The Early Music Red Pill

For the last several years, the vast majority of my work has been in the early music field. I spent many years playing only modern bassoon, but my gigs and most of my work conversations for the last handful of years have been in and around early music. Moving to Cologne has changed that a bit, as I have quite a few modern connections from Indiana University here, where I studied modern bassoon. Apparently there is an IU ex-pat black hole situated somewhere in Cologne. So I am again surrounded by modern players, wonderful musicians, but with little or no early music training. So I find myself between two worlds. The thing is, I have swallowed the red pill of historical performance, and there is no going back to the same world in which I once lived.

One cannot not forget the magic that is hearing an ensemble of early double reeds play an F# major chord, the magic gut strings and an understanding of counterpoint can bring to a performance of Bach’s music, or the magic of playing Telemann on baroque bassoon. One would not want to play the Rite of Spring on baroque bassoon, but it is many times easier to play a continuo line on baroque bassoon than it is modern. It all depends on the goal of a particular performance. To travel two miles, one would not use a plane, one would walk or use a car. To travel 1000 miles, one would use a plane. Does this make the plane or the car a superior mode of travel? Certainly not. Studying early music, I believe, should be part of every musician’s curriculum. By absolutely no means do I think every musician should only play early music, but to understand the language of the past, or at least to be able to translate this language, is priceless knowledge.

Historical performance is not about recreating exact replicas of past performances, but rather learning the language of a particular time in history. The primary concern voiced among my modern music friends, is that historical performance practice is too constraining. That allowing for historical context means that the music is somehow less current. I thought the same thing before I was pulled into the early music rabbit hole, but actually have found the opposite to be true. I remember working on music from Baroque and Classical masters and being at a complete loss. What to do with music that has little to no dynamic markings? One can only rely on intuition to a certain point, and then one needs the grammar. 

I find it interesting to listen to a piece of baroque music performed on a modern instrument with a performer who hasn’t studied any early music. The performance can sound strange to me, like listening to poetry with the accents on the wrong syllables, or listening to a speech where everything is just one run on sentence. This is not to say early music should never be performed on modern instruments, but a little bit of historical performance practice study would go a long way. For me, playing anything pre 1800 on modern bassoon feels like a translation. Translations themselves are not bad, it allows for people to enjoy great works who would otherwise not have access, but there is always going to be something lost in that translation.

 What about all the rules? Classical music as a whole is full of rules, we just don’t think about them as rules if they are on the page. We are musicians who, in most cases, take other people’s compositions and interpret them to the best of our abilities. Accents, crescendos, slurs, dynamic markings, these are all rules that one follows at the composers request. However, one would be hard pressed to find someone complaining about the confines of accents. It would be sacrilege to change Beethoven’s accent markings, yet the phrasings that Bach considered self-evident are ignored, because these rules were documented in outside treatises, rather then on the page.

It all boils down to whether you believe that historical context belongs in classical music. It is my opinion that we cannot play Bach the same way we play Beethoven, the same way we play Mahler, or Berg. Historical performance is realizing that tastes change, styles change, and that we do not perform music in a vacuum. Musicality can be highly subjective, what is considered a good performance changes over time, and this makes people uncomfortable. While yes, musicality at the end of the day or the end of last century is the same, but we do not just deal just in emoting. Music, particularly classical music is not just about expression. It is also about craft and style. It is a blend of intellect and heart, and to take the intellect out of the pictures I believe is to do classical music a big disfavor.

That is what we do in early music, we put the craft back in. We should not project romantic expression onto the rhetorically driven music pre-1800. Expression was an important part of a musician and composers life, but the thought process was different. In my musical life, I became frustrated in modern settings when I was told to be more musical. Great, that is very useful. In baroque and classical era music, there are more tools to reach this elusive “musicality” goal. The treatises ask you to decide whether the music is lively, melancholy, delicate, coy, pleading, etc.  There is a much more concrete path that has been laid down for musicians to reach their goals, and I have found these guidelines work in any setting, in any time period. We work in a field that is based, for better or worse, mostly in the past. Isn’t it time to study this past?

