BOULEZ IS DEAD

“To take a stand regarding Schoenberg?”

So Boulez began the famous diatribe against his predecessor, written soon enough after his death to add a calculated sense of disrespect. Now Boulez himself has left us, and, just as in 1951, the event feels like the ending of an era: Whatever the manifold achievements of the two men, their greatest historical legacy is to have defined their times.

But the difference in attitude is revealing. If we write “To take a stand regarding Boulez” no question mark is necessary. He made it his life’s work to define a polemic in which you were either with him or against him. His attitudes may have seemed to soften in later years, particularly with the increasing breadth of his conducting repertoire, but he kept his corner, and nothing in his later work could give rise to the accusations of regression that formed the main point of attack in his essay on Schoenberg.

By then, the Modernists had found a new figurehead, Anton Webern, whose aesthetic trajectory seemed to move in the opposite direction to Schoenberg’s, and who therefore was a better fit for the dialectical/progressive model for musical history that Boulez and his contemporaries attempted to foster. And for all his achievements as a composer, conductor and electronic music pioneer, it is the staggering success of that project that made him the defining figure of his times. Serialism, in its purest form, became not only an ideal but a necessity. As he famously said in 1952, “I … assert that any musician who has not experienced – I do not say understood, but in all exactness, experienced – the necessity for serialism is useless.” And if you were on the wrong side of this debate, you were on the wrong side of history, something else that could only be stated in extremes, as when Boulez’ colleague René Leibowitz in 1955 described Sibelius as “the world’s worst composer.”

How times change. What would either of these statements sound like if uttered today? Petulant, certainly, but also indicative of the marginal status, and even irrelevance, of the speaker. For these are no longer times of aesthetic polarity. The culture that Boulez fostered (along with many other composers of his generation, though most others in action rather than word) of new music as us against them, right vs wrong, and all based on purely aesthetic criteria, already seems like a distant memory. Modernist music of the sort Boulez championed is still with us – its progress continues – but its insularity has evaporated, and with it any sense of authority or higher moral purpose.

Boulez leaves us much: an impressive and unique catalogue of works, an enviable discography – and let’s not forget IRCAM. Yet his musical ideology has predeceased him by several decades. Just as the post-war generation could take the repertoire they had inherited but had to find a new framework in which to affirm its relevance, so Boulez’ successors must argue the case for his music in an environment already broadly hostile to its underlying assumptions.

Therefore, I do not hesitate to write, not out of any desire to provoke a stupid scandal, but equally without bashful hypocrisy and pointless melancholy:

BOULEZ IS DEAD

Opera Looks Expensive

Opera is perceived as expensive, when actually it’s not. From out outreach perspective, it’s a lose-lose situation, and something the whole culture needs to address. Several bloggers have been writing on this subject recently, mostly in response to a television interview, in which Gavin Esler posed questions to Jonas Kaufmann based on the assumption of opera’s expense. @chaconato has done sterling work in demonstrating that opera tickets are not expensive, and that in fact they are relatively cheap. 

So clearly this is an image problem. Bob Shingleton agrees. He thinks one of the culprits is online streaming, especially when offered free. Opera tickets seem expensive by comparison with free, so his argument goes. I’m inclined to disagree with this thesis, but I’ll readily admit that is because I value and enjoy webstreams of concerts and opera performances, and like to think that I don’t associate their financial cost with their artistic and cultural value. 

That, of course, is where I’m deluding myself. The capitalist impulse to quantify value in material terms is innate. It’s not the only way we judge things, but it is always in the mix somewhere. This is where opera’s image and cultural status become a problem. Opera must defend a precarious position in the world of theatre, one that is predicated on the notion of “high art”. That is what separates it from the much larger, more profitable – and more expensive – world of commercial musical theatre. 

The distinction is fundamental to the survival of opera; it’s what justifies the public subsidy that keeps it afloat. Generic distinctions do separate the two art forms, but so too do the actual experiences of seeing and hearing them. Opera maintains its “high art” appearance by looking expensive - that basic equation between financial and artistic value. Just look at the décor of the Royal Opera House or the Coliseum. Then there is the dress code, something that few opera advocates have ever made any serious efforts to defend (John Christie’s explanation that it is out of respect for the performers a rare and tenuous effort). 

