I got an email message today introducing me to a music school in London called WKMT. In this documentary the school's teachers talk about their teaching methods, their school, and one another. They are devoteed to a method of teaching based on the work of Vincenzo Scaramuzza. This involves joints that are fluent but not loose, and vigorous but not rigid. These ideas seem to be extremely specific to the piano, but I imagine once they rattle around in my head for a while I will manage to make analogies to the bow arm. You can hear a reading of Scaramuzza's general ideas here.
What I find most enticing about this school's website is the fact that they offer a full analysis of the piano sonatas in Haydn's Hoboken XVI by an array of scholars. Understanding is the secret key to playing Haydn well. And the other secret is that there are no secrets.
They also have a blog that is well worth exploring (I'm putting the link in the sidebar too. Look for "WKMT").
Showing posts with label Haydn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Haydn. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 10, 2021
Sunday, January 05, 2020
Gottfried van Swieten, a person I would like to have known
In my wonderings about Haydn's Opus 20 Quartets, and the relationship that Mozart and Haydn had in Vienna, I have been thinking about Gottfried van Swieten. Baron Gottfried van Swieten was the son of Gerhard van Swieten, Empress Maria Theresa's private physician, who also held the position of director of the court library in Vienna.
Gottfried had a career as a diplomat, and spent seven years (1770-1777) in Berlin working as an ambassador for Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia. While he was at Frederick's court, van Swieten spent a good deal of time studying music. He had the great fortune to study with a student of J.S. Bach.
By the late 1770s Frederick's interest in music had waned considerably. I sometimes wonder if Frederick might have given van Swieten his music library when van Sweeten left for Vienna in 1777. We know from a letter Mozart wrote to his father in 1782 that the Baron invited Haydn and Mozart to his home every week to play manuscripts of music by Handel, J.S. Bach, and Bach's sons.
The historical record is sparse, but the musical record is rich. The Haydn Quartet Opus 20, no. 2 has material in it that sounds strikingly baroque, and three of the Opus 20 Quartets have fugues as their last movements. I wonder if Haydn and van Swieten might have know one another during the early 1770s, and I wonder whether Haydn, who was a well-known composer, might have been introduced to J.S. Bach's unpublished music by van Swieten earlier than the historical record shows.
When van Swieten returned to Vienna in 1777 he took over his late father's position as court librarian. And then he invented the card catalog.
Yes. The card catalog!
But he is best known as an important patron of contemporary composers like Gluck, C.P.E. Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven (Beethoven dedicated his First Symphony to van Swieten). Van Swieten also supported revivals of out-of-fashion composers like Lully, Handel, and J.S. Bach. He also wrote music himself.
Gottfried had a career as a diplomat, and spent seven years (1770-1777) in Berlin working as an ambassador for Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia. While he was at Frederick's court, van Swieten spent a good deal of time studying music. He had the great fortune to study with a student of J.S. Bach.
By the late 1770s Frederick's interest in music had waned considerably. I sometimes wonder if Frederick might have given van Swieten his music library when van Sweeten left for Vienna in 1777. We know from a letter Mozart wrote to his father in 1782 that the Baron invited Haydn and Mozart to his home every week to play manuscripts of music by Handel, J.S. Bach, and Bach's sons.
The historical record is sparse, but the musical record is rich. The Haydn Quartet Opus 20, no. 2 has material in it that sounds strikingly baroque, and three of the Opus 20 Quartets have fugues as their last movements. I wonder if Haydn and van Swieten might have know one another during the early 1770s, and I wonder whether Haydn, who was a well-known composer, might have been introduced to J.S. Bach's unpublished music by van Swieten earlier than the historical record shows.
When van Swieten returned to Vienna in 1777 he took over his late father's position as court librarian. And then he invented the card catalog.
Yes. The card catalog!
But he is best known as an important patron of contemporary composers like Gluck, C.P.E. Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven (Beethoven dedicated his First Symphony to van Swieten). Van Swieten also supported revivals of out-of-fashion composers like Lully, Handel, and J.S. Bach. He also wrote music himself.
Saturday, November 16, 2019
A Fan Letter to Papa Haydn
Dear Papa Haydn,
I am so grateful for your string quartets. My first experience with them was playing viola in your Opus 33 and Opus 76 quartets, and the experience of playing them gave me the courage to start composing. I know I am not alone. You would blush if you knew how much influence you have had among composers and quartet players all over the world, and throughout three centuries. It hasn't always been rosy. You would be shocked to learn the fate and checkered history of what happened with the theme you wrote for the exquisite set of variations in the "Kaiser" Quartet.
Though I am a professional violist (i.e. I make money playing the viola), I consider myself an amateur violinist. A couple of years ago I started playing with a group of amateur adults, none of whom had ever played in a string quartet before. Our plan was to play through all of your string quartets in the order they were published. Playing the first violin parts in your string quartets has been my first (and best) experience playing chamber music as a violinist. Some of those first violin parts are really tricky, and it takes a lot of ingenuity to figure out fingerings that work. Some of the solutions, which end up being the ONLY practical solutions, border on silliness. When I finally figure out the left-hand puzzle, I feel like I'm exchanging smiles with you across the centuries and continents. It's nice to know that some things, like the navigation of the violin fingerboard, never change.
Every time we meet to play one of your Quartets it is an adventure! And the adventure becomes more and more exotic and more and more rewarding. Everybody is becoming more familiar with the idiom that you took from being an entertaining pastime for musicians to a vehicle that makes possible the highest level of sophistication in their musical discourse. You have given us musical material that amuses us AND makes us think.
