On the Spirit of Schubert

BBC Radio 3 have just completed another of their music marathons, where they concentrate on the output of one composer alone for a week, maybe more. Previously I have blogged about the 'Genius of Mozart', but now Franz Schubert has had his ten days in the spotlight, with 'The Spirit of Schubert' showing precisely why he is an ideal figure to put under the spotlight.

It bears repeating that Schubert seems to have lived several musical lives in one. His published catalogue by Otto Deutsch runs to nearly a thousand, and the mature examples could almost have been written by a 70-year old, not one who died at the tragically young age of 31 as Schubert did.

Perhaps Schubert's biggest contribution to classical music lies in the world of song, or 'Lied', to name it correctly – yet that is not the focus of this blog, for those works received great advocacy morning, noon and night on the radio. Nor will this piece focus on other hugely important canons such as the symphonies, the string quartets and the choral music – again, music bordering on the revolutionary. No, for me at least, the works making most impact over the ten days were those for piano.

Even within that illustrious list the stars were not the acknowledged mature masterworks, though the last three sonatas once again made their case for being the equal of any Beethoven wrote in the genre. No, the surprise elements were those 'middle' piano sonatas, not often performed in the concert hall, but revealed in the ten days as works possessing great emotion, invention and often humour.

They also showed Schubert's harmonic cunning. Never has a composer shown the aptitude for blurring the distinction between major and minor keys as much as him. A great example can be found not just in the piano sonatas but in the first of the 'Moments Musicaux', a strange utterance that daydreams in its opening melody in C major, but adds a darker afterthought in the minor key, unable to decide which one is the more conclusive. It's that sort of writing that kept Schubert as a composer capable of both darkness and light in the same sentence, leading sometimes to contradiction but often to incisive and balanced thought.

In the later works these thoughts become more outlandish and manic, perhaps nowhere more so than in the second movement of the penultimate piano sonata in A major D959. It helped that BBC Radio 3 had such distinguished pianists as Imogen Cooper and Paul Lewis to help illustrate these points in live events, but the studio recordings were equally well chosen, communicating just what a remarkable composer for the piano Schubert was. Those are the overwhelming memories I shall take with me from the ten day festival, following which I have visited a number of these works again. And who next for Radio 3? Might I suggest a trio of English composers who died in the same year, namely Elgar, Delius and Holst?

A Schubert Spotify playlist, with my highlights from a week's listening, can be found here:

Dvořák string quintets from Berlin

The grainy sound of the double bass makes for a briefly mysterious start to Dvořák’s Op.77 String Quintet. This is a form that the composer mastered, the first to do so since Mendelssohn, and his first mature work in the form predates that of Brahms by seven years. Not only that, but Dvořák was able to work the possibilities of using five stringed instruments, using the conventional instrumenatation of two violins, two violas and cello in his first published work, the A minor quartet Op.1, and also in his later Op.97 work, shot through as it is with old American-inspired melodies.

Op.77, however, is more radical for its inclusion of a double bass, and this new recording from Berlin does it proud. It has all the attributes a successful Dvořák interpretation should have – vibrant rhythms, feeling but not too much sentiment in the slow movement, and a rugged texture in the first movement in particular, with the extra weight offered by the bass section fully exploited. It also inflects Dvořák’s melodies with authentic charm and resoluteness, meaning the performance carries some real substance.

As with much of this composer’s output, the melodies are the strong point, a facet the Berliners never fail to bring home. The motif of two chords that determines the music’s direction in the first movement is well played on each occurrence, the key to each of the sections that follow, while there are some beautiful moments of duet playing between the violinists Thomas Timm and Romano Tommasini. There is a nice heft to the chords in the Scherzo, too, though this is in part checked by a heavy pull on the breaks before the trio, which itself feels a bit slow to start with.

The accompanying pieces include the Nocturne, more often heard for string orchestra. Here it has a lovely weight and poise, not too much on the schmaltz but still beautifully romantic, with softly murmuring inner parts. It is well caught by the engineers, too – close but not too personal.

The only regret is that the quintet miss an opportunity to include Dvořák’s other masterpiece in the form, the Op.97 Quintet in E flat major. Instead we get the Scherzo which makes for a nice complement on the back of the Nocturne in the same key, but feels like short change indeed when the disc ends at just over 45 minutes. There would have been plenty of room to include the full work, despite its different instrumentation – but here the Scherzo is rather pointlessly arranged for the quintet with the bass. Well performed as it is, it feels like a loose end.

