Kenneth Woods- a view from the podium

I really like to blog about the conducting workshop, so the fact that I missed out yesterday is a good indication of this week’s feverish pace. Yesterday, Day 3, was all conducting- Stravinsky Octet in the morning with the Discover Program students, then the Dvorak Wind Serenade in the afternoon and finally Madame Butterfly in the evening.

All in all, that makes 27 different performances we saw yesterday, so it’s hard to generalize. However, I try to look for trends throughout the day- i.e., are people generally conducting the best I think they can or not. That tells me a lot about how successful we’re being as teachers. On that basis, I thought it was a really strong day- some really memorable moments, a lot of progress, a lot of people surpassing expectations on all three pieces. Brennen Guillory and Esther Mae Moses, our tenor and soprano for Butterfly, were both exceptional, inspiring and so completely professional. They sang like artists, but with a selfless devotion to craft that let the students find their sea legs in what for some of them was new territory. There were some really moments throughout the session.

It was also interesting doing the two wind pieces back to back, as they demand such different gestural language. Stravinsky seems to me to need angles, clean corners and geometry and the Dvorak is almost an etude in avoiding those- it needs circles. It’s just a little lesson I’ll remember next time I’m asked about the difference between conducting winds and strings- one should be focused on conducting the music first.

After such and exhilarating day, everyone was in high spirits and so the party was a lively if well-mannered one. After such a night, morning was destined to come all-too-soon, and it did. It was great to really talk to more of the class- lots of intelligent, curious, passionate and interested people.

In spite of the late night, we called everyone in to talk through Appalachian Spring before the session, as I think it has a set of very specific but solve-able problems. Interestingly, just about every conductor that conducted in the session that followed chose to divert from at least one of the technical suggestions we’d thrown out for them. I think on balance, in most instances the results bore out the usefulness of the original suggestion, but hopefully the work served to underline why I was suggesting what I was- I’d certainly tried (sometimes with rather deeply disappointing results) some of those same variant approaches myself.

The afternoon was another seminar class- a bit of an open forum grab bag. This one was mine to direct- something I enjoy but do find intimidating, especially the company of Chris and David. I tried this year to deal with questions and issues they wanted to talk about, as well as some specific things that had come up in the conducting sessions. First up, I wanted to talk about cultivating the skill of being changeable- the best conductors are usually the most versatile as well, and there are techniques for being able to change your conducting that can be learned. Intonation came up- something all of us on the faculty are interested in. Beyond that, we talked about the usual range of rehearsal technique, programming, context and so on. I hope it was useful, but I often worry that a session like this is least useful to the best students. Hopefully those who already know or even have strongly developed ideas about these topics were at least able to compare those with ours and see how we express things and whether it is effective. I think I played a honkin’ wrong chord while talking and demonstrating on the piano (it’s actually a pair of chords a third apart and I think I played the upper one a step higher)- David made a very polite noise, the meaning of which was instantly clear- Woods, wake up! Note to self- stay away from the piano after late nights, as you may fall asleep while playing.

Finally, tonight it was Haydn. David said earlier this week you should never teach the pieces you really love. It’s too hard to let go of what you love in them if a student can’t yet find those qualities (though many will, I think). Everyone did fine, especially considering what a foreign language Haydn was to some of them and how much harder it is than Stravinsky, but there were some rather nutty ideas about tempos. Back here at the Portland branch of Vftp International, I’m still kicking myself that neither David nor I demonstrated on the piece. I think we both felt like our versions would be so different from some of the student’s versions that it wouldn’t help them at that moment get better at what they were trying to do. On the other hand, to spend  2 ½ hours with Haydn Symphony without it ever really trying to show why were asking for things seemed, in retrospect, a mistake.

Just a couple of students wasted an opportunity too- a few EA students missed tonight’s session with the DP’s on the Haydn. I know everyone’s tired and needs to study, but to miss a chance to hear David talk about Haydn seems madness to me. It’s possibly the best piece of music we’re doing this week! You can study for the rest of your life, and you owe it to your colleagues to be there. A pity, I think. If they can watch the video of what they missed in 10 years, they’ll wish they’d been there.

So, Day 4- tough, tiring, long, grueling, occasionally frustrating, but somehow, maybe that means we’re getting somewhere. Tomorrow offers huge, huge opportunities- Copland, Dvorak and Puccini.  Rarrr!

Day two of the RCICW- there is still so much I want to say about my week at Round Top and last week in Pendleton, but the hour is late and so I must limit myself to thoughts about today.

We began today with the Discovery Program students conducting the 1^st mvt of the Stravinsky Wind Octet. In some ways it pointed to the fact that we don’t really get training in how to count. I’m not talking about counting rests so that we don’t come in wrong- I’m talking about counting the subdivision of the music in such a way that every musical event is digitized to a specific metric moment in time, and that ever digital moment is not merely an academic expression of linear time, but a vivid representation of the character of the music. It was a really fun session, and some really nice things happened, and I kept thinking that the DP students really have the best repertoire this year….

This afternoon we talked opera. Chris gave a vivid and inspiring chat about the craft of opera conducting and then Rick Rowley turned to his theatre training and gave us a director’s view of our scene from Madame Butterfly (we’re doing the final part of Act I). Rick is one of the best pianists I know, but he’s also a professional actor and director, so it is a tremendous luxury and privilege to look at a scene through the eyes of someone steeped in both music and drama. Finally, the incomparable Alex Hamilton, a wonderful mezzo who has sung for us in many past years, talked about the practicalities and intricacies of interacting with singers. I found, to my slight annoyance, that I kept jumping in more and more as the afternoon progressed because I get overexcited at these things. One day I will learn the verbal equivalent of sitting on my hands.

