Performing Bach

I attended an all-Bach performance yesterday and I am left with a host of nagging questions. On the one hand, I think that kindness is a virtue and criticism can often be mean-spirited. On the other hand, honesty is also a virtue. So, yes, there were issues with the quality of the performance, But there were political and cultural issues as well. Let me set the scene.

A classical guitarist with whom I was previously unacquainted is doing a series of concerts in which he presents all the music that we can legitimately (more or less) perform on guitar. This includes all the so-called lute suites as well as the solo suites and sonatas for solo violin and the six suites for solo cello. The performance was on eight-string guitar. Those two things in themselves were a powerful motivation for me to attend the concerts. There will be six concerts, but I only became aware of the series after the first two had already taken place. So yesterday was the third concert, held in the central patio of the local library. These concerts are all to benefit scholarship programs of the library. The series as a whole is titled "A Peace Musical Offering" as it is dedicated generally to "peace" and references Bach's A Musical Offering.

In the introductory remarks there was no mention of peace between which parties, nor which party might be favored so it was just nebulous virtue-signaling. But that nebulosity also extended to the performance itself. As a long-retired guitar instructor I was troubled by the casual sitting position with the guitar resting simply on crossed legs. Mind you, Thomas Dunford, an extraordinary lutenist, uses the same position. But no professional classical guitarist does, choosing either a footrest or a guitar rest. The guitar itself was quite reasonable with a good resonant sound. The problems started with the first note. I think I can describe the effect as being very like an intermediate guitar student trying to sightread Bach and only partially succeeding. The analogue in prose might be like this:

ok,   here we go ... with the ... first phrase of.... the pre. lude to thethirdcello  suite uh the third ... cel. lo. suite...

I have taught at two universities, two conservatories and a two-year college and this kind of performance would have failed the audition for acceptance to the program at all of them. I'm not sure what to call the basic failing: complete lack of discipline? If you sit down to learn a piece by Bach, you have to take it in small sections and work on each section at a very slow tempo until all of it is in your fingers. It was as if he had never encountered this idea. He didn't lack technical skills because there were passages that came off relatively complete. But then the next phrase would be interrupted by a forest of missed notes, incorrect bass notes and frequent hesitations.

One of the best master classes in Bach on guitar I attended was that of Oscar Ghiglia at The Banff Centre. I'm pretty sure that if this kind of playing had been offered there, Oscar would have stopped him after the first couple of phrases and made him repeat them over and over and over again until they were smooth and consistent. This performance was like listening to someone with a hopeless stutter try and recite Shakespeare.

What was puzzling was that the performance was not unmusical as such. Nor did he play Bach as if he hated it like some otherwise professional guitarists do. No, the timbre was nice and there were even some phrases that were well-delivered. But the whole was hopelessly sloppy, as if the concept of a minimal professional standard of accuracy just didn't exist. Perhaps what was needed was a little less peace and little more anxiety about simply playing the right notes.

I am reminded of attending a recital of an up-and-coming young Canadian cellist years ago. My flautist friend and I were just leaving at the end when we ran into Paul Kling, a truly great violinist. We sort of shrugged as the concert had been rather frothy with a lot of throwing about of the hair. Paul, in his delightful Czech accent simply said: "you were expecting Rostropovich, maybe?"

Salzburg 2026

I just received the full program booklet for this year's festival and I'm wishing I could go. Every program shows a thoughtful creativity that is often missing in typical classical performances. The 150 page booklet, beautifully illustrated by drawings and sketches by Andy Warhol, lists nine opera productions, ranging from Mozart's Così Fan Tutte, to the Rossini rarity Il Viaggio a Reims, to Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos, to the rarely performed Saint Francis of Assisi by Messiaen, to newer works by Henze and Dusapin. The Vienna Philharmonic, as well as being the pit orchestra for most of the operas, will also give five concerts and the Berlin Philharmonic, two. There are also six guest orchestras including the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Vienna Radio Symphony.

No fewer than nine concerts feature music by György Kurtág, this year's featured composer. There are also four concerts devoted to the music of Olivier Messiaen including performances of the Catalogue d'oiseaux, the Visions de l'Amen and the Quatuor pour la fin du temps. Opportunities to hear any of these works are rare, but they are all on the program in Salzburg in August.

There will be solo recitals by Grigory Sokolov, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Evgeny Kissin, Arkadi Volodos, Alexander Malofeev, András Schiff, Igor Levit and Yuja Wang.

There is also a wealth of other performances of chamber music, spiritual music, vocal music and a whole bunch of Mozart. Not to mention a lot of theater works.

