After the last post, my good friend Stewart, he of Edinburgh/Leith Daily Photo, suggested that I used my musical talents to further the visibility of Scotland in Zurich. Fortunately for the good burghers, and anyone else in earshot, this has already been done. Here (visually) is the sound of the Black Bear being paraded up Bahnhofstrasse by the Zurich Pipe Band
I've always found Mahler a bit difficult to make sense of - maybe because there is just so much of it, and I'm impatient - I don't take the time. However this was my first exposure to the ninth, and while it has plenty of what has put me off in the past, length, a suspicion of self-indulgence - I came away with the beginnings of what might be a minor epiphany. I don't normally try and write formally about music - to avoid the risk of ridicule - but I'll make an exception because of the potentially life-changing consequences of this event.
On the night I just had a faint inkling that the pieces of my Mahler jigsaw puzzle were starting to come together. It was only at the end that I felt I realised what the start was all about, and hence how the whole thing worked. And then after thinking about it afterwards, some kind of sense began to emerge. I think next time I will know better what to listen for and the whole work will be more satisfying. I suppose this is true for many pieces - knowing what's coming is important, and it doesn't work so well in retrospect.
As I said, I'm no musical analyst and I'm not trying to compete with the experts, but my own reading of the symphony is that the whole caboodle symbolises life. I don't see anything valedictory about it as an entire piece, other than that it ends with death, as does life. I feel it starts with birth, and if it sounds fateful in the beginning then that is maybe because bursting onto the world is fateful in itself. The rustlings and background heartbeat at the start are what make me think of this. The serene "almost" silence of the ending gives us a perfect, peaceful and satisfying release from the tumult, noise, excitement and even absurdities of the central parts. For me this is affirmative, and in no way tragic. As if at the end of life, you finally make sense of it all, and it feels good. And it is ok to let go.
This is one view of life of course, and it sounds like a fortunate one. Not everyone will look at it this way. It is possible that this view has something to do with middle age - that my perspective of the whole conundrum of life is different from when I was a callow youth, or in my twenties, or thirties, or forties, or .....
In my opinion the performance by the Tonhalle with David Zinman managed this sweep very well There are also a lot of opportunities for individual sections of the orchestra and soloists to shine, and these didn't disappoint me. I don't have anything to compare the performance with, but the closing minutes were magically quiet - as much as they could be without turning the orchestra off. Experiencing this in the concert hall is something that you really cannot reproduce on CD. It was more than just the notes, there was something tangible in the air. Maybe it was the knowledge that 1000 other people were holding their breath too. (Well, most of them...)
When I look through all my photos it's clear that there are some things that compulsively twitch my shutter finger. One of them is facades - normally with some kind of aged patina.
Update: forgot the musical accompaniment
I'm having a couple of days break during my cycle ride, so I'm back in Zürich to attend to some bits and pieces. Time for a blog post.
And an accompanying piece of music that has a few resonances with both the photo and my itinerary.
I left my bike in Lausanne, and will be going onwards via Geneva into La France! So this piece of music has a decidedly French feel. The music is a setting of Gauthier by Berlioz from Les Nuits d'été - Le Spectre de la Rose. The poetry is a little sentimental, but the music and the performance are ravishing.
Recorded by French soprano Regine Crespin, with l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, based in Geneva and conducted by the longstanding founder Ernest Ansermet in 1963. This has probably never been bettered with the powerful but creamy and controlled voice at it's best. Listen to the end of the second verse.
Doesn't seem such a good deal to me...
Some music to accompany this stately flower. I don't know why but this selection of Shetland Reels by Aly Bain and Willie Hunter sprang to mind.
Nothing like a nice cup of tea, reading the morning paper.
Apologies for disappointing all the music fans on Sunday. Normal service will be resumed next week.. but what the hell, doesn't really go with the photo, but I already uploaded a piece specially for Peter, so here it is. I should stress that the dedication is based on the combination of Swedish text by a Swedish (thanks, Peter) Finnish poet, set by a Finnish composer, sung by a Norwegian soprano and has nothing to do with the lyrics.....
A famous voice from an old recording. Kirsten Flagstad was maybe past her best when it was recorded, and this sort of voice is rather unfashionable today, but there is no denying the glorious sweep in the climaxes of this short Runeberg setting by Sibelius. One can understand why she was such a renowned Brünnhilde.
A photo of the Lego-like construction of the Zürich Grossmunster's twin towers.
Somehow or other I'm twinning these with another piece of extrovert jollity.
