Author: Lucien Chidester

I felt like our final concert at the Alte Börse was quite a good way to wrap up the program, and I had a great time preparing for it! I wanted to just share some final thoughts and takeaways on each of the pieces I performed in, as I feel like I gained a lot of experience throughout the process.

Vocal pieces – “Jesus bleibet meine Freunde” and “O große Lieb”

These pieces were especially fun to play because I have never had the opportunity to play with singers in a setting like this before. It forced me to listen more closely so as to blend properly with the vocalists, and really control my sound in order to accompany well while still playing out a bit when they had rests to make the piece sound balanced. I also thought it was interesting going through and having the instrumentalists sing as well during preparation, as it made it much easier to accompany the singers knowing how it felt to be in their position. It also helped me internalize the music better, and knowing what the words meant was useful for developing the expression of the pieces. Generally I thought having these pieces to open and end the concert was a very fitting way to cap off our exploration of Bach!

Viola duets – J.S. Bach Invention No. 1 and W.F. Bach Duet for Two Violas in C Major

Starting with the invention, I thought this piece was a wonderful little introduction to the world of Bach for me, since I have played very little of his music before. It’s not especially long or difficult, but actually contains a good amount of nuance that was fun to work through. I felt like I learned a lot about phrasing and expression in a Baroque context through this piece. Initially the very systematic wall of sixteenth notes seemed intimidating and monotone, but once we had some familiarity with the piece I began to see ways to shape it creatively and add expression. Working with Vito on this was great as well, as I was able to learn about  Baroque stylistic and performance tendencies both through his preexisting knowledge of them and by working through our pieces. This was extremely helpful in both duets, and I feel like by playing them I have gained greater insight into how Baroque music really works. For the W.F. Bach duet, we ended up playing the first and second movements of the duet in C major (although we played the second movement first!). This piece was also quite interesting, as I knew very little about W.F. Bach and, as I was excited to learn, it was originally composed for two violas! I enjoyed this one quite a bit, as the viola parts were very interlocked and imitative, so it was a fun challenge to get the balance right and make sure the melody was always audible at a given time. I was also able to work on expression in a Baroque context as with the invention, but this duet also contained a few more accompanying sections and contrasts in mood which allowed a wider range of expressive nuances.

Overall, I thought the concert went well and it was a great experience getting to know Bach in the city where he spent so much of his life!

On the last Sunday we were in Leipzig, while walking over to the Thomaskirche for the B Minor Mass concert, I happened to notice a plaque on the wall of a random building and stopped to take a picture of it. I had noticed that the plaque said in big letters, “Max Reger.” All I knew at that time was that the name sounded familiar, and I was pretty sure he had composed some viola works (this turned out to be correct, I was thinking of his Op. 131d, 3 Suites for Solo Viola). Upon closer inspection of the plaque at a later time, I found that it was located at the spot where the Hotel Hentschel, Reger’s place of death, had previously stood. The plaque also informed me that he had been a professor and music director at the Royal Conservatory in Leipzig. I began to wonder, then, what sort of connection this composer had with the city, and since I knew basically nothing about him I decided to do some research.

Max Reger was a German composer and pianist originally from Weiden, and was born in 1873. He showed promise as a keyboard player from a young age as his parents taught him music, and decided in his teens that he wanted to become a musician instead of a teacher like his father had planned for him. He attended the Wiesbaden conservatoire where he began to compose in earnest, and though he gathered some supporters he still faced plenty of criticism as he strayed from the principles of his teachers. Hugo Riemann, his most direct mentor, said he showed a lot of talent at this time but would much later criticize him heavily for his new musical direction. Reger struggled for some time to get works published, but eventually through relentless performance both by himself as an accomplished pianist and others who supported his work, as well as an acquaintance with Richard Strauss, he was able to gain some notoriety. He was inspired quite a bit by the music of Bach and combined this influence with that of later composers such as Brahms and Liszt. In fact, one of Reger’s first major works to gain significant attention was his Fantasia and Fugue on B-A-C-H, Op. 46. With this work in 1901 and others in subsequent years, Reger became well-known throughout Germany and was thus quite recognizable in his time despite his relative obscurity today. From this time and continuing with only a few interruptions until the end of his life, Regertoured extensively both as a composer and a pianist, as well as conducting at times.

