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When we consider the role of musician as “curator”, we tend to think of someone who organizes a concert series or music festival, much in the same way as a museum curator organizes exhibitions.

At a recent piano masterclass I attended, the tutor talked about “curating every note” and I really like this notion of the musician as the personal curator of the music, its sound and interpretation. In practice, what this means is that when we study and learn music, we should attend to every single detail in the score. This not only ensures that we honour the composer’s intentions, but also allows us to study the music in depth so that our interpretation and communication of it is both faithful and personal, thus creating a unique listening experience for our audience. And so for each and every note, rest and fermata, dynamic or articulation marking, and all the other details that make up a musical score, one should consider how and why that marking is there. What is its purpose? What effect is the composer suggesting? What stories or emotions might lie behind those notes and markings?

This detailed curatorial approach is particularly appropriate for Classical Period music (such as the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven) where all the little articulation marks, in particular, need to be observed because of their significance to the sound and intent of the music. Even the tiniest two-note slurs in Mozart or Beethoven, for example, create wonderful effects if observed correctly – a little more emphasis on the first note of a two-note slur and a fractional shortening of the second note to create tiny separations, redolent of string articulation. Mozart and Beethoven are both very specific in their markings: take the first movement of Beethoven’s Tempest Sonata Op 31 No. 2, with its plethora of drop slurs which, when observed correctly, bring incredible drama and energy in those opening bars. We ignore these details at our peril for they bring the music to life with vibrancy and vivid colour.

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Beethoven – Piano Sonata Op 31/2, ‘Tempest’

As players and performers, at whatever level we play, we have a responsibility towards the music, and for me, this is the broader definition of the musician as a “curator”. It is a huge privilege to be able to play these great works by Bach and Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven et al – works that rank alongside Aristotle and Shakespeare in their magnitude and cultural importance. One can feel like a conservator, or a curator, taking responsibility for them and sharing them with others. It is a cultural gift – a gift to oneself, and a gift to those who love to listen to the music.

 

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

My great uncle gave me the family piano when I was six and I started to have piano lessons. I then went to a pretty average comprehensive school in Liverpool. The music teacher, Edward Fielding Kirk, was a great inspiration to me. He was a composer, arranger, pianist and conductor. He spotted early on that I had some musical talent so took it upon himself to come to my house one evening and talk to my parents (both of whom were not musicians). On his advice, I took up the opportunity to have free cello and percussion lessons at school (as well as keeping up the piano). It soon became clear that my real interest lay in percussion.

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

Mr. Kirk arranged trips to concerts throughout the school year. I attended performances given by the RLPO, Fires of London, London Sinfonietta and many others. This initial exposure to new music really fired my enthusiasm for contemporary performance. I then went to Huddersfield Polytechnic for one year before moving to the RNCM in 1986. At Huddersfield I organised all the percussion for the 1985 festival and I attended as many performances as I could… reinforcing my passion for new music. In 1991 I formed Psappha based on the instrumentation of the Fires of London for whom Peter Maxwell Davies [known as ‘Max’] had already developed a body of work. Max was composer/ conductor at the BBC Philharmonic. I met him regularly as I was freelancing with the orchestra. Max officially became Psappha’s Patron in 1995 and continued to be my inspiration both personally and for the group until his death.

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

I formed Psappha in 1991 as I really enjoyed the challenge of performing new music. I also looked after the management of the group from the outset. As our work has developed my main challenge has been the balance between practice time and administration duties.

Which performance/recordings are you most proud of?

Psappha was invited to give the 70th birthday concert for the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall for our then Patron, Peter Maxwell Davies, in 2004. It was a concert of works selected by Max and the performance was well received. It was a fantastic occasion that I won’t forget. The group has performed Eight Songs for a Mad King more than 70 times over the years and worked with Max on interpretation on many occasions. We decided to make a second recording of the work (on limited edition vinyl) as Max agreed to supervise the recording. This was a very special collaboration and I’m very pleased that we managed to do this only a few years before Max passed away. I’ve worked with American composer Steven Mackey over many years and I really enjoy his music. We recorded his Micro-Concerto for percussion and ensemble with Steve and I’m proud of the recording.