Here's a picture of a cat.
That's the photo out of the way. Now here's some music for Sunday. There is a connection with last week's blues number - well I think there is. Two contrasting recordings of what might be called the blues of its day - melancolia in song by John Dowland. First of all a relatively conventional recording, although with some period style
Flow my tears, sung by Emma Kirkby, Soprano
And a rather different rendition, by a Frenchman, no less.
Flow my tears, sung by Gérard Lesne, Countertenor
I wonder what people make of the contrast. Of course Sting has also given us his take on this music recently.......
Scorching temperatures the last couple of days, so it's tempting to cool it down a bit.
But then it's Sunday and time for some music. This might steam things up again.
White man sings the blues.
I wish I had a pound for every photographer who has a portfolio of lilies. These were shot in Globus cafe this morning over breakfast
As were these glasses, which you've seen before - maybe not the exact same ones..
And because it is Sunday, we have some mood music. I'm not a big jazz fan, but it's certainly the music if you want a bit of mood. Here is Nils Landgren, trombonist from Sweden with a distinctive vocal style.
I've been busy for a couple of weeks - and because it's a Sunday maybe I should reappear with a fanfare of trumpets?
But no. Some of the songs I've posted on Sundays have been elusive and ambiguous in their emotions. Accusations that cannot normally be leveled at Puccini. In recent years Nessun Dorma has been the aria most in the public ear and Pavarotti the leading voice (rightly so). However for me "E lucevan le stelle" from Tosca is the tear-jerker par excellence. Sung by the hero Cavaradossi, as the dawn breaks and he awaits execution, remembering his lover Tosca.
Here it is sung by a favourite from an older generation - Franco Corelli..
The spring festival of Sechselaeuten takes place tomorrow. An opportunity for the great and the good of the Zürich guilds to strut their stuff. Today it was the Kinderumzug, the chance of the kids, 5-15 years, and as usual it was the girls that stole the show.
This young lady made me think of a youthful Joan of Arc for some reason.
Today is also music day. Blogs are full of spring images at the moment so I've picked "Frühlingstraum", a song by Schubert that has a spring theme. Not it has to be said an optimistic celebration of the joys of spring flowers and bunnies. Rather a longing for spring during darker and colder times, and a hope of love during lonely ones. But is the hope just a dream?
Music for Sunday 19th April 2009
The words are by Willhelm Müller, not perhaps Germany's Shakespeare, but Schubert excelled at creating jewels from simply expressed emotions.
The lyrics can be found here, with a singable, if not particularly faithful, English translation.
I tried to cater for my French friends last week, but came up with a bit of an oddball selection. Lambada (1989) by Kaoma was indeed by a French group, but the lyrics are Portuguese. (Use the media player bottom left to listen again - music for Sunday 5th April). From what I know the band set out to produce an eclectic, generic, world music bestseller, and they succeeded, topping the charts around the world. It is a curious piece though, and difficult to place culturally - everyone I ask comes up with a different idea. Greek? Israeli? Turkish? Some Portuguese - like a cheery fado. Mostly Mediterranean.
This week, here's a picture from Easter Sunday morning.
And some music - should be liturgical I suppose, but it isn't - it's French
Last week's music combined the partnership of Brecht and Weill in a poignant song. A prostitute wonders about her life, about growing old and the role of "love". However it's the repeated refrain
(Where are last night's tears?
Where are the snows of yesteryear?)
that sticks in the mind. The second part pilfered, or borrowed consciously from Villon's
(Incidentally the use of the word "yesteryear" in the translation is interesting, or at any rate is worth a little investigation. UPDATE. I amended the literal translation from "Where are the tears of yesterday evening", to the more obvious English "Where are last night's tears". However it loses the the symmetry of the original. Discuss, if you're feeling bored....)
In the poem from which the original French is taken, Villon is musing or celebrating or even mourning the passing of famous women. In Brecht's poem, it is the less than famous Nanna herself, or maybe the woman she might have been.
I think it is perfectly sung here by Ute Lemper. Her cabaret style perfectly fits the vulnerabality of the subject.
This week something more cheerful. Well it might actually drive some people for the off-switch - but hopefully for others it will be a reminder or even a promise of summer sun.
I said that I was going totally French this week, but that's only partially true
Last week's music was a simple but effective love song by Robert Burns. There was quite a lot in the comments about it and I don't have much more to say - other than go and listen to it if you didn't already!
The last few musical offerings have been English vocal works, so I thought I'd redress the balance by posting some examples from other European parts.
