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The National
a day ago
- Entertainment
- The National
John Purser: Well-orchestrated lessons
At the same time, a touch of something approaching arrogance is helpful. My fellow composition student at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music was John Geddes. I remember once we were in the back row of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music choir in the alas no more St Andrew's Hall. Ranked below us were the rest of the choir, the full body of the Scottish National Orchestra, and a team of solo singers of major repute. As the conductor, Alex Gibson, came on to the usual applause, John turned to me and, with an expansive gesture spreading his arms to indicate the vast forces ranged below, announced: 'These are the rocks that I chisel!' John chiselled some magnificent rocks, especially in his Second Symphony. Books on orchestration are all very well and some remarkably insightful – notably Ebeneezer Prout's two-volume work The Orchestra. Poor man, with a name like that his credibility is shot to hell before you even read a word or hear a note. His Clarinet Concerto and Organ Concerto No 1 are on YouTube. They sound a lot better than his name. The best lessons come from following orchestral scores, attending orchestral rehearsals, asking your fellow students to try things out, and listening to professional musicians. Orchestral musicians are a tough bunch and not all of them will smooth your path if difficulties arise. The one utterly unforgivable thing is mistakes in the parts. They waste time and annoy the hell out of everybody, not least the conductor whose business it is to fight your corner. Even with modern part extraction from computer typeset scores, mistakes can occur. Computer typesetting is a wonderful thing, but it does deprive the musicians of that sense of direct contact with the composer which you can get from her or his hand-written parts. It's the difference between a handwritten and a typed letter. This particularly applies to the full score which is used by the conductor. Each composer has to work out his own style of orchestration, her own palette. The composer picks the instrumental forces and lays them out in a conventional order, so readers of the score know what is where. For full symphony orchestra with choir and soloists, woodwind instruments are at the top, brass section next, then percussion and keyboard instruments, soloists and vocal lines: finally the string section. These, if you like, are the tubes of paint. My first lessons were from Frank Spedding but mostly he left me to my own devices, following the Gordon Jacob and Walter Piston books on orchestration. These provided the basics – the ranges of the various instruments and their fundamental characteristics. There were little extra snippets of information. If you have only two trumpets and want the effect of four, you can slip in a couple of low flutes if the music is quiet. The audience won't be any the wiser so long as you dove-tail them. The same trick can work blending horns and bassoons. It wasn't all technical. Gordon Jacob, I was told, once criticised a student of orchestration for overuse of the snare drum, declaring that it would 'sound like somebody pissing into a biscuit tin'. Two of my composition teachers had diametrically opposed approaches to orchestration. Tippett was all for 'gestures', featuring the different tonal qualities of the instruments. Hans Gál was more for blending the sounds. A master at both was Tchaikovsky and on one occasion he set up a deliberate surprise. The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, in The Nutcracker features the celesta. In Tchaikovsky's day the instrument (invented around 1886) was a newcomer and very few had heard its fairy-like silvery tones. So keen was Tchaikovsky to spring this sound as a surprise on his audiences that he had the instrument secretly imported by his publisher and kept well out of hearing until the premiere. He wrote: 'Have it sent direct to Petersburg; but no-one there must know about it especially not Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazounov who might make use of the new effect before I could. I expect the instrument will make a tremendous sensation.' It did. Its predecessor had been invented in Glasgow by Thomas Machell – the dulcitone, first made in 1860 and used by the French composer Vincent d'Indy in Le Son de la Cloche in the 1880s. In the celesta, the hammers hit metal plates: in the dulcitone they hit metal tuning forks. These days, however, composers often introduce instruments from indigenous cultures and even archaeological reconstructions such as Bronze Age horns. As for the Highland bagpipes, they were first used with orchestra by Aloys Fleischmann in Cork, then Ian Whyte in his ballet Donald of the Burthens, then by Edward MacGuire in Calgacus and then in a kitsch colonialist scenario by Peter Maxwell Davies in Orkney Wedding with Sunrise. It used to be the best known, being in the 'Donald, where's your troosers?' class of artistry, but Bear McCreary's Outlander has overtaken it by an American mile. Anyway, there's no manual for combining