Playing Harrison Birtwistle’s Axe Manual at Plush Festival with Tim Horton on Harry’s 80th birthday (at the composer’s invitation) and working with György Kurtág on his Scenes from a Novel were real high points too.

Which particular works do you think you play best?

It’s rare that I’m completely happy with myself. I’m very critical… Most recently I was pleased with the performance of Stravinsky’s Renard with BCMG and Oliver Knussen – I played cimbalom.

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

I listen to lots of music when I’m deciding on the repertoire for each Psappha season. I like to support composers at all stages of their careers as well as including some classic works each season.

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

I’ve been lucky to play in many fantastic concert venues all over the world with Psappha and through my work as a percussionist/timpanist with symphony orchestras. But I’m really fond of the intimacy of Psappha’s two Manchester venues – St Michael’s and Hallé St Peter’s in Ancoats.

Who are your favourite musicians?

I learnt a lot about music from Peter Maxwell Davies, I love the spontaneity of Bernstein, the intimate musical knowledge and showmanship of Gennady Rozhdestvensky and the amazing performances of Claudio Abbado.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

Every concert is special but if I had to pick only one concert experience it would be a performance with ECYO in 1988 at the Berlin Philharmonic Hall of Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder conducted by Claudio Abbado. It was the first time Abbado had conducted the piece and the performance and rehearsals were from memory. The soloists were the best in the world and included Jesse Norman, Brigitte Fassbaender and Philip Langridge (I didn’t know at the time but he was to be my future father-in-law!). The performance was amazing and perfect in every way….

As a musician, what is your definition of success?

To be well prepared and give the best performance possible. If the audience enjoys the performance, is moved, or hears something new that excites them, then that’s a success.

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

My musical development started properly from the age of 14 and involved attending as many performances as possible. I was born in Liverpool and attended every RLPO performance – I also managed to sneak into rehearsals too. I learnt a lot from those years and continued attending performances all the way through college too. You have to be true to yourself but at the same time listen to others and take advice, listen to live performances, listen to multiple recordings of the same piece and work out how you want it to sound. Record yourself and listen back; in my experience it doesn’t always sound the way you think it does! If, like me, you have the privilege of working with composers, make sure you spend a decent amount of time with them and get into their sound world.

Don’t limit yourself to a single genre. Communication with an audience is just as important in classical music as it is in other genres. I recently took my son to an Earth, Wind and Fire performance… Verdine White, the band’s founder bass player, who’s been with the band for 45 years was one of the best communicators I think I’ve ever seen.

What is your most treasured possession?

[Sir Peter Maxwell Davies] Max gave me two handwritten manuscripts, which are my most treasured possessions. The first was the timpani part to Throstle’s Nest Junction – he knew I was playing timpani in the première of the piece with the BBC Philharmonic so wrote a special part for me. The second was the sketches of the scene change music for Mr Emmet Takes a Walk the opera Max wrote for Psappha in 1999. Both include personal notes to me.

Tim Williams is the founder of Psappha, which launches its 2018/19 season on 27 September 2018 with ‘New Adventures’ at Stoller Hall, Manchester. The full programme is available here: http://www.psappha.com/diary/

Tim Williams has performed with most of the UK’s symphony orchestras, opera and ballet companies as a freelance percussionist and timpanist. His particular interest in new music led him to form the ensemble Psappha in 1991. Since its inception he has been its Artistic Director, General Manager and also its percussionist. With the ensemble he has performed throughout the UK, in Europe (France, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Ireland & Belgium), North America (New York and San Francisco), South America (Caracas and Buenos Aires), Hong Kong, Australia (Barossa Festival) and most recently at the Jerusalem Festival.

