Van Hoesen Mozart

I've just uploaded a live recording from the 1960's of David VanHoesen performing the Mozart Bassoon Concerto with the Rochester Chamber Orchestra. Thanks to Jim Gorton for sharing this with me. Here's the first movement. The opening statement is exemplary!

Movement 2: A lesson in lyricism

Movement 3: Brilliant playing!

Auditioning via DVD

A few days ago, I spent part of my morning reviewing auditions for this summer's Kent/Blossom Music Festival.

Each summer, three bassoonists are chosen to attend the Festival.  Included are private lessons, chamber music coachings, chamber music concerts, free tickets to Cleveland Orchestra concerts at the Blossom Music Center and a chamber orchestra concert and side-by-side concert with the Cleveland Orchestra.

This will be my first summer as bassoon instructor and I'm very excited to be part of the Festival.

Like many other places, Kent/Blossom has begun requiring recorded auditions in the DVD format. While this adds time and expense for the students in what is already a demanding pursuit, the format gives the institution more flexibility.

To review the applicants I don't have to wait to receive CDs from admissions or go to a room to listen with others to playback.  I can just visit a website (Kent/Blossom uses Decision Desk), log in as an administrator and start listening and watching.

Another advantage of this system is that I can look at a person's complete application including contact information and recommendations.  No need to collect files with hard copies and return them.

Scoring is done on the site and there is a place for comments as well.  Rankings can be adjusted later if need be. Administrators can view my rankings immediately and act on them.

CIM has also begun using this format in its audition process as a precursor to live auditions.  Outgoing Admissions Director Bill Fay says the time commitment and preparation required to put together a DVD audition may discourage some less-serious applicants who are just "window shopping" from applying, saving them time and expense and saving us time by eliminating some applicants who are either not up to the standard or not serious about CIM in the first place.

I found the process interesting and want to share my impressions.  Maybe what I have to say will help those of you making these DVDs present yourselves better to those adjudicating your talent.


VIDEO

Since I'm not a videographer, I'll just make a few comments about the video aspect.

1. Position the camera so the viewer can get a good look at you.  An angled shot is best, especially if there is a music stand directly in front of you.

2. A video shot from the seats in a large recital hall tells us nothing about how you play.  We can't see fingers, hand position, embouchure, posture, etc. Conversely, don't opt for an extreme close-up.  A shot that includes all of you and a bit of the area around you is best.

3. Try to choose a location that is good acoustically and visually.  While this is not always possible, you want to sound and LOOK your best.  Treat the recording like a face-to-face interview.

Having said all this, I feel that the visual aspect of your presentation is secondary compared to HOW YOU SOUND.  When I view these recordings, most of my attention is on listening, not watching.

Sometimes, though the video will corroborate something I hear in a person's playing.  If the playing sounds tight or forced, maybe I can also see something in the body language that reinforces this perception.


AUDIO

The sound quality for the Kent/Blossom applicants varied greatly from person to person.  While this shouldn't make a difference, it really does.  Spend the time and funds necessary to reserve a good acoustic space (recital halls are best), get someone to operate the equipment who knows what they're doing (a recording engineer) and someone to be your recording session "valet".  This person can sit in the hall with the music and help you with comments on different takes, get water, help move equipment, etc.

Now that technology is so advanced and readily available, it's tempting to just record yourself on your phone and submit. Of course we'll listen to you, but all things being equal, if you were judging these things which would you choose -- a professional level recording or one done on a phone?

Try to eliminate things that would distract from the impression you're trying to make. These include excessive key noise and embouchure leaking.


THE MUSIC

Of course, the most important component in someones recorded audition remains THE MUSIC. I think most people can ignore a less-than stellar audio and visual recording if the playing is compelling.

In reviewing the submissions for Kent/Blossom this summer, I was impressed by the high quality of the playing.  As has been the case for many years now, there are great bassoon players at more music schools than when I was a student.

The required repertoire is:

Mozart: Concerto K. 191 (first movement exposition and second movement)
Mozart: Marriage of Figaro (recapitulation)
Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 4 (2nd movement final solo)
Rimsky-Korsakov: Scheherazade (second movement and cadenzas)
Stravinsky: Rite of Spring (opening)

Here are some general comments on what I heard:

1. The players I liked the best were the ones who adopted a different style, sound, etc. for different excerpts. These players exhibited a versatility of approach that made it clear they weren't just "playing the bassoon", they were playing the music.

Let me elaborate.

Dynamics are a good example.  In the above repertoire, only the first movement of the Concerto and Sheherazade have a full range of dynamics.  Marriage of Figaro has only extremes (pp, p and ff) and I would say the ff is not a Mahler or Strauss ff!

