Allegro Largo Scherzo Finale

*written for CMPO202 journal*

• Nikolai Rimsky Korsakov: Capriccio Espagnol  
• Joaquín Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez
• Claude Debussy: Iberia
• Manuel De Falla: Three-Cornered Hat Suite No.2 (Three Dances)

New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christoph König with Xuefei Yang (guitar) at the Michael Fowler Centre

The NZSO’s Sketches of Spain concert made me rather glad that there seems to be no “New Zealand” style of classical music, because the one that’s been foisted on Spain gets rather dreary over the course of a couple of hours.

A key concept which the concert brought up for me is the subjectivity of listening to music, not least because the concert was pretty much full, so I had a terrible seat (why do they call it “Restricted Viewing” – far more pertinently, it’s restricted listening). This probably contributed slightly to the underwhelming feeling I got from the Capriccio Espagnol – in particular one passage where the second violins were echoing off the firsts, but they basically sounded dead through the mass of first violins. This is undoubtedly one of the joys and frustrations of the spacialisation inherent in the concert experience – the flipside was that the sound from the celesta was much fuller in the Debussy and De Falla than I’d experienced before.

The main problem with the concert for me was that neither Capriccio nor the Rodrigo are pieces which I feel the need to listen to with my full attention. Indeed, I associate the Capriccio with making pavlova more than I do with a concert experience. There were some effective moments in the performance, particularly the fanfare-like bit in the middle, but the sound seemed to be in something of a cocoon. There was very little genuine dynamic variation – which I feel is partly due to a somewhat overstuffed orchestration which Rimsky-Korsakov tries to hide with twiddly little solo bits in the middle. To be really effective, the piece really needs to raise the roof at the end, and this performance didn’t achieve that.

The Rodrigo is the perfect length and atmosphere for a spot of praying!

The first part of Iberia suffered from castanet fatigue – it seemed to me to be a rather lame way of conjuring up Spanishness, particularly for Debussy. In the rather beautiful second movement, however, the combination of celesta and harp stood out really strongly, the weight of the music seemingly slipping smoothly between them and the strings. The long absence of percussion in this movement meant that the last movement could get away with its slightly more creative usage, the sharp contrast between be-percussioned and un-percussioned sections working quite effectively.

De Falla’s Dances were vastly more ear-catching than anything which preceded them. Rather than concentrating on sounding “Spanish”, as the rest of the music had, the dances concentrated on actually being good music (which is not to say that I don’t enjoy all the rest of the music). They had quite an earthy tone throughout, with some really chunky string sounds. The third dance was particularly impulsive, with fierce unison passages contrasted with legato fragments. I even realised at the end why the castanets had been so annoying throughout, because De Falla had finally worked out how to use them smartly – because they sound so high, they act to compress the sound of the orchestra into a higher register, which can be effective, but only if the rest of the orchestra is following the same trajectory.

• Sergei Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 4
• Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 7 “Leningrad”

Michael Houstoun (piano) and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Vasily Petrenko at the Michael Fowler Centre

My first encounter with Shostakovich’s 7th symphony came with a book about 20th century symphonies which I inherited from my mother. Although not all of the writers in this particular book took a particularly conservative line on the works they examined (this was also the book where I found out about Havergal Brian), the stances taken in the chapters on Prokofiev and Shostakovich seemed rather off to me. The Leningrad Symphony came under particularly fierce criticism, particularly the first movement, with its Bolero-esque central section. How dare Shostakovich employ such a vulgar device instead of a classical development section?! How dare he write programmatically in a symphony, the last resting place of pure music?!

Naturally, as soon as I actually had the opportunity to hear the symphony (via the fine Bernard Haitink recording), I fell in love with it, and it’s been my favourite symphony ever since.

And so I sat through Michael Houstoun’s performance gleefully, perhaps not paying complete attention. The third movement, crisply articulated and full of life, was definitely a standout; I didn’t think much of the first movement, and suspect that the composer may be at fault with this – there’s simply more piano than music)

Leningrad is definitely a symphony for dark times, but Shostakovich does not allow that to control the symphony. Rather, for me it’s a work about dealing with that terror, with pushing it away and living your life in defiance. I think that it’s probably unique among symphonies of this length (and perhaps even all symphonies) in that there is never an inessential moment, never a motif or a texture or a timbre that doesn’t add something to that which came before it. That is, I feel, a much truer idea of a symphony than any formal definition. It’s also something which the NZSO really brought out in their performance. There are plenty of tender moments in the symphony – indeed, perhaps the bulk of the duration – and while these might not have the same selling power as the bone-crunching tutti, it was evident that a lot of work went into shaping these moments, judging dynamics, textures and articulation. The strings flew beautifully between sweet and keening, pulling the heart around on a whim.

