Speed

I learned a great deal from listening to a recent Radiolab podcast about Beethoven, but I didn't learn anything about Beethoven from it. When the hosts confessed their mutual dislike of Beethoven, and then suggested that the Beethoven "we" know might not be the Beethoven that he wanted us to know because of the metronome markings, I wanted to stop listening, but I continued (it's only an 18-minute podcast). Matthew Guerrieri's voice popped into the discussion, and there were elements of sense that came up concerning the tempo a person might choose when playing music in different acoustic environments, and the fact that Beethoven couldn't actually hear his metronome. I know from experience that composers almost pick tempos that are too fast for fast movements, and I have never taken printed tempo markings (even mine) to be anything aside beyond suggestions. Italian words are nice and vague. They suggest character, and that's what music is all about.

The hosts had a string quartet play some excerpts from Beethoven's 5th and 3rd to demonstrate how exciting it is to hear Beethoven played, with a metronome, at a fast tempo. It would be very difficult for a whole orchestra (including the bass section) to play at such fast tempos without scrambling around, but the hosts didn't touch that subject (it would muddy their argument).

After these 18 minutes I now understand why so many New York musicians tend to favor fast tempos. They think that it makes music more exciting. Perhaps they think it's what people want to hear. I noticed it 30 years ago when I was at Juilliard, and I notice it in many recordings I hear from New York-based ensembles. I noticed it last week when I heard a New York-based woodwind quintet play a concert out here in the "hinterlands."

I think that tempo is subjective and relative, and that there is a whole world of musical excitement that has little to do with speed. I hope that Radiolab keeps its distance from musical subjects in the future.

What A Treat!

. . . from an art room somewhere in America:



Yup! It's the first movement of my Sonata for Euphonium and Piano.

An Eloquent Argument by Timon Wapenaar

Thank you Timon Wapenaar, for describing the state of the American-led, technologically-aided, "market-driven" current musical economy so eloquently:

The whole “pop music” vs. “art music” debate is starting to smell fishy to me. It’s a product of a time when “art music” and “high culture” were approaching the top of a very high ivory tower, while an explosion of new technologies gave extended scope and reach to the world of popular music. George Crumb couldn’t compete with Jimi Hendrix. Theorists started agonising about the state of affairs, and the idea emerged that as composers withdrew into the rarefied air of the harmonic world post Schoenberg and Ives (and particularly post WWII), the public would become more alienated, concert attendance would drop off and eventually classical music would atrophy, and then petrify. Thus was born the idea that somehow, if the public was to be recaptured, it would be necessary to bridge the two seemingly opposed worlds of “Pop” and “Classical”. The success of works which attempted this union were to be judged on how adeptly they’d married the two worlds.

Here’s the problem I see with the situation: it’s rather like looking at the drop in sales of novels and attempting to address that by consciously creating works of literature which borrow from the world of the comic book. Which is, of course, happening, and has produced some great books. However, when one looks at literacy figures from the US, where people read a book a YEAR on average, and functional illiteracy is exploding, it begins to look like we’re fiddling while Rome etc. etc. Style is not the issue. The method is not the issue. The form is not the issue. What is at issue is the way in which music is heard, and the ability of the public to listen, which, as recorded music becomes more pervasive, becomes more diffuse. If you walk into a room with a ticking clock, eventually your brain will screen out the sound of it. Your ears receive the signals but your brain doesn’t process them. The more pervasive music becomes, the more it begins to resemble the ticking clock. Eventually, listening becomes less of a habit and more of an effort.

Who was it that said (roughly), “It is the function of the musician to educate the critic, of the critic to educate the public.”? The musician forms the public taste in music, not the other way round.

Putting Your Money on the Dot

I have been spending the past couple of days trying my best not to cheat dots (something I am wont to do). It is a delicate process because in addition to the conscious act of counting out whatever subdivision works best for the musical moment, there needs to be the right combination of bow speed and vibrato to make sure that what is in my head makes its way through the bow and out the instrument.

