CGF Newsletter 28: Sing We and Chant It
Brits behaving badly, an album review, and a poem about the year's cruelest season
Name That Tune
This week’s Name That Tune is a Maestro Will special. No hint!
As always, your goal is to provide as much accurate analysis as possible. First try to get the nationality, year, and genre, then make educated guesses about the composer and — if possible— the piece. If you know the piece immediately, send us an email at classicalgabfest@gmail.com instead of commenting so the rest of us can have fun guessing.
Last Week’s Results
CGF Newsletter 27
Bruckner, String Quintet
Well, I really fell flat on my face this time. Listener Jeremy: ya got me! I took a huge swing and guessed (almost entirely from the clue... thanks Joey) that this might be Mascagni, Leoncavallo, or Rimsky-Korsakov. Sure wasn’t!
No other guesses, except for Listener Kevin, who knew exactly what it was.
Think you can stump your fellow Listeners? Go ahead and try!
Head to our Google Form to upload a 30-second clip of an unidentified piece of classical music for us to try to identify.
NEWS!
The news story that’s dominated my twitter feed for the past week is the “reorganization” of the BBC’s classical music ensembles, which will cut jobs from several of Britain’s professional orchestras and snuff out the BBC Singers entirely, putting an end to this ensemble’s 99 year life.
From the Beeb’s press release:
Building on the founding principles of the BBC orchestras as flexible and adaptable, we are creating agile ensembles that can work creatively, bringing in more musicians when needed and broadcasting from more venues in different parts of the country. This flexibility will enable our orchestras to perform the full range of repertoire, from intimate smaller scale works to the largest full-scale symphonic and choral pieces. A voluntary redundancy programme will open across salaried posts in the English Orchestras (BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic Orchestra), aiming to reduce salaried orchestral posts across the BBC orchestras by around 20%.
Choirs, from amateur to professional, form an integral part of the UK’s thriving music scene. It is essential that the BBC invests in more broadcast opportunities from a greater range of high-quality ensembles, and therefore the BBC has made the difficult decision to close the BBC Singers (20 posts) and invest resources in a wider pool of choral groups from across the UK. Enhancing and enabling emerging and diverse choirs is also key to engaging a wider and a future audience, so the BBC will establish a new nationwide choral development programme.
I suppose I should try to be fair and balanced in this newsletter, but frankly, I haven’t seen anything but condemnation for this move.
700 composers have signed a letter of condemnation.
In other news from the British funding fallout, it appears that the Britten Sinfonia took my suggestion and has mounted an independent fundraising campaign.
I’ll just say that, as an American looking across the pond, it is almost inconceivable to me that a government entity would pay to support the work of a professional choral singing body. It’s a thing to be cherished, and the British classical community is right to fight back and try to save such a treasure.
[I’ll further mention on a personal note that one of my all-time favorite conductors to work with was John Poole, who was for 20 years the music director of the BBC Singers. He directed the Pro Arte Chorus at IU when I was a grad student there, and I sang several concerts under his direction. I once gave him a CD with some of my pieces on it, and the next day he bounded up to me and said “bloody good music!”]
Album Review by Request
Georgs Pelēcis, Seasons
Linda Leine, piano
Spotify
Let’s start with what Listener Christopher had to say about this when writing in with his request:
I found Timo Andres' performance of "New Years Music" more compelling, but I do appreciate hearing the larger cycle of works on this album as a set.
LC is, of course, referring to the famous Timo Andres performance of Pelēcis’ “New Years Music,” a performance that I listen to on a *regular* basis, and which I frequently foist upon anyone within earshot.
As much as I love that video, I’ll admit: I never did one lick of additional research into Georgs Pelēcis or listening to his music. For shame! But now I have, and I’m here to tell you what lies beyond the Rubicon.
First off: I agree 100% with Christopher’s assessment of the relative merits of Timo and Leine’s performances of “NYM”. Leine’s tempo is more moderate, the phrasing more halting. She excels in the moments of crystalline beauty, but the more energetic, funky bits are left wanting. One of the things that appeals to me so much about this piece is that Pelēcis has found a way to glue together musical phrases with very different influences, from neo-Renaissance dance-like passages to Veljo Tormis-style minimalism to contemporary pop influenced classicism.
The way he moves from phrase to phrase is seamless and dynamic at the same time. I just think it’s neat, I really like it, and I think Timo nails it.
And that’s why it came as a bit of a disappointment to listen to the rest of this album. Apparently “New Years Music” is the first movement of a larger work called Seasons, with “Spring Music,” “Summer Music,” “Autumn Music,” and “Winter Music” following.
My first problem is: these seasons are barely differentiated, musically. To me, they all sound like winter, with the possible exception of Autumn, which sounds slightly autumnal (and which, with it’s Bachian counterpoint, is definitely the most interesting of the set.) Spring and Summer definitely don’t sound like their respective seasons. They’re mostly drifting minor tunes, and I feel that spring and summer music should be happy, for all the obvious reasons.
Unlike “New Years Music,” the rest of the Seasons pieces hew much more closely to the style of the Estonian minimalist school (aka Veljo Tormis) though there are occasional (unconvincing) jazzy bits. And these pieces are long.
I guess this would be pretty good music to zone out to, except that it’s not quite, because it’s just interesting enough that you want to listen.
So I would say that for me personally, this album was problematic. I wouldn’t say I disliked it, but I can’t say I particularly liked it, and when compared to my expectations from the one Pelēcis piece I already knew, it came up short.
However, I remain interested in this composer, so if anyone else has any recommendations, let me know. And definitely write in if you’d like more album reviews. I’ll have thoughts, that much is for sure.
A Poem
I’ve never written a poem before, but for some strange reason, during a bout of insomnia this week, I decided to write a poem about my least favorite weather: cold + sun. Since we’re talking about the seasons (and winter specifically) I thought I’d share it:
The winter sun
The winter sun is a cruel despot
A blinding tyrant, aloof and cold
Mocking the earth and her denizens
Quietly laughing as they suffer.
The winter sun is a liar, a gaslighter
An affronter of decency
Offering no consolation
Loitering, gawking, and smirking.
The clouds at least try their best
To blanket the atmosphere
And retain its precious warmth
They are my friends.
The universe in its malevolence
Set the earth spinning at an angle
And so half our lives
Are spent as prisoners of the cold.
The sun sees. The sun knows.
Its rays penetrate the sky
Shrieking like banshees
Plunging their icy swords into mortal hearts.
Classical Mixtape
Adam de la Halle, Le jeu de Robin et Marion
Perhaps the first ever CGF Mixtape recommendation from the middle ages. I came across this because I subscribe to the uploader’s YouTube channel. This person usually posts obscure romantic chamber music (which I am here for) but took a zag toward the 13th century, and I thought I’d go along for the ride.
NTT: As Gershwin-y as the trumpet sounds, the background texture makes me think more of Copland, so I'll put him in my basket. I could also see this being by Still, but part of me thinks it might be later than both of those. Bernstein, even? It's tricky.
NTT: it certainly is beautiful, whatever the heck it is. Like Jeremy, I glommed onto the blues-y interval that rocks back and forth as one Gershwin uses (is it in Rhapsody in Blue?) but I think I’ll go French, early 20th century. I may get this from the gauzy impressionist feel overlaid with the jazziness. I’m pretty ignorant about any composer who wrote later than around 1597, so my only concrete guess is Milhaud, who I believe was a lover of American jazz.