The complete idiot's guide to classical music (16 page)

Haydn composed one of the first timpani solos in his next to last symphony, No. 103, known as the “Drum Roll” Symphony. Beethoven and Mahler were big fans, and several composers have gone so far as to write concertos for timpani and orchestra.

The triangle is the instrument author George Plimpton played in his short sojourn as an orchestral musician. Aside from this radical departure from convention, orchestras do not commonly employ a musician only to play a triangle. A seven-inch equilateral triangle constructed by bending a metal rod, the triangle is struck with a thin steel rod. It can be held by the percussionist or as part of a large untuned percussion group, suspended from a stand. Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven all used the triangle in their symphonic scores, Liszt gave it a solo role in his First Piano Concerto (which is sometimes called the “Triangle Concerto” for that reason), and Wagner used it distinctively in
Die Meistersinger.

The gong or tam-tam does not only appear in
The King and I
. A gong sonata might be difficult for audiences to take (even John Cage never attempted it), but the gong fills out the untuned percussion section as well as filling the hall with vibrations. Ravel uses the gong for effect in
Daphnis and Chloe.

The xylophone is an example of tuned percussion. Each one of its progression of hard wood strips is tuned to a specific note. The instrument resembles a keyboard with spaces between the keys. The player strikes the keys with xylophone tappers made of wood or rubber. Probably the most well-known xylophone piece is the “skeleton” section of Saint-Saens’
Danse Macabre.

The marimba is a Latin cousin of the xylophone. It produces deeper tones than the xylophone, and is very popular in Mexico and Central America where you can hear orchestras consisting of marimbas and nothing else.

Chimes are a set of tuned, stationary bells suspended from a frame, including clock chimes and the orchestral tubular bells.

What would orchestral music be without the sound of cymbals crashing? Cymbals are two brass plates that can be loudly clashed or gently brushed, depending upon the composer’s intent. A single cymbal can be held in the musician’s hand and struck with a stick or mounted on a stand to be hit with two sticks. Stravinsky even used a cymbal struck by a triangle.

Comedian Victor Borge says that the conductor is a curious person. “He turns his back on his friends in the audience, shakes a stick at the players in his orchestra, and then wonders why nobody loves him. He makes the most noise at rehearsals, but there’s not a peep out of him during the concerts, and he only shakes hands with the musicians when everybody’s ready to go home.”

Beating time to keep the rhythm is as old as classical music itself. In ancient Greece, somebody was assigned to stomp on a stool with a special kind of boot. In the 13th century, one of the singers in a choir would try to keep everybody together by rapping his hand on a book, and in the 16th century, the director would bang on the floor with a large stick. In the 18th century, most performances were directed by the harpsichord player or the first violinist.

Among the more famous 19th century conductors were Mendelssohn, who kept time with a favorite white stick; Berlioz, who modestly declared that nobody could ever conduct his music better than he himself and liked to use a heavy oak staff; Schumann, who preferred a smaller baton, but kept dropping it until he devised a way of attaching it to his wrist with a string; and Wagner, who wrote a whole treatise on the art of keeping orchestral musicians in line.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
The premiere of the Berlioz
Requiem
in 1837 was almost turned into a shambles when the conductor, Francois-Antoine Habaneck, serenely laid down his baton and took a pinch of snuff at the very moment he was supposed to cue the brasses to come in with a tremendous fanfare. Berlioz, who habitually mistrusted all conductors—and therefore was hiding on stage, just in case—sprang in front of the astonished Habaneck and gave the proper signal. “Everything went off in order,” the composer wrote in his memoirs, “and I conducted the piece to the end.”

Podium history in the first half of the 20th century is a legacy of such legendary artists as Toscanini, Furtwangler, Klemperer, Beecham, and Stokowski, to name only a handful. Within the recent memory of most of us were musical giants like Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan. Today, our cultural lives are enormously enriched by the work of such outstanding international personalities as Kurt Masur, Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta, Simon Rattle, and, not to overlook our superlative native American talents, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas, David Zinman, Sarah Caldwell, Andrew Litton, and many others.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
Forget those exercise videos. Conducting might just be the secret to keeping fit: Bruno Walter was active until his death at age 85; Pierre Monteux became music director of the London Symphony at the age of 86; Arturo Toscanini reluctantly slid into retirement at 87; and Leopold Stokowski made recordings into his 95th year. Stoki’s philosophy was simple: “I would like to go on living forever and ever,” he said, “making music all the time.”

Part of the conductor’s job is to select appropriate tempos, to control the dynamics and phrasing within a piece, to bring out and balance the many colors of the orchestral palette, and certainly not least, to persuade the players (through a combination of technique, psychology, and personal charisma) to follow his lead and thereby reveal the full artistic and expressive potential of the work at hand.

Some composers are also conductors (at least of their own works), and many conductors also compose, but few indeed are the artists (such as Leonard Bernstein) who are equally successful as creators and interpreters. Aaron Copland freely admitted that others could produce better performances of his compositions than he, but that didn’t stop him from taking on many a guest-conducting assignment. “Conducting is a late passion of mine,” he said; “if you’ve spent years, as I have, listening to others conduct your music, you gradually get the feeling that, oh gee, just once I’d like to get up there and do it the way I dreamt it. . . .”

All conductors are working from the same scores, the same black notes on a white page, as Stokowski used to say, but those notes are filtered through each maestro’s musical sensibilities and personal style. You’ll find different recordings of the same piece that vary in time by five minutes or more, and have other major contrasts of color, phrasing, or dynamics. It is this interpretive leeway that keeps classical music performances fresh, distinctive, and exhilarating.

In days gone by, conductors were absolute dictators. They could hire and fire players at will, swear or throw things at their musicians, and in consequence, the players often responded as much out of fear as cooperative spirit. On the other hand, inspiration was very much part of the conducting package. Stokowski would say, “Play better!” to his orchestral musicians, and without exactly knowing why or how, they did.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
The Polish conductor Artur Rodzinski, who was at various times music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, and Chicago Symphony, began his tenure at the New York Philharmonic by dismissing more than forty players. He was forever embroiled in arguments with musicians and management, and often conducted concerts with a revolver in his pocket. The pianist Oscar Levant once said it was “just Rodzinski’s way of avoiding backtalk from the orchestra.”

Nowadays, conductors can’t get away with that stuff. Credit it to more savvy musicians, stronger unions, or just changing times, but most maestros are on much friendlier terms with their players and never indulge in personal attacks. (As Gilbert and Sullivan put it, “What, never? Well, hardly ever.”)

The conductor also shares some of his duties with designated members of the orchestra. In England, the first violinist is called the leader; here we use the word concertmaster, which can refer to either a man or woman. (The politically correct sometimes substitute concertmistress in the latter situation.) In addition to taking any featured violin solos that the composer may have put into the music, the concertmaster serves as a sort of liaison between conductor and orchestra, putting the desired bowings or fingerings in all the violin parts, and generally supervising the other fiddlers in his domain. The first chair musician in each instrumental section functions in a similar manner, following through on the conductor’s wishes regarding phrasing, the assignment of solos, etc. To signify his importance, the concertmaster usually walks on stage after the rest of the orchestra has taken its place on stage, and signals the oboe to sound the all-important A to which all the instruments then tune up.

 
Bet You Didn’t Know
Richard Strauss was conducting a rehearsal of his Alpine Symphony and had just reached the exciting passage imitating a rainstorm when the concertmaster, in his excitement, let his bow slip from his hand. Strauss stopped the orchestra immediately, saying “Just a moment, gentlemen, our leader has lost his umbrella!”