Wont! What a great word. Our friends at Merriam-Webster tell us that was first used before the 12th century, and is the "past participle of wonen to dwell, be used to, from Old English wunian; akin to Old High German wonēn to dwell, be used to."

It's also the opposite of won't!

This morning I found this pencil notation in a piece of orchestral music:



What an elegant way of making a point to put a little bit of extra inflection on a particular part of a beat (or phrase, for that matter). Perhaps a heart would do the trick as well, but somehow it seems that money does the most talking, and has the most meaning in these trying times.

I will not give a cash reward to anyone who identifies this piece of music, but I will give you a lot of praise. Hint: It does bear some relationship to something about the word "wont."

Practicing Ramble

I confess that I have been spending more time "doing" than writing about doing these days, but the rambling rumblings inside of my head need to come out, so here they are.



It is hard to believe that it has been nearly a year since I played a viola and piano recital, and the above concert has some more technically difficult viola music on it than viola concerts I have played in the past. Viola recitals are different from violin recitals because the violin is less physically taxing to practice at length than the viola, particularly when you have an arm vibrato (and I like the sound, so I'm not giving that up).

I have been trying to make things easier for myself by practicing carefully, trying to make all my shifts with conscious correctness, trying to avoid tension of any kind in either hand, and trying to make sure that my brain and the fingers of my left hand arrive at their desired locations ever so slightly ahead of my bow, so each note sounds full and complete when it is time for it to be heard. I practice my scales this way first, and then do the same with my music. My aim is to extend my attention span, and then tire it before I feel the aching wrath of the poor nearly 54-year-old abused tendons of my forearms. We must labor to play beautifully.

I actually love practicing this way. It is very efficient, and, if I do not get too impatient and try to play difficult passages at tempo before they are ready to be played at tempo, it is very rewarding. There is a certain joy in performing, but for me there is an even greater joy in the process of working on the music in order to get it "ripe" for sharing.

The Four Temperaments

I played Nielsen's Second Symphony "The Four Temperaments" for the first time this past week. It took a while for me to take a shine to it, but now I can't seem to get the last movement out of my head. Here it is played by a group of people who really understand the Danish-ness of the piece. The (obviously not Danish) conductor doesn't need to do anything in the way of interpretation, because the musicians all know what to do. And I love the Danish audience's response at the end.



The Temperament for the above movement (the last movement of the Symphony) is "Sanguine," which relates to the idea of ruddiness and the presence of blood. I love the ancient idea that temperament comes from a person's basic constitution, and that certain personality characteristics are a result of an imbalance of one of the body's fluids: yellow bile (associated with the spleen), black bile (associated with the gall bladder), phlegm (associated with the lungs and brain), and blood (associated with, of course, the heart).

You can take a Four Temperaments personality test and find out which temperament fits with your personality. I imagine that Nielsen thought of brass players Sanguine types. Most of us would identify being "Choleric" necessary for having success as a conductor or a section leader, and I think that being "Melancholic" is a necessity for composers. Like many people of a "Melancholic" temperament, I wish I could be a bit more "Phlegmatic."

Here is a website that is a treasure trove of everything related to the Temperaments (with a strongly Catholic slant), including this chart that associates the Four Temperaments to the musical church modes:



Now, I wonder how the Four Temperaments relate to the Seven Deadly Sins?

Michala Petri documentary from 1986

It is so wonderful see this film about one of my ultimate musical heros! This is part 1:



Here are the rest of the segments: part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, and part 6.

Classical Barbra

I had a copy of the "Classical Barbra" LP in 1976, when it first came out, and just couldn't resist the opportunity to hear it again after many years, and to write about it here.

Barbra Steisand has a very pretty voice. She sings well in tune, and her singular way of approaching matters of diction works well with French, Italian, and German as well as with English. All of Claus Ogerman's excellent orchestral arrangements are played by the finest New York freelance musicians of the 1970s, and it sounds like the concertmaster, who has a solo in Canteloube's "Brezairola" from Songs of the Auvergne, could be the great David Nadien.

