Search Results

The classical music world tends to focus on its young stars, but as the recent BBC documentary on Janet Baker demonstrated, our venerable figures are an essential part of the community and we lose their voices at our own peril I’m often late when it comes to collective cultural events, especially on television, and so months after my social media timeline was full of admiration for John Bridcut’s Janet Baker documentary on BBC, I have finally watched it. For those of you who have seen it, I’m sorry for the following tardy reactions; for those of you haven’t, it’s available until the end of January here. Anyone who loves opera and classical music should watch it, and even more importantly, anyone who commissions any kind of classical music content. On one level, it’s a simple 90-minute documentary about one of the finest singers ever to emerge from the UK. But there are many stories and subtexts – the sacrifices made for art (Baker chose not to have children); how emotional pain informs musical communication (she lost her beloved brother as a child); the demands of being a soloist and knowing when to quit (she retired from opera at 49); the dangers of loneliness (she was managed and supported by her husband James Keith Shelley); and memories of working with legends such as Britten and Barbirolli. There’s qualitative analysis of her voice – former colleagues such as Raymond Leppard and André Previn, as well as Joyce DiDonato, are played recordings and comment on her technique and skill, DiDonato in some technical detail. I don’t know enough about singing to gauge how hagiographic these tributes are (a singing-geek friend tells me her voice lacked focus) but nevertheless, it’s a fascinating insight into what a good singer does. The structure is not necessarily logical, there are some gaping holes – no mention of her training, for example – and it dwells a little too much at the end on her social group of Jane Glover, Felicity Lott and Imogen Cooper (although what a great Sex in the City-style show they would make!). There is plenty of wonderful footage of Baker performing (such as a definitive Dido’s Lament), but the soul of the film is of her talking to camera, openly and frankly, given space and time without interruption to allow for honest self-reflection, detailed insight and personal story-telling. This shouldn’t feel surprising, but it is. As was pointed out in many of the social media comments, we are not used to this kind of in-depth coverage of classical music these days – indeed of any art form. Even in documentaries about ‘cool’ subjects, we’re usually offered younger celebrity faces with banal soundbites. Here, though, we have some of the finest musicians of a generation offering their expertise. They are almost entirely women and men ‘of a certain age’ – wrinkles, double chins, skin tags and all, and between them, they have huge amounts of insight and wisdom, as well as some cracking stories (Previn recalling inadvertently taking Baker’s crib notes off the piano; Leppard on how Baker missed the pitch and got the giggles, for example). As classical musicians, we’re used to learning from and working with older musicians throughout our lives, and yet one of the pernicious elements of our story-telling, marketing and scheduling is that these generally focus on young faces. There are very good reasons for this – appealing to new audiences; encouraging diversity; promoting new talent. However, if we don’t include a long view of music, meaning and of life itself, we stand to lose out both individually and as a culture. The final scenes feature Baker watching old videos with her husband, who was by then incapacitated by a stroke and looked after by Baker and his carer (Shelley died in June 2019). At first it seems unbearably sad – the ravages of age, sense of loss and sheer ugliness of illness. But as we watch the three of them fixed on the television, we are drawn into the most intimate moments of recognition and love as Shelley responds to his wife’s music and she squeezes his arm. It’s profoundly moving and says such important things about music and life. After all, the miracles of classical music last a lifetime – the joy and comfort of playing and listening are available from cradle to grave. Of course, we must strive to encourage as many people to this journey as young as possible and use whatever means we must, but we should also keep each other company throughout the voyage, rather than disappearing people when they start to wrinkle. Of course, some of this is self-imposed. Baker chose to retire relatively early, for which she had her reasons – she discusses the increasing difficulty in memorising music. For instrumentalists, the struggle is more often about keeping the enthusiasm of youth amid the slog of regular practice, travel and loneliness, and I’ve heard middle-aged violinists I once adored sounding bored and disengaged. On the other hand, I’ve heard nonagenarians Ivry Gitlis and Ida Haendel play scrappily but with more meaning in one phrase than a whole season of young stars. In his song Chelsea Hotel, Leonard Cohen wrote, ‘Clenching your fist for the ones like us who are oppressed by the figures of beauty, you fixed yourself, you said, “Well never mind, we are ugly, but we have the music.”’ Music belongs to us all, whatever we look like, however old we are. So let’s celebrate age, experience and expertise. Let’s make long films about long lives. Let’s hear remarkable stories of longevous artists who bridge our past and future. Let’s ask them questions and hear their answers. They may not be young any more, but they have the music.

The great film maker's under-appreciated musical talents are the focus of this year's 130th anniversary celebrations I'm chuffed that I have been allowed to evangelise about Charlie Chaplin in The Guardian. He was born 130 years ago, on 16 April, and in this anniversary year, his musical talents are finally being recognised with events around the world. My article is a very quick snapshot of his story with music and an attempt to help people take his musical contributions more seriously. Here is my Guardian article. Here are some of the events worldwide. My article on Chaplin's relationship with the violin. And six things musicians can learn from Chaplin. #view

Diana Cummings comes from a musical dynasty, and her career spans solo, chamber and orchestral playing. Since 1982 has been a professor at the Royal Academy of Music, where she also teaches on the LRAM diploma course, which she helped devise. She is also a professor at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music. In this interview she gave me for the Summer 2016 issue of the European String Teachers Association magazine ARCO, she shares her life experience of teaching I was fairly rebellious as a youngster and if my father [violinist Keith Cummings] told me anything, I didn’t want to know. A lot of it sunk in, though. He was a fine musician and had worked it all out very carefully. I find myself quoting him often. He’d say, ‘Push your up bows,’ which is a great description. I find myself saying that a lot. I learnt more about sound and expressiveness from my piano teacher Dorothy Hess than from anyone else. We didn’t do scales – she used Mozart for scales and Chopin for sound, and she was a wonderful musician. I was over 40 when I started teaching. I was thrown in at the deep end. When my former teacher David Martin became ill he asked if I would I teach his class. He had 15 distraught first-years at the Royal Academy. I learnt to teach by tapping into what I’d been taught by him and by Remy Principe, my father and Louis Persinger, and through my own exploration of the instrument. I learnt such a lot from all the teachers I went to. You assimilate information and what you don’t like you discard. I basically teach what I was taught, or the way I was taught. One’s own personality comes through as time goes on. One evolves over the years, because you’re always looking for different things. For example, Colourstrings has come into my life in the last ten years and I’ve absorbed quite a lot from that. I have huge respect for it because it’s so soundly constructed. They learn to move. I was at a concert recently and the children had beautiful bow arms and all played in tune. I learnt a lot from Sheila Nelson. I remember when my son, who started off with her, was about five, and she let the mums sit in. They’d play ‘Cowboy Chorus’ and I learnt a huge amount from that to apply to my own playing – about movement, and making circles with elbows. What do I teach? Making circles with elbows. In the early days I was fairly tough. I remember with one of my first students there was nothing I could do but strip it all down and start again. After a couple of months, she said, ‘Can I play a piece?’ You judge from their reactions. If you see something isn’t quite working, you change it so it does. It’s all about experimentation. When I take a new student there’s often lots of unpicking to do. I’ve had to undo a lot of dire technique, which is difficult for the student. Many have been taught by teachers who are not hugely skilled. Their actual knowledge of the instrument and how it works is not very sophisticated so some of the things that the students have assimilated are not very productive. We don’t really have a system in this country. They do on the continent – for good or bad – because the conservatories are centrally run. There are repertoire and studies that every student has to go through and then they take a diploma – it’s very structured. Here it’s a bit of a free-for-all, and anyone can start teaching the violin, for good or bad. The most common problems I see are tension and the way the left-hand fingers go down. I usually allocate six weeks of going back to basics. It’s fairly fearsome, but a lot of students want it because they know their technique needs to be developed. The first lesson is a lot of discovery – talking to them, finding out their background. I’m always sensitive. They’re usually nervous and I try to be as relaxed as I can. The first thing I ask is, ‘What do you think about your playing?’ With most of them it’s pretty obvious – their teacher has probably been telling them – and we have a bit of a discussion. I can’t wade into the situation. Playing the fiddle is a very personal thing so I have to be careful. I start with posture. For the first couple of lessons I go into a lot of detail about how they should be standing, how we get the instrument from the case to the shoulder, and how we pick up the bow, because it starts from the moment we open the case. Posture is critical. Recently I went to a masterclass given by Maxim Vengerov at the Royal Academy, and what did he talk about? Feet and posture. I get them to stand, check their posture and feel the floor. This is an Alexander Technique and Yoga discipline. How do you get the instrument up? I show them how to just chuck it on to their shoulder, and swing the bow on to the string. This is the Alexander idea of ‘non-doing’. The trouble is that when we play, we hold the instrument instinctively. The shoulder rises and then goes into tension, so we’re starting from a negative place. If we throw the instrument, by the time we’ve got it up we’re still completely fluid. We haven’t gone into ‘playing the violin’ mode. It usually takes 15 minutes to work out how to do that, and then I get them to lift their left-hand fingers and relax their hands, and relax their fingers on to the string. It usually takes the first lesson. I ask, ‘Does it feel comfortable? Does it feel different?’ If it feels comfortable and different that’s fine. If it’s uncomfortable and different then we have more work to do. The shoulder is a ball and socket joint and we need a million gallons of olive oil and an ocean of space so that the bone can flow. We have to be very mobile, to be able to make circles with the shoulder, and to be able to get to that situation with the instrument in our hands. I get out my plastic skeleton, and my books and charts, and ask them how many bones they have in their upper arm. Usually they look puzzled, but it’s important we know our skeletons. It doesn’t matter what things are called, but we should at least have a picture of the skeleton in our minds, so we know how we move. The last thing students are expecting to do is to look at a human body, but they’re always interested. I go into the physicality of it in great detail because how we balance is so important. Holding the instrument is difficult, perhaps the most difficult thing we do. The violin has to sit on the collarbone. We have to keep the head free. The head just drops to keep it from falling. I usually start with no shoulder rest and get them to throw the instrument on to the collarbone. Then I have a look. The shoulder rest should just fill the space. Often the shoulder rest sits on the shoulder, pushing it around, so it’s very unstable. Playing the fiddle is not a healthy thing to do. You’re scratching away on this box with a stick, it’s weighted on one side, you’re doing two different things, and it’s guaranteed to give you a sore neck if you’re not careful. That’s why I learnt about Alexander Technique, which is very important as a way of learning to move. Some years ago I took up yoga because my shoulder was a bit of a mess, and I still do it regularly, which helps. I don’t mind if my students do Alexander Technique or Yoga or Tai Chi, as long as they do something, because playing the fiddle is such a physically stressful thing. Our thought process is very important in movement. To demonstrate this, I say to students, ‘Point,’ and then, ‘Lift your foot.’ How have they done it? By thinking it. Just by thinking, we are able to move different muscle sets. How we think of movement affects how we move the instrument. At the end of the first lesson I usually say, ‘Get a notebook. Write down everything we’ve done in detail, today. Don’t leave it to tomorrow because you’ll forget. You’ll forget anyway, so write it all out.’ I don’t necessarily read what they’ve written, but I need to see what they’ve done. I tell them to write a page, in legible writing. There’s so much information, that they will forget it otherwise. I write down what they’ve got to practise next week. I’m usually fairly explicit about practice, depending on the student. I might say, ‘Do two minutes of this ten times a day,’ ‘Go through the standing posture 20 times a day. Every now and again just stop, go down to your feet, balance your ankles and knees, drop your tail, float your spine and drop your head.’ I’m specific because if you just say, ‘Practise it,’ a student will go away and think, ‘How am I going to practise it?’ It wastes too much time and is counterproductive, because they’ll do something that isn’t helpful. After the first week I go to Ševcík op.1 book one, because it helps students open their left hand and learn to release. We tense up easily and the release is difficult, because the brain doesn’t access that so easily. Ševcík was a genius, because he approached every single problem there might be. There is a structure and you don’t have to invent anything: it’s all there. But I’m very selective with it, otherwise it gets boring beyond belief. I add Mazas and Keyser studies at the beginning stages. Depending on the student’s age, I dole out the beautiful Albinoni A major Concerto, which is full of semiquavers and scales. I don’t really teach vibrato. I find that once physicality is understood and absorbed, it is not a problem. I’ve had students who have no vibrato, or a non-vibrato, and I just leave it. I was teaching a girl who was a mess, and we worked on the physicality of playing and left the vibrato. After a few weeks I said, ‘Now, vibrate,’ and she did the most beautiful vibrato. She almost wept. It just happened, because she had a new sense of physical understanding. There’s psychology behind it: vibrato can become a phobia after a while, but usually it’s not good because the whole set-up is unbalanced. Ruggiero Ricci wrote a book on left hand and the pages on vibrato are fantastic. Sometimes I get students to do those exercises, and say, ‘Just think into your fingertip,’ while I hold their arm. I work on the left hand first. I’ve found that if there’s a knowledge of how it works, and a new physicality, awareness and ability to release tension (which can happen reasonably quickly) the bow is much easier. I go on to the bow in the second and third lessons and start to remodel that. With repertoire, I start with the Mozart Violin Concerto in B flat major. I avoid the G major because they all know it and I can do without it! The First is lovely, and very useful. Then I go to the A major, and occasionally to either of the Haydn concertos. I used to use Viotti no.22, which has double-stops and all sorts of useful things, but these things come in and out. I always have Bach on the go. I use the E major Partita first, because it’s accessible, and then the G minor Sonata as a natural progression. I don’t use the fugues initially, because the chords are so difficult. I use the Barber Violin Concerto quite a lot because it’s technically possible, romantic, and has a lovely tune. I also use the Bruch Concerto for sound, and the Prokofiev unaccompanied sonata, which is modern and accessible, and not too difficult. I tell students to listen, listen, listen. Go to concerts. One girl I taught had never been to a concert. I told her she had to go to one concert a week. I don’t care what, just go. Young people do too much and don’t have the time to allocate to practice. I suss out the pace I’m expecting, and if I give them a Kreutzer study and three weeks later they’re still sight reading it, I know something isn’t functioning. Recently I had a young pupil who was very good, but progress was slow, so I asked how he was organising his practice and he told me all the things he was doing. I said, ‘The school wants you to do everything, but you’ve got to say no. You have to do two or three hours a day or you won’t achieve what you want to achieve.’ I’m sympathetic, because you can’t be too radical, but he cut some things out. What we do is very difficult. Professional life is hugely competitive. I tell students that the better they can play, the more satisfying their professional life will be. I tell them to go on studying as long as they possibly can. Up to this point they’ve been told what to do, and when they leave they will have to make it on their own. Four years’ conservatoire study is not enough, but students have to work these days because it’s so expensive. I have to accept that that’s how life is. If they do post-grad at least they’re within a structure for as long as possible. Four years with a student is long enough. That’s why I encourage my students to explore other teaching. You need other input, from selected people. It’s not easy, because these days it takes financial commitment and there isn’t the funding there used to be. #violin #pedagogy #teaching #interview

Stefan Popov has been professor of cello at London’s Guildhall School of Music & Drama for 40 years, and before that taught at Boston University and New England Conservatoire. He was born in Bulgaria, and studied at the Moscow Conservatoire with Sviatoslav Knushevitsky and Mstislav Rostropovich. In this interview for the Winter 2017 issue of the European String Teachers Association magazine Arco, he told me about the strengths of the Russian School, and how he’s still learning I started teaching when I was only 16, when I was still at school in Sofia, helping my Bulgarian teacher with the younger students. Later, as part of my studies at the Moscow Conservatoire, I had to teach. I would bring my students to the head of the teaching department, Lev Ginsburg, and he gave me feedback. That was the system, which is why Russia has so many great teachers – although life has changed now. I started by teaching what my teacher taught me, and over time I discovered what I had to look for myself, and I changed a lot over time. The great thing about the Russian School is that young children are taught professionally from an early age. There is no compromise, and by the age of 14 or 15, they are well developed technically. One of the characteristic differences in the Russian School is the sound: you can hear it in Rostropovich and all Russian players – a big, vibrant sound. We were always taught the freedom of the hands and how to use natural weight. When you press, you block the sound. When you’re free, you get the instrument to vibrate, and the sound projects, which is very important. Rostropovich used to talk about singers who have a big voice, but can’t be heard against an orchestra in the Bolshoi Theatre, whereas one with a small voice can project right to the back. You have to be very free to get this projection, to have a very good contact with the strings and to feel that even when you’ve stopped the bow, the sound carries on. Sometimes students want to play a piece, but they’re not ready, so they struggle to learn it. They like to play, but they don’t know how to shift, or they don’t have the freedom in their playing. Technically, they should always be one step ahead in order to enjoy music. That’s been a problem in England. In some countries, such as France and Russia, there is a set series of technical concertos that every student follows. In his book, Violin Playing As I Teach It, the great teacher Leopold Auer lists the order in which students should learn repertoire. Children learn very quickly like this. It’s the same for the cello – there is plenty of music written by our 19th-century forefathers – you have to learn it in the right order, and not jump around, which is a common mistake. The best way to build a solid base is to learn repertoire written by the professional players. Violinists should play pieces written by violinists and cellists should play repertoire composed by cellists. You can’t learn to play the cello from Bach – he wasn’t a cellist. Pianists are lucky, because they play Chopin, Liszt and Beethoven – works written for their hands. The Romberg sonatas might not be at the same level as Beethoven, but they can help students learn how to play cello. Everyone is different. One student might be more emotional and one more rational, and you have to create the balance. Some students don’t have enough musical temperament, so you have to give them music to wake them up. With students like this I try to give them some Spanish music, to try to help them burn inside. You can show them music like that and they change. You have to choose repertoire to develop the different parts of each student, so that they become rounded players. You have to be very honest. It’s important that students feel that you’re trying to help them. The standard of playing has improved a lot, both technically and musically. I remember the first time I sat in auditions at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, some of the players were not ready for music school, let alone conservatoire. That’s changed completely now. Grade exams are very good for amateurs and music lovers, but not for professional development. It’s good that children are motivated to get their exams, and are encouraged by their results, but the syllabus doesn’t always develop their abilities. You see a piece like the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Cello Sonata being played for Grade 8, but it’s the most difficult Beethoven Sonata – I don’t even give it to students who have graduated. Ninety per cent of students don’t know how to practise. They need to be taught how to get better results with less time. If you spend ten hours practising a day you don’t see anything else in life, which makes for a poor musician – never reading books or doing anything other than learning to play the notes. That’s why it’s important to learn how to practise less, with more concentration. The first thing students need to do when they practise is to warm up their hands – both left and right. I have my own specific exercises, which my students have to do daily. They do 20 minutes of warm-up exercises, and after that, a minimum of 30 minutes of scales. Practising scales is not emotionally involved, and you have to get everything absolutely right, always correcting notes with open strings or harmonics. It’s important to get the right overtones, because the sound is better and the instrument sounds better. My students learn to love scales. When you hear the vibration of a perfectly tuned 3rd or 4th, it’s fantastic. They have to enjoy that. When you practise intonation, you have to feel how everything fits together like a puzzle. If you play an F sharp, you have to know that it’s different whether you’re in D major or G major. That is expressive intonation, which is my preference over tempered intonation. Intonation is an emotional thing. A note that’s is a little sharp gives you an optimistic feeling inside; one that is a little flat is more pessimistic. Intonation is the most common problem with the cello. It’s difficult, firstly because everything is big and all the relationships between the notes have to be polarised. The violin is easier in some ways, because you always have the supporting point of the thumb, and you measure your distance from that, even when you go to the top and come back. On the cello, we only have that sensation near the nut, in the first positions, but not further away, which is why it’s more difficult when you play in the thumb position. I’ve created a technique where I create basic points with my thumb, on the way up and down, so I always know where my hand is, and I can explore all the notes in the area. Most cello schools move everything, which is difficult for the hand. In shifting, I use the principle of extension–retraction–extension–retraction. It’s the ‘principle of the caterpillar’. It means that whenever I change position, there is something that stays. You can use that principle on the violin, too – Galamian talked about it. Tonal music such as Boccherini, Romberg, Breval and Kraft is not always great art, but it’s written well for the hands and is very useful for intonation. That’s why violinists have to play Mozart concertos for auditions, because you hear every single note, and intonation in an orchestral section has to be very good, because if you have ten people playing with one a little sharp and one a little flat, it sounds terrible. That’s why you need to know this repertoire very well. If you feel tension doing exercises you should stop immediately. You should never play under pressure. If you try to carry on, everything gets worse, so stop and relax for 10 or 15 minutes. My teacher Sviatoslav Knushevitsky used to say, ‘If you’ve got even two beats’ rest, try to relax in those two beats.’ That has always stayed in my mind. Students often don’t know how to relax, and it’s important to help them. I tell them to relax, and get them to feel very heavy in their right hand. Muscles have to be elastic all the time. If you relax after using a muscle, you can keep working with it, but if you keep it tight, after a while it doesn’t want to work. A young body can take more pressure, but as you get older your muscles don’t work the same way, so if young players learn to release their muscles from an early age, they can keep playing for a long time. It’s important to make sure students have a very flexible body and flexible hands. If you look at a hand, you can already hear the sound. They can’t make a flexible sound with a tight hand. I see people trying to play with great tension, but there is no point. One trick I find works is that if someone has tension in their shoulder, say, I tell them to make a sign saying ‘shoulder’ and to put it somewhere they can always can see it – on the stand or the wall. It starts to work, because every time they see the word, they react; otherwise they forget. If one thing doesn’t work with a student, don’t be too persistent, because everyone has a different physiology, different hands. Nature is a wonderful teacher. If you watch how nature works, you can resolve many problems. Many of the rules we learnt at school – movement, acceleration and inertia – apply, whether you play the violin or the cello. You cannot give exactly the same thing to every student. One might have a long first finger, and another a short one, and you have to find a solution for both. When I was a student, my teacher once asked me to play something that was completely beyond my hands, and I struggled. His fingers were twice as long as mine, so it was okay for him, but not for me. I have very short fingertips, and because you can’t play with the nail, that caused many problems. I created my own technique, to suit my hand, so I could play easily. It is important to concentrate on one problem at a time. You can’t work on everything together. If you’re practising intonation, ignore the music. Practise just for the left hand or just for the right hand. I want my students to love music, so that they say something with their playing. There are too many excellent players who don’t say anything. They play the notes well, but there is no character. They have to try to translate the composer’s musical ideas, to understand what they felt when they wrote the music. I encourage students to listen to themselves very carefully, because the best teacher for anyone is themselves. They have two hours a week with me, but up to 30 a week by themselves, and if they don’t listen, they won’t make progress. They’ll learn to move their fingers better, but they will not feel the music. I ask them questions like, ‘Do you like this or not? Play it again. What do you think of your phrase? Is it good or not?’ And they start to listen to how they play themselves. When you play music, or if you create any kind of art, you have to love it. I always tell students what Honegger said. He used to teach in the École normale and tried to discourage his students: ‘You want to be a composer? It’s a disaster. You’ll be hungry and no one will pay you. But, if you feel that if you don’t write a page of music every day you’ll explode, then carry on.’ I enjoy it when I see my students put emotion into their playing, and I can feel their love for the music. It’s satisfying when students feel the style of the music, and don’t play a Haydn concerto like it’s Shostakovich. Some people say there’s no such thing as style, that you should do what you feel, but I think that is wrong. When students play old music I encourage them to close their eyes, and see images of how people were then. Some things were the same, but people had their own understanding of what was beautiful. Every epoch has its own aesthetic and musicians should look to that. If you’re playing Bach, imagine how 300 years ago people didn’t have television – they danced old dances. Imagine dancing those dances. How do you feel? More elegant, more polite? So I like some authentic style, but people get extreme. Many things have changed: instruments are the same but the tension of the strings is different, so they cannot sound like Baroque instruments. Being a teacher is a very responsible job. If you have a gifted student, you can easily hurt them with the wrong thing. There may be great talents out there whom no one knows about because they’ve had bad teaching. Some teachers push talented students too quickly, because they think it will be good publicity, but these students suffer later in life. How many wunderkinds have disappeared before they were 35 years old? It’s not right to do that. We have to carry on learning as teachers, to read about different systems, to work out what works for each particular student. Everyone is different and you have to try to help them all, and love what you do. There’s no age limit on the teaching profession. You’re always learning something new, because students are all different. I am 76 and even now I have new ideas – there is no end. #cello #pedagogy #russianschool #teaching #Rostropovich #interview

Double bassist Thomas Martin studied with Roger Scott in Philadelphia and can trace a teaching pedigree that goes back to Bottesini. In a career that has combined both orchestral playing in the world’s top orchestras and teaching, he has taught at Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Royal College of Music, and is currently senior professor at Birmingham Conservatoire. In this interview, first published in the European String Teachers Association magazine Arco in Autumn 2016, he told me about his teaching philosophies A student’s ability to improve is directly proportional to their ability to self-criticise. You’re not always going to be there to help them. They’ve got to learn to understand their problems and to help themselves. My lessons are four-pronged: in each one we cover technique, etudes, orchestral passages and solo pieces. No one uses etudes any more; they work on one solo piece a term. I don’t do that – etudes are very important. You’re learning one or two new pieces a week and rising to the various technical challenges they throw forth. I use the Billè books, Storch’s 57 Studies, Simandl’s Gradus ad Parnassum, Mengoli, Montanari, Rossi and Caimmi. They’re all very good and I like to travel through them. There has to be an orchestral passage every week, because the bass is the foundation of the orchestra. We make up little studies as we go along, to get over problems. It’s easy to do, but first the student has to know what the problem is. For example, if they’re going from one note to another and they get stuck, they must think, ‘How do I get unstuck? I’ve got to loosen and take weight off, and then think about going to the next note.’ We’ll make up a little exercise, maybe using a scale pattern. Intonation comes from inside us, from our own ears. We have to develop that. When practising intervals, I would think: ‘Where am I; what is the next note; where do I think it is; what am I expecting to hear?’ If you play and then you listen, you’re too late. The best way to work on intonation is through singing. The student will play a note and sing the next note, so they now know what they’re looking for, and they’re developing an ear. There are a number of ways you can adjust intonation. If you’re extremely close you can just move your finger. There’s also finger tread. If you put your finger straight down, into the string, the note will go sharp; if you bring your finger up the note will go flat. You can get almost a semitone out of finger tread. Many musicians over-press and with all the shifting we do, that can slow us down. I use as much downward weight as I need to produce a note. I don’t over-press. As a demonstration, I often play a harmonic and just push down until a clear note arrives. Once the note comes out you don’t have to push down much harder. Students have to learn to use the bow as an expressive tool. We use portato to make expression – playing every note, whether it’s slurred or not. Many people don’t begin to understand or use portato. Apart from portato, building a phrase is about crescendo and diminuendo, and vibrato. Some fiddlers use a uni-vibrato to make a phrase but that’s not the best way. It’s better to be able to change the speed. In lessons we practise making crescendo and diminuendo, and building intensity of vibrato along with that. There are basically two vibratos on the bass. One is like turning a light bulb. The other is like Bruce Lee: moving your forearm up and down, without moving your wrist – the forearm moves downwards and upwards parallel to the string. You can practise this vibrato on top of a piano or by sliding up and down the string, stopping your finger. There are two types of imagination to develop with students: musical and technical. Technical imagination is all about thinking of how to finger things. Bassists used to play everything up and down one string, but now with set-up and metal strings we can cover all the strings, and the technical possibilities are huge. So I’m going to think, ‘Can I think of at least three different fingerings for the passage?’ Or, ‘I’m on the open string – can I move anywhere without anyone knowing?’ And we only used to use the thumb for octaves, but now we use it all over the place. We also have to cultivate musical imagination. What do players want to achieve? What phrasing do they want? In my lessons we will try one way, and then another, and another, finding at least three ways of phrasing the same thing. Then you begin to develop musical imagination. You’ve got a completely open mind and the ability to change phrasing in a split second. If you’re in a chamber music group or orchestral situation and someone plays a phrase, or a conductor gestures in a certain way, you can change to that phrasing instantly. You should be able to respond to that. I tell students, ‘Never play the same thing twice.’ Many pieces have the same phrase four times. You have to put your musical thinking cap on to find a way around this. Let’s say I’ve got a phrase of four even notes. I can phrase one and three, two and two (which is not interesting) or three and one. With eight notes there are even more possibilities to think about phrasing. This makes students think. Too many teachers give students their music to photocopy, with all their fingerings and bowings. That is dead. It means you can have a talented student who can pass an audition but they don’t know how to play. They can’t think. I see players like this in masterclasses. They can only do what their teacher told them to do. I ask for at least three fingerings for every passage. That makes the student think, and opens their mind. There’s often confusion between what we conceive and what we achieve. You can think you’re playing a phrase one way and it comes out differently. Students can use a recording apparatus to check whether what comes out is what they’re intending. Look in a mirror to find out what you’re actually doing. I had a student from one of the London orchestras recently, who had never looked in the mirror. When I pointed out what he should be doing, he saw it in the mirror immediately and was able to fix it in a week. This comes back to the idea of self-criticism. We have to examine ourselves to see what we could improve, and then fix it. You have to know your students well. Teaching is about finding a way in. Get to know the person – how they think, their temperament, their personality – so you can find a way through, together. You have to be very careful. You’re teaching them self-criticism, but with the right attitude. You don’t want them to tear themselves to shreds. You have to be very constructive. You want them to say, ‘How can I be better?’, rather than, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ Constructing the bow arm – taking it apart and putting it back together – is the best thing you can do for a student. They have to develop a feel for the string. Many misunderstand and press too much, which causes all sorts of problems for both hands, both musically and technically. You can get a bigger sound in other ways, by grabbing and pulling out with the right hand, for example, rather than grabbing and pushing in. All pressing does is choke the instrument. The first problem is how to make the string vibrate freely in two directions using a bow that only goes in one direction. The solution is to use relaxed weight, and to get the weight line right, running from the middle of the back to the string. That’s the first lesson. All string schools are similar in that you use the big muscles of your back and shoulders to supply the power for the bow and left hand. There are other problems. For example, all the weight is in the heel of the bow. How do I spread this weight evenly? When I’m at the tip the weight is still in my hand, so we talk about simple leverage, which is the science of moving weight. Then we find out what each finger can do. It’s hard to imagine how big the bass fingerboard is. I see a lot of sluggish shifting, because people put too much pressure on their left hand, so it’s hard to move. I often use a train as an analogy. When you’re in the station you keep the brakes on, but you take them off while you move to the next station. I use the image of an airplane landing when showing students how to shift. If you land on the front of the airplane you crash. If you land on the back or the middle of the airplane you have a nice landing. That gives us some clues about which fingerings work better in shifting. If I’m shifting upwards I’ll tend to use the first or second finger. Coming back I’ll shift on the fourth. I’ve only ever taught one beginner. I told his mother, ‘He’s got to do it my way: we’re not going to learn half an instrument, we’re going to do it all now.’ So we learnt the whole bass, which is the way I was taught. Students often use books that go up to the fifth above open string, and struggle for three years until they’re allowed to go higher. How silly! We learnt the whole thing, and he’s now principal bass in a major opera house. Orchestral and solo techniques are not necessarily the same. The bass is so big that if you’re in a section with seven other basses you become a composite instrument the size of a wall. This has its own particular problems, mostly with notes gobbling themselves up and the sound swimming around. Bass players have to play in a clean and clear way in an orchestra, sometimes stopping the resonance, both with the bow and the left hand, to make passages clear as a group. A student came to me who was about to go for an audition. He got out a metronome, and I said, ‘Put that away. Rhythm comes from you.’ Rhythm is the most physical of all the aspects of bass playing. You’ve got to feel rhythm. I’m trying to give students a well-rounded education and the tools they need to go out and get a job. My kids get jobs because I show them what works, and I teach them orchestral music. You can’t believe the number of students who can play their solo works, because they’ve been working on them for four years, but you give them a Beethoven symphony and they can’t deal with it. Institutions have increasingly been lining their pockets. They’ve been over-producing graduates. We’ve got a shrinking arts market being served by an ever-increasing number of musicians. We’re over-producing. Conservatoires often take kids who aren’t good enough and you think, ‘How are they going to survive?’ Some teachers feel they have to have a gimmick or a new take. I don’t take that approach. If I have a motto, it’s to KEEP IT SIMPLE. A lot of the work I do when students come in is about uncomplicating things. Playing the bass is not rocket science. If it were, I couldn’t do it. Aged 76 I’m still running all over the place. I’ve got no playing hang-ups and it’s because I’ve found an uncomplicated, simple way to play. For example, I can explain bowing in three words: grab and pull. There are lots of little basses and little bass players these days, which has happened over the last 30 years. It’s a revolution. Kids are starting to practise and learn the bass much earlier. The standard of double bass playing is going up like a rocket. I’m from a generation that mostly viewed the double bass as an orchestral instrument. The principal bass of an orchestra occasionally had to play a concerto and people would go along and laugh. Then Gary Karr came along and started playing as a soloist and that made us think. He was doing things that had seemed impossible, but that we now think of as first-year college standard. Double bass soloism has emerged. One reason is the steel string. When I grew up we had gut strings and not everyone could play the bass or sound good. They were tricky to play. Now, you’re unusual if you play on gut strings. However, it’s good to play on gut strings sometimes, because it brings you back to the reality of what you can and can’t do on a bass. I have a bass set up with gut strings. I never tire of teaching. The greatest thing you can do in your life is to help a young musician. #doublebass #orchestra #teaching #pedagogy #interview

As research shows that young people are coming to classical music through film and club music, here‘s an article I wrote in 2018 for ISM Music Journal about the wildly successful Haçienda Classical, which brings together classic House music and the orchestral sound of Manchester Camerata to generate its very own audience ‘Absolutely amazing gig. Brilliant performance from everyone involved. Incredible. Best gig ever!’ ‘The bottom line is, if I could go to see this show every weekend for the next year, I WOULD!! What a sound.’ When an orchestra gets this many exclamation marks in an online review, you know it’s doing something right. You might also guess that it’s not only playing Bruckner and Ligeti. This is the level of excitement generated by Haçienda Classical, the concert experience based on the legendary Haçienda club scene of the 80s and 90s – with the added benefit of a live orchestra. The event was first brought together in February 2016 by DJs Graeme Park and Mike Pickering, Haçienda co-founder Peter Hook and manager Paul Fletcher, conductor and orchestrator Tim Crooks and the Manchester Camerata. In May and June they have gigs in Glasgow, London and Manchester, and more later in the year in Sheffield, London, Edinburgh, Bedfordshire and Leeds. As is often the case with great innovations, the idea gestated in two different places simultaneously. Bob Riley, Chief Executive of Manchester Camerata recalls: ‘A few years ago we were thinking about where we were going with future audiences and we completely changed our vision. Part of that was saying that we want to be in places where people already are. What would it be like to play in bars, clubs and cathedrals? A natural step from that was to look at it the other way round and ask what it would be like for the bars and clubs to find themselves in a concert hall. That was the germination of an idea.’ The classical thing For Graeme Park and Mike Pickering the idea was born more of frustration. Park explains: ‘When Mike and I were DJing at Haçienda club nights the crowd was getting younger and younger, but the people who had been at the Haçienda wanted to hear the tunes from the 80s and 90s. For a DJ who still works every weekend, it gets tedious playing the same tunes. We kept saying that we needed to do something to keep our original punters happy. Then one night after a club night we sat in a hotel bar and as we were getting into a lift at five in the morning, two musicians got out with their instruments and someone said, “Let’s do the classical thing,” and everyone else went, “Yeah, let’s do the classical thing.’ It was Peter Hook who made the initial match and phonecalls, and one day in August 2015, he, Park, Fletcher, Crooks and Riley met in a café in Wilmslow, Cheshire. They threw around ideas and decided the project could work. Between them Hook and Park then generated a list of 20 tracks, and gave Crooks a mix to score. A few weeks later, Fletcher called to say he’d booked the Bridgewater Hall, leaving them just three months – over Christmas – to prepare. The debut There was plenty of work to do organising musicians and rehearsing, but getting an audience wasn’t a problem – it sold out within ten minutes, and inside the Bridgewater Hall, the response was euphoric. Riley remembers: ‘The audience was going crazy, screaming for about 30 minutes before anyone even came on stage. There was an incredible atmosphere and when the band came on the place erupted.’ Park says: ‘We naively thought people would think it was a classical orchestra with Graeme and Mike and a few guests and that they’d come in and sit down. But they didn’t. It was like a wall of sound – I’ve never heard anything like it.’ They did the same show the next week, and were booked for the Royal Albert Hall, ending up with 16 gigs in 2016. Unsurprisingly, there were teething problems initially, mainly with sound. Riley says: ‘It’s got a huge PA system on it and a concert hall wasn’t built for that, so it was tough getting to the point where you’ve got a balance between giving people what they expect but not distorting the sound. When you take that into the Royal Albert Hall or Glastonbury Festival it changes again. It’s about adapting to different environments. The element of partnership has been really critical.’ The live orchestra The idea of having a live orchestra on club tracks is surprisingly logical. Crooks explains: ‘A lot of house music is based on disco music that was written in the 70s. There were incredible scratch bands of session musicians who recorded so much music brilliantly. You hear a lot of it sampled and put into house music. It was interesting to go back to the originals and think, “Is there anything I can borrow?” In some instances they’re so well written that they’re easy to orchestrate and work very well.’ In this era of digital technology, it might have been easier not to use a live orchestra, as Crooks admits: ‘Logistically it’s a difficult show to move around and by the time we’ve amplified 50 musicians and done all the lights it’s expensive. It’s to the credit of the promoters they go to the expense of using a real orchestra as opposed to a synthetic programmed orchestra, which they could easily do.’ Park explains why it’s worth it: ‘All these early house producers were doing it on their own in a basement, trying to make a lush string section with two fingers on a cheap synth. When you reverse engineer it and score it for a string section you realise they knew what they were doing. Played by live musicians it sounds incredible. The live analogue sound of strings, proper percussion, woodwind and brass knocks people for six. It makes everything sound bigger and bolder than it originally was.’ What is the experience like for the players? Crooks says: ‘It’s no more intensive than a usual day’s work. It’s a lot louder, but everyone plays with in-ear monitoring so the noise is cancelled. The stage is the quietest place because nothing is amplified there – everything goes away from the stage. But there are challenges, such as not being able to hear yourself when you put your finger down high up on the E string, especially if you’ve got both ears plugged in. You’re playing to a click, so it’s more like a recording session.’ Riley says, ‘If you do anything 20 times there are elements you’re going to get bored with, but broadly the players are loving the experience – the music, playing to full houses, performing in major festivals, being in different parts of the country and that Camerata has gained a reputation from doing something like this.’ It’s not about Mozart It’s tempting to wonder whether any of this massive new constituency has since come to other Camerata concerts, but that misses the point, according to Riley: ‘Some of our patrons are sceptical and ask when they’re coming to Mozart, but my reaction to that is, “Who cares?” The point is that they go to Haçienda because that’s the music they like. That’s fantastic for me because they’re listening to that music with an orchestra. Expecting them to turn up to Beethoven Five is not a realistic expectation. Other patrons are hugely positive about it because they see the orchestra playing to a full house every time and loving it.’ Riley also sees it as part of the organisation’s commitment to the players: ‘Like any commercial project, it’s an important part of Camerata’s financial make-up, and more than that it’s a very important our musicians’ finances. They’re all freelancers, so they rely on us generating work like this. If we didn’t there would be 25 days in their diary when they might not be earning. We’ve got an amazing community of fantastic freelance players in the North West, and it’s one of our obligations to make sure we’re generating enough work to fill their diaries so they can stay amazing.’ He is also thinking strategically: ‘It’s been successful and we’ve been doing more of this than anything else, so there remain questions about how we balance our programme out so there’s enough orchestral acoustic music for the band. We’ll be launching some long-term projects soon that address that balance.’ As the project embarks on its next tour, the future is bright, but may not be infinite. Park says: ‘I said it was going to be a one-off and we’re about to enter a third year with more dates than ever and people are already making enquiries for next year. It’s been a rollercoaster that continues to thrill and excite. I hope it continues, but we’re not going to flog it. It’ll come to a natural end and we’ll know when it’s right to stop.’ What can other organisations learn from Haçienda Classical? Bob Riley ‘The key thing is not to think of the orchestra primarily. If you do, it probably won’t work. Always think about the audience. That’s one thing we miss in the classical sector. We often think about the maestro, the repertoire, the ‘can we finish by five o’clock’ and forget what we want the audience to feel. These people are constantly thinking about what the audience is going to want to feel and hear, what the experience is. It’s not just the music – it’s the production, the lighting, the lead-up. We can learn a lot from that. It needs practical thought and consultation. It’s no good if someone can’t see their music because the laser in their eyes. We had a show in November in the Apollo where there were massive beach balls dotting across the top of the audience, and it was brilliant fun, but a couple of them landed on stage and knocked a violinist’s bow of the string. We need to talk about things like that.’ Graeme Park ‘It’s made me, Mike and Peter a lot more disciplined when it comes to rehearsal. People were saying, ‘What do you mean you want to carry on another 20 minutes – we’ve got to break now.’ That took us a while to get used to. In the world of electronic music, when you get a vibe you keep going with it when you rehearse. That’s not a criticism – it was like two worlds colliding. The first year’s backing track was very complicated because we tried to match as closely as possible the original sound, but it meant we had 60 tracks. So last year we thought let’s not try to copy everything intricately, let’s just make it fairly close, so we ended up 12 tracks instead of 60 tracks and that made the track better.’ Tim Crooks ‘At the moment if orchestras want to initiate a project like this it involves a sizeable up-front investment, so the incentive is always with the promoters who are willing to make the investment and reap the profits. It might work to look at whether there could be a pot of money from the Arts Council where orchestras can apply for a one-off grant. It’s good for an orchestra to own the content of the show, rather than being a hired gun. It will be interesting to see whether orchestras take the initiative and try to produce shows like this over the next few years.’ Manchester Camerata Audrey Mattis Chorale, gospel choir Graeme Park Tim Crooks This article was first published in the ISM Journal May/June 2018 issue. Download the full issue here and join ISM here. #views #hacienda #clubmusic

