Showing posts with label Stravinsky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stravinsky. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Cathedrals of Sound - a Jack Pepper guest post

Our Youth Correspondent, Jack Pepper - who now presents his own show, Musical Minds, on Resonance FM - has a new article to get our grey matter working overtime on a Tuesday morning. Enjoy! JD


Cathedrals of Sound

Yes, music is majestic. But there is danger in the deification of the great composers. Putting writers on a pedestal serves only to detract from the music and alienate potential audiences, argues Jack Pepper


Music has an immense potency, striking the very core of our being. There is nothing like the thrill of music. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves; we know that Bach’s structures are finely crafted, and that Beethoven’s innovations dragged music through a new age. But proficiency, innovation and craftmanship do not negate the fundamental factor that links all of the great composers: their humanity.

Mendelssohn: Bach's prophet? Berlioz thought so...
Bruckner’s music has been described as forming “cathedrals of sound”.  Robert Browning argued that “the grandeur of Beethoven’s thirty-second piano sonata represents the opening of the gates of heaven.” Berlioz believed that “there is only one god – Bach – and Mendelssohn is his prophet.” Whether these statements merely sought to emphasise the importance of such composers in the history of music, or instead arose out of a genuine conviction that these composers were linked with a higher power, the common allusion to God raises an interesting question.

It is curious that we still apply such religious analogies to past composers today, given the noticeable decline in religious belief in comparison to the 19th century, in which these quotes occurred. 
Although these quotations come from a notably different context to our own, we tend to perpetuate these viewpoints. The times have changed, and yet our inability to express admiration for a composer without recourse to quasi-religious language remains. It is (paradoxically) reductive for us to compare a composer with a higher power; it is their humanity that makes them special, the fact that a human could create such awe-inspiring works. When confronted with a masterpiece, we seem unable to accept that its creator was a human being.

Let us explore the opposite instance for a moment. When confronted with acts of evil, perhaps what shocks us most is that the perpetrators were human beings. Hitler’s favourite Wagner opera was Lohengrin. Hitler, whether we like the fact or not, was a human being; that is what makes his crimes so shocking. Yet, like so many significant figures in history, he has become a symbol, an academic discussion, a book title. It seems that the inevitable accumulation of books, essays and broadcasts have transported historical figures into the realm of the mythical.

Perhaps this is a natural consequence of history. When a significant figure dies, studies, books, lectures and documentaries are inevitable, and yet we run the risk of over-analysis; reading about a composer, talking about a piece of music, perhaps we forget that – one day in the past – this was a real, breathing human being, whether we like it or not.

I raise this question because the deification of composers – the placing of great music and musicians on a pedestal – could be a significant barrier to new listeners. As a young composer, I’m determined to share my love of classical music to a wider audience, and yet – as someone who already loves and actively explores the repertoire – it is all too easy to forget that classical music is intimidating to a new listener. With centuries of music - where even a single year contained so much musical variety, indeed where even a single composer evolved through many different styles - it is easy for classical musicians to forget that the ‘canon’ can be a little daunting. By emphasising the other-worldly qualities of a master composer, we overlook their humanity – forgetting that they were just like us – and this may create a sense of detachment. This detachment surely promotes the false assumption that classical music is ‘old’ music, rather than a living and breathing art.

Stravinsky: People should be taught to love music
Photo from Wikipedia
Presenting ‘Musical Minds’ on Resonance FM, I have been eager to explore the anecdotal lives of great composers, emphasising the humanity and reality that binds all musicians together. In the same way I may struggle to be inspired for a piece of music one morning, so too past composers – far more accomplished than I will ever be – encountered similar difficulties when writing. Deifying past writers makes us forget that they encountered the same challenges, emotions and thoughts that we do today. It makes us forget that their music is a response to many of the issues and emotions that we face too. It makes music seem irrelevant when it is anything but.

This means deification of the great composers won’t help classical music engage new audiences. Linking composers to a higher power can’t help but create an image of classical music as somehow lofty, distant and entirely cerebral. Whilst classical music is undoubtedly an ‘intellectual’ art form as well as a form of entertainment – works require repeated listening for a better understanding of their material – we should be wary of shaping the genre into some form of relic veneration, a cult or clique that worships at the altar of those who achieved what we can only marvel at. By likening composers to gods, and by neglecting the fact that even the greats could write bad music, we neglect the very thing that makes this music so impressive, so beautiful, so striking: the fact that it was written by humans.

