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Guest post by Simon Brackenborough

It’s safe to say that I was never a conventional teenager. Some time around the age of 15 or 16, while my peers were obsessed with Radiohead, I discovered a profound affinity with the music of half-forgotten British composer Arnold Bax (1883-1953). I became absorbed in his epic symphonies, chamber music and tone poems. So In 2003, aged 18, I wrote to the then director of the BBC Proms to ask why a Bax symphony hadn’t been programmed for the 50th anniversary of his death. His reply was that the last time one had had a Proms performance, the attendance had been one of the lowest in memory. His memory, that is: the fateful Prom was in 1984, a few months before I was born.

Arnold Bax

Many classical fans have their own favourite neglected composers, or works of music that haven’t received their fair due. In most cases we rarely, if ever, get chances to hear them performed live. And yet at the same time, we live in a golden age for access to recorded music. Thanks to YouTube, there is now more classical music available to hear than you could listen to in a lifetime, much of it by composers you’ve never heard of, and all for free.

But taking time to explore this amazing resource can be a daunting prospect, and that’s why last year I started a blog specifically to share some of this rarely-performed music with a wider audience, and explain why it means something to me. But I don’t want to argue that Bax or anyone else join an elite canon of great composers. Mostly I avoid the whole concept: the words ‘great’ and ‘masterpiece’, while fine as expressions of admiration, are actually some of the least informative descriptions you can give. In fact, they are often a way of not exploring what the music means.

The idea of timeless ‘greatness’ is also ahistorical. Even Bach’s music needed a revival in the nineteenth century. However proud we may be of our discerning ears, we all underestimate the role that expectations play in our perceptions, and studies have shown this to be the case from art to wine tasting. That isn’t to deny that some works have a wide and enduring appeal, but it is to acknowledge that music can be different things to different people at different times, and for different reasons. And this is no bad thing: in fact, I argue, it opens up a much more interesting conversation to have with new listeners.

Because – crucially – we need to look at the current marginalisation of so many brilliant and individual composers as a microcosm of the bigger marginalisation of classical music within society. Both are symptoms of a failure to fully realise, and adequately express, the basic relevance of the music. That’s why I believe that if we can invite the public to hear a Bax symphony, by finding ways to engage them in who he was and what makes his music distinctive, we will increase the pool of listeners who come to hear Beethoven too.

It’s not about whether enough people will like Bax. But by confidently confronting the question of why he produces both obsessive fans and sniffy detractors, you have exactly the opportunity to engage people that the Proms should have seized with both hands. Disagreement, after all, is a sign that an art form matters: a repertoire of limited risk is a repertoire of limited relevance. The industry will be in a healthier place when concert-goers are less sure that they will enjoy the experience, but are willing to pay to find out.

There’s no doubt in my mind that there’s a huge untapped curiosity about classical music in the wider population, but with busy lives, listeners need to be given a route in. The success of the TED movement shows a popular hunger for learning which can be met with a smart, co-ordinated effort to feed that curiosity. Similarly encouraging is that my two most recent blog posts, looking at music through the theme of St. George’s Day and natural wildness, both had a great response from people who are not classical fans, but for whom I offered a musical connection to subjects they were already interested in. And in these contexts, an obscure composer can be just as relevant and revealing as any other.

A lateral, interdisciplinary, magpie approach surely holds more fruitful opportunities for classical music than what I call the ‘connoisseur culture’– that rather cosy preoccupation with the finer points of interpretations of core repertoire which too often seems to be the default setting in parts of the music media. Even as a music graduate I find this cliquey and uninspiring, so goodness knows how new listeners must feel. Just look at the average concert brochure today, and how little information is given on why you might want to hear anything on offer. The assumed knowledge of the repertoire suggests an industry content with preaching to the converted.

Of course, I understand that there are commercial calculations in programming pieces that are proven to sell tickets and that performers are already familiar with. But the canon, like any hierarchy, is also a way of preserving the status quo, and the status quo always benefits those with power. For people at the top of the classical industry, unfamiliar repertoire challenges the expertise on which they have built their authority. Yet as the comic writer and lifelong classical listener Armando Iannucci observed in this fantastic speech to the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2006, new listeners are blessed by not knowing what is deemed to be worthy. I sometimes think we would be better off with people running the show who know nothing about the music at all.