He has been featured prominently in such works as Stockhausen’s Kontakte (also broadcast on BBC Radio 3), Birtwistle’s The Axe Manual (including a performance for the composers 83rd birthday), Peter Maxwell Davies’s Stedman Doubles (original 1955 version) (also recorded for CD, film and BBC Radio 3), Steven Mackey’s Micro-Concerto (UK tour and CD recording), Martin Butler’s Going with the Grain, Gordon McPherson Little Moses (also recorded for CD and BBC Radio 3), Alvarez’s Temazcal, Boulez’s Le Marteau sans Maitre (also recorded for BBC Radio 3) and Anthony Gilbert’s Moonfaring (UK tour and recorded for CD).

In 1999 Tim Williams went to Budapest, bought a cimbalom (Hungary’s national instrument) and taught himself to play it, going on to perform many works on the cimbalom including Stravinsky’s Renard (BBC Proms, BCMG (This is Rattle)) and Ragtime (BBC Proms & Britten Sinfonia) , Jonathan Harvey’s Weltethos (CBSO UK premiere), Boulez’s Eclat/Multiples (London Sinfonietta), Mackey’s Five Animated Shorts (Network for New Music, Philadelphia and Princeton and with Psappha, Cheltenham Festival, Lancaster, webcast and CD recording), Peter Maxwell Davies’s Image, Reflection, Shadow (UK tour), Peter Maxwell Davies’s Sonatina and Farewell to Stromness. In 2001 he worked on Scenes from a Novel with its composer György Kurtág at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. He has had works written for him by Gordon McPherson (Memory Crash and Lorelei), Anthony Gilbert (Vers de Lune) and John Casken (Fractured Lines). He has also taken part in Kodály’s singspiel Háry János on a number of occasions, Howard Shaw’s Lord of the Rings Symphony and Kurtág’s Stele.

Since 2008 Tim has developed Psappha’s online presence and has directed all the films you find on Psappha’s websites.

Tim is a Sabian Artist

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Friday 21st September, Church of St John the Divine, London SW9

Christina McMaster, piano

Lie down and Listen is a unique multi-sensory classical music experience created by pianist Christina McMaster and designed to bring the positive effects of classical music on body and mind to a wide audience in unusually relaxed settings. A pioneering combination of music, meditation, Virtual Reality technology and restorative yoga led by Will Wheeler create a deep sense of relaxation.

Neil Franks writes….

The event took place at the lovely St John the Divine Church in Kennington. It was the perfect venue as it has plenty of floor space to “lie down and listen”, with a magnificent Steinway Model D in the middle so that we could surround the piano on our yoga mats. The evening started with a gentle but very well-presented yoga session that even the novice could follow and with no pressure to manoeuvre feet behind ears or anything extreme. In fact the moves presented allowed the inexperienced to participate within their comfort levels. Of course there were plenty of very flexible friends there both to encourage and impress us, and create the atmosphere Christina was aiming for – the first success of the evening.

To the standard classical concert-goer, this appeared to be an ambitious programme and I might be as bold as to suggest that if this concert was planned in the standard format, the choice might limit its audience unless it were specifically targeted. On the other hand, this was a great success as it drew in a lot of young people (and other ages too!), largely because of the experimental interest, and there is no doubt everyone was pleasantly surprised as Christina’s programme was beautiful and absorbing – nowhere near as intimidating as many might fear, by the likes of Philip Glass, John Cage, Arvo Part etc. Taking my daughter Charlotte along was in itself an experiment for me, and we both enjoyed the evening. (She has grown up with me thumping away at the piano and having to sit through numerous piano recitals that she would rather not go to, but it was successful and enjoyable for her as it was with many other audience members who I’m sure will now seriously consider going to, and enjoying, a standard concert presentation of this sort of music.

In addition to the piano music, the programme featured two beautiful choral works, including The Fruits of Silence by Latvian composer Peteris Vasks, a magnificent and absorbing finale from the choir with subtle accompaniment from Christina.