Finally, tonight we turned to the Brahms D minor Concerto with Rick. It was an interesting contrast to the Beethoven op 95 we started with yesterday. The Brahms is really more technically difficult and problematic for the conductor, but the overall level of confidence and command seemed higher for the Brahms and for the Beethoven. David spoke eloquently and rightly of the value of learning scores from scores and  not from recordings yesterday, but I felt like it was obvious today that the Brahms is more a part of most conductor’s body of listening knowledge than the Beethoven. Is there a way to metabolize and absorb a piece without a huge recording tradition so that it breathes as naturally as a standard repertoire piece you might have heard hundreds of times? Hmm…….

The end of the week is already looming. We’ve now seen each conductor once. The next sessions offer the richest opportunities for teaching because soon enough we have to start preparing for the final concert….

One final aside- David was stressing the value of watching the soloist tonight, but I must admit, I rarely, rarely look at soloists. I think the real question is where you are directing your energy and attention- if you look at the soloist, your attention is directed at the soloist and not the paper score or the orchestra. But can all that visual activity be counterproductive?  Sometimes when I’m soloing, I find being gazed at to be somewhat intrusive. On the other hand, I’m aware that my approach is at best unorthodox, so I should probably keep it to myself.

I feel at my most centered as an accompanist when I feel like my attention is all on the soloist, but on the aural level and, dare I say it, metaphysical level. I can hear and feel him or her breathe, I can feel the pianist’s finger descending through the key, or hear a singer transitioning from a consonant to a vowel. A great pianist like Rick can articulate a note or chord in such a way that you feel he is sinking into as a great string quartet would. That gives the conductor the chance to hear the key going down even before the note is released and ringing- at least I think it does.

Lots of excitement to look forward to tomorrow. Wish I had my cello here….  

I’ve literally not had a second to sit down and do even the shortest blog post in some time, and don’t have any time now either. However, the beginning of the Rose City International Conductor’s Workshop each summer has become such an important moment in my year that I couldn’t let the occasion pass without some comment.

So… as I’m giving up sleep I will badly need later in the week, this will be brief….

We seemed to have more than the usual pre-workshop scheduling/travel/facilities worries this year, but this may simply be that I block out the trauma of past years so as not to become too discouraged. Nonetheless, Kris, our sainted housing coordinator, was fielding calls at 3 AM the morning before the workshop to come and save a stranded conductor whose flight was cancelled, and there were other problems and challenges and issues being worked out throughout the first day so that everyone could get off their flights and into their rooms and be ready to conduct. Even my colleague Chris Zimmerman had to suffer through a cancelled flight, meaning he got in today at 1:30 instead of last night.

Still, by mid-afternoon, every single student and musician who was supposed to be there was there, and my blood pressure started to ease. Our first session was a score study class with David Hoose, as inspiring as always. I’ll never hear the final chord of the introduction to the Stravinsky Octet the same way again, and that’s a piece I’ve done quite a few times.

In that class we touched briefly on different general approaches to score study, and one student who had just come from another workshop spoke of the “why” approach, which is the best. Here is a link to an old post on the subject, complete with inspiring commentary from David. For general overview, do a search of the blog for “score questioning.”

Tonight we had our first conducting  session on the Beethoven op 95 quartet as orchestrated by Mahler. I picked it because I thought it would be telling to see how conductors coped  with a work of Beethoven that is more or less free of conducting traditions. Everyone did at least some marvelous things, but, somewhat as I feared, I didn’t feel like, in general, it was deep enough in everyone’s, or anyone’s, bones. There were huge problems with the publishers not sending out scores of the Mahler arrangement on time, but I was surprised that some people didn’t just sit down with the original quartet score, which is easy to get.

Tomorrow, we start with the Discovery Program students conducting the Stravinsky Octet, then an opera class where Chris Zimmerman will talk about opera technique and then Rick Rowley will talk about stage direction and scene building. Alexis Hamilton from Portland Opera will be on hand to provide the singer’s perspective. Finally, in the evening we hear Rick play the Brahms D minor concerto, which in many ways is the hardest piece for the students this week- all the technical challenges that make the first movement of the 3^rd Symphony so hard with the added challenge of having to accompany a complex and flexible solo part. Yikes! Still- we get to talk about conducting Brahms and listen to Rick, which is a great way to spend a summer evening.

I’m sorry for the lack of new content here this week- I’ve been in my hometown of Madison, Wisconsin for a few days, and there has been a lot of sentimental favorite beers and coffees that had to be consumed, as well old friends and family to visit.

Musically, Madison was once a hidden treasure. I had grown up listening to and learning from some of the best musicians I’d ever seen, and would go out into the world and mention their names and colleagues would look at me with blank incomprehension. No more- If Madison was once a buried treasure, it is now a magnet. I’ve seen old friends and colleagues here from festivals and conservatories all over the country who are now living and working here, and long-time Madison mainstays have been making the rounds of distinguished festivals everywhere. I’m glad to see it, but I slightly feel like my secret favorite movie has just become trendy.

It was sad to say goodbye to Round Top after such a short visit. There were a lot of new faces on the faculty, and I was just getting to know my colleagues by the time we had to go. Happily, I’ll be back next year and will hopefully have some more time to socialize. There was also not much time to get to know the students individually as much as I would have liked- Round Top has always been a place where the real social action happens after 10 PM, which is tough with a new born.

Musically, it was fun and an interesting week. All four pieces were of 20^th/21^st century origin, and spanned quite a range of styles, from the ferocity of Varese, to the Haydn-esque perfection of technique of the Copland, to the pastoral calm and oriental wit of the Higdon to the timeless sadness of the Barber. The Copland is a piece I never listen to anymore, so it had been a few years since I’d thought about it (I think I last conducted it in November of 05, which would have been about the last time I heard it). I came away from the concert more in awe of it than ever- it is so perfectly put together, so deeply moving and so ferociously challenging. America has produced a lot of great music (and Copland produced a lot of that), but Appalachian Spring may be the great work of American music.

Tim played wonderfully on the Higdon, which I really enjoyed working on. There is one really, really tough passage for the 1sts late in the piece. High, exposed, physically awkward and in terrible keys… To their credit, the players really threw themselves into it, and practiced it at every break. However, it did take some persuading to convince them of the efficacy of practicing a passage like that VERY slowly. Just for the record and for those of you taking auditions- practicing in whole notes wins jobs.