The first one of these is also about love, but with a bit of a twist. It's by a well known German collaboration although it steals a famous phrase from the French.
Next week I think I'll be going fully French
Last week I was on a journey back to my teen and university years. Friday nights spent listening to bands in the hot, sweaty Students Union and simultaneously trying to figure out how girls worked.
I like the live recorded, raw and vital sound of that Fleetwood Mac classic - "Oh Well" - spotted immediately by Peter. (To listen again use the player gadget at the bottom left of the screen.)
His namesake, guitarist Peter Green, was one of a handful of musicians who defined for me the sound of the late sixties, early seventies. A blues man, with a distinctive, effortless and individual style on the guitar as well as vocals, he produced a stream of classics in a few years with his Fleetwood Mac band. "Man of the World", "Need Your Love So Bad", and "Black Magic Woman" for example. The latter best known probably for the cover version by Santana. When he left, Fleetwood Mac deserted its blues roots and changed into the "supergroup" band that I suppose most people know today. If I sound nostalgic for something that has passed - then I am!
Like Gurney, Peter Green's career has been a tough voyage, beset with problems - but I'll let people investigate that themselves if they want.
This week's music also has something in common with these previous posts.
Marie Celeste contributed some interesting stuff about the Gurney/Fletcher song. If she is listening in, I wonder if there is any of this on her bookshelf, tucked alongside those Elizabethan Metaphysicals.. ?
Ivor Gurney (1890-1937) was one of those young Englishmen whose life and work was shaped ruthlessly by their experiences in the First World War. (Ed. This is bit of a misconception on my part - please have a look at the comment by Pamela Blevins) Acknowledged as one of the "War Poets" alongside Brooke, Owen, Sassoon, Graves et al he also had a musical upbringing and pound for pound in my opinion is the greatest of the English "art song" composers. He was poorly served by society and the medical profession, spending the most part of his life unnecessarily in mental institutions. His story is told in a fine book "The Ordeal of Ivor Gurney" by Michael Hurd, though now out of print. There is an interesting article here
What is an Art Song? Basically it is poetry set to music and this is what distinguishes it from other song types where lyrics and music are created to serve each other. In German it would be called Lieder. To be a great song composer is not a gift given to everyone with musical talent, even the greatest. It is a particular talent. The composer must understand or at least have a personal reaction to the words and must try and convey it in the music. There are no definitives here.
In Music for Sunday 8th March last week we heard the poem "Sleep" by the Elizabethan John Fletcher set by Gurney in what is one of his best known works. Here are the words
Though but a shadow, but a sliding,
Let me know some little joy!
We that suffer long annoy
Are contented with a thought
Through an idle fancy wrought:
O let my joys have some abiding
O let my joys have some abiding.
Although short, I find this poem difficult, or at least a little ambiguous. The first verse is easy enough, it praises and looks forward to the restorative powers of sleep ("..that knits up the ravel'd sleeve of care etc.."). The second verse is either pessimistic about this, or it is talking about something else altogether. Why "O let my joys have some abiding"? Does it mean that we do not really want to awake, and does it therefore involve other metaphors? Maybe it's more simple than that.
In any case Gurney obviously felt the difference in emotion between the two verses. In the music, the first one echoes beautifully the comfort and relapse into sleep. Listen to the piano caressing the phrase "Let some pleasing dream beguile All my fancies". The second ends on a different note The last phrase is repeated, first pleading, and then acknowledging frustration or resignation maybe that our joys will not have any abiding.
And now, as they say, for something completely different. I've been thinking quite a bit about my teenage and university years recently, so this week's piece is a headlong plunge back into that formative period of pimples, angst and loud music.
Kalinnikov died young and wrote 2 symphonies (not in that order of course). Last week we heard the first movement of the first symphony - a beautiful work that deserves to be better known. Use the audio player gadget bottom left if you want to hear it again. I said last week it was interesting for two reasons. One was the obscurity. The other that the music played was in an arrangement for brass band played by the Band of the Swiss Army - couldn't resist it. I know I'm a confirmed Swiss-ophile, but I think they are one of the best ensembles I have heard.
If you like it you should probably go for a conventional recording however. There are good ones by Evgeny Svetlanov and the USSR Symphony Orchestra, or Neemi Järvi and the Scottish National Orchestra. By the way don't be fooled if the recording says the "Royal" Scottish National Orchestra - it really is the SNO to all its friends. Several years ago the powers that be tried to change the name to the Royal Scottish Orchestra. This almost caused a revolution north of the border. Unfortunately the faint hearts decided on a pathetic compromise.
