Three Choice String Sextets

In a recent piece about Linda Catlin Smith's 6th String Quartet, I briefly mentioned the viol consorts of William Lawes. Lawes also crops up in this post about some favourite sextets...

1). Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) - String Sextet No. 2 in G major, op. 36 
The Nash Ensemble - Marianne Thorsen, Malin Broman (vln); Lawrence Power, Philip Dukes (vla); Paul Watkins, Tim Hugh (vc) (Onyx)

The three-in-a-bar first movement of Brahms’ op. 36 puts me in mind of certain great orchestral opening movements - I’m thinking of the Oxford, Eroica, Rhenish and Espansiva symphonies, to name a few. While the Brahms isn’t as forthright or athletic as the Haydn, Beethoven, Schumann or Nielsen, it has something of the same irresistible sweep - I can’t imagine pressing stop or pause part-way through any of these pieces.

The sextet begins with an oscillating figure, which rumbles uneasily in the background throughout the opening minutes. This figure comes to the fore in the development section (from around 7’35“ onwards), sounding a persistent alarm. Just before this, at the climax of the 2nd subject group, Brahms repeatedly spells out the name ‘Agathe’ [2] in the 1st violin and viola parts (at around 2′47″ / or 6′36″ on the repeat). This is a coded reference to Agathe von Siebold, to whom Brahms was briefly engaged. In a letter to a singer friend, Brahms suggested that this sextet was a final goodbye to Agathe, who had gone on to marry a sanitation commissioner.

The slow movement also has a link to Brahms’ complicated love life. Its opening melody was composed for Clara Schumann and included in a love-letter written several years earlier. On paper, this set of variations looks relatively straightforward. In performance, it’s more elusive. The theme itself seems to point in several directions at once, leading to a series of variations which are wide-ranging in mood and texture (sometimes unusually sparse). I was struck today by how skilfully Brahms blurs the lines between some of the variations, making the music feel through-composed at times.

2). Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) - String Sextet in A major, op. 48
Sarah Chang, Bernhard Hartog (vln); Wolfram Christ, Tanja Christ (vla); Georg Faust, Olaf Maninger (vc) (EMI)

While Sarah Chang is best known as a globe-trotting violin soloist, she has also made a couple of excellent discs of Dvořák chamber music. There is this version of the op. 48 sextet, and also a recording of the 2nd Piano Quintet, with Leif Ove Andsnes. For the sextet record, she convened a blue-chip ensemble of current or former members of the Berlin Philharmonic. Sometimes, these starrier chamber music one-offs don’t quite work. Here, though, everyone is pulling in the same direction, audibly enjoying themselves. And why shouldn’t they? The Dvořák sextet is a big-hearted, perpetually tuneful work, full of opportunities for world-class string players to give their all. Brahms is clearly the model: the work’s opening phrase (later used in a more full-throated, momentum-halting manner) feels particularly Brahmsian to me.

A folk flavour is never far from the surface. At the time of the sextet, Dvořák was in a particularly folky phase: his op. 45 Slavonic Rhapsodies and op. 46 Slavonic Dances were composed just before the sextet (with a few bagatelles in-between). The 2nd movement Dumka [3] is a real charmer. Chang gets in a few swoops and slides, as the sextet stretch and squash the malleable material. The 3rd movement Furiant, an explosive one-in-a-bar dance, features some of the most thrilling playing on the disc. 

3). William Lawes (1602-1645) - Consorts In Six Parts - Set a6 in G minor (nice essay about viols here) Laurence Dreyfus (treble viol, director); Wendy Gillespie (treble viol); Jonathan Manson, Varpu Haavisto (tenor viol); Markku Luolajan-Mikkola, Susanne Braumann (bass viol) (Channel Classics)