Tomorrow it’s back on another plane (our journey from Texas was a predictable litany of horrors) and on to Oregon for the OES camp and the Rose City International Conductor’s Workshop. I was reminded Wednesday when I tried to get 3 conductors in the same coffee house at the same time and totally failed that conductors, particularly young ones, do not seem to follow instructions very well. That’s good to remember before starting the workshop- I kind of have to deal with my younger colleagues as a group of young geniuses who follow instructions (particularly non-musical instructions) at more or less the first grade level. Sorry folks…… Just been my experience…. I’m guilty too…..

Well, my week at Round Top has been going by much too fast. This Texas Festival Orchestra is a marvelous group, one of the best they’ve ever had here, if not the best, and I’ve enjoyed rehearsals immensely.

I remember many years ago hearing Ivan Fischer, who I admire a lot, talking about the early years of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. As the orchestra was evolving into a full-time group, and one of the best orchestras in the world, people began to ask if they should chose a more permanent name. Ivan and his colleagues decided that the original name would serve as a reminder to avoid routine, and that all concerts are, in their own ways, festive.

With such a good group and such good working conditions we’ve been able to do a lot the kind of work the regular professional bands don’t have time for, and that conservatory orchestras often don’t have the patience for. I hope I haven’t tuned too many chords this week for everyone’s patience, but when you get out in the world and have to fight to make concerts happen amidst all kinds of budget restrictions, you learn to take advantage of opportunities to do the best work you can. Here we have time, talent, facilities and atmosphere- it’s not to be wasted.

It’s been lovely to revisit Appalachian Spring, which I first conducted here about 15 years ago. Over so many performances since then I’ve learned to predict with pretty high degrees of certainty where the problems will be- there’s the spot the violas might miscount or the place that rushes for everyone or the spot where the violins are way too loud.

However, if the problems become known, there are always undiscovered beauties and miracles in such a piece. I found something today- just a little color thing- in a swell in the coda that for all that it looks like nothing on the page really made a chill. It’ll be fun to teach the piece later this month with it so fresh in my mind.

One piece I don’t think we’ll be doing anytime soon at the workshop is the Barber Adagio for strings, which opens the concert. I can’t really think of a work that is more of a challenge to conduct, because in the end, conducting doesn’t serve the music very well, and yet, the piece doesn’t quite reach the same heights without a conductor as it can with. Next time I become MD of a new orchestra, it’ll be an important project to do together, alongside a lot of Haydn and Beethoven. In addition to being a wonderful piece, it is a great etude for the orchestra in playing like a chamber ensemble, breathing and listening to sound- when that happens, the most incredible things are possible.

Also on the program is Jennifer Higdon’s Soprano Saxophone Concerto, which has also been fun to put together. I have a feeling the audience will love it- there’s a lovely pastoral vibe going through the piece as well as some humor. Certainly not easy to play, though! There’s one first violin lick that would make a fiendish sight-reading excercise for a sadistic audition committee somewhere…..

I’m on the ground for an all-too-short to Festival Hill at Round Top, my first visit here in several years. The food is still great, and the grounds are as beautiful- an inimitable mixture of the immaculate and the rough-and ready, with stone monuments and incredible woodcarving next to old sheds and dirt roads.

The Concert Hall has come a long way since I was last here- it is for intents and purposes a finished product. My first summer as a young student, we had a stage with no apron, concrete floors, plywood walls and white plastic lawn chairs (which were still in use during my last visit, now replaced with permanent seats). The steel girders were still visible round the stage. Fortunately, the sound is still perfect or nearly so.

 I had a nice surprise on arrival- I’m conducting on another concert Saturday, where I’ll be doing the Varese Octandre with a mixture of faculty and students. I’ve been dying to do the Varese since last summer’s RCICW. Had I known, I would have brought my score. The only score on campus came from the publisher with the parts- at some point the middle 8 pages went missing, so the publishers saw fit to just stick single sided copies on white 8 ½ x 11 paper in the middle. Imagine if performers took this attitude to playing the piece?! Yes, we’ll do good professional work for 10 pages, then play completely half-assed and unprepared for 8 pages, the good again…

On Friday, we’re doing the 13 instrument version of Appalachian Spring. AppSpri was the second piece I ever conducted in a concert (here, as it happens), and I’ve done it many times since. Probably the first 6 times I did AppSpri, I did the 13 instrument version, then the last 4 times, I  did the full orchestra version. The orchestra version is wonderful, especially if you don’t let it turn into Billy the Kid- it’s still a chamber orchestra work. However, the original instrumentation is miraculous, and once I got used to it again, it’s many marvels come racing back. It is so deliciously difficult- we’re doing it at the workshop this summer (it is a complete coincidence that I’m doing it here- Alain only asked me a few weeks ago), and I’m curious to see how the students cope with musically. Suzanne and I were talking after the rehearsal today- it’s a surprisingly sad, or at least pensive, piece for being so popular. Anyway, it’s like coming home to rehearse on that stage again…

Speaking of Suzanne- last time I was here was when she and I met. How crazy to come back here for the first time since that fateful summer with our new traveling companion, Sam, who seems to be enjoying his first music festival a lot.

Friday’s SMP rehearsal was quite encouraging, especially the contributions of our soloists, Oliver Heath and Gary Pomeroy from the Heath Quartet. What a treat to work on the piece with two good musicians who know each other’s playing well and understand the style intimately.

I was also pleased with our progress on the Schumann and Piston, and with the orchestra’s reactions to both pieces. By the end of the night, it seemed as if the Piston was becoming a hit with many of the musicians, which was both a relief and a delight.

After a long drive home I awoke on concert Saturday very tired already, but in a hopeful frame of mind- I was feeling confident about the soloists, confident about the orchestra’s preparation and excited about the prospect of the concert. It’s at times like this where you almost catch yourself saying “after all, what could go wrong.”

