Janacek's Sinfonietta

WARNING: If you are a not a conductor, musicologist, editor or a Janacek devotee, you may want to stop here. --- ec

I have long felt it ill-advised for conductors to touch up scores, with the intent of 'improving' them. Great scores are best left alone. This is a tenet of the conducting profession. My studies were with teachers who were adamant about defending the integrity of composer and score, and I am passing on that same tenet to my conducting students at The Hartt School. We steer away from this line at our own peril.

Then I programmed Janacek's Sinfonietta, and that core belief was shaken. Hubris, or some misplaced desire to improve the score, were not the drivers here; rather, it was one of necessity.

In the edition I ordered from Universal, edited by Fuessl, the orchestra parts were unplayable, largely due to a plethora of repeats that are confusing and unreadable. Observing my intelligent players appear blurry-eyed in rehearsal, making (and repeating) uncharacteristic mistakes, I had no choice but to do everything in my power to help them. And so, with the initial intention of simply writing out repeated passages (many of which crossed over natural phrase points), I copied out every note of the score, using only the parts that my newly-generated score would produce. But then there were othere problems, beginning with the trumpets.

Sinfonietta was once titled "Military Sinfonietta," and no small wonder, given the brilliant fanfare that opens the work. For this, Janacek asks for an additional 13 brass players, including 9 trumpets which do not play in the orchestra.

Confusingly, in the Fuessl edition, three of the fanfare trumpets return to the orchestra for the second movement, while three others do not play at all until the third movement.

Ideally, there are 9 trumpets who play the outside fanfares only, while the other 3 trumpets play within the orchestra, beginning with the second movement. Another edition by Eulenberg wisely does this. But then this version asks the tuba to substitute for the fourth trombone. This unfortunate compromise -- understandable, given that most orchestras have just three trombones -- effectively removes the textures that are unique to Janacek's sound world. While the tuba is important, much of the low brass music in Sinfonietta is clearly written for four trombones.

Which begs the question: in a piece that requires an additional 9 trumpets, 2 bass trumpets and 2 tenor tubas, 25 brass in all, why would Eulenberg leave out the 4th trombone? If Fuessl's errors are in the distribution and layout, then Eulenberg's (reminding me of Mahler's famous comment, Tradition ist schlamperei) is one of poor economy.

Musicologists and editors sometimes make decisions with their eyes only; conductors are wont to use their ears without considering important documents to bolster their case. One might suggest that I would fall in the latter category, particularly since this is the first time I have conducted a major work by Janacek. But the act of copying each and every note of Janacek's score, while simultaneously rehearsing it, gave me an amazing window into the world of this composer.

And so, writing out all of the parts for my players, I remembered things that didn't work in rehearsal, among them:

--an inaudible bass clarinet solo
--bassoons sitting around with very little to do
--violas playing in the stratosphere (while violins pitied them)

and I began to wonder: do orchestras not program Sinfonietta for reasons that go beyond the need for 25 brass players?

Skeptics may accuse me of calling Janacek a poor orchestrator. In fact, his sound palette is unique to him, the stuff of genius. To wit:

-Who else but Janacek writes for two tenor and two bass trombones?
-The solo harp writing is exquisite.
-Flutes are galactic one moment, holding up the orchestra with a bass pedal the next.
-In the finale, the celli play a low Alberti bass figure which is ominous beyond belief.
-Before the fanfare returns, there is the all-important Eb clarinet, taking Strauss's Eulenspiegel to a new level of pain and despair.

For these instances and many more, I am deeply in awe of Janacek. Still, there is so much in Sinfonietta which has me scratching my head, leaving me with questions that will remain unanswered until I can see the original score.

So what is my new version, then?

Urtext? No.
Ersatz? Again, no.

Janacek's music is public domain in Canada and Europe, but not yet in the United States; my edition will not be available to conductors and orchestras until I have had a chance to consult the original source. Just from the way I've laid them out, with new, better-placed rehearsal figures, the orchestra parts I have created are preferable simply from the standpoint of playability.

It has been a fascinating musical exercise, ultimately leading to a concert where an audience heard an orchestra, newly unleashed and unbound, performing Janacek's orchestral masterpiece.

Alec Baldwin

Can you imagine the film, It's Complicated, without Alec Baldwin? Even with Meryl Streep and Steve Martin, that movie has no legs without him. And who can forget his hotel room cameo in Notting Hill, where he steals the scene from Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant? Do you remember which company he's hawking on those brilliant advertisements for a credit card company? Such is the immediacy of his character. A feature article in The New Yorker has been trending as one of the magazine's most frequently viewed in the last several years.

Until recently, Baldwin's musical taste was that of a typical baby boomer, predictably leaning towards the Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Peter Frampton et al. And then one day, he heard Mahler's Ninth Symphony, and was hooked.

