Thomasina’s last waltz

A piano recital and some unnecessary minimalism

On Friday the 13th I had the good luck to hear a piano recital presented by City Recital Hall. Curiously, the only publicity I’d noticed for it was an e-newsletter I received, which sent me diving for my credit card. Advertising via the conventional outlets was either incredibly discreet or simply non-existent. But maybe the people at Angel Place know what they’re doing: when you’re presenting the kind of artist who impresses not through glamour and hype but through commanding pianism and profound musicality, perhaps the word will simply get around. In any case, although the upper gallery wasn’t opened, the rest of the hall was respectably full, and not just on the keyboard side.

The artist in question was Stephen Kovacevich – and I confess to being a fan. In recent years I’ve been known to put my hand up for interstate pre-concert talks on the grounds that he will be the soloist. Which points, among other things, to the fact that a Sydney appearance was long overdue. (I think his last visit here was for the concert in 2005 when Yannick Nézet-Séguin jumped for Maazel.)

He was playing Bach, Schumann and Beethoven, with the Diabelli Variations as the program culmination and highlight. From where I sat the recital got better and better as it went along, by the time I’d heard the tenderly shaped Schumann and the muscular conception of the Beethoven I was even more a fan than I was when it began. But in saying that I’m also admitting that I found the Bach strangely disappointing.

Who am I to fault a great musician and pianist like Stephen Kovacevich? Well perhaps I can’t when, as a colleague said, his Bach convinced on its own terms. It was intensely musical – true – but it didn’t quite convince me on Bach’s terms. A French ouverture in D major: this alone calls for a more dashing interpretation, one that calls to mind harpsichord flourishes and dancing articulations even as it exploits the singing potential of the piano. What we heard was more ruminative, almost too private in view of the rhetorical clues offered by key and musical gestures. 

But ultimately this is a quibble: I’d happily rock up to hear the program all over again.

And that would be?

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Partita IV in D, BWV828
Ouverture
Allemande
Courante
Aria
Sarabande
Menuet
Gigue

Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood), Op.15
Von fremden Ländern und Menschen (Of Foreign Lands and People)

Kuriose Geschichte (A Curious Story)

Hasche-Mann (Blind Man’s Bluff)

Bittendes Kind (Pleading Child)

Glückes genug (Happy Enough)

Wichtige Begebenheit (An Important Event)

Träumerei (Dreaming)

Am Kamin (At the Fireside)

Ritter vom Steckenpferd (Knight of the Hobbyhorse)

Fast zu ernst (Almost too serious)

Fürchtenmachen (Frightening)

Kind im Einschlummern (Child Falling Asleep)

Der Dichter spricht (The Poet Speaks)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827)
33 Variations on a waltz by Anton Diabelli, Op.120
[And here you can imagine, if you will, 33 lines of tempo indications, which I’m not going to type out here.]

I’ve taken the trouble to list the program in detail because the presenter didn’t. The program sheet, such as it was, looked like this.

Now, believe it or not, I have no problem with a simple program sheet, listing the pieces, sans notes. But when that sheet contains minimalist publicity titles and nothing more about the music I get cross: that a major venue in a major city presenting a major artist should so neglect its audience is embarrassing as well one mammoth missed opportunity.

When there are no program notes it’s even more essential that the program listing contain all the necessary details. So much can be gleaned from these: the key gives advance orientation of mode (and in baroque music, character); composer dates help place the work historically; opus numbers suggest when in the composer’s career the work was written; a formal title will convey useful facts such as the kind of theme and the number of variations; translations are a courtesy; and, above all, movement headings aid navigation as the music progresses and, in the case of a piece like Kinderszenen, are absolutely essential to appreciating what the composer is doing and following the emotional journey.

Perhaps it was thought that the audience would be almost entirely piano connoisseurs, familiar with these three works from the standard repertoire and so not needing that kind of detail in their “order of service”. But I disagree. I’ve studied the Bach as a piano student, I’ve played the Schumann for pleasure and I’ve written (at length) about the Beethoven, and still I would have appreciated having a detailed program listing. No one’s memory is perfect, and in the Schumann I could put names to only three of the miniatures. Meanwhile, what about the poor soul who might not be familiar the music?!

In any case, piano recital audiences in Sydney are more inclined to buy program books than nearly any other kind of concert audience – clearly they seek more information, not less. So if there’s one kind of concert where it’s worth going to the trouble of publishing a “proper” program it’s the kind that took place on Friday night.

Again

So I wonder… will we be hearing little Prokofiev encores after each of our Mahler symphonies next year? 

What would you put after the Symphony of a Thousand, for example? Something short, you’d hope. Has anyone arranged a Vision Fugitive for orchestra and large choir?

Maintaining appearances

There’s an interesting syndrome going around right now: it seems to be a circulatory problem as it results in cold feet, which in turn leads to the late changing of concert promotional titles. So tonight I heard “The Girl with the Golden Flute”, according to the subs brochure and the program book, or “Tchaikovsky Serenade”, going by the posters and recent advertising (not to mention the tumultuous applause this work received).

Alternatively, it could have been called The Girl with the Purple Frock, the said frock being a simple but elegantly shaped number in a lovely shade of royal purple. More’s the pity then that its wearer felt the need to keep tugging at the top of the bodice as if she feared it would fall down. I’m sure Chanel said something about how you should be able to put on your clothes, look in the mirror and then forget all about them. Goes double for stage wear.

While I’m on a clothing theme, the orchestra was decked out in new outfits which threaten to be selectively rather than universally flattering. I’m unconvinced about the capri pants for the women (exposed ankles work only on long and slender limbs), and there’s no agreement on exactly where on the leg the hem of the overdress should hit: it seems a bit too short on the taller women, oddly long on the shorter women. The men’s overshirts haven’t changed much that I could see, but are possibly more tailored – a good thing.

This program had always included an element of uncertainty: the idea was that in each concert you’d hear either the Vine flute concerto or one by Serebrier, together with another concerto by Izarra. Somewhere along the way Izarra was dropped from the concerts altogether and so we got both Vine and Serebrier. Or so it seemed.

A flute-playing friend who knows the Vine told me at interval that we hadn’t heard the whole piece, only (I think this was it) the third movement preceded by a portion of the second. The reference to structure in the SMH review suggested that the whole concerto had been performed on the Saturday at least. So maybe there was growing concern about the program being too long because, as so often happens with commissions, the new work by Peteris Vasks had turned out to be 25 minutes instead of the expected 10. Not that I was complaining on that point, Vasks being a favourite of mine and the music being really effective. (Now his is a flute concerto I’d like to play.)

When, after interval, the soloist came on with just her golden flute in hand, I began to have doubts about the Serebrier, which apparently features the alto flute in its fourth movement tango. It’s even called “Flute Concerto with Tango”; I’m guessing what we heard was just the Flute Concerto. And as the program annotator pointed out to me later, this made a nonsense of at least some of what had been published about the piece.

