I've been on musical travels in Leipzig this past week. The historic heart of the former GDR is also the historic heart of German music - second only to Vienna in its sites of pilgrimage for the classical continental traveller. Most notably, perhaps, we attended a beautiful service at Bach's Thomaskirche and went back on 31 October, Reformation Day, to hear a performance of Mendelssohn's Paulus in Bach's church.
The thing is, we heard it backwards.
Inside the Thomaskirche
The musicians are located in the substantial organ loft. Which is behind most of the congregation. So about two thirds of the audience sits with its backs to the musicians, and the remainder are sideways on.
Therefore there is nothing to look at while you listen - except your surroundings, the words in the programme and the inside of your own eyelids while you focus on your ears alone.
It's magic.
You benefit from the immediacy of the live experience of music-making. But you don't worry about what anyone looks like, what the soloists are wearing or whether someone is making excessive gestures (unlike some reviews of a recent performance of Rach 2 by a popular female pianist, most of which had to talk about what she was wearing and how she was moving, rather than how she actually sounded, and judged her adversely for the former). Instead... You just listen. You sit for two and a half hours on a hard wooden pew, without drinks, without a visit to the loo, trying to translate what you can of the German, and Mendelssohn just picks you up and carries you off with his drama, his élan, the blaze of light that is the voice of the Lord (women's voices, NB), and a ceaseless fount of melody. I loved every minute of it.
Bach's church is an extraordinary place in which to listen to music. The sound quality inside is resonant, but warm. The atmosphere is intimate, striking but never overbearing. Although Bach's grave has pride of place, this institution is a working, familyish, everyday, up-to-the-minute church, and clearly going to a concert there on 31 October is very much The Thing To Do (hallelujah, Halloween takes a back seat). The acoustic makes it clear that Bach's ensembles couldn't have been especially large, because the sound would turn muddy, and on this occasion it did take them two and a half hours to get through the Mendelssohn, without an interval, probably because the ratio of size to resonance slows things down.
Meanwhile, Leipzig really is a musical mecca. In a matter of days I've seen Bach's surviving churches and the fabulous Bach Museum, Mendelssohn's last home, Schumann and Clara's first apartment, the site where Clara spent much of her childhood (just a stone's throw from Bach's Thomaskirche), the great town hall where Bach signed his Thomaskirche contract, the outsides of the Gewandhaus and the Leipzig Oper, the sites of Wagner's birth and schooling, the historic headquarters of Edition Peters and the apartment in which Grieg worked on Peer Gynt and where, incidentally, Reger had his last dinner - he collapsed later that night...
We dined in the Auerbachskeller, where Goethe wrote some of Faust and where Brahms, Joachim and Grieg celebrated the premiere of Brahms's Violin Concerto; and had our last Leipzig meal at Zum Coffe Baum, which was conveniently rather empty so we could sit in "Schumann corner", where Schumann and his friends met every night from 1833 to 1840 (so the plaque says) to be the Davidsbündler together.
But that deserves another post to itself...
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You'll find me and the fabulous musicians David Le Page (violin) and Viv McLean (piano) at the Crazy Coqs, Brasserie Zédel, Sherwood Street (just off Piccadilly Circus), with the words&music story of Jelly d'Arányi and the Schumann Violin Concerto, starting 7pm. Music includes Bartók, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Kelly, Ravel, Hubay and, uh, Schumann... Book here: https://www.brasseriezedel.com/live-at-zedel/ghost-variations-oct-2017/112243587
TUESDAY and FRIDAY. I'm honoured to be serving on the jury of the London Bach Singing Competition. We have the semi-finals on Tuesday evening and the final on Friday, both at St George's, Hanover Square. After the first round the other day, I can promise you we've found some simply glorious voices and we're looking forward to hearing ten of them again in the semis, singing recitatives and arias from the St Matthew and St John Passions. Four will go through to the final. Both these rounds are open to the public, so do join us for a spot of Bachian glory. Details of the events and names of the semi-finalists are now up, here.
WEDNESDAY So, Wednesday is looking a bit packed... I'm very excited to be going on BBC Radio 3's In Tune, where Katie Derham will be interviewing me about Ghost Variations and the Schumann Concerto, ahead of our Artrix Bromsgrove performance (3 Nov) and Burgh House Hampstead (19 Nov). Straight out of Broadcasting House, I must leg it to Cadogan Hall, where I'll be doing a spot of actor interviewing about Mozart and Salieri for the London Chamber Orchestra's concert, which culminates in the Mozart Requiem. Christopher Warren-Green conducts. Booking here.
SATURDAY Off to Leipzig for the first time ever, to see all sorts of amazing things relating to Bach, Mendelssohn, Schumann and maybe even Wagner...
