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Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music?

Hearing the Scherzo from Bruckner 7th Symphony on radio. I was 16 or so, heading for veterinary college; it was very much an “I can’t live without doing this’ rather than a “I must do this” moment.

Who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?

Seeing as musicians need a proper grounding and a healthy ambition, it has to be my teachers – Lilly Phillips and David Strange – for their grounding, and the conductor of my local youth orchestra – Mark Gooding – for encouraging ambition. More recently the pianist Oliver Davies has been a huge influence, revealing that musicianship, not just technique, is teachable as well as inherent.

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

Performing in front of colleagues – always has been and always will be!

Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?

I’m most proud of the work I programme myself – those projects are like children, you nurture them and feel responsibility for their outcome. And like children they can be very hard work and take off in unexpected directions – but are always worth it and so instil real pride. My recent discs of Piatti operatic fantasies are examples of that.

Which particular works do you think you perform best?

I hope it’s the repertoire I love the most; but to be honest it’s also probably the repertoire I don’t take that seriously, because the pressure’s off and then it’s easier to ‘play’. I enjoy technical challenges but I hope cantabile is my stronger suit.

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?

Usually by answering the phone and saying yes! But when I’m lucky enough to be programming myself then it’s still often pragmatic choices, based on the venue, the audience and any other concerts around that time. I try to mix novel with staple, and always work with the assumption that you can’t second guess an audience’s taste, so go with sincerely chosen works.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

The Barber Institute in Birmingham for its acoustic and Bargemusic in New York for its quirkiness (especially when a police boat speeds past)

What is your most memorable concert experience?

A London Sinfonietta concert in the Carnegie Hall where Oliver Knussen, conducting, turned to the audience after a world premiere and said “new works should never be heard just once – you’re now going to hear that again” and we repeated the whole piece. It was electrifying – he had us and the audience in the palm of his hand.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

Easy – when the composer is happy.

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

Learn to teach yourself. Assimiliate don’t imitate. And always beware not seeing the wood for the trees.

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

Anywhere that’s covid-free, pollution-free and culture-rich

What is your present state of mind?

Simultaneously elated (so much family time) and terrified (no concerts)

Adrian Bradbury’s latest CD ‘Alfredo Piatti: The Operatic Fantasies, Volume Two’ is out on the Meridian label, available from Presto Classical

Adrian Bradbury is a British cellist, recognized especially for his contribution to contemporary music (Royal Philharmonic Society chamber award, Composers Ensemble), teaching (Cello Tutor, National Youth Orchestra of GB) and musician science (research published by the Royal Society)

 

 

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Schubert…..makes tears catch at the edge of my eyes; such fragile hope, such powerful emotions.

Ian McMillan, poet (via Twitter)

I was reminded of Ian McMillan’s quote while listening to the final lunchtime lockdown concert from London’s Wigmore Hall, a devastatingly beautiful, austerely unsentimental yet profoundly poignant rendering of Schubert’s late great song cycle Winterreise, performed by tenor Mark Padmore with pianist Mitsuko Uchida. Music so fitting for these strange days, with its narrative of loss, longing and separation.

Schubert is the composer for our corona times. Listening in isolation to performers playing to an empty hall, this acccount of isolation, its chill frequently tinged with the tenderest poignancy, seemed particularly appropriate. We are at home, but we are separate, living in our “bubbles”, unable to hug our family and friends, yet finding a sense of closeness, warmth and solace through music.

That same sense of isolation is evident in the Andantino from Schubert’s penultimate piano sonata, or the bare “horn call” first subject of the F minor Fantasie, D940, the fearful tread of the second movement of the Trio, D929, or the haunting opening measures of the unfinished sonata D 571. There are numerous other examples, of course….

In both the Andantino of D959 and the D929, it is those unexpected modulations into the major key, when the sun comes out to warm one’s skin and the chill of winter momentarily recedes, that make this music so magical, so breathtakingly extraordinary in its harmonic and emotional volte-faces. And then, only a few bars later, the melancholy and the sorrow flood back…. Often even more tragic in the major key, it is as if Schubert recognises the darkness visible, acknowledges and accepts it.