Left unexplained, discrepancies between program book and performance always bother me. And that’s not just a personal aversion to “mistakes”. If someone is genuinely trying to use the program as a navigational guide then they are either going to be misled or left confused if what they read doesn’t match what they’re hearing. I don’t think it’s too much for performers to announce from the stage (especially when they’re good at it) where changes have been made, perhaps even why, but at least what.

There was a little encore for solo flute. Apparently it was from Sweden. The composer’s name (spoken over laughter) sounded a little like Alfvén, the music not so much. In its modal qualities it reminded me more of those recorder variations that Jakob van Eyck wrote to entertain people strolling in the Utrecht cemetery (a popular pastime in the 16th century), only a whole lot more showy. The applause only confirmed that we’ve lost none of the pleasure we instinctively feel in admiring a virtuoso performance. Faster, Higher, Louder – it works for music too.

But no surprises for guessing that everyone was going to love the Tchaikovsky Serenade for strings best of all. It’s gorgeous, adorable music – made to be loved. The performance itself had an uncommon vigour that was instantly appealing. You could see (literally) some of the things that make a standing chamber orchestra so very attractive to an audience: that moment in the Elegie when four first violins angled their bodies in towards each other for a perfect, muted unison giving a visual complement to the aural effect; or when individual musicians leant across the ensemble, sharing melodies with counterparts in other sections. This stuff isn’t just for show, but it’s part of what makes a performance one. And when that happens you don’t really mind what name they give it.

Encores

There are critics who’ve been known to scurry out of a concert hall before the encores, lest this – and the audience response – somehow influence their assessment. Or the rationale might be that only the formal, planned portion of the concert is worthy of review. Others stick around, but might choose to make no mention of the encores.

That’s wrong, I think. Like them or not, encores are a part of the performance and invariably they are a planned element in the concert, even if they’re not publicised as such.

More important: encores can be terribly revealing – in choice and interpretation.

Orchestral encores are a rare treat in Sydney, and usually they are a treat. But last week I heard a couple that were no treat at all, despite being well chosen. In both cases, if I’d been assigning “points”, the concert’s score would have been lowered considerably by the encores, much in the way that a perfect 10 on the beam is squandered when the gymnast fails to stick her landing at the end. Or perhaps a better analogy would be to imagine the gymnast sticking her landing but then sticking her tongue out at the judges.

Which is kind of what happened. It almost made me wonder whether there mightn’t be a fundamental antipathy to encores behind it all (and later I heard that this is more or less the case). To which all I can say is, if you dislike them that much, stick to your guns and don’t play them; if you are going to play them, honour the music and the audience.

I’ll have to admit right now to being in a minority. Whether through genuine pleasure or misguided politeness, there were close on 2,500 people heaping up the applause while I and a handful of others sat numb. But what for?

On the first night it was a Brahms Hungarian dance so distorted, so grotesque, you’d swear Dali had gotten at it. Through the centuries – CPE Bach, Chopin, Debussy – we’ve had clear instructions and beautiful models for how a stylish and musical rubato works. You play with tempo on the surface, sure, but without ever losing sight of the underlying pulse; the rhythmic logic is always apparent, the integrity of the music assured. But this performance began with the beat pulled around like taffy, to the point of smearing the pulse altogether. (The score calls for none of this, by the way – there is a pause in the first bar, and shortly after that a three-bar slowing followed by a return to the initial lively(!) tempo, but that’s pretty much the extent of the liberties Brahms expects.)

It’s concert music, I know, but you couldn’t even have imagined dancing to this. It sounded like simple showing off: a demonstration of how far a phenomenal technique and an ensemble of fine musicians will allow you to stretch and contract the beat. Alas, the result had nothing with the composer’s intentions to do. Give me a less impressive technique and the humility of true musicianship any day. And I wish the review had mentioned it, because observations such as this one about the beautiful performance of the opening work – “an overriding strategy to carefully realise the composer’s precisely notated intentions” – were completely contradicted by what went unreported at the end.

Later in the week the pain was short and swift. Perhaps a little too swift: I wasn’t sure I’d ever heard the Trépak from Nutcracker skated quite so quickly. But on arriving home I was reminded that Gergiev’s recording takes it nearly as fast, only he understands that you have to give men (a) time to make those magnificent Cossack jumps, and (b) some downbeats to propel them into the air. This is a Russian dance after all, and it needs some virility. Again, it was all the more disappointing given that the opening work (Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead) had been given a performance that was not only impressively shaped but filled with obvious affection and respect.

Perhaps reviewers should pay more attention to encores and hold them to the same artistic standard as the main program, then presenters, performers (and audiences too) might be less inclined to regard them merely as essential crowd-pleasing fluff.  

Beethoven numbers and the mind of the people

I was responding to a comment from yesterday’s post and was reminded of the Omniscient Mussel’s exercise in Beethoven numbers. What had begun as an informal personality test (the speedy, musical alternative to the Myer-Briggs) became the source for a statistically invalid but entertaining assessment of the popularity of Beethoven symphonies. (This was in response to a post from Ben, the Classical Convert, who had been examining the view frequencies of Karajan’s Beethoven symphonies on YouTube.)

At question in yesterday’s discussion was the ascendency of Beethoven 9 and whether it would score the No.1 spot.

My reaction was “please no!” For all that I recognise the importance and significance of this particular Beethoven symphony, it’s not one that I ever feel the urge to listen to and I would be unlikely to pay to hear it in a concert. (The Seventh, on the other hand, I find irresistible; it appeals to my sensibilities and ways of responding to music. My Beethoven number, incidentally, is 736521489, allowing for small shifts in the internal rankings.)

As you’ll glean from my comment on Miss Mussel’s post, I suspect that we have a self-fulfilling prophecy going on with the Ninth. Concert promoters would perhaps like the Ninth to be “the one”, and so we’ve all been complicit in building a mythology around it. But I suspect that many in regular concert audiences actually prefer other Beethoven symphonies more, and I’m quite certain that most musicians prefer other Beethoven symphonies more (not because they’re jaded but because the other symphonies give greater satisfaction).

That said, in ABC Classic FM’s original Classic 100 (any genre) Beethoven 9 was the top ranked of any of the symphonies, at No.3. The Pastoral came next at No.6, after that the Eroica and the Fifth, way down at No.40 and No.42; the highest ranked non-Beethoven symphony was Mahler 5 at No.43. (Apparently we don’t like symphonies all that much.)

If this were our guide, then the top ten in the Classic 100 Symphony should be Beethoven 9, 3, 6, 3, 5, Mahler 5, Saint-Saëns’ Symphony with Organ, Dvořák’s New World Symphony, Mahler 2, and Mahler 8 and at No.10 Beethoven 7, would be the runner up and making the chances of my favourite reaching No.1 very slim indeed.

