by natchaitkin | Jun 12, 2014 | Uncategorized
“Quit thinking like a classical musician and start thinking like a rock musician.” So says Ivan Trevino, one of the cellists in the band Break of Reality. In a blog post on the website of The Strad magazine, Trevino shares his thoughts on how classical musicians can learn from the rock world.
His best observations are about the over-thinking we classical players do, and how it can hurt us. “Rock musicians understand rejection and don’t fear it. Most classical musicians don’t have that mindset…We believe, because it’s how we were taught, that there’s a perfect way to do things, and we can’t settle for less.”
Trevino urges classical musicians to play more gigs: “Just look at most local rock bands. They have show after show lined up. Every weekend, they are playing in a new bar or club. They’ve got their albums for sale, their email list out, and they are slowly but surely growing their fan-base. Meanwhile, classical musicians who have been playing their instruments for decades, who have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in their musical training, don’t have this same mindset.”
Some savvy classical musicians have embraced this idea of getting out there more – the great cellist Matt Haimovitz plays Bach in bars regularly, and the Classical Revolution movement has taken off in many cities. But on the whole, we aren’t really succeeding in this area – we need to do more.
Trevino’s suggestion to “start thinking like a rock musician” got me thinking – when did we stop thinking that way? Some of the biggest names in classical music history thought (and acted) like rockers – Paganini, Mozart and Beethoven all come to mind.
Music is supposed to be challenging, in your face and uncompromising – all rock musicians know that. Beethoven certainly wrote his music with that mindset, and sometimes acted a lot like a rock star, throwing food at his housekeeper, etc. Mozart certainly partied like a rock star, and you could argue that he paid the price, dying at 35, at least in part because of his “lifestyle choices.”
Franz Liszt may have been the first rock star – at his concerts, women tore his clothes and fought over broken strings from his piano. He even got to be played in a movie by a rock star! The picture above is from it – Roger Daltrey of the Who portrayed the great pianist in “Lisztomania,” which also features Ringo Starr as The Pope (who knew he had such range?).
Let’s just say this movie is NOT an example of the inspiration I’m hoping classical musicians will get from rockers – skip it. Still, in 1975, someone thought enough of the idea to back it financially, and it got made – I doubt that would happen today.
Bad movies aside – no one performing Liszt’s concertos today gets the kind of reception he did – is that good or bad? So what happened? One possibility is that Liszt was a rock star because there was no “pop” music to compete with in his day – classical music was pretty much it, and everyone knew its stars. As other styles of music emerged over time, classical music became pigeonholed as something for certain people with “taste” and “sophistication” (an idea that Mozart and company would probably think was complete nonsense).
There’s a great book about how classical music (and other art forms) got separated from more “popular” styles – “Highbrow/Lowbrow – The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America” by Lawrence Levine – required reading, in my opinion, if you care about great music and its future. Classical music doesn’t have to live in isolation – that’s a recent development, and a really bad one, I think. Trevino and others like him are trying to bring it back into the mainstream – let’s get to it! Please post your comments and thoughts about how we can (re-)learn from rock musicians!
by natchaitkin | Jun 5, 2014 | Uncategorized
From the New York Times review of the Budapest Festival Orchestra concert on Monday: “(The orchestra) was almost halfway into its performance of Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance No. 8 (Op. 72) on Monday evening when Gaspar Szente, one of its percussionists, ambled through the string section to the front of the stage. Sitting down on the stool that had been placed there for the next concerto’s solo cellist, he calmly reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a tiny brass cymbal. Another leisurely gesture brought forward a mallet. With his head cocked attentively, he waited for his entrance. Then he played, intermittently producing delicate, pealing notes that improbably became the music’s emotional focus.”
If you are a regular at classical music concerts, you know that this sort of thing qualifies as a major upheaval – the idea that an orchestra player would (gasp!) change seats during a piece! I can hear the cries of disapproval already. “It’s too showy.” “It’s inappropriate.” And my personal favorite: “It distracts from the music.”
In this case though, that last argument doesn’t work – it sounds like Mr. Szente’s move highlighted the music in a way that might not have happened otherwise! This is a tiny bit of stagecraft, but a very good idea, and it’s the sort of thing Fischer and the Budapest players do a lot.
Bean bags in the middle of the orchestra for the audience to sit on. Programs picked by drawing papers from the bell of a tuba. Flutes and violins switching seats. These are all things you might see at a concert of the Budapest Festival Orchestra, a group described as having a “disruptive approach to the business of putting on concerts.”
Returning to Mr. Szente’s little walk to prominence for a moment, isn’t it amazing (and a little sad, frankly) how little it takes to be called disruptive in the classical music world? Think about it – a reviewer went out of her way to note that someone on stage changed seats!
If that’s all it takes to get some attention, why do so few orchestras do this sort of thing? I’m trying to picture a major American orchestra doing something like this – if you know of some examples, please post them in the comments!
