Observing all the repeats

Technology's relentless advance has finally invaded the timeless world of the cello, bassoon and other orchestral instruments, with the debut of the largest digital orchestra in the world. Fifty music students at York University staged a hi-tech twist on the traditional symphony last night by sitting on a concert hall floor and playing nothing but laptop computers - breathlessly reports today's Guardian. Now if the paper had read An Overgrown Path they would have known it has all been done before in the States.

Talking of which, in New York Simon Rattle used a handkerchief to demonstrate the correct way to muffle a cough. Something he obviously learnt from Maestro Haitink.
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Doctor Atomic explodes as BBC Proms excel

Here are Pliable's personal picks for the coming week's BBC Proms. All Proms are available for seven days online, detailed programmes and broadcast times for every concert are available from the BBC web site.

* August 20, 7.30pm - Thomas Adès' Powder Her Face - Suite, London premiere, plus Bartók's Duke Bluebeard's Castle in a complete performance. Christoph von Dohnányi conducts the Philharmonia Orchestra
* August 21, 7.30pm - World premiere of John Adams' Doctor Atomic Symphony which is a BBC joint commission, plus his Century Rolls. The composer conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and Olli Mustonen rolls in the opening work.
* August 22, 7.30pm - Mahler Symphony No. 3 with Claudio Abbado and Lucerne Festival Orchestra
* August 23, 7.30pm - Handel, Purcell and Telemann played by the combined Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, plus the divine Kate Royal.
* August 24, 7.00pm - my prediction for one of the Proms of the season, Bernard Haitink conducts Bruckner's Symphony No. 8. And how good it is to see Haitink back with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. One of my more bizarre Proms memories was in 1975, I think, hearing Zubin Mehta with the touring Los Angeles Philharmonic perform Brucker 8 at a Prom, and then immediately travelling to Amsterdam to hear Haitink conduct Bruckner 9 the following evening with the, then, Concertgebouw Orchestra in the ravishing acoustics of their own hall. Haitink followed the 'unfinished' Bruckner 9 with the composer's Te Deum, a practice which seems to have fallen out of favour. At around the same time I also attended Colin Davis' Ring Cycle at Covent Garden before being sidelined by a nasty attack of glandular fever. Oh to be young and foolish again.
* August 25, 6.30pm - my last choice from an outstanding week's Proms features Haitink and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra again. (I can't get used to typing that 'Royal'). Orchestral excerpts from Parsifal and Tristan will confirm that youth is not a time of life but a state of mind.

Nicholas Kenyon has, quite justifiably, taken a lot of stick here about this year's Proms season. No stick this week though. If I still lived in London I would be at every one of the concerts above. Now read the back story on Doctor Atomic.

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Youth - not a time of life but a state of mind

If you are gay, black or female the good news is your chances of making it big in classical music are definitely improving. But the bad news is if you are the wrong side of 40 your chances of hitting the big time are not looking so good.

Institutionalised age discrimination in classical music has been around for a long time. One of the most famous examples was the forced retirement of Sir Adrian Boult from the position of Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra when he reached the BBC's mandatory retirement age of 60 in 1949.

But more insidious is the underground age discrimination that is now starting to appear. To get a buzz going about new classical talent they must be under 40, sport an iPhone and be on Facebook, play uptown venues without seats, and have hip-hop remixes on YouTube.

The problem is all due to classical music's obsession with attracting younger audiences. (I wonder if rock musicians spend their time obsessing over how to attract older audiences?) The marketing men now say that unless the elusive youngsters can relate to the performers they won't come to the concert, or buy the CD. So, if there is a choice between a good young musician and a great older musician, the danger is the younger performer will get the nod.

This mindset appeared in a recent Newsweek interview with Christopher Roberts, chairman of Decca Label Group.

Newsweek - Have young, good-looking artists like pianist Lang Lang and opera singer Nicole Cabell helped create new audiences for classical?

