Szell's reorchestration of Beethoven 5!

I love Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. It's one of my nine favorite Beethoven Symphonies. The new edition of the textbook we use at my community college replaced the 1987 Concertgebouw recording with Haitink with a 1964 recording by Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, and that is the version I played for my classes today. Imagine my surprise when the transition motive that is played by the horns during the exposition wasn't played by the bassoons in the recapitulation. Szell must have decided to replace the bassoons (or enhance, perhaps) with horns. I find the doubled bassoon color there such a fine example of Beethoven humor, and I'm shocked that Szell took it out. You can hear it at 5:32 of this film.

[Unfortunately the film is no longer on YouTube, but it might be available elsewhere in the future.]

Have a look at the score!



There are other bold Szellisms in the 1964 Cleveland recording, like the slow tempo and heavy quality of the Scherzo, and the way the microphone seems to be trained a single violin during the pizzicato section near the end of the Scherzo (to give the illusion of absolute cleanliness, perhaps?).

Here's a wonderful clip of Szell rehearsing the first movement of the 5th. Unfortunately Szell doesn't make it to the recapitulation in this rehearsal, but he does say "that's good" to the brass who play the motive in the exposition. A complement from Szell? I have heard that is rare indeed. Perhaps he was playing for the cameras.

Possible Guest Editorial for a University Newspaper

This is an editorial I would like to send to our local university paper, eventually:

When I first moved here in 1985 I was surprised to find a town with a remarkably lively musical community. I was welcomed by scores of people who were thrilled that an experienced musician from the East had come here to live. I found people to play with right away (a baroque triosonata group, no less), and started giving concerts that were quite well attended by members of the university community and members of the local community. A surprising number of faculty members from departments not connected with music would come to concerts regularly. They came because they liked listening to music.

During the ten years that John David Moore and I have been giving concerts together, we have watched our audience dwindle from a healthy crowd to just a handful of individuals. A number of people have retired and moved away, and a number of people have died.

I suppose that most people on the faculty are busy with obligations and commitments, and some might consider "going to hear someone perform" just another commitment. I am surprised that people who devote their time to the study of English literature and/or History are not excited about the mini concert series that John David and I are playing this Fall. Who wouldn't want to hear music written by British composers on either side of World War I? Do they fear that British 20th century music would be discordant or too intellectual for them to understand? Are they afraid that they won't like the music because it is music written by composers they have never heard of? Are they afraid that they will be bored? Are they afraid that the music won't be played well (after all, the people playing live in this community, and they're offering these concerts for free)? Would they feel ill at ease, and not know what to do?

Never fear. The British composers working during the first two decades of the 20th century did not embrace the progressive musical developments that were gaining popularity on the European continent. Nobody British wrote anything atonal until the 1930s, and even then it was rare. Most British composers saw nothing wrong with doing what they could with traditional melody and traditional harmony--with a few lush extensions. Because the British composers were considered backward by people on the European continent, most of them have been ignored by music scholars (aside from Elgar, Vaughan Williams, and Holst, who are extremely popular--go figure).

We are eager to share this music because it is beautiful, interesting, and closely connected with the literature that John David is teaching this semester in his senior seminar. It is music that was current (and very much in the air) when many of the great pieces of 20th-century English literature were being written.

British music from the early 20th century has never held an important place in the general academic musical canon. It still doesn't get the recognition it deserves. I can assure you that nobody in the audience will have heard any of the music on this program (recordings are rare and mostly no longer available), so you will be sharing a unique experience with your fellow audience members. After the concert you will know the music. You will have experienced it in real time and in real space (about an hour and a half, including intermission). It will be a part of you.

I can promise you that John David and I will do our very best to make sure that the music sounds good. We hold ourselves to very high standards, and we put a great deal of time and effort into preparing our concerts. Music is our vocation. We play these concerts in order to create fulfilling lives for ourselves, and to share what we do with our community.

It is easy to be anonymous at a concert. A concert is not a designated social occasion, and you don't need to talk with anybody, unless you want to. Everybody will be listening during the concert anyway. If you're afraid that you won't know when to clap, just follow the lead of the other people in the audience. Hopefully there will be more than just a handful.

The Gesualdo Effect!

The Gesualdo Effect: Child begins each sentence on one topic, then shifts unexpectedly to a new, unrelated topic. Grows up to be a serial murderer.

Go here for more. Make sure to scroll beyond The "established" list for Sarah's other contributions.

Looking at Art, Listening to Music

Whenever I leave a museum I see the world differently.

When I look at art in a museum I am always selective. Some pieces grab my attention, and some do not. The pieces that do grab my attention do so for various reasons. Some stimulate my imagination and make ME want to paint, sculpt, or draw. Some fill me with absolute wonder as I try to imagine the amount of knowledge about composition, understanding of materials, and simply the pure technique that goes into making a work of art that can pull me in and "speak" to me.

