekend, and in different venues. I had also planned to present all 10 violin sonatas played by 20 musicians in a single day, but that will have to wait till next year.  

JD: You have a different pianist for each sonata - a major contrast from most Beethoven cycles which are attempted like a solo Everest-climb by individual pianists. Why did you decide on this?   

HM: Simply because the format is infinitely more interesting and enjoyable with 32 different pianists!   I have at least 15 CD or LP sets of the complete sonatas, but I always skip around to hear different pianists and their various sonorities and approaches. Even if Schnabel were reincarnated, I would get slightly bored in hearing the same sort of sound and aesthetics for 14 hours, whereas with different pianists it is endlessly fascinating. And we have a superb team of pianists who will each have something special to offer and will all sound very different from each other. I guarantee a very high standard of performance throughout the cycle, and it will be compelling viewing and listening for anyone interested in Beethoven or fine piano-playing.       

JD: What were the issues involved in putting it together? Organising 32 pianists sounds like a logistical nightmare… 

HM: Actually it was surprisingly easy. I wrote to a carefully selected group of pianists in early January, asking them if they would like to participate, and if so, which sonatas they would like to perform. A handful of pianists were unable to participate because it was expected to clash with the Warsaw Chopin competition (since postponed), but otherwise virtually all instantly agreed to play, and I am very happy with our current team !    

To put this in perspective, I have a database of 160 very good pianists who have asked for a solo recital slot. Our venue is always popular because we pay our musicians, we have a nice piano and we provide a high quality recording. So I could easily construct teams to play 2 or 3 cycles! As regards choice of sonatas, nearly all offered the 'Appassionata' and 'Moonlight', etc, but I asked them to specify less familiar sonatas which they would be prepared to play in 9 months' time. From previous festivals, I know that the difficult sonatas to fix are Op 2 no 2, Op 22, Op 31 no 1, Op 54 and the two Op 49s. The jigsaw fell into place over the spring, before the lockdown in March.  

St Mary's Perivale

JD: It’s wonderful that you can livestream concerts from St Mary’s, even without a physical audience. How has COVID-19 affected your plans in terms of the pianists themselves? Have many had to drop out, and how do you replace them?  

HM: The original team of 32 pianists in January included a very good Polish pianist – Michal Szymanowski – who obviously had to cancel because of travel restrictions, and two other pianists cancelled because of other considerations, but otherwise the team is virtually unchanged. I recently advertised on Facebook for replacements to play Op 13 and Op 79 and within 24 hours received offers from 20 and eight pianists respectively. With such a large team of musicians, I suspect there may be at least one to three cancellations next week, and I will need to find a replacement at short notice! That is the worst aspect of the whole project.

JD: What are the technical challenges of relaying concerts on the internet? How does St Mary’s manage this?  

HM: Our video and streaming facilities were developed over several years by a group of retired BBC personnel, led by Simon Shute and George Auckland, who live in Ealing and are longstanding friends.    The system now comprises 7 high definition cameras and 2 high quality microphones permanently installed in the church. It was developed as an adjunct to our concerts, initially to provide recordings for our musicians, and it only realized its full potential in the lockdown, since when we have become, in effect, a broadcasting studio! Since then we have streamed 28 live concerts and 53 concert recordings.  Our superb technical team provide their services free of charge, in keeping with everyone else at Perivale, so we have been able to install broadcast quality video systems remarkably cheaply.

     

JD: Do you think concerts change substantially without an audience? How do performers cope without that live feedback? 

HM: Broadcast concerts, viewed at home, are inevitably a poor substitute for the ‘real thing’, and I can’t wait to return to having a ‘live’ audience enjoying a communal experience again. Nevertheless, the concerts have filled a void in many peoples’ lives, providing much entertainment and solace, and they have enabled us to support so many musicians over the past few months of financial hardship, from viewers’ donations. Performing in an empty venue is indeed slightly nerve-racking, rather like a professional broadcast, but most of our musicians are experienced performers and soon get used to it.

