Baroque and roll: a guest post by Lindsay Kemp

It's sometimes crossed my mind that if we took even half the energy and resources that went on researching offbeat baroque repertoire and "authentic" presentation and put it into new music instead, some rather exciting, up-to-the-minute music-making might result. And at last, here comes something that mingles the two: Baroque on the Edge, which takes place at LSO St Luke's in early January, under the direction of Lindsay Kemp and Lucy Bending. Lindsay, formerly artistic director of the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music and the London Festival of Baroque Music, has written a thought-provoking guest post for us about what they're attempting, and how, and why. Enjoy! JD

THE NEW SHOCK OF THE OLD

Lindsay Kemp wonders if there has to be 

only one way to programme baroque music 

Is baroque music about composers or performers? Is what counts the notes as written down or what an inspired musician can make of them? And is it about context – by which I mean  historical context – or about 200-300-year-old music serving as raw material for anyone to play with and make contemporary, as if it were a folk song or a jazz standard?

Well of course there are no rules in this matter, though you could be forgiven for thinking so from the way some people talk. But while all of the above are certainly valid, I think it’s fair to say that most festivals that set out to devote themselves to baroque music tend to start out from the composers/written notes/historical point of view. I know that’s true of the ones I’ve been involved in over the years, principally the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music and its successor the London Festival of Baroque Music, in which for ten years I had enormous fun building around themes which, however widely they might have ranged and however virtuosic and/or imaginative the musicians I found to realise them, emerged in the first instance from a historical understanding of the music they contained.

Joanna MacGregor
Photo: baroqueattheedge.co.uk

Nothing wrong with that. Few would deny that it is the ‘historically informed’ approach to baroque music that has brought so much of it back into the light with such vitality and understanding over the last fifty years. But as I was preparing to step down from LFBM last May, I got to wondering how it would be if one were to plan a baroque music festival from the other direction, as it were. What if instead of concentrating on being historically aware and obsessing on when a piece of music was written, or who or what it was written for, I could find a way of celebrating what it actually is, what its inner lights are, shining unfiltered through the centuries to illuminate any musician of talent and imagination? What if we were to have a ‘no-rules’ baroque music festival? Thus was Baroque at the Edge born.

If it sounds like a dismissal of everything the early music movement stands for, it certainly isn’t intended to be. I’ve been a ‘believer’ in it ever since my teens, and my own experience of the kind of performer who tends to be drawn to it has taught me that there are plenty of them with the open minds, requisite skills in improvisation and flair for intimate communication with an audience that make them natural and free interpreters of baroque music. I’ve invited some of them to the inaugural Baroque at the Edge: Paolo Pandolfo, the gamba genius who can compel you to silence with a piece of Marais but also deliver an entire programme of gripping improvisations that effortlessly blend the baroque with the whatever else comes into his head, be it jazz or The Beatles; Thomas Dunford, who plays Dowland with heart-melting beauty while also merging minds and styles with Persian percussion-master Keyvan Chemirani; and violinist Bjarte Eike, who can play a Biber Sonata with the best of them and yet channel his upbringing in rural Norway into folk-fiddling mixes and atmospheric contemporary creations in the company of jazz pianist and composer Jon Balke.  

'Breaking the Rules', Gerald Kyd (centre) as Gersualdo with the Marian Consort
Photo: Robin Mitchell for the Lammermuir Festival

In addition, however, I wanted to find a context for baroque masterpieces among the music of our own time, which is why the festival opens with a recital by one of the most adventurous of all today’s pianists, Joanna MacGregor, who will set pieces by Rameau, Daquin, Couperin, Pachelbel, Byrd and Purcell among works by Messiaen, Birtwistle, Gubaidulina and Glass. Another concert will see young recorder virtuoso Tabea Debus and lute-player Alex MacCartney putting music by Telemann alongside companion pieces specially commissioned from Colin Matthews, Laura Bowler and Fumiko Miyachi. And finally, the festival seemed a perfect setting for the London premiere of Clare Norburn’s highly acclaimed concert-drama Breaking the Rules, which visits Carlo Gesualdo (played by actor Gerald Kyd) on the last dark night of his life, with music from The Marian Consort ramping up the tension.

