Marsyas Trio Elena Firsova CD Launch

A Triple Portrait: The new CD from the Marsyas Trio presents chamber music by Elena Firsova. The Trio is made up of flute (Helen Vidovich), cello (Valerie Welbanks) and piano (Fei Ren), and they are joined on the recording by a violin, viola and two voices. So there is an eclectic mix of sound colours here, but Firsova’s style is focussed and distinctive, bringing unity to the programme. Firsova and the Trio have been working together for several years, and the work that gives the disc its title was commissioned by the ensemble in 2011. It has certainly been a fruitful partnership, with the young players making a real commitment to Firsova’s lyrical but often challenging music.

As a launch event, the Trio gave a recital on 6 May. This turned out to be just a few weeks after Firsova’s 65^th birthday, to which the event was also dedicated. It took place at the Marylebone home of Bob and Elizabeth Boas, a fabulous Georgian townhouse which regularly hosts performances by up-and-coming performers. I was invited to give a presentation at the start of the event, a short conversation with the composer. Here we are:

Four of Firsova’s works were included in the concert. Night Songs, op. 125, is a sombre setting of Osip Mandelstam, a poet whose work permeates Firsova’s music. Lost Vision, op. 137, is a volatile piano piece, its composition triggered by a misdiagnosis suggesting that Firsova was about to lose her sight. Meditation in the Japanese Garden, op. 54, dates back to Firsova’s first months in the UK, when the family was based at Dartington, a time of great tranquillity it would seem. And to conclude, Tender is the Sorrow, op. 130, a reflective piece for a larger ensemble, with violin and viola, dedicated to the memory of Firsova’s aunt, but just as significantly, dating from 2010, at the start of the Trio’s collaboration with the composer.

Left to right: Valerie Welbanks, Patrick Dawkins, Elena Firsova, Helen Vidovich, Fei Ren, Morgan Goff

As a bonus, we were also treated to an exhibition of artwork by Firsova’s son, Philip Firsov. He was commissioned by the ensemble to create a piece for the cover of the CD and, given the group’s name, he came up with something suitably gruesome. His work is vivid, but finely nuanced in colour and texture. There is a strong Russian dimension too, I was reminded of Oscar Rabin, though Firsov was only a young child when the family moved to the UK. Check out his excellent website here.

An excellent evening all round, and the ideal way to launch the Marsyas Trio’s debut recording. (It's on the Meridian label: CDE 84635). Review to follow – watch this space.

Saffron Hall: A Musical Miracle in North Essex

It has taken me a year and a half to make a visit the new concert hall in Saffron Walden, but now I wish I’d gone sooner. What a venue! Saffron Hall’s story is well-known: It is in the grounds of a state school and was funded through a single contribution of £10m, from an anonymous donor though a local charity, The Yellow Car Charitable Trust. 

The Saffron Hall Trust had the good sense or fortune to hire Angela Dixon, then Head of Music at the Barbican, to run the venue. She has put together a truly staggering programme of events, every concert by a performer or ensemble of international standing. Last night it was the Czech Philharmonic with Jiří Bělohlávek and Chloë Hanslip, and what a spectacular show it was.

The hall was full to capacity, though that is more the rule than the exception. When Nicola Benedetti recently performed here, she ended up repeating the concert the following night, filling the 750-seat venue on both occasions. The venue’s publicity stresses “in the community” both as its location and its ethos. In fact, Saffron Walden is only eight miles from Cambridge, one of several English cities (you can guess what I’m building up to here) in desperate need of a good concert hall. Until that happens, Saffron Hall looks likely to become its de facto venue. Already, the supposedly Cambridge-based Britten Sinfonia has put down roots here. And why not? It is a fabulous venue. Cambridge’s loss is Saffron’s gain.

The big news is the acoustic. The Czech Philharmonic is always going to sound good, but the orchestra’s sound was just spectacular here. The warm, rich string tone was projected with clarity and intimacy. The woodwind soloists, too, had all the required detail, the brass their requisite power. And all this heard from the cheapest seats at the very back of the hall (very reasonable ticket pricing incidentally, yet another virtue of the Trust’s miraculous financial model). The Hall is wood-lined, and although nominally rectangular, it’s not a shoebox. It is more square than the longer hall designs that are more common for new halls, and many of the sides and corners – around the back of the stage and the back of the auditorium, are offset to give a more rounded feel. The acoustic gives the orchestral sound just the right amount of space, a resonance with an enriching but never distracting warmth. The primary virtue is how natural the hall allows the orchestra to sound. It isn’t one of those venues that draws attention to itself with a signature sound, the performers always come first.

