Playing Bach

2012-01-02T10:52:00.000-08:00

The Bloomingdale Chamber Orchestra has been rehearsing the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 and we are having a tough time with it. Modern orchestras don’t do as much Bach as they do other composers. Bach’s music wasn’t really written for the modern orchestra. It doesn’t quite fit. The Fifth Brandenburg, for example, has no second violin part.

What it does have is a lot of notes. In Baroque music, the flow of a piece is governed by the musical line. A line is a self-propelled musical entity, usually based on one or two short musical segments called motives which are transformed during the course of the piece. Every line has its own kinetic energy which ebbs and flows, creating the expressive potential of the line. The interaction of two or more lines is what creates the tension and release that both propel the piece forward and which lead to the overall drama in a piece of Baroque music. The interaction creates a kind of polarity—equal and opposite forces trying to unite. The whole process is called fortspinnung in German—spinning forth. Its part of what makes Baroque music seem so restless and energetic. Bach represents the epitome of this kind of Baroque music and the Brandenburg concerti represent some of his very best secular instrumental compositions.

What Bach’s music doesn’t have much of are rests, which is one of the reasons it’s so challenging. While lines are built of two or three simple motives, “development” consists mostly of transforming those motives--reshaping them, altering them with accidentals, moving them to new keys, playing them upside down, playing them backward, among other things. It means players need to be aware of the notes every moment they are playing, while at the same time musically shaping the line and being aware of how the line interacts with the other performers.

A few years ago, I was given a book titled Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter. I am not going to pretend I understood much of that book, but what I loved about it was the idea that three magnificent creative thinkers in mathematics, art, and music could be linked through an understanding of thinking and awareness. I love the idea that Bach’s musical lines have energy contained within them, just the the way the sweeping lines of a sculptor like Bernini contain energy, and those lines can uplift those who experience them.

For the performer, playing Bach is one of music’s extreme sports and one of music’s most completely satisfying experiences. After you have finished performing the piece, you know you have done something special.
Lawrence Davis

The Reality of Conducting

2011-11-09T10:22:00.000-08:00

There are few jobs in the world of the arts that are more Romanticized than that of the conductor. Egomaniacal, omniscient, tyrannical, pompous, short-tempered autocrats might be a general description from the mythology of conductors. Carefully-cultivated conducting heros like Arturo Toscanini, Leopold Stokowski, and even Leonard Bernstein have helped perpetuate this vision of the genius/tyrant that exists even today.

I have been conducting for nearly 40 years and I want to spend a few minutes sharing with you the reality of conducting. I conduct the Bloomingdale Chamber Orchestra and right now we are working on two amazing and very different pieces. The first is the Egmont Overture by Ludwig van Beethoven and the second is Elegy for Orchestra by John Corrigliano.

The music for these two pieces is contained on the printed page—the conductor’s score and every instrumentalist’s part. As I start every new piece with the orchestra, we begin a journey of discovery together. I have conducted the Beethoven at least four times before, with four different orchestras, and four different performances and each time I have discovered new things with the ensemble with which I am working. Having conducted a lot of Beethoven over the years, I have developed some insights into his orchestra writing. For example, Beethoven’s crescendos frequently occur over many measure of music. In the Egmont, there is a passage that begins as follows:

Over a period of eight full measures we go from pianissimo to fortissimo, but the actual crescendo begins on the fourth measure. It is very tempting to start that crescendo earlier and get to the fortissimo too soon. So I alert the players of this pitfall and we work on it in advance.

Notice the first violin part has a quarter note tied to the first of a group of four sixteenths. It is very easy to be late with those 16ths after holding the first note for one and a quarter beats. Then of course those 16ths need to be clearly articulated so that everybody is playing exactly together, else it just sounds sloppy.

Beneath that line, the second violinists and violists are playing very fast sixteenth notes and they have to be perfectly even and coordinated within the sections.

That is just a few measures of music! There are 347 measures in the Egmont alone and 16 different instrumental lines going on at once.

Vytautas Marijosius, my conducting professor, used to call the conductor primus inter pares--first among equals. What I have discovered in my years with all kinds of ensembles is that a conductor is problem solver and orchestra is a group of people who want to make music together. They want to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is the ultimate collaboration built on faith and trust, to create something beautiful that goes beyond our expectations.

I once heard a leader described as someone who convinces you to do what you already knew should be done. That’s my vision of a conductor, a musical sherpa--someone who trusts his or her players and in turn earns their trust. It’s a far cry from the prevailing mythology of conducting. I can’t think of anything more satisfying than revisiting a piece I thought I knew and hearing something totally fresh and new within. No huge ego called for in that kind of transaction—more a large dose of humility!

Lawrence Davis

Reaching In

Playing Bach

The Reality of Conducting