jwilzewske: ursuleasa

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Charisma Is Contagious

M ihaela Ursuleasa was the soloist in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 (Op. 37). Ms. Ursuleasa shares Mr. Vanska’s penchant for unusual, often surprising reconsiderations of a score’s essential materials, and their collaboration was electrifying. Still, there was no doubt who was in control here: Ms. Ursuleasa played with a combination of ferocity and clarity that put Beethoven’s already striking contrasts into sharper relief and turned the score into a tense drama. Interpretively she was out on the edge, but it was the kind of high-risk performance that makes the ‘war horses’ worth revisiting.”
— Allan Kozinn, NY Times, 22-AUG-2008.

Allan Kozinn’s review of Romanian pianist Mihaela Ursuleasa’s performance in the Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival praised a number of the aspects of Mihaela’s charismatic style. I’d heard Mihaela perform earlier this summer in Ireland and can affirm that her playing is exciting: she expresses a wide range of emotions musically; the sonic image that she projects is—despite the emotional range that’s traversed—thoroughly credible, never histrionic. This combination of technical brilliance, lightning-fast wit, charm, enchantment, fascination, magnetism, athleticism, and credibility—what else would we call this except ‘charisma’ or ‘magic’?

Why are Mihaelas so rare? The perennial issue facing chamber music (and classical music and the arts in general) is how to cultivate more magic like this among a larger number of school-age kids. The U.S. maybe has a more serious issue in this regard than other countries, but it is true all around the world to some degree, with the possible exception of China. We need this ‘magic’ or ‘charisma’ not only in performers, but also in the next generation of composers, conductors, presenters, arts managers and execs of non-profit arts NGOs, recording producers and engineers, and educators. Frankly, we need more of it, too, among current and future-generation audience members.

What I mean is, too often classical music marketing is focused on the ‘sizzle’ and relevance or appeal that the programming or performance has, as if it were merely an excellent “product” or “experience”. IMHO, consumerism in terms of an enticing ‘product’ or venue-bound, Starbucks-oid lifestyle ‘experience’ is fine so far as it goes, competitively. But what you instead want to aim for, I think, is actually far higher than that. You want total suspension of disbelief, at least as much as the best novel or film achieves. You want ‘converts’. Composer/author Greg Sandow comes close to that point of view in his ArtsJournal blog.

C harisma comes in many forms. Like physical beauty it has many variables, but somehow the various elements must sum up to an effective, powerful presence. Without it in some measure, a person cannot in the long run succeed... The possessors of the magic will survive over the years in the role while others may find themselves less well-known. Appeal of this type is hard to spot in students, but [it is] even more elusive since it is based on some sort of instant psychological exchange—projection and recognition of a social image which needs no explanation in words... a remarkable combination of childlike innocence consumed in the process of pouring out music, untouched by the bittersweet quality of adult experience. At a later time, it may be the full-bodied embracing of life by the youthful adult whose intensity of spirit seems to have the good things of life in abundance... Particularly interesting are those artists whose charismatic index soars with maturity, or even in late years. These artists suddenly ... begin to project maturity, authority, [perplexity, irony, vicissitudes of coping with loss and hurt, etc.] and the simple fact of having successfully met life’s problems square-on and emerging beautifully with strength, wisdom, and compassion.”
— Stewart Gordon, Etudes for Piano Teachers, p.123.

There is a wonderful new book out by Estelle Jorgensen at Indiana University that’s really worthy of your attention, as it relates to music pedagogy and fostering in kids a genuine and self-sustaining excitement about—and enthusiasm for doing—music. Not just as performers, but ‘doing’ in any of the myriad senses of that word.

W hitehead’s three stages of education are] romance, instrumentalism, and generalization. ‘Romance’ refers to the phase at which one is introduced to concepts... things go ‘bang’ in the dark and one emerges almost breathless with excitement. ‘Instrumentalism’ is the phase in which one begins to understand more systematically and deeply—how it works. ‘Generalization’ comes as the last phase where romance and instrumentalism come together in a new ‘whole’, this time not only intuitively but also rationally—not only perceptively but also feelingly. The various pieces are put together so that they attain a unity that is needed to [coherently, understandingly] perform and animate a piece of music.”
— Estelle Jorgensen, The Art of Teaching Music, p. 249.

Mihaela Ursuleasa is just 30 years old—and, for the charismatic artistry with which she now gifts audiences, we have both her teachers and her family to thank. ‘Nature’ counts for a lot, of course; but ‘nurture’ is everything. And the ‘nurture’ need not always be on-on-one. Sometimes it happens while attending a public performance. For me, a watershed event was hearing Austrian pianist Ingrid Haebler perform Chopin in Minneapolis when I was 7 years old.

K önnten Sie sich ohne weiteres vorstellen, dass ihr Kind sich in der Schule mit dem Musik befasst? Sich, nach Anleitung des ehres, „Musikerklamotten” schneidert, sich freudig und verspielt schminkt Schmuckornament mit Symbolen wie Bachköpfen, umgedrehten Mozart Bildnissen oder der Stockhausens bastelt? Ja? Dann sind Sie eine Ausnahme. (Oh, kids today! It requires the enticement of charismatic super-stardom to interest them in classical music. To think otherwise is unrealistic, the exception.)”
— Ingrid Haebler.

