brahms clarinet quintet

Today I went to a lunchtime chamber music concert of members of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne playing Brahms' clarinet quintet.

It was wonderful. This was an approach to Brahms that is different from what I often hear in the U.S. Not all loud, thick, and rich with constant vibrato, but buoyant, transparent, warm, full of color.

The cellist had an amazing role in this performance: by daring to play softly he brought everyone else with him, creating at times the most amazing suspended moments, like in the exposition of the first movement.

I've noticed, also in lessons with my teacher Gilad Karni on the opus 120 sonata in e flat major that timing and color and line are as integral part of the music as having a rich sound. It brings into this music a sort of intimacy, vulnerability that is new for me.

my baroque adventure

So, my last post took place in a German town where I was attending a baroque music festival. In this one I want to describe the beginnings of my serious studies as a baroque violist.

As a way of explaining the difference between the way modern classical musicians and baroque musicians interpret music, listen to the following two versions of the first movement of the Bach double concerto. First is Stern and Perlman (modern instruments), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vesrqFeq9rU, and after Andrew Manz and Rachel Podger (baroque instruments), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIOh5Iq683o. You'll probably notice many differences, the most obvious being that they play at different pitch levels.

The masterclass in Germany was with Elizabeth Wallfisch, a well-known Australian baroque violinist. She was great-always brimming with energy and enthusiasm, and also a wonderful person. I felt like that class was a bit like a 'honeymoon' with the period instrument world. Ok, four days to have some lessons and prepare a concert. Let's go. There wasn't much time for discussing the subtleties of different tuning systems or picking things apart.

On the contrary, my first lesson on the baroque viola with my new teacher Florence Malgoire in Geneva was quite...rigorous? I felt a bit like a lowly modern player who wants to be a part of the baroque world whose innumerable technical habits and musical intentions of a modern violist make her something of an impostor. That said, I think that there are different levels baroque-ness, the purists, the less pure, etc, and I've worked with baroque musicians from all parts of this range. I think probably also my teacher probably wants to start fresh with me, and really take care of obstacles in the beginning.

I find, however, that as a teacher her approach is far more musical than any of the teachers that I've had in the past. My assignments for the week included exercises and scales, but also 'speaking' the words of a recitative from an aria with my bow. It might sound funny, but my modern teacher does not play a role in my creative process. It is more, how can you sound good? and good means musical, of course, but he doesn't teach that way.

She also said at one point, "This sonata is in E major, which is a luminous tonality." Perhaps part of her being so musically oriented comes from her active performing career, but I think at the base it is an inseparable part of her as a person. A student brought a slow movement of Bach that was less than immaculately prepared, and perturbed, she questioned them "But how could you do this to such beautiful music?"

germany

I’m staying in a very German small town called Irsee. There is a former monastery here that houses a yearly baroque festival which I am participating in. I’ve had masterclasses with Elizabeth Wallfisch, a fantastic baroque violinist.
Today we had a bit of time off before our concert and I went with a few friends to visit the euthanasia center. This probably sounds quite chilling, and it is. During WW2 Nazis used this monastery as a camp for sick and handicapped adults and children who they killed either by starvation or poison. We took in this building that had been used at one time for these ghastly acts, looked at the table that looked oddly like a butcher block with a grooves running to the sides and a drain in the middle. There were pictures on the wall of starving, naked children wailing in agony, one missing a hand. Outside there was a memorial, a sculpture with an inscription: “Let us cry out your pain.” There was a cursory explanation posted about the 2,000 people who had died here by the mass grave where they lie.
It was really overwhelming, especially because we went from this ‘euthanasia center’ next door to the beautiful baroque church of the abbey where a wonderful boys choir was singing, singing angelically. The history that you find on Germany is just so shocking, so horrible, and lies in a present that is so picturesque, so calm, so ordered. It is a very strange juxtaposition. I was left reeling today after experiencing the holocaust site and then the boys choir and church in rapid succession.

danmark

Hello all

I'm going to fire up the blog after a little vacation... I spent the month of July on a road trip through the western United States: san fransisco to chicago with stops at the grand canyon, my sister's wedding, and other wonderful places until we reached chicago/lafayette, the homeland. It's funny, though, because california is my real homeland. I was born in Oakland and lived there on and off until first grade when my family moved to the midwest. So the trip was kind of retracing my life's path.

