gs tin 4 lis 10 io e p ad se ll r e Fu insid
THE WORLD’S BEST-SELLING CLASSICAL MUSIC MAGAZINE Including 100 reviews of new recordings and books by expert critics
As voted for by 151 of the world’s leading conductors! See how they all voted on p34
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
Vaughan Williams How WWI scarred his music
Allegri’son Miserere Fingers buzzers!
Berg’s We visit Violin Radio 4’sConcerto Counterpoint Strauss’s Quixote CharlesDon Gounod
and many more French music’s brilliant melodist
JULY 2016 THE MONTH IN MUSIC
THE MONTH IN MUSIC The recordings, concerts, broadcasts and websites exciting us in July
ON DISC Various Hughes British soprano Ruby Hughes, a former BBC New Generation Artist, has released her debut recital disc – and it’s a winner. In ‘Nocturnal Variations’ on the Champs Hill label, Hughes explores with pianist Joseph Middleton the many moods and characters of the night, in music by Berg, Britten, Mahler and Schubert. See reviews, p72
ON AIR First Night verve On 15 July, the Proms return, each one live on Radio 3. Sakari Oramo conducts a First Night that highlights three of the season’s themes: Shakespeare’s 400th and Russian music are marked by Tchaikovsky’s Romeo & Juliet, while the cello is celebrated in Elgar’s Concerto, with Sol Gabetta (left). See p94
ON STAGE Another fine messe It’s Gloucester Cathedral’s turn to host the august Three Choirs Festival, and that means a return to his home patch for erstwhile chorister Edward Gardner. He no longer sings, alas, but instead will be conducting the Grande messe des morts, Berlioz’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink requiem from 1837. It should be big. See p90
ONLINE Lincoln live The Lincoln Center is a living, breathing heart of cultural New York. We can all experience some of its magic, as the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center live streams many of its concerts. That’s in addition to the interviews and performances on its website. chambermusicsociety.org
SEPTEMBER REVIEWS The important new recordings, DVDs and books reviewed
Welcome
‘Much as I love music and adore doing quizzes, actually taking part in BBC Radio 4’s long-running music panel quiz show, Counterpoint, would terrify me. My admiration for those who have the guts to do so is unbounded.’ Page 42
Elinor Cooper BBC Music’s editorial assistant ‘Speaking to competitors in the new TV series, The Great Orchestra Challenge, I was struck by the respect and affection they had for other members of their orchestras, and the passion they had for amateur performance.’ Page 60
Roger Nichols French music specialist ‘Despite the energetic labours of university researchers, in the outside world opinions change but slowly: so there Charles Gounod is still a shadowy figure of smooth charm and little else. He’s so much more.’ Page 64
72 Recording of the Month Handel Opera arias 74 Orchestral 78 Concerto 82 Opera 84 Choral & Song 88 Chamber 90 Instrumental 94 Brief Notes 96 Jazz 98 Books 99 Audio
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n Download a free track every week from one of the best reviewed recordings from a recent issue n Read the latest classical music news n Listen to clips from BBC Music Magazine’s choice recordings n Listen to the fortnightly BBC Music Magazine podcast n Discover more about the lives of the great composers n Plus: the official chart, interviews, competitions, radio and TV highlights, a preview of our monthly cover CD and much more! The licence to publish this magazine was acquired from BBC Worldwide by Immediate Media Company on 1 November 2011. We remain committed to making a magazine of the highest editorial quality, one that complies with BBC editorial and commercial guidelines and connects with BBC programmes.
Welcome to the 300th issue of BBC Music Magazine. Phew! If you’ve been a subscriber since the first issue back in 1992, you’ll have enjoyed 300 Composer of the Month profiles, 300 Building a Library recommendations and 300 Music that Changed Me interviews… you get the idea. Your listening library will have been bolstered by a fair few cover discs, too, covering a whole range of repertoire performed by the wonderful BBC ensembles, New Generation Artists and many more besides. It’s a privilege having you all along for the ride, and we’re already looking forward to the next 300 editions. For the 300th issue itself, however, we fancied setting ourselves a challenge. What, we wondered, is the greatest symphony ever written? After all, the symphony is the bedrock of western classical music – the genre that forms the foundation of every concert hall season, brings out
The symphony is the bedrock of western classical music the best in the great composers and is most people’s entry point into the world of classical music. And, of course, the symphony is the conductor’s bread and butter. So we asked 151 of the world’s greatest maestros, young and old, male and female, to vote for the three they considered to be the very finest. The resulting, extracted list of 20 symphonies represents a fascinating stamp of approval for the enduring supremacy of the 19th-century Germanic symphony with, of course, a few notable exceptions. But the message, it seems, is that orchestral music came of age over 150 years ago, and it’s still unbeatable. We’d love to know whether you agree – or not – with our list. Which symphonies would you have chosen for the top 20? Are there glaring omissions? Do email us at music@classical-music.com and vent forth… I don’t usually talk about a future issue here, but next month we’ll be celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Third Programme, Radio 3’s predecessor, and for the first time in the magazine’s history, every single BBC performing group will feature on the cover disc, each playing works that were originally written for them. I can’t wait to hear it.