Today we read the F minor Quartet, Opus 20, No. 5, the one with the double fugue and the pastorale Adagio with the extremely florid first violin part. It is our favorite quartet so far, and I imagine that it will remain a favorite forever. I was following the score for the fugue. Some members of this quartet of novices, who are still cutting their quartet teeth (on your quartets), can find it difficult to count rests and come in at the right time. But everybody came in correctly when we read the fugue today. The writing compelled us to do so.
We will play the fugue (and the rest of the Quartet) with a little more tempo when we next meet.
See you in the ether!
Your devoted fan,
Elaine Fine
P.S. Now, after learning Opus 17, and embarking on a study of Opus 20, I have a feeling that Mozart might have been impressed by them as well as the Opus 33 quartets that compelled him to write the set of quartets he dedicated to you. I also have a feeling that Beethoven might have had some fascination for Opus 17, particularly the fifth quartet, the one in G major. The recitative sections of G minor Adagio seem to have "informed" the opening of the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. If, as some imagine, you have some access to him in your version of an after-life, you might point that out to him. Tell him that it is fairly obvious to those of us who play your quartets.
P.P.S. You would laugh if you could see the way your quartets have been numbered and collected. Each quartet holds at least three numbers: the opus, the number according to the first published editions, and the number used by Anthony van Hoboken, who spent from 1934 until 1978 re-cataloging your work.
P.P.P.S Our oldest granddaughter calls my husband (her grandfather) "Papa."
I am so grateful for your string quartets. My first experience with them was playing viola in your Opus 33 and Opus 76 quartets, and the experience of playing them gave me the courage to start composing. I know I am not alone. You would blush if you knew how much influence you have had among composers and quartet players all over the world, and throughout three centuries. It hasn't always been rosy. You would be shocked to learn the fate and checkered history of what happened with the theme you wrote for the exquisite set of variations in the "Kaiser" Quartet.
Though I am a professional violist (i.e. I make money playing the viola), I consider myself an amateur violinist. A couple of years ago I started playing with a group of amateur adults, none of whom had ever played in a string quartet before. Our plan was to play through all of your string quartets in the order they were published. Playing the first violin parts in your string quartets has been my first (and best) experience playing chamber music as a violinist. Some of those first violin parts are really tricky, and it takes a lot of ingenuity to figure out fingerings that work. Some of the solutions, which end up being the ONLY practical solutions, border on silliness. When I finally figure out the left-hand puzzle, I feel like I'm exchanging smiles with you across the centuries and continents. It's nice to know that some things, like the navigation of the violin fingerboard, never change.
Every time we meet to play one of your Quartets it is an adventure! And the adventure becomes more and more exotic and more and more rewarding. Everybody is becoming more familiar with the idiom that you took from being an entertaining pastime for musicians to a vehicle that makes possible the highest level of sophistication in their musical discourse. You have given us musical material that amuses us AND makes us think.
Today we read the F minor Quartet, Opus 20, No. 5, the one with the double fugue and the pastorale Adagio with the extremely florid first violin part. It is our favorite quartet so far, and I imagine that it will remain a favorite forever. I was following the score for the fugue. Some members of this quartet of novices, who are still cutting their quartet teeth (on your quartets), can find it difficult to count rests and come in at the right time. But everybody came in correctly when we read the fugue today. The writing compelled us to do so.
We will play the fugue (and the rest of the Quartet) with a little more tempo when we next meet.
See you in the ether!
Your devoted fan,
Elaine Fine
P.S. Now, after learning Opus 17, and embarking on a study of Opus 20, I have a feeling that Mozart might have been impressed by them as well as the Opus 33 quartets that compelled him to write the set of quartets he dedicated to you. I also have a feeling that Beethoven might have had some fascination for Opus 17, particularly the fifth quartet, the one in G major. The recitative sections of G minor Adagio seem to have "informed" the opening of the final movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. If, as some imagine, you have some access to him in your version of an after-life, you might point that out to him. Tell him that it is fairly obvious to those of us who play your quartets.
P.P.S. You would laugh if you could see the way your quartets have been numbered and collected. Each quartet holds at least three numbers: the opus, the number according to the first published editions, and the number used by Anthony van Hoboken, who spent from 1934 until 1978 re-cataloging your work.
P.P.P.S Our oldest granddaughter calls my husband (her grandfather) "Papa."
Tuesday, October 15, 2019
Stephen Malinowski's Animations for Haydn's Opus 20 Quartets
Haydn's fugal writing is simply extraordinary. I first encountered it while singing his Creation when I was thirteen, and have thought of his fugal writing as "exalted reigns" ever since. My invented term comes from the passage "He sole on high, exalted reigns," in the "Achieved is his glorious work" section of the Creation. Here's a post I wrote in 2007 about those "exalted reigns."
Here's Malinowski's Haydn Opus 20 playlist (so far, it is a work in progress).
Friday, August 30, 2019
Success
I decided, for the third (and probably last) time, I guess, that twitter is not for me. The first true downward turn of my stomach happened when I saw a tweet by a twitter-active musician that read (and I paraphrase), "Success is not something that happens. It is something you have to go after." S/he clearly made this tweet without irony. I have never thought of success as something to go after and eventually achieve.
