Thomasina’s last waltz

Ambition

Other little girls wanted to be ballerinas (this I understood) and nurses (this I didn’t). My first serious ambition was to be a pirate.

This was thanks to Robert Louis Stevenson and my dad, who read Treasure Island to me on Saturday afternoons while sitting on the stoop of his workshop, with the result that tales of the high seas and buried treasure will always be accompanied for me by the faint aroma of sawdust. (Oh, and thanks also to whoever wrote that very detailed and fabulously illustrated history of piracy, which I devoured as a child.)

Then I was taken to a Navy open day. Now I knew: I wanted to be a submarine captain. The romance of being able to sail undetected beneath the waves clearly outweighed the discomforts and cramped conditions. The grownups thought it very amusing to remind me that I wanted to be a pirate; I informed them I would be a pirate in a submarine. 

And so it remained until later, having read rather more Biggles books than is good for anyone, I decided that I wanted to be a pilot. [Insert Pirates of Penzance quip of choice here.]

[The tall ship above is a replica of Captain Cook’s vessel, the Endeavour. Both photos taken at the Australian National Maritime Museum.]

Busman's holiday

Eight horns a-standing… four trumpets blazing… two timps a-thumping… and a bass solo in a minor key!

Everyone, it seems, was in Perth for Mahler 1 last week. Well, not everyone, but several Sydneysiders to differing degrees of my surprise. Two of us were on a busman’s holiday: one of the SSO horns was augmenting the WASO’s regular forces, making, according to one of them, a “Titan” horn section; I was out in the foyer explaining, among other things, how Mahler had rejected the “Titan” nickname for his First Symphony.

I love visiting Perth. The hall might look severe and unappealing from the outside, but the acoustics are so good that I wish I could bring them home in my suitcase. There is much to be said for a shoebox with masonry walls and a capacity under 2000.

The Perth Concert Hall has another advantage, rivalled only by the Sydney Opera House, and that is an ideal location for pre-concert talks. Where some venues – even quite new ones that should have known better – choose or are obliged to tuck their talks away in rooms, Perth and the Opera House have open spaces in their foyers that are large enough for the couple of hundred who attend and which also allow for the casual listener to “stumble” on a talk and so catch something of it by chance.

I won’t go on about it. I’ve already said my piece in response to another busman’s holiday earlier in the year, where I found a talk for a major concert presenter relegated to this tiny space:

Back to the concerts… Ruth Killius was performing the Bartók Viola Concerto, as she will in Sydney this week. She uses the Serly completion but enjoys the best of both worlds by lifting an idea from the more recent version by Bartók’s son Peter and Nelson Dellamaggiore. The newer version follows one of Bartók’s orchestration instructions that Tibor Serly seems to have either missed or misunderstood. It’s a nice touch: with timpani in conversation with the soloist at the very beginning, instead of Serly’s pizzicato cellos and double bass.

The matter of Mahler removing the charming Blumine movement from his First Symphony was solved by presenting it as a prelude to the concert. It’s an effective programming strategy, even if just about everybody’s doing it nowadays. Meanwhile, the uncanny parallel between the Blumine trumpet tune and the beginning of the big tune from the finale of Brahms 1 goes some way to explaining why Mahler didn’t even want this movement published.

I should admit that I’ve not been especially looking forward to the prospect of two years of Mahler on home territory. I like my Mahler in very occasional doses – since it’s impossible to have him in small doses. So preparing this talk for the WASO did me good by reminding me how astonishing the music can be. In particular, the opening of the symphony is absolute magic. It’s the kind of writing that puts the listener on the conductor’s podium; it’s like hearing a slow-motion replay in which all the precious details of the musical thinking are crystal clear. They say Mahler is a conductor’s composer; it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

This year’s visit was shorter than usual, so I didn’t get a chance to see the Perth Theatre Company production of Equus, a play that I studied in high school but have yet to see. Even more of a pity, since the reports are that this production is extremely good. But I was able to catch The Soloist, a sobering movie which, thankfully, didn’t turn on the Hollywood Happy Ending, although its (limited) depiction of professional musicians left me frowning and cringing in turn. 

Anyhow, the busman’s part of the holiday is over and I’m back, attending to that chicken elbow.

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.

Chicken Elbow

I don’t know what you call it, but I call it “chicken elbow” – the roughened scaliness that crops up on the elbow of your non-dominant arm when you’ve been spending too much time sitting at a desk with books and proofs. (I don’t think you acquire it from leaning on the arms of seats in concert halls; if that’s a culprit it’s a lesser one.)

Anyway, I have it. And the source of my chicken elbow is also the reason I posted only twice last month and just six times the month before. Too much work and not enough play makes Thomasina a dull blogger, but she’s going to work harder at playing and see what comes of it.

Meanwhile, a dash through the past 36 days.

I had the pleasure of interviewing some of the participants in a concert being given by another orchestra, one an old colleague from Cleveland and the other a visiting director. The visiting director, in particular, was an absolute joy to talk to. He has a wonderful way of putting musical matters into words and of characterising sound. There was too much to use, but some of the results turn up in a program book and in a short audio feature that you can find here. 