But interesting things can happen. At No.1 in that original survey was Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto – a well-deserved accolade for a sublime piece of music. The adagio from this concerto was also the top ranked “favourite Mozart moment” (or rather, “Which moment of Mozart’s music can’t you live without?” as the question was put). So you’d reasonably expect the Mozart Clarinet Concerto to be at the top – or at least in the top five – of the Classic 100 Concerto. Not so. The leaders there were Beethoven’s Emperor, Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, Bruch’s Violin Concerto No.1 (he wrote others, you know) and Elgar’s Cello Concerto. The poor Mozart Clarinet Concerto had been relegated to No.6, which wasn’t all that surprising unless you knew of its earlier triumphs.

And this is what makes me think that Beethoven 9’s original success won’t necessarily carry over to the Classic 100 Symphony. What listeners choose when they’re asked to focus on a particular genre may be quite different from their generalised favourite “piece of music” or “musical moment”. Perhaps narrowing things down, and comparing apples with apples, encourages us to be more objective, slightly less concerned with what simply moves our spirit or gives us pleasure (what we like) and slightly more concerned with concepts of “greatness” and the intrinsic value or importance of a work. Clearly what turned up as simply our favourite piece of music didn’t do so well when we make it part of a comparison of concertos. And perhaps the iconic and mythological power of the “Ode to Joy” – which is what I suspect many people were really voting for in that first survey – similarly won’t stand the test as we pronounce upon our favourite symphonies.

At least, says Thomasina wickedly, I hope not!

(An astute twitterer from the Melbourne choir scene has come to the conclusion that Beethoven’s Ninth will not be the No.1 symphony, since the MSO Chorus has not been booked for the concert in which the top symphony will be performed live in its entirety. This seems like a pretty smart as well as appealing conclusion.)

Twitter – doing much better akshully

Today there’s joy on twitter for two hundred or so of us (how mighty is the long tail).

Apropos of yesterday’s post, I’m delighted to report that there have been sightings of @ABCClassic100 using the #classic100 hashtag. Furthermore, they’re mixing things up a bit, interspersing the playlist tweets with  a bit more editorial commentary. The way for this to happen has been opened up in part by their posting a running list of the symphonies as a distinct item on the website. The existence of The List means there’s no longer a need to rely on a “clean” twitter feed to supply the playlist and thus there’s more scope for conversation. (There’s a maverick list being maintained as well, which also includes the performer details for each symphony.)

There are still no “@ replies” to be spotted, but that may be partly because the followers themselves have begun to rely primarily on the hashtag to sustain the generally very entertaining conversation, the whole of which can be seen by means of an advanced twitter search. In particular, we have been joined by @FoodPanda, a remarkably knowledgeable as well as hungry creature.

A phone call today sent me over to look at the Classic 100 message board, which I’d visited only fleetingly yesterday. What a contrast. Compared to the flexibility and immediacy of twitter, the humble message board (as a medium in general) seems like a dinosaur: rigidly hierarchical and ossified, its gems largely buried.

It set me thinking about the nature of communication and how the mould into which you pour a conversation shapes its character. [As someone pointed out to me a while back, you almost never encounter any genuine nastiness on twitter because its concision and its “exposed” nature seems to be conducive to positive rather than negative expression.] For example, the people following the Classic 100 on twitter seem more likely to respond to what they’re actually hearing in the music, and to embark on lively exchanges – they’re having fun. The message board, by contrast, is home for those who want to speculate at length about which symphonies will make the top 10 and so on – they all seem a bit more earnest. It’s an interesting theme but not one I have time to explore – at least not until that spring holiday arrives, at which point it will all be over!

Meanwhile, my fingers are crossed for Beethoven 7.

Twitter - ur doing it wrong

It’s been an interesting exercise following the ABC Classic FM’s “The Classic 100 Symphony” on twitter this weekend.

On the one hand it’s very convenient: I have heaps to do that precludes listening to other things (background or otherwise), so I can follow the countdown silently.

On the other hand, it’s revealing just how easy it is to misjudge in this kind of exercise. Let me count the ways:

1. ABC Classic FM has invited us all to follow on twitter but is not following a single person back, despite the fact that, as far as I can see, all 210+ followers are legitimate souls – not a social network marketer or purveyor of porn to be seen. We’re real people, Aunty; many are your colleagues or important people you’d know by name. Marshall McGuire just joined in, for example. But in any case, twitter is about conversations and that means following those who follow you (providing there is a shared interest, which in this case there is).

2. There is a hashtag: #classic100. Very good. But has the ABC Classic FM twitter feed ever once tweeted what this hashtag is and invited its followers to use it? No. Not once. Ah, it’s there on the website, you say. But not all of us on twitter will necessarily visit the website, and so will belatedly, if at all, glean the hashtag from others.

3. This is just a pedantic thing, but Aunty’s scribe needs to improve in the spelling department. Even if that means just being the tiny bit more careful in copying the information from the source. Haydyn, Askenenazy, Neilsen, Rogers (for Rodgers)… no doubt there’ll be more, and people are noticing.

4. It’s been suggested to me – by way of explaining the spelling errors – that the person behind @ABCClassic100 is some kind of IT coordinator, rather than someone with any real classical music knowledge. That would also go some way to explaining the complete lack of conversation in the thread (i.e. not a single “@ reply” to any of the 50+ messages that have been fondly sent in @ABCClassic100’s direction. (And “fond”, as in foolishly optimistic or naive, is the word.)

In any case, that’s a mistake. ABC Classic FM wouldn’t be the first organisation to think that because twitter is about social networking or “the internet” they need to put an IT-ish kind of person on the task. But in fact, twitter is just the medium. The minute you invite people to follow your countdown on twitter then you’re communicating (and, you’d hope, inviting engagement). So you want people behind the tweets who know the subject and can talk about it.

The other thing this suggests is that ABC Classic FM has been misled into thinking of twitter as just another “broadcast” (one-to-many) medium, instead of the cocktail party that it really is. Note to self: don’t invite @ABCClassicFM to the next party: they’ll just stand in a corner and shout updates at us from time to time. (Although… they would be handy for passing out the sorbets at regular intervals.)

Anyhow, this thing has a whole week to go – the joy of long symphonies, with mega brownie points given for the decision to broadcast complete works.

So here’s hoping ABC Classic FM can get the twitter presence working beautifully: put knowledgeable people behind the tweets; follow the followers; respond to them; use the hashtag from time to time to keep it in circulation – it’ll be great. Worried that all this newfound conversation will clutter up the list of symphonies? Easy, make a separate filtered search [ "No." from:ABCClassic100 ].

Postscript: If you’ve arrived at this post directly, please do read the sequel, Twitter – doing much better akshully.

From memory…

Toscanini and Furtwängler were known for conducting from memory, but K always used a score. He was asked, “Maestro, why do you use the score when these conductors do not?” To which K replied: “Because I can read music.”
[This story is told about both Knappertsbusch and Klemperer.]

I was taught piano in a way that gave me tremendous sight-reading skills (thank you, Bransby). To paraphrase Ratty, there’s nothing – absolutely nothing – half so much worth doing as simply messing about at the piano, sight-reading one’s way through all kinds of music, suitable and otherwise.

