The familiar seen and heard anew – Ivan Fischer, Francesco Piemontesi and the Budapest Festival Orchestra in Schumann, Dohnanyi and Strauss

 

Some time ago, Hillary Hahn played the Sibelius Violin Concerto in Alicante’s ADDA hall in a way that I described as utterly new. Though I had heard the work many times, at least hundreds, this performance opened my eyes anew to its qualities, many of which I had clearly hitherto missed. The same quality of experience applied to Francesco Piemontesi’s interpretation last night of the Schumann Piano Concerto.

It’s a work I have perhaps heard not just hundreds, but thousands of times. Frankly, I don’t have much time for Robert Schumann for reasons I won’t go into. Let’s just say that I tend to tolerate his music’s presence on concert programs without really seeing the point. I tend to find his music over-planned, too self-conscious, perhaps over-eager to present a facade. I admit that he may not be the only artist at fault in such areas!

After Francesco Piemontesi’s performance of the Piano Concerto, however, I feel I may have just been missing the point over the years, or perhaps it might be that the norm in performance is to splash the canvas of interpretation too liberally with respect and too little with humanity. In the hands of Francesco Piemontesi, there was hardly a phrase of this piece that was not “interpreted”. Now sometimes that’s a euphemism for “over-played” or “over-done”. In this case, it meant the use of subtle dynamics, changes of pace, nuances of touch, all designed to bring the music to life. The overall effect was to render the solo part conversational, even personal. I doubt there was a member of the audience who did not feel that this was a personal occasion, shared only by themselves and the soloist. The sense of communication was all-pervading, with the orchestra and soloist never in conflict, always cooperating to create musical sense. And what orchestra playing it was!

Ivan Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra seemed to weave in and out of the textures of the piano, never conflicting, never competing and never overwhelming. And so, by the end, I felt literally as if I had heard the work for the first time, so different was the experience from my expectation.

The Budapest Festival Orchestra under Ivan Fischer began the concert with a performance of Dohnanyi’s Symphonic Minutes. Though less of an innovator than Bartok and perhaps less melodious than Kodaly, Dohnanyi shares the same heritage and his music, witty, sumptuous and yet also neo-classical deserves to be played more.

The second half of Richard Strauss presented a pair of tone poems, Don Juan and Till Eugenspiegel sandwiching The Dance of the Seven Veils from Salome. These two tone poems demand superb orchestral playing and coordination, and right from the opening bars of Don Juan, it was obvious that the Budapest Festival Orchestra both relished and warmed to the task. The result was stunningly vivid, spectacular and exhilarating. Salome’s dance was colourful and deliberately graphic. Then came a masterstroke.

At the start of the evening it was noticeable that Ivan Fischer had placed the basses at the back of the orchestra. This seem to create a balanced, even orchestral texture, through which detail was only enhanced. For Till Eulenspiegel, Ivan Fisher moved the horn section to the front to sit like a quartet of soloists around the podium. The effect was to amplify Till’s pranks, enhance the story and render the performance ultra-vivid, almost surreal.

An encore also broke the mould. Instead of an orchestral lollipop, three members of the Budapest Festival Orchestra played a piece of traditional Hungarian peasant string band music. Here were the quarter tones and strange harmonies of the type that Bartok, Kodaly, Dohnanyi and others had tried to record, in their estimation before they disappeared. Here they were alive, well and rapturously received. It really was an evening of surprises.

A triumph of programming - ADDA Symfonica with Ivan Martin under Yaron Traub play unfamiliar Scriabin and Tchaikovsky

Much thought nowadays is devoted to the construction of concert programmes. A mass audience, almost by definition, is dictatorial. The old favourites are always safe, and the need for posteriors on bucket seats often demands repetition of the hackneyed, the overplayed lollipops of popular taste. But there is also another side to programming these days, an approach that explores the repertoire and, at least, for part of the concert, challenges an audience to listen without expectation, or pre-judgment. Usually this is done by including a contemporary piece alongside a cobwebbed standard. Sometimes, as in last night’s concert in Alicante’s ADDA auditorium, it is achieved by exploring the lesser known, less played works of well-known names. It is rare, however, for a whole concert to be devoted to such less well-known early works.