Much as I cherish favourite recordings of "standard" string sextets by Schoenberg (Verklärte Nacht) and Tchaikovsky (Souvenir de Florence), I probably play this marvellous CD more often. Lawrence Dreyfus’ gleefully bonkers liner notes ("Legalise Lawes Now!") are an excellent attempt to explain the strange power of the music on this disc. Those unfamiliar with Lawes’ work should expect a "Dionysan frenzy hell-bent on breaking civilised taboos", and "a brutal indifference to customary ideas about musical beauty". More specifically, Dreyfus highlights Lawes’ "rampant disregard of decent counterpoint", "bizarre themes", "offbeat imitations" and "wilful obsession with repeated notes". The G minor set is not the most extreme, but I chose this one because it shares a sense of abandon with the Brahms and Dvořák sextets. Lawes is just as melodically inventive, just as unafraid to play with form and tempo to suit his expressive needs - a sudden slamming on of the brakes for a yearning, aching couple of phrases is a characteristic move. Phantasm are right inside the music, displaying the kind of near-telepathic flexibility we sometimes hear from the greatest string quartets. They tear into the contrapuntal pile-ups in the second and third movements, and daringly string out the more expressive music in the opening Pavane (with just a hint of vibrato). While re-listening to this disc in a café this afternoon, I looked up to see two girls laughing at the scrunched-up faces I must have been pulling. It may be best listened to in the comfort of your own home. 

[1] Brahms was troubled by a fear of not measuring up to the musical giants of the past. It has been suggested (by Malcolm MacDonald for one) that he first turned to the sextet in his op. 18 because taking on the works already composed by that time (1860 - just Boccherini and Spohr, I think - viol consorts aside) was considerably less intimidating than squaring up to the quartets of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert.

[2] A-G-A-B-E - H is B natural in German. Brahms omits the ‘unmusical’ T. This bit of musical spelling was mentioned in a letter written by the violinist Joseph Joachim in 1894.

[3] A dance of Ukrainian origin, characterised by alternating faster and slower sections.

Happy St. Cecilia's Day! (Charles Daniels Part 2)

A few months ago, I wrote something about two favourite records, A Venetian Coronation 1595 and Venetian Vespers. That post turned into an account of my first meaningful encounter with a solo classical voice, as I tried to put into words my delight at discovering Charles Daniels' thrilling performance of Grandi's O Intemerata. I had a similar experience a couple of years later, when Paul McCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort & Players released their version of Purcell's ode, Hail! Bright Cecilia.

Commissioned by a London society set up to celebrate the feast day of the patron saint of music (22nd November), Purcell’s contribution to the 1692 festivities is a 50 minute, 13 movement treasure trove. It opens with a substantial orchestral overture, followed by a series of solos, duets, trios and choruses, praising both music and Cecilia herself. A selected group of instruments (organ, violin, flute, guitar and fife) receive more specific attention. The whole thing is a joy. 

On the McCreesh recording, Daniels sings The fife, and all the harmony of war, as well as the piece that really grabbed me, ’Tis Nature’s voice, an exhilarating virtuoso song that took me straight back to my time with the Grandi.

Henry PURCELL (1659-1695) - Tis Nature’s Voice (from Hail! Bright Cecilia) - Charles Daniels (tenor); Gabrieli Players / Paul McCreesh

Daniels has the measure of Purcell’s "incredible Graces" (1), including the lung-bursting melismas towards the end. He is not afraid to use the full power of his voice (at "mighty", for instance), and clearly relishes the more dissonant passages (both appearances of "grieve or hate"). Purcell’s setting of the last line is superb, the teasing repeats of "charms" leading to a final long run of notes on "captivates". Daniels’ thrilling second pass at this is something special - I'm reminded of his stunning "et virgo gloriosa" in the Grandi motet (Purcell text here). 

Charles Daniels also played a part in my introduction to even earlier music, as a founder member of the Orlando Consort, a one-to-a-part vocal group specialising in Medieval repertoire. By the time I got round to hearing them in concert (in their ingenious Voices Appeared silent film with live music programme), he had already left the consort. I still have the earlier recordings, though. By a whisker, my favourite is Popes And Antipopes - Music For The Courts Of Avignon & Rome. I'm struggling to find any clips online, but there are CD copies around. Highly recommended.

I still remember the Gramophone review of Popes And Antipopes: "To be savoured meditatively, like an Islay malt".