Oliver Condy Editor BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
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LETTERS Write to: The editor, BBC Music Magazine, Tower House, Fairfax Street, Bristol, BS1 3BN or email: music@classical-music.com LETTER OF THE MONTH
exciting times: Simon Rattle conducts the CBSO in the 1980s
SIZZLING BRUM
ALAN HOLLAND-AVERY, ALAMY
Richard Morrison seems worried that Mirga Gra✏inyt˙e-Tyla is to be the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s next music director (April). He acknowledges that the orchestra’s last three MDs were all appointed while they still had quite limited experience, but all made huge successes of their time in Birmingham. Yet he asks, ‘Why start all over again with a complete unknown?’ When the young Rattle took up his baton in Brum back in 1980, he undoubtedly lacked experience but, boy, was he exciting! By the end of his 18-year stay, he had acquired a huge amount of experience, but that innate sense of excitement was still there. Sakari Oramo and Andris Nelsons stayed in post for somewhat shorter periods, but the ‘excitement factor’ remained constant. Experience is something that you acquire. Charisma, you have to be born with. Is there an element of risk in Gra✏inyt˙e-Tyla’s appointment? Every month the editor will award a SolarDAB 2 Roberts Of course there is. But if the choice radio (retail value £80 – see is to be between ‘experience’ and www.robertsradio.co.uk) to the writer of the best letter received. ‘excitement’, then Brum says The editor reserves the right to resoundingly ‘No contest!’ shorten letters for publication. Beresford King-Smith, Birmingham
MAGNIFICENT MAX
NICOLAI’S WIVES
While, at 81, the death of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies may not be entirely untimely, it has still robbed us of much fine music which we can be sure was still to come. I first encountered Max’s music half a century ago when, at university in England, a friend introduced me to such compositions as Eight Songs for a Mad King and Revelation and Fall. Having had little exposure to contemporary ‘classical’ music at school and in my native Rhodesia, I was astonished and thrilled to hear these pieces – sounds I could never have imagined possible – and those are sensations which have remained with me, as I listen to enchanting compositions by the likes of Kancheli, Schnittke, Gubaidulina, Birtwistle and many others. I thus owe a great debt of gratitude both to my friend and to Sir Peter, for opening the gates to a soundworld which I might otherwise have never entered.
Your Inspired by the Bard feature pointed us to some intriguing rarities, as well as reminding us of well-known works, but made no mention of Nicolai’s delightful setting of The Merry Wives of Windsor – even though Nicolai actually used Shakespeare’s title (well, Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor) rather than focusing on Falstaff or Sir John like everyone else.
Christopher English, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
ANYONE FOR VENICE? I’m sure I will not be the only reader pointing out one surprising omission in your article on Shakespeare-inspired works (Inspired by the Bard, May): André Tchaikowsky’s opera The Merchant of Venice. Apparently considered for production but turned down by English National Opera in 1981, it was finally given its world premiere in Bregenz in 2013. While it has yet to be seen in the UK, an excellent DVD of Keith Warner’s Bregenz production is available. Dennis Andrews, Oxford
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Donald Mackinnon, Newport
DEADLY HAMLET I went to a performance of Humphrey Searle’s opera Hamlet at the Royal Opera House in the 1970s. It was deadly. Too many words. A composer needs a chance to be expansive now and then. Jennifer Fowler, London THE EDITOR REPLIES
We’d love to hear more of your Bard-inspired musical reminiscences, whether fair or foul. Drop us a line…
SINGING FOR MENUHIN What a feast was Humphrey Burton’s feature on Yehudi Menuhin (April). In the early 1970s I responded to an advert in an airline newspaper, was auditioned, and found myself singing in the most excellent choir of the Windsor Festival Chorus, conducted by Menuhin, one of the event’s artistic directors. We all loved the man and his music. He was so strong yet gentle. When a choir member made a mistake he did not castigate them – just a big beaming smile was all that was needed. When we rehearsed in St George’s Chapel, I quietly carried a camera with
EXTRA ADDED ERIK
picture perfect: a reader’s snap of Diana and Yehudi Menuhin from the 1970s
The April issue previews the Cheltenham Festival’s performance of Satie’s Vexations. Last October at my gallery in Knighton, 24 pianists, playing in half-hour shifts, shared a 24-hour ‘Pianothon’ which raised ÂŁ2,700 for Syrian refugees. Despite singers not being noted for their counting ability, I was allowed to do the adding-up and now know Vexations quite well! Not wishing to deny the volunteer pianists their opportunity, we did not stop at 840 repetitions, but continued until the end of the 24 hours, when the piece had been played 1,182 times. You will be pleased to know that it was not recorded and will not be issued on CD in time for Christmas. Graham Trew, Knighton
CD DISCOVERIES me and took a couple of photos from the bass section where I was singing. Lawrence West, the chairman, liked my photos so much that he invited me to photograph (see above) more widely as the official festival photographer. As a result I then had the immense pleasure of photographing some of the world’s greatest musicians who were invited to subsequent Windsor festivals.