In an all-Russian program, the ADDA orchestra under Yaron Traub played two works, written just three decades apart in the nineteenth century, Scriabin’s Piano Concerto from the 1890s and Tchaikovsky Symphony No.1, Winter Daydreams, from the 1860s. The truly inspired element of the programming was the shared significance of both these works in the careers of their creators.

Both works are seen as early works, written before the development of the composer’s mature style. In the case of Scriabin, of course, we could discuss precisely what that might have been at some length. Both works have become labelled as breakthrough works, in both cases the creator’s first orchestral success - again in Scriabin’s case this might be debatable! But together, they offer an audience a terrific insight into how these creative minds developed by locating, essentially, where they started from.

Scriabin’s Piano Concerto was written to show off his own virtuosity. It does sound rather like Chopin, even conservative in outlook, given that this style was already half a century old by the 1890s. The composer scored the piano to play close to continuously throughout piece, and there are a couple of places where the orchestra drowns the soloist, but then he would do that later in Prometheus, wouldn’t he? And here there’s no real cadenza, no real opportunity for the soloist to take centre stage, which is strange, given the composer’s self-serving motivation. Orchestration, at this point in Scriabin’s career, was clearly not a strong point, but the integration of soloist and orchestra in the work was its forward-looking aspect. Ivan Martin’s performance was beyond perfect and it was his contrasting encore of baroque trilling.

Winter Daydreams, the Symphony No1, was Tchaikovsky’s breakthrough work. Unlike Scriabin, at the same age, Tchaikovsky showed in this early work much that would become his mature style. There is even a passage for horns in this work which sounds like it came straight out of Nutcracker. And again, unlike Scriabin, Tchaikovsky’s regular use of long lines of theme give this work almost the feel of a novel with a linear plot. All the strong contrasts and outbursts, which were later to characterize his writing, are here already formed, part of the composer’s language.

It is a great program that can surprise through assumed, but misunderstood familiarity.

Dreams From My Father by Barack Obama

Dreams From My Father is Barack Obama’s early autobiography, written before he went to law school. It details his early years and basically presents his pre-lawyer years in three phases, each of which he clearly considered formative, in its own different way.

The book is arranged chronologically, so we start with a birth and infancy. We learn something about his parents, his mother from up close but always from afar in relation to his father. ‘Old Man’ Obama, as we soon learned to call him, was clearly something of a character. We know details of President Obama’s life, so this review will not list unnecessary detail. From Hawaii to Indonesia and eventually to the United States we follow this young life, qt every page turn more mystified at how such a disparate set of experiences could have eventually formed such a rounded individual.

One thing the book does not stress which this review cannot overlook, is the use of the term ‘Old Man’ to label his father. Obama the elder was originally from Kenya and had studied for a doctorate in US colleges. He hailed from western Kenya, a Luo from the Lake Victoria region, where he had received an education that would still have been sympathetic to British traditions and cultures. He was still an African, however, and though not his own language, he would have learned Swahili and would have been fluent in the language. Mzee in Swahili means old man, but it signifies much more than age. It’s a label that would attach to anyone of status or deemed worthy of respect. It was the nickname, for instance, of President Jomo Kenyatta. Indeed, it was his title to such an extent that the use of Mzee with a capital letter would signify the president, himself, to anyone in the country. It is a title that in Kenya would carry no negative connotations whatsoever.

Reading Dreams From My Father I found myself regularly confronted with the title Old Man Obama without being reminded of how positive and respectful the label might be. Perhaps this was an oversight, an assumption that the young Barack Obama did not think necessary to restate. On the other hand, it might indicate an ambivalence towards the father who was not only a great man and a higher achiever, but also something of a chancer who could not be described as reliable. Other readers must make their own minds up, but for me personally the continued use of ‘Old

Man’ rather than ‘mzee’ provided an added layer of complication in this parentage that was already somewhat special. Perhaps the capital letters convey an ultimate respect.