From my vantage point at the beginning of my seventh decade of being a human being, I can only think of spending my time trying to do my best work for the sake of doing the work as well as I can. If I feel that I have done good work on any given day, I have had success. If I have helped a student overcome an obstacle in a lesson, I have had success. If, while practicing, I find a fingering or bowing that works for a difficult passage, I have had success. If I play in a way that I feel expresses the way I want a phrase of music to go, I have had success. If I can accompany a violin or viola student on the piano and give ninety percent of my attention to the student (playing piano is still difficult for me), I have had success.
If I make it through another Haydn quartet with my ensemble of chamber music novices, we have achieved success. If I have solved a problem in a piece I am writing, I have achieved success. If I finish a piece and still like it when the process of writing is done, I have succeeded. If someone enjoys playing something I have written or arranged, I feel honored to have contributed to the possibility of their musical success. If somebody needs a piece of music for a particular ensemble or occasion and I have made it easily available to them, we have all succeeded.
If my students remain excited about music, I have succeeded in teaching them by example. If the musical community in my small and rural corner of the world becomes richer because of the work I do, I have succeeded in my quest to make the musical world I encounter a better place, one note at a time.
Related posts: Ambition, Humility
From my vantage point at the beginning of my seventh decade of being a human being, I can only think of spending my time trying to do my best work for the sake of doing the work as well as I can. If I feel that I have done good work on any given day, I have had success. If I have helped a student overcome an obstacle in a lesson, I have had success. If, while practicing, I find a fingering or bowing that works for a difficult passage, I have had success. If I play in a way that I feel expresses the way I want a phrase of music to go, I have had success. If I can accompany a violin or viola student on the piano and give ninety percent of my attention to the student (playing piano is still difficult for me), I have had success.
If I make it through another Haydn quartet with my ensemble of chamber music novices, we have achieved success. If I have solved a problem in a piece I am writing, I have achieved success. If I finish a piece and still like it when the process of writing is done, I have succeeded. If someone enjoys playing something I have written or arranged, I feel honored to have contributed to the possibility of their musical success. If somebody needs a piece of music for a particular ensemble or occasion and I have made it easily available to them, we have all succeeded.
If my students remain excited about music, I have succeeded in teaching them by example. If the musical community in my small and rural corner of the world becomes richer because of the work I do, I have succeeded in my quest to make the musical world I encounter a better place, one note at a time.
Related posts: Ambition, Humility
Monday, June 10, 2019
Haydn Quartet Project Update
In August of 2016 some friends (a late-starter cellist, a post-career violist in a care facility, a life-long violinist who never really took adequate lessons) and I started a project of playing through all the Haydn Quartets, beginning with Opus 1, at the violist's care facility. We met once every two months or so, and in spite of our challenges, we made our way through the first 15 quartets.
Then the health of our original violist declined steeply, so she was moved to another facility. But my friend/student/consort partner who had never played string quartets before stepped gracefully into the viola seat, and we are now exploring the wonders of Opus 17. And what wonders they are!
Since starting this project the violinist who had never studied properly now has a good instrument and is now working with a great teacher. She is making great strides in her playing. Our cellist has become more confident, and our new violist (with a new gem of a viola) is having a ball. What have I been doing? Practicing violin. A lot.
The first violin parts of the Opus 17 Quartets are really demanding. They make me think like a violinist, and they make me act like one too.
Today we played Opus 17 #2 (Quartet No. 17), and in two weeks we are playing Opus 17 #1 (Quartet No. 18). Don't ask about the order. The numbering systems are all mixed up, so we're just going in Hoboken order.
Which reminds me of the joke about visiting the Hoboken collection in the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna . . . (That's the joke).
Haydn makes me giddy.
Then the health of our original violist declined steeply, so she was moved to another facility. But my friend/student/consort partner who had never played string quartets before stepped gracefully into the viola seat, and we are now exploring the wonders of Opus 17. And what wonders they are!
Since starting this project the violinist who had never studied properly now has a good instrument and is now working with a great teacher. She is making great strides in her playing. Our cellist has become more confident, and our new violist (with a new gem of a viola) is having a ball. What have I been doing? Practicing violin. A lot.
The first violin parts of the Opus 17 Quartets are really demanding. They make me think like a violinist, and they make me act like one too.
Today we played Opus 17 #2 (Quartet No. 17), and in two weeks we are playing Opus 17 #1 (Quartet No. 18). Don't ask about the order. The numbering systems are all mixed up, so we're just going in Hoboken order.
Which reminds me of the joke about visiting the Hoboken collection in the Kunsthistoriches Museum in Vienna . . . (That's the joke).
Haydn makes me giddy.
Tuesday, May 22, 2018
Accidental Musical Detective Work
Christoph Willibald Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice was first performed at the Burgtheater in Vienna in 1762. The piece below (in the picture above) is from the "Dance of the Blessed Spirits," which is the part of the opera that most people recognize. Haydn's Opus 9 Quartets were published in 1769. I'm not a betting woman, but I would bet that Haydn attended that 1762 production, and a lovely four-measure-long musical gesture from the "Dance of the Blessed Spirits" followed him out of the theater and found a home in the Adagio of this lovely, little-known quartet.
Why do I know this piece? I have the honor and privilege of having a long-term project that involves reading through all the Haydn quartets (in order) with a willing set of amateurs (and one former professional) at a local elder care facility where the former professional lives. I get to step out of my comfort zone and play first violin, which, in the case of this quartet, number 14 (of 83 Haydn quartets), was a real challenge.
We played Opus 9, No. 2 this evening, and it was a wonderful experience. So far it's everyone's favorite.
Tuesday, May 16, 2017
Musical Assumption #1
I gave this title to a piece (now discarded) of electronic music I wrote for an electronic music class. I liked the title more than the piece, and the "Musical Assumptions" part of the title has a much better "life" as the title of this blog.