JD: As a pianist yourself, can you tell us something about what makes the Beethoven sonatas such an extraordinarily special body of works? Do you have any personal favourites among them? If so, which and why?

HM: The Beethoven sonatas have been called the ‘New Testament’ of the piano literature. They cover such a remarkable range, from the early classically-based works to the late transcendental sonatas, and there are few if any weak pieces among them. I love them all, and have listened to them all my life, but I didn’t have time to study many of them, on top of my medical career. My favourite will always be the 'Hammerklavier', for personal reasons. After graduating in medicine in 1971, I took a few months off to study the piano with Jimmy Gibb at the Guildhall, and decided to learn the great work, which I played at an open recital at the Guildhall in 1972. Then I got married to Felicity Light, who was a medical student, so I had to earn a living, and returned to a frantically busy career, which precluded serious practice for years. So I have only learned and played about 5 of the sonatas in public. The 'Hammerklavier' has stayed with me ever since, and I played it in our complete Beethoven cycles at St Barnabas in 2009 and 2014. The slow movement still moves me to tears every time I hear or play it – one of the most profound and transcendental pieces ever written. 

JD: Medicine and music are often deemed to “go together”. While writing ‘Immortal’ I’ve been fascinated to learn that Beethoven occasionally practised almost an early form of music therapy: he would improvise for friends who were suffering grief, bereavement, depression etc, and his musical response to their frame of mind would bring them the relief of tears. During this weird year, I’ve gone back to my piano and playing Beethoven has brought me energy, positivity and renewed enthusiasm for life. Do you find he has a similar effect?

HM: The link between medicine and music is indeed widespread. As for Beethoven, one can spend a lifetime exploring these wonderful masterpieces, and I never tire of them. I particularly enjoy all the early sonatas which people rarely play in recitals, as well as the immortal late sonatas. Part of the joy of our festival will be a re-acquaintance with some of the less-commonly played works. In the lockdown I have been re-listening to the late string quartets and have found them to be life-enhancing and deeply enriching, and appropriate listening material for this strange and depressing time. At the risk of sounding pompous, Beethoven’s compositions really do encapsulate every facet of the human experience, rather like Shakespeare. We hope to show that in our great festival at St Mary’s Perivale on 3 and 4 October.

Beethoven Festival, St Mary's Perivale, 3 and 4 October, is online here: http://www.st-marys-perivale.org.uk/events-beethovenfestival3.shtml 

Catch up with Ludwig and Levit here

While we in the UK continue to run about like headless chickens (which in many ways we actually are), the Salzburg Festival has managed to be up, running and shouting about it with well-deserved pride. In the fast-growing blackberry bushes of classical music on the internet, there is plenty of ripe fruit waiting to be foraged, stewed and savoured, and the concerts of Salzburg being streamed by Arte.tv are not only some of the best, but also available to watch in the UK (which not all Arte films are).

Having been working flat out to finish the editing and proofreading of IMMORTAL - which is now going into production - I haven't had time, energy or inclination to watch or listen to anything very much for weeks, so it's time to catch up, and I'm very happy to say that they have sent me the first three of Igor Levit's complete Beethoven sonatas cycle for us all to enjoy here on JDCMB. Plenty more available at Arte's own site, of course. Levit has been one of music's outstanding lockdown heroes and I am looking forward to hearing the lot in due course.
Enjoy!

Vengerov: Beethoven breaks all the walls

My last face-to-face interview before lockdown was with Maxim Vengerov. Looking back on the transcript now, it's so strange to see the list of countries, venues, orchestras, repertoire that he had coming up for the rest of this year. It hammers everything home somewhat. There was much I could not put in the article by the time I came to write it, because it was clear that none of this was actually going to happen. It was supposed to trail his big anniversary concert at the Royal Albert Hall in June - 40 years on stage (though he's only 45). That has, of course, been postponed until next April.

