Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s music, whether for solo piano or full orchestra, sounds rich and passionate to me.  Listening to it this morning, a saying about performance popped into my head: if the performer is more interesting to watch than listening to the music, it’s not a musical performance.  My teachers allowed for movement, certainly.  But, extreme, vain or dramatic movement makes the performance more about the performer, not the music.  A performer is not there to distract but to play the music.

Listening to Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony earlier today, my thoughts wandered to the question of why it’s not performed more often, then to visualizing a conductor conducting it.  Of all the romantic music in the world, this symphony is probably in the top ten.  To conduct it means to either go the schmaltzy, sentimental, freely interpretive route, or adhere strictly to the score.  Rachmaninoff’s music tends to be challenging to play, so I’d think this symphony would require a lot of work, both off and on the podium.  A conductor would be too busy, I should think, to indulge in any overly dramatic movements or to be thinking about himself in any way.

However…there is in conducting a certain amount of showmanship, specifically during concerts.  The conductor also has the unusual position of his/her back to the audience, and being alone on the podium.  There are no other musicians in his/her “section” to blend in with.  The best conductors I’ve seen generally use their showman position to guide the audience on their journey with the music.  It’s extremely rare to see a conductor conduct in an extremely overly dramatic way that calls way too much attention to him/her.  The best ones do try to “blend” into the action on stage so that the music seems to manifest into the world of matter. 

Now, I’d love to attend a concert with the Rachmaninoff Second Symphony on the program….

The Three B’s

Back in research mode this past week when I attended my first Minnesota Orchestra concert of the new season.  A pleasure to return to the familiar salmon-colored and golden wood auditorium with its superb acoustics.  The program began with J.S. Bach: the first two movements of the Third Brandenburg Concerto with an interesting twist, i.e. the first movement was actually the “Sinfonia” orchestration Bach did for his Cantata 174, and the second movement returned to the original orchestration.  I love Bach’s music, and it is a particular joy to hear this orchestra play Bach.  Watching Osmo Vanska, the conductor (and music director), gave me ideas for Evan Quinn’s St. Petersburg concert in Novel Three, but Evan will also be playing the violin as well as conducting a Bach violin concerto.  Hmmm.  The Minnesota Orchestra musicians played with precision and energy, the transparency of the counterpoint and melody clear and refreshing.  The Bach was like a “palate-cleansing” prelude to the rest of the concert.

A major stage re-set after the Bach as stagehands removed the harpsichord and brought out the concert grand piano.  The first thing I noticed was the placement of the piano, right over the podium, not giving Vanska much space to move, but positioning conductor and piano soloist about as close as possible.  That physical closeness reflects the artistic closeness of conductor and soloist — both focus completely on the music and Beethoven’s intention without flamboyant flourishes or facial grimaces.  The soloist, Yevgeny Sudbin, is a quite tall, skinny young man with large eyes and long fingers.  He sits at the piano very close and on the edge of the bench.  And this guy achieves clarity of articulation and line that still has warmth and music emanating from the inside as he played the opening of Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto (a favorite of mine).  Pure Beethoven.  The tension in the second movement beautifully taut as the piano persuades the orchestra with its musical perseverance.  Sudbin’s trills in the last movement were so clear, they were like bells ringing.  The orchestra’s playing matched Sudbin’s so closely in tempo that I heard sonic echoes and resonances I’d never heard before, so that Vanska and the orchestra were more equal collaborators rather than accompanists.  Excellent and sublime, and I was excited to learn that these artists will record all the Beethoven piano concertos, beginning with the Fourth in January. 

The Brahms First Symphony enjoys an important place in Evan Quinn’s life, so I’m always quite happy to hear it in concert and watch Vanska conduct it.  From the opening timpani and tragic strings to the heroic themes of the finale, this symphony is a journey and Vanska is an excellent guide.  His tempos were a bit brisker than most conductors take, but I think he follows Brahms’ metronome markings in the score.  Vanska’s tempos reveal a lightness of line at times, a sweetness in the second movement, and a more driving momentum in the third.  His ppp of the pizzicato strings in the last movement was really, really quiet and it felt as if the audience was holding its collective breath.   Vanska’s expressive conducting gave me ideas (again) for Evan when he conducts his Brahms symphony concerts in Novel Three.  An excellent concert, sublime in the performance and listening.

I felt clean  after the concert, somehow cleansed from the anxieties of daily life and open to my imagination, to the brisk and sunny autumn day outdoors.  Happy and contented.

Peter and the Wolf

This past Sunday afternoon, I attended a family concert at the Minnesota Orchestra’s Sommerfest.  Peavey Plaza overflowed with people and music, food and drinks.  Children chased each other through the lobby while parents tried to catch them.  In the Orchestra Hall auditorium, I sat in the first tier overlooking the main floor where squirming little bodies gave the illusion of an undulating mass.

