Soundhound

The Amar Quartet, recorded links between composers and performers

 

  Photo above of the Amar Quartet on tour in Amsterdam 1924, meeting with Stravinsky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eviu5qU_NME Link to a recording of the Amar Quartet playing Hindemith String Quartet opus 22 (1926)

As seen with Ravel and the Galimir Quartet, the Amar Quartet's recording of Hindemith helps the listener to get a unique insight into Hindemith's mind as a composer ( he was himself violist of the group.)

Far from the dry, worthy image Hindemith's music sometimes suffers from, this recording has a lyrical, inventive and creative quality which demonstrates how far the gap can be between a composer's imagination and the written text.

The Amar Quartet was founded in 1921 at the Donaueschingen Chamber Music Festival. The Havemann Quartet was due to give the premiere of Hindemith's  3rd String Quartet opus 16 but they found it unplayable. A group had to be quickly put together to rehearse and perform the piece in 8 days, and the premiere was in the end a big success. The performers were Lico Amar first violin, Walter Caspar second violin, Hindemith himself as violist and his brother Rudolf Hindemith as cellist. This group of players became the Amar Quartet which became an important part of music life in the 20's, playing over 500 concerts. The group was untiringly committed to including contemporary music on their programmes.  As well as Hindemith's own works they performed works by Bartok, Krenek, Ravel, Webern, Casella, Stravinsky, Hába and Schönberg. They intentionally concentrated on rarely played works from the classical and romantic era so Beethoven and Haydn were not often included on their programmes. They undertook two big tours of the Soviet Union in 1927 and 1928, and Hindemith met with Shostakovitch and was able to hear some Russian contemporary music. Shostakovitch talks about this encounter ( not altogether brimming with praise for Hindemith's music!) in Testimony the book by Solomon Volkov.

Eventually fights broke out between Hindemith and his brother Rudof, so the cellist Maurits Franks became his replacement  ( reading about Rudolf's life  in and around the second world war in comparison to Paul's is quite a cautionary tale) The Quartet remained the same until Hindemith's departure in 1929 and the quartet finally disbanded in 1933

 

Sibelius and the Call of the Wild

Two sides of Sibelius, probably not a good idea to pick a fight with him...

 

I recently had to play and introduce the only original work Sibelius ever wrote for cello and piano "Malinconia" or "Melancoly", a piece he wrote in just three hours, in distressing circumstances. His wife and young family had departed suddenly, leaving him alone in their house "Ainola" He urged them to go as they were fleeing a typhus epidemic, in which his youngest daughter Kirsti, had  tragically died. Kirsti was his favourite and this, his only cello piece, was the result of this time alone. It is hard to associate the speed with which he wrote this piece, with the tortuous writer's block he endured later in life, from the age of sixty until his death,thirty years later. When the family returned to Ainola, he would not allow Kirsti's name to be spoken aloud ever again.

When you read about Sibelius' life, all ninety one years of it, it has an epic quality to it. As his life spanned the last half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century, he witnessed many great events, not least of which was the struggle for Finnish independence from Russia, which was finally won in 1917. Sibelius' music helped support the national cause in all sorts of ways. His Kullervo suite from 1892, was ground breaking in that it set parts of the national epic poem  the Kalevala and used the finnish language for the settings, which was unusual for the time. Sibelius was also proud when his composition teacher in Vienna, Robert Fuchs,described his music as "barbaric and raw" . Sibelius answered his criticism with the declaration " So let's be barbarians!" He was keen to invent a style that  would include "that melodious, strangely melancholic monotony which is in all Finnish melodies" In 1891 he was very inspired after hearing Larin Paraske, a Finnish singer of runes, and studiously noted down the melodies and rhythms of her song.

For me personally, his unique appeal is that of someone who has found a way of translating the natural world  and it's structures into sound.  Sibelius himself said that when he heard the opening of his sixth symphony, he smelt fresh snow. The experience of playing and listening to Sibelius' symphonies for me , is  a bit like being outside in an open landscape and watching weather systems pass over you. How the music is structured is a mystery to me and ideas seem to occur rather than develop but at the same time, it forms a coherent whole. Sibelius was a life long nature lover, and took long walks  to help allieviate his depressions by being outside. He had a special look out built for watching birds around his home. His house is now a museum and you can visit, (which I have actually done ) It feels a bit voyeuristic to be in his carefully preserved kitchen, but interesting nonetheless!

