There are three subjects with a special ability to divide people. The first two are well recognised for their divisive qualities: Politics and Religion are subjects well avoided at most dinner parties unless you really want to upset someone. The third may not cause quite the same degree of passionate debate but it defines and divides individuals just as powerfully. I refer, of course, to Music.
It’s no co-incidence that both politics and religion have recognised the power of music and utilised it for their own purposes. Two examples: Mediaeval monks singing plainchant could induce in themselves a form of ecstatic trance; while national anthems are used to produce a feeling of togetherness and patriotism, particularly in time of war. You may or may not view these as crude manipulations of people. I make no value-judgement but use them as examples. There are countless others.
But music in its own right is divisive. The divide is partly cultural but even more sub-cultural. I came face-to-face with this reality today, trying to buy a CD of a group called Underworld for my son’s girlfriend’s birthday. I had to search our local MVC record shop before I discovered it was neither Pop nor Rock: it was filed under “Urban.” Oh. Don’t Rock and pop also belong in cities? Is Urban music banned in the country? Or have I missed something?
The labels put on music are regarded by their adherents as important. To misquote Dubya, “You are either with us or you are with our enemies.” Why? What about seeing both sides of the argument? Or to put it another way, why can I not enjoy “your” music as well as “mine?” For that matter, why can’t you enjoy both, too?
******Floon’s Crusade…******
So to that end I’m going to write a series of ops about music, particularly music that is considered “difficult” because of the label stuck on it. It will not always be classical but will always be a minority taste – like the Philip Glass opera Akhnaten for which op I proudly sport a diamond (This pleased my small mind, not because of the diamond as such but because I managed to reach out with my passion for music and hopefully persuade the uncommitted and, with luck open-minded, to discover something they may otherwise have never encountered).
I have been swept away at times by the passionate advocacy of fellow Ciao members for their own enthusiasms: if I mention a few I hope others are not offended! Silverback’s writings about his favourite music albums, Jillmurphy on books, Schmutzie on languages, Suemagee on cookery, Dadmancat on films… What unites them all is their totally committed feeling for their subjects and their ability to make you want to share in their experience. It’s my hope that in my music ops I may be able to approach their flair in putting across The Message. Music is important to me, as I indicated in an earlier op (Everything beginning with… guess what?). I hope I can convey at least some of what I gain from it.
******Another Label…******
If “Classical” is a heavy label for some people to take, then even some of those who say they enjoy classical music find it hard to swallow the words Chamber Music (If you already enjoy chamber music by all means skip the next bit).
I’m going to dive right in at the deep end and try to convince you that labels are unhelpful. If I say “string quartet” you’ll maybe think of dry, intellectual, and BORING noises. But wait… anyone who enjoyed the Beatles at their best might recall that Yesterday featured Paul McCartney with acoustic guitar and… string quartet and that Eleanor Rigby dispensed even with the guitar. Boring? And more recently, Elvis Costello fans will no doubt have heard his wonderful album The Juliet Letters in which he is accompanied by the Brodsky Quartet, well-known to lovers of the classics for their interpretation of the mainstream string quartet repertoire.
Chamber music was to earlier times what the radio and CD player are to us – a way of bringing music into our own rooms rather than a large hall. The very rich had their own musicians to play them to sleep. Bach’s Goldberg Variations (grand title – think of it as the theme music from The English Patient if it helps) was written for a harpsichord player called Goldberg to play to his employer, a minor nobleman who suffered from insomnia. You or I might nowadays turn on the radio to help us to sleep; the nobleman sent for Goldberg.
Chamber music is just music for a small number of instruments – anything from one to ten or so. The work I want to convince you is worth your while this time is the String Quintet by Schubert. Right – let me guess: your eyes have glazed over and you’re wondering why you even read this far! It’s the label thing again: if I’d called it Franz Meets His Maker you might have been slightly less put off. Just bear with me, OK?
******Franz Schubert…******
Poor Schubert lived a short life: born 1797, snuffed out in 1828 by syphilis, which dominated the last four years of his life. Yet in his thirty-one years he wrote around a thousand works, including the very well known Unfinished Symphony and the Trout Quintet (for five instruments – piano and strings), named after a song he wrote (The Trout) which is used as the basis for a set of variations. His special gift was for writing good tunes – some have been turned into popular songs – and this makes his music easily approachable.
Sadly, most of his works requiring more than a handful of players were never heard in his lifetime, not even the String Quintet, which is surely one of the most sublime, other-worldly pieces of music ever written.
******The String Quintet…******
I intend to approach this work from a personal, emotional standpoint rather than use musical jargon. It’s not necessary to understand harmony or musical structure to enjoy any music. The composer needs to understand them: we just need to respond to the sound-world he creates.
The only technical term I shall use is the word Movement. Many musical works are divided into separate, contrasting sections separated by silences. Each section is called a movement. There, that didn’t hurt, did it? (Sorry, I’m being patronising, aren’t I?)
The Quintet was written only a few months before Schubert died and it seems clear as the music progresses that he knew he was close to death. Of all his works, this one goes through every imaginable emotion and anyone who listens regularly to Desert Island Discs (BBC Radio 4, every Sunday and Friday morning), in which well known guests choose the eight records they could least live without, will have heard it. The work has been chosen by more guests on the programme than any other piece of any type, pop or classical. I would add that my wife, who either likes a piece or doesn’t – no middle way – is totally besotted with this Quintet.
