We’ll be presenting the Debussy quartet and Beethoven’s Op. 18 no. 6.
It is part of a project to present classical music in unconventional settings for people that aren’t normally concertgoers. As soon as I get word of a performance time, I’ll post an update.
courtesy Wikipedia
The great violist and educator Eugene Lehner was a Boston resident for many decades. He was a legendary and revered figure at Tanglewood while I was there as a Fellow (alas, I did not get to work with him), and he was the violist of the Kolisch Quartet, which performed many of its programs from memory, including the Bartók quartets and Berg’s Lyic Suite (!) and premiered works by Bartók, Berg, Schoenberg and Webern.
One group which did have the pleasure of working with Lehner is the Daedalus Quartet, which was grand prize winner of the Banff String Quartet competition and is a resident ensemble of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center under the Chamber Music Society’s CMS Two program.
Daedalus violinist Min-young Kim shares this quote from Lehner on the Chamber Music Society’s blog, Intermission Impossible:
“Children (he was in his eighties at the time), please sing out your own line like it is the most important melody there is. Do not defer to someone else’s melody and just accompany them. Play it like you are passionate amateurs.”
I love this quote - it’s important to remember the joy and importance of what we do as professionals. It’s so easy to get lost in the minutiae of rhythm, pitch, dynamics and phrasing. I still from time to time hear a work on the radio that I loved so dearly as a youngster (when everything in music was new and exciting), and it really transports me back to those days and makes me see the world anew again.
Last night I was listening to the local classical station (KBPS-FM www.allclassical.org) and there was a recording of the Beethoven Op. 135 quartet playing (performed by the late, great Cleveland Quartet). Instantly I was transported back to my first year at Tanglewood where my quartet performed that piece - it was my first late Beethoven quartet, and it was a magical process of learning the work with our coach, cellist Norman Fischer, and performing the piece as the concluding work on a TMC chamber concert. The way the chamber music program works at TMC is that you are just thrown into a group with people you either know (or most likely do not) and you do a number of coachings and are on your own for as many or as few rehearsals as you see fit. The schedule is always packed even without the chamber music, and you might even be in more than one group. Basically, you get thrown in the deep end and are expected to develop a perfect freestyle medley. I still remember the names of my quartet-mates: Helen Kim and Evangeline Peters, violins, and Kari Docter on cello. I haven’t kept touch with them over the years, but just hearing this piece brings me back into the practice studio with them as if it were just yesterday that we were working on how to develop the variation form of the slow movement or vary the thematic phrasing in the exposition repeat in the last movement.
I feel as though the phrase “keep it young, and keep it amateur” should be my mantra for the new year.
This past summer I made the very wonderful acquaintance of Ken’s Artisan Pizza on SE 28th St. It’s a great place to have wonderful salads, artisan pizzas and appetizers of all kinds. I thought that the building in which it was housed was familiar to me, and now, looking through my archives, I realize that I’d photographed the building about two years earlier. It used to be a paint store, and the neon sign must have caught my eye on my way to some now long-forgotten destination. I should make my way over there soon to do a “after” shot to go with the “before” you see below.
![Beethoven Symphonies 4 & 5 [Hybrid SACD]](http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/B00076AE3U.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_V50064542_.jpg)
This week we’re doing a program which includes Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony (along with Ives’ Unanswered Question, a percussion concerto by Christopher Rouse (with soloist Colin Currie), and Wagner’s Overture to Die Meistersinger).
It’s been a while since I’d listened to a recording of any of the Beethoven symphonies (the last time was after buying the awe-inspiring DVD set of Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic performing the cycle live), so I thought that I’d go to iTunes and download the Minnesota Orchestra’s recording under the direction of their music director, Osmo Vänksä.
What grabbed me first were the sonics of the recording. In a word, stunning clarity (ok, two words). Ask for more words and you’d get depth and warmth in addition to the clarity. There seems to have been relatively little in the way of tinkering with the sound stage other than that the woodwinds seem to be artificially present on the aural stage. I don’t know the sonics of the hall or the stage at all, so that might just be something that they’ve accurately captured in the recording process. After the initial reaction to the acoustics, what is clear is that the Minnesota Orchestra has clearly risen to the top rank of US orchestras, and by extension, to the top rank of orchestras in the world. There is unanimity of phrasing that goes beyond mere “playing together” - it’s not just a matter of ensemble anymore. Tempos are fairly middle of the road, tending neither backward to the excesses of the middle of the last century (i.e. Klemperer, Karajan), nor adopting the aggressive, hyper-tempi of the historically-informed conductors (Zinman, Norrington) of this century. Flexibility, ease, and virtuosity go hand-in-hand in these accounts of the Fourth and Fifth symphonies, and I’m now eager to listen to the other volumes already released (thus far the Ninth, Third, and Eighth have been released). Vänskä has clearly inheirited a world-class orchestra and is transforming it into a front-rank world-class orchestra. Kudos to all of the fine musicians in the Minnesota Orchestra - represent!
On a side note, the orchestral formation is much as Beethoven might have used, with the first and second violins divided between left and right sides of the stage, and with the cellos on the left and violas on the right.
I’m not a big one for New Year’s resolutions, but what the heck, most people violate them within hours of formulating them, so I’m safe from being a hypocrite, most likely.
So, without further ado, here are my music-related resolutions for 2007 and beyond (in no particular order):
1. Practice more. I know this should be a no-brainer, but when you spend quite a bit of time with the instrument most every day at work, it’s hard to come home and shed a few hours on something that isn’t work-related. I’m hoping to make it through some etudes and studies that I never got through (or even started) in school. Beginning with Rode Caprices and Vieux.
2. “Perform” more. By this I mean, be more of a performer on stage, rather than an emotionless automaton. Not that I usually am, but I am becoming much more aware of the effect that demeanor has on the audience’s enjoyment of what we do. As much as the purists in the ivory towers protest, it isn’t just all about the music, stupid.
3. Better integrate music into my life. This one probably has you all scratching your collective heads, but it’s easy to turn an orchestra job into “now I’m at work” and “now I’m not at work and am therefore a ‘normal’ person”. It’s time for me to integrate music more fully into my life - there has been an unhealthy distance that’s been creeping steadily into the mix that I don’t want to see progress any further.
4. Love the journey as much or more than the destination. As an orchestral musician, it’s easy to get wrapped up in what notes and pieces have to be learned for the next rehearsal. It’s all about getting the notes learned so you can not make a fool out of yourself at the rehearsals and concert. As long as there’s so much learning going on, why not make the act of learning the most enjoyable part of the routine, and eliminate the routine?
5. Push my limits. I’m not getting any younger, so why not do a couple recitals this year, do more work with the quartet, take a couple auditions for bigger gigs, and play a concerto somewhere, too? No good reason not to, so I’m going to go for it!
That’s my short list for now, I’d love to hear what you all are planning on doing this year - go out there and grab 2007 by the throat and make the world your oyster!
Best wishes for a happy and prosperous new year in 2007. I’ll be taking a few days off to recharge the blogging batteries - so help yourself to the rerun marathons today instead!