The New York Philharmonic recently installed him as its radio announcer, a job he says is the best he's ever had. (His first love, before film and television, is the stage; I wouldn't doubt it, having seen him perform memorably in Glengarry Glen Ross at Trinity Repertory Theatre thirty years ago.)

Guess what: Alec Baldwin gave a million dollars to the New York Philharmonic this year. I was already a fan; now my praise of him borders on worship.

Might the Vienna Philharmonic ever dare to ask him host their annual New Year's Eve concert? Wouldn't you love to see Alec Baldwin liven up that staid affair?

Muti, Dudamel and Gergiev with Charlie Rose

Over the past few months, Charlie Rose interviewed three of the greatest conductors in the world today, and then made the mistake of putting all three on the same program. Riccardo Muti was followed by Gustavo Dudamel, for whom English is still very much a secondary language, and then Valery Gergiev, who could not organize his thoughts in any cohesive manner.

Charlie Rose has the irritating habit of interrupting his guests while they are speaking, and he did this with Dudamel and Gergiev, in the latter case, perhaps to help him get to the point.

When Rose interviewed Dudamel, I soon lost interest and walked the dogs. During Gergiev's bit, I made myself a snack. But when Muti was speaking, Rose was mum. And rightly so, for Muti's candor was astonishing.

When a sports analogy came up, Rose very adroitly steered Muti to the question: Who are the greatest three orchestras in the world today? Muti offered Vienna, Berlin and . . . Chicago, a self-serving choice, given his current tenure as music director of the Chicago Symphony. But who would disagree, really? Even when Rose wondered if the New York Philharmonic should be in the mix, Muti didn't bite. And with that, Muti may have severed his relationship with the venerable ensemble.

It wasn't always this way. The players in New York have made no secret of their love for Muti. While searching for a successor to Lorin Maazel, they pined for the Italian maestro. But after having been a music director most of his life, Muti needed a break, so he passed. New York selected Alan Gilbert, who has proven to be a propitious choice, with his fine conducting and brilliant programming. Still, it must have smarted a bit for Gilbert when, after Chicago selected Muti, several players in New York asked, "why couldn't we get him?" For Muti, it was all about alchemy: the players may have loved him, but he wasn't feeling the love for them. He went on to suggest that great orchestras are only truly great when there is a great conductor standing before them. Muti was not being immodest. He's great, and he knows it.

The Philharmonic leadership did not understand that even the greatest conductors in the world need to be coddled and cajoled. Speaking to Rose, Muti explained how for his concerts in Paris, La Scala, Vienna and Berlin, Deborah Rutter kept showing up. (Rutter is the President of the Chicago Symphony.) Her persistence made a great impression on Muti, who eventually accepted an invitation to conduct in Chicago after a long absence. Muti's preparation for the first rehearsal suggests a bit of the jitters, as he recounted how he would introduce himself. Clearly, he needn't have worried, for the chemistry was perfect from the start. After his appointment, some early cancellations due to illness brought about comparisons to Boston Symphony and James Levine, but things have since settled into a graceful rhythm.

To the claim that he has an authoritarian style, he suggested the accusation might be a cultural difference. When a London Philharmonia player complained about the way he said "no," Muti understood that his Italianate manner -- curt, to the point -- is very different from that of an English conductor ("noooooo," with an upward lilt at the end, suggesting that there could be wiggle room for a compromise, even if the answer still was no).

Gergiev is the greatest conductor in the world today, and those who would disagree with me believe that Dudamel holds that distinction. When I saw him conduct the complete Firebird ballet (without score) with the San Francisco Symphony a few years ago, Deborah Borda, President of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, sat next to me, beaming during the entire concert like a proud mother. Bringing Dudamel to Los Angeles was the baseball equivalent of stealing home; she did it while no one else was looking. The announcement came while Dudamel was an overwhelmingly popular guest with the Chicago Symphony, prompting the players to wonder why they hadn't gotten there sooner.

No matter. They got Muti. Even before my lesson with him years ago, I knew how great he was. During a conducting workshop with the Curtis Institute Orchestra in Philadelphia, I was struggling with Verdi's i vespri siciliani (Sicilian Vespers), and after explaining a few things to me, he snatched away my baton and led the orchestra in a manner that was nothing short of astonishing. After he was done, the room broke out in spontaneous applause.

Five Great Ones say goodbye

There were some notable music figures who died in 2012. On the eve of a new year, it seems fitting to share some personal memories.

