Happy Birthday, Frederick!

Three-hundred years ago today, Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, was born. Frederick was obsessed with music, and modern culture owes a debt to his passion. He played the flute skillfully and composed over 100 pieces for the instrument, but he made his greatest mark on the musical world as a patron. In addition to establishing the Berlin Opera, he employed some of the most respected and prolific composers of his era, including Johann Joachim Quantz and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

Frederick also inspired perhaps the greatest keyboard composition in history — "The Musical Offering" by J.S. Bach. Today I'll celebrate Frederick’s life than by remembering the best present he ever received. I’ll defer to Charles Rosen’s passionate advocacy. Read his New York Times article to learn more about the piece, then watch the video below to hear Rosen bring Bach’s masterpiece to life.

Fischer or Fidelity? (Part 2 of 2)

Asking readers to hear the difference between a harpsichord and a piano, as I did in Friday's post, is one thing. Asking them to hear tiny distinctions in musical phrasing is another. I still think my readers will be up to that task, so if you want to test your auditory mettle, read on.

Once again, you'll need to open this playlist in Spotify to hear today's examples. The last two tracks in that playlist are recordings of J.S. Bach's Fugue in F Major from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I. Close listening reveals the significant differences between the interpretations of the two performers, Edwin Fischer and Bob van Asperen.

The fugue begins with a distinct musical phrase played in only one voice. Musicians call this phrase the subject of the fugue. The following excerpt from the composer's manuscript (courtesy of imslp.org) shows the subject in the score.

Listen to track four, Asperen's performance, first. Hear how the first five notes are all separate from one another. You might almost imagine Asperen's fingers bouncing over the keys as he begins the subject. Listen for a while longer, noticing the distinct articulation of the subject each time it repeats.

Now listen closely to Fischer on the third track. When he plays the subject, he slurs the first two notes together, and he plays the second note louder than the first. This interpretation is also distinctive, but it's not very Baroque.

If you look at the excerpt from the score, you'll see that the first two notes are separated by a bar line. Bach rarely indicated phrasing in his music, but when he did, he wouldn't connect notes across bar lines. Bach's phrasing conventions were closely tied to the physical limitations of his instruments. If Fischer tried to transfer his interpretation to a harpsichord, his playing would sound muddled. By slurring the first two notes, he would hide the downbeat. On the piano, Fischer can and does emphasize the downbeat by accenting the second note of the subject, but he wouldn't be able to make that note sound any louder on a harpsichord. Without a clear downbeat, Bach's already complex texture would become even more dense, and the entire piece would lag.

Textual and musical evidence shows that Asperen is more faithful to Baroque style than Fischer. Nevertheless, Fischer's recording demonstrates lively playing and a creative use of pianistic resources. I'll leave it to you to decide which performance is better. Tell me what you think in the comments, and come back soon for a celebration of an important musical birthday.

The End of the Music

I am sad to write that the organ world lost another one of its leading lights this week. Gerre Hancock, renowned composer, conductor, and performer, died yesterday at the age of 77.

I was never fortunate enough to hear Dr. Hancock in person, but I'm thankful for recordings that allowed me to listen to his work. Spotify users should listen to Praise the Lord, an album of mostly American choral music with the choir of St. Thomas Church Fifth Avenue. I'd also recommend seeking out Christmas Improvisations on the Gothic label. Dr. Hancock's imaginative renditions of Christmas hymns feature prominently in my annual holiday playlists.

Dr. Hancock was an esteemed teacher, and he shared some of his vast knowledge about improvisation in Improvising: How to Master the Art, which is essential reading for any keyboard student. A story from that book stands out in my memory. Dr. Hancock writes about his studies with the legendary pedagogue Nadia Boulanger. In one session, Mlle. Boulanger asks him to improvise a simple song in three sections on a theme she provides. Dr. Hancock launches into an improvisational fantasy, moving capriciously across keys and thematic sections until he finally receives a tap on the shoulder and a question from his teacher: "Why do you keep playing the organ when the piece was finished some time ago?"

Mlle. Boulanger's lesson reminds us that the end of any musical piece is important because it gives the entire work proportion and beauty. We often feel diminished at the end of a musician's life. As I remember Gerre Hancock, I will do my best to be thankful for the harmony and beauty he provided through his life's work.

Fischer or Fidelity? (Pt. 1 of 2)

I would imagine that several people who read my last post became curious about performance practice but weren't familiar with the interpretive styles I discussed. This post is for them and anyone else who might like to learn a bit more about the differences between Baroque and Romantic music.

If you haven't done so already, you should go to this website and download Spotify. It's absolutely free, it will give you access to millions of tracks, and it's the only way you'll be able to hear the recordings I'll discuss in this post.