For The JC we talked about growing up Jewish in Soviet Russia and playing Bach by the fence of Auschwitz, amongst other things. Also, Maxim is releasing his latest recordings exclusively through IDAGIO and you can get 2 months free trial of its premium service by entering the code 'Maxim Vengerov'.

However, there were some bits that did not make it into the article, and one of them was about Beethoven. Here is the resilience we need. I wonder, at the moment, whether I will ever be able to do an interview in person like this again. Let us keep hoping. And I don't usually pray, but now I would.

JD: What are your thoughts about the Beethoven anniversary? 

MV: For me Beethoven is always contemporary. I just can’t believe it’s 250 years! From now on, it doesn’t matter - 250 or 400 years, he’ll always be there with us. His message is so sharp and so quick, like a razor - it goes to anybody, through any society, it breaks all the walls and all the barriers, no matter which language you speak, which religion you belong to, which political wing you belong to. Beethoven is always there with us, he always reflects our strength and shows us the way from darkness to light. In a way, for me every year is Beethoven year! 

In Portrait: Beethoven, from dignity to madness...

If you are already a subscriber to IMMORTAL, you'll have received this in your in-box. Still, it seems to have gone over quite well, so I am reproducing it for those who haven't got it yet. There's still time to sign up as a patron of the book, here [ahem]. Thanks! x

If you're not yet familiar with the website of the Beethovenhaus Bonn, do please take a look at it. This museum and research centre at the composer's birthplace is the world centre for work on him, and their digital library is a treasure trove, available to view wherever you may be. During the writing of IMMORTAL I have spent innumerable hours online, browsing their collection of letters, images and more. Today I'd like to draw your attention to the section on portraits of Beethoven - and the contrast between those created while he was alive, and others imagined after his death. (Above: a caricature of Beethoven drawn by Anne Marie Steen Petersen, from a BRF record sleeve, viewable in the Beethovenhaus online collection.)

Look at the paintings and etchings of Beethoven as a young man from 1801 to 1806, even as a middle-aged-ish one around 1814. He looks...I don't want to say "normal", because you can detect in these images a certain bearing in his posture, a strength of character in his eyes, a person with what we'd possibly term "attitude". But certainly more "normal" than, say, the drawing above.

Was this man arrogant, aware of his own gifts, more intelligent, focused, hardworking and hot-tempered than most of those who came within his daily orbit? Perhaps: but he was, as an individual, quite believable. Then look what happens later. In the famous portrait in which he holds the manuscript of the Missa Solemnis, the cheekbones are elegant, but the scowl is strengthening; a drawing of him full-length shows him stocky and short-legged, almost a caricature. These pictures were all created before his death in 1827.

Now turn to the next section: depictions after 1827. At first they are honest, scowly, but with that distinguished bearing of confidence and assurance - an inner dignity despite all. Then they begin to change. They become more scowly still, and less controlled. The eyes seem to pop or to lower out from under heavy, gloomy brows; the stance has lost its uprightness. The attitudes begin to be wild. The artists seem to think they are depicting someone eccentric, even ghoulish. Some look downright mad.

They are, perhaps, showing Beethoven as people started to think of him as the years went by and whispers were transforming the composer posthumously from strong yet troubled soul to profound nutcase. Everything becomes exaggerated, Gothic, fit for legend, but little else. It makes headlines and encourages gossip if Beethoven is considered crazy or violent. Posterity had begun to strip him of his dignity and intellectual strength - qualities that simply shine out of those early, actual portraits.

I've seen descriptions of him as "physically ugly" time and again. But those Young Beethoven images - why? Physically ugly? No: he is strong, characterful and full of charisma. Besides, the attraction of a male musical star has never depended upon classic good looks (I've not noticed Hollywood-style matinée idols among the Beatles or the Rolling Stones or any recent pop singers, for instance...). Just because he was short and dark, that is no reason that Josephine or Julie or any other female would have failed to be magnetised by him.

