Back Page: A Musical Journey

HEARING IS BELIEVING A MUSICAL JOURNEY

WITH THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA

thoughts on three decades as a small part of one extraordinary team . . . by ERIC SELLEN

I FIRST HEARD Cleveland’s orchestra, live and in person, in August 1987 at Blossom Music Center. It was an ear-opening evening for a kid from Iowa, whose interest in classical music had been nurtured by a pair of remarkably discerning and caring parents. I was, of course, well versed in The Cleveland Orchestra’s strengths and reputation, and many of its recordings were lined up amidst the rows of LPs on my shelves. I had listened from afar via the weekly syndicated radio broadcasts, in junior high school and on up into graduate school. But a living, breathing performance is something diff erent. I was mesmerized. Although, in truth, what held my attention most was the remarkable acoustics at Blossom. How was I to know that an outdoor facility could so ably carry sound to so many at once? Severance Hall came later that year, where I was shocked once more, this time with the clarity and immediate depth of detail. And while I am remembering and attributing the sound to these two remarkable buildings, it took some years to more fully understand the symbiosis between ensemble and architecture — that the Cleveland Sound and Severance Sound were one and the same, built and grown together as one. My thirty-some years knowing and working for The Cleveland Orchestra has not been a simple straight path. I went away for a few years in the middle, following my husband’s work assignment to other places (including two years living in England). In 2005, I started back in what I often call my “second tour of duty” — but a duty of respect for this ensemble. Based more than a thousand miles away, I started working remotely when that was less common than the past year’s forced shift. Both times The Cleveland Orchestra hired me, it was for the program book. Taking on editing and design and production. Across three decades I’ve steered the book forward, into the modern age of computer design and more. But this isn’t and has never been about me. It’s about the Orchestra and the audience and the music. Over the years, I’ve thought a great deal about — and Franz Welser-Möst and I have discussed more than once — how best to talk and write about music in our modern age. Not how to talk with a musicologist or specialist or a musician, but how to engage everyday audience members, whether experts or novices. And to off er something insightful and meaningful for every reader, fi rst-timer and fi fty-year subscriber. The Cleveland Orchestra doesn’t play Mozart or Beethoven the way they did sixty years ago, or even twenty years back. Times change. Our understanding of music history, how music is performed, and how it refl ects our lives today, also evolves. So does language. And in recent years I have been more and more willing, nay intent, on pushing language forward in how we talk about and discuss and present music. To put on the page how we talk. To not sound stuff y and elitist about a mysterious artform, but to be enthusiastic and energetic and daring in talking about how music works. Music is as much about how it makes you feel, how the composer felt in writing it, as it is about the details and history. It is as much about feelings as about structure. It is about form and function, two sides of a coin (or concerto). So it is with the language we use to describe it. If music is architecture in sound, we talk more today about unity and design, and less about the engineering details. We talk most about how it fl ows and feels, how the piece “works” for an audience. Today, it’s more about the emotional journey, as much as the actual nuts and bolts of how the journey takes place. Part of this is how we employ the language, or more specifi cally what language we use. Less of the stiff formal language of yesteryear, and more of the the approachable, day-to-day language that we live in and with all the time. The idea these days is less to “explain” the music, but to help attendees listen, or get ready to listen — pointers and perspectives on how the musical journey of any one piece, or tonight’s concert, might go. What to listen for, yes, but more in recent years about what you may feel when listening, and encouraging you to listen for yourself, through your own feelings. Understanding of the past (and the present) changes our approach . . . to performing, talking, writing,

caring, sharing, eating, exercising, experiencing, communicating, listening. Growing older does, too. We listen diff erently today than we used to. In part, because we know more. Also, because we hear more — and constantly. We can hear Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, or Bach’s Cello Suites, or Wagner’s four-opera Ring cycle anytime we want to. And it’s easier — too easy — not to pay attention, when you know you can listen again, anytime. What has grown and developed and evolved onstage in Cleveland is a remarkable story. An ensemble of almost infi nite power and grace. And today, while fi lled with tradition, it is very much Franz Welser-Möst’s orchestra, nurtured by him to play not just precisely but with understanding and meaning. Do I always like how he leads a piece? Not entirely, but his convictions make me question my own views — and I know he’s made careful choices for the composer’s sake. The Cleveland Orchestra is in good hands. I feel privileged to have known Klaus George Roy, who served as program editor/annotator for thirty years, 1958-88. Between us, we’ve witnessed (and heard) nearly two-thirds of this Orchestra’s history. I wish I’d been there from the beginning. I wish I could go on forever knowing and hearing and helping. But life has other plans, necessarily. Fortunately so, for there is much to cherish and behold on this earth. It has been a great honor to know and work for The Cleveland Orchestra. As I tether off into retirement, I will no longer make the day-to-day decisions regarding what you read in the program book. That will be handled by Amanda Angel, our new managing editor. Yes, you may still encounter my writing, or even catch my face at Severance Hall. But my fulltime work is over. I have been fortunate over the years to hear many great orchestras in person, from Los Angeles to Amsterdam, from London to Vienna. I’ve even worked and written for other orchestras (and may occasionally do so again in retirement). Perhaps I am prejudiced in favor of Cleveland, but . . . no matter. As friends and colleagues know, I am rarely shy in saying what I actually think of a performance or experience. The Cleveland Orchestra has been my “experience of a lifetime.” And it will always — always — be my hometeam.

ONE WORD OR TWO?

One of my interests across the years has been studying the history of punctuation and grammar — of the evolution of style and usage, rules and guidebooks. I often think of this as the equivalent of historically-informed performance practice in music, but with words. We use language diff erently, and have diff erent expectations in how we write and speak than our ancestors did. Much has changed and evolved in my tenure with Cleveland. And for most of us, some of those grammar “rules” we think we learned in school have changed, or are about to change, or weren’t even wholly accepted as rules when we learned them. (In truth, some were as much about giving teachers reasons to mark something wrong, as about making the language “better.”) Guidelines are regularly rethought and rewritten by new generations, and many “rules” are thrown out as unnatural and unnecessary. It’s okay today, in a way it wasn’t previously, to write the way you speak. There’s less need or purpose in diff erent levels of . . . formality. Afterall, the purpose of language is to communicate, not to follow the rules. And sometimes the most meaningful or memorable communication comes from the unexpected, from breaking or changing the rules Yes, if you go too far, communication fails. But if the envelope isn’t pushed, communication can become lifeless. One particular interest for me is the evolution of compound words, from two (light bulb) to hyphenated (light-bulb) to one (lightbulb!). Who decides? How does this happen? English doesn’t have an Académie, like French. Nor are we Germanic, where combining words is something every child learns early on. Dictionaries only really capture what has been true, not what is evolving before our eyes (and ears). In truth, we’re each on our own in this regard, and I’m heartened to see some recent stylebooks even discuss the issue directly — and as much as say “choose for yourself.” Nudge the language a bit, if you want to. Combinewordstogether! I understand that not everyone agrees with my choices. Evenso, I think it is important to make choices and not merely follow in line with everyone else. The Cleveland Orchestra didn’t become the ensemble it is by simply doing what every other symphony orchestra was doing. Choices make life interesting.

Some Newer Style Guides Worth Reading . . .

Semicolon — The Past, Present, and Future of a Misunderstood Mark by Cecelia Watson (2019) A World Without ‘Whom’ — The Essential Guide to Language in the BuzzFeedAge by Emmy J. Favilla (2017) Dreyer’s English — An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style by Benjamin Dreyer (2019) Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch (2019)