Again with the Moving

So, remember when I said I hate moving. Well, apparently I wasn't quite done. My husband and I decided to vacate former east Germany in favor of a more centrally located city, namely Cologne, Germany. If you wish to read a post about the challenges the city endures, you can read my post here. We have both been very happy with the move, and while I did have to give up most of my work connections in Dresden and Leipzig, Berlin is still only a four hour train ride away. So, hopefully this will be the last move for a long time, as there are ample work opportunities for both my husband and me in Cologne. We have been here for two months, and work for me is already starting to roll in.

I have spent the last several months distilling my dissertation into 2500 words for a Dutch bassoon journal. This was quite the challenge, particularly since I changed my opinion on one of my main points. I wrote my dissertation in 2012, and with the publication of Jim Kopp's book on the Bassoon (an excellent book, even if I do disagree with him on a few points) he started me thinking about a few points, which eventually led me in a different direction. My dissertation topic remains the same, the development and use of the bassoon in 17th century France. If any of you readers are interested in reading my article, send me a twitter message or a message through my website.

Historical Pitch: 101

Several musicians who are not in the early music field have recently asked me about pitch. So I thought I would write a blog post with a broad overview of historical pitch. Disclaimer, I am going to over generalize, but I just want to give people who are not in the early music world a basic primer about what we are doing in the early music world.  If one wants a much more in-depth look into historical pitch, look into Bruce Haynes book, "The History of Performance Pitch: The Story of 'A'". This will give the you all the answers to everything you are yearning for. It's a really dense book, the amount of research he did is admirable. This is just a blog post. :)

Pitch is not something modern players have to think about too much. Before an ensemble plays, there is always the question of where is everyone's individual A.  At 440, at 442, or even higher. There needs to be some kind of consensus.  However, that is as far as anyone had to think about it. However, there is a whole other world of pitch possibilities.  You might know about baroque instruments playing at a lower pitch, A = 415. This was all that I knew until I fell through the early music rabbit hole now quite a few years ago. Well, this is only the beginning of our little tale.

Throughout most of Western Music history, there has not been a standard pitch. The pitch of instruments depended highly on the pitch of the organ. In many different parts of Europe during the Renaissance and baroque periods (except apparently France) organ builders sometimes saved a little bit on money by making the pipes a little smaller, so they would be a little higher. So for a long time, pitch in a particular city was regulated to the pitch of the organ, which could get quite high.

Mimicking this would be a logistical nightmare, so we have simplified things a bit. Renaissance music tends to be played at either A = 440 or A +/- 465. In the Midwest, most people played at 440, here in Dresden, most people play at 465. The pitch around 465 is considered historically more accurate. I have a G alto shawm at 465, and it just feels and sounds right. Not that I have any idea in reality, but the instrument just makes a lot of sense at that pitch. I am definitely a fan of high pitch for Renaissance music.

Lets move onto the baroque period, easy right? 415 all the way? Well... It depends on where and when the music you are playing comes from. In my mind, the Baroque party didn't fully start until the  second half of the 17th century. Which is a little later then what the history books give you as the beginning of the baroque period. In my mind, all that lovely early baroque music originating mostly from Italy I consider a separate time period. I call it.... 17th century music. I know, mind blown. So, the fun really starts in France, where the pitch around 1680 should be  A = +/- 392. Wanna know why, read Haynes' book. Basically it has to do with organs again and church singers, and Lully's turf war. Everything else in the Baroque period (into the 18th century) can easily be played at 415 without anyone yelling at you. One can even get away with playing early French baroque music at 415.

Then pitch become a little more standardized, comparatively. Classical era music we tend to play at A= 430. My classical bassoon is at 430, more or less, depending on how much coffee I have had that day. I have been known to dip back down to 415 on cloudy days.

