Мир современной музыки. Хрестоматия для чтения на английском языке. Учебно-методические материалы для студентов музыкальных вузов и факультетов

Serkin's performances of Schubert were electrifying: his assault on the Brahms D minor concerto completely unconciliatory and tending towards violence; and his ever-renewed confrontation with Beethoven was characterised by intense physical and psychological involvement as well as an unleashing of mounting energy.

After being driven out by the Nazis, Rudolf Serkin made his New York debut in 1936 with Mozart's final В major concerto. Toscanini conducted. Involvement in the Schoenberg circle and the partnership with Adolf Busch, who also became his father-in-law, gave Serkin a love of chamber music, which he particularly implemented in his "capacity as president of the Marlboro School of Music. The Marlboro Festival of Music, established by Busch in 1950 and continued after his death by Serkin, viewed itself as a "chamber music workshop for professional musicians". The central idea behind Marlboro was put into words by Serkin during a programme commemorating the 91st birthday of Pablo Casals (who frequently participated): "One serves music with other musicians. That is accompanied by a very free exchange of opinions and criticism". He played here with his friends - celebrated and less well-known - and was sure that "I learn just as much from them as they from me". This new style demonstrated to what an extent a pianist from the heart of old Europe had become an American. And yet he didn't forget the human experiences of an emigrant who, decisively rejecting the politisation of musical life, wasn't just concerned with "all-out dedication to music but also practiced mutual help".

Joseph Joachim also played a key role in the development of the young Wilhelm Kempff. Kempffs grandfather was an organist, and his father practiced the same profession at Jüterbog

(Brandenburg). The ten year-old Wilhelm presented himself in short trousers for the admission examination to the Berlin Academy of Music where he didn't just play preludes and fugues from the "WellTempered Clavier" but also immediately transposed them on request. Georg Schumann eased his path - as Kempff reported in his 1951 autobiography "Unter dem Zimbelstern" - but of all these great musicians Joachim looked the most serious of all. "He probably had his reason. For Joachim, like Cherubini, didn't like child prodigies.

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After all he himself suffered a great deal from that fate. So he told my father that the Academy didn't accept such Lilliputians". Nevertheless, provision was made for pianistic and compositional training for the "little improviser" among well-known masters. The streak of genius was directed by way of solid studies into an orderly trajectory.

Kempff made his debut in 1918 as soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic, travelled almost the entire globe, became one of the most popular pianists in Germany and France, and incorporated the genus of "Sibylline" interpreter in the spirit of Romanticism's creative artist rather than a keyboard lion vanquishing Liszt. He wasn't one of those modern technicians servicing music. He wasn't much of a hit in North America where people wanted more power, virtuosity, and greater wealth of tone-colour. Kempff - like Eduard Erdmann, Edwin Fischer, or Elly Ney - to a certain extent cultivated a style of antivirtuosic "dramatic inwardness", but knew how to combine such gracious playing with transparency, a wealth of nuances, and cultivated musical gestures.

Wilhelm Kempff was a Schumann player par excellence. He wasn't always technically reliable, but he always discovered details that escaped other pianists. He demonstrated himself to be a master of transitions, and assumed liberties for himself, thereby allowing - perhaps for the last time - individuality to flare up in a "personal style". The unmistakable nature of a Glenn Gould or a Rudolf Serkin rests on what (in different ways) is processed out of the score, whilst Kempffs uniqueness results from a predisposition towards disposing over music in a specific fashion.

Finally, Claudio Arrau was also a child prodigy. In 1911 Chile granted the eight year-old a scholarship which assured continuation of his training in Europe. The pianist (b. 1903) also remained after the death of his revered teacher Martin Krause and after the 1918 revolution in the German capital where he found intellectual and artistic stimulation (as probably nowhere else). During, the twenties, he step by step gained for himself a place alongside pianists like Arthur Schnabel, Edwin Fischer, Kempff, and Walter Gieseking. He saw no reason before war broke out to leave his favourably disposed choice of home. Only in 1940 did he decide to

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settle in America. Arrau studied widely and had many interests, and, endowed with a phenomenal memory, he inclined towards presentations of a composer's entire oeuvre. As early as the midthirties he surprised Berlin with a concert series devoted to the "Entire Keyboard Works of J.S. Bach" - and the now available recordings from that cycle reveal an astonishing dedication to "faithfulness to the original". The idea of recording all of Chopin's works for the piano was not, however, realised - as was also to be the case with Schumann, Brahms, or Debussy. Only Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas are available as a complete whole.