bagpipes and symphony orchestra, not even Norman del Mar's magnificent Anatomy of the Orchestra. Norman (above) was not to be messed with – a large man with a formidable intellect. To orchestral musicians, he was variously known as 'The Mass of Life' (a pun on the title of a composition by Delius), 'The Greatest Waste of Space' (which was not fair), 'The Butcher' (on account of his decisive but inelegant beat), and, more affectionately 'Bubble Bum'. Confronted by more than 60 hardened professional musicians, many of whom had served in the Second World War and knew what it was like to be made to run 10 times round the parade ground carrying a heavy shell for playing a wrong note, even a Del Mar was put to the test. On one such occasion, he was guiding the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra through a mountain of challenging scores – Strauss's Till Eulenspiegel and the like – deliberately thrown at him by the BBC in London because public protest had prevented them from axing the orchestra. Norman had a desk with scores to the right of his conductor's podium – the In-Tray, and another to the left – the Out-Tray. They had no time for proper rehearsals, only run-throughs, and Norman was running them. At one point, in the frantic passage of scores and decisive beating of time, Norman's baton flew out of his hand and fell to the floor. He was a tall man, standing on a podium and barked out: 'My baton please!' Quick as a flash, the principal violinist, Peter Gibbs (who had piloted Spitfires during the Battle of Britain) deliberately dropped his bow and turned to the second desk of violins and demanded: 'My bow please!' But Norman loved these people and understood them better than many a conductor, taking in his stride the fourth horn, Billy Bull who, on being told by Del Mar that he couldn't see him, replied: 'Ah cannae see you either, sir, but ah can feel your presence.' Never was a truer word spoken. So I was frightened but fortunate that Norman gave an early piece of mine a run-through with the same orchestra. It made use of sundry effects – singing at the same time as playing, different kinds of mute and so on. Norman was immensely encouraging but also warned me against striving for effect. A year later, I got my comeuppance in that department from the timpanist in the Radió Teilefis Éireann Symphony Orchestra. His name was Kurt Hans Goedicke and this was back in 1962 so I was only 19 and he was still in his 20s. He subsequently acquired an international reputation and is more or less a legend in his own time. I had won the Radió Éireann Carolan Prize for orchestral variations on Amhran Dochais. One of the variations had a fanfare for the brass, followed by a solo for the timpani. Four timpani, one timpanist. I was really looking forward to hearing this. I thought it would sound spectacular. The brass section sounded great but the timpani bit was very disappointing. Too slow, almost stumbling. During the coffee break Kurt came to me with the timpani part. The conversation went as follows, he with a thick German accent: 'Zees timpani part – she is ver difficult. Ver difficult indeed.' 'I'm sorry. I thought it would be fine.' 'You see, I cannot keep crossing my arms like zis.' He demonstrated the knots he would get into when one arm had to cross over the other and the first one had to be retrieved from underneath in no time at all to get to the next of the four timpani. Truly impossible and I hadn't thought of it. 'O-o-oh! I'll try to re-write it then.' 'But zis is ze original inspiration, ja?' 'It's what I first thought of ... I ...' 'Oh ve must not change. Ve must not change ze original inspiration!' 'I'd rather change it and make it work better.' 'No, no. I tell you vat I do! I praaaactice!' And with that he forewent his coffee and spent the break trying to make the impossible possible. He got as close as could be but what he really achieved was the very kindliest of lessons in correcting incompetence, and I remain grateful to him to this day. The improper installation of a Rumford chimney was what won me that Carolan Prize. I composed it in St Kevin's Cottage in Co. Wicklow with the score opened out on the kitchen table. I was completing a double-page spread a day and the fine turf (peat) ash was falling on the pages and the smoke circulating promiscuously. As soon as you took the anonymous score out of the brown envelope you could smell the turf. Orchestral scores are not easy to judge and this no doubt saved everyone the bother. I imagine a judge exclaiming as he extracted the manuscript: 'Can you smell that now! Straight from the bogs! That's the winner. No discussion!' Not imaginary is the sixpence I attached to the start of the trombone part of my Opus 7, adding a signed 'with sympathy'. It came about because I was concerned about the top D. In those days, top Ds on a tenor trombone were not commonplace, and this was a held note in an already high-pitched passage. I asked him how he would manage it and his answer explains all! 'Well, it's like this, John. When you're going for the top D, you take a sixpence, stick it up your arsehole, squeeze like hell, and when it bends you know you've got it!'