Reger’s time in Leipzig began in 1907, when he was appointed music director and professor at the Royal Conservatoire in Leipzig, though he resigned from the music director position after a relatively short time. Unfortunately, Reger’s work was not very well-received by the musical community in Leipzig, and despite his touring success he had a series of unfortunate premiers at the Gewandhaus which led him to leave Leipzig in 1911, taking up a court position in Meiningen. He later moved to Jena at the start of the First World War, but throughout all of this kept his professorship in Leipzig, returning there regularly to teach.  In 1916, he died of heart failure in Leipzig at the age of 43.

Reading Reger’s story left me with a few questions, the most pressing of which was why he is not as well known today despite his fame while he was alive. I believe part of this can be attributed to his early death, as he simply did not have thelongevity of his more famous contemporaries such as Strauss. Another interesting factor that I believe may have contributed to this, though, is the fact that Reger composed few orchestral works, and in fact no large symphonies or operas. He focused instead on chamber music and songs. Now that I have done all this reading, I am excited to go back and listen to more of Max Reger’s work, and glad I have been introduced to this composer by a random plaque on the side of a building!

https://www.maxreger.info/biography

Max Reger (1873-1916)

One thing we saw in Leipzig that I was not expecting to enjoy as much as I did was the lieder concert we saw in the Mendelssohn house. I was initially intrigued because l had basically no knowledge of classical lieder (and really only became aware of their existence in the past year or so), and I ended up having a really good time! I thought the way the songs were presented was very interesting, as the environment was much more intimate than what I am used to with concerts like this. I felt like this allowed a greater connection between the audience and performers (even aside from the fact that the singer directly talked to us before and after), and this connection meant that the audience could better feel the emotions portrayed in each song, many of which were about love.  Another aspect of this was that the singer’s dynamic shifts were especially striking, since he could be basically as quiet as he wanted and still be heard, and then project much more for louder sections. I though this dynamic variation was especially interesting, as I looked for recordings of some of the lieder after the concert and every recording I have found had much more subdued dynamics. Granted, this may simply be that it cannot be captured as well in a recording, but I felt that the singer’s use of loud dynamics in certain sections made the emotions of the songs come through much more, and many of the recordings I have found seem to be a bit more flat.

In my search for recordings, I also came across something else which I thought was very interesting. I was looking for a good recording of Schubert’s “Auf dem Flusse,” which was my favorite of the songs that were performed, but my search was completely derailed when the first one I clicked on turned out to be a metal cover of the song. I explored a little more and found that the artist has a few more such metal covers of classical art songs, but I think their version of “Auf dem Flusse” is still my favorite.  I feel that it does a good job of keeping the spirit and emotions of the song while converting it to a heavier and more modern format. One thing I did notice upon listening with the words in front of me is that they left out the third verse of the song, which I think is a bit of a strange decision but does not overly affect the character of the song and the lyrics. My favorite part of the song is the final verse, though, where I feel the changes in character between the first two lines (My heart, in this brook/Do you recognize your own image?) and the second two lines (Is there, under your surface, too,/A surging torrent?) are especially stark. The instrumental drops out quite a bit for these first two lines, giving the song a bit of a reflective quality as the speaker looks inward. Then, for the second two lines, the instrumental ramps up again with driving distorted guitars for the climax of the song, which I feel are perfect for invoking the image of a surging torrent. I think the intersection of metal and classical music is quite an interesting topic that I could probably write a lot more about, but for the sake of brevity I will just mention a few key points. First, there are many metal musicians who have drawn from classical (especially Baroque) music in their work, mainly on a technical and harmonic level. There is even a name for artists who make this the main focus of their music (“neoclassical metal”). Finally, I do think that there is a good argument to be made for classical and metal music having a certain level of compatibility in terms of style. Metal contains a certain amount of dramatic dynamic and character shifts which I feel are well-suited for capturing the sentiments of classical music in a way which other genres are not quite able to. This point especially is one I would like to look more into in the future, and I am so glad I discovered this cover of “Auf dem Flusse” which kicked the whole thing off!

Translations for “Auf dem Flusse” are taken from the program we were given at the Mendelssohn house, and I have linked the cover here in case anyone would like to hear it!