Let's get started. Use Spotify to open this playlist. Its four tracks include two contrasting interpretations of a Bach prelude and fugue. After you've played the first two recordings and listened for differences, come back to the blog.

The first recording features Edwin Fischer playing Bach's 22nd prelude from the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier. Fischer was a Swiss pianist who lived mostly in the first half of the 20th century, and he plays in the Romantic style I mentioned last time. He coaxes delicate tones from his piano, which, depending on the mood of the listener, could sound either soothing or melancholy. He begins quietly but plays louder or softer to accentuate dramatic points in the music. If you listen carefully, you can hear the way certain tones seem to linger in the air when Fischer uses the sustain pedal.

Contrast Fischer's approach with Bob van Asperen's in the next track. Asperen is a Dutch harpsichordist who studied with Gustav Leonhardt, and his playing demonstrates the way many modern performers approach Baroque music. The timbre of the harpsichord gives the recording a different character from Fischer's. The brighter sonority of the harpsichord makes the repeated notes sound more persistent than reflective. The dynamic level remains constant throughout the piece because a performer can't use touch to make a harpsichord sound louder or softer. Finally, the notes die away when they are struck because the harpsichord has no sustain pedal.

I'll look at the next two tracks in my next post. Until then, leave me comments to let me know what other differences you hear in the pieces and which recording you prefer.

Performing Like a Lawyer

During law school, I met a lot of people who looked at me funny when I told them I had studied music in college. Some articulated their confusion with a question: "What does music have to do with law?" Their implication was clear. In their minds, the rigorous, precise world of legal thinking was incompatible with the fuzzy, feel-good world of music.

Those people must not have known Gustav Leonhardt. Today as I reflected on the great Dutch harpsichordist's passing, the questions from my classmates reminded me of how important Leonhardt's work was.

If you've never heard of Leonhardt, this New York Times article summarizes his life well. The article notes that Leonhardt helped to define the historical performance movement. Unfortunately, many readers don't know anything about that movement.

Many keyboardists in the first half of the twentieth century played Baroque music the same way they played music by Romantic composers, such as Liszt or Brahms, who lived over a century after the Baroque period ended. They played on pianos, used heavy pedaling and legato phrasing, and made dramatic dynamic shifts. In the middle of the century, several performers, one of the most prominent of whom was Leonhardt, criticized that performance style. They argued that such playing was inappropriate because it would have been impossible on typical Baroque instruments. Bach and his contemporaries usually played on harpsichords, which lack pedals and don't allow performers to play louder or softer by varying their touch.

Leonhardt wasn't content to focus on Baroque instruments while interpreting music. He read musical instruction books written in the 17th and 18th centuries. He scoured archives to find early compositional drafts and compared different versions of pieces to determine which editions best represented composers' preferences. He approached music the way lawyers approach cases -- he researched texts thoroughly and carefully evaluated contrasting approaches before presenting his conclusions to an audience.

Leonhardt's life testifies to the power of rigorous thinking applied to heartfelt music making. The combination of those qualities revolutionized keyboard performance and inspired a generation of musicians to look to the past as a guide for the present. Just as importantly, it sustained a musical career that, as the video below shows, remained vital until its final days.

Back to the Bramble

I didn't write in the past few months because I was too busy taking the bar exam. I finally became an attorney two weeks ago, so the blog is back! Look for a more substantial update soon.

New Ideas

One of my favorite parts of living in Philadelphia is having frequent opportunities to hear world-class music. I took full advantage of the city's musical resources this weekend. I spent Thursday evening at a piano recital by the Harvard musicologist Robert Levin, and on Saturday, I heard Stephen Hough join the Philadelphia Orchestra for a night of Russian music. On Sunday afternoon, I heard the Astral Artists present a program called "New Ideas," featuring modern chamber music and a world premiere of da l'Arte Della Danssar, a piece by their composer-in-residence and the 1998 Pulitzer Prize winner, Aaron Jay Kernis.

I'm not content with a high quantity of listening -- I care about quality. If I've learned anything from being a performing musician, it's that doing something well takes intense practice. That leads to a challenging question: How do you practice listening besides doing a lot of it?

Kernis's new piece actually helped me answer that question. Kernis set the following antiquated Italian line to music: "lo intellecto atento a quel che sona (roughly, 'the mind attentive to what sounds.')." As the soprano sang these words, the flute, harp, percussion, and viola gradually moved from frenzied, dissonant polyphony to calmer and simpler harmonies. Eventually, the singer and the flute joined in unison for the word sona (sounds).