No one does chiaroscuro quite like Schubert: he mixes light and dark more subtly than any other composer and colours his musical palette with an elusive hue of mystery. Light and dark, levity and depth all reside in close proximity in Schubert’s music, perhaps even more so than in Mozart’s (and Mozart too is a master of light and shade).

I’ve loved Schubert’s music, and, more specifically, his later piano music since I was a child. I grew up listening to my parents’ recordings on LP of the ‘Trout’ Quintet, the Unfinished and ‘Great’ Symphonies, the string quartets, and The Shepherd on the Rock, which my father would play on the clarinet – and, when I became a more competent pianist, I would accompany him. When I was about 12, still a fairly novice pianist, my mother gave me an Edition Peters score of the Moments Musicaux and both sets of Impromptus – works which portray in perfect microcosm the breadth and variety of Schubert’s artistic vision and emotional landscape. I stumbled my way through these works, mostly too advanced for me at the time, though there were fragments of each which I could actually play. I took the A-flat Impromptu to my then teacher and instead of ticking me off for trying to learn music which was far in advance of my capabilities, she helped me find my way through the score. At this time, in the late 1970s, Schubert was regarded as the poor relation to Beethoven, his melodies sweet as sachertorte, his structures incoherent, and his emotions too introverted. Then I had little knowledge about Franz Schubert beyond the notes on the page, but there was definitely something that drew me to his unique soundworld….

Much as I love Beethoven, his gruffness and uncompromising spirit, as I’ve grown older I turn more and more to Schubert’s introspection, his tenderness and his intimacy. He speaks more softly, more personally than Beethoven for me. His unmatched gift for melody enables him to spin the agony of desire, melancholy and sorrow, and the joy of living  – and a whole gamut of emotions in between. He has a remarkable ability to switch rapidly between terror and lyricism, from the darkly tragic and melancholic to golden transcendence or joyous other-worldliness, all rendered in music of incredible, almost revolutionary inventiveness. Often this is achieved through the most miraculous modulations, an unexpected sonic shift and, for me, as a synaesthete who sees the musical keys in colour, a completely new luminosity.

His other great skill is in managing rests and pauses. Silences abound, freighted with poetic imagination and who knows what, suspending time and offering pause for reflection, while also clarifying the structural expansiveness of the music, his “heavenly length”. In addition, Schubert’s use of dynamics is often ‘psychological’ rather than purely physical, suggesting an intensity of feeling rather than volume of sound. As pianists, we shouldn’t play Schubert as if you would Beethoven (though some do!). Even in his grandest gestures, for example the fff passages in the first movement of the Sonata in G, D894, there’s a restraint. His generous use of pianissimo in particular creates an ethereality in his music as if hovering between different states of mind.

In those moments, his music makes you feel as if you are the last person in the universe…..

How does one explain Schubert? The simple answer is – one can’t.

Steven Isserlis, cellist

 

 

 

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Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music?

I grew up in a strict religious household, so when an upright piano – a gift from a church member – arrived at our house it was just a large and welcome new toy to play with. My parents had somewhat draconian views on children’s entertainment; consequently we had no television and only really listened to classical music. There are of course pros as well as cons in this approach but…

Thus, at the age of four years old, I (apparently) began to pick out tunes with one finger and it was quickly decided I should have lessons. These were kindly donated at no charge by the church organist, one Marion Mills. Although I had many kind and patient teachers over the years, Peter Crozier at Pimlico Saturday school, Peter Jacobs at Latymer Upper School and lastly John Irving and Danielle Salomon at Sheffield University, what truly inspired me to take up a career in music was being allowed to arrange for and direct the band in school shows.

Our school Christmas spectaculars, essentially lavish pantomimes, really were worthy of the ‘spectacular’ tag, played out to a paying audience of several hundred in our large school hall, brilliantly converted into a theatre. To allow a 16-year-old to run a 20 piece band for the shows while he sat in the audience was quite a display of faith from our brilliant head of music – Shane Fletcher; so if I had to nominate one person as an inspiration it would be that light touch teaching that secured my fate!

Who or what have been the most important influences on your musical life and career?