We live in a world that frequently (and perhaps rightly) dwells on the negative. The news shows conflict, poverty and injustice. However, the world is also full of good. The world is full of musicians who visit care homes, of orchestras who run workshops with the local community, of instrumentalists who visit schools and inspire a love of music in others. The great composers were no less human than any of these modern-day musical heroes. In both past and present, composers have been trying to express important truths, be they personal, emotional, political or global. But high intentions and impressive masterpieces should not distract us from their humanity, the fact that these composers were all human beings like us. Musical masterpieces are a product of humanity; this is something we should be proud of. It is a medal for humankind. Equally, by emphasising the humanity of past composers, we remind new audiences that classical music is merely another form of expression, much the same in intention and origin as great artworks, pop songs and architecture. It is not intimidating. It is a real, human, living, breathing form of expression. An expression of humanity.

Marvel at the “cathedrals of sound” – analyse them, relax to them, read about them, talk about them - but do not forget that a human was behind it. The fact that humans are the creators of music is what makes it so special, so expressive. The human experience behind such music is surely what makes it speak to us? Deifying past masters only serves to reduce this power of their music by distancing the creators from our own lives, making them increasingly irrelevant and archaic at a time when we need their life-giving music more than ever.


Stravinsky would likely agree. He said that “the trouble with music appreciation in general is that people are taught to have too much respect for music; they should be taught to love it instead.” Music is emotional, as well as cerebral, and so we should not reduce composers to mere objects of intellectual worship. Music is mind and body.

Saturday, May 14, 2016

Igor blimey: going digital with the Philharmonia and Stravinsky

The Philharmonia goes virtual...
Self-confessed technology junkie Esa-Pekka Salonen has brought the benefits of his digital enthusiasms to his orchestra, the Philharmonia. Ahead of their new series devoted lock, stock and much flaming percussion to Stravinsky, I had a wonderful chat with him and with the Philharmonia's head of digital, Luke Ritchie, about the composer and how the orchestra has been using adventurous technological projects to attract new audiences, from virtual reality to a very lively website with a specially filmed documentary. Out now at the Independent. 

Stravinsky: Myths and Rituals is at the RFH from tomorrow.

Friday, March 28, 2014

No organisation for Stravinsky?

It's the strange case of the missing Rite of Spring.

The launch of the Royal Festival Hall's newly refurbished organ has been dominating the Southbank Centre all this week, with a no-holds-barred festival called Pull Out All The Stops. My old friend and colleague Clare Stevens was at the recital by the distinguished French organist Olivier Latry last night and she reports on an incident that has implications far beyond the sound of the mighty "king of the instruments". 

Latry had planned to play a transcription of The Rite of Spring, apparently originating in the composer's own version for two pianos, four hands, but the programme was changed to Widor's Fifth Symphony. What happened?


Clare says: "In addition to referring to his disappointment in very strong terms in his pre-concert talk, Latry read a prepared and clearly very impassioned statement at the start of the second half apologising to the audience especially those who had booked tickets in order to hear the Rite, and explaining that Stravinsky's publishers had withheld permission, on the grounds that it would be an infringement of Stravinsky's intellectual property to play it. Apparently it is OK to play it in the US where the publishers' writ doesn't run. Latry added that he still hoped to be able to come back and play it at the RFH one day, if the rules change."

As a TV presenter once said to a tattoo artist, where do you draw the line? On the one hand, it is vitally important to uphold those laws; otherwise it is artists/creatives who lose out. On the other hand, it would also be nice to think there could be some two-way traffic and that an arrangement could be reached whereby an artist as stupendous as Latry could indeed be heard performing a work like Rite, especially for such a special occasion (apart from anything else, imagine all the work he must have put into learning the thing). Where dedication and tribute is surely a motivation, in the context of the very top level of the world's organs and organists, shouldn't the situation be rather different from the more widespread acts of piracy, cheating and unauthorised exploitation? But meanwhile this Rite - with a certain irony - had to be sacrificed.

The organ festival - which runs til June - continues this weekend with Cameron Carpenter (yes, that guy) improvising a live sound-track to the 1920s German Expressionist film classic The Cabinet of Dr Caligari tomorrow night, plus fun and games all around the centre including free taster organ lessons. Check it out here.


Thursday, June 20, 2013

"Rhythm is everything": how Stravinsky himself choreographed the Rite


Before you ditch the Rite of Spring centenary for overkill, please read this utterly fascinating essay by Robert Craft from the Times Literary Supplement.

"Rhythm is everything," Stravinsky wrote on his score. "Where there is rhythm, there is music..." His descriptions of exactly how he wants the dancers to count would probably cause some crossed pointe shoes, though.