I think Baroque at the Edge may well be the first festival to set out specifically to explore this approach, and my hope is that it will appeal to people who know their baroque music and admire many of these artists already, as well as attract a new audience of curious-minded listeners for whom genres and conventions are less important than the way the music actually sounds, and how it can feed the act of musical creation in front of their eyes. That’s got to be worth a go hasn’t it?  

‘Baroque at the Edge’ runs from 5-7 January 2018 at LSO St Luke’s in London.

baroqueattheedge.co.uk

*clears throat*

Two less than Christmassy pieces of news in music journalism have arrived within a matter of weeks. One is that the Ham & High - more than just a local paper for Hampstead & Highgate - is dropping classical music coverage. The other is that the Birmingham Post would be too, except that its critic of 48 years, the highly respected Christopher Morley, has agreed to keep writing for it without payment.

I don't need to tell you that this is sad. You know that. You also know, because it's plain logic, that if a newspaper pays some of its writers, then it should pay them all. A national newspaper well known to me stopped paying its critics too for a bit (someday I'll fill you in on that over a drink) and although we hear it has since rethought, it probably won't be the last.

If publicity is oxygen, classical music is allowed less and less of it - for reasons best known to higher-up editors whose eyes are most likely trained on clickbait and advertising revenue. This is boring for readers, bad for musicians and hopeless for an art that has been largely wiped from mainstream exposure and discussion - except when a conductor is misconducting himself or everyone is counting the women in the Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert.

Evidently diversification is needed. In the absence of paying sites, a good few unpaid ones have sprung up - most of them founded for idealistic reasons, namely to keep providing that oxygen for the arts and the high-quality reading ("content" schmontent) that music-lovers want and need. Does that mean that a newspaper with wealthy owners, read by many thousands, is justified in not paying its writers? Of course it doesn't. The two things are not even comparable.

But I fear it might be used as an excuse. I hate to say it, since obviously I write this blog, but possibly those of us who provide free reading matter are part of the problem. This isn't a comfortable thought.

Most of us started blogging because we're writers, and writers like to write and find audiences, and blogging is the easiest way there has ever been to do that. Some of us started the moment this medium was invented and quickly got "high" on its possibilities. Now I suspect that with the reducing of professional outlets, audiences are following us to our own sites (when I last checked the stats for JDCMB, they'd more than trebled since summer 2016). 

In some ways this makes the field "democratic". The audience becomes the editor. If you don't like a blog, for whatever reason, then you don't read it. If you don't like below-the-line comments, you don't read those either, and music blogs are equally prone to that brand of hideousness (which is why I got rid of the comment facility from JDCMB - we still have non-anonymous discussions, on Facebook). But people still have to make a living, so eventually the most active blogs will end up being written by those who have independent means or pensions, or who are lucky enough not to need more than four hours sleep a night. 

Many of us, JDCMB included, have therefore started a "support this blog" facility on crowdfunding sites such as GoFundMe, Patreon and elsewhere. If you like a blog, then please don't just read it: support it. Perhaps the central blogging host sites will eventually provide a way to put up a paywall. Until then, crowdfunding will have to do. 

And meanwhile, newspapers that pay some of their writers should pay all their writers, and pay them properly.


Enjoy JDCMB? Please support it at GoFundMe

MERRY CATMAS

Dear readers,

Wishing you all joy and peace for Christmas 2017

Lots of love from JD & the crew

#hammerklavier is out!

Ludwig van Beethoven: the dragon wakes

If you've been following my Twitter or Facebook posts this autumn you'll know that for a while my life was taken over by Beethoven. BBC Music Magazine asked me to do a 'Building a Library' feature about the 'Hammerklavier' Sonata and I discovered there were more than 50 to hear, recorded over a period of some 70 years, and these including only recordings that are currently in print and available in the catalogue. Before long it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to be listening to one of the greatest piano works ever written seven times a day.

