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PGS at the Calcutta International Classical Guitar Festival 2016 – An interview with Maestro David Russell

December 21, 2016

Maestro David Russell was invited for the 2016 Calcutta Classical Guitar International Festival in Kolkata. He had an intense schedule with concerts and masterclasses, but he was extremely gracious to give us time for this wonderful interview. Here is the transcript of the conversation with Pune Guitar Society’s Kuldeep Barve.

Note – ‘PGS’ is Pune Guitar Society

david-russell

photo – davidrussellguitar.com

PGS – Thank you for your time. We would love to hear your thoughts on Clarice Assad’s works.

David Russell – My knowledge of Clarice Assad’s music is quite limited. I have heard her play her crossover, jazz, Brazilian style. I have heard her play with the family, because i have been good friends with Sergio and Odair for many many years. A couple of years ago i was in New York and i met with Sergio and he took me to Clarice’s house. Me and my wife, we went for lunch. I enjoyed meeting Clarice and she gave me one piece of music that a friend of hers had arranged…lovely song! So, i arranged it a little more and i sent her a little video as a kind of present saying thank you..because she had invited us to her house. Later she put it on Youtube or Vimeo, so i also put it up too. It’s a lovely lovely tune….for me it was a nice experience to know her and to know her music.

PGS – Your thoughts on Maestro Sergio Assad’s music…

David Russell – He is making a big impact. He has become a very important composer in the guitar world. I have played one of his first solo guitar pieces – ‘Aquarelle’. He had already played the slow movement, the ‘Valseana’. He then wrote the other two movements of ‘Aquarelle’. I played that one..fantastic piece, very difficult, but great piece. Then some years later, he composed a piece called ‘Eli’s Portrait’, a portrait of Eli Kassner and it was a present for Eli’s 80th birthday, so i performed that one. Some years later he wrote another portrait called ‘Sandy’s Portrait’. That’s a newer piece, maybe three four years old, which i have played too. In between he has written many many pieces. I have not played everything he has written of course, but I will be playing some other pieces of his next year. For me, he is a genius and i love playing his music.

PGS – Can you elaborate on his compositional style and the aspects of his music you like..

David Russell – We are all looking for new music which is accessible for the audience, which the audience can enjoy. As a guitarist it is also very enjoyable. His music is challenging but its guitaristic. If you work hard with his music, you get a good result. It doesn’t go against the guitar. Even if it is physically difficult to play, it is very satisfying to play. Musically, he has found a connection between Brazilian music and classical music. I think its a connection which for me is more classical with a Brazilian taste. Some other people might think that it is more Brazilian with a classical taste. Doesn’t really matter. I also see it as music written by my friend. There is a personal and human connection and i know he has worked for months to write it. I am going to work for months to make it playable. That connection i find very very enjoyable.

PGS – Do you play Leo Brouwer’s music..?

David Russell – I have played it. There was a time when many people were playing Leo Brouwer’s music. I was really looking for something else. But of course, when i was a student, i have played his Espiral…i cannot remember all his pieces, but pieces like Danza, the Fugue..i recorded for the BBC along with several others. I know him. But now, i have not included him in my programs for some years now. Probably because a lot of people are playing his music..

PGS – You have seen and heard his music being performed over the years..with his Concertos..

David Russell – I have played one of his Concertos. The ‘Concerto Elegiaco’. I have played it several times at different places with different orchestras. The Elegiaco is a fabulous piece. It is a deep and strong piece. Sometimes some music can seem flashy, but this one does not go for the flashy element; it goes for the depth. It is also a piece which works fantastically well for the piano and guitar. It really works beautifully for the piano/guitar reduction. There are not many pieces which you can do piano and guitar. it’s always is a bit of a struggle. The ‘Aranguez’ is OK but it loses so much. But Leo’s piece really works well for the piano/guitar. I have only played it once with the piano, but i have seen a good friend play. It was fantastic; it was almost better with the piano/guitar than with an orchestra, almost, because of the power they got between them.

PGS – Stylistically, how do you look at Leo Brouwer and Sergio Assad, two of the most prominent composers for the guitar?

David Russell – Very different. The way they started writing; the way they used the folk music. I must say that Leo Brouwer is writing a lot of new pieces. I heard some recently and they are really exciting. I do think that he is still producing excellent works. I think perhaps Sergio at one point was influenced by Leo’s work, like many composers of course, but Sergio is completely mature and he has really found his own personality..

PGS – With so many classical guitar players and composers writing for the guitar, how do you look at the present and the future of the classical guitar?

