jwilzewske: program notes

Showing posts with label program notes. Show all posts

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin: Baroque with Attitude(s), Baroque with Mixed Taste(s)

J osé Bowen writes of the ‘illusion that there is such a thing as a neutral performance style’... I believe it is an illusion principally of the listener; but even then perhaps ‘illusion’ is not the right idea... If Bowen typifies the view of a scholar making a ‘forensic’ examination after the event, rather than that of a performer who, for an ulterior artistic purposes, may need to have faith in some starting point without going too far into its credibility, he is nevertheless right to imply that performers do always display an attitude towards their music.”
— Jon Dunsby, in Rink, p. 227.

B uilding and shaping narrative is fundamental to effective interpretation, for musicians to bring a composition to life in performance (see esp. William Rothstein, in the book edited by John Rink, link below). In regard to constructing exciting and coherent narratives, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin is second to none. Their performance last night was warmly received by Kansas Citians.

G.P. Telemann - Overture (Suite) in F minor, TWV55:f1
J.S. Bach - Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 in D major, BWV 1050
J.S. Bach - Violin Concerto in E major, BWV 1042
G. F. Handel - Concerto Grosso in F major, Op. 6, No. 2, HWV 32
G.P. Telemann - Concerto in E minor for Recorder & Flute, TWV52:e1.

T he Baroque slurred dotted-eighth-sixteenth ornament: this ‘punctuation’ conveys a certain tension, but it is not ‘tense’; it is instead athletic, like the taut muscles of a horse executing patterns in a dressage ring.

C onnecting the sixteenth note back to the dotted eighth with a slur has special and different meanings in Bach and Telemann and Handel. Telemann is more ‘French’ (see the excellent recent book by Steven Zohn, Baroque flutist and Assoc. Prof. Music History, Boyer College of Music & Dance, Temple Univ, link below, pp. 13ff). In the TWV 55:f1 Overture, there is an implied or interpolated ‘rest’ or suspension in the middle of the figure. By contrast, in the Akademie’s interpretations of Bach, the dotted-eighth-sixteenth slurs feel ‘pastoral’; these feel like distance is being traversed over soft earth or a hummocky pasture. In the minor keys, it feels solemn; it carries some gravitas. How wonderful to experience the diversity of German Baroque... the saturated colors and widely varying ‘feel’ and ‘sense’ that Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin impart to these pieces!

[30-sec clip, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Telemann - Concerto in A minor for 2 recorders, TWV 55:a2, 1.1MB MP3]

T he musicians had already moved through several approaches to color and texture — a dark-hued French overture; a pair of light, graceful Menuets; a supple, rubato-laden Sarabande; and a pair of full-throttle fast movements — before arriving at the Plainte, a second slow movement. Suddenly, the string sound was hushed, velvety and nearly motionless. The ensemble addressed the Adagio of Bach’s Violin Concerto in E (BWV 1042) similarly, and the effect was no less surprising the second time... But for sheer inventive oddity, Handel’s Concerto Grosso in F (Op. 6, No. 2) proved the evening’s most memorable performance. Building on the gracefully modulating chord progression at the start of the work’s Andante Larghetto, the players produced a lush sound that painted Handel as an early avatar of English pastoralism.”
— Allan Kozinn, review, NY Times.

T he Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (which loosely translates to the Berlin Academy of Early Music) features about 15 players trained in techniques employed in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the orchestra itself was still a relatively new idea. Friday’s concert confirmed that the uproar is warranted. The compelling program of music by German Baroque composers was one of the highlights of the concert season. What sets this ensemble apart from many others is the combination of technical expertise, extraordinary energy and sheer musicality... From the outset, the ensemble produced a soft but vibrant sound that was beautifully balanced. As it progressed through the nine-movement suite, the group demonstrated not only the ability to play well, but to infuse each movement with a sound and shape that was well conceived and effectively delivered. For example, the second movement contained two contrasting minuets. Not only was the instrumentation different — two recorders, lute and cello as opposed to strings — but differences in articulation also helped define each section...”
— Timothy McDonald, review, Kansas City Star.

Monday, March 7, 2011

Is Language Music? Sightreading Kirzinger’s Program Notes, BMOP w/ Bolcom

Garden of Cosmic Speculation, Dumfries, Scotland

W hen writing a score, there’s got to be something that you can do that will not just be a nice honor to the play, or the book, or the film you’re dealing with, but some aspect that maybe can explore something that the play just couldn’t do. Once I know what the first page [of music] is, then the rest will come.”
— William Bolcom.