Now I'm in Denmark, or Danmark, as it is in Danish. I'm at a music festival called "Thy (pronounced 'tou') Masterclasses,"(http://www.thymasterclass.dk/) which in reality is not masterclasses but a two week chamber music festival. I'm playing five different pieces and over the course of the two weeks will perform each piece twice in concerts around this area of western denmark.

The opening concert of the festival was last night, a sort of impromptu deal pulled together on the second day of the festival. It was a little long, two and half hours followed by a reception with more music, but everyone seemed to enjoy all of it. What was lovely about the concert is how varied the program was, everyone had just brought something that they really liked playing or something fun that they could put together quickly.

Some highlights from the concert: Ravel duo for violin and cello: incredile energy and passion. Especially in the second movement the violinist pushed the limits of what we consider playing with a pretty sound to good effect. (i.e. a little rought or ugly) Sarasate's Zigeunerweisen, or 'Gypsy Airs,' played with great flair (ok, he hammed it up a little) but the audience ate it up. What else? Two faculty played a hungarian chardas with much drama and suspense during the reception. What was exciting about this concert was hearing all these great musicians playing so well and so differently. It's exciting to me in this 2 year international sojourn to be surrounded by lots of different players at once from all over Europe and the United States.

my blog just turned to french...

i mean, the instructions...

the academic year here is wrapping up, and I'm thinking of writing a several part reflection on this year.

I spent last weekend in France with the family of a friend of mine here and her boyfriend. They are both french, so as foreigners in Switzerland they of course have there own reactions. I was surprised, when I asked one friend about how he liked living in Switzerland, to hear that he preferred living in Switzerland to living in France. (a lot of french that I ask will say that they feel like the swiss are a bit uptight, or that they are made to feel like a foreigner here) He said there is a certain violence in French culture, and when I asked him to explain he gave me two examples. France is a socialist leaning democracy, but unemployment is a large problem and government services are often underfunded and overtaxed. What this means practically is that if you live in France, every time you go run errands at the bank, the post office, etc the employees are in a bad mood because the offices are understaffed (the same thing as in big cities in the US).

Another example he gave was the lack of integration of immigrants from former colonies. France has post-colonial guilt, thus this issue is a bit taboo, but nevertheless it is a huge societal problem that has existed for a long time. He said that in building housing projects in the suburbs for immigrants, the french government created the problem of segregation. I understood and wondered how similar the situation with la banlieue in france is to inner city violence and poverty in the US.

As we were sitting outside sunday afternoon eating barbecued lamb, the question came up, "What do you think of Obama?" Like, wow, we have a couple of real Americans here, now we can get the insider view or something. It was fascinating to talk about politics with my friend's parents, both teachers in French schools. Like most french I've met, they despise Sarkozy. But the extent to which they feel he is wrong is impressive: at one point her mother said "We had an enormous revolution two hundred years ago to change things and now it is as if it didn't happen." Apparently his administration is pretty slick about how they manipulate their power; redistricting to gain an advantage in elections, basically being corrupt. I sensed overwhelmingly their anger and outrage at the president and the state of french politics.

I'll continue with some reflections about music soon...

In two weeks I'm going to be back in the US and am looking forward to seeing many of you soon!

bolero

I just returned from a concert of l'orchestre de la suisse romande, geneva's orchestra. They play part of their season in Lausanne, as there is no big symphony orchestra in Lausanne.

This was the program: (pictures of conductor and soloist included)

Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, direction

Alexandre Tharaud, piano

Isaac Albeniz/Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos Castilla, Granada, Sevilla, Asturias, Aragon, extraits de la «Suite espagnole»

Maurice Ravel Concerto pour piano et orchestre en sol majeur

Maurice Ravel Daphnis et Chloé, suite N° 2

Maurice Ravel Boléro, pour orchestre

My favorite moments were the second movement of the Ravel piano concerto, the encore played by Tharaud, the solo flute player, and the first two thirds of bolero.

