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An understanding of the characteristics of the different keys can help you develop a palette of sounds. So do you know your innocent C major from your gloomy F sharp minor? I recently interviewed cellist Christoph Richter for the ChamberStudio website and among other fascinating things, he told me about Christian Schubart's guide to the various keys and their musical meanings. Richter argues that Mozart and Haydn would have been brought up learning about the differences between keys, but that this is rarely taught now. It is, he says, essential in order to avoid having a 'prototype sound' for all the keys. Here is what Schubart has to say, translated by Rita Steblin: C major Completely pure. Its character is innocence, simplicity, naivety, children's talk. C minor Declaration of love and at the same time the lament of unhappy love. All languishing, longing, sighing of the love-sick soul lies in this key. D flat major A leering key, degenerating into grief and rapture. It cannot laugh, but it can smile; it cannot howl, but it can at least grimace in its crying. Consequently only unusual characters and feelings can be brought out in this key. D major The key of triumph, of Hallejuahs, of war cries, of victory-rejoicing. Thus, the inviting symphonies, the marches, holiday songs and heaven-rejoicing choruses are set in this key. D minor Melancholy womanliness, the spleen and humours brood. D sharp minor Feelings of the anxiety of the soul's deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depresssion, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. Every fear, every hesitation of the shuddering heart, breathes out of horrible D sharp minor. If ghosts could speak, their speech would approximate this key. E flat major The key of love, of devotion, of intimate conversation with God. E major Noisy shouts of joy, laughing pleasure and not yet complete, full delight lies in E Major. F major Complaisance and calm. F minor Deep depression, funereal lament, groans of misery and longing for the grave. F sharp major Triumph over difficulty, free sigh of relief uttered when hurdles are surmounted; echo of a soul which has fiercely struggled and finally conquered lies in all uses of this key. F sharp minor A gloomy key: it tugs at passion as a dog biting a dress. Resentment and discontent are its language. G major Everything rustic, idyllic and lyrical, every calm and satisfied passion, every tender gratitude for true friendship and faithful love – in a word every gentle and peaceful emotion of the heart is correctly expressed by this key. G minor Discontent, uneasiness, worry about a failed scheme; bad-tempered gnashing of teeth; resentment and dislike. A flat major Key of the grave. Death, grave, putrefaction, judgment, eternity lie in its radius. A flat minor Grumbler, heart squeezed until it suffocates; wailing lament, difficult struggle; the colour of this key is everything struggling with difficulty. A major This key includes declarations of innocent love, satisfaction with one's state of affairs; hope of seeing one's beloved again when parting; youthful cheerfulness and trust in God. A minor Pious womanliness and tenderness of character. B flat major Cheerful love, clear conscience, hope, aspiration for a better world. B flat minor A quaint creature, often dressed in the garment of night. It is somewhat surly and very seldom takes on a pleasant countenance. Mocking God and the world; discontented with itself and with everything; preparation for suicide sounds in this key. B major Strongly coloured, announcing wild passions, composed from the most glaring colours. Anger, rage, jealousy, fury, despair and every burden of the heart lie in its sphere. B minor This is as it were the key of patience, of calm awaiting ones's fate and of submission to divine dispensation. From Christian Schubart's Ideen zu einer Aesthetik der Tonkunst (1806) translated by Rita Steblin in A History of Key Characteristics in the 18th and Early 19th Centuries. UMI Research Press (1983). #blog #teaching #view

Gary Hoffman is one of the music world’s best-kept secrets, a fine and uncompromising cellist whose rare appearances mesmerise. For him, being a musician involves a daily struggle, but he wouldn't have it any other way, as he explains I wouldn’t call Gary Hoffman a great cellist. Not after our conversation at the recent Amsterdam Cello Biënnale. He told me in no uncertain terms what he thinks of the expression: ‘These words are thrown around. Everybody’s “great”. Are they all great? Casals was great. Heifetz was great. Bach, John Coltrane – I reserve that word for those people. This is the age where you’re supposed to say “like”, “don’t like”. It’s been reduced to such superficial terms.’ Without throwing adjectives around, I think it’s fair to suggest that Hoffman deserves a place in the pantheon of cellists. I only heard him for the first time two years ago at the Piatigorsky Cello Festival in Los Angeles and was captivated by the depth, sincerity and nobility of his playing. Since then I have seen him in an all-too-rare Wigmore Hall recital in January and both teaching and playing at the Prades Festival last year. Hoffman is the cellist’s cellist – revered by those who know him, a frequent guest at elite festivals such as Verbier and Prades, and in demand at top educational institutions such as the Kronberg Academy and Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, where he has a class of seven. But one of the great mysteries of the classical music business is that a cellist of Hoffman’s class isn’t a regular with the finest orchestras in the most famous concert halls, doesn’t have his own chamber music series, and has recorded relatively little of the cello repertoire for posterity. Is this an indictment of the state of classical music, or does it reflect the delicacy of a true and unguarded artistic spirit? I suspect a bit of both. Hoffman thinks a lot, and deeply. You can tell this when he talks about music. I interviewed him a few times for the Masterclass feature in The Strad and we would have epic conversations, with him considering the piece at hand on multiple levels, whether harmonic, historical, technical, personal, philosophical or metaphorical, and in various magnifications and dimensions. It seems that his favourite expression when talking about music is ‘on the other hand…’ Talking to him in more general conversation, one has the sense of an existentialist, constantly evaluating his choices, aware of the burdens and responsibilities of life, whether in simply being, or in existing as a musician in the world. ‘Every day I’m as close to quitting as I am to continuing’ At the most stark, his basic daily choice is whether to go on being a cellist: ‘Every day I call everything into question. Every day I’m as close to quitting as I am to continuing. I choose to keep going. Many times I have wanted to stop, just because I’m too discouraged either by my own personal situation or by what I see around me. But I feel I have to endure. I know that seems very dramatic, but this is what we do and it’s extremely important.’ Even now, 40 years after he made his Wigmore Hall debut at the precocious age of 15, he feels a certain terror about going on stage. His discomfort when he comes on stage is often visible – he’ll shuffle his stand or fiddle with his pegs and shift in his seat. So it’s no surprise when he reveals, ‘I’m nervous every concert. I know that I’m going to feel humiliated. But somewhere underneath there’s some sense of confidence otherwise I couldn’t go on stage. Why else would I want to put myself through that suffering? And it’s not getting easier – it’s getting harder.’ ‘If you have that kind of self-questioning you can’t have blind confidence’ He wouldn’t have it any other way, though, and doesn’t trust artists who don’t go through this: ‘Francescatti said that even at the age of 80, when he had retired from the stage, at 8 o’clock every night he felt sick to his stomach. And if it’s not like that for people then they’re either lying or naïve, or they can’t be very good musicians. For me, true musicians have to be like that because they could never get to the depths of what this music is about if they don’t have that kind of self-questioning. And if you have that kind of self-questioning you can’t have blind confidence about what you do – it just doesn’t go together.’ Coming off stage provides little relief as Hoffman is rarely satisfied with his performances: ‘I put high demands on myself and I never reach them, so I’m never happy after concerts. Sometimes I might look happy, but I’m more relieved that I didn’t make a fool of myself. Once in a while I actually feel that that is how I can play. János Starker was asked how many times he felt like that in his life and he said 8 – in 70 years. I’ll feel it maybe once or twice a year and I consider that a blessing. When you think about it that’s an incredibly tough life. The pressure and stress are monstrous. Does it have to be that way? I’m sure not, but that’s me. I know people whom you ask about a concert and they say, “Oh, it was good.” I can’t say that a concert was good. I just can’t say it. It’s the way I was educated, not just by my family but by the people around me: the Starkers, the Gingolds. It was a different era. The idea of self-satisfaction was not encouraged.’ ‘No one in the audience knows what you expect of yourself’ The audience response can’t soothe this dissatisfaction: ‘You can feel you played well but you didn’t get a reaction from the audience; or you can get that reaction from the audience but you feel you didn’t play well. Either way you think they’re not truthful. Your feeling about yourself is about your own expectations. No one in the audience – not even your closest friend – knows what you expect of yourself.’ Despite this, having an audience is addictive, he confesses. ‘The performing aspect of music is a little like having a drug addiction. Even if there’s pressure, the audience gives me a chance to experience music in a way that cannot be at home. You can’t duplicate having that audience, having that moment. It’s like the drug you’ve taken that allows you to forget all the pain. I admit there’s a part of me that needs it. I think as performers that’s something we have to deal with.’ Hoffman was testing his relationship with the audience even as a young man. ‘I was asking myself many questions, seeing things on television and stage, and it was unfathomable to me that they were successful.’ So he tried an experiment. His family used to have a music festival in Florida, where they’d play the same programme in the same hall to the same audiences daily. He remembers: ‘It was a laboratory for me to look at pieces and gain more experience on stage. Once, I was playing with my brother Joel and we’d played the work three or four times so I knew how the audience was going to react. I said to him, “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but my sole purpose for the next six minutes is to get a reaction out of the audience, whatever it takes. I need to find out.” I started making faces and throwing my body around and exaggerating everything. I played as fast as I could, as loud as I could, whacking the instrument, trying to elicit a response.’ The audience reaction? ‘It was an explosion. Like nothing before.’ His reaction? ‘I felt horrible. I hated it, so I never did it again.’ ‘If you’re afraid to do something, why don’t you try it?’ His choice was not to compromise: ‘Even when I understood that I could have a bigger reaction doing it another way, I realised I couldn’t do it. It would be taking on a persona that was not mine. I would forever be selling my soul to the devil. It’s about being true to yourself, finding your truth and following it.’ He sees this quest as part of becoming a musician: ‘It was an important process to take. I wish that on young people. If you’re afraid to do something, why don’t you try it? You need to discover yourself, figure out who you are.’ Curious to test the conclusions of Hoffman’s experiment, I observed the final concert of the Biënnale with interest. With its roll call of top cellists making their way through various repertoire, it provided the perfect sample. Each player had their own performance style, ranging from calm stillness, through different levels of head swaying to wild abandon, with a music stand at one point accidentally kicked into the audience, even. And yes, it did seem to me that the level of audience reaction – measured as sheer volume of noise – did correlate to the amount of physical energy they were exhibiting. What does this say about audiences? Maybe on one level there is a certain kinetic energy that a performer emits, which transmits to an audience and erupts in their response. On another, maybe some people do need to be shown what to feel about classical music. Hoffman tells me, somewhat painfully, about someone recently describing his performance as ‘nothing’. (I stare blankly, trying to comprehend.) He explains, ‘I think he was the kind of person who wants someone to tell them what to think. If that’s what someone wants from my playing they’re going to be disappointed. That’s not my objective in playing or in life. Probably the nicest thing anyone has said to me is, “When you play you let me react the way I want to.” That’s what it’s all about.’ ‘The future of music will always be sincerity and honesty’ János Starker, with whom Hoffman studied and whose teaching assistant he became, warned him of the dichotomy: ‘He saw the trend many years ago. He said there’s room for music and for entertainment, but you have to know the difference between them. The lines have been blurred to such an extent and that is of concern to me. On the other hand there are still people around who respect what music really is. For me the future of music will always be sincerity and honesty.’ As much as I want to believe this, I’m not so sure. As George Burns said, ‘If you can fake sincerity, you’ve got it made.’ And while sincerity and honesty might be necessary conditions for being a great musician, are they sufficient to make it in the business? Or are a good photograph, well-designed website, persistent press person, persuasive story, vaulting ambition and thick skin more useful? Another concerning aspect is the lack of opportunities, particularly for cellists, and how the ones that exist most often go to younger players. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra just published some research as to the programmes of the top 21 US orchestras, which backs up this theory. Tallying up the cello solos, I counted 27 concerto opportunities across all these orchestras in the 2014–15 season, with only two soloists over the age of 40 reasonably busy: Yo-Yo Ma with five performances and Lynn Harrell with two. Apart from that, the most in-demand soloists are Alisa Weilerstein and Renaud Capuçon, each with five performances in the season, and the others are all younger, or members of the orchestras. A quick trawl of the top venues indicates a similar picture in Europe, where it’s rare to find a cello concerto being performed at all, let alone by the grey of hair, and also with recitals, although there is slightly more diversity there. But to hear the likes of Miklós Perényi, Natalia Gutman, Mischa Maisky, Frans Helmerson or Hoffman, the best place to go is to a cello festival. ‘Music and any great art form have to take time’ This may just be how life goes. Touring becomes more tedious with age, as does keeping in technical shape, and at a certain point players often turn themselves to the satisfaction of teaching. But is there also an increasing focus on youth in the business? Hoffman thinks so. ‘Everything is speeding up and there’s a general sense that if something takes a lot of time it’s not worth having. And yet music and any great art form have to take time. As great as Heifetz and Casals were, they changed, and what they brought to Brahms and Beethoven changed. Brahms didn’t write at the age of 10 what he wrote at 35 and neither did Mozart. That’s normal and yet we seem to throw away someone who’s 35 or 40 already. Music has to do with human development and what one brings to the table, and you can’t speed up that process.’ He also sees a tendency towards players sounding the same: ‘While there is a sense that performers play better than they ever did, people complain that players tend to sound the same. If you take just the violin, at one given time you had Stern, Heifetz, Milstein, Grumiaux, Francescatti, Szigeti, Szeryng. You can tell them all apart. What seems to be happening today is a movement towards uniformity, towards finding a way that’s successful and is therefore the best way. It has to do with the fact there are so many people aiming for the very few spots there are.’ If his articulacy makes Hoffman sound rather cerebral, his playing is anything but – it comes from a much deeper well. No one inhabits the solemn, spiritual yearning of Jewish liturgical music by Bloch and Bruch as Hoffman does. Nor is his playing without humour – his last recording, of Mendelssohn, has plenty of charm and mischief, even if more avuncular than child-like. And his recording of Chopin and Rachmaninoff sonatas is full of passion and emotion, without ever tipping into self-indulgence. For all the study and analysis, he talks of something almost transcendental happening when he performs: ‘I need to allow for the process to take place in a way other than intellectual. Often that happens right before I play. It’s only at that point that some other aspect kicks in, an understanding that I’ve found the part inside me that’s become harmonious with the music.’ ‘My generation doesn’t really know where we stand with Bach’ Surprisingly, he finds this process most difficult with the Bach Cello Suites, but he puts this into historical context: ‘When it comes to Bach I wish I were growing up today. My generation doesn’t really know where we stand with Bach. Casals took a long time before he would play the Suites in public but he was lucky because it was like he was playing new music. There was nothing to compare him with, no tradition. That was very liberating. That’s why there’s such incredible conviction in everything he does. After Casals you hear Feuermann and Piatigorsky and you can tell they are not comfortable. Then came Starker who decided the Bach Suites were important and recorded them several times. Tortelier’s Bach is great but a week before he recorded the Suites he decided to practise everything without vibrato. That’s an extreme idea, which shows it was something that weighed on him. Rostropovich played Bach, but it wasn’t what he was known for, and Rose played it but never recorded it. Now everyone plays Bach. The whole younger generation has been “decomplexed” because my generation has paid the price.’ What makes it so hard? ‘All the Baroque information has left us feeling that as responsibly informed and intelligent people we can’t ignore it and yet it doesn’t really correlate with what we do. I know that for me to be convincing in Bach I have to get to a place that is similar to other music I play, and to reach that level of instinctiveness under pressure. I’m not sure that’s possible. What you do at home is one thing, but we’re performers so it’s what happens on stage that counts. There are times I’m playing Bach at home, thinking, “If only I could play it like this on stage.”’ In his teaching, Hoffman stresses the importance of broad knowledge and historical context: ‘There is a surprising lack of curiosity as to who were the figures of yesteryear. When you mention Piatigorsky and Feuermann you realise that many young people don’t know who they are. What are the traditions? What were these people like? Where did they come from? Did cello playing start with Rostropovich? I don’t think so, but most kids today probably think that. I’m not in favour of keeping traditions alive for the sake of it, but I don’t understand how someone who is playing music from the past can cut themselves off from all that has been done, said, recorded and written about. It all gives other points of reference, more information, and will ultimately add to the creative process. That’s what it’s about – expanding your mind and seeing what’s possible, because there’s no absolute truth. As young people we tend to look for the truth and it’s very destabilising to know there isn’t just one. The most important thing is to find one’s own truth.’ ‘You have to be willing to make a choice in life and to pay the price’ Sometimes this truth might go against the prevailing fashion or wisdom, but Hoffman counsels his students to use the power of their choice: ‘People often say they have a favourite recording of the Schubert B flat Piano Trio – the one with Thibaud, Casals and Cortot. I ask what they like about it and they say, “It’s so free and charming, the music flows, there’s such a sense of spontaneity.” I ask, “Does it bother you that it’s not together?” “No.” “So why don’t you play like that?” “It’s different today.” “But why is it different today?” “Nobody accepts that way.” “But you liked it and you’re not the only ones.” “But that’s not how it is today. It has to be perfectly together.” So I tell them, “You have to be willing to make a choice in life and to pay the price. And paying the price for having that kind of freedom and flow is perhaps not being together. It doesn’t bother you because the musical intention and message so overrides it that you don’t notice it and even if you do, it doesn’t bother you. So take the cue from that and try to go that way.” When I hear students considering this, I think there’s hope. And maybe one day when they get older and they realise they didn’t get anything they wanted by following the so-called “successful” way they’ll think maybe there was something to it and they might start to get more rewards.’ Hoffman doesn’t seem to have any regrets about not following the ‘so-called “successful” way’. He says, ‘I’m not trying to be different. I never did try to be different. I just followed my own path. We have to keep our sights set on what’s important, what’s pure, what’s direct. You do have an option. If music is important to your soul and your being how could you possibly compromise? If it’s just a métier, a way to make a living, choose something easier and more lucrative, because I’m here to tell you it’s not going to be. You’re going to suffer far too much for it.' Maybe it’s this unwillingness to compromise that makes Hoffman such a compelling player. And, if it means, paradoxically, that we don’t get to hear him as often as we’d like, maybe that’s a good thing. It just makes those opportunities seem even more great. Yes, great. Photo credits Portrait: Gerard Proust Amsterdam Biënnale: Ben Bonouvrier #article #cello #playing #teaching #hoffman #starker #casals #interview

I recently interviewed Eugene Drucker about his Southbank Centre concert with the Emerson Quartet on Sunday, 16 November, which you can read about here. But he had so many interesting ways of explaining Beethoven’s groundbreaking and difficult Op.130 and Op.132 Grosse Fuge that I ran out of space, so here are some of the broader concepts he talked about, which didn’t fit the piece. Out of this world ‘Because Beethoven was completely deaf he had been forced to imagine and create music completely divorced from acoustic reality. This gave him a kind of freedom that he might not otherwise have had. He was able to imagine extra musical dimensions. In the musical space that he contemplated, the statements of the subject and counter-subject could unfold without getting in each other’s way, as they would for the rest of us hearing them within the range of a string quartet. Beethoven could imagine extra pockets in the way that string theorists can imagine extra dimensions of the universe beyond the three spacial dimensions we’re used to. He could go beyond the boundaries of what is normally available to human perception.’ Looking forwards and backwards at the same time ‘Beethoven combined the trailblazing willingness to break rules all over the place with a fascination for older music. In Op.132 he was looking back not so much to Haydn and Mozart any more, reevaluating their procedures and adapting them to his style, but hundreds of years, to medieval music. He also uses species counterpoint, a 17th-century polyphonic technique. In the third movement, the Heiliger Dankgesang, he’s thanking God (or some notion Divinity – I don’t think he was formally religious) for his recovery from a long illness. The old-style music is used to represent a sense of otherworldliness. This is contrasted with sections that are marked ‘Neue Kraft fühlend’ – ‘feeling new strength’. Those sections are based in D major, a tonality rooted in his time. His ability to look way back and, at the same time, forward to some of the startling developments in modern music is almost like the Roman god Janus – two profiles looking backwards and forwards simultaneously.’ Applause between movements ‘This was contemporary music to the audience, like the kind of music the Arditti Quartet plays for us today. Beethoven was too nervous to go to the premiere of Op.130 so he waited in a tavern nearby and his friends came to report. In the early 19th century it was an accepted part of performance practice that if the audience liked a movement it would be reprised immediately. They hadn’t developed our modern sense that a piece mustn’t have applause between movements and that the overarching structure is important in presentation. The audience would show its reaction right away. They really loved the inner movements of Op.130 and Beethoven was gratified to hear that, but they couldn’t understand the sixth movement, the Grosse Fuge. He was furious.’ Great art doesn't presuppose knowledge ‘One thing that distinguishes classical music from most forms of music that appeal to mass audiences is that we’re dealing with much bigger timeframes. Of course we have short musical forms within the realm of classical music but Classical composers always had to grapple with questions of large-scale structure. Their ability to generate structure depends on cohesion and coherence. They use material that has become familiar to the audience and therefore this strategy depends on the audience’s ability to remember, either consciously or unconsciously, the music that has been heard already. For example, Beethoven and Mendelssohn experimented with an arch structure, where the last movement refers back to the first movement. Mendelssohn does this with two of his quartets, Op.12 and Op.13. In his Ninth Symphony, Beethoven quotes material from all three of the first movements in the last movement, in a kind of stream of consciousness effect. Sometimes it’s almost literal and sometimes it’s been transformed, but it’s still recognisable. Either way, it depends on the memory of the listener and an assumption that the listener has been changed from all the experiences that have happened in between. Therefore, when you hear an almost literal repetition of the opening material towards the end, it takes on a greater significance. It’s like when a long novel ties up its themes in the final chapter or in an epilogue: if you took the ending out of context it wouldn’t seem complete, because the reader hasn’t had the full experience. The challenge for the performer and the goal of the creator is to engage the audience in such a way that they live through the piece as if it’s unfolding for the first time. There may be an assumption that listeners have a cultural background and might have listened to other music, but the coherence depends on just being there in the moment. One can analyse the music, and really great art might be enhanced by understanding that context, but it also has a visceral effect that doesn’t depend on that sort of knowledge. If listeners just open themselves up to what is happening they’ll get the message.’ Click here to listen to the Emerson Quartet playing Op.130 through Spotify. Photo: Lisa Mazzucco #blog #playing #teaching #quartets #interview