On my way to the sound check/dress rehearsal I stopped at Marks and Spencer to buy a bit of lunch, which I took with me to the car. While driving down the A 329, I dipped into my bag and discovered I’d ended up with the wrong sandwich. Instead of the chicken variety I’d intended to buy, I was confronted with a “crayfish, rocket and lemon cream cheese” wrap, or something of that ilk. “What the hell,” I thought, “I like crayfish, perhaps they’re good on sandwiches too…”

Starved, and fast approaching Guildford, I took a nice big bite and thought “ick. This is the worst sandwich I’ve ever eaten.”

Little did I know.

About ten minutes later, I felt a strange abdominal gurgle, and moments later knew with a horrible certainty that I had not only grabbed the wrong sandwich, I had grabbed “THE WRONG SANDWICH.”

I’ll spare delicate readers any hint of the horrors experienced between Bracknell and Guildford. I do remember sitting in my dressing room thinking that I had been more seriously ill before a concert (I got up from a hospital bed in La Grande to do a kiddie concert once, which, in retrospect, was stupid), but that I couldn’t remember feeling more miserable. I started downstairs at 2:28 and the orchestra was already tuning- for once everyone was better than on time and raring to go….

Rehearsing when queasy is a strange feeling- things either look very far away or very near. Sally came to give me a message just before we started and it seemed as though she was right at my nose and I needed reading glasses to make out her expression- I was struck by just how big the faces of everyone on the first desks looked, but the horns seemed like they were across a large parking lot. I just thought- if I can keep my balance, we’ll manage. Whatever you do, don’t fall over.

No matter what happens- act normal. That’s my motto…

Anyway, we made a start- Mozart worked his magic and I gradually started to feel a bit more human. By the break I felt dehydrated and wobbly, but was no longer at death’s door, and by the end of the rehearsal I had improved to just feeling lousy.

I had decided to keep this all to myself, as nobody needed any extra worries with such a challenging program. I couldn’t help wondering, however, if anyone was sitting in the rehearsal thinking “is it just me, or is Ken decidedly green today?” Perhaps my every day pasty skin tone had them fooled. By the end of the afternoon, I was mostly aware of the fact that there was absolutely nothing of any kind in any part of my digestive system, so I braved a light dinner before the concert. No crayfish, though.

The concert was rewarding- I enjoyed the Piston on several levels. I thought the orchestra really tore into it, and I felt like my take on it was much simpler, less fussy and more direct than the last time I did it. What a gem of a piece. Ollie and Gary played beautifully and earned a home-town-hero’s reception from the almost-capacity audience. I hope the crowd knew how lucky they were not to be stuck with a 90 year old Russian violist with a wobbly vibrato and a 34 year old performance practice fascist  with strange ideas about tuning/severe problems with hearing, or something like that.

By the way- here’s something for young musicians to remember (well, all musicians). You can’t get the right tempo without the right sound, and you can’t get the right sound without the right tempo. Yes, you can play with a bad sound at any speed, but when the piece fizzes along, you’ve got a much better chance of making it all work.

We tried something a little crazy with the Schumann- I augmented the usual rap from stage with a few musical examples played by the orchestra, just focusing on the use of quotation in the piece, which is something a few audience members had asked for in the past. Everyone was enthusiastic about it to my face, but we’ll wait for the unfiltered feedback to make its way to the committee before I try it again. Just because someone tells you they loved something doesn’t mean they did.

The orchestra played their hearts out on the Schumann. I’d really worked and struggled with them all week to find the right sound for the opening of the piece, which is by far the hardest part of the symphony. After possibly too much hand-wringing on my part, it was lovely, and set the stage for a fine run through. What a work!

The Electric is a mixed venue- lovely amenities, a good staff and it always seems to be full. However, yesterday was not the ideal time to brave a concert in indescribable heat on stage. I was already so dehydrated that I really felt rough at the end of the show in spite of guzzling water through the intermission.

It’s also a difficult acoustic- we had a great brass team last night, and they played with a lot of control and sensitivity, but a piece like the Schumann needs room for the sound to move around. That opening in particular needs space.

I’m off in five hours to Heathrow and then Texas. We’ll get to Round Top Tuesday morning, and I start rehearsals at 2 PM Tuesday afternoon. I hope the food is still as good as it was back in the day….

Number 104 in D Major, Haydn’s “London Symphony” is the last of Haydn’s “London” symphonies….

I have time for just a few quick thoughts before I head off to Chobham for one last SMP rehearsal before tomorrow night’s concert.

Surrey Mozart Players
Saturday, June 28, 2008
7:30 PM
Electric Theatre
Piston- Sinfonietta
Mozart- Sinfonia Concertante
Oliver Heath- violin, Gary Pomeroy- viola

The first thought is a reminder to local listeners to get your tickets today if you possibly can, as the concert was close to sold out on Wednesday, in spite of the fact that we’re doing a work by Walter Piston (hopefully it is partially because of the fact that we’re doing a work by Walter Piston, as it is an amazing piece).

I voiced concerns here on Wednesday about cycles in general, and mentioned that it felt like the first manifestations of cycle-phobia were appearing in this rehearsal sequence. I needn’t have worried- Bobby (Bobby Schumann) has seen us through. The 2^nd Symphony has proved to be an irresistible force. All 4 of the symphonies are great, but the 2^nd is the greatest. Much as it might be nice to finish the cycle with the best piece, maybe it is good to put such a miraculous piece in the middle to lift us all on to the final stages of the cycle. When one of our bassoonists asked me “are all his symphonies this good” on Wednesday, all I could say is that all his symphonies are pretty damn good, but……

I asked my colleague in the orchestra what she disliked about rehearsing Schumann and we had a good chat. To my delight, she said she was loving rehearsing this piece and that it was just the scrubando writing in the 3^rd she found exhausting.

One can’t rehearse Schumann’s orchestral music without recalling all the many clichés about his problems as an orchestrator. To me, Schumann has one of the great ears for color of any composer. Think of the brass writing in the 4^th movement of the 3^rd symphony, or the slow movement of the cello concerto where the soloist and the principal cellist of the orchestra link hands for one of the most miraculously beautiful passages in any piece.