So essentially it is all relative. Which is a good point. The objective of having different pitch centers is not to replicate exactly how the concert would have sounded. I think this is a myth that is pervasive in the modern world about early music players. In my mind, since we can make an instrument close to its original pitch, we should. At the end of the day it doesn't really make a whole lot of difference. Why make a baroque instrument at 415 rather than at 440? One could definitely.  A baroque bassoon at any pitch is a totally different beast than the modern bassoon. In my experience, baroque music makes much more sense on my baroque instruments than it does on my modern. But that, that is a another blog topic.

Bach, Lions, and Honey, oh my! pt. 2

I yearn from my heart
for a peaceful end
because here I am surrounded 
with sorrow and wretchedness 
I desire to depart 
from this evil world
I look for heavenly joys
Oh Jesus, come soon!
Herzlich tut mich verlangen (verse 1)


First, lets continue with some Bach 101.  Bach wrote his sacred cantatas for church services. Which, if you think about it, is pretty freaking cool. Imagine you, the devout Lutheran, going to church on Sunday, like you do. Suddenly the most heavenly music you have ever heard reaches your ear. It is music by the new cantor, Sebastian Bach.  You are one lucky son of a bitch. A lot of classical music that we have today is sacred in nature because the church employed many musicians. Thank you church! Bach would use the weekly gospel reading for the theme of the cantata. The gospel reading for the week during which Bach wrote BWV 161, Komm du süße Todesstunde, (come, sweet hour of death) was about death. Surprise! However, the gospel reading isn’t about death, so much as it is about Jesus bringing someone back to life. Life, death, one would think they would be two sides to the same coin. Not necessarily according to Bach’s worldview.

The primary theme that runs throughout the entire cantata is the protagonist’s desire for death.  Even the chorale melody text (above) that is not spoken in the first movement, rather played, expresses yearning for death. This, taken at face value, would seem to be a strange counterpart to the gospel reading about non-death, otherwise known as life. Jesus saved a child from death. However, it is likely that Bach was referring to the Christian idea that Jesus would save you from death. Not actual physical death, but that if you followed him, then there would be a life after death. Not just any life, but life without pain, death, hunger, evil, etc.  So, in the Christian cannon, the afterlife is much sweeter than just straight up death. Cake or Death? You can have cake with your death! However, one must first actually die in order to obtain this afterlife. This idea, that something sweet comes from death, that the afterlife is so much better than this current terrible life, with all its pain and suffering and evil, runs through the entire cantata on a musical and textual level.

All of this is clearly reflected in the first movement. While this movement is mostly in major, with pastoral thirds played by recorders, and no jarring chords throughout the entire movement, there are significant sections of unease. This at first confused me, and led me to begin my research. I thought the title was clear enough that the theme of the movement was sweet death. Was the bitterness in the movement about not being so happy about the actual death part? Why the chromatic sections? When I looked up the text to the embedded choral, it became clear to what the unease in the music was referring. So, while death is this magical thing to aspire to, the current life is full of all sorts of evils.

This idea, that out of death comes sweet eternal life, is also reflected in the “eating honey out of the lion’s mouth,” phrase. I did a lot of research into the Samson myth, (check out pt. 1) because the entire story didn’t make sense to me. Apparently the Samson myth doesn’t make sense to a lot of people. At first I thought that the chromaticism in the first movement referred to the Samson story. I found some people that thought that Samson became unclean when he ate the honey because as a Nazarene he wasn’t allowed to touch anything dead. However, within the context of the text, this didn’t make much sense. So I continued my studies. Eventually, I put all the different puzzle pieces, and the reference became clear.  The lion was dead, so I can say with certainty that he represented death. The bees made honey out of the lion, so they literally made death sweet.


There is so much one can talk about in each of the Bach cantatas. There has been so much study on Bach and his music. One could probably properly argue diverging points depending on whom you reference. It goes without saying that Bach was a master at what he did, and I am happy to have the opportunity to play and study his music, and have the B minor mass original scores less than 10 miles from my home. Life is pretty crazy.  


References:

Day, J.C.J. "The Texts of Bach's Church Cantatas: Some Observations," German Life and Letters 13 no. 2 (January 1960): 137-144.

