Liberaaaaagh!
The analgesic boy choir Libera, latest addition to the writer's 'crossover creatures'.
According to their website boy choir Libera’s music is a ‘sound for a new time’ and contains ’shimmering, mystical chords and ecstatic harmonies’. Yeah, whatever! I saw them today on the TV clad in their white robes and talking about their latest album Peace (Luxury Edition) like some kind of celestial boy band. There’s no doubting that these lads can sing a bit but the anodyne strings and synthesiser schmaltz that totters precariously over a pseudo-disco drum loop doesn’t do it for me. In fact the thing that bothers me most is not the music but the identity of the sevengali behind them. Admittedly the group is a ‘not for profit’ organisation so I suppose their operators can’t easily be accused of manipulation but I add them to my ever-growing list of ‘crossover creatures’ who inhabit those dark and dangerous lands between popular and classical music.
I wonder what kind of people buy Peace (Luxury Edition)? I suppose if analgesic, innocuous ersatz choral music is your thing you might, but perhaps I’m being unfair. Perhaps it’s me! Perhaps there are some people with taste who buy such albums, but surely if you want a decent choir at Christmas (or indeed at any other time) aren’t you better off buying an album by the choir of King’s College Cambridge or even avoiding the kids entirely and going for something by The Sixteen. Better still, get hold of a copy of William Mathias’s Ave Rex - that’s real Christmas music.
After reading this you’ve probably already condemned me as as nothing more than a musical grumpy git. Maybe I am but I’ve finished my rant now. I rest my case.
The Secret Life of Eric
Maria Callas - one of Eric's thunderbolts
Eric is my father-in-law. He is nearly eighty years old now and still fairly ebullient and good-humoured mostly, but at times rather cantankerous. There are bits of his life that I do know about – his career in the Royal Navy, service during Suez and later tracking Russian trawlers in British water – and other bits that he’s kept quiet, not because he doesn’t want anybody to know about them but because he’s just a quiet bloke.
I get the impression that, although he spent 32 years in the navy, the sea isn’t really in his blood. He is a man of the arts. Other than Eric’s study I can’t remember where I’ve seen as many art books in one place. His collection of art slides, reproductions of painting from galleries he’s visitied all over the world, total about four thousand in number. He has lectured on art history too and his mind is nothing less than a mental archive of art facts. But what I have only just found out about him is his love of music.
I know he likes music of course, but on the occasions when I see him we tend to talk about other things, practical matters, family stuff and the like; music doesn’t really figure. Only in the last couple of months have I discovered another facet of his character. He mentioned in passing something about opera and his favourite singers – top of the list is, and always has been, Maria Callas. But almost as an afterthought he talked about a whole series of concerts that he’d been to featuring top-notch singers, conductors and soloists: Jussi Bjorling, Gigli, Kathleen Ferrier and Nicolai Gedda. I wanted to know everything about those concerts and I questioned him until until he was sick of talking to me.
I’m too young to have seen those singers, but what an experience it must have been! If you’ve got older relatives who are in any way keen on the arts, find out what they’ve done and who they’ve seen. You might be surprised.
Critical Mass
Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. Browsing through reviews of Paul Lewis’s cycle of Beethoven piano sonatas I came across these little gems:
Lewis has a marvelous gift for sweet lucidity and joy, and above all for melody: the most demanding passages quite simply sing (which is actually no simple thing since it is so rare) and are never merely notes achieved, no matter how brilliantly. I feel as though Lewis has given us a glimpse into Beethoven’s heart and we find something hitherto hidden but which he reveals with such grace. I wish I could do Paul Lewis as much justice in my description as he has done the composer by his playing.
And there followed further generous outpourings of adulation and veneration. Then came this…
This is a disappointment, especially in the light of its enthusiastic critical reception on both sides of the pond. It is cautious, careful, circumspect, earnest, responsible and dull. There is no sign here that Beethoven is dealing out bold strokes. Instead the composer comes off as plain and palatable. And that we know he was not. Fine sound of an exceptional instrument: wasted.
