Music especially commissioned to mark the Coronation of King Charles III has been made available for choirs. The new anthem entitled The Mountains Shall Bring Peace written by Joanna Forbes L’Estrange was commissioned by the Royal School of Church Music and forms part of their singing project Sing for the King.
Joanna – a former Swingles singer and musical director – boasts a considerable archive of music written for choir. Tenebrae’s recent Christmas release Winter’s House on Signum Classics featured the unostentatious Advent O Carol by Forbes L’Estrange on an album packed full of carols written many of the UK’s most popular new music composers.
It’s a magnificent anthem brimming with varied musical ideas and, come the main reflective theme, Joanna’s musical theatre passions are discernible in the pop-infused melancholic harmonies.
When Joanna and I meet to discuss the project I put it to her that such writing, creating something new, melodic, and celebratory isn’t necessarily the straightforward process one might assume it is.
“I think there’s such a skill in writing a good tune. When I wrote this coronation anthem, the main crux of the brief was ‘write a good tune, please.’ She continues, “And my goodness, it’s harder than you think. You know, I was I found myself analyzing all the really good hymn tunes and thinking, what is it that makes everyone loves singing this, you know, Bread of Heaven? Everyone loves that, you know, irrespective of whether their regular church goes on or not.”
And therein lies the ultimate challenge. How to know when you hit upon something that encompasses the mood and is something choirs will want to sing?
“You know, it’s easy to think that if you’re writing for amateur choirs, or for singers who wouldn’t really count themselves as singers, that you need to have a nice stepwise motion and keep it all within a certain range,” Joanna explains. “Avoiding creating anything too extreme. But in my experience, I think people love a good octave leap, or a good seven leap. If it’s in the right context, it’s exciting, It’s going to feel exciting.”
There is an infectious enthusiasm to the way Joanna describes her compositional process. It is something she clearly loves doing. And like any good author who talks animatedly about the book they’ve written such as I end up wanting to read it, there’s a sense that Joanna pulls off a similar trick in her writing. Who wouldn’t want to sing this stuff if the composer herself talks so animatedly about it?
News of RCSM’s commission came as a mix of surprise and bewilderment. “So I asked them, ‘Why have you asked me?'” Unbeknownst to Joanna it turned out that her compositions topped the most popular in the RCSM catalogue – her Magnificat, Precis and Responses (driven partly by conductor, composer and organist Anna Lapwood), and most recently her Carol of the Crib, setting words by Timothy Dudley-Smith to music for Christmas.
Is responding to a commission for amateur choirs like this a bit of a gamble, that the music you finish up with isn’t responded to as positively as she hoped? “There’s always an element of risk. To be honest, I’m always relieved if people say, ‘We love it!’ I always end up thinking ‘Oh, thank God, because you never really know.’
The RSCM is inviting choirs around the UK, the Commonwealth and beyond to join in song to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III by learning and singing Joanna’s anthem.
The project has been endorsed by the Church of England and is included in their information pack for church communities celebrating the Coronation.
To date, some150 choirs have registered to take part (a minimum of 2600 singers so far), including the Long Covid Choir and the choir of Winchester Cathedral. As the date of the Coronation approaches, the RSCM expects these numbers to increase significantly as more choirs sign up to the project. The piece will be performed in church services, Coronation concerts and Come and Sing events around the UK in the coming weeks.
The Mountains Shall Bring Peace is available from the RSCM’s webshop (www.rscmshop.com) at £24.95 (RSCM members £19.95) for the downloadable music pack (this includes ALL versions, and is licensed to the purchasing choir/institution so can be shared with all choir members) and £2.95 for printed copies (£2.21 for RSCM Members).
Benjamin Grosvenor’s new album out on Decca sees the pianist captivate listeners with music by Robert and Clara Schumann and Brahms. This eighth album release adds to a self-assured archive of expressive and virtuosic musical statements, some large-scale and others, like this one, more intimate but equally descriptive.
Robert Schumann’s Kreisleriana is a taut piece of musical storytelling. Inspired by ETA Hoffmann’s series of stories about a fictional musician, Schumann’s set of highly descriptive movements covers a lot of ground in a surprisingly short space of time, painting a picture of a passionate, volatile, and playful individual. There are similar contrasts of mood in his Schumann’s Blumenstuck that follows, making the first forty minutes alone a gripping listen.