The 2nd movement of the Mozart, Tchaikovsky 4th and Rite are NOT LOUD excerpts!

One more: Sheherazade and Marriage of Figaro are worlds apart in style.  They should not sound the same. Figaro does not need a lot of dynamic shaping to its lines.  It should just be a quiet, accurate murmur. Sheherazade on the other hand should demonstrate the full range of espressivo in a person's playing.

2. Since it's possible and advisable to record excerpts, listen back and re-record, there's really no excuse for an erratic pulse in any of these.

3. Double tonguing in Figaro needs to be smooth and even with no stuttering and not at a tempo that is different from the slurred runs that preceed it.


PICKY, PICKY, PICKY

Lastly, there are a few picky little things to mention.  I wouldn't bother with these if I hadn't noticed them in other situations as well (e.g., our recent Second Bassoon Audition).

These things are like having bad breath.  You may not notice it yourself, but if someone mentions it to you, you are embarrassed to realize you had without knowing it and vow to put a stop to it immediately.

1. Do not place a fermata on the last note of the second movement of Tchaikovsky 4th.  Occasionally a conductor will ask for this, but let's not volunteer this ourselves.  Pretty soon everyone will be asking for it if you do -- and it's not in the music.

This is how it appears:

The fermata is on the REST, not the F.  When the excerpt is played by itself, the long F should be counted out carefully with a slight sense of ritard, cut off at the end of the quarter note and that's all. 

2. Playing the quintuplet figure in the Rite of Spring as a sextuplet with an eighth note on the C. Well, it's certainly easier to play this way, but the rhythm is not correct.  The emphasis in the phrase is on the B after the grace notes, anyway. Grace notes tend to preceed important notes in a phrase.  They highlight stresses in a phrase's structure.

Correct is:

3. Playing the end of the recap of Marriage of Figaro with a crescendo and accents on the lower octave A's.

The octave displacement of the A's at the end of the phrase should serve to relax the intensity.  They come after the culmination of the tongued passage and merely serve as a bookend to the phrase.  No need to shout here!

 

4. The F quarter note at the end of the phrase in mm.10 and 33 of the second movement of the Mozart Concerto should not be played full value.

In the score, you can see that holding out the final F in the solo line will cause it to clash with the F# in the bass line -- a very un-Mozartean dissonance!

Milan Turkovic suggests changing this F to an eighth note in his notes to the Universal Edition of this piece.  For more on the Mozart Concerto see previous posts in this blog.

I think Turkovic is right.  We don't have the manuscript of this piece, so we'll never know if this was added later by someone else, an omission by Mozart or sloppy copying, but it's clearly wrong to observe the quarter note here.

2nd Bassoon Audition 2.0

I've been thinking about the 2nd bassoon audition we held last month.  It was interesting to compare and contrast it to the one we held in January.  Many of you have read my post about that audition.

In this post, I'd like to offer some follow-up comments. In particular, I'd like to focus on the perspective I gained by comparing notes with the non-bassoonists on our audition committee. 

Remember that it's usual for an audition committee to comprised of a majority of people who DON'T play your instrument.  Their perspective is somewhat different from that of a specialist and they potentially hold a majority in a vote.

For a candidate, then, it's vital to seek out opinions from non-bassoonists in preparation for an audition and try to weed out bassoon-specific problems from your playing.

Here are some of the recurring themes about some bad bassoon playing habits observed by my colleagues.

1. My colleagues wonder why the bassoon mechanism is so noisy!  Marriage of Figaro sometimes sounded like it had its own castanet accompaniment. Air leaking from the embouchure was also distracting.

2. Some candidates, including several in the semi-final round seemed incapable of playing a sustained musical line.  Lots of phrases in the Mozart Concerto were broken up by choppy articulation and accented downbeats.

3. Related to the above was a preponderance of clipped phrase endings, especially in the Concerto.  All phrase endings the first movement exposition are quarter notes.  So many people chopped them off, paying no attention to the finish and resonance needed for a graceful phrase ending.  I think this was partly due to nerves and the fact that most of the offenders were already thinking about the next phrase, forgetting to finish what they started.  Remember, have to paddle with one hand and bail with the other!

4. Double tonguing that sounds like machine gun fire.  My colleagues don't understand why this is necessary!  In the Marriage of Figaro, certainly Mozart's intention was simply to double the cello line in the bassoon parts, not to create a special effect.  Once double tonguing is learned, it needs to be musical, not a parlor trick.  In Figaro, the sound of the articulation should be like the fast bowing on the string you hear from the cellos.