Irish Times
06-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Clarinettist Julian Bliss: ‘You're running a business. A lot of musicians don't learn that side early enough. It can be overwhelming'
Julian Bliss is singular. He began his clarinet career around the age of 12 and has been before the public, working with major orchestras and playing in large venues, ever since – which is to say for nearly a quarter of a century. This is not uncommon in the world of the piano or the violin, but it's hard to think of any other clarinet player whose career has had a similar arc. Bliss began with Mozart, whose Clarinet Concerto – which the composer wrote at the age Bliss is now – he plays with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra tomorrow. He'll be using the deeper-toned basset clarinet, which has been wresting this work from the more familiar clarinet in A, which has fewer low notes. READ MORE 'Every instrument has mainstays,' he says, 'and the Mozart is certainly one of them. I think the first time I learned it must have been 2001 or 2002. Having lived with it for a long time, your interpretation changes quite a lot – not even intentionally sometimes, but just as you grow and develop as a musician. And also as a person, your thoughts, your intentions, the way you play, hopefully it gets better and better over time.' Not long ago Bliss listened to an early recording of himself playing the concerto, 'and I was very struck by some of the changes. These things might be very subtle developments in my playing or things that I think I've got better at. But also just different musical choices'. He's never bored by it, 'because it's so well written that even in performance you can find different things to do in terms of musical choices that can really bring it alive. And of course when you work with different musicians, different orchestras, different conductors, that also has a big influence'. Bliss goes deeper. 'You must always stay active in your music making, using your ears and watching, for example, how the strings might shape a phrase compared to how you would normally do it. If you listen out for those things, it then informs your own playing. It becomes then a real dialogue. That's always an exciting thing to be able to do.' He has never had regrets about being a prodigy. 'I do remember just having the best time as a kid. Nobody ever told me that I should be worried or nervous or apprehensive about it. And so it was always just the most fun thing for me. Quite often I'd get to leave school. Maybe that had something to do with it. I know this isn't true for some musicians, but being on stage was, I guess, my happy place.' The Covid times made me at least realise how fortunate I am to have this opportunity. Yes, of course, there are certain schedules where it becomes quite gruelling. But then you get the opportunity to stand on stage in some fantastic places with some fantastic audiences In a certain sense, musical performers are like athletes who have to stay fit. Clarinettists are athletes of lungs, lips and tongue as well as fingers. 'I'd like to think I'm not too much older now, still being 35,' Bliss says. 'Those things haven't really started to take a toll yet. Ask me in another 10 or 15 years: the answer might be different. 'In many ways I almost think I'm just getting started. Of course you say this every time. You feel you're in a better place than you were five years ago musically, personally, and that you're playing at a higher level. So, yes, you have to stay in shape. That's a given.' Bliss describes himself as 'a very self-critical person', but he comes across as someone who always keeps in touch with positive angles and sees learning opportunities wherever he can. Julian Bliss: The Julian Bliss Septet play at the Tramway Theatre, Blessington, on May 17th as part of West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival Unlike a large proportion of successful musicians, he really enjoys travelling. 'I love the opportunity to see the world and to be able to do that through music by playing concerts. I try not to take it for granted, though of course it does become your normal. It's important to take stock and, I guess, realise how fortunate we are to do it. 'The Covid times made me at least realise how fortunate I am to have this opportunity. Yes, of course, there are certain schedules where it becomes quite gruelling. But then you get the opportunity to stand on stage in some fantastic places with some fantastic audiences. 'So for me, it makes it all worthwhile. And to be able to see the world at the same time, that's quite something. I'd like to think I'm fairly good at having the energy when I need it. And I've developed the skill of being able to sleep anywhere at any time.' [ Irish drummer Kevin Brady: 'Most nights you're able to hear great live jazz. But we need something like classical has in the NCH' Opens in new window ] The actual playing, of course, is quite distinct from managing a career. 'You are running a business. It's a fact, and I think a lot of musicians don't learn about that side early enough. It can be quite overwhelming. We have to wear a lot of different hats, on the business side, the administration side, the performing side, rehearsing side. We have to be able to juggle all of these things. It's a learning curve. 'I was having a very long discussion about this with a friend of mine, another musician, the other day. If you think about all of the people in the world that graduate university with a music degree – whether that's music education, music performance, whatever – and then you look at the number of jobs or opportunities out there, there are more people than jobs. You have to learn very quickly and you have to have a certain type of personality.' And Bliss acknowledges the way the reality of the career can be distorted by rose-tinted postings on social media. While still a teenager the musician became an artist of the wind-instrument company Leblanc , which traces its origins back to 18th-century France. This brought an opportunity to design a new clarinet. 