 |
| Meet The Composers: Rebecca Clarke, Jennifer Higdon, & Amy Beach |
Who: pianist Stuart Malina, with violinists Alexander Kerr and Peter Sirotin, violist Michael Isaac Strauss, and cellist Julian Schwartz
What: Rebecca Clarke's Viola Sonata, Jennifer Higdon's Piano Trio, and the Piano Quintet of Amy Beach
When & Where: Saturday, April 29th, 2023, at 7:30pm, Market Square Church on the Square in Downtown Harrisburg
(This post is about Jennifer Higdon's Piano Trio and Rebecca Clarke's Viola Sonata; Part 2 will be about Amy Beach's Piano Quintet)
A good definition of “Chamber Music” might be “music for a small number of instruments performed in a more intimate setting than a large concert hall.” Or, as I prefer to think of it: “music by friends for friends.” You can, of course, have a string quartet play in Carnegie Hall. But you can't have the New York Philharmonic play in your living room (well, not my living room...).
One of the traditions Stuart Malina, conductor of the Harrisburg Symphony, initiated was a program of chamber music where he'd play a variety of chamber works with members of the orchestra, usually principal players. Understandably, it was called “Stuart & Friends.”
Now, the tradition continues with Market Square Concerts, and he gets to continue his love of playing chamber music with Peter Sirotin, Co-Director of Market Square Concerts and Concertmaster of the Harrisburg Symphony, plus friends like violinist Alexander Kerr, violist Michael Isaac Strauss, and cellist Julian Schwartz. And not to forget another friend from his days at the Curtis Institute of Music like Alex Kerr and Michael Strauss: the composer Jennifer Higdon.
* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *
As most of us who are regular concert-goers know, reading program notes, music appreciation books (“concert guides” about “what to listen for in music”) or biographical summaries of The Great Composers, Mozart began composing at the age of 6 and by 17 had written that incredible G Minor Symphony, No. 25 in his catalog of symphonies; or that Mendelssohn wrote two of his most popular (many would agree, his greatest) works, the Octet for Strings when he was 16 and the Midsummer Night's Dream Overture the following year.
By her own admission, Jennifer Higdon has been called “the poster child for late-bloomers.” She taught herself to play the flute at the age of 15, began serious study of music at 18 when she took her first college music courses and had to take “remedial theory,” and only began writing her own music at the age of 21.
There's no way of knowing what made Mozart a “genius” (at least as far as his music was concerned) or what turned him into a composer as opposed to just another talented violinist or pianist. Why was Mendelssohn different from any of those teenagers who didn't write works like that Octet for Strings? And if centuries of young music students everywhere – whatever their own (or their parents') aspirations were – had it drummed into their heads (and fingers) to be “more like Mozart” or they'll never succeed when they grow up (the question, of course, whether musicians ever do “grow up” aside), how does a composer like Jennifer Higdon exist today?
Unlike Mozart or Mendelssohn, she did not grow up in a musical household (or at least one that listened to or performed Classical Music, more like the folk and rock music of the 1950s and '60s). Who in high school encouraged her to study music in college much less eventually try writing her own music? (Her college flute teacher, actually: more to the point, what did she see that suggested this possibility?)
Over the years, I've talked with her before a Harrisburg Symphony concert a few times – we met in 2000 over a performance of her surprise hit, her “Concerto for Orchestra” with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Kimmel Center – and I remember one comment she made when her father, a painter who was by day a mild-mannered graphic artist, was listening to a piece his daughter had written and said, “Where did that come from!?”
And what makes one person a successful
composer and another one, not? Or a composer at all? What is it that makes one composer "work" one way, and another "works" completely differently, regardless of their own individual musical styles?
Music, of course, is always a mystery to those who are not musicians. Where does any of this come from? To musicians, it's no less a mystery even if, by and large, we'd rather not think about it. Probably the greatest fear any musician (or composer) has is waking up one day and finding it (whatever it is) isn't there any more. Inspiration can be a fickle thing.
Several young composers – “prodigies,” to use the over-used term – have talked about inspiration being “like a radio station in your brain that never stops.” All you have to do is write it down: it's just there. Until one day – usually when you turn 21, it seems – it isn't. That's when you need to rely on craft, the ability to push notes around on a page (or at the keyboard) to come up with something that – aha! – you can turn into your next piece.
Schubert could hardly write fast enough, sometimes (the story goes) wearing his glasses to bed so, if he was struck with inspiration in the night, he didn't have to waste time trying to find them when he got up to jot down a new idea. Beethoven, judging from his sketchbooks, found “creativity” a long and sometimes arduous process, not helped by his deafness.
Some composers had short careers: Mozart died at 35, Schubert at 31, and Mendelssohn at 38. Some composers gave up writing early: Rossini, was 37 when he retired after completing William Tell and would live another 39 years. Sibelius, after his 7th Symphony and the tone-poem Tapiola, found himself “written out” at 61 and while perhaps not retiring willingly, completed no other major works during the remaining thirty years of his life.