Where Schumann is most often faulted is in the area of balance, but poor orchestral balance is not a composer’s fault but a conductor’s, especially in music of this period. Symphonies from Haydn to Brahms were expected by their authors to be played by orchestras ranging in size from 30 to 110 players. Any of these composers would have expected a good conductor to make adjustments- Beethoven himself used alternations of full and reduced string sections in performances of his symphonies with large orchestras, but not with small groups where everyone played all the time. Any 18^th or 19^th century composer would have doubled the woodwinds, and in some cases even the brass for a performance with a huge string section, but might have reduced the wind dynamics for performances with a small one.

If you hear a Schumann symphony in a 3000 seat modern hall, you are already hearing something Schumann would not have planned for- halls in his day were much smaller than that. It’s up to a conductor to decide the best balance of forces for that space- if you get the right size band on stage, you can make fewer adjustments throughout a piece.

I don’t think of adjusting dynamics within a texture (such as having the brass release a long chord after an attack, or having the first violins play a sustained high note softer so that an inner voice can come out) as making changes- Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann or Mendelssohn would have all expected the performer to do that, as they wrote what they expected the audience hear, not what they expected the players to do, unlike Mahler, who tells the players what to do in order for the audience to hear what he wanted them to. Having 4 oboes play an ff passage instead of 2 is not re-orchestration, nor is changing a string accompaniment of a wind solo from mf to mp in a performance with a huge string section (or, even only using half the section).

Beyond that, I’ve never been tempted to change a bar of Schumann’s orchestration- his ear for color is too imaginative and inspired, and it has just never been necessary. Even with a passage that seems impossible for balance, the price of taking shortcuts is always high. In the last movement of Schu2 there is a passage at bar 134 where the horns and bassoons alternate bars of triplets in a quite noisy texture. The horns are easily heard, the bassoons usually lost- they’re softer by nature than the modern horn and in a weaker register. I just heard a fine recording where the conductor had brought in 2 extra horn players and given the bassoon part to them to solve the problem, but he created bigger problems than he solved. The triplets became quite overbearing, and the lack of variety in the color was clearly un-Schumannian. He should have hired two extra bassoons to double there and changed them to ff and the horns to mf- that is the adjustment Schumann would have expected, and therefore NOT a change…

Finally- we’re rehearsing Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola tonight, which I just conducted last week with the LCO. It is very unlike me to do this piece 2 times in such close succession, as I try to avoid it. Yes, it is beautiful, especially the slow movement, but it seems one of those pieces that is cursed. Most performances I hear have some HUGE indulgences, flaws and fiascos that you don’t tend to hear in other Mozart concertos.

First, more often than not, the soloists are poorly matched or not matched at all. Think of all those performances by an orchestra’s concertmaster and principal violist that simply hammer home the fact that they were born in different centuries, studied on different continents and don’t like each other. Then there is the “reward for good behavior” soloist pairing- when 2 members of the local youth orchestra get to do it before they head off to college where they would have learned how to play Mozart. Then there is the “it’s really a viola concerto” performance- the violist gets so over-excited that they become a little obsessive about the piece and plays insanely loud, while the violinist, flush with 5 concertos of his own, comes in unprepared and undermotivated, skidding all over the string and playing horrible out of tune. This week, we’re doing it with 2 members of the Heath Quartet, which should be a good match.

Then there are the horrible traditions and performance clichés that have been piled on this poor work, ones that have long since been eradicated from most of the other Mozart concerti. All those annoying, un-Mozartian tempo changes in the first movement…. Yuck!

And then there is the poor slow movement- one of the great ones in the literature. It’s just Andante, which, as we all know, doesn’t mean slow, it means walking. Piu andante in Mozart means go faster!

I once got in terrible trouble over a Mozart Andante. I was doing one of the flute concerti, and the soloist’s teacher gave me the video of Galway playing it with the Mostly Mozart orchestra to study. Aside from the heavenly flute playing, it was pretty dire, and the slow movement was beyond funereal. I was sure he didn’t mean me to copy that tempo. We got to the rehearsal and I started the movement at a normal-ish Andante clip and the teacher barked from the hall that it was too fast. In my best nice-guy voice, I said something like “but it is Andante and not Adagio…” Just that, nothing more…The next morning he called my boss and yelled for 20 minutes about my arrogant attitude. My boss then pulled me in and asked me point blank “so how slow did he want you to go?” I played him the tape and he warned me to be more diplomatic in future…

My revenge came about a year later when Emmanuel Pahud did the same piece in town, with a lovely flowing Andante. Well, he’d become the flutist of the day, surpassing Galway by this point, and the next I’d heard the same voice was telling other conductors- “it’s too slow, Andante and not Adagio….” Just goes to say that who says a thing means more than what gets said.

This scene took place on the steps of a festival concert hall in the US one summer, where an orchestra had just been rehearsing Haydn’s Symphony no. 82…..

“You know, I’m actually enjoying this piece.”
“Yeah, me too. I kind of expected it to be boring ‘cause its Haydn, but it’s really fun to play and quite unpredictable.”

“You know, I think it’s called “The Bear” or “The Bull,” or something like that.”

”The Bear.. That makes sense. You know, I did think it was pretty good for a Haydn symphony.”

“Cycle,” I mean….

I’ve noticed lately that any kind of cycle of works by a single composer is bound to unleash bellyaching from one direction or another.

When they’re well played, I love cycles. I like to experience a composer’s evolution through a series of performances.

Not everyone does, though. I remember a one-concert cycle some of my teachers gave at the UW in the early 90s. It as a performance of Beethoven’s 3 string trios from opus 9 on a single concert. I thought is was fantastic (I’d seen the same thing done with the opus 59 quartets.).

However, the afternoon of that concert, I remember running into another faculty member. I asked if they were going that night and she said “oh god no. What a horrible program. Concerts like that embody everything that people, including me, hate about classical music! I can’t imagine anything more boring.”

Yikes….

