Tag: beethoven

Opinionated

Matthew Eilar2 Comments

1. james rhodes

The Guardian has a short profile/interview of the first classical soloist to be signed to Warner’s rock label. He sounds like a swell guy, and I don’t want to make any judgments on his music without hearing it, but a couple things mentioned in the interview make me curious.

Rhodes is also currently presenting his own primetime music show, Piano Man, on Sky Arts, in which he plays his favourite composers, all the while peering at sheet music on his iPad through trendy spectacles.

If he uses the iPad to explain the pieces, or reference the score, to the televised audience, then I think that’s great; I think it’s incredibly valuable for musicians to be able to explain what they’re thinking about as they convert a piece of written music into sound. If he’s just using it as a score…what the fuck does he need a score for?

The other thing that’s kind of bothering me is something that Rhodes probably can’t help. I’m all for changing the uptight appearance standards that soloists and conductors are held to, but if that becomes the conversation about you in place of your music, you come across like a Christian band trying way too hard to prove their “alternative” credentials. His album covers do not inspire confidence. This probably has nothing to do with Rhodes, and everything to do with lazy journalism. I suspect this is the case because of the way that the writer describes Rhodes: “Clearly, this is a man who has no need for added stimulation: it is barely 11am and he is already bouncing off the walls, a tightly wrapped bundle of tics and jitters.” I feel like I read a version of this sentence every time I read about a young (read: under 30) classical musician in a mainstream publication–it’s almost like they go in to the interview barely expecting a pulse, so anything more feels like a revelation.

2. tommasini’s hall of fame

Anthont Tommasini, classical music critic of the New York Times, has compiled his list of the 1o greatest composers of all time. His list:

  1. Bach
  2. Beethoven
  3. Mozart
  4. Schubert
  5. Debussy
  6. Stravinsky
  7. Brahms
  8. Verdi
  9. Wagner
  10. Bartók

I had a couple initial reactions to this list. The first was an appreciation of the long tradition of Western notated music–a tradition so long that you can make a top 10 list like this without saying anything remotely controversial. Of course, not everyone would pick this particular list, however it would be hard to take seriously an argument that any one of these composers does not deserve to be on the list because their music was insubstantial, or there wasn’t enough of it, or that it didn’t distinguish itself from the other music of its time. All of these composers had exceptional, rare talent and it’s only because we have centuries of music to pick from that we can make a list like this.

My second reaction was just awe at just how much music is out there, and how much I have to learn. Beethoven has always been one of my favorite composers, and I was extremely pleased that Tommasini placed him above Mozart. I’ve been blown away by Bach’s music over and over in the context of organ and compositional studies. But about half of the other composers only exist as uninformed, vague impressions in my consciousness. Brahms? Stuffy and heavy. Mozart? Monotonous and empty. Schubert? A complete unknown.

3. miami gets a new, gehry-designed concert hall

At first, I was all fired up to rant about Gehry becoming the go-to starchitect for concert halls, and why don’t we give other architects a chance and blah blah blah…then I actually read the article about the fundraising and construction process and decided that I was being a little bitch.

The picture above is actually the interior of the building. Miami blog Miamism gives a really good overview of the design of the building, what its goals are, and how it fits into the area.

4. conservative conservatory

The NYT published a story that looks a little more in depth at the New England Conservatory’s decision to sever ties with the fledgling El Sistema U.S.A. I’ve gotta say, this stinks to high heaven of an organization underestimating the extent of its commitment, then getting cold feet and backing out.

I think it’s important to keep in mind that El Sistema is supported by the federal government of Venezuela. It was always going to be a challenge for any music institution, or nonprofit organization, to provide the same level of support to a U.S. organization that is provided by the federal government in Venezuela.  The decision to focus on training graduate students rather than directly establishing youth orchestras already was a compromise, and this public vote of no confidence by the New England Conservatory leaves the movement in a weaker position than before the Abreu Fellowship program was established. The program has only been in existence for two years, and that the NEC wants out of the partnership so quickly is a joke, and I can only believe that either the NEC severely underestimated the support it would need to provide to the program for it to have a hope of being effective, or that the organization was acting in bad faith from the beginning. I do not see a way that this does not reflect poorly on the New England Conservatory.

