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Tuesday 27 February 2018

Peter Donohoe plays Shostakovich:
Themes and variations

13 March 2018: Stratford ArtsHouse
14 March 2018: Town Hall, Birmingham

  • Sergei Prokofiev – Symphony no1 ‘Classical’ in D major, op25
  • Dmitri Shostakovich – Piano Concerto no2 in F major, op102
  • Franz Schubert – Symphony no3 in D major, D200

In the visual arts, according to the Tate, “Neoclassicism was a particularly pure form of classicism that emerged from about 1750”; whilst the original ‘classicism’ was that which “made reference to ancient Greek or Roman style”. Confusingly, though, ‘classical’ music (see The Oxford Dictionary of Music, for example) is generally labelled as materializing around the same time (1750) – following the Baroque, and preceding the Romantic; “covering the development of the symphony and concerto” – with ‘neoclassical’ music then being produced between 1920 and 1950.

Settling on such precise dates is, of course, prone to spark dispute; and I, for one, would claim that Grieg’s spectacular Holberg Suite – from 1884; and performed by OOTS in November’s concert – is definitely neoclassical: although not yet, as such an outlier, part of any definite trend. Today’s first work – formally christened by its composer as ‘Classical’ – was also produced outside those dates (during 1916-1917): and yet surely sets the standard for all that followed. (Unlike Stravinsky, though, who would return to earlier melodies and musical models frequently throughout his life, Prokofiev described this symphony’s composition as merely a “passing phase”!)

Whilst we all know, albeit vaguely, what classical music sounds like (and therefore, by extrapolation, its neoclassical offspring, as well); and recognize it when we hear it; it is harder to say exactly what it is. As with last month’s programme, I shall resort to quoting Michael Kennedy – as his pithy summary is surely as good as it gets!

Music of an orderly nature, with qualities of clarity and balance, and emphasizing formal beauty rather than emotional expression (which is not to say that emotion is lacking); music generally regarded as having permanent rather than ephemeral value.

Fortunately for us, ending as it does with Schubert’s Third Symphony, this concert provides us with the opportunity to compare structurally similar works from both the classical and neoclassical eras, and therefore draw our own conclusions. That these astonishing compositions are both in the same brilliant key of D major may also be to our advantage (although neither one remains in that key for very long). How we categorize Shostakovich’s exuberant concerto, which separates them, I do not know. It is so startlingly original – and so unlike most of his previous, Stalin-shadowed output – that it probably belongs in a class all of its own!

Monday 26 February 2018

Jennifer Pike plays Tchaikovsky:
Themes and variations

12 March 2018: Forum Theatre, Malvern Theatres

  • Sergei Prokofiev – Symphony no1 ‘Classical’ in D major, op25
  • Franz Schubert – Symphony no3 in D major, D200
  • Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Violin Concerto in D major, op35

Tonight’s concert begins and ends with bright, golden fireworks… – or yellow ones, at least: Russian composers Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) and Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) both agreeing (for once) that this was the characteristic colour, for them, of the key of D major. In his influential work of 1785, Ideas Towards an Aesthetic of Music, Christian Schubart (1739-1791) – summarizing the thoughts of many earlier musicians – described it as “The key of triumph, of Hallelujahs, of war-cries, of victory”; adding that “Thus, the inviting symphonies, the marches, holiday songs and heaven-rejoicing choruses are set in this key”. We are therefore in for an enjoyable evening of what philosopher (and composer) Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) called “gaiety or brilliance”: as not only do our wonderful first and last works start and finish in this flaxen key, but so does our enthralling central one!

Not that this means we are in for an evening of invariability: if anything, the music programmed tonight demonstrates just how spectacularly disparate orchestral ‘classical’ music can be. For example: a comparison of the two “inviting symphonies”, both fashioned to long-standing formal rules – particularly as regards structure – reveals many more differences than similarities. They both just happen to open and close with the same chord. (Although it then takes Prokofiev a mere eleven bars to change key completely: to the “innocent, simple, naïve” C major!) After all, the key which each revolves around, is only a starting-point: all it does is unlock the musical doorway through which we, and the players, ‘visit’ each composition.

As for Tchaikovsky’s miraculous work: the key of D major is a favourite one for violin concertos – think of Mozart’s second and fourth; of Beethoven’s, and of Brahms (also written in 1878); and even of Prokofiev’s first… – as the instrument’s open strings are particularly resonant in this key. (As, of course, are the orchestra’s! Indeed, the last chord we will hear tonight uses this characteristic to full effect: as the strings triple- or quadruple-stop – that is, play three, or all four strings, simultaneously – and, in this case, fortissimo…!)

You might think from the descriptors above that an evening packed full of what scholar Albert Lavignac (1846-1916) dubbed “joyful, brilliant, alert” D major might be too much of a good thing. I don’t believe it is; and I hope, at the end of the evening, as you call Jennifer back to the stage once more, that you won’t either!

Tuesday 6 February 2018

Roderick Williams and English Song:
Themes and variations

13 February 2018: Stratford ArtsHouse
14 February 2018: Town Hall, Birmingham
6 April 2018: Worcester Cathedral

  • Ralph Vaughan Williams – Five Variants of ‘Dives and Lazarus’
  • Ralph Vaughan Williams – Five Mystical Songs
  • Gerald Finzi – Let Us Garlands Bring, op18
  • Gerald Finzi – Romance for String Orchestra, op11
  • John Ireland – A Downland Suite

Ralph Vaughan Williams first encountered the folk-song Dives and Lazarus in 1893, when he was twenty-one; and he later said that “I had the sense of recognition – here’s something which I have known all my life, only I didn’t know it!” Michael Kennedy characterized the tune as emanating “from the soil of England”; and one of the end results (RVW was quite addicted to using it), which opens today’s concert, sounds (nearly) as natural as the composer breathing.

But why does this music feel ‘English’? What makes it so? Is it just that we have become accustomed to its ‘shape’, its style; or is there truly an identifiable vernacular? (In other words: would we sense, somehow, that this concert’s musical origins were all so ‘local’, if we had not seen the programme and its title; nor heard these composers before?)

John Ireland – whose A Downland Suite completes the programme – said that “folk-song influenced Vaughan Williams, but I have been more influenced by plainsong”: despite Charles Stanford (one of the originators, with Parry, of the broad style which so influenced the young Elgar) accusing him of sounding “all Brahms and water”! And yet both composers – as well as sharing Stanford as a teacher (although RVW went on to study with Ravel) – share a certain audible je ne sais quoi – or at least my (admittedly capacious) taste easily encompasses both (as well as Holst, Finzi, and Walton; Britten, Tippett, and Maxwell Davies). They also move me in a way that is at odds with the emotions provoked by, say, Mozart, or Messiaen; they speak to a different part of my heart (although I must emphasize that there is no room in there for nationalism of any political piquancy).

I wonder, were I not born of “this sceptred isle”, if they would still affect me like this. Elgar said (to Ireland), referencing The Dream of Gerontius and Richard Strauss, that “No-one in this country took any notice of my music until a German told them it was good”. In other words: I really do not have answers (certainly not simple ones) to the questions I posed above; I simply do not know! But maybe you will come to a different conclusion: once impressed by five outstanding examples of twentieth-century English music.