Keith James Clarke, Mahler’s Heavenly Retreats

Posted on February 8, 2014 by vhk10

These ‘encounters with the master’s Composing Houses’ are written by an architect and Mahler enthusiast. Our copy was given to some family members while they were standing in a Prom queue.

It’s a popular cliché now that men like sheds, and Gustav Mahler was fortunate enough to have isolated single-roomed buildings constructed near his summer places of residence, in which he could compose at peace. Clarke has examined these three buildings, considering their materials, construction, location and fittings, and relating them to Mahler’s needs and the music that was composed in them.

The most illuminating part of this analysis is that which is informed by an architect’s knowledge and way of thinking (but not too technical), which finds points of interest the casual visitor would miss. The descriptions of the surroundings of the composing houses tend to get bogged down in detail such as the colour of birds’ beaks. And the opening chapter on ‘Genius Loci’ doesn’t really go very deeply into the question of the relationship between a creative artist and a place, but just piles up a list of examples. There has been a lot of work on this relationship recently, and the book might have benefited by collaboration with someone who had studied it closely. Clarke knows Mahler’s works well, but wisely does not try to suggest many precise connexions between details of the music and landscape or events.

The book is illustrated with careful line drawings of the buildings and their details (sometimes with Mahler drawn in too!) and some rather blurred photographs. There is a rather amusing table at the end, rating each composing house from 1 to 5 according to various criteria such as ‘Light Intensity Inside’, ‘Proximity to Biting Insects during Summers’ (more of a concern for Berg than Mahler, I’d have thought), ‘View of Sky’, ‘Thermal Mass’, ‘User Satisfaction for Mahler’ and so on.

Not having been to any of these houses, I can’t comment on accuracy of detail, though the low-lying mist 15 m above a lake (p. 36) is presumably a misprint.

I’m not a Mahlerian, but if you are interested in his life and work, it’s worth getting hold of this; it’s an easy and short read. There are an accompanying DVD and CD; I don’t have these, but I notice there is a YouTube lecture by the author.

  • 60 pages
  • Publisher: Oblique Angle Publishing (1 Nov 2006)
  • ISBN-10: 0955408008

(cross-posted from here).

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the toaster in the Victoria Rooms

Posted on February 5, 2014 by vhk10

I made time at lunchtime to go and hear the University Chamber Choir and the Madrigal Ensemble give a lunchtime concert in the concert hall at the Victoria Rooms. The Chamber Choir is rather large for a group of that name – about 60 strong – and the Madrigal Ensemble is a select 16; one bass sang in both. The Victoria Rooms concert hall has had the promised refit; it is now equipped for note-taking (and conference income) but the antique notice pointing the way out to the telephones is still there!

The music was a mixture of periods, nationalities and liturgical seasons (apart from two madrigals it was all sacred). Mostly familiar to me, though I hadn’t heard Philip Stopford’s lovely setting of the Coventry Carol, and pieces by Josquin and Bertholusius were also unfamiliar. The sound of both groups was strong and confident; my only criticism being some slightly dodgy tuning (or was it wrong notes?) in some passages which moved by step. (The sort of thing that gets worked on heavily in Bristol Choral Society rehearsals.) But as I’ve said before, these choirs avoid the usual problem of student choirs, that of being top-heavy.

The programme was almost all unaccompanied, and I wish it had all been so. The instrument in the Victoria Rooms is a toaster (all right, a digitising organ) of some antiquity. I am not a fan of toasters, but I concede that they have come on quite a lot in the last 20 years or so, and I’d have been quite happy with a decent one in this concert. (On a related topic, I ask again: what did happen to the organ which must once have lived in St. George’s Bristol? Couldn’t it have been retained when the building was made into a concert hall?)

