In the apparent constant need by concert promoters, venues and others to attract “younger audiences” to classical concerts and to make them more “inclusive”, it seems to me that the artform’s core audience is being overlooked or even alienated.
John Thomson, Jazz Club from The Fast Show
The latest suggestion to “trendify” classical music and make concerts more appealing to that elusive younger audience is posited in an episode of BBC Radio 3’s The Listening Service, presented by the affable Tom Service. In it he suggests that audiences should be more vocal; that they should chill, let it all hang out, and behave more akin to their rowdier 18th- and 19th- century concert-going predecessors, or be more like audiences at jazz or even pop gigs where a great improv sequence or a particularly juicy number is met with applause, whistling and more. In short, he wants us whooping in the stalls (the inference here being that silence is terribly elitist and all this listening quietly makes classical music hugely inaccessible and exclusive; nevermind that the same etiquette applies to theatre performances….).
When, 3 minutes into the Tristan prelude you next see me leap to my feet yelling “Whoo! F**king NAILED that cor anglais solo!” you must accept that this is precisely what Wagner would have expected and wanted…
– Richard Bratby on Twitter
For many of us, the chief attraction of classical music concerts, apart from the music itself, of course, is the opportunity to escape into quiet introversion for a few hours. There is also the ‘social code’ of the classical concert: knowing when to keep quiet for the benefit of other people, including the performers. We’ve all been to concerts which have been marred by people whispering loudly, opening blister packs of cough sweets, or – horror of horrors! – a mobile phone going off. I was at a recital of Scriabin piano music at Wigmore Hall some years ago where a couple a few rows ahead of me snogged loudly throughout the performance, and were reprimanded with a sharp rap on the shoulders with a rolled up programme by the person immediately behind them. And quite right too! They should have got a room, not seats at WH!
Joking apart, and at the risk of coming over all communist about it, it’s really a simple case of accommodating themanynot the few: because even a smallinterruption can spoil the experienceforthemajority. It’s also a basic common courtesy to one’s fellow concert-goers.
And, curious as this may seem in our noisy, extrovert modern times, classical music audiences actually like to listen in silence so that they can enjoy and appreciate the music being performed.
So let’s let classical audiences remain quiet. We show our appreciation in other ways – by applauding, cheering and bravo-ing at the end of the performance, and while these behaviours may seem antiquated, or even elitist (they’re not!) to some, to the regular concert-goer this is what comes out of silence.
Just like the music.
A painter paints his pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. We provide the music, and you provide the silence.
F-sharp major: “Triumph over difficulty, free sigh of relief uttered when hurdles are surmounted; echo of a soul which has fiercely struggled and finally conquered lies in all uses of this key”. – Christian Shubart, Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst (1806)
“Brilliant and exceedingly clear” – Ernst Pauer, The Elements of the Beautiful in Music (1876)
One of the “black note” keys for the pianist, the key signature of F-sharp Major has a daunting six sharps and its scale includes only two white notes (B and E-sharp – or F natural).
The ‘enharmonic’ key of F-sharp major is G-flat major (exactly the same notes in the scale, but a different key signature comprising six flats) – the key of Schubert’s Impromptu D 899/3 and Chopin’s Impromptu Op 51 No. 3. Curiously, although the pitches are identical, G-flat Major has a different character to F-sharp Major – it’s somehow softer and richer.
From a technical point of view, F-sharp major can be challenging for the pianist, yet piano music in this key is luminous, colourful, and fun to navigate (the opening movement of Ravel’s Sonatine, for example, or Debussy’s Poissons d’or). It’s also warm, affectionate and nostalgic (Beethoven’s Sonata Op 78 or Schumann’s Romance Op 28, No. 2). And in Messiaen’s hands, it is a key of both meditation and ecstasy.
The following piano music in the key of F-sharp Major demonstrates the range of possibilities – sonic, colouristic and expressive – that this key offers: this is some of the most beautiful and arresting music in the pianist’s repertoire:
Liszt – Les jeux d’eaux à la Villa d’Este (The Fountains of the Villa d’Este)
A beautiful musical evocation of the rilling, plashing, glittering of fountains at the Villa d’Este, situated in Tivoli near Rome, from the third year of Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage. This work inspired Ravel’s Jeux d’eau and many other piano pieces depicting water.
Chopin – Barcarolle, Op 60
Composed in 1845-46, three years before his death, this is one of Chopin’s most arresting and ardently expressive works, scored in a rare key for Chopin. A Barcarolle is a “boat song’, its lilting rhythm inspired by the Venetian gondolier’s stroke; Chopin never visited Venice but he would have been familiar with the genre, which he masterfully captures in this sweepingly romantic, wistful piece.
