Rossini

To us the 1820s are the era of Schubert and Beethoven. Yet had you asked any musician at the time who the leading composer was and you would almost certainly have got the reply "Rossini".

To far too many musicians today he is still regarded as the composer of some attractive but lightweight overtures.  To the man in the street he is the composer of the music for the Lone Ranger.  Hence the quote "my definition of an intellectual  is somebody who can listen to the William Tell overture without thinking of the lone ranger".  (Incidentally there is some doubt about who first came up with that quote - a quick search of the Internet comes up with a variety of names from Dan Rather to David Frost and Billy Connolly !).

Mention of William Tell is a neat introduction to one my musical highlights of last year - attending a live relay of the Royal Opera House production of the opera at the cinema in Nottingham.  You may recall that the production created a storm of controversy, particularly in the way that some of the gentlest and most attractive ballet music was used as the backdrop for a rape scene.   That was gratuitous (even in the toned down version that was restaged as a result of the protests) but the criticism rather drew attention away from what I thought was a very intelligent production which illuminated the drama very well.  But of course the reason to attend a performance is for the music.  William Tell is a simply staggering score.  It has absolutely everything from beautiful evocations of the Swiss country side to moving arias and ensembles of great drama.  The huge concerted finale of Act 2 left me virtually breathless with excitement.  There are a few pages of humdrum music - what I call "painting by numbers" music, which are common to many of the big French operas of the time, where the need to fill up time to fit the stage action takes over - but these are in the minority in a very long opera full of astonishing invention.    In many ways Rossini leaves the best till last. This evocation to liberty as the threat of war is averted is simply one of the most stunning moments in all music. Almost out of nowhere Rossini finds a breath of vision and a sense of time almost standing still which seems to belong to the world of late Verdi and Wagner. Yet, we must remind ourselves, this is music from 1829 by a composer aged 37: even most astonishingly it was his 39th opera (the exact number depends slightly on how you count revised versions of operas rewritten for performances in France) and it was his last. Just as I speculated on what late Schubert might have been like, I can only dream of what Rossini would have been writing in his old age - after all he lived well into the era of Tristan. I've listed to a lot of Rossini recently and never tire of it. If you want to take you listening beyond the overtures why not try the third act of Otello - with a heartbreaking lament for Desdemona, or the simply gorgeous trio near the end of Le Comte Ory which is at the same farcical and achingly beautiful. It would take far too long to describe what is going on here - suffice it to say that there is a woman, a man pretending to be a woman, and a man, played by a woman, who is also pretending to be a woman!. Don't worry - just sit back and enjoy!

In memoriam Pierre Boulez

Sad, but not completely unexpected news yesterday of the death of Pierre Boulez.  He had been too ill to attend any of the 90th birthday celebrations last year and had not conducted for several years.

In the days when I was a student he was a rather terrifying figure because of his absolute disdain for all but a tiny fragment of the western musical tradition and the complexity of his theoretical writings. I am not sure I ever got through all of "Boulez on music today" which was required reading.  Recordings of his music itself were still quite rare and it was obvious that the performers were struggling to keep up with his demands.  Everything seemed hard edged and cold.  You could tell that there was some real creativity there, but it was hard to find anything to enjoy rather than admire.

Now with the benefit of what must be nearly 40 more years of musical experience Boulez's music does seem to be part of the tradition of Debussy and Ravel.  There is a sensuousness about much of it which was I suppose there all of the time, but a generation ago very few people could hear it.    But it is a sobering though that Le marteau sans maître (1953) is closer in time to La Mer (1905) than it is to us today.

I suppose that what is happening here is what has happened throughout musical history.  What seemed impossibly difficult a generation ago gradually becomes accepted and part of the normal musical experience.  You only have to look at reactions to late Beethoven, Wagner or Mahler to see this.  While I don't suppose that Boulez will ever become last night of the Proms material I think that we will see that he does retain a place in the repertory.  Boulez of course never did conduct the last night of the proms while he was musical director of the BBC symphony orchestra.  What a pity he didn't do it once - that would really have been something to savour.  He could be very charming and he might - might! - just have had the audience eating out of his hand.  We will never know.

I suspect that, just as Stravinsky has come to be seen as the dominant musical force of the first half of the 20th century, Boulez will come to be seen as his equivalent for the second half. It is hard to see anybody else who could command that place.

Starting again

Not for the first time I find myself coming back to this blog.  This time I really will make a determined effort to keep posting regularly.



What better place to start that with the late Haydn quartets.  I've just been listening to the two op 77 quartets.  I only intended to listen to the first movement of op 77 no 1 but found myself totally engaged and listened through to both of them plus the fragment published as op 103.

These quartets are to me the epitome of the Viennese classical style.  Everything is so effortless and under control yet full of surprises.  I think that I know these quartets well (I remember studying them at University nearly 40 years ago) but there are still harmonic twists and turns which still catch me out.  If I had to single out one movement it would be the slow movement of op 77 no 2.  This starts utterly simply with a simple melody over a walking bass and develops into the most sublime glorious outpouring of pure musical eloquence.  Of course such simplicity and apparent effortlessness can only be achieved though great artistry and years of experience and that is exactly what Haydn brings. And even here, with music I know and love so well, I still heard a few bars of viola counterpoint towards the end that I had not recalled before.

Much as I love playing the bassoon I do miss the opportunity to have played string quartets.  I've played them as piano duets which is fun, but not quite the same thing.