The Beauty of Kathleen Ferrier

Every once in a while I'm reminded that Kathleen Ferrier is dead, and I fall into a state of misery, ignoring the fact that I never knew her, never saw her in a video clip, and only shared the planet with her for a little more than two years. More than the voice which has been within arm's reach for most of my life, and the fragrant personality that every piece of memorabilia radiates, I also, in my pathetic male way, mourn the loss of her wonderful face.

When I was a kid, I could never understand the adult preoccupation with dimples. I knew some kids with deep dimples, who were almost literally a pain in the butt. But now that I am come to man's estate, I can see a little of what the fuss is about. Let me put it this way: if I were to be a girl (which I am not), that's whom I would like to look like.

There are several vocal pieces I love that I can almost only bear to hear sung by Kathleen Ferrier; most of them are on the album Kathleen Ferrier sings Bach and Handel Arias. One in particular, one of the most joyful arias ever written, is from the Handel Messiah : "O Thou that tellest glad tidings to Zion" heard here in a Google video. This particular recording uses an enriched version of Handel's scoring, very possibly that by Ebenezer Prout. On that same recording with Sir Adrian Boult is the gorgeous Bach aria: Qui sedes ad dextram Patris, from the mass in B minor.

It is interesting how protestants such as Bach addressed these ancient Latin prayers composed by clergy a thousand years ago; clearly, to at least some of the leaders of the early church, the day of judgment was very close indeed. The prayer says --and some of the fear in it still remains after millennia of comforting familiarity: O Thou that sittest at the right hand of God the Father, have mercy upon us! I am not a believer; nevertheless the appeal can be very poignant, depending on who makes it. To the first century clerics who first wrote the prayers of the Mass, the confidence that Jesus had promised to intercede for mankind must have warred with belief in the fearful end of the world, and the accompanying judgment. To Bach, for whom the goodness of Jesus was, with the consolation of music, the only relief from the misery of his life and the cruelty of his world, the prayer was at once an opportunity to practice his compositional art, as well as an opportunity to praise god. To me, it seems as if the beautiful aria is not a personal plea, but an offering of beauty, where the rhetorical aspects of the melody are an offering to god, carefully wrought, and sincere in the context of religious drama. To Kathleen Ferrier, I doubt that the feelings of Bach and the author of the prayer meant too much. She probably allowed the emotions in the notes to suffuse her, determined to persuade her audience of the beauty of the aria, and to give her fellow performers of her best, so that the whole work, the recording, could be as good as she could personally make it, and sincerely, from her heart. Listening to it, it seems effortless, but in the footnotes we read that she had already been diagnosed with cancer. We can never know, but it is possible that the illness did not color the performance except as a hindrance to doing even better. I have never seen so many photographs of a woman who smiled more readily with her eyes. There is a youthful photograph of her, as young as nineteen, possibly, with the marks of braces still on her teeth, with the same smile on her face with which she graced photographs all her life.

Janet Baker recounts hearing of the death of Kathleen Ferrier, and her feelings at the realization that she could never get to know her. I can only guess how universal that feeling was, but it is certainly how I have felt every once in a while, especially when I see that wonderful smile.

[Added later:
It is said that, even if everyone she knew was not exactly in love with Kathleen Ferrier, at least the horror of hearing the news of her death was a serious shock to everyone.  The recordings in the album Kathleen Ferrier Sings Bach and Handel Arias, in Mono, were literally the last recordings she ever made, for she died very shortly afterwards.  Adrian Boult, the conductor on the record, was so grief-stricken that he had not made a stereophonic recording for the album that he placed a large speaker on the middle of the stage, conducted the orchestral accompaniment all over again, and recorded it in stereo, with Ms Ferrier's voice coming out in Monophonic sound in the middle.  This was considered sacrilege at the time, and for years to come; of course purists would consider practically anything sacrilegious.  I for one would love to get my hands on this fake stereo version.]

Archimedes

Harry Potter and The World of Children's Books

It seems clear, at this point, that the Harry Potter books, and the Harry Potter Phenomenon generally, has given children's books a fillip that was sadly needed for decades. You may disagree with Jane Rowling's metaphysics, or with her educational objectives or social consciousness or whatever, but you can't fault her saying that she writes a boring book. I'm willing to bet that there must be a million young readers out there for whom Harry Potter was the first book they read voluntarily. There must be a vast number who began reading Harry Potter under duress, but continued to read voluntarily. The hardest thing to do, and believe me, I know first hand, is to get a kid to start reading. You pick the wrong books, or she has the wrong interests, or there just aren't any interesting books, or her friends don't read, so she doesn't, either, or she despises her friends and they do read ... you can ring the changes on that ad nauseam. So even if kids are reading books that you'd rather they didn't, they are reading, dammit, which is a huge improvement over not reading at all.  