T he Boston Modern Orchestra Project - Bolcom w/ BMOP program last night was exceptionally good. A thread held in common by each of the works was their concern for spirituality, for Time, and for how we experience our short lives and the lives of those we love.

Sojourner Hodges - Full-Fathom Five, elegy for Donald C. Hodges [première] (Bethany Worrell, soprano)
Michael Gandolfi - Garden of the Senses Suite (Allemande-audition; Courante-olfaction; Sarabande-gustation; Passepied-palpation; Gigue-vision; Chorale-intuition)
Kati Agócs - ...like treasure hidden in a field (Chorale; Peregrination; Pearl of Great Price; Cathedral with No Ceiling; Celestial Machinery)
William Bolcom - Commedia for (Almost-) 18th-Century Orchestra
William Bolcom - Symphony No. 3 (Alpha; Scherzo vitale; Chiaroscuro; Omega)

T he program notes by composer Robert Kirzinger are always a genuine pleasure when attending BMOP events or Tanglewood, and last night was no exception. Knowing the composers/artists as well as he does, he is invariably able to provide a great number of fascinating details about the composers’ biographies and current projects—far more vivid than you would find in any press-kit or agent bio package, and far more than most artists would think to mention. Terse, crystalline, provocative; never enigmatic or museum-plaquelike. And his 7 pages and 3,500 words of text for last night’s BMOP program reveal many intimate bits; the dates of composition and first performance, and where and by whom it was first performed; generous juicy quotes from each composer, on what she or he intended and what inspired or motivated each work; the occasional wry, funny, ironical ditzel; plus mini-summaries of what’s ‘under the hood’ of each piece and how it works.

H e gives the audience a sense of what to expect while hearing the piece, but is never excessively technical—sonata form, rondo, passacaglia, etc.—he does not ‘talk down’ or define each term for his readers, but rather gently makes it apparent in his ensuing paragraphs what the deal is and why it’s interesting. Seven pages and 3,500 words are not “a lot” when they are truly exciting like his writing is—any more than 400 pages and 200,000 words are too much for a really good novel that you can’t put down.

T he designation ‘symphony’ implies ambition—and the piece, in 30 minutes and four movements, delivers, if not precisely in a traditional way… the orchestra is more-or-less Mozart-sized, with modern doublings (piccolo, alto flute, E-flat clarinet) plus electric piano, which adds a distinct sonic touch… The beginning and end of the piece, musically similar, represent a ‘collective consciousness’ from which our individual spirits emerge and into which they return. The alto flute, English horn, and first bassoon are a ‘half-humorous visualization of three spirits who watch over the process of our birth and death.’ … Bolcom represents the collective consciousness with a miasma of string glissandi…”
— Robert Kirzinger, program notes.

W hile the primary consumers of program notes are the audience members, the notes can enrich the playing experience and understanding of the performers and the conductor as well. In fact, I suspect that the reason Kirzinger writes the way he does is because it is a genuine creative opportunity, not an ‘obligation’, not mere marketing ‘collateral’ that he is producing. Program notes are an artistic performance by its author(s), not a workaday ‘task’ with a commodified, mass-market ‘deliverable.’ Program notes are part and parcel of his ongoing dialogues with these people and with this music. It’s conversational—the writing of the program notes is an embodiment of the mutual commitment and the friendship that make high-quality conversation possible and real.

A nd if well-engineered program notes can manage to contribute to the performers’ and the conductor’s experience, then how much more we audience members can get from them! Hold the program notes in your hand. Open them. Begin reading them as though they were a piece of music. You are sight-reading a libretto! The story has characters in it—some who live; some who have died; all of whom have done some cool things. Things happen in that program-notes libretto—exciting stuff—and if you give a good ‘reading’, you might have a part! You really oughtta take that program home with you and re-read it. It isn’t a throw-away; it isn’t a only-for-show ‘sacrament’ of a religion you no longer believe in. Your sight-reading ability isn’t as great as it could and should be, you know…

T his work represents the desire to keep spiritual things close and present in everyday life, with recognition of just how challenging this goal can be… a series of saturated chords is cast antiphonally throughout the ensemble, and the otherworldly presence of unpitched, flat Chinese gongs sustains a rarified atmosphere over the work’s five-movement arc, culminating in a cacophony of bells.”
— Kati Agócs, notes for ‘…like treasure’.

