WAM!

Mozart year is coming up fast and I've written an article for the Indy about why it's all a bit much (will post when printed). But in the meantime, Tom and I have been indulging in the sort of idiotically privileged activity in which a childless couple of musos with time off at Christmas can enjoy indulging. We found a volume of Mozart violin & piano sonatas (NB, technically piano & violin sonatas) lurking in the music cupboard. Tom said "I don't really know these." I'd only played a couple before, at university, which is longer ago than I care to remember. So Tom, being a little German sometimes, decided we should be systematic and play one per day throughout the Xmas break.

I've quickly discovered several crucial things about these pieces.

1. They're not boring. They're absolutely astonishing. No.1, which I'd thought was nothing more than a sweet, jolly little number, is full of genius. Mozart's chromaticism, especially, is simply incredible. There's warmth, wit, flow, perfection. At least, there should be if one isn't sightreading... Which leads me on to:

2. They are Bloody Difficult. No.3 in D major, or part of it, has recently been orchestrated - Dan Hope and Sebastian Knauer recorded it with Norrington as a concerto for violin and piano - and having just bashed through the A major concerto K488, to see whether I could, I can vouch for the fact that this violin sonata's piano part is much harder to play!

3. The ensemble between violin and piano is much more intricate, demanding and subtle than that required in Franck & co. Numerous passages involving playing runs together in thirds or in unison; occasional written out trills in unison; all kinds of tricks in which Wolfi just wants to have fun trapping you!

4. The only reason one sometimes expects Mozart violin sonatas to be 'boring' is that a lot of violinists play them as if they ought to be - without enough spirit. There's so much by way of detail, humour and sheer 'temperament' in them that to approach them with undue reverence, or with the aim simply of getting 'authentic' articulation 'right', will not satisfactorily convey what they're about. A great many players today either lack the imagination or are too intimidated by scholarship and correctness, political or otherwise, to let themselves go, apply heart as well as brain and get to the core of the music. Mozart without heart isn't Mozart.

Today we'll be having a go at No.4 in E minor.

ADDENDUM, 21 December: Have just discovered an alternative viewpoint on Mozart by Norman Lebrecht, who I suspect has been having fun by being excessively provocative. I have just three things to say in response: 1. I LIKE Mozart and I don't WANT to listen to the Leningrad Symphony instead just because it's "historically important". We don't listen to music because it's historically important. We listen because we love it. 2. You wouldn't write a thing like this if you were a musician yourself and knew the music and its inner complexities from the inside. The inimitable Norman is a news journalist. 3. Slag off the Mozart industry, by all means. But please don't slag off Mozart.

Meet Sally Matthews

Sally Matthews
Originally uploaded by Duchenj.

Apologies for lack of blog posts this week...it took a little time to recover from this particular birthday, never mind the associated hangover.

Having introduced one of the finest young pianists on the planet a few posts back, I'd now like to introduce one of the great sopranos of the century ahead. Sally Matthews sang Mahler 4 with the LPO yesterday (and is doing so again even as I write). She's been through some of the finest Young Artists schemes in the UK, including the Royal Opera House's, and was a huge hit in Gianni Schicchi at Glyndebourne last year. She tends to receive rave reviews wherever she goes and I think she's not yet out of her twenties. Last night was a prime example of why she is already so celebrated and why I reckon she will be even more so in ten years' time.

The voice is dark for a soprano - the richest vanilla ice cream swirled with dessert wine - and the clarity of the enunciation is exceptional. My German isn't brilliant, but I could hear the text and comprehend it quite well without even glancing at the words in the programme (I don't know this exquisite symphony intimately enough). Most magical of all, although her tone can be bright, large and glorious, were the soft passages: for a singer to create such absolute magic at PP level, while retaining all that beauty of tone and clarity of diction, is something special, unusual and marvellous. Given Sally's range and the richly romantic hue of her tone, I suspect that in a decade, or maybe sooner depending on her stamina and inclination, she might be Korngold's ideal Marietta...

The photo above is downloaded from her website.

It was just as well that Sally sang last night...Tom has threatened to have me assassinated if I say what I really thought about the conductor and the first half's piano soloist. Suffice it to say that there's a very, very kind review here, at Classical Souce.com.

Oy

It's my birthday. Solti the cat brought me not one mouse but two. I don't understand how that cat just knows. Please excuse me for a day or two while I go and have a quick midlife crisis.

Huge explosions early this morning at an oil refinery at Hemel Hempstead, north of London, that supplies Heathrow Airport et al. We live probably 40 miles away, but there's smoke in the sky. They're saying it's "an accident". Not sure anybody believes it.

Bad marks no.2

Was watching BBC Breakfast news today when in clocked a trailer. A woman walks along past Christmas decorations carrying huge bags of parcels, wearing headphones. We hear: the theme of the Goldberg Variations. Gradually the scenery around her fades away and she is walking through a pine forest, the sun filtering between the branches. What are they advertising? Glenn Gould? Canada? In comes the voice-over: "Escape to bok." Sorry, to where? Is this a travel programme about a little-known Indonesian mountain resort, perhaps? ...Oh...woops...It's Radio 3's BACH week. But you would never know it because the BBC voice-over can't pronounce Bach properly. Very bad A level grades: B.B.C...

Shameful.

UPDATE, 6.50pm: Would everyone who has written in to tell me I'm a snob please note the following:

1. I know.

2. I don't care.

3. This blog no longer accepts anonymous comments, or those from people claiming to be 19th-century authors, composers etc, unless we have a good idea who they are really from.

Quartet alert

Nick writes from the US to inform us of this disturbing development in the life of a fine string quartet:

AUDUBON QUARTET Members About to Lose Instruments. If you follow chamber music, you probably know of the Audubon Quartet, founded 30 years ago, it was the first US string quartet to win international competitions. In the year 2000, though, three of the quartet's members fired the first violinist for behavior incompatible with the concept of a closely knit ensemble -- he had told the others that he'd initiated two lawsuits agains the cellist (and original founder) Tom Shaw.Upon being fired, though, David Ehrlich filed a series of lawsuits against the three and against the quartet as a corporation. One was thrown out, but somehow, he won a judgement against the other three, and now, more than five years later, they are about to lose their instruments and other worldly possessions. It is a grim story. The quartet was in residence at Virginia Tech in 2000. After the lawsuits, the university let their contracts expire (but has since re-hired the violinist). Now members of the community in Blacksburg are trying to get the university to step in and make Ehrlich cease his actions against the others. You can read all about this at www.enditnow.org , the website created by community members. There is also a petition you can sign there.I think this is a matter of interest to all of us who love classical music and especially to the community of players in ensembles small and large.

Nick sent this originally as a comment on a previous post, but it merits a section to itself. I'm afraid I have not heard about this before and I don't know the ins and outs of the background and history, but please explore the link. Litigation culture run mad? Or classic string quartet acrimony meets the 21st century? Oh yes, classic. If you think orchestral life is stressful, just try being in a string quartet. Stories from the orchestras can be 'hair-raising', but with quartets, 'blood-curdling' doesn't begin to describe it.