I’ve already mentioned many of the teachers who mostly looked kindly on my endless desire to improvise and managed in spite of that to instil the rudiments of a proper musical education into me! Being raised with the perpetual backdrop of classical music gave me a sound knowledge of most of the repertoire but a seminal moment was when my parents finally yielded to my sister’s and my cajolings and bought a small portable black-and-white TV when I was thirteen. One of the first things I watched entranced, after my parents had gone to bed, was a late night BBC2 show with Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. I was literally open mouthed (and eared). I had never known a piano could make sounds like this, much less that somebody could forge a career playing music other than Chopin! I obsessively hunted down all the jazz I could find and along the way discovered the cabaret genius of musical comedians such as Dudley Moore and Victor Borge (who also showed me that it was possible to make people howl with laughter using classical references). I can’t miss out other names such as Richard Rodgers, Bill Evans, Art Tatum and Fats Waller and the wit of French impressionists such as Satie and Milhaud.

Lastly, although not directly musical influences, I must also mention two performers that I worked with for over a decade. A large part of being a cabaret artist is one’s ability to recount stories and give context to the music on stage, an area in which I was resoundingly absent of talent. A brilliant performer I accompanied for fifteen years was a singer called James Biddlecombe (Biddie). Described as the uncrowned king of the cabaret scene in London, he championed obscure old songs that nobody had heard of and to this day I have never witnessed an audience in such paroxysms of tearful mirth as he managed to regularly engender. Watching him and another act, larger than life magician Fay Presto, beloved of royals and celebrities, whom I also accompanied for many many years, I slowly and painfully learnt how to communicate on stage.

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

Being an improviser with a classical sensibility, I often find myself on the same programme as truly jaw-dropping international concert talent. Keeping one’s self together in such exalted company is a trick in itself. They are without exception always kind and express admiration for what I do but knowing just enough to know quite how brilliant they are really can be enough to freeze the blood in one’s veins. The first time I went on Radio 3 taking live requests to play anything in any composer’s style, I was literally shaking. Recounting this to a friend afterwards he asked innocently “Why were you so worried? There’s only one man and his dog listening to Radio 3 at any given time.” Patiently I had to explain to him “Yes, but even the dog has a doctorate in ethno-musicology”.

Which performances/recordings are you most proud of?

I have recorded two albums – ‘In the wrong key’ and ‘All the way through’ – both of which I regard reasonably proudly, but my output will never be judged by recordings. My proudest moments are getting on a really good roll in an improvised Bach invention or during something very silly like Postman Pat in the style of Rachmaninov, hearing the audience reaction change from laughter to engagement as you fuse low and high art and for a few glorious seconds it comes off and becomes an entity of its own. Audiences always know those rare and special moments when you channel something perfectly in a composer’s style for a brief moment. You don’t have to explain it.

Which particular works do you think you perform best?

How do you make your repertoire choices from season to season?

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in and why?

What is your most memorable concert experience?

If I may take the liberty of combining these four questions… To explain: these questions fall into a different category for myself compared to a classical performer. Performances with Alexander Armstrong where I was musical director and arranger linger fondly in the memory, particularly one at the Palladium. Also an end of year review playing solo cabaret to a packed Birmingham Symphony Hall for Raymond Gubbay was a wonderful experience. My favourite performance and venue are probably one and the same – a charity gala at the Royal Albert Hall for SOS villages, an organisation working against the spread of AIDS in Africa. That venue is a seminal one for me – redolent with so many memories from my introductions to the Proms with my parents. The fact that they were sat in the front row whilst I took the host’s Aled Jones request to play Kylie Minogue ‘I should be so lucky’ in the style of Wagner (only request I can remember) and the consequent laughter echoing around the Albert Hall is something I shall never forget.

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

Ultimately, music is all about communicating emotion. There are many different ways of doing this – interpreting the works of geniuses who have gone before in a respectful yet original way and profoundly moving all those that hear it is of course the most prevalent. However, I feel there is a space to play with all those references that audiences know so well and juxtapose them in a comical fashion. Although this is light entertainment, most of the time people sense when the fun is borne of a true love of the music and in amongst the laughter and silliness there is beauty too. So my definition of success is simply to bring joy to as many people as possible.