Benjamin Grosvenor: Schumann & Brahms
When Grosvenor and I speak on a Zoom call, I ask him about how the album has been put together. Clearly, I come with assumptions about how the recording industry works, assumption number one being that what we listen to on any album release is the result of some kind of compromise.
“It started with Kreisleriana,” he explains. “I’d been playing it in recitals quite a lot. It’s emotional landscape is quite turbulent. It doesn’t stay in one place for too long. It has kind of everything in it. It’s explosive at times, intimate other times. From there I wanted something that was even more heavily concentrated in its own atmosphere to go alongside.”
‘Abendlied’ from Klavierstücke fur kleine und grosse Kinder (an arrangement by Grosvenor himself) in particular is evidence of this, contrasting opening work with material that exudes an endearing sense of vulnerability.
It’s clear from our conversation that programming with emotional range in mind is vital for Grosvenor. We talk a little about how this compares to the approach he takes programming a concert. There aren’t too many differences other than having to accommodate an interval and the sometime whims or needs of a venue’s artistic director. Still, the overriding sense hearing Grosvenor talk is what we see on an album or on stage is very much driven by him. I feel reassured by that. At the same time, I’m left with how the industry doesn’t communicate this to the prospective audience: ticket buyers or listeners aren’t just buying ‘works’, they’re buying a piece of theatre manifest in the programming choices by the artist.
I first met Grosvenor at a BBC Proms launch twelve years ago. The outdoor press event saw various luminaries in attendance, of which the pianist took centre stage because of his First Night appearance. He was 18 at the time. On the opening day of the season, me and a BBC colleague recorded a behind-the-scenes ‘piece-to-camera’ serendipitously ending up on stage just as Grosvenor was rehearsing ahead of his live broadcast. Are those kind of moments nerve-wracking? Are they still?
“At first they were,” he replies. “You feel a bit exposed. The audience is there on all sides. There is something psychologically unsettling about that I think. But I feel quite comfortable there now. I’ve played there a few times now and that’s the nice thing about returning to a concert venue – the place where you’ve developed this competence on stage. Is it still nerve-wracking? It depends very much on the circumstances. But I’d say that generally speaking, much less so now than when I was a teenager.”
This for me highlights one of the negative aspects of the BBC Young Musician competition (though it says more about me than the competition I suspect). For those who have shone as a result of it, the tagline is difficult to shake. The competition projects young performers as near-adults because of their talent. When those performers become the kind of adults us middle-aged armchair musicians can relate to, the transition they’ve made seems all the more remarkable. They remain in our mind’s eye the youngsters they were when they came to our attention. Grosvenor was 11 when he won.
So, because I’m a sap for an easy question I ask him about the musical memory he recalls where he went beyond getting the notes correct to seeing an opportunity for musical expression.
He doesn’t pause to think. “I can recall that moment, actually. It was a Chopin Waltz in A Flat. I think my mother gave it to me to challenge me, to see what I could do with it. I remember I instantly connected with it. I realised this is something special. I was maybe seven years old at the time. Until that point, I’d only been playing tutor book stuff, you know, like, Stegosaurus Stomp and that kind of thing. Don’t get me wrong. Stegosaurus Stomp was great.”
Put a gun to my head and insist what it is I respond to most in Grosvenor’s playing – what makes him distinctive – is the smoothiness of his playing. The music equivalent of a silky caramel sauce complete with the occasional always-well-thought-out-and-never-over-the-top tinkering with the speed. What I can’t quite recall is whether I heard that before his Proms First Night appearance or during the season before. Regardless, it’s still evident on this album, especially in Clara Schumann’s variations based on a theme by Robert. Like Kreisleriana, the music covers a lot of ground very quickly. But in addition to the emotional range demanded of the score, Variation 4 displays that trademark Grosvenor glossy technique.
But what I come to appreciate the most about this latest Grosvenor release is the way the pianist shifts from so many different moods, conjuring up a range of colours and different characters. In this way he responds to the demands of the music fearlessly making this an album I’ve wanted to listen to repeatedly to fully appreciate Grosvenor’s ever-developing craft.