Now that this blog is in its second decade, I guess it is time to make, as adolescents often do, some assumptions. Here begins a series of assumptions about the musical world that might matter to someone other than me. Feel free to disagree. As my brother Marshall used to say, "When you assume you make an ass out of u and me."
Musical Assumption #1
Musicians in the 21st century can still engage in musical discourse almost exactly the way they engaged in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries when playing notated music of the time.
The instruments we play in modern times are less problematic, and we do have the undeniable benefits of climate control (heating and cooling), accessibility (the IMSLP, for example), recordings for reference and for rehearsal, ergonomic devices, indoor plumbing, comfortable clothing, instant communication (which helps for setting up rehearsals), and photocopy machines, computers, and printers.
Still, when it comes to figuring out what bowing or bow stroke to use, how to tune and balance a chord, or how to decide something about phrase direction, we are still faced with the same choices as musicians throughout time (and space). Nothing of modern life can really interfere with or add to the musical situation at hand. It is all there for us as it was for the string players who worked at Esterhazy.
When we play Haydn quartets that are clearly meant for the entertainment of the musicians playing them, we chuckle at the same bits of musical humor that our musical ancestors did. These "secret signs" unify our musical "species" across the centuries, and transcend cultural boundaries.
Now that this blog is in its second decade, I guess it is time to make, as adolescents often do, some assumptions. Here begins a series of assumptions about the musical world that might matter to someone other than me. Feel free to disagree. As my brother Marshall used to say, "When you assume you make an ass out of u and me."
Musical Assumption #1
Musicians in the 21st century can still engage in musical discourse almost exactly the way they engaged in the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries when playing notated music of the time.
The instruments we play in modern times are less problematic, and we do have the undeniable benefits of climate control (heating and cooling), accessibility (the IMSLP, for example), recordings for reference and for rehearsal, ergonomic devices, indoor plumbing, comfortable clothing, instant communication (which helps for setting up rehearsals), and photocopy machines, computers, and printers.
Still, when it comes to figuring out what bowing or bow stroke to use, how to tune and balance a chord, or how to decide something about phrase direction, we are still faced with the same choices as musicians throughout time (and space). Nothing of modern life can really interfere with or add to the musical situation at hand. It is all there for us as it was for the string players who worked at Esterhazy.
When we play Haydn quartets that are clearly meant for the entertainment of the musicians playing them, we chuckle at the same bits of musical humor that our musical ancestors did. These "secret signs" unify our musical "species" across the centuries, and transcend cultural boundaries.
Tuesday, January 31, 2017
Haydn Quartet Project
After this past year's Summer Strings came to a close, some adult members of the ensemble thought it might be a nice idea to play some chamber music together during the other seasons of the year, and to play it in the dining room of the assisted living facility where the violist lives. This violist, who was my stand-partner in orchestra for many years, suffers from early-onset Alzheimer's disease. She has difficulty with practical life issues, but when the viola is in her hands she plays beautifully. The cellist is a late starter who never played in a string quartet before, and the second violinist is a retired teacher who, though she has been a life-long amateur, also never played in a string quartet before. And I'm playing the first violin part, which is a novel position for me since I usually play viola in string quartets.
I suggested that we play through all the Haydn quartets in order, beginning with Opus 1. We meet once every two weeks or so, read the designated quartet through, work on trouble spots, and then read it through again. We have an appreciative audience of residents who keep coming back. The quartet novices get better every time we meet, and I keep surprising myself by actually doing what a first violinist in a string quartet needs to do.
Tonight we played Opus 2, Number 2 in E major. While we were playing I thought about the generations upon generations of people all over the world who have played these quartets, which were written in 1775, while living under all sorts of less-than-ideal systems of government. The people playing these quartets might have had the same psychic need for escape that my colleagues and I had this evening.
I don't know what the future holds for the country and the world, but I do know that next time we will play Opus 2, Number 3, and I know that it will be a meaningful, refreshing, and rewarding experience.
I suggested that we play through all the Haydn quartets in order, beginning with Opus 1. We meet once every two weeks or so, read the designated quartet through, work on trouble spots, and then read it through again. We have an appreciative audience of residents who keep coming back. The quartet novices get better every time we meet, and I keep surprising myself by actually doing what a first violinist in a string quartet needs to do.
Tonight we played Opus 2, Number 2 in E major. While we were playing I thought about the generations upon generations of people all over the world who have played these quartets, which were written in 1775, while living under all sorts of less-than-ideal systems of government. The people playing these quartets might have had the same psychic need for escape that my colleagues and I had this evening.
I don't know what the future holds for the country and the world, but I do know that next time we will play Opus 2, Number 3, and I know that it will be a meaningful, refreshing, and rewarding experience.
Friday, June 27, 2014
Notes from the Piano
I noticed today that my piano fourth finger on my left hand is the weakest finger of my two hands. I find this odd since it is the very same finger I consider the strongest when I am playing the viola and the violin as well as the flute and the recorder. I suppose that there are over-developed muscles and under-developed muscles in all the fingers, and as form follows function, the underused muscles in otherwise strong fingers reveal themselves and develop over time.
I find that I want to play more evenly and more in rhythm than I did during my maiden voyage through Haydn's Sonatas, and it seems that I can now play the quicker movements with a little bit more tempo (only a bit). I was surprised that yesterday I could actually play triplets in my left hand while playing sixteenth notes in my right without thinking about it. This is something that I could only do mathematically a few short months ago.