The selections with piano (at least those from the original album: Wolf's "Verschwiegene Liebe" and Schumann's "Mondnacht") have a rather grossly amplified piano to go with Streisand's amplified voice, which makes listening difficult. The balance in "In trutina" from Carl Orff's Carmina Burana is also odd. The two Handel arias "Lascia ch'io pianga" from Rinaldo and "Dank sei Dir, Herr" are kind of square. Steisand's voice is pretty, and she sings nicely in tune with good diction, but the interpretations are dull.

The best pieces here are Debussy's "Beau Soir," Canteloube's "Brezairola," Faure's "Pavane," which Streisand does as a totally unaffected vocalise, and his "Apres un Reve," Claus Ogerman's "I Loved You," a piece set to a Pushkin poem (in his English translation) that he wrote specifically for Streisand's voice, and two Schubert tracks that did not appear on the original LP.

The piano, probably played by Ogerman, in Schubert's "An Sylvia" and "Auf dem Wasser zu singen" does not have the unnatural treatment that the piano is given in the Wolf and Schumann, and Streisand sings these quite well.

Oh yes. Streisand is billed as a soprano, which is something she definitely isn't. All the music here is transposed into keys that are comfortable for her. There is also (thankfully) nothing that demands vocal technique that she doesn't have, which was a very smart move by the folks at Columbia.

Random afterthoughts:

Imagine if Barbra Streisand sang something by Seymour Barab (and I know he has lots of material that would work for her voice as it is today); you could call it "Barbra does Barab."

Seymour Barab's Blind Date

Seymour Barab is the master of the pocket comic opera!



This comes from the January 27, 2013 performance given by the After Dinner Opera Company.

Hexagonal Pencil Ruler for Music Staves

Need to write something down in a pinch, with nary a ruler in sight? Use a hexagonal pencil to make evenly spaced lines!

Soho the Dog on Colbert!

Yes. The musical blogosphere has hit Comedy Central! Matthew Guerrieri should be on after the current commercial break.

UPDATE: Here it is.

The Colbert Report
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Speaking of Beethoven's 5th, I love this animation of the first movement by Stephen Malinowski:

Elocution!

I love matters of elocution, so that love sent me forth on an internet search this morning that took me to Alexander Melvin Bell's Elocutionary Manual, a book I found wonderful in every way.

You can find the book in the Internet Archive and download it for free as a PDF. Prepare to be amazed. Check out, for example, this scheme of the way vowels work in English on a scale from "ah" to "oo" and a scale from "ah" to "ee." Notice the way your mouth works when you try it!

and this "Gamut of Inflections"

Alexander Melvin Bell, by the way, was the father of Alexander Graham Bell.

Monteverdi's Zefiro Torna

It is pure medicine, during these trying times, to listen to these marvelous musicians play and sing this wonderful duet. I am amazed at the flexibility of the cornetto, and the way it matches the violin (and what a brilliant choice, since it's usually played with two violins)! I love the blend and contrast between the marvelous soprano and countertenor voices, the indulgent array of plucked instruments playing the ostinato, and Ottavio Rinuccini's poem!



Zefiro torna e di soavi accenti
L'aer fa grato e'l pie discoglie a l'onde
E mormorando tra le verdi fronde
Fa danzar al bel suon sul prato i fiori,
Inghirlandato il crin Fillide e Clori,
Notte temprando amor care e gioconde,
E da monti e da valli ime e profonde
Raddopian l'armonia gli antri canori.
Sorge più vaga in ciel l'aurora, e'l sole
Sparge più luci d'or, più puro argento
Fregia di Teti il bel ceruleo manto.

So io per selve abbandonate e sole
L'ardor di due begli occhi e'l mio tormento
Come vuol mia ventura hor piango, hor canto.


[Return O Zephyr, and with gentle motion
Make pleasant the air and scatter the grasses in waves
And murmuring among the green branches
Make the flowers in the field dance to your sweet sound;
Crown with a garland the heads of Phylla and Chloris
With notes tempered by love and joy,
From mountains and valleys high and deep
And sonorous caves that echo in harmony.
The dawn rises eagerly into the heavens and the sun
Scatters rays of gold, and of the purest silver,
Like embroidery on the cerulean mantle of Thetis.