However, the sound produced by the Victoria Rooms concert hall ‘organ’ is so hideous that it almost made me feel physically ill. The bass throbbed, making my eardrums rattle and setting my teeth on edge, and the treble was distorted and hollow. The first piece that was wrecked by this was a personal favourite: Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen from the German Requiem, which made it even worse. I just about managed to endure the sound to the end of Blest Pair of Sirens, which followed. Fortunately in this last the choir sounded loud enough to drown out the organ a bit. I’ve only sung the Parry a couple of times, as it’s gone out of favour both in church and on the concert platform – it seems to go by so fast when you sing it that I hadn’t realised how long it is.

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the Glagolitic Mass on YouTube

Posted on February 1, 2014 by vhk10

@bristolchoral

I am greatly looking forward to performing the Glagolitic Mass for the first time. I can’t recall its being done in the Bath/Bristol area in recent years, and in fact until I started to learn it I was unfamiliar with the work, with only a hazy idea of how it sounded. I’ve been remedying this by listening to it several times a week. Fortunately, the Glagolitic Mass can stand up to this; a weaker piece would pall on repeated listenings, and something like the War Requiem would be very taxing because of its emotional impact.

I have been listening to three performances on YouTube:

  • Mackerras/Czech Philharmonic We had this recording on a Supraphon LP as well, which I have transferred to CD. It has the wonderful unreconstructed Central European brass, but I don’t like the tenor or bass soloist.
  • Tennstedt/London Philharmonic This recording is OK. I am puzzled by the picture of the Northern Lights which illustrates it though, as the Lights are very rarely seen as far south as Central Europe!
  • Mackerras/Danish National Radio SO and Chorus This is my favoured recording for learning purposes for two reasons:
    • while the choir does not produce a totally pure Scandinavian/Baltic sound (nor should it), it has a clear tone which makes it easy to follow
    • they appear to use the same edition as us, with the high B flat Osanna near the end of Svet

    However, I don’t like beginning the work as well as ending with the Intrada; I prefer to start with the blaring brass.

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two Abbey services and a funeral

Posted on January 31, 2014 by vhk10

I joined the choir of St. Peter’s Caversham to sing a Saturday Evensong in Bath Abbey. Our canticles were Stanford in G and the introit and anthem were selected for Epiphany: Here is the Little Door by Howells, and Mendelssohn’s When Jesus our Lord. This latter made me regret how little of Christus Mendelssohn completed. Had he finished the oratorio, I’m sure it would have become a great choral society staple.

A week later I heard the girls of the Abbey choir singing evensong; nicely done, but I find upper-voice only services a little dull.

More recently I returned to my former church to sing at a funeral (curiously, during the 10+ years I went there, I don’t think I attended one!) We performed the Nunc from one of the canticle settings I used to sing there, Walmisley in D minor, and ignored the KJV psalm printed in the order of service in favour of the Coverdale pointed in the psalters. Not much had changed apart from the installation of some rather scratchy amplification, but the new priest failed the ‘week by week’ test. (When I hear this and related phrases in a sermon, I find myself switching off. They only ever occur in sermons, and are used in about half of the sermons I hear.)

Meanwhile I’d posted a comment on the blog run by one of the choirs who promised me an audition a few years ago, which produced a reply. It was clear though that they’d forgotten all about me, not even remembering whether I sang soprano or alto.

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Shading into Epiphany at Southwell

Posted on January 26, 2014 by vhk10

First engagement of 2014 was when the Cathedral Chamber Choir went to Southwell Minster for a weekend of services. Liturgically, the weekend shaded from Christmas into the first Evensong of Epiphany, and our choice of music reflected this.

Karl Rütti’s setting of I wonder as I wander comes round about once every 3 years at the King’s 9 Lessons broadcast, and I’ve tended to think that it’s a makeweight, included so as to free rehearsal time for more complex pieces. But it’s harder than it sounds, largely because the rhythm varies slightly from verse to verse.

The other piece new to me was Ecce virgo concipiet by Byrd; I realise there are lots of Byrd’s Latin pieces that I’ve still yet to sing. The anthem for Sunday evensong was Mendelssohn’s Frohlocket, ihr Völker – somehow Mendelssohn’s writing for voices seems much denser when it’s in German. Southwell permits, indeed encourages, introits and ours was the opening of Britten’s A Boy was Born. I was one of few in the choir who’d sung the entire piece, back in my days with the Brandon Hill Singers.