Sunday, May 04, 2014
Haydn's Pencil
[Photo by Robert Greenberg]
From Haydn's house on Kleine Steingasse in the Viennese suburb of Obere Windmūhl.
Friday, October 25, 2013
The Difference Between Music and Electronic Sound
This interruption of the Haydn Piano Concerto is so very interesting . . .
Watch all the way through. What happens when the musicians resume is very special and quietly empowering. The title of this video "Haydn Killed by Cell Phone" is wrong. Absolutely wrong. It should read "Haydn Triumphs" because he does. The smile and gleam in the eye of the concertmaster says it all.
Watch all the way through. What happens when the musicians resume is very special and quietly empowering. The title of this video "Haydn Killed by Cell Phone" is wrong. Absolutely wrong. It should read "Haydn Triumphs" because he does. The smile and gleam in the eye of the concertmaster says it all.
Friday, October 18, 2013
Haydn Piano Sonatas
In my quest to learn more about the piano, more about music, and more about Haydn, I have almost completed my first run through the 43 Haydn Piano Sonatas in my four-volume Peters Edition set. I usually limit myself to a movement or two, but today I played through the whole C major Sonata, Hoboken 16/50, because I found it so fascinating, so beautiful, and so much fun to play. My intuition tells me that Schubert probably loved this sonata too.
Here it is played (at the proper tempo) by Brendel:
My daily Haydn has become my refuge. I think that after tomorrow I'll just go back to volume one and start again.
Here it is played (at the proper tempo) by Brendel:
My daily Haydn has become my refuge. I think that after tomorrow I'll just go back to volume one and start again.
Friday, September 27, 2013
New Music for Clarinet and Viola
Here's a brand new set of pieces I wrote for clarinet and viola (three character pieces and one transcription, to be exact) that I just put in the IMSLP. One character piece is modal, one is 12-tone (with only three deviations from strict "by-the-book" 12-tone writing), and one is pure Marxian (as in the Marx Brothers). The piece is dedicated to my violist friend Lydia Tang and our composer friend Peter Michalove.
The transcription is of the Haydn Trio I wrote about last week.
Here's a performance:
You can get the music here.
The transcription is of the Haydn Trio I wrote about last week.
Here's a performance:
You can get the music here.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Haydn Music of the Spheres
I have spent every day of this new academic year reading through Haydn's Piano Sonatas. It's been a wonderful experience (to make a huge understatement). Today I came across the amazing trio section of the Minuet from in his A major Piano Sonata Hob. XVI:12, and I thought I'd share it here.
Thursday, September 05, 2013
The Ash Grove for Four Guitars
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
"Being" a Composer
Sometimes I wonder what "being" a composer actually is. When you're not currently writing something, are you still a composer? And when you are working on something that you realize doesn't have any particular value, are you then a lousy composer? How about if you write something that nobody else seems to like? If you stop writing music, are you still a composer?
Oh how I envy Haydn! He never had to ask these kinds of questions. He reported to his Prince and got his musical orders for the day, and after he was dismissed with a generous pension, people in Vienna and London wanted more new music from him. He did have tremendous musical responsibilities, but he also had the ability to meet them with music that was inventive, brilliant, always interesting, always modern, always a pleasure to play, and always meaningful. The pleasure I get from his Piano Sonatas offsets nearly any sadness or feeling of isolation that comes into my life. I can't think of a single piece of Haydn that doesn't give me great pleasure.
I suppose that Haydn never had to wonder "what" he was in his world. He was simply a musician.
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Mozart, Haydn, and J.J. Rousseau
I have always been fascinated with the relationship of Mozart to Haydn, and Mozart to Rousseau, and Mozart and Haydn to Freemasonry, so in graduate school I jumped on the opportunity to write a paper about it. I recently installed Microsoft Word on my MacBook, and yesterday I was finally able to see a nifty timeline that I made as an appendix to the paper. I must have given my only paper copy to someone, and until yesterday I thought it was lost forever. Now I can share it here with anyone who might be interested. If you click on the pictures they will be easier to read.
If you want a PDF, you can download one here, and if you want to read the paper, you can get it here.
If you want a PDF, you can download one here, and if you want to read the paper, you can get it here.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
John Simon's Search for the "Soul in Music"
I would love to visit a museum (or two) and/or go to a concert (or two) with John Simon because what seems to move him emotionally when considering works of music and art is so vastly different from what moves me emotionally when considering works of music and art. I have great respect for him as a writer and as a thinker, and find that he makes his case for "his music" eloquently in this recent blog post. I followed his suggestion to look at his book, John Simon on Music, which I could browse by way of Google Books. Rather than taking issue with anything in the book, I must make the observation that poor Mr. Simon's tastes seem not to have changed in 30 years. 30 years is one third of a hefty lifetime, and half of an adulthood.
In his blog post he dares the reader to define what "soul in music" might be:
I would say first, given the context of this question, that the music that moves Mr. Simon is music that he knows and has known for a long time. He is a self-described music lover, which means to me, in this context, that he loves the music that he knows, and doesn't have much room for learning to love the music he doesn't know.