David Russell – There are many things happening. There are many composers who are trying out and finding ways to become more popular, which was not done in the 70’s. Was that a mistake? …Well..The composers in the 70’s were writing what they wanted, not what the audience wanted. As a performer, i am caught in between. I would love to play some pieces, but it doesn’t fit for this audience or for that audience..at the same time how far can i go to satisfy the audience? Should i satisfy myself, the composers or the audience? It is a bit of a problem. It’s a situation in which some composers became super atonal, very contemporary, which the audience did not want to go forward with. Some people did, but lot of the general audience did not, unless it was promoted very well. Then there was a compositional attempt at more contemporary ‘popular’ music. I think that we are somewhere in between at the moment. There are some beautiful pieces written in this vein, which develop this more popular idea, but not relinquish the emotional and intellectual content which is possible in popular music. It’s a thing that classical music is struggling for its audience and with the invasion of the internet etc. and basically because of the influence of pop music everywhere. For instance, when you turn on the TV, when do you hear one classical note? You could watch it one whole day before you hear something which is not electronically produced. So the young people are growing up with it(classical music) not being a part of their experience..their musical experience. It’s a pity, but it is what is happening. But classical musicians need to work, we need to fight to not lose out completely. Percentage of CD sales…classical music at one point was 20% of CD sales in the 80’s and 90’s. It was pretty good. Now it is not even 3%. The companies cannot sell much which means the promotion and money in classical music is much smaller than it used to be compared to other music in general. It’s a very big subject. As classical guitarists we are kind of outside that a little bit and hopefully we can get enough people who love jazz or rock music to come to classical music through the guitar. They might not want to go to the opera just yet, but they might come to a guitar concert! So we can perhaps offer a little bit of a bridge and hopefully…simply because the instrument, the guitar is so popular that hopefully we can get people to listen to classical music. People just do not know this beautiful music and if we do it well then we can get people come again and again and listen to concerts of young players.

I would like to add to this…we should always show our enthusiasm for our art. If we are enthusiastic, energetic and exciting about it, then it is easier to pull people in. If we are boring and intellectual, then even if we have something fantastic, it sounds boring. We must not be boring..

PGS – Do you think this is because guitarists have been living in their own ghettos and have not really made that attempt to reach out..?

David Russell – At one point, yes. At that time it was not necessary. There were enough people involved with classical music generally. It dint matter if a few people did not want to listen to it. It’s not longer the case. We have to work hard, study the past, the history etc. but we have to bring it to life…

PGS – How do you look at the guitar in the context of the larger world of classical music today?

David Russell – I think we have always been on the side, kind of fringe element. Even in the times when the lute was played. Lute was part of all the groups but solo lute was slightly aside..If you think of the great classical period of say Mozart of Beethoven etc. the guitar was around, but was always on the side..in the salons. Always kind of little bit on the side. Now, in the present with all the fantastic orchestras, London, Berlin etc., the guitar is there, but still on the side.

PGS – Do you think this can change now with much improved amplification..?

David Russell – Perhaps. We have to accept that, i think the guitar sounds beautiful un-amplified. But the amplification systems have got better and the microphones have got better. We can hopefully amplify without sacrificing the qualities of our sound, quality of musical expression if you like..i think it’s possible.

PGS – Your thoughts on guitar pedagogy and the changes happening in learning/teaching methods?

David Russell – The old systems of learning..if you look at the books written by Fernando Sor or Carcassi, they are still OK to look at, but i think many of the teachers have adapted methods which perhaps work better for our society, which has changed. Unfortunately all instruments are difficult to play and now the young people are growing up with kind of life where you learn something very quickly. Video games etc..everything is short attention span. In older times everything took longer and people expecting to be practicing for the extra hours. The discipline required to play an instrument like the guitar or the piano is enormous. So the young people who get excited and want to learn, hopefully they learn the discipline which also help them be an engineer, a doctor or an architect which also requires study of many hours and absorbing a lot of knowledge. So i think when children learn to play an instrument, even if they do not become virtuosos, its part of learning discipline and learning how to concentrate for longer periods. Everything you hear on TV etc. is all short and sweet. Very few long scenes, even in big films. Everything has changed really, whereas before scenes were longer..I do not want to say one is good and the other is bad. It’s not that, it is the way it is. So, for young people to learn an instrument is a fabulous thing. But we must make it interesting for them. The teachers..i do not have a method or anything, but if i was going to teach young children i would make them excited about learning. And if they get excited, they will put in the time. When you realize the more you practice, the better you get. So the new methods are designed accordingly. There are some Suzuki methods where the children play together. Those things are working very well. Especially for the initial stages of learning. It’s another matter you know, who reaches the really high level and becomes a professional or hopefully an aspiring professional. But all the people who are learning, they will have a fantastic time learning the guitar. They wont be professionals and that is OK.

PGS – Maestro, our last question. Please share your thoughts on the act and the art of listening..

David Russell – It all goes together..the art of listening is also perhaps not the way it was. Pieces used to last for 30 and 40 mins. Now most pieces are 4 mins. Short pieces go well with audiences. Except for experienced audiences. To become a good listener is to learn to enjoy it. If you learn to enjoy it, you obviously have to learn to experience it a lot. You cannot suddenly listen to the Bach ‘Chaconne’. You have to start with shorter pieces and if you like those, then eventually you might listen and enjoy the Bach ‘Chaconne’. But do not start with that. Start with smaller pieces. Maybe if you go to a concert, you might get some long pieces. It’s always a good experience. But for the young people, perhaps they have to put in the effort and the time. For most people now, they have the CD and they have it on the phone and they jump from piece to piece…I do the same! I am not saying its bad..we all do it. We listen in a different way compared to when we listened to LPs. When i was a young man, with LPs you could not do that. You would have to ruin your record! So, you put it on and you listen to it. Now its just so easy..you have your telephone and you just jump it from one track to another..Maybe the musicians and players have to consider that. In the concert, luckily people cannot zap you. In the concert, you have got them and they have got you. So the ability to listen in general needs more work. In the time of your or my parents there were no beeps..the noise was much lower. It’s now very different. The human society likes excitement. If you have two shops and one is playing loud music with beats, most people will be attracted to that. Of course some people will go to the gentler place. But not the first time. The first time they will go to the place which seems more exciting and only when that excitement has worn off, perhaps some people will turn to western classical music, which is more gentle. Even the more exciting western classical music is more gentle than say rock. Some people perhaps need to go through the more exciting things before they look for something more quiet…if their personality likes that. Its OK. We have to learn to live with these differences. We classical guitarists play an instrument which has a very low volume in comparison to the level of volume in our life…