I finish this post with the sound of the outdoors even in the middle of summer.It is one of my favourite recordings, by the master Sibelius interpreter- Paavo Berglund

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TX_J7ZSUmts

Link to Sibelius' house now a museum

http://www.ainola.fi/eng_index.php

Castles in the Mind, Music away from the page

 Illustration of The Magic Theatre of memory created by philosopher and magus Giulio Camillo Delmini

Commenting on how the printed page contributed to the demise of ancient memory techniques:

"Perhaps the arrival of the printed book in the scholar’s  library heralds the demise of classical mnemonics. Perhaps the beginning of the era in which cultural memory could find a habitation in the printed word marks the end of the era in which cathedrals, palaces,and theaters could be mirrors of the world and of the mind at once, arraying knowledge in their windows and friezes and sculptures,storing images to be brought back to life by those who passed through their haunted walls."

Julie Stone Peters commenting on a passage from Francis Yates "The Art of Memory"

As made famous by the current BBC series "Sherlock" creating  a"Memory Mind Palace" was a common way of remembering information from ancient times to the mid fifteenth century and the advent of printing in Europe.  Very roughly described, the technique involves creating in your mind a series of places (rooms in a house or larger building.) In each room is a lively scene or image which helps trigger in different ways memories of the knowledge you wish to remember.

After the advent of printing, people continued to develop the art of memory, attaching a magical significance to knowledge that was stored in the mind away from the printed page. They felt it gave people a type of overview, which one does not get from mere reading.

 As a musician it is interesting to hear and see the difference when somebody performs or studies a work until it is memorised. The struggle of intensive work needed by most of us to achieve our goal seems to take us onto a different level of  musical understanding . Performing from memory is also a high risk activity  and for most of us, we do not have the safety net of improvisation. But it is perhaps precisely this stress which releases other qualities in a player. I have seen this transformation many times in students, especially those who are most resistant to playing from memory. The work needed to memorise music, forces the performer to learn the architecture of the piece they are playing and the score as a whole. Key structural points are like a trail of breadcrumbs through the forest of notes, that can lead us through. It is all too easy with a score to have a focus on melody rather than harmony, on magic moments rather than the piece as a whole.  There are also physical differences, as the body can concentrate on  playing rather than looking, often the head frees up and a physical transformation occurs in the player .Memory work helps gives us a physical and intellectual overview, just as the medieval scholars predicted.

 

On the Marionette Theatre, Using Philosophy to help you move

                                  

Heinrich von Kleist - On the Marionette Theatre

http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/literature/kleist/kleist.pdf

I recently had a conversation with a viola professor ( no jokes please) which ranged over many topics but one of them was about a short philosophical text called" On the Marionette Theatre" by the German writer Heinrich Von Kleist. It is the first time I have had a conversation with a fellow musician where after it, I felt able to translate philosophy into a practical, physical use at a musical instrument. It was very inspiring and a world away from those dull technique manuals, where you spend hours watching and listening to bow changes being mesmerised by the boredom of the dull text in front of you.

You can access the text on the link above, and you can interpret it in many, many different ways. But if I try and translate it in a way that gives meaning to me as a musician, it seems to be saying that as we become self aware and reflect more, we also become self conscious and clumsy. Our movements become less integrated. Von Kleist admires the way puppets and animals move in an unselfconscious, confident way with grace and ease. Von Kleist talks about each of us having a centre of gravity, which we must find and "when the centre is moved the limbs follow....after all the limbs are pendula echoing automatically the movement of the centre" It is an incredible description of not losing your sense of balance through over thinking. How he suggests reaching this state of being is open to interpretation, and actually I think each individual would reach this point by many and varied routes. But I am really glad that my colleague instead of sending me a dull technical manual about string playing, sent me in the direction of this wonderful text. It opens a door inside your mind, and uplifts rather than restricts you.

