A Pianist and A Concept

Fiddling around YouTube the other day in search of a video of someone playing Chopin's Op. 60 Barcarolle, I ran across this pianist.



26-year-old (or so) Lola Astanova was born in Tashkent, in the former Soviet Union, and has lived in New York now for several years. In addition to having an apparently fail-safe technique and a coherent and independent musical vision, she seems remarkably composed for someone so young--thoughtful and eloquent and self-possessed. I love that a person so obviously gifted will bubble to the surface and be discovered. (I often wonder how many Buddy Riches spent their lives working as plumbers for lack of a little push early in life in just the right direction...)

But Ms. Astanova--the phenomenon of her--raises another issue: how she is marketing herself. Her YouTube videos lead one to her own YouTube channel, and she also has her own website and a blog. She has released her first album, which is available on iTunes and, for whatever price you'd like to pay, from her website.

This all reflects a very new career path for a classical musician. And, I have to think, one the outcome of which is quite unsure.

I spent some time listening to her videos and reading interviews and related material and so on. And Ms. Astanova is part of the ongoing experiment developing a model which will have a huge impact, when it's settled, on exactly what remains of the once-powerful classical music industry. The availability of so much information via the internet raises questions about niche marketing and fads-versus-quality concepts, all of it having implications quite above my pay grade. But just when I might expect classical music overall to struggle, this all makes me wonder whether the internet might in fact be a boon for classical music. Stay tuned.

A couple other YouTube discoveries of late are organist Chelsea Chen (pity about the unsynchronized video) and pianist Yujia Wang. (I stumbled upon Ms. Wang while looking for a video of Horowitz playing his Carmen Variations. A related video called Carmen from the Practice Room promised what looked like a highschool girl attempting a butchery of Horowitz--how often these things show up. Boy was I wrong.) In the past, I would have learned of these performers only if a major recording label had taken a shine to them and put some big dollars behind promotion of their talents. Time will tell if this newer method will result in viable careers for these young performers.

Introducing Matthais Weckmann

Complete Organ Works of Matthias Weckmann
Hans Davidsson, organ
North German baroque GOArt Organ, Örgryte Nya Kyrka, Gothenburg, Sweden
Loft Recordings, LRCD-1065-1067; 2004

***

It's Hans Davidsson week here at The Tone Bigot, apparently. When placing my order for the much anticipated final installment in Dr. Davidsson's excellent Buxtehude survey, I decided I'd also spring for the last remaining Davidsson issue I didn't have, the complete organ works of Matthias Weckmann.

Weckmann (1616-1674) is a slightly obscure member of the flowering of North Germanic organ music in the 17th and 18th Centuries, part of a group that includes Johann Pachelbel, Georg Böhm, Franz Tunder, Heinrich Scheidemann, Nikolaus Bruhns, Dietrich Buxtehude and others, all culminating in the person of J. S. Bach. This three disc set covers all of Weckmann's organ compositions, and is recorded on the same magnificent Schnitger-inspired organ on which Davidsson recorded his Buxtehude series. The instrument specification conforms to period practices as concerns pitch and tuning, employing quarter-comma meantone temperament; it's very much the right vehicle for this music. (The instrument and temperament are discussed in a bit more detail in this post.)

I'm not familiar with Weckmann's works. It surprised me to find only a single Weckmann track in my entire CD collection, and that from a disc of various composers. But the music is identifiably North Germanic, sounding very much like those among the group listed above with whom I am familiar. A large part of this school involved the varying treatments of chorale tunes, and much of Weckmann's output is of this sort. Several of Weckmann's compositions take the form of a chorale theme-and-variations, not unlike Bach's later chorale partitas. As a basis for composed works, these tunes would have of course been familiar to the congregation, and would have thus provided some context for listeners. Weckmann also composed some free works (that is, works not tied to an ecclesiastical function: Canzons, Toccatas, a Praeludium), and those are included here as well.