Above all, though, this is a missed opportunity. The NEC had a once in a generation chance (and it’s possible that another organization will take up this mantle) to radically redefine the mission of a top level conservatory. The conservatory’s president, quoted in the article, makes it clear that he wasn’t interested in that, “We really felt this was outside our mission altogether.” Music education has always been a part of the conservatory because so many professional, performing musicians also teach. This was different because it was an attempt to rebuild the musical infrastructure of the country on a societal level. It’s a shame, a shame, that the NEC had so little commitment to this organization in its crucial first years, and such a lack of follow through to see this vision realized.

5. on a lighter note

David Stabler, critic for The Oregonian, writes about an effective use of the second movement of Beethoven’s 7th Symphony in the movie The Kings Speech. I think I’ll always associate that movement with the great children’s audio program Beethoven Lives Upstairs, but I think that it’s best use in film is in the opening credits to Tarsem Singh’s masterpiece The Fall:


Andras Schiff on Beethoven

Matthew EilarLeave a comment

I’ve just discovered the lectures, archived at The Guardian, that Andras Schiff delivered covering all 32 of the Beethoven piano sonata. They’re fascinating, showing the way that a performer approaches the sonatas from both a theory and performance perspectives. They have already made me much more familiar with these genius compositions.

Sida Cheng

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I had the privilege of attending Sida Cheng’s senior piano recital at Reed College this afternoon. It was a wonderful program, and, after the week I’ve been having, the perfect way to decompress. The program:

Aaron Copland

Variations

Philip Lasser

12 Variations on a Bach Chorale

Johannes Brahms

Six Pieces for Piano, op. 118

Ludwig van Beethoven

Piano Sonata No. 32 in C Major

His technique was flawless, and none of the pieces on the program were easy. It was nice to revisit the Copland Variations, I had heard it once before and didn’t think much of it, but I like it much better now. It’s Copland like you’ve never heard him before, working with sets and quasi-atonal themes. Copland being Copland, however, every once in a while there are resolutions to pure triads. Instead of being cheap or gimmicky, it becomes transcendental. The Lasser variations were, I thought, a little pedestrian, but Sida did a great job with the tricky Vivace variation, and came off as a real pro.

One of my music professors is a hardcore Brahms fan. I’ve never really connected with that because I just don’t have very much experience with his music. In his Six Pieces, he’s in full-on Romantic Piano mode, and I could have listened to them all afternoon. These days, between schoolwork and getting ready for recitals of my own, I’ve been missing pure listening experiences; listening with out being distracted by the internet or scores or assignments. It was magical.

After the Brahms, the Beethoven seemed a little unnecessary, however Sida acquitted himself well, and the last movement that he performed ended with a twinkling, very difficult passage in the high register of the piano.

Oregon Symphony: Theofanidis, Beethoven, Sibelius

Matthew Eilar1 Comment
James DePriest
James DePriest

So, I may be posting a little this week to procrastinate, but I wouldn’t really expect regular updates for another couple of weeks. It’s the end of the year, and there is a whole lot of crazy going around. I did have enough time, however, to go to hear the Oregon Symphony on Sunday night conducted by conductor laureate James DePriest. DePriest conducted from a wheelchair (I couldn’t find the story on that anywhere online, but he is 72) and it was clear that the audience had affection for the man who led the orchestra for 23 years as they went nuts every time there was an opportunity for applause (You know how there are always old ladies who bolt for the door as soon as the last note sounds (I think they want to get out of the parking lot first)? The final curtain call was so long that they were able to get all the way out of the hall before the rest of the audience started leaving.).