Ravel and the Galimir Quartet

 
Maurice Ravel 1925

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tHtYp--EDM

I love listening to performances from different eras, they put into perspective  playing habits or interpretive tendencies that we have today. In the case of the Galimir Quartet, we have a direct line to Ravel himself when we listen to their 1934 Paris recording. Ravel himself worked closely with the group and helped shape their interpretation. What strikes me is the incredible clarity of the voicing and the pure style of playing, which is still intensely expressive. The main voices and motifs are always heard very distinctly. The harmonic colours are still played clearly but very transparently. It is inspiring to hear their incredible precision, perfectly matched vibratos and balanced harmonic voices, at a time when I imagine not many takes were possible. For me it is both deeply expressive and totally unsentimental.  It is best to listen to them ( not read my words!) on the link above. Having a direct link to a composer's ideas in this way, is really valuable.

 

The Galimir quartet as it was in this recording disbanded in 1936. Felix Galimir and his three sisters  (imagine the fights!) Adrienne (second violin), Renée (viola) and Marguerite formed their quartet in 1927 to mark the centenary of Beethoven's death. They were coached by Simon Pullman in Vienna, who Felix later said was one of the most important musical mentors in his career. Pullman encouraged them to get to know the best contemporary music of the time. The quartet gained an international reputation ( they also made the first recording of Berg's Lyric Suite) but they were all forced to leave Vienna, due to their Jewish heritage and the worsening political situation. Felix Galimir  left as early as 1936 . He was forced to leave the Vienna Philharmonic because of the harassment he received at work, and  they all four ended up, by circuitous routes, in the US, where they made their home. Felix went on to reform the quartet with other players. He also had a career  leading different orchestras and teaching at Juilliard, Curtis and Mannes, and was also a mainstay at Marlboro Music Festival. About his sisters I can find very little information, and this is rather sad. If anybody studied with one of them, or has information about these three very talented women, do post it!

                                      

 

 

Musicology - A Digested read- - Arnold Schering and Rudolf Kolisch on Beethoven

  

I suppose that musicology can never be described as a fashionable activity. In the what's in and what's out lists it never quite makes it to either. Sometimes though, people spend a great deal of time, studying and writing about a subject and then the next generation never sees it. I think this is a pity, so I have tried to write as briefly as I can about two musicologists, with very different views on Beethoven. I was hoping a brief summary of their two approaches might encourage people to find their dusty tomes or look them up on online.

 

Two very contrasting approaches to Beethoven string quartets are made by Arnold Schering (1877-1941) and Rudolf Kolisch (1896-1978)  Both were first educated as violinists but their lives were in just as much contrast as their writing. Schering blatantly collaborated with the Nazis after their rise to power,  and seemed to be in public, fully adhering to their doctrines. Kolisch, on the other hand,was forced to become a refugee from the Nazis, both because of his Jewish heritage and his long association with Arnold Schoenberg and the second Viennese school.

In a way Kolisch's great survey of Beethoven's works - "Tempo and Character in the work's of Beethoven" came about as a result of being short of money and a refugee in New York in the 40's. This short book, which is unbelievable in the thoroughness and intense logic of it's approach, catalogues every work of Beethoven (!) , giving Beethoven's own metronome marks when specified and then making a very educated guess at what other tempo markings would have been, based on the character and tempo description of the movement. So when you look up a movement of a string quartet for example, you get a table in the back of the book with metronome marks, and a section in the front with a character description, and a list of all other movements by Beethoven with similar traits ( it is mind-blowing!) So just as an example when you look up a Scherzo movement from opus 18 no.1, you find there are five categories of Scherzo 1. True Minuet (slowest) 2 Waltz Minuet 3 Allegro Scherzo 4. the real Allegro Scherzo  ( quicker this is opus 18 no.1))5. Presto Scherzo It is astonishing that Kolisch could have studied all of these works, spotting patterns, both in character, time signature and tempo, and then classified them in this encyclopedic way. This book is almost unknown now in English speaking circles,  (it is out of print) but as a starting point when studying these works, as long as it is not take too literally, it is invaluable.