There’s a downside to being a “reader”, though. You never come by a memory of a piece through slow dogged study and sheer repetition. And I hated memorising music; loathed it. It wasn’t until I was at uni and discovered Walter Gieseking’s little book, Piano Technique, that I learned a much more powerful strategy for memorisation that didn’t rely on physical repetition. But by then it was kind of late: I was already a flute major, and there’s no particular expectation that flutists perform from memory.

Here’s an excerpt from the AMEB’s syllabus for the Fellowship in Music Australia diploma:

“For pianists the entire program must be presented from memory with the exception of contemporary works. For string players the entire program must be presented from memory except sonatas and contemporary works. For other instrumentalists presentation from memory is encouraged but is not obligatory. For singers, presentation from memory is required except in Oratorio.”

That says it all. If you’re a pianist or a violinist etc. memorisation is pretty much de rigeur. If you play some other instrument it’s more or less up to you. [Given the AMEB’s exceptions, I always found it ironic that I memorised contemporary works most easily.] If you’re a singer memorisation is expected, except for the quaint matter of oratorio, since there the aim is to make what is essentially opera seem less theatrical.

The double-standard on the instrumental front has always intrigued me, and seemed a bit unfair. But it’s the way things are, at all levels of music-making. Such is the power of expectation that when a concert pianist or string player uses sheet music, other than for the newest or most obscure of repertoire, it attracts attention and comment.

One pianist I know makes a point of performing with sheet music always. It’s been a while since he explained his rationale to me, so I hope I’m not misrepresenting him, but Geoffrey Lancaster’s view is that memorisation is a kind of arrogance, an assumption on the part of the performer that he or she knows how the music will go. Playing from memory, seen in this light, diminishes the spontaneity of the performer’s interaction with the composer’s text.

Of course, that’s the view of a performer who thinks deeply about things. And, in any case, no one would ever call Geoffrey unprepared or say that the presence of sheet music got “in the way” of his musical communication. But these do tend to be the suspicions levelled at most performers who appear on stage with sheet music.

There’s the pianist who plays from his part for the Grieg Piano Concerto. Unprepared? He may well be, and the presence of the music could be a symptom of that. The violinist whose head is buried in a music stand. Is he failing to project across the footlights as a result? Does the concert fee, whatever that might be, justify the expectation of a memorised performance in the way we expect actors to have memorised their lines?

Historically, performing concertos and recitals from memory is a fairly recent practice. And there’s no musically justifiable reason for it being compulsory. Let’s say you’ve played a piece into your muscle memory – that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll know it more intimately or have greater insights into its interpretation. On the contrary, you may be more caught up in the mechanics of the performance. If you’ve memorised it a la Gieseking, you probably have a very sound analytical conception of the piece but you aren’t necessarily going to give a freer or more spontaneous rendition simply by virtue of this. And if you happen to be blessed with some form of eidetic [photographic] memory as some musicians are, well, you’re not really playing from memory at all, but reading the music from your mind’s eye instead of the music desk. The only difference is it looks better (aesthetics do play a part in all this, I’ll admit) and you don’t have to worry about page turns. 

All this comes to mind because recently Sydney audiences heard another violin concerto performed with sheet music (phenomenally, I should say) and so the subject has come up for what is perhaps the third time this season. As I’m sure I’ve established with my preamble, I’m not especially wedded to performance from memory and I’m more than ready to think positively of those with courage enough to fly in the face of convention.

As with some other concert conventions, performing from memory is often held up to be a greater virtue than it really is, perhaps to our loss. We’ve created a scene that favours the pianist or string player with an easy memory and discriminates (yes, discriminates) at the early stages against the musician without. To that end the performers of “Other Instruments” have a better deal.  Because, even though performing from memory does have aesthetic and practical virtues…

1. The benefits of memorisation as a study technique don’t transfer as a matter of course to performance from memory. [And a performer’s use of sheet music doesn’t mean that he or she doesn’t know the piece inside out.]

2. Performing from memory doesn’t really guarantee anything except that the musician has memorised the piece. [Oh, and that there’s a greater risk of error during performance.] It doesn’t assure a deeper musical insight or superior interpretation. It doesn’t necessarily go hand in hand with performing a piece many times.

To which end, I’ll leave you with another conductor story:

I heard Mark Wigglesworth conduct Brahms 4 in Cardiff years ago. In the post-concert discussion afterwards a man in the audience asked him how many times he’d conducted the symphony in order to be able to “do it from memory”. The response: this was the first time Wigglesworth had conducted it in a concert. Ever.

Open letter to the boy with a blogged dose

My heart goes out to you: you seem to have caught a nasty head cold and dad has dragged you off to an orchestral concert regardless.

I guess there’s some reason why you’re unwilling or unable to blow your nose, but must you really sniff your way through an entire performance?

Sub-editors

About March last year, someone who should know explained to me how the Sydney Morning Herald was assigning stories to sub-editors. With the exception of the sports pages, she said, there were no section specialists. In a system that sounded a bit like taking a ticket at the David Jones delicatessen counter, sub-editors would work on whichever story popped up next in the electronic queue. My source, I thought, would have been very well placed to function as an arts specialist, but it evidently hadn’t occurred to anyone at the paper that they might exploit her superior knowledge. 

Perhaps if they had, the SMH could have avoided the embarrassing review that came out last week in response to the SSO’s Romantic Perfection concert.

I have every sympathy for reviewers: for each concert they need to write something pithy and insightful and they have to do it fast. If typographical errors, or perhaps Freudian slips, turn up in the mix it’s really quite understandable. And in the case of a major daily broadsheet like the SMH, a reviewer should – I would have thought – be able to rely on the sub-editors and proofreaders.

Apparently this is not so. We got Hugo instead of Hugh, at one point Wood instead Wolff (or Wolf!), the wrong date for the performance, and, to add insult to injury, a particularly ungainly and meaningless headline that doesn't bear repeating. (Prima la musica theorised to me that this headline was devised by the same soul responsible for “A Domingo stole our ladies”. That seems entirely plausible.)

But the really puzzling stories are the ones where the sub-editor takes it into his or her head to change something that was correct in the reviewer’s original text, as when composer Georges Lentz turned up as “George Lenz” in the SMH last year. [Needless to say, it’s equally perplexing how these spelling errors are allowed to remain in the online versions.]

Or, about 10 years ago, when a sub-editor at the Melbourne Age decided, in a review of cellist Lyn Harrell, to switch all the reviewer’s masculine pronouns to feminine ones.

I can only echo Professor Diggory Kirk and mutter: What do they teach them in sub-editor school?

Concert reviews online

I haven’t written about this at length, but I know from my reading around the traps that I’m not alone in my long-held frustration. Why, oh why, won’t the Sydney Morning Herald post all of its classical music concert reviews online as well as publishing them in print?

It makes absolutely no sense. I could understand the reverse tactic – something online not appearing in the paper – but where’s the value in not running already printed reviews on the website? Totally bizarre. Worse: totally unhelpful.

The SMH is currently running a survey regarding its online entertainment offerings on smh.com.au.