So who do you believe and what should I do? The latter reviewer dismisses the recordings as aphoristic and featureless yet to the first it seems the sun shines out of Mr Lewis’s piano lid. Do I use my Gramophone Classical Guide as my vade-mecum or use it in place of lavatory paper when the soft stuff runs out? Because a conclusion is impossible to reach, I become irritable, snap at my wife and torment the cat. (I am ashamed to say that in a fit of sudden irascibility that stemmed from reading reviews I once attempted to superglue milk bottle tops to the bottoms of its paws.) But is my first mistake to consult anyone else at all? If you subscribe to Spotify your problems are solved; just spend a few blissful hours listening to the relevant versions of the works you’re planning to buy and Robert, as they say, is your proverbial parents’ brother. If you haven’t got the aforementioned software, it really doesn’t matter that much does it?
What is a bad recording? These days there are very few of them. I mean, of course, a recording that is badly balanced or sounds as though it was recorded in a sports hall, or underwater, or your downstairs toilet. The rest is down to taste and I’m not sure that we should let the critics have the monopoly on that. Because a pianist is a little too light with his sforzando chords or the tempo of an orchestral tutti isn’t fast enough should we dismiss the work entirely? And some critics do. By all means dust off your metronomes and follow the score if you want to check precision but almost all of the classical music buffs I know are collectors of recorded music and very few of them also have a library of sheet music to rival their CDs. I doubt also whether many of us, unless we are professional musicians, have the time to scrutinise a work in that much detail, fascinating though it is to do. If you know what you like then it’s worth searching for, I suppose. Spotify comes into its own here; being able to listen to different versions of a work is a boon, although they don’t have them all.
Too often in the past I have discarded CDs of works I know well because they don’t compare with the one I’m used to regardless of whether it’s ‘good’ or not. I have always used my 1975 LSO/Previn version of Orff’s Carmina Burana as a benchmark by which to judge all other versions of that monastic romp. Recently my son played me some of the version he has (by someone forgettable on the budget label Naxos). There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, except that it was different to mine. The emphases and tempi were different but the playing was decent and the recording was okay. What the music was attempting to get past was my own prejudice: that the Previn version was, in my opinion, the best and therefore anything else should be dismissed.
Are we, dear reader, too attached to readings of works that are, say, similar to those we have grown up with? Are we wary of holding out the olive branch to versions that are a little bit different? An advertising campaign for a well-known UK supermarket chain uses the phrase ‘try something different today’. I going to swallow my own prejudice, along with that rare breeds pork pie, and do just that.
The (Too) Serious Business of Classical Music
These days I pick up music magazines and newspaper articles on classical music with trepidation because I know what’s coming: serious reviews and analysis of newly released recordings, interviews with musical celebrities who bang on about their latest tour, features about obscure composers written in a language laced with German and Italian jargon like so much verbal durchfall. (See, I’m doing it now). There’s nothing wrong with those kinds of articles of course, but what about printing a few that don’t take themselves too seriously? Here are a few clips to remind us that even classical musicians, and the people that listen to them, can have a laugh at themselves from time to time.
And Jim Tavare with double bass:
And the legendary Victor Borge:
And who could forget this?:
Everybody Digs Bill Evans
On September 15th it will be exactly 30 years since the death of jazz pianist and composer Bill Evans. Arguably no other jazz musician has influenced the course of modern music quite as much. The freshness of his tone and melodic line, and the individuality of his voicings made him unmistakeable. Even the hundreds of jazz-pianist-clones who have tried to play like Evans never quite manage to sound like him.
Bill Evans was born in Plainfield, New Jersey in 1929 and, like many jazz musicians, was classically trained. He was awarded a music scholarship and attended Southeastern Louisiana college, graduating with a degree in piano performance and teaching. After a spell in the army Evans took postgraduate studies in composition at Manne’s School of music and worked mainly in New York alongside such notables as Charlie Mingus, Art Farmer and George Russell. His debut album New Jazz Conceptions, featuring the track ‘Waltz for Debby’, probably his most famous composition, was a financial flop but it led to greater recognition and in 1958 Evans joined the Miles Davis sextet. Although he stayed with the group for only eight months his influence was great. He left to focus on his own career but returned in 1959 to record the seminal album Kind of Blue.