'We thought some of the intermediate-level instruments were not as good as they could have been,' he says. 'So we set out to try and design a new instrument that really gave those advancing players a fantastic, professional-level instrument at an affordable price, using computer-automated manufacturing. 'In the very early days my feedback was all very musical, in terms of, 'I'd like a darker sound,' or, 'I'd like the intonation on this note to be lower.' Which is very frustrating to engineers. Because they're, like, 'Just tell me in numbers: do you want this bigger or smaller, or what do you want?' Fairly quickly I became very interested in the engineering side and really got involved. [ 'It's really a coup': Irish Baroque Orchestra to make BBC Proms debut with Handel 'Dublin' oratorio not performed since 18th century Opens in new window ] 'I worked with that company for 18 years. It was a fantastic time and really taught me a lot, as did being part of a very large corporate company, being involved in meetings about the instrument, and the marketing and the branding and the sales, from about the age of 15 or 16. I'm still deeply appreciative of everyone there who was very open and very willing to teach me and listen to my ideas, as young as I was.' The Julian Bliss Septet, who play at West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival next week, grew out of the idea of 'recording some arrangements of Benny Goodman tunes for clarinet and orchestra. I started to go down that rabbit hole in a way I hadn't done before. And I thought it would be nice to add a rhythm section, and bass would be nice, too. And before I knew it I thought, 'Okay, how about just starting a band of my own?' I learned most of it by doing it, which I think is a great way: throw yourself in the deep end. 'I remember the first time actually calling a tune that we hadn't rehearsed and then thinking, 'We haven't talked about how are we going to end this. There's seven of us on stage: it's going to be a disaster.' Of course it was completely fine. It's interesting how you can communicate what you want without actually saying anything. And then I really embraced that element of not knowing what's going to happen. I think that's when the magic really happens.' Julian Bliss plays with the RTÉ Concert Orchestra under Swann Van Rechem in Mozart Masterpieces, at the National Concert Hall , Dublin, on Thursday, May 8th; the Julian Bliss Septet are at the Tramway Theatre, Blessington, on Saturday, May 17th, as part of West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival
Straits Times
03-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Concert review: SSO's principal clarinettist Ma Yue delivers beautiful performance of Finzi
Mozart And Finzi - Rodolfo Barraez And Ma Yue Singapore Symphony Orchestra Victoria Concert Hall May 2, 730pm After battling a career-threatening illness, Singapore Symphony Orchestra's long-serving principal clarinettist of over 32 years Ma Yue made a stunning recovery to give a rare performance of English composer Gerald Finzi's Clarinet Concerto in C minor (1949). Scored with just accompanying strings, this work eschewed all pretence to 20th century modernity, instead aligning itself with the hallowed English pastoral tradition of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Edward Elgar. Mellowness dominated, with Ma coaxing a smooth and velvety singing tone from its opening movement. Unspoken melancholy reflected a toll of tragedy on Finzi, with the loss of three brothers and his first music teacher, all slain in the Great War. The elegiac air continued into the slow movement with muted strings and his long-breathed solo line, beautifully articulated. Despite a stirring outburst from the strings, the clarinet's mourning would be resolute. The finale's high spirits in the major key could have been a game-changer if not for a quote from the first movement, returning like a memento mori (reminder of mortality). Moved to tears by the vociferous audience response, Ma's lovely encore of Italian composer Michele Mangani's Pagina D'Album (Album Page) with string support was no less poignant. The concerto, not played by the orchestra since 1983, was flanked by two mature symphonies by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. These were conducted from memory and without baton by SSO's young and dynamic Venezuelan associate conductor Rodolfo Barraez. Symphony No. 35 in D major (K. 385), nicknamed the Haffner Symphony, opened the evening with invigorating martial strains. This was clearly a reading making no concession to the lithe-sounding period instrument movement, with its full and unabashedly whole-hearted sonority. Yet the ensemble was capable of delivering fine nuances, not least in the contrasting second subject and the genteel slow movement. While the Menuetto possessed heft, balanced by a gentle lilt in its Trio section, the Presto finale was taken at its word. Its passion and tempestuousness would have counted for nothing if not for accomplished playing at such high speeds. Closing the concert was Symphony No. 39 in E flat major (K. 543), the most genial third of Mozart's final symphonic trilogy. Imposing E flat major chords, looking ahead to Ludwig van Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, opened the work. The ensuing Allegro could not have been more engaging. In the same vein, the slow movement's conversations between the instruments, first between the violins, and later the woodwinds and strings would be a defining feature. As with the earlier symphony, the third movement's Menuetto was full of bluster, contrasted by the Trio's lovely clarinet duet, helmed by Ma's colleagues Li Xin and Tang Xiaoping. The finale was mercurial, with exhilarating strings leading, answered by chirpy woodwinds, and backed by a very busy pair of French horns. Mozart's symphonies used to be on the undercards of SSO concerts, but thanks to inspired programming and oversight, this slight has now become something of the past. Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