Until that fierce and charismatic Chopin performance, I had thought of concertizing as some sort of a fascinating ‘show’ that carried with it a certain exotic prestige and social power. It was Haebler’s utter incarnation of several Nocturnes that led me to grasp that serious music could instead be radically intimate and fresh—each time as fresh and real as any fabulous bedtime story could ever be. You just had to make it so! From that moment on, I was ‘hooked’.

We need more Mihaelas and more Ingrids—that combination of ferocity and clarity that captivates audiences. Jorgensen and others provide valuable ideas about how to make that happen, against the odds.

C harisma is the source of charisma. It keeps its attention firmly fixed on the social effect and remains agnostic about the traditions themselves, leaving them as a ‘given’ of human experience... charisma as a theory of authority.”
— Step Feuchtwang, Grassroots Charisma in China, p.12.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

West Cork Chamber Music Festival: Intensive Week of (Life) Experiences

G uím rath ar lucht eagraithe na féile, ar an aos ceoil a bheidh ag glacadh páirte ann agus ar an lucht éisteachta a mbeidh d’ádh orthu a bheith i láthair. [Thank you to the organizers of the Festival, to the musicians who perform in it, and to the audience members who participate in it. (Táim cinnte gur fhág mé rud éigin tábhachtach ar lár! Taiscéalann DSM smaointe go samhlaíoch agus is féidir leis iad a úsáid le hiarmhairtí agus gníomhartha cruthaitheacha a dhéanamh; cuireann DSM a smaointe féin chun tosaigh le plé a choinneáil beo!)]”
— Cathal Goan, RTÉ.

The point of music, to most people, is to ‘move’ us (the listening audience; the musicians; others)—to move us emotionally and to convey insights of value—of value to us as individuals and as a society. Performers at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Bantry, Ireland, are doing just that.

Particularly vivid examples were the performances by Israeli violinist Vadim Gluzman and Romanian pianist Mihaela Ursuleasa yesterday afternoon and evening.

Ysaÿe, Sonata No. 2 in a minor, Op. 27/2
Brahms, Sonata No. 1 in G major, Op. 78
Brahms, Sonata No. 3 in d minor, Op. 108

The 1923 Ysaÿe sonata is more suspense-filled than perhaps any other work. It portrays the human condition as one in which we have little control over what will happen to us. Life dishes out a sequence of challenges to us; there is a ‘thrownness’ to life’s events that is hard to predict and resistant to change.

Raising the emotional stakes even higher, Gluzman’s and Ursuleasa’s performances of the Brahms sonatas were, essentially, exceptionally personal answers to the question: How shall we respond to life’s challenges?

Brahms dedicated Op. 78 to Clara Schumann’s son Felix, who had died of tuberculosis in 1879. The elegiac adagio has, naturally, that conventional-minded association, with regard to Brahms’s intention, motivations, and nominal meaning. But in Gluzman’s and Ursuleasa’s hands we hear far more. The adagio becomes fervent reportage on the human condition itself, and on what is our best course of action during the short years when each of us walks the planet.

Basically, you vehemently commit yourself head-long to each other—to other humans, to significant others. Against annihilation, you counter with positive, radiant confessions; against the abyss, you hold forth with unceasing protestations of love.

Brahms’s (and Gluzman’s and Ursuleasa’s) statement is, we now see, a comprehensive treatise on virtue ethics, disguised as violin sonatas.

The solidarity of their shared vision; the rare, deep empathy between Gluzman and Ursuleasa—these are evident throughout (including the Ysaÿe and also the Schnittke Suite, which was their contribution to the evening’s main 20:00 concert). But these qualities are epitomized in their treatment of the Brahms sonatas. The vivace and presto movements, for example, are not merely ‘playing for aesthetic integrity’ but are instead ‘playing as if one’s very life depended on it.’

Gluzman’s commitment is all-consuming; the perspiration shed from his earnest brow accumulates in great pools on the stage in the Bantry House library. Ursuleasa is no less deeply invested emotionally, nor are her pyrotechnics or exertions any less prodigious than Gluzman’s.

These two achieve here a remarkable coherence—a depth and beauty so moving that many cheeks in the audience are well tear-dampened by the end of it all. One never expects this. It just happens. Reflexively, unavoidably, miraculously. And that, in a nutshell, is the whole point. What it is to be thoroughly human, revealed by music, in an early 18^th-Century mansion in West Cork overlooking the sea.

The annual West Cork Chamber Music Festival was begun in Bantry in 1995, with Francis Humphrys as its Artistic Director. Bantry is an easy, scenic 90 minutes’ drive from the airport in Cork via the N71 highway along the southwest coast. Now in its 13^th year, the Festival has 70-odd musicians performing more than 35 concerts over 8 days’ time. Approximately 105 works by 65 different composers from 19 countries are represented, including quite a few pieces of new music by living composers. Most of the performances are held in the spacious library of Bantry House, which holds about 190 people. Some performances occur at St. Brendan’s church in town, about a 7-minute walk from Bantry house. This year the Festival includes a composition competition for young Irish composers, and winning entries are performed by masterclass ensembles at the Festival.

The Festival continues through this weekend. Check the Festival website for more information. If you are unable to attend in person, check out RTÉ’s live and streaming broadcasts from the Festival. (I’ll post additional remarks about the West Cork Chamber Music Festival on CMT later, probably after returning home to the U.S. I wish that internet access here were cheaper and better… )