It's been a good year for me work-wise, though I touch every piece of wood in sight as I write this. First, I'm back in a national paper (Indy) on a regular basis after a break of several years since Guardian days. Now I'm back reviewing CDs for BBC Music Magazine after a break of around 2 years, following the magazine's recent office move and staff changes. As a freelancer, one is extremely dependent on the personal taste of whoever happens to be in charge at the editorial level - it's a rare blessing when this actually works for one, instead of against!
They've sent me a CD of Schumann piano music, the Etudes Symphonique and the Fantasie Op.17, and I have to write a 'benchmark' review - ie, compare this one to 'the best recording currently available'. Apart from the obvious thought - omygod, not another disc of Schumann, can't he do something more original? - this presents the dilemma that there are so many fine recordings of these piece already that picking 'the best' is an uncomfortable task. For Schumann generally, I tend to gravitate to ancient jobs like Cortot - I don't believe anybody has ever played this music with such profound understanding as he did. But given crackles and wrong notes, this may not qualify as 'the best' for such an occasion. For the Fantasie, arch-rival Gramophone gives Richter as their Recommended Recording - but then, they also recommend Bostridge in Dichterliebe, which I find very hard to swallow (come on, guys, haven't you ever heard Fischer-Dieskau accompanied by Eschenbach?), so I'm dubious about trusting this.
It's interesting to see that on the Amazon.co.uk list that responds to my 'Schumann Etudes Symphoniques' search (total: 74 recordings), sorted according to best-sellers, dead pianists feature as much, if not more than, living ones. Incredibly, Gieseking seems to be their No.1 seller. Then Pletnev, Ashkenazy and, good heavens, Moiseiwitsch; followed by Wilhelm Kempff and Cortot before Pogorelich with his pretty-boy photo from decades back. And so it goes on.
So, do I plump for personal favourite Cortot or should I plough through a dozen Good Contemporary Bets (Pletnev is just too idiosyncratic for me, by the way) before finding someone to compare this new, unfortunate, unsuspecting pianist to? Well, I have to give a concert myself tomorrow... so maybe I'll worry about it once that's over... Meanwhile, anybody got any more personal top choices for CDs of these pieces?
Saturday, November 13, 2004
Friday, November 12, 2004
Yo Sufi
Went to the South Bank last night with a friend who is investigating Sufi music. We had a Japanese feast at Yo Sushi (we turned it into Yo Sufi for the occasion!), which is near the London Eye and jolly nice, and then settled into the Queen Elizabeth Hall for the Whirling Dervishes of Turkey.
They didn't so much whirl as twirl, rather gently. Five men in long cream-coloured robes and tall fezes. They went round and round and round and round and round, arms gently raised, heads leaning to one side, eyes closed, while a four-piece group played intricate and meditative music full of quarter-tones on beautiful instruments that bore strong resemblances to Renaissance lute, recorder and viol (mini model). Unfortuantely there were no programmes for the occasion, and I think this was a major ommission. My friend and I remained completely in the dark about a) what the instruments are called, b) what the music signified, c) to what end the dervishes twirl, if any, d) the history of this tradition and e) how on earth they manage not to get dizzy. I tried it when I got home and lasted about 25 seconds before nearly falling over.
The following will not sound tremendously politically correct, but after a while I couldn't help wondering quite what we were doing there (we weren't the only ones in the half-full hall who sloped off home at the interval). Sure, it's impressive and the music is different and fascinating in its own way. But thinking back a number of years to my days sub-editing on Southbank Magazine, which is a marketing tool and diary for the SBC, produced by the BBC, I was reminded of the way in which these types of evening were pushed rather at the expense of classical concerts. Classical wasn't cool and trendy enough - if they could have a picture of someone in a bright ethnic costume on the front cover, even Helene Grimaud wouldn't have stood a chance. A piano? Oh dear me... And these decisions were made by the centre, not by the editors. One reason I gently divorced myself from Southbank was the fact that the line we had to take - not so much politically correct as culturally correct - got up my nose to the point of inducing real depression. Now, I LIKE much of this stuff! I'm all for it! I loved talking to the world-musicy people I had to interview while I was there. I think the rise of world music is one of the most exciting cultural developments of the last decade or two - and it beats the hell out of mass-produced pop. But I don't see why classical music has to be 'positively' marginalised because of it.
Hopefully my friend found the evening useful. This morning I am operating in ever-decreasing circles.