On the other hand, there's Elliott Carter. Hearing him talk about “inspiration,” I remember how he ignored the common definition – suddenly you've got a tune that comes out of nowhere and then you do things to it – and worked with small combinations of pitches (motives more than melodies – but then, the same could be said of Beethoven) to see what you could do with them (this is technique, the compositional equivalent of a pianist practicing scales and arpeggios). A commission for a new piece with a specific combination of instruments, for instance, presented him with “questions” – “what can I do with this or that combination?” – and then the inspiration came in how to answer (or solve) those questions. It must've worked for him: he completed his last composition, a Piano Trio, “Epigrams,” 13 weeks before his death only 5 weeks before what would've been his 104th birthday.
So, looking at the music on this program, “where,” indeed, “does that come from?” What inspired these three composers – or rather, what role did “inspiration” play in creating the music we're going to hear?
* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *
Let's start with the most recent work on the program.
One of the things I've noticed in concert programs since I was a child many (many) years ago is how many of the composers are Living Composers. And not just the occasional piece here and there. Jennifer Higdon is celebrated as one of the most performed “living composers” in America, second only, as far as the statistics I've seen mentioned, to John Adams who is now 76 (I heard his “Grand Pianola Music” in 1982; and it's perhaps an inspiration to those of us challenged by a lack of inspiration to remember this was followed by an 18-month period of “writers block”).
Ms. Higdon – it seems so formal to call her that, since we don't say “Mr. Beethoven” and yet it's a bit too chummy and braggadocious to call her “Jennifer” – has won three Grammys for her Percussion Concerto, her Viola Concerto, and her Harp Concerto (the first and third heard in Harrisburg with Stuart Malina conducting the Harrisburg Symphony) and, for her Violin Concerto (written for Hillary Hahn in 2010) a Pulitzer Prize in Music. Most recently, Harrisburg heard her recent “Cold Mountain Suite,” extracted from her first opera based on Charles Frazier's novel, this past January.
The Piano Trio was written shortly after the success of her Concerto for Orchestra with the Philadelphia Orchestra, commissioned by the “Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival” in Colorado in 2003. There are two movements, each one given a title more suggestive than programmatic: “Pale Yellow” and “Fiery Red,” a long-lined lyrical profusion followed by a conflagration of energy that reminded me how one critic described Higdon's style as “Bartók on speed...”
In her program note for the trio, she writes:
“Can music reflect colors and can colors be reflected in music? I have always been fascinated with the connection between painting and music. In my composing, I often picture colors as if I were spreading them on a canvas, except I do so with melodies, harmonies and through the instruments themselves. The colors that I have chosen in both of the movement titles and in the music itself, reflect very different moods and energy levels, which I find fascinating, as it begs the question, can colors actually convey a mood?”
Piano Trio: 1. Pale Yellow (with violinist Anne Akiko Meyers, cellist Alisa Weilerstein, and pianist Adam Neiman from their CD on Naxos)
Piano Trio: 2. Fiery Red (with members of the United States Marine Band, “The President's Own,” from a May 2021 concert)
(granted, it may seem like gilding the lily to have musicians wearing bright red uniforms reinforcing the title's image...)
When she was here in May, 2014, for the Harrisburg Symphony's
second programming of her Percussion Concerto, Jennifer mentioned
her dad died just recently. In tribute, she'd posted one of his
paintings on her Facebook page.
Until then, I had not seen any
of her father's artwork. Being a not very visually oriented person,
myself, I hadn't thought much about his possible influence aside from
seeing her give her works “colorful” titles – in addition to the Piano Trio, there was also the string quartet “Impressions” (a slightly different
musical view of impressionism) has a movement called 'To the
Point' which was inspired by the pointillistic style of Suerat, while the others are called
'Bright Palette,' 'Quiet Art' and 'Noted Canvas.'
But this
explained a lot to me:
“That,” I'd said, “is where this comes from.” I see many elements of her musical style in her dad's painting style – from the sense of colors and the way he uses them, the textures, even the brush strokes which give it a real energy, and, of course, the picturesque and whimsical title for an abstract work. Even if that's the only painting of his I'd ever see, I would say Jennifer Higdon is very much her father's daughter – translating his visual art into her music which is, after all, “aural art”.
Listeners have often questioned me, when I tell these kinds of “anecdotes,” if that has any bearing on the music they're listening to. “No,” I'd say, “you don't need to realize that to enjoy the music you're listening to, but it had a bearing on the composer who wrote the music you're listening to.” In that sense, whether you're aware of it or not is immaterial. If you are, it may deepen your understanding of 'where the music comes from.'
If you're wondering how composers' careers begin, here's Jennifer Higdon, in Harrisburg for the first performance of her Percussion Concerto in 2008, talking about that when she was interviewed in a live radio broadcast of “Composing Thoughts,” curated and hosted by John Clare and filmed in the atrium of WITF. In this excerpt she describes what it was like getting an unexpected phone call from the Philadelphia Orchestra to commission a new piece which would eventually become the Concerto for Orchestra.
