Just found this story on CNN, promoting Polyphony's CD for the grammy's. The interesting quote from conductor Stephen Layton:It's not that Americans can't perform this work well, he cautions, it's just that composers working in the idiom explored for so long by Lauridsen and more recently entered by Whitacre lends itself to English choral traditions and training.
Interesting . . . . .
4 comments:
I recently came along Polyphony's recording of Lauridsen's Lux Aeterna, and I heartily believe it's the best recorded performance I've heard...
From the linked article:
Whitacre echoes Lauridsen on probably the best compliment a composer could offer an artist: "On some of the pieces on the 'Cloudburst' CD, this is the only time I've heard them done right."
I can't protest strongly enough the idea that there's only one way to perform a piece of music "right". If Whitacre feels that way, he should create the perfect recording and have people play that in concert so the choir can lip-synch along. The great thing about the performing arts is that there can be significant variety in performances of the same work, even from the same group on different occasions. Good composers know this.
The worst thing that's happened to music is the Richard-Wagner control-freak-composer mindset that we've been stuck in for 150 years. The best thing that's happened to music is jazz, where no performer worries about identically re-creating what the composer (or first performer) had in mind.
There is nothing in Mr. Layton's comments with which I can disagree. And, if Mr. Whitacre is interested in hearing something he has created done perfectly, that seems valid. One must be careful in projecting other attributes to these comments.
I, for one, am neither intimidated nor put of by either of them. In fact, I am working on one of the pieces that appears on the Layton recording, "A
Boy and a Girl" I know my choir has not yet been able to match the Layton performance, and they likely will never match it for its perfections and imperfections. Still, my resolve to perform the piece is not diminished by the recording. And, if Mr. Whitacre were to tell me he thinks it best, or even mandatory, that my singers approach his music without a hint of vibrato (esp. in the sopranos, which I think is one of the crucial issues in this question), then I will oblige. I feel no conflict. In fact, I respect the composer's notion to the point that I might choose not to attempt the piece if he espoused a specifc technique that I found uncomfortable.
This issue is following close on the heels of the discussion of recordings on choralist, which I admit I did not read. I have an abundance of recordings, which I listen to with great zeal. Never have their elements of the perfect performance intimidated me when choosing and preparing music.
I would take issue, slightly, with your comments on Jazz Allen. There is an orthodoxy in Jazz, as in all music. Taste, especially in assessing the taste and abilities of performers, is inescapable for many jazz musicians. The lack of knowledge regarding a repertoire of licks and their execution is just as off putting to the seasoned jazz performer as the imperfections of a choral piece may be to Mr. Whitacre. I suspect you are taking issue mostly with the transfer of hegemony from the conductor to the composer, which is simply silly.
LOL, Allen... I love coming back to "performance practice" discussions with you!!! You wrote, "The best thing that's happened to music is jazz, where no performer worries about identically re-creating what the composer (or first performer) had in mind."
I understand your point, though I don't necessarily agree completely. Still, I think it's hysterical, though, how some people (I'm not meaning you) will get into a snit over a performer who "ornaments" Bach, accusing the performer of CHANGING Bach. I'm preparing two choruses for an upcoming combined masterworks concerts of Baroque works...Charpentier's Te Deum, Bach's Christ lag in Todes Banden cantata, and a few Messiah choruses, and I'm right now preparing a new transcription of all the works for my orchestra and chorus with numerous ornamentations realized, passagi realized for the soloists, etc. (I've only one rehearsal with the orchestra, and I want their trills, etc. to be uniform.) Still, I KNOW someone is going to accuse me of CHANGING Charpentier...or Bach, or Handel, etc. LOL - It's all a matter of perspective...
Anyway, back to the topic at hand. The issue of "this is the only time I've heard [whatever piece] done right" goes a little beyond composer's "control-freak" intent, as you mentioned, though it does include that. I also think it brings up the topic of "quality standards" if that makes any sense.
Perhaps for another blog post, but a question that begs asking is, "Is all performed music equal in awarded performance merit, assuming the 'intent to perform' or 'heartfelt passion' is theoretically equal?" In simpler terms, if Choir 1 "does their best" in performance and Choir 2 "does their best", does that automatically mean both performances are worthy of equal esteem?
It's a tricky issue. Our modern culture calls anything art as long as it aptly expresses the individual that created it. Stacked pop cans (you can tell I'm from the north midwest...) glued together is proclaimed to be art, and no one can compare it to a Renoir and say the pop cans are crap and belong in the dumpster, because it is "self expression." None of us will hold Salieri's works up to be equal with Mozart's, but we must if the only standard of quality is heartfelt self-expression.
And performance quality can be viewed through the same lenses. If one's position is that all performances of the same work are equal if everyone "does their best" and interprets the work "their heartfelt way" then I'd like to see a high school performance of Verdi's Requiem featured at the next ACDA convention, because...they're doing it their preferred way. Who can criticize them, saying the work is inappropriate for high school voices? Not us, if all that matters is there desire.
I do not support the notion that all performances are to be equally esteemed based on effort. The problem with Whitacre's statement is the ambiguity regarding the performances being "done right." And if he were more clear, our discussion would likely be shorter.
Whitacre could mean several things...that the Polyphony performance was the most musically effective performance he'd heard, or of the highest quality he'd heard, or that there is only one "right performance" in his mind. Who knows what he meant. Let's go back to my Lauridsen Lux Aeterna example... Personally, I think the grammy award winning LAMC recording features a performance that in some spots has intonation problems. I could posit that, in part, the performance was not "done right," because of the intonation problems, and that would be a quantifiable statement. Likewise, if a choir performs the "O nata lux" at a presto tempo, "just because," I have no problem with anyone saying "that's not right" regardless of an egoist performer who "likes it that way." There have to be standards for works to be considered fine art. Why is it that we separate "fine art" from common crayon drawings on the fridge, but we hail any yokel's performance as "quality" if only heartfelt and do not require as "fine" a performance as matches the "fine" art?
Part of the standard is composer intent. It has to be.
I agree with a facet of your statement, "The worst thing that's happened to music is the Richard-Wagner control-freak-composer mindset that we've been stuck in for 150 years. The best thing that's happened to music is jazz, where no performer worries about identically re-creating what the composer (or first performer) had in mind."
I would suggest that what makes life beautiful is the order of the universe while at the same time the refreshing timely spontaneity of the same universe. Neither would be as beautiful without the either. And, I think the same is for music. There is a wondrousness in recreating the orderly music of Mozart, and another wondrousness in improvising on a them by Gershwin. And I don't think either would be as moving without our appreciation of the other.
Post a Comment