Researching the 19th-century opera singer Pauline Viardot for a words&music project some years ago, I was struck by exactly the same thing: writers kept on describing her as ugly. Even today, some articles still have to harp on the idea that she was ugly. But did that matter to the writer Ivan Turgenev, who was passionately in love with her for most of his adult life? Did it hell. It is commentators, not the people themselves, who appear to believe that only a physical beauty that matches classic preconceptions (ie, tall, slender, smiley and probably blonde) can account for attraction; and some have even been known to argue that an appearance considered less than perfect must discount certain candidates from probability when we look back at their relationships. 

The passage of the years builds up layer upon layer of false "tradition", sensationalised impressions, a distortion of reality. You can sometimes hear it in music too: take the way that the historically informed performance movement has stripped away layers of false tradition in Beethoven, whose symphonies, for instance, had somehow grown heavier and slower and more and more portentous until the mid 20th century. By the 1970s, enough was enough and a whole generation of musical researchers set about returning to original sources, intending to divine the truth of the composer's intentions and the way instruments would have been played in his day. The effects were transformative and have changed, probably forever, the way we listen to his music. 

Yet now, decades on, this approach too is building up its own layers of false tradition and imposing certain mannerisms for reasons that are never adequately explained. For example, one sometimes encounters performances in which phrases that drive forward suddenly fade out towards their end. Why? I've never seen any justification for it, in any score or treatise. Just as playing slowly and portentously used to be, mannerisms of this type are now handed down from generation to generation... Musicologists of the 2050s are going to have some fun unravelling it all.  

Anyway - I shall shut up about that now and get back to work. The book is now in the hands of its editor and I am expecting to see the results from her in about a month's time. This is nerve-wracking. I know it's too long. I also know that whatever you are expecting from it, you will probably find it is something different and I hope you're not too startled.

Beethoven meets Shakespeare #1

I've spent some time considering the associations of Beethoven's D minor Piano Sonata Op. 31 No. 2 with "Der Sturm" - as referenced by the not-too-reliable Anton Schindler. In his book on the composer, whose amanuensis he briefly was, Schindler recalled asking Beethoven for the "key" to this enigmatic work and being told "Read Shakespeare's 'The Tempest'" (German: 'Der Sturm').

One has doubts, of course. Nothing with a nickname can ever be totally trusted, unfortunately, and when it's Schindler providing the basis, even less so. I was considering an alternative theory: that in fact Beethoven - assuming he said anything of this kind at all to Schindler, perhaps inaccurately remembered by the latter - had been referring to the poet Christian Christoph Sturm, whose writings he held in high regard and who often considers the wonders of nature, the place of humanity within it and the relation of both to God and the divine order, all of which seem more than pertinent to the atmosphere of this piece.

However, try reading 'Full Fathom Five' from The Tempest and remember it is sung by Ariel, the spirit of the air, and then listen to the slow movement of the D minor sonata. The beginning seems almost to serve as the introduction to a song; then the theme arrives, deep set, full fathom five down, with a high, seagull-like figure decorating the upper register and casting perspective. The harmonies become richer and stranger; and a figure appears in the bass (sometimes, also, the treble) that flickers like a drum roll, or a distant tolling bell.

Both theories actually work. Neither is strictly necessary. But they are wonderful to ponder. Enjoy.

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

                                             Ding-dong.

Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell.

Here's Ashley Wass with a fine performance. 

If you've enjoyed this post, please consider supporting IMMORTAL, my Beethoven novel due out in the autumn

Beethoven 250 kicks off in Bonn

It's never too early to start an anniversary celebration the size of Beethoven's 250th, and today at the Beethovenhaus in Bonn (which the best composer museum in the whole world, incidentally) the Universal Classics labels launched their plans for the occasion.

There's plenty to look forward to, including a new set of the symphonies performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Andris Nelsons, and a new Complete Edition involving 188 CDs, plus three Blu-ray Audio and two DVDs. A carnival of famous musical faces are on board, extending to some world premieres of works inspired by the Diabelli Variations are in the offing. Recordings old (Böhm, Kleiber, Bernstein etc) and new (Pollini, Ólafsson, Goerne) are all scrubbed up and ready to go.