PGS – Do you think listening should be included in guitar or instrument learning syllabus?

David Russell – Perhaps that is a good idea. But when something is made into part of pedagogy, it becomes very strict. If the children are playing the guitar and they have some guitar music on their phones or iPod or something, they will listen to it, if they are excited about listening to it. Its up to the teachers to keep them interested. If they do not lose their interest, they will stay with it. If their interest stays long enough, they will get good at it. Sometimes, even if the teacher is using a bad method, but if they are excited about it, then it is good. Another teacher might have the perfect hand position and the perfect method, but if they are boring, then the students get bored with it. So it is about mixing these two things. Get good hand positions, good musical knowledge and keep the excitement as well.

Maestro Roland Dyens – Through his ‘Lettres’

October 30, 2016

roland-dyens3a

Photo – http://www.tar.gr/en/content/content/print.php?id=371

by Kuldeep Barve

A few years back, my dear friend and guitar player Veda Aggarwal gave me a copy of Maestro Roland Dyens’s Lettres (Letters, published 2001). I had heard a few of his works before. To name a few, Tango en Skaï, Libra Sonatine and Hommage à Frank Zappa. Although i had tried my hand at Tango en Skaï, these works always felt beyond my technical and musical capabilities at the time and so i made up my mind to try these out at a later date. When i got the Lettres from Veda, I read through its introduction and realized that Dyens had written these pieces keeping musicians like me in mind and i quote him from the Introduction, “…I think what gives me most pleasure is the thought that at last my music will be accessible to a large number of guitarists who, for obvious technical reasons, felt until now somewhat excluded from the majority of my work. I hope, therefore, that this gap will be consigned to past history.” More importantly, he goes on to say that combining good quality music with relative ease of playing was for him the most difficult thing to do in composition and this was his attempt at taking up this challenge, so to say.

‘Lettres’ is a set of 20 letters. Each of these addresses one or more technical challenges never foreshadowing the musical intention and compositional integrity. Each letter stands on its own as a piece of music. There are many aspects to these so-called ‘technical’ challenges, which caught my attention. The more i read through the elaborate notes written by Dyens in the Foreword, the more i understood that Dyens is trying to do away with many notions in guitar pedagogy and learning which had now been solidly entrenched. Dyens elaborates on the three primary axes to which he thinks musicians and particularly guitarists have not paid much attention to. These three axes are, to put it shortly – Tuning, Eliminating unwanted notes and Unnecessary ‘squeaks’.

When you go through the set of letters, you realize the depth and breadth of Dyens’s thought as a composer, teacher and performer. Although these letters are posited as a set of miniature studies, the musical and pedagogical thought that has gone behind the writing is far more fundamental to overall musicality, musicianship and performance in general.

Tuning – Tuning has never been a big subject in the guitar community till recent past. Although it still might seem like an obvious and overrated subject for most guitar players, it is a deep subject which requires extra attention and awareness. The changes in guitar construction in the last century coupled with the kind of music written for it especially after 1950, has intensified the concerns about tuning. Dyens has been very concerned with the guitar being always ‘almost’ in tune. This has a direct connection with what the player is capable of ‘hearing’. Unless the performer is acutely conscious of the overtones generated by the guitar(even after damping the unwanted strings), he/she will never be able to appreciate the minute tuning adjustments that need to be done. Moreover, this harks back at the fundamental notion of how the performer delves into the composer’s ‘intent’. Dyens notes that ‘western’ musicians need to look at tuning as a pleasurable ritual, much in the way Indian classical musicians or Flamenco players have done. To that effect he writes, it should become part of the performance, rather like a prelude to a piece of music. Being right in the centre of an active indian classical music milieu , this makes complete sense to me. On numerous occasions as a listener, i have drowned along with the performers in the deep joy and meditative involvement which goes into tuning the Taanpura (an accompanying instrument), the Sitar or the Veena/Been for instance. For musicians who are exposed to Indian Classical Music, it should come to us naturally then to be conscious and aware of fine-tuning our instruments. Although i was very conscious about this in the Indian music context, it was Dyens who first made me aware of fine-tuning a ‘tempered’ instrument such as the guitar. I also owe it to a dear friend and teacher, Jayant, who through his interesting expositions and discussions on ‘Modern’ music has stressed on the importance of tuning and how the idiosyncrasies of guitar tuning(and by that logic the overtones generated) are built into a lot of music written for the guitar especially post World War II.