In the early sixties Evans formed, with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian, what many consider to be the best trio of his career. The death of LaFaro, aged twenty-five, in a car accident cut short one of the most fruitful partnerships in jazz history. Evans was particularly affected by it and did not work for several months afterwards. In the early 70s came a brief period of musical and personal stability with a trio consisting of Puerto Rican bassist Eddie Gomez and Marty Morell which lasted until the latter’s retirement in 1975. Towards the end of the decade Evans’s long battle with drug addiction began to take its toll - he had been a heroine addict since his spell with the Miles Davis band and although he had kicked this drug his addiction to cocaine was the one that finally killed him.
Classical musicians, even the ones that have little interest in jazz, will have heard of Evans, in fact, once heard his playing is never forgotten. The fusion of startlingly voiced jazz chords and classical Debussy-esque harmony over a floating melodic line is a combination that is instantly recognisable. His ability to reharmonise the chords of jazz standards and come up with something infinitely more stunning is evident in his recordings of tunes such as ‘How About You?’ and ‘My Romance’ (both from the album Waltz for Debby). Check out this clip of Evans performing ‘My Foolish Heart’.
Evans’s jazz has a logic about it that makes it easy to understand. As classically trained musician I spent more time trying to understand Schoenberg, Charles Ives and Richard Strauss’s harmony than I did Bill Evans’s ; there’s an inevitability about the structure, the changes and the voicings but there are also many surprises – juxtapositions of chords, unusual vaguenesses or rootless passages underneath little turns of melody that make you smile. The image of Evans, hair slicked back and geekily bespectacled, hunched over the piano concentrating intently is one that contradicts the openness and tansparency of his music. Its sense and rationality is drawn from elements of jazz, classical and ethic music and melds them into something of immeasurable beauty and sensitivity. If by some chance you aren’t familiar with his music you really ought to do something about it. In fact, Evans’s second album Everyone Digs Bill Evans is aptly titled, because everyone does.
Select discography
New Jazz Conceptions (1956 Riverside) The first of Evans’s albums featuring Teddy Kotick (bass) and Paul Motian (drums)
Everybody Digs Bill Evans (1958 Riverside) Already it’s clear the direction that Evans is taking with his music. Block chords are beginning to be replaced in places by a more fluid line supported by Sam Jones (bass) and Philly Joe Jones (drums).
Portrait in Jazz (1959 Riverside) The first album to feature Scott LaFaro on bass. Motian plays drums once again. The rapport between these musicians is a almost tangible.
Kind of Blue (1959 Columbia) Evans is the pianist on four out of the five tracks on this seminal album. The chords for the track ‘So What’ are to the jazz pianist what the ‘Tristan Chord’ is to the classical musician.
Waltz for Debby (1961 Riverside) A classic album again featuring LaFaro and Motian arguably contains some of Evans’s best playing. Includes the tracks ‘My Foolish Heart’, ‘Waltz for Debby’, ‘Detour Ahead’ and ‘My Romance’.
How My Heart Sings (1962 Riverside) Chuck Israels plays bass on this trio session. Motian remains on drums.
Conversations With Myself (1963 Verve) A solo album with Evans using several channels of overdubbing on each track with interesting results.
A Simple Matter of Conviction (1966 Verve) Excellent trio album with Eddie Gomez (bass) and Shelley Manne (drums)
The Bill Evans Album (1971 Columbia) Grammy award winner. Evans uses a Fender Rhodes electric piano on some songs but check out the incredible track ‘Twelve Tone Tune’ – serial jazz composition (of sorts!). Has Gomez on bass and Morell on drums.
You Must Believe in Spring (1977 Warner Bros) Gomez on bass again but with Eliot Zigmund on drums. The wonderful ‘B Minor Waltz (for Elaine)’ shows that even though Evans’s health was waining his musical intelligence was not.
Hands off my Sackbuts!
Should this be the fate of all fortepianos?