I very much wish I could go, but it comes down to a housing problem for me! The cost of attendance at the Salzburg festival is first and foremost the cost of spending two or three weeks in Salzburg in the summer. Even AirBnb places are expensive and hotels are out of sight. After that is the cost of the flights. Third is the cost of the actual tickets, which are really very reasonable considering the superb quality of the performances. Two years ago I spent only €1,400 for tickets to fifteen concerts. But housing can easily cost four to six thousand dollars. The other housing issue is that this summer I will be building my new house, so that is where  my funds are going.

But I am very much looking forward to the 2027 and 2028 festivals and hoping to be there. 

Visiting Campeche

Instead of jetting off to Europe to hear some wonderful concerts, last year and this coming year I am focussing on visiting various places in Mexico. I was in Puebla at Easter, Oaxaca in October and I just got back from Campeche. This last is not a tourist spot, which I usually avoid, but it is a charming place and has a number of attractions. The place to stay is the Holiday Inn, though it is an hour's walk to the historic Centro. The walk is a pleasant one, though, along the Malecón or seawall. 

Along that seawall can be found a lot of pelicans:

The historic district features two large fortresses, each with a museum and well worth a visit. They were built to defend the port against pirates and the English back in the 17th and 18th centuries. Calle 59 has a lot of coffee places and souvenir shops. And the occasional pirate.

Not to be missed is a fine seafood restaurant named Marganzo where all the waitresses wear traditional dress. I had a lovely meal of shrimp risotto (accompanied by sangria)

Followed by grilled sea bass:

And flan with capuchino:

But the real highlight of the trip was the ancient Mayan city of Edzna. Only the central area of about two square kilometers of large buildings have been excavated and are open to visitors. The whole city occupies some 22 square kilometers. That central area includes some apartments, a combination amphitheater and strip mall, a ball court and a large temple sitting on a very large base. The sheer cost in terms of slave labor must have been staggering--no heavy equipment or power tools. Not even a wheelbarrow. 

This is a bedroom:

This is the amphitheater and at the top are spaces for little shops or tiendas.

This is the ball court where the ball was sometimes made of rubber and sometimes was a human head covered in rubber.

And here is the main temple pyramid:

Finally a sunset over the Gulf of Mexico:

Off to Campeche

 I'm off to Campeche for several days to escape the brutal San Miguel de Allende winter. This morning a crisp 11°. In Campeche it is a balmy 24°. Why the difference? San Miguel is in the central highlands at over 2,000 meters altitude while Campeche is on the Gulf of Mexico. Yes, we still call it that down here. Mind you, San Miguel doesn't actually have a winter as such. I took these photos yesterday:

Campeche is interesting in itself--it is one of only two walled cities in North America, the other being Quebec City. Campeche, an important port in the 17th and 18th centuries, was plagued by pirates. It is not a popular tourist destination which is one reason I'm visiting. I disliked Cancun rather intensely because it has obviously been over-run with tourists.

An hour's drive from Campeche is the ancient Mayan city of Edzna which looks well worth visiting and again, not frequented by many tourists.

It vaguely resembles Monte Alban, outside Oaxaca, which I visited a number of years ago, though of course an entirely different civilization. Monte Alban was the center of the Zapotec civilization in southern Mexico.

I'll leave you with another haiku:

It's true: sorrow is

Source of creativity

Joy is just joyful

Friday Miscellanea

Here's some good news: Blogger has moved the extremely annoying Google links icon from its position blocking the text off to one side where it is more easily ignored. Thanks Google, our friend and master. Let's see if we can find something interesting in this seasonal season.

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Here's something: Is the Internet Making Culture Worse? Well, obviously.

In Marx’s history of American pop culture, which places heavy emphasis on media, music, and fashion, with glancing mentions of literature, art, and dance, a theme emerges: Everyone is selling out or trying their best to. Craven commercialism has replaced creativity. Culture has become “a vehicle for entertainment, politics, and profiteering — but at the expense of pure artistic innovation.

Another way of looking at it is that creativity has been almost completely replaced by formula. The only path for anyone working in the internet is to find the formula that generates immediate appeal and hence clicks or traffic. But formulas are exactly what any creative artist avoids because they are the opposite of creativity. The ability of AI to instantly "create" plausible facsimiles of popular music styles is proof that these styles are nothing but empty formulas.

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Here's a theory for you: Anton Bruckner's symphonies are the high water of Western Civilization. While he personally doubted his own abilities, the music shows no doubt or anxiety about the worth of the musical culture. A few years later, the symphonies of Mahler are angst-ridden as the culture starts to disintegrate. Then World War I lays waste to Western Europe. Most of Mahler's symphonies were composed after 1900. In between we have the extremely revealing work Verklärte Nacht from 1899 by Arnold Schoenberg which to my mind perfectly reveals the beginning of the disintegration of the romantic phase in music. Soon after Schoenberg turned to atonality, a kind of aesthetic mirror of cultural alienation. Let's listen to this musical evolution.