Eliminating unwanted notes – From the foreword : “…how many guitarists, whether beginners or experienced performers, commonly put into practice the techniques that will efficiently eliminate unwanted notes(…produced or implied by vibrations of open strings..)…it is an important part of putting the message across on the guitar, leading to greater clarity of parts in contrapuntal passages, and clearer harmony in the chords”. Again, this is an area which according to Dyens needs to be looked at very seriously. The guitar has a propensity to set in motion the open strings which then in turn create their own overtones. The issue of damping and being extra conscious of the creation of overtones via open strings is a focal point in this set of pieces. Dyens is extremely meticulous in his writing, sometimes explicitly directing the performer to silence strings because of possible overtone creation, even if that particular string has not been played before. In many indian instruments, all strings(including the main and sympathetic strings) are tuned to the notes(swara, स्वर) of the raga. They are ‘meant’ to be set in motion when the performer plays on the main strings. This creates a rich tapestry of overtones (naad, नाद). This musical outcome is required and necessary and is built into the aesthetics of the music and instrument making.If we look at the guitar, it has no sympathetic strings. The main strings on which we play are tuned in fourths if we start from the lowest(in pitch) string to the highest(except the third and second, where the second is tuned a third from the third string). This system of tuning possibly has roots in the guitar’s complex history as a folk instrument spread across a wide geography and being at a meeting point of ‘western’, ‘middle-eastern’ and ‘eastern’ influences. As mentioned earlier, when a string is played, it creates its own overtones. Additionally, it sets into motion the open strings, which in turn create their own overtones.Now consider the fact that on the guitar, the frets are placed according to the tempered scale. Now the note is played by pressing the string on a fret(tempered note) and it creates its own overtones. If the open strings are not dampened, they vibrate creating ‘natural’ overtones(Since the open strings are not played by pressing the string on a tempered fret). So, here we should consider ‘tempered’ notes with their overtones on one hand and open strings creating their own overtones on the other hand. In effect, do we create a mesh of tempered and non-tempered notes and overtones, if we do not silence the unwanted open strings? This is amongst the many questions which have come up in recent discussions with friends and colleagues regarding guitar tuning, guitar construction etc.

Unnecessary ‘squeaks’ – The lower strings are steel wound nylon strings and when we move our hand to higher frets from lower frets on the same string, there is a possibility that there is a squeak. This happens especially when there is a glissando in the music. There are some other kinds of sounds generated during pull-offs or hammer-ons which are strictly not a part of the music per se. Should these be completely done away with? Here is where i am not completely on the same page as Dyens. For him, it is an unwanted sound. In my own thoughts, it is something to do with the nature of the instrument. Also having played steel string guitar before in folk-blues contexts, the little squeaks were in fact adding more texture. Nevertheless, i do think while playing classical music, this need not be the case and Dyens makes an important point in making us conscious of these unwanted sounds.

Besides the fact that i have liked his music, Dyens is an inspiration in another respect. He has revived the age old tradition of the performer-improviser, which had been lost for the last 150 years in mainstream western classical music. My friend and teacher, Jayant Sankrityayana (a jazz and classical musician) says that most of Dyen’s music sounds improvised. I take this to mean that he has kept a lot of that spontaneity in improvisation alive in his music, choosing not to smoothen out those aspects when writing or revising a written work.

Thanks for all the letters, essays, thoughts, performances and most of all, your music, Maestro Dyens.

Palettes, poised to mix

September 8, 2016

by Jayant Sankrityayana

The Pune Guitar Society(PGS) organised a combined guitar and piano solo recital on 3 September 2016 at the Mazda Hall in Pune. This, a premier venue for classical music recitals in India, was made available through the kind support of the Poona Music Society.

Since its inception, the PGS has considered the facilitation of bidirectional exposure between the guitar and other instruments as one of its core aims. Pune boasts a strong culture in piano music and a long lineage of teachers who have kept this tradition alive and vibrant. Tanaz Irani is one of these, with a reputation for excellence and a corpus of dedicated and capable students who have gone on to contribute to the study of the instrument, in turn. Tanaz responded graciously to the somewhat tentative request made by the PGS – would she like to recommend some of her students for a joint recital with guitarists?

I was aware that Kuldeep had been busy behind the scenes setting up the event, even while I was unable to find the time to be seriously involved. So it was almost as an unprepared audience member that I arrived at the Mazda Hall that Saturday.

I deliberately shut my ears away from the rehearsals that were already in progress, with the pianists trying out their repertoire for the evening on the Blüthner grand (magnificent instrument, that), the guitarists awaiting their turn, desultory conversations between bystanders, and the brooding weather. I had every intention of preserving my hearing for the actual performance.

The guitarists played first. We knew that the dynamic ranges of guitars and pianos are practically in alternative universes, and that it would be advisable for the pianists to play afterwards. I sat back and allowed the sonic texture to settle over me. Rather than going through a piece-by-piece “concert review” in the usual sense, I would only like to comment on the highlights that each performer brought to the stage.