(1) Thanks largely to an article about the premiere in the November 1692 edition of the Gentlemen’s Journal, ’Tis Nature’s Voice has been the subject of some musicological debate. According to this article, it "was sung with incredible Graces by Mr. Purcell himself", leading to uncertainty as to whether Purcell actually gave the first performance, or whether he wrote the "incredible Graces" (ornaments) for someone else to sing. The couple of recentish Purcell books I've seen indicate the latter, although the liner notes for my other (very fine, modern instrument) recording of the piece claim that the composer did give the premiere. On this CD (English Chamber Orchestra / Mackerras - 1969), ’Tis Nature’s Voice is performed by a countertenor. McCreesh’s decision to use a tenor is supported by an Andrew Parrott article in the Faber Purcell Companion, which addresses the subject of male voice types in this music: "the 1680s and 1690s seem to mark an historical mid-way point in the evolution of the countertenor, with the emergence of the later, and indeed current, falsettist countertenor overlapping with the glorious last years of an earlier tradition in which - contrary to popular belief - the voice was, in modern terms, essentially a (high) tenor". (pp. 417-8)

Holiday Listening Part 3 - Linda Catlin Smith's 6th String Quartet

The Sheffield-based record label Another Timbre has now released six CDs of music by Linda Catlin Smith. The most recent, Flowers Of Emptiness, features eight chamber works, including her superb 6th quartet, an endlessly fascinating piece I first heard on holiday. Since then, I've come back to it many times...

Linda Catlin Smith - String Quartet No.6 - Apartment House (Mira Benjamin, Chihiro Ono (violin); Bridget Carey (viola); Anton Lukoszevieze (cello)) (Another Timbre)

(There is a performance by the Mivos Quartet here, although I would urge you to get hold of the Apartment House record. Purchase details and a decent extract here).

On first listen, I was reminded of favourite viol consorts, by the likes of Lawes and Purcell. This was partly down to the starkly beautiful vibratoless string sound, and partly down to the busy texture, that can suggest more than four players. In an interview on the Another Timbre website, Smith talks about creating a "tangled, woven polyphony" in this quartet, adding "I wanted to try to get lost in the polyphonic thickets." This is a music of small surprises, and subtle, easily missed change. With ears primed for micro dramas, we may detect a slight shift in tone colour, or spot one note moving in a chord. Sometimes, the texture briefly thins, and there is a bout of rhythmic unison - a recurring pulsing gesture. The "polyphonic thicket" is thorny in places; while this piece is harmonically beautiful, it is not a warm bath of consonance. Tension comes from tightly packed lines, fighting for the same space.

As the music goes on, there's a definite sense of expanding and developing, but it's hard to pin down. Longer lines emerge, sometimes projected by two instruments in unison, and the music becomes more continuous. Earlier in the work, there are significant moments of silence. Smith suggests that "maybe I'm like a still life painter, looking at the same objects again and again." This is pretty much what happens in the first part of the piece, with the listener invited to compare what comes before and after the silence, almost like a musical spot the difference. Her enthusiasm for Japanese gagaku feels relevant here: "the sense of time in that music is very slow and you feel you have all the room you need to hear everything that's going on, and it requires a kind of slowing yourself down."(1) I've enjoyed adjusting to the gagaku-like underlying slowness of the quartet, although having the space to step into this music doesn't necessarily make it any easier to untangle. Smith embraces this unknowable quality: "I like things that are slightly obscure, that you can't quite make out, but I also like the idea of something that has multiplicity of meanings."(1)

The final section of the piece is perhaps the easiest to grasp. It's certainly magical. From around 15 minutes onwards, the music becomes more effortful, almost dragging itself along. Gradually, it seems to shake off the extra weight, begins to rise, and just keeps going, untethered from the earth. Often, my immediate response was to go straight back to the beginning, to spend another 20 minutes with this special piece of music.

I've dwelt on the 6th quartet, the longest piece on the disc, but it's worth saying that the rest of the music is also excellent (and superbly played). In fact, the record makes an ideal introduction to Smith's work, with pieces from across her career (1986-2024). If you're not familiar with Another Timbre, do investigate. Simon Reynell has put together an impressive range of over 200 releases, several of which have become great favourites of mine. If you're looking for a place to start, I can recommend John Lely's Meander Selection, Oliver Leith's Me Hollywood, John Tilbury playing Terry Riley, ffansïon by Angharad Davies and Tisha Mukarji, James Weeks' Gombert arrangements, and Pauline Oliveros' Sound Pieces. All superb. If you want more Linda Catlin Smith, try the marvellous Dirt Road, a series of violin and percussion duets.