The fact is that opera needs to be seen as superior and special. It must present itself with the trappings of aristocracy, whoever its target audience might actually be. It’s an integral part of what makes opera distinctive – and eligible for subsidy on artistic grounds. The irony is deep and entrenched: that opera must look expensive to qualify for the funding that keeps it cheap.

Lebrecht, Sokolov…and Sokolov’s wife

Grigory Sokolov’s refusal of the Cremona Award, on account its having previously been presented to Norman Lebrecht, has generated much debate about the cause of their antagonism. Some have speculated that it’s a result of a blogpost Lebrecht wrote in 2013 questioning Sokolov’s greatness on the curious grounds of his not being willing to perform in the UK. But a reply to my previouspost on this story, from one ‘ADGO’, points to a more compelling reason. Here is the message in full:

“As Lebrecht refused to post my comment on his blog Slippedisc, I will copy-paste it here for all to read. He cannot bury his shameless actions forever.

Recall last year that soon after Sokolov's wife passed away, the pianist published a cryptic letter which began, 'To my astonishment, I have learned about some delirious inventions made on the subject of my wife's life'. This can be read in full on Sokolov's website or on AMC. The cause of that was most likely Norman Lebrecht's blog post in which he speculated about Sokolov marrying his dead cousin's wife, going into detail about the apparent Sokolov family tree. You can find this blog post still on Slippedisc, and the links at the bottom of it which lead to the old Sokolov website. Click any of those links and you'll see a message which states that Norman Lebrecht should not be believed. Lebrecht's rash and shameless speculation about Sokolov's recently deceased wife is most likely the reason why Sokolov refuses to associate with him. I want to make this clear as it is the only sensible public explanation for Sokolov's refusal. There may be private reasons no one can know about, but the public one is there for all to see.

On another matter....I've attended Sokolov's recitals for nearly 15 years and he is without doubt the greatest pianist I've ever heard. If you can't hear him in the UK--which I used to--then take a trip to Brussels or Amsterdam and it'll most likely turn into one of the great concert experiences of your life.”

Lebrecht’s post is here: http://slippedisc.com/2014/01/sad-news-greatest-living-pianist-loses-his-wife/

And Sokolov’s response here: http://www.rogev.com/berner/122.htm

 

As the earlier version of Lebrecht’s post on Sokolov’s site shows, “his wife was also his cousin’s widow” originally read “his wife was also his aunt”, a more lurid claim and, as it turns out, a false one. Lebrecht could probably have avoided this whole incident if he had issued an acknowledged correction and an apology, rather than the “update” we get instead. But, of course, that’s not how Lebrecht works.

Evidence Grigory Sokolov refused the Cremona Music Award

A fascinating document came to light this morning, a letter from Grigory Sokolov to the committee of the Mondomusica Festival, apparently turning down the Cremona Music Award on the grounds that it would mean he appeared on a list with Norman Lebrecht, a previous winner. His closing line is particularly incendiary “According to my ideas about elementary decency, it is shame to be in the same award-winners list with Lebrecht.”

But is it real? The website on which it appears, http://www.grigory-sokolov.com, has no official links with Sokolov or his management. From what I can gather, it is registered in Australia and hosted in Israel. Given the antagonism that Lebrecht generates, there could be no shortage of potential candidates for a forgery, although the handwriting is impressively similar to that on a Sokolov letter that does appear on his management’s website.

Well, here's proof at least that he was announced as a winner of the award, but that he had been removed from the list by the time they were actually presented. Here is the webpage announcing the winners today:

And here is how it looked on 12 September, four days before the date on the letter (courtesy of the Google cache).

No doubt the details will all become clear in due course, including the Lebrecht connection, for which I’ve no proof here. But it certainly seems that Sokolov turned down the award.


UPDATE (28/9/15): Gramophone Magazine confirmed the letter to be genuine today, after contacting Sokolov's General Manager, Franco Panozzo. For more on the story, please visit: http://www.gramophone.co.uk/classical-music-news/grigory-sokolov-refuses-award-previously-been-won-by-norman-lebrecht