 

Barack Obama Junior, often called Barry, describes much of his early life, especially his years in Indonesia, with affection. The absent father is, however, always absent. What was rather strange was the fact that Barry’s mother is always there, but we hardly get to know her via these pages. If anything, the grandparents figure more in the story, certainly, it seems, in the boy’s personal formation.

 

In the United States, we follow Barry into maturity and, by the time we reach Chicago, he is determined to play an active role in the society where he lives, choosing the route of community organizing to make his mark. It proves to be a hit and miss activity, as it always must be. We who are not generally involved in politics need reminding that it’s an activity where minuscule gains have to be savoured through a general mist of frustration. It’s a quality that clearly makes presidents.

 

Dreams From My Father really comes alive in the third section, when Barry visit Kenya for the first time. Potentially, this is a Roots-like odyssey, but for this particular young man it soon becomes impossible to romanticize about a past that has so many complicated loose ends. Though the family is clearly not poor, the country is, and the young visitor is confronted with many images that confuse or shock. I used to live in Kenya, so it may have been a personal familiarity that brought this section alive. I feel, however, that the young Barack Obama began to understand more about his father during that visit, enough at least to suggest a reality and that reality persuaded him to stay with the dreams.

Surprise, surprise - ADDA with Christian Lindberg and Roland Pontinen

Concert programmes can often appear rather conventional at first sight. A well-known Romantic symphony in the second half, preceded by an equally well-known piano concerto, and, to start, a nod towards the contemporary. It all seems like it might be predictable, even though the first work might be a world premiere. But live music is never predictable. More often, it is surprising, and this concert was one of those, but the surprise itself was surprising.

The world premiere in this concert was Macabre Dances by Jan Sandstrom. The program notes explained that after the composer had suffered a stroke, he experienced a series of strange visions and dreams, apparently caused by his condition. This these gave titles to the movements, Horses in the sea, Stolen signature, Suburb in the east, Crawl in the Mona Lisa, and, finally, Finally. Throughout, there was a sense that the music was familiar, but it was accompanied by, overlaid with, stretched between or compressed within other unique and different elements in the way that made the entire experience unfamiliar, even strange. It was like seeing something you know well, and then realising that you don’t, in fact, know it at all. But the effect was not surreal: on the contrary, given the composer’s own program note, the work vividly portrayed the perceptual experience of a physical condition that none of us wants to have. The Mona Lisa movement was even given an encore at the end of the concert and, even on second hearing, its strangeness proved enduring. Its musical worth was only enhanced.

Roland Pontinen was soloist in the Liszt Piano Concerto No.1. Now this is a work that is both succinct and expansive. It’s succinct because it’s all over in under twenty minutes. It’s expansive because of the way musical ideas are shared across the solo part and the orchestra. The model, until then, had very much been rather formulaic, an opportunity for the soloist to show off with an accompaniment from a larger sound. But this concerto tried to create a tone poem where the soloist and the orchestra truly shared material. Guest conductor of the ADDA orchestra, Christian Lindberg, ensured that the elements all hung together. Roland Pontinen’s encore was a Chopin mazurka, a quiet, unspectacular way to underline his control and virtuosity. The ADDA audience listened with great intensity.

And then, surprisingly, there was a second encore of a quite different character. It may have been a set piece, but its comedy was born of musical virtuosity, and the audience lapped it up. Roland Pontinen and Christian Lindberg offered a Hungarian Dance of Brahms arranged, if that be the word, for piano and trombone. It was a farce, and all the jokes came off.

In the second half, this particular listener experienced an even greater surprise. Schumann’s fourth symphony, at least in the usual numbering, is a familiar work, whose twists and turns I thought were completely familiar. I was wrong. Played almost without a pause between the movements, the piece and phrasing told a linear, novel-like story. This surely was musical interpretation of the highest standard, and it is Christian Lindberg who takes the credit for the direction, but it was also the wonderful ADDA orchestra that performed perfectly.