Craft, the composer's amanuensis, records the inception of the ballet and its Lithuanian influences, especially the work of Ciurlionis; the vital input of the artist Nicholas Roerich; and Stravinsky's own plans for its choreography, in minute detail. (It also sheds some intriguing light on the great Russian's sexuality, which in turn casts unexpected illumination on his relationship with Diaghilev, and may possibly disillusion fans of Igor and Coco...)
'Moving to his piano, Stravinsky opened a copy of The Rite and played a few passages. Suddenly, in the “Augurs of Spring”, he stopped playing to criticize the music, remarking that “the really innovative element is the accents”, and “the upper parts are good enough and the bass is acceptable, but I could have found something more interesting in the middle”. His final remark, as he flicked through the rest of the score, is unforgettable: “There are good things in this, but also many pages that do not interest me at all”. This is the man who on the first day I met him said, “Music is the greatest means we have of digesting time”.'
Read the whole thing here.  Craft's new book, Stravinksy: Discoveries and Memories, was published last month.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

The Rite shares its birthday with....



Above, part of the first reconstruction, by the Joffrey Ballet, of the original Rite, choreographed by Nijinsky, designed by Roerich. And here, my article from The Independent (published 12 Feb) telling the story of that first night.

And... today is also Korngold's birthday. He turned 16 on the day the Stravinsky first hit the stage. He was quite a fan of Stravinsky, as it happens - there's a lovely story about when he went to hear Petrouchka and applauded and his father, the music critic Julius Korngold, tried to stop him. The young composer's response to the Rite furore either isn't recorded or hasn't reached my eyes/ears yet. One imagines the ballet might have caused Julius's blood pressure some problems.

It would be so interesting, on the one hand, to rewind the clock, air-lift Julius Korngold out of Erich Wolfgang's personal equation, let the lad study with Schoenberg and hang out with the avant-garde crowd and see how he ended up writing... But on the other hand, if he had done that, would he have come into contact at the crucial moment with Max Reinhardt? It was thanks to Reinhardt that he first went to Hollywood in 1934. He might not have escaped otherwise.

Anyhow, an actual staging of Das Wunder der Heliane has turned up on the Internet, so here is Act I. It's from Brno, with a setting that makes vivid reference to the fact that the opera shared its own year of birth with Fritz Lang's Metropolis. It is conducted by Peter Feranec and directed by Johannes Reitmeier. The second part is available to view on Youtube as well.



Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Reflecting on the Rite


It won't have escaped the notice of canny JDCMB fans that 2013 marks the 100th anniversary of Stravinsky's seismic ballet score, Le sacre du printemps, or The Rite of Spring.

A special website has been set up for the occasion by the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill: https://www.theriteofspringat100.org/ One section is 'Spring Encounters: Reflections on the Rite', and for this Will Robin asked me to contribute a post about my own relationship with the music.

It so happens that the ballet score inadvertently inspired my first novel, which was called, er, Rites of Spring. (Book plug: paperback here, Kindle edition here.) So I wrote about how and why, and what it tells us about the ballet, the music and life today. Here's the link to the piece.

https://www.theriteofspringat100.org/reflection/spring-encounters-jessica-duchen/

Friday, November 16, 2012

Who is this Petrushka anyway?


Puppet or dancer? Entertainer or symbol? If the latter, symbol of what? The premiere of the multi-media Petrushka in Wimbledon the other night, which I previewed here, was an evening to remember.

For pianist Mikhail Rudy it's the culmination of years of dreaming and planning. It began when he took Stravinsky's own Three Dances from Petrushka (piano arrangements made for Rubinstein, who never played them, apparently - too difficult, the story goes...) and set about transcribing the rest of the complete ballet score himself, with lurking visions of what could one day be done with it in terms of visual interpretation. Micha writes of a childhood impression of a puppet show:
"I could tell that behind the curtain there was an unsettling human form, which made my heart thump. I called him The Great Puppeteer. Invested with an extraordinary power, he was able to breathe life into his creations, to make them dance and laugh, or fall in love, but, at his least whim, he could melt them down at will into a spoon, like a character from Peer Gynt, or cut off their heads as if they were poor Petrushka. I was hypnotized by his limitless power, and I identified with his creatures. Were my emotions real or imaginary? I'm still looking for the answer."
"In the little theatre where the drama of Petrushka and the Ballerina is played out, one piece of wood – the piano – brings to life other pieces of wood, at the behest of a magician in a black suit. Perhaps one should play Petrushka in a top hat, surrounded by white rabbits and ladies sawn in half whose reflections keep on multiplying in mirrors… The piano giving the illusion of an orchestra, which in turn gives the illusion of marionettes, who in turn make us believe in human feelings."
Now, realised as a multi-media film by IWMF director Anthony Wilkinson, with dancers from Rambert and Matthew Bourne's New Adventures and absolutely mesmerising puppetry from the Little Angel Theatre, the Petrushka project presents Micha with an almighty challenge: playing this plethora of colourful fairground activity, inner anguish, mechanistic irony and mystical symbolism is quite tough enough without having to coordinate one's every movement with a movie. The result? It works its magic from first snowflake-drenched moment to last.