Perhaps it is a generational thing. Mr. Simon grew up at a time when there was very little in the way of "early music" around. His music-related writing from the 1970s seems to be uninformed by what we now call historically-informed performance practice, and it also seems to be focused on musical rarities and music that might have been considered on the fringe at the time. Why would someone who developed tastes off the beaten path want to trod the beaten path of Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn? How can somebody dismiss Vivaldi when recent discoveries (within the past 10 years or so) show what a multi-faceted composer he was? And I wonder why Mr. Simon finds Haydn preferable to Mozart? Does he know everything by Haydn and by Mozart? Could he identify the Haydn influences in the Mozart "Haydn" Quartets, or the Mozart influences in Haydn's Opus 76 Quartets, or the Mozart influences in Haydn's London Symphonies? These kinds of comparisons need to be made on a piece-by-piece basis, and through making these kinds of comparisons most musicians and music lovers begin to learn more about what makes both of these composers great. Enough about this.
I'll go back to Mr. Simon's question about the "soul in music." My answer is simple: I don't think that there is "soul" in music. I think that everyone's musical experiences are singular, and everyone's musical loves are singular and very personal. Some of us have unconscious "libraries" of musical references that compel us to relate one piece to another, and some of us don't. Some of us appreciate structure (structures of all kinds) in the music we respond to, and some of us respond emphatically to music that defies the notion of structure. There are people who hate chocolate (I know two of them), and there are people who love chocolate more than anything in the world. Almost everyone loves their mother's cooking, regardless of how good (or bad) a cook she was (or is). Is there a soul in science? Scientists have always been on the lookout for some kind of truth, and they even constructed a really good method to do so, but there is always more knowledge that can throw a wrench into what we like to call "laws." Once in a while someone gets lucky in science or in math and comes up with something that really holds water. Once in a while someone gets lucky in music too. Composers we consider great usually have had (and those that are living have) technique, knowledge, resources, and luck.
I don't believe there is a "universal musical truth," but I believe that within a particular musical endeavor, whether it be a performance or a composition, there are periods of insincerity and periods of sincerity. There are also constant periods of success and lack of success in composing and performing. I can listen to a recording of a performance a few days after I played a concert and hear only the flaws. I can hear the same recording five years later, and the flaws might just fly by my ear, unnoticed (they flaw right by!). I can spend weeks writing a short piece of music that engages my imagination and keeps me happy while I am at work on it, and I can hear it five years later and wonder what the hell I might have been thinking. Or I can hear a terrific performance of something I that I didn't think much of after I wrote it.
Everything is subjective. Music is vast and entirely personal. People who disagree on everything from politics to chocolate can find common ground in music that they both love, and Mr. Simon does have some excellent music on his list of "fourteen sublime works by thirteen composers."
In his blog post he dares the reader to define what "soul in music" might be:
But define it? I defy anyone to do so. I can only say that it is what moves me, stirs up my insides, would make me sing or hum it if I knew how. What, in a Hungarian phrase, crawls (caressingly) into the ear. What makes me forget my worries, my inadequacies, my mortality. What makes me want to hear it again and again.Since I can't resist a challenge (and the only way to get the question out of my mind is to answer it), I'll give it my best try.
I would say first, given the context of this question, that the music that moves Mr. Simon is music that he knows and has known for a long time. He is a self-described music lover, which means to me, in this context, that he loves the music that he knows, and doesn't have much room for learning to love the music he doesn't know.
Perhaps it is a generational thing. Mr. Simon grew up at a time when there was very little in the way of "early music" around. His music-related writing from the 1970s seems to be uninformed by what we now call historically-informed performance practice, and it also seems to be focused on musical rarities and music that might have been considered on the fringe at the time. Why would someone who developed tastes off the beaten path want to trod the beaten path of Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn? How can somebody dismiss Vivaldi when recent discoveries (within the past 10 years or so) show what a multi-faceted composer he was? And I wonder why Mr. Simon finds Haydn preferable to Mozart? Does he know everything by Haydn and by Mozart? Could he identify the Haydn influences in the Mozart "Haydn" Quartets, or the Mozart influences in Haydn's Opus 76 Quartets, or the Mozart influences in Haydn's London Symphonies? These kinds of comparisons need to be made on a piece-by-piece basis, and through making these kinds of comparisons most musicians and music lovers begin to learn more about what makes both of these composers great. Enough about this.
I'll go back to Mr. Simon's question about the "soul in music." My answer is simple: I don't think that there is "soul" in music. I think that everyone's musical experiences are singular, and everyone's musical loves are singular and very personal. Some of us have unconscious "libraries" of musical references that compel us to relate one piece to another, and some of us don't. Some of us appreciate structure (structures of all kinds) in the music we respond to, and some of us respond emphatically to music that defies the notion of structure. There are people who hate chocolate (I know two of them), and there are people who love chocolate more than anything in the world. Almost everyone loves their mother's cooking, regardless of how good (or bad) a cook she was (or is). Is there a soul in science? Scientists have always been on the lookout for some kind of truth, and they even constructed a really good method to do so, but there is always more knowledge that can throw a wrench into what we like to call "laws." Once in a while someone gets lucky in science or in math and comes up with something that really holds water. Once in a while someone gets lucky in music too. Composers we consider great usually have had (and those that are living have) technique, knowledge, resources, and luck.
I don't believe there is a "universal musical truth," but I believe that within a particular musical endeavor, whether it be a performance or a composition, there are periods of insincerity and periods of sincerity. There are also constant periods of success and lack of success in composing and performing. I can listen to a recording of a performance a few days after I played a concert and hear only the flaws. I can hear the same recording five years later, and the flaws might just fly by my ear, unnoticed (they flaw right by!). I can spend weeks writing a short piece of music that engages my imagination and keeps me happy while I am at work on it, and I can hear it five years later and wonder what the hell I might have been thinking. Or I can hear a terrific performance of something I that I didn't think much of after I wrote it.