The partnership with the Beethovenhaus looks inspiring, too. The museum has been closed for refurbishing - an enthusiastic plan of mine to go there a couple of weeks ago expired when I checked the website - but the newly anniversary-ready exhibition is to open on 14 September.

Meanwhile, I'm happy that for my Beethoven novel-in-the-works, Immortal, Universal has kindly donated two sets of four classic recordings each from the Decca and DG labels as pledge rewards for the crowdfunding campaign at Unbound. The first bundle has already been snapped up! One set still remains, though, and includes recordings by the Takács Quartet, Maurizio Pollini and the Vienna Philharmonic under Karl Böhm and Carlos Kleiber. And of course you get a signed copy of the book too. Find more about it here (scroll down the pledge levels to find it).

One thing is certain in these uncertain days: we are going to be hearing a heck of a lot of Beethoven between now and the end of next year: his actual 250th anniversary falls in December 2020. I'm sure there will be the usual complaints and sighs and sniping about anniversary overkill, but this time I really don't care. Beethoven is the best of the lot and we need his indomitable strength more than ever. Bring him on!

In which all paths lead to Beethoven 7

I've been reading an interesting book, which I'm reviewing for BBC Music Magazine. It's Good Music: What It Is and Who Gets to Decide, by the American academic John J Sheinbaum. Among many things it does is to articulate a shake-up in the deep-seated ways we tend to think about the music we listen to. Is the idea of "greatness" all-encompassing in our musical judgments? If so, why? Does it have to be? Do we listen to music because it is empirically "great" in some way - or because we think it is because others have judged it to be? And not to other things because they are...not? It's a chewy, academic read, but deep within the texts and analyses are some intriguing ideas and a good few home truths. It's got me thinking...


Good Music

WHAT IT IS AND WHO GETS TO DECIDE

69

JOHN J. SHEINBAUM

320 pages | 2 halftones, 25 musical examples, 8 tables | 6 x 9 | © 2019

Over the past two centuries Western culture has largely valorized a particular kind of “good” music—highly serious, wondrously deep, stylistically authentic, heroically created, and strikingly original—and, at the same time, has marginalized music that does not live up to those ideals.

In Good Music, John J. Sheinbaum explores these traditional models for valuing music. By engaging examples such as Handel oratorios, Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, jazz improvisations, Bruce Springsteen, and prog rock, he argues that metaphors of perfection do justice to neither the perceived strengths nor the assumed weaknesses of the music in question. Instead, he proposes an alternative model of appreciation where abstract notions of virtue need not dictate our understanding. Good music can, with pride, be playful rather than serious, diverse rather than unified, engaging to both body and mind, in dialogue with manifold styles and genres, and collaborative to the core. We can widen the scope of what music we value and reconsider the conventional rituals surrounding it, while retaining the joys of making music, listening closely, and caring passionately.

The same could be said of how we listen to performers. Is hero-worship the only way forward? What about collaboration? Do we have to listen to a performer only because he or she is "the best"? Is the whole idea of "greatness" a hangover from 19th-century thought processes in which the god-given gift was a cause for marvel and we had, post-Liszt, to sit in worshipful attendance?

It's good to question things. It's great. It's essential. We should never simply accept a status quo because it's a status quo - it's only by probing interrogation that we can work out what the heck is going on inside our own heads, as well as in the world around us. Then, maybe, just maybe, we can make some progress.

My starting point today, though, is Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, because it's my personal nomination for Greatest Symphony Ever. I adore its every note. And it's thought, by most and sundry, to be great...