Is our adult preoccupation with reading a temporary 20th/21st -century phase? Will 25th century adults bemoan the fact that kids don't watch enough TV? Is there something special about books? Because I enjoy writing so much (hence this blog :) I assume that there is some benefit to reading and writing, both to the writer, and to the audience. When writing, you have to force your nebulous thought into words, and you begin to realize that you have linguistic resources that you did not dream you had! Language, especially written language, is a resource that one must never undervalue. I wish I had the skills to persuade everyone of the truth of this, but it is only an instinctive feeling, a gut conviction, at the moment.  

It's surprising how the Harry Potter books have caught on in America. Perhaps the wonderful movies have contributed to the overall phenomenon, but why did the books catch on at first? They rely so much on the British boarding-school phenomenon, to which most Americans are strangers (except for the few who have read boarding-school books, and I can't even think of a few offhand--I belong to the generation who read Billy Bunter and Psmith stories from books handed down from uncles and aunts). The idea of a mixed boarding school (girls and boys) is unfamiliar, but I imagine in this enlightened age such a thing is not impossible. Perhaps they have been around for decades; gosh, I'm such a dinosaur.  

Rowling is a master at characterization. There's absolutely nobody better. The plots are not as satisfying as I'd like (or rather, The Plot isn't as satisfying, I should say). It all goes to show that, really, the plot is only a minor component of the entire work of fiction. Brilliant books have been written with very sketchy plots. Rowling's characters are so real, that to this day it seems as though Hermione Granger in the books and Hermione in the movie (Emma Watson) are two different characters entirely, both of whom share Harry Potter. Honestly, I can't see Emma Watson in the role for the movie of the last book (Deathly Hallows). She just gives the impression of being too much in charge and unflappable, while the Hermione of the book seems at the end of her tether, and only hanging on by a thread. Let's see Emma Watson hanging on by a thread, then, and I'll believe she can do it. There are other authors who have been plugging away at the young adult audience over the years, with some success, if not as spectacular success as that of Rowling and Potter. Tamora Pierce is one, a particularly good writer, even if not as brilliantly gifted as Ms Rowling. Arguably, some of Pierce's stories are more satisfying than any given Harry Potter book, but the Harry Potter books are to Tamora Pierce's books as a Hollywood blockbuster is to a wonderful little Indie film. A lot of work has gone into the style and the stylishness of the Harry Potter books, and we can't all be J.K. Rowling. On the other hand, Tamora Pierce has written a score of books, many of them very, very good, and as far as we know, J.K. Rowling has not gone beyond Beadle the Bard, which is still squarely in the Potter universe. But she has plenty of time in which to prove that she is not just a 7-hit wonder.  

Archimedes

The End of The Art of Fugue (Der Kunst der Fuge)

I never took YouTube seriously for years, until I got interested in ballroom dancing. Then I discovered a video clip of a tiny couple dancing on YouTube, and was totally hooked! I still probably go to YouTube less frequently than most, but I decided to report on what I have found.

 Glenn Gould is represented well, mostly off TV appearances, with his humming very clearly audible. (I have not heard the humming on disc, though as I reported, I'm a little hard of hearing.) In addition to most of the goodies, Gould plays the Bach Contrapunctus no. 14 from the Art of Fugue, a very moving performance, the humming notwithstanding.

The Art of Fugue ends with a famously incomplete piece, Contrapunctus 14. For most lovers of the music of J.S.Bach, this is a difficult moment. The surviving fragment of this last fugue (Contrapunctus simply means fugue with some extra connotations that are unimportant) is such a wonderful achievement that the fact of its incompleteness is heartbreaking. The first fugue --a jewel itself-- introduces the main musical theme of the entire set of fugues which constitute The Art of Fugue, assigned the opus number 1080. This theme appears inverted and altered in many interesting ways, but then other themes are also introduced, until there are four in all. [It is now believed that the] last fugue was supposed to be a fugue in all four themes, a so-called quadruple fugue, [though for many years it was identified as merely a triple fugue, following the designations of early scholars, notably the sons of J.S.Bach].

The fugue is both an intellectual exercise and a musical form. A musical form is simply a holding-structure for a piece of music, to make it easier for the listener to cling to points of familiarity in the musical narrative. Thus form makes music more listenable. A fugue, an essentially minimalist concept, is a piece of music based on a single motif (the subject), whose intermittent arrival in one part (or voice) or another provides the familiarity that makes the piece accessible. But the temptation to make a clever fugue is almost irresistible, so that an amateur could write a fugue that is correct, but which does not make for pleasant listening. (Note: the way in which a fugue subject pervades a fugue must not be taken to be an indication that every one of the subject entries must be emphasized and recognized. The subject provides a texture that is just as satisfying --or more satisfying-- than the satisfaction of recognizing an entry. The presence of the subject is felt rather than actually heard, and the connoisseur of counterpoint will have learned this pleasure.)