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

To show young students that improvisation is not a modern phenomenon or something to be scared of. It should absolutely be taught alongside all other musical knowledge – the principles therein are as old as the hills; Bach, Mozart and Beethoven were all serial improvisers. It is my life’s mission to get some aspect of improvising onto the national curriculum as I passionately believe it improves listening skills, time, arranging and composing and the relation with one’s instrument!

What is your idea of perfect happiness?

It’s a toss up between one of these three (if you can have a three sided coin…!)

1. Walking around the Borghese gallery in Rome.

2. Watching James Anderson destroy an Australian batting lineup at Lord’s.

3. Tucking into a particularly juicy Times cryptic crossword with Eugenie Onegin on in the background.

Harry’s extraordinary talent and breathtaking creativity have earned him a reputation as one of the most gifted improvising pianists in the world. Celebrities and critics alike have lined up to shower him with praise often smacking of astonishment. No other musician can spontaneously reinvent Michael Jackson in the style of Mozart, recreate a night at the Groucho club through the TV themes of its actor members, and improvise a seamless medley of audience requests ranging from James Bond to Shostakovich via West Side Story.

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Horse races run on empty courses, Premier League football matches played in cavernous deserted stadia, tennis tournaments “behind closed doors”, concerts performed into a void of silence. Without the roar of the crowd, the cheering and the applause, the collective experience of these activities is severely diminished, the punters, the fans and the audiences forced by social distancing in these times of coronavirus to engage via a TV set or computer from their sofas, living rooms and kitchens.

The people, the crowd, create atmosphere. At football and rugby matches, closely-packed bodies and loud unison chanting and singing produce a heady atmosphere that’s hard to resist. While football matches are being played behind closed doors due to the coronavirus pandemic, TV companies are using technology to create “atmosphere”, with recordings of the roars and cheers of the crowd from earlier live matches. Fortunately, at the Wigmore Hall’s lunchtime livestreamed concerts, “canned” applause is omitted; instead at the end of each piece, the performers are greeted with silence.

In live classical music performances – and indeed in nail-biting tennis matches – the silence of the audience indicates intense collective concentration. There is an almost inexplicable silence which occurs during a particularly absorbing performance, when it seems as if the audience is listening and breathing as one, or that special quiet at the end of a particularly arresting performance before the applause comes. It’s as if there is a universal exhale as tense bodies held in suspended stillness by the power of the music, gradually relax and unwind. This is particularly potent at very large venues, such as the Royal Albert Hall, home to the Proms, and the performer or performers who can hold an audience of some 5500 in rapt attention, or shrink a concert hall such as the Royal Festival Hall (capacity c2000) to the size of an intimate salon, is surely a powerful and charismatic one.

Not only does a hall full of people have a different acoustic, but a living, breathing audience creates “a very active involvement in the music, and I think a performer senses this, the energy…and that quietness, when people are listening and attentive, and you feel an electricity there that you cannot replicate” (Stephen Hough, concert pianist).

Performers are very aware of the atmosphere in a concert hall and many would agree that the it enables them to play better, while also creating a special bond of communication with the audience, who then become complicit in the performance as active participants. Playing in a recording studio can be sterile and limiting, requiring the performer to attempt to recreate the atmosphere of a live performance through the power of their imagination.

While concert halls (and sports stadia) remain empty for the time being, audiences and performers must create their own atmosphere. Livestream performances cannot replace “the real thing”, but there is something powerful, and also profoundly poignant, in watching a live performance from an empty auditorium. The Wigmore Hall livestream lunchtime concerts have received huge acclaim, both from critics and reviewers, and also audiences sharing their reactions (often very thoughtful, honest and emotional) on social media. We have enjoyed exceptionally fine performances, in which musicians still give their all despite or perhaps because of the circumstances, and there has, via the networks, been a palpable sense of people listening appreciatively and attentively. In addition, there is a sense of quenching a great thirst after a long period of drought and also an certain optimism in the hope that we can soon return to our beloved concert halls and enjoy music collectively once again.