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It will not have escaped the notice of those who occasionally visit this page that Jottings has not exactly been distinguished recently by the verve and up-to-date liveliness of content. More accurately, there hasn’t been any content. To be honest I became rather disillusioned that although Early Music World is in general well patronized by the standard of specialist sites, the ruminations, fulminations and polemics of Jottings were, well, just a little neglected. But I do now want address a topic that I believe to be of considerable importance in the world of early music and I hope that if you read what follows you will disseminate it widely. Few visitors to this site will need reminding that 2009 has seen the 250th anniversary of the death of Handel, an event widely commemorated in concerts and festivals throughout the world. As a critic, I have covered three festivals that have paid considerable attention to Handel’s music, including as they have a sum total of ten of his major large scale works in addition to smaller pieces. The experience has left the impression that much is in good shape when it comes to performance practice, in particular the overall sense of style invariably encountered today from both instrumentalists and an unusually fine current crop of singers. In stark contrast, it seems that a new vogue for playing fast and lose with the scores of Handel’s operas and oratorios is emerging, a reversion to the dark ages we thought firmly in the past. If the extensive cutting of complete arias is bad enough, a far worse trend is emerging - the excision of the central ‘B’ section and da capo repeats from arias. At the Beaune Baroque Opera Festival, where all three Handel operas given were extensively cut, the performance of Giulio Cesare, one of Handel’s greatest operas, in particular was left a bleeding, mutilated torso in the performance under Eduardo Lòpez Banzo, a conductor of quite overwhelming mediocrity whose establishment of a reputation outside his native Spain remains one of the great mysteries of our day. Then we come to William Christie, one of the performing gods of the early music
world. At the enchanting Ambronay Festival Christie gave a performance of Handel’s oratorio Susanna that managed
to reduce the work by about one third of its length, a digestible chunk achieved by the simple expedient of cutting a chorus,
two arias and shearing the ‘B’ section and da capo from no fewer than EIGHT arias. This disgraceful monstrosity
was dishonestly foisted on an unsuspecting public with not a word of apology or explanation. Christie’s Susanna
(it certainly wasn’t Handel’s) was also given in Vienna, Bilbao and London. To be honest, I do not know if
the same cuts were made in those performances, my efforts to establish what happened in London meeting with the stonewalling
of a ‘critic’ who after asking me to detail the arias from which cuts had been made (and obviously not expecting
me to be able to do so), had when I provided him with chapter and verse conveniently ‘forgotten’ whether the complete
arias were done or not! No other critique from London or elsewhere that I’ve seen made any
mention of cuts, simply parroting the usual threadbare platitudes about Christie and his forces. Now, I may be dramatically
wrong, but I find it extremely difficult to believe that Christie’s butchered Susannna was unique to Ambronay.
If it was the festival should demand a third of his fee back. But, no, given the fact that many of the so-called ‘critics’
who write on such events could not distinguish a da capo aria from a cow’s backside, I suspect gross dereliction
of critical duty to be far more likely. And do you know what, dear reader? It is these ignorant, fawning ‘critics’
who allow the Christies and Harnoncourts of this world to go about desecrating great works of art without comment, without
challenge, without accountability. - 8 December 2009
The Demise of Goldberg Early Music Magazine
Early Music Review on a
London performance. To describe the young Swiss recorder player Maurice Steger as a shooting star on the European recorder scene is plainly justifiable. His virtuosic playing at breathtaking tempi leaves audiences bowled over, not only in his own home country… His technical mastery quickly earned him the label of the virtuoso artist, the “Paganini of the recorder” – a performer who has his audience spellbound through dazzling speed and immaculate technique. A recent concert with the English Concert under Laurence Cummings made it quite clear that Steger is unquestionably an artist operating to the furthest boundaries of what is technically and tonally possible on the recorder. But it is not only the tour-de-force of exuberant virtuosity that makes his appearances such a riveting experience, but also the approach he takes to interpretation, overcoming the limits of notation and seeking out interaction. In Steger’s case virtuosity means not simply technical execution of the musical material at dizzying speed, but tone painting, musical expression and playful effortlessness – even at extreme tempi. Steger chose as his central work for this programme Telemann’s Overture in A minor for recorder, strings and continuo. According to Steger, Telemann’s works are also among the most difficult to perform since played poorly they very soon come across as tedious. But Steger was able to cancel out this image with his very first note. The extraordinary fluency with which he rendered highly virtuosic dance movements, his differentiated accentuation - sometimes beyond the norm - of individual ideas, and the teasing communicative interaction with his instrumental partners in the English Concert brought out both Telemann’s compositional skill and the work’s musicological significance.
