The Lady from Arezzo
Page 5
Winterreise doesn’t need updating, embellishing, transcribing or paraphrasing. There have been numerous attempts to film it or bring it on stage. I remember Peter Pears on TV tucked in a heavy winter coat and braving the snow, or another singer who was made to fly through the air like a crow. There has also been a performance on the viola in which the lack of words and their declamation made for a gaping void even for musical viewers who didn’t know German. According to Bostridge, ‘The imaginative space that a singer creates enhances the performance of song. The audience has no set-up props to engage with – only the music, the instrument, the bodies of the performers, the face of the singer.’
Ian Bostridge’s book is brilliant and unique. But it is, of course, a book and not the performance. After reading it we may listen differently to one of the supreme works of art that, despite being tainted by death, makes life worth living.
Hans Arp
translated by Jeremy Adler
From CONSTELLATIONS
Enormous dragons drumming on the clouds
Enormous dragons drumming on the gates
Enormous dragons drumming on the mirrors
The dragons are wearing hats of kiddies’ heads
The glassy heads are wearing iron hats
Magnetic nuts are growing on glassy sticks
The heads of glass are rolling from their pockets
Instead of heads the kids are wearing clouds
Ernst Jandl
translated by Jeremy Adler
MOUNTAIN GOAT
A
Leg
Bugs
Old
Einstein
A
Goat
Mocks
Einstein’s leg
A
Trick
Sticks
A
Kick
At
Einstein
Einstein
Stops
And
Nods
SENTENCE MIXTURE
No time of the year
No year
No time
No heat
No warmth
No coolness
No cold
No frost
No wetness
No dampness
No dryness
No light
No darkness
No din
No noise
No sound
No tone
No silence.
Schumann’s Piano Concerto
Some Notes on Performance
Piano and orchestra, piano versus orchestra, piano as orchestra – the connections are manifold. J. S. Bach, the first of the great keyboard composers, was the initiator of the concerto for one, two, three and four harpsichords. At the same time in solo works such as his Italian Concerto the keyboard writing itself shows orchestral features, the first movement alternating between stretches of tutti and solo. Among Mozart’s piano sonatas there are a number of pieces including the famous one in A major k. 331 that turn the piano into an outright orchestra, whereas his marvellous piano concertos clearly distinguish between the timbre of the soloist and the impact of the ensemble. In Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, an orchestra is evoked with unprecedented power, thus anticipating the road to Liszt. Chopin, in contrast, stayed within his exquisite pianistic confines. While Schumann’s Symphonic Études presented an essay in piano orchestration, the solo instrument in his A minor Concerto remains distinctly itself, assisted rather than assaulted or contradicted by the orchestra.
There are pieces of music that seem perfect on the page and stubbornly resist perfection in the concert hall. Playing Schumann’s Piano Concerto appeared to me like trying, in Chicago, to walk from Orchestra Hall to the Four Seasons Hotel. The highest floors of the Hancock Building at the end of Michigan Avenue remain visible – however, the nearer to them you come, the more they seem to recede.
When I first played the work I had no inkling that I was embarking on a risky task. I had barely started appearing with orchestras, had not encountered stage fright and was far from considering the how and why of performing. Over the next fifty years, I had ample opportunity to try to do better.
How does a player start to get acquainted with a piece? There is, above all, the composer’s text, frequently corrupted by editors. And there are, in most cases, the performances one has had the opportunity to hear, performances of varying quality and competence that may leave, in a young player, a lasting imprint. In contrast, dealing with a work of new music usually means that one has to come in from the cold. When I studied Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto in the 1950s, it had barely been tackled before.
There are musicians who avoid listening to the playing of others in order to develop as much as possible their own uncontaminated conception of a piece. That, to my mind, is carrying things too far. After all, one can listen critically, and learn to steer clear of what one shouldn’t do. But it would also be misguided to reject what others have done for the sake of being different and ‘original’. The personal imprint of a performance should be the result not of premeditation but of a deep familiarity with the piece.
When had I heard Schumann’s Piano Concerto performed? My first piano teacher in Zagreb had played it and got into some trouble in the finale. Then there was Alfred Cortot’s recording from 1927, and a more recent one played by Dinu Lipatti with Karajan conducting. Although Lipatti had at some stage studied with Cortot, these recordings are polar opposites. Much as I admire Cortot’s superb 1933 recording of Chopin’s Préludes I cannot count his version of the Schumann Concerto among his triumphs. It may be far from boring and present some ravishing sounds, but it is, to my ears, remarkably exaggerated, turning the work into a rather bombastic showpiece with added doublings, echo dynamics, transpositions and several gratuitous changes of tempo while ignoring many of the composer’s markings. Lipatti, on the other hand, handles it with impeccable poise in the neoclassical manner of his composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, who was also his occasional duet partner.