Everything is subjective. Music is vast and entirely personal. People who disagree on everything from politics to chocolate can find common ground in music that they both love, and Mr. Simon does have some excellent music on his list of "fourteen sublime works by thirteen composers."
Monday, March 12, 2012
The Difference is in the Doing
I think that one difference between what we call "classical music" and what we might call "popular music" or "commercial music" (including music written in the various idioms used for what we call "classical music") has a lot to do with the motivations of a composer. The same composer can, of course, write music that is intended to be commercial as well as write music that is done with little regard for how it sells (or is consumed). There have always been great composers who wrote both commercial (or popular) and non commercial music. I suppose it has a lot to do with who the consumer of the music happens to be, and how s/he consumes it.
I believe that commercial music is written primarily to engage audiences. Film music is written to manipulate an audience to react to visual images and narrative in a particular way. Opera is too, and even more so in the 20th century. What we call "pop music" is very intensely geared to appeal to an audience, and it is "consumed" mostly by people who are not practicing musicians. Vocal pop music is often defined by a singer (or THE singer) connected with a song rather than the composer of a song, unless it happens to be a rare instance when it is the same person. In the case of the singer-songwriter, the idea of writing the song in the first place seems to be about sharing an emotional experience directly with an audience, where it is often consumed like "pop music," but is then "covered" by people who want to sing it themselves (and often not for an audience).
I assume that I'm not alone when I mention that communicating something to an audience is the last thing I have in mind when I write a piece of music. I write music in order to communicate with musicians and allow communication between the musicians who are playing the music I write. It is their business to communicate their interpretation to an audience. My job ends (if all goes well) where their jobs begin.
I have read that Telemann's motivation for writing music was to give people music that they enjoyed playing. I believe that Bach's motivation was similar, but he also had a job where his music needed to demonstrate the teachings of the Lutheran church. He managed to combine the whole enjoyment of playing thing and the manipulation of spirit thing rather seamlessly. Even people who describe themselves as not the least bit religious are moved emotionally when they listen to Bach's religious music. Instrumentalists who play Bach's non-religious music find personal enjoyment in the process of practicing it. And the personal enjoyment is something that we experience daily. For most of us there is no need to perform Bach's music. We play it because of what it does for us in our own private spaces.
Haydn and his contemporaries published string quartets so that people could play them for collective enjoyment. The challenges and jokes that he put in his music are there to enhance the private musical discourse. When Mozart wrote his "Haydn" Quartets, he did so as a way of communicating with a composer he admired. I believe that the idea of performing them for an audience would have been the furthest thing from his mind. The commercial success for most of the composers of the Classical Period came from the sales of their music. It's kind of like the concept of commercial success for Milton and Bradley comes from the sales of their games.
Sure, Mozart and Haydn did write music that was intended for audiences, and those audiences were often important ones that included monarchs and patrons, but I believe that some of their "public" music was different from the music that they wrote for their friends and for musicians they admired. I think that they wrote chamber music and piano music primarily for people to enjoy playing, and I believe that they always wrote their orchestral music (particularly Haydn, who had standing relationships with the members of his orchestra) so that the musicians would enjoy themselves while playing it. In Beethoven's later years he cared a great deal about what audiences thought of his Quartets (like the late Quartets), but those people were often musicians themselves, and Beethoven was an exception to all rules.
Moving forward to the period of uncommon practice (a.k.a. today), composers write their music for musicians to play and enjoy. The idea of the standard musical ensemble has expanded greatly. There are a great number of percussionists who like to use large numbers of instruments. There are people who enjoy using sophisticated electronic instruments, people who have expertise using extended techniques, microtones, and multiphonics, and people who enjoy exploring non western scales. Many of these musicians are young, and many are interested in playing new music written by people of their generation. The existing repertoire would be very small (if existent at all) for an ensemble made of tuba, percussion, flute, harp, bassoon, and French horn, and for such an ensemble to survive as a performing group, it would need good new music to play. I like to think that composers who would write for a young ensemble like the hypothetical one above would be more concerned about how playable the harp part is, if the bassoon can be heard above the tuba, or whether the percussionist can participate in the ensemble without dominating, than how an audience will respond to his or her musical ideas.
Members of the listening public and consumers of recorded music should remember that there is a lot of new music that is not being written for your enjoyment. It is being written for the enjoyment of the intended performing musicians, and for the enjoyment of other ensembles made of the same instruments as the intended ensemble. If they succeed at communicating the essence of a piece of new music to you, they have succeeded in their mission. If they don't, it could have something to do with the composer (who, if given a chance to hear a performance, can correct the problems in the work), or it could have something to do with errors of judgement (or notes, or rhythms) made by the performing musicians.
I really don't believe that contemporary composers should be judged against composers from a previous eras. I don't believe that living composers should be judged against dead ones. (The living composer can grow, and the dead one can't.) I also don't believe it is fair to judge a composer from the "common practice" period against a composer from what I call the "uncommon practice" of the present day. There will never be another Rameau, J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Debussy, Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky, or Shostakovich (to give just a few examples). These were all singular musical personalities who continue, long after their lives ended, to challenge our imaginations and remain relevant and modern. I believe they all speak to the musicians who play their music now with the same voices they spoke with while they were living, but as "consumers" of music (everyone reading this post is probably, on some level, a consumer of music) we need to keep an open mind about what the music of today means to today's young musicians. The best stuff will survive because people will want to play it, and the stuff that nobody wants to play might have to wait for another generation to find musicians who appreciate. It could also simply fade into oblivion. Only time will tell. While we wait, musicians will still enjoy playing music written by the composers on the above list and by composers who may have not been as well respected or well known during their lifetimes.