ELLIOTT CARTER (just shy of 104)

My first reaction to Carter's passing was, "the guy finally died!" My students were horrified. But this was a life that was filled with energy and conviction to his last days. (I feel badly for those who took a chance on commissions to be fulfilled in his 105th year.) When I met him at his brownstone in Manhattan, he was short with me initially when I could not figure out how to open the door to his building. Once I was inside, he often excused himself to care for his ailing wife, Helen, who died a year after my visit in 1998. I sent him a recording of my performance (with Pittsburgh) of his Symphony of Three Orchestras. I don't think he liked it very much. He was a tough cuss who wrote tough music, but in his last years, he lifted the veil a bit, revealing a luminous quality that surprised everyone.

DAVE BRUBECK (a day before his 92nd birthday)

Mr. Brubeck had the temperament of Mr. Rogers -- a kinder man you never met. He wrote a concerto for orchestra for the Pittsburgh Symphony in 1997, from which I programmed individual sections for children's concerts I led there. The percussion movement caused some of the Pittsburgh players to grumble, because of the extra preparation it required.

MARVIN HAMLISCH (68 years young)

During my years in Pittsburgh, I learned as much from this man as I did from any other conductor. If every Beethoven score must first go through the prism of my teacher, Otto-Werner Mueller, every pops concert I do must pass the following test: "Will it meet the Marvin Standard?" Orchestra musicians would shake their heads, because of his frenetic rehearsal style and idiomatic conducting technique. But he understood that if an orchestra sounded fine under his guidance, what else mattered, really? One other thing -- he was a phenomenal performer. Audiences loved him.
(For a good story, please read my post of August 9.)


PAAVO BERGLUND (82 years)

You won't know this man, but he may have the distinction of being the finest left handed stick-waver who ever lived. And this conductor was a REAL southpaw -- not like Donald Runnicles and Krzysztof Penderecki, who keep their main gauche close and tight. No, Berglund's technique was figuratively and literally out in left field, his baton arm hovering over the concertmaster, making it very difficult for the first violin section to follow him. But it didn't matter, for the sound he got out of an orchestra was unlike anything I had ever heard, then or since. Watching him rehearse Sibelius's Tapiola had me spellbound. At the time, Sibelius's music was rather new to me, so I attributed all of those unworldly sounds to the composer. As the years have passed, I now realize that those Sibelian textures were wrought by Berglund, a man of few words who was both courteous and demanding.

CHARLES ROSEN (85 years)

He is well known for his books on The Classical Style and Sonata Forms, both of which I own and refer to from time to time. But he was also a consummate pianist. I will forever remember him for an incident during my undergraduate years at UC Berkeley, when he was a visiting scholar. One day, walking down a long corridor of practice rooms, I heard someone practicing scales, clearly driven by the hands of a ferociously accomplished musician. Another student beckoned, "get a load of this!" When I peered into the small window of his practice room, there was Mr. Rosen, warming up on the keyboard, simultaneously reading the New York Times.







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Sibelius

The Hartt Philharmonia and I performed Sibelius's Symphony no. 2 last week. What is it about this composer that separates him for everyone else?

For one thing, he summons the most extraordinary sounds from an orchestra, made up of instruments not unlike that used by Schumann or Brahms. No fancy percussion. No exotic woodwinds. How does he do this? I look at the page, and I still wonder.

There are some things that do jump out . . . .

Low flutes together with stratospheric violins. Kettle drums that do not support the ensemble as much as they stir things up. Violins by themselves, one voice. An oboe, playing the same note ten times before moving on.

In the first movement, near the end of the exposition, just as he appears to be wrapping things up, Sibelius inserts quiet trumpets: if you're not paying attention, you won't hear them, but it haunts an otherwise spirited passage. In the second movement, there are so many silences filled with angst, some of which leave you feeling something has been left unsaid, so disturbing that no one dares to utter it.

People often talk about how Copland's music reveals an American-like quality, as if you can actually see the plains and prairies when you hear it. In Sibelius, the landscape is barren, haunted. After a timpani roll, pizzicato basses are earth bound until cellos show them another way; thus freed, the basses seem to have new life, until gravity wins out. The cellos return, and now they are going nowhere. Over and over, they try to overcome something, each time to no avail. In this music, there is a circular dread, and the bassoons confirm it. The news is not good.

Throughout the second movement, there are melodic and harmonic (as well as silent) reminders of Wagner. Richard Strauss is said to have spent most of his career wishing he had written Tristan und Isolde. This is Sibelius's Tristan.

The scherzo brings great relief, particularly with the oboe solo in the trio. But before the return, there is a false entrance of brass. Why are they playing here? Why are they so loud and chaotic? Their rhythms don't match up with one another, making it sound like a grand mistake. The strings bring us back to a proper recapitulation, but the sting is still with us. Indeed, it has evidently upset the strings as well, because they play in a different order from which they began. Everything is upside down. Will the tension ever abate?