Emmrich, Martin. "The Symbolism of the Lion and the Bees: Another Ironic Twist in the Samson Cycle," Jets 44/1 (March 2001): 67-74.

Yadin, Azzan. "Samson's hîdâ," Vetus Testamentum 52, fasc. 3 (July 2002): 407-426.

Early Music News

Here are some interesting articles from the last week:

On the celebration of Ton Koopman's 70th birthday, the New York Times ran a article, see it here.

Not on early music, but a nice article here about non-professional musicians. In my world, the word amateur is not a bad word.

Branford Marsalis is doing a baroque tour on saxophone, see an article here. While one of my least favorite things to do is to play baroque music on modern bassoon, that doesn't mean that will rail against others playing baroque music on modern instruments. Honestly though, the idea makes me a little itchy. The matter for me is a physical one, not authenticity. I don't like how baroque music feels and sounds on my modern.

Bach, Lions, and Honey, oh my! (part 1)

Soon I will be traveling back to Madison for a couple of weeks. My good friend is getting married, and it worked out that I could perform again with the Wisconsin Baroque Ensemble. I played with them the last couple of years, and it has always been a wonderful experience. Good music, great people, excellent experience all around. So I was very happy to find out that they were having a concert the week before my friend's wedding, and I can participate. In this concert I will be playing three pieces, a movement from a Bach cantata, a 17th century two recorder sonata, and a 17th century bass dulcian sonata. For more info if you are in the area click here.

The movement of the Bach cantata we will be performing is Komm, du süße Todesstunde, BWV 161. We are only performing the first movement, but there is plenty to discuss in this movement alone. I prefer the translation "Come, sweet hour of death." Some translate it as "come, o sweet hour of death,"or "come, thou, sweet hour of death" but I feel that the informal "you" in the German was intentional, and the title shouldn't be too formal. In addition to the primary music themes, there is a secret (well not so secret, but it is played without words) embedded choral melody Herzlich tut mich verlangen, which I will talk about in part two.

So, I was working on the music line by line...

Komm, du süße Todesstunde (see above)

Da mein Geist                        (when my spirit, apparently an old German phrase, nowadays one                                                            wouldn't phrase it this way)

Honig speist                           (honey ate/dined on honey)

Aus des Löwen Munde          (out of/from the lion's mouth)

Wait... When my spirit ate honey out of the lion's mouth? What? Is it me, or is this a strange thing to say. So I did some research. The story of honey and lions come from the bible story about Sampson.

Here is the abridged version: Sampson saw a girl who he liked. He went to go talk to her, but right before this he was attacked by a lion. Sampson, strong guy as he was, ripped the lion in half with his bare hands. Pumped, he goes and talks to the girl he likes. After they are done talking, Sampson goes and checks out the dead lion. He finds that bees have made honey inside the lion (fast bees apparently). He says to himself, "sweet," and takes the honey and shares it with his parents.

So, the wedding day arrives, and Sampson offers a riddle to his new wife's clan. The stakes are if they figure it out, they receive 30 sheets and 30 sets of clothing. This must have been high quality bedding and clothing, because the other tribe is upset because they can't figure it out. So they threaten Sampson's new wife. She begs him for the answer, and eventually he relents and tells her. Sampson was pissed over the entire event. That was high quality bedding, he didn't want to give it up. So he goes and kills a bunch of people, and takes their bedding.

So the question still remains for me, what exactly does honey have to do with death. OK, so honey I can see, Jesus is known to have sweeten the death deal with honey. Honey has a long history of sweetening things. However, my question is, why the lion? Why particularly the Sampson myth? Stay tuned for part 2...