That brief passage mirrors my listening patterns. I face a constant mental struggle at concerts. No matter how hard I try to lose myself in the music, trivial thoughts and concerns from my busy life eventually break through my mental guard. When they do, I practice better listening by forcing myself to be attentive to particular sounds. Sometimes I focus on rhythms; other times I concentrate on the shape of a specific instrumental line. Occasionally, I just hone in on the tonal colors of a particular instrument, such as the delicate chiff of the flute or the gleaming plinks of the harp. Whenever I lock into a particular sound, my distracting thoughts fade, and I settle back into unity with the music.

By bringing this listening technique to my attention, Sunday's concert didn't really give me a "New Idea," but it did help me better describe an old one. I hope that description can help some readers listen more deeply and remember that sometimes, the best way to get lost in the forest of music is to become absorbed in specific trees.

Burning

Today, tomorrow, and Saturday, the Philadelphia Orchestra will be presenting an All-Russian concert. The featured soloist is Stephen Hough, a British pianist. Hough is not only one of the most critically acclaimed virtuosi on his instrument but also one of the most famous classical music bloggers. In the following video, he shares the same insight that is characteristic of his blog posts.



Hough will play Tchaikovsky's, not Rachmaninov's, second piano concerto in Philadelphia. Many of his thoughts on the nature of pianistic interpretation still apply. My favorite part of this video is the end where he describes the "burning" that is essential to a human life. Musicians seem to have special license to use this kind of lofty, spiritual language to describe their lives, and I'm glad Hough takes advantage of it in his interviews and writing. I wish more people did. I'll write more about Hough after I attend his concert, but for now, I'm burning to hear how he handles Tchaikovsky.

Winning Eternity

"If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present." - Ludwig Wittgenstein

I watched the State of the Union address this year with consternation. I won't fully explain my views on education here. I'll simply say that I think education accomplishes much more than helping students "win the future," which apparently will be a battle among global corporations.

I thought of our president's slogan Friday night as I watched a performance by the boys of the St. Thomas Choir School. The concert was hosted by St. Mark's Church in Philadelphia, and the proceeds went to support the opening of St. James School, an Episcopal middle school being founded in north Philadelphia.

Before the performance, Father Sean Mullen, St. Mark's Rector and a St. Thomas Choir School alumnus, spoke about the value of Episcopal education. The most powerful testimony for parochial education came not in his speech but in the music that followed.

The choir sang English and Latin texts with melodic precision, clear diction, and dynamic nuance. These words can't capture the experience, though. As I looked around the near-capacity sanctuary, the glances I exchanged with others seemed to say, "We are in the presence of something special."

When the choir stopped singing, I checked my watch and was surprised to see that an hour had passed. That amount didn't seem too long or too short -- it seemed irrelevant. Time had absolutely nothing to do with my experience at the concert.

I had that timeless experience because a group of boys dedicated themselves to studying and mastering the tradition of Anglican choral singing. That's the value of a real education -- it gives fresh insights with which to turn the mundane into the sacred. The boys at St. Thomas School might never win the future, but that doesn't matter. They've already won eternity.

Endless Distances

Admit it. You visited this blog, read the title, and wondered what blackberries have to do with my writing. Maybe you read the line about the "classic cocktail" and recognized that a Blackberry Bramble is a gin-based drink. Then you thought, "that explanation seems too simple. There must be something more going on with that name."

You were right. 

The cocktail line came first. I told my cubicle mate that I was going to start a blog, and she told me to bill it as a cocktail and pun on the word spirit. I liked her suggestion, and I started to look for drink names with personal significance. When I found Blackberry Bramble in a cocktail compendium, I knew I had a winner. 

You can't understand what the name means to me without reading a famous poem by Robert Hass. To find that poem, "Meditation at Lagunitas," click here.  

I could write so much about the poem. I'll ignore the part about blackberries for now and take the line that stands out most to me and probably anyone who has ever read the poem: "Longing, we say, because desire is full/ of endless distances." 

Writing is also full of endless distances. There's a distance between the author and the audience, a distance between the different ideas a writer synthesizes, and, perhaps most importantly, a distance between the blank page a writer initially sees and the text that eventually emerges. Good writing must bridge all these gaps at once. That's what makes it so challenging. 

As anyone who has ever set out to express a thought in words can testify, writing is an act of longing. 

That's why I named my blog Blackberry Bramble. I appreciate Hass's insight into the nature of language and cognition, which he expresses so elegantly in his reference to fruit. In the end, though, my Blackberry Bramble is not a grand statement about how humans use words. It is a simple reminder that each time I write, I take one more step towards bridging the endless distances in my life. 

Speaking of the King

Oscar voters who watched "The King's Speech" noticed the screenplay, acting, directing, and overall cinematic quality. I noticed Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. 

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't seen "The King's Speech" and don't want any information about the scene at its emotional apex, please stop reading (but check out my other posts).