I wonder whether the seeds of my obvious uncultivated crassness (I’m sure some readers will see this blog post as nothing less than that) were sown during my primary school years. Perhaps it was because I was pressganged into joining, aged seven, the school ‘orchestra’, forced to dress like a pillock and play ’Ode to Joy’ in the recorder ensemble. But the apogee of my primary school musical career came with a performance of Schubert’s ‘Die Forelle’ transcribed for zithers and kazoos. Perhaps it is this that has blunted the edge of my enthusiasm for musical accuracy. My induction into classical music was based, at least when I was very young, on my mother’s modest record collection. Discs of Dinu Lipatti, Solomon and Wilhelm Kempff (see my previous blog Dr Who and the Piano Titans) rubbed shoulders with Klemperer, Furtwangler, Katherine Ferrier and Maria Callas. I had no idea about whether or not these versions were authentic, historically informed or played on period instruments. I wasn’t bothered about it then and I’m still not that bothered now.
For some listeners the search for authenticity is of paramount importance. If the orchestral forces used aren’t exactly of the type and number that Beethoven or Haydn or Bach intended, or the banjos are overdone in the Verdi Te Deum they will dismiss the performance out of hand. An argument has been raging for some time about whether or not Sir Roger Norrington is correct to ban his orchestra from using vibrato in works composed even as late as the twentieth century and, following on from that, an interesting discussion took place on Twitter last week on whether you could play Mahler and Elgar works without violin portamenti. Unthinkable in my opinion, but an even more fallacious case is made by those who dismiss the modern grand piano sound as inauthentic for performances of music written before about 1840.
Authentic though it is, the fortepianos on which Beethoven and Mozart composed their works sounds as though they belong in the saloon of a western film than in the concert hall. I have never been able to come to terms with the early piano’s thin tone and twangy bass notes that are more suggestive of Dodge City than nineteenth-century Vienna. So why should we even bother with these relics? As historical curios they are interesting but can’t compare with the modern Steinway. In his essay ‘Notes on a Complete Recording of Beethoven’s Piano Works’ Alfred Brendel states that ‘whenever we hear Beethoven on a present-day instrument we are listening to a sort of transcription’ and goes on to say that he believes a modern concert grand ‘does better justice to most of Beethoven’s piano works than the Hammerklavier: it’s tone is far more colourful, orchestral and rich in contrast, and these qualities do matter in Beethoven, as can be seen from his orchestral and chamber music… It’s sound, dynamics and action have surprisingly little in common with the pianos of today.’ Our modern day ears are attuned to the sound of the concert grand and even if the purists don’t find it completely pukka, the beauty of its tone and the ability of that sound to carry, even in the biggest concert halls, make it much more preferable than the honky-tonk instruments that the musical sophists seem so keen on.
The battle continues to rage about whether classical music should be played on period instruments and as long as there is classical music I don’t think it will ever be resolved. I can take any amount of period strings, lutes, viols, crumhorns, sackbuts, shawms and ophecleides and the rest, in fact I actually prefer baroque keyboard music to be played on the harpsichord rather than a modern piano. The UK alone boasts some astoundingly good PIPEs (Period Instrument Performance Ensembles): The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Fretwork, The English Baroque Soloists, The Rose Consort, The New London Consort, The Taverner Consort, Collegium Musicum 90, The Academy of Ancient Music, The Frolick, The English Concert and The Hilliard Ensemble to name but a few. But fortepianos? Why bother with them? I suggest they all be broken up and distributed as a practical contribution to the pensioner’s Winter Fuel Allowance.
Chopin and the Sins I had not Committed
The only known photograph of Chopin
I wonder if the originality of Chopin’s music is overlooked these days. Glenn Gould famously denounced Chopin’s music as ornamental and trivial and other critics have dismissed his salon-based oeuvre as nothing more than ‘music for the ladies’ but actually, there’s more to it than just a pretty tune. The inherent melodic nature of a Chopin piece belies a harmony more complex than meets the ear and even the humble mazurka, like some peasant wench newly brought to polite society, its characteristic Polish Lydian fourth beautifed and given an exotic glamour, can stand up to scrutiny of the drawing-rooms of Paris. In the words of a nineteenth-century critic from La France Musicale: ‘Chopin is unique as a pianist – he should not and cannot be compared to anyone.’ He might even be able to make you cry.