Arrau was characterised by untiring diligence. He underwent a remarkable development from the early concerts (and recordings) in Berlin, still characterised by the allure of virtuosity, by way of selfdisciplining on behalf of "faithfulness to the work", to sovereign command of the entire gamut of pianism, extending from enormously moving weightiness to technical and musical legierezza expressing serenity. Claudio Arrau was abruptly snatched from a music-filled life, and - at the age of eighty eight - had still wanted to play at the opening of the Brahms Museum in Mürzzuschlag and during the Düsseldorf Schumann festival. Arrau the cosmopolitan, who didn't want to allow himself or his pupils to become specialists, viewed giving concerts as serving a higher cause. Nevertheless, the posturing of high priesthood were as alien to him as the circus-like element which his competitors for the public's greatest acclaim - Rubinstein and Horowitz - at least knew how to playfully deploy.

Frieder Reininghaus

Gidon Kremer

Misfortune and Leitmotif

His grandfather was already a famous violinist, and his parents also mastered the instrument. So it is not surprising that the young Gidon Kremer had his first violin lesson at the age of four. The fact that he would become one of the greatest violin virtuosi of our time was, however, in no way foreseeable. Gidon Kremer tells how full of suffering and difficulty his career was in his recently published book

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"Kindheitssplitter" ("Fragments of Childhood"). Helmut Маuro spoke to him for the "Süddeutsche Zeitung".

HM: Of course one expects of a musician that he can express him - or herself in music. Do you now distrust music because you have written a book?

Kremer: I don't mistrust music. Quite the contrary. The impulse that goes through a work of genius, which as interpreter one seeks to capture and can transmit to others, is very often an inspiration and an intensive sign from soul to soul - for those who are receptive in that way. But, as you know, not everyone has a need to seek answers to their soul's questions in classical music.

HM: As a child you were forced to practice the violin. Why didn't you hate the instrument?

Kremer: I myself decided to make the most of what I had learned. I want to show that my childhood is similar to many others, even though I had a particular talent. This is an attempt at talking about how a talent is directed, how it fends off specific circumstances. I believe that every child has a particular talent, but very much depends on how one treats this.

HM: In your memoirs one can follow part of the process of your maturing as an artist. How would you describe that today?

Kremer: Maturity is a collection of experiences; it's a different disposition of interests than is to be found in a child. But this maturity is already contained in a child, and it's really marvelous if this suspended state is preserved in an adult. This entails seeking a word, an expression. If this seeking is furthered in a child, it becomes mature more quickly or more surely. But if some unfortunate family or social situation leads to extortion of such seeking and nothing but rules are forced onto the child, then this maturity is inhibited. One of the most beautiful characteristics thus vanishes, and this structuring also lends support to something else - to the spirit of destruction.

HM: As a musician one cannot reproduce unfamiliar feelings. Would you agree with me that one hears whether a musician developed freely or was drilled?

Kremer: You're absolutely right. Submitting to a theory of music-making or a way of living life entails putting aside one's own experience. I did not want to renounce being as I am. I believe that to

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become an artist more is necessary than just manual expertise, a gift for hearing, and the ability to work. One's own feelings are a part of that. My wish is that no talented child should lose that. Then we'll have interesting people to deal with.

HM: Isn't 17 rather late for deciding in favour of an artistic

career?

Kremer: At the moment when I took that decision, I was equipped with a specific skill plus the bonus I received from my parents, who made sure that I practiced constantly. But that bonus also had its shadow-side. As a child I never experienced a great deal of what children experience and enjoy. When other children pursued their interests, I practiced the violin. I wouldn't wish that constraint on any child. But one aspect is also important. If a child doesn't learn that life involves a degree of exertion, it will always try to get by at the expense of others. That is a betrayal of the possibilities given to us. In addition it's an exploitation of those who give themselves voluntarily or involuntarily.

HM: Sometimes your stories sound as if you believe or retrospectively hope there could have been an easier way. But isn't it the case that an artist needs a certain amount of pressure through suffering?

Kremer: Certainly things couldn't have been different than they were. That's what happened so I tell it that way. The violin was the misfortune and the leitmotif of my life. I think that a carefree childhood is something marvelous, but you are right to say that in order to express things as an artist or to understand other people better one must experience suffering and even sin rather than relying on theory. It is existentially important to deal honorourably, directly, and intensively with one's own experiences.

