Tōru Takemitsu was a composer, but he was also a writer on aesthetics and musical theory. His music is delicate and refined, as beautiful as a Hokusai print or a carved jade netsuke. Largely self-taught, his music combines elements of Japanese and Western philosophy with the subtle manipulation of instrumental and orchestral timbre, using both western and traditional Japanese instruments, and the use of defined silences to create a unique and extraordinary soundworld.
Takemitsu admired Debussy and Messiaen, as is evident in his piano music, and was drawn to composers who were themselves deeply influenced by the musical and philosophical culture of Asia, including John Cage.
Takemitsu composed his Rain Tree Sketch II in 1992 in memory of Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992), the French composer who had a strong influence on Takemitsu. The work was composed for a concert “Hommage à Olivier Messiaen” at Les Semaines Musicales Internationales d’Orléans, France, and was premiered by Alain Neveux on 24 October 1992. The name of the work was probably inspired by a quotation from a novel by Kenzaburō Ōe about the miraculous rain tree, whose tiny leaves store up moisture and continue to let fall raindrops long after the rain has ceased. The work is also a dreamy meditation on the flow of life, and was the last piano piece by Takemitsu (his first Rain Tree Sketch was written in 1982). It is in a clear ternary (ABA) form, with a rhythmic opening which is reprised, in shortened form, after the melodic middle section. Its tonal language is reminiscent of Debussy and Messiaen, with chords used for colour and timbre rather than strict harmonic progressions, and, like its dedicatee, Takemitsu employs recurring motifs (such as an ascending three-note broken chord figure) and well-placed silences to create a carefully nuanced atmosphere and colouristic shadings. Directions such as “celestially light” and “joyful” contribute to the metaphysical nature of this work.
Much of the power and profundity of this work comes not from the notes themselves, but the silences between them, which create extraordinary moments of stillness and repose. This arresting juxtaposition between sound and silence reveals Takemitsu’s intense interest in the Japanese concept of “Ma” – which translates as a pause in time, an interval or emptiness in space. The best performances of Rain Tree Sketch II are by those performers who appreciate the music’s need for stasis rather than forward flow. (The powerful use of silence is also evident in Oliver Knussen’s homage to Takemitsu, ‘Prayer Bell Sketch’.)
There are suggestions of traditional Japanese instruments in this work (and other piano works by Takemitsu): specifically the Taiko drum (the low D pedal point at the opening of page 2), the long zither koto and the short-necked lute biwa (the ascending arpeggio figure suggests the plucked sound of these instruments). This music requires a particularly sensitive approach: the sounds should be played with absolute clarity, and must also have great beauty, but not too much sentiment. Motifs and forms unfold like a “picture scroll unrolled.” (Tōru Takemitsu), emerging out of silence and retreating back into stillness.
“….sound, in its ultimate expressiveness, being constantly refined, approaches the nothingness of that wind in the bamboo grove.”
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Pianist Matthew Schellhorn has launched a campaign to give young pianists access to proper practice facilities.
Those of who teach piano, and/or perform ourselves, appreciate the importance of a decent instrument on which to practice. Many music students cannot afford a high-quality instrument or lack easy access to such an instrument on which to practice, yet they are expected to perform on the best concert grand pianos. This is a particular issue for young musicians studying in London where practice facilities are limited and expensive.
With this initiative, Matthew hopes to make “a real difference to the artistic output of musicians, particularly young pianists at the start of their careers….I want to help by providing practice facilities to gifted students otherwise rehearsing on home uprights but expected to perform to the highest standards forthcoming exams, concerts and conservatoire entrance.”
The project aims to make a good-quality Steinway grand piano available to those in need. Matthew will further work with the National Youth Arts Trust, and will set up a home-based recital series raising money for musical charities.
For more information about the project and to make a donation, please visit Matthew’s GoFundMe site
An interview with cellist Louise McMonagle to coincide with the release of her recording of Round by the Ness by Trish Clowes, to celebrate International Women’s Day 2022
Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music and who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?
My parents sent my sisters and I along to the local music centre on Saturday mornings – it was called Bannerman Music School at the time, now called East Glasgow Music School. I am certain they had no idea how this would shape the rest of my life! It was here that I had my first cello lesson aged 6 and was lucky to have a very special teacher. Pamela Duffy had studied at Guildhall in London before returning to Glasgow. She was a buzz of inspiration and impossibly exciting stories from the big smoke, and she made lessons incredibly fun! Without this early influence I’m sure it would never have crossed my mind that I could end up a cellist in London!
After that there are so many influences and inspirations we would be here all day. But I want to mention a couple that stand out. When I was 12 I joined the Music School of Douglas Academy, a state funded centre for excellence in Glasgow. I can’t speak highly enough of my education there, where every music teacher made a huge impact on me. In our first term I remember the composition teacher William Sweeney playing us Alban Berg Violin Concerto. I heard only a random confusion of notes and remember us 12 year olds sneaking glances at each other – what is this! A few years later we listened to the piece again in music history and I was so shocked to discover it now sounded beautiful and was a piece of music that made sense to me. I remember having a little moment where I saw how much I must have learned without realising it.
