jwilzewske: brahms

Showing posts with label brahms. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

With You in Mind: Some Romantic-Period ‘Directed’, Uncommissioned Chamber Works

W e should get used to the idea that tones have lives of their own, more independent of the artist’s pen in their vitality than one would dare to believe.”
— Heinrich Schenker, 1906.

E njoyed New England Conservatory faculty members’ first ‘First Monday’ concert of the season last night…

Dvořák: Terzetto in C major, Op. 74, B.148 ... Miriam Fried, Lucy Chapman, violins; Paul Biss, viola
Arensky: Trio ... Masuko Ushioda, violin; Laurence Lesser, cello; Sergey Schepkin, piano
Brahms: Quintet in G Major, Op. 111 ... Borromeo String Quartet; Kim Kashkashian, viola

T he Terzetto—with the two upper-register voices and the alto voice (viola)—is an interesting texture that leaves us wondering what the tenor/baritone voice (cello) would do had a part been written. Why did Dvořák choose this unusual orchestration—“string quartet minus one”? Well, said Laurence Lesser in his pre-concert remarks, it was because Dvořák wished to honor a violinist friend and the friend’s violin teacher, both of whom lived in the same boarding house where Dvořák himself lived at the time. Simple. Good enough reason as any!

B esides this Terzetto, there is Dvořák’s String Trio in B-flat, Op. 75a, Kodály’s Szerenád for 2 violins and viola, Op. 12, Sergei Taneyev’s Trio, Op. 21, and Frank Bridge’s Rhapsody Trio, H.176. Probably there are more, but I am traveling and not close to a conservatory library to do a decent job of looking them up. In any case, the literature in this space is not large. This repertoire for 2 violins plus viola is not performed nearly as much as it should be. (And, for that matter, the diversity-enhancing decision to compose for non-standard ensembles is not taken nearly as often as it should be either.)

T he viola’s role as an ‘outer’ (bass) voice in the Terzetto sheds light on differences (compared to violin) in viola bow-arm technic: not some violin-style (with hand, wrist, and arm predominantly above the level of the bowstick), the hand and forearm are lower and the upper arm doesn’t move so much. I sat up close, on one side of Jordan Hall to the right of center-stage, far enough to the right where Biss’s movements were not obscured by the music stand. The viola fingering in the Terzetto also presents more than the usual range of challenges, it seems to me. It was wonderful to be able to observe his technic, see his decisions, hear the results.

T he Arensky trio, written in memory of cellist Karl Davydov, was really good. Unusual timbres and textures… the Adagio (Elegia) third movement … the strings’ mutes on throughout. The ‘accessory’ thematic elements to a memorial piece lend depth and verisimilitude—a sort of ‘I remember when’. Ushioda’s touching remembrances, answered by Lesser’s (Davydov’s) inspired and atmospheric replies, modulated by Schepkin’s brilliant and sensitive arbitration/counsel. These are dramatic meditations on the death of a beloved person and, like all elegies, are poetical—with language and cadence governed by impulses of memory. The elegy form tolls departure and loss, irrevocable going-going-goneness… rapturously, ecstatically... often with more of a pastoral or more serene or idealized or sanitized aspect than the person remembered may have had in real life… which is okay and as it should be. We were touched; we are touched; we will continue to be touched.

T he Brahms piece is not elegiac except for the Adagio. It’s instead optimistic and lighthearted, but it is memoristic nonetheless, inspired by Brahms’s walks in the Vienna Prater. By rights, it’s a viola quintet, full of rich alto sonorities. The first movement, Allegro non troppo ma con brio, is in 9/8. Opens with a cello solo in G major, transitions to G minor, with excursions through various other keys before returning to G major. The second movement, the Adagio, begins with a viola solo. The main theme goes through a sort of ‘versioning’ or software refactoring—reimplementing it on different ‘platforms’ and architectures—pondering and recasting the material and, through each refactoring, discovering new dimensions in it and reaching different conclusions. The third movement, Un poco Allegretto, a cheerful minuet and trio form in 3/4, ends with a short coda. And the fourth movement, Vivace ma non troppo presto, is tremendously buoyant and vivacious. Brahms’s pen—and tones—and the Borromeos plus Ms. Kashkashian—had more vitality than one dares to believe…