5. Same vibrato for each excerpt.  Many players neglected to examine how they were using vibrato to add to the character of each excerpt and instead opted to use an unvarying default vibrato on everything.  Why would you use vibrato for the Tannhäuser Overture at all!  You are playing with clarinets and horns exclusively (non-vibrato instruments except in just a few parts of the world).  Furthermore, the Bolero solo requires a different kind of vibrato from a tutti passage in Brahms' Third Symphony.

6. Inability to change styles for each excerpt as needed.  Many of the candidates displayed no discernable change in style whether it was Mozart, Ravel, Tchaikovsky, etc.  Flexibility and versatility are essential skills needed in orchestra rehearsals where a conductor may ask a player to execute a musical 180˚

turn on his/her interpretation of a piece a few seconds after playing it for the first time.

7. Related to the above -- inability to resist the "pull" of middle-of-the-road playing, e.g., Figaro all played at "mp", Tannhäuser played "mp" at an Andante tempo with accented articulation.  These excerpts are easy to play when you ignore the dynamics and tempos indicated!

Again, these were comments I gathered from colleagues, some of them things a bassoonist might gloss over (key noise, rough double tonguing, etc.).  I think they are invaluable observations, ones to add to the list of priorities for the next audition you take.

Cleveland Double Reed Activity

STEES RECITAL

 

My recital last week went pretty well.  A good number of people showed up -- some bassoonists, of course, and a large group of people from my church.

Randy and I are captured in action above.

I raised over $600 for Team Boomer!  Thanks to all who have donated.  I've almost reached my fundraising goal and the marathon is still 6 weeks away.

FRANK ROSENWEIN PLAYS STRAUSS

This Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Frank Rosenwein, our Principal Oboist will play the Strauss Oboe Concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra.  This is one of the great wind concertos.  I am playing the 1st bassoon part, so I'll have a good seat for hearing Frank's beautiful oboe playing.

 

JOHN CLOUSER PLAYS MOZART  

The double reed fun continues next week when John Clouser will play the Mozart Bassoon Concerto.   John played the piece with the Orchestra several years ago at the Blossom Music Center.  This time it will be in Severance Hall on October 4th and 6th. The rest of the program is very colorful -- Daphnis and Chloe Suite #2 and Incidental Music from A Midsummer Night's Dream by Mendelssohn.

I hope some of you can attend these events! 

Mozart 2nd mvt. - Context

Mozart Bassoon Concerto, 2nd movement:  Context

Using the same argument as I did in a previous blog about the opening phrase of the first movement of the Mozart Bassoon Concerto, I'd like to look now at the second movement.

This is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written for the bassoon, in part because of its sublime first phrase:

In nuts and bolts music theory terms it can be described as a  long note rising a perfect fourth with a grace note above that decorating a 4/3 suspension on a strong beat and a resolution.

The argument I used for the first movement was that Mozart, when writing the first phrase of that movement was using a motive he'd developed over time and used in other pieces prior to writing the Bassoon Concerto.  He used it again a few times after that.

The same holds true for the first motive in the second movement.  Here are some prior examples:

Below is the opening of the first movement of his first string quartet, written well before the Bassoon Concerto (followed by a listening example):

Next is the second movement of the Symphony #21(In the listening example, the second movement starts about 7 minutes in.):

Next is his string quartet, K. 172(note the same intervals and suspension in the 1st violin on beat 3):

In this listening example, the second movement starts at about 4'15" in.

Here is Mozart's ultimate setting of the figure:  "Porgi amor", the Countess's aria from The Marriage of Figaro.

You can see and hear how rich the raw material of this motive was for Mozart!

By the way, I can't claim to have discovered any of this myself!  Stanley Sadie in his book, "Mozart, the EarlyYears" makes the connection between the Symphony and string quartets excerpted above and the theme for the second movement of the Bassoon Concerto, calling it the "Porgi amor" theme.

Musicologist Neal Zaslaw, draws a similarity between the theme and "Che faro senza Euridice" from Gluck's "Orfeo et Euridice" from 1764.  This was a highly influential opera and "Che faro" is the most performed aria from it.  Perhaps Mozart knew this music.  Look closely at measures 3 and 4 and you'll notice a similarity.

A conclusion to be drawn from all this is musical themes don't exist in a vacuum.  They are permutations of motives with the composer has been working, sometimes for years.  They bubble up from a holding place somewhere in the brain and get reworked and put in a new context.  Old wine in new bottles!

On-line sources -- good or bad?