ADDA hosts Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations in Elements and Furies

Sometimes a program does not seem attractive. Since I generally prefer more modern sounds, particularly contemporary music, a program that lives in the first half of the eighteenth century is not likely to attract, let alone promise something memorable.

I doubt that my tastes are not the norm amongst most concert audiences who tend to recoil at the thought of contemporary music being played. “Where are the tunes?” they ask.” Do you call that harmony?” I think, but never actually say in response, just listen. Just open up and hear if the composer has anything to say! And never mind the quality, just feel the width. There are textures and sounds that tunes would hide! Can't you feel it? It’s not a question I tend to ask of the eighteenth century, however, since to me so much of the music is all gloss, all decoration. At least that’s the stereotype I often think. And then there was Rebel, and Handel, and Gluck, and finally a clapping Rameau. And so the evening did turn out to be musically memorable.

The pedigree of the performers was beyond doubt. Jordi Savall and Le Concert des Nations are superstars in their field and a considerable way beyond that as well. They certainly pulled in the crowds, despite their sound being, perhaps, potentially a little small for this auditorium. By the evening’s end, however, one would not have noticed any shortfall.

Jordi Savall has spent a lifetime rediscovering anew old music and establishing a tradition for its performance. He and the orchestra played this program as if they were walking through familiar terrain, but of course the repertoire is vast, and the styles are widely varied. It takes real musicianship, vision, and imagination to bring a program like this to life and these expert performers, did exactly that.

The opening piece was Rebel’s Les Elements. Now this probably surprised anyone expecting wall-to-wall tunes, wrapped in conventional harmony. Written in 1737 and 1738, Rebel’s work was intended to portray the elements of the ancient world, air, fire, earth, and water, or at least their characters and properties in sound. But at the start, the composer wanted to convey Chaos, the disorderly universe as it existed in his imagination before a divine hand had imposed order. With this orchestra, a small band by modern standards, Rebel wanted to convey what a modern mind might hear as a big bang, but he chose to do it subtly, rather than with force. The musical shock of atonal music written early in the eighteenth century is profound. The work progressed, both dramatically and playfully, if not always coherently. The playing was perfect, the overall design somewhat opaque.

Then, we heard music by a German written in Italian style, conceived for a German monarch in England. The first suite of Handel’s Water Music is well known, but deservedly so. Again the opening is a real surprise, with Handel’s melodic and harmonic invention to the fore throughout the piece, which, despite its familiarity, is full of surprises.

Finally, we heard the ballet suite Don Juan ou Le Festin de Pierre (Don Juan, or the Stone Guest's Banquet) by Gluck. The work was listed almost as co-written by Gasparo Angiolini, Gluck’s choreographic collaborator. The work was first performed in 1761 and in it we could hear musical classicism alongside more decorative elements. It was always surprising. The music was vivid, and culminated in Don Juan’s descent into hell with a piece subtitled The Furies. It seemed we had come full circle in that musically we were almost back to the opening of Rebel's The Elements in places. Except that now, it was the power of the musical forces that was being unleashed.

An encore from Rameau was pure romp. In a short introduction, Jordi Savall coached the audience in a five beat twice-given clap to pick out a repeated rhythmic pattern in the work, and the ADDA audience starred by taking the cues in perfect unison. And everyone went home very happy.

 

Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stewart

Douglas Stewart won the Booker Prize for Fiction with Shuggie Bain, an autobiographical novel about a child coping with an alcoholic parent. Shuggie is a wee lad - the novel is set largely in Glasgow - who becomes noted for his la-di-dah speech and his apparent desire to be different. Agnes, his mother, is an alcoholic. She does not try to hide the fact. Anything will do, but cans of Special Brew figure large and often. She earns whatever she can in whatever way she can to fund her habit and pools the family’s benefits to the cause. She obviously does not seek employment, because she could never be sufficiently dependable to be relied upon. And she knows it.