Bach's 'last' fugue, on the other hand, is first and foremost a piece of beautiful music. It starts out with great dignity, even solemnity, and becomes a mighty protest against the universe. Then, as it gathers strength to repeat a new and more terrible argument, it collapses into a lonely tenor voice, which suddenly finds itself utterly abandoned by the remaining voices. There are stories that Bach died while working on this piece, but this is contradicted by a fair degree of evidence. It is not the sentimentality of Bach's death and his inability to complete the work that is tragic. Rather it is the fact that a completion simply has not come down to us.

Some writers (notably Christoph Wolff) have argued that The Art of Fugue was a work begun a lot earlier in Bach's life, and that perhaps the last fugue had been completed, but has been lost. It is also possible that Bach did not like his completion, and left the truncated fugue as a challenge. For those interested in the subject, there is a completion by Donald Francis Tovey that is conceded to be learned, but widely regarded as unsatisfactory. There is a completion by Lionel Rogg, which I have not heard, and also one by William Malloch, which I have. This last is rather an irreverent and playful arrangement of the whole Art of Fugue which leaves one both bemused and amused, and is thoroughly worth hearing. (One of these days I may have the courage to upload it to YouTube myself.)

Searching for Art of Fugue, or Die Kunst der Fuge, and Bach, or maybe BWV 1080, you get many hits on YouTube. Some of the best clips are of Musica Antiqua Koln (with Reinhard Goebel). There are two clips of Contrapunctus 1 by recorder ensembles, both Japanese, and an uncredited Organ version that is mechanical enough to be derived from a MIDI file.

A piece that is --at least thematically-- quite unrelated to the Art of Fugue is the Chorale Vor deinem Thron tret ich hiermit. This is a fairly well known tune sung to words less familiar to English congregations. The original tune is an alternative to "The day thou gavest, Lord, is ended." This chorale was (as I understand it) written on the lower half of the page on which Bach's unfinished 14th fugue ends, and was presented by Bach's son as the last thing the great composer ever wrote. It is certainly something that Bach may well have wanted to do, but on our deathbeds, few of us have the strength to make the wonderful gestures we would like to make. But the wonderful blend of arrogance and humility that we see in Bach from this distance in time is neither diminished nor increased by whether he wrote the hymn below the fugue on the manuscript.

Archimedes

Liszt's Transcendental Etude No. 10

I watched this clip of Cziffra playing one of Liszt's Transcendental Etudes just a second ago. It humbles me that there is so much music that I am not aware of, and with which I am completely not in tune. I could appreciate the brilliance of the performance without being touched by the music. The fact that the man had such technical mastery was amazing. The pianism was undeniable. But is it music? There are pieces by Liszt that I love. But there is a point, a level of brilliance beyond which my appreciation does not go.

Arch

Rites of Spring

A couple of weeks ago I decided to read Jessica Duchen's first (?) novel: Rites of Spring. The book arrived late last week. The novel, for the most part set in contemporary London and its suburbs, had a number of wonderful characters, all of them sympathetic, especially Liffy (Olivia) a twelve-year old who wants to dance professionally, and lives Ballet. There are a pair of twin younger brothers, usually noisy and obnoxious, interesting and colorful parents, grandparents, an aunt hopelessly in love with a concert pianist.

The first part of the novel --all I have read so far-- chronicles the gradual falling apart of Liffy's comfortable world, and for various reasons, the worlds of everyone around her. The rest of the novel must salvage something for most of those who survive this multi-dimensional upheaval, or I will never forgive Jessica Duchen. I suspect that Liffy will be the price that has to be paid for the redemption of the characters and their situations.

As in Rebecca West's The Fountain Overflows, we witness the suffering of people of greater than ordinary sensitivity, especially when their relationships go wrong, and they find it impossible to communicate. When dull, ordinary people suffer due to their obvious mistakes in communication, we can sigh, and point the finger at their dullness, and at their limited communication skills. But when bright, scintillating people get their wires crossed, or allow their too-sensitive perceptions to interfere with connecting with those they love, and when their enormous needs battle their satisfaction with what they have, one is at a loss for a simplistic recipe for a way out.

