Music of Today - Purcell Room

To the Purcell Room for a free concert of four string quartets by friends of New York based Anna Clyne, who is composer-in-residence everywhere right now. It was all very pleasant and post-minimalist, or whatever they are calling stuff that actually sounds like music now. The sound was excellent, because the Purcell is the smallest of the concert halls and very well-proportioned. Any hi-fi that sounded that good would be very good indeed.

What struck me this time was the interaction between the players. There wasn’t any. Occasionally the second violinist would glance at the first, as much, I suspect as to make sure he wasn’t going to poke her in the eye with his bow while fidgeting in his seat. The viola player kept her eyes on the score all the way through all the pieces. The closest they came to interaction was at the start, when whoever had to play notes at the same time would make slightly exaggerated nods or gestures to indicate they were about to start.

All very different from jazz, flamenco, or rock, where one of them will play a note or a chord, and the others will pile in on the next beat. Because they can feel when the next beat is due and know they are all wanted - or that they have to wait until some other event. They look at each other, and listen to each other. On the rare occasions they have to play together, they do so with uncanny accuracy - or at least the pros do.

They can do this because they have absorbed the style of music they are playing into their bodies: they have musical reflexes. They know the repertoire as well, but most of it is a physical understanding of the music.

Bach wrote a different cantata for ears week for two years or so when he was at Leipzig. His band got one rehearsal during the week, and then played it that Sunday. A modern conductor will take days to rehearse a Bach cantata, and that will build on more days of thinking about the piece and listening to other recordings. How did Bach’s band do it? Because they only played Baroque music. There wasn’t anything else. Baroque music has as many conventions as jazz, and as many licks. Composers stole phrases from each other all day. The instrumentalists could sight-read as well as any of today's players, but because it was all in one style, they could read and interpret it much faster than even a virtuoso today. They would not need to think about it, because it was the only way to play. A modern player has to load up different ways of playing for each change of genre, and sometimes, of conductor. They have to work against muscle memory, whereas the players in Bach’s band could rely on it.

The sight-reading skills of today’s classical instrumentalists are considerable, and it’s why they don’t need to pay attention to what the others are doing, except to check their cue for entry after a short break.

I find the sense that the players are listening and reacting adds something intimate to the performance. One is watching other people co-operate, work together. Too much sight-reading of material that is more than a little arbitrary and the performance can seem like four people co-ordinating independent actions. But it’s a consequence of the genre.

The Man At The Lambeth Palace Bus Stop

 

Divine and mundane, sacred and profane. And other such thoughts.

Another Street Photograph, Lambeth Bridge

 Yep, a fine Mark 1 street photograph. You know 'em when you see 'em.

The Lake at Victoria Park

 

Sis and I made a trip to Victoria Park earlier in the year, at the height of the Great Parching of Britain's Grass, and it wasn't a wonderful experience. A couple of weeks ago, we walked there from Haggerston along the Regents Canal (more photos to come) and it was a glorious day. We had sandwiches at the cafe, which is excellent with lots of outdoor seating, and has these views from the bench.

Cirrus Sky, Hanworth Air Park

It's been a long time since we've had an Autumn like this.

That Terrible Piano At The Wigmore Hall

I have described the first part of the concert by the Silisean Quartet in another post.

There was an interval, when the Wigmore's piano was wheeled out, for Juliusz Zarebski's Piano Quintet in G Minor.

The band trooped out, took their seats, and prepared to play.

The pianist, Wojciech Switala, looked like a man familiar with the ideas of finesse and light touch, touched the keys, and all hell broke loose. However much he might have tried to do justice to the light, skipping phrases on the sheet music in front of him, what came out were blurred phrases, indistinct runs, and chords that could have had any notes jammed together, so hard was it to hear any harmony in the sheer noise. The musical effect was of standing on a seaside promenade during a bad storm: great crashing waves of sound drenching the poor band in front of the piano, and a dense sonic spray soaking the audience.

I had first heard this ghastly racket in a lunchtime concert given by some music students. I imagined that the young pianist was, however skilful, simply over-excited and hence heavy-handed. Switala is undoubtedly skilful, and looked every inch the consummate, experienced professional. And he could not hold back the crashing waves of deafening sound that over-sized horror produces.

It is so loud that when played quietly it provides a useful accompaniment to the unemployed busker at Piccadilly Circus underground, and renders inaudible the announcements at Euston mainline station. At a brisk forte, commercial airline pilots on approach to landing at Heathrow have been known to wonder if their engines have failed, as the piano effortlessly drowns out the engines' sound.

That monstrosity clocks up over 90 dbA at full thump. I measured it. 90 dbA is as loud as the big bass drum of the Royal Household Guards. It's as loud as the Rolling Stones playing a ballad in concert. There are quieter lawnmowers and pneumatic drills. 90 dbA is in more-than-thirty-minutes-is-hazardous territory. By the end of the piece, my ears felt slightly numb, a feeling I have previously only associated with huge stacks of loudspeakers and amplifiers. I heard less sheer noise from the organ in the Royal Festival Hall recently.

And the Siliseans may as well have been playing Mozart or Bartok for all they could be heard.

That piano is just TOO DARN BIG. It's at least half the width of the stage.

It's TOO LOUD.

It makes the best pianists sound like ham-fisted key-thumpers with no sense of interpretation or subtly of touch.

For the sake of the reputation of any pianist who plays there, get a smaller piano.

For the sake of the audiences' ears, GET A SMALLER PIANO.

Silesian String Quartet at the Wigmore Hall

To the Wigmore Hall one fine evening earlier this week to hear the Silesian String Quartet.

The Silesians played the two string quartets, Bacewicz's Fourth, and Weinberg's Third, in the first half of the concert. At some point, I realised that they were not playing £400 instruments from Chimes at the Barbican. Theirs sounded like the real thing: audible and clear without being loud or shrill, warm and articulate. As far back as I was, the music was in mono, and I had to watch the players' hands to link the sound with the instrument, but that's live music for you. We see the different strands of music rather than hear them: or at least amateurs like me do. The Silesians sounded like a top-flight string quartet is supposed to sound: confident, clear, familiar with the music, but not having over-thought it.

Polish composers from the mid-twentieth century have became a Thing a couple of years ago. Even I have Grazyna Bacewicz' string quartets, and some Mieczyslow Weinberg symphonies, on CD. Good listenable stuff it is too. Looking at the cover, oh, silly me! It was recorded by the, ah, Silesian String Quartet. The live performance of the Fourth was definitely clearer and the playing at once more relaxed and precise: maybe they have grown much more familiar with it since the recording.

That first half was how I remembered live chamber music. I could let it wash over me, or listen to the details, depending on how I felt at the moment, and both were rewarding.

Then came the interval.

See the next post.