Christina McMaster

Of course I and any other old traditionalists went to hear Christina’s performance of Debussy’s La cathédrale engloutie, and, as expected, we were immensely satisfied, considering Christina’s talent and empathy with this music. But to add to the expected was the unexpected bonus of the special environment: Beethoven’s ‘Pathétique’ Sonata wouldn’t work in this format, but Debussy flourishes.

It may be that, as mentioned in the programme, this concept was conceived in and amongst the thinking rooms at New York’s National Addiction Centre and studies related to their subject and efforts to improve the well-being of people under their care, study and attention. I gather that early experiments used the minimalist music of Terry Riley, but I don’t think I could categorise Christina’s programme as “minimalist”. I suppose it might been drier had we all been wearing shirts and ties at the South Bank, and if some of these pieces were in presented in a more traditional programme/concert setting, but I have to believe this audience were instantly converted and I know they will go to more. They will go to the South Bank and listen to a Debussy recital now, something they wouldn’t have dreamt of doing before.

The only traditional thing I had to do was to take the initiative of leading the applause as the audience didn’t quite know what to do at the end (the programme was presented so that there was no applause between pieces as that would have interfered with the atmosphere).

I wish Christina every success in this venture and in spreading the word in this way as it will draw much attention, and I very much hope that the good work in the thinking rooms I referred to will be hugely successful too.

 

The next Lie Down and Listen concert is on 16 November at St John the Divine church. Full details and tickets here

Meet the Artist interview with Christina McMaster

Neil Franks is Chairman of Petworth Festival, a regular concert-goer and a advanced amateur pianist.

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Guest post by Michael Johnson

Perhaps enough time has passed since the death of the French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger to step back and question her musical sainthood. She was, after all, only human.

My elder musician friends recall her as a brilliant analyst of composition yet as a person she tended toward the tyrannical, impatient and cantankerous. Composer Philip Glass, who studied with her for two years, wrote that she tried to be kind but “stayed pretty much in the range between intimidating and terrifying”.

She was like a lot of piano teachers, one might add. Fanny Waterman used to crack the knuckles of her young students with a ruler if they missed a note or dragged a tempo.

Nadia, who died in Paris in 1979, moved in the best circles of 20th century music. Leonard Bernstein often visited her in Paris. On one occasion, when he was already established as a composer and conductor, he recalled being made to feel small when he played one of his compositions for her. She objected to a certain b-flat. He recalled later, “I am 58,” but suddenly “it was like I was a child.…”

One musician friend of mine in Paris who studied with several of her students goes further, accusing her of “castrating” them (especially the males) by constant criticism and tedious exercises that had them “jumping through technical hoops for hours, years, on end”. Some of the exercises she wrote for her charges were “soul-destroying”, he says.

Nadia knew she had a mixed reputation and was comfortable with that. She maintained that musical training without rigor cannot be of value. Virgil Thomson wrote that she had a “no-nonsense approach to musical skills and a no-fooling-around treatment of anyone’s talent or vocation”. She once turned down a young girl applicant, exasperated, saying she would never find the patience to work with her. Fortunately, she added, her father was soon transferred to another country and the family left France.

I have just read an extraordinary collection of Nadia’s opinions and memories as assembled by Bruno Monsaingeon and published in 1980 as ‘Mademoiselle’ (Editions Van de Valde). Long out of print, I found a dog-eared, mildewed French copy in a bookstall and have studied it minutely. It is a portrait of a complex lady who describes herself as “pitiless” in her treatment of students, adding that she was just as rough on herself.

Originally an aspiring composer, she said that “if there is one thing I am sure of … it is that my music is useless”. Some listeners today would agree while others don’t. Her blandness and lack of originality seem evident to me. She admitted that she realized early on that she “had absolutely nothing to say.”