Hopefully the Berlin Philharmonic Quintet will redress this balance with a disc of that work and the Op.1 – both of which provide illustrations of an aptitude for string writing that served Dvořák well throughout his compositional career. All the quintets deserve more air time – so this new recording helps that cause!

All about chemistry - Borodin's String Quartets

Borodin is one of those composers whose body of work is small, but whose best known works have deserved status as repertoire staples for decades. That he managed to write at all remains a point of wonder, given his profession as a chemist, but the concert hall is richer every time the symphonies are performed, the opera house likewise in the case of 'Prince Igor' and the chamber music similarly for each hearing of his two string quartets.

Yet there is a real danger that his music could fall unless it is performed more often. In the 1970s and 1980s the Second Symphony was ubiquitous, but now it barely gets a look-in, and its charming companion the First, full of melodic joie de vivre, gets lesser still exposure.
The second string quartet now enjoys a position right at the top of the list, and if anything is now programmed too much by quartets in Britain. This is understandable, for there are so many richly rewarding melodies within its bars – not least for cellists – but it is a shame that the
First is overlooked at its expense, for this too is a rich mine of attractive music.

The lovely way that the Fitzwilliam Quartet captures the slightly demure opening on this reissue from Eloquence sets the tone, the music blossoming into a more assured first movement. Once the transition is made the musical outlook is a sunny, one, with not much weight applied by the Fitzwilliam at all, until the second theme comes in, the cello digging in a bit to its double stopped accompaniment. The theme is one of Borodin's most attractive, moving with chromatic subtleties in the way he is able to do.

The second movement is nearly as successful, though there is quite an uncomfortable noise at 5'19", with a pretty harsh outburst that sounds stretched, even if it does follow the directed ff dynamic. The quartet redeem this in the Scherzo's trio section with a lovely use of the harmonics in the trio, another great example of Borodin's imaginative writing for stringed instruments. The open textures of the finale’s introduction are nicely done too, appropriately rustic.

The second quartet is very well performed, and the balance keen between the players, an important aspect of this work, is secure. Only the recorded sound can compromise enjoyment, the 25 year old recording benefitting from the remastering process but not fully removing the surface area coarseness. Borodin's humour could perhaps come through here more, in the finale in particular where the stop-start nature is a little business like. The famous Notturno, mind, is ideally judged.

For a relatively modest outlay this is a useful pairing to acquire, especially for the first
Borodin quartet, which is a fine and underrated work indeed. While the Borodin Quartet, named after the composer, remain the last word in interpretations of these wonderful works, the Fitzwilliam slot in close behind.

A sight reading app for sore eyes

Picture the scene. You're taking your Grade 5 piano and the exam is going OK so far. You've played one baroque piece fairly monotonously, but probably well enough to pass. You've given the classical piano sonata movement a bit more flair but there were some quite nasty mistakes in the upper right hand. Then you've dashed off the final 20th century piece with an air of celebration totally missing from the first two pieces.

The pass or fail hangs in the balance, then – as it does after some frankly patchy scales and arpeggios. It's time for the bit we all hate – the sight reading. With piano for some reason sight reading is even worse, it being over two staves, and sure enough you're struggling early on and wanting to go back and correct things. How to improve this examination banana skin?

The answer, at long last, appears to have been found. Previously sight reading practice was restricted to a one minute glare at something on paper from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music, followed by an attempt to get the two hands playing together in something you might call rhythm. But suddenly that sort of practice has become far more attractive due to a rather clever iPad app. You put the iPad on its side, on the piano music stand, cue up a piece of music according to your standard, set the metronome for the tempo you want to try and perform the music at – and then it counts you in.

Suddenly it all makes sense. The music disappears from the screen as you play it, which makes you think forward as a performer, a notion helped by the priceless Daniel Barenboim quote that "by definition, sight reading means playing bar one with your eyes while your brain is on bar five". The only disadvantage with this is not being able to go back at all and correct anything – naturally – but it means that over a few practice sessions that notion will probably be removed.

The man responsible for this innovation is Dr Christopher Wiltshire, who owns Wessar, the company releasing the app. Himself a former examiner, Wiltshire jokes that he initially developed the app to relieve the pain experienced by his colleagues in test conditions, but the benefits to pupils are obvious and immense, beyond the obvious short term gain of passing your exam.