Another really warm memory of my formative musical years was my time in Glasgow Schools Symphony Orchestra, who met once a year for a summer residency at Castle Toward on the Argyll peninsula. It can’t be overstated how magical it was for a bunch of city kids to spend a week by the sea in a remote castle! The conductor of the orchestra was composer John Maxwell Geddes, an extraordinary man and an inspiration to a whole generation of musicians from Glasgow. We often played pieces that he wrote specially for us, his Castle Suite for example, which I instantly loved. I remember being fascinated by the way the time signature kept changing!
When I look back at these experiences, and then look at the path I have taken it hammers home to me how important working with young people is, and the impact it can have.
What have been the greatest challenges of your career so far?
Finding an instrument! This is a huge issue for string players in particular. I moved to London when I was 18 to study at the Royal Academy of Music, and I couldn’t believe my luck when they loaned me their stunning Testore cello for a number of years. It was a gorgeous instrument with incredible depth of sound. I’d never had an old cello before and enjoyed imagining how the cello had probably played my repertoire countless times before me! The experience will stay with me forever. But of course eventually it had to be returned, and on my budget searching for a cello to follow it was an impossible task!
Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?
During the pandemic I took a very unexpected turn and decided to develop a YouTube channel. The idea came from my love for performing cello repertoire that steps outside the mainstream. Over the last 10 years I have worked on so many wonderful contemporary cello pieces directly with composers, but it struck me as sad that I had no record of most of these live performances. In lockdown I suddenly found myself with lots of time on my hands so I decided to challenge myself to start recording.
Live music has thankfully now returned, but I enjoyed my lockdown project so much that I’ve decided to continue on my mission. Today, on International Women’s Day, I have added a new piece written specially for me by composer and jazz saxophonist Trish Clowes. Although her background is jazz, Trish listens widely and her compositions have many influences. Trish has always held a particular fascination with a cello piece she heard me perform years ago, Heinz Holliger Chaconne from the Sacher Variations. It’s a piece that showcases many extended techniques and timbres that the cello can offer. Inspired by this, Trish decided to write Round By The Ness for me and I was intrigued to see how she took some of these techniques and translated them into her own musical language. You can watch the performance here:
Which particular works/composers do you think you perform best?
These days I’m most known for performing music by living composers, and playing in contemporary music group the Riot Ensemble.
I joined the group 5 years ago and have given around 200 world and UK premieres by composers from more than 30 countries in that time! I’ve learned so much through this experience – unique notation, extended techniques, prepared cello… I honestly think nothing could surprise me anymore! What I love about this genre of music is the huge contrast of styles and sounds I’m exposed to. And the beauty of it is, there is so much variety in the music of the last 50 years that I think you can find something to suit every taste.
What do you do off stage that provides inspiration on stage?
Listening to other performers is the most inspiring thing for me. Any genre, style instrument. Dancers, gymnasts, actors. Watching performers who communicate and who make you forget about everything else – that is the most inspiring thing to me.
How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?
When I’m listening to music a lot of the time I want to hear something new. Most of my repertoire choices come from listening journeys online where one discovery leads to another in an endless chain.
When I hear something new that I love, I’m instantly thinking where and when would be the perfect situation to programme it. I always loved making mixtapes back in the day, and I like to think of programming in the same way, handpicked for each audience.
Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?
I’ve played in some wonderful halls around the world – Bucharest, Berlin, Shanghai, a stage built off the side of a cliff in Italy, Alhambra in Granada, but my favourite performances tend to be in smaller intimate venues where you feel more connection to the audience. I enjoy playing in settings where people don’t normally hear cello, where you feel you can surprise them and maybe even make them think differently about classical music. I have worked a lot with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra who regularly tour the Scottish Highlands and Islands, and playing in those community halls have been some of my favourite performances.
What do you feel needs to be done to grow classical music’s audiences?
Music is for everyone. A lot of people tell me they don’t listen to classical music yet they experience it in films and tv and find that they love it! Some people feel classical music isn’t for them because they never had the chance to learn an instrument. The number one way to reach more people is to invest in music education, and tackle the notion that classical music is just for the privileged. Schemes like Big Noise in Scotland, and Every Child A Musician in Newham east London are visionary, where every child in a whole year group is given an instrument and regular lessons completely free. I wish every child in the country could have this experience as part of their school education.
Classical music can also be associated with a lot of pomp and circumstance – evening dresses, tailcoats and bow ties, knowing when to clap, grand buildings. This might be glamour and showbiz to some, but can seem old fashioned, too formal, or alienating to others. “Why does that violinist get to bow on their own?” someone once asked me after an orchestral concert. I think we forget that concerts are a string of traditions and rituals that can be baffling to the uninitiated. While I hope there will always be space for traditions and a bit of showbiz in our presentation, I think classical music also needs to exist outside of concert halls – in schools as I’ve said, but also in less formal spaces, and at different times of day. There is a thriving music series in London called Daylight Music. Concerts take place on Saturday afternoons, and tea and cake is served. The curator lines up three sets with performers from different genres, and what draws the audience is the chance to experience something new, to hear styles of music they might not normally hear, all in a comfortable friendly setting. Time and time again this series has come up when I chat to people who have never attended a ‘classical concert’ but tell me they enjoyed watching an instrumentalist at one of these events. Their new season will be announced soon so do check it out!