The puppeteer sees his own impish, teasing, rebellious creation achieve acrobatic wonders, undergo very human suffering, and ultimately elude him altogether. The poor puppet's head is unscrewed, his sawdust emptied on the ground, his carcas left in a cardboard box - only to reappear beyond grasp, argumentative as ever, a spirit in his own right that can never be destroyed.

Micha is aligned at once with the puppeteer/magician, wearing the turquoise and gold cloak of the character throughout his performance (but no top hat, rabbits or sawn-in-two females...). The pianist is the puppeteer; the piano is the puppet. And it escapes. The spirit of art and of creativity is something we think is ours and that we can control. But maybe, instead, it is this spirit that comes to control us. It's more than we think it is: independent, elusive, immutable.

Despite a lifetime of familiarity with Petrushka's music, story, choreography and concept, this dazzling mingling of artforms in a quiet Wimbledon sidestreet was the first time the work truly made sense to me at its deeper level. Bravo Micha, bravo Anthony and bravi bravissimi Little Angels.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

No word from Tom...

No word from Tom... he has been sent to perdition by the devil in disguise.



"Love hears, Love knows, Love answers him across the silent miles and goes..."

But as Scottish Opera stages The Rake's Progress for the first time in 40 years (opening night was yesterday), I had a bit of a ponder about why operatic rakes are so damned irresistible. Short version in The Independent the other day. Full-length director's cut below.



Things do not look good for Anne Truelove. “No word from Tom,” she sings, while her beloved vanishes to London, led astray by the sinister Nick Shadow. That is just the start of her problems. Stravinsky’s neoclassical masterpiece, The Rake’s Progress, concludes with a heartbreaking scene in which Anne sings her Tom a lullaby as he dies by inches in the lunatic asylum of Bedlam.

What does Anne see in this wastrel anyway? David McVicar’s new production for Scottish Opera – the company’s first staging of the work for 40 years – will no doubt offer insights of its own. But in general, women in operas do love their rakes too much. And so do we. From Monteverdi’s Renaissance glories onwards, through centuries of operatic drama, it’s not the devil who gets the best tunes: it’s the cads, the bounders, the nogoodniks. 

They cause heartbreak at best, multiple deaths at worst. Some redeem themselves musically, like Monteverdi’s Nero in L’incoronazione di Poppea. Having murdered and executed in order to secure a throne for his mistress, he finally sings with her such a heavenly duet that we forgive them everything.

Others get their come-uppance. Mozart’s Don Giovanni is dragged away to hell by a ghost, and good riddance to him. Puccini’s Lieutenant Pinkerton has to witness the suicide of his former beloved, Madame Butterfly. Perhaps we enjoy their punishments vicariously, for in real life there is usually no such satisfaction, unless it lies in watching news reports of the fall of Silvio Berlusconi. 

But even in opera it doesn’t always happen. The Duke of Mantua in Rigoletto is awarded one of Verdi’s most memorable melodies – and he gets away with everything, blithely unaware that the heroine has given her life to save his, while he sashays on towards his next victim. Typical tenor, some would say.

Yes, the good guys are left standing while the rakes loop the loop around our hearts. Don Ottavio, the kind, upstanding fiancé of Donna Anna and possessor of a pair of fine arias, is a wimp of the first order beside Don Giovanni and his sidekick Leporello; he is way too nice to be interesting.

Tom Rakewell manages to remain hero rather than villain, since his fate is not really his fault: Nick Shadow – the devil in disguise – has planned it all. Tom’s decline and fall is not punishment, but tragedy. His secret is nevertheless quite clear. He is that great operatic rarity, a well-rounded character.
That may explain the appeal of those stage rakes: we see more sides of them, especially their human frailties, and perhaps that inspires their composers to greater heights than a bland, single-facet ‘hero’ could. 

Wotan of Wagner’s Ring Cycle is the ultimate example. If it were not for his philandering and the punishment meted out for it in Die Walküre by his wife, the rest of the saga would not happen at all.
Wotan is the most fascinating figure of the Ring, his tortured self-questioning making him more human than superhuman. His anguished farewell to his daughter as he puts her to sleep in a circle of fire is, IMHO, the most beautiful passage in all four operas. Meanwhile, Siegfried, touted as a great hero, is a brawny dolt whom it is hard to empathise with, let alone like.

But in the end, this is all about human nature. Many are the women who have fallen for the irresistible rogue rather than his sensible brother with a faithful heart and a proper job. It’s always been that way and probably always will; and if opera reflects this, that makes it all the more true to life. 

Bring on the Rake, then – and the great music that goes with him.

The Rake’s Progress, Scottish Opera, opens at the Theatre Royal, Glasgow, on 17 March.  Box office: 0844 871 7677