Taste the spice, feel the warmth

I rarely use the car radio, despite its simplicity and its undeniable hi-fi. But sometimes Tesco can be so dispiriting... Punched the button just in time to hear the BBC Radio 3 presenter Sarah Walker (who's almost managed to suppress her northern accent but at the expense of inducing a disagreeable chuckle in her voice) announce Brahms' variations on Haydn's St Anthoni chorale. And suddenly Tesco and all other retailing engines faded as I embraced the great and good Johannes, knowing it made me a fuddy-duddy, knowing that the trend is away from his rich textures, knowing that his tunesmanship in this day and age is thought to be slightly simplistic. Said all this to VR and was astounded to receive this reply: "He has a sentimental attachment to me too. This was the first piece of music you played for me."

I never knew! And it all happened 54 years ago. For Brahms is surely the glass of glűhwein drunk in anticipation of a 3 km descent down a broad-boulevard blue run, groomed to show off one's parallel ski-ing abilities. A world now lost to my enfeebled legs but remembered in tranquillity and with affection.

Driving home, there was more. My last short story ended enigmatically with:

But couldn’t see playing Schubert trios day in day out. Felt sure the Brahms sextets would be a goer.

To which Beth commented:

I loved this story, and cringe for poor Brahms.

To which I responded:

Are you implying there's another mini-step between Schubert and Brahms I should have used?

To which she replied:

Oh no, just that poor old lumbering brown Brahms would be embarrassed, and since I love him so much anyway, I feel compelled to defend him.

So should we all, all love Brahms. 

Can music bounce?

HOW CAN YOU TELL?
Part five

Judging an orchestral performance. Sometimes the differences are enormous. Not surprising given the forces available and the indirectness of the process – the conductor imagines the perfect rendition and must then compel others to produce it. The difficulty is deciding whether two widely varying performances (eg, Beethoven by Klemperer and Toscanini) are both legitimate. This, I must confess, is often beyond me.

In sloppier performances the thing that goes first is texture: strings, woodwind and brass dissolving into a single noise instead of identifiable separate layers. This is harder to detect than I make it seem. The different orchestral sections are intended to blend of course. But a blend is a controlled mixture; the undesirable blur occurs when certain instruments are (fractionally) out of synch. The latter happens when the conductor’s cueing is less than decisive.

In most orchestral music rhythm changes frequently. In great performances rhythmic changes may be applied to tiny pieces of the whole – but without degrading the overall rhythmic structure. Thus small separate phrases flutter into and out of major themes, increasing the delicacy of what we hear. Getting this kind of performance out of an orchestra requires great control (and often great imagination) on the part of the conductor. Otherwise the result is much simpler and much more obvious.

In the best performance I ever heard – Brahms symphony 3, Herbert Blomstedt (see pic) , Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra – there was another quality which is hard to define. It was as if the music bounced slightly. I think this may have been due to the “attack” Blomstedt was achieving when music resumed after tiny periods of silence; a hurrying-up which, nevertheless, didn’t result in hurried music. If anyone better qualified to identify this effect can do so, I would be eternally grateful.

Music as our calling card

An adult brought up on Mars asks “Posh music?” What’s the best answer?

Schools grind out Peter and the Wolf or Carnival of the Animals saying kids respond best to a story. Both fail twice over: neither is memorable and it isn’t music’s job to tell a story. Most story-telling (ie, programmatic) music tends to be inferior and, if music has a job, it’s to evoke emotions. Strong melodies do this best.

Melodies can be sad or rambunctious (I don’t go for humorous). No point in saddening our Martian so let’s opt for the latter. And for the moment exclude the human voice. Because we’re conveying the quintessence, abstract music is our best bet. A voice brings too much to the party.

Here I’m saddling up my hobby-horse. A concerto simultaneously demonstrates the individual and the group and is usually by definition dramatic. But what instrument? I must confess that neither Mrs LdP nor I, as complete novices, responded well to the solo violin however much we embraced it later. It’s gotta be the joanna.

And, since I’m writing the post (though anyone can later disagree) I want something that says, “If you don’t get this you’re not of our species”

Here it comes. Horns and piano trading bars. Hinting: Bom, bom, bom, bom-di-di-di, bom, bom! Brahms two!

By some diabolically competent Russian – Emil Gilels for choice. But EVGENY KISSIN (see inset) will do. Welcome to our civilised but emotional world.

HOW MUSIC’S MADE. A tough act to follow but The Crow saw this on the US’s Public Broadcasting channel and wondered if I’d be interested. I was. Anything that blows away music’s apartheid is commendable and this celebrates an important moment in American musical history. Click GERSHWIN.