The rest of the music was rather more familiar: Noble in B minor, Smith responses, Stanford in A and at Communion Howells ‘Coll. Reg.’ The catch here was that it was a Book of Common Prayer Communion, with the Gloria at the end.

We were made welcome and enjoyed our visit – it’s just a pity that the awkward journey (however achieved) to and from the East Midlands from the South West puts this lovely Cathedral a bit out of range for me.

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2013 and 2014’s resolutions

Posted on January 8, 2014 by vhk10

2013 saw the achievement of something that’s been on the wishlist a lot longer than this blog has existed (10 years now and counting). I performed in the 42nd and last English Church of England Cathedral – Bradford. And I had a party to celebrate.

That aside, it’s been musically quite a good year. I sang lots of other Cathedral services, including mass for All Souls’ Day in Winchester, certainly a highlight in that particular choir’s history. I sang Verdi’s rarely performed Quattro Pezzi Sacri (or to be precise, three of them), renewed my acquaintance with Rossini’s Stabat Mater and got to know the War Requiem rather better. And performed in the Forum for the first time (doing a whole lot of Russian stuff, also for the first time). And through all of this I was singing well – the long-standing problem with vocal tiredness which I think I acquired through bad singing in Manchester has gone, I hope forever.

2014’s ambitions? Well, there’s one struck off the list now. I shall continue to angle for a chance to sing in the Lord Mayor’s Chapel, if only in one of the Chapel Singers’ concerts rather than at a service. I am due to sing a couple of major choral works on the wishlist. And I resolve to be more precise about the lengths of the notes I sing.

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Our Tavener tribute

Posted on December 31, 2013 by vhk10

Much Christmas programming must have included something by the late John Tavener. Our carol service included God is with us near the end. This piece has been on my wishlist for a few years, despite the fact that it is quite punishing to sing. It wasn’t the only new piece, as I’d also not come across Bob Chilcott’s Shepherd’s Carol. We have a set of the Christmas at King’s books which contain this and a lot of the recent commissions for the King’s 9 Lessons service.

I haven’t sung a choral service on Christmas Day (or for that matter Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve) for years, but as usual went out carol singing on Christmas Eve. We were a larger group than in some recent years and perhaps because we made more noise, we raised more money. However there was no live carols at the Bath Christmas Market this year; instead there were piped ones, albeit of high quality.

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Remembering the Messiah again

Posted on December 28, 2013 by vhk10

The annual memorised performance of Messiah came round again. I had been worried that I would be back to square one with learning this, but some of the harder choruses to memorise, such as All we like sheep, fell into place quite easily. I expect that each year you do it, it becomes slightly easier; at any rate that is the impression I have from observing the singers around me.

We perform with cuts and I am sufficiently confident to start thinking what it would be like to memorise the choruses we leave out. I imagine that The Lord gave the word would be fairly straightforward, Their sound is gone out and Let all the angels of God rather harder, and But thanks be to God really pretty tricky. I well remember the difficulties the choir had learning this last for the first performance I sang in which it was included, and that was with the music! I think the problem is that it retains too much of its origins as a duet.

Both our full version and the child-friendly highlights were well attended and well received, and it was good to have people I knew in the audience at both of them.

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O Clavis David

Posted on December 27, 2013 by vhk10

Our Advent carol service used the O Antiphons and I was assigned O Clavis David, which posed the question of how to pronounce ‘sceptrum’. I decided on ‘ske-‘ with a rather soft k sound, which according to the rules is wrong, but as I found St John’s Cambridge doing something similar I’m in good company.

There were some pieces I hadn’t sung before such as Judith Weir’s setting of part of the Advent Prose, George Guest’s of When came in flesh and Shephard’s Advent Carol. More familiar fare were Jesus Christ the Apple Tree and And I saw a new Heaven, the latter piece now seeming to have shed its jinx for me.