Goldberg
Early Music Magazine on the same programme given in Germany.
Among the many shortcomings of early music reviewing, the intentional or implied criticism of historical accuracy is surely one of the more insidious. This appears to me a form of inverted snobbery, grounded in an anxiety to avoid the dreadful label 'purist' and remain safely mainstream. Two examples from the current edition of Gramophone are striking. In a review of the recent Dunedin Consort and Players St Matthew Passion we read: 'Bach's "novel in sound" [whatever that may mean] is presented by a small inter-related ensemble without the need for tiresome dogmatic mantras on historical rectitude'. Leaving aside the question of how a performance can itself convey 'dogmatic mantras on historical rectitude', one notes here the use of the keywords 'tiresome' and 'dogmatic', which serve the purpose of telling us the writer has no time for 'historical recitude', a lazy expression in itself, and that he shares common ground with all you 'ordinary folk' out there. In the same edition we are told that a performance of Domenico Scarlatti's magnificent stile antico Stabat mater follows current 'purist theory' by performing the work one-voice-per-part. Why on earth should this be considered 'purist [a word invariably used in a pejorative sense today] theory'? The work is scored in ten vocal parts (plus continuo), making it almost certain that it was intended for single voices, like so much of what we have come to think of as 'choral' music. Here again, if only by implication, we find almost certain historical truth treated as arcane and esoteric, fit only for dry pedants (for which read 'purists'). Yet the perceptive listener comparing a full choral version of Scarlatti's work with, say, Rinaldo Alessandrini's will surely realise that the work's inherent madrigalian qualities and beauty of sonority are realised by single voices in a way not possible with larger forces. - 24 March 2008 Now we are successfully installed in our new home in the south of Burgundy, it is my intention to resume 'normal service'. - 24 March 2008 My apologies for the lack of activity on the site of late. There are two good reasons: firstly our longer than customary trip to England over the Christmas period, and secondly our search for a new house following the sale of our present home. That search has now reached a successful outcome and we will be moving on 29 February, not so far from where we presently live in Burgundy. Inevitably, I fear, this will lead to further neglect of the site for a while, but the record review page has (at last) been updated today. This month (February) sees the 10th
anniversary and 50th issue of Goldberg Early Music Magazine, not bad for a beautifully produced
magazine that some predicted could not survive. Having been involved right from the planning of the first issue, I feel entitled
to a little pride, although would never claim that Goldberg has yet reached perfection. But it is an ornament in the world
of early music and as such deserving of the attention of anyone interested enough to be reading this page. If you do go to
look at the website, please don't be put off - the magazine itself is much better. - 6 February 2008 Given that this site has an abiding distaste for political correctness in any shape or form, you will get no 'happy mid-winter holiday' greeting here. But I would like to wish anyone who happens across this page during this season a very happy Christmas and a prosperous, healthy and peaceful New Year. - 17 December 2007 Further thoughts on playing Baroque keyboard music on the modern piano. I've just finished reading Peter Walls' History, Imagination and the Performance of Music (Boydell, 2003). It includes an exceptionally valuable chapter on transcription, a category into which Walls clearly places the playing of Bach (or Scarlatti, or Couperin) on the modern piano. More interestingly, the author skirts around the ethics of such a practice, at least implying that performers have a duty to make it clear that what they are doing is transcribing the music from one instrument to another - in this case another that was not in existence when the music was composed - not offering their audience an historically legitimate alternative. I would go further and suggest that a performer who does not do so is in fact quite deliberately misleading his or her public (deliberately because the performer is well aware that the music was not composed for the instrument of his choice). The ethical question here, it seems to me, is little different than that faced by the trader who is legally required to ensure his goods are correctly labelled. It goes without saying that critics also have a clear responsibility to the less well informed music lover. It is a responsibility that is all too often ducked or ignored. - 27 November