We talked a few minutes, and it quickly became clear that what she really didn’t like was the poster saying “Beethoven- Three String Trios, opus 9….” Had they done those same three trios and called it “Beethoven Rocks the Freakin’ House! Hell Yeah!” she would have approved. Anyway, she missed a damn fine concert.

You see, for many people, the key to enjoying a cycle is to not know they are hearing one. We’re finishing a Beethoven cycle this coming season in Pendleton (that’s all of the symphonies and major overtures- we still have the Triple Concerto and the 1^st Piano Concerto to do). Throughout that long project, I’ve heard nobody speak of “Beethoven fatigue” or the “unending” Beethoven cycle.

However, between the OES’s first and second instalments of the Mahler Cycle (that is, having played exactly one work of Mahler so far), I had one musician speak to me at rather great length about “Mahler fatigue,” and “perhaps we need a break from the Mahler Cycle.” Fortunately, this is a minority view, but I have noticed that no matter how many people love a composer’s works, if you announce a cycle, there will always be someone who starts whinging after one piece. The Beethoven Cycle was never announced- we knew we were doing it, but never marketed it as such. On the other hand, once the Kinsman Foundation had underwritten our Mahler project, it seemed like we had to call attention to our efforts to spread the gospel of Redneck Mahler.

Last year, the BBC Philharmonic did an excellent Tchaikovsky Symphony cycle, but by the time I saw them do 1 and 5 on the same program, audiences were staying home in droves, it seemed. Tchaikovsky! What- is he too popular for the cycle treatment? Maybe he’s so popular that cycle heads like me and my friends who would go to a Schnittke cycle won’t go because it is beneath them? I thought that was a wonderful program- enjoyable from beginning to end, it also really made the point that 1 is a miraculous piece and deserves to be as much a staple of the rep as 5. They just did a Brahms Symphony/Schumann Concerto cycle- I wonder how it did? Another UK orchestra is just finishing a Mahler cycle which, if you read the papers, sounds like a catastrophe of historic proportions. Would it have gotten the same reaction if they’d just snuck along and done Mahler after Mahler? There is a Mahler cycle going on Cardiff at the rate of one a year, but they’re not telling anyone.

This week, our Schumann cycle is continuing apace in Surrey. We’ve done some short works, the Piano Concerto, the Cello Concerto and the 3^rd Symphony so far, and right on schedule, we’re starting to hear the first few delicately phrased questions about “just how many Schumann symphonies are there?” (answer- one times two plus three and another 3/4, plus one almost that doesn’t quite count, but we’re only doing 4 and possibly the 3/4)+ Note- we’ve played exactly one Schumann symphony so far. Now, musicians can say what they like- this is challenging music for any orchestra, so they’ve earned the right to vent a little Schumann fatigue. No hard feelings. *

However, I keep thinking that if I’d just kept my bloody mouth shut and programmed one Schumann work after another until the project was done, THEN announced that we had just completed a Schumann cycle, everyone would be happy as could be.

Still- there’s nothing I’d rather do than hunker down and prepare all 6 Bartok quartets in one go, or conduct all the Brahms Symphonies in a weekend, or play all the Bach Cello Suites for the dog on a lazy Tuesday. If only I can avoid telling the damn dog what he’s in for….

* One of my colleagues in the orchestra completely confused me the other night when she said the other day that she loves performing our Schumanns, but absolutely hates rehearsing them. I’ve spent the last 2 rehearsals constantly asking myself- “is this what she hates? Is it the long notes? The short notes? What about that? What about this? I just stopped- did she hate that? Or was it when I didn’t stop before? What is different about rehearsing this than Mozart 41? Am I talking more? Am I talking less? Is the music more tiring to play? Is it any music more tiring than Mozart that is a pain to rehearse, or just Schumann?” Or is it just Schumann in a cycle…..

+ Okay: one times two is the two versions (original and revised- lots of people, including Brahms, prefer the original version in the same way that many film critics prefer the tedious Manhunter to Silence of the Lambs, in spite of the fact that Manhunter is a 2nd rate film, its obscurity gives it street cred that Silence’ popularity costs it. I like the original 4th, but Schumann knew best and the revision is an improvement) of what we call the 4th symphony, really the second, plus three is no’s 1, 2 and 3 (actually 1, 3 and 4), plus 3/4 is the Overture, Scherzo and Finale, a marvel of a piece and almost a symphony, plus one that almost doesn’t count is the G minor Zwickau symphony, which has never quite made it into the canon.

On my desk today is Schumann’s 2^nd Symphony. If you had assembled a panel of experts, including every major composer from 1825 to 1899, at the end of the 19^th century to pick the most important symphony after Beethoven, Schumann 2 would probably have been the one, beating out all the Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak, Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohns easily.

One reason the piece was so highly esteemed in its day was that it is what I call a “crafty” piece- that is, it is not only exciting and emotionally shattering music, it is also music that contains an extraordinarily rich array of musical touches of compositional craft.

For instance, the piece is full of ciphers, codes, quotations and references to other music. The master of cipher and quotation is, of course, JS Bach, and, as it turns out, Schumann 2 is the most Bach-ian of the Schumann symphonies, and one of the most Bachian of all symphonies ever written.

(more…)

In the comments to my post on piano tuning, CB’s comment to the effect of–

Have you ever actually tried to tune a piano? I think that would change your mind a bit - if you dont go mad. I spent a great deal of time in HS screwing around on Church pianos late at night when no one else was around - just me a piano key and a couple of wedges and a 440 tuning fork. Its lucky I am still alive and not in hell.

reminded me of another Tim-the-piano-tuner episode.

Somewhere around the altered-inverted-Romanian-well-tempered month or the horizontal-boogiewoogie-magpielampost-meantone month on our piano, Tim arrived one morning looking rather red faced and agitated.

“Have you heard! Have you heard what he did!”

“That man, that madman! Manoogian!”

Manoogian was Vartan Manoogian, long time master teacher of violin at the University of Wisconsin, who passed away much too early last summer. Vartan had a certain genius for winding people up, but I couldn’t imagine what he’d done to get Tim’s knickers in a twist.