They didn't so much whirl as twirl, rather gently. Five men in long cream-coloured robes and tall fezes. They went round and round and round and round and round, arms gently raised, heads leaning to one side, eyes closed, while a four-piece group played intricate and meditative music full of quarter-tones on beautiful instruments that bore strong resemblances to Renaissance lute, recorder and viol (mini model). Unfortuantely there were no programmes for the occasion, and I think this was a major ommission. My friend and I remained completely in the dark about a) what the instruments are called, b) what the music signified, c) to what end the dervishes twirl, if any, d) the history of this tradition and e) how on earth they manage not to get dizzy. I tried it when I got home and lasted about 25 seconds before nearly falling over.
The following will not sound tremendously politically correct, but after a while I couldn't help wondering quite what we were doing there (we weren't the only ones in the half-full hall who sloped off home at the interval). Sure, it's impressive and the music is different and fascinating in its own way. But thinking back a number of years to my days sub-editing on Southbank Magazine, which is a marketing tool and diary for the SBC, produced by the BBC, I was reminded of the way in which these types of evening were pushed rather at the expense of classical concerts. Classical wasn't cool and trendy enough - if they could have a picture of someone in a bright ethnic costume on the front cover, even Helene Grimaud wouldn't have stood a chance. A piano? Oh dear me... And these decisions were made by the centre, not by the editors. One reason I gently divorced myself from Southbank was the fact that the line we had to take - not so much politically correct as culturally correct - got up my nose to the point of inducing real depression. Now, I LIKE much of this stuff! I'm all for it! I loved talking to the world-musicy people I had to interview while I was there. I think the rise of world music is one of the most exciting cultural developments of the last decade or two - and it beats the hell out of mass-produced pop. But I don't see why classical music has to be 'positively' marginalised because of it.
Hopefully my friend found the evening useful. This morning I am operating in ever-decreasing circles.
Monday, November 08, 2004
In today's Independent...
...is my latest article, about the pressures facing todays' bevy of young conductors. This was great fun to write, though what appears in the paper is the tip of a major interviewing iceberg - I had wonderful long talks with Ilan Volkov, Semyon Bychkov, Christophe Mangou, Hugh MacDonald and Patrick Harrild but could only use a few choice bits from each.
If I had to pick a favourite from these interviews, it would be Bychkov. He's in his 50s and was able to cast perspective in a way that the twenty-somethings generally can't. He said that one professor in the Leningrad Conservatory told the class that they shouldn't touch Mozart's Symphony No.40 until they were 50. Bychkov put up his hand and said, 'What if I don't live to be 50?'
He also has a WONDERFUL Russian accent.
He will be performing with the WDR Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall on 1 December and as I can't resist Russian accents, I think I shall be there.
If I had to pick a favourite from these interviews, it would be Bychkov. He's in his 50s and was able to cast perspective in a way that the twenty-somethings generally can't. He said that one professor in the Leningrad Conservatory told the class that they shouldn't touch Mozart's Symphony No.40 until they were 50. Bychkov put up his hand and said, 'What if I don't live to be 50?'
He also has a WONDERFUL Russian accent.
He will be performing with the WDR Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall on 1 December and as I can't resist Russian accents, I think I shall be there.
Sunday, November 07, 2004
Hooray for analysis
Several music bloggers have been posting recently about the relative merits of different approaches to musical analysis: 'impressionistic' writing versus heavily technical. Interesting viewpoints from Helen, Steve Hicken and AC Douglas.
At university in the mid-80s I had my fair share of the second kind and found it really rather thrilling. Especially Schenker. When Schenker is well explained and sensitively applied, he can help to shed tremendous new light on pieces that one thought one knew backwards. My most inspiring encounter with Schenkerian thinking was when I listened to Murray Perahia giving piano masterclasses in which he used a Schenkerian approach to transform his students' performances and also his observers' ears. For instance, he demonstrated how the whole first movement of Schumann's piano concerto springs from the conflict engendered by the semitone that opens the piano's first flourish. I began to think I'd never truly heard this most familiar of works before.
Fast-forward to yesterday. I've been slogging away at the piano on the Faure A major violin sonata (just a week to go before the performance) and yesterday I found something in it that I've never noticed before, despite months of practising and years of passionate listening. But a few little notes buried deep inside the music suddenly reminded me of something else. It set off a new train of thought...I toothcombed my way through the whole sonata...and I think it really does say what I think it says. This tiny motif, and what Faure does with it, carries messages that tally perfectly with his character - he had a very naughty, subversive streak - and with the timing and reasons for this piece's creation. And in the context of other influential music of the day, it simultaneously pays tribute and 'cocks a snook', which is fairly typical of Monsieur Gabriel as I know him. Tom thinks I've gone out of my mind, which is usually a sure sign that I'm onto something, so I intend to investigate further.