Southbank Music Director Gillian Moore CBE chairs a discussion with ‘Poverty Safari’ author Darren McGarvey on the opening afternoon of the Association of British Orchestras 2022 (9-11 February) conference on her home turf of Glasgow.
If you haven’t attended then I’ll get in early here and sway your opinion with a partisan view: the ABO Conference is a bit of a special thing. It’s where I reconnected with some kindred spirits, the event where I secured the first coaching work I didn’t actively pursue, and where I received my podcast commission too. All on the same day. Boom.
And, like all good conferences, it’s where I’ve experienced a shift in my thinking. This largely down to the sense of occasion implicit in a conference. Travelling to a different location brings about an enlivening of the senses. We’re more ready for new ideas. Hungry, perhaps.
Sadly, by virtue of managing the unexpected benefits of a coaching and consultancy service delivered largely remotely, attending the conference was difficult and foolhardy. I would have spent money to travel and stay in Glasgow only to conduct my unmovable work via Zoom.
But in anticipation of the first day of the conference I did get a chance to speak to Gillian Moore about the session she was leading.
During our half hour conversation earlier today I deliberately asked her about her musical upbringing. In responding she conveyed passion, confidence, and resolute determination about her position on class and classical music. The story she tells about her amateur musician father turning pro with the RSNO chorus provided me with a framework for her own aspirations for the next generation of music lovers.
She will, I fear, be disappointed that I haven’t reduced the content of the podcast down more than I have. I did sort of promise I’d break it up a bit more when we parted company earlier today. The reality is that I wanted her words in their entirety to be heard in full. It is these words that help shape my future thinking around the kind of work I do in the arts in the years to come.
Persuasive as she is, you probably won’t be surprised that I’ve already bought and started reading the book she’s exploring in the ABO session she’s chairing. That’s what a good conference (and a good leader) does: they bring you back to first principles.
I’m fairly certain though can’t absolutely be sure that Armenian American composer Alexey Shor won’t mind being described as being enigmatic in interviews. He quite tone, almost meek demeanour is endearing and also fascinating. He rarely gives much away in his responses to questions. From a journalistic point of view that is both infuriating and utterly absorbing.
Alexey and I meet in the Jumeirah Zabeel on the Palm Island in Dubai. He’s one of a range of artists participating in the International Music Festival in Dubai who’s staying in the larger than life hotel where the foyer is as big as any generous UK petrol station and accompanying Waitrose franchise.
Grandeur to be observed rather than indulged in
Walking to my interview with Alexey there’s a shopping mall feel to the interior of the hotel, only these retail opportunities demand burley masked men are positioned strategically along the route to the first floor restaurant. This isn’t only grandeur on a scale I’ve not experienced before but high-value grandeur, with a theatrical feel to it. Something to be observed rather than indulged in.
The journey triggers a similar feeling as standing at the bottom of the Bhurj Khalifa in Downtown Dubai. The tallest building in the world dominates the Dubai skyline staggering 832m, over eight times bigger than London’s Queen Elizabeth Tower. Little wonder Dubai’s epic scale leaves me feeling small, insignificant and inconsequential.
Composer Alexey Shor has a similar effect on me in interview. When you talk to a lot of people in interview – short intense bursts where information is exchanged with a certain predictable energy – anything that is different from the ‘norm’ presents challenges. Interviews are performances – for the interviewer and the interviewee. Both parties are exposing themselves. That’s long before the interview gets to be shared with anyone else.
And this interview has a real life audience too: Alexey’s personal assistant and his wife. I sit down at the big table around which we’re all sat as the door closes slowly behind me.
Questions questions questions
So, I start. “Tell me who you are and what you do and why you do what you do.”
Alexey responds. “I write classical music because I love writing classical music.”
Not the greatest of starts, but I press on regardless. “What do you especially love about writing classical music?”
“Pretty much everything except the final stages when the final edits need to be done. I love coming up with new melodies and developing the new melodies. Skipping the editing process and I love hearing it performed.