If it were up to me, finding ways to connect people to the ideas and themes of the music would have a much bigger role in how performances are conceived and marketed; an over-priced concert programme that you have to read in a hurry just doesn’t cut it. A good example of a step in the right direction was the heavily-conceptualised The Rest Is Noise festival at London’s South Bank Centre. Discussion of themes can even form part of the event itself, as with the Orpheus Sinfonia’s ‘Beneath the Score’ concerts, which combine biography and analysis with performance. But these forward-thinking examples are still too rare.

Steve Jobs once said of his rival Bill Gates that ‘he’d be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.’ Now I’m no Apple-worshipper, but it’s clear that their phenomenal success is not just down to computer science, but understanding aesthetics, intuitive design, and consumer psychology. In contrast, we have a classical music industry that produces incredible musicians but is pretty woeful at telling the world why all their years of training, and all the amazing music they play, actually has anything to say. Even worse, it often doesn’t seem to care.

Of course I’m not the first person to make these sorts of arguments, and I won’t be the last. I particularly recommend this typically insightful post from the excellent On An Overgrown Path blog, contrasting the growth of Mahler’s popularity with that of ever-neglected Malcolm Arnold. But the arguments need continual revisiting, reconsidering, and refreshing. Because too often, classical music looks like it’s stuck in a dead-end job: one of comfortable routine that just about pays the bills, but whose narrow scope and dull repetition prevents any hope of reaching something greater.

Perhaps, in fact, the classical music world is sometimes guilty of forgetting just what an amazing resource a musical score is. Each one is a repository of years of learning, soul-searching and toil, and yet look at how we treat them – the majority gather dust while a select few grow dog-eared through overuse. This is nothing short of an artistic tragedy. The fact that scores are the starting point for classical music is what makes the art form so special, and it’s vital that they are at the heart of where it goes next.

That does not mean that all pieces offer something equally compelling. But, to borrow from George Orwell, it is to remind us that each reflects a composer seeing, feeling, hearing, and understanding the world. Quite simply, for every artist who lies forgotten we miss a unique perspective of what it means to be human; our culture carries one mind less, one world less. That is the essential truth that classical music needs to remember in order to thrive. We’re all here just trying to make sense of being alive. And through the incredible richness and diversity of our music, that’s all we should be trying to do.

Simon Brackenborough is a music graduate, currently living in Hampshire, and author of the Corymbus blog which has a special focus on neglected or little-known repertoire and composers.

https://corymbus.wordpress.com/

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Opened on 31 May 1901, Wigmore Hall, nestling unobtrusively just a stone’s throw from the bustle and litter of Oxford Street in a row of tall Edwardian façades, is London’s pre-eminent venue for chamber music, song recitals and solo piano concerts. It was built to provide the city with a venue that was impressive yet intimate enough for recitals of chamber music. With near-perfect acoustics, the hall quickly became celebrated across Europe and featured many of the great artistes of the 20th century.

Originally called Bechstein Hall, it was built by the German piano manufacturer Carl Bechstein, whose busy showroom was next door. At the turn of the twentieth century, Bechstein was Europe’s leading piano maker, its instruments preferred by most pianists outside America, where Steinway predominated. The Bechstein piano company built similar concert halls Paris and St Petersburg to showcase its instruments and the leading performers and singers of the day. With its special barrel roof “shoebox” design, beloved of many musicians, the hall boasts a fine acoustic, while its small size (its capacity is c600) makes it the perfect place to enjoy intimate chamber recitals.