Christopher Theofanidis
Christopher Theofanidis

The program opened with Christopher Theofanidis’ Rainbow Body. Although the president of the Oregon Symphony has admitted that, in an effort to raise ticket sales, the orchestra has tried to program mostly warhorse classics and take it easy on the modern music, this was the piece that I emptied my bank account to go hear. If I might take a moment, if you are a student in the Portland metro area, there is no reason for you to skip any of these concerts. The Oregon Symphony has a standing, $10 student tickets an hour before showtime, deal. That’s less than a trip to the movies. You should go. Anyway, Rainbow Body, as explained in the lecture before the concert, is a work inspired by the Buddhist concept that when our bodies die we all return to the universe in the form of energy and light (I am sure that I am not geting that quite right, and the Wikipedia article on it is not exactly helpful). The piece incorporates melody from chants composed by Hildegard von Bingen, the 12th Century German abbess polymath. I didn’t really hear the chant; it was a little deconstructed and I wasn’t familiar with it in its original form anyway. What did strike me is the amazing color that Theofanidis writes into the music. One technique that I really liked is his use of cluster chords, where (for example) the string section plays a line of music, but on every note, there are a few musicians that hold on a little longer. Think of a piano; it is like playing a scale with the pedal down, and while you still hear the scale, you also hear every note interacting with the notes that came before. Or think of beads of paint on a canvas, it is like taking your finger and smearing the colors together. It was really lovely.

I guess the thing that sticks with me most about the piece is the way that it is able to synthesize musical tradition into something that is both beautiful and reverent of the past, while being firmly rooted in our time. The piece was tonal, and there were moments of throwback technique: for a brief passage the woodwinds broke into counterpoint that could have come from an 19th century textbook. And yet the harmonies had a dissonant edge (most notably in the brass) that could only have come from a composer that had studies 20th century music. Some of the sonorites and textures could have also come from experimental or ambient pop music. In this respect he reminded me of Eric Whitacre, who I first encountered via Chanticleer. They assimilate material from many different strains of music without being cheap and also without the millitant idealism of some 2oth century schools of composing. Two final notes about Christopher Theofanidis: 1. His name is really fun to pronounce. 2. He looks like John Ritter.

Garrick Ohlsson
Garrick Ohlsson

Next was Garrick Ohlsson, a close friend of DePriest (a fact which I heard repeated no less than five times), to play Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. I don’t really have a lot to say about the piece itself, but I will say that I was really impressed with Ohlsson’s technique. I know that it is the least I could say, but I was genuinely enthralled by his tone. He managed to both play clearly and with great passion.

The other highlight of the evening was Ohlsson’s encore: Chopin’s Nocturnes Op. 9 No.2. We would all like to believe that every member of the audience is concentrating all the time on the music, but we know that’s not true. Nevertheless, when Ohlssohn began to play, you could almost hear everybody fix their attention on the piano. Nobody coughed. Nobody’s watch went off. We just listened. You almost never see it, even in concertos with solo passages, but you could also see the entire orchestra just listening. DePriest listened from his chair with his eyes closed. The adorable viola player that looks like he could have been the crypt keeper’s college roommate swayed with the music.

It is a thing that I occassionaly marvel at. In one sense, the stage, the sound of music is completely relative. In that moment with everybody listening, the piano was filling the hall as much as the full orchestra could. When the last note faded away, the audience hesitated, not wanting to break the silence.

Finally, Sibelius’ Symphony No. 1. After reading The Rest is Noise earlier this year, I went out and got all of the Sibelius Symphonies and downloaded all of the scores from the International Music Scores Library Project (which is a fantastic resource). So, lately I’ve been feeling a little chummy with the guy. One thing that I was particularly struck by was a beautiful passage where the timpani was sustaining a soft roll while the harp played a solo. Something about the tension between the sound at the low and high extremes of frequencies made an impression on me. Actually, the timpani is one of my favorite features of Sibelius’ orchestral music. Often it is used not as a percussive accent, but as a subsonic drone, like a roar that is just out of earshot and only the lowest freqencies carry through the distance.

One last note: the Oregon Symphony and the members of the section should be very proud of the brass section. On all three of the pieces, but mostly in the Theodfanidis, I was struck at how tight they sounded.