So, if you’ve yet to make your voice heard – or even if you have – I urge you to complete this survey. You have to wade through the usual stuff, but it’s not too long, and at the end is a free-form opportunity to tell them which single change they could make that would make you visit the site more frequently.

So who would you rather work for?

Few things depress me more than seeing an artistic, creative organisation issue badly written, uninspiring job descriptions, poorly conceived and packed with weasel words.

Take this one, spotted recently around the traps. (Details omitted in the interests of prudence, even though I’ve no intention of applying.)

Taking the nouns and verbs, this role’s first responsibility – according to the description – is “to facilitate an approach through the management and coordination of input from the stakeholders”. Right.

After that there’s “managing the process, including the framework…” and so it continues. The core of the role – which happens to be concert programming, would you have guessed? – sneaks in as “allocation of repertoire for all activities”. That’s right, apparently they don’t want someone to create imaginative and exciting programs on a foundation of smart artist choices, just someone to “allocate” repertoire to activities. Sigh.

Oh, and the “purpose” of the position – I kid you not – is to report to the managing director role.

It’s especially depressing given that the role in question is an artistic one. Of course, people in this line of work will overlook the obfuscations – they know what these kinds of jobs really involve and may well rewrite the description in sensible English* on appointment.  All the same, descriptions such as these send a sorry message about the employer, suggesting that either someone doesn’t really understand the heart of the business or – more likely – that there are many more “stakeholders” to be satisfied by the weasel words than is exactly comfortable.

To be fair, I should add that the selection criteria in my unfortunate model are more sensibly expressed than the description of the role itself. There’s hope yet.

*Historical example, showing how it can be done using tangible verbs and nouns: “Program all concerts and recordings in consultation with the music director and managing director. Engage all outside conductors and soloists.…”

Applauding the ballet

Greg Sandow says we should trust the [classical music] audience and I agree.

The proof, right now, is in another audience group: classical ballet. In this art form there is a continuous tradition of acceptable applause within works. Audiences recognise with confidence when in the performance those moments are occurring. And those moments are flexible and optional, so the applause can genuinely reflect a level of enthusiasm as well as the prevailing mood. As a result, ballet-goers experience none of the angst about clapping that’s encountered nearly everywhere in classical concerts.

As Greg suggests in his commentary about concerts, knowing when to applaud is partly to do with the particular character of the work and partly to do with body language (choreography in the case of ballet). Take these together and you’re never left in any doubt as to whether it’s ok to applaud or not. Newcomers seem to work it out pretty easily. I don’t recall as a child being told when and when not to clap at the ballet.

So you’re at Sleeping Beauty and it’s the final act with Aurora’s Wedding, which is basically a glorified set of entertainments. Each little item is self-contained, the changes of style and the clear breaks in music signal that. More important, each divertissement ends with a little flourish and the dancers actually acknowledge the applause. It would be churlish not to clap in a work that’s so clearly designed for this response.

Or you’re at Swan Lake and Odile has just completed 32 fouette pirouettes. So it’s mid-number and the music’s powering on, but who can resist applauding such a tour de force, which entered the choreography quite gratuitously and has remained as a virtuoso gesture ever since.

But then maybe you’re watching the latter part of Act I of Nutcracker and the drama is progressing continuously. Tchaikovsky’s music signals that by eliminating the grand cadences and moving seamlessly from section to section. The choreography will signal this to; no one stops to take a bow. And no one feels the urge to clap. There are sections like this in the other ballets I’ve mentioned too, sections where drama overrules mere diversion, sections where we’re drawn into the emotion of what’s happening rather than simply being entertained by party pieces or impressed by virtuosity.

And I can’t think of a single instance of a ballet performance where the audience has misjudged the moment. (I’ve referred to well-known ballets, but my observations have been no different for new or unfamiliar ballets.)

None of this really hit home to me until a couple of years ago when I went to see a double bill that was entirely set to concert works. I was hearing, in the ballet theatre, music that I’m accustomed to hearing in the concert hall. Furthermore, in one instance, I was hearing music where concert audiences are notorious for “getting it wrong”. (Can you guess what it was?)

And that’s where it got really interesting, because this ordinary ballet subscription audience didn’t get it wrong. They knew when it made sense to clap and they knew when to stay quiet. Even in Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony! (The other music was Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique.)

That was helped a great deal by some very musical choreography and its body language – it’s easy to recognise movement that’s cadential or applause-seeking versus movement that’s clearly about to head right on. But it’s also right there in the music. And the ballet audience (only some of whom would be concert-goers too) was accustomed to watching and listening for cues. Add to this the fact that at the ballet you’re allowed to applaud and you can enjoy unerring good judgement in an atmosphere of confidence. Even when the applause was more of a smattering it came across as discreet, not as the insecure, half-hearted, “shouldn’t we be clapping now?” sound that you hear in many orchestral concerts.

In concerts, where there’s no choreography, musicians’ – and especially conductors’ – body language becomes the cue, especially in relation to the old bug-bear of applause between movements. I’ve lost count of the number of times I've despaired as a conductor has visibly relaxed all sense of tension or “forward movement” after a slow movement, practically inviting the uncertain to hazard some applause. (This is invariably half-hearted and lame-sounding because the visible cue from the stage contradicts what the musical instincts suggest: that this is a quiet moment, a respite.)

So what do concerts need in order to be like the ballet? Just three things.

1.    A sense of permission.
The ballet has a couple of hundred years head start on us, but we need to cultivate a relaxed attitude to the whole business of responding to music (and any noise that may emerge from that). This, I think, is a very different matter from wanting to encourage a quiet listening environment with no distracting extraneous noise. It’s the difference between the woman who jingles her bracelets because she loved the finale and the woman who jingles her bracelets because she’s digging around in her handbag for a cough lolly to unwrap. Slowly.

2.    We need to learn to really listen and look for the cues.
I wonder sometimes whether some of those people who pride themselves on not clapping in the wrong place aren’t dependent on counting down the movements or checking their watch against the timings in the program rather than simply listening and watching and “getting it right” because the right moment is evident and inevitable. Indeed, I know of one concert-goer who seriously suggests that this is exactly what audiences should do: count movements and keep an eye on our watches. I could cry.

3.    Concert performers can and should “shape” audience behaviour.
Many are, in fact, excellent at this – there are plenty of examples of masterly body language. But others seem to rely on the audience adhering to convention, forgetting, for example, that the spaces between the movements are part of the performance too. These are like rests, which, as one of my teachers once told me, need to be “played” as much as the notes. After the composer has done his or her job then it’s up to the performers to shape our response and to move us in all sorts of ways, whether that’s to applause or to silence.

Postscript. There is one instance where even a ballet audience will be caught on the wrong foot. But it’s a piece in which nearly everyone, everywhere, is caught out: La Spectre de la rose, danced to the notorious Invitation to the Dance in Berlioz’s orchestration. I think we just have to blame Weber there, because even with a plot line and the choreography to help out, you’re guaranteed there’ll be applause before the end.