Could it be better? Well, I could imagine a little more immediacy for the woodwind solos; they are always crystal clear but you are aware of the distance (at least to the cheap seats). A little more bass projection would be nice too, and I wonder if Bělohlávek positioned the double basses along the back of the stage to counter this. And just while I’m grumbling, the foyer space is a bit crammed, and there is a surprising lack of toilets – even the gents were queuing in the interval. 

But the hall itself is a spectacular success, and an unexpected treat for anybody who ventures this way. It also puts an interesting perspective on London and its current plight. It is notable that the Czech Philharmonic missed London out of their six-city UK tour. And while it is unlikely that acoustics played a big part in that decision, Saffron Hall certainly did them more favours than Cadogan, their usual London bolthole (ironic, given that Cadogan has probably the best acoustic of any London orchestral venue).

Realistically, though, this hall would not be suitable for London. It only has 750 seats, so it is hard to see how that would be viable. In fact, its size is one of its assets, acoustically speaking – most of the great orchestral venues of the world are on this sort of scale – the real challenge for acousticians is to retain that intimacy and clarity but triple the size.

The management won’t thank me for this, but perhaps the answer is for London to appropriate this venue in the same way that Cambridge has. After all we call nearby Stansted Airport “London Stansted” and find a way of getting there when we need a cheap flight. I understand that a free bus service was laid on last night to the nearest station, so measures are in place. If nothing else, those who are arguing against a new concert hall for London should come and hear the results in Saffron Walden. This is what we are missing out on. This is how an orchestra should sound.

http://saffronhall.com/

Music is Power

Stand up for something and you’ll get smeared - that seems to be a given in British classical music journalism these days. Musicians are more susceptible to political smears than most artists it seems: the motivations and supposed deficiencies of their work are always open to divisive interpretations that the music itself cannot contest. This morning we heard from Damian Thompson about “Classical music's greatest political butt-kissers”. Gergiev, Pollini, Dudamel and the entire El Sistema are the predictable targets, but Rattle gets a poke too; apparently he’s New Labour.

Thompson has his axes to grind of course, but he undermines every argument he makes by equating the politics he dislikes with poor musicianship. The famously communist Pollini, we are told, “these days plays the piano with all the dexterity of Les Dawson”. Rattle has “been a disappointment” in Berlin, and when the Philharmonic replace him with the nationalist Christian Thielemann, they’ll get the discipline that Rattle is too liberal to impose.

None of which is true. Pollini is in his 70s, but he is as fine a pianist as ever, just listen to the last volume in his recently completed Beethoven sonata cycle. Rattle’s time in Berlin has been a success by almost every available measure – whatever complaints the players may have had didn’t stop them voting him into office in the first place and then voting to renew his contract. And Thielemann gets disciplined performances because of the time and care he puts into preparation and rehearsal, not because he’s a Nazi.

It’s an easy trap to fall into, and recent examples from across the political spectrum are numerous. Just look at Gergiev’s recent fall from grace in the UK. When it was fashionable to boycott his concerts (and I suggested doing so for a time), many who should have known better appended their comments about his politics with views on his artistry – as if that were at all relevant. And now Gergiev can do no right. I haven’t noticed any significant deterioration in his work in recently, but it’s not often you’ll read a positive review, in English anyway.

So, it’s back to the old debate about music and politics. But don’t worry, there’s no need to open up that can of worms again, as the issues here are quite contained. Namely: When a musician is of high standing, they have a power that can be harnessed for political ends, and not always their own. The debate about the Israel Philharmonic at the Proms a few years ago only mattered because the IPO is an excellent orchestra. That is why is has the power to promote the State of Israel, and even by extension its government’s policies. Similarly with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, and it seems hypocritical not to treat visits from both orchestras in a similar light.

These and other musicians face two lines of attack. The first is to suggest they are naïve pawns in political games beyond their knowledge or control. Thompson indulges that one, quoting an unnamed but ‘renowned’ conductor as saying of the Simón Bolívar musicians “Politics isn’t something they’ve thought deeply about. They just slip into the soft-left consensus”. I can’t speak for them, but I can for many listeners, and when Thompson says “El Sistema exported pro-Chavez propaganda as well as Mahler symphonies to gullible global audiences” he is taking his argument too far. Audiences are well aware of the political context in which classical performances take place. If not, then why has Gergiev become such a toxic brand that the World Orchestra for Peace can now barely half fill the Albert Hall, a venue that until recently they always filled to capacity.

The other line of attack is easier but more insidious: to claim that the musicians you disagree with are no good. In theory it is an effective policy: If Maurizio Pollini does indeed sound like Les Dawson then his political views must also be junk, right? And if nobody in Berlin likes Simon Rattle, he must be wrong about everything. But it doesn’t work like that. Great musicians have political and social power simply by virtue of their being great musicians. Saying it ain’t so doesn’t change anything.