When it opened, Bechstein Hall was promoted as the best of places for intimate music making, and boasted unrivaled comfort and facilities for patrons and artists with its elegant green room up a short flight of stairs behind the stage (so that singers did not arrive on stage breathless). At the time of its opening, concert life and leisure in general in London were enjoying something of a revolution. Theatres and music halls were opening across the west end, a wide public was being introduced to the experience of shopping for pleasure in the new “department stores” (Selfridges is a mere 10 minute walk, at the most, from Wigmore Street), and with cheap and efficient public transport, it was easy for people to enjoy these delights in the centre of the metropolis. A new breed of international concert promoters, agents and impresarios, such as Robert Newman, who with conductor Henry Wood founded the world-famous Proms, were dedicated to organising high-quality recitals, and Bechstein Hall alone scheduled two hundred concerts. The opening concert on 31 May 1901 featured the virtuoso pianist and composer Ferruccio Busoni and violinist Eugène Ysaÿe; soon London’s concert-going populace were flocking to Bechstein Hall to see Frank Merrick and Leopold Godowsky, Artur Schnabel, Chopin specialist Vladimir de Pachmann, Camille Saint-Saens, Max Reger and ‘Valkyrie of the Piano’, the Venezuelan lady pianist Teresa Carreňo. The hall continues to enjoy special associations with leading international performers.

The hall was designed by architect Thomas Edward Collcutt who also designed the Savoy Hotel on the Strand. The interior is Renaissance style, with marble and alabaster walls, and above the small bell-shaped stage is a beautiful Arts and Crafts freize designed by Edward Moira depicting the Soul of Music. In the lights of the hall, the freize vibrates with the burnished radiance of a Byzantine mosaic.

In June 1916 Bechstein was forced to cease trading in London. Strong anti-German sentiments and the passing of the Trading with the Enemy Amendment Act 1916 meant that is was no longer possible to trade viably, and all property including the concert hall and the showrooms was seized and summarily closed. The hall was sold at auction to Debenhams, was rechristened Wigmore Hall and opened under its new name in 1917.

  

Today the hall enjoys a position of pre-eminence not only in London but across the international classical music scene, and a debut at Wigmore Hall is the long-held dream of many young and up-and-coming performers. Alongside its reputation for chamber music of the highest quality, the Wigmore’s audience is famous for its loyalty, intelligence and discernment. It is considered by many musicians to be one of the most demanding audiences of any concert hall, which brings its own unique set of pressures, and many performers will play a programme in regional venues and for local music societies before “doing a Wigmore”. But the hall holds a special place in the affections of many performers, who regard it as their artistic home in London. There are no rough edges in this beautifully proportioned, perfect shoe-box of a hall, no jarring modern architectural details to confuse and distract. The tread of the thick crimson carpets is complimented by the red Verona marble frieze, the bustle of Oxford Street and the West End forgotten in the spacious vestibule and elegant green room. Playing at the Wigmore or being in the audience, one feels a sense of history, of heritage, for the Wigmore inhabits a different era and ethos to other concert venues in London. All the time one is aware of the great performances that have taken place in the hall, and the walls of the green room are lined with photographs confirming the heritage of the hall: Rachmaninoff scowling, as if the last thing he wanted to do was play the piano, Britten’s severe stare, Tippett’s twinkling eyes.

As a member of the audience, attending a concert at the Wigmore has its own special rituals from the moment one steps through the glass doors. The richly-carpeted vestibule is a place where people meet, queue for tickets, purchase programmes, CDs or magazines. Sometimes if you arrive early, you might hear the soloist warming up, and that can lend a special frisson to the evening, a glimpse of what is to come. Downstairs the bars and restaurant resonate with pre-concert conversations, and sometimes when we visit we might spot a “musical celebrity” – Steven Isserlis, Alfred Brendel, Julian Lloyd Weber. I usually arrive in good time for drinks and chat with friends before the bell summons us to the hall and we sink into the plush comfort of the crimson seats. In the auditorium, in the moments before the concert begins, one senses the great collective breath of the audience’s expectation. Meanwhile, backstage the performer goes through his or her own special pre-concert rites.

People, usually those who have never stepped inside the Wigmore let alone enjoyed a concert there, grumble about the great age of the audience, which can make someone in their 40s seem extremely young (I never feel this when I’m there), or that the audience is overly highbrow, snobbish or elitist. But get talking to the person next to you (spying my reporter’s notebook is usually enough to get a conversation going) and you will find that the average Wigmore audience member is none of these things, simply someone who really enjoys and appreciates live classical music.