Growing audiences is a big and complex topic, but certainly investing in music education, rethinking the formal concert paradigm, and more risk taking and imaginative curation have important roles to play.
What is your most memorable concert experience?
In January 2019 Riot Ensemble travelled to Reykjavik to play at Dark Music Days festival. The snow was deeper than my boots and daylight came only for a few hours in the middle of the day. We were giving the world premiere of a piece written for us by Austrian composer Georg Friedrich Haas called Solstices. It’s a 70 minute ensemble piece to be performed in pitch black darkness. We’ve played it in a few venues now and the challenge is always getting the hall dark enough… covering every crack and even emergency exit signs has not always been possible. But at this venue, the darkness was perfect and so intense that I could not see my own hand when I held it in front of my face! The ensemble had a central position in the hall and the audience were seated all around us. I think it’s true that we listen differently in the dark. The atmosphere was like no other concert I’ve ever experienced and I’m not sure anything could ever quite compare to my memory of it!
As a musician, what is your definition of success?
Having concerts that excite me. Playing with other musicians who inspire me. Reaching the end of a concert and feeling I did a good job, that I gave everything I had.
What advice would you give to young/aspiring musicians?
Listen listen listen to music and artists you love, admire and who inspire you! Practice! And know that it happens in small steps, so have the courage to put yourself forward for the summer school/audition/performance opportunity that you have been mulling over, and incrementally one thing will lead to another!
What’s the one thing in the music industry we’re not talking about which you think we should be?
Cuts to music and instrumental lessons in schools. Classical music won’t have a future if it is only for the privileged.
Scottish cellist in London, Louise McMonagle is a versatile performer who enjoys making music in many environments.
Highlights include winning the Ernst Von Siemens Ensemble prize (2020), performing at Wigmore Hall (London), playing as soloist in Boulez Messagesquisse at the VIVA Cello Festival (Switzerland), recording Berio Sequenza XIV with Four Ten Media, and performing with eminent jazz musicians such as Trish Clowes (BBC NGA), Kit Downes (Mercury prize nominee), Evan Parker etc.
The great pianist Artur Schnabel famously spoke of his interest in music which was “better than it can be played”, in particular the works of Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.
In this quote, I think Schnabel expresses why the sonatas of Beethoven, for example, represent “great” music which stands the test of time through its inventiveness, variety, complexity and expressive depth, but also that curious dilemma of being a musician: trying to decipher what the composer meant, what the composer heard in their head, drawing only on what is given on the page. The other paradox is that the honesty, intimacy and profundity of the music often sounds better in one’s inner ear, idealized and perfected in one’s imagination, than it does to the outer ear. Yet as Schnabel demonstrated through his many performances and recordings, an inspired performance can go further, deeper and higher than the inner ear, giving us a memorable glimpse of the thought, the philosophy or the breadth of emotion which lies behind and beyond the notes.
For me, it has always meant that achieving perfection in such works….and that’s one of the justifications for always being able to dig deeper into those works, and why we can keep on performing them forever and still discover new approaches to them. – Alfredo Ovalles, pianist
What Schnabel may also mean is that some pieces are simply very special, and can never be fully realised in performance, that the “perfect” version is not possible, even though some pieces truly deserve it. It is perhaps for this reason that certain repertoire holds a very significance place in the hearts and minds of pianists who are willing to continually rise to the myriad challenges that the music presents – Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Mozart’s piano sonatas, Schumann’s Kreisleriana, Chopin’s Etudes and the great concertos by, for example, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev.
Perhaps the greatest thing about this “great music” is that no matter what we do to it, it still retains its fascination. Later in his famous quote, Schnabel talks about only being interested in music that presents a “never-ending problem”. Think for a moment how many recordings there are of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas. Numerous pianists, including Alfred Brendel, Maurizio Pollini, Annie Fischer, Andras Schiff, Richard Goode, Paul Lewis and, more recently, Igor Levit and Jonathan Biss, have released distinguished cycles, and some pianists have even recorded these works several times (Daniel Barenboim, for example), proving that this music remains endlessly captivating and intriguing.
“As a performer, I can’t take it seriously enough. I have to adopt a personal stance toward the musical texts and their creator, to find self-awareness on a higher level.” – Igor Levit
This then is the responsibility of those who choose to play music which is “better than it can be played”. That pianists like Levit, or Biss, Barenboim or Pollini can each bring their own interpretation and insight to this repertoire perhaps proves Busoni’s quote – “The task of the creative artist resides in setting up laws, not in following them.” – and confirms the ongoing greatness of this music.
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If you find joy and value in what I do, please consider making a donation to support the continuance of the site
The Cross-Eyed Pianist 