CHORAL HERO
Humphrey Burton’s feature on Yehudi Menuhin reminds me that in 1956 Diana Menuhin (nÊe Gould) took her husband to Cyprus to meet an old flame, the author Lawrence Durrell. Menuhin had a long-lasting impact on Durrell, who became a lifelong friend. He introduced Durrell to yoga and thereby probably reduced the effects of Durrell’s drinking and smoking. Many years later, the Menuhins visited Durrell at his home in Sommières (in the south of France) and Durrell reported to Henry Miller that while he was able to stand on his head for yoga, Menuhin could actually play the fiddle while doing so.
There is an interesting indirect connection between the April issue’s articles on Yehudi Menuhin and Maria Hackett (Britain’s Choral Champion). In a box-out, subtitled ‘Five further choral heroes’, the latter features a short tribute to the late Dr Dennis Townhill, organist of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, Edinburgh, from 1961-91, noting the significance for the preservation of the cathedral choral tradition of his introduction of girls to the treble line of the cathedral choir in 1978. The connection is that in 1972 Dennis Townhill and the provost of the cathedral, Philip Crosfield, had also established St Mary’s Music School, a specialist Edinburgh music school modelled in part on the Menuhin School but developed out of the existing cathedral choir school, admitting instrumental pupils, male and female, as well as choristers. Who was the patron of this new music school? Yehudi Menuhin. Who was its first director of music? Dennis Townhill. Both school and cathedral choir continue to flourish to this day.
Richard Pine, Corfu, Greece
Mark Godfrey, Edinburgh
Alan Holland-Avery, Staines
YEHUDI’S YOGA
During the past year I have been transferring my late father’s record collection to CD, an interesting and enlightening project. There were no records of great value in money terms, but some of the pieces were new to me. But what I have found really interesting is that these records, all dating from the late 1960s to the mid ’80s, have one thing in common – that virtually nothing about the artists was included in the sleeve notes. They concentrated instead on the composer and the music and, in fact, I had to look up who the likes of Nikita Magaloff and Ilana Vered were, as there was not a word about these soloists. One record that stood out was Pinchas Zukerman playing Wieniawski’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Kabalevsky’s Violin Concerto. The record sleeve said these are popular works but, when I looked them up on the internet, I found few recordings. I want to find out more about what else these composers wrote, but somehow I have a feeling they will be rarities in the concert hall now. Stanley Bernard, Peacehaven THE EDITOR REPLIES
That the likes of Wieniawski and Kabalevsky have headed out of fashion is, as you suggest, a shame. Any others this also applies to?
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YEHUDI MENUHIN COVER FEATURE
The of
Mastery Menuhin Violinist, conductor, writer, teacher, spiritual guru… Yehudi Menuhin was arguably the 20th century’s most famous and influential classical musician. Biographer Humphrey Burton looks at his extraordinary life and lasting legacy
LOTTE MEITNER GRAF/WARNER CLASSICS, GETTY
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first met Menuhin in 1959 when I directed a film for the BBC’s arts series Monitor about his memorable meeting with Béla Bartók and the Solo Sonata he commissioned in 1943. He came into the studio trailing clouds of glory but was modesty personified, gentle of voice and of truly noble countenance. Incongruously, what I remember best was Yehudi’s talkative wife Diana (pictured below with Menuhin in 1959) who accompanied him to the filming session and peeled mouth-watering lychees for him whenever there was a break – he was already something of a natural food freak. Over the half century that followed I spent several years of my life making radio and television programmes with him and about him before writing his biography: with hand on heart I can say that I never met a musician with more energy than Menuhin, more élan vital, nor with more love in his heart. Here’s how I concluded that biography, which has been republished for the centenary: ‘Few who encountered Yehudi regretted the experience. He served music and his fellow human beings and will continue to be useful (to adopt his modest language) through the institutions he created and the music he brought to life. On his gravestone the following words, taken from the Talmud, were carved: ‘“He who makes music in this life makes music in the next.”’
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THE JAMES NAUGHTIE INTERVIEW FEATURE
The James Naughtie interview
MELVYN TAN In the late 1980s, Tan took the world of period performance by storm with masterly performances on the fortepiano. Now, having returned to the modern instrument, he celebrates his 60th birthday with Liszt PHOTOGR A PH Y JOH N M I L L A R
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iszt was 11 years old when his teacher, Carl Czerny, took him to meet Beethoven. The atmosphere was gloomy. Beethoven only cheered up, according to Liszt, when he asked the youngster to play a Bach fugue and, immediately he’d finished, suggested he transpose it and play it again. Liszt followed all that with a performance of the first movement of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1, whereupon the master kissed him on the head. Those musical associations are the theme of Melvyn Tan’s 60th birthday concert at Wigmore Hall in October, when he explores the links between pupil and teacher, Czerny being the link between Beethoven and Liszt – the pupil of one and teacher of the other. It’s also his way of coming to Liszt. ‘I’ve always wanted to play the B minor Sonata. I’d lived with him for many years, but had never got to grips with him. I began to think that I’d never play this piece. So now I will.’ And when we talk about his career, and what lies ahead for him, it’s natural we should explore his own connections, with teachers who knew Franck, Fauré and Debussy, and his celebrated journey into the world of the fortepiano, which forced him to forget much of what he’d learned from them. In his concert – and on a CD featuring the same programme – he’ll play the rarely performed funeral march Czerny wrote for
A LIFE IN BRIEF
stage presence: Melvyn Tan performs in 2000 Early life: Born in 1956 in Singapore, Tan began learning the piano aged five after copying a piece his sister was playing by ear. Development: In 1969, aged 12, he moved to England to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School, where his teachers included Nadia Boulanger and Marcel Ciampi. Partnerships: In the 1980s Tan formed a close partnership with Sir Roger Norrington and the London Classical Players, who were at the forefront of the period performance movement. He won acclaim for his performances on the fortepiano, an instrument he championed widely. Return: In 1996 Tan returned to the modern piano to perform repertoire from the Romantic era. He remains a prolific artist on both historical and mainstream instruments.