Reading at the opera - a preliminary

I went to bed with a nasty crick in my neck, caused by alternately craning then nodding to follow surtitles suspended twice the full height of the set above the stage while still keeping an eye on the action (such as was visible behind the gesticulations of the conductor) from a central vantage point in stalls row E.

After half an hour or so of this I resorted, in the authentic manner, to the libretto in the program book, despite the 3.75 point font (I measured) and the semi-darkness. My mother always said it would ruin my eyes, but my childhood practice of secretly reading by the hall light when I was meant to be asleep in bed has clearly paid off.

After interval I moved back to an empty seat off on the side of row M. This was much better, but I don’t know how the rows forward of this could have been classified A reserve except for French speakers.

Moral: buy the cheap seat, no matter how generous the first-timer discount. But then, next year I won’t be eligible for the first-timer discount anyway.

Cadenzas: the object is simply to surprise

It’s been quite a few years since I’ve opened my copy of Quantz’s On Playing the Flute (Reilly translation), but there was a time when it was a veritable bible to me.

Yes, of course, Johann Joachim Quantz (1697–1773) can come across as a stuffy old man, documenting a tradition of performance that was well-established in 1752 and may even then have been erring in the direction of old-fashioned. All the same, he was one of the very few to take on not only the basic mechanics of an instrument – which most of the tutors seemed to do – but the fundamental principles of performance practice and musicianship. The extent to which Quantz’s observations and recommendations can be applied to even slightly later music is arguable, but in the case of concerto cadenzas much of what he says is echoed and, if anything, amplified by later writers. First, when to include them?

“The abuse of cadenzas is apparent…if in instrumental music they are introduced in pieces in which they are not at all suitable; for example in gay and quick pieces in two-four, three-four, three-eight, twelve-eight, and six-eight time. They are permissible only in pathetic and slow pieces, or in serious quick ones.”

Of course, the “gay and quick” movements, especially if they are in rondo form as was traditional for finales, tend to contain their own variant on the cadenza: the fermata or Eingang, sometimes referred to in English as a “lead-in”. But an Eingang is a mere flourish (leading the soloist into a statement of the rondo theme), not a full-fledged cadenza, which has a particular task to play:

“The object of the cadenza is simply [in my copy I at some point inserted a little ‘!’ above the word ‘simply’] to surprise the listener unexpectedly once more at the end of the piece, and to leave behind a special impression in his heart.”

After acknowledging the near impossibility of establishing rules for something that is by definition extemporaneous and informal, Quantz then attempts to set out some prescriptions. He’s that kind of guy. These include:

“Cadenzas are of either one or two parts. Those of one part [i.e. for a single instrument] are chiefly extempore… They must be short and fresh, and surprise the listeners, like a bon mot. Thus they must sound as if they have been improvised spontaneously at the moment of playing.* Hence you must not be too extravagant, but must proceed economically [Ger: “like a good innkeeper”], especially if you often have the same listeners before you.”

*In writing “as if” JJQ is already acknowledging that mid-18th-century cadenzas, although “chiefly extempore” might very well be prepared in advance.

Then there’s the part that, I must confess, always made me feel resentful:

“Vocal cadenzas or cadenzas for a wind instrument must be so constituted that they can be performed in one breath. A string player can make them as long as he likes, if he is rich enough in inventiveness. Reasonable brevity, however, if more advantageous than vexing length.”

Ok, so his concluding sentence tempers things, but I did always think it unfair that inventive string players be encouraged to ramble at will while us flute players et al were constrained by our breath capacity. After all, from a purely musical perspective, there’s no reason why a wind cadenza (if the player is rich enough in inventiveness!) cannot be longer than a single breath. And a string cadenza in which the player’s phrasing didn’t “breathe” would be pretty awful. (It rankles even more when you consider that an oboist’s breath, being rationed via a tiny reed, goes much further than a flutist’s.)

Still, Quantz’s overall point is a sound one and his translator (1966/85) amplifies it in a footnote: “Observance of this rule would be of inestimable benefit to many modern performances of 18th-century flute concertos.”

More important, the matter of keeping a cadenza short and pithy, epigrammatic and surprising, is one aspect of performance practice that evidently lasted well past the mid-18th-century, since Johann George Tromlitz’s Detailed and Thorough Tutor for Playing the Flute repeats the sentiment in 1791, the year of Mozart’s death:

“Just as one has more freedom to branch out here [in cadenzas rather than fermatas], more care is required. However, this freedom is abused these days; especially on stringed and keyboard instruments [the cadenza] is often made as long as the entire movement up to that point, and one gets so far away from the subject that when the ritornello returns one has to recollect whether or not it belongs to this movement; so ideas are heaped on ideas, or to be more accurate, notes upon notes, which do not manifest the slightest feeling of the main subject; just as long as the cadenza is very long-winded, people cry: bravissimo!”

By the sounds of it (and there’s plenty more!), the “abuses” that Quantz touched on had become worse. There is a palpable wistfulness when Tromlitz adds:

“I do not mean to say by all this that a beautiful cadenza suitable to the material cannot have its good effect; if it is proper to the whole, is of an appropriate length, and is fashioned in good taste and with understanding, then it is indeed a beautiful thing.”

Mozart needs big orchestras

(Not gargantuan orchestras, of course, just the same size that would be considered normal for early 19th-century repertoire for the orchestra and the venue in question.)

I really cannot understand the continued preference for reduced strings in performances of Mozart symphonies by modern orchestras in modern halls. I’m a huge admirer of the period instrument movement and of historically informed performance generally, but this practice is one of the less desirable side-effects. It does seem as if a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, or at least leads to a misguided vision of a fictional “lean, classical sound”.

Unfortunately, unless you have something like a perfect acoustic (can we move Severance Hall to Bennelong Point please?) reducing strings in 18th-century repertoire seldom really works. By which I mean it doesn’t achieve anything like the effect or intention the composer was driving at.

We know from Mozart’s letters that he liked big orchestras. Although there would certainly have been performances with smaller bands, in Vienna his symphonies and concertos were sometimes performed with 80 or more players (i.e. 60-something strings) and there’s a documented performance in Vienna in 1781 (Robin Stowell thinks it was of the “Paris” Symphony in D, K297) with 40 violins, 10 violas, 8 cellos, 10 double basses and doubled woodwinds (including 6 bassoons!). And it was in Paris that Mozart wrote home to report his excitement at the unusually large forces he had at his disposal.

Of course, 30 baroque violins is not the same animal as 30 modern violins – I know that. The higher tension, steel strings and modern bows make a world of difference; playing techniques have changed. So the fear of unwieldy heaviness is a natural one. But going to the opposite extreme isn’t necessarily a solution. Better to get a good string section of 50 or 60 playing with an articulate and vigorous sound than to reduce the numbers and remove the backbone of the music. [Chamber orchestras may want to raise an objection to this view, but such ensembles are accustomed to projecting the necessary sound with their smaller numbers and are not unknown to use electronic enhancement when the acoustic makes it necessary.]

Mozart should be more than pretty, and this is one instance where I wish we could return to the “bad old days” and hear more full-blooded Mozart being played by full-size orchestras.