One thing that I'm certain of: a purely impressionistic approach won't work if I want to prove this point. These days I don't enjoy wading through pages of academic theory any more than I enjoy eating cardboard, but sometimes one has to resort to it because it's the only way to get at the next level of meaningful information - a level that would otherwise remain hidden forever.
At university in the mid-80s I had my fair share of the second kind and found it really rather thrilling. Especially Schenker. When Schenker is well explained and sensitively applied, he can help to shed tremendous new light on pieces that one thought one knew backwards. My most inspiring encounter with Schenkerian thinking was when I listened to Murray Perahia giving piano masterclasses in which he used a Schenkerian approach to transform his students' performances and also his observers' ears. For instance, he demonstrated how the whole first movement of Schumann's piano concerto springs from the conflict engendered by the semitone that opens the piano's first flourish. I began to think I'd never truly heard this most familiar of works before.
Fast-forward to yesterday. I've been slogging away at the piano on the Faure A major violin sonata (just a week to go before the performance) and yesterday I found something in it that I've never noticed before, despite months of practising and years of passionate listening. But a few little notes buried deep inside the music suddenly reminded me of something else. It set off a new train of thought...I toothcombed my way through the whole sonata...and I think it really does say what I think it says. This tiny motif, and what Faure does with it, carries messages that tally perfectly with his character - he had a very naughty, subversive streak - and with the timing and reasons for this piece's creation. And in the context of other influential music of the day, it simultaneously pays tribute and 'cocks a snook', which is fairly typical of Monsieur Gabriel as I know him. Tom thinks I've gone out of my mind, which is usually a sure sign that I'm onto something, so I intend to investigate further.
One thing that I'm certain of: a purely impressionistic approach won't work if I want to prove this point. These days I don't enjoy wading through pages of academic theory any more than I enjoy eating cardboard, but sometimes one has to resort to it because it's the only way to get at the next level of meaningful information - a level that would otherwise remain hidden forever.
Saturday, November 06, 2004
Avie is online
Newest addition to sidebar is Avie Records, which now has its website ready to roll. Avie, run by long-time record industry pros Simon Foster and Melanne Mueller, it's a record company on a different model from the usual: as the website explains, it is 'turning the traditional musician / record company relationship on its head. Avie operates the label for and on behalf of the musicians who retain ownership of their recordings, acting as an umbrella for a number of musical organisations and individual artists.' But that doesn't mean they produce all and sundry - anything but. There is more discernment and clever thinking here than in many labels that have been established for much longer.
Avie is enabling the recording and release of some very special CDs which traditional major labels might hesitate to produce. Proof of its success is its first Gramophone award, for Phantasm's CD of Orlando Gibbons on viol consort. Among other favourites of mine are Andreas Haefliger's beautiful, reflective and powerful piano recital entitled 'Perspectives 1', Enescu's Piano Suites played by the exceptional young Romanian pianist Luiza Borac on two discs, and of course Philippe Graffin's Coleridge-Taylor and Dvorak Violin Concertos with the Johannesburg Philharmonic (OK, so I did the booklet notes, yeah, yeah, yeah... but it's a great record and I'm proud to be associated with it, so I make no apology for pushing it here). Keep up the good work, guys.
UPDATE, SUNDAY MORNING: Also new to cyberspace is Lisa Hirsch's classical music blog, Iron Tongue of Midnight. Ms Hirsch - she of the Bay Area bagel offer! - launches online with a plea for orchestral musicians to smile while they work. We've already had a very bloggish argy-bargy in her comments box as I've put her straight on exactly why they can't do so while trying to keep their places in John Adams... Looking forward to lots more provocative points of view, Lisa!
Avie is enabling the recording and release of some very special CDs which traditional major labels might hesitate to produce. Proof of its success is its first Gramophone award, for Phantasm's CD of Orlando Gibbons on viol consort. Among other favourites of mine are Andreas Haefliger's beautiful, reflective and powerful piano recital entitled 'Perspectives 1', Enescu's Piano Suites played by the exceptional young Romanian pianist Luiza Borac on two discs, and of course Philippe Graffin's Coleridge-Taylor and Dvorak Violin Concertos with the Johannesburg Philharmonic (OK, so I did the booklet notes, yeah, yeah, yeah... but it's a great record and I'm proud to be associated with it, so I make no apology for pushing it here). Keep up the good work, guys.
UPDATE, SUNDAY MORNING: Also new to cyberspace is Lisa Hirsch's classical music blog, Iron Tongue of Midnight. Ms Hirsch - she of the Bay Area bagel offer! - launches online with a plea for orchestral musicians to smile while they work. We've already had a very bloggish argy-bargy in her comments box as I've put her straight on exactly why they can't do so while trying to keep their places in John Adams... Looking forward to lots more provocative points of view, Lisa!
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