“You know, he bought this beautiful piano last year,” Tim told me breathlessly, as if relaying the back story to news of a recent crime.

“Er, I hadn’t heard, but that’s great.”

”No! It’s not great. The man decided to tune it himself! Can you believe that!”

“Oh…” was all I could think to say. Vartan did have rather amazing ears. And nerve.

“He can’t do that,” Time excalimed. “He can’t just start tuning a piano!”

It is a truism that string players think they know more about tuning than piano tuners, and that piano tuners think string players can’t play in tune. Tim clearly thought most piano tuners, with their half-baked, amateurish, unquestioning loyalty to equal temperament, were at best hacks, but at least they were piano tuners.

“Er, no… of course not”

“Good.”

I felt like the lesson was over and I should get up and leave, only it was my house.

“Will he have… messed it up?” I asked in a desperate attempt to fill what was beginning to seem like a long silence.

Tim just looked at me. Had I not been listening?

I started gently, “Er… after all, didn’t you say that back in the day, guys like Brahms and Schubert tuned their pianos?”

“Yes, but those were composers. Composers! And those were different pianos. Just think what he’s done to that poor piano. It was such a beautiful instrument”

“Well, if he’s messed it up, can’t someone just go in and re-tune it?”

”He’d be lucky to find someone who would touch it after it’s been manhandled like that”

It was becoming clear to me- somehow, Vartan’s actions had deflowered the piano. It’s virgin strings had been pulled by unclean hands. The instrument would now sit in his living room, untouchable, as if it wore a scarlet letter “V”…..

“Maybe it sounds okay? I mean, er, he is a great musician”

I might have well told him I’d sold his daughter to a shipload of Vladivostokian smugglers from the look he gave me.

Well, of course, I had to ask Manoogian for his side of the story when I next saw him.

“Hey- I hear you dared to tune your own piano.”

“Yes” he said with his uniquely mischievous half-smile. “I kept getting it worked on and it never sounded in tune, so I did it myself.”

”How’s it sound?”

”It sounds good.” He was smiling broadly.

Now, I’ll never know if he was telling the truth. Perhaps he’d flown in a tuner from the mountains of Tibet who hadn’t heard of the scandal and tried to blame the tuning job on a bunch of roving criminals who had broken into his house and attempted to tune the piano using the modified-Amenian-tone system….

We got a new (old)) piano not long ago, and after a few months I organized our first tuning. The chap worked on it while I was out, so I returned that evening and sat down to play a chord. Ab would be a nice one to start with.

“Don’t start complaining,” cautioned Sue from the next room.

But those thirds…. Surely we can do better than that. I tried G major- same as Ab! They sound so messy, so, er…. hmmm….dirty.

I thought for a moment- I could just get in there  for an afternoon. It’s just an upright. And if I messed it up, I could just get it re-tuned.

And then I remembered Tim’s withering gaze, and thought that I might end up forever on some list somewhere, a list that meant I could never get a piano tuned again, and probably would have to go through extra security every time I flew for the rest of my life, and I decided to stop worrying and learn to love those blurry, dirty thirds.

I’ve held off writing about the Columbus Symphony mostly because my personal connection to the orchestra makes it too painful to do so.

A bit of biography- I played in the CSO for about four years (less in the later years when I was busier conducting) while I was doing my doctorate at CCM. Columbus has never had quite a large enough core of full-time players to do big symphonic repertoire (I think there were 6 full-timers in the cello section when I was there) so the orchestra carried a number of what are now called “associate” members (when I started we were just called “subs”) who played every concert but were only paid per service, hence saving the organization millions every year.

Yes, the system is as sketchy as it sounds (full of inqeuities and double-standards), but it was a boon for many CCM students and recent grads like myself, in spite of the gruelling commute. Unlike the other major bands in the area like Indy or Cincinnati, the fact that Columbus used associates on every concert meant you could get a lot of work if you got on the list. I was already well on my way down the conducting road when I auditioned for them, but I loved playing there and I believe my experience in the band helped me immeasurably as a conductor.

The saddest thing about the current fiasco is that it sounds as if so little has changed in the ten years since I left (as best my memory will serve after so long). Columbus was always an orchestra that musically far, far surpassed its budget or reputation. We regularly had friends in the other “other” CSO (Cincinnati) come up who felt that at that time Columbus was in many ways the more complete band (their words, not mine), and certainly often gave much more exciting concerts. Many of my fellow associates from those days went on to win jobs in supposedly “bigger” A orchestras, only to find that the standards were nowhere near as high as in Columbus. By all accounts, the orchestra has simply continued to improve and improve- the last few things I heard from them were pretty impeccable. I certainly still miss playing for them. I can also not think of any place I’ve worked where there was more of a love affair between an audience and an orchestra and their conductor (Alessandro Sicciliani at that time). Columbus audiences loved the orchestra and responded with a passion and energy I didn’t find in a lot of places in my travels.

Sadly, the other thing that hasn’t changed is the incompetent and weasely faction on the board of directors. I lost count of how many executive directors we went through in my brief time there, but most of them came in as renowned “union busters” or “professional downsizers.” Apparently one ED bragged that she was “a hatchet man, but with tits.” Yikes. Since then, they’ve endured long periods without EDs or MDs. What does that say about the wisdom and competence of the board?

Through it all, the players built a better and better orchestra. No excuses, no backsliding. Robert Levine has an excellent post on the situation there pointing to the absurdity of a situation in which the people who not only did their jobs but excelled above national standards and expectations for their budget lose their jobs and possible their homes and health care while those who failed to live up to their commitments as board members or who utterly and completely failed in their basic responsibilities as executive mangers keep their jobs and their titles.

