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Despite the rather glib title, there is a serious intent behind this post. As someone who has taken two performance diplomas in fairly quick succession (less than 18 months apart), I want to offer some advice and support to those who are preparing for diplomas.

First and foremost, don’t be under any illusions about these music diplomas. The first, Associate level diploma is not a simple step up from Grade 8 – and the Licentiate is not a simple step up from Associate (a glance at the repertoire list will confirm this). My teacher was quick to point this out to me from the outset and continued to do so right up until the day I played my LTCL programme to her 10 days before the exam (she regularly examines and adjudicates at this level, and higher, and I fully trust her judgement on this issue). Diplomas are professional qualifications and require a professional approach and preparation.

Repertoire: you can select repertoire from the syllabus, or choose a mixture of own-choice and repertoire from the syllabus, or a programme entirely comprised of own-choice repertoire. Be sure to have your programme approved well in advance if you are including any/all own-choice repertoire. Select repertoire which you like – after all, you are going to spend a long time with these pieces (up to 2 years, or more, depending on your learning rate) – and steer clear of pieces which you think will impress/please an examiner (Chopin Ballades, the well known Études etc. – examiners hear a lot of these!). Select pieces which interest and excite you, but be sure to choose a programme which reflects a variety of styles, moods and tempi, and showcases your strengths. You should also consider how the pieces work together as a programme (I put all my pieces into a Spotify playlist to hear how the pieces worked as a programme). The programme does not have to be chronological, and indeed some contrasts can add an interesting angle to a programme.

Practising: taking a diploma teaches you how to practise deeply and thoughtfully, and you need to get into good, consistent practising habits from the get-go. I practised every day for at least 2 or 3 hours, starting at 8am for c1.5 hours and then doing another session after lunch. If I knew I wasn’t going to have time for a full practise session, I made sure I covered the things which needed the work (cadenzas, memory work). Learn how to dissect the pieces to spotlight which areas need the most attention and ruthlessly stick to a plan. I kept a detailed practise diary in which I noted 1) what I planned to achieve each day and 2) what I actually achieved.

Musicianship: I was praised for this aspect in my LTCL recital (and a colleague who heard my programme a month before the exam also highlighted it). This is perhaps the most difficult aspect to learn, or be taught, and in my own case, I felt it came from a deep knowledge and appreciation of every single note of every single piece in the programme. I did a lot of background reading and further listening, and really steeped myself in the repertoire, as well as understanding the historical, literary and social contexts surrounding the works and their composers. For anyone studying Rachmaninoff, for example, the recordings of him playing his own piano music are invaluable and fascinating (available on YouTube and Spotify).

Performance practice: get as much performance experience in as possible in advance of the exam. This can include performing at home for friends and family, taking part in local music festivals, courses, and other performance platforms, or organising a concert in a local venue or for a music society. Having a dress rehearsal (in the outfit I intended to wear for the exam) was really helpful: it highlighted areas which needed tweaking or adjusting, it was a dry run for the page-turner, and it helped to allay performance anxiety. It is also important to practise being a performer: how you behave before an audience is often very different to how you work at home alone. You are judged on your stagecraft as well as your playing in a Diploma recital.

Playing through the entire programme: at least a month before the exam, get into the habit of playing the complete programme through every day without stopping to correct mistakes. At Associate level, the programme lasts for c40 minutes, double the length of the pieces for Grade 8, and this can take some stamina if you have no previous experience of playing for that length of time. Playing through also allows you to judge how long the pauses should be between the pieces. For example, I wanted to segue straight from the fading final low D of Takemitsu’s Rain Tree Sketch II into Mozart’s Rondo in A minor K511, but there needed to be a longer pause between the end of the Liszt (Sonetto 104 del Petraca) and the Rachmaninoff E-flat Étude-Tableau. Demonstrating that you have thought about this is another important aspect of programme planning and musicianship.

Programme notes and timings: Don’t leave writing the programme notes until the last minute. Take time to write the notes in a considered way and avoid overly high-blown musicologist-speak language and exhaustive musical analysis. The style of programme note you might read at a concert at the Wigmore is what you should be aiming form. Be sure to include accurate timings for each individual piece as well as for the complete programme. Remember, you can be marked down for inaccurate timings.

Different pianos, different places: don’t confine your practising to your own piano. Get in as much practise as possible on a variety of grand pianos (there are practise rooms in and around London which offer baby grands right up to full-size concert Steinways – go and play all of them!). If you have been used to practising on an upright, a grand can feel very different at first. Also, you need to know how to respond to a variety of acoustics and room sizes.