Jake Samuel, a core member of the PGS, opened the recital with a Leo Brouwer Study. It is always sobering to consider the oeuvre of the preeminent living guitar composer – he shows up at every level, everywhere, from neophyte student repertoire to some real masterworks for various ensembles. Jake approaches all his music with that matter-of-fact intellect which I know him to have as a person. The Study was demonstrably well-understood and expressed – and I would like to say that, in Brouwer, Jake has found his own path for expression and growth as a guitarist.

I have heard Eesha Randad, young at fourteen, play at a few meetings of the PGS. This was the first time she was onstage at the Mazda. What always strikes Kuldeep and I is her complete lack of stage fright, and the absolute confidence with which she sets about her musical tasks at hand. Her rendition of Astor Piazzola’s Milonga del Angel demonstrated how far she has come in a short time, without any access to high-quality instruction, without even an instrument that can square up with her level of playing.

Kabir Dabholkar was the last guitarist to play. He has excellent tone, an understanding across genres of music, and palpable sonic presence. Again, Leo Brouwer was in evidence, in the last movement from El Decameron Negro. Kabir enjoys playing this, and it shows.

After a short intermission, it was the turn of the pianists.

Rahel Shetkhatkar commenced with Claude Debussy’s Prelude from Suite Bergamasque. I’ve always found some resonance with a statement made by Dan Morgan, author of two interesting guitar methods, that “compared with pianists, us guitarists are very much do-it-yourself musicians”. Well, us guitarists can’t really help it. Our repertoire never featured composers who could match their contemporaries on other instruments (well, not until recently, anyway). Rahel’s interpretation was shaded beautifully.

Azriela Maben proceed to delightfully express another Debussy – the Minuet from Suite Begamasque. My jazz persona identifies quite happily with Debussy, and I could hear echoes of Ahmad Jamal’s Poinciana as well as John Abercrombie’s Ralph’s Piano Waltz in this work. Who knows if there are actually inspirational connections? Azriela is an unassuming, quiet young person who is totally transformed, united inexorably with her piano, when playing.

Amar Mane and Sachit Ajmani proceeded to play Frederic Chopin’s Grande Waltz Brillante and Ballade in A Flat Major, respectively. Both pianists had completely different expressive approaches, but similar degrees of passion. Amar demonstrated a controlled, almost rational treatment that capably celebrated the structure of the music, while Sachit was more introspective, almost pensive, in his interpretation.

Finally, Tuhin Rao, a teacher in his own right, closed the recital with Franz Schubert’s Impromptu in B Flat Major. This set of variations, based on a theme from Schubert’s own operetta Rosamunde, is sonically quite predictable, but comes up with interesting changes in tone colour. We can see Beethoven’s influence in Schubert’s compositional style. Tuhin was entirely at home with it, and I found myself wanting to listen to this accomplished pianist in a setting with more modern repertoire.

In his closing remarks, Arnaud Devic, President of the PMS, emphasized the need for students to perform formally as much as possible, and commended the PGS on the cross-instrument initiative that had been taken.

Subsequent to the recital, Jake, Kuldeep, Tuhin and I made our way to the Poona Coffee House along with Meghana Dharap, a pianist student of Tanaz’s, and Aditya, her brother and a guitar player.

Sitting back and listening to the conversation that ensued, I was caught by the realization that this little recital, organised almost experimentally by the PGS, could potentially instigate a new cycle of freshness in the Western classical music ambiance in Pune. It was a sheer delight to know how Leo Brouwer had touched the pianists in the gathering. It was an equal delight for us guitarists to be reminded so directly how monumental the piano repertoire has been in every period, with its enormous, varied sonic legacy.

I personally believe that the classical guitar is a young instrument, as Western classical instruments go. I like to declaim wryly that we’ve never had someone of the stature of Chopin, Liszt or Debussy writing guitar music, at the time when these legendary composers were creating what has become an indelible part of human cultural history and has been vastly influential across time, instruments and genres.

It took some essential technological innovation for the guitar to be heard, literally. Nylon strings, as a consequence of materials research approximately around World War II, organised acoustic engineering resulting in fundamentally new methods of guitar construction, modern amplification with its complete sonic transparency: all these have led to completely unprecedented compositional approaches. Any of Leo Brouwer’s Concerti would not work unless the guitar is properly amplified. Even for the solo guitar, I can’t imagine Toru Takemitsu’s All in Twilight being performed successfully for a concert hall audience by a Segovia-era guitarist un-amplified, on an instrument from that time (though the dedicatee Julian Bream might, legitimately, disagree!).

Tuhin voiced a question – can a guitar really duet successfully with a piano, given that, superficially, both instruments have a pronounced attack with a quick decay (paraphrasing moderately). I responded that, in my understanding, the modern amplified classical guitar would provide a substantially different tone colour from the piano: possibly just enough to make well-written duets rewarding and worth listening to. And then, pianists can always use their pedals to create harmonic textures which are the envy of any guitarist.

There must be some music out there which genuinely puts the piano and the guitar together in an effective duet context (rather than relegating the piano to playing orchestral reductions). In the meantime. Tuhin has proposed some very intriguing ideas which are likely to take shape in the next few months.

Do watch this space. Sonic palettes, from very diverse backgrounds, are poised to mix.

