W hile rotary valve trumpets are not strictly speaking historical but rather contemporary brass instruments, trumpet players have in recent years increasingly been using these instruments for all of the Austro-German classical and romantic repertoire from Mozart and Haydn to Bruckner and Mahler... While the use of rotary valve instruments is certainly not historically accurate for the classical and early romantic natural trumpet orchestral literature, many conductors and players seem to feel that the tapered attack and warmer tone quality of these instruments is better suited to the modern performance of natural trumpet parts than the more brilliant and incisive piston valve instrument. There is no question, however, that the rotary valve trumpet is the stylistically appropriate and historically authentic instrument for the late 19th and early 20th century Germanic repertory.” — David H. Green.
T he Advent program at Annakirche in Vienna last night was excellent.
S tefan Fleißner (trpt) and Reinhard Schobesberger (organ) performed a 1-hour program for a delighted audience that completely filled the pews. The trumpet-organ duo works included arrangements of a number of Marienlieder, plus a variety of contemporary Christmas carols, plus the following:
Clarke – Trumpet Fanfare, Prinz von Dänemark Marsch
I ’ve been in Wien for 7 days, and have attended the Staatsoper, the Wien Philharmoniker, Wien Kammerorchester, Theater an der Wien opera, and various other music events—and I have yet to see a single piston-valved trumpet. Not one. The only thing that anybody uses over here are rotary-valve instruments. Their timbre is very round, full, and capable of a legato sound like nothing else—not as ‘dark’ as a flugelhorn, though, and not as breathy.
T he rotary-valve keys have a shorter ‘throw’ (about 1 cm) than piston-valved instruments, so fingering of rapid passages may, in general, be a bit faster on these instruments, compared to on a conventional piston-valved trumpet. Other biomechanics advantages are mentioned by trumpet players who prefer these rotary-valve designs, including better symmetry between left-hand/arm and right-hand/arm musculature, in terms of holding the instrument… no brass crook for the right-hand “pinky,” and therefore no big forces on that little finger to get transmitted into the lumbricals of the other fingers of that hand; no tension in the left-hand; etc.
T he legato playing of Fleißner was superb throughout. Gorgeous, both in the sacred music and in the secular pieces.
I looked at the reading on my hiking compass: the temperature inside the church at 3:00 p.m. at the time of the concert by cellist Seoyoung Lee and organist Hee-Jung Hwang was just 10°C (50°F). Brrrr! But what surprising, atmospheric music it was. The cello voice projects perfectly in the sanctuary.
H ow large can the literature for cello-organ duo be? Not too big, but due to composers’ increasing interest in it and several important recent commissions, the repertoire is growing.
F or a space as reverberous as St. Peterskirche, it’s important to keep the tempo slow—so the echoes have a chance to fade and not muddy what comes next. The meditative quality of the setting surely supports taking things at a slower-than-usual tempo anyway.
David Bednall - Sonata
Jean-Baptiste Breal - Sonate V in G-dur
Gabriel Fauré - Elegie, Op. 24, Siciliennen, Op. 78
Wilhelm Fitzenhagen - Resignation, Op.8
Georg Goltermann - Andante religioso, Op.56
Russell Hepplewhite - Invisible Landscapes
Jean Huré - Air
Theodor Kirchner - 2 Tonstücke, Op.92 for cello and organ
I mprovising is difficult-] because our current educational system makes it so.” — William Porter, keynote talk, EROI 2011.
B ecause learning it happens so very late [in the course of pedagogy and acquiring musical skills].” — Eastman student, quoted by William Porter, EROI 2011.
T he EROI festival this year is centered on the topic of improvisation and opened this afternoon with a stimulating, expansive meditation-cum-keynote-speech by William Porter, entitled ‘Why Is Improvisation So Difficult?’
I t was followed by a breathtaking, virtuosic “triple-header” 8:00 p.m. recital on the Craighead-Saunders organ for a packed-in audience at Christ Church across the street from Eastman School of Music:
Böhm – Praeludium in C; Herr Jesu Christ dich zu uns wend (Chorale Cycle with 6 verses); Hans Davidsson
Hindemith – Organ Sonata No. 1; William Porter
Schumann – Etuden in kanonischer Form für Orgel oder Pedalklavier, Op. 56; David Higgs
Liszt – Präludium und Fuge über den Nahmen B-A-C-H; David Higgs
U p to the mid-18th Century, improvisation was a fundamental skill in which most if not all practicing musicians were adept. Since that time, however, fewer and fewer musicians have felt fluent at improvising extemporaneously.
P orter catalogued the concepts and situations that he believes lead many musicians today to find improvising difficult. He averred that because genres and idioms are today so tremendously diverse, it is difficult to teach improvisation as ‘compositional performance’ insofar as it is not humanly possible for one person to be fully fluent in what constitutes improvisation in more than a few genres/idioms. It was far easier when the prevailing idioms/use-cases/purposes of the music were few in number and the contexts for the improvisation (e.g., liturgical/sacred music) were more structured.
F oremost among the reasons why improvisation has become ‘hard,’ Porter says, is that counterpoint, voice-leading, and harmony are in recent decades taught in ‘classroom’ settings, primarily as paper-based exercises in writing, instead of as practical performance on a keyboard instrument (or any other instrument, including voice). Student musicians only rarely these days develop any ‘muscle memory’ for improvisation per se, so that the body—the fingers, the hands, the diaphragm, the whole body—knows how to execute improvisation as a sort of ‘compositional performance’. Porter exhorted the teachers in the audience to amend the curriculum to impart such kinesthetic knowledge to students, and to do it from their earliest days when they are kids, just beginners, much in the manner that would be done with dancers or other kinds of athletes.