I always go to concerts in evaluative mode, whether I am there to review it or not. I place extremely high demands on the people performing, and more often than not they do not live up to my expectations. When they do, or when they exceed my expectations, the thrill remains with me. Sometimes it remains for years. If the concert, for whatever reason, doesn't do much for me, I still learn from the experience. As an eternal student of music, I always question what it is that makes something work, and I question what it is that makes something not work. I appreciate the visual aspect of a concert, and I appreciate the way the sound operates in the room. I appreciate witnessing the tensions and releases that are always active in high pressure concert situations, and I appreciate the level of dedication that the performing musicians demonstrate. After most concerts the way I think about music in both the general sense and in the specific sense has been changed, even if only slightly. That feeling of change rarely happens when I listen to recordings.

Sometimes I like to pretend, in the case of a concert recording, that I am listening in real time and real space, but much of that experience is enhanced by my imagination. The experience of listening to recordings (for me) is a very different kid of experience from that of listening to concerts--being in the room while the music is being played.

Many people have come to think of either analog or digitized "impressions" of music (including videos) as the real thing in much the same way that many people have come to believe that a photograph of a work of art is just as good as seeing the real thing. I have certainly enjoyed looking at many photographic reproductions of pieces of art, and I have certainly enjoyed listening to recordings of pieces of music.

When I look at a photograph of a piece of art, I am looking through the lens of a photographer who tries his or her best to get the colors right, and tries to replicate the textures of the art in two dimensions. When I listen to a recording I am listening through the audio equipment and the ears of an engineer who may or may not be able to capture, for technical reasons, as much of the music as he or she would like to.

I also know that I am often listening through the evaluative post-recording-session ears of the performing musicians, who choose only the best "takes" to be preserved for "all time." I may be listening to a set of strung-together compromises rather than a performance when I listen to a recording, and in the case of musicians who are no longer around or are otherwise inaccessible to me, there's no way I will ever know.

Ice Music: Chillingly Awesome

The harp looks like it has a wooden frame that is dipped in water and frozen, and it seems that everything needs to be amplified to actually be heard, but the concept is nifty.

This video has violins, guitars, and a flute, in addition to percussion instruments. A huge amount of effort and energy goes into putting these temporary and temperamental instruments together, but it does create quite a spectacle.

Nifty Arpeggio Exercises That Really Work

When I first started playing the violin as an adult, my father gave me his book of 36 Studies or Caprices by Federigo Fiorillo: a Ditson Edition that cost 1.00 back in 1920 (you can download a PDF here). My copy has handwriting in it that I imagine must be Galamian's because I have seen it in all of my father's "student" violin music.

For years and years the etudes were simply too difficult for me to play or even to understand, but now that I'm working on music that requires me to spend a vast amount of time in the upper positions, I find the Fiorillo studies extremely helpful. The last etude (above) is a bowing etude that I found very enlightening. I have practiced arpeggios for years, but for some reason, as if by "default," I tend to practice them from the bottom up and not from the top down (like in 3, 12, and 15). Thinking of them as chords (someting I have always known, but until today have really never KNOWN) really opens up loads of possibilities. You could, for example, apply these articulation patterns (or similar ones) to any chord progression in any position on the violin. You could also apply the concept to any instrument, actually.

Going backwards through the book (the way I sometimes read magazines), I realized that exploring and exploiting the violin as an arpeggiating instrument is pretty much Fiorillo's whole schtick. Number 36 certainly worked to improve my control of my schtick (the bow schtick, that is), so I thought I would share it here.

If you look at Fiorillo's page on the IMSLP Petrucci Library, you will see that he also wrote flute music. Interesting.

Worldwide Accent Project

I grew up in Boston, and many of my friends and teachers had Boston accents. I always wanted one, and wondered why I never acquired one (or simply couldn't). I can spot an authentic one instantly, and I feel a real sense of familiarity and a bit of nostalgia when I hear someone speak with a Boston accent.

I love regional accents, and I can usually identify them. I can often even tell the language of origin for a person who speaks English as a second language. I once guessed (correctly) the language of origin of a person I met in our local library many years ago. Her English had a vaguely Slavic tinge to it, but it reminded me vaguely of the way people I knew from former Yugoslavia spoke German. Then there was this bit of French in the way she pronounced the letter "D." I guessed that her first language was Serbo-Croatian, but that she might have learned English from someone who was French. I was right on both counts: she was from Serbia, and her family moved to Toronto when she was a teenager. It kind of freaked her out.

It occurred to me that with all the people I knew when I was growing up in Boston, and later when I lived there as an adult, I never met an African American person with a Boston Accent. While searching online to see whether anyone else noticed this linguistic phenomenon, I came across the "Worldwide Accent Project", and have decided to contribute my accent-less voice to the project.