A student of Gabriel Fauré, Nadia gave up composition after the death of her beloved sister Lili, the more talented of the two sisters. Lili died of an affliction now known as Crohn’s disease, at 24, in 1918. Broken by Lili’s death, Nadia threw herself into teaching, inviting students from throughout the world to come to her Paris apartment and be forced into her straightjacket. There she taught conducting, analysis, harmony, counterpoint and composition as well as piano performance.

Some of the most important musicians of the 20th century worked under her harsh regime: Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, Walter Piston, Pierre Schaeffer, Igor Markevitch, John-Eliot Gardiner, Daniel Barenboïm, Dinu Lipatti and others. Her list of students has never been completed but I should add the jazz composers Quincy Jones and Donald Byrd. The list goes on – Jean Françaix, Roy Harris, Peter Hill, Ralph Kirkpatrick, Michel Legrand, Gian Carlo Menotti, Jeremy Menuhin, Emile Naoumoff, Soulima Stravinsky.

Nadia was particularly critical of her American students who queued up to suffer under her rigorous demands. About 600 Americans took lessons from her in the 1920s to the 1970s. She found some of them brilliant but many, she said, lacked fundamentals or even a good ear. “The truth is that the study of the basics makes you understand that to be a good musician you must be a good grammarian.”

Conductor Igor Markevitch, who studied with her, recalled that she went out of her way to assert herself, even wearing a pince-nez to appear professorial. This, he said, helped her advance in a world then dominated by men.

She could be so harsh as to leave students stunned. Glass recalled in his recent autobiography ‘Words Without Music’ that while recuperating after a group class studying Bach chorales, the students would sit down at a café for coffee or beer. The Boulanger experience, he remembered, “invariably left us shaken and silent”.

Confused by the contradictory opinions in the air today, I turned to one of my main interests, portraiture, to try to get a better feel for the person behind the mask. Portraits can afford the artist a good opportunity to study a subject up close. In her case, I found nothing but severity — a strong jaw, narrowed eyes, arched eyebrows, a hard, thin mouth, and body language that students such as Glass found intimidating.

Watching her come to life on the page, I had to turn away. I felt fear. As a student, I would not have lasted an hour with her.

The Monsaingeon book is the most comprehensive account of Nadia’s views on music. He directed a television documentary on her 90th birthday and produced a book-length compilation of some five years of meetings and conversations with her. For easy reading, he reordered the material as an interview – inserting questions among her monologues.

I have produced this edited and translated version of Monsaingeon’s work, capturing the most pertinent extracts for a modern audience.

Aaron Copland described you as the most famous professor of composition alive.

Allow me to doubt the veracity of that statement. I believe a professor is dependent on the quality of the students. The professor’s role is less grand, less omnipotent, than one might think.

When did you discover music?

As a child, I could not stand the sound of music. It almost made me sick. I screamed. My sobbing could be heard in the street. The piano was a monster that terrorized me. Then one day I heard a fire truck passing by, siren blaring, and I sat down and found those notes on the keyboard. Suddenly I had discovered music with a passion. I can still hear my father saying, “What a strange little girl we have here.”

Your father was a French music professor and you mother was Russian?

Yes, my father was totally French and my mother Russian (Princess Michesky). We never spoke Russian in the home because she did not want the family language to be one that my father did not understand.

Do you believe your Russian ancestry has been important for you?

It has been very important … but I do not like to talk about personal background. There is no point talking about me all day long because it would interest no one and certainly not me!

Is it true that at the age of twelve you knew Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier by heart?

It was an obligation. I was instructed to learn one prelude and one fugue per week. But you know, let’s not exaggerate. One prelude and one fugue per week is not so much… After this kind of training, though, one has a good basis in mind.

It is said that you already had an encyclopedic knowledge of music when you began teaching.

You know, people say all kinds of things, few of which are true.

How did you end up at the American Conservatory of Fontainebleau?