Christopher Roberts - Younger artists like Nicole Cabell, Lang Lang and others move a consumer on the edges of classical music toward purchasing, especially given how easy it is to do online, with the close proximity of these artists to those from other, more traditionally mainstream genres.

We also see the mindset in statements like 'middle-aged wankers in dinner suits', in cartoon-style sleeve artwork that tries to give classical music a younger image, in young director's introducing telly talent shows into Wagner's operas, not to mention penises, and in the hyping of symphonies by 15 year olds.

When Alan Gilbert was appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic there was more media coverage of his age than of his outstanding musical credentials. The Washington Post headline summed it all up - New York Philharmonic Picks Young New Leader. If they had appointed Kurt Masur to the post again would the headline have read - New York Philharmonic Picks Old New Leader?

Now there are many very good young musicians around, and they have featured regularly On An Overgrown Path over the years. But there are only two conductors today who I will travel a long way to hear in concert. One is Sir Colin Davis, age 79, and the other Bernard Haitink, age 80. My header photo shows another truly great conductor, Otto Klemperer, celebrating his 86th birthday in 1971. On Sunday we marked Mikis Theodorakis' 82nd birthday here, and on internet radio. Only yesterday I wrote about the superb recordings of his own works made by Igor Stravinsky when he was in his 80s. Pierre Boulez is now 82, and last year London welcomed the 97 year old Elliott Carter, and György Kurtág celebrated his 80th birthday.

Age is also a real asset in the jazz world. Back in 2005 I wrote a profile of jazz pianist Jack Reilly when he was a youthful 73. Two years later Jack has notched up his three-quarters of a century, and his music sounds even younger. Jack's forthcoming Bill Evans inspired double CD Innocence - Green Spring Suite is some of the best jazz piano I've heard from anyone, of any age, for a long time.

Meanwhile London is bracing itself for the tidal wave of hyperbole that Deutsche Grammophon and the BBC will unleash when the young Gustavo Dudamel, and the even younger Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venzuela, storm into town for their August Promenade Concert. I am one of the few people on the planet who didn't receive a free advance copy of their new Mahler 5 CD. But the underground buzz is that it's musical dynamite, and I'm delighted for the youngsters from Venezuela.

Personally, I have been getting a very satisfying buzz from two other Mahler recordings. Bruno Maderna's interpretation of Mahler's 9th Symphony with the BBC Symphony Orchestra is also dynamite. But Maderna made two marketing mistakes. First, he was 51 when he made the recording. Secondly he died two years later. I bet that if Maestro Maderna was under contract to a major record company today, their marketing department would never allow him to make those two elementary mistakes.

While writing this post I listened, on vinyl LPs, to another Mahler recording that really celebrates the joy of age. Otto Klemperer's recording of Mahler's Second Symphony, made in the Kingsway Hall with the Philharmonia Orchestra, is one of the classics of the gramophone. Klemperer was 78 when he made it, but it simply sweeps aside the rival recordings from young bloods such as Simon Rattle. (Rattle was 31 when he recorded Mahler 2, he is now well over the hill at 52). Klemperer's Mahler Second has never been out of the catalogue since its LP release in 1963. I wonder how many Mahler symphonies released in 2007 will still be in the catalogue in 2051?

The choice between the young and old audience is a no-brainer. Classical music needs both. But we are increasingly defining youth as a time of life, and this opens the door to age discrimination. Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind, as Robert Kennedy so eloquently explained:

"There is discrimination in this world, and slavery, and slaughter and starvation. The answer is to rely upon youth - not a time of life but a state of mind, a temper of will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over timidity."

What better examples of that youthful state of mind than our many living musicians who have passed 40? Let's celebrate them, as well as those fortunate enough to be at the right time of life.