Wessar will soon develop the app for other, 'single line' instruments, and can claim a comfortable victory with its first instrumental instalment. It's surprisingly involving, and sight reading – which was easily bottom of the class in the six exam 'movements' – moves strongly towards the top. It's an example of how music and technology can be used together for good – and those painful sight reading parts of the exam, which, as you may have guessed, was my own, could soon be consigned to the memory dump.

The Richest of 3-course Meals

For the second time, David McVicar's production of Richard Strauss's three act comedy Der Rosenkavalier comes to London and the ENO, bringing with it fantastically opulent sets, beautiful soprano singing and a grade one rogue in John Tomlinson. But what of the music itself, presented to London audiences for the first time a mere 99 years ago?

One thing is for certain - Der Rosenkavalier is one of the composer's most popular works, even when taking into account the symphonic poems. Its frequent use of the waltz is ironic, given the unrelated Strauss family and their unprecedented success with the form in 1860s Vienna, but here Richard works it very cleverly so that each use of the distinctive rhythmic form is incorporated into his own style.

For Der Rosenkavalier is musically rich, so rich that many people at last Saturday's first night were mentally exhausted by the time the three sopranos, Sarah Connelly, Sophie Bevan and Amanda Roocroft, floated in to the trio with which the opera closes. The reason for this is wholly down to Strauss, who fills his musical box of chocolates almost to saturation point. Often there will be two very different melodies going on at once, interweaving within the same range – so following them using the libretto proves very difficult as the similar voice types get tangled up. It's a mark of the composer's genius that he can work several tunes simultaneously without losing track of any of them, and even then if you were to remove the lines for voices altogether the writing for orchestra would suffice.

This, too, is rich, tapping in to the extravagance of the symphonic poems Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel. But although Der Rosenkavalier is seen as a light, frothy comedy, and the treble rich music bears that out, there is a certain heaviness to it, the sort that comes from too much champagne or an overindulgence on the cherry brandy liquors. The horns – brilliantly played on this occasion by the members of the ENO orchestra – have a lot of the best tunes, as they do in the symphonic poems – but Strauss's very particular kind of orchestral colouring means they are brought through at the top of the pile.

The only trouble with this densely packed music is listening to it for four hours – as the title of this post suggests, it is akin to eating the richest of three course meals in a fine hotel, and having chocolates afterwards. The head can only take so much – yet there is much to savour and recall at length afterwards. Moments such as when Sophie Bevan hits the high 'B' when the rose is presented to her – a floated note worth the evening's outing alone – or when Sarah Connolly and Amanda Roocroft declare their various passions in the opening act.

It's the first act this proves the most difficult where the movement of the plot is concerned, the story slow to catch fire, but the second act gathers pace and interest. The waltz scenes are delightful, helped by Tomlinson's ham-fisted dancing as the rogue, the Baron Ochs of Lerchenau, and the presentation of the rose itself from Connolly's Octavian to Bevan's Sophie is the most obviously, truly beautiful music here. For sure, Der Rosenkavalier is well worth seeing, but should come with a health warning of what musical overindulgence can bring. You'll be craving bread and water afterwards!

Prokofiev - Man of the People?

So runs the title of a two week festival dedicated to the composer and headed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, using the South Bank as its hub. The question posed is a pertinent one, as festival director Vladimir Jurowski looks in to Prokofiev;s output in fine detail, largely shunning the crowd pleasers in favour of some of the more supposedly 'difficult' corners of his published works.

Jurowski's point is a valid one, that the composer of Romeo and Juliet (recently encountered for the first time by viewers of The Apprentice!) has a lot more up his sleeve than the strongly melodic style we already know and love. Whether public exposure to works such as the Second Symphony or the music to Chout will change consciousness remains to be seen, but the attendance for the second of four orchestral concerts in the Royal Festival Hall indicated a keen interest.

Topping the bill for this work was the Sixth Symphony, of which more later, but first there was the relatively awkward lyricism of the Symphonic Song. This 15-minute work seemed to fall between forms, a lettercard rather than a postcard, one whose most attractive moments were sweet but also one whose section of conflict was more industrial and discordant. The final 'achievement' rang rather hollow as a result, but the feeling remained that this was a work Prokofiev needed to write to ease his transition from the avant-garde works of 1920s Paris to red blooded ballet scores such as Romeo & Juliet and Cinderella.