R obert Kirzinger’s program notes texts read like concise, friendly ‘gists’… in-a-nutshell analyses, bolted onto exciting, expertly-redacted, friend-to-friend interviews with the composers—this is substantially what his program notes are. It’s really heartwarming to read program notes as lively and honest as the programs they’re about, and we consider ourselves very lucky to receive them as a bonus for the modest price of admission. The pre-concert chat between William Bolcom and Michael Gandolfi on-stage was fantastic, too—providing insights into their music, yes, but also enabling us to know what smart, decent human beings they both are. Went home happy, a little brighter, a little bigger-hearted, and more confident about the future of serious music and of program notes. Bravo, Robert! Bravo, BMOP! Bravo, Kati, Bill, Michael, and Sojourner!

T he ‘almost’ refers to the makeup of the [1971] then-very-new St. Paul Chamber Orchestra [who commissioned ‘Commedia’], of which Bolcom’s friend, composer Sydney Hodkinson, was conductor, and to whom the score of Commedia is dedicated… inspired (albeit distantly) by things Italian… the influence is the commedia dell’arte—the stock stage characters tossed against each other in a variety of situations, often comic but not without a dark side.”
— Robert Kirzinger, program notes.

T he kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field: which when a man hath found it, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant, seeking goodly pearls: who, when he had found one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had, and bought it.”
— Matthew 12:44 - 46. (“…like treasure hidden in a field”).

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Opposing Throw-away Culture: Future of Program Notes

I wish program notes could be more like:

the ‘extras’ that we get on DVD videos, with panel discussions and out-takes, trailers, rehearsal miscellany, biographical and historical documentary collateral;
liner notes in CD and MP3 albums—less expository than conventional program notes and more expansive;
art exhibit catalogues—nice coffee-table books, objets d’art in their own right and iconic souvenirs that we treasure and display in our houses/apartments.

Program notes form the core of many classical music presenters’ marketing materials. But most printed literature today is disposable: today’s hot communication document is tomorrow’s landfill. Presenters and their donors and the authors of program notes devote huge amounts of time and money to make their material as informative and attractive as it can be. But many audience members treat it as though it were a cheap gew-gaw to divert them from their abject boredom while waiting for the performance to begin. They discard it after the performance, pitch it out without a second thought. This is really, really unfortunate.

The best programs should have a permanence and organic completeness that counters the ephemeral, and increasingly electronic, world of instant communications. A presenter’s program book should embody the best of contemporary printed literature or multimedia design. And I think it should drive the same kinds of revenue and cross-merchandising opportunities that, say, exhibit catalogues provide to museums and art galleries. It shouldn’t be a ‘throw-away’. It shouldn’t be so chock-full of advertising that it can’t function as a coffee-table book or iconic catalogue.

What we need are new formats, new and changing formats and new media—multi-media program note formats that offer the content that we are used to receiving but that also offer critical surveys of current work by leading practitioners from the U.S., Europe and Asia. Arranged performer-by-performer, composer-by-composer and accompanied by interviews, the kinds of new media program notes formats I wish for would offer a more complete and informative picture of the presenter’s programs, artists, and subjects—a more extensive invitation to the readers’ own further thoughts and enjoyment.

What we need, too, are new styles of writing and new, unconventional tone. The tone should be generous. The essays should not try to score ‘points’ (in the way, for example, that Richard Taruskin’s and Bernard Holland’s writing sometimes tries to do). The style should be engaged and engaging, not pedantic.

One of the champions of such writing is composer Robert Kirzinger, who is publications associate and author of program notes for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. By concentrating on the overlooked, and by transforming and manipulating his texts-as-objects into works of art in their own right, Kirzinger both subverts their nominal function and challenges existing systems of classification and modes of discourse. Playful, often fantastic, his work reveals an acute intelligence alloyed to an irreverent and mischievous sense of humor. His are not ordinary program notes or liner notes, to be read and discarded. They are painterly essays filled with exciting imagery. They are adventure stories filled with the suspense of exploration. They are letter-like program notes that have an intimacy, and are written in a conversational style as if to a friend or a family member.

