Listening like Going to the Movies

Why can't we just go to concerts and let the music transport us as we are transported at the movies?

One of the greatest compliments I ever experienced was in the form of an argument between two young audience members after a performance in Savannah, GA with tenor Richard Dyer-Bennet of Schubert's Lovely Milleress (D-B's masterful English-language version).  They were arguing about who was the true villain in the piece: the other man or the river.   Such an argument would certainly never have taken place had they been distracted by having to read translations of the text.  They took it in -- how could they not?  Dyer-Bennet was a masterful storyteller.

I experienced an utterly magical transformation of time and attentiveness the first time I saw Jean Vigo's early talkie film L'Atalante, in a scene in which the hero, distraught because his young wife has run away, soaks his head in a bucket of water and conjures up visions of her loveliness.  The scene seemed to last forever.  I was in heaven.  Going back to see it a second time it turned out to last only a few moments.

The opposite happened with the scene inside the boiler room of the The Battleship Potemkin, the great film by Sergei Eisenstein.  Most of the time this scene is cut and its impact severely lessened.  When I first saw it restored, uncut, at the Museum of Modern Art I was stunned at the power of this interminable depiction of a most vivid unescapable hell. 

Schubert B-flat Sonata

On Sunday evening January 20 my current Schubert / Dvorak concentration will end with Schubert's B-flat Sonata, Op. post., along with some Laendler and, by Dvorak, the D minor Impromptu, and two Humoresques.  The performance takes place in a private location in New York City.  Email for more information: nancygarniez@tonalrefraction.com.

Does It Go Up or Down?

This is no laughing matter: Good composers go out of their way to obscure the difference between a real rise and a seeming rise.  Some lines do actually "go" up, while others are more like vapors emanating upward from a given pitch.

In the same way that up and down may be ambiguous in terms of pitch motion, the matter of up and down beats can be just as confusing.  The mere presence of a bar line on the page does not indicate a clear downbeat, despite what you learned when you were nine. 

Again, good composers go out of their way to ration the down-beat quality. 

The better the composer the greater the challenge and the more honesty it takes to recognize the problem and imagination to deal with it. 

Variation in the Tones Themselves

In Renaissance vocal music the relatively small number of pitches is made to seem larger by virtue of the changing timbres of vowels:  Properly sung, the listener will feel fundamental shifting depending on the combination of vowels sung by the several voices.  When all come together on the same vowel at the same time the effect should be immediate and stunning.

It is rare that one hears a good rendering of this phenomenon, as so much music these days is tuned only harmonically, i.e., as if a vertical combination of notated pitch is the point.   The same applies to string quartet playing, though, lacking text, that is more subtle.  The "text" must be supplied by the individual instrumentalists allowing their several instruments to speak.

Why are classical musicians so afraid of being out of tune?  Give a good listen to any good blues musician; we all have a lot to learn from them.

Dissolving Repetition

Repetition has to be one of the major problems in Classical music, perhaps most especially in Schubert.  Many performers solve the problem by simply playing everything fast and faster. 

There has to be more going on than is apparent at first hearing. 

A great trick, shared by Schubert and Dvorak, is to undo the tyranny of the four-beat bar and of the four-bar phrase. On the surface much of their music conforms to the expected but on closer look it doesn't at all.  Articulations are clear, ambiguities abound, resolutions rarely truly resolve--what had seemed to be balanced turns out to be the opposite.

This can never get dull because it is precarious every single time.

Lyric and Bach

Anderszewski's beautiful Bach performance last month roused my curiosity and I have been exploring Bach on the piano--an area I have stayed away from until revisiting the Two-part Inventions last summer.  Those remarkable pieces were utterly transformed by approaching them not as a student but as a teacher, in a way putting myself in Bach's shoes, imagining what I would most like my child to get from them.

Sounds pretentious, but it's not meant to be.  After all, Wilhelm Friedeman, for whom he wrote the pieces, heard his father play every day and was probably played to, so this collection must be full of highly personal musical moments, including a large dosage of improvisatory whimsy as well as subtle vocalism.

Looking at the D minor English Suite in this light I realize that what repels me in most Bach playing on the piano are the relentless repetitive pitches.  Played vocally, i.e., lyrically, this repetitive quality disappears: the pitch A rising is not the same as A falling; an ornamental three-note rise is not the same as a linear three-note rise.

In What Might it Mean I postulate a rule:  "Like goes to like," meaning that a run of eighth notes cannot lead to or land on a quarter note or half note.  When observed this simple rule leads to an improvisatory quality in the Prelude that is far more interesting than the rhythmically predictable approach all too often heard. The simple act of articulating the tone of "arrival" with a fresh attack engages the ear and the spirit in a refreshment that seems to live and breathe.

Schubert: Theme, Equilibrium, Length

The subject is the big B-flat Sonata, Op. posthumous, at 50 minutes length a major challenge.

In several posts I have dealt with some of its mystery: today I thought of it in new terms.  I have seen and heard the theme characterized as profoundly calm.  I equate calm with a state of equilibrium.

At least three elements of the theme belie that characterization:

• The repetition across the bar line of the opening sound renders it profoundly ambiguous as to up or down-beat quality.
• The black-key / white-key half step, B-flat to A-natural and return, which is the initial melodic movement.
• The two white key half step, E-natural to F, in the inner voice on beat one of the second bar.

One could argue that the continuing B-flat bass renders all of this consonant.

It all depends on how one chooses to direct the ear.

If that slight tilt toward unease takes precedence the entire movement is profoundly altered as the music strives toward the equilibrium that it appears to promise, but does not convincingly deliver.

Making this adjustment has transformed the piece from one of problematic length to one of innermost fragility. 

The day after composing this post the fourth disquieting element of the theme struck me loud and clear:

• pianissimo