Beethoven (though it wasn’t played at the funeral itself) – ‘in C minor, of course, what else?’. Alongside will be a late Beethoven sonata, and the Liszt will follow. ‘I see Liszt’s B minor Sonata now as much more of a Classical work than I used to. It’s so structured – more so than many of the late works we hear – and there’s a lot of Czerny in it. You can hear him, which means you are moving straight on from Beethoven.’ When thinking about a birthday concert, it’s not only tempting to look back and trace the contours of musical history, but to take a look at your own past. So we delve into Tan’s musical background, discussing his own musical training after he arrived from Singapore at the age of 12. I want to know about Nadia Boulanger, who knew Stravinsky before World War I and whose pupils included Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, Philip Glass and Daniel Barenboim. She was a visiting teacher at the Menuhin School where Tan spent four years. ‘I was about 14 when I had my first experience of her. She was extraordinary, of course – quite terrifying too. Softly spoken but always very firm. Tall and quite frail, with very thick glasses; she was already about 70 per cent blind and always wearing that grey flannel suit. We’d play in front of the whole school. ‘Yehudi was often there. And even Margaret Thatcher came – she was secretary of state for > BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
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GOOD NEWS STORY As gloriously varied as it is hugely popular, gospel music this year makes its second appearance at the Proms. Composer and conductor Ken Burton traces the genre’s history to its genesis
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rom its humble roots in the 18th century as an expression of the oppressed people of America’s Deep South, gospel music, with its rich history and unique sound, has grown into an international phenomenon. Such is its popularity that, in the US, gospel and contemporary Christian recordings continue to outsell jazz and classical ones combined. Just as ‘classical’ defines both a genre and an era, similarly the term ‘gospel music’ has a dual meaning, defining a music genre in its own right, and music that uses lyrics based on the Christian faith set to styles of various types, among them rap, jazz, Afrobeat, reggae, country and pop. This second meaning is based on the definition of the word ‘gospel’, a modernisation of the Old English ‘godspel’, meaning ‘a good story’, and is translated from the Greek word evaggelion, ‘a good message’. The common tenet here is that the message itself always has primacy. As a musical genre, gospel is characterised by hymn-like melodies and harmonies, and a range of expressions derived from African music-making and spirituality. Its sounds include the subtle hush and gentle hum, the plaintive moan, surging phrases and stentorian tones. There is also extensive use
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The gospel singer’s role is similar to that of a worship leader of vocal embellishments. Its pulse is often quite pronounced and its rhythm free, and is regularly accompanied by physical movement, from gentle rocking to energetic dance. Gospel is interactive, communal music: a ‘musical liturgy’, if you like – and so an ensemble of gospel singers is more than
simply a performing group, but a quasicongregation engaging in collective worship and prayer. The gospel soloist’s role is similar to that of a worship leader, or a member of the congregation sharing a personal testimony, a preacher transmitting a message, or a combination of all of these, often during the same song. While essentially being a 19th- and 20th-century creation, the underlying ethos behind the music can be traced back thousands of years to music-making attitudes spoken about in the Bible. There are several accounts of characters responding to events
GOSPEL MUSIC FEATURE praise the lord!:
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Mahalia Jackson entertains Berlin; (opposite) composer and arranger Harry Burleigh; a 20th-century cotton plantation
by breaking into spontaneous song, referred to as an ode pneumatikos, or ‘spiritual song’ – a good example of this is found in the account of the song of celebration led by Miriam following a divine miracle where the Red Sea was parted to allow the recently freed Israelites to escape the Egyptian army. Another, that has been set by countless composers for the classical liturgical repertoire, is the Magnificat, the spontaneous song of praise sung by Mary, Mother of Jesus. Over centuries, Protestant Christians sought to break away from formalism and focus on an experiential connection with the divine, expressed in music which people could relate to and enjoy singing. The Biblical and subsequent Protestant principles resonated
with African-Americans, who had been transported from their homeland to the Americas in a four century-long oppressive slave trade. They could identify with the enslaved Israelites, and created their own impromptu songs on the plantations: the spirituals. Drawing from African work-song structures, borrowing lyrical lines from songs heard in church services that the enslaved were obligated to attend, based largely on the five-note pentatonic scale (referred to as the ‘slave scale’), and regularly consisting of a calland-response structure, these songs allowed, even for a brief moment, the participant to express themselves freely in an environment where neither reading, nor normal conversation between slaves, was allowed.