Formally the Fifth Piano Concerto was stranger still, cast in five movements and possessing some oddly oblique melodies, ones that shouldn't work – but which somehow remained in the head throughout the interval. The balance between piano and orchestra worked well here, with Steven Osborne an undemonstrative soloist while the barbed dialogue between piano, woodwind and percussion was at its height. The final Toccata summed things up succinctly, a helter-skelter dash to the finish that crashed in to a wall at the same time as the harmony reached G major. It was a strange but effective end, the sort of signing off Prokofiev does rather well, yet on this occasion it was one that puzzled and pleased the audience in equal measure.

After this slightly uncomfortable but strangely uplifting exuberance we entered a completely different emotional world for the Sixth Symphony, a work written in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. This is arguably Prokofiev's finest symphonic achievement, even with the carefree Classical and resilient Fifth symphonies taken into account.

The chilly disposition of the opening is slightly melted by a theme whose roots appear to be in chant, inviting parallels with Rachmaninov's almost obsessive use of the Dies Irae melody but making a strongly elegiac impression. Around this the colouring of brass and wind in particular are highly original, and the London Philharmonic trombones and tubas were superb, conveying their lines as if they were anguished cries of torment. The piano, too, lends a sharper edge to the music, adding extra punch to the rhythms.

Jurowski was rather cool in the first two movements, especially in the Largo second movement where some freedom with the tempo would have heightened the expression of what is already a powerful, fraught melody. The finale however carried maximum impact, its opening theme one of Prokofiev’s delightful flights of fancy but one that finally turns sour. When it did the full power of the orchestra could be unleashed, the impact a sudden slap in the face for the earlier forced jollity. In this single gesture, the culmination of a pot boiling over with repressed feeling, Prokofiev shows himself to be a man of the people indeed, expressing in full the torment felt in the immediate aftermath of war.

William Steinberg – The Disciplined Maestro Conductor

William Steinberg is one of the understated conductors of the 20th century,, known principally nowadays for an outstanding version of The Planets he recorded with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for Deutsche Grammophon in 1970. Of the non-English interpretations of the piece it stands as a remarkable achievement, and his understanding of the music and orchestration almost without parallel.

So it comes as a welcome change to be talking about the conductor's other achievements, with a substantial body of recorded work for EMI that has just been remastered and released in a box of 20 CDs, much of it made available for the first time. It explores Steinberg's relationship with another American orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, begun in the early 1950s and maintained for nigh on 20 years.

The revealing booklet note, penned by Mark Kluge, reveals Steinberg as a relatively introverted soul, yet one who had the ultimate respect of his orchestra, as they regularly played their hearts out for him and formed a strong reputation of their own. Steinberg gained a reputation as someone who concentrated on the music alone, which sounds an obvious point to make, but where a lot of conductors of that time sought to impose their own personalities on the music, it is a value that Steinberg should communicate the music in a very human way.

As a result his Beethoven speaks very directly, and is helped on this set by recordings that are impressively clear despite their age of almost 60 years. The Eroica is lean and muscular, the Eighth is performed with a smile and the Violin Concerto and Emperor match their soloists Nathan Milstein and Rudolf Firkusny respectively. Milstein's sweet tone is an ideal complement to the orchestra’s earthy sound in concertos from Tchaikovsky, Dvorak and Glazunov, while the forthright Firkusny teams up for a magisterial account of Brahms' First Piano Concerto.

Two of Steinberg's favourite composers, the Richards Strauss and Wagner, are well represented, the former by sparkling renditions of Don Juan and Till Eulenspiegel, the latter in a disc of finely judged operatic excerpts. Earlier recordings of classical works also feature, with early 1950s Schubert, Haydn and Mozart performed in a 'big band' style that nevertheless allows plenty of room for grace. Mahler's daughter expressed her preference for Steinberg's account of the First Symphony over Bruno Walter – and here we get to find out why, with an exuberant reading full of lust for life, the composer's sense of the outdoors fully realised.

Steinberg, as is evident from his Planets recording, held great affinity with English music, and tucked away in this set are unusual recordings of Vaughan Williams' Five Tudor Portraits and the Tallis Fantasia, not to mention an account of Elgar's Enigma Variations. Another composer Steinberg went against the grain to champion was Paul Hindemith, and though his best recordings remain for DG the version of the Mathis der Maler symphony here is a treat. Bloch's punchy Concerto Grosso no.1 and Toch’s experimental Third Symphony are other standout points.

It is completely fitting, then, that a conductor respected by Arturo Toscanini, Wilhelm Furtwangler and Leonard Bernstein should finally get his own chance to shine, proper recognition at last for one of the 20th century's finest and most reverential conductors.