There's a paradox to solve, meanwhile. On the one hand, if greatness is not a criterion for listening to someone or something, how do we decide what to hear? We could eliminate all the artists who indulge in individual behaviour we disapprove of. We might look, for example, for dead composers who lived a blameless life, maintaining in the 18th or 19th centuries all the standards we expect in the 21st - no extra-marital affairs, no lying or cheating, donating half your income to charity, adopting as many stray dogs as you can fit into your home, no holidays (or just non-extravagant camping), being a wonderful mum or dad or wanting to be one, supporting mild, centrishly-progressive politics, standing up heroically to extremism and enduring great torment for the sake of the Truth. Er, you get the idea. We would have very, very quiet concert halls. Though actually, we might hear some Beethoven, who had high principles and massive struggles and if he didn't always get things right, it was not for want of trying. We'd hear a lot of... his Symphony No.7 in particular because it has no political connotations and isn't programmatic and always resists any and all attempts to make it hackneyed, because it's an absolutely great piece.

That method is not much of a solution. We'd be very bored very quickly. What about performers? Here it's already not always "greatness" that determines who is heard the most, or applauded the most. Other matters often decide who gets the concerts (but let's not go there just now). If it's up to us to choose, we might pick others to listen to, for other reasons. Some of my favourite memories of piano recitals involve intimate performances of really interesting repertoire by performers known to a niche public, but little further - an all-Fauré recital by the marvellous Grant Johannesen at St John's Smith Square springs to mind, for example. I'd say that was 'great' playing. So it is about greatness, but not always greatness in the widely assumed forms.





But there's no doubt about it when you do hear a really great performance. I heard one last week - Benjamin Grosvenor playing Chopin's Piano Concerto No.1 in its chamber form, with the Doric Quartet - reviewed in The Arts Desk. And certain orchestral concerts have stayed with me for decades: Solti's Mahler 5, for instance, back in the late 1980s (mind-blowing to my student self), or Rattle conducting Debussy's La mer with the Berlin Philharmonic. And Andris Nelsons in Birmingham conducting...Beethoven's Symphony No.7.

Once you've heard such a performance, it sets the bar high. Most of us want to seek out "great" performances because of how we find ourselves responding to them. They set our blood afire, our pulse racing, our imagination spinning, our emotions atingle, and they leave us glad to be alive and thrilled that we could experience this. And if, having experienced that, you then hear something that doesn't do it, you might leave thinking "why bother?".

Do we have to apply the "why bother" scenario to repertoire too? If we did, it would be...boring. Wouldn't it? Some pieces of music I've heard so often that I literally don't mind if I don't encounter them again for 20 years (Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony tops the list, even though I adore Tchaikovsky). The notion that "greatness is everything" seems to have struck out, for far too long, composers of a second or even third rank who wrote music that is interesting, moving, worthwhile, but just not quite as good as ...Beethoven 7. Korngold's Violin Concerto wasn't performed in the UK until about 1984 and it's become a concert favourite not because it's as great as Beethoven 7 (not even I would suggest that), but because it is nevertheless beautiful and fun, violinists love playing it and audiences enjoy listening to it. Plain old enjoyment has a place.

Speaking of enjoyment, just have a look at, and listen to, what Kirill Petrenko can do with...Beethoven 7 at the great Berlin Philharmonic.



Back to Korngold for a moment. We had to be familiar with that concerto before it could catch on, not to mention dealing with the Hollywood stereotyping that worked against it for so many years. Familiarity has a huge place in what we think we know, if that doesn't sound too paradoxical - and sadly, so does prejudice ("film music is second rate", "ballet music is piffling", "Mendelssohn is too glib", etc), though few like to admit this.

Moreover, take our friend Mikolajus Čiurlionis. I went to Birmingham last Saturday to hear Mirga conduct The Sea (I haven't reviewed it because the artist Norman Perryman is a very old friend and I have one of his paintings; indeed, the background image on this blog is his doing). But I can't help noticing that apparently part of the puzzled reactions that have drifted around in that concert's wake was the unfamiliarity of this tone poem. Most people there had never heard it before. OK, so it was the UK premiere.