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The War Requiem in Bristol

Posted on December 27, 2013 by vhk10

The second performance of the War Requiem came a week later in Colston Hall. We were large forces and disposed rather differently from when I sang the work there before. I was positioned round the side of the choir with a sideways-on view of the conductor and a fine view of the percussion section. (Like the Post‘s reporter I was impressed with the number of instruments the main percussionist controlled with ease, but that is what you get with the professionals.)

So why do I still have reservations about this piece? At least it doesn’t have one of Britten’s weak points, his rather arch sense of humour. My problem is that it presents itself as a radical piece of music without actually being so. There are some bits I find sublime: the Agnus Dei and the transition to the children’s voices in the middle of the Offertory – the soldiers of a future generation. And the choral writing in the Recordare and Confutatis movements (the latter a cousin of the men’s chorus in the Gloriana choral dances) is very fine. These are among the less apparently innovative parts of the Requiem – sometimes less can be more. I’m still playing the game of identifying allusions to other composers. Now I know the Grande Messe des Morts I’ll throw that into the mix (the barely-moving voice parts in the Offertory), and just what is going on in the Owen setting at the end of the Sanctus/Benedictus? It sounds like Webern, but maybe it derives from late Stravinsky, with which I’m not very familiar (and might in that case partly explain Stravinsky’s reaction to the piece).

Finally, is there anyone out there, other than me, who cannot hear Britten’s setting of the word ‘knife’ without thinking of Hitchcock’s treatment of this word in his film Blackmail?

Review in the Bristol Post

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The Britten centenary at Merton

Posted on December 24, 2013 by vhk10

In between two performances of the War Requiem, I went to Oxford and heard two evensongs; a midweek one at the Cathedral and another live evensong broadcast from my old College, Merton, centred around Britten’s Hymn to St. Cecilia. This also marked the first official public playing of the College’s 750th birthday present to itself, the new Dobson organ. I’d seen this in situ when attending a party at the College a couple of months ago. It is a very handsome instrument, although I think I would have gone for a slightly plainer case if I’d been making the decisions. As to the sound, it is of course a huge improvement on its predecessor and geared to the German/English repertoire rather than a French palette.

The repertoire for evensong didn’t especially show off the organ (that was going to be done at Merton’s Advent services). The canticles were Jackson in G. Responses were by Matthew Martin (unknown to me) and the introit was Cantatibus organis by the Director of Music’s namesake.

All of this went smoothly – I recorded the Britten when I was a student myself so know just how hard it is. From where I was (in a privileged seat very near the choir) it sounded rather bottom-heavy, but it was nicely balanced when I listened to the Radio 3 version. I had a Britten 50p in my change, and included it in the collection. Afterwards we enjoyed a party where the choir’s third CD was launched.

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The War Requiem in Gloucester

Posted on December 18, 2013 by vhk10

Our performance of the War Requiem was given jointly with the Gloucester Choral Society, and our first performance was in Gloucester Cathedral with Cathedral choristers in the boys choir. I’ll save my reflections on the piece itself for later. The scene was set for me on the day of a rehearsal earlier in the week; I was on a walk near Bath and we passed through a churchyard where one grave was covered in poppy wreaths. A closer look revealed that it was the final resting place of Harry Patch, the last surviving combatant in the First World War.

This was the first time (I think) I’d ever performed with an orchestra of the calibre of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, who were appreciated by the large audience. Gloucester Cathedral itself is a beautiful place but imbued with a deep sense of tragedy of a different sort from that found in the Requiem because of the prominence of memorials to women who died in childbirth. I’d been warned about the cold striking through the floor, resulting in numbness from the feet upwards, rather like Socrates after he drank the hemlock.

The Gloucester people were a friendly and helpful bunch. We were allowed to wait in a handsome suite of rooms which the public don’t normally see, and there was a chance to mix over drinks afterwards in the Chapter House. It’s good to do a concert programme twice, because the first performance at least lacks that sense of anti-climax that you can feel afterwards, and you can also feel encouraged that anything that wasn’t quite right in the first outing might be perfect in the second.

Review from Seen and Heard here.

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