Be over-prepared: this is the single most important experience I drew from the first diploma and applied to my preparation for the Licentiate. On the day of the exam, I felt on top of every single piece and I knew that any slips would not throw me off course or upset me. However, being over-prepared should not equate to over-practised and in the final weeks before the exam, be careful not to over-practise as this can kill a piece and allow strange new errors to creep in which are then difficult to erase. You need to go into the exam feeling you have something extra to give on the day.

Keep body and brain rested: in the last 24 hours before the exam, allow yourself time to rest body and brain. We often forget how much mental effort is involved in playing the piano. If the head is fresh, the body will respond accordingly. Get a good night’s sleep, and avoid alcohol and rich food. On the day of the exam, do some light practising, and allow yourself plenty of time to get to the exam centre.

And after the exam? Don’t post-mortem your performance. What’s done is done, and the best thing you can do is move onto new repertoire or return to favourite pieces. Above all, enjoy playing the piano!

(I offer consultation lessons for people preparing for advanced grade exams and diplomas, including advice on repertoire and coping with performance anxiety. Further details on my website).

More on diplomas here:

Why take a music diploma?

 

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Robert Saxton 093
Robert Saxton (photo credit: Katie Vandyck)

Who or what inspired you to take up composing and make it your career?

I started the recorder at school, the violin and piano. I always preferred writing music down to practising!

Who or what are the most important influences on your composing? 

As a composer, I was influenced technically, and partially aesthetically, by Elisabeth Lutyens, my teacher for four years (aged 16 -20). In a wider sense, I have been influenced by my ‘dual’ background/heritage: east European Jewish and English C of E, particularly Schoenberg, Berg, Webern and Bartok, and  the visionary tradition stretching from Piers Plowman, via late Shakespeare and the metaphysical poets of the 16th century, to Vaughan Williams, Tippett and painters such as Stanley Spencer. I have also been influenced by many discussions with my opera singer wife, Teresa Cahill, relating both to interpretation and musical ‘meaning’.

What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far? 

Teaching as well as possible and trying to put the right notes ijn the right place when composing!

What are the particular challenges/excitements of working with an orchestra/ensemble? 

Learning from players and, as I get older, finding how much young(er) performers play/sing and interpret my music profoundly and with an ease which i find both amazing and refreshing.

Which recordings are you most proud of?  

The Circles of Light and Concerto for Orchestra with Oliver Knussen and the BBCSO/London Sinfonietta on EMI, Leon Fleisher (Sony Classical)  and John McCabe’s(NMC) recordings of Chacony for piano left-hand, Caritas (NMC), Eloge with Christopher Austin, the Brunel Ensemble and Teresa Cahill (NMC), Five Motets with Edward Wickham and The Clerks (Signum) and The Wandering Jew with the BBCSO, BBC Singers and soloists (NMC).

Do you have a favourite concert venue? 

No, but I prefer anywhere to purpose-built concert halls. Possibly churches/cathedrals.

What is your favourite music to play? To listen to? 

It depends on the weather!

What do you consider to be the most important ideas and concepts to impart to aspiring musicians/students? 

Continual work on technique in relation to intention/concept and idea.

What are you working on at the moment? 

String Quartet No 4

Your new work for trumpet, Shakespeare Scenes, is premiered this month. Please say a little more about it

The work is for solo trumpet and strings, and was commissioned by Simon Desbruslais, to whom it is dedicated, with funding from the Britten/ears Foundation and the RVW Trust. The Orchestra of the Swan and their founder/music director, David Curtis, being the ensemble giving the premiere and making a commercial recording of the work, it seemed appropriate to pay tribute to Stratford-upon-Avon’s greatest son. There are five pieces/movements whose tonal centres outline the musical letters of Shakespeare’s name, so that the latter forms the structural basis of the whole.

The first piece, ‘The Magic Wood’, refers to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the strings representing the magic wood/the fairy kingdom, the trumpet Puck. In the second piece, ‘Falstaff’, the trumpet plays the role of Falstaff, the three linked episodes depicting the fat knight waking, the Gad’s Hill episode (with clashing swords) and, closes with the death of Falstaff. The third piece, ‘The Storm on the Heath’, casts the trumpet as the mad, raving King Lear, with a solo violin as his Fool/Jester. ‘Masque’, the fourth piece, rather than referring to a specific play, pays tribute to the Masque as a genre (there are masques in various Shakespeare plays, The Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream being well-known examples); the upper strings and ‘basses represent the dancers/the courtly crowd, the trumpet playing a Pavane followed by a Galliard, with the cellos accompanying. Although there  are no quotations from Tudor/Jacobean music, the trumpet’s music makes reference to music of the period. In the closing piece, ‘The Magic Island’ (The Tempest), we hear the chastened Prospero (trumpet) and the now-tamed Caliban (solo viola) reconciled against a background of sustained ‘ringing’ string music.