I often feel put upon in these novels where everything goes wrong. In the present instance, though, I have to admit that everything that does spiral out of control does so very plausibly. It is chock-full with emotional action, as if Ms Duchen is packing it with ten stories for the price of one. They all have the ring of truth, the stamp of an eyewitness, and perhaps in years to come some enterprising graduate student will greedily deconstruct this work, revealing it to be at least semi-autobiographical. [Added later: the story is based on facts, but is not autobiographical.] It is this note of truth which makes it unreasonable to point at the seeming clutter of the action. Often it is the clutter of life, the myriad oppressive details that drive one to the depths of despair. At this point in my reading, we are approaching the depths. I would like to recommend this book at this point, even while anticipating the worst. Never have I been less proud of being either a liberal or an intellectual. It remains to be seen whether either characteristic can bring some resolution to the mess towards which things seem to be heading.

[Added later:] Having finished the book, I must say that I join the host of critics who have applauded it. There is great humanity in it, and though the main protagonists have been brought low, they save themselves in believable ways. And I'm delighted to report that Liffy survives the novel with most of her sweet character intact. Despite being the principal voice of the novel, Liffy manages to be a relative unknown. We see deep into her mind, and we see her watching everything else, but at the end we are left feeling that we don't know her very well. (Or that we do, and there isn't much to know.) I can't help contrasting her with Paloma, the young person in Hedgehog, and they do provide as great a contrast as possible in two characters with whom I have great, great sympathy. This book does not set out to give us lessons in life. But there are little thoughts that Ms Duchen could not help putting in there, and I leave them to you to discover. Living in this age is a challenge, and for a sensitive child, growing up in Western society is difficult indeed. This book is a chronicle of what might be considered a narrow escape.

 Arch

Talking about Sonata-Allegro Form . . .

A few weeks ago I wrote about First Movement Form, or how classical symphony first movements were traditionally constructed. The example I used was Eine kleine Nachtmusik, Mozart's serenade for strings in G, actually not a symphony at all. Learning first movement form decades ago at the feet of Thomas Schippers, and the Book of the Month Club and their Musical Appreciation series of vinyl records, one of the earliest symphonies I learned to analyze was Beethoven's famous 5th symphony in c minor. I tried, in my article to explain how two themes are presented, the first theme regarded as the 'masculine' theme, the second theme regarded as the 'feminine' one, after which there is a Development section, after which came the Recapitulation, where both themes are re-stated. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony opens with the famous four note theme. After this is formally presented with a certain amount of repetition and extension and other rhetoric, there comes the second theme, in the key of E Flat major, played by a Horn. Brass instruments at that time, you may have heard, were not chromatic, except for trombones (and slide trumpets, which were not commonly used in concert music). The theme was written to be playable on the horn in E Flat. When a piece is written in a minor key, such as c minor, the second theme is most often in the major key that has most of the same notes, called the Relative major. The Relative Major for C minor is E Flat. If you listen to the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth, and listen carefully to the two big chords just before the Horn theme, you will realize that there is rather an abrupt change there, in order to continue in the relative major. It is an unusual chord sequence, from the F sharp diminished seventh to the B Flat major seventh. Well, the movement goes on its determined way, and finally we come to the recapitulation. Now, of course, the two themes must both be played in C minor. Oops; the Horn can no longer play it, because an E Flat horn cannot play in C minor, or at least could not play it, in Beethoven's time. This was not an insurmountable problem; no doubt there were horns that could play in C, but Beethoven chose to do something creative: he gave the recapitulation of the second theme to the bassoon! Hearing the bassoon play the horn theme is eerily fascinating. It is clearly the same theme, but it has a sad dignity now in place of the jaunty challenge issued by the horn. However, in the late nineteenth century, and the early twentieth century, conductors made the horns play the recapitulation as well, in defiance of the written music. The reasoning was that Beethoven had written the music for the bassoon as a second best, since the horns could not play it. Modern horns, of course, are essentially chromatic, and can play the notes without turning a hair. So why not let them? Each of us must decide for ourselves whether it makes better sense to let the bassoon play the theme, or let the horns. It is hard nowadays to actually find a recording in which the horns play the recapitulation, since most people are on the side of the bassoon. I will try to find a clip with the horns, and post it here. [OK, mission accomplished.] Here is the second theme played in the Recapitulation by John Eliot Gardiner's Orchestre Revolutionaire et Romantique. This recent (1994) recording features the bassoon. There is some lead-in stuff to orient you. Note that the bassoon, though it has a distinctive voice, is not a very familiar voice: Gardiner, 1994 Here is the same spot, the second theme in the recapitulation, played by Herbert von Karajan and the Philharmonia Orchestra in the 1950s (?). In this performance, it has been given to the horns (more than one, obviously, playing in unison), as I said, in contradiction to the music as written by Beethoven. Still, even without the drama of using a bassoon, the music is effective: Karajan, 195x Arch.