2007 The latest issue of Goldberg carries an interview with pianist Angela Hewitt, who is of course extremely popular for her playing of Bach
(and more recently Couperin) on a modern concert grand. As a member of the Advisory Board of Goldberg, I have made it
clear that I do not believe that a player who transcribes Bach's keyboard music to an instrument that was not invented
in Bach's day has any place in a specialist early music magazine like Goldberg, which should devote itself to
historically informed performance (HIP). I have also had an exchange with a colleague at the magazine, who disagrees wirh
me. Now, let me make it quite clear. I have absolutely no problem with Ms. Hewitt transcribing Bach's keyboard works
onto the piano or indeed any other instrument if there is an audience to hear her do so, which there most certainly is. But
please let us not delude ourselves that this is any more a viable alternative to playing the music on the instruments
for which it was intended than would be the case if Gustav Leonhardt took to playing Debussy's Preludes on the
harpsichord, a development that would doubtless be considered ludicrous in the extreme. (In a sense it could
be considered more historically justified, since the harpsichord was at least around in Debussy's day). I'd be interested
to hear the views of visitors to this page on this topic. I'll print the best of them here as part of the debate. But
please, no "if Bach had known the modern piano he would used it". - 31 October 2007 To my mind one of the eternal mysteries of the early music world is why normally sane and historically informed conductors seem to lose their senses the moment they enter the opera house. To an already depressingly long list can be added Lars Ulrik Mortensen, the director of Concerto Copenhagen. As I know from a recent interview with him, Mortensen is not only a thoroughly engaging man, but one with lively and strong views on HIP. So how did he come to be involved with the unbelievably trite production of Handel's Giulio Cesare obviously mounted as a vehicle for Andreas Scholl and recently released on DVD by harmonia mundi? Almost needless to say, the staging is updated. Thus Scholl's distinctly unheroic Caesar is dressed in battle fatigues, while his Cleopatra moves from superannuated bimbo in act 1 through Hollywoood siren in the second to bald (yes, really) leatherclad freedom fighter in the last act. Miraculously, she manages to grow her hair again for the lieto fine. Her brother Ptolemy, a dangerous psychopath, is played throughout for pantomime laughs. If director Francisco Negrin and designer Anthony Baker ever read the stage instructions or indeed gave even five minutes thought to the opera, they give no indication of having done so. Any suggestion of the grandeur, nobility, seductiveness, elegance and wit (in the true tense) that inform one of Handel's greatest operas will be sought in vain in this tedious, crass film. My advice is avoid it at all cost. - 25 October 2007 I have recently been reading Bruce Haynes' The End of Early Music: A Period Performer's History of Music for the Twenty-First Century. The main part of the title is not as apocalyptic as it might appear, since it concerns terminology rather than predicating some kind of demise. Indeed, my biggest quarrel with the book would be the title, since this is a book of major importance that should be read by anyone with even the remotest interest in 'early music', not just performers. Haynes' brief here is to distinguish between the performing styles of Romaticism, modernism and what the author terms 'rhetorical' music (i.e. mainly Baroque music). Immensely stimulating, full of a mixture of sound common sense and controversial views, the book is arguably the most important to have appeared on the topic for many years. As Clifford Bartlett wrote in Early Music Review (No. 121) having read it 'you will never think about early music as you did before'. I'm not scheduled to review it at present, but hope (time permitting) to return to a discussion of The End of Early Music in greater detail on the Viewpoint page of this site. - 22 October 2007 Avid readers of 'Jottings' (if such exist) may have been struck by the absence of new entries on the page in recent weeks. I could of course blame the distractions of summer - or what has passed for summer in northern Europe this year - with visitors and so forth. But truth to tell lack of inspiration has also played its part. But fear not. Normal service will be resumed. And look out for a major new essay to be posted on the site shortly. - 3 September 2007.