Shuggie and his much older brother Leek often go hungry. They are often cold, not only because there is usually not a fifty pence piece to feed the meter, but also because what was put into the meter has been recycled to buy more booze. The television often does not work either, because it’s a pay-slot type and it too has been emptied. The mother Agnes has a relationship with Shuggie’s father, who happens to be called Shug. She has another relationship with Eugene. Both men are taxi drivers, and both have increased in girth after years of sedentary labor. The action, if that be the right word, takes place in Glasgow and then in Pithead, a rundown and already depressed mining community, if that be a relevant label for the place described. It is in these two working-class communities that Shuggie and his brother grow up, mature before their years and cope, for that is the best thing they can achieve with so much stacked against them.

Shuggie Bain is a story of survival. It is, in its own way, a story of dignity and human perseverance in the face of adversity. It is, however, very one-dimensional. I persevered with the book more out of duty, more out of a desire to support it than a true interest in what might happen to his characters. Well before the end, I was not only rather tired of repeating the same scenario, but I had also lost interest in the outcomes. Perhaps that was the point. If so, it became laboured.

There is always a dilemma for a writer when characters speak in dialect or with an accent. How much of the sound of the speech should be written? Is it wise to change the spelling of common words to indicate a different pronunciation from standard English? A problem with much nineteenth century fiction is that the middle classes seem to talk proper, but as soon as the working-class character appears, then the apostrophes suddenly appear to obliterate all the aitches. Personally, I prefer writers not to write in accents. The problem is that often it doesn’t work. In Yorkshire, one might ask, “Wots tha doin’ wi’ thy pen?” and the answer might be “Raaatin”. I come from a place where the word bus is pronounced bus, not bas or even bis. With an upper-class character, would I ever write “Air hair lair, Ha-aa-yo?” “Em fen, thiyank yo.” to indicate privilege, except when I might want to humiliate them and their class?

In Shuggie Bain, Douglas Stuart chooses to write much of the quoted speech in a version of Glaswegian dialect, complete with alternative spellings to indicate the uniqueness of the sound. It does not work. It renders these characters sometimes unintelligible, sometimes comic. An example will illustrate. Precisely why “fitba” should be used instead of football, I have no idea. Would a novel set in London use a line like “Wew, vez an awfuw lo’ o’ wewwintns in vat sho”? Perhaps not, even if it were a gumboot shop.

I was genuinely willing the book to succeed. And it did, in its own way. It is worth reading and the progression of the characters does become interesting, if never truly engaging. Maybe that is its point. But there always seems to be a lot of wood to clear to get to the trees.

It’s all in the detail – Madama Butterfly in Valencia, December 2021

Puccini’s Madame Butterfly is a very well-known, much loved, and indeed popular opera. The genre is replete with femmes fatales, Butterfly, Tosca, Manon, Carmen, Lucía, Violetta and Katya, just for example, who get it in the end, so one might think there is nothing much to see in terms of new perspectives when such a familiar work with such a well-worked theme is staged. Opera lovers, however, will confirm that there most definitely is!

Audiences tend to fall into two distinct groups, those for whom any diversion from their own preconceptions signifies the end of civilization, and those for whom radical interpretation is a welcome challenge to the establishment. There is another perspective, however, in which directors, via minor changes to staging, can completely transform the way we understand these often rigidly interpreted stories. Such was the success of Emilio Lopez, the director of the recent production in Valencia. His 2021 staging of Butterfly will be broadcast on Opera Vision on Sunday 19 December and will be available through that website for some weeks. It is successful on several levels, one of which is revelatory.

Let’s start with the term verismo. That certainly applied to the way Puccini approached his work and it implies that the setting should not be palatial and that characters might be depicted as everyday folk. We may assume that the composer never experienced the mid-19 century Japan of the opera’s setting, so if verismo applies to Butterfly, then it applies principally on an ideological level. That said, the opera’s potential for costume drama usually so overcomes designers and directors that even recognition of verismo in the result is obscured. In other words, everything gets pretty before it can become credible. And it is verismo that suffers.