Louis Holberg's Citizen of a Musical Underworld (1741)

You can see more plates from this book here

Dr. Beethoven, assisted by Drs. Gingold, Oistrakh and Oborin

I must confess that seriously underestimated how personally important it is for me to keep this blog, and am humbled to know that it has meaning for people who read it. Thank you for your comments, e-mails, phone calls, and concern. I had a rough few days. I learned that abandoning this connection to the collective you (anonymous and otherwise) is not something I want to try again.

It's worth remembering that the process of going through emotional rough spots allows us to understand the breadth and scope of music. Somehow Beethoven came along just in time to remind me that honest and personal experience with the full spectrum of emotions is as necessary for us to grow as musicians as practice and study. We are thermometers and barometers of emotion, whether we perform music or write music, and whether we want to admit it or not. Perhaps it is the only reason that we do what we do.

This morning I listened to a fantastic 1963 recording of Josef Gingold playing the Violin Concerto with a university orchestra, and then I taught a class about Beethoven's sonatas (piano sonatas, violin sonatas, and cello sonatas). I feel almost like new.

I thought I'd share this almost complete film of Oistrakh and Oborin playing the "Spring" Sonata to help brighten up your day. Oistrakh's bow arm is a wonder of nature.

Epilogue Fermata

UPDATE: OK. I'm calling it a Fermata, but I'll spare you the details, and will write when I have something positive to say about the state of my world--musical and otherwise.

I have decided to write a final post for take a hiatus from Musical Assumptions. I began this blog with the hope of having some kind of interaction with a greater musical community, but I feel that I have arrived at a point where I need to stop adding to the din. I will keep Musical Assumptions on line with the hope that some of the 1,301 posts (!!!) I have written during the past six and a half years (!!!) will mean something to someone.

I will continue to update my thematic catalog, and hope to spend my non-practicing time writing some worthwhile music rather than running the risk of repeating myself in public prose. I'm always happy to engage in private e-mail correspondence, by the way. One-on-one conversation, whether through writing or talking, is my favorite way of communicating.

Thanks for reading!

Fish Story

Sometimes, when I wonder why such a small segment of the population (particularly the small segment of the population that lives in the small university town in my neck of the prairie) takes the time to go to concerts, I think of a story that an old friend used to tell about a man who talked about building a garage with space for a live box in it. When my friend asked this man why he wanted to have a live box in his garage, the man's response was, "doesn't everybody?"

Achieving New Balance

The phrase "Achieve New Balance" is printed on the bottom of my relatively new sneakers, and though I step on that phrase multiple times daily, it has taken quite a while for its impact to reach my brain, fingers, and blog.

When I began playing violin 20 years ago (it will be 20 years this Thanksgiving), I worked like crazy to make up for the many years I spent away from the violin. It has taken me 20 years, but finally all those bowstrokes, scales, and shifts have made paved passageways between my brain, fingers, arms, hands, and ears that I can actually rely upon.

I remember distinctly the first time I felt "it," that moment when playing something the way I want to play something happens effortlessly. It happened to me at Juilliard, in a practice room (with my flute), playing the Handel A minor Sonata. All of a sudden the process of getting from one note to the next had meaning. I could make phrases go wherever my imagination wanted them to go, and I could articulate the way I wanted to articulate. My biggest problem from that point on was to figure out what I wanted to do with a phrase, not how to do it. I had been playing for about five years at the time.

I figured that it would take at least five years to get to that point on the fiddle, but, because all the physicality involved in playing the violin as opposed to playing the flute, I didn't really find "it" until last week; twenty years in. Perhaps it's my age, perhaps its the instrument, perhaps its the fact that I haven't worked with a teacher (as a student) for ten of those years (for better or for worse). Perhaps it's the lack of strife and tension in my life, or perhaps it's just time.

I attribute at least 50% of it to my new bow. Its particular weight and particular personality has allowed me to find balance on my violin. Through finding that balance between the parts of my playing anatomy, everything is so much easier, even if the music I'm playing is difficult. My bow can (figuratively, of course) draw a straight line and a perfect circle freehand, with its eyes closed. It makes it possible for me not to waste energy, and it lets my instrument give energy back to me.

Yesterday, when I read Tom Burritt's post about Evelyn Glennie on Drum Chatter, and saw this video:



I understood that what I was feeling was real.

I don't think that this feeling is really possible to teach. Sure, you can demonstrate "it," as long as "it" isn't too much a part of your musical anatomy (many really good players are too immersed in "it" to identify its components). A teacher can notice when "it" is missing, but, from my experience with teachers, they are just as likely to miss the mark as they are to hit it. They can correct hand and arm positions, and they can correct intonation. They can offer strategies to avoid physical tension, and encourage students to breathe. They can even get a student to feel "it" during the lesson, but ultimately it must be the student who finds "it" in his or her own personal/musical space, because "it" is internal and personal.