Such songs therefore became the primary vehicle of communication and teaching. They brought about a feeling of solidarity and, even though there was an air of melancholy in them, their message renewed a sense of hope that one day freedom would be a reality. The lyrics would subtly serve to encourage, as well as communicate, the way of escape, the calland-response structure serving as the perfect rallying call. Hence, there are recurring lyrical themes of travel and heaven – while the celestial home was the ultimate goal, the terrestrial ‘heaven’ was the immediate goal. Drawing on the language of Old Testament accounts of Israelites enslaved by Egyptians, the spirituals speak of the ‘River Jordan’, the ‘Promised Land’, ‘Moses’ and ‘Pharaoh’, > BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
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MARIA HACKETT FEATURE
Britain’s Choral Champion THE CHAPTER OF ST PAUL’S CATHEDRAL, GETTY
Maria Hackett is not a familiar name today, but without this indomitable Victorian, explains Andrew Green, our cathedral choirs might have become a thing of the past
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ay the word ‘chorister’ today, and a fairly clear image comes to mind: cassock and surplice; a wellscrubbed, wholesome countenance from which emanate fluty sounds that billow around some lofty space; the very image of health and good cheer. Time was, though, when the lot of choristers was far from cheery, and the sounds that came from their throats hard to drool over. One of the great 19th-century campaigners to change all that was a pocket battleship by the name of Maria Hackett. A visit to the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral in
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London reveals the regard in which she was held at her death in 1874, aged 90. On a wall not far from Admiral Nelson’s intimidating sarcophagus is a modest tablet recalling ‘…the memory of Maria Hackett, to whom through the course of a long life the welfare of cathedral and collegiate chorister boys was the object of deep and unfailing interest’. Her story still inspires today, says Andrew Carwood, director of music at St Paul’s. ‘Each year on the anniversary of her death I take the choristers down to the crypt and ask one of them to read out the inscription,’ he tells me. ‘She was an extraordinary woman.’
Hackett’s ‘deep and unfailing interest’ in chorister welfare was needed because her country’s once glorious choral tradition had been all but forgotten in cathedrals across the land. The soaring majesty of English 16th-century polyphony shows what a golden age that must have been for choristers at the best establishments. By the mid-17th century, all that was in ruins, as Oliver Cromwell and his mealy-mouthed Puritan curmudgeons outlawed all but the most basic music in worship and scattered professional church musicians to the four winds. Signs of a revival in Anglican church music at
the ruff guide: St Paul’s choristers today owe a lot to Maria Hackett (far left); (left, above) one of Hackett’s many letters; (left, below) 19th-century choristers enjoy a rooftop kickaround
the return of monarchy in 1660 were then largely offset by the tide of ‘latitudinarianism’ which swept through cathedral cloisters in the 18th century – a recourse to reason and individualism in the realm of religion which tended to belittle formal doctrine and liturgy. Downplay liturgy and you downplay music. Secular music-making may have flourished in both public and domestic spheres in the 18th century, but cathedral and collegiate (eg Oxbridge) music drooped. Today, the choir of King’s College, Cambridge is a paragon of musical quality looked up to around the world, not least at Christmas. Yet in the 18th century the choir was in dire straits. At their auditions, boys had merely to sing one scale and show they could shout… to demonstrate an ability to project their voices. Devalue music and the odds are that the welfare of those who make it will likewise be neglected. Which is where Hackett enters the story. Born in Birmingham in 1783, she lost her father when very young. Her mother Grace’s second marriage to one Samuel
Capper brought her under the influence of an energetic and industrious extended family. When Capper in turn died in 1789, one of his brothers took in Hackett, her mother and two step-brothers at his Crosby Square home in London, a short walk from St Paul’s Cathedral. Christopher Wren’s masterpiece
Many boys spent much of each day ‘loitering about the streets’ was to become Hackett’s second home, and the base from which she waged war. Around 1811, Hackett took under her wing a widowed relation’s young son, Henry Wintle. She assumed that getting Henry into the St Paul’s Cathedral choir would help ensure him a decent upbringing. Not so. It soon became clear that choristers received a
paltry general and musical education. Their welfare and safety were likewise given lessthan-close attention. A lifetime’s badgering began here. Hackett went straight to the top, complaining to the Bishop of London that the funds allowed for the choristers’ sustenance was ‘totally inadequate’. And she pointed out that many of them were left to spend much of each day ‘loitering about the streets’. Hackett was steered to the Dean of St Paul’s (the Rt Revd Sir George Pretyman Tomline, Bt, FRS). He ignored the letter she sent. Hackett approached another of the cathedral clergy about the lack of ‘a proper dinner’ for the mere eight boy choristers charged with filling the vast cathedral with sound. Blank incomprehension. What was wrong with the ‘luncheon of bread and cheese’ the boys were given? Hackett’s questions kept coming. Why not a proper schoolhouse, together with a qualified ‘grammar master’ to ensure a decent education? And she was appalled that the boys > were being hired out to perform at secular BBB C BM C UMS U I CS IM C AM GAAGZ AI N ZE I N E6 0 3 7
listen carefully: Schubert commands rare attention in 1820s Vienna
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isteners are the unsung heroes and heroines of classical music. Composers have their reverent biographers, their biopics and statues in the public square; performers have ecstatic fans, the limos and the recordings contracts. But who cares about the poor old listener, the third member of the ‘Holy Trinity’ of music, as Benjamin Britten described him or her? It’s not as if listeners don’t earn their keep. Listening is a strenuous business. Witness this report of four ardent listeners to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony at the Queen’s Hall, sometime before the First World War: ‘Here Beethoven started decorating his tune [the first variation of the theme], so she [Helen] heard him through once more, and
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then she smiled at her cousin Frieda. But Frieda, listening to Classical Music, could not respond. Herr Liesecke, too, looked as if wild horses could not make him inattentive; there were lines across his forehead, his lips were parted, his pince-nez at right angles to his nose, and he laid a thick, white hand on either knee. And next to her was Aunt Juley, so British, and wanting to tap.’ Admittedly, that scene from EM Forster’s Howard’s End is only fiction. But it contains a truth. Listening to classical music isn’t just humming along to the tunes; it’s an attempt to divine a vision vouchsafed to the composer, conveyed in patterns of notes to the listener in ways that aren’t obvious. The vision is sometimes hidden, and can be revealed only by attentive listening and patient study.