“I write melodies fairly easily. The musical ideas come to me without any effort. If I feel inspired very quickly. When something is finished I find myself in a difficult situation where I love the music I have written and I have to edit it. That’s when I have to be objective and look at it from a distance and imagine myself as an audience member who is not in love with.
What Alexey goes on to say about the torturous edit process is where we connect. I didn’t think that at the time, I have to admit. At the time I recall feeling like I was struggling to build rapport. But in the carefully constructed responses – considered – we connect. The challenge he experiences with his edit process, is similar to the edit process I experience. Shedding that which you have already miraculously conjured up is a difficult process. Saying farewell to your baby is difficult.
Pleasant vs. interesting
Next question. About the Clarinet Concerto he wrote, premiered by Shirley Brill pre-pandemic. Performed here in the International Music Festival in Dubai by Andreas Ottensamer. A fun piece, perhaps even the most well-conceived of his catalogue. I’m interested in exploring the influences I think I’ve heard (Mozart and Gershwin), plus what the differences were in the creation process – perhaps even the time taken.
And perhaps on reflection the question ‘Do you enjoy interviews?’ (above) is a little needy, though the response is fascinating. “I wouldn’t go as far as saying they’re pleasant, but maybe I find interviews interesting.” This is where in the interview I feel as though I’ve lost him a bit, or when I feel a little on edge. There is potential here that my work might potentially be seen as ‘interesting’, or that our exchange might be worthy of analysis. I had better up my game.
Either that or something has gone a little awry, which is why I ask the follow-up question, based on a bit of an in-the-moment hunch. ‘How are you with receiving compliements?’ Was that going a little too far? The reasoning is sound: I’m trying to access motivation and joy and passion. I am in a sense being really quite nosey. I’m in search of a bit of fire, as though the evidence of fire is the proof I need of creativity.
Let the music speak for itself
Where Alexey and I differ significantly is on the subject of backstory and context.
Its not an unorthodox view by any means. There are plenty of people I know back in the UK who would agree with Shor. They often mislabel the backstory and context as proof that music world demands prior knowledge before appreciation of its oh-so-precious art can be understood. They are the people who say “The music should speak for itself.” But for me and a significant number of others I know, the context and story creates a mystique around the performer or the work, not necessarily elevating either, but giving it a three-dimensional quality. Perhaps even giving it a sense of place or time, giving it life. I don’t need that as an audience member, but I appreciate it. And when its not evident I’m surprised by how much more I need it.
Maybe music is just a process
It’s unusual for me to conclude any kind of interview with a write-up like this. Part of the reason for exploring a selection of statements in the way that I have here is to remind myself of the person I met (for a second time), to observe things which perhaps went overlooked during the 25 minutes we had together.
And what emerges for me concluding this post isn’t so much what Alexey Shor says, but also what he doesn’t say. Those answers which leave me asking myself more questions, questions that highlight the assumptions and motivations I have in my questioning.
What Alexey’s responses and my subsequent mild frustrations reveal, is the age old tension between audience member and artist. Those of us who listen, look on the compositional and performance process with wonder and confusion. There is a grey area between what we hear and what we perceive went on ‘behind the scenes’. We look to both composer and performer to fill in the blanks for us. And in search of that we ask questions with an agenda in mind.
We tell ourselves a story about how a creative thinks and executes. Some of those imaginings are sentimental. But when an individual cuts through that and describes the process as it is for them – a transaction – then we might be left wanting. That I’m left wanting says far more about me than it does about Alexey Shor who, just like any Thoroughly Good Interviewee, has provided thought-provoking answers. Maybe part of classical music’s problem is that people like me expect to much of it and the people who create it.
InClassica International Music Festival is produced by the European Foudation for Support of Culture and SAMIT.
How a former mathematician’s curiosity shines a new light on the process of composing
“Music was always around me. But, as far as playing music was concerned, it was never on the cards. As a kid I was a maths prodigy. It was always assumed I would grow up a scientist, or a mathematician, or at worst a physicist.
Composer Alexey Shor speaks matter of factly about his transition from ‘prodigy mathematician’ to composer when we meet during the Malta International Music Festival.
“I started writing music very late in life and mostly for my own entertainment. And then by pure accident it got noticed by David Aaron Carpenter and he started playing it in all of his concerts and it went from there.”
