Listen to This (35 page)
Authors: Alex Ross
“How about in the last half of seventy-eight I play three plus two plus two,” Winstead said. “No, wait—what if it were two plus two plus three?”
The players tried again but weren’t convinced. They passed around a miniature score so they could see how the parts intermeshed. They started in once more, then broke down, amid exclamations of “Argh!” and “Shit!”
Winstead reflected on how the slow pace at Marlboro had made him look afresh at music that he thought he knew well. He spoke about playing the Carter on the concert circuit: “You’re not asking, ‘What’s it all about?’ You’re just trying to stay together and get through it. I’ve never delved into these kinds of details before.”
Smith attempted to rally the others. “When in doubt, the theme is in the flute,” he said.
Back at Happy Valley, Uchida had arrived for a pair of rehearsals, and was fussing with a recalcitrant dehumidifier. “You jiggle and whack and kick, and it works,” she said. She is particular about the health of her instruments and has had a dehumidifier installed in every room with a piano. Her first rehearsal was of Schubert’s Piano Trio in E-flat. Joining her
were Soovin Kim, a thirty-three-year-old violinist whose subtle expressivity suits Uchida’s style, and David Soyer, an eighty-six-year-old chamber-music legend, who played cello in the Guarneri Quartet for most of its existence. Soyer, a bearish man who enjoyed playing the role of the village curmudgeon, was famous for claiming insistently that pianists always play too loudly when they join chamber groups. He was also possessive of his music stand, which carried the notice “David Soyer’s PERSONAL stand. HANDS OFF!”
were Soovin Kim, a thirty-three-year-old violinist whose subtle expressivity suits Uchida’s style, and David Soyer, an eighty-six-year-old chamber-music legend, who played cello in the Guarneri Quartet for most of its existence. Soyer, a bearish man who enjoyed playing the role of the village curmudgeon, was famous for claiming insistently that pianists always play too loudly when they join chamber groups. He was also possessive of his music stand, which carried the notice “David Soyer’s PERSONAL stand. HANDS OFF!”
The three musicians had reached the slow movement of the Schubert, which opens with one of the most extraordinary inventions in chamber music: softly marching chords on the piano, a plaintive cello melody featuring a repeated trill. Soyer, grunting softly as he played, brought to bear a nobly restrained tone and rhythmically incisive phrasing. He lavished attention on a pair of trills that lead into the hushed coda, wistfully prolonging the second as it precipitated a shift from C major to C minor. Kim executed everything with unfailing precision-so much so that the older players actually encouraged him to be less precise at times. “A little more Wiener schmaltz,” Soyer suggested at one point, demonstrating a slide from note to note, like a carelessly dragging foot. “You can’t play sloppy!” Uchida said, teasingly.
Kim protested that he could indeed play sloppy, and tried again, laying on a modicum of schmaltz. Uchida received only a single citation for being too loud. In accompanimental passages, she achieved the feat of almost disappearing, so that the piano became a nimbus floating around the string voices.
When Soyer and Kim left, the young soprano Charlotte Dobbs entered, ready to work with Uchida on Schoenberg’s
The Book of the Hanging Garden
, a song cycle on poems by the German Symbolist Stefan George. Uchida had never played the songs and was making a close study not only of the music but also of George’s poetry. Dobbs, a sunny-tempered woman with a rapid-fire manner of speech, held her own; a recent graduate of Yale, she majored in English and wrote her thesis on Shakespeare and Joyce. With Dobbs, Uchida was noticeably more free-spirited than with the two male players, indulging in giggles, literary digressions, and moments of self-criticism.
The Book of the Hanging Garden
, a song cycle on poems by the German Symbolist Stefan George. Uchida had never played the songs and was making a close study not only of the music but also of George’s poetry. Dobbs, a sunny-tempered woman with a rapid-fire manner of speech, held her own; a recent graduate of Yale, she majored in English and wrote her thesis on Shakespeare and Joyce. With Dobbs, Uchida was noticeably more free-spirited than with the two male players, indulging in giggles, literary digressions, and moments of self-criticism.
“Schoenberg’s music is echt Viennese,” Uchida said. “When you get to
‘Schnabel krauseln,
’ I hear a sort of Viennese nasal sound. No? And not
‘klagend’
but
‘kl-a-aa-gend.’”