Walter Damrosch founded the school and Francis Casadesus was the first director. I was brought in to join the faculty. I spoke two words of English, “Hello” and “Goodbye”. My first student was Aaron Copland. After Robert Casadesus, other directors followed, including Maurice Ravel, Charles-Marie Widor, and I succeeded Casadesus in 1946.

I understand that the conservatory was founded after World War I for American troops but after the war, what happened?

The Fontainebleau school became very important for the Americans. They had brilliant schooling and were very gifted but they lacked fundamentals in many cases; their musical ear was underdeveloped and they had bypassed the everyday details of music education. Why? Because — it was believed — one must not overwork the children.

What were your basics in the curriculum?

I had to insist on the fundamentals – hearing, looking, listening and seeing.

You trained a large number of Americans. There must be hardly a city in North America that doesn’t have one of your students.

Yes indeed, I had a great number of American students. One must remember that fifty years ago there was no such thing as American music. An immense change has happened since – Monsieur Copland, Monsieur Bernstein – their works are performed all over the world. The term “American musician” is no longer something unusual.

Didn’t you bring Aaron Copland to the attention of the American public?

A. Yes, in September 1938 I encouraged Walter Damrosch and Serge Koussevitzky to program his Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. Damrosch conducted it in Boston (in 1938) and was probably disturbed by the modernity of it. He turned to the audience as said, “Ladies and gentlemen, if a man of 23 can compose such a work, he will be capable by the age of 30 of murdering his own parents.” He was laughing but he was serious too. Naturally there was a reaction and agitation among the public but Copland’s reputation was made. Copland’s piece seems tame by today’s standards.

Music goes through phases of popularity. Is this a problem?

I am tormented by the phenomenon of fashion in music. Since I am an old fusspot, I don’t much like change. Of course change for reasons of necessity can be marvelous. But change because one does not know where to go next is fatal and destructive.

What about new voices in music?

Rather than deepening one’s understanding, we see too many people chasing discoveries as an end in itself — finding that unknown masterpiece at any cost. The less these people understand, the more enthusiastic they are. I recently heard a piece that made me wonder if the composer was ill, on drugs, or victim of a serious mental disorder.

How important is music in your life?

I am an absolutely mad consumer of music. I call it a sickness because even when I am exhausted after eight or nine hours of teaching, my first move – to the annoyance of the household – is to switch on the radio and listen. I am insatiable. I love listening (to music).

You say you can appreciate the good and bad elements of a work. What are your criteria for a masterpiece?

I have no idea. I don’t say they don’t exist but I have no idea.

And yet listening to a masterpiece you seem to be certain of your judgment.

It comes down to faith, to belief. Just as I accept the existence of God, I accept beauty, I accept emotion and I accept a masterpiece… Exactly what makes up a masterpiece escapes me… I can analyze anything. But a page, a line, a measure of Schubert, I have no idea.

How much training is necessary to appreciate great music?

One can be totally without training and yet feel the senses penetrated by melodic emotion – this is perfectly respectable.

How do you balance rigor and creative freedom?

I hope my teaching has influenced students to appreciate the need for rigor, for order. But in the area of style, I have never intended to exert any influence. If I am working with a foreigner and I try to make him or her into a French person I am sure to fail.

Isn’t it possible to list composers in a hierarchy of importance?

The seems very difficult to me.

Still, one could rank Beethoven against Max Bruch, for example.…

There you are falling into the abyss. You compare the Himalayas with Butte Montmartre. Really, I must say that I honestly almost never think about Max Bruch whereas hardly a day passes that I don’t think about Beethoven.

How would you sum up your role as a professor?

I know my job. I am someone who can help students acquire a basic technique, to listen, to hear, to transpose, to practice, to memorize. The role of the professor seems to me to be modest.

Another version of this essay-interview originally appeared on factsandarts.com

Michael Johnson is a music critic with particular interest in piano. He worked as a reporter and editor in New York, Moscow, Paris and London over his writing career. He is the author of five books and divides his time between Boston and Bordeaux.

 

Illustration by Michael Johnson