Orchestral Music: A gentle introduction

May 3, 2016

by Kuldeep Barve

Today’s Adda was dedicated to listening to orchestral music. Continuing the discussion, here are some wonderful videos which are good introductions to the orchestra

Benjamin Britten’s ‘Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhOEIwNM3e0

Sergei Prokofiev’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’ recited by David Bowie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpoizq-jjxs&list=PL5A4871BCD99ABE5F

A set of videos about the different orchestral instruments

Igor Stravinsky’s ‘THE RITE OF SPRING’

Why are we listening to the Rite of Spring?

The Rite of Spring or ‘Le Sacre du Printemps’, composed by Igor Stravinsky is considered one of the most important compositions in the Western Classical tradition. It was written for a ballet, a production by the famous ‘Ballet Russe’ under the direction of Sergei Diaghilev. This piece was composed around 1913, at a time when not only western classical music, but the art world in general was going through a major transition. Impressionism in France, various nationalistic styles emerging in Russia, Hungary, etc., and atonal music of Schoenberg are few of the instances of this transition. Romanticism was breathing its last breath.

Looking back, we can also situate these changes in a broader social context; society was itself going through massive changes. The age old empires and the aristocracy were challenged and a new order seemed apparent. The Russian revolution was around the corner and so was the first world war.

All this is just a very brief background on the times, but that is not the reason why this piece is important. The Rite of Spring, from the time when it was performed for the first time in Paris, where it provoked and scandalised the audience, has grown in importance as a monumental piece of music with staying power. Listening to it today, more than a hundred years later, it still is as powerful and effervescent. Bernstein, in his small portrait of Stravinsky, says that in his music, we can hear the Russian tradition of Scriabin, Rimsky Korsakov (Stravinsky’s teacher) but also Debussy and Ravel. Although, it was difficult to take for audiences then, Bernstein says looking back Stravinsky’s music that it is deeply entrenched in tonality, in Russian folk traditions (partly this came from composers like his teacher Rimsky Korsakov, Mussorgsky etc.). This is an aspect which I find very relevant today. We all come from a rich and diverse country like India and we should not overlook the vast melodic, rhythmic and structural possibilities which we can draw upon.

What to listen for in the The Rite of Spring?

The piece is one of the most sophisticated pieces but manages to stay completely raw in its sonority. It reminds one of primitive rituals, earthy smells and vivid colour. Spring, which is a season of change is what characterises this piece.

Structure and story (from wikipedia)

Episode	English translation	Synopsis[n 1]
Part I: *L’Adoration de la Terre* (Adoration of the Earth)[9]
Introduction	Introduction	Before the curtain rises, an orchestral introduction resembles, according to Stravinsky, “a swarm of spring pipes [dudki]”[10]
Les Augures printaniers	Augurs of Spring	The celebration of spring begins in the hills. An old woman enters and begins to foretell the future.
Jeu du rapt	Ritual of Abduction	Young girls arrive from the river, in single file. They begin the “Dance of the Abduction”.
Rondes printanières	Spring Rounds	The young girls dance the Khorovod, the “Spring Rounds”.
Jeux des cités rivales	Ritual of the Rival Tribes	The people divide into two groups in opposition to each other, and begin the “Ritual of the Rival Tribes”.
Cortège du sage: Le Sage	Procession of the Sage: The Sage	A holy procession leads to the entry of the wise elders, headed by the Sage who brings the games to a pause and blesses the earth.
Danse de la terre	Dance of the Earth	The people break into a passionate dance, sanctifying and becoming one with the earth.
Part II: *Le Sacrifice* (The Sacrifice)[9]
Introduction	Introduction
Cercles mystérieux des adolescentes	Mystic Circles of the Young Girls	The young girls engage in mysterious games, walking in circles.
Glorification de l’élue	Glorification of the Chosen One	One of the young girls is selected by fate, being twice caught in the perpetual circle, and is honoured as the “Chosen One” with a martial dance.
Evocation des ancêtres	Evocation of the Ancestors	In a brief dance, the young girls invoke the ancestors.
Action rituelle des ancêtres	Ritual Action of the Ancestors	The Chosen One is entrusted to the care of the old wise men.
Danse sacrale (L’Élue)	Sacrificial Dance	The Chosen One dances to death in the presence of the old men, in the great “Sacrificial Dance”.

Listen and note the following –

The high register opening motif, played on the bassoon. This melody is drawn from a Russian folk tune.
Stravinsky introduces all the main instruments and notice that the wind instruments are central to this piece. The bassoon, the clarinet, the english horn, the bass clarinet. The string section is used more as a rhythmic instrument as a whole. The timpani is also used a lot for rhythmic texture and drive. There are some unconventional instruments used as well.
Notice how these instruments are playing different motifs and themes, and a rhythmic, primitive melodic mesh is created….imagine you are in a field or amidst nature in springtime.
Listen for ostinatos. There are many places in the piece wherein Stravinsky sets up ostinatos
Try and imagine different instrument groups representing different story themes or characters. For example, the bassoons are mimicking the village elders.
Listen to the tension that created especially in the last part when the chosen girl is sacrificed

‘Keeping Score’, a documentary featuring Michael Tilson Thomas (conductor of the San Francisco Symphony), throws light on Stravinsky and the Russian Tradition.