But I, in abandoned forests, am alone.
The ardour of two beautiful eyes is my torment;
As my Fate wills it, now I weep, now I sing.]

Here's the score.

Who Knew?

I was talking with friends last night about childhood, and what each of us remembered wanting to "be" when we grew up.

My first career-related memory involved dressing as a man because I wanted to be in the Army. I wrote a "report" about it in the third grade, complete with an illustration of a happy soldier in uniform walking down a street whistling. My other female classmates drew pictures of nurses and teachers. I did feel like a bit of an outcast.

After my third-grade tomboyhood I never had any personal questions of gender identification (in the fourth grade, when I wanted to play "princess" parts in plays, I never got them). I imagine that my "when-I-grow-up" desires must have come from the books I used to read.

I used to take out arm-fulls of "Discovery Books" from our public library, and the two I remember reading the most were Leif the Lucky and John Paul Jones. I owned copies of Florence Nightingale and Clara Barton, which were given to me as gifts from well-meaning relatives, but I never took to them they way I did to the books about the men who figured in history. The only historical woman I could identify with as a child was Joan of Arc, but I don't believe that her biography was part of the "Discovery Book" series. I guess that I figured that if I could pass as a man, I could do the kinds of things men could do, which when I was growing up happened to be everything.

I found out a few nifty things today: Leif the Lucky was written by Erick Berry, and Erick Berry was a pseudonym for Allena Champlin (1892-1974). Allena grew up in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where her father was a librarian, and she became an artist and later a writer. I also learned that Leif the Lucky was published in 1961 by the Garrard Press in Champaign, Illinois (the city 50 miles away where I do most of my playing these days). I know the exact location of where the publisher who influenced so much of my childhood used to be.

If It Ain't Baroque . . .

I followed a link on an overgrown path to Vox Seculorum, where I found a group of composers dedicated to keeping the practice of Baroque music alive by using the styles and techniques of the 17th and 18th centuries to write new music.

Much of what I heard and saw there (go explore, there are audio links and links to PDF files) was derivative, but what is Baroque music if it is not derivative? Within the vast forests of music written during the Baroque period in Europe by composers (here's today's IMSLP list) who enjoyed the spoils of the period, for better or for worse, we find codification everywhere: this sounds Italian, that sounds English, these sound Spanish, this must have French influence, although it was written by a German composer. Vivaldi, Handel, Telemann, Fasch, Couperin, Biber, Buxtehude, Lully, Marias, Rameau, both Scarlattis, both Marcellos, and J.S. Bach and his sons make their way to the top of the heap (or maybe the top of my heap), and all of them used materials and styles that they learned from other composers in their music.

Eventually all the composers on my list were thought of as old fashioned, and people stopped writing music that used devices like figured bass. I get the distinct impression that most musicians who lived during the Baroque Period knew how to realize a figured bass at sight. These days figured bass is relinquished to something you study in analysis classes, and people who do not specialize in playing harpsichord or playing with harpsichord have little facility with it.

I was impressed with the composers I found on the Vox Seculorum roster of members, particularly Hendrik Bouman (here's a piece he wrote for orchestra). It turns out that Bouman, who is from the Netherlands and now lives in Canada, was the original Harpsichordist of Musica Antique Köln. He has enjoyed the opportunity to spend his entire career as a Baroque musician without having to give up the conveniences of central heat, instruments that are built using technologies and materials that allow them to remain in tune, indoor plumbing, access to collections and histories, and modern methods of travel and communication. And he writes Baroque music that I can enjoy the same way I would enjoy music written by the composers who sit on the top of my Baroque heap (listed above).

I was also very impressed by Gianluca Bersanetti, an Italian composer who lives in Los Angeles, specializes in early childhood education, and writes music in his spare time.





(Here's the first movement, and the second movement.)

He has a few pieces in the IMSLP