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Meta-complexity in Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet

A nthony Burton’s program notes for the London Phil’s ‘Chamber Contrasts’ series at Wigmore Hall emphasize how impressed Brahms was with the potential of clarinet, as a result of his hearing clarinettist Richard Mühlfeld perform in 1891. But Brahms composed this Op. 115 clarinet quintet within a few years of his death from cancer, a period when many of his friends and family died (his sister Elise, his brother Fritz, Elizabeth von Herzogenberg, Hermione Spies, Theodor Broth, Clara Schumann, etc.). This makes me think that the recursive, ‘re-considering’ structures in this quintet maybe derive more from the emotional impact of those events on Brahms—than from any scheme Brahms may have had, to create in Op. 115 a virtuosic clarinet showpiece for the great Mühlfeld.

L arge-scale variation comes from relationships between variations (the theme included) and how these relationships are united into a pervasive algorithm that encapsulates the entire set—that is, an operating system governing the entire set. In other words, these are not a mere series of independent objects and methods (scripts) that are expected derivatives of a parent object or class. They are a ‘network-based object-oriented OS’.

W hat I mean is, Brahms’s variations feel to me ‘network-based’, not ‘hierarchical’. It seems (to me) that Brahms was exposing larger-scale connections, and transforming his idea into a multi-domain network rather than a hierarchical structure with conventional ‘parent’ exposition classes and ‘child’ instantiations. The arrangement of variations involves pairs of diatonic pitch-class cells derived from the theme. But the textural differences that follow are like remote procedure-calls that cross-link the tension-producing structures within the variations’ designs. This gives the piece an attractive sort of ‘meta-complexity’.

I n other people’s analyses (links below), variation sets in Brahms’s multi-movement instrumental compositions are usually only moderately complex. Variation sets in interior movements often do not have full ‘closure’. In the variations in this Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Brahms suggests or ‘projects’ closure by recapitulating first-movement phrases. But the promised closure doesn’t come until the very end. It is as though there is a latent, suspended complexity that is irreducible until the very end.

T his gets me to thinking about how Brahms does this, and how we might devise similar structures and mechanics in new music. The ‘Kolmogorov complexity’ (links below) of a software program or script, or a piece of text or a musical composition, is a measure of the computational resources needed to specify the object. Kolmogorov complexity is also known as descriptive complexity, Kolmogorov-Chaitin complexity, stochastic complexity, algorithmic entropy, or program-size complexity.

O ne of the appealing, intuitively plausible qualities of Kolmogorov complexity as a metric to characterize what I was hearing last night in the account of the Brahms clarinet quintet given by Robert Hill and his colleagues has to do with how the aggregate complexity goes, for large composite or ‘compound’ or ‘network’ or ‘cloud’ objects that are constituted from multiple smaller objects. For example, consider a compound object built up from objects X and Y. The Kolmogorov complexity of the two of them together K(X,Y) is:

K(X,Y) = K(X) + K(Y|X) + O(ln(K(X,Y)))

T his says that the shortest program that reproduces X and Y is no more than a logarithmic term larger than a program to reproduce X and a program to reproduce Y given X. This basically puts a quantitative ‘bound’ on the amount of mutual information there is between X and Y in terms of the Kolmogorov complexity.