* * ** *** ***** ******** ***** *** ** * *
If someone had interviewed the English-born composer Rebecca Clarke at the time she wrote her “break-out” piece, the Viola Sonata which opens the program, we would hear a different story.
 |
| Rebecca Clarke in 1919 |
It would be interesting to compare – if anyone's looking for a thesis topic – the influence of Victorian Society on the early lives of composers Rebecca Clarke and Ethel Smyth, a Victorian of the previous generation. Both had certain ambitions as professional musicians as well as composers which their society basically “frowned upon.” While Dame Ethel could never be accused of lacking self-confidence, why, then, did Rebecca Clarke write only a few works in a concentrated span of time before eventually giving up both composing and performing?
Before I go any further, let's listen to the Viola Sonata, written in 1919 when she was 33. Just listen to the music (at least the opening few minutes) of either of these videos (the second for the fan(s) who like to follow the score), then read the famous story that usually overshadows it.
(Richard O'Neill and Jeremy Denk, live in concert)
(violist Antoine Tamestit and pianist Ying-Chien Lin; with score)
After being disowned by her father in 1910 (a story in itself), she tried to make a “go” of it as a professional musician in London, first as a violinist, then as a violist, moving to the United States in 1916. In 1918, she gave a recital at New York's Aeolian Hall which included two brief works of hers for viola and cello as well as her Morpheus (written two years earlier) for viola and piano but here listed under a pseudonym, Anthony Trent. Critics liked the “Trent,” but largely ignored the works listed under her own name.
If we're asking “what inspired
her to write her Viola Sonata,” there's at least a two-fold
possibility. First of all, as a performing violist, she wanted
something of her own she could perform on recitals, something more
substantial than a lighter piece like Morpheus.
And then there was this competition which may have been coincidental
or she may have decided, “why not...?” and wrote it specifically with the prize in mind.
With over seventy scores submitted anonymously, Clarke's Sonata initially tied for first place with a piece by the well-established Swiss composer, Ernest Bloch.
There are, it seems, two stories: the older one says Coolidge, having met Clarke at one of her music festivals in 1918, invited her to submit a work to her competition for a new work for viola and piano for next year's festival.
The judges were deadlocked on a winner and Mrs. Coolidge was called in to break the tie. She voted for the piece that turned out to be written by Ernest Bloch, a Swiss-born composer who'd arrived in America the same year as Clarke – he'd just finished his most famous work, the rhapsody for cello and orchestra, Schelomo, and was just beginning to establish his career. His winning work was the Suite for Viola and Piano.
It was the other work that startled the judges when the composer's name was revealed: Mrs. Coolidge remarked, “You should have seen their faces when they saw it was by a woman!” To her credit, she had Clarke's Sonata performed on the festival's program as well.
A different story arises from the often suspect Wikipedia which mentions Coolidge was Clarke's neighbor and that the judges deemed it would smack of favoritism if her neighbor won which makes it sound like they knew the composers' identities (but the scores were submitted anonymously, right?).
Anyway, the story is one of “those” stories and the point is, however the judges knew it, Clarke's sonata “just didn't sound like it could've been written by a woman.” And in those days, over a hundred years ago, how many “women composers” had these judges come in contact with, anyway?
The sonata is in three movements. The first, marked Impetuoso, begins with a vibrant fanfare from the viola, before moving on into “a melodic and harmonic language reminiscent of Claude Debussy and Ralph Vaughan Williams, two important influences on Clarke's music” (keep in mind Debussy had died in 1918, and Vaughan Williams had recently completed his 2nd Symphony), influenced considerably by Debussy's use of modes and the whole-tone scale and the use of parallel blocked chords (one passage reminds me of Vaughan Williams' 3rd Symphony but that wasn't premiered until 1921). The second movement, Vivace, “makes use of many interesting 'special effects' like harmonics and pizzicato.” The final movement, beginning as an Adagio, “is both pensive and sensual in its language. However, Clarke works in a special surprise: a segue into a restatement of themes from the first movement,” ending “in a lush and brilliant pyrotechnical display, showing off the full range of the viola, as well as the piano (whose part is of equal difficulty).”
Perhaps it was Fate Redux in 1921 when Rebecca Clarke submitted her Piano Trio to another of Mrs. Coolidge's competitions: she again failed to gain the prize. While there are more “hints of Bloch” in her style, here – especially the cello's theme at 0:26 that reminds me of Schelomo which had premiered at Carnegie Hall in 1917 – this is a much more forward-looking piece. Perhaps its dissonance and rhythmic anxiety reflect the reality of life after World War I? The opening alone must have knocked the collective socks off the judges if they thought the Viola Sonata was too masculine a piece to be written by a woman...
- Dick Strawser
= = = = = = =
(photo credit: Jennifer Higdon's photo in the center of the banner was taken by Andrew Bogard.)
No comments:
Post a Comment