This
page is rarely in the business of promoting individual recordings, but I'm making an exception in the case
of a truly remarkable CD of Mozart piano music played by the fortepianist Marcia Hadjimarkos. In honesty, I have to declare
a vested interest in the disc, in that I not only count the performer a friend but also wrote the booklet notes.
For that reason I will not of course be reviewing it. The disc, available on Avie AV 2138, includes the sonatas in C minor,
K457; in C, K545; and in B flat, K333, along with the Rondos in F, K494; in D, K485; and A minor, K511 played on
a copy of a Sebastian Lengerer instrument of 1793. The playing thoughout is notable for a poetic insight and sensitivity rarely
encountered, making this a very special recording that should be heard by everyone who loves Mozart. - 27 July 2007 It comes as little surprise that the previous posting on this page has aroused a certain amount of, shall we say, comment. Indeed, it has even been suggested that the page be renamed "Rantings". Well, there's nothing wrong with a little rant every now and then; it can do us all good. And just to prove the point, here's another. Once upon a time, as many will doubtless recall, BBC Radio 3 used to a air a superb early music programme called 'Spirit of the Age'. Informed, lively and intelligent, the weekly edition was unmissable for all real early music enthusiasts. Then, it its infinite wisdom, the BBC decided that it was far too upmarket and replaced it with something called 'The Early Music Show', which rapidly established itself as a successor that bore about as much relationship to its forebear as a 1960s slum tenement does to Blenheim Palace. In common with many listeners, I long ago gave up listening to it, although have to confess to having a very small role in an edition that successfully managed to travesty my work on catch and glee culture in 18th century England. It therefore hardly came as a revelation to learn that the edition last weekend managed to throw in a refererence to 'those two cool dudes, the Lawes brothers', thus reducing two of England's major 17th century composers to the level of a pair of stand-up comics. You have been warned. Avoid this horrible aberration at all costs! Here endeth today's rant. - 16 July 2007 Britain, once renowned as a haven of freedom and tolerance, creeps ever closer to becoming a police state. The most recent assault on civil liberty is the total ban on smoking in public places, which took effect on 1 July. There was a time when pubs and clubs would have been allowed to make a choice, thus providing alternative environments for those who wish to smoke and those who object to smoking. No longer. This triumph of the health fascists is the culmination of many years of campaigning aided and abetted by a mendacious media in general and the BBC in particular. And let us not think this will be the end of such dictatorship. It has been reported that some local councils are minded to spread the ban to open spaces, such as parks. It can only be a matter of time before gangs of anti-smoking vigilantes are roaming the streets searching for illicit smokers lighting up. And how much longer after that will it be before the police are given powers of entry into the homes of suspected smokers? And all this on the basis of spurious statistics relating to so-called ‘secondary smoking’, statistics plucked from the air at random without the slightest regard for veracity. ‘The worst enemy of truth
and freedom in our society is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal majority’ – Ibsen.
Everyone connected with the early music world will surely rejoice in the news that Emma Kirkby has
been made a Dame in the Queen's Birthday Honours List, announced today. For those unfamiliar with British honours, Dame
is, with the exception of a peerage, the highest honour that can be granted a woman, the equivalent of a Knighthood. It is
a difficult to think of a more richly deserved accolade. For more years than she (and many among her admirers) will
care to remember, she has enchanted and beguiled with that purity ot tone and near-flawless technique that justifiably earned
her the epithet 'queen of early music'. A reminder that she is still singing as well as ever comes with her most recent
BIS CD (BIS-SACD-1505) "Musique and Sweet Poetrie", a collection of 17th century songs from around Europe, on which
she is accompanied by the outstanding lutenist Jakob Lindberg. Not the least of Emma's charms is a disposition that is
totally lacking any side or diva-ish (or indeed dame-like) behaviour. I had a vivid illustration of this a couple of
years of ago at the Souvigny Festival, an appearance I had in part facilitated. At the second of her two outstanding
concerts, I had rather thoughtlessly stood chatting with her during the interval when she very gently reminded
me that she should be thinking about her voice for the second half of the concert. And what was it she was about to go on
the platform and sing? Nothing less than the Mozart Exsultate Jubilate. Readers may like to know that Emma
now has her own website: www.emmakirkby.com - 16 June 2007 This week saw the end of my 13-year career as a reviewer
for Fanfare, in many ways a sad landmark. During the course of a warm - in the best sense! - exchange of valedictory
e-mails with editor Joel Flegler, he told me how disappointed he had been with the response he had received when several years
ago he actively (and with my full support) attempted to promote early music in the journal. It was less of a surprise to me.