T he amount of unresolved tension we feel in the inner movements in this Brahms quintet—and the intensity of the desire we feel for the eventual resolution of these tensions at the end—feels, to me, logarithmic. Maybe some future music theory PhD candidate will explore this notion properly and critically. For now, it’s happy enough for me to give you a few interesting links below and the glimmer of a potential reason why the complexities and proportions of this quintet seem so ‘right’ and so beautiful.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Victor Goldberg: Musical Meditation, Being a Blessing

I n a theme for [a set of] variations, it is almost only the bass [left-hand piano part] that has any meaning for me. But this is sacred to me: it is the firm foundation on which I then build my [musical] ‘stories’. What I do with a melody is only playing around ... If I vary only the melody, then I cannot easily be more than clever or graceful, or, indeed, [if] full of feeling, deepen a pretty thought. On the given bass, I invent something actually new; I discover new melodies in it--I create.”
— Johannes Brahms.

V ictor Goldberg’s performance last night in the [completely filled] Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall was a tour de force.

Scarlatti: Sonata in E Major, K. 380
Chopin: Scherzo in B-flat Minor Op. 31
Shostakovich: Sonata No. 2 in B Minor, Op. 61
Brahms: Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Handel, Op. 24

I n particular, the emotional diversity of this program fully lived up to the ambitious ‘Depths of the Creative Spirit’ billing.

T he Brahms variations and fugue are the epitome of developing and reprising an idea, turning it round and round, dwelling on it and expanding it. Unlike Bach’s Goldberg variations or Beethoven’s Diabelli variations that vary the subject with the aim of departing from it, the Brahms reiterates its subject and reiterates it until the ‘patterns’ in the ‘wallpaper’ take on new, ever newer meanings. The nominal ‘structure’ recedes as in some kinds of optical illusions, and the deep/hidden significance is revealed. Pure magic.

I have read about this piece in the illustrious books about Brahms; I have heard Op. 24 performed before. Its surface qualities seem straightforward enough. And its storied place in Brahms’s early career (and in his relationship with Clara Schumann, who premiered Op. 24 in December, 1861) makes it seem like a known quantity.

B ut the meditative, ‘wave-like’, strophic character of Brahms’s 25 variations was prominently featured in Goldberg’s account last night. In fact, this is the first time that I think I understand this piece? Meditating musically is Victor Goldberg’s specialty—meditating not on changing the world or persuading others of his point of view, but meditating toward deeply apprehending the reality that’s already here and allowing us to apprehend it, too.

T here are many forms of meditative practice, but their essence is to see the truth of what ‘is’. Many classical Jewish meditations do this by contemplating a particular object—a phrase, a sense-perception, even an idea—and focusing intensely on it so that all distractions drop away. Similarly, in Buddhist and other traditions, attention is drawn to the barest perceptions of breath or movement—simply to suppress our inner chatter. Saying the rosary may have a similar effect for Roman Catholics. ‘Oneg shabbos’—becoming ever more exquisitely attuned to emotions—takes real effort. Getting ‘neshama yeteira’ (an ‘extra’ soul) or revealing and engaging the ‘hidden’ soul—doesn’t come from magic. It comes from effective, concentrated attention, and this is the gift that Goldberg gives us.

I t was through Pro Musicis and [their] community service concerts that I began to truly understand the power of communication and, therefore, the power of music.”
— Peter Oundjian, violinist/conductor, quoted on Pro Musicis website.

G oldberg is a 32 year-old Russian-born Israeli who has performed extensively in Israel, Europe, and the United States. His honors include the 2008 Pro Musicis International Award, the Artist Recognition Award at the International Keyboard Festival in New York and the Vladimir Horowitz International Piano Competition in Kiev, and First Prize at the Arianne Katcz Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. Goldberg is a scholar of the American-Israel Cultural Foundation and holds degrees from Tel Aviv University’s Rubin Academy, Juilliard, the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, and the Manhattan School of Music.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Boston Cecilia: The Curious Incident of Brahms in the Night-Time

B rahms, a musical ‘wonder-worker’, was a great symphonist, of course. But he also loved the human voice, alone and in varied combinations. And I believe there is no chorus better equipped to reveal the intensity of feeling he brought to this repertoire than the Boston Cecilia.”
— Donald Teeters, Cecilia Music Director.