The entire text of the first movement is:
Komm, du süße Todesstunde (come, you sweet hour of death)
Da mein Geist (that my spirit)
Honig speist (honey ate/dined)
Aus des Löwen Munde; (out of the lion's mouth)
Mache meinen Abschied süße (make my departure sweet)
Säume nicht, (do not delay)
Letztes Licht (last light)
Daß ich meinen Heiland küsse (so that I may kiss my savior)

New City Downtime

Here I am, one month into "Life in Germany." I am taking an intensive German course at the Volkshochschule. (you automatically get into the A2 class if you can pronounce Volkhochschule three times) I currently end each weekday with a German Headache, eine Kopfschmerzen, for those who were wondering. It sounds particularly painful when spoken in the local Dresden dialect. The locals all sound like they are rehearsing for the scene in My Fair Lady when Eliza has a mouth full of marbles.

In between German classes, I attempt to gather some practice and study time together. Whenever one moves to a new city, or a new country, it takes time to make connections. I am never particularly calm during these perfectly normal slow times right before and after moving to a new city. I try to guard against that little voice in the back of my head that tells me I will never get paid for working again. I imagine this little voice as a cartoon character devil sitting over my shoulder, trying to keep me from doing what I love. Sometimes I actually succeed in ignoring it completely. Sometimes.

Despite the fact that no one is actually paying me for working, there is actually a lot to do when one moves to a new city. Everything can and will become overwhelming. Here are a few things I recommend to stave off that little voice:

One is e-mail, e-mail, e-mail. Start with one person, send an e-mail. The next day send another e-mail. Assume that you won't hear back from anyone. Pretend that you are sending e-mails back out into the wild. Let them be free. Eventually you will get a reply, a really good reply. Which will lead you to more e-mails with more dead ends. Eventually you start building something. It is slow, painful, everything feels like a rejection. It isn't, people are busy, people have a lot on their plates. Most people aren't sitting by their computers, waiting to not respond to you.

Attend workshops, masterclasses, (if they are around) and performances. Make yourself known. Don't necessarily have any concrete goals regarding these outings, but rather the broader goal of just meeting people. You never know who might turn out to be a colleague, or even just a nice person. Nice people are important in new cities. Nice people can make an overwhelming city become a little more like home.

Another thing to work on when in a new city is update lists and calendars. I am a big list maker and planner. If I didn't have three different levels of planners, I would end up circling the living room wondering what I should do next. Not a pretty sight, it confuses the cats. Planning takes away the question, "What should I be doing now." You know what you should be doing. So, slow times are good times to review the longer term schedule and maybe cross one or two things off the list.

This only goes for double reed players and maybe the occasional ocd clarinetist, but make reeds, make reeds, make reeds. Down time is a great time get your stock of reeds up past the panic mode. If you don't play historical woodwinds, consider yourself lucky with the reed situation... at least it is only one instrument that is failing you on the reed front.

Listen to recordings. I always need to take more time to listen to recordings, in my  schedule it is the thing that gets pushed to the sidelines. It is good for one's musicality, for one's soul, for one's business. It is a good thing to do all around. Even better listen to a recording while walking around the city. Walking a good way to get one's barrings in a new city, and bonus, it is good for you.

General cleanup. One can update website, (mine is currently a mess) clean up finances, clean the apartment, (it is amazing how much cleanup a new apartment requires) cut the cat's nails. My apartment, in a freak turn of events has a refrigerator too many and about ten pieces of furniture too much. Freaky for having just sold all my furniture and moved to a new country. The tenants before us left their furniture, and it is simply too many pieces. So selling off furniture can be on my personal list, but generally not a problem for someone who just moved. If one has health insurance, a dentist appointment or a physical can always be a good thing.

Finally, take up a knitting project, start an art project, go for a bike ride, be a tourist. The tourist bit is important for new cities. I know I tend to have a certain disdain for tourists in my own city, they don't know where they are going and stop walking in random places, but it is OK to be the tourist every once in a while in your own city. A tourist who knows where they are going is much less irritating. Seeing the sights can be a good reminder on what makes your city special.

Here are some other industry freelancer's ideas on dealing with downtime:

http://blog.creativegroup.com/bid/291956/Freelance-Tip-Put-Slow-Time-to-Work-for-You
http://budgetandthebeach.com/2014/07/16/when-freelance-work-is-slow/
http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/design/tips-freelancers-what-to-do-with-slow-days-and-dry-times/