Closed Books and Blind Spots

​Prompted by Europadisc’s weekly Spin Doctor Column (5 August), I too have some confessions to make regarding ‘closed books’. The Spin Doctor has suddenly revealed a more personal (despite anonymity) level of insight (or, in this case, lack of insight) by revealing an inability to respond to most of the music of Shostakovich whose death fifty years ago this week has prompted wide anniversary attention.

While I don’t share Spin Doctor’s problems with Shostakovich, it did take me a while to fully appreciate those epic slow movements and other characteristics of his music. It was during a previous Shostakovich anniversary (his 100th birthday in 2006) that I started listening to more of his music than the very few works I had on disc or which I had encountered in the concert hall. Sometimes, doing routine activities can help focus the mind more than purposefully listening. For me such tasks include cooking and, during that year, the creation of evening meals became synonymous with a growing appreciation of Shostakovich – that episode in the Seventh Symphony’s first movement when the increasingly frenetic bombast gives way to calm before a glowingly beautiful C major string chord – the gradual awareness of the concise structural sense of the Fourth’s heavenly length – the deeper beauties of the somewhat idiosyncratic Piano Quintet – all these and much more began to gel and lead to a more immediate understanding as I explored this repertoire further.

Spin Doctor mentions Shostakovich’s “under-nourished textures” and “the lack of richness and complexity that makes much other Russian music so compelling” and, yes, the apparent homophonic simplicity when one looks at almost any page of the printed scores, is something I’ve frequently observed. But those transparent textures belie the cosmic, often whispered, sonorities and heart-stirring harmonic shifts that shape the underlying emotional impact of this music; listen to the transition between the third and fourth movements of Symphony No. 13 (say, a few minutes either side) as just one example of the sonic and harmonic potency that I listened to today.

For me, far more of a closed book was the music of George Frideric Handel. My years-old CBS LP of Handel’s Greatest Hits (Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, The Harmonious Blacksmith, an extract or two from the Fireworks and Water Music Suites, etc.) seemed, alongside Charles Mackerrass’s Messiah recording, all the Handel that one could possibly need or want. Listening to highlights from Julius Caesar (Joan Sutherland) and, later, a local concert performance, sailed completely over my head, as did much else by the composer that emerged from radio or choral society outings, until . . .

. . . always being one to try again when others clearly reap greater rewards than I seem able to achieve, I bought a well-reviewed DVD video of Giulio Cesare in 2006, which then remained unwatched for three years until the hype around the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death prompted me to give it a go. That David McVicar production from Glyndebourne proved possibly the greatest Damascus moment in my entire journey of musical discovery. Others (Mahler, Wagner, Rossini and others – even Tchaikovsky, as a teenager from a non-musical background) remain memorable breakthroughs, but none came with the blinding flash of Handel’s Giulio Cesare. Soon my CD shelves were sagging under the weight of every Handel opera and oratorio that I could lay my hands on, and that anniversary year made access easy, with so many bargain boxes and re-releases in stunning performances. That discovery also brought a huge appreciation of period instruments and styles so that now such repertoire on modern instruments is all but unlistenable.

But a few closed books remain. Maybe it’s just that Delius doesn’t travel well beyond the shores of the British Isles. Elgar, Vaughan Williams, Britten, Walton – all fine; but Delius? Really? Maybe there’s something in the Pommy psyche that links Delius’ music with their homeland but, for a fifth-generation Kiwi, it’s all Greek to me.

Both Delius and Stravinsky had a block when it came to Beethoven. According to Ken Russell’s biopic A Song of Summer, Delius referred to Beethoven as “all scales and arpeggios, not worth a single bar of genuinely heartfelt expression”. However, that attitude changed as Delius came to appreciate the older composer’s genius.
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Stravinsky certainly enjoyed ‘Beethoven-bashing’ in his earlier years, but Beethoven’s late quartets became the focus of his intense admiration in his final years. As Robert Craft writes in 1967 (Stravinsky: The Chronicle of a Friendship) “Beethoven has occupied his mind more than any other composer in recent years – the Beethoven, above all, of the late sonatas and quartets.”

And there, for me is another mental block. Those late Beethoven string quartets fail to speak to me as the late piano sonatas do, every one of which is among my most memorable musical experiences.

And, while I love much music by J.S. Bach – the Matthäuspassion, certain cantatas and concertos, the Goldberg Variations and more – and find it fully relatable, for much else I share Stephen Hough’s response (Rough Ideas) when he says, “I don’t get Bach, even while I understand his towering Genius . . . but I do get Mompou.” I can identify totally with what he’s saying. If Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, particularly the central Largo, can grip me so completely, why can’t I appreciate the greatness of the English Suites? If Schlummert ein from the Cantata Ich Habe Genung moves me, especially in Lorraine Hunt Lieberson’s performance-in-a-million, as one of the great achievements of musical genius, why is the Mass in B Minor so impenetrable?

In a radio introduction to a Met Opera broadcast some years ago, that great American musical commentator, Father Owen Lee, said that “we can only appreciate what we have within ourselves to respond to” – or words to that effect. So, while I can often grasp the intellectual aspect of a work of musical art, it’s the emotional, spiritual, psychological, subliminal and soul-stirring aspect that sometimes eludes me. What am I lacking? Is it the same phenomenon as some people being able to appreciate Smashing Pumpkins or Nirvana or Radiohead or . . . whatever, and others not? Is it the same, say, as some people being able to appreciate jazz (or classical music for that matter) and others not?

Schubert is one of my great loves – the late piano sonatas, so many songs, string quartets, piano trios, the String Quintet, and all the symphonies . . . except the most famous and often heard – the so-called Unfinished. I’ve decided that, despite its good tunes and attractive orchestral textures, it’s quite obvious why Schubert cast it aside. As symphonic structures, the two existing movements just don’t work. They sound contrived and effortful with not enough invention to carry the listener through their inordinate length. Schubert clearly realised this, but it was certainly a worthwhile exercise in preparation for the symphony that followed, because the Great C Major is surely one of the greatest and most sublime works ever created.
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Oh well, maybe I’ll give Op. 131 another go . . .

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