T he Boston Cecilia and mezzo-soprano, Krista River, gave a wonderful performance of “nocturnal” art-songs by Brahms last night, at First Church in Cambridge.

Motet ‘O Heiland, reiss die Himmel auf!’ (O, Savior, open Thy Heaven! Rip it Open!)
Waldesnacht, Op. 62 No.3
Der Abend, Op. 64 No.2
Nächtens, Op. 112 No2
Abendständchen, Op. 42 No.1
O, schöne Nacht, Op. 92 No.1
Abendlied, Op. 92 No. 3
Alto Rhapsody, Op.53 (Krista River)
Botschaft, Op. 47 No.1 (Krista River)
An die Nachtigall, Op. 46 No. 4 (Krista River)
von Ewiger Liebe, Op. 43 No. 1 (Krista River)
Die Mainacht, Op. 43 No. 2 (Krista River)
Wie Melodien zieht es mir, Op. 105 No.1 (Krista River)
Ständchen, Op. 106 No. 1 (Krista River)
Liebes lieder, Op. 52 (mixed chorus and four-hands piano (Barbara Bruns, Keith Glavash))

T he texts for Op. 52 are really over-the-top, on many levels:

Rede, Mädchen, allzu liebes (Tell me, dear, who rouses my ardor, may I come now?)
Am Gesteine rauscht die Flut (Against the ‘rocks’ the ‘torrent’ rushes.)
O, die Frauen (Without women I would long ago have become a monk.)
Wie des Abends schöne Röte (If I could glow like the sunset and please but one person…)
Die grüne Hopfenranke (The green vine tendril.)
Ein kleiner, hübscher Vogel (Like an itsy, bitsy bird caught in a thicket, I long to be freed.)
Wohl schön bewandt war es (Once my lover’s gaze could penetrate.)
Wenn so lind dein Aug emir (Your loving eyes banish my troubles.)
Am Donaustrande (On the Danube beach… Ten locks protect my love; I’ll now smash them like glass.)
Schlosser auf, und mache Schlösser! (Locksmith, make me many locks!)
O, wie sanft die Quelle! (How gently the stream flows!)
Nein, es ist nicht auszukommen! (No, my merriment is not mad, my quietude not love-sickness!)
Vögelein durchrauscht die Luft (Like a little bird rushes through the air.)
Sieh, wie ist die Welle klar (See the moonlight on the clear water! My love, love me now!)
Nactigall, sie singt so schön (The nightingale sweetly sings, so embrace me, my love, in the dark here.)
Ein dunkeler Schacht is Liebe (What a dark pit is Love.)
Nich wandle, mein Licht (Stray not, my love, in the watery meadow.)
Es bebet das Gesträuche (My shrub quivers with desire when I think of you.)

B rahms was in love, sort of, but with whom, in what way, and to what end? (Man, oh, man! Clara Schumann had her ‘hands full’ with brilliant-but-problematic men in her life!)

T his final concert of the group’s 133rd season was entitled ‘Bring on Brahms’, with a “nocturnal” theme. But beyond that superficial ‘thread’ linking these pieces together, the program provided an extraordinary glimpse into the depths of Brahms’s loneliness and dependency.

T he music is gorgeous. But many of the texts are troubling, not least of these the Alto Rhapsody, Op 53, for alto, male chorus, and orchestra, written in 1869 as a wedding gift for Robert and Clara Schumann’s daughter, Julie.

P eter Ostwald, in his essay in Walter Frisch’s edited volume (link below; see page 30), gives some evidence that the Rhapsody was composed by Brahms a few days before the wedding and gifted by Brahms to the bride, in a fit of unjustified pique. Correspondence in preceding months between Johannes and Clara indicates the scope of his teasing Clara about ‘marrying one of your daughters’.