In act one, Cio-Cio-san describes how she is from a poor home and became a geisha because of lack of opportunity. The ceremonial dagger which she eventually uses to take her own life was presented to her father by the Mikado with request that he use it on himself. We must assume that Butterfly’s family were thus already in disgrace. She then compounds this disgrace by rejecting her cultural and religious traditions, an act that uncle Bonze condemns, prompting her friends and community to reject her, all except Suzuki of course. The fact that Puccini then takes us into the love scene of the wedding night often obscures this rejection. In the Valencia production, a backdrop that had featured cherry blossom becomes the starry night of the couple’s ecstasy, but it does so by melting like celluloid in an overheated projector, implying that the comforting blossoms of the past have been destroyed. The starry night persists into acts two and three, but thus becomes a symbol of continued isolation and of Butterfly’s insistence, nay imperative to live in the past.

Cio-Cio-san often comes across as a meek and thus stereotypical Asian woman, who has never even practiced the word “boo” with geese nearby. As a result, she often becomes the single-, even simple-minded naïve devotee of Pinkerton, despite the fact that, as a geisha, she must have had experience of the fly-by-night sailor. The supplicant image endears her to audiences, perhaps, but strips her of the identity and individuality she certainly has, otherwise she would never have pursued her own, private wishes so single-mindedly.

The point is she does not have a great deal of choice. She is poor. She is a geisha. She has done her job. Pinkerton offers her a way out, which she, perhaps naïvely accepts. But once she has made the commitment, she cannot go back. She wants to please him, but by doing so she suffers the rejection of her own community. But she has to go through with the risk.

In Valencia, Emilio Lopez recognizes that Cio-Cio-san is living in poverty. Ignored by Pinkerton for three years and still rejected by her own community, she and Suzuki live amidst decay and grime. The temptation to portray Butterfly still in full, opulent geisha regalia makes no sense and is avoided convincingly in this production. Suzuki confirms this poverty in the libretto. What too often comes across as blind faith on Butterfly’s part now becomes necessity, imposed by her community because of her rejection by and of them. She can’t go back. She has no other option. This is an element of verismo in the opera which directors often tend to overlook.

But in this Valencia production, the real surprise comes at the end. Pinkerton has returned but has refused to see Butterfly. He storms off because he cannot take it anymore... He does want the child, however. His new American wife and Sharpless are told by Butterfly to come back in half an hour to take the child. Note that Pinkerton has not heard her request.

Butterfly has her own plans, however, plans that involve using that ceremonial weapon her father used to kill himself. The elements are clear. Butterfly kills herself, the voice of Pinkerton returning is heard. Or perhaps not…

The usual way to treat this is to have Butterfly stab herself on the orchestral tutti and then for the sound of Pinkerton’s voice to be heard as she dies. If Pinkerton is not seen, it could be argued that he really was nasty all along and that Cio-Cio-san is imagining the voice, still therefore deceiving herself. If he does appear, then his character is rather let off the hook. If only Butterfly had delayed, then the ecstasy of the starry night might just have returned. But then she had already waited three years…

Sometimes Cio-Cio-san hears the voice and then stabs herself. Again, we have her imagining the sound as a possibility, but we then also have the possibility that she is suffering a form of self-loathing the result of the rejection. Again, this approach internalizes Butterfly’s suffering.

In the Valencia production, the orchestral tutti arrives with dagger drawn, but Butterfly turns to face the entrance to her house when she hears Pinkerton’s call. She waits for him to appear and recognize her and then she kills herself.

The effect is to transform her suicide into an act of defiance. She knows the child will be cared for. She has been rejected by her society and by Pinkerton. She is alone and has no future. But she is now also determined that he will not possess her, and she wants to demonstrate her contempt. You will not possess me as chattel, she thinks. And thus, her character is transformed from the meek and mild recipient of tragedy into a defiant individualist, albeit a dead one. At least she has asserted her own position. It’s different and surprising, which illustrates beautifully that sometimes the most radical transformations are achieved via detail.