It’s hard to believe listeners were always so strenuously high-minded, and in recent decades there’s been a concerted effort to find out what really goes on in people’s hearts and minds (and their bodies too) when they listen. Philosophers, psychologists, sociologists and cultural historians have all found this subject fascinating. As, of course, have musicologists. This interest in how people actually listen to classical music (and other sorts of music) is a recent phenomenon. Well into the 20th century, discussion about listening was prescriptive, not descriptive – there was a right way to listen and a right way to respond, and woe betide anyone who got it wrong. In 1897, Henry Krehbiel published his How to Listen to Music, a weighty tome full of fingerwagging advice. There’s a section on ‘Blunders
THE ART OF LISTENING FEATURE
The art of
LISTENING Should music be enjoyed as part of a social occasion, or heard in absolute silence? Opinions have altered radically over the centuries, as Ivan Hewett explains philosopher Theodor Adorno takes a big stick to pop songs for being so perfectly formulaic. He says this enforces a trivial sort of listening, in contrast to classical music where the details and the whole form are dynamically interrelated. ‘The scheme (of a pop song) emphasises the most primitive harmonic facts no matter what has harmonically intervened,’ he says primly. ‘Complications have no consequences.’ This means that details matter more than the whole and, consequently, ‘the
by Tennyson, Lamb, Coleridge, Mrs Harriet [Beecher Stowe]’, a ‘warning against pedants and rhapsodists’ and this stern reminder in the contents page: ‘Taste and judgement not a birthright – the necessity of antecedent study’. It’s a wonder anyone dared to go to a concert in the late 19th century. This attitude lingered well into the 20th century, though the writers’ tone was more friendly. Aaron Copland’s What to Listen for in Music and Antony Hopkins’s Talking about Music still assume that listening is a skill, and that without it we miss much that music has to offer. This determination to prescribe the right way to listen to music was so ingrained that writers yielded to it, even when they thought they were being descriptive. In his 1941 essay On Popular Music, that severe
Looking into how people actually listen is the order of the day listener becomes prone to evince stronger reactions to the part than to the whole.’ And where’s his evidence for that assertion? There isn’t any – Adorno is setting up a principle, and assuming the facts will obediently follow. That high-handed attitude to reality won’t do any more. Today’s scholars have come round to thinking that a certain humility is in order. Looking into how people actually listen, rather than telling them how they ought to listen, is the order of the day. To do that requires facts which by their nature are elusive, as listening has become an increasingly private affair. Some researchers
focus on the present, doing patient field-work in the places people actually use music: work places, living rooms, at the gym. Some focus on the past, patiently sifting the evidence for clues as to how (or even whether) they listened to music. (The Listening Experience Database is a project interested in both; see box, p42). For researchers interested in how we listen now, no sort of music is too humdrum, and no music too ephemeral. They are interested in the way music weaves itself into our everyday lives. One fascinating journal article I came across is entitled ‘Personal collections as material assemblages: A comparison of wardrobes and music collections’. In this world-view, there are no hierarchies. The experience of half-listening to a Bon Jovi album while doing the ironing is just as revealing of the warp and woof of human feelings as a Beethoven quartet listened to in rapt silence at Wigmore Hall. Turning to the other sort of research – the sort that examines modes of listening in cultures distant from ours – is if anything even more subversive of received ideas about ‘proper’ ways of listening. If by ‘distant’ we mean non-Western cultures, then we may find that the listening experience is not just elusive but non-existent. In many cultures everyone participates, either by playing, dancing or joining in the ritual which the music articulates. There are no listeners as such. Even within the field of ‘classical music,’ > the presence of rapt, attentive listeners is BBB C BM C UMS U I CS IM C AM GAAGZAI N ZE I N E6 0 4 1
BUILDING A LIBRARY
CONCERTO FOR TWO VIOLINS Johann Sebastian Bach Two is most definitely company in JS Bach’s convivial ‘Double’ Violin Concerto – Paul Riley listens out for his ideal partnerships as he selects the finest recordings available
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he concerto was Italy’s hottest musical export in the early years of the 18th century, and Bach had devoured Vivaldi’s L’estro armonico hot off the press, fired up by its blueprint for a fertile compositional model powered by the ritornello (a recurring earworm, rhythmically buoyant and melodically terse). It may be that Bach’s ‘Double’ Concerto, BWV 1043 was composed during his years at Cöthen’s royal court, when he was able to devote himself to chamber and orchestral music; but more likely it was written for music-making at Leipzig’s Café Zimmermann where, under the auspices of the Collegium Musicum, students from the town’s university met to share a drink and a little music. ‘Little’ scarcely does justice to the Double Concerto, whose sublime slow movement is framed by an opening Vivace of spirited fugal gravitas and a finale with a bit of double-stopping up its sleeve for extra fizz.
