Schwertsik & Mäntyjärvi at South Bank Centre, 15 May 2003

Alban Berg Quartet/Per Arne Giovigen (bandoneon)
Schwertsik Adieu Satie

Exmoor Singers/James Jarvis
Sounds II: voices of our time:
Mäntyjärvi Four Shakespeare Songs
Swayne Magnificat
Colin Matthews A Rose at Christmas

Kurt Schwertsik's Adieu Satie followed the Alban Berg Quartet's reliable account of Mozart's K.428, which they must have played so many times in their thirty years that it is unreasonable to expect fresh insights in such standard works of the 'canon'. Adieu Satie was an interesting novelty, but not one to disturb the loyal chamber music audience, as Schwertsik (b. 1935) is a representative of the Austrian new simplicity movement, which repudiated the Schoenberg to Boulez line of development to total serialism. Schwertsik's music is always well crafted (perhaps Jean Francaix, of an earlier generation, indicates the flavour to expect) and I have often enjoyed it. Satie provided a model for his anti-modernistic penchant, the composer's programme note taking the form of a little poem:-

Adieu Satie (2002)
for string quartet and bandoneon

You monastic clown,
who wished to banish the bourgeois from art
and disturb the hushed solemn whisperings of lofty art-lovers
with music hall, cabaret and the circus.

You Dadaist,
who refused to distinguish high from low art
good taste from bad
simple from incomprehensible ideas.

You patron saint,
of a modern ideal, which is my homeland where I always wished to be: Utopia.

You navigator of time,
salvage the soul of modernity destroyed by Fascism
in your own chariot vanishing into eternity.

Adieu Satie
(Text by Kurt Schwertsik. Translated by Richard Stokes @ 2003)

Cast in several movements, Adieu Satie demonstrates how well the bandoneon goes with string quartet, providing a unique timbre which blends and contrasts in quintet. I have been similarly impressed with how the accordion, the more familiar example of the portable bellow-driven free metallic reed instruments does so too (q.v. Matthias Pintscher's Figura Zyklus at Strasbourg) and I believe there are opportunities for enterprising contemporary composers to explore this potential in a variety of musical idioms. For readers who are intrigued by the bandoneon as I have been, Christian Mensing's page is a fascinating source of information about this arcane world.

How about the SPNM/BMIC initiating a project for bandoneon, accordion (or even the humble harmonica) with string quartet?

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In the adjacent Purcell Room I enjoyed the second half of a concert of new music given by the Exmoor Singers, one of the UK's more enterprising amateur choirs, with a record of success at international choral competitions - another flourishing department of musical life but a remote one to most regular supporters of symphony orchestras and chamber music.

I could not resist an opportunity to hear the Shakespeare Songs by Jaakko Mäntyjärvi, a remarkable musician and polymath whom I had met at the 48th Cork International Festival last year. His versions of Come away, death; You spotted snakes; Double, double toil and trouble and Full fathom five of 1982 taxed the Finnish student choir for which they were composed, but were relished by the Exmoors and should be given regularly in UK. The witches' potion from MacBeth is a real tour de force.

The Shakespeare Songs are 'varied and demanding, although the music never strays very far from traditional tonal harmony' (JM). In an excerpt from his Cork lecture reprinted below, Mäntyjärvi warns about the pitfalls of expecting too much from non-professional singers, and with his inside knowledge he strikes a perfect balance in these Shakespeare settings, which were the highlight of the items I heard. (I suspect Mäntyjärvi would not be unsympathetic to Schwertsik's aesthetic.)

Philip Moore's Three Prayers were too bland for my taste, and the harmonies of A rose at Christmas by Colin Matthews proved a challenge just too far for the Exmoors, but Giles Swayne (pict) was repaid with proper virtuosity and enthusiasm for the well calculated demands of his Magnificat*, which was - magnificent!