S ome book links are gathered below, for your interest, in the spirit of Porter’s remarks about embodiment, kinesthetics, and corporality in improvisation. Especially noteworthy is Pamela Ruiter-Feenstra’s new two-volume treatise ‘Bach and the Art of Improvisation’ (link below).
W hat a fantastic EROI Festival this will be, crafting the future of organ improvisation and improvisation pedagogy!
W e must kill the twin demons of ‘originality’/‘novelty’ and ‘imitation’: these ultimately lead to paralysis and inhibit improvisation. Instead, we must teach the student how to be compelling, how to be convincing. It is better to be ‘interesting’ than to be original. The integrity of saying something with conviction, and of being spontaneously responsive to other musicians and to the audience—is what we really mean by ‘improvisation’. We must teach them to prepare—to prepare to take advantage of the unexpected when it happens.” — William Porter, keynote talk, EROI 2011.
H erman Berlinksi’s Sinfonia No. 10 was dedicated to the memory of Milton Feist, a rabbi, music publisher, and friend of Berlinksi’s. Crippled at the age of four by polio, Feist lived his whole life in a wheelchair.
T his life, a never-ceasing struggle against overwhelming power and brutality ... became to all who knew him a metaphor for the triumph of the spirit over a decaying body. Milton Feist was called, after he had passed on, by his ... colleagues 'meir' or “Shining Star.” He was and, through his faith, I still believe he is. The first movement of this Sinfonia is based upon kabbalistic interpretation of the words of Psalm 130. According to kabbalistic tradition it is not from the depths of desperation that we cry unto God. It is into our own depths we must reach... Faith does not merely exist. It must be [summoned into existence and—] acquired from the depths of one’s own being... one must, like Jacob with the angel, fight for it. The cello becomes a metaphor for humans who, groping for wordless prayer and the experience of God, are confronted with a brutal, seemingly impenetrable wall of sound, to be pierced only by deep and abiding faith, which first we must acquire. Only a few among us succeed in this fight, which, after all, leaves all of us somewhat limping. The second movement is based on a melody called: Av-Ha-Rachamim (Merciful Father) attributed to the 19th Century Russian-Jewish composer Abraham Dunayevsky. From a musical point of view it is a set of theme and variations. The hostile wall is slowly overcome, and gives way to prayer which flows towards its intended destination.” — Herman Berlinski, Program notes at Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM), 1999.
T his week I have thought about Sinfonia No. 10 for cello and organ (1975-76) “Min-Ha-Maakim” [‘Out of the depths’] after I visited with a musician friend who, with others, is embarking on creating a new civic orchestra devoted to the performance of Jewish music.
A nd, following the tragedy in Tucson, I have listened especially to the first movement of this Sinfonia, ‘Min-Ha-Maakim’ (mimma`amaqqiym qerâ'thiykha). Lori Barnet’s cello and Herman Berlinski’s organ plead together, urgently. (In other words, the organ is not just a wall of sound to be fought and pierced by the cello. The two become ‘one’. Possibly this is ‘kabbalistic’? We encounter the depths as hostile ‘otherness’ and discover to our surprise that depths-Я-us. Then we are able to get somewhere.)
I am reminded of the ‘refa na lah’ of Moses’s prayer in Numbers 12:13 (רְפָא נָא לָהּ ; Heal her, please). It is a supplication for those individuals who are suffering, surely. But at the present moment, the plea is equally fitting for our nation as well.
I read in one Hebrew glossary that one meaning of the word ‘maakim’ is ‘precautions’. Apropos, given the events of one week ago. As we listen, hopeful for recovery, we surround ourselves with music that evokes both the concreteness and frailty of the body that each of us inhabits, and the transcendence that can be ours as well. As we stand, grieving, we sing the words of our old culture, a culture that has seen far more than its share of tragedy. As we struggle to learn to be civil or learn to restore civility that has been lost, may we get more out of being civil. Have a listen to this clip and if, like me, it resonates with you, get yourself a copy of the recording (link below). If you are a cellist or organist, maybe you will get yourself a copy of the score. Some useful resources are gathered together in the collection of links below. That is all I have to say. Words fail, music does not.
[50-sec clip, Lori Barnet & Herman Berlinski, Sinfonia No. 10, ‘Min-Ha-Maqqym’, 1.6MB MP3]
T he recording dates from 10 years ago, but cellist Lori Barnet is still today an active freelance musician in the Washington, DC, area. She is cellist for ensembles specializing in the presentation of contemporary repertoire, including Orchestra 2001 in Philadelphia. She is also a member of the Washington Bach Consort. Barnet regularly appears as soloist, recitalist, and chamber artist, and serves as principal cellist with the National Chamber Orchestra and the Washington Chamber Symphony. She is professor of cello at George Washington University and is cello coach for the Montgomery County Maryland Youth Orchestras.
H erman Berlinski received his primary music education at the Landeskonsevatorium Leipzig, graduating with honors in 1932. Forced to leave Germany at the onset of the Nazi regime, he became a student of the Ecole Normale de Musique, studying composition with Nadia Boulanger and piano with Alfred Cortot. Berlinski, formerly a Polish citizen, enlisted as a volunteer in the French Army, receiving the Croix du Combattant Volontaire from the French government for his wartime service. He fled the German occupation of France in 1941, settling in New York. In 1960 he became the first doctoral candidate of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America to earn the degree of Doctor of Sacred Music. He held the posts of organist at Temple Emanu-El, New York, and Minister of Music to the Washington Hebrew Congregation. He was the founder and director of the Shir Chadash Chorale, a choir distinguished by its pioneering programs of historical and contemporary Jewish music. He died in 2001.
T he legato playing of Fleißner was superb throughout. Gorgeous, both in the sacred music and in the secular pieces. 