It's been an extraordinarily instructive experience and if you've never tried doing anything like this, whether professionally or just for fun, I recommend it (it's also a lot easier to do it now if you subscribe to a well-stocked streaming service). I've done plenty in the past, but this was different. This was Beethoven's biggest and most ambitious sonata and everyone will read something different into it, none of it insignificant. The question is, how do those performing and recording it view it and what do they do to bring it to us?

Two major problems were crystallising by the end of Day 2. First of all, have you ever heard someone say of the 'Hammerklavier' "I admire it, of course, but I don't love it...". I've heard this so many times that I've come to the conclusion it's just something that people think they're meant to say about the piece. What's not to love? Love it? I adore it!

What's not to love, possibly, is that it is so bloody difficult to play. There's that first movement metronome mark, minim=138. Can you imagine how many excuses people come up with to justify not even attempting it? Blimey, guv - let's trust and revere Beethoven, but not if it doesn't suit us... Have a think about the background harmonic rhythm in the first movement, then wonder why it soon seems draggy if it doesn't go at at least a good lickety-split. Czerny said that it simply takes "assiduous practice". But even harder is to sustain the tension in the long adagio, and then have enough energy left to whirl your way up the mountain of the nearest thing Beethoven wrote to a grosse Fuge for piano.

The second problem is that all too often I felt we weren't listening to Beethoven. We were listening to our attitude to Beethoven. Playing that is reverential, or that wraps every note in cotton wool because it's sacrosanct, or that just plays faithfully what's on the page without presuming to add one jot of personality. Playing that is terribly, terribly nice. The 'Hammerklavier' is many things, but nice it ain't. I can forgive anyone for being intimidated by it, but not for bowing and scraping to it as they play. By the end of Day 4 I wanted nothing more or less than a recording that would make me feel I was listening to Beethoven himself at the piano, the dragon awaking.

I found one.

BBC Music Magazine asks for the format of a) background to the work, b) one overall winner, c) three runners-up, d) one to avoid. I expected it to be much more difficult to chose the top recording, but it was startlingly easy. The runners-up were much harder, as the number of recordings that are really excellent, by pianists alive or dead, is enormous. The list of "ones to avoid" could also, sadly, have been huge, so I decided to pick a recording by someone who is safely dead and can't be upset.

Really, though, I do have to do a bit of bowing and scraping too: I absolutely take off my hat to anybody who can play the 'Hammerklavier' at all, let alone plumb its depths and bring it to life.

So who's the winner? You'll have to buy the January issue of BBC Music Magazine to read the full article, but I can give you a few hammerklaviclues:

-- He is American and very much alive
-- He is not playing a modern piano
-- His dad would have been extremely proud.

You can get the magazine here. Enjoy.

It's Christmas! Please feel free to support JDCMB with a donation here...

Conductor's misconduct: now Dutoit is accused

Charles Dutoit conducting the NHK Orchestra in Japan, 2001.
Photo: bbc.co.uk

Yesterday afternoon I switched on my computer camera to record some thoughts about the unmasking of sexual predators in the classical music world. I began by reflecting that allegations are extremely difficult to prove unless you were under the bed or hiding in the cupboard at the time; and if people don't speak up about their experiences on the record, unmasking can only be hearsay - this, apparently, was why an otherwise hard-hitting news piece on BBC TV the other day focused on the pop world, but did not include any classical musicians. But I never posted the video because just then the news broke that four women have come forward alleging misconduct by another conductor, this time the veteran maestro Charles Dutoit.

This particularly matters here in London, because Dutoit is principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

According to the Telegraph, the RPO has responded thus:

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra confirmed it would be speaking to Dutoit whenever possible but said it had received no complaints or claims of inappropriate behaviour relating to his work with the Orchestra.
It said: “Based on the information available to us, these allegations were issued without reaction from Mr Dutoit and, to the best of our knowledge, the claimants have initiated no formal legal proceedings.