Helmut Maurn/Süddeutsche Zeitung

St. Thomas’s Boys Choir at Leipzig

Johann Sebastian Bach was the best-known and certainly also greatest cantor at St. Thomas's, but he is one of many who shaped and directed this important boys choir, which today looks back on a history of.78.0 years. Among the traditional obligations of a choir

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financed by the city of Leipzig are Sunday church services and the Friday evening motets at St. Thomas's. However, that is by no means all. Things are most difficult in the pre-Christmas period: the Advent calendar plus a 'normal week" is what the boys choir has to cope with in November and December - plus rehearsals and school. In the weeks before Christmas they sing their "classic", Bach's Christmas Oratorio, four times apart from any-thing else. Presentations of cantatas and motets also continue without a break with additions to the repertoire each week.

An experienced "Thomasser" - as a real choir member calls himself - gets to know stress from an early age. After a while he takes it in his stride, but that while may extend over a year and a half. Stefan Kringel was like most choristers nine when he came from Rostock to the choir. He had been brought up as a Christian and as a music-lover, and also had contacts through relatives with the St. Thomas's School, so "it was clear from early on that I would come here". Stefan is now 17 with a bass II voice, and himself a mentor responsible for looking after younger boys. Had he absolutely wanted to join the choir? "As a child you scarcely make such decisions yourself" - he answers evasively. For Stefan the daily timetable seems just as difficult to get used to as it does for an outsider. Rise at 6.15 except on Sundays (at 8), wash, breakfast, lessons, midday meal, homework, at least two hours of choir practice daily as well as instrumental and vocal lessons. The boys are never alone, but for that very reason no-one is left to themselves. Here children bring up children. Even though most of the choristers come from Leipzig and the area, there are no "day-boys". As has always been the case, they all live and sleep at the school even if the family has a house nearby. "That strengthens solidarity and team spirit" - says 17 year-old Aron Geißler. Confusion is already being generated by the fact that boys in the third class are for the first time being experimentally allowed to try out a year at the school while sleeping at home. As the three of us walk through this "barracks", the aroma of the last midday meal hangs in the air. The dormitories and washing rooms are right at the top of the building, and were modernized a year ago. On the floor below there are the studies, crammed with desks and cupboards. Here you learn, read, and listen to music. In each of these double rooms is a prefect with responsibility

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for a dozen other boys. This form of organization, culminating in a notice-board, makes tutors almost superfluous. Only one "Inspector", alternating weekly, lives in the Hillerstraße building. Everything in this barracks seems well thought through, furthering creativity. The only thing is that there are no girls or women - except at the piano in voice training, in the school yard, or on Sundays at the parental table.

Now of course things are fine" - says Stefan. By now he means the last two years in this institution when one is a "senior", the time when the voice breaks is past, and pupils have a greater opportunity to determine their own fate. The young men have learned to make use of scarce free time for additional projects. For instance, at the beginning of last year they organized a musical evening together with girls from the Thomas Gymnasium. Or six choristers performed a capella as "Amakord", presenting a gospel song with Anke Lautenbach. What do the "seniors" do after gaining the Abitur, the university-entrance qualification? "Most do community service instead of being called up, and then study something or other" – says Aron. What about music? "Probably very few, but they all carry on for themselves".

Ex-Thomasser Stefan Altner, as business manager Cantor Georg Christoph Biller's right hand man, would like to gain even more recognition for his choir within the Leipzig cultural triumvirate of "Gewandhaus-Opera-St. Thomas's". He probably does not need to do a great deal. During the November tour through West Germany an enthusiastic public paid tribute to the choir's hard work. Cologne's Philharmonie was packed, Hesse Radio made a recording at Frankfurt, and in Hamburg the press - as elsewhere - was full of praise.

There scarcely exists any other choir giving as many performances as St. Thomas's. "That is already almost too much, and demands are mounting" - says Biller. And it could be maintained that there is no other choir which achieves such high standards.

Dorit Kowilz/Leipziger Volkszeitung

Post-reading activities

Give a short talk or write a composition about problems facing contemporary performers.

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THE WORLD

OF MODERN MUSIC

Хрестоматия для чтения на английском языке

Автор-составитель:

Бухарова Тамара Григорьевна

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