Despite an extraordinary poll undertaken by Early Music America a couple of years ago suggesting a huge audience
for early music in the States, attitudes there remain highly ambivalent. Some Fanfare reviewers indeed still write
of historical performance practice as if it were some outlandish world inhabited only by freaks, a viewpoint that largely
went out of fashion in Europe nearly two decades ago. With the exception of a few pockets, early music in America
seems to struggle as a Cinderella in a way that would astonish, for example, the French. - 26 May 2007 As étrangers living in the country, the
recent French elections proved to be of considerable interest to us. Speaking to French friends during the campaign, we found near
unanimous agreement on the predicament in which they found themselves as to deciding how they should cast their
vote. Yet when it came to it, some 85% of electors registered a vote in both rounds, an extraordinary figure that one could
never imagine being repeated in Britain this side of the Day of Judgement. That the final round was contested between
the son of a Hungarian immigrant and a woman is further evidence of the strength of the democracy in France. What
an enigmatic nation this is - at times admirable, at times infuriating. How it will react to the promised reforms of Nicolas Sarkozy remains to be seen. Further interesting times lie
ahead. - 10 May 2007 Andrew Parrott's symposium mentioned below proved to be a highly successful event. Some 75 musicians, scholars and lesser lights (like critics) gathered in an unseasonably hot Oxford at the historic Holywell Music Room. The event was presided over with great good humour and no little wit by Andrew, who himself contributed a paper on 'The Rights of Dead Composers'. Notwithstanding the refreshingly informal atmosphere, much of serious value was contributed to the afternoon, including several fairly controversial talks. Most speakers unsurprisingly managed to exceed their time limit, creating a fair amount of pressure on Andrew to get through the business before turning to the pleasure of a drinks reception and a dinner. One of the most remarkable aspects of the whole event was the obvious esteem and indeed affection with which Andrew Parrott is so obviously held in the music profession. I talked to two members of the amateur Reading Symphony Orchestra, who could not praise enough the way in which he encourages and inspires amateur performers. Many happy returns, Andrew. And may there be many more birthdays to celebrate. - 25 April 2007 No brilliant thoughts or observations for Easter, I'm afraid. In fact a heavy cold has left me feeling distinctly lacking in any kind of brilliance or intelligence, halting work on an article on the great madrigal composer Luca Marenzio. All being well, we are headed for the UK later this week, where I will be participating in a informal symposium Andrew Parrott has convened as part of his 60th birthday celebrations. One of the pioneers of the early music movement in Britain, Parrott's work has always been informed by a combination of rigorous scholarship and excellent, un-showy musicianship, qualities not to be gainsaid in the far more anarchic mood of today. If you haven't already done so, his interview is well worth reading. The symposium promises to be a lively, controversial affair that I'll report back on after we return. - 9 April 2007 To a Siberia-like Paris this week, drawn by Handel's Ariodante at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. On musical grounds, the production conducted by Christophe Rousset is strong, with particularly fine performances from Angelika Kirchschlager (Ariodante) and Danielle De Niesse (Ginevra) heading a cast that has no real weakness. Visually things are less happy. The minimalist sets - moveable plain white walls with just a suggestion of a castle - while not exactly attractive at least have the advantage of not being distracting. The production by Lukas Hemleb is guilty of many of the clichéd solecisms that it seems no Baroque opera production (or any opera production, for that matter) can do without today, but again one can be grateful that Hemleb was at least prepared to let the music make its point undisturbed by superfluous 'business' in most of the major arias. The choreography (gymnastic display would be a more suitable description) is however a total disaster, performed by dancers wearing bodystockings, at least one of whom should be banned from going anywhere near such garb. Andrew George's treatment of the ballets Handel wrote for Marie Sallé and company works in total opposition to the music itself, a sad example of the lack of understanding (or arrogance) such people bring to the staging of opera. Rousset himself remains something of an enigma when it comes to opera staging, a man sufficient of a purist to refuse to conduct Gluck because he was offered a modern instrument orchestra, yet who at the same time has presided over some wretchedly anachronistic modern productions. - 24 March 2007 For more than thirteen years I have been privileged to write for the US reviewing magazine Fanfare.