THE BEST RECORDING RACHEL PODGER / BOJAN ∫I∫IC´
JONAS SACKS ILLUSTRATION: STEVE RAWLINGS/DEBUT ART
CHOICE
Rachel Podger, Bojan ∫iΩic´ (violins) Brecon Baroque (2013) Channel Classics CCS SA34113
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RACHEL PODGER’S FIRST RECORDING of the ‘Bach Double’ was with Andrew Manze, a gripping performance which some might characterise as visceral, but others as borderline feral. Crucial to its contentiousness was the degree of improvisatory embellishment in the slow movement, and any performance of BWV 1043 arguably stands or falls on its Largo. Podger’s latest account, with her own Brecon Baroque ensemble, is a much more discreetly decorated affair, and so much easier to live with. It’s not so much a meeting of two minds, hers and Bojan ∫iΩic´’s, but of six (or seven, if you include Marcin S´wia˛tkiewicz’s
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harpsichord continuo). The title page announces a ‘concerto a sei’ (concerto for six), and Podger (pictured left with ∫iΩic´) adopts a one-to-a-part approach that confounds traditional notions of a soloist or soloists pitted against a larger ensemble. Instead, an ear-opening transparency is the result, one that opens up an even richer and more complex discourse between Bach’s interweaving lines. Enrapt, perfectly paced, the Largo sounds as if no one wants it to end; and the finale is taken at a rip-roaring Allegro with seldom-registered niceties illuminating every turn and the triplets a riot of deftly executed effervescence. Here is a Bach free of ego and alive from first note to last.
CONCERTO FOR TWO VIOLINS JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH BUILDING A LIBRARY Building a Library is broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 9.30am each Saturday as part of Record Review. A highlights podcast is available at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3
and Herman Krebbers’s classic 1980 recording will retain benchmark status. But it’s possible to have a little period-informed ‘cake’ on modern instruments and eat it. Julia Fischer and Alexander Sitkovetsky might be every bit as warmly lyrical in the slow movement as Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman back in the 1970s, but there’s an awareness of Bach’s Siciliano lilt, and the Vivace fairly springs out of the traps like a greyhound quivering for the off. Inspired and inspiring, the sparky duo galvanise the Academy of St Martin in the Fields into one of the most vivacious, oxygenated performances on disc. Catherine Mackintosh, Elizabeth Wallfisch (violins) The King’s Consort/ Robert King (1989) Helios CDH55347
THREE MORE GREAT RECORDINGS Peter Spissky, Bjarte Eike (violins) Concerto Copenhagen/ Lars Ulrik Mortensen (2015) CPO 777 9042
If Rachel Podger’s aristocratic one-to-a-part performance evokes courtly Cöthen, Concerto Copenhagen immerses itself in the raucous student camaraderie of Zimmermann’s coffee house. Lars Ulrik Mortensen’s forces aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves for a beefy opening Vivace oozing muscular heft and a powerful sense of Bach’s robust engagement with the key of D minor. Peter Spissky and Bjarte Eike compound the pugnacious allure, and the vivid sound has the palate-cleansing
immediacy of crunching into celery. Yet alongside physical excitement sits a profound musical intelligence that alights on such details as the carefully judged staccatos in a Largo that unfolds with spacious ease – now and then ‘lifted’ with an improvisatory flourish. Julia Fischer, Alexander Sitkovetsky (violins) Academy of St Martin in the Fields (2009) Decca 478 0650
More than half a century after ‘historically informed performance’ first hit the radar, there are still some with an aversion to period instruments – for them, Arthur Grumiaux
An absorbing account of the ‘Double’ needn’t break the bank – reissued on the Helios label at budget price, this 1989 Hyperion disc is a steal. Soloists Catherine Mackintosh and Elizabeth Wallfisch are well matched and that effortless balance between the two violins is mirrored in their rapport with the 12 strings of The King’s Consort. Judicious tempos never allow the faster movements to run away with themselves – less haste, paradoxically, can actually produce more speed – but the sense of constraint helps to ratchet up the tension, allowing the pithily articulated imitation to take the driving seat in pushing the music forward. Ravishingly inflected and ever mindful of how Bach’s brushes with the minor mode add colour to its serene F major flow, the Largo beguiles.