He speaks softly, with a mildly percussive edge. There’s a simplicity to his tone. Dark eyes and a half smile give him a childlike look – someone curious about a new world.
He leans in to speak into the microphone. I do the same.
His ability to learn a new discipline quickly set him on a new career path six years ago.
“I always loved music. I’m a concert junkie. I probably go to two concerts a week when I’m in New York. At some point I was curious just to see how it is that music is written down.
“You go to a concert and its like an ocean of sound. I was just curious what those dots on the paper mean. So, I read a book about music theory. Then I thought, let me see whether I can remember what I read in that book. So, I wrote variations on a theme of Happy Birthday. It was so new and so entertaining to me that I could actually create music that I kept doing it without any ambition to be professional.”
Since then the American-Maltese composer has had his music recorded by various orchestras and now features on releases on Warner Classics with viola player David Carpenter.
Shor epitomises the on-demand information age we now live in: curiosity-driven learning that highlights the rarefied regard in which we hold the creation of art. There’s usually an answer to be found on the internet for any challenge we might be posing. A shortcut perhaps.
Using a book to crack the musical code seems in comparison like a retro-approach to feeding that curiosity. But there are plenty of other composers who have spent years studying and practising their craft, following conventional learning paths who, for one reason or another, give up on their craft. Has Alexey Shor found a different way of learning the creative process?
Possibly. What he also illustrates is a scientific perspective on the process of composing.
“What really surprised me is how coherent music theory is. It’s not created by scientists. It’s not created by people who since the age of five are being yelled at for every single logical mistake. There’s a body of good music written by some people, and then other people try to formalise it and turn it into a bunch of rules. That sort of endeavour by itself seems doomed to failure.
“You have a large body of work – take Shakespearean poetry. Then you tell someone who is nowhere near Shakespearean talent – take that poetry and work out how to write in that style. Probably nothing good is going to come out. But music theory is a good product. These people who were not Bach, they did formulate rules. You follow those rules and music comes out. It may be good music or bad music, but it is tonal music. I think it’s amazing that music theory exists.”
This different perspective challenges my own path to understanding and appreciating music and music history. Is there, it now dawns on me clawing for a well-worn British phrase in my head, more than one way to skin a cat.
“People who wrote the best music ever – like Bach – he was not aware of these rules. We don’t know what was in his head. Somehow people distilled his work down into a bunch of rules. Usually when that happens you end up with something like ‘Here is the rule but there are hundreds of exceptions, and even if you follow it nothing good will come out.’ But music theory does work. Chord progressions sound like they go somewhere. You can hear proper counterpoint versus wrong counterpoint. I was just amused and amazed that such a thing exists.”
“Do you consider yourself a rebel?” I ask Alexey.
“No.”
Challenging definitions
Unlike other living composers, describing Shor’s music is by comparison unusually demanding. Comparisons often used to help prepare newcomers to a musical genre – a way of preparing the ear for something unusual to come. Music is either judged by its popularity or artistic merit, with popularity held in less regard. In an increasingly fractured on-demand world, labels have become a necessity. That labelling is problematic because of the conventional history of music we assume: one of ‘progression’. Progression is the is the story humans understand. But when the music seemingly subverts that story of progression by what has gone before to create something that appeals to as wide an audience as possible now, describing it isn’t just difficult but risks judgment.
You go to a concert and it’s like an ocean of sound. I was just curious what those dots on the paper mean. So, I read a book about music theory. Then I thought, let me see whether I can remember what I read in that book.
Shor’s music is rooted in tonality. It’s melodic. It’s easy on the ear. It follows convention. And it also sounds familiar. When I first hear it I can’t quite determine whether I connect with it or not. And that makes writing about it challenging.
Shor is forty-eight years old. Before that he was a mathematician, the son of two scientists in a family of non-musicians. His mother was reportedly shocked when he turned his back on science.
“My Mum said that when I was a kid she could have named twenty things I could have potentially been good at but music wasn’t on that list. Everybody was so used to the idea that things technical came easily to me and I enjoyed them. So given those things why would I do anything else?”
What was her reaction to the variations?