In recent years the Wigmore had broadened its remit and, in addition to lunchtime, evening and Sunday morning concerts, offers a lively education programme, music for small babies and toddlers, and “Wigmore Lates”, concerts which start at 10pm and include not just classical music but jazz and folk too. There are masterclasses and study days with leading performers on subjects such as Chopin’s Preludes and coping with performance anxiety. And on the annual London Open House Weekend visitors can explore the backstage area and even take to the stage, momentarily at least, and maybe dream of playing to a full house.

Happy Birthday, dear Wigmore Hall!

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Daniel Barenboim, musical polymath, is in town for a four-concert Schubert Project residency in which he will traverse all 11 of Schubert’s completed piano sonatas. Prior to the first concert, he unveiled a brand new piano – one with his name on it. The Barenboim piano was conceived and developed in a collaboration between Barenboim and Belgian piano maker Chris Maene, with the cooperation of Steinway. What makes this piano different from the modern concert grand is that it is straight strung, and Barenboim used a Liszt piano as the inspiration for his eponymous instrument. It is said to offer a greater variety of colour, transparency and clarity across its range. Audiences at Barenboim’s Schubert recitals will have the opportunity to hear for themselves this new piano in action.

Unsurprisingly, it was a full house at the Royal Festival Hall and there was a distinct buzz of anticipation and reverence ahead of the start of the concert. Sitting in the rear stalls didn’t really offer myself and my concert companions a chance to examine the piano in detail. The piano remained firmly closed, lid down, until a few moments before Barenboim took to the stage, and was closed up again during the interval.

The jury is still out on whether the Barenboim piano was noticeably different to a modern Steinway, and any clarity and crispness of articulation, or nuanced dynamics are surely the result of the pianist’s technique, not the piano: one would expect an artist of Barenboim’s calibre to make even the most beat-up church hall piano sound lovely.

The theme of the first of Barenboim’s Schubert concerts was the key of A, as he presented three sonatas from different periods in the composer’s life. The D537, in A minor, was composed by Schubert when he was 20 and is the earliest surviving completed piano sonata, though it was not published until 1852 as the Op. post. 164. It begins with a dotted motif followed by filigree semiquaver broken chords. It’s emotionally charged and already demonstrates Schubert’s skill in unexpected harmonic shifts which colour the music. The middle movement, in warm E major, is genial and nostalgic, with a theme that would be heard later in the concert (Schubert “exported” it as the Rondo theme of the final movement of the D959). Yet, typically of Schubert, the mood shifts during the trio, a chilly march in A minor. The finale has a Beethovenian cast, with a dash of Haydn’s wit, yet already full of Schubert’s trademark unexpected harmonic shifts and emotional volte-faces.

I think many of us were trying to hear whether the piano really sounded that different instead of concentrating on the music, but the opening Sonata was presented with energy, though not always entirely convincingly, and keen sense of Schubert’s tonal palette, especially in the final movement. The middle movement, whose theme was reprised later in the D959, began genially enough, but the middle section had an ominous tread, for which the bass notes of the piano were suitably rich and dark.

The first A major Sonata of the evening is known as “the little A major” and was the most genial of the three sonatas presented in the concert.  Barenboim created a sense of intimacy in the first movement, but again one had the sense he wasn’t entirely convinced by it himself. It continued into the ethereal slow movement, whose pianissimos were, at times, barely a whisper. The finale was lyrical and good-natured, the opening theme played with a songful elegance, though I felt he pushed the tempo a little too much for my taste so that some of the lyricism was lost.