Handsomely illustrated, Kirzinger’s writing is straightforward, readable, and agreeably jargon-free. He can be didactic without being pedantic. Full, traditionally-placed footnotes and URL links make it easy for the reader to pursue particular topics. His critical judgments are often less ‘ends’ in themselves than jumping off points for explorations of particularly vexing problems in composing and performance practice. And, more to the point, general readers, who have perhaps had simplistic ideas of the scope of the music or the composers or the performers, will find themselves reconsidering and re-reading Kirzinger’s program notes. These are not Alex Ross or John Rockwell journalistic essays conglomerated into a book-of-days. These are art objects that have a certain timelessness. They read like Natural History.

Listening cannot be hurried: you have to allow enough time for it. You have to ask yourself how the piece is put together, how it is like other pieces you know and how it is different, and how it fits into the traditions you are familiar with, the works that you enjoy. Kirzinger writes in such a way that readers are not rushed or coerced. Instead, readers are tantalized as well as reassured of the legitimacy of their own independent ideas.

Good program note authors remember that the music itself is more important than all the talk about it, even what is said by esteemed experts. They try not to approach a piece through the fog of what others have said about it, for much of what’s said and written about music can be misleading until you experience the music itself. Good program note authors write without displaying their egos much. Cases in point are Kirzinger’s program notes for Wes Matthews’s ‘Terraces’ (Minnesota Orchestra Composer Institute, 20-27 OCT-2007) or his liner notes [1MB pdf] for Eric Chasalow’s ‘Left to His Own Devices’ CD, an homage to composer Milton Babbitt. Plenty of ‘light’ with no gratuitous ‘heat’ or ’tude.

T aruskin’s points are eminently worth making—but they’re drowned out by the irresistible lure of the lapidary put-down.”
— Matthew Guerrieri.

S tarry-eyed critics of the 1930s and ’40s predicted that by 2007 we would be singing Schoenberg’s ‘Moses und Aron’ in the shower. Most of us still lean toward ‘Embraceable You.’ I hope it is not unreasonable to suggest that composers, not listeners, are the servants here, and that every new opera or orchestral piece they write should be brought in on a tray with hopes that it has something substantial to say that we can like. When Haydn worked for the Esterhazys, he wore a uniform. That’s not a bad idea for our premiere-givers too. They can also tend bar at intermission. How do I prepare for premieres? I read about the people and the circumstances, where the piece came from and what the composer eats for breakfast. If I have a score, I look at the orchestration. It’s nice to know how many crayons are in the composer’s coloring box. I don’t listen to anything [recordings of the composer’s or artist’s work, before attending the performance]. Surprise me.”
— Bernard Holland, New York Times, 04-NOV-2007.

A proper note should follow up on points made by the music, the performers, the composers, and their lives and times. Often, music is influenced by or connected with political events of the day, by music of other composers, or other artists (painters, poets, authors). A good note may touch on such aspects of the music. Notes or reviews may discuss your impressions of the music as you listened, but should not lapse into a running commentary on how the music made you feel as you listened or what you did as a result of your internal feelings, nor should they be a medium for public ventilation of some private beef.

J ust as some chefs excel at seafood and struggle to make a good porterhouse, musicians have strengths and weaknesses, which are often related to temperament, intellect and taste. The all-Brahms first half of pianist Markus Groh’s recital Friday had refinement and clarity of texture but was so stuffy and colorless that I went out onto 12th Street at intermission gasping for air.”
— Paul Horsley, Kansas City Star, 20-OCT-2007.

This review may be of use to arts journalism students, as an illustration to prove that images and sentences do not automatically add up to a real review or a real program note. In short, I wish more people who write classical music program notes and reviews would write in good faith and good humor, like Arthur Danto writes about art. If they did, their work would not end up thrown into a rubbish bin.

