More riveting than magnetism?

So goes the description of Herbert Glossner, as he talks of light directed through a glass prism in a physics class. The writer, a frequent contributor to booklet notes for ECM Records, is using this as a parallel for the music of Arvo Pärt, who himself has said, "I could compare my music to white light, in which all the colours are included". As Pärt reaches his 75th birthday it seems a good time to look again at a composer who to this day proves divisive.

There are some who would say the simplicity of Part's much vaunted 'tintinnabuli' style, relegated to 'holy minimalism' by lazy journalists, steers him away from the idea of any harmonic development. As Glossner points out, though, it is wrong to speak of tonality in the case of Pärt - better, perhaps to look at the triad itself that he has chosen with which to operate in a particular piece.

'Fratres' is a great example here. It is an incredibly flexible piece, a meditation just shy of ten minutes that has been arranged for all kinds of instrumental combinations, from violin and piano to string orchestra. It is definitely the original setting of twelve cellos that works the best, though, and this appears on the first ECM disc to feature the music of Pärt, which remains their most important classical music release.

In this version, 'Fratres' stays rooted to its pedal note of 'G' throughout, making the most of the cellos' open strings and casting a haunting spell as the melody repeats, the harmony bending in response to the melody. The cellists themselves gently knock their instruments at the end of each phrase, giving a natural resonance for a helpful punctuation point.

Since 'Fratres' and 'Cantus In Memoriam Benjamin Britten', the first examples of his 'tintinnabuli' style, Pärt has been incredibly popular for a modern composer, and his Third symphony, an important junction in his output, shows how he has drawn from early music to inform his harmonic and melodic thinking.

This too is clear from the St John Passion, which I saw at the Proms last week (reviewed on Classical Source), though less so in the Fourth symphony (which I reviewed over on musicOMH), given its UK premiere at the festival by the Philharmonia and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

It made me wonder if the adulation he receives in the West these days means he spends less time in his home country of Estonia, and if his music and its effects are now more Hollywood than Tallinn. In the two concerts I have wondered at the St John Passion and its subtle repetition and meditation, spun over an hour and ten minutes, then have scratched my head rather more at the structure and apparent lack of climax in the Fourth Symphony. This work, subtitled Los Angeles, shows just how far from home Pärt is now operating, and though its style is unmistakeably his, it feels much more preplanned than a piece such as 'Cantus' or 'Fratres'.

It will be interesting to see if Pärt continues to respond to overseas commissions in this way. When he's at his best his music truly is captivating and entrancing, but it seems that as with so many contemporary composers the early works are the best – or, for now, the best understood. Time will tell, but I will continue to head to his music of the 1970s and 1980s for an assurance of originality and truly wonderful other-worldliness.

Schumann - a birthday wish

Two centuries ago this year, one of my favourite composers was born – Robert Schumann. His influence on his contemporaries, notably Brahms, is considerable, while Elgar, Shostakovich and more recently Kurtág are just three composers to acknowledge his influence and recognise his subtle innovations and melodic skills.
In this month's Gramophone magazine, the cellist Steven Isserlis, an ardent exponent of the composer, delights in his unpredictable style, focussing on more unsung pieces such as the piano trios to prove his point, and pointing out that these, along with several Schumann chamber works, are now regular features of the concert repertoire.

And yet it remains fashionable for journalists and critics to take pot shots at him, and they find it all too easy to criticise orchestration, melodic style, harmonic invention and form. On one of the sites for which I regularly write, I have found three separate reviewers condemning the 'Rhenish' symphony as a deeply flawed work. One even goes as far as to say that 'most famous for his lieder, Schumann's skills as a symphonist are questionable to say the least'.

This, in my view at least, is utter rubbish - whichever of the composer’s four symphonies you choose to listen to. Steven Isserlis also argues on the composer's behalf, both in the characteristically passionate Gramophone piece and in an interview I did with him for musicOMH, where he affirmed Schumann to be his favourite composer.