Before taking this course, I was not super familiar with the music of J.S. Bach, and in fact the only piece of his I had ever played was a portion of his third cello suite arranged for viola. As a result I did have some idea of what to expect going in, but seeing these pieces performed live has completely changed my perspective on them.

On Tuesday, June 17th, we went to the Thomaskirche to see the suites performed by Jean-Guihen Queyras, who I thought overall did an excellent job. One of the first things that struck me about the performance was something we had discussed in class, which was how the suites are all collections of dance movements. Though, as we talked about, they would be near impossible to actually dance to, it was very clear how their composition and performance were informed by these different dances. The complexity and liberties taken with tempo throughout the suites make it clear that they are meant as performance pieces and would not likely be danced to. This is particularly evident in the later suites which are more technically challenging and would be extremely difficult for a dancer to follow. However, the way Queyras performed the suites still seemed to keep in mind the spirit of the dances.  I especially noticed this in the Allemande from the third suite in C major, as the lightness with which Queyras played this movement definitely allowed the listener to feel a pulse reminiscent of dancing. I also noticed this in the Minuets from the first two suites, his light and clean playing combined with a slight emphasis on beat one created a feeling of lifting up which is characteristic of minuets and makes the dance elements very clear.

On further reflection, I tried to imagine what a different interpretation of the suites would sound like without this characteristic lightness and a more “virtuosic” and heavy tone, and I do not think it would work as well. Not only was Queyras’ performance leaning into the dance elements of the suites, but the way they were composed seems to make this approach necessary. Trying to take too many liberties and make the pieces fit a style where the soloist is clearly the main focus would only make them sound unnatural, and instead a balance must be struck between interpreting them originally while not straying too far from the uniform and light nature of dance pieces. I think Queyras overall did a great job of finding this balance, especially in the first three suites.

Another interesting aspect of this performance is the repeats which occur in almost every movement of every suite. These again contribute to portraying the pieces’ origins in dance, as the repeats make them more uniform and, well, repetitive, which would be important for people to latch onto and dane to a piece. In Queyras’ performance he did not take all of the repeats, which is understandable as this would have made the performance longer than is practical for the audience or for Queyras himself. It also does not take much away from the performance, as he took enough of the repeats to still convey the sense of dance. However, I do feel that some of his choices of which repeats to take were rather random and there were times where he took repeats which I did not expect him to take and vice versa. I feel like a more consistent approach to which repeats to take would have made the performance a little more cohesive and natural, but this is not a huge issue and I still enjoyed the performance quite a bit.

Over the weekend, I was able to see not one but two different operas, Handel’s Agrippina and Tchaikovsky’s Pique Dame. As someone who had never seen an opera before, it was a very interesting and fun experience! One thing that I was especially surprised and intrigued by was how much freedom directors seem to have when choosing the staging and setting of their production. In both productions, many of the decisions made for the staging were beyond what the original writers could ever have imagined, including using props or ideas which did not even exist when they were alive.

I want to now focus on one of the operas, Agrippina, and how I felt the staging worked well in conveying the setting and atmosphere of the different scenes. Agrippina follows the ancient Roman story of Agrippina’s schemes to install her son, Nero, as the emperor. This production, however, was set in a Las Vegas casino called Caesar’s Palace. Something that jumped out to me immediately was the fact that the set did not change throughout the opera, nothing about the scene was added or removed, and the only motion of the stage itself was its ability to rotate. However, the setting did not feel too static because the set had several different areas which were connected, but could be made to feel separate when necessary. These were a main lobby area with a long couch, a gambling/bar area with several tables, and an upstairs section with a large staircase leading up to it. These separate areas, I felt, were used quite effectively to convey the moods of the different scenes. The upstairs area, for example, was at times used as an overlook for large and busy scenes where a character needed to address a crowd of people below in the main area. However, by turning the set, the wide stairs blocked the audience’s view of other areas and allowed the stairs and upstairs area to be used as a more intimate setting for Agrippina’s secret dealings. A similar effect could be achieved with the other areas as the set was wide but not long, so rotating it could make certain areas feel smaller or larger depending on what was necessary for a certain scene. This was also combined with good use of lighting, such as changing the color of the large billboard sign to make the main area feel darker or otherwise different for scenes with a more isolated mood which made use of the couch. Overall I felt this was quite an interesting introduction to the world of opera, and it definitely opened my eyes to how much freedom and creativity is possible now, even through such an old art form.