The usually ultra-diplomatic Drew McManus has been so appalled at the behaviour of the board president as to use the word “idiot.” I think that is unfair to idiots, who can’t help themselves. This whole thing was deliberate- the wilful destruction of the careers and lives of a fine group of many professional musicians who DO have a hugely loyal and passionate local following. It was not an accident. So sad…There is still some hope- a change of board president and executive director followed by a move to external arbitration could resolve this nightmare in a manner of days. The alternative is too awful to consider. I hope some of the city fathers recognize their community is about to become a national disgrace and will take the initiative to chat to some board members at the local club….

My recent posts on KZ and Franz Mohr have left me wanting to follow up with some of my own, rather inexpert, opinions on piano tuning.

This may sound like an outrageous sacrilege, but I really struggle with the intonation of pianos, and I find myself very much at odds with Franz Mohr’s description of equal temperament as perfection. Even at the KZ concert the other day, it took me a good part of the Bach to let go of the fact that none of the chords were in tune, in spite of it being one of the most perfectly maintained pianos in the world.

Sorry, guys, but pianos just are not in tune.

Of course, neither are most orchestras. How do I cope with the varied intonation standards of orchestras? Well, I don’t, really. I get frustrated, I get down, I work at it, I try to let go of it. Talking is not the friend of intonation, so a conductor working on tuning is always a clumsy business. If you really, really want to take a section’s intonation to another level, you need lots of time and patience and goodwill- not something easy to find.  I break down the work of conducting into two areas- 1: painting the picture, which is sorting out all the details of phrasing, color, dynamics, mojo and articulation, and 2: tuning the piano, which includes not only intonation work, but putting the right people on stage, sorting out accuracy issues and so on. Just as some pianos can never be as in tune as others, even in the hands of Franz Mohr, so to some orchestras can only ever be so in tune, but you still have to paint the picture the best you can as a conductor.

I think the thing I enjoyed most about my time in Ischia with Byron and David was their commitment to intonation work. Call me crazy, but I like working on intonation, as long as doing so is not a substitute for individual preparation, but it is so much better done as a team. I could write a book on the tuning issues of playing a chamber music with strings and piano. It is not as simple as the strings simply playing in equal temperament- that actually ends up sounding like crap. On the other hand, you can’t simply go all idealistic and try to tune like a string quartet as some keys and chords wander to far from the fixed reference point of the piano. The Mozart Piano Quartet in Eb we did in Ischia is SO challenging for intonation, and there are no easy answers. A string quartet can play a chord in isolation perfectly in tune, and shape the tuning to suit the mood of the piece, but playing music involves constant compromise and, er, fudging…. You can’t just say that strings can play more in tune than pianists- we’re both dishonest in our own ways.

Ivan Fischer used to have the Budapest Festival Orchestra do Bach Chorales in rehearsal, a marvellous idea, but not something you could try in most orchestras. They also did regular sectionals- much more so than I’d ever seen in American pro bands- where intonation was a prime focus.

But today, I’m talking about piano intonation. Funny that Mr Mohr said that in his entire career, no artist ever asked him to use a historic temperament. I find that a little depressing.

A bit of personal backgound- I grew up with a nice but modest Baldwin upright in the house, but we had a secret weapon- my best friend’s (from the age of about 2 1/2) dad was a semi-legendary piano tuner. That Baldwin punched way out of its weight class when he worked on it. After he moved to Chicago, we actually had a few local tuners come to the house and say that since the humidity in the house was stable, they felt it was better to leave John’s work intact than attempt to tune it.

Eventually, a string broke and I looked long and hard to find someone who could sort the piano out to John’s exacting standards. Finally, I found a friend of John, named Tim, who came round to the house one quiet Saturday morning when everyone was out. Like many good tuners, Tim struck me as extremely, well, eccentric. And opinionated! When he saw the cello and heard a bit about my background, he decided to educate me on his beliefs about piano tuning.

You see, Tim couldn’t have disagreed more with Franz about the merits of equal temperament. Tim actually thinks that equal temperament killed composition and the understanding of and appreciation tonal music. His point was simple- in any of the other temperaments, each key has its own very distinct color. This is because the major third in a C major chord will be a different width than the third in a Db major chord or a B major chord.

The expressive potential of such a system is powerful- the difference in the speed of beats in different keys can be used to create varied tiers of intensity, much as string players can vary the speed of their vibrato.

Tim retuned our piano using a modified mean-tone temperament, but over the next few years he rotated through a few different tunings so I could hear the characteristics of the different tunings. It was quite an education, in spite of the tuning limitations of our piano’s rather short strings (physics dictates that a piano’s tuning potential is limited by the length of the strings, which means a bigger piano can be more perfectly in tune than a small one, which is the main reason for using a 9 foot concert grand, not for volume).

Another of Tim’s points was that composers like Brahms and Schubert tuned their own pianos, and that he felt that modern composers suffered for that lack of training and experience.

More and more, we hear musicians returning to using fortepianos and period instruments for music of the 18^th and 19^th centuries, but those smaller instruments have inherent tuning limitations because of their string length. Wouldn’t it be lovely if more major artists were experimenting with the possibilities of tuning? Wouldn’t it be fascinating to hear Brahms’ piano music on a piano tuned as his would have been?

As it happens, one of the commenters (Brian Barone from Wrong End of a Telescope) on my Mohr piece has found a book that seems to speak to this very subject, which I’ve now ordered. What a thing the blogosphere is when it works!

Anyway, to me, equal temperament is an illusion- at first everything sounds out of tune, but since everything is equally out of tune, your ear quickly gives up the fight and can revel in everything the pianist is doing. Maybe this is right, because the piano is the instrument of illusion- what other percussion instrument can convince us it is crescendo-ing on a single note when we know that to be a physical impossibility? Those Horowitz recordings are pretty sublime- would he have sounded any better in modified mean-tone temperament? I’d certainly rather listen to Horowitz in equal temperament than Joe Schmo in well temperament. Which reminds me- I’ve heard from several sources that Mohr’s Christian prosteletyzing used to drive Horowitz up the wall. Mohr must have been a very great technician indeed. I was just reminded this week that Horowitz also once said that there were only three kinds of pianists- Jewish pianists, gay pianists and bad pianists….