A school in one of England’s most deprived boroughs offers proof that putting music at the heart of education offers positive outcomes for entire communities. I visited it for this article, first published in the ISM Journal May/June issue I’m at a concert. At the back of the stage, groups of performers present show tunes, while at the front, ranks of players watch them in rapt concentration, completely still, but ready to spring into action when it’s their turn. The audience stands at the back of the hall and erupts into rowdy applause between each number, holding phones in the air to film the event for posterity. At the end of each group solo, with martial precision and discipline, each line proceeds forward, picks up the instruments and prepares to play. The nearly 90 performers are impeccably drilled and excited, but calm. This is not a stadium gig or a military tattoo. It’s 10.30am and I’m watching Year 2 of Gallions Primary School making its collective debut in the school’s Sports Hall. These six and seven year olds started learning their stringed instruments in September, and now, in March, they’re performing for their parents and teachers. The atmosphere is electric. This might not sound unusual for a private school, but Gallions is a state school in Newham, London, sitting in an estate that is in the 5 per cent most deprived areas in England. And this concert is not a one-off: Gallions students have performed at Royal Festival Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall and Barbican Centre, among many other venues, and alongside world-famous musicians. Since it opened in 1999, music has been at the very heart of the school’s activities. From nursery and reception each child has a musicianship lesson every week and from Year 2 they are all taught a stringed instrument in small weekly classes. The result is engaged, attentive students. ‘They sit on the floor reading a tune in tas and tees and barely raise an eyebrow when the teacher introduces a harmonic minor scale for the first time, copying her perfectly. This is their normal’ Musicianship classes are based on the Kodály system, so from the beginning, the children sing in solfége, complete with hand movements. I sit in on a Year 6 class where the students sing three-part canons, their hands casually moving up and down in front of them as if it’s automatic. They sit on the floor reading a tune in tas and tees and barely raise an eyebrow when the teacher introduces a harmonic minor scale for the first time, copying her perfectly. This is their normal. At one point, one boy won’t sit down properly, and there are little waves of fidgeting and chat, but generally the children are completely engaged and focused during the fast-paced 45-minute lesson. Instructions are sometimes sung and gestured (‘Please be qui-et’, ‘Please come and sit by the bo-ard’), and any telling off is gentle and reasonable (‘Remember not to talk while people are still singing’.) The children’s classroom teacher takes an active part in the class and keeps a watchful eye on behaviour. At the end of Year 1 the children choose their instruments, be it violin, viola, cello or double bass (I’m impressed to see so many tiny bass players in the concert, plucking the bass line of the can-can). Building on their Kodály musicianship, they use Colourstrings, the system devised by Hungarian pedagogue Géza Szilvay. The child-centred method develops technique, hearing, understanding and reading all at the same time, with the help of colourful cartoon teddy bears and stories. I visit a Year 3 violin class in which there are nine children, each with their own stand and a Colourstrings book, and two teachers guiding and prodding them. Faces are pursed in concentration as they read tunes together or take turns playing specific intervals. Some of them have perfect bow and instrument hold. Some don’t look so comfortable, and the teachers don’t always have the time to correct them individually, but you see the children watching each other, alert to all the information they can glean and trying to do well. I am given a tour of the school by Ashley Roye, the school’s Music and Fundraising Manager, and down every corridor and round every corner is some sign of the school’s focus as a creative school, especially in the vibrant artwork made by the children with the school’s resident artist. They also have Philosophy classes and have a chess club. Children who show particular talent and dedication are allowed to take instruments home to practise, and private lessons can be arranged at a cost to the parents, although most children who have lessons are given bursaries through the Gallions Music Trust, usually reducing the cost by half. Some students have won music scholarships to secondary school and places in National Children’s Orchestra, but the goal is not for them to become professional musicians, as Roye explains: ‘It would be great if they all came out as musicians, but that’s not the aim. The aim is make sure they all get this experience, take from it and move on.’ ‘It is proof that for some of the children who have difficult upbringings, we are getting to them academically’ Rather, through music, each and every one of them is developing life skills and abilities that they take into their other classes and into their lives beyond music. On one level there are the well-documented neurological and social benefits of learning an instrument, as illustrated by the concentration and focus throughout their lessons. Roye cites some recent research within the school: ‘All the top academic performers attend orchestra and are the ones who are engaged musically. I don’t think the connection is quite as straightforward as that, but it is proof that for some of the children who have difficult upbringings, we are getting to them academically.’ Performing to their peers and teachers, and – importantly – to their proud parents, also acts as a massive boost. For the 58% for whom English is an additional language at home, music is a particular boon. Roye says, ‘We get kids coming into the school who can’t speak any English – Eastern European, Asian, African. Clapping a rhythm out in their string lessons is sometimes the most they’ve been able to understand in their whole week, because it’s an universal language and the way it’s taught is so easy.’ As to the future, there are hopes of creating a dedicated concert hall so that they don’t have to drag the lunch chairs to and from the Sports Hall every performance. They are also trying to improve the connection with the local secondary school, Kingswood, to avoid the natural fall-off when the children graduate. Inevitably, some of this is dependent on money: ‘Goal number one is that funding stays in place and that we get to keep this going. There’s no point focusing on that, though. The main thing is to make sure we have plans in place so we can continue without having to pass the cost on to the parents, because they wouldn’t be able to afford it.’ ‘In a landscape of targets, exams and shoestrings, it has demonstrated the benefits of a progressive and creative approach to education, specifically centred on music’ Of course, that doesn’t bear thinking about. Gallions has shown the way. In a landscape of targets, exams and shoestrings, it has demonstrated the benefits of a progressive and creative approach to education, specifically centred on music. Roye is keen to share the learnings and extends an invitation: ‘Get in touch. You need to come and see it for yourself. Nothing beats actually walking around this place, seeing the lessons. The magic is in the classrooms, watching the kids’ engagement.’ Having visited the school myself, I can certainly vouch for that. Testimonies Laura van der Heijden, cellist, has performed and worked with the students at Gallions ‘I was delighted to see how enthusiastic and considerate the pupils were, and how colourful and positive the school environment was. Their approach, teaching subjects in alternative ways (creating huge posters to learn about anatomy, writing songs to remember times tables, planting vegetables in order to cook Tudor meals), results in better grades and happier children overall. Music plays a vital role in the infrastructure of the school, and this focus even infiltrates the school’s disciplinary methods: in order to catch the attention of the class, instead of shouting, the teacher claps a rhythm which the class has to clap back. This simple yet incredibly effective method results in teachers who aren’t consistently hoarse and children who feel respected and alert. The children’s involvement in music helps develop their self-confidence, as they learn to strive for long-term goals with small, daily steps in the right direction. The community around the school has also been affected, as the parents are increasingly interested and involved in the musical activities going on in and around the school – they also organise school trips to concerts. I can’t even begin to describe how wonderful a learning environment this school is, due to the understanding that the arts are an essential part of a healthy and happy life.’ Belinda McFarlane is a violinist in London Symphony Orchestra which has run capsule projects at Gallions as part of its On Track scheme ‘As the students at Gallions all learn instruments, they were all interested when I sat in class playing Bach, because they had a connection. They had great questions: they wanted to know about how I got to where I am. Quite a few had been to an LSO concert and were interested in what inspired me. Their teachers impress on them that it’s about doing something you love, being dedicated and following a dream, and like them to meet people who’ve done that. The children may not make it into a professional orchestra, but I’m sure they’ll remain music lovers. And all the other skills they get are so important – the confidence, the ability to perform and to cope with pressure (especially when things don’t go well), the preparation and application. The big question is progression, because with so many students coming though there has to be a path for them. With the old way, young people had free music lessons at school and had that progression, which gave them opportunities to go into the profession that don’t exist any more. It’s extremely sad, but I’m heartened to see a school like Gallions, where they are working very hard to rectify that.’ Read the full issue of ISM Music Journal May/June or join here. #view