B ut he never earnestly made any moves in that direction, no physical intimacy and no known expressions of intent by Brahms. The Italian Count Marmorito swept Julie off her feet. And so now Julie is getting married and Brahms works himself up into a righteous snit? What the?

S o this is no sublimated, futile Brahmsian love-letter! If it is, it’s a grotesque, way-tardy, imploding bomb of a love-letter.

O r a socially inappropriate continuation of his not-so-cryptic communications with Clara, disguised as a wedding present for Julie? Maybe… Co-opting the odd misanthropic text, taken from Goethe’s ‘Harzreise in Winter’, wrapping it up with a bow. Just great. Wandering and chromatically dense... wandering, dour C minor: perfect for the Goethe misanthrope.

B ut then we get the second section aria, which actually does obfuscate Brahms’s personal motivations/social pains. And then we have the genuinely tender, reverential conclusion, not at all like the aggressive beginning.

W hy does this guy deserve analgesia? Doesn’t he need to find Truth the hard way, through experiencing the painful consequences of his own self-absorption? Wish we had the real back-story to this weird gift! Not a sublimated love-letter, but instead a thinly-veiled, morose, awkward confession/apology by 36-year-old bachelor Brahms, to Julie or to Clara?

N obody makes art like this anymore! Deeply, inadvertently revelatory—with nostalgic, tragic, narcissistic, fatalistic themes all mixed-up, launched by Brahms to suit his own obscure, would-be exploitive but frustrated ends. Wish we could read Julie's ‘thank-you’ letter to Brahms for this wedding gift...

T he last movement of the Rhapsody redeems the weirdness of the first parts. The lilting triplets are warm and benign; the kindly appoggiaturas in the men’s parts vow beneficence, not only toward the dedicatee (Julie Schumann) but toward Womankind in general; the plagal IV-to-I ‘amen’ cadence at the end.

L istening to the concert last night, I thought about Brahms’s extreme emotional sensitivity—whatever it was that led him to dwell, not just on his difficulties with intimacy, but on themes of justice and to sympathize with creatures and humans unnecessarily thwarted or punished. His afternoon walks, entering into trances so easily; driving his esthetic and emotional sensitivity into the nighttime—his capacity to so appreciate and identify with beauty and harmony in what he saw and did that he would become totally overcome by ecstasy and write these things. How wonderful that we have these pieces, revealing so much as they do, not only about Brahms but about the human realities of having existential ‘itches’ that you can’t (are too timid to—; oughtn’t to—) ‘scratch’! How great for the Boston Cecilia to put together this intense short-course, exploring Brahms’s psyche!

A ber abseits wer ist’s?
Im Gebüsch verliert sich sein Pfad;
hinter ihm schlagen die Sträuche zusammen,
das Gras steht wieder auf,
die Öde verschlingt ihn.

Ach, wer heilet die Schmerzen
dess, dem Balsam zu Gift ward?
Der sich Menschenhaß
aus der Fülle der Liebe trank!
Erst verachtet, nun ein Verächter,
zehrt er heimlich auf
seinen eigenen Wert
In ungenugender Selbstsucht.

Ist auf deinem Psalter,
Vater der Liebe, ein Ton
seinem Ohre vernehmlich,
so erquicke sein Herz!
Öffne den umwölkten Blick
über die tausend Quellen
neben dem Durstenden
in der Wüste!

[But who is that there?
His path vanishes in the underbrush;
behind him the thicket closes in;
the grass stands up again, revealing no trace;
the wasteland swallows him up.

Ah, who eases the pains
of him for whom sweet balsam became poison?
Who drank the hatred of Man
from the abundance of Love?
First scorned, now a scorner,
he secretly obsesses about
his own virtuousness—
wallows in unrewarding egotism.