Technology is neither bad nor good.  It's in the use of technology where we find good and bad choices. The classic example of this is in the harnessing of the power of the atom. 

Through technology, musicians today have more access to music and recordings than ever before.

Through YouTube, I-Tunes, Naxos Music Library, IMSLP and other sources one can find just about anything, much of it free or extremely inexpensive.

With this much access also comes responsibility.  In a discipline like classical music, it's important to be discriminating.  However, none of these sites offer critiques, editors or even aggregators to help the consumer find the best edition or best recording. While you can find discussion of the merits of a performance on YouTube, often the commentators are anonymous.

In a performance on YouTube of a mass by Josquin des Prez, we don't know whether the commentator is a musicologist/conductor who's specialty is music of the Northern Renaissance or simply an enthusiastic teenager reacting to her first hearing of this kind of music.

Like most things on the Internet, discernment is in your hands.

In a previous post, I discussed some disturbing trends in interpretation of the first phrase of the Mozart Bassoon Concerto.  One commentator, Mike Macaulay may have uncovered one of the reasons for the tendency to play the first note short and accent the second note.

Here is the first page of the concerto as listed on IMSLP:

This is the Peters Edition.

 Here is the first page of the Universal Edition.

As you can see, no staccato, no accent.  We are left to ask, "WHO put them there".  This question can only be considered if you have access to the earliest source.

Not until we are able to see the original or "Urtext" can we really be sure what the composer left and what an editor has added.  

Note the dotted line slur in Universal measure 4 and the editor's suggested rhythm for the grace notes in measure 5. Both suggestions are made so that we can see the original AND the suggestion at the same time.  This is correct practice for editions.

In the case of the Mozart Bassoon Concerto we don't have the original manuscript. The Universal Edition uses the first edition, second printing of the piece published by Andre Offenbach in 1805.  Mozart's widow, Constanze sold many of her husband's manuscripts to Offenbach after his death to pay her debts. This is the earliest edition we have and, therefore, must be considered the most authoritative.

For years many American bassoonists learned the Mozart Concerto using the edition made by J. Walter Guetter, one of the preeminent bassoonists of the 20th Century.  This is the edition I used when first learning the piece.  While the edition contains many fine ideas for interpretation, it is vastly different from the Universal.

I was shocked to see the Universal Edition after so many years with Guetter. There were so many mannerisms in my interpretation that no longer made sense after looking at the Universal.

Here's an edition of Milde Concert Study #27 from IMSLP:

 

Here is the first page of the Merseburger Edition which dates from between the World Wars.

In the Merseberg, there are NO dynamics on the page!  This leaves a lot of leeway to the performer.  With leeway comes responsibility.  That means applying your own musical logic and instincts to the piece along with your understanding of acceptable performance practice, even music theory.

In the IMSLP edition, many of these questions have been solved for us already by the arranger, Alek Ferlazzo.  However, unless we see what Alek was working with, we don't know which decisions are his and which were made by Milde. This is important to know.

A side note:  Google tells me that Alek may be a high school  bassoonist(?)  He obviously has great skill with Sibelius.  I want to commend him for his work and generosity in sharing his editions and uploads.

A similar situation applies in Simon Kovar's edition (International Music Company) of the Milde Concert Studies.  Kovar made many fine suggestions, but took a lot of liberties with his editing when compared to an older edition like Merseburger, Hofmeister or Cundy-Bettoney (which are basically the same).  The trouble is, once again, without access to these editions, we don't know what is the editor and what is Milde.

When I teach the Mozart I require my students to purchase the Universal Edition.  For Milde it's Cundy-Bettoney or Hofmeister.

That's enough ranting for one post.  Soon I'll devote some time to discussing the virtues and pitfalls of YouTube and Naxos.

Mozart Concerto and auditions -- the first phrase

You're looking at what has arguably become the most important phrase ever written for the bassoon!

While there is much other great music written for our instrument, the nearly exclusive use of the Mozart concerto in auditions has made this opening phrase extremely important for bassoonists today.

At our recent second bassoon audition, I had a chance to sample what some of the best bassoonists do with this phrase in an audition.  Since it's the first music we hear from a candidate, the phrase serves as a musical handshake -- a first encounter with that person's musical beliefs.

Many on the committee that day felt the handshakes coming from the Mozart were more like vise grips!  Excessively firm and rough.  The first note was often played as though the person shaking your hand was in a hurry to get to the next person in line -- extremely short and accented.

Another trend we noticed was -- along with chopping off the first note -- a tendency to treat the second note like a stressed syncopation.  Thus, the first phrase came off sounding like "dut-DAHH"!