The pianist was really inspiring to me, in how he carried the melody in the slow movement of the ravel, creating a sense of suspension, of something indefinite. In his encore (a chopin number) he did this same thing, his control over the melodic voice allowed a certain flexibility that i found fascinating.

Bolero, as many of you may know, begins with a snare drum ostinato that continues throughout the piece, which is one 15-minute crescendo. The rhythm started by the snare drum remains throughout, getting increasingly louder until it is joined by another snare drum to ramp up the volume in the final minutes of the piece.

(This is one in a repertoire of pieces that I played when I was in youth orchestra in Indianapolis, ages 14-18 or so. I remember getting so tired with this pizzicato as our conductor tediously rehearsed each wind instrument solo. )

back to the OSR, and tonight's bolero. I was really struck by how quietly they began this piece, and with how much restraint they played. The first flute solo was so beautiful and so audaciously soft. However, as the piece progressed, it got steadily louder but never got loud enough. I felt like the orchestra was more concerned about staying in rhythm and playing with a nice sound than playing the music, and just letting it go and get really loud and huge and raucous at the end. that was disappointing.

something about this interpretation seems very swiss though. nothing too out of control.

don't put sugar in the gas tank, lucas!

hello everyone.

Last week I played a concert-Richard Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder arranged for voice and piano quartet (piano, violin, viola, cello) rather than the original which is for just voice and piano. We played at Geneva's Palais de l'Athenee, in the 'bee room.' It was a funky venue. The ceiling of the concert hall was painted with a swarm of bees arranged in a very orderly swirl around the chandelier in the center of the room. Behind us on the stage there was a fake curtain painted on the wall.

After the concert we moved to another room for schmoozing/apero with the wagner fans of geneva. The walls were covered with 18th century portraits, and again, the walls painted with fake wood and bricks, lending an air to this building of being very old an ornate until you look just a bit closer.

I chatted with the professor who had worked with us on these songs, a professor that I have recently been very inspired by. He is quite a character: an american originally from northern inland maine (he told me he was self-taught as a musician until going to music school) who runs the opera program at the conservatory in Lausanne. What I find inspiring about his teaching is that 1) everything that comes out of his mouth is about the music (as opposed to the technicality of playing an instrument or so singing) and 2) he has a quite developed pedagogy that makes it easy to understand what he is going for. Quotes are constantly tumbling out of his mouth like "in music the notes attempt to express emotion but it is the silences that expresses the inexpressible"...

in other words, it is the spaces, the breath where the music lives. working with him has given me a lot of food for thought.



Let me unpack this a tiny bit: in told the effect of working with him on this chamber music piece was that I was able to play better than I usually do just by changing my thoughts. I've learned a lot working with him and with vocalists--singing is just so much more natural than playing a stringed instrument. He led us during one lesson through some very simple breathing exercises, but it really made us play much better together, simply by breathing together in a relaxed way.

I said this already, but it's also inspiring to have a professor who is really just talking about MUSIC and not about technique. So often teachers in chamber music will say, that's not together, make it together, that's not in tune, make it in tune. But it is, in the end, remarkably inefficient to go about playing music this way. They don't bother to help you understand the root of the problem, why something is not together--they only expect you to fix it somehow, wave your violin around, look at each other. What I've learned from working with this voice teacher on chamber music is that it is about understanding the music together, and from there, simply listening, focusing and reacting.

I've started to recognize in my many years of playing and studying what makes really great musicians great. it is this, that they are always thinking of the music rather than the details that make it up (ensemble, intonation, balance) and they teach about music in this sequence as well, and ultimately it makes you think more and play better.

during one coaching we hit a spot where we were not together and the teacher yelled at the swiss french pianist..,"don't put sugar in the gas tank!" I wasn't even sure what he meant, but through context I knew he meant, don't mess this up, don't disrupt, don't complicate. I thought it was funny that he chose to say this in this way to our pianist who speaks english but not amazingly. but maybe it doesn't matter if we don't always understand what our teachers say as long as it makes us think.