If there is on your psaltery,
Father of Love, one note
his ear can be made to hear,
then refresh his heart now!
Open his clouded gaze
to the thousand springs
that are next to him who thirsts
in the wilderness!]”
— Goethe, Harzreise in Winter.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

Patricia Kopatchinskaja & Friends: Tigran Mansurian’s Four Serious Songs

Patricia Kopatchinskaja, performing barefoot at St. Brendan’s

F or that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts also.
Even one thing befalleth them all;
The one dieth, so dieth the other,
Yea, they have all one breath so that a man has no preeminence above a beast,
For all is vanity.
All go unto one place;
All are of the dust,
And all return to dust again.”
— Ecclesiastes 3:19-22.

Last night violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja gave a brilliant Irish premier performance of the 2006 concerto by composer Tigran Mansurian entitled ‘Four Serious Songs’.

Four Serious Songs (vioin concerto, after Brahms, Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121)

For that which befalleth (Eccl. 3:19-22), 6-min
So I returned and considered all the oppressions (Eccl. 4:1-3), 7-min
O Death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man that lives in his possessions (Eccl. 41:1-2), 2-min
I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal (1 Cor 13:1-3,12-13), 5-min

This concerto is way beyond ‘serious’: it is full-blown tragedy. The first movement is haunted with foreboding: ominous half-note chromatics in the double-bass and eery glisses in the other strings. The second movement is hemmed-in, expectant of the unrelenting oppressions that the Ecclesiastes text suggests. The third movement is genuinely bitter, more or less renouncing the rest of humanity in its addiction to materialistic pursuits; defiant strings give an angry-despondent recitative.

Finally, the concluding fourth movement: in the beginning, it is ethereal, vaporescent. Violins and violas in ultra-high registers; close encounters at the upper extremities of their fingerboards. The cellos hold forth with whisperings that emulate a cold wind, utterly heartless—strings damped by the fingers so as to produce a pitchless sound, gray noise of the bow drawn lightly, on-edge against the string. Law of the Universe, the die has been cast; things in motion tend to stay (heartlessly) in motion; no reprieves. A more desolate, time-beyond-humankind effect would be hard to imagine.

Then the strings, together as a choir, respond in a subdued major key. Maybe there is hope after all, for humans and for other species as well…

But, no, it’s not to be. The major-key chordal writing gives way to impassioned, violent atonal passages and a resolution in a dour, uncertain minor. Agonal gasps; the length of the bow is consumed, millisecond by millisecond: kinesthetically an analogue of lung capacity, the bow with its limits to inspiration (up-bow) and expiration (down-bow). Struggling for breath, exhausting what little is left of the length of your bow-stroke. All species may go down together, but that does not mean that no one is guilty, that no one is to blame for this destruction. We humans are irredeemably at fault: thus spake the prophet Mansurian.

St. Brendan’s, Bantry, Co. Cork, Ireland

Kopatchinskaja’s treatment was superb. The bare feet under Patricia’s red gown were a bit unconventional, although I can readily understand how the sensation of the cold floor under the soles and toes may be crucial to informing her interpretation. If one wants to be forcibly grounded in the decumbent, ascetic, prostratory mood of this apocalyptic ecopolitical Mansurian piece, then one should play one’s violin barefoot on a cold floor in an old, cold church!

Kopatchinskaja has recently served as guest director and soloist with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. She was born in Moldova.

Born in Beirut in 1938, in 1947 Mansurian’s family moved to Armenia. Mansurian took his PhD at the Yerevan State Musical Conservatory where he later taught contemporary music analysis. Now prominent among Armenian composers, Mansurian’s output includes orchestral works, seven concerti for strings and orchestra, sonatas for cello and piano, three string quartets, madrigals, chamber music and works for solo instruments.

Violins: Katherine Hunka, Karl Sweeney, Róisin Walters, Ionana Petcu-Colan, Maria Ryan, David O Leary, Siún Milne
Violas: Joachim Roewer, Ruth Gibson, Lucy Nolan
Cellos: Eoin Quinlan, Peggy Nolan
Double-bass: Malachy Robinson