I also have to write a feature and some sleeve notes. So I'm now off to have a quick nap.
Watching the sky turn to lurid mustard yesterday as I made my way home from the Women of the Year Lunch, I couldn't help remembering what happened 30 years ago, the night of the now legendary 1987 storm (which would probably be dubbed "Hurricane Higgins" or suchlike now).
15 October was my father's birthday and to celebrate we all went to the Barbican to hear Simon Rattle conduct the Strauss Four Last Songs, sung by Maria Ewing. Coming home - in those days it was not unreasonable to take the car to the Barbican - we fought through the driving rain, rising wind and fearsome traffic jams.
I woke around 5am to a noise like a jet engine revving up and the house shuddering under us; outside, clouds were scudding at double pace across a tobacco-coloured sky. In the morning everyone in the street was outside staring up at their roofs, asking each other whether for insurance purposes this counted as an Act of God. (That was the only time I ever saw our next-door neighbours actually speak to my parents.) That day I was due to go back to Cambridge to begin a last-minute one-year postgrad course, but trains and roads alike were impassable.
Solution: go a few days later instead. After unpacking, I went off to look for a violinist friend in another college. I found him in the junior common room, alone in front of the TV, sitting absolutely motionless. The room was filled with Elgar and on the screen was Jacqueline du Pré. That moment, I knew she was dead.
I think the image of Jacqueline du Pré found its way to a special place in all our hearts, something that's unique for each of us. For me, she virtually conflated, very early on, with my older sister, who as a teenager had amazing pre-Raphaelite golden-brown hair and played the cello. As horrific irony would have it, she, too, died young, at 45 (of ovarian cancer). Moreover, though I never set eyes on du Pré except on the TV, she was never far away. She and Barenboim lived in Pilgrim's Lane, about 15 mins walk from our place, and the house where the pair first met and played chamber music was the very house where in the late '70s-early '80s I used to go for my piano lessons every weekend. And Christopher Nupen's beautiful films of her, which helped to seal her status as musical icon, were somehow embedded in my psyche as an example of all the fun, warmth and glory that music-making could be. (Here's a piece I wrote about her for The Independent in January 05.)
To mark this 30th anniversary of her death, Nupen has created a new tribute to her, an hour-long documentary called Jacqueline du Pré: A Gift Beyond Words, which will be on BBC4 on Sunday. I asked him to tell us a little about the process and what du Pré means to him all these years on.
JD: What is different about this film from your previous versions?
CN: The difference between this film and the five which we
made with her during her lifetime, is that this one is neither a portrait film,
nor a performance film.Instead, it is a
tribute to mark the 30th anniversary of Jackie’s death and a
reflection on her enduring legacy.
All the material of Jackie herself has been seen
before but it is seen here in a different context —and 30 years later.Both of those things make a difference to
what comes off the screen from the same footage.
JD: What qualities about Jackie stand out most in your memory?
CN: Her most distinguishing quality is her incorruptible
honesty, both in her life and in her music: total, clear, unassuming,
unmistakable.Those who knew her best
describe different aspects of it in the film.Daniel Barenboim calls her an unequalled musical conversationalist.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, in smiling recollection, calls it an unequalled
directness.Pinchas Zukerman, who made
breathtaking music with her, calls it pure genius, a word that one can seldom
use of performers. Vladimir Ashkenazy uses the same big word and Zubin Mehta
calls it pure instinct.
JD: Any favourite memory you would pick out?
CN: These exceptional characteristics are what made her
inimitable and so memorable. She was also gifted with a capacity to surprise us
which accompanied her like her shadow. I remember her reaction to our film of
The Ghost Trio when she saw it for the first time.I thought we had failed to bring it up to the
level which the Trio had achieved at a concert in Oxford and I said so before
the screening started.As soon as it
ended, with no pause at all —and no
politesse, Jackie announced, flatly, “You are wrong.On the film one can see what’s going on and
it adds another dimension to the music.” I learned one of the most important
lessons of my career from that moment.
JD: Has your perspective on her changed over time?
CN: The magics that she made in the sounds that she drew
from her cello have not changed at all with the years.Age does not weary them.On the other hand much has changed in the
perceptions of the world at large.
There are very few performing musicians in the
entire history of Western music whose reputations have risen steadily from the
time of their deaths but Jacqueline du Pré is one of those precious few.
In a recent survey by Belgian Television in
connection with the Queen Elisabeth of the Belgian’s Cello Competition, Jackie
was voted one of the three greatest cellists of all time. The Belgian cellists
voted for Mstislav Rostropovich, Jacqueline duPré and Pablo Casals – in that order. That would not have happened
during her lifetime because the world is slow to acknowledge greatness and
Jackie died too young.