L et us consider a painting once described by that cheerful Dane, Sören Kierkegaard. It was a painting of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. Looking at it, one sees something very different from what a painting with that subject would have led one to expect, were one to imagine, for example. what an artist like Poussin or Altdoerfer would have painted: troops of people, in various postures of panic, bearing the burdens of their dislocated lives, and in the distance the horsèd might of the Egyptian forces bearing down. Here, instead, was a square of red paint, the artist explaining that ‘The Israelites had already crossed over, and the Egyptians were drowned.’ Kierkegaard comments that the result of his life is like that painting. All the spiritual turmoil, the father cursing God on the heath, the rupture with Regina Olsen, the inner search for meaning, the sustained polemics of an agonized soul, meld in the end, as in the echoes of the Marabar Caves, into a mood, a single color. So next to Kierkegaard’s described painting let us place another, exactly like it, this one, let us suppose, by a Danish portraitist who, with immense psychological penetration, has produced a work called ‘Kierkegaard's Mood.’ And let us, in this vein, imagine a whole set of red rectangles, one next to the other. Beside these two and resembling each as much as they resemble one another (exactly), we shall place ‘Red Square,’ a clever bit of Moscow landscape. Our next work is a minimalist exemplar of geometrical art which, as it happens has the same title, ‘Red Square.’ Now comes ‘Nirvana.’ It is a metaphysical painting based on the Artist’s knowledge that the Nirvanic and Samsara orders are identical, and that the Samsara world is fondly called the Red Dust by its deprecators. Now we must have a still-life executed by an embittered disciple of Matisse, called ‘Red Table Cloth.’ We may allow the paint to be somewhat more thinly applied in this case. Our next object is not really an artwork, merely a canvas grounded in red lead, upon which, had he lived to execute it, Giorgione would have painted his unrealized masterwork, ‘Conversazione Sacra.’ It is a red surface which, though hardly an artwork, is not without art-historical interest, since Giorgione himself laid the ground on it. Finally, I shall place a surface painted, though not grounded, in red lead: a mere artifact I exhibit as something whose philosophical interest consists solely in the fact that it is not a work of art, and that its only art-historical interest is the fact that we are considering it at all: it is just a thing, with paint upon it. This completes my exhibition. The catalogue for it, which is in full color, is monotonous, since everything illustrated looks the same as everything else, even though the reproductions are of paintings that belong to such diverse genres as historical painting, psychological portraiture, landscape, geometrical abstraction, religious art, and still-life. It also contains pictures of something from the workshop of Giorgione, as well as of something that is a mere thing, with no pretense whatsoever to the exalted status of art... Meanwhile, I can only observe that, though J has produced a (pretty minimal) artwork, not to be told by naked inspection from a bare red expanse of paint, he has not yet made an artwork out of that bare red expanse. It remains what it always was, a stranger to the community of artworks, even though that community contains so many members indiscernible from it. So it was a nice but pointless gesture on J’s part: he has augmented my little collection of artworks while leaving unbreached the boundaries between them and the world of just things. This puzzles J as it puzzles me. It cannot be simply because J is an artist, for not everything touched by an artist turns into art. This leaves then only the option, now realized by J, of declaring that contested red expanse a work of art. Why not? Duchamp declared a snowshovel to be one, and it was one; a bottlerack to be one, and it was. I allow that J has much the same right, whereupon he declares the red expanse a work of art, carrying it triumphantly across the boundary as if he had rescued something rare. Now everything in my collection is a work of art, but nothing has been clarified as to what has been achieved. The nature of the boundary is philosophically dark, despite the success of J’s raid.”
— Arthur Danto, Transfiguration of the Commonplace.

Saturday, December 30, 2006

What’s the Story: Blogging Classical Music Criticism as Narrative

Much chamber music refuses to satisfy the function of creating a mood. Its frequent shifts make it bad mood music and very bad background music. And its cultivated autonomy resists the listener making of the music what she/he will. It lacks what, in Baroque music, is called a ‘unity of affect’. Julian Johnson maintains that it is this feature—the discursive aspect of classical music in general and chamber music in particular—that makes it attractive primarily to audiences who know that that is what such music does, that is how it works, and that is what they want. By contrast, people who are unprepared for the discourse, or who do not like an ‘active’ authorly/composerly stance, or who do not wish to engage music as conversation or exert the effort and attention to apprehend what is being said—are unlikely to enjoy or be deeply excited by this music.”
— Julian Johnson, Who Needs Classical Music? p. 35

DSM: I love the Julian Johnson statement above and also this one: “In some ways, [chamber music] is comparable to a rather involved novel or a film. If you skip a few chapters or leave the theater for awhile, you will lose the plot or narrative thread.”

CMT: Almost all chamber music is structured along discursive lines. This has to do with its use of harmony and musical forms and phrasing—long-range developments that are analogous to literary narrative. The sonata is, in many ways, comparable to the novel. The plot and meaning are impossible to ‘get’ if details are missed. In chamber music, more than in symphonic music, the conciseness is tremendous. This puts an even greater demand on the listener—more concentration and understanding are needed, or else the listener feels like a child observing an elegant conversation among grown-ups—an attractive conversation that she/he can’t comprehend or participate in.