After the interval was “my’ Sonata, the penultimate of Schubert’s piano sonatas, the D959 in A major, which I have (perhaps recklessly) set myself the task of learning. I was extremely curious to hear Barenboim’s take on this big work, not least whether he could carry the narrative of the first movement right through to the closing sentence of the finale. My difficulty with hearing other people’s versions of this sonata is that they often conflict with my own, which can make me the most pedantic of listeners. I spend a lot of time with this Sonata. To say I eat, drink and breathe it might be excessive, but I often find myself waking in the night and playing it through it my head. The opening statement, a chorale-like sentence, lacked real nobility and drive and the propulsion towards the suspension at the end of the passage was lost in some curious pulling about of the tempo. There were one or two rocky moments as some of the triplet figures were lost – and this issue reappeared in the finale, where perhaps Barenboim was tiring (this is a big work – lasting around 40 minutes, even without the exposition repeat in the first movement), and overall I felt the movement lacked power and drive.

The slow movement, about much has been said, written and surmised, a melancholy folksong with a storm at its centre, lacked cohesion and there were some serious memory issues towards the end. The movement seemed relentless rather than revelatory. However, the scherzo was bright and crisp, with some sensitive highlighting of the melodic line in the trio section. The finale seemed rushed, the triplets often losing clarity, but the sections in the coda where the music stalls, as if to take a long breath, to reflect on what has gone before, were perfectly paced and the closing statement, a recapitulation of the opening sentence from the first movement, was emphatic. The standing ovation which followed was as much for Barenboim the man, the demigod, as for the performance and the new piano.

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Who or what inspired you to take up the piano and pursue a career in music?

I started playing on a whim. My mother walked in from work one evening and asked out of the blue if I wanted to learn the piano. Neither of my parents are musicians but they have the broadest musical tastes of anyone I know and had a wicked sound system which was playing music constantly. I gave an offhanded “yeah why not” and it all snowballed pretty quickly from there.

After a year or so I started participating in local competitions in Philadelphia where I was brought up and when it looked like I was taking music seriously we moved to England so I could attend the Yehudi Menuhin School.

When I was eleven one of my teachers told me I’d never be a pianist because I started too late. That was it – I had to prove her wrong and here I am! Maybe she was flexing her reverse psychology knowhow.

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

I spent some time in the Gambia to study Wolof drumming and in Bali playing and listening to lots of Gamelan. Both of those trips had a huge impact on my playing. Mostly they changed the way I listen. Especially coming from a background which is so focused on learning visually – from a score. They were incredibly liberating experiences for me.

Some other important influences are watching dance and doing it, the photographs of Ansel Adams and practicing meditation.

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

Staying balanced, healthy, positive and productive in a life which can fluctuate between breathless busy-ness and the threat of total stagnation.

After finishing my formal education and years of having the luxury of playing for my teachers on a regular basis it took some time to start trusting my own musical instincts and to believe my own feedback.

Which repertoire/composers do you think you play best?

All the music I haven’t played yet.

How do you make repertoire choices from season to season?

Often a venue will request a specific piece or composer and I’ll build a programme around that. I also keep an eye out for anniversaries and featured composers in up coming festivals.

I’m all for choosing pieces that really suit my playing. It can be tempting to perform works I think I ‘should’ play or adhere to what I think will placate a certain kind of audience but if it doesn’t suit me and I don’t totally love it then there’s a risk of a performance falling flat (and it has!)

I always have something on the go that pushes me to my limits and balance that with pieces that come more naturally.

Which performances/recordings are you most proud of? 

I don’t get much enjoyment out of recording as a soloist but absolutely love recording with ensembles. I used to be a member of the band Jetsam and we wrote and recorded an album called Disruption which was commissioned by the Barbican in collaboration with the street dance company Boy Blue Entertainment. We wrote most of Disruption as we recorded which allowed for our imaginations to run wild. There’s a big Japanese Taiko and Noh theatre influence in the piece which meant a lot of recording us stamping in a padded hallway. I spent a couple days at the piano recording every sound I could think of on the strings, metal frame and wood. Playing with harmonics, using chains, plastic, glass and rubber. It was a proper prepared piano geek-out and the album sounds amazing.

Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in?

I recently played at Café OTO which was so much fun. It’s small, dark and intimate – I think I nearly head butted someone in the front row when I bowed. The audience was one of the most attentive, supportive an electric I’ve ever played for which restored my faith in the contemporary classical music audience. I also love performing in the Barbican. I’ve performed in every one of their performance spaces as a soloist and in ensembles and bands I’m involved with and it has such a stimulating and creative atmosphere. On any given day there is something weird and wonderful happening in one of its nooks and crannies.