This short film is a tribute to Igor Stravinsky by Leonard Bernstein:

All major composers have been influenced by Stravinsky in one way or the other. Here is Leo Brouwer, one of the most important composers for the guitar in the 20th century conducting his own ‘Concerto de Toronto’ written for guitar and orchestra with Jorge Caballero on guitar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bfg3EdSqbvc

Most of the important composers for the guitar from the 1950s onwards have increasingly been writing for orchestra, other ensembles and film scores. It’s important that we listen to their non-guitar music as well to get a holistic understanding of the composer.

I feel that as Indians, we are exposed to a lot of rich music from our own traditions (either folk or classical or semi-classical) and western music in all its forms (folk, pop, rock, jazz, blues, classical, etc.). As musicians we should absorb this richness with open ears and hearts. At the same time, we should concentrate on our main instrument, the guitar and its repertoire.

An important aspect of being a musician is to be aware of what tradition the composer is coming from. Let’s say that you are playing a piece by Albeniz. It’s of utmost importance to read about Albeniz’s life, his times, his influences and other music by him. By ‘other music’, I mean the music he composed for other instruments as well. Most of Albeniz’s music played on the guitar was originally composed for the piano since Albeniz himself was a pianist. He was strongly influenced by traditional Spanish music and a lot of his works are indicative of that.

Please listen to this wonderful rendition of his ‘Mallorca’ played on the piano vis-a-vis played on the guitar.

Guitar rendition by John Williams

Notice the differences in the renditions, and while listening, remember that the piece was originally written for the piano!

To enrich our understanding of various orchestral colours and timbres and interpretative possibilities of the music that we play on the guitar, it is imperative that we listen to the composer’s works written for various instruments and orchestra.

Enjoy and let’s continue this discussion!

Notes on Warren Senders, musician extraordinaire and a fleeting glimpse of loosely associated crime fiction

March 31, 2016

by Jayant S

Kuldeep and I had the privilege of listening to Warren Senders performing in his Indian classical music avatar on the 21^st of March.

Warren, from Boston, Massachusetts, is a long-time student and exponent of the Khayal style in Hindustani music. What may be generally unknown to many of his more recent aficionados is that he happens to possess formidable experience and a vast knowledge base in Western music – both jazz and classical – and is equally well-informed about traditional music from around the world. He is also a highly accomplished upright bass player, for that matter.

I had taken a few lessons from Warren back in 1994, at a time when much of my musicianship was already in place, but there was little sonic exposure to be had otherwise, and the vital elements of a definitive style were not easily discernable in my playing then. Warren was in Pune on one of his periodic long residencies with his wife Vijaya Sundaram. Their prime objective was to continue learning Khayal vocal interpretation from Pandit Devasthali, and not necessarily to put up with nosy questions about jazz from me (and from my friend Ashish Manchanda, the drummer and music producer, who had a band with me at the time). However, Warren was gracious enough to find the time to teach and generally allowed his brains to be picked by us.

In the few months during which I met Warren, about once a week, my concept of timekeeping was irrevocably altered.

Warren put us through some intense exercises, facilitated with extensive vocalisation, that rapidly evolved beyond mere accent-shifting syncopation into genuine polymetric delivery. I mean – play five with one hand and four with another in the same overall bar timing – that sort of thing. Other lessons included deconstructing those so-called odd time signatures (5/4, 7/4 and so on) into module groups of 1-2 and 1-2-3 (I still remember how he exclaimed that 9/4 was a pretty boring time signature – and proceeded to sing Bach’s Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring in a way that drove home his point). These assignments called for active participation and a great deal of homework.

And then there were the mainstream theory lessons. I was asked to pull apart the Jerome Kern standard All the Things You are into its component parts and play it coherently on one guitar: the melody line along with the chordal transitions. Just when I thought I’d nailed it (and Warren had seemed quite pleased) he asked me to play it again – this time with the melody articulated below the chords.

Needless to say, I didn’t exactly nail it then. Not in real time.

We listened to quite a lot of music together, critically. Warren played me Philip Glass for the first time – and then commented that while that sort of motif-upward-constructed-thingie (I still cringe from calling it “minimalist music”) could result in some interesting emergent musical textures, it might have been far more engrossing if someone could have actually improvised over the emergence.

Towards the end of these sessions, we would sit with Vijaya and rehearse some of her songs. A unique and immensely expressive musician, Vijaya plays a harmonically very free fingerpicked guitar, and sings across a multiplicity of transitions with casual ease. Her songs are highly memorable and brilliantly structured – I still remember most of the chord changes and melodic parts, despite not having heard them during the years since. I can’t recall, precisely, her lyrics, but their ambience was strongly intertwined with the music in a way that left a permanent sonic impression. And Warren would join in with his electric upright bass, an instrument which I used to peer at, then, with puzzled curiosity (and which inspired me to acquire one for myself, eventually).

In ensuing years, I lost touch with Warren and Vijaya, and reconnected only a few years ago via Facebook. But that bland Zuckerbergian fad yields, at best, a pallid substitute for direct contact, for which a happy opportunity arose on 21 March.

I spoke with Warren on the phone that morning. He has been a strong advocate of climate change awareness for some time now, and I wanted to know more about the ethos behind his position. And his position is well-researched, and deeply frightening. You’d expect that of Warren: passion, rigorousness and interpretative clarity.