One of my favorite music writers, Alex Ross of the New Yorker, profiled the BFO and its music director, Ivan Fischer, in last week’s edition. If you want to know more about what thoughtful, creative “disruption” looks (and sounds) like, read it! It gives me hope – may every group start trying things like this!
Till next time,
Nat
by natchaitkin | Jun 2, 2014 | Uncategorized
Yesterday, I played on a concert of opera favorites with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and the excellent soprano Sarah Coburn. The program included the famous Rossini overture to “The Barber of Seville,” which frankly is hard for me to get through without giggling – I can only think of Bugs Bunny torturing Elmer Fudd – “Ehhhhhhhh – next!”
Besides being the soundtrack for perhaps the greatest cartoon of all time, the overture features the famous “Rossini crescendo” (aka “Rossini rocket”), where a passage is repeated several times with new voices joining each time, until the orchestra is playing full blast.
From Ravel’s Bolero to Grieg’s “In the Hall of the Mountain King,” the gradual buildup is one of the most powerful forces in music, and it’s the subject of today’s playlist. Bach, The Who, John Philip Sousa and King Curtis are among the artists on the list – please add some more of your own! What’s your favorite buildup?
Till Wednesday,
Nat
by natchaitkin | May 27, 2014 | Uncategorized
Last week, I got my copy of the Juilliard Journal in the mail, and I was very proud to see this article about Bach and Boombox. A big thank you to Susan Jackson for taking an interest in what I’m doing, and giving it such a nice write-up! It got me thinking about my time at Juilliard Pre-College, and how much the school has changed since then.
Juilliard has always produced great performers – many of the world’s top soloists studied there, and the competition is fierce. Being around future superstars both inspired me to do my best and reminded me that I wasn’t destined to be one of them! So, what next?
Many young musicians past and present have a few traditional options to pursue – winning an orchestral audition, joining a chamber music group, or landing a teaching position.
All of these are wonderful careers, but pursuing them is nearly as competitive as becoming a soloist, and in my experience, music schools, Juilliard included, didn’t offer much guidance to those looking for another way.
Nowadays, things are different, and Juilliard is leading the way in encouraging young players to think differently about the kind of career they will have, with courses in music entrepreneurship and career management, in its Center for Innovation in the Arts.
The school has also created a wonderful partnership with Carnegie Hall and the New York City Department of Education, called the Ensemble ACJW, where gifted young performers get the chance to build careers “as top-quality performers, innovative programmers, and dedicated teachers who fully engage with the communities in which they live and work.” This is a typical mix for most musicians – it’s great to see that being nurtured at such a prestigious institution.
Another great thing happening at Juilliard is the teaching of Greg Sandow, who writes a blog everyone interested in the future of the music business should read. He teaches a class called Classical Music in an Age of Pop, and you can read the syllabus here.
Greg asks many of the tough questions our business needs to answer, and he offers some great advice: “Understand and respect the culture outside classical music.” That this needs to be said at all should tell you a lot about how the concert world works! This idea ruffles a lot of feathers in the business, but I’m especially glad that it’s being advocated at Lincoln Center! If Juilliard is moving this way, the rest of us should be too!
Till next time,
Nat
by natchaitkin | May 19, 2014 | Uncategorized
In a post last week, I talked about Time for Three. They play tunes you don’t expect classical musicians to, like The Beatles’ “Blackbird” and Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” They also do mashups, where Grieg’s Holberg Suite morphs into Led Zeppelin and Justin Timberlake (and goes back too – a neat trick).
Now, playing other people’s music well is not easy – anyone who’s heard a third-rate band ruining their favorite song at a frat party knows that all too well. But these guys bring the same level of artistic integrity to their covers that they do to the Bach Double Concerto.
Check out tf3’s version of “Little Lion Man”, and compare it to the original by Mumford and Sons. I like tf3’s version even better, and that leads us to our new playlist – music that’s been “covered” and arguably improved.
Bach did this all the time, taking pieces by Vivaldi and other composers, and making them his own. Ravel (along with Emerson, Lake and Palmer) did much the same thing with Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Jimi Hendrix did it too – Bob Dylan stopped performing his own song “All Along the Watchtower” once he heard Hendrix’s version – high praise indeed. Ray Charles was a master of this. Miles Davis, too – check out his “Someday, My Prince Will Come” on the playlist.
Sometimes these reworkings aren’t so successful – Mahler’s re-orchestrations of Beethoven’s symphonies don’t get played much. Shostakovich re-worked the Schumann Cello Concerto, to no one’s approval I’m aware of. Here’s a list from Rolling Stone of some pretty bad ones from the rock world – I vote for William Shatner’s rendition of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
So, what’s your favorite cover, or your least? Classical, rock, r&b, country – whatever. Post your favorites to the comments and add the music to the playlist – both the original and “improved” versions if possible!