DSM: This is partly what limits audience growth. Chamber music developed with an aesthetic and social context that required focused attention.

CMT: But our attention needn’t be ‘rapt’. I’m not arguing for the correctness of a certain approach to chamber music, or of the necessity of one kind of listening over another. Rather, I’m suggesting that discursive music is unlikely to serve its natural functions if it’s approached non-discursively. Besides, it’s unlikely to be very meaningful if approached as if it had some unity of affect that it doesn’t have. It will disappoint the listener/reader if the listener/reader expects it to contain one simple, unambiguous, unchallenging thought. It’ll disappoint the listener/reader if she/he is wanting to experience the music passively or distractedly.

DSM: Well, program notes and critics’ reviews and bloggers’ posts ought to guide the listener, stimulate the reader. Even this blog! Each post is a memento of one of our conversations, each one we hope may have some value to readers—especially the bulletized lists of links/resources that we gather together at the bottom of each one. But the conceit of a ‘conversation’ is an unusual format for criticism or program notes, don’t you think?

CMT: Maybe so. But, to me, it’s natural—entirely consonant with the discursive/conversational nature of chamber music.

DSM: And it’s entirely consistent with the ad hoc, extemporaneous, serious-amateur, non-specialist, “thrown” character of our own dialogues. There’s no doubt we could instead construct most of our posts here as essays.

CMT: But that’d be bogus. We’re just talking—we’re not laboring over manuscripts here! Soi-disant…

DSM: The RILM Manual of Style is a wonderful resource. It counters the typical eurocentric perspective—with diversity and sensitivity to a variety of cultural views and linguistic approaches. It counters the ‘relevancy-obsessed,’ dumbed-down populism of the typical American perspective—with honest excitement decorated by just enough erudition to explain what the excitement is about. In other words, it’s the epitome of the elegant, civil tradition of good music journalism. Well worth having—even the impromptu music blogger should have a copy I think, not just the professional music critic or journalist!

CMT: Nice to be reminded of what we should aspire to, even if our tendencies are to the ‘raw’ or still bleeding, rather than things that are ‘cooked’.

DSM: Controversial or exotic drum-beating, instead of well-settled exposition. And nobody would think me capable of being elegant!

CMT: A critic’s value is not determined by whether he/she’s right or wrong but whether he/she’s a good read. That’s one reason Martin Bernheimer is one of my favorite classical music writers. His review of Fabio Biondi conducting an obscure Scarlatti oratorio below was the sort of classical-music writing I like.

DSM: Despite Bernheimer’s high-brow taste for fine music-making, which irritates those who think that preserving the classical music audience must involve dumbing things down or focusing only on the familiar composers and works, his stylish prose has the common touch. He could easily write mandarin criticism. But he is a paragon of simplicity, clarity and vigor. Against all those who complain that serious music has lost its audience, I claim that serious music critics themselves are as much to blame as anyone else. Bored readers aren’t about to storm the concert halls or buy subscription season tickets.

CMT: And, instead of regressing to ever-less-challenging familiar works, audience growth might more likely be achieved by enabling the hearing and understanding of less-celebrated pieces, be they old or new ones. Make the experience of classical music into—more than anything!—an exciting process of discovery! You’re selling the experience, not a ‘product’! The effect you want is for the attendees to be so engaged in the narrative and in the experience that they spontaneously comment about it in ordinary conversations with their friends. “What did you do last night?” “I heard X performing Y! It was incredible!”