I'll end this little rant by paraphrasing a statement I heard Stephane Wrembel make about the influence Django Reinhardt has on him: you can work under the shadows of great composers, or you can be illuminated by their light.
I believe that commercial music is written primarily to engage audiences. Film music is written to manipulate an audience to react to visual images and narrative in a particular way. Opera is too, and even more so in the 20th century. What we call "pop music" is very intensely geared to appeal to an audience, and it is "consumed" mostly by people who are not practicing musicians. Vocal pop music is often defined by a singer (or THE singer) connected with a song rather than the composer of a song, unless it happens to be a rare instance when it is the same person. In the case of the singer-songwriter, the idea of writing the song in the first place seems to be about sharing an emotional experience directly with an audience, where it is often consumed like "pop music," but is then "covered" by people who want to sing it themselves (and often not for an audience).
I assume that I'm not alone when I mention that communicating something to an audience is the last thing I have in mind when I write a piece of music. I write music in order to communicate with musicians and allow communication between the musicians who are playing the music I write. It is their business to communicate their interpretation to an audience. My job ends (if all goes well) where their jobs begin.
I have read that Telemann's motivation for writing music was to give people music that they enjoyed playing. I believe that Bach's motivation was similar, but he also had a job where his music needed to demonstrate the teachings of the Lutheran church. He managed to combine the whole enjoyment of playing thing and the manipulation of spirit thing rather seamlessly. Even people who describe themselves as not the least bit religious are moved emotionally when they listen to Bach's religious music. Instrumentalists who play Bach's non-religious music find personal enjoyment in the process of practicing it. And the personal enjoyment is something that we experience daily. For most of us there is no need to perform Bach's music. We play it because of what it does for us in our own private spaces.
Haydn and his contemporaries published string quartets so that people could play them for collective enjoyment. The challenges and jokes that he put in his music are there to enhance the private musical discourse. When Mozart wrote his "Haydn" Quartets, he did so as a way of communicating with a composer he admired. I believe that the idea of performing them for an audience would have been the furthest thing from his mind. The commercial success for most of the composers of the Classical Period came from the sales of their music. It's kind of like the concept of commercial success for Milton and Bradley comes from the sales of their games.
Sure, Mozart and Haydn did write music that was intended for audiences, and those audiences were often important ones that included monarchs and patrons, but I believe that some of their "public" music was different from the music that they wrote for their friends and for musicians they admired. I think that they wrote chamber music and piano music primarily for people to enjoy playing, and I believe that they always wrote their orchestral music (particularly Haydn, who had standing relationships with the members of his orchestra) so that the musicians would enjoy themselves while playing it. In Beethoven's later years he cared a great deal about what audiences thought of his Quartets (like the late Quartets), but those people were often musicians themselves, and Beethoven was an exception to all rules.
Moving forward to the period of uncommon practice (a.k.a. today), composers write their music for musicians to play and enjoy. The idea of the standard musical ensemble has expanded greatly. There are a great number of percussionists who like to use large numbers of instruments. There are people who enjoy using sophisticated electronic instruments, people who have expertise using extended techniques, microtones, and multiphonics, and people who enjoy exploring non western scales. Many of these musicians are young, and many are interested in playing new music written by people of their generation. The existing repertoire would be very small (if existent at all) for an ensemble made of tuba, percussion, flute, harp, bassoon, and French horn, and for such an ensemble to survive as a performing group, it would need good new music to play. I like to think that composers who would write for a young ensemble like the hypothetical one above would be more concerned about how playable the harp part is, if the bassoon can be heard above the tuba, or whether the percussionist can participate in the ensemble without dominating, than how an audience will respond to his or her musical ideas.
Members of the listening public and consumers of recorded music should remember that there is a lot of new music that is not being written for your enjoyment. It is being written for the enjoyment of the intended performing musicians, and for the enjoyment of other ensembles made of the same instruments as the intended ensemble. If they succeed at communicating the essence of a piece of new music to you, they have succeeded in their mission. If they don't, it could have something to do with the composer (who, if given a chance to hear a performance, can correct the problems in the work), or it could have something to do with errors of judgement (or notes, or rhythms) made by the performing musicians.
I really don't believe that contemporary composers should be judged against composers from a previous eras. I don't believe that living composers should be judged against dead ones. (The living composer can grow, and the dead one can't.) I also don't believe it is fair to judge a composer from the "common practice" period against a composer from what I call the "uncommon practice" of the present day. There will never be another Rameau, J.S. Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Debussy, Bartok, Ravel, Stravinsky, or Shostakovich (to give just a few examples). These were all singular musical personalities who continue, long after their lives ended, to challenge our imaginations and remain relevant and modern. I believe they all speak to the musicians who play their music now with the same voices they spoke with while they were living, but as "consumers" of music (everyone reading this post is probably, on some level, a consumer of music) we need to keep an open mind about what the music of today means to today's young musicians. The best stuff will survive because people will want to play it, and the stuff that nobody wants to play might have to wait for another generation to find musicians who appreciate. It could also simply fade into oblivion. Only time will tell. While we wait, musicians will still enjoy playing music written by the composers on the above list and by composers who may have not been as well respected or well known during their lifetimes.
I'll end this little rant by paraphrasing a statement I heard Stephane Wrembel make about the influence Django Reinhardt has on him: you can work under the shadows of great composers, or you can be illuminated by their light.
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