(1) From an interview in Tempo, Vol. 71, No. 280, pp. 8-20

Holiday Listening Part 2 - Bang On A Can play Eno's Music For Airports

Part 1 here.

David Lang, one of the founders of the new music collective Bang On A Can (BOAC), once described their repertoire as "too funky for the academy and too structured for the club scene."(1) Brian Eno's ambient classic Music For Airports (MFA) doesn't quite fit this bill, although Eno's position as a key figure at the intersection of 70s rock and experimental music would definitely have put him on the BOAC radar. Their version appeared in 1998, and, inevitably, given the special status of the original, it raised some eyebrows. The anti position is well laid out by Cecilia Sun, who sees BOAC's version as an attempt to claim MFA "for their own musical canon and narrative", by "dragging the piece into the concert hall, with its aura of culture."(2) Lang's liner notes do tend to dwell on the more "classical" aspects of the piece, calling it "music that's carefully, beautifully, brilliantly constructed", adding that its "compositional techniques rival the most intricate of symphonies." Suitably intrigued by all this, I took both records on holiday, for some side-by-side listening...

1. Brian Eno - Ambient 1: Music For Airports (1978)

2. Brian Eno, arr. Gordon, Lang, Wolfe, Ziporyn - Music For Airports - Bang On A Can All-Stars (Robert Black (bass); Mark Stewart (guitar); Lisa Moore (piano/keyboards); Evan Ziporyn (clarinet/bass clarinet); Maya Beiser (cello); Steven Schick (percussion) + guests - Katie Geissinger, Phyllis Jo Kubay, Mary Runyan Maratha, Alexandra Montano (voice); Wu Man (pipa); Davis Fedele, Liz Mann (flute); Chris Komer (horn); Wayne du Maine, Tom Hoyt (trumpet); Julie Josephson, Christopher Washburne (trombone); Todd Reynolds (violin); Matt Goeke, Greg Hesselink (cello) Mark Stewart (cello/mandolin/mandocello)) (1998)

MFA is in four parts, titled simply 1/1, 2/1, 1/2 and 2/2.(3) The original 1/1 was put together from keyboard improvisations by Robert Wyatt and Rhett Davies (guitarist Fred Frith was also present, but we don't hear him). Eno took a section of music he liked, and made a tape loop. He then slowed the whole thing down, and added touches of his own. The 17 minute final version is apparently made up of 11 repetitions of the loop, but it's hard to hear the music that way, such is the length of each repeat, and the repetitive nature of the music within it (Eno's additions also serve to conceal the joins). 

For the BOAC version, arranging duties were shared between the three founder members of the group (Lang, Michael Gordon and Julia Wolfe), with the fourth and final piece given over to clarinettist Evan Ziporyn. In his version of 1/1, Gordon makes full use of the expanded line-up of the organisation's performing arm, the Bang On A Can All-Stars. Slowly-decaying tuned percussion instruments help to recreate the reverb-heavy environment of the original, although Gordon also adds quiet string lines to extend certain notes within phrases. Unsurprisingly, the BOAC version of 1/1 becomes a more "active" listening experience; ingenious composerly touches and the technicolour palette are bound to tickle the ear. Oddly, I was reminded of Webern's version of the Ricercar from Bach's Musical Offering. Webern's approach is more kaleidoscopic, but like Gordon, he transforms a rigorous, tonally muted original into something more vivid (for better or worse).

The remaining parts of MFA were composed/assembled before 1/1. 2/1 came about during a visit to the studio owned by Conny Plank, a German musician who worked with both Stockhausen and the leading lights of the Krautrock scene. Seeing and hearing the results of Plank's experiments with tape loops, Eno had the idea of making a piece from the recorded voices of Plank's partner and two studio assistants (his own voice also ended up in the mix). The sound of Eno's highly processed chamber choir has a tranquillising effect on me - I find it just about impossible not to slow to the glacial pace of 2/1. Sometimes, I'll fight it, and end up tracking the gaps between the vocal entries, but not for long. In the BOAC version, David Lang also has fun with instrumental colour, and, as in 1/1, I find myself engaged in wondering how and why he makes the choices he does. It's worth noting that the BOAC singers do a terrific job of reproducing the original (all of the arrangements were recorded in single takes). That said, although they are electronically treated to sound remarkably like Eno's singers, there are occasional moments of (very) slight imperfection. On repeated listens, these little blips became oddly touching: tiny glimpses of real life humans through the electronic haze...