I don't know if you hear what I hear, but the expansive expression of Bruckner is followed by the dark, internal doubts of the Schoenberg and then by the neurosis of the Mahler, despite its external brilliance. As Yeats said, "the centre cannot hold."

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LANDR Study Uncovers How 87% of Artists Really Use AI

LANDR, the AI-driven music tech and distribution platform used by more than 7 million creators worldwide, today shares results of its international study showing that a large percentage of musicians and producers are leveraging AI tools across almost every area of their workflow.

From songwriting and production to promotion and fan engagement, AI is shaping how music is made and shared.

And someone once said that 90% of art is bad, so I guess that tracks.

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Instead of composing (I'm in an extended dry spell) I have been writing haiku for the last few years. Let's end with one:

I'm very grateful

For my life, but I do not

Know quite whom to thank.

To all my readers I wish a happy and healthy new year with abundance and joy.

Friday Miscellanea

For our pre-Christmas and Hannukah miscellanea let's have an all-envoi extravaganza.

These were all chosen because they are all performances and works that have captivated me recently. In the case of Bach, it was not that piece, but the St. Matthew Passion by the Netherlanders, but I think I just posted it a few weeks ago, so let's have something seasonal. But I have definitely been captivated (obsessed by?) the Haydn symphonies recently. And by Celibidache's Bruckner. And by Alain Altinoglu's Shostakovich. Right now, I am convinced that the 4th Symphony could be the finest ever written. I could happily listen to nothing but it, over and over. And the Grigory Sokolov concert is as perfect as a piano recital could be. Not least because he played five pieces by Rameau as his first five encores (!) followed by some Brahms.

If this is the last gasp of a disintegrating European civilization, then at least it is a glorious one.

Friday Miscellanea

Let's start with a clip from a composer I had not previously encountered. Saad Haddad gives us some excellent advice for young composers. The sixth section, about not using music software until well into the process is one I strongly agree with.

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The New York Times gives us the Best Classical Performances of 2025 and a lengthy and worthy piece it is. In a year when I have had to forgo traveling to Europe to attend music festivals, it was a treat to read:

Shostakovich’s music was seemingly everywhere this year, 50 years after his death, in programs showcasing the dazzling stylistic breadth of his catalog. Among his fiercest champions is the conductor Andris Nelsons, who led two illuminating Shostakovich programs with the Boston Symphony at Carnegie Hall and later ignited the Gewandhaus Orchestra in Leipzig on the opening night of a Shostakovich Festival. The genial sparkle of the Festive Overture and the clean-lined lyricism of the Second Piano Concerto, with a searching Daniil Trifonov, set up a shattering account of the Fourth Symphony. Clarity, weight and ferocity converged in a performance that captured Shostakovich at his most buoyant, embattled and enigmatic.

And my favorite rogue violinist, Patricia Kopatchinskaja:

In her long-awaited New York Philharmonic debut, the maverick violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja brought the intensity of a method actor to Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto, playing with full-body commitment and sounds that included expressive scratches, whispers and wolf tones. What may live longest in the memory of the electrified audience was Kopatchinskaja’s encore, Jorge Sánchez-Chiong’s “Crin,” a 90 second anarchist tour-de-force of vocal and violinistic virtuosity.

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At some point everyone, even Rick Beato, just has to get away from pop music and play a little Handel.

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It shouldn't need to be said, but beauty in music requires dissonance. Some of the most heart-rending passages in Mozart depend on piercing dissonance--resolving, of course. Let's read what Jay Nordlinger has to say: The Beauty of Dissonance.

I often hear people say, “When I go to a concert, I like to have the music wash over me. It relaxes me, takes my cares away. It settles me down.” They speak of music almost as if it were a sedative.

Dissonance, on the other hand, is often disturbing. It prickles and piques, rather than soothes. Harmony is a crucial part of music, obviously. But disharmony, a.k.a. dissonance, is too. It has been embedded in music from the beginning.

The works of Bach are loaded with dissonance. Typically, he uses it to create tension and then gives us the resolution – the return to harmony.

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All the other stuff this week is pretty humdrum so let's leap into some envois. Taking a cue from the NYT, we really have to have a listen to the Symphony No. 4 of Shostakovich, a frequently underestimated work. Here is Andris Nelsons conducting the Boston Symphony.

 

And, of course, the Water Music by Handel.

One of my favorite Mozart dissonances, in the Andante from the F major Divertimento, K. 138.

Finally here is PatKo in a fierce battle with the Stravinsky Violin Concerto.