In my opinion, Schumann proves a highly gifted melodist, an extremely perceptive mood setter, and a composer with a beautiful harmonic turn to his writing. Many of his works bear this out - and as I write I continue to discover more. Two examples will suffice, however, despite the temptation to turn to the piano music – the first the glorious Adagio and Allegro for horn or cello and piano, and the second the unfairly maligned 'Rhenish'.

That no less a figure than Oliver Knussen performed the symphony at the Proms recently shows how much esteem in which he holds the work. In the best performances this piece bursts from the blocks with an expression of undiluted joy, and in the two period instrument performances I have been lucky enough to enjoy that has emphatically been the case.

Sure, there are plenty of notes at times, and the good tunes are repeated relatively frequently, but the notion these techniques are somehow backward is a hackneyed one. Indeed, when Mahler revisited the symphonies to change some of the orchestration and form this was out of love and admiration, so that he could use them as a conductor – a fact lost on several writers who have used this as another stick with which to beat the composer.

So let's hear it for one of the 19th century's true musical greats and finest composers, and let's hope he gets his due recognition, despite the current state of misunderstanding.

Recomposing Mahler

Deutsche Grammophon's occasional series 'Recomposing' invites recognised electronic producers to offer a fresh take on their chosen piece of classical music. Carl Craig and Jimi Tenor are previous targets in the series, but when the label asked Matthew Herbert to contribute, they may not have envisaged that he would go to such lengths to air his thoughts on the Adagio from Mahler's Tenth Symphony.

Herbert takes the recording made by Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Philharmonia as his starting point, and feeds it through his own studio technology. I listened to his reinterpretation for the first time late last night, conditions ideal for one of the finest nocturnal pieces of nocturnal music I have experienced.

Herbert bravely starts with the famous, all-encompassing chord from the symphony's climax, but floats it past the listener like a thick cloud, completely out of focus. There is then a sudden cut to a relatively scratchy viola playing the movement's main theme, recorded live at Mahler's graveside – a typical touch of Herbert reverence and invention (some would say eccentricity) rolled in to one. The movement then unfolds as you would expect, musically, but spatially we're on the move, tumbling forward through space, then suddenly stopping to take in an atmosphere, then zooming in on a micro theme.

With Herbert using the principal material early on it would seem there is nowhere to go, but these spatial variations are intriguing. They become disconcerting on headphones, like a piece of David Lynch film music, and several times I found myself looking round for noises that were not there. Herbert does, however, keep the serenity of the original. There is more than a hint of Damien Hirst, especially in the idea of recording some of the symphony being played in a coffin - but Herbert stops well short of the artist's sensationalist tactics, composing out of reverence for Mahler rather than a desire to shock. And yes, he is 'composing' in the true meaning of the word, taking the elements of the music that hint at an extra dimension - the harmonic advances, the silvery wisps of melody and the occasionally sudden gear change from slow to manic - before a restful return is made. Herbert gets all of that with modern recording techniques that move between the affectionate, the macabre and the downright strange.

The focus on spatial awareness means Herbert can pan out from the orchestra when he wants to, taking us underwater, out of body, out in to the open. It's a reimagining of the traditional 'sat down' concert experience, a response taken on the move. Sometimes the bass is really ramped up, with a sudden sense of anger in the fourth section, where the searing violins pierce a raft of warped distortion in the middle.
Perhaps inevitably the tension lags, and a passing hearse (recorded live, of course) offers relatively little, until the chord itself comes back in its proper place. Here the effect is massive, with everything to the max, especially the trumpet - and then the hammering drums and something like a massive windscreen wiper get to work, the only time Herbert employs his own percussion. The comedown is truly spooky and unsettling, before the music ends in weightlessness. And then, a door shuts – a simple and poignant moment.

So why go to this level of description? It is an attempt to show how much Herbert has put into his view of Mahler's final completed symphonic movement, a kind of a musical analysis of his reaction. It proves to be fascinating stuff, if a little macabre at times, but shows ultimately just how much electronic music and classical music rub shoulders. Composers of the former kind are much more plugged in than you might think.