She prompted Dobbs to bring out the rhythms more strongly, to accent certain consonants, to clarify the diction in places. Uchida also emphasized the differences between German and other languages. “You are singing it almost as if it were French,” the pianist said. “French is very quick and even. ‘Le president
de la Republique
a
annoncé aujourd’hui dah-dah-dah-dah-dah.’
Japanese is kind of similar.” She sang a fragment of a Japanese folk song, with a slight grimace. “German is more flowing, up and down.”
‘Schnabel krauseln,
’ I hear a sort of Viennese nasal sound. No? And not
‘klagend’
but
‘kl-a-aa-gend.’”
She prompted Dobbs to bring out the rhythms more strongly, to accent certain consonants, to clarify the diction in places. Uchida also emphasized the differences between German and other languages. “You are singing it almost as if it were French,” the pianist said. “French is very quick and even. ‘Le president
de la Republique
a
annoncé aujourd’hui dah-dah-dah-dah-dah.’
Japanese is kind of similar.” She sang a fragment of a Japanese folk song, with a slight grimace. “German is more flowing, up and down.”
Dobbs ventured a few suggestions. “I think I can bring more excitement to the tone when I sing ‘
reichsten Lade,’”
she said. “Try to do something silky. Put more dazzle in the voice. Can we try a slightly more flowing tempo?”
reichsten Lade,’”
she said. “Try to do something silky. Put more dazzle in the voice. Can we try a slightly more flowing tempo?”
“Yes, I am maybe too slow,” Uchida replied.
The duo arrived at the climax of the cycle, a violently expressive song that, as Dobbs observed, communicates “every possible emotion you could feel in love with someone, except for satisfaction.” Beneath the word “wahr,” or “true,” there is a strangely shuddering whole-note chord consisting of a B-major triad with C-sharps attached; Schoenberg has marked it with a crescendo, which is technically an impossibility for a sustained chord, but with a coaxing of the pedal Uchida made it resonate through the bar.
By the end of the afternoon, sunshine had given way to a downpour. An SUV was summoned to transport Uchida back to her apartment. Dobbs and I rode with her. “The pure major becomes so
nasty,”
she said, of that B-majorish chord. “I love it. So dark, so beautiful. This is fun, yeah? But
bloody
hard.”
nasty,”
she said, of that B-majorish chord. “I love it. So dark, so beautiful. This is fun, yeah? But
bloody
hard.”
Marlboro’s hoariest tradition is the paper-napkin-ball war that erupts most nights during dinner. History does not record whether Mr. Serkin originated the practice, but he was a lusty participant from the beginning. One night, when Queen Elisabeth of Belgium was passing through, the pianist Leon Fleisher had to raise an umbrella to shield her from bombardment. Uchida does not take part. “I am very good at
making,”
she told me. “There is a technique. Pack in the corner, lightly, that is the idea. But I don’t throw. If I start throwing, I will be such a target.”
making,”
she told me. “There is a technique. Pack in the corner, lightly, that is the idea. But I don’t throw. If I start throwing, I will be such a target.”
Other Marlboro rituals include an annual square dance; the International Dinner, at which the musicians cook up dishes from various cultures
and afterward present comedy skits (Uchida impersonations are frequent); and pranks in the Serkin manner. The prizewinning prank of 2008 took the form of an extended fantasia on the sign attached to David Soyer’s music stand in Happy Valley. One morning, people awoke to find that hundreds of objects across the campus had been festooned with signs declaring them to be Soyer’s property. “It was something unbelievable,” Uchida told me. “Everything had a sign. ‘David Soyer’s personal Baby Chair.”David Soyer’s personal Water Jugs.’ ‘David Soyer’s personal Exit Sign.’ All the cars in the parking lot. Every chair in the dining hall. Ugly painting in the coffee shop: ‘David Soyer’s personal Ugly Painting.’ It can’t have been one person. I cannot imagine the man-hours it took. We still don’t know who did it, although I have some ideas. Such secrets stay with me!”
and afterward present comedy skits (Uchida impersonations are frequent); and pranks in the Serkin manner. The prizewinning prank of 2008 took the form of an extended fantasia on the sign attached to David Soyer’s music stand in Happy Valley. One morning, people awoke to find that hundreds of objects across the campus had been festooned with signs declaring them to be Soyer’s property. “It was something unbelievable,” Uchida told me. “Everything had a sign. ‘David Soyer’s personal Baby Chair.”David Soyer’s personal Water Jugs.’ ‘David Soyer’s personal Exit Sign.’ All the cars in the parking lot. Every chair in the dining hall. Ugly painting in the coffee shop: ‘David Soyer’s personal Ugly Painting.’ It can’t have been one person. I cannot imagine the man-hours it took. We still don’t know who did it, although I have some ideas. Such secrets stay with me!”