The release does not come until the finale, but even then, it is still conditional. The melody -- that glorious tune of tunes -- circles around the home note, and we like that. But throughout the movement there is more circular activity, like a wave that keeps crashing up against us. In our performance, when we arrived at the coda, I still had a feeling of dis-ease from what we had just sustained. Besides Tchaikovsky (think of the "Pas de Deux" in Act II of Nutcracker), is there anyone else who writes such profoundly sad music in the major mode? Here, on the last page, the trumpets keep wanting to exalt, to bring us home, and at every turn, the orchestra keeps playing on, not wanting to believe them.

Is there a greater composer from the 20th century? There are a few who are his equal, but no one better.

Violins, in consort

Messiah is a modern miracle, maybe the greatest artwork in all of Western history. Give Handel a full year to write it, then perhaps it becomes merely one of the greatest works of all time. But when one takes into account that the composer took just twenty four days to write it . . . it staggers the imagination. Word has it that the composer didn't even have time to eat, the notes were coming out of him so fast. (Handel was overheard saying that he felt like God's vessel, putting to paper every note that had been handed to him.)

We are approaching that time of year when we get to hear Messiah again. (Richard Coffey will conduct CONCORA and the Hartford Symphony on December 14 and 15.) Most in the audience will wait with great anticipation for the Hallelujah chorus. But near the end, in the final Amen, there is a magical moment that often goes unnoticed.

In the midst of a grand fugue for all forces, the violins are suddenly alone, playing quietly in unison. After what feels like an eternity, more violins join in, ostensibly to start the fugue all over again (!), only to be resoundingly cut off by chorus and orchestra. Blissfully unaware, violins return once more, and again they are thwarted. The réjouissance must go on.

Near the end of Harmonia Mundi, a brilliant concerto for violin and orchestra by Stephen Gryc, violins gradually emerge, speaking as one. If Handel's violins provide blessed relief, Gryc's bring momentary release to the prevailing orchestral quietude. The tension is enormous, and the violins gently urge it to stop. Their cry is to no avail, and the silence returns.

More than Messiah, Gryc's model may have been Sibelius's Second Symphony, in which violins begin in unison on the same pitch. But for Sibelius, the violins are a dorian question, not to be answered until much later by the brass, in full harmony. This is testament to the composer's creative genius, reintroducing the opening theme so that it sounds new. For Sibelius, there is no homecoming, only an unending search.

Handel, Sibelius and Gryc share an essential understanding: as the largest section in the ensemble, violins, singing as one, bring a collective power unequaled by any other instrument of the orchestra.

Ambassador Chris Stevens

Growing up in Oakland, the phone rang a lot. First it was "is Loretta there?" and then a few years later, "can I talk to Vicky?" and soon after, the same with Rita. Boys -- mostly nervous, and impolite -- were calling all the time. It was annoying, but it was the price to pay for having beautiful sisters.

My father went to Cal, and it was assumed all of us would go there, too. I followed Loretta there, and Victoria matriculated to Cal a few years later. Like Loretta, she was a member of the Delta Gamma sorority. It was well known on campus that DG girls were brainy babes, hard to get and always in demand, and Loretta and Vicky were no exception. (Rita also went to Cal, but sorority life was not her thing.)

For a winter formal in 1981, Chris Stevens asked Vicky out. In a photo of the two of them taken at this event, they both look very happy, clearly enjoying each other's company, with the whole world still in front of them. Stevens may have just told her a joke, because Vic is in the middle of a deep guffaw, with her mouth wide open in great delight. No one in our family laughs as hard and as loudly as Vicky.

Another thing that strikes me about this photo (which I unfortunately was unable to upload), is that both Stevens and my sister maintained their youthful looks right in to their fifties. Some people change as they age; these two did not.

Vicky lost touch with Stevens after college, but when he died last month, it still hit her hard. She told all of us what a nice guy he was, how he treated her so well during the few times they went out.

For me, there was one degree of separation -- Stevens's mother, Mary, is a cellist, and was still a member of the Marin Symphony Orchestra when I was a guest conductor there several years ago. After divorcing in 1975, Mary Stevens remarried the San Francisco Chronicle's music critic, Robert Commanday, whose well-written features on classical music (and on the San Francisco Symphony, in particular) I read religiously.

It must have been extremely difficult for my sister to watch Obama and Romney in their second debate, arguing like two school boys over whether the Benghazi attack was an act of terror. Obama briefly tried to take the high road on this issue, but it was mostly politics as usual.

For Victoria, who now lives in Australia with her family, Chris Stevens was not just a ambassador and diplomat, a sudden media figure made more famous in death than in life. He was a gentleman who but for a short time, as a boy crossing into adulthood, was in her life.