Polarities

A few weeks ago, my life changed forever. I am very used to my life changing drastically, it has happened very dramatically several times in my life, but this one might be the biggest. I became a parent. Nothing could have prepared me for the conflict between the pain of labor and the joy of the child it can bring forth. In a way, it mirrors the rest of life. Points of joy with points of pain, spattered together so that the colors sometimes run together, an abstract painting of many layers and lots of unclear borders. A line of music so beautiful it hurts.

Life and death, the words put forth onto the page seem so small, so inconsequential. Nothing one can write can describe the brevity of these two small words. The beginning and the end. These exist side by side, because they cannot exist alone. This theme has been the cornerstone of my own life, the life of the people around me, and also it seems, in the greater world.

I was up last night around two A.M and I noticed that my phone was reporting to me that twitter was very active with news about a Paris attack. Concerned, I unlocked my phone to see what terrors had developed. I was horrified to learn the details of what had transpired. I was also selfishly happy that I was safe in bed with my husband and newborn son, in a city that was unlikely to ever suffer such a terror attack.

We musicians try to counter the horrors of such an event with music. We fight death with the weapons that we have honed through years of practice and study: the clear counterpoint of Bach, the majesty of Elgar, the beauty of Barber. It is what we are called to do in life, wash away the grime, dirt, blood, of this life, gather it all together, mix it with time and space, and create something out of the cesspool of life that transcends this life.

Instrument Zoo: Cornetto

One of my favorite instruments in the world is the cornetto. The duck-billed platypus of the early music world, the cornetto is half woodwind, half brass. Fingerings of a woodwind with the mouthpiece like a brass instrument. Click here to check out the wiki page. The cornetto player can create the most hauntingly beautiful sounds imaginable. However, the path to this beauty is a steep one, up a mountain and through the woods without a trail kind of steep. The sounds I created during my brief stint with the cornetto resembled more a beginning trumpet player, on a bad day.

When I first heard the sounds of a cornetto, I was immediately intrigued. What kind of instrument sounds like buttery brass? At that point in my early music career, I had only played bass double reeds, and I was just venturing out into the world of higher double reeds, recorders, bagpipes, etc. I was totally game to try everything, I was hooked, trying to find my next early music fix. However, the cornetto with the embouchure of a brass instrument, made me nervous. However, the beauty of the sound still beckoned to me. So several years later, I was a little more comfortable with sounding like crap on any given instrument, and I was able to borrow a cornetto. So I made the leap.

Well, this time, it looked like I bit off more than I can chew. I started out on a few minutes a day, buzzing the mouthpiece, trying to figure out for the first time in my life what a brass embouchure was exactly. The mouthpiece of the cornetto is particularly tiny, making the sound production even more tenuous than a modern brass instrument. I started to slowly figure out how to make a proper sound, but it was slow going. Two steps forward, one step back. I started to realize how much practice it was going to take to make even a decent sound. I already double on many different instruments, and adding yet another embouchure to practice I realized was more than what I could do. Sadly, I admitted defeat.

So, now I leave the cornetto playing to the pros, and try to be happy with just be an appreciator of the cornetto. Recently I had the pleasure of playing in a gig where the cornetto players, three of them, were standing right behind me in our performance. What an amazing sound, and I was able to enjoy bathing in their buttery sound. Here in Europe, cornetto is also a certain kind of ice cream cone, and one of the players had managed to find a tiny cornetto ice cream cone pin, and had attached it to the lapel of his suit. Perfect. I will leave you now with one of my favorite pieces of all time, which of course features the dulcet tones of a great cornetto player.

It's all about the Bass

A single musical voice, the most simple of concepts. A single voice can carry the weight of the world, lull a child to sleep, pierce the soul. There is something about one musical voice that draws us inward, transports us to a different place, a different era, a different level of existence. Composers who choose to write for one voice have their work cut out for them. In my lifetime I have heard the most subliminal and the most banal sounds from this genre.

I was talking to a friend recently and we discussed Bach’s solo violin music. I realized that it had been a long time since I had heard any of the 6 solo sonatas and partitas. This was an error that I quickly remedied, finding an excellent and complete recording by the baroque violinist John Holloway. Deciding on a single recording of the violin sonatas and partitas can be a daunting task, as there is a wealth of treasures within the Bach recording scene. I prefer Bach on baroque strings and baroque mentality, so that cuts through the clatter a little bit and makes the choice slightly less daunting. I am happy with my choice, it is an interesting, introspective recording. Do not listen to this recording if you prefer the overdoness and excessive vibrato that some modern players prescribe to when playing Bach, you will not find this style here. 

In writing for solo violin, Bach likely drew inspiration from several composers. Westhof, Biber, and later Vilsmar and Pisendel all wrote significant pieces of work for solo violin around the time Bach was composing his music. Recently I rediscovered Biber’s (the original Biber, not the current pop star) solo passacaglia ca. 1676, definitely worth several listens. Solo music was not regulated to violin alone, many other baroque composers wrote solo music for other instruments, including Telemann.

When I was a freshman at Indiana University, one of the first things my teacher and I worked on were the Telemann fantasies for solo flute. This work was on modern bassoon, but that did not stop my amazing teacher, Kim Walker, from giving me what I consider my first baroque lessons. Part of my work was to separate the bass line from the solo line. This work was not only interesting musically, but also intellectually. This work also laid a wonderful foundation for my later work in baroque music.

If one wants to study a piece of baroque music, whether you have an old or new instrument in hand, one must always begin with the base line. Whether it is a solo piece, or there is accompaniment, the bass is always the place to begin, even when the bass line is not a bass line. The play between solo and bass is where the magic happens. Composers during this era spent countless hours working out exercises between these two voices, the best composers displaying the greatest ability to think creatively between these two pillars, and usually the most work. The next time a piece of music by one of the great Dead White European Males (of the powered wig variety) shows up on your music stand, make sure you have all the parts in front of you, start taking note, and then you can begin to truly appreciate the masters.

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.