Some newcomers roll their eyes at Marlboro’s customs. Joshua Smith, the urbane Cleveland Orchestra flutist, initially squirmed at the prospect of the square dance. “Do we have to?” he asked at dinner one night. But he grew to love the magic-mountain mood. “I wish I could somehow package this feeling and bring it back home with me to Cleveland,” he said. Others complained of hearing too many Serkin stories, or of being dragged on too many picnics, or of being inundated with Germanic repertory. One young musician jokingly scripted a mock infomercial: “Remember a time when only German music was considered important? When Poulenc was not allowed? At Marlboro, you can live that time again.” But sooner or later the skeptics fell into reveries about playing Mozart while gazing at trees in the late-afternoon light. And Poulenc is indeed played, on occasion.
There is a conscious plan behind the quirky lore. Marlboro is a long-running experiment in altering the metabolism of city-based performers. When Serkin began inviting his colleagues to Vermont, he wanted them to lose their worldliness, to fall into a slower rhythm. Uchida agrees, and proposes that Marlboro’s quaint habits have a specific musical application. “The kids have to become more naïve,” she told me. “Because there is something very naïve about this music that they play, even the very greatest. What is it about? Mountains, trees, birds, young love, that kind of thing. Of course, there is quite a bit more to it than that, but you must grasp the simplicity of the surface.”
After dinner, the musicians gravitate to the coffee shop, where they often remain until late in the night. The conversation has the typical tempo and jargon of Generations X and Y, although the references are idiosyncratic (“Your fiddle was made in 1717, too? Oh, my God, that’s so weird”).
There’s discussion of disconcerting things that audience members say to performers after concerts (“I sometimes get suggestions for different things I could do with my hair,” Rebecca Ringle said); of the familiar perils of traveling with instruments on planes (“They said I’d have to check my viola case, so I took the viola with me on the plane and cradled it in my lap the whole way, like a baby,” the violist Kyle Armbrust recalled); and of the relative lack of scandal at Marlboro this summer (“Last summer was a summer of Sappho”). Instrumentalists talk about hearing “Der Doppelganger” for the first time; singers learn how to name Mozart concertos by Köchel number; Uchida is urged to listen to Björk.
There’s discussion of disconcerting things that audience members say to performers after concerts (“I sometimes get suggestions for different things I could do with my hair,” Rebecca Ringle said); of the familiar perils of traveling with instruments on planes (“They said I’d have to check my viola case, so I took the viola with me on the plane and cradled it in my lap the whole way, like a baby,” the violist Kyle Armbrust recalled); and of the relative lack of scandal at Marlboro this summer (“Last summer was a summer of Sappho”). Instrumentalists talk about hearing “Der Doppelganger” for the first time; singers learn how to name Mozart concertos by Köchel number; Uchida is urged to listen to Björk.
Uchida usually appears in the coffee shop on the early side, then heads off to bed, or, as she puts it, “sneaks away without anyone noticing.” One night, I dropped by her apartment for a visit. “Here is one of the finest residences of Marlboro,” she said with mock pride, after negotiating a sticky lock. “It even has a bathroom.” It was a one-bedroom basement apartment with white cement walls, sparsely furnished and wanly lit. Uchida lived here alone, although her partner, the British diplomat Robert Cooper, joined her on the final weekend. The piano was piled high with music that Uchida was studying. On a bookshelf was some not particularly light summer reading: the
Inferno
,
Hamlet
, volumes of Yeats and Gerard Manley Hopkins, Stefan Zweig’s autobiography (in German), W. G. Sebald’s
Austerlitz
, and 501
Italian Verbs
. As we spoke, Uchida set out two more little luxuries she permits herself: first-flush Darjeeling tea and Marcolini chocolates.