Now read about the perfect mix of youth and experience
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Clearing Chicago's poisoned atmosphere

Reblogged with much pleasure from Michael Hovnanian, double bassist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra ~ About an hour into the first rehearsal of the Bruckner 7th under Bernard Haitink I had a disquieting thought. The Bruckner symphonies were a staple of our former music director so I have spent many hours rehearsing them, hours I will unfortunately never get back. After finishing the first movement I realized I had been holding myself in a kind of cringe that was just beginning to relax. Where was the browbeating? Where were the condescending lectures? What happened to the tedium? And yet the orchestra sounded fabulous, better than we have in a while. How was that possible?

For years around here ‘artistry’ has been so firmly linked to negativity that it is almost impossible for any conductor to clear away the poisoned atmosphere. Somehow Haitink managed to do it this week. He is a quiet, self-effacing conductor, and the orchestra really seems to admire and respect him. Rehearsals were eerily quiet when he stopped us to make minor corrections here and there. His remarks were consistently both tactful and effective.

As everyone knows, orchestra musicians are feckless and lazy. Naturally we would prefer any conductor who treated us nicely over one who might attempt to lead us to a higher level of artistry. That in mind, I tried to keep a critical ear on Haitink’s concerts to see if my sense of contentment vanished during the performance or the musical standards had slipped in any way. The concert is after all the time when all conductors are equal in the sense that the lecturers have to shut up and conduct while the nice guys have to show they have enough backbone to actually lead the orchestra.

Bruckner’s symphonies are like massive cathedrals built from thousands of notes. Conductors can become so enamored with superficial features, pausing to admire every gargoyle and arabesque, that they lose sight of the thing as a whole. Haitink’s approach to the 7th was a success I thought because he focused on the structure rather than every single (or arbitrarily selected) bricks. The music actually flowed along – even at about 70 minutes the symphony seemed refreshingly brief.

Finally, another conductor mistake is fall victim to the episodic nature of Bruckner’s writing and build every climax to maximum dynamic, pummeling the audience (and orchestra) with bruising fortissimos when the composer has actually carefully structured the dynamics. Haitink was somewhat successful at getting the orchestra to observe the dynamics and restored some sense of balance to the sound. The thing that amazed me and inspired this post was that he was able to do it all in a professional and respectful way. And the orchestra responded with (so far) three very fine performances.

For more from Michael Hovnanian follow this link, and now read about another conductor who is a delight to orchestral players
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Bach and the art of noise

To the Goldberg Variations this morning played by up and coming young harpsichordist Matthew Halls (above) as part of the ever stimulating Norfolk and Norwich Festival. That most magical of all musical journies managed to survive separate interruptions from a mobile phone and a serial cougher. Matthew Hall proved why he is a professional musician and I am not. He cooly played through the ringing of the mobile phone. If it had been me at the keyboard I would either have asked the offender to leave, or left myself.

I witnessed one of the more imaginative responses to intrusive coughing at a concert conducted by Bernard Haitink at the Festival Hall in the 1970s. A serial cougher decided to accompany the posthorn solo in the third movement of Mahler's monumental Third Symphony. Maestro Haitink continued to beat time with his baton while using his left hand to extract a white handkerchief from his pocket and hold it high over his head.

Talking of phones read about an unexpected Steve Reich premiere
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My first classical record

What was the first classical record you bought? Mine was an LP of Karajan conducting Tchaikovsky's 6th Symphony, the 'Pathetique', with the Berlin Philharmonic on Deutsche Grammophon 13892SLPM. I bought it in 1969 from a music shop in Reading where I was at University. The shop had listening booths with acoustic tiles, and it sold sheet music, musical instruments, and classical records.

The LP is playing as I write. I have just serviced my Thorens TD125 turntable with SME arm (a capacitor in the motor control circuit blew after 30 years). The LP sound through my Arcam Alpha 10 amplifier and B & W Nautilus 803 speakers is magnificent, when the planets are aligned beneficially vinyl can still deliver a musicality that surpasses CD. (Thankfully I have kept my LP collection, and the surfaces are immaculate apart from the inevitable pressing blemishes).