Very few piano concertos, if any, have generated such a wide variety of readings. Lipatti himself gave, in a live recording shortly before his death, a remarkably different, personal and warmly committed performance with Ernest Ansermet. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, on the other hand, in an early one with Dimitri Mitropoulos, sounds frenzied, while his much later recording with Sergiu Celibidache is nothing less than lethargic, and some ten minutes longer. As for my own three recordings, it needed the stepping stones of the first two to arrive at the 2001 live recording with Simon Rattle and the Vienna Philharmonic as ideal partners. My particular thanks go to the oboist and clarinettist, whose contributions in this piece are of crucial importance.
For some players, Schumann’s score merely serves as raw material to be moulded ad libitum. What does Schumann write in his Musikalische Haus- und Lebensregeln (Musical Rules for House and Life)? ‘Always play flexibly and boldly! Remember that two bars rendered in the same tempo are proof of a lack of imagination.’ No, I made that up. Here is what he really said: ‘Play in time. The playing of some virtuosos resembles a drunkard walking. Don’t follow their example.’ I do not see why after the opening allegro bars the cantabile theme should be played in a markedly different and slower tempo. In this work, essential tempo changes are indicated clearly enough except, obviously, in the cadenza.
After hearing various performances, what was it that in Schumann’s Concerto I heard in myself? Something noble and ardently lyrical but not recklessly rhapsodic. There should be, or so I felt, the possibility of avoiding both hyper-Romantic hubris and a streamlined fluency that makes the music resemble Hummel’s or Mendelssohn’s. Schumann, to my knowledge, was neither Russian, nor Polish, nor French. He was steeped in the ‘German’ tradition, and deeply admired Bach, Beethoven and Schubert. His Piano Concerto may be taken as a ravishing link between Beethoven and Brahms. The first movement’s tempo indication Allegro affettuoso is frequently misunderstood: affettuoso
means neither passionate nor affected, but affectionate. Only once, during the development section, is passionato asked for, and linked to an increase of tempo. I do not blindly adhere to metronome markings but I think that the speeds Schumann suggests in this work give a fair indication of the character of each movement. The fluency of the middle movement’s Andantino grazioso reminds us that we should not mistake it for a slow movement in the traditional sense, as some German pianists did, and that the espressivo cantilena of the cellos can be conveyed with discreet rapture. One of Clara Schumann’s English students, Fanny Davies, recorded the work in the 1930s. Her Andantino is the most fluent of all. But with all due respect for a performance that ought to have to come from the horse’s mouth, I cannot accept her lack of flexibility: ritardandi at transitions are frequently ignored. The exceptionally fine finale, on the other hand, is less a dashing virtuoso piece than a dancing vivace that should be kept firmly under control. Its enthusiasm must never go overboard. Clara Schumann rejoiced that Robert had finally produced for her a ‘bravura piece’. But the pianistic effort that goes into practising such a piece easily results in a prestissimo romp pleasing those members of the audience who, metaphorically speaking, listen to music with a stopwatch. In technically gifted players, there is a momentum that unleashes speed like an avalanche. Ensemble players, of course, have to resist this. Why shouldn’t the soloist?
It was a noble gesture of Liszt to invite Clara, when she resumed her solo career after Robert’s death, to perform the A minor Concerto in Weimar on 27 October 1854 under his own baton. That Clara lacked any understanding for Liszt’s music didn’t prevent him from generously appreciating her playing, and warmly admiring the compositions of her husband. Liszt reproached himself in later years for not having more actively supported Schumann’s music as a virtuoso.
*
How seriously should we take a composer’s markings? The question immediately arises: which composer’s? There are those who precisely imagine how their music should sound, the most extreme example I know being György Kurtág. At the other end of the spectrum, there are composers who leave a great deal to the soloist. (Works for ensembles are in general marked more carefully.) A paragon of completeness, clarity, practicality and precision is Béla Bartók. An example of vagueness would be Busoni, who himself treated the works by others quite freely, maintaining that writing down a composition already amounts to a transcription. And there is Mozart, who in his piano works offers both varieties of markings: none, and too many. Reger, Schoenberg and Berg tended to overmark. The composer who with impressive skill and confidence asks for the essential is Beethoven. To ignore his markings – providing the player understands them properly – is the performer’s loss. According to my ripe-old-age experience, some 90 per cent of them make eminent sense. Chopin’s markings can be quite confusing: look at all the variants within the contemporary editions of his own works. It is not entirely surprising that he has been treated in cavalier fashion by many Chopin specialists. But it would be a mistake to discount his markings right away. Many of them make good sense. The same applies to Schumann. To be sure, there are odd blunders, including the prescription Durchweg leise zu halten (Softly throughout) in the third movement of his C major Fantasie Op. 17, a movement that includes two glorious climaxes. Schumann composed at great speed, yet many of his markings are more plausible than we would like to allow.