It’s usually the xylophone that really strikes me with fear in a Shostakovich symphony, but in this performance, at the height of the great crescendo in the first movement, it seemed to have quite a different quality, pushing back the tides of war and terror rather than driving them on. There’s a reason why this crescendo is better music than Bolero: the different strands of melody that push at each other. While most conductors might look at this passage as the march upon Stalingrad, Petrenko never let the battle go one way, unleashing musicians from the far corners of the orchestra to confront the onslaught. The snare drum, for its part, seemed to begin almost impossibly quietly, barely registering with the ears, yet resonating throughout the body.

The masterful control of dynamics proved absolutely crucial to shaping the work. Really only the coda matched the level of the first movement crescendo: Petrenko seemed to find ten thousand new dynamics betweeen pianissimo and forte. Every moment got its chance to sing out from under the shadow (in fact I had a great deal of difficulty in restraining myself from sing along), with much of the music almost attaining a romantic affectation. While some of the sentiments officially one display in the piece might be present with a hint of bitterness, it is clear from this performance just how much love Shostakovich really did hold for the people who surrounded him in Leningrad. This symphony does not consist of fleeting moments of sweetness in a sea of terror, but rather a place of peace and compassion into which foul breezes intrude.

This is music, after all, which brought the people of the USSR and USA together. It is music about love and bravery.

It could almost be about Neville Longbottom.

My final journal for CMPO201

I found reading this Henry Brant interview fascinating not so much for the content (although I agree with most of what he says) but for the forthright way in which he expresses himself. It seems to me that there are broadly two types of composers: one group, whose members feel the need to constantly defend the value of their music, and another group, who really don’t particularly care what other people think of their music, because they’re absolutely convinced that theirs is almost the only way to write music. Brant fits clearly into the second group, along with John Cage, Karlheinz Stockhausen, John Cousins and others. This seems to me to be the only way to write music – which is unfortunate given that the way the arts are funded these days effectively forces composers to become members of the first group.

One of the key points Brant makes which I am essentially in agreement with is the idea that a tightly packed group of instrumentalists turns counterpoint into sludge. If there are, as Brant offers as an example, ten separate parts, then most of these will be completely unidentifiable by ear. While timbre can help to aurally separate parts, this only works up to a point, and is pretty much ineffective with instruments of similar timbres. By adding the spatial element to performance, Brant creates another, much more powerful means of interpreting contrapuntal textures. This may not always be what the composer wants, of course, but if they are convinced that their parts are worthy of being heard, why not ensure that this is actually possible? There is also the potential to create variation between blurred and unblurred contrapuntal textures through the movement of players.

A good example of the problem with having spatially-bunched parts – which also relates to Brant’s later comments about the deficiencies of recordings – is aural testing (at least as conducted in NZSM theory papers). My ears simply aren’t capable of distinguishing between “different lines” when they are projected from a single sound source. That isn’t how they were designed to function or how they function in everyday life. This means that, at least for me, aural tests become a matter of finding the right brand of almost indistinguishable porridge – this one’s too hot, this one’s too cold, ah! this sounds just right!

Probably the thing which keeps me most from writing (intended) spatial music is the challenge of rehearsing. How does one get musicians throughout a space to perform a piece coherently? I think that Brant’s response is that a certain amount of incoherence is simply part of the pleasure of spatial music. He speaks of the “sublimely messy” experience of an authentic spatialised performance of Gabrieli as being an inspiration for his own experiments in spatialisation, which I suspect may be due as much to the lack of an ensemble with a decades-long history of performing antiphonal music in that space (as Gabrieli would have had) as to the nature of spatialisation. These messy sounds are, in Brant’s view, a fine reflection of the reality of our sound universe. Sounds don’t happen all together, or in a single place, in life, so there’s absolutely no reason why we should be so insistent that they do in music.

Brant’s comments on sound engineers are, I feel, less justifiable in general than the rest of the piece – I suspect that few composers feel as maligned by engineers as does Brant, and I suspect also that most classical engineers have a great deal of respect for composers. They are, however, absolutely understandable in the context of the demands of his music. I regret to say that I have only ever heard Brant’s music on stereo recordings (where, yes, his orchestration does carry the day), so I cannot comment specifically on whether they damage his music – I can only trust Brant’s own instincts, which are really the only relevant ones. His attitude reminds me strongly of that of John Cousins – paraphrasing: “If my music can’t be heard properly, it shouldn’t be heard at all”. Why, when Brant and Cousins have made such great efforts to shape their music around a particular spatial arrangement, should their soundworlds be misrepresented by removing that element? I suspect that other composers would be equally annoyed were engineers to, say, completely equalise the dynamics on their symphony, or to iron out the rubato on their piano piece. In the end, it comes down to Brant’s membership of the second group of composers – it’s his music, and he’ll do what he likes with it.

• Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Romeo and Juliet Overture
• Benjamin Britten: Passacaglia and Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes
• Dmitri Shostakovich: Violin Concerto No. 1

The NZSM Orchestra, conducted by Kenneth Young, with Martin Riseley (violin), at St. Andrew’s on the Terrace, 14 May 2011

Before the concert…

After their spectacular interpretation of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 last year I hoped there would be more Shostakovich on offer and lo! it appeared! Martin Riseley (head of strings at the NZSM) is somebody I only really recall for texting while marking recitals, so I’m wondering whether we will be asked to turn mobile devices off for this concert. On the other hand, quite a few people seem to think he can play the violin, which can rectify a few faults. I’ve listened to the Britten work a number of times, although none of the recordings were particularly satisfactory (that is, they didn’t quite match up to its reputation). The Romeo and Juliet Overture is a pleasant and sporadically exciting piece which, curiously, the NZSO is also playing this year in its “Romeo and Juliet” concert (yeah, that’s never been done before). At least the NZSM’s version will be considerably cheaper to attend!

After the concert…

I think it would have to be said that the NZSM really, really excels at terrifying people.

Few concertgoers could deny that this was another almost unbelievably splendid performance. The riveting Passacaglia brought flashes of violence – precariously balanced between anger, terror, and foreboding – sandwiched between two tentative viola solos, performed with feeling by John Roxburgh. The texture felt extremely well judged, with the lower strings and the lower region of the harp providing a restless underbelly After the Passacaglia, Dawn, the first sea interlude, with its seemingly sweet opening might have brought a drop in intensity, but there proved to be a sharpness to the violins which lent a great sense of imminent danger. Even the intermittent wind-and-harp passages lent more nausea than fairytale to the atmosphere. The second interlude, Sunday Morning was performed vigourously, a deep sense of forced frivolity connecting this movement clearly with the similar sentiments found in Shostakovich. The wind section seemed very much on edge, while the strings successfully avoided any sentimentality in the opening.

Anybody expecting Moonlight to sound anything like a certain movement of Beethoven would be disappointed to hear a much deeper, unsettling piece. The scene might seem suitable for a moment of calm, but the orchestra would not allow this, crafting a sense of continual movement which reflected the organic character of the sea. Indeed, the only point in the performance which seemed to offer even a sliver of piece came near the end of the fourth part, Storm, and  then only after the wild cavalcade of music that forms the meat of that interlude. This ending feels a little bit weird to me – it’s certainly shaped in a cadential way, but somehow that isn’t quite what the music is doing. Perhaps in terms of sheer sustained intensity, the performance was slightly behind that of Shostakovich 11, but I would defy most professional orchestras to put in a performance as passionate and terrifying as this one.

Martin Riseley needed to put in a great performance in Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 to rival the Britten, and I feel he largely succeeded. In comparison to the symphonies, Shostakovich’s violin concerti will always feel a little pared down to accommodate the violin, requiring a fairly sophisticated performance in order to match their heights of passion. The concerto began fairly dryly – the Nocturne, not even remotely resembling Chopin, being dominated by the violin, with the orchestra reduced to more of an accompanimental role. Indeed, the violin part itself is not the most interesting example of Shostakovichian writing, but Riseley executed it elegantly. The Scherzo is considerably more interesting, a raucous, bitter piece of music. Its opening, with interplay between violin and bassoon, ought to be funny – and with any other composer it probably would have been – but the instruments simply don’t seem to happy about it. The orchestra is busier here, and the violin part more shapely; Riseley managed to bridge the gap between the harsh exuberance of folk-ish rhythms and technical bravura nicely, while miraculously retaining audibility as the orchestra swelled

The Passacaglia shared a little of its colour with that of Britten, but Riseley did not allow any of the fleeting sweetness of that work to enter into his playing. The movement almost seems to exist in order to provide a context for the long cadenza, for which it provides much of the musical material. There seemed to be a real emotional journey in the violin playing, even if a more subtle one than might be expected. Initially, Riseley seemed grumpy, channelling the energy of somebody unhappy with their lot in life,  but unsure of what to do about it, but as the transition into the cadenza arrived, the intensity of feeling swelled to fill the gap left by the orchestra, frustration boiling over into anger. The technical extremes of the developing cadenza force the violin to bottle up its feelings for a while, but this cannot last. The final movement, Burlesca, is almost consumed by deep fury, If there is rejoicing or pleasure here, it is centred in Shostakovich’s ability to seek justice – or vengeance – through his music. And possibly the most impressive moment in the movement… a violin section playing pizzicato together. Surreal.

Naturally, the Tchaikovsky opening the concert seemed rather tame by comparison. The first couple of minutes did not hang together as well as they might have, but it flowed nicely from there. When considered against the marvellous performances it preceded, even mentioning the piece actually feels like a slight waste of time

It’s probably terrible of me to make a judgment on the NZSO’s recent Sibelius recording without actually listening to the whole CD, but listening to the recording of the Intermezzo from the Karelia Suite just now was pretty disappointing. While the recording may not feature Pietari Inkinen’s chief fault (his tendency to snort heavily over the music), and there was one moment of wafting violins that touched me, I just can’t get into his take on the brass parts. There’s a bizarre lack of phrasing to the interpretation which rips out the emotional pull of the music. I just don’t think I’ve ever heard this piece without wanting to sing along before.