Quite unusual concert from Wigmore Hall. Great program of Shostakovich and Mendelssohn, but played from memory!
THE MUSIC SALON: classical music, popular culture, philosophy and anything else that catches my fancy...
THE MUSIC SALON: classical music, popular culture, philosophy and anything else that catches my fancy...
I wonder how memorising ensemble music differs from memorising solo music. I would think it would be harder.
ReplyDeleteI love Mendelssohn's 2nd quartet. For me, his were the last great string quartets until the 20th century.
That is a really interesting question. The only ensemble music I have ever memorized were Schubert songs and guitar concertos--the solo part. I have never tried to memorize ensemble parts. The tricky part might be those sections that are merely accompaniment where it might be difficult to keep track of how many measures of very similar material you play. But you would, of course, be listening to the solo part to keep your place. I suspect the real reason ensemble music is rarely memorized is that it takes more time. Orchestras certainly don't have the time, as they are preparing a new program every week. Chamber groups might have the time. I notice a lot of guitar duos and ensembles lately have clips on YouTube where they play from memory.
ReplyDeleteYes I can see how accompaniment parts could be done. But take singing in a chorus for a oratorio, say, which is something I have done; I can't imagine how anyone could possibly memorise their part, even with many hours of practice. Too interconnected -- you'd end up trying to memorise much of the score, surely.
ReplyDeleteAh, I found an article in The Strad where Vision Quartet talk about it: https://www.thestrad.com/playing-hub/performing-from-memory-has-given-our-string-quartet-new-life/4295.article
It's interesting, particularly:
'As it turns out, performing a string quartet from memory is a completely different animal from performing a concerto or even a sonata from memory. We have found that in addition to the forms of memory we all use for our solo rep (visual, auditory, tactile, associative), there is a mysterious other form of memory I call ‘group memory’ for lack of a better term. Group memory is a kind of shared memory of the music, of the feel of playing with one another, and the kinds of liberties and unwritten between-the-lines interpretive things that happen in a performance of a quartet. Unlike the other forms of memorising, group memory cannot be skimped, and everyone must have it absolutely solid for a performance to be a success.'
Really interesting!! When the string quartet was in its younger years, it was always a rather spontaneous get-together kind of thing from observer's reports. I wonder if now, some of the impetus towards performance from memory might be related to the standard with popular groups. If you grew up watching clips of the Beatles performing together from memory it might seem something perfectly normal for a string quartet to do. And I'll bet the kind of memory they are talking about, the holistic shared memory, is a lot like what happens with a popular group.
ReplyDeleteYes I can see that. Growing up playing in rock bands and coming to classical as an adult, consorts and string quartets and other similar chamber groups instinctively appeal to me more than larger ensembles and orchestras. When a few years ago I took a musically-inclined but wholly non-classical friend to a classical concert, I chose a concert of L'Arpeggiata playing English songs (Dowland et al.) for this reason. They alternated between playing from scores and memory; and they often improvised, sometimes in between pieces and sometimes within. It had an uncommon kind of vitality for such a recital, and immediately appealed to him, and indeed to me. Even the wildest orchestral piece doesn't give that same feeling. Though saying that, seeing and hearing Aurora Orchestra play Beethoven 5 from memory on the city streets of Norwich did also have an extraordinary effect on me, just when I was discovering classical music.
ReplyDeleteThere is also something to be said for taking one's head out of the score. This is evident when choral singers or orchestral players decide, rather too occasionally, to pay attention to the conductor, and to eachother, and the performance then changes.
It would be an interesting challenge for modern composers to write music that would suit memorised ensemble performance.
(I don't know why that got posted as Anonymous -- for avoidance of doubt, it was me...)
ReplyDeleteMaybe you didn't recall who you were when you wrote that comment! 8>)
ReplyDeleteDid you see the post I put up with the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra playing Schoenberg's Verklärte Nacht from memory? Just amazing...
Hm, somehow missed that one. Just found it now. Yes, wow! Watching, I think it changes the way I hear the music, or respond to the music. (I'm now wondering whether in a blind test, audio only, one would at all be able to tell if a piece is performed by memory or score...)
ReplyDeleteGood question. That performance sure made an impact on how I hear the piece. But how much of that came from the visual clues? The way the lighting was handled, for example? Might be an interesting experiment to organize.
ReplyDelete