Donna Tartt's brilliant novel The Goldfinch contains insights into the antiques business that might apply to the violin business too I’ve just finished Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch, a brilliantly written epic with a compellingly fallible anti-hero, Theo Decker. I won’t say much about the plot, but it concerns the eponymous 1654 painting by Fabritius, which indirectly leads our protagonist into becoming an antiques dealer. There are a couple of passages in the book that seem to apply to violins and the violin business. Decker’s mentor is an expert copyist and our narrator explains the difference between real and copied antiques, the way a beautiful antique varnish glows, and the histories such instruments hold: ‘He was a good teacher and very soon, by walking me through the process of examination and comparison, he’d taught me how to identify a reproduction: by wear that was too even (antiques were always worn asymmetrically); by edges that were machine-cut instead of hand-planed (a sensitive fingertip could feel a machine edge, even in poor light); but more than that by a flat, dead quality of wood, lacking a certain glow: the magic that came from centuries of being touched and used and passed through human hands. To contemplate the lives of these dignified old highboys and secretaries – lives longer and gentler than human life – sank me into calm like a stone in deep water, so that when it was time to go I walked out stunned and blinking into the blare of Sixth Avenue, hardly knowing where I was.’ Later in the book, by which time our hero is becoming more expert, and more jaded, he offers an essential insight into the value of antiques, which probably applies to instruments too: ‘I also learned a lesson: a lesson which sifted down to me only by degrees but which was in fact the truest thing at the heart of the business. It was a secret no one told you, the thing you had to learn for yourself: viz. that in the antiques trade there was really no such thing as a “correct” price. Objective value – list value – was meaningless. If a customer came in clueless with money in hand (as most of them did) it didn’t matter what the books said, what the experts said, what similar items at Christie’s had recently gone for. An object – any object – was worth whatever you could get somebody to pay for it.’ What do you think? Do stringed instruments have an objective value? #blog #lutherie #view

The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has handily published this wonderfully detailed data about the concerts played in the 2014–2015 season by the top 21 US orchestras. The reason, they say, is that ‘numbers can occasionally provide context for ongoing conversations in classical music or highlight trends’. As they point out, there are obvious trends about the lack of female composers, which must be addressed. But for our string-nerd purposes, I’ve looked at the soloist column of the sheet, to see how string players are faring this season. In the violin camp, we see that there’s a fairly healthy spread of names, pleasingly split exactly 50/50 male to female. Hilary Hahn tops the list with seven appearances, although she has had to pull out of concerts recently, which leaves Augustin Hadelich and Gil Shaham the busiest players, with six appearances each. The usual suspects are mainly there, although one might expect to see more activity from some of the bigger European names, who only appear once. There’s a good range of ages up to the 40ish mark, but as ever, performers seem to drop off a ledge at that age, with only Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman representing the grey of hair. The cello situation seems less healthy, with a smaller pool of players, and three players dominating at the top with five concerts each – Yo-Yo Ma, Alisa Weilerstein and Gautier Capuçon. And sadly I couldn't find a single viola or double bass solo appearance with orchestra. Anyway, here is a list of names, with the number of concerts they have played or will play with the 21 orchestras researched. If you find anything I've missed, please let me know: Violinists Hilary Hahn 7 Augustin Hadelich 6 Gil Shaham 6 Christian Tetzlaff 5 Leila Josefowicz 5 Lisa Batiashvili 5 Alina Ibragimova 3 Anne-Sophie Mutter 3 Baiba Skride 3 Itzhak Perlman 3 Jame Ehnes 3 Jennifer Koh 3 Joshua Bell 3 Leonidas Kavakos 3 Midori 3 Sarah Chang 3 Alexander Barantschik 2 Frank Peter Zimmerman 2 Julian Rachlin 2 Karen Gomyo 2 Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg 2 Nicola Benedetti 2 Pinchas Zukerman 2 Valeriy Sokolov 2 Violinists who are playing one concert each: Alexander Kerr Alina Pogostkina Arabella Steinbacher Benjamin Beilman Carolin Widmann Daniel Hope Elena Urioste Erin Schreiber Eva Kozma Frank Almond Frank Huang Fumiaki Miura Ilana Setapen Isabelle Faust Janine Jansen Julia Fischer Martin Chalifour Nikolaj Znaider Noah Bendix-Balgley Pekka Kuusisto Philippe Quint Rainer Honeck Ray Chen Silvian Iticovici Simone Lamsma Vadim Gluzman Vadim Repin Veronika Eberle Vilde Frang William Preucil Cellists Alisa Weilerstein 5 Gautier Capuçon 5 Yo-Yo Ma 5 Claudio Bohórquez 2 Lynn Harrell 2 Cellists who are appearing once in the season: Alban Gerhardt Amanda Forsythe Anthony Ross Brinton Averil Smith James Czyzewski Johannes Moser Joshua Roman Narek Hakhnazaryan Sol Gabetta #blog #playing #orchestras #view

A new documentary suggests that Mrs Bach was behind the greatest works by her husband Johann Sebastian. But does it ring true? You know that if classical music makes the pages of the infamously scurrilous Daily Mail there’s got to be a good story, so it’s not surprising an iconoclastic new film, Written by Mrs Bach, made it in. Undoubtedly the idea that Bach’s second wife Anna Magdelena wrote much of the great master’s music is a good story. Add to that possible marital infidelity, underage sex, suicide, conspiracy theory and fraud, and it’s no wonder the Mail went for it – there’s even a bit of cosmetic surgery, if you count the rather gruesome scene where Bach’s face gets reconstructed from photos of his skull. I went to see the premiere of the film last night, and it does indeed make a great detective tale. Australian professor and violinist Martin Jarvis, complete with mad scientist hair, in search of scientific evidence to back up his hunch that not only was there more than one hand in the master’s writing, but that this hand was actually creating the music, not just copying it from Bach's scores or taking dictation as his eyesight worsened. In this quest he brings in Heidi Harralson, an American forensic document examiner, as well as a German historian, a facial reconstructionist, and various music scholars. They travel through the German towns where Bach worked, seeking out manuscripts in libraries, using special scanning equipment to compare various autographs, writing and notation, and drawing their own conclusions. What are these? That Anna Magdalena might have been highly educated musically. She might have been a violinist, as well as a fine singer. She might already have been part of the Bach household at the age of 12. As Kapellmeister Bach might have been paying her an inflated salary because he was having his way with her. Their affair might eventually have caused his wife to commit suicide. The couple might have shared his compositional duties as a team. She might have written the aria of the Goldberg Variations. She might have written the Cello Suites. The pain from swolen eyelids might have affected Bach's ability as a composer. After Bach’s death, his sons from his first marriage might have burnt all the documentation to keep her out of the picture. And some of the Bach manuscripts that have been sold for hundreds of thousands might not actually belong to his hand but to hers. Inevitably, the evidence presented is the tip of the iceberg of what Jarvis has investigated throughout his research, or of what is needed to be definitive. So although there are interesting comparisons between the various pieces of handwriting, which convince Harralson, it’s quite hard to be drawn into making the step from this being Magdalena’s handwriting to it being her actual creation. It’s all interesting, but I didn’t feel that anything is proved conclusively, and some of the claims are plain outlandish. The fact is that aside