This group of innovators produced quite an enduring legacy, a flowering of musical ideas in the hundred and fifty or so years following the death of Sweelinck. But out of the context of this group Buxtehude and especially Bach appear like thunderbolts. If we steep ourselves a bit in the tonality of Weckmann, Bach appears shockingly modern, a powerfully penetrating musical mind who stands apart from his peers--despite utilizing much of their mechanisms and structures--almost as if from a different culture altogether. I certainly don't mean to imply that Weckmann's value as a composer is merely to provide a block on which his successors will stand, but there is a touch of the antique in Weckmann's style that makes his music (for us) as much an exercise in nostalgia as an exploration of living musical theory.




It's a very pleasant experience all the same, and Dr. Davidsson gives lively performances of these works, bringing the same sensibility and phrasing that infuses and inspires his Buxtehude. One has a sense of the importance of the correct temperament in these works; it's hard for me to imagine they would come off so well played on a 1964 Möller in Cleveland. Davidsson also employs the talents of the choir Schola Gothia to sing the actual hymn settings on which Weckmann bases several of his pieces. This is all excellently done, and the recording is marvelous (as we have come to expect from Loft).

The Cycle Is Now Complete

Buxtehude and the Schnitger Organ
Hans Davidsson
Loft Recordings, LRCD 1094-1096

***

Well, it took two years, but Loft Recordings has at last released the third and final volume of Hans Davidsson's complete survey of the organ works of Dietrich Buxtehude.

I was quite unbounded in my enthusiasm for the first two releases (here and here), and this three-disc set completes the series.

This release is again recorded on the magnificent GOArt organ at Göteborg University in Sweden. This instrument, which dates from 2000, was specifically constructed as a recreation of the state of the organ-building art for the late 17th Century, an instrument that would seem familiar and contemporary to Buxtehude himself. In addition to the appropriate acoustic--in terms of room size and material composition--the organ was designed and constructed with the limitations and preferences that existed at the time, including the use of quarter-comma meantone (of which a bit more is mentioned in my first review of this cycle, which happens to be of Volume Two). All of the glories and successes of the earlier releases are once again on display here, and this issue becomes a must-have if you've enjoyed the earlier releases.

The titles of the CDs give a subtle and specific focus to each release. The first release--Buxtehude and the Meantone Organ--emphasizes the revelation that awaits us to hear these compositions on a period-correct tuning scheme. This is no small task, as the employment of quarter-comma meantone requires a dedicated keyboard and pipe layout--indeed it fundamentally alters the entire instrument mechanically. But it's a sacrifice that yields an ample payoff, as this series readily demonstrates.

The second release--The Bach Connection--emphasizes the connection between the elder Buxtehude and the young Bach; the pieces give us a glimpse of what spurred Bach to make his famous trek to Lübeck in 1705/6. Buxtehude was the organ superstar of his day, and one can only imagine what Bach's fertile genius must have experienced in Buxtehude's presence (indeed, Bach was granted a two-week leave for the trek, but in the event was AWOL for four months. He returned to Arnstadt to find himself in very hot water indeed).

Now this third and final release shines light on the organ building genius of the time (and arguably one of the great geniuses of all time in this field), the German Arp Schnitger (1648-1719). Organ building reached a universally-acknowledged zenith under Schnitger (a convergence of music and instrument occurred at this time analogous to what was found in Paris two centuries later under Arisitide Cavaillé-Coll), and many of the principles he applied and perfected are still in use today. This GOArt organ is designed less as a direct copy of any specific Schnitger organ than as a faithful demonstration of the validity of his ideas in all facets.

I'm not quite knowledgeable enough about the pieces to know if the actual compositions were chosen for the theme of each CD release, or whether the CD titles are just intended to focus our attention on a different aspect of this convergence of talents and circumstances. But that magical convergence--of advanced and sophisticated musical language, brilliant composer and visionary organ builder--represented a rare nexus in musical history.

Here are three superb CD releases testifying to the fact.