Schumann – Romance Op 28, No. 2
This is the middle of the triptych of Romances, composed as a Christmas gift to his beloved Clara, who described it as “the most beautiful love duet”. Scored in ternary form, is written on three staves (for ease of reading, nothing more scary!), the thumbs playing a serene inner duet in the tenor register, surrounded by a gently undulating accompaniment. It’s deeply romantic, radiant and infused with affection.
Liszt – Bénédiction de Dieu dans la solitude from ‘Harmonies poétiques et religieuses’
As in Schumann’s Romance, a lyrical melody is heard in the mid-register of the piano, enveloped by a rippling accompaniment in the treble and warm bass line. Luscious harmonies abound in this work of deep expression
Ibert – Le Petit ane blanc (The Little White Donkey) from ‘Histoires’
The second piece from Ibert’s Histoires suite (1922), this charmingly characterful miniature depicts a donkey, complete with clopping hooves, braying and even a few noisy “hee haws”!
Beethoven – Piano Sonata No 24, Op 78
Nicknamed “à Thérèse”, because it was written for Countess Thérèse von Brunswick, this two-movement sonata was composed in 1809 and is one of Beethoven’s most good-natured and sunny works. A cantabile introduction is followed by a long, undulating theme in a first movement which looks forward to Beethoven’s late style, while the second movement is a scampering rondo which capitalises on sudden contrasts in dynamics, major and minor, and textures, and even contains a quote from Arne’s ‘Rule Britannia!’
Messiaen – Regard du Pere and Le baiser de l’enfant Jésus from ‘Vingt Regards sur l’enfant Jésus’
F-sharp major was Olivier Messiaen’s favourite key and he used it repeatedly to express his most transcendent moods. Here, he uses it to create a movement of transcendent meditation, in the first of his Vingt Regards.
Regard XV, Le baiser de l’enfant Jésus, is also scored in F-sharp. Like the first movement, it opens in an atmosphere of quiet contemplation but grows increasingly ecstatic, with flourishes and filigree passagework reminiscent of both Liszt and Liberace.
Debussy – Poissons d’Or from ‘Images’
Inspired by a Japanese lacquer panel illustrating a goldfish and its reflection in the water, this piece is rich in visual imagery as the darting, gilded fish is brought to life in a glittering tour de force of virtuosity and harmonic and melodic inventiveness.
Other pieces in F-sharp major to explore: Scriabin Piano Sonata No. 4, Chopin Impromptu No. 2, Gottschalk The Banjo, Albeniz ‘Castilla’ from Suite Espagnole…..
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On Friday night we heard the iconic Brahms Op.115 Clarinet Quintet played by charismatic clarinetist Sharon Kam and the Dover String Quartet. The very same piece received an equally enlightened but far more unconventional treatment on Saturday night by the UK based group, ZRI.
Bear with me, dear reader, while I explain about ZRI: The band’s name stands for ‘Zum Roten Igel’, which translates as ‘to the Red Hedgehog’ – the tavern that Brahms frequented in Vienna in the 1880’s. They’re from the UK and, wonderfully, they pick apart classical masterpieces like Schubert’s String Quintet and Brahms’ Clarinet Quintet and mash them up with the Gipsy folk tunes that inspired them.
If you know your Brahms, you will be aware that the middle section of the Clarinet Quintet’s second movement is actually supposed to invoke gypsy improvisation. (According to Bruce Adolphe’s talk for the Chamber Music Society of the Lincoln Centre, Brahms is reminiscing about his adolescent concert tour with the Hungarian violinist Ede Remenyi.)
The rest of the group (Max Baillie on violin, Matthew Sharp cello, Jon Banks accordion and Iris Pissaride on cembalon) looped the chords from the second movement, while Ben Harlan embellished the clarinet part with increasingly complex improvisations.
(Photo credit: Liv Ovland)
In the third movement, as the improvisations became faster and more energetic, Harlan succeeded in doing something that none of the other superstar classical musicians had quite managed to do in this year’s Rosendal concerts. He let go. There was an uplifting moment of flow with Harlan playing and whirling to the music. It’s inconceivable that this ‘spirit of the dance’ wasn’t an ingredient in Brahms’ music making in the 19th century. What’s seriously great about the ZRI approach is that it allows the players (and their audiences) to get closer to Brahms’ musical truth.
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