from the markings on the manuscripts there is pitifully little real evidence to build a bigger picture. However, there are interesting themes along the way, most notably the questions the film raises about our expectations of female composers throughout history, something the narrator, composer Sally Beamish, is keen to explore. The standard assumptions posited are that Magdalena could not have had a hand in actually composing anything because she couldn’t have been educated, she couldn’t have composed with all the children around, that she wouldn’t have had the spirit to do it, or that Bach wouldn’t have taken her seriously. I have no doubt that female composers down the line have had to put up with such assumptions. And I’m sure there are cases where it’s been easier for them to ‘give’ their work to male composers – Fanny Mendelssohn being a famous example of having composed work that was credited to her brother. There is also the parallel in violin making, with speculation that the hand of Katarina Guarneri was involved in some of the great works by her husband Guarneri ‘del Gesù’. But for me the main problem is certainly not that I don’t believe a woman could have written such good music. Rather it is that there seems – to my musicologically untrained brain – a consistency and character, a DNA, to the works I know by Bach, which suggests an overriding musical personality at work. And in order to disabuse me of this idea, the film would have needed to make direct musical comparisons between the actual bars and structures composed by both Bachs, rather than focusing so much on the handwriting. I'm all for iconoclasm. If great composers rely on the spadework of others, as is sometimes the case in art – such as with the Damian Hirsts and Henry Moores of this world – then this should be known. Again there’s a comparison with violin making, as we know that Stradivarius didn’t actually make his violins in their entirety but managed his workshop in order to produce great instruments to a standard at which he was satisfied. They still bear his hallmarks in all the important places and do what they need to do, but do the investors who spend millions on such instruments realise this? Possibly not. And maybe it doesn’t matter anyway. But if that’s the same with Bach and his great masterworks, then it certainly merits musicological study. Ultimately though, Bach had the last word on the subject – as the credits rolled they played the powerful build up of the opening of his St John Passion. A reminder of the phenomenal scale of his mastery, and that ultimately, music is so much more than markings on a page, whoever put them there. #cello #blog #playing #bach #view

Bach’s slurs are are a means of expression and not mere technical tricks and we have lost the art of Rhetoric, says Anner Bylsma Yesterday at the Amsterdam Cello Biënnale this mysterious manifesto appeared all over the bar, only for the pieces of paper to be cleared up by the bar staff (and then to reappear). It is addressed to ‘The self-thinking plumber’ and bears the name of Anner Bylsma, so we can assume it is he subverting the norm, as he has done throughout his 80 years. I hope you can read the contents from the picture, so I won’t transcribe it all, but the focus is on interpreting Bach’s bowings: ‘Bach was a great string player and a frugal man. In the Cello Suites, the slurs in a group of 16th notes are usually over two notes in every possible way, often over three notes as well, and only very, very rarely over four notes. Only in scales and the like a greater number of notes may be slurred.’ Bylsma writes: ‘Bach’s music is spoken music. It is a “Klangrede”. Separate notes are syllables; slurs are too, but they also give emphasis and sometimes help to avoid undesirable glissandi.’ He writes that ‘separate’ and ‘slurred’ are means of expression, not ‘technical’ tricks, and his passing shot is that ‘The modern “value-free” Solfège, successor to what used to be called Rhetoric, is a musical disaster.’ This was a theme of one of the discussions he participated in during the week, as he poured scorn on the way beats are all taken with equal importance now. It's a powerful concept and has already affected the way I've been listening to the performances. Do you agree? Is music too regular now? Are we missing a sense of Rhetoric in modern performance? #blog #bylsma #bach #violin #view

At his masterclass on Monday, Jean-Guihen Queyras challenged the notion that playing chamber music is all about playing exactly together Jean-Guihen gave a fascinating masterclass on Monday at the Amsterdam Cello Biënnale, looking at the philosophical questions of music as well as the details. For me, the most revelatory idea he discussed, one which goes counter to everything I was ever taught as a student and in orchestral and chamber music performance, was the concept of not having to be completely together with one’s colleagues. He cited a recording of the Brahms C minor Piano Quartet in which Piatigorsky starts well before the pianist, Jacob Lateiner. The artists didn’t rerecord it, because, according to Queyras, that’s how they felt about the music. Queyras explained to the student, ‘You and the pianist shouldn’t be too civilised with one and other – you can be in conflict with the timing. Sometimes it’s important not to be together vertically. We learn rules – that we have to play together, that there are bar lines. But great artists try to push the bar lines, to look for space.’ Later, he went further: ‘There are moments in music where we’re allowed not to do anything. There are moments where we can have questions. The first time you look at a piece of music you find something, and later you find something else. We’re allowed to get lost a little bit – that’s the nature of the human condition. It starts, at some point it will finish and there are questions we can’t answer. That’s why we do art and music.’ For Queyras, Beethoven epitomises this spirit: ‘Beethoven is the master of the question, the enigma. He poses a question at the beginning, we start looking, and most of the time it will get answered.’ Queyras also gave some practical advice for the notoriously difficult first chords of the ‘Kreutzer’ Sonata, played in the class in cello transcription. He demonstrated how he approaches the details of characterisation: ‘If I were learning the piece, the first thing I would think is how close to the sound of two natural horns I can get. I’d tune the pure thirds to get the right blend. We shouldn’t forget that music is a physical activity, a series of vibrations. There is a way to let the instrument ring and let these notes get in touch with each other.' He also discussed the paradoxes of sound production: 'The bow brings the string into vibration but unfortunately at the same time inhibits it. We’re constantly looking for a way to produce a sound and to let it leave – it’s like the philosophy of life. There’s too much of a tendency to think that more weight into the string means more sound, but you kill it that way.’ #blog #cello #view

Mischa Maisky challenged the traditional notion of authenticity in his masterclass at the Amsterdam Cello Biënnale If any classical musician deserves their own chat show, it’s Mischa Maisky. I only arrived in Amsterdam in time for the second half of his Sunday masterclass for the Cello Biënnale, but he was in full flow with jokes and stories about the great musicians he has known and the meaning of music. His most common phrase was, ‘but that’s another story’, and he joked that his first wife left him because he told too many stories. For the young cellist who had performed for him, there may not have been much by way of specific feedback, but there were some relevant nuggets for her, plenty for the audience to learn from and an interesting discussion on the importance of authenticity in music. One of the points Maisky tried to get across to the student was about attention to detail: ‘It’s just the little things – but then again, that’s the point. Painters try so many little things. When you look at a big painting you don’t see all the details that make it come to life. Then you read a book and a whole page focuses just on how he painted the hand. Small details are important because they bring music to life.’ It’s the details that reveal the genius, as illustrated by one story. Apparently Prokofiev didn’t like Brahms and Maisky told a story about Rostropovich studying composition with the great composer, and spending some time in his country house. Prokofiev gave him an eight-bar exercise to complete and Rostropovich was reluctant to finish it and show it to him. When he finally did, Prokofiev looked at it and said, ‘I think you might be even less talented than Brahms.’ Prokofiev leaned over, changed just a few details, demonstrating his great genius to the cellist, and from then on Rostropovich gave up composition. And sometimes players have to make the details obvious, as Maisky explained: ‘I’m criticised for exaggerating, but I do it on purpose. I don’t play for people who know the music – I imagine the people who are listening to it for the first time. You have to guide them, to show them every change, every decoration. If you try to show 120 per cent maybe they’ll get 75 per cent. But if you only try 90 per cent they won’t get enough. But I might be wrong.’ In his typically lateral-thinking style, this led to a discussion about the nature of certainty: ‘Beware of people who know the truth.’ He quoted Einstein, who set his students questions for their examinations. When they were the same two years running, one student said to him, ‘But all the questions are the same as last year,’ and Einstein replied, ‘Yes, but all the answers are different.’ Inevitably this brought up the question of how to play Bach, and Maisky’s views on authenticity. ‘Music is like a religion and for cellists the Six Suites are like the bible, the book of books. There are many translations and also many interpretations. The greater the music, the more ways it can be played. We don’t need 55 different recordings of Prokofiev sonatas, but we do of Bach Suites.’ He described having 32 versions of the Bach and making a minidisc file lining up the different versions of each movement, discovering, ‘It’s wonderful how differently they can be played.’ There is one rule, though: ‘Great music can never be ugly or boring. If it is then something’s wrong. Apart from that, anything goes.’ Supporting a blog I wrote on the subject, he defined his use of the word 'authentic': ‘Whatever comes from a musician’s heart is authentic. That’s what counts – authenticity of emotions.’ He also made the distinction between disagreement and disrespect: ‘I listen to all sorts of recordings I don’t agree with.’ As to players who try to perform Bach as it might have been played in Bach’s day (which he referred to as 'vegetarianism'): ‘It is totally against Bach’s mentality. Great musicians are ahead of their time; they’re progressive. Bach was not appreciated in his lifetime – it took a hundred years after his death for Mendelssohn to discover him. Bach was ahead of his time, and so curious about the cello, experimenting with what was possible. If Tourte had invented the modern bow a hundred years earlier, Bach would have been the first to use it. I think Bach is turning in his grave that we’re going back 300 years in our playing.’ Maisky posed the question: if Bach were alive today and given the choice of his oratorios being performed by a small orchestra or by the New York Philharmonic, what would he choose? We’ll never know, so it’s open to discussion how to play his music. Maisky told the story of Otto Klemperer, who, when someone told him that Bach wouldn’t have used vibrato, replied, ‘What, 20 children and no vibrato?’ So, Bach was a real, fully dimensional man: ‘He wasn’t just an intellectual composer without feelings. He loved beer, he had a bad temper. We shouldn’t try to pull him down, put him in a frame and label him. He was the greatest romantic composer.’ And finally, Maisky quoted Casals, whom he met shortly before the end of his life. They spent three hours together and Casals told him about Bach: ‘There is no emotion known to humans that is not in Bach. It’s just a matter of digging deep enough and finding it.’ #maisky #cello #blog #view

The legendary violinist Kyung Wha Chung makes her much-awaited London comeback this December, after more than a decade away. On a recent visit she told me about her absence from the stage, her hopes for the younger generation of violinists, and the secret of happiness There is only one violinist I wanted but failed to get on the cover of The Strad when I was editor there: Kyung Wha Chung. Growing up, I knew her as one of the towering violinists of her generation (a towering generation at that, which included her classmates Perlman and Zukerman among many). Her interpretations of the classics were powerful, brilliant and completely individual. But she seemed to have virtually disappeared from the international stage. I knew she was teaching in Korea and at Juilliard, and there were rumours of a new Bach CD, but enquiries into interviews got nowhere. And then, seemingly out of the blue, the 66-year-old announced her return to the London stage, on December 2 at Royal Festival Hall, the scene of her triumphant debut in 1970. So I jumped at the chance to interview her when she came to London recently. We met in Kensington, round the corner from the house where she lived for 20 years. She barely seems to have aged from the classic videos of her in the 1970s and, as I’ve often found when interviewing string players, she speaks just like she plays. Despite a throat infection she talked passionately, frankly and volubly, whether about violin playing, classical music, or life and society in general. Her mind sparks quickly in different directions, but always returning to the original question, even if in a roundabout way. She is clearly tuned into modern trends and thinks pragmatically about the future, and yet also comes across as dreamy and idealistic, poetic even. It’s only logical that Chung’s London comeback takes place at the Festival Hall. It’s there she became an international star, virtually overnight, when in 1970, she was asked to step in at the last minute for Itzhak Perlman, whose wife was about to give birth, to perform with André Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra. There was confusion about which concerto she was to play, with the orchestra ready to perform Mendelssohn and Chung having prepared Tchaikovsky – she recalls the occasion clearly: ‘Previn was very uncomfortable and said, “This is your debut, why don’t I find you another date?” And I said no. We had barely rehearsed but everyone was so concentrated and there was so much electricity. I loved it.’ Her performance (Mendelssohn won out) was brilliantly reviewed and the next day the offers came flooding in. (As Chung says, ‘In those days such a review was really key to a career.’) ‘He was a tyrant. I would work myself to death and he would say, “Darling, if you would only practise. I can take you to water but you have to drink it.”’ Success had been on the cards from a young age, though. Born in Korea to a musical family, she switched from piano to violin aged six and before long was winning competitions. She auditioned for New York’s Juilliard and at the age of 13 the family moved to the US so she could study with Ivan Galamian. He was to become a key figure in her life. What does she remember of him? ‘He was a tyrant. I would work myself to death and he would say, “Darling, if you would only practise. I can take you to water but you have to drink it.” But when we came out of the studio he was a different man: “Come on, why do you look so sad?” Is he kidding? He nearly killed me! He said, “You can do it, of course you can. Patience, patience.” She instinctively goes into his accent and stooped posture when she recounts this. Her respect for him remains enormous, though: ‘He was a phenomenal teacher, born gifted. He knew precisely the mechanics of how the violin worked. He gave me an amazing basic training. He didn’t damage my personality. He was very proud of all his students – Perlman, Zukerman, Rabin, me, Laredo. We all had very different characters, but beautiful techniques. I loved him to death and miss him every second.’ In another decisive moment of her career she came up against Zukerman in the 1967 Leventritt Competition. She had a particular motivation to win: ‘When I was 13 I said to my mother, “Thank you so much for sending me to America, and I promise I will win first prize when I am 19.” True to her word, at 19 she entered the Leventritt, whose jury included the likes of Louis Krasner, Erica Morini, David Nadien, Arnold Steinhardt, George Szell, Joseph Szigeti, Roman Totenberg and Isaac Stern. She describes the burden: ‘I wanted to kill myself. I said, “I’m not ready, but I’ll go for it.” Legend has it that she played better than Zukerman on the day but with pressure applied by Stern, the jury decided to award the prize jointly. ‘There was no pleasure in my achievement. I didn’t dwell on it, I just thought, how do I live up to the expectation of having won first prize. What do I do now?’ She felt little satisfaction from the win: ‘When the prize was handed to me there was no pleasure in my achievement. I didn’t dwell on it, I just thought, how do I live up to the expectation of having won first prize? What do I do now? It meant nothing because I was the same as I had been. People wanted to make me different but I was the same.’ But she was always this tough on herself: ‘I was the hardest judge of myself. Failure was inconceivable. I was very self critical and I didn’t take any compliment to my heart.’ Her solution at this point in her life was to keep studying. ‘When nothing in front of you works, it’s the best time to study. It’s the same with practice. I’d go crazy trying to practise something. Mr Galamian said the best time to study is when it doesn’t work and I tried to realise that. It gives you a free ride because you have to figure everything out.’ Another great musical influence was Joseph Szigeti, with whom she only studied for eight weeks, but who in that time entirely changed her world view: ‘He opened up a wider vision of violin playing. He put a Chinese poem in front of me. I had read a lot as a child, but coming from him it was different. I felt as if I had been in a great ocean, working so hard to learn this instrument, and then suddenly he said, “Yes, you have to have that, but this is something else, this is what you have to do.” So whenever I travelled I would go to a museum, and do anything I could to connect artistically, diligently, passionately. Little by little things came together. Travelling and putting things together became like a puzzle. When Szigeti opened that Chinese poem, he triggered something and it was enough.’ ‘It was shocking. I had never compromised as an artist, because if you do you lose your identity. But if you don’t compromise in a marriage it doesn’t work’ Chung built a brilliant career in the 70s and 80s, with an international schedule and a Decca contract that created classic recordings with collaborators including Previn with the London Symphony Orchestra and Solti with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. But it effectively stopped when she had her first child. ‘My concert life stopped mid-30s when I started a family. It was no longer me or I. It was we, the children, my husband, the family, being a wife. It was shocking. I had never compromised as an artist, because if you do, you lose your identity. But if you don’t compromise in a marriage it doesn’t work. So that was another journey – learning to be a mother and a wife.’ It might sound shocking now, but back in the 60s Galamian, who called her his ‘boy-girl’, told her she must never get married. She remembers, ‘He saw quite a gift in me and every time he saw a gift in female students he lost it because, as he said, “They run off with the boys.” He said I shouldn’t get married.’ But the success of her marriage was a priority, as she explains: ‘Psychologists still say that for a man the order of importance is their career and their marriage. If they lose their career they’re destroyed and feel like a failure. Women want a career and marriage and if they succeed in their career it’s terrific, but if they do well in business and fail in marriage, they feel a complete failure. At least that’s how I felt.’ She also felt under pressure to have children, but senses that this is different now. ‘Things change so quickly. I had my first child when I was 35 and I was an old maid. My doctor was worried that the pregnancy was going to be difficult. Now to have a child mid-40s is nothing. There are so many single people in their 40s, out of choice, or maybe without choice, and it’s acceptable. You can feel comfortable not being pestered. I was pestered when I was past 30: “If you want children you’d better get married.”’ Chung also suffered from Hepatitis C for 20 years, which left her in a great deal of pain, but was eventually cured, and more recently had a finger injury that kept her out of action for five years. She eventually made her initial comeback in 2010, playing the Brahms Concerto in Korea with Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia. Her performance received such a great response that she played the last movement as an encore: ‘It was a wonderful feeling to be back on the stage.’ But she didn’t feel back to full health and rather than pursuing her solo career took a role next to her sister Myung Wha Chung as artistic directors at the Great Mountains Music Festival in PyeongChang: ‘It’s fabulous there, music making with all generations including young kids.’ ‘It doesn’t seem possible that young players can be so technically flawless. In the 60s the level was only impressive in talented pupils’ What does she think of the young generation of players? ‘Technically they’re so capable, as if they could continuously break world records in sports. It doesn’t seem possible that they can be so technically flawless. In the 60s the level was only impressive in talented pupils.’ She sees that they’re much more educated than her generation: ‘These days nobody even looks at your PhD because everyone has one. In my day it meant something. The quantity of education you have to digest now is far greater.’ And maybe this isn't such a good thing: ‘In order to have your personal character you need to invest time in yourself, away from all the pressure and bombardment. We have to give students a chance to develop their character, their sound, their fantasy. For me, the important thing is depth. Mechanical achievement is materialistic. I don’t work in five senses – I work in six. How is the young generation able to cope with the sixth sense, given what they’re supposed to do: so much repertoire to learn, so little time, so much pressure. They’ve got to win first prize and that’s their goal. When I’m coaching my students, I say, “You’re going out into society, into the world. What would make you happy?”’ ‘I have so many students who don’t practise. They’re too clever. When you practise, you get better. That’s basic’ For many of her university level students, their answer to this is to play like her and to have her solo career, but she’s realistic with them. ‘If you want to perform you have to start when you’re very young, to be exposed to stage life and to be trained. But you play very well and this can apply to chamber music. Or you have to really examine yourself introspectively: how do you want to connect with this music and your voice? Your sound has to touch people. It’s not about going out there to win a prize.’ It also requires a lot of work. ‘First of all it requires commitment. You have to be diligent and to do your part, which means practise, work. Without that you can’t complain. I have so many students who don’t practise. They’re too clever. When you practise, you get better. That’s basic.’ ‘Players are so preoccupied with playing the whole piece without mistakes that they have no identity’ The theme of self-discovery is a recurring one in Chung's advice to her students: ‘Go for what you can do very well. Find your strong point, know it and have authority over what you can do. All the rest comes with you. When I have a pupil going for an audition I say, “Your first note has to make it. The first few minutes, a minute, even 30 seconds, are long enough to convince the jury that you’re amazing. Usually when people hear the first bar they know if it’s impressive.” But players are so preoccupied with playing the whole piece without mistakes that they have no identity. I train students to play with the conviction that they can do it, that they’re the best. I had this too. My mother and sister would say, “You’re the best, go out and do it.” So I’d say, “Okay, I’m the best.” If my mother didn’t make a comment then I knew it wasn’t particularly interesting. When I played the violin well she would say, “Oh, you’re making me cry,” so always I wondered if my playing was making her cry.’ At the time I speak to her, the finals of the Indianapolis competition are in progress, with five out of the six finalists Korean, prompting some online discussion about this emerging cultural supremacy, including a certain amount of stereotyping of Koreans having technique but no artistry. She vehemently contradicts this: ‘We are artistically very gifted. Throughout history you can see how original Koreans are. China is on a big scale, but as a neighbouring grand empire it never managed to dominate Korea, so we were left to develop on our own. Korean people come from a small country and they need to find a space to live, so they want to go as far as they can, as quickly as they can to find better choices. They are very artistic and one of the hardest working people.’ ‘It’s always been like that. They need to sell the products; otherwise the world doesn’t go round’ Does she think the classical music industry is more focused on youth and beauty than when she started out? ‘It hasn’t changed a bit. It’s always been like that. They need to sell the products; otherwise the world doesn’t go round. What has changed is the phenomenal explosion in communication and the development of software. It’s happened so fast and people have an uncanny ability to follow the change. But it is difficult to correspond that with actual art.’ So she doesn’t feel all this digital communication threatens classical music: ‘Even if classical music is in the minority, people know they need and value it so there will always be people working towards it. There are a lot of negative people who say it’s dying, but I’m far more optimistic.’ Chung seems to be a natural optimist, maybe buoyed by her strong religious faith, and is philosophical about the ups and downs of her life. ‘I’ve been through all sorts of trial and error. Everyone goes through incredible difficulties in life just trying to figure it out. Life is a single journey and one’s path is never applicable to anyone else. You have to be happy with yourself. It takes tremendous reflection to learn that happiness is in your hands. You have it in front of you if you know what to look for.’ Does this life journey show in her playing? ‘You’re born with certain rhythm, a certain character that never goes away, but experience gives you a completely different perspective. What seemed so important at a certain time of my life I’m not even conscious of any more.’ I’m sure I’m not the only one looking forward to hearing this personality and perspective once again live on stage. #chung #playing #article #interview