“Nonetheless, we take this matter very seriously and we will be monitoring the situation closely.” It added: "As a leading international ensemble, the RPO is committed to the highest standards of ethical behaviour, which it expects from everyone that works with the Orchestra.  The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra takes very seriously its responsibility to maintain a safe working environment." 

The orchestra has since released another statement including the information that "Following media allegations...the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) and Dutoit have jointly agreed to release him from his forthcoming concert obligations with the orchestra in the immediate future". It adds: "...the RPO believes that the truth of the matter should be determined by the legal process. The immediate action taken by the RPO and Charles Dutoit allows time for a clear picture to be established. Charles Dutoit needs to be given a fair opportunity to seek legal advice and contest these accusations."

But meanwhile, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra has dropped him outright, several American orchestras with which Dutoit is associated have said he will not be making his scheduled appearances in the months ahead and now more musicians have added allegations of their own.

This obviously puts the RPO in a very difficult position. And the trouble is that the RPO is used to being in awkward positions; it seems deeply unfortunate that it should now have to deal with this as well.

I love the RPO very much. It was the first orchestra I ever heard as a child, the one largely responsible for turning me on to music in the first place - I well remember my first visit to the RFH, aged 7, to hear the RPO under Rudolf Kempe. I've followed its fortunes with interest and though one might often been saddened at the way it's been sidelined in terms of public subsidy, I've also been thoroughly impressed by how it has handled the challenges of our changing times.

Over the years this orchestra, founded by Sir Thomas Beecham, has turned its financial disadvantage into a special niche, reliant upon on its own flexibility, creativity and entrepreneurship. It has numerous residencies in parts of the country to which the other big orchestras rarely go, and its community and education department, RPO Resound, is truly inspiring. Witness, for instance, its Strokestra programme in which the musicians work with patients recovering from strokes.

The orchestra balances all this with extensive commercial activities, playing for video games, 'classical extravaganza' concerts and so forth. Even so, there's often some sense of struggle, not least because the local authorities' arts funding on which the RPO residencies depend have been slashed too in recent years. Through all of this they maintain playing inherently as fine as any of the better-funded organisations. The end results are naturally affected by who's on the podium, how much rehearsal time there is and how knackered the players are, but all the London orchestras are equally full of fabulous musicians.

One can appreciate that the last thing the RPO would want now is a scandal, the upheaval of possibly losing its principal conductor, and the associated issues that would then surround scheduling, costs, PR and more. They have a long-standing relationship with Dutoit and he has brought much to them in terms of artistry, not least Martha Argerich (the RPO birthday concert last year with Argerich and Zukerman was just wonderful). And these accusations don't involve the RPO itself at all. But no British orchestra can afford to have its brand tainted for long and for the sake of the audience, which in the RPO's case is especially wide and diverse, it's important that they do the right thing. They have the trust of a big public. They need to keep that trust.

And that's why the whole unmasking matters in general: because of the audience.

On my non-posted video I wanted to say that music belongs to all of us equally. Music makes no distinctions: it can bypass every division to go straight to the heart. Its force is primarily emotional and that's why it's so vital, so cathartic, so profoundly communicative. The better it is performed, the better this works, and that's why we need the best performers to be out there playing it. Music-lovers deserve the best and in order for the best musicians to come through, their abilities need to be judged solely on their merits. This is precisely why we have to fight racism, sexism, sexual manipulation, greed and inequality of opportunity: in order to reach a real meritocracy, one that rests on nothing but musical results that are not skewed by prejudice, predators or power-hunger. We'll end up with better music-making.

What once went no longer goes. The Canadian music journalist Natasha Gauthier wrote about Dutoit making a move on her 22 years ago and it seems that nobody batted an eyelid. But Kate Maltby - the journalist whose testimony has just brought down the deputy prime minister - put it well in a TV interview yesterday in which she declared that she spoke up about Damian Green because she wants to change the culture in which sexual misconduct has been tolerated. We shouldn't have to put up with it. She's right.