Yet another orchestra needed program notes for a “Night in Vienna” style concert. I love and thoroughly approve of these sorts of concerts, believing Johann Strauss II to be, in many ways, the superior article to Richard. (What’s the saying? “If Strauss then Johann, if Richard then Wagner.” Must have driven the composer of Der Rosenkavalier wild to hear that bandied about.) Except this particular concert kept changing. I finished the essay only to discover that some Mozart had crept into the program when I wasn’t looking and bits of Kalman had sidled out. Nothing for it but to cook up a new lead and write a new essay… I will add, for those who might find themselves writing on a similar theme, that the Marco Polo recordings of the complete works of the “right” Strauss are a mighty useful resource. The performances are ordinary, but the liner notes are extraordinarily thorough. Even I can’t imagine getting that nerdy over four-minute polkas, but one man’s obsession is this girl’s lifesaver, so I can’t complain.

There were concerts every week, sometimes more than one. The highlights were Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who brought Haydn fully alive as I’d expected him to and gave me the illusion that I really like Bruckner (also as expected). Actually, I don’t dislike Bruckner, but he falls into the same category as opera: I don’t want to hear his music on recordings, but I’m always game for a live performance. All the same, I came away confirmed in my view that Haydn is the more satisfying composer. The following week Yannick was back, again, to conduct Shostakovich’s first cello concerto and Saint-Saëns’ symphony-with-organ. By the way, I can assure the speculating reviewer [alas, I can no longer link to the piece, SMH having removed it] that Han-Na Chang’s sound easily projected to where I was sitting – rear circle, on account of the popularity of the program.

[On a side note, at least for now, bloggers planning to post reference links to my orchestra’s event pages from the past (where the past can include yesterday) should take a copy of the url before the concert takes place. The beautiful new website no longer allows you to navigate to past concerts in the way you might expect, although the past program books continue to live here.]

A tricky bit of scheduling saw me catch a reverse half show in the form of an Australia Ensemble concert, beginning with Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro. This is a favourite piece, despite the fact that as a student I turned the main flute tune into a kind of tone-colour exercise that I would play in every key down the chromatic scale. A year of this did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm, and may have even improved my tonal range.

My orchestra “launched” its season on 21 August, not with a small function for VIPs as it has in recent years, nor with an event for its audience as some other orchestras do, but with the release of thousands of orange-hued booklets into the wild and some press articles, which kindly paid attention to the highlights and didn’t chastise us for any neglectfulness. (Whether such kindliness is a good thing for the art form in the long run is a whole ’nother post. Not going there.) From my perspective the most distinctive thing about the 2010 brochure, which on the surface looks much like the 2009 brochure, was that we stopped trying to be all things to all people. By which I mean, forgive the marketing speak, it no longer had to be an “acquisitions” brochure for non-subscribers as well as a brochure for renewing subscribers and the most avid of our single-ticket buyers. So I had some fun describing concerts in ways that occasionally stepped outside the box or which took a wry sideways glance at the conventions of concert brochure copy. And it took me most of June and July, but generally I was successful in sidestepping the most unhelpful and boring of the clichés.

There was the week-from-hell in which two interlopers joined the regular program book schedule: elaborate designed-from-the-ground-up programs for Kiri Te Kanawa and Star Trek. Two more different productions playing on alternating evenings you cannot imagine, but at least some of my colleagues had fun dressing up for Star Trek. I liked the idea a lot, but not enough to buy a ticket. Perhaps the 20 minutes I’d had to spend on the phone with a typesetter, changing every reference to a Star Trek ship from USS to U.S.S. and ensuring that each ship’s name was also italicised put me off. (Official trademark requirement, apparently, and I thought I was pedantic.)

A challenging month was lightened by the presence of the 2009 AYO Music Presentation Fellow, who was spending four weeks discovering first-hand how words and music and orchestras interact as well as how program books make it into print. This particular training program is very close to my heart, since it was the inaugural fellowship, back in 1995, that gave me an all-important foot in the door to orchestras, concert programming and the whole words about music thing. Back then AYO (or Youth Music Australia as it was) had money to burn: my fellowship lasted three months and took me to three cities and various parts of the ABC and several orchestras. Nowadays, four to six weeks is the norm, but it’s still a hugely valuable program as well as an important avenue for talent-spotting. Sadly, too many of the young talents seem more interested in burrowing further into academia than in getting their hands dirty with real music-making, the putting on of concerts and writing for real people. The most pragmatic advice I was ever given – once, in Wales, when I let slip that I was toying with the idea of postgraduate research – was this: “That’s all very well, but an orchestra needs you to know which Sibelius symphonies go down well with audiences and why, and how many harps and timpani are needed for the Symphonie fantastique.” (At that stage I was up on the instrumentation for Berlioz but had been avoiding Sibelius.)

The end of the month saw a fascinating program marred by a confusion somewhere along the line (the paper trail suggests where) as to which Haydn sonata in A flat the pianist was going to play. The link in the previous sentence suggests one thing, but the reality was quite different. No sprightly minuet but a rather soulful slow movement and every sign – to anyone reading the newly written program note – that we’d been advised of the wrong piece. (It was in fact Landon 31, Hob.XVI:46.) Some noticed, but not as many as you’d hope for in an alert and observant audience. This was depressing but not all that surprising. It’s disturbing how easy it is to be reading one thing and listening to another while happily entertaining the most startling of disconnects. And I was reminded of this in more ways than one.

This month, CityMusic Cleveland presents the premiere of a piece for string quartet and chamber orchestra by Christos Hatzis, a Canadian composer, and my orchestra premieres its sole major commission for the year in the form of a horn concerto. Also this week, it sounds like there will be some very interesting things to see and hear in the SOH Concert Hall as the next stage of acoustic trials comes into play. More important, though, Thomasina has a spring holiday planned. And she will get rid of the chicken elbow.