Near the end of the movie, King George VI must deliver a speech by radio to rouse the courage of his subjects. As he steps to the microphone, everyone, moviegoers and monarch included, is unsure if he will complete the speech undisturbed by his pernicious stammer.

That's where Beethoven comes in.

As King George begins his speech, the movie's soundtrack switches to the second movement of the Seventh Symphony.

Audience members should instantly recognize the music even if they can't identify the piece. It's a soundtrack staple, and for good reason. It's memorable and supremely dramatic.

The music's power is especially surprising because the melody is so simple. After an introductory chord, the low strings begin to saw obsessively on repeated notes. Essentially, Beethoven turns the entire orchestra into a broken record player.

And somehow, in the hands of the master, the stutter becomes beautiful.

Beethoven makes each single note important because, perhaps more than any other composer, he has an acute sense of pacing, dynamics, and development. These characteristics envigorate the entire symphony and transform a repetitive line into one of the most memorable melodies in the symphonic repertoire. They are also the qualities that make "The King's Speech" a great film.

This synergy changed how I think about both the film and the music. I have heard the Seventh Symphony countless times but never once connected it to stuttering or realized that it, like "The King's Speech," can communicate redemption. I claim no cinematic expertise, but to me, movies aren't valuable because they have great acting, writing, or directing. They are valuable because, every once in a while, they give us a new perspective on something we love.

A Night at the Opera

When most Americans think of Tuesday night musical drama, they think of the Fox TV show, "Glee."

Yawn.

I mean no disrespect to Ryan Murphy's wildly popular high school melodrama. It just can't match the intrigue in the opera I saw last night, Arabella. 

In the opera, Richard Strauss's lyrical setting of a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, a girl raised as a boy secretly falls in love with a suicidal man but then tries to set him up with her sister in an effort to save her financially strapped family. 

And that's just the first act. For a sample of the brotherly ... er, confused sisterly love in the opera, click here.

People who don't normally watch operas forget how tawdry they can be. Rampant raunch seems incongruous with the gentility most operagoers project. 

Seasoned music fans wouldn't be surprised by sexual scandal from Strauss, a titan of late Romanticism. He is, after all, the man who shocked the world with themes like necrophilia and matricide in the famous operas Salome and Elektra. Would you expect a man who looks like this --->
to write about butterflies and sunshine?

Arabella is much lighter than Strauss's tragic operas, and I saw it in an appropriately pared-down production by the Academy of Vocal Arts in Philadelphia at the intimate Helen Corning Warden Theater. A solo piano provided the accompaniment, and characters in period costumes moved around simple yet historically evocative sets that changed between each of the three acts.

I won't attempt a full review. I'll just say that the show exceeded my expectations. The young singers delivered Strauss's trademark soaring melodies with strength and emotional intensity. Pianist/music director Luke Housner nimbly navigated between the scampering chromatic lines and stately chords in the accompaniment. Overall, I fully enjoyed my evening at the opera, and I look forward to spending future Tuesday evenings with the Academy of Vocal Arts. 

Sorry, Mr. Murphy.

Maiden Voyage

The man who suggested I start this blog told me that great writing is buoyant. I like that description, and I especially enjoy thinking about the times when words have helped keep me afloat. The more I think about it, the more I realize that all kinds of great art, not just writing, are buoyant.

An especially buoyant piece of music -- and an appropriate soundtrack to a first blog post -- is Herbie Hancock's classic track "Maiden Voyage." In this work for jazz quintet, Hancock creates a floating effect by suspending traditional musical patterns. He begins by playing repeated piano chords with subtle dissonance. Usually chords are built around intervals called thirds (On a piano keyboard, you can make a third by playing one white key, skipping the next one, and then playing the third). In this track, though, Hancock makes chords by stacking fourths. These piano harmonies immediately uproot listeners, who are suddenly unable to discern the key of the music, and force them to drift along with the flow of Hancock's playing.

Some jazz players use unusual chords to overwhelm listeners and submerge them in their intense vision. Not Hancock. Although his chords create dissonance, "Maiden Voyage" conjures a peaceful, occasionally dreamy mood. Part of this effect comes from the rhythm of the vamping piano. If you wanted, you could count four steady beats against the opening of the track. Hancock doesn't play on these beats, though; he plays in the spaces between them. This syncopated rhythm is another way in which Hancock suspends listeners' usual expectations and creates a sense of floating in his music.

Of course, "Maiden Voyage" is much more than just a distinctive, buoyant opening. Instead of trying to describe the rest of the track, I'm including a link to the song and the distinctive cover art of Hancock's classic LP with the same name:

That's the story of how a pianist keeps his music afloat. For more about how words and music keep me afloat, check back with this blog soon.