JD: What do you think young musicians could learn from Jackie today?
CN: I suggest listeningto her playing with an open mind and a generous heart.Then listen to what Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
and the others say about her honesty and her directness— not to imitate but to
help find their own individual voice.
Many years ago, when I was a student, there was one (1) composer in the music faculty who happened to be a woman. She was preparing her PhD at the time. She was a live wire - a ferociously intelligent Argentinian who had left her home country after the 1976 coup - and a rare, shining example to us toiling undergraduates. Her name was Silvina Milstein. I'm delighted to support her forthcoming premiere at King's College London on Tuesday with this guest post from Silvina herself, now a professor at King's, in which she reflects on the great value to today's composers of consistent, long-term artistic engagement with their work from conductors and performers - in this case, Odaline de la Martinez and her ensemble Lontano. Please note, tickets for the concert are FREE, but should be booked in advance at the links below. JD
Silvina Milstein
Silvina
Milstein was born in Buenos Aires in 1956. After the Argentinian military coup of
1976 she emigrated to Britain. At Glasgow University her composition teachers
were Judith Weir and Lyell Cresswell, and at Cambridge University she studied
with Alexander Goehr. In the late
eighties she held fellowships at Jesus College and King's College (Cambridge),
and is currently a professor of music at King's College London.
In addition to
composing Silvina has a distinguished career as a teacher and scholar.Her book Arnold Schoenberg: notes, sets, forms was
published by Cambridge University Press.
She has received
commissions from leading ensembles and the BBC.
A selection of her chamber works has been recorded by Lontano conducted
by Odaline de la Martinez and issued by lorelt. Several of her most recent pieces for large
chamber ensemble --tigres azules (London Sinfonietta and Ensemble Modern), surrounded
by distance (London Sinfonietta)
and de oro y sombra (Birmingham Contemporary Music Group)-- were
premiered under Oliver Knussen.
On
18 October the ensemble Lontano conducted by Odaline de la Martinez will
premiere my Shan Shui (mountain/water)
for nine instruments alongside works by George Benjamin, Ed Nesbit and Rob
Keeley, at the Great Hall, King's College London, WC2R 2LS, as part of the Arts
& Humanities Festival 2017.
It
has been said that the shan shui
style of Chinese painting goes against the common definition of what a painting
is: it refutes colour, light and shadow and personal brush work.
"Shan shui
painting is not an open window for the viewer's eye, it is an object for the
viewer's mind, it is more like a vehicle of philosophy."
"The
Western mind appears to work in straight lines; the Oriental, in wonderful
curves and circles," wrote Lafcadio Hearn, the late 19th-century writer of
Greek and Irish descent, strongly anchored in American literature, and
fascinated by French and Eastern cultures, who married a samurai's daughter,
took Japanese citizenship, and became a Buddhist practitioner.
Paradoxically in
the 1960s, Lafcadio Hearn's retelling of several Japanese ghost-stories became
the source of Masaki Koyabashi's film Kwaidan,featuring a sound-track by Toru Takemitsu, whose music brings
together traditional Japanese and contemporary European art music. Treading on
the footsteps of these intercultural encounters, diachronic "shadowings", and
transpositions between art forms, my Shan Shuiplays around with notions of time and imagery from films by Kenji
Mizoguchi and Kaneto Shindo.
Shan Shui is part of a long string of
works that I have written for Lontano over the past three decades: Of
lavender lightand cristales
y susurros have been included in my first LORELT CD, while the septet ochre,
umber and burnt sienna, and the two trios with harp (and
your sound lingered on in lion and rocks and a thousand golden bells in the breeze), as well as Shan
Shui will be part of a new double-CD to be released in early 2018.
This
type of long-term artistic engagement and substantial support is at the core of
what makes Odaline de la Martinez’s commitment to the music of women composers
so uniquely precious.By presenting
several of my pieces together in concerts and CD, it effectively addresses a crucial
difficulty often encountered by composers in the current
concert-programming climate.
Not only has this approach allowed me to undertake
ambitious and often rather bold projects (such as a work scored for two double
basses and harp), but more importantly has offered me platforms for the
presentation of my work as groups of pieces with common compositional concerns,
like renderings of a mountain from many sides, under
different lights, and at different scales.On this occasion, Dominic Saunders will perform the recently revised
version of my Piano Phantasy after Mozart
K475 written in 1992.
My
pre-concert talk will introduce Shan Shui placing it in the context
of my earlier compositions and its sources of inspiration in contemplative
Chinese landscapes and Japanese cinematography (room SWB21 in the Music
Department, King’s College London, Strand, WC2R 2LS, at 16:45). All attendees
are invited to a drink-reception before the concert.