By mutual and amicable agreement this era will come to an end on 1 June this year. The great achievement of editor and owner
Joel Flegler has been a refusal to 'dumb down' in an era that has witnessed a considerable retraction in the
serious treatment of Classical music. His willingness to let his contributors express themselves without a heavy editorial
hand is only to be applauded and over the years he has attracted many fine writers. That standards are at present not
at their highest is a reflection of prevailing trends, not a change in Joel's policy. I wish Fanfare every success
in the future. Meanwhile, watch this space for future personal developments. - 12 March, 2007 I have to confess to not being much of a fan of the modern novel, although I suppose strictly speaking
Irène Némirovsky's Suite Française does not fit into that category, having been written
in 1941/2. Némirovsky was a Russian Jew, forced to flee with her wealthy banking family by the Russian Revolution.
Eventually she settled in Paris, where during the 1930s she became a highly regarded novelist. Shortly after the
outbreak of World War 2, she moved with her husband and two daughters to the "safety" of a small
Burgundian village (not far from where I presently live). There she started work on Suite Française,
originally planned as a four- or five-part novel concerned with French collaboration. When she was arrested in 1942,
Némirovsky had written only the first two parts. She died two weeks after being sent to Auschwitz. Suite
Française lay unknown until discovered by accident among her mother's papers by one of Némirovsky's
daughters. It was subsequently published in France to critical acclaim and later translated. Full of bitter irony, yet also great compassion, the two completed sections
of Suite Française form one of the most remarkable, and at the same time one of the most beautiful
books I have read. I would urgently recommend anyone who has not read it to place it urgently on his or her reading
list. It is now available in paperback. I finished it a week ago and remain haunted by it. - 31 January 2007 Anyone seeking even temporary respite from the crass vulgarity of the modern world (see immediately below) should turn to John Eliot Gardiner and his Monteverdi Choir's CD 'Pilgrimage to Santiago' (Soli Deo Gloria SDG 701). In 2004, the fortieth anniversary of this marvellous choir, Gardiner and its members made the famous pilgrimage, giving performances en route at churches in France and Spain. Some of the music they performed was recorded after they arrived back in London. The result, which includes music by Victoria, Palestrina, Dufay, Lassus, and Morales among others, is one of those exceedingly rare examples of a CD that in some inexplicable way transcends being simply a recording to become a thing of spiritual value, a refreshment for the soul. - 22
January 2007. Nothing, but nothing better illustrates the vacuous, superficial nature of the collective British psyche than this weeks 'racism' row on Celebrity Big Brother. Who or what Jade Goody is I have no idea, and judging from the clips of it's exhibition have absolutely no desire to know, but what on earth is an apparently highly-regarded Bollywood actress even doing appearing on this sordid show? Even worse is the hugely overblown media interest in this dismal episode, while even politicians have felt the necessity to add their empty contribution for fear of not being in step with the 'public interest'. And the major winners? Why, cynical Channel 4, of course, who have seen a failing show suddenly catapulted back to success. Who knows, perhaps they manufactured the whole thing? - 20 January 2007 More hypocrisy. While the bleeding-heart liberals of the world go about wringing their hands over the maladroitly-handled execution of a murderous tyrant, Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe quietly goes about the quasi-genocide of his own people without comment and largely unreported. - 12 January 2007 |