The one tall (6 feet 5 inches, according to Sam at the Inside the Classics blog) conductor I know of, Mischa Santora, conducted the Minnesota Orchestra in a program of Russian favorites — Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmilla Overture, short pieces based on Russian folksongs by Liadov that reminded me of poems, selections from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake and Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf with actors from Theater de la Jeune Lune acting out the story.  In summer, concert dress changes from white tie and tails for a conductor, to white dinner jacket and black tux pants.  Mr. Santora introduced each selection after the Glinka.  I thought the Liadov was a little too quiet and light for the children in the audience, but I really enjoyed these whimsical and lyrical pieces.  The Prokofiev was a joy and wonderment, from the actors introducing each character to the wolf on a mini-bike to the blue wading pool that functioned as the duck pond.  The music is fun, too, and after the first 3 pieces on the program that had an adult flair, it was refreshing to visit the world of child’s play and imagination.  Mr. Santora did an excellent job and the orchestra has never sounded better or more expressive.  It is sad that Theater de la Jeune Lune has disbanded due to financial difficulties and they will no longer be offering their unique brand of theater to Twin Citians.

I’d heard stories of how often conductors break their batons, but I’d never actually seen one break a baton.  Mr. Santora was conducting the Tchaikovsky and brought his baton down a bit too hard, hitting his music stand.  The baton snapped and the pieces flew into the viola section.  He didn’t miss a beat, and conducted the rest of the concert without a baton. 

When I was researching conductors and conducting, I wondered how attached a conductor might get to a particular baton.  That’s not the case at all.  Nor does a conductor have several special batons that he might use according to his mood or type of concert.  Batons are expendable.  They are a tool.  A baton can help the orchestra musicians see the beat, but it’s not a required tool for a conductor to use.  Years ago a conductor developed “tennis elbow” and his doctor advised him to stop using the baton and conduct without it.  So, how a conductor holds the baton, moves it, how the baton influences how he moves his hand and arm, can cause him injury.  Only recently I learned that the Minnesota Orchestra’s stage manager is an expert in making batons for conductors.  And he is kept busy…..

Now I need to consider how Evan Quinn deals with batons, especially in the second book of the Perceval series.  As a guest conductor, who makes his batons?  Are they available to buy in music stores?  Or perhaps I’ll have him change his thinking about conducting with a baton and let him conduct without one for a while….

Tricky Rhythms

Sarah Hatsuko Hicks, over at the Inside the Classics blog, has written again (“Preparation Throes” Tuesday, April 22, 2008) about preparing a music score for conducting in a performance, this time breaking out the tricky rhythms and the big mixed-meter section in the middle of Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring.  I love reading her posts on this subject because she is so clear and descriptive.  I always have Evan in mind so I love learning from a conductor about how conductors work.  Thanks, Sarah.

In Perceval, Evan travels to Amsterdam to conduct the Concertgebouw Orchestra during their American Music Festival.  On his all-American program, he’s included Copland’s Appalachian Spring.  While writing the initial drafts, I listened to this music over and over, even though I already knew it quite well.  But I didn’t search out a score to use as reference.  I wasn’t interested in focusing on the technical aspects of conducting.  First I wrote Evan conducting this piece in concert and suffering a memory lapse in the middle of it — right where the meters get all mixed.  That version remained through several more drafts until I realized that for narrative purposes it wouldn’t work that way.  Then I decided that he’d have the psychological fugue moment at the end of the previous piece on the program, Barber’s Adagio for Strings.  And that clicked for the narrative.  So, I ended up showing/writing Evan conducting the Barber instead of the Copland.  

When I write/show Evan working on the podium, I am mindful of narrative purpose: how does this scene move the story forward or reveal character?  So, it is less about the conducting than about Evan.  I spend a lot of time listening to the music he’ll conduct, but much less time reading the score.  It is my challenge to describe in general Evan’s conducting but create the illusion that it is specific regarding his gestures, thoughts, etc.  The purpose for Evan on the podium is always: how does this reveal Evan as a person?  Not necessarily his stick technique or if he missed that cue for the flute.

Score study and preparation consumes hours of Evan’s time.  Again, writing about it needs to serve narrative purpose, so I approach these scenes much as I have the concert or rehearsal scenes.  The difference is that I do use scores as references so that I can write Evan thinking about the challenges of specific sections of music, making notes on the score, etc.  In Perceval, the score that he’s working on through most of the story is Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.  Since I am not a conductor, I sought out a conductor to help me identify passages in the score that might concern Evan.  Then I used the Mahler to also reflect back through music what Evan was experiencing in his life through Evan’s reading and understanding of the score.  Hard work for him.  Hard work for me, too.

Why spend so much time and space on Evan’s conducting?  Early in the novel, he thinks about the podium as his home and music as his heart, his motivation for living.  It is all he has in the world.  Showing that is important to his character and its development, and how he behaves in other situations in the story.