Alfred Schnittke at 80

Today would have been Alfred Schnittke’s 80th birthday. He didn’t live to see it of course; he died in 1998 following a decade of desperately poor health. But he’s still with us in spirit. His music has gone up and down in popularity since his death, but it has never disappeared. In fact, a handful of his works, covering a variety of genres, have achieved central positions in the repertoire. His historical status is secure.

Schnittke has always been a controversial figure. In the years since his death, the new music world has increasingly polarised into conservative and progressive tendencies. Composers of tonal neo-Romantic music have been embraced by the establishment (at least in the English-speaking world) and no longer feel the need to make excuses or highbrow theoretical justifications for what they do. Schnittke is not among that company, but for many of his critics, the concept of polystylism is just such a justification, an intellectual disguise for reactionary tendencies.

He really belongs with the Modernists. But today’s advocates of Frankfurt School progressive values are increasingly besieged and isolated, and have little time for a composer who was very consciously at the edge of that world. In fact, Schnittke actively sought to destabilise the progressive paradigm, to challenge its insularity and claims to superiority. So perhaps it is of little surprise that he has ended up largely excluded from what remains of it.

Schnittke came to global attention in the mid-1980s. He was the right man at the right time for the classical music world. Just as organisations – orchestras and record labels in particular – began to acknowledge the cultural stagnation they were causing through the continual recycling of an Imaginary Museum of Musical Works, Schnittke provided a revealing, and damning, self-image through which to play out that Angst. The whole phenomenon was a process, a fast one at that, and transience was inevitable. Another problem was the marketing line that presented Schnittke as the heir to Shostakovich, a valid comparison in some ways, but one with little relevance past the fall of the Soviet Union.

The fact that Schnittke lived and worked through the Soviet times has added an extra dimension to the debates about progression and reaction, populism and artistic worth. The American scholar Peter J. Schmelz argues that Schnittke’s advocates push his dissidence too far, and that his use of tonal idioms aligns Schnittke’s music with state cultural policy. Put crudely, polystylism is Socialist Realism.

It is a provocative polemic that contains a good deal of unhelpful exaggeration itself. Listening to Russian academics railing against this view brings back unwelcome memories of the Shostakovich Testimony debate, though it is unlikely to come to that. But Schmelz’s argument demonstrates how difficult it is to untangle the cultural politics of music written in Soviet times. Schnittke’s own political views were conservative, though he would probably use the term “traditional” himself, but his artistic outlook was not. He was much like Stravinsky, determined to retain and promote established cultural values, but in radical ways.

Perhaps that is why Schnittke’s reputation is so complex today, and so different in different parts of the world. In Russia, he is still a central figure in new music, but different generations approach his music with different agendas. However indifferent he himself felt about the political struggles of the 1980s, his music became a symbol of resistance, and many in Russia still hear it in those terms. That has caused a generation divide, with many younger musicians treating Schnittke as music of the Soviet past, with little relevance to the new Russia. On the other hand, the explicitly religious music he was writing (often covertly) from the 1970s parallels the resurgence of the Orthodox Church, creating a continuity into modern times.

In the West, Schnittke remains closely connected with the Russian diaspora. His global reputation was established by leading Soviet musicians touring his music in the 1980s, particularly Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and Mark Lubotsky. Another important name here is Mstislav Rostropovich, already living in the West, but as keen as any of his colleagues in Russia to promote Schnittke’s work.

Many performers of Schnittke’s generation continue to champion his music. Their recorded legacy is also formidable. Almost all of Schnittke’s major works have extensive discographies, and in many cases the benchmark recording is the first, with the dedicatees providing versions that have yet to be surpassed.

Younger performers needn’t lose heart though. Schnittke’s music demands interpretation, it needs performers who can give individuality and emotion (another factor that puts it at the peripheries of Modernism). There are many significant textual issues with Schnittke’s scores, because whenever a performer suggested a change in rehearsal, he invariably said yes. He wasn’t interested in performers simply giving a presentation of the notes on the page, he expected them to live the music and to reimagine it in every performance. As a result, the recorded legacy of the music’s first performers is not definitive, whatever its quality. Performers continue to be drawn to Schnittke’s music for just this reason, and every new performance and recording has something different to say about it.

Some lament the passing of Schnittke’s period of extreme popularity, and it is a great shame that his orchestral music is not played more. But, from the sheer number and quality of recent recordings, it is clear that his solo, chamber and choral music is as popular as ever. Schnittke’s legacy remains complex, with scholars and commentators likely to debate its significance and value for years to come, but the music itself lives on because it continues to inspire and engage musicians from one generation to the next.