It is an unusual work in that, as well as a string quartet (two violins, viola and cello) there is a second cello. This allows one cello to hold the bass line while allowing the other one to soar into its higher register to “sing” with the upper instruments. It is divided into four contrasting movements.
If you are new to this type of music I would suggest starting with the second movement. This is immediately accessible yet profound almost beyond understanding. Listen in a quiet room with no other distractions and allow the music just to run through you. Forget labels (“Oh, gosh, this is classical and it’s CHAMBER MUSIC, I think I’m going to be sick…”) and just listen. When the movement is over, give it another spin. Familiarity will come quickly.
The fourth movement will probably be the next one to listen to, then the third and finally the first. I know that seems odd and I’m not trying to make the first movement sound forbidding – it isn’t – but the other three are probably absorbed more easily.
******Movement by Movement Guide…******
1 The first movement enters almost timidly, unsure of where it’s heading, before suddenly erupting in a spiky passage that feels quite turbulent – waves breaking over a rock, perhaps. Then suddenly, two loud chords and the cellos play one of Schubert’s serene, heart-easing melodies, which is mused upon for some time by all the instruments who seem reluctant to let it go.
It was the custom of the time to play the opening part of a work twice, perhaps to make sure everyone got the point. Nowadays we can repeat anything ad nauseam on our electronic equipment and this may seem superfluous. But if it was worth hearing once, why not hear it again? That’s exactly what happens on the disc under review here, which is why the first movement runs to nearly twenty minutes.
The central part of this movement is spent developing some of the music that went before – there’s a restless march that seems to reflect Schubert’s troubled mental state, snatches of the glorious cello tune and much more. And to round it all off, a return to the music of the opening. 2 The second movement is so deeply haunting that musicians have often been seen playing it with tears running down their cheeks. One of the slowest-moving melodies ever written, so slow it’s hard to get a “fix” on it, is played by the second violin, viola and cello, while the first violin plays sad little “bugle- calls.” The effect is like a lone survivor wandering around a battle-field mourning the loss of fallen comrades. (This is a very personal view of the music – Schubert did not suggest any such picture). Underneath everything a lone cello plays plucked notes, like a slow drumbeat or tears falling. The effect is unearthly, hypnotic. I’ve heard it described as a vision of Heaven: Schubert reaching out into the unknown. Whatever it may or may not “mean,” a spell is woven so powerfully that anyone with any sensitivity has to respond. It’s such moments of rare, still sadness and beauty that make music the joy it is for me.
Abruptly there’s a change: the music erupts into a wild gallop, as if the memory of the battle has returned. The horses’ hooves pound at the earth and there’s a wild upheaval – and then… silence… a few isolated, despairing chords separated by the most eerie silences, before calm is restored, leading eventually to the “bugle calls” and a sense of resignation to whatever fate befalls. And just as the movement ends, there’s a brief reminder of the turbulence before the music sinks away, exhausted.
The movement leaves players feeling drained, yet they haven’t finished yet. To follow a movement like that, to break the spell of stillness requires a superhuman effort. 3 The third movement is a wild, headlong gallop in which I‘m sure I can detect the sounds of the hunting-horn. Nobility at play, perhaps? Then comes a central section. At this point in most works of the period there would be a pretty, innocent-sounding tune meant to charm the listeners after all that’s gone before. But what we get is something close to the darkest despair. It’s chilling music that makes you shudder. I can only see in it Schubert, face-to-face with Death. And then, as if it were just a fleeting vision, it’s swept away by the wild gallop again. But somehow the hunt is no longer just a game… 4 The final movement begins like a happy, stamping dance, a good, rustic tune that seems almost too cheerful after all we've heard. It leads to another of Schubert’s most glorious melodies in which the cello “sings” in its high register. All seems sunshine and light until the final minutes when the music speeds up, and the dance is revealed as a terrifying chase with Death the hunter. At the last gasp the music appears to reach the safety of the final chord – but that last chord is a shudder. Death has claimed its own. And Schubert knew all too well who that was to be…
Sorry if that sounds depressing. The music is never that. It veers wildly between ecstasy and despair but is never depressing or indeed boring.
******The Naxos Recording…******
Those who know anything about Classical music will know that Naxos is a super-budget label whose discs sell at £4.99 (even less at MVC) yet which are often as good as anything on the full-price labels. I’ve been listening to their recording of the Schubert String Quintet as I typed this and I can’t fault it. Any players who encounter this work are going to give it their best – no professional musician can play it without putting everything they have into it – and I have yet to hear a bad performance of it.
The players here are the Ensemble Villa Musica. Unfortunately the insert notes, good in all other repects, fail to name the individual players.
On many discs, the Quintet is all you get (and maybe all you want). This one gives a bonus in the shape of a delightful String Trio (that’s right, three instruments). I wish, however, it had come first on the disc. Nothing should follow the Quintet except silence. But that’s a personal viewpoint.
If you want to know more about this work there’s plenty on the Internet. Do some research and see what others think.
If by any chance anyone out there decides to try the Quintet, please let me know what you thought of it, even if you didn’t like it (though anyone who can resist the second movement has no hope left!).
The playing time of the disc is 76 minutes 37 seconds and the number is 8.550388.
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