With Schering and his works on Beethoven String Quartets ( in Beethoven in neuer Deutung)  it is impossible to take him and his writing literally. It is as if he has mystically conjured up connections, between what Beethoven was reading at the time he was composing certain works. So for example the quartets opus 74 ( Romeo and Juliet), opus 95 ( Othello) opus 127 ( The Merry Wives of Windsor) opus 130 ( A Midsummer Nights Dream) and opus 131 ( Hamlet) are the Shakespeare quartets. He writes Shakespeare's text in German under certain themes and each quartet is transformed into a drama in music where specific scenes from the plays are depicted in different movements. It is quite a daring creative leap that Schering makes and for me, I cannot always understand these leaps. Having seen Hamlet and played opus 131 right next to each other, for me they exist in separate, distinct worlds and I cannot take the music as a  literal representation of the play. Having said, you admire the immense creativity involved in coming up with these links.

Beethoven by all accounts said that Shakespeare was his idol, and that he knew his works as thoroughly as he did his own scores. Beethoven gave his friends Shakespearian nicknames, so tubby Schuppanzigh was " Milord Falstaff" and  young Gerhard von Breuning was "Ariel"  There is also a famous conversation where Schindler asked Beethoven for the key to two piano sonatas opus 57 and opus 31 no.2 and Beethoven replied " Just read Shakepeare's Tempest".  So Schering has a jumping off point, which he uses with incredible imagination.

Musician Poets

 

 

 

 

                                         

Paul Celan -Todesfugue  

The poet reading his own poem:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVwLqEHDCQE

Somebody drew my attention to this recording today. You don't have to understand German, to apprecite this. You don't even have to understand the meaning of the words, you can just listen to the way Celan intones and times the rhythm of his speech. The stress, phrasing, repetition and slowing up, at the end of words he really wants us to remember is extraordinary. Musicians can learn a lot from poets. You also do not have to understand a language, to listen to it and hear it as if it is music.

Sometimes as English speakers we apologise for not knowing or understanding other languages, but I think the first step is just to listen for a while. Allowing your ear just to swim through the sounds and be ignorant.(hopefully temporarily!) Later on, you can find out what the words mean and try and understand their deeper  significance. Of course there are always English translations but how different it is to hear a poem spoken in it's original language by a great interpreter. Looking at it on the page does not have the same effect.

In the german language this poem is iconic and a national symbol. I cannot explain the deep resonances of this poem in a short blog post. And actually all I am trying to do, is encourage people to hear the music in language and the language in music. 

Many  artists and musicians have been inspired by this great poem. I will just name a few, in case you have not come across them.

Anselm Kiefer has  made a whole series of artworks inspired by Celan, below I have just put two of them,  named after the German and Jewish icons of the poem  Margarete (1981)  and Sulamith (1983) ( Sulamith comes from the Song of Songs)

 

Harrison Birtwistle has set the poem to music  in " Pulse Shadows", as has Hans- Jürgen von Bose and Samuel Adler to name but a few. Phrases from the poem have been used in punk rock songs (Slime) and even book titles ( a biography of the philosopher Martin Heidegger  who collaborated with the Nazis )

But for me it is the recording of Celan at the start of this post, that stops me in my tracks.

Rudolf Kolisch and Eugene Lehner, vanishing traditions

 

The Kolisch String Quartet  in one of it's many incarnations.

 

The Kolisch Quartet existed from 1921-44, Rudolf Kolisch in the picture (far right , playing violin left handed) was the first violin for the quartet's entire existence

It is very difficult to make a short blog post about these two remarkable musicians. Eugene Lehner was the longest surviving viola player of the Kolisch Quartet (1926-39). ( see the extensive player list on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolisch_Quartet ) The Kolisch Quartet played from memory and were responsible for the premieres of Berg´s Lyric Suite, Schoenberg's Third and Fourth string quartet, Bartok's Fifth and Sixth String Quartets and  Webern's Second String Quartet. And one more time  -they played from memory! They, and other members of the quartet at various times, trained as composers as well as musicians. Kolisch studied composition with Schoenberg and Lehner with Kodaly. The idea of playing from memory apparently developed naturally with the players spending a very long time studying the new scores in order to do them justice.  They also perhaps had a heightened ability to memorise and understand scores, having trained as composers. They apparently found that they could react quicker to eye contact and physical cues, when there were no music stands in the way.