Revelation

Last night, after The Dream of Gerontius, I had a revelation.

I loathe the Opera Bar with the best of them. Too many times, after leaving some amazing (or even not-so-amazing) sonic experience in the Concert Hall or Opera Theatre, I’ve been made to feel as if I’m running a gauntlet. It really can put a sour note on the end of an otherwise lovely evening. The problem is this: the Sydney Opera House sits on a peninsula; the Opera Bar dominates the narrow neck of the approach. There is simply no avoiding it.

But this is no revelation.

The revelation is this: I have realised that it is not the music of the Opera Bar that I object to. Not one bit. Even after nearly two hours of Elgar my feelings about the Opera Bar as I passed on Wednesday night were positively, well, positive (as opposed to my usual “When the revolution comes…” mutterings). So what was the difference? The bar was relatively empty and there was next to no one in the outdoor area. The music was playing unimpeded and could, for a change, be “heard” in the true sense.

In other words, it isn’t the Opera Bar music that’s so objectionable, it’s the roar of the crowd.

Squash more than a hundred people in a confined space, arm them with alcohol and play some music (any music) and what will happen? The noise level will increase as the revellers raise their voices over each other and over the music (which they’re not really listening to anyway). I think the word is “din”. There’s a Tarpeian Way not far off – Opera Bar patrons at their lustiest could easily fill the role of furious Roman crowd, baying for the blood of the next criminal to be tossed from the heights.

There is another post buried in this, but meanwhile: When the revolution comes, the Opera Bar may continue playing its music, but I insist that it be closed to patrons between 9.30 and 10.30 on concert nights.

***

Septimus, am I the first person to have thought of this?

The Dream of Gerontius is a “dream”, yes? So why does the old man not wake up and find that he has only been sleeping?

But Thomasina is being flippant. Stephen Banfield in The Musical Times has something more sensible to say on this theme. The relevant page is here; the complete article begins here.

From euphoria to the doldrums

Never has the Waltz of the Flowers sounded so mournful.

This afternoon in Sydney Richard Tognetti rounded off the ACO’s “Euphoric” program with the loveliest of the Nutcracker pieces, ostensibly in a major key, but in fact always a little tinged with sadness, even when the stage is filled with garlands and children. (Graeme Murphy sets it in an Imperial Russian ballroom, which gives it the nostalgic, glittering grandeur it deserves.)

Why mournful? Not merely the absence of a surely essential harp, but the symbolic linking to the death knell of the Australian National Academy of Music, recently sounded by the Federal Government. On stage augmenting the musicians of the ACO were a dozen ANAM students, whose prospects of continued study at the Academy next year have been dashed. The doomed Imperial grandeur of Tchaikovsky was matched to a doomed legacy of Keating’s Creative Nation.

The second part of this encore was even more touching. It was a number from Sibelius’s incidental music for the play Kuolema (Death). And before you anticipate (as I did) another waltz, Valse triste, it was in fact the much less frequently played Kurkikotaus, or “Scene with Cranes” – floating strings with a hint of clarinet. The musical gesture of playing Sibelius was all the more pointed for Finland’s own music education system being so, well, enviable. At all levels.

And there’s the rub. Tognetti was drawing attention – if, as he said, we hadn’t heard already – to the imminent demise of an elite institution, the musical equivalent of an institute of sport (I believe Australia has one of those). But if we care about music in Australia then we need to care about music education from the ground up. All those talented ANAM students start somewhere. 

I’m not in a position to comment on the Academy’s strengths and weaknesses, or even if it was in fact the most “efficient” way of “delivering” elite training for musicians. [Boy, do I hate weasel words, but never do I hate them more than when used in connection with creativity and the arts.] I’m not going to pronounce on whether ANAM itself deserves to continue or not, or whether the model it represents is the very best one.

What is obvious, though, is that advanced training is an important part of Australia’s musical life and essential within any comprehensive plan for music education. And shutting ANAM down at such short notice within the cycle of the academic year, and without a plausible alternative in place, is positively short-sighted. Richard Tognetti knows that and he’s using his art form in an imaginative way to communicate a forthright and impassioned message. Having some of the students join him was a stroke of genius. He protested that he wasn’t being “political” but of course he was, and rightly so. Orchestras like the ACO, and their audiences, count among the ultimate beneficiaries of programs such as the Academy’s.

Ironic lexicographical aside: the usage example for “euphoria” in the New Oxford American Dictionary is “the euphoria of success will fuel your desire to continue training”.

Link: Alex Millier of the WASO has been maintaining a list of media items relating to ANAM here.

Only a man…

Only a man could have been responsible for re-doing the surface of the Sydney Opera House forecourt!

Sorry, that’s sexist. And unfair. Let me rephrase.

Only a person (male or female) who had never glammed up, never put on their thin-soled dress shoes (flat or heeled) and never approached the Opera House on foot could possibly think that irregular and rough-cut “cobblestones” are a good idea on a pedestrian thoroughfare. Roads, maybe. Walkways, no!

Oh yes, I know, there are some smooth bits, but they're either too narrow or they don't take the more direct path, and in most cases they're chocka block with an inconvenient mix of other tender-footed audience members and tourists vainly attempting to take photographs of themselves in front of the Harbour Bridge. The rest of us are obliged to stride or stroll on the dreaded cobblestones.

A taxonomy of coughing

There are three kinds of coughers at concerts:

First there is the Unfortunate Throat Tickler. This person is visited by the sudden uninvited tickle that can turn a healthy, calm listener into a spasm-ridden one in a matter of seconds. Who hasn’t been there (and in the middle of a long row) at least once before? I’m deeply sympathetic.

Then there is the Virally Afflicted. This person is ill. Maybe what was only a runny nose or sore throat has just now decided to turn into a cough. Maybe that cold wasn’t as mild as thought or the concert is too enticing or important to miss. It’s an awful place to be in. Perhaps they should have stayed away, but again, I’m sympathetic.

Finally there is the Common Throat Clearer. Indulging a nervous, habitual and largely unnecessary reaction that thoughtlessly intrudes, usually between movements and in the quietest passages. To these people I say just one thing: Please, do it during the loud bits!

I’m not the first person to complain about coughing in concerts. And I’m certainly not the first person to hazard the theory that most of the coughing, or rather throat-clearing, heard in concerts is psychologically rather than physically motivated. But recent performances make this an especially topical theme.

Reply, Forward, Send! – the dangers of email

Today I received a jewel of a misdirected customer email from [arts company redacted]. It wasn’t very elegant, but what it lacked in lapidary qualities it made up for in spontaneity.

What was really amusing were the frantic “Recall message” requests that followed – three in close succession. (These don’t work, alas, unless the recipient is on the same Exchange server. Just thought I’d mention that.)

So what do I do?

The really gracious thing would be to do nothing. Putting myself in the other person’s shoes for a minute: they will already have experienced the sudden sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach, the self-kicking and the embarrassment, and they’re perhaps still waiting in anxiety against the possibility that I will complain to the organisation. (I won’t – the message was ill-judged but hardly offensive.) That’s suffering enough, and life’s too short.