After the Baroque era, the great composers have been gracious enough to leave us hints as to how their music should be performed. These instructions are never complete. But they seemed to them important enough to be put on paper. They are propositions, sometimes maybe to the composers themselves, but they do come from the source. In principle, the composer knows better. The fact that Rachmaninov or Prokofiev or even Bartók may have done some things differently when they performed does not speak against their notation. I think Bartók’s printed tempi in his Suite Op. 14 make better sense than the considerably faster ones on his recording. On the other hand, I have always felt that some of Beethoven’s own metronome figures for the ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata Op. 106 are detrimental to this great work and the clarity of its perception.
There are some rare instances where the performer has to defend a piece against the composer’s own playing. Tempi shouldn’t be decided by blindly following a metronome figure from the outset. Familiarity with all the components of a composition is needed before the player can settle on tempi that have the capability of housing them all.
In great music, markings of dynamics and articulation are not just a cosmetic arrangement on the surface to be disregarded at will. Most likely, they are connected to the character and atmosphere, the life and blood of a work. Are you one of those performers whose aim it is to float in a condition of ecstasy without rhyme or reason? Schumann’s Concerto deserves better.
Christian Morgenstern
THE KNEE
translated by Alfred Brendel
A knee walks lonely through the world.
It’s nothing but a knee!
It’s not a tent! It’s not a tree!
It’s nothing but a knee.
There was a man who in the war
was maimed from head to feet.
The knee alone remained unscathed –
A miracle indeed.
Since then it’s walking through the world.
It’s nothing but a knee.
It’s not a tent. It’s not a tree.
It’s nothing but a knee.
DAS GROSSE LALULA
Kroklokwafzi? Semememi!
Seiokrontro – prafriplo:
Bifzi, bafzi; hulalemi:
quasti basti bo …
Lalu lalu lalu lalu la!
Hontraruru miromente
zasku zes rü rü?
Entepente, leiolente
klekwapufzi lü?
Lalu lalu lalu lala la!
Simarat kos malzlpempu
silzuzankunkrei (;)!
Marjomar dos: Quempu Lempu
Siri Suri Sei []!
Lalu lalu lalu lalu la!
THE DOES’ PRAYER
translated by Max Knight
The does, as the hour grows late,
med-it-ate;
med-it-nine;
med-i-ten;
med-eleven;
med-twelve;
mednight!
The does, as the hour grows late,
meditate.
They fold their little toesies,
the doesies.
My Musical Life
In England, where I have lived for decades, people of some repute are expected to produce an autobiography. I shall never do so – I’m too fond of the truth for that – and there are many things that fascinate me more than my own personality. In this short memoir, I shall concentrate on my musical life. I do not believe that artistic merits can be derived from, or explained by, an artist’s private existence.
Nevertheless, let me start with my parents. Neither of the two families included artists or intellectuals. And, in spite of exhaustive searching, I have so far not managed to track down any Jewish ancestors. My grandfather’s connection with music consisted in the fact that Gustav and Alma Mahler learned how to ride a bicycle at his cycling school. These were the times when bicycles were equipped with one big and one small wheel. Both my mother and my father belonged to German-speaking minorities in countries that, as they felt, treated them poorly. Both had taken a few piano lessons, part of a bourgeois routine that I also experienced. As a little child I had been taught a number of folk songs by my nanny before I could operate the record player at a hotel on the Adriatic island of Krk. Among the records there was an operetta aria bellowed out by the tenor Jan Kiepura. It proclaimed that ‘whether blond or brunette I love all women’. A nice one to sing along to. In those days, the gramophone had still to be wound up, and, when it was, out rang a 1920s Berlin hit posing the question, ‘What is Meyers doing on the Himalayas?’
My parents were loving and reliab
le. That counts for a lot. For the rest, there wasn’t too much we had in common – as I discovered as a teenager – which had its advantages since I got used to finding out things for myself, a state of affairs that would become permanent.
My two piano teachers, ladies both, one in Croatian Zagreb, the other in the Styrian town of Graz, left me sufficient musical leeway. The first invested a lot of energy in strengthening my little fingers, for which I am grateful; the other one told me that I was tense and needed to relax. She didn’t tell me how but it was interesting to find out by myself. Towards the end of the war there was an extended gap in my piano playing because there was no piano. With my mother, I fled from the Russian army that was occupying Styria, and returned there only when it withdrew. Between fifteen and seventeen I made up for much of what I had missed out on off my own bat. I lived in a medieval house in Graz where I shared a room with a cousin who studied medicine and seemed to have been oblivious to noise. I composed, drew and painted, wrote sonnets and practised the piano. And I read a great deal. A public library facing the house had retained, in its cellars, an ample supply of pre-war literature. When I turned sixteen my piano teacher told me I should now continue on my own, and give a first public recital. I should also audition for the great Swiss pianist Edwin Fischer, which I did the following year. Three of his masterclasses that I attended during the Lucerne Festivals made an impact that lasts to this day. I also met Eduard Steuermann, the pupil of Busoni and Schoenberg. Apart from these encounters I studied on my own.