This Čiurlionis piece is not difficult listening, though. It's much of its time: there's a pantheistic, nature-worship side to it, a hint of Strauss in Alpine Symphony mode, a nod towards Scriabinesque grandiloquence, a whisper of Debussy, whose La mer might easily spring to mind. It's one long movement, about 35 minutes, beautifully coloured with clear, ambery orchestration, and it leaves you stirred, rather than shaken. Yet it wasn't wholly unfamiliar to me by the time I hopped on the train to Symphony Hall, because there are at least three versions of it available to listen to freely on Youtube and I'd availed myself of this. It's not impossible that that was why I didn't feel I had to concentrate on every bar, wondering what was coming next and whether or not it was a "great" piece, but instead I could simply enjoy the organic whole made by the music and painting together. I'm fond of ballet, as you know, and this is not so different. If you can watch dancing while enjoying the music, why not painting? The supposedly different mediums create one whole, a gesamtkunstwerk. So really, the notion that you can't concentrate on two things at once doesn't hold all that much sea-water.



And if it's not "great music", so what? It's a window into another corner of the musical world, a voice that is strong and pleasing. It's enjoyable, different and memorable, it broadens our experience and it makes us think. Is that not something worthwhile? Or does it have to be ...Beethoven 7 every single time? Look, you might not want to marry someone, but you can enjoy a conversation with him or her over a coffee, and even if you decide he's not your ideal date and you leave it there, you might hear something, learn something, have a laugh together. Social life would be pretty dull if you never just went for a cuppa with an occasional pal.

by Čiurlionis

The Virtual Reality exhibit in the foyer, incidentally, took things further still. It was essentially an animation of Čiurlionis's own paintings. It was tucked away in the foyer bar and it took me a while to find it, but then I had a go on it and it was gorgeous. You're absorbed into a magical world, a little bit like Nicholas Roerich's paintings, if more evanescent, even ineffable. Roerich, a mystical philosopher as well as artist, was the designer of the original Rite of Spring for Diaghilev and worked on the scenario with (or possibly for) Stravinsky, and I think he and Čiurlionis had much in common - or would have had if the unfortunate Čiurlionis had lived beyond the age of 35. Coming back to the reality of central Birmingham on a Saturday night (don't even ask) from being surrounded by fields of flowers and a boat ride along a glowing shore is a bit of a jolt. I hope this beautiful creation might be more widely available to view soon.

The natural end point of rejecting a piece of music because it's not 100% perfect is that you end up playing "Mornington Crescent" (the spoof game in the radio show I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue) with Beethoven 7. It goes like this. The Sea is not Strauss's Alpine Symphony. Why do The Sea when you can do the Alpine Symphony? But then, the Alpine Symphony is not regarded by some as a "great" work, but as an OK one by a composer who arguably did better with other pieces. Why do the Alpine Symphony when you can do Ein Heldenleben...yet again? But why do Strauss, then, when you can do Beethoven, who was greater than Strauss, the greatest of them all? Why do Ein Heldenleben when you can do...Beethoven 7?


The London Underground. Mornington Crescent is on the Northern Line (the black line) just north of the city centre.

Yes, all roads lead to Beethoven 7. And I love Beethoven 7 and I do think it's probably the best symphony ever composed. But I also have soft spots for about 3000 other pieces and would welcome, for instance, the chance to hear contemporary works like John Adams's Harmonielehre more often, let alone an occasional work by César Franck, André Messager or Lowell Liebermann - for any of which, guess where you mostly have to go? The ballet. (This season the Royal Ballet is doing both The Two Pigeons and Frankenstein, so you can hear Messager and Liebermann within a few weeks of each other.)

If you prefer to end every journey at Mornington Crescent, then by all means do - but now and then it really doesn't hurt to get off the train at Kennington instead and explore south of the river. If we only listened to the familiar and the "great", then we'd never hear anything we hadn't heard it before - and without new music, or indeed music that is new to us, the art form would just dry up and die. That Mornington Crescent lark could be fatal.