Chamber Music: A
Higher Power*
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*Note:
The majority of this service, including questions and comments by
the musicians, was unscripted. If
you are interested in listening to the complete service, please check out
an audio taped copy available at church Introduction
to Chamber Music Before I begin, I want to thank Dick Waller, our
member, former principal clarinetist with the CSO for 34 years, and
Artistic Director of the Linton Chamber Music Series here at First Church.
Two weeks ago Dick called me after listening to the jazz service we
did here last month and said "Sharon, this is what chamber music is,
a conversation among musical friends."
Dick immediately wanted to bring the Linton performers to a service
so that they could play for us and share with us their experiences with
chamber music. Our worship theme for the year is worship and arts, what do the arts,
whether music, poetry, art, or dance, have to tell us about life and
divinity. How do the arts
deepen our experience of being human, our experiences of transcendence, of
awe, of grace? This morning
we are going to use chamber music to touch and transform - enrich, uplift,
deepen, inspire. Dick
defined chamber music for me as "about two to ten musicians playing
one person on a part without a conductor."
The earliest chamber music began in the Middle Ages.
In the eighteenth century string quartets dominated chamber music
and ushered in the period of classical chamber music that most of us think
of when we consider chamber music. I
was interested to read that chamber music continues to evolve today
including "experiments in atonality, percussive rhythms, and serial
techniques."[1]
Like any good conversation, it is ongoing. In our conversations about chamber music, Dick also
set the original scene for chamber music.
He explained to me that chamber music was originally performed for
intimate audiences of forty people or less.
It was performed first at courts, and later in small music halls.
People road in carriages for hours to come hear the music, often in
the evening by candlelight, before returning home.
According to Chamber Music America, At the heart of chamber music lies the spirit of
collaboration and the role of the individual performer.
Chamber music places the highest order of responsibility upon the
individual to engage in a close musical dialogue with the other performers
in the ensemble without the aid of the conductor.[2] As Dick said, chamber music, like jazz, is a conversation, just without
the improvisation component of jazz. Dick said to me "Most orchestral
musicians would say 'I can't hear myself play' [in an orchestra]…Chamber
music is more exposed. Everything
you do is seen and heard. You
can't hide. Not all
orchestral musicians are good at chamber music."
The small group like setting closeness of chamber music increases
the feeling and reality that everything is seen and heard.
The audience is intimately present at the creation, or recreation
of the music. This afternoon, Linton patrons will hear a Mozart
quintet (5 players) for two violin, viola, cello, and clarinet.
Dick emphasized to me that this is the ONLY Mozart quintet with
strings and clarinet and therefore special.
Dick called it "sublimely beautiful, a chamber music
gem." They will also
hear a Prokofiev sonata for two violins, and a moving and controversial
string quartet by Dmitri Shostakovich.
Dmitri Shostakovich was born in 1906 and died in
1975. He lived all but 11
years of his life under Soviet rule, and not just any Soviet era, but the
most repressive of Soviet eras - the Stalin years.
Until his death Shostakovich was mostly perceived in the Soviet
Union and the West as a loyal Soviet who joined the Communist party, wrote
music for Soviet celebrations and films, as well as other music. In the last two decades there has been vehement debate about the reality
of Shostakovich's life and compositions under Soviet rule.
He was twice censored by the Soviets, in 1936 and 1948, for alleged
musical crimes against the people. His
friends were regularly arrested and executed.
His sister was exiled. (Opera
producer friend executed). What
an extraordinary burden for a person compelled to compose, and yet any act
of creativity and spontaneity could be his death notice.
There was no free information and little spontaneity.
This was the most repressive and terrifying of creative
environments. In 1936 he
premiered an opera entitled Lady Macbeth from Mtensk.
The Pravda paper reported, "This is playing with
nonsensical things, which could end very badly."
In Soviet language of the time, this is a death threat.
For this opera Shostakovich was ostracized in every way including
financial. After this and
other threats against his life, Shostakovich withdrew his landmark 5th
Symphony which was not premiered until 1961. In the last twenty years people have argued about whether or not
Shostakovich was a willing Soviet tool, or engaged in subtle dissident
resistance. There is a
growing body of evidence, particularly from surviving friends, that
Shostakovich regularly placed symbols of dissent in his music.
Dick said to me, "I am surprised that people even argue about
this. It is so obvious."
Ed
Daley's excellent notes for the Linton Series concert this afternoon
explain how the quartet piece is constructed around the German note
equivalents of his name. It
also contains musical quotes from his symphonies, chamber music, and the
opera Lady Macbeth from Mtensk (which was extraordinarily risky and
I suspect, a desperate act of artistic identity).
As Ed writes in his notes "The Eighth Quartet of Shostakovich
bears a dedication 'To the memory or the victims of fascism and
war'." Ed goes on to
explain that this music is really about Dmitri Shostakovich.
Dick found a Shostakovich quote for me about the creation of this
quartet. Shostakovich himself said: I feel eternal pain for those who were killed by
Hitler, but I feel no less pain for those killed on Stalin's orders.
I suffer for everyone who was tortured, shot, or starved to death.
The majority of my symphonies are tombstones.
Too many of our people died and were buried in places unknown to
anyone, not even their relatives. Where
do you put the tombstones? Only
music can do that for them. I'm
willing to write a composition for each of the victims but that's
impossible, and that's why I dedicate my music to them all."[3] This is the power of music to communicate and
transform. In
the second half of the service this morning we will hear sections from the
Mozart and Shostakovich pieces. The
music will be interspersed with questions that Dick and I have compiled
for the musicians about how and why they play.
(We see musicians, we hear musicians, most of us don't know
musicians. We don't know how performance and creation shapes and changes
them, and I wanted that to be a part of this service.)
We hope you will be moved. |