Favourite pieces to perform? Listen to?

I’m very fickle. I tend to think that whatever I’m playing in the moment is the Best Thing Ever!

I love performing George Crumb’s ‘Makrokosmos’. I have a secret predilection for a bit of theatre and because of the extended techniques, singing and moaning involved in its performance it’s a full body theatrical experience. I used to get so frustrated by the static nature of the piano and was hugely jealous of my cellist friends. The process of learning ‘Makrokosmos’ taught me how to overcome that immovability, become more malleable and dance with the instrument.

To listen to…shall we just say for the Spring/Summer season? Otherwise we’ll be here forever.

Appalachian Spring which, thanks to my dad, is my first memory of music. Lately I’ve been listening to John Legend and The Roots album Wake Up which transports me back to growing up in Philadelphia. Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians, Partita for 8 Voices by Caroline Shaw, Chaka Kahn. I’m always inspired by hearing what my friends make and have been listening non-stop to Sam Mumford’s album Scatter and Old Man Diode The King Krill. 

Who are your favourite musicians?

There are so many I admire for different reasons and on different days. To name a few: Glen Gould, Bjork, my husband and saxophonist Jon Shenoy, John Adams, Beyoncé, John Cage, Seth McFarlane, Joanna Newsom, Pat Metheney, Punch Brothers, Joan Baez, Charles Ives.

What is your most memorable concert experience?

A few years ago I performed ‘Phrygian Gates’ for John Adams. Before the concert there was a Question and Answer session in which he said he didn’t like the piece very much anymore. After I performed he came up on stage with tears in his eyes, gave me a hug and said to the audience “I’ve changed my mind, I like it again.”

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

Keep your ‘don’t know’ mind. Play with musicians who challenge you. Get involved with projects that scare the hell out of you. Make mistakes – they could turn into something wonderful. Learn how to meditate. Meditate. Practice as much as you can while you can but remember that it’s only a small part of the process.

You have been working with the composer Mica Levi on some new works for piano. Tell us more about this collaboration and the pieces….

Working with Mica has been my ideal collaborative process. We’ve had the time and space to learn each other’s processes. Trying out loads of ideas, figuring out what works and what doesn’t, trying something else. It’s been such a valuable experience to learn her compositional language in every stage of the works progress. From conception to performance. The pieces she’s writing are a collection of short piano studies. I performed three at Café OTO at the beginning of the year and will be performing three new ones at the Forge in June.

Each of the six pieces presents a single theme, for example an interval, the resonance produced in a particular register of the piano or a specific attack on the keys. They are really ‘studies in piano’ in the purest sense. Beautiful, raw and a little bit dirty. At times quite exposing for the pianist, which exhilarates me. Mica is extremely specific about what she wants to hear and it’s been exciting for me for me to work with her in finding the best way to translate that on to the piano – playing around with notation which can perfectly capture both the sound in her ears and how I can best physicalise it.

What are the particular challenges and pleasures of working with a living composer?

The moment I start playing someone their piece the doubting voice in my head immediately shouts “Ah, you’ve completely misunderstood everything they’ve written – you’re going to embarrass them and yourself”. That voice is a total liar but the fear creeps in nonetheless.

The beauty is that the composer is there to answer every question and wonderment that’s come up for me during the learning process. To help me get down to the bare bones of their work and discover the weird and wonderful processes a composer goes through to translate an idea into sound. The defining moment for me is when a composer trusts me enough to cut the umbilical chord and hand me the ownership of their work.

What is your most treasured possession?

My Yamaha grand piano which has travelled with me from Philadelphia to London with many stops on the way. But if there were a fire I’d grab my red Versace wedding dress.

What is your present state of mind?

Open, alert, mischievous, spacious and a little self-conscious.

Eliza McCarthy premieres new works by Mica Lewis, together with music by Henry Cowell and John Adams at The Forge, Camden, north London on Wednesday 3 June. Further information and tickets here

www.elizamccarthy.com