Some kids get the physical "it" right away, and then their hands and arms grow, and the balance changes. Everything changes when they become adolescents. Some kids keep "it," and some spend their entire musical lives trying to find "it" again.

From my first experience if "it," or "New Balance" on the flute, I realized that personal musical demands and the ability to execute those demands are almost always in an imbalance. When the musical demands exceed a person's technical ability, the answer is pretty straightforward. It's a time to gather tools to address the problem (scales, arpeggios, practicing with a metronome, practicing double stops). The process is usually straightforward.

When technical ability exceeds musical demands, however, it produces a period of stagnation and sometimes boredom. Sometimes this can last for years. Solving that problem is never straightforward.

On a micro-musical (i.e. daily) level these factors are in constant play, and that's why we always need to look for balance in our musical lives, and, because everything is in constant flux, it's always a new balance.

Time for me to practice!

Do you think I'm doing this for my health?

Doing musical things without monetary compensation can be healthy. But it can also be unhealthy. Our greater culture really does use money to determine value, and, unfortunately, it devalues things that are offered for free. People assume that a free concert, for example, might not be as good as a concert that has an admission charge. They are often wrong. Sometimes sponsoring entities make it possible for concerts to be free for audiences by paying the musicians and paying for the venue. Sometimes musicians like to play concerts as a community service, and they donate their services.

The free concerts that I have played (and I have played many) rarely have as big an audience as the concerts I have played that were not free. People who have hired me (or my quartet) to play for weddings are usually aware that the price we charge is fair, and that it reflects the quality of our performance (we are professionals, and we take our work seriously). They always respect the terms of our contract, and they know that if they don't pay us (and pay us in advance), they won't have music for their wedding. It is an easy and ethical form of commerce.

It's the same with orchestral jobs. The hiring entity pays me and my colleagues for our time and professionalism, and we do our best to live up to their expectations, and most of us hope to exceed them.

Its those "iffy" situations that bother me. Providing entertainment for an unknown charity that is hosted by an acquaintance, without the terms of the agreement spelled out, or writing a piece of music for a specific charity-related performance for which I simply couldn't, in good conscience, ask for money, and then learning, for whatever reason, that the ensemble didn't play the piece. These situations always seem to involve lack of communication on the part of the person requesting my services, and I always feel the tacit sense of a lesser regard for the value of the thing (piece or performance) that I have given as a gift. I always take it personally. I believe there is a subtle difference between receiving something as a gift and getting something for free. I believe that a gift has more value than money. I try not to get into those kinds of situations, but they still seem to make their way into my musical life. I'm sure I'm not alone.

I do play concerts for my health, but only when I play violin and viola d'amore. I almost always play for money when I play the viola. That's just the way it works. It's part of my personal musical agreement with myself. I also keep this blog for reasons that are totally non commercial, and I find that doing so contributes a great deal to my sense of well being, musical and otherwise. It helps me connect to a larger musical community, which is a vital necessity for musicians living and working outside of the usual areas of musical discourse.

I do write for my health. I get a great deal of joy out of writing music. I provide all my new music to people for free because I don't think of performing musicians as "consumers," and don't believe that they should be the ones to pay money for the music they play. I believe that audiences and concert organizations should be the people responsible for providing the finances connected with musical commerce (including commissions).

As long as it doesn't cost me anything, and as long as I have a place to make my music available, I will continue to do so. Does that make what I write now less valuable than music I wrote ten years ago that is available for purchase from a publisher?

British Violin and Piano Music from the Eve of the Great War

1904-1914 was a fantastic decade for British music. Here's a map, if you happen to be in my neck of the woods next Thursday at 7:00.

Enrichment vs. Entertainment

No matter how hard I try, it seems that when I am trying to teach a class of students who are, for the most part, not terribly interested in the subject at hand (music of the "classical" variety), I end up simply being entertainment for them rather than providing enrichment. I fear that most students don't come away from a class knowing much more than they came in with, no matter how hard I try to engage them. The harder I try, the more entertaining I must be.

[Cue Frank Sinatra singing "Send in the Clowns"]

Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the clowns.

Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around,
One who can't move.
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns.

Just when I'd stopped
Opening doors,
Finally knowing
The one that I wanted was yours,
Making my entrance again
With my usual flair,
Sure of my lines,
No one is there.

Don't you love farce?
My fault, I fear.
I thought that you'd want what I want -
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns.
Quick, send in the clowns.

What a surprise.
Who could foresee
I'd come to feel about you
What you'd felt about me?
Why only now when I see
That you'd drifted away?
What a surprise.
What a cliché.

Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer?
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don't bother - they're here.