I'm currently reading this charming book about Guarneri 'del Gesù', written in 1974 by Leonard Wibberley. I found it on a bookshelf and didn't realise it's actually supposed to be for children (imagine a children's book about lutherie – it had to be the 70s!). So it's very readable, in a quaint sort of way, although it presents rather a dark view of the great maker. He's drawn as a violent drunk whose instruments sound good but who could never be bothered to finish them nicely and was always struggling to make ends meet, and was therefore known in the city as 'the worst violin maker in Cremona'. He comes across rather the Salieri to Stradivari's Mozart, although sometimes the competition between them seems to be more metaphysical. A sample conversation (written from the point of view of Guarneri's apprentice): 'He looked at the instrument closely, shook his head, and said, "Signor, the voice is that of an emperor, the clothing that of a beggar." "Signor Stradivari," replied my master, a little annoyed. "As God is concerned only with the soul and not with the body or its appearance, so I am concerned only with how my instruments sound and not how they look." "Nonetheless," said the other, "if you took more pains, you could sell your violins to kings." "Signor," said my master, "I do better than that. As you will see from the label, I give my violins to Christ – the King of Kings." And this was so, for, in every instrument he made, my master put the letters "I.H.S.," signifiying that they were dedicated to Jesus, the Saviour of Man.' I've just got to the bit where Guarneri's gone on a bender, beaten someone up, landed in prison, and none of the other makers will bail him out because they don't have the money. It all kicked off with him visiting Stradivari and throwing one of his own violins at him saying, 'Haven't you made enough violins, old man? You say I drink too much? Well, you have a fault too. You make too many violins.' Hmm. For the putative meeting of the two greatest violin makers ever, it's a little disappointing. But what do you think they might have discussed? #guarneri #lutherie #blog #view

While I’ve been researching my article on violinists who’ve crossed musical borderlines, for Sinfini Music, I found myself debating with myself (a bad habit). What gives violin stars the right to pick up another genre? Of course there’s no such thing as rights when it comes to music, but there is a certain sense of appropriateness (or appropriation). I wouldn’t go on stage at the Festival Hall and play the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto if I didn’t have complete control of the notes, the intonation and the style. These days, few artists would dare play Bach in public without having considerable knowledge of Bach’s time and style, and at least having made a call about how to employ that. There has been plenty of discussion about 'authenticity' when it comes to Baroque music, but should the same rules apply for classical musicians exploring other styles? My other, self-interested, reason for pondering the question is that I’m in a band that plays Sephardic music – the ancient songs of the Jews who were expelled from Spain in 1492. A few times over our 13 years together we have had comments made by Sephardic and world music purists questioning whether a bunch of Jewish folk from North London brought up in Western Classical, jazz and rock traditions can properly approach this historic canon, which is inflected with flamenco, Balkan and Arabic conventions that are far from our mother tongues (not to mention Ladino, the ancient and beautiful language in which the songs are sung). So what does it mean to be authentic, and how important is it anyway? When Yehudi Menuhin or Joshua Bell play Indian ragas, they essentially sound like Yehudi Menuhin or Joshua Bell – speaking a different language, but with the same sound and expression they employ in the rest of their repertoire. To hear how it’s supposed to sound I’m sure you could go to any village in India and hear players who play it more authentically, and I’m sure Menuhin and Bell would be the first to say that. I even wonder if it’s even neurologically possible for players to be truly great, simultaneously, in different styles. I believe our sound worlds and our approach to rhythm and musical structure must be pretty well hardwired by the time we’ve learnt one style, and to change that, or overwrite it, or even to entertain two different musical languages, at a later date, is not physiologically possible. (Even people who are completely fluent in a foreign language usually still have an accent.) Of course that’s merely a hunch, which I can’t prove scientifically, but I say it on the basis of my own experience learning to be more flexible about rhythm, trying (and failing) to pick up the nuances of Arabic scales, and to think outside the classic eight-bar phrase structure of Western Classical music. I also say it because I have yet to hear anyone who has excelled completely in different styles. The closest it gets on my list is Nigel Kennedy, who obviously steeped himself in jazz violin from an early age and is passionate about it. And yet the times I’ve heard him live even he still sounds like a classical violinist in his melodic and structural instincts. Hearing jazz violinist Chris Garrick come on stage at his last Barbican gig and run improvisational rings around him only reinforced this thought. (Indeed, improvisation seems to be the Achilles Heel for classical musicians crossing over.) Perlman, too, in his klezmer explorations, comes close to sounding authentic, to my untrained ears, but arguably, with his parents coming from Poland, he is more directly related to the tradition. Certainly his jazz record with Oscar Peterson, as lovely as it sounds, bears little relation to real jazz. But then maybe that’s one of the points to what they’re doing – sounding lovely. Creating something that no one’s heard before but that sounds good. My experience at Womad this year was of many different pairings of players from different traditions – Senegalese kora and Welsh harp with Seckou Keita and Catrin Finch, US and English folk traditions with Dom Flemons and Martin Simpson. Listening to Laura Mvula at the Proms last week I heard a giant symphony orchestra supporting beautiful jazz-pop lines in true classical style. There are many other examples of people from different traditions working together like this. Is what they do authentic? Of course not. It may be infused with both respective styles, but you don’t fully get to hear a pure tradition. Should we be worried that this seemingly growing trend threatens the purity of traditions? I don’t think so. My obsession with Bellowhead, the twelve-piece English band that has brought brass, funk and punk to the English tradition, led me to discover more of English folk tradition, both current and historic. One of my favourite CDs, Bruce Springsteen singing American folk songs, led me to investigate Woody Guthrie. How can existentialist philosophers help here? A gross simplification of their concept of authenticity is of finding a way of being true to oneself within the constricts of the external world. We interact with the external world in whatever ways we need to, but we find something that is core to our selves and find ways of expressing that in an honest way. By that token, all the players on my Sinfini list all do what they’re doing well: I think they all pass this test. Whatever you think of him having to read off the music and of his ornamentation, Bell is clearly deep inside the Indian music he’s performing, and he’s still expressing himself as Joshua Bell. Menuhin, too, means every note he plays. To contrast that, one of the least authentic performers I’ve ever seen is André Rieu. He was classically trained, his father was a conductor and he’s spent most of his life playing the waltz repertoire. Yet when I went to see him live the rictus grin, fake joviality, stock waltz beat and underwhelming lack of charm made me feel queasy (more so for knowing that he is probably one of the richest violinists in the world). And I say that with a real affection for the genre, having been brought up on my father’s favourite Baron von Vecsey LPs and New Year’s Day concert broadcasts from Vienna. There's no sense of real authentic communication, and for me he lets the style down. So, to answer my own question, of course players have the right to try different styles, as long as they’re respectful of the traditions and their collaborators, and they’re genuinely conveying something of the music, as they’ve sought to understand it, and of themselves. But then that applies to classical music just as much, doesn’t it? #violin #jazz #folk #bellowhead #blog #menuhin #perlman #playing #view