AND ONE TO AVOID… Jascha Heifetz’s 1946 recording promises a Heifetzfest twice over, thanks to some technical wizardry allowing him to negotiate both solo parts. In the slow movement, though, is it just hindsight that leaves us with the impression of two lines superimposed rather than forged in the give-and-take heat of the moment? When he returned to the concerto, Heifetz enlisted Erik Friedman to much more persuasive effect.
If you enjoy JS Bach’s Concerto for Two Violins and would like to try out similar works, see overleaf… BBC M USIC M AG A Z I N E
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COMPOSER OF THE MONTH
ANTON BRUCKNER The Romantic enigma As complex as a character as his symphonies were sophisticated, the Austrian composer has always proved a uniquely difficult composer to figure out, writes Michael Tanner
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ll great artists are misunderstood in one way or another. It would be fair to argue, however, that Anton Bruckner has been, for all kinds of reason, more misunderstood than most. As his biographer Derek Watson wrote, ‘There is no parallel to Bruckner among creative artists’ – a bold claim, but one that is difficult to refute. If we knew less about the man, and if there were fewer legends about him, it might be easier. As it is, we are confronted, largely, with a series of immense, immensely sophisticated and revolutionary symphonies, by a man who seems in many ways to have been simpleminded to a clinical degree, and whose life alternated between work as an organist, teacher and composer, with fearful periods of mental and even physical collapse. The composers from whom he learnt most, Beethoven and Wagner, never sound like he does – even his early works don’t sound like anyone else, though they also don’t sound much like his mature works. With disciples who largely misunderstood him, and enemies, such as Brahms (nine years his junior) and the influential critic Eduard Hanslick, who set about destroying Bruckner’s reputation at every turn, it’s not surprising he was often in danger of losing his fragile self-confidence. It’s also hardly surprising that he should have been so widely misunderstood, whether by disciples or enemies, because he fits more awkwardly into his time than any composer of comparable stature ever. True, he couldn’t have composed what he did without the developments of various kinds that had happened to music in the 19th century. The enormous enlargement of the symphony, as it had been effected above all by Beethoven, the enlargement of the orchestra itself, as effected again by Beethoven but also by Berlioz, Liszt and above all Wagner, make his symphonies technically possible. So, perhaps even more
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BRUCKNER’S STYLE The openings Typically, Bruckner’s symphonies begin with a string tremolo, as Beethoven’s Ninth does, with a theme emerging from it. The alternative is a reiterated rhythmic figure, as in the Sixth, with a theme eventually sneaking in.
The closings In Bruckner’s grandest works, the final pages have the main themes of the symphony, sometimes with themes from another symphony, built into a mighty polyphonic conclusion, suggesting that the individual symphonies constitute an Ubersymphonie.
The scherzos Bruckner’s scherzos become ever more thunderous and stampeding, the Ninth’s to an almost unbearable effect. The trios are often in marked, strongly lyrical contrast, and are almost movements in themselves.
Finales Bruckner, like many other composers, found these the hardest to write impressively, and even the greatest tend to be stop-go affairs – Bruckner even thought of ‘programmes’ for them, of the naivest kind. In their quite different ways, the finales of the Fifth and Eighth (pictured) are the most successful.
importantly, did the revolution in harmony, again thanks to Liszt and Wagner, who in his scores from Das Rheingold onwards made ever more radical harmonic innovations, of all of which Bruckner took careful note. It was indeed the idea that he was writing a kind of symphonic equivalent of Wagner’s operas which in large part led to his being so widely misunderstood, as the misguidedly used phrase ‘Wagnerian symphonist’ shows. Born in the village of Ansfelden in Upper Austria, with Linz as the nearest city, Bruckner grew up a devout Catholic, something he remained throughout his life, regularly attending the services with their traditional and largely unsophisticated music. Most of the music he heard was in a religious context, and his early works are mainly settings of psalms, many Te Deums, masses, motets. He was hypnotised by plainchant and employs it extensively in these early pieces. His early instrumental and orchestral works are of purely academic interest, and what seems strangest is that he wrote no interesting works for the organ, which was his instrument, and on which he used to improvise for hours, apparently to great effect – he came to the Albert Hall and made a deep impression, but we can have little idea of, for example, what his style was. He certainly didn’t keep it brief. When he was summoned to play the organ in Bayreuth in 1886 at Liszt’s funeral, he improvised on themes from Wagner’s Parsifal, then only four years old, and got so carried away that he went on for well over an hour. That seems to make it all the odder that he never wrote down a large-scale organ work. Perhaps he felt he didn’t need to. As soon as he began writing large-scale works for orchestra, he often employed his instruments as if they were organ registers, writing phrases that moved from strings to brass to woodwind, the supreme example of that being in the slow >
ILLUSTRATION: RISKO
ANTON BRUCKNER COMPOSER OF THE MONTH
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