“She was amused. She was like ‘OK, so he has read another book and he’s remembered another bunch of things.’” Does that reaction bother him? “No, nobody expected it to go any further.” And when it did go further? “Then they were surprised.”
The turning point for Alexey was the discovery of his music by viola player David Aaron Carpenter who sought out the composer and asked him to arrange a piece for viola and orchestra.
“I couldn’t do it, but me and a friend did it together. David kept writing from the tour that he played the music on that it was going well, and that it was being asked for two or three times over, and that there were standing ovations.
“I thought, like, ‘OK, musicians. They’re prone to exaggeration.’ So, me and my parents went to one of David’s concerts at the Metropolitan Museum. Once he played that one piece of mine – he calls it his ‘replacement Cazardas’. It was a little shocking to me and my parents. That was the moment when it dawned on me, ‘maybe this isn’t a joke, maybe I should take it more seriously. It’s an amazing thrill to this day that my music is played.”
“I love writing for the orchestra. You’re not limited by anything. The orchestra can create all sorts of sounds. Whereas even if you’re writing for a piano, you’re still limited by what a human can do. I love the variety you can get out of the orchestra. I don’t know I would call it a machine like you say or a spectacle. It’s more the infinite variety I like.”
“Melancholy is very common for my music. Some kind of sadness is present in my music and life in general. This is all wonderful but this is all going to an end – that’s always in the background.”
Shifting perspective
Miran Vaupotic conducted the final gala concert in the Malta International Music Festival. We met shortly before the concert.
“Alexey’s music lacks pretension,” he explains. “It’s music people enjoy listening to. And the musicians who play it recognise that the audience are enjoying it.”
Our brief exchange about Shor’s work marked an important shift in my thinking. Classical music lovers and performers strive for a listening experience where a connection is established in the moment. Implicit in that hope is the expectation that establishing the connection will require active engagement in the art. Once the connection is established the pay-off is rewarding for both parties.
What if an audience member isn’t striving for a hard-fought emotional connection? Material that creates a connection between performer and listener that takes the latter where they want to go as quickly as possible seems like a perfectly reasonable proposition. It’s good business sense too. Live performance doesn’t necessarily mean being transported to another astral plane every time, does it? I know plenty of live performers whose repertoire pays tribute to particular genres or bands. They play to sell-out audiences, rocking, tapping, or fist-slamming. Why should classical music be any different?
Shor draws on the music he responds to and composes in such a way that evokes all of those styles. The first music I heard by him mid-way through the festival had a curious quality to it: melodic material that conjured up multiple eras all in one cell – the musical equivalent of a video jump cut. It worked, even if instinct suggested otherwise.
Compositional process
Later in the interview, I ask Alexey about his compositional process. I feel uncomfortable being quite so nosey. If anyone asked me how I wrote a blog post in an interview I’d feel slightly put out.
“Sometimes I have a lot of clarity about what it is. Sometimes I’ll have a musical idea and I don’t know what it is. Maybe a day or so later I look at it again, and most of the time I just delete the file. Sometimes I’ll look at it and think maybe this should have a life. In some way I write for an audience of one which is me. I imagine myself in a concert hall and think, ‘if I heard this would I enjoy it? Would I ever want to hear it again?’ If the answer to all of those questions is yes, then maybe this piece has a future.”
I can’t argue with this logic. I adopt the same stance myself in my creative endeavours. If the output doesn’t satisfy you as an audience member, then who will it satisfy?
But Alexey’s compositional process exposes another outdated assumption I hold about creativity: creative ideas are seemingly only valid if they exist initially on paper. Despite knowing that composers use Sibelius and other music-writing software, I’m aware that I’m making an unconscious judgment about those who do. Why can’t writing music be approached in the same way as a recipe, or writing computer code?
Members of the Trio Wanderer – three Parisians on their first visit to Malta performing a programme of Schubert and Saint-Saens – help me contextualise Shor’s writing with reference to the seven-piece Trio they were playing in the concert.
In the last movement – Schubertango – Shor takes familiar Schubertian melodies and gives them both a Latin American feel. Every now and again, melodies I recall from my student days seem to bound and flash around like a television being tuned from the 1960s.