And now for this week's morsel. This is a lot shorter - by the finest of English song composers. Clue - it's not Sir Paul McCartney MBE
Last week I posted a male voice choir rendition of the famous theme from Finlandia by Sibelius, set by the composer with words by Koskenniemi. The lyrics are in Finnish. Here they are.
Oi nouse, Suomi, nosta korkealle
pääs seppelöimä suurten muistojen,
oi nouse, Suomi, näytit maailmalle
sa että karkoitit orjuuden
ja ettet taipunut sa sorron alle,
on aamus alkanut, synnyinmaa."
Haven't got a clue what they mean, but paired with the music I know how they make me feel. Finnish is a beautiful, liquid, melodic language. A bit like Elvish really...
Contrary to what a lot of people think it isn't the national anthem. In fact as far as I know Finland doesn't have an official national anthem. The unofficial one is "Maame" with words by the Finnish poet Runeberg, written originally in Swedish. Given the long "History" between the Finns and the Swedes, it might seem that a wholly Finnish anthem would be more appropriate.
Photo for Nathalie
It is interesting to note other unofficial National anthems. Waltzing Matilda maybe. Or in my own country Scotland, the tussle between "Flower of Scotland" and "Scotland the Brave". I'm on the side of the latter as a tune, but the words by Cliff Hanley are ripe for plucking by the ever self-derogatory Scots.
So
Quickly becomes
What makes a good national anthem? Well you need to be able to sing it loudly and confidently at your enemies.
But I digress. This week's music is interesting for a couple of reasons. It's a bit long, but I think it's worth persevering with. If like Nathalie you are impatient to comment, you can right click the comments link and open it in a new tab
Well, a week has passed and only one blog post, so that means we're back at the music slot.
Last week we heard Schubert's Impromptu Op 90 No.2. I'm glad Peter had a stab at Chopin, because when I first heard the piece that is what I thought. I rank Schubert several rungs above Chopin, but this piece with it's sheer delight in the possibilities of the keyboard looks forward to the Polish Romantic.
This week the picture again doesn't have any connection with the music, but then I'm sure the music doesn't need an introduction. Think how many gold medals we would win if we had a national anthem like this one.
Last week I offered the slow movement from Schumann's Piano Quartet in E flat Op 47. Peter rightly diagnosed the composer from the rather esoteric Düsseldorf clue - but he knows a lot about music and I suspect he was too modest to identify the piece exactly. Schumann was closely connected with the town towards the end of his life, and famously attempted suicide, or a kind of romantic gesture, by throwing himself off a bridge into the Rhine close to where the Gehry buildings are now. If he tried it today he would probably kill himself by hitting a barge.
I was wrong to classify this piece of music as a lollipop of course - the whole work is a beautifully crafted piece of chamber music, and the theme from the slow movement just happens to be irritatingly unforgettable.
I quite like the idea of presenting a piece of music every week. It's fun trying to think of something interesting, with something to talk about apart from the music. The word lollipop is getting dropped.
This week we have a piece of piano music which is well known, although I haven't heard it publicly or on the radio for a while. People who don't know it might nonetheless be confident to have a guess at the composer. People who do know it can maybe keep quiet
Music for Sunday 15th February
I can't think of a pictorial clue, but to keep Nathalie happy here is an unrelated photo. This is the Dolder Grand in Zurich, recently refurbished. I'll be talking about it in a future post.
Music has been a life long pleasure. Classical mainly, but not exclusively. Luckily for blog readers I haven't talked about it yet because I tend to pontificate at some length.
Thomas Beecham would sprinkle his concerts with what he called "lollipops" - lightweight stuff, good tunes - a sort of musical Alka Seltzer to send the crowds home happy after trying to digest 90 mins of Mahler. I thought I'd do something similar on a weekly basis. Try and pick a hit-parade tune that maybe isn't so well-known. Whether it's well-known or hit-parade material rather depends on who's listening of course. I'll reveal the music the week after, unless someone has already done so.
Update. Nathalie suggested that I provide a photo to accompany the music. So, I offer you this one as a clue. If you even know why this is a clue, then you know more about the composer than I do.
I have to confess that I'm doing something I always rage about when Classic FM does it - chopping up works that are supposed to be heard in their entirety. But this time I'm doing it, so it's ok. I promise not to play the last movement of Beethovens 5th before the first though, as Classic FM did on their first day of broadcast all those years ago.