Alessandro Scarlatti’s ultra-obscure ‘Oratorio per la Santissima trinitàhas’ been something of an obsession - a magnificent obsession, if you will - for some time with Fabio Biondi. The enterprising Baroque specialist from Palermo, primarily a violinist but an able conductor too, exhumed this musical musing on the Most Holy Trinity two years ago in Spain. On Thursday night, 288 years after the Neapolitan premiere, he mustered a performance heralded as the first in the US. The stylish ensemble on duty was Europa Galante, founded by Biondi in 1990. The suitably intimate locale was Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, and the no doubt grateful host was the Mostly Mozart festival. Biondi claims that ‘talking about Santissima trinità is rather like walking about an archaeological site without knowing what the objects sticking up through the earth actually are.’ The identity of the hack librettist is a mystery, and only one manuscript score has survived. The musical manoeuvres, in many ways advanced for 1715, seem more operatic than ecclesiastical. Although the structure relies on period formulas, much of the execution is imaginative. Five vocal soloists - personifying faith, theology, infidelity, time and divine love - discuss the nature of the Trinity in recitatives, arias and duets that vacillate between narrative simplicity and expressive virtuosity. The tiny accompanying ensemble, strings plus elaborate continuo, is essentially subservient, occasionally dominant. The climactic gesture takes the form of an astonishing quintet. Biondi led a superbly propulsive, exquisitely nuanced performance with little fuss, fiddle in hand. Enrico Onofri, the tenor entrusted with the arguments of infidelity, suffered a bit of interpretive affectation, but his colleagues turned out to be musical and dramatic paragons. Marta Almajano sang the soprano lines sweetly, with flexibility and point. Laura Polverelli and Sonia Prina exulted in the light and shade of contrasting mezzo-soprano assignments, while Roberto Abbondanza brought dark authority to the basso foundation. This was a night of revelations.”
— Martin Bernheimer, Financial Times, 11-AUG-2003

DSM: Amazing what can be done in 300 words! Excellent example!
. . . You know, earlier this month, I tried something that I had never done before. Normally, I make notes during a performance, and refer to them as I anticipate our next meeting or phone call. But note-taking is a distraction—it gets in the way of listening. So for the Pomerium performance, I decided not to take notes and see if that affected my experience of the music and my sense of it—my recollections about it, and how they figured in our conversation afterwards. My little experiment led my mind to wander to the architecture and singers’ faces—the performance was excellent for the same reasons I probably would’ve recorded had I been taking notes—but I doubt that I would’ve attended to the elements of physical performance in the way that I did.

CMT: One reason I like Martin Bernheimer of the Financial Times is that he’s vehemently opposed to the pompous, paternalistic idea of the critic as a cultural ‘educator’: “The critic shouldn’t be a salesman. I’ve always had a problem with being [simultaneously a – ] drum-beater and consumer guide. When the critic has to play both roles, I think there’s a problem.” Bernheimer lets the chips fall in exactly the way you’re referring to when you describe your experiment during the Pomerium performance.

DSM: The ‘educator’ stance is not just a pretentious position; it’s a loser’s position. It implies defeating a nameless, faceless enemy. And the opponent is in fact the reader who’s not a fan. Why should that reader read such a thing!? What you’re better advised to do with your comments is to win a place at the reader’s damned table! This doesn’t mean you give up objectivity or become a PR agent for the business or dumb things down so the reader feels comfy. It means, instead, that you write with more urgency, more immediacy. The writing is—and always will be—crucial. You’ve got to matter to people!

CMT: Don’t you get tired of going to the same concert over and over again? Beethoven, Schubert, the Appassionata being played a little bit differently?

DSM: Well, yes. Oh, each year there’re the next crop of fresh young faces—there’re more layers of discovery and appreciation in a familiar opus than we’ll ever know. But, yes, I do wish we had the chance to hear more under-played older works and more new and experimental music. And if some new music and experiments turn out badly, then it’s a music critic’s or a blogger’s job to say so!

CMT: Several years ago Joseph Horowitz, author of Classical Music in America, concluded that the critic’s role is inherently one of advocacy. He charted criticism’s shift from focusing on composition to focusing on performance. Horowitz argued that the culture of performance—which came to the fore with the celebrity of Arturo Toscanini—sidelined critics, not to mention composers, and reduced reviews to little more than bland descriptions and quibbling. He called for a return to a time when the critic was “an organizer, a doer” on behalf of classical music.

DSM: Classical music has an actual audience and a potential audience. The way we talk to each other, it’s clear that we have both fanatical and unconverted readers in mind. The trick is in finding a language that intrigues both.

CMT: The probability that a concert will be exceptionally good doesn’t necessarily justify writing about it. The question is: What’s the story?

DSM: Criticism needs to get outside itself. Movie reviews aren’t just about acting and cinematography. Music reviews should be about more than just notes. And critics can take the lead in showing where music should go.

CMT: There’s nothing shameful in enthusiasm. If I’m thrilled, I tell you about it, even if somebody reading this might smirk. If I’m disappointed or incensed, I tell you about that, too!