Inferno
,
Hamlet
, volumes of Yeats and Gerard Manley Hopkins, Stefan Zweig’s autobiography (in German), W. G. Sebald’s
Austerlitz
, and 501
Italian Verbs
. As we spoke, Uchida set out two more little luxuries she permits herself: first-flush Darjeeling tea and Marcolini chocolates.
In some ways, Uchida is even more high-minded than Serkin, who surprised people by praising Vladimir Horowitz, the arch-virtuoso and the un-Serkin. Uchida has few kind words for several leading virtuosos of today. Her remarks were off the record. “I talk only about people whom I love,” she said. Her warmest words were for the Romanian pianist Radu Lupu, whom she calls “the most talented guy I have ever met.” She tells of how she once tried to get Lupu to visit Marlboro. “I got very excited, describing how people do nothing but play music all day long. But he said no. His explanation was very funny. ‘Mitsuko,’ he said, ‘I don’t like music as much as you.’”
Her voice took on a confiding tone as she spoke of the composers with whom she spends her days. “Beethoven was the greatest altogether. Mozart was the greatest genius. And Schubert …” She drew in her breath, her eyes opening wide, her head tilting back. “He is the most beautiful. He is
the one you will be listening to when you die.” And then she spoke of a friend of hers who, on his deathbed, in a state of severe pain, was offered morphine and refused it. “He knew that he would die only once. He wanted to see what it felt like. That is some sort of a person, yes? It is a great pity that you can’t come back to tell the tale.”
the one you will be listening to when you die.” And then she spoke of a friend of hers who, on his deathbed, in a state of severe pain, was offered morphine and refused it. “He knew that he would die only once. He wanted to see what it felt like. That is some sort of a person, yes? It is a great pity that you can’t come back to tell the tale.”
The Marlboro summer customarily ends on a Sunday afternoon in August, with a festive performance of Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, for piano, chorus, and orchestra. Serkin used to bang it out at unbelievable volume, causing the piano, the floor, the walls, and, possibly, the Green Mountains to shake. Beethoven wrote the work in 1808, for a legendarily overlong benefit concert that also included the premieres of his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. Composing in a hurry, he produced an uncharacteristically baggy piece that nonetheless surges with life. The main tune looks forward unmistakably to the “Ode to Joy,” in the Ninth Symphony. The text celebrates the power of art to dispel the storm and stress of daily life. To quote from Philipp Naegele’s translation:
When the magic sounds enchant
And the word’s solemnity speaks forth,
Glorious things must come to be,
Night and storms then turn to light.
And the word’s solemnity speaks forth,
Glorious things must come to be,
Night and storms then turn to light.
In a way, the Choral Fantasy is Beethoven’s Ninth without the world-historical baggage—the perpetually unfulfilled promise of liberation. Instead, it is an anthem of music’s celebration of itself. Hence, perhaps, Serkin’s abiding love for the piece.
Goode told me, “Many people felt that Serkin playing the Choral Fantasy was a unique experience that could never be duplicated. After he died, the work was retired, and I thought that was the right decision. To my surprise, a few years later people said, ‘You know, I think we have to have a Choral Fantasy’ We needed the catharsis.”
It is never an especially polished affair. Serkin instituted the practice of inviting staff members, supporters, and musically inclined neighbors to sing in the chorus. Members of Marlboro’s vocal program take the solos, guaranteeing that at least some of the singing will be at a high level, but
there are always odd noises. In what had to be considered the final prank of the summer, one of the singers, the generally discerning tenor William Ferguson, decided that I should join the chorus. Trained as a pianist and an oboist, I have practically no singing experience, but I was herded into the baritone section for the final rehearsal. I stood in front of two excellent young singers, the baritone John Moore and the bass-baritone Jeremy Galyon, who encircled me with such stentorian tones that I could almost believe I was making them myself. “I heard you,” Ferguson said afterward, a little ambiguously.
there are always odd noises. In what had to be considered the final prank of the summer, one of the singers, the generally discerning tenor William Ferguson, decided that I should join the chorus. Trained as a pianist and an oboist, I have practically no singing experience, but I was herded into the baritone section for the final rehearsal. I stood in front of two excellent young singers, the baritone John Moore and the bass-baritone Jeremy Galyon, who encircled me with such stentorian tones that I could almost believe I was making them myself. “I heard you,” Ferguson said afterward, a little ambiguously.
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