Research on Joseph Szigeti for BBC Radio 3’s Record Review took me back to some old interviews I did when I was at The Strad, where he regularly came up in musicians’ ‘favourite violinist’ lists. Here are some of the reasons why Leonidas Kavakos ‘After Kreisler the most significant artist is Joseph Szigeti, because of all the historic violinists, Szigeti would be the one who today could play in the same way as he played then and still be considered a contemporary violinist. That’s because his playing had a more symphonic approach. It couldn’t be any different, when he was so close to Bartók and so involved in the research and sources of music. I recently had a chance to see a pile of programmes from New York from the beginning of the last century, from different artists, up to the Second World War. With all the recitals that were happening in the city, it was amazing to see the recital programmes of Menuhin, Kreisler and Szigeti. At that time, Szigeti was playing a programme of Bach and Stravinsky piece, or Busoni sonatas, while Menuhin was playing the Mendelssohn Concerto in recital. Szigeti was not only bringing new music into existence in his recitals, but finding combinations that are contemporary and interesting even today. It’s amazing when you think that Kreisler was writing and playing Liebesleid at the same time that Sziget was playing short pieces from Hungary. He was also one of the most important Bach interpreters and was busy playing all sorts of contemporary music. He was very much ahead of his time in terms of programming. That’s what puts Szigeti so high up for me. I know it’s not an obvious choice and people will ask, ‘Isn’t Heifetz your idol?’ Szigeti wasn’t as strong as Heifetz violinistically, but the way he expressed himself on the instrument was as a voice that came from the sources, from the folk music. He had the ability to see the overall spectrum on which every composer stands. I have all his recordings: his recital with Bartók is legendary. Everyone should have it. It confirms to me that one should not only look for wonderful violin playing. Of course htat has to be there, because without it one cannot touch greatness. But for those who have that, there is something more, and Szigeti had it.’ Kyung Wha Chung ‘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.’ Maxim Vengerov ‘When I left the class of Zakhar Bron at the age of 16, Heifetz was my main influence, but I found other people that I started to admire, such as Joseph Szigeti. His Brahms Violin Concerto demonstrated different playing again: more intellectual. There was a true essence and great musicianship, and a sense of chamber music. In Heifetz’s recordings all you hear is the violin – the orchestra is not that important, but with Szigeti there is a different sense of music making altogether.’ Mitsuko Uchida ‘He influenced me a lot as a musician. I believe in honesty, and honesty towards the composer, and never to give up trying to get close to the core of the music. That’s why I love Joseph Szigeti. People complain about his vibrato and his intonation, but for it is such beautiful, musical intonation. People complain about Enescu’s Bach for being out of tune, but I don’t. The intention is clear and for me that’s more important. I hate people who play smack centre in tune. On a stringed instrument? Give me a break! On a piano we have no option, but when you are a string player and you have smack-centre intonation like an accurately tuned piano? No, thank you!’ Arnold Steinhardt ‘Sometimes he’d go out of his way to put in a fingering that you’d think was loony. If he wanted a husky effect, then for a passage that you’d normally play on the D or A string, he’d have you play way up on the G string, because it gave an unearthly sound. It was a very important concept, apart from the specific suggestions: you have to be resourceful and inventive in fingerings. I came from teachers who said, ‘Here are my fingerings – just copy them.’ Ivan Galamian, my teacher before Szigeti, who was the most renowned teacher in the world at that point, would hand every student the same fingerings whether they were six feet tall or five feet, and whatever their hand and arm lengths. Szigeti wasn’t like that at all. It opened up a huge world. To this day, when I open a piece of music and think of fingerings, I can feel Szigeti behind my shoulder whispering to me: ‘That’s too standard, look at something that gets more into the essence of the music.’ ‘There’s a picture of the two of us where you see these tall guys standing next to one another. Szigeti shouldn’t have played the violin – he should have been a violist. He looked awkward when he played. It didn’t bother him at all, though. It wasn’t so much his height as his arm length that began to catch up with him as he got older, so he was very much into ways to solve these problems.’ Ida Haendel ‘My father always wanted to become a musician, but was prevented, so he was very ambitious and he developed my talent and encouraged me. His dream was for me to study with another great musician – Joseph Szigeti. This didn’t happen because when we came to England from Poland, Szigeti announced he was going to America and we remained in Europe. He and Enescu were the two great influences on my musical life.’ By way of contrast, here is a less-enamoured quote from Nathan Milstein’s autobiography: ‘I admire the way Bartók, who was a brilliant pianist, plays on his recording of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata with Joseph Szigeti. Bartók interprets the music extravagantly, more so than Szigeti, and he’s right: you can’t play Beethoven too academically; it becomes dry and uninteresting. It’s like spaghetti. When I order spaghetti in a restaurant, I always ask the waiter not to drain it completely, to leave some of the water; it mixes with the butter and cheese, and it’s terrific. But Szigeti was reluctant to play Beethoven ‘wet’.’ ‘Szigeti, whom I knew well, was an incredibly cultured musician. Actually, his talent grew out of his culture. In Gstaad we had neighbouring chalets and I would hear Szigeti practising, playing the same three notes over and over stubbornly. I couldn’t understand what he was trying to achieve, but Szigeti apparently had his own ideas. I always admired him, and he was respected by musicians. In his late years, he finally go the appreciation he deserved from the general public as well.’ #view

I had the very great pleasure of being on Radio 3’s Record Review this morning with Andrew McGregor (thankfully pre-recorded, as I hadn’t done one before). I’d been asked to talk about new box sets of Joseph Szigeti and Max Rostal. I’d heard plenty of Szigeti before – he was one of the players that Steven Isserlis had chosen when he guest edited the ‘great players’ issue of The Strad for me. But this box set was a chance to listen quite comprehensively to his playing (albeit on recordings made in the second half of his life) and to fall completely in love with it. It also led me to his book, Szigeti on the Violin, which is wonderful – charming, self-deprecating, articulate, wise, nerdish, and incredibly modern. He tackles some of the big issues of his time, and it turns out that many of them are still current. Here are just a few of his thoughts: Attention to detail ‘It is likely that the reader whose spectre has been haunting me will find that I am stressing on too many minor points, in fact, trivia. To him I would point out that in our craft it is often our fingerings, bowings and manner of pointing up rhythmic aspects of the work, our individual tone and our way of singing a tune, the meaningful articulation of a phrase or passage, that constitute our unmistakable ‘handwriting’, as his characteristic brushstroke sets a painter apart from others of his century or his school or period. And this is the one thing that seems to many observers to be lacking in the present crop of extremely brilliant violinists, the average of whose performing prowess is undoubtedly higher than it was a few decades ago.’ Intonation ‘Should the reader find that the question of intonation, the basic and all-important question in our art, is conspicuous by its absence in these pages, I would disculpate myself with one single sentence – a slogan if you like – one that I borrowed from an advertisement for a brand of mattresses in America: ‘There Is No Substitute For Sleep. Buy X’s Beauty-Rest Mattresses.’ Applied to the subject of our book it would turn out less terse: ‘There Is No Substitute For Perfect Intonation’. Beauty of tone, perfection of technique, sense of style, the faculty of transmitting the essence, the poetry, the passion of a musical composition, all these gifts will be of no avail if the cardinal virtue of perfect intonation is missing. So let me repeat: There Is No Substitute For Perfect Intonation.’ Kreutzer Studies ‘The Kreutzer Etudes were a key influence in the formation of my equipment. They are considered by some nowadays as a stepping-stone that one uses but can later afford to discard. I see this when finished virtuosi and prize winners at international competitions come to consult me. When I suggest that they play one of these etudes from memory and improvise one of the innumerable variants that every violinist should be able to invent for himself when he encounters some difficulty in one of the masterpieces, old or contemporary, there is a blank look on their faces. To them Kreutzer means something long forgotten in their past. But when, in the 1930s, while taking the cure in an Austrian spa, I dropped in on Arnold Rosé, an old master, Mahler’s concertmaster and one of the great quartet leaders of the turn of the century, I found him with the Kreutzer Etudes propped up before him on the mantelpiece, practising them. At that time he was well over seventy.’ Violin competitions ‘The young artist, instead of gambling on debut recitals in the music centres, nowadays prefers to play the ‘game of chance’ at some of the international contests which proliferate, and the knowledgeable minority therefore also withdraws from the concert hall. Those who used to be the ‘kingmakers’ in the concert hall and whose voice used to be heard at committee meetings of orchestras, chamber music societies and so on, can no longer exercise their self-appointed role of talent ‘discoverers’ and no longer go to these introductory recitals. ‘ ‘It is hardly necessary to point out that this gamble on the unforeseeable chances at competitions is incompatible with the slow maturing either of the performing personality or of the repertoire’ ‘It is hardly necessary to point out that this gamble on the unforeseeable chances at competitions is incompatible with the slow maturing either of the performing personality or of the repertoire. Going from one competition to another, preparing the different morceaux imposés – Tchaikovsky or Paganini, Rachmaninoff or Chopin, Sibelius or Bartók, or Wieniawski – whether one has an affinity for the patron saints of these events or not cannot be conducive to a development which only contact with the public, its resonance, its rejections, can bring about. On the contrary a tendency to use gramophone recordings of the test pieces by illustrious interpreters as a crutch is an almost inevitable consequence of relaying on competitions, with their mechanics of evaluation, instead of on the ‘vox populi’. ‘Out of these competitions a new type of semi-professional has grown up, neither fish nor flesh, not content with the pleasures of playing chamber music with friends’ ‘Out of these competitions a new type of semi-professional has grown up, neither fish nor flesh, not content with the pleasures of playing chamber music with friends, like his counterparts of forty or fifty ears ago, but seeking a professional label. Aimless young men, young women with private means, having graduated from some conservatory with a diploma or scholarship, they take private lessons, and encouraged by their teachers, go from one competition to another, preparing morceaux imposés beyond their technical means. If they are lucky enough to gain a fourth or fifth prize, or an eleventh or twelfth, as they may, all too often every one of a large number of prizes is awarded, however low the level of performance, they can call themselves ‘lauréat du concours X’ or ‘a prize winner of the 19—competition at X’. Any violinist who has served on a jury and seen, as I have, what pitiful figures these consolation prize winners cut in the competitions will be worried by this habit of misleading self advertisement. We have no ‘Food and Drug Act’ to warn the consumer. Ineffectual teachers can go from one teaching appointment to another, distorting performances can be given on false authority, engagements made under false pretences.’ ‘The teenage prize-winner of a competition who is given a contract there and then to record the contemporary work with which he won the prize under the baton of its composer and gets from the recording company the sensation-promoting press and radio ‘treatment’ has certainly found a short cut which all his talented classmates will dream about and aim for. It will be useless to preach to them about the advantages of slow maturing, about going – in Schnabel’s phrase – ‘the way of most resistance’!’ Summer courses ‘European and Americans pin their hopes on competitions and so-called ‘master classes’ and ‘summer courses’ of a few weeks’ duration in different countries and under various teachers, who, by the nature of things, can do no more than point out generalities and are forced to ignore basic problems: they are what could be called guest teachers of guest pupils. Of course, the results of such two or three-week ‘workshops’ depend to a great extent on the devotion and pedagogic flair of the master teacher and also on the attitude of the young people who sit at his feet. In some of these summer courses and master classes – and in their reduction ad absurdum, the one-afternoon master class given by the world-famous figures to gatherings of 300 or more, the photographer’s camera and the television producer play too preponderant a role, so it seems to me.’ Urtext ‘No doubt the availability in recent years of Urtexts and facsimiles of some manuscripts, like those of the Bach Solo Sonatas, has brought us many insights and a degree of assurance in some doubtful cases. But it has also bred a type of ‘know-all’ who – armed with a Photostat or a facsimile – will cry sacrilege every time he meets with a trill that the composer did not mark in the manuscript, forgetting that such trills and other embellishments were taken for granted in his time and were, consequently, often not notated by the composer. They will also question, or protest against, any deviation from the solemn, ponderous tempi of the ‘Victorian-organist’ and the bowings that used to be considered in keeping with the style of every one of the three great Bach Violin Fugues. They will not admit that each of these is a law unto itself and that what is right for the G minor Fugue will be out of place in the singing flowing fugue in C Major.’ Vibrato ‘One of Ysaÿe’s biographers tells how Eugene’s father Nicolas – who was his first teacher – admonished him at the age of five or six with a furious ‘What! You already use vibrato? I forbid you to do so! You are all over the place like a bad tenor. Vibrato will come later, and you are not to deviate from the note. You’ll speak through the violin.’ This was in 1863 or 1864 approximately; and listening to the beuatiful, chaste, close vibrato on his 1912 Columbia USA recording I feel that this paternal admonition bore fruit in Ysaÿe’s unthrobbing lovely cantilena as I still remember it. Who knows how our universally praised recordings will sound to turn of the 21st century ears?’ His disappointment on hearing Leopold Auer ‘I had the rare privilege of hearing Leopold Auer in December 1913 in St Petersburg when he played the Beethoven Concerto under Willem Mengelberg’s direction. I am reluctant to set down my own rather less positive – though admittedly vague – memories of this courageous deed on the part of a master nearing seventy. Of course my youthful unreasonableness must have been responsible for my feeling of disappointment and frustration: I must have expected – without formulating this expectation to myself, of course! – the teacher of Elman, Heifetz, Zimbalist (all of whom I had heard by that time) to outdo them all, not only in the indefinable qualities of wisdom, style and ‘format’ but also in tone, technical perfection and elan.’ ‘This juvenile anticipation was of course absurd; the robustness of Mengelberg’s orchestral frame only emphasised the thinness and carefulness of the obviously nervous old master’s playing. In fact, paradoxically enough, the characteristics to the ‘Auer School’, or rather of what these extraordinary young virtuosi have led us to consider its characteristics, were just what I missed in Auer’s playing. With hindsight can we not ask ourselves whether our conception of the Auer School does not owe its existence to the unique and individually differentiated gifts of this triumvirate (Elman, Heifetz, Zimbalist) rather than to some ‘new approach’ on the part of the master himself? Even the so-called Russian bow hold which Carl Flesch attributes to Auer (or rather to his outstanding disciples) does not seem to represent Auer’s intentions entirely. The neat ‘genealogical tables’ showing how 20th-century violinists descend from this or that illustrious ‘chef d’école’ of the past are not as dependable as the authors of these books would like to make them seem. Even ‘the rare privilege’ of hearing some great representative of our art – in his declining years, it must be added – does not always enable the listener to pass on to future generations impressions that fix the place and rank and distinguishing features of players who belong to the history of violin playing.’ There are also wonderful chapters about various technical issues about playing – all still relevant – and I thoroughly recommend it, alongside the new CDs: Here are some of the great musicians who have been inspired by him, and here is a wonderful interview with him from the BBC archive: #view

A summer festival in Silicon Valley initiates young players into the joys and challenges of chamber music and then sends them out into the world to spread the word. It seems to be working ‘We are excited to share this music with you,’ announces the smartly attired 11-year-old boy from the stage of the Center for Performing Arts at Menlo-Atherton. His colleagues (aged 11 and 13) from the Young Performers Program of the Chamber Music Institute have just illuminated some of the historic and folk music context to Alexander Alyabyev’s Piano Trio in A minor. At first I’m taken aback by their aplomb. By the end of the concert, featuring 28 musicians ranging in age from 11 to 18, each of whom articulates something special about the work they’re about to play, I’m in awe and have learnt some fascinating context. And by the end of my week at Music@Menlo, I understand not only how integral these introductions are to the concerts, but also how they fit into the world view of the festival’s founders and Artistic Directors, pianist Wu Han and cellist David Finckel. This world view places chamber music at its epicentre (hardly surprising for the former cellist of the Emerson Quartet) and defies any doom-laden notions that classical music is dying or can appeal only to an elite. It challenges its young musicians to fight for the form, and not only through good communication and administration, but also artistic aspiration. It’s easy for a hardened music journalist (an English one, at that) to be cynical about such things. But after a week in the presence of the force field that is Wu Han and Finckel (together, one of classical music radio station WQXR’s five ‘power couples’), hearing some fine performances from faculty and students, watching masterclasses, talking to audience and faculty members and seeing the gleam in the eyes of the students, it’s hard to maintain my scepticism. This summer, Music@Menlo celebrated its 16th season (13 July–4 August). Since it began in 2003 it has made its home at Menlo School, an independent preparatory school in Atherton, California, just south of San Francisco. Within 20 minutes from Google, Tesla and Facebook, it’s also the most expensive zip code in the US. Many concerts take place in the school’s palatial Stent Hall, once the home Leon Douglass, a tech entrepreneur of the last century, who ran Victor Talking Machine Company, which created the ‘Victrola’. Classes take place around the campus, with students criss-crossing the spacious lawn between sessions. The sun seemingly always shines, and the grass is forever green (it’s plastic). Parallel to the Young Performers Program (for ‘YPs’), the Chamber Music Institute runs the International Program, for conservatoire students aged 18–29. This year’s eleven ‘IPs’ came from America, Korea, China and Uzbekistan, having studied at Juilliard, Curtis, Yale, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory, Shanghai Conservatory, Royal College of Music and New England Conservatory, among other places, with a clutch of competition prizes from around the world between them. ‘If you can make it here you can make it anywhere, because it gives you that first glimpse of the level of the preparation that is needed’ Both programmes are intense. In a standard day, participants have two rehearsals and a masterclass, and will either go to or play in a concert in the evening, as well as doing private practice. IPs each perform around six pieces over three weeks. The workload is part of the training, as Wu Han explains: ‘It’s a professional environment. When I get booked, I know I have two or three rehearsals and then I’m on stage. I have the same expectations of the IP kids. If you can make it here you can make it anywhere, because it gives you that first glimpse of the level of the preparation that is needed when you walk into a professional situation.’ So there are concerts galore. The main series this year was themed around ‘Creative Capitals’, with broad-ranging repertoire focused on London, Paris, St Petersburg and other cities. Faculty members curated their own programmes in the ‘Carte Blanche Concerts’ and appeared in the new format of ‘Prelude Performances’, playing alongside IPs. There were also public masterclasses, conversations and lectures. All the performances I went to were full and the faces (and mainly white hair, admittedly) became familiar – a loyalty and enthusiasm also evidenced in the list of generous patrons. ‘There are no cutesy ways with the little kids or reverential ways with the older artists’ Participants attend all the concerts, too. Dmitri Atapine, a cellist who came to Menlo as a student in 2008 and is now on faculty explains this ethos: ‘There are no cutesy ways with the little kids or reverential ways with the older artists. Wu Han and David truly believe in this immersive experience where an 80-year-old artist attends all the concerts by the little kids and the kids get coaching from top chamber musicians. There’s no separation in the quality that is expected of them. The kids are treated just as professionally as the older students and as the senior artists.’ For many participants, Music@Menlo offers an initiation into chamber music, which is still under-represented in many conservatoires, from which many students still graduate thinking they can live off concertos. It was a revelation for Chamber Music Institute Director Gloria Chien when she attended as an IP 12 years ago: ‘I was playing piano in my life but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. When I came here I fell in love with chamber music and decided to pursue it after the festival, and tried to find ways to get more of it into my real life. I lived in Tennessee and started a series there. It took my life in a completely different direction and my life is now filled with chamber music gigs, festivals and series.’ ‘The educational value of chamber music hits so many aspects of human life, regardless of whether you’re going to become professional’ Atapine explains the importance of chamber music: ‘The educational value of chamber music hits so many aspects of human life, regardless of whether you’re going to become professional: how to be a leader without imposing yourself on the group, how to collaborate, be ready, show up on time, be respectful, ask for things nicely – all these little things from which we can learn to become better citizens. For Wu Han, it also offers practical ways of teaching handing on musical values: ‘Chamber music is so intimate that it’s the easiest way to pass down from generation to generation a way of living, the way of approaching music, the philosophy.’ Sometimes there are conflicts between these philosophies, but that is an important part of the process, as Arnaud Sussmann, Associate Director of the Chamber Music Institute International Program, explains: ‘The groups get many different opinions. I make sure to tell them that they should be respectful to their coaches and try what they’ve said, because we have more experience, but at the end of the day they are the artists and they will be making the decision.’ ‘The younger generation has to be the foot soldiers – to speak and convey why they’re passionate about music’ Learning to talk before a performance is part of the skillset they learn, and for Wu Han it’s essential: ‘In the US, music education in schools is so behind that the general audience has less knowledge. The younger generation has to be the foot soldiers – to convey why they’re passionate about music. They should develop that skill from a young age. Even if they don’t become musicians, they can use public-speaking skills in any profession. The thinking, crafting of the message, analytical ability, organisational skill and the act of preparation are important. They start to think, “How can we make our announcement more engaging?” We try to guide them. We tell them, “Don’t make it dry. Find something personal.”’ ‘Your first job is to be a real musician. Don’t get distracted by all this other stuff. You can publicise the hell out of yourself, but are you really worth it at the end of the day?’ Finckel admits that it’s hard for performers to navigate these days: ‘In the old days musicians used to have managers and record companies to do their promotion. Now, they have to do their own and many get so fixated on their own promotion on social media, doing things that are trendy and attract attention, that they forget to learn music. Musicians should be artists; they should be pure of thought and mono-directional in their dedication. We’re very concentrated on music and this incredible art form and that’s something we try to impart. Your first job is to be a real musician. Don’t get distracted by all this other stuff. You can publicise the hell out of yourself, but are you really worth it at the end of the day? It’s hard for them. It’s a confusing time.’ ‘No one ever complains that Shakespeare is hard to understand: they say it’s a great art form so let’s spend more time to understand it so we can appreciate the beauty’ I foolhardily raise the possibility of the decline of classical music, to which Wu Han reacts vehemently: ‘I’m sorry, but from what I’m seeing, there is no decline. I’m presenting spectacular concerts and people turn up. If everyone can do that, there will be an explosion. If there’s a decline, it’s from people who subconsciously don’t have love and faith in this art from, and think they can compensate with fluffy marketing. People see right through it. I tell the kids: whoever has a sustaining career has it because they’ve dedicated their life to the art form without compromising. The others will come and go, and that’s fine. We have to serve the music, to bring the audience into the music that we believe in so much. There’s nothing to apologise for. No one ever complains that Shakespeare is hard to understand: they say it’s a great art form so let’s spend more time to understand it so we can appreciate the beauty. But you have to work on it.’ Finckel agrees: ‘We don’t run around worrying about whether this music is relevant or not. We don’t have time. Of course it’s relevant. We just do it. We ignore whatever we don’t like in the outside world and do what we think is right. You have to lead by example. The only thing we can do is create the environment where this is the accepted norm. We live it.’ As part of this environment, morning sessions that are closed to the public range across inspirational subjects – singing Bach Chorales, stretching, understanding how to use their bodies, listening to recordings. Finckel says: ‘We force feed them the finest examples of playing that we can put our hands on, because young musicians today don’t listen to great recordings as we did when I was a student, despite YouTube. On YouTube the playing field is level – everything is billed the same. Anyone can put anything up. There’s no editorial, so they can listen to junk. It takes editorial experience.’ Apart from these classes, the audience is part of the knowledge-sharing, through the conversations (subjects including Robert Mann, Leopold Auer and life in a string quartet) and masterclasses (with Paul Neubauer, David Requiro, Bella Hristova and Gilbert Kalish among others). They’re even allowed to listen to rehearsals, which offer fascinating and intimate insights. Wu Han explains this founding ethos: ‘It was to create an environment in the belief that if you know more, you enjoy more. It’s fun being curious. It doesn’t matter if you’re a musician. The programme is designed so that the audience can learn and be engaged.’ ‘If you’re doing the right thing, with commitment, people follow you’ Of course it takes more than idealism and fresh air to run a festival, but Wu Han and Finckel have form. Since 2004, they have run the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, which now has spin-offs all round Europe and the US, as well as Korea and Taiwan, and subscriptions that defy demise. Music@Menlo, too, remains in the black – enviably for a summer festival. Wu Han makes it sound simple: ‘If you’re doing the right thing, with commitment, people follow you. The audience understands the mission of the festival. The budget is around $2m and we have to raise every penny of it. We’ve never gone into the red. That takes a tremendous amount of discipline and a great business team.’ Surely, having a festival in one of the most expensive zip codes helps? Certainly not, Wu Han replies: ‘At first I believed the area was special, but it’s the same in New York – feverish devotion. It’s not the area. It’s what you do; how people encounter you, knowing your priority, sensing your passion and understanding the artistic excellence.’ ‘They view us all as future administrators. They’re trying to teach us not only how to perform on stage but also how we’re going to continue the development of classical music’ The mission and its realisation are inseparable – which makes the pair relatively rare among classical musicians, who often prefer to keep their heads in the clouds. According to Sussmann, their subtext goes beyond artistic inspiration: ‘This place isn’t only about learning how to play Brahms and Beethoven. They view us all as future administrators. They’re trying to teach us not only how to perform on stage but also how we’re going to continue the development of classical music and chamber music wherever we end up. That’s different from anywhere else.’ That lesson is not only for musicians. Since the beginning, the festival has had an accompanying Arts Management Internship Program, through which a team of interns learns what goes into the organisation of a music festival. Previous ones have gone on to work at Carnegie Hall, San Francisco Symphony and New York Philharmonic. ‘Do we sound like we’re part of a cult or something?’ jokes Sussmann. Well, maybe. After one of the evening concerts, we all sit down to a meal under the stars, and Wu Han gives a speech, Henry the Fifth-like in its passion and call to action. She demands two promises from the IPs: firstly, that they spend time coaching the YPs who are their mentees; secondly, she entreats them that when they go back home, they will take the mission into their own communities. A map of more than 20 international festivals that have been inspired by Music@Menlo shows an impressive conversion rate so far. As I look at the young faces staring up at her, eyes blazing as they imagine their futures, I believe they will. Halls in towns, villages and cities across the world will be filled with audiences discovering the beauty, depth and intimacy of chamber music for the first time. Musicians will be busy and fulfilled. If this is a cult, sign me up. All photos: Geoff Sheil This was amended on 23 August to correct the name of Leon Douglass’s company to ‘Victor Talking Machine Company’ #view #chambermusic

In June I had the privilege of being part of BE PHIL, an international amateur orchestra conducted by Simon Rattle in Berlin. Read about my experience in my Guardian article. ‘We prove the cliche that music is an international language. We come from countries and cultures as various as Brazil, Bolivia, Trinidad, Taiwan and Turkey; we range in age from 10 to 75. Some of us went to conservatoires, some not; among us are students, postmen, teachers, software developers, office managers, doctors, airline pilots and scientists.’ Photo: Monika Ritterhaus

Musicians can generate their own publicity without spending a penny, by sending out their own press releases. Here are some of the things you need to know Even in an age of websites and social media, the old-fashioned press release is still an important part of any musical project. It contains everything a magazine or website editor needs to know, laying the groundwork for media coverage, reviews, relationships, future opportunities and even funding. Ultimately, it stands as a representation of why you are doing what you do, and you should be able to express that. Musicians sometimes reach out to press agents for help and are surprised at how expensive it is – it’s a time-consuming business. And yet, you can do a lot of this legwork yourself, once you know the formula and think the right way. To help you start, here are my thoughts on the subject, and a template, which you are free to adapt. I’ve had experience on both sides of the send button. As Editor of The Strad I fielded thousands of press releases. I know what it’s like to feel overworked and bombarded, and how a well-timed, clear and effective press release is a gift, while one that is pompous and waffly goes straight in the bin. In my freelance work, I’ve written them for 21C Media, Royal Academy of Music and Baltic Sea Youth Philharmonic among others. Each organisation has its own style, and my advice is a synthesis of all of this information. Get the tone right A press release should sound neutral and objective. You need to persuade people of the merits of your project through information and sound argument – not bludgeon them about how good you think it is. Any claims must be evidenced – if you have them, use press quotes that demonstrate previous successes. Who is reading your press release and what do they need? The most important thing is to think of the person who’s reading your press release. What sorts of stories do they publish? What information do they need? Imagine them at their desk opening your email and think how they will feel when they get it. This should affect your content and tone, and even the time you send it out (Friday afternoons are a no-no, for example). Try to do this for every single person you send it to (and you should know the name of each one). Ideally, you wouldn’t send the identical press release to everyone on your list, and you would prioritise the information according to what you know about them and their publication. Some classical music websites are desperate for content and few have the resources to research and write news stories, so they often cut and paste press releases into stories. I won’t go into how I feel about this – what it spells for music journalism, critical thinking and the future of humanity – but from a musician’s point of view, it’s great news. It means that if you have something to say you can pretty much control your own narrative, without having to pay, as long as you write a good press release and engage the editor well in your covering letter. If you’re writing to a specialist outlet, whether digital or print, make sure that you’ve framed your story towards their readers – pull out what is specifically relevant for them and make it the focus of the press release. Are they into contemporary music, pianos, string music, Europe, Baroque? Tailor your email to show that you know who they are and that you have something to interest their readers. When it comes to print media, the reality is that broadsheets have virtually no space for classical music any more, so if you’re writing to them, think carefully about what angle might make them spend some of it on your project – it’s going to have to be special. Classical music magazines are more likely to want a story, but make sure you’ve seen a copy first and can suggest particular spots where your story would go, or offer interviews for specific sections. Don’t forget that print magazines still work on fairly long lead times, so get in there as early as possible. Get your covering email right Your covering email is probably more important than your press release – it’s the door to an editor reading your press release in the first place, so you have to grip them. Tailor each covering email directly to the recipient and their readers. This is time consuming, so if you are struggling, you could focus on a few outlets that are most likely to take your story and edit both your covering email and press release to their needs. You might send something more generic to other people – but don’t expect success. (And beware: if you’re going to go down the copying and pasting route across multiple emails, make triple sure that you have the recipient’s name right in each one!) Offer solutions – would you write a blog for their website? Would you contribute to a specific section of their magazine? Do you have amazing pictures they might appreciate? Do you have any previous examples of your writing that you can send them to give them confidence in you? Include any video clips that allow them to sample your project (as long as they’re good). But don’t be pushy. No one owes you anything. Font As long as it’s legible, the font doesn’t matter so much Having said that, only use Comic Sans if you're writing an opera about clowns, set in the 1980s Don’t go smaller than 10pt If you’re part of an organisation with its own identity and style guide, stick to it Try not to use different fonts or too many different font sizes in the same document – keep it simple Don’t underline Do bold, but very carefully – to pick out new sections, or emphasise names or important quotes within the text Length Try not to let a press release get longer than two pages. Be prepared that the reader’s eye will go to the top third first, so your first section has to work the hardest – they may not get any further. Certainly don’t let your logo dominate that section. Avoid long, dense paragraphs, although that’s hard with complicated projects that need extensive explanations, and I know many press people disagree with this. Put less important detail further down the page. It’s okay if lengthy events listings and complex contact details at the end push the length over two pages. Photos Editors always need pictures, so you’ll be doing them a favour by providing them. If it’s a print publication, they’ll need high-resolution ones, but they won’t want you to clog up their emails, so zip them or send them through a website such as WeTransfer. If it’s for a website, pictures can be lower resolution and you can even embed one in the main body, but only towards the end, when you’ve already got their attention. If you’re providing pictures, make sure that they’re copyright free and the editor won’t get in trouble for publishing them – don’t assume that because they’re on the internet they’re free to use. Include the photographers’ credits and any useful caption information. Top tips Think like an editor – understand their needs and the interests of their readers Make their life as easy as possible – provide all the information and resources they need in simple form Spell out the most interesting story angles No one owes you anything so don’t make assumptions that they do Plan ahead Pack the most important information into the top third of the press release Be concise Do your research Don’t boast Offer rights-free pictures but don’t clog up emails Write well and be prepared to see your text published in its entirety Quadruple check text for typos Be nice, and think long-term – if an editor doesn't have space this time, they might next Examples Here are some links to press releases written by various arts press relations companies. I haven’t written any of them and I don’t necessarily think their styles are perfect, but it’s useful to see some examples. Valerie Barber PR Royal Shakespeare Company Albion Media Art Fund Philharmonia Orchestra Barbican Have I missed anything? Let me know! And here’s my template – feel free to adapt it to your own needs, but if you share it, please credit me! #view #press #publicity