Excerpt from Cork Festival report in S&H:
- - Two exemplary seminars during our first full day affected my listening to the choirs in competition and concert. These were two of the best educational sessions intended for a public audience that I have been to for several years, informative and thought provoking. Jaakko Mäntyjärvi from Finland, an experienced choral conductor and composer with a wide knowledge of contemporary composing idioms, raised for intending composers of choral music some 'taboo' issues and inherent paradoxes, his wisdom tempered by dry wit, viz.

'The best is that choral singers are mostly amateur", bringing a better attitude and extra enthusiasm to music making; a 'grape-vine' effect disseminates good new repertoire widely, and composers can find themselves surprised to receive royalties for performances of which they had been unaware in far away countries.

'The worst is that choral singers are mostly amateur", with extremely variable technical levels of accomplishment and capability.

- - There are very few fully professional choirs in the world, so tailoring music for specific choirs can lead to the common experience of 'farewell premieres'. Not many composers are comfortable with writing for choirs and personal co-operation is highly recommendable for commissions to succeed. Performance targets should be slightly higher than current levels - 'feasible, not unreachable'. There is 'a fine line between challenge and frustration'.

In the technical part of his talk, Mr Mäntyjärvi discussed questions of register, notation and presentation, which are not to be found readily in composing textbooks. But for the outsider, it was Mäntyjärvi's frank and open discussion of ethical and philosophical considerations which coloured one's listening to all the choirs at Cork and, a few days afterwards, those competing in the fledgling competition at Rhodes.

- - Choral music is held low in public estimation and there is often a contextual subtext, such as church or a political movement, which informs how it is listened to and has to be taken into account. This 'assumed ideological base' affects its image; e.g. he quoted a German composer who in the '70s had said that 'it would be professional suicide to compose for a children's choir'! Drawing on the Finnish composer Kalevi Aho's Values and the Composer, Mäntyjärvi emphasised the primacy of 'style and technique' for 'modernist' composers. Often avoided in discussion are matters of 'meaningful content', pertinent 'social/political values', 'occasional music' for specific events and 'entertainment music'. Important to Aho, and to Mäntyjärvi, is a sense of history - 'to deny everything old is to deny history'. A social dimension may be paramount; questions of 'emotionally meaningful content' - why do people listen, for 'solace, strength, drama', or for 'tranquillity and sacrality (the mythical, mysterious and holy)'?

Those thoughts helped me towards a more benign understanding that most of the pieces offered in both competitions have strong tonal roots. They led Mäntyjärvi on to discussing the ideal v. the practical; 'integrity' v. compromise - adaptability as part of professional competence, writing different music to develop 'plurality and flexibility' - 'strategies for dismantling the ivory tower'. The choral conductor has to exercise good control but this depends upon maintenance of motivation - the composer of a newly commissioned work needs to be able to answer the singers' implied question 'why are we doing this piece'?. Music should be a shared goal, 'not a common enemy'!

(The slides that Mr Mäntyjärvi's projected for his lecture are copied in full as an Appendix to this report. His website is well worth exploring!)

Peter Grahame Woolf

*Giles Swayne's Magnificat is included in a new CD Mother & Child to be released 6 June (Signum Two SIGCD 501). "Tenebrae performs by candlelight, creating an atmosphere of 'spiritual and musical contemplation"; though this is not for me, people who respond to this sort of thing (and there are more of them than of those like me) can be assured that the programme is extremely well put across and sumptuously recorded at the City of London's Temple Church.

I find it hard to become involved in the ever-prolific Tavener's Mother and Child, the title track of the whole. Swayne's Magnificat is probably the most innovative item in the programme, which is firmly based upon conventional tonality. Paradoxically such caution is not necessary for a fully professional choir (q.v. Mäntyjärvi's essay above). Apart from the Swayne & Tavener, I enjoyed best Francis Pott's My song is love unknown, a substantial work with organ (Jeremy Filsell) and soprano solo (Carys Lane). Presentation is immaculate, with complete texts.