1/2 combines the ethereal voices of 2/1 and the gentle piano excursions of 1/1. The mood is different, though. The vocal entries are further apart, and the piano responses (Eno this time, I believe) are more fragmentary. Again, there is a sense of patterns repeating, and, as before, it's hard to pin down, thanks to the similar nature of the material involved and the time between repeats (if they are repeats). The BOAC version is more sure of itself. I think this is partly a result of the arrangement, with its strong, anchoring bass notes, and the now familiar range of colours, including vocal-sounding brass. It may also be down to the playing of the ensemble - some of Eno's tentative phrases are briskly dashed off by these new music virtuosi. This, and the rapid shifts of instrumentation give the BOAC version a much greater (unwanted?) sense of forward motion.

Eno's 2/2 is an improvisation on an ARP 2600 synthesizer, slowed to half-speed, and drenched in delay. The synth has a lovely, warm sound, swelling and fading like a well-matched low brass choir (with identically perfect articulation). Listening again now, I'm drawn to the play of these gentle attacks, which seem to increase in frequency as the piece goes on.  My goal-directed ears, conditioned by hundreds of symphonies and sonatas, point me to the lowest line, which occasionally suggests we're making a big harmonic move. It never comes, though, and the end feels quite sudden.

As mentioned, the BOAC 2/2 arrangement was entrusted to clarinettist Evan Ziporyn, a familiar name to new music fans. In an interview, Ziporyn talked about his approach to MFA, saying: "I asked myself: What's going on inside the piece [...] what's the pattern and what do I want to do with it? I began to impose my own narrative on it."(4) While Gordon, Lang and Wolfe make the most of the resources at their disposal, they don't tamper with the form of the original. Ziporyn does, adding two and a half minutes of his own material, right in the middle of the piece (around 4'40" onwards). What's more, this new music has a different character: over a drone, Ziporyn and pipa player Wu Man trade and expand ideas, in what feels like a kind of written-out improvisation. After this section, Ziporyn sticks to the original, although the frequent tremolando effects maintain the surface busyness (lots of "expressive" playing here). The introduction of more dynamic, developing material makes for a different kind of piece, and I'd understand if ambient Eno devotees found it beyond the pale. For my part, I prefer the purity of the original - I'm not sure that Ziporyn's extra music really adds much. In fact, it made me wonder if he really likes (or approves of) MFA. 

Personally, I can't get too upset about the idea of a concert arrangement of Music For Airports. As someone from the more classical side of the tracks, I was bound to want to check out the arrangements. Plus, as a listener fascinated by how we listen, this experiment in ambient/active listening was sure to grab me. Eno has suggested that his ambient records are designed to "accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular." For me, his original succeeds in achieving this: it can fade into the background, but will stand up to focussed listening, without seeming boring or facile (not always the case with other ambient records I've heard). Eno himself is a big fan of the BOAC version. At the UK premiere, at Stansted airport, he called his original a "demo", waiting for its first "proper performance." He was also impressed by the BOAC record, sending them this fax: "I don't know why this recording has moved me so deeply [...] I think this is so very beautiful I'm almost embarrassed to say it, except for the fact that what I'm finding beautiful is the powerfully emotional quality you brought to it."(5)

(1) Alex Ross - Shall We Rock?, The New Yorker, 23rd June 2003

(2) Cecilia Sun (2007) Resisting The Airport: Bang On A Can Performs Brian Eno, Musicology Australia, 29:1, 135-159

(3) For more on how MFA was put together, plus an account of the album's origin story, see this excellent Pitchfork article.

(4) Quoted in Sun, pg.154

(5) Bang On A Can Bandcamp page