“It’s an odd thing,” I say to pianist Vincent Coq after the Trio’s rehearsal, “I hear the melodies and it’s almost like as soon as I’ve heard them they’re snatched away from me again. It makes me want to reach out for the original. I can’t put my finger on what it is.”
“We hear it as a musical joke,” replies violinst Jean-Phillipe. “The composer is taking fragments of melodies he likes and playing with us. It‘s very effective. I think it’s an homage to Schubert. An homage to all the composers Shor likes.”
The word ‘homage’ resonates with me. A sort of musical fanboy creation. The kind of creation that perhaps we don’t get to hear in the UK classical music scene. Suffocated before its given air to breathe.
There is an evident resourcefulness to Shor’s methodical and process-driven approach. Throughout the Malta International Music International Festival, we’ve heard not only musical references to composers of the past, but repurposed material by Shor himself.
The first movement of the ‘Seven Pieces for Piano Trio’, for example, entitled Addio – a tender melody exchanged between violin and piano – becomes a heartfelt pang for soprano and orchestra. Whilst the Trio Wanderer’s expressiveness created character in the melodic lines, the orchestral setting in the gala concert gave a fuller, more satisfying feel to the end product.
Indeed, in most regards the larger the forces, the easier it is to discern the intent, material, and the form. Another song in the gala concert – Natalie’s Waltz – part Viennese, part Italian Verdi-esque cast an unexpectedly captivating spell over the audience at the Mediterranean Conference Centre. Sweet and touching, if you’d have looked at the list of programme listed in the programme and seen Shor you’d be forgiven for thinking he was alive at the same time as Verdi.
And that surely is the rather astute thing.
In an ever fractured on-demand world audience requests are demanding ever more specific requirements and more quickly. If the existing ‘standard’ repertoire comes with a perceived knowledge requirement, maybe it’s perfectly pragmatic and eminently business-like to write music in a language that appeals to audiences quicker. Perhaps the answer isn’t that marketers need to find the answer to the impossible question of how best to sell high-art music to the newcomer, but instead commission and perform music that the newcomer is most likely to enjoy and pay tickets to listen to.
And that’s one aspect of Alexey Shor’s ability that I admire and am possibly a little jealous of too. Just like the peer at school who was able to listen to a piece of music and play it from ear, Shor possesses the ability to capture the characteristics of a genre, mechanics of a framework, or the style of a melody, and recreate it in a format that audiences will respond to.
If there are people who want to enjoy an orchestral experience but want the music they hear in it to get to the point quickly, then there’s a need for composers to write in a style that’s accessible for just the right amount of time. The skill is delivering the right product under those particular constraints. That’s just what composers of British Light Music achieved in the 1940s and 50s. Why not now?
Dreams and aspirations
“Where would you like to go next?” I ask Alexey.
“It would be nice to write an opera, but even if I had an offer, I’m not sure I would take it. If you mean dreams then opera is an amazing dream to have. It may never happen.”
I ask him about what the motivation is behind that dream. Is it about scale or legacy?
“I love opera. I love the sound of human voice. At the same time, it is much easier to sit down and write an orchestral piece, than write a collaborative work. That’s why it’s more of a distant dream.”
He continues.
“There are a lot of things that need to happen before an opera can happen. If I was in this world for 50 years as opposed to 6 then chances are I would have all sorts of friends amongst whom there would be a librettist with whom we see eye to eye. Then there is a question of language. Italian is an amazing language for opera, but I don’t speak Italian.”
Recalibrated
On my journey home I’m reminded of something else conductor Miran Vauptic mentioned in my interview with him. We raised the point about how if Alexey Shor was writing film music then I wouldn’t feel the need to ask how others should be categorising his output. “What he needs next,” said Vauptic, “is a commission for a TV soundtrack.”
When the plane touches down at Gatwick Airport, a message pops up on my phone. A tweet from Scala Radio, advertises their chart show rundown on-air later in the morning, featuring “classical and classical-inspired music”. Is this the label I’ve been looking for all week?
Quotes from this article are taken from a podcast recorded with Alexey Shor on Wednesday 7 May 2019. The full podcast interview will be released as a Thoroughly Good Good Classical Music Podcast in the coming weeks.