What overgrown path led me to buy that LP of the 'Pathetique'? Well, I can answer that question quite easily. Some years previously I had been taken by my parents, while on holiday, to hear Tchaikovsky 6th played by the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in the Winter Gardens in Bournemouth. The conductor was a dynamic young Chinese maestro Choo Hoey. (Googling for Choo Hoey pulls up references to a conductor active in the Far East, could this be the same one? - I must have seeen him more than forty years ago).

Did that early hearing of Tchaikovsky 6 burn irreversible patterns into my neural networks a la Mozart Effect? Did the B minor key signature programme me towards an near obsession for Masses in minor keys in general, and Bach's masterpiece in particular? Was it that adiogio lamentoso last movement that inclined me towards the melancholic of the Four Temparaments? (Post coming up, time permitting, on a CD called the Four Temparaments - no not Carl Nielsen - it is an excellent new release from the innovative viol consort Phantasm, and it includes a setting for viols of the Byrd 4 Part Mass!)

Could it have been that brooding Siegfried Lauterwasser cover photograph of Karajan (this link gives an interesting perspective on Lauterwasser, who was HvK's 'court' photographer) that headed me towards a career that took me from the BBC, and then to EMI where I worked on some of Karajan's projects including his recording of Debussy's operatic masterpiece Pelleas et Melisande? That project summed up the Karajan conundrum completely, sublime music making and an odious personality. My favourite Karajan story is about when he was conducting at Bayreuth with Hans Knappertsbusch. There were just two lavatories at the end of a long corridor backstage. Karajan's personal secretary, it is said, put a notice on one, 'For the exclusive use of Herr Karajan'. An hour later a notice appeared on the other one written by Knappertsbusch, 'For all the other arseholes'.

I was also involved with others in the Karajan circle. When Walter Legge died in 1979 I created an exhiibition at short notice for the foyer of the Royal Festival Hall in London. Legge's wife Elizabeth Schwarzkopf (below) viewed the exhibition before a Philharmonia Orchestra memorial concert, and complained to me that I had described Legge in the display as an 'entrepreneur.' Now I have often been wrong in my choice of words, but in that instance I am convinced I was dead right.

But the path didn't just lead me to Karajan and his circle . My second LP was Bernard Haitink conducting the London Philharmonic in Holst's Planet Suite (A strange choice, the reading with its odd tempi has long since been deleted). Haitink resoundingly disproves the rule that you need an odious personality to be a great conductor. (And also Colin Davis - interesting he has no 'personal' web site, this is a quote from the article I've linked to.. I detest all that charisma stuff. It leads to unmusical things like the pursuit of power. The older I get, the more wary I am of power. It is a beastly ingredient in our society - he said that in 1990!).

I lunched once with Haitink in the staff refectory at Glyndebourne to seek approval for the cover design of his recording of the Brahms Double Concerto with Perlman and Rostropovich (approval was given without a hint of the vanity and petulance cultivated by Riccardo Muti and others). In those days conductors had cover approval in their contracts, nowadays they have to start their own record labels to make a recording. While driving down to Glyndebourne I had been listening to Previn's first (and by far the best) recording of Walton's First Symphony on RCA. I suggested that Haitink looked at the score, and he subsequently recorded it for EMI. It wasn't a great commercial success, it was a lesson in leaving A & R planning to the professionals. (But I do remember suggesting that Previn recorded the Korngold Violin Concerto and Symphony in F sharp in the 1980s, only to be told he wouldn't touch film music. It is amazing how principles adapt to economics). Haitink later did go on to record a fine cycle of the Vaughan Williams symphonies for EMI after I left. I am always puzzled as to why this fine conductor never plays or records Sibelius. With his achievements recording Bruckner I have always thought Haitink would be a natural Sibelian - give me one Sibelius symphony for every ten of Shostakovich!


The Vaughan William symphonies leads me on to another musical giant whose path briefly crossed mine, Sir Adrian Boult. But that will have to wait until another post.....

If you enjoyed this post you may enjoy Downfall - and the mystery of Karajan's personal photographer