Where would you like to be in 10 years’ time? 

Alive.

What is your idea of perfect happiness? 

Being with my wife and at peace.

Robert Saxton’s Shakespeare Scenes receives its world premiere by Simon Desbruslais and the Orchestra of the Swan on Friday 24th May. Further information and tickets here

Robert Saxton (b.1953) studied with Elizabeth Lutyens, Robin Holloway, Robert Sherlaw Johnson and Luciano Berio following guidance from Benjamin Britten. He won the Gaudeamus International Composers prize in 1975 and a Fulbright Arts Fellowship to the USA in 1986.  

Robert Saxton has written major works for orchestras, choirs and chamber groups including the BBC (TV, Proms and Radio), LSO and London Sinfonietta; festivals including Huddersfield, Three Choirs and Cheltenham; and soloists including Teresa Cahill, Steven Isserlis and Mstislav Rostropovich. Recordings have appeared on Sony Classical, Hyperion, Metier, EMI, NMC and Divine Art. 

He is currently Professor of Composition and Tutorial Fellow in Music at Worcester College at the University of Oxford. He has been a regular member of the BBC TV 4 (digital) Proms broadcasting commentary team and was a member of the Southbank Centre board for nine years.  

The BBC Symphony Orchestra and Singers premiered Saxton’s radio opera, The Wandering Jew, in 2010; the recording was released on NMC. The Arditti Quartet premiered Saxton’s Quartet No. 3 in May 2011, commissioned by the Southbank Centre. Premieres in 2013 include a song cycle for baritone Roderick Williams at the Oxford Lieder Festival and a piano cycle for pianist Clare Hammond at the City of London Festival.  

 

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British trumpeter Simon Desbruslais (Meet the Artist, 5 September 2012) will premiere ‘Shakespeare Scenes’, a new work by Robert Saxton at a concert given by the Orchestra of the Swan on Friday 24 May in Straford-upon-Avon.

Robert Saxton was given early composition advice and encouragement by Benjamin Britten, which is well documented in John Bridcut’s book Britten’s Children, and his new work is included in a programme which features the perenially popular Trumpet Voluntary by Jeremiah Clark and Britten’s Simple Symphony,

More about ‘Shakespeare Scenes’ (the composer’s programme note):

‘Shakespeare Scenes’, (2012-13) for solo trumpet and strings, was commissioned by Simon Desbruslais, to whom it is dedicated, with funding from the Britten/ears Foundation and the RVW Trust. The Orchestra of the Swan and their founder/music director, David Curtis, being the ensemble giving the premiere and making a commercial recording of the work, it seemed appropriate to pay tribute to Stratford-upon-Avon’s greatest son. There are five pieces/movements whose tonal centres outline the musical letters of Shakespeare’s name, so that the latter forms the structural basis of the whole.

The first piece, The Magic Wood, refers to A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the strings representing the magic wood/the fairy kingdom, the trumpet Puck. In the second piece, Falstaff, the trumpet plays the role of Falstaff, the three linked episodes depicting the fat knight waking, the Gad’s Hill episode (with clashing swords) and, closes with the death of Falstaff. The third piece, The Storm on the Heath, casts the trumpet as the mad, raving King Lear, with a solo violin as his Fool/Jester. Masque, the fourth piece, rather than referring to a specific play, pays tribute to the Masque as a genre (there are masques in various Shakespeare plays, The Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream being well-known examples); the upper strings and ‘basses represent the dancers/the courtly crowd, the trumpet playing a Pavane followed by a Galliard, with the cellos accompanying. Although there  are no quotations from Tudor/Jacobean music, the trumpet’s music makes reference to music of the period. In the closing piece, The Magic Island (The Tempest), we hear the chastened Prospero (trumpet) and the now-tamed Caliban (solo viola) reconciled against a background of sustained ‘ringing’ string music.

Further information and tickets here

The concert forms part of the Straford-upon-Avon Arts Festival, and will be preceded by a talk.

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New hang at Tate Britain

Rehanging David Hockney’s ‘Mr & Mrs Clarke and Percy’ at Tate Britain (photo source: Evening Standard)

This week sees the unveiling of the new hang at Tate Britain, a chronological “walk through” 500 years of British art showcasing the Tate’s extensive collection with old favourites and some surprises along the way.

Previous hangs have attracted criticism for taking a radical thematic approach, but this new display is fresh and accessible. And the refurbished rooms in the Tate’s iconic home on London’s Millbank look fabulous.

Read my complete article here