However, the gracious response deprives me of the chance to send a devastatingly witty riposte – I have one ready. So it’s not nearly as much fun.

On the other hand, such a riposte is rarely as clever or witty as you think it will be when you hit Send, as this morning’s message beautifully demonstrates (especially if you’ve first hit Reply instead of Forward as you intended). So while I’m sorely tempted to write back, I won’t.

Peeve

The Blogger/Blogspot format of displaying a brief profile on the front page, together with a link that says "view my complete profile". Except when you click through to the "complete profile" there is no more information! And sorry, answers to whimsical questions, astrological star signs and lists of "Favorites" do not count. I don't mind there being no additional information – bloggers are free to remain as anonymous or obscure as they wish — it's the false promise of a "complete" profile that I object to.

Friday's rant is not so forgiving

RE: Office 2007

Dear Microsoft

Why do you insist on trying to make things "easier" for us by removing our control? Why do you clutter our screens with ribbons full of features for which we already have the keyboard shortcuts under our fingers, while hiding the occasionally needed features that we used to be able to find so quickly in the menus.

At the same time, why do you make it so difficult to permanently hide those "default" themes, style sheets and font sets of yours, which we know we will never want. Why do you not provide a single dialog box in which the features of a theme or style set can be viewed, analysed and modified? And why must you establish three or four ways of doing anything, so that turning off one of those "helpful features" (such as the one that decides we want to create a bulleted list when we want to do nothing of the sort or the one that thinks superscripted ordinals look good) requires changing the settings in several places before it sticks.

Oh, and why do you insist on trying to make Word a sub-desktop publishing program? There are really good programs specifically designed for that kind of work, and not all of them are thousand-dollar behemoths. Word is a word-processing program and when it comes to designing or publishing documents it's an unwieldy mess. Except now it's an unwieldy mess when it comes to word-processing too.  Grr.

Bring on Dark Room I say! (Write Room for home.)

Easter Sunday

Yesterday I came across this disturbing piece from the Toronto Globe and Mail. Rev. Gretta Vosper, a minister of Canada's United Church, has decided to remove all mention of Jesus Christ, God and so on from the services; no one prays; and apparently no one is saved (at least not through Jesus' death and resurrection). For Rev. Vosper it's important to shed "no-longer credible myths, doctrines and dogmas". These are replaced with cosy things such as the "renewal of optimism and the human spirit". The 18th-century hymn Jesus Christ Has Risen Today is "vosperised" so that the congregation sings "Glorious hope has risen today". She has written a book, With or Without God: Why the Way We Live is more Important that What We Believe. And no I haven't read it, but the title is alarming enough. First there's the suggestion that God is somehow optional [in the Christian church]. Then there's this idea that the "way we live", which going by the news article seems to translate as participating in community love and giving people fresh starts and new chances and working out for yourself what is holy and sacred (all couched in very human-centred terms), is more important that "what we believe", i.e. faith.

One commenter (a self-professed non-church-goer) says "Put good living back into faith? What a terrific idea. It's not for the meek of heart. It's for those courageous enough to live by the rules and to make the world a better place NOW!!! not wait around for heaven and the judges score."

Two problems with that: Rev. Vosper isn't so much suggesting putting good living back into faith (which might otherwise be a commendable thing) as replacing faith altogether (she wants to get rid of all that messy and unpalatable "theological detritus" — stuff like the resurrection and salvation). The other problem is that mankind, being fallen and all that, has proven consistently and reliably unsuccessful at being "courageous enough to live by the rules and to make the world a better place", which may just be why God had to send his Son. (A third problem is this misbegotten idea of the heavenly "score card". A fourth problem is the tricky matter of the rules themselves.) C.S. Lewis says all this more eloquently and persuasively in Mere Christianity and more entertainingly in The Screwtape Letters.

Another commenter declares that he would love to go to a church with "wholesome fellowship and all the singing and uplifting (genuine) morale boosting" without the "divisive, anachronistic teachings". Oh, and he also loves the "ambience of churches", just not the "fairy tales" designed to frighten and manipulate. I guess a nice club with lots of music and some beautiful architecture would suit him well. Some kind of concert subscription, perhaps?

As for me, well I'm a sucker for great music and fantastic ambience too (my Easter was spent at the vigil at Christ Church St Laurence: bells and smells and more frocks than David Jones, as they say, not to mention one of the best choirs in the country). But without faith the whole thing would be empty and meaningless and completely without power.

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia. Alleluia.

Coaching

Yesterday's letterbox junk included a flyer from an academic coaching college – the kind of place that specialises not so much in remedial tuition as in helping kids pass selective high school and scholarship exams.

Among its claims to fame, the college says it placed 66 students in the 2007 Year 7 intake for the best selective high school in the state. Now, given that this school offers only 120 places in Year 7 and assuming that there are other coaching and tuition colleges around the city that are also successfully preparing students for selective high school entrance tests, it does rather look as if a significant majority of the current cohort has been coached. (Whether or not these students *needed* the coaching in order to gain their places is too speculative a question.)

Flashback 25 years: some of the kids entering Year 7 at this school had been in "opportunity classes" in Year 6 – a kind of accelerated or advanced program that allowed bright kids to tackle more challenging work – but very few, if any, had had any kind of formal coaching for the entrance tests themselves. It was more a case of blithely rocking up to the examination centre on the day, doing the tests, and thinking no more of it until the results came in.

Let's say I'm bothered by the shift. There's a difference between extending an academically gifted child through more challenging or advanced study and coaching them to blitz a very particular set of tests. One stimulates intellectual development and joy of learning as well as allowing students to progress at a faster rate than they might otherwise in normal classes; the other has a narrow focus which is entirely to do with "getting in" (and then what?).

My concerns aren't allayed in the slightest when I read forum and facebook discussion comments from recent alumni and current students and see disturbing references to "Factory/Academic Centre of Excellence" and "UAI factory". It's odd, because on the face of it the school still has what looks like a thriving extra-curricular program (all the music, theatre, debating, sports, cadets, Duke of Edinburgh, and other programs of yore) – so students must be doing more than churning out the marks – but it does seem as if the attitude and values have shifted.

Perhaps it comes from the school, but given its relatively stable teacher population I'm not convinced by that argument. Perhaps it comes from the students and their perceptions of what's expected of them after high school.

Or perhaps it comes from the parents. After all, it's a parent who sends a 10 or 11-year-old to a coaching college...

Footnotes:
And then there is the inevitable: a few years back another large coaching college was alleged to have stolen past papers, thereby giving their students an unfair advantage on tests that are ultimately meant to test natural ability.

Moving from parliament to the media later that month, an article that mentions that the tests be given a written component. I found that interesting because there had been a written component in the past, so clearly at some point the creative writing and similar writing questions had been removed.

These are old links, but reports and comments elsewhere suggest very little change. One kiddie last month wrote: "i ama kid and i hate selctive high schools because they put so much pressure on us to get in. parents send kids to coaching3 days a week." Sad.