I am focusing on these two players,  and will explore  them later in other posts because their lives and what they acheived were so remarkable. Yet in English speaking musical circles, many young students today have never heard of them. Kolisch's texts on musical interpretation and his survey on character and tempo in Beethoven are out of print in English ( can still be read online) and have to be ordered specially in German. And yet they provide a vital link in a fast vanishing way of approaching music.

The quartet ended up as refugees from Nazi Germany, and landed in the States at the outbreak of war. They valiantly tried to keep their ideals alive, but spending hours studying scores when money has to be earnt was a great challenge. There are sad letters from Kolisch to his brother-in-law  Arnold Schoenberg, about his desperate search for work, trying to find pupils or orchestral jobs. Both Kolisch and Lehner ended up eventually finding good work environments  and both taught chamber music at the New England Conservatory in Boston, amongst other activities.

I have put a link to a Kolisch Quartet recording of Schubert, just so that you can get an idea of them. For me it sounds incredibly fresh and modern, a performance fuelled by direction and structure. Kolisch  stated  "My point of view is decidedly for the music and against the instrument" ( from his lecture " Religion der Streicher" )He meant that musical decisions had to made for sound structural reasons and not because of instrumental and technical compromises.

Link to Schubert String Quartet D887 First Movement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YUmT8FPqZc

"Writing About Music is like dancing about architecture" Shostakovitch and Rothko

This famous quote has disputed origins,  (see http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/11/08/writing-about-music/)and maybe in the end it is not so important where it  actually came from. More important is that the person had a point !

Sometimes when you try and express the effect certain music has on you, it would be more effective to avoid words altogether. When I was trying to learn Shostakovitch's last quartet, as soon as I had played it a few times it connected in some way with the experience of walking round an art gallery  where Mark Rothko's last  works  were collected: works like "Untitled, Black on Grey" http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/collections/collection-online/artwork/3535

The overwhelming feeling in that room of Rothko paintings was of quiet despair, but there was also a sort of serenity there too. There was very little variation in the colours or forms he used, but the collective effect of all the paintings together was overwhelming.

It was the same for me, playing and listening to Shostakovitch's last quartet. Shostakovitch writes six movements all marked Adagio and for long stretches the only dynamic is pianissimo.  Listening to it you are aware of somebody who is struggling to stay alive. He is supposed to have said himself that the first movement should be played " so that flies drop dead in mid-air and the audience start leaving the hall  in sheer boredom " The same feelings of quiet despair hang in the room  when listening to this music.as did for me when looking at the Rothko paintings.

I tried reading dissertations on the Shostakovitch, and they diligently listed keys and structure, but of course they could not describe in words the chemistry created by the music between listener, player and composer So maybe the quote at the start of this post is true. On the other hand we can at least try to put some of our reactions to music into words and see whether our reactions are shared by our fellow listeners.

Painting by Numbers

“Really not the way to proper way to play Schumann”

It is strange for me the way that playing Schumann can draw all sorts of extraordinary reactions from audience and fellow musicians alike. He is a personal hero of mine and I find his music enigmatic and inspirational. In pieces like the string quartets, there is this wonderful structure but also great emotional freedom to interpret his music . His intensely personal way of using expression marks, like > ,sfz , fp , – his sudden changes of feeling and far out metrome marks, can lead to a wide variety of interpretations which I appreciate. Great music can survive this, and usually we can all be stimulated ,even by interpretations by which we are at first provoked. It usually does not come anywhere near the extremes of expression that Schumann himself seemed to specify.

That is why I am always sad when I hear somebody say something as narrow minded as “Really not the proper way to play Schumann” As if one existed! They also happened to be talking about one of my favourite recordings of some Schumann pieces. Thank goodness a composer like Schumann is immune to pedants everywhere. The Ikea instruction manual approach to music making, is thankfully defeated by him. The metronome marks alone usually put paid to this way of approaching his music. Some of the metronome marks seem beyond human reach, which is a good thing. You know you have never arrived and will have to keep coming back. You will never find “THE way” and you will be a better musician for never having arrived.