I've thought about this trend for a while and have come up with a couple of possible reasons for why this mannerism has grown like a virus.

1. Nerves.
2. Younger players (most of our auditionees were on the young side) listening indiscriminately to bad YouTube performances, etc. More about YouTube as a force for musical good or evil in another post.
3. The half note on beat two, being longer than the quarter on beat one, will sound more stressed than the quarter on its own simply because it lasts twice as long. 

But is this effective?  Is this musical?

Is there a precedent in Mozart for this motive?  If so, can we understand what he might have thought it should sound like when composing it?

Let's take a step back and provide some context for the Concerto.  Written in the summer of 1774, it's generally agreed that this was Mozart's second original concerto, the Violin Concerto #1 being the first. The earlier piano concerti are all arrangements of works by other composers and heavily influenced by Leopold Mozart (whose influence is now given even more weight in the early compositions than was once assumed).

All composers used models for their early work. Even Mozart did not compose new pieces without referring to the work of others or his previous work.  This is especially true of his youthful compositions.

In understanding the context for the first motive of the Concerto, it's important to acknowledge that many composers used motives, themes, etc. over and over again, reworking them for the different pieces they were writing.  This is the nuts and bolts of composing.

All of which is to say that the first notes of the Bassoon Concerto are not a unique musical gesture.  They are simply one variation on a larger theme at work in Mozart's mind around 1773-1774.

Here is how the opening motive is stated in the Violin Concerto #1 of 1773.

Below is the opening of the Bassoon Concerto.

Note the following similarities:

• Same key: B♭major
• Same orchestration: strings, two oboes, two horns. Note the chords on the first two beats in the violins are EXACTLY the same in each piece--  more about this later.
• Same opening two-note motive - quarter then half note.

Now listen to the opening of both pieces:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_Sry3mW23w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPqM_XYlUY8

I didn't label the two clips, so you might be surprised at how similar they sound at the start!

Above is the opening of the Violin Concerto #3, written shortly after the Bassoon Concerto.  Notice the similarity of motive (quarter, dotted quarter this time, though), with bar one on the tonic, bar two on the dominant.

Listen to the opening:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DiqaaO1SYT0

Once again, the similarity is obvious.

Now, let's look closer at the scoring.  It's interesting to note that each concerto begins with double or triple stops in the violins.  Clearly, Mozart wanted a full, rich sound on the first note.

 In order above are:

1. Violin Concerto #1
2. Bassoon Concerto
3. Violin Concerto #3

If you accept my argument that these motives are closely related in rhythm and scoring, then it follows that the bassoonist should play the opening motive with this context in mind.

Therefore, a short, and unemphasized first note has no place in the style of the Bassoon Concerto!

The violin cannot play a note as short as the bassoon, since the violin is a naturally resonant instrument. (The bassoon is not - see Arthur Weisberg's The Art of Wind Playing for a good explanation of this phenomenon.) In addition, the violinist must grab two or three notes at the same time.  Time and space must be made for this to happen.

For the bassoonist to execute the opening in a musically appropriate fashion, therefore, he/she must leave time and energy for the first note to sound and place the second note carefully.

A great image for success in execution is to imagine two down bows. The first down bow uses the whole bow, the retake for the next note provides just the right amount of separation before starting the next note.

Here's a great example of this technique.  Joshua Bell plays the Saint-Saëns Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso.  Start at about 9 minutes in and you'll hear the cadenza.  In it there is a series of dramatic down bow notes.  Notice the length and spacing required for this group of notes.  It's perfect for the opening of the Bassoon Concerto!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmvEdfNYsEg&feature=related

No syncopation!

I do not believe the second note (half note) is a syncopation.  A syncopation is rhythm in which a note other then a downbeat or a note on a strong beat is emphasized.  Look at the scoring of the three pieces above once more and you'll see that Mozart, in putting violin chords on the first beat, was quite clear that the second note in the bar should not be emphasized at the expense of the first note.

So what we are left with is two notes of equal strength separated by just enough space to make each sound clearly articulated. 

That was a lot of time and space spent on two notes!  However, as I said above, these two notes are often the first sounds someone who is evaluating your playing hears and thus, makes them very important.  It would be interesting to know what Mozart would have made of all this fuss about his little Bassoon Concerto!

Here is a link to a recent performance of the Concerto by David McGill, the Principal Bassoonist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  It's one of the finest live performances of the piece I've ever heard.  The streaming will be available until the middle of March, 2012, so listen soon if you can.  The Concerto starts just before the 15 minute mark.

http://cso.org/Page.aspx?id=19241