Speaking of interpretative clarity, on the same evening, he held Kuldeep and I completely transfixed with his Khayal performance for nearly two hours. I had never heard him sing in this genre before, and I didn’t know what to expect. My own working knowledge of Indian classical music is scanty, at best.

The overwhelming impression I formed, during the performance, is that Warren constructs his performances with a level of structural totality that composers of Western classical music (let alone real-time jazz improvisers) would be proud to possess. The nearest metaphorical example, for me, is the late Frank Zappa, whose guitar solos (to roughly paraphrase something I read a long time ago) unraveled like a “well-considered murder mystery”.

While Warren improvised with exuberance and flair, riffing against his excellent accompanists on the tabla and the harmonium, I could hear some nuances in his performance which could only have been achieved by a genuinely multi-traditional musician.

First, there was always an overarching plot behind his renditions, even in his 45-minute take on the Raag Kanada variant with which he commenced his recital. No, I don’t mean a cold and deliberate pre-structure, or a trite attempt to “compose” a delivery in advance. He caught the moment with ease – the ambience, the sound, his feelings at that point in time, his complete command of his own vocal ability, his knowledge of Hindustani music across gharanas, his personal multi-tiered musical journey, the immediacy and presence of both his accompanists, the weather, the darkening evening, and, above all, the audience arrayed before him – and proceeded to deliver the perfect murder mystery. In my casual listenings of Hindustani musicians, I’ve never heard anyone do this quite so authoritatively. For that matter, there are only a few jazz improvisers who have been able to do this well at all, to my satisfaction at least – Bill Evans, John Coltrane and Chick Corea come to mind. But only very few of their works actually last 45 minutes. Coltrane allegedly did that with My Favourite Things on occasion, but that is a remarkable exception.

Of course, Western classical music achieves this very well indeed. I enjoy Aaron Copland, Leo Brouwer, Bela Bartok and Igor Stravinsky for the murder mystery interwoven in their oeuvre. But Stravinsky didn’t have to compose and perform Le Sacre du Printemps in real time. As for murder mysteries, Dame Agatha Christie, Dorothy Leigh Sayers and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, presumably, committed their masterworks to paper at a comfortable, crackling fireside instead of having to recite them aloud and live, with no preconception, to a contemporary audience.

Then, there were the linear and textural constructs. Warren appears to arpeggiate a raag in a way that no Indian musician normally does, even while staying within the compass of aroha and avaroaha (ascent and descent) and not compromise any of the traditional rules regarding exposition, either. But there were also playful melodic asides, sneaky vignettes of polymetric fit-into-the-bandish-by-the-skin-of-your-teeth phrasing and general textural mischief-making that came from somewhere else, certainly. All of it, the traditional and the eclectic, melded into the quintessential murder mystery. Or well, a celebration of Holi, in this case.

I spoke with Warren for a few snatched moments after his concert, and found him as gracious and enthusiastic as ever. There was no time then to actually share our over two decades of individual musical journeys, though I could clearly see he would have equally welcomed the opportunity to do so. I hope we can find that opportunity in the not-too-distant future. I didn’t have the time to tell him how, germinating in those long-ago lessons and conversations, timekeeping has become completely intuitive for me, that I hear all music today with an equal degree of receptivity, that the infectious delight with which he shared ideas then is now an ingrained part of my own best musical intentions.

Reflecting back on Warren, trying to connect the early lessons as well as his performance last week, a few hindsight considerations do stand out – which I would like to share with all of us who play the classical guitar. And I request your hearing even if the direct relevance isn’t immediately apparent:

First – as dedicated Western classical musicians – do we always pay enough attention to the sonic consequences of what we seek to do rather than be caught up in physical details? I mean, we file our nails as though it is a cult initiation ritual, we argue about precise fingerings, rest strokes and free strokes, string brands, editions of published music and so on. But do we try hard to hear what we are actually playing? Warren sang through some cheap dynamic microphone, didn’t call for more than a cursory, sacrilegiously momentary, soundcheck, and instead calmly proceeded to inundate himself, his accompanists and his delighted audience with his own very personal joy of actually making music. I’m not saying that we should all default to cheap plywood-top guitars and ersatz technique overnight. But maybe, just maybe, there is a more efficient and musically direct route through the cobwebs.

Secondly, do we consciously try to paraphrase the notion of interpretation as something a lot more spontaneous than a mere dry and tradition-locked score reading? I was playing the Toccata from Sergio Assad’s Sandy’s Portrait this morning, and it occurred to me that it certainly can’t be delivered unless I genuinely hear the music. Sure, I can’t improvise over it if I play by the rules, but can I not actually be the composer personified while I interpret the composition? There’s so much joy in there!

Speaking for myself, as an amateur musician based in India, with dabblings in jazz and Western classical music, I think there are huge learnings for those who take some time out to listen to Indian music in its many manifestations. I know that even my bystander listening has had a huge influence on my melodic approaches in jazz improvisation. I still hope to learn more from a more global aggregation of traditions, from what really ought to be called “world music”, but that is a lifetime journey.

And, meanwhile, I look forward to more murder mysteries.