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SEEN
AND HEARD ARTICLE
“In Praise Of
Amateur Music-Making":
The search for authentic musical
excitement. (PSe)
Northland
Sinfonia, Atsuko Fukuoka (cond.),
St. John’s Church, Whangarei, New Zealand, Saturday 16 August 2008 (PSe)
[Editor's Note: As well as reporting our
regular mix of international professional concerts and opera,
Seen and Heard International is always pleased to be able
to promote worthy performances by amateur musicians - see Rob
Barnett's review of the Todmorden Orchestra in this edition. Regular
MusicWeb reviewer Paul Serotsky emigrated from Yorkshire in the UK
to New Zealand last year. Now settled 'Down Under', here he
speculates in his truly inimitable style on the potential
superiority of the amateur musician over the professional.]
It’s the middle of August, and they dangle before me the promise of
“an afternoon of light music”. Ordinarily, this would have struck me
as the perfect pastime for a balmy summer’s day. Hmm. I’ve now been
“down under” for almost a year, but I’ve still not quite recovered
my grip on the “ordinary”. They take some getting used to, all these
topsy-turvy things such as water going down the plug-hole the wrong
way, the sun crossing the sky backwards – and, of course, August
being at the fag-end of winter!
So, I thank my lucky stars – although, of course, many of those
are now permanently beyond my horizon – that music sounds the same
whichever way “up” I am, and that a concert is still the best way to
experience music, regardless of the season. Even better, the current
“carrot” is being dangled by an amateur orchestra. Ha! That
should spark a few dissenting reactions. “Oh, come on!” I
hear from various voices, “You don’t really mean that, do you? An
amateur orchestra won’t sound as good as a professional one, will
it?” Well, my friends, true that may be, but it’s not the whole
truth. Now I hear, from a differently-constituted chorus, noises of
assent.
The amateur orchestra in question was entirely new to me. As far as
I was concerned, up until a short while before this concert the
Northland Sinfonia (“NSO” for short) had inhabited the realm of
rumour. If I seem a little “off the ball”, I do have an excuse.
Briefly, the tumult of immigration hadn’t even fully subsided before
I succumbed to a serious ear problem that, for many months, has put
the mockers on most matters musical. Although I’m by no means out of
the woods yet, at least I can – or I think I can – see a faint
glimmering at the end of the tunnel. Anyway, my hopefully
understandable transports of delight at the discovery of this “new”
amateur orchestra set me thinking, all over again, about this entire
business of “amateur vs. professional”. You see, to my mind amateurs
should never be dismissed – which they all too often are – as
“second-class performers”. They yield to professionals in terms of
technical proficiency, but that’s all; the balance is
redressed by certain advantages, rather less obvious, that they have
over professionals. “Advantages”? Yes! Let me try to explain myself.
Back in my native Yorkshire, over many years I’d been involved with
a fair spectrum of amateur orchestras. At one extreme came such as
the renowned Slaithwaite Philharmonic Orchestra (see
website, which contains some truly fascinating history). The
SPO’s playing membership adds up to a full-sized “standard” symphony
orchestra, which regularly gives alarmingly creditable performances
of a wide range of music. Yet, they go further - by hiring, as
necessary, players of relatively obscure instruments, they take on
major works such as Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, Bruckner’s
Ninth, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, and Suk’s Asrael
Symphony. Occasionally they rope in local choirs, brass bands,
singers and so forth, whatever is necessary to mount really
ambitious productions including, for example, Mahler’s Third
Symphony and Puccini’s Turandot.
At the other extreme came the likes of the Paddock Orchestra. When I
was involved with this happy little band, it was quite literally
open to all-comers, whatever their ability (or lack of it). Its aim
was as simple as it was laudable: to provide such folk with the
opportunity to play together. Because all-comers rarely, if ever,
all come conveniently pre-packed in proper proportions, the PO had
many interesting balance problems, which were surmounted through a
cheerfully “make do and mend” approach to whatever they wanted to
have a bash at.
My heart soon filled with respect and admiration for these folk. I
once [SPO Quarterly Journal No. 9, March 1993] tried to
express it thus:
“I find my mind utterly boggled at the sheer audacity of
organisations such as the SPO. Somebody once said that 'the symphony
orchestra is the supreme achievement of western civilisation' - with
good reason, as it would seem nigh on impossible to get so many
people simply to co-operate on any venture, let alone produce music!
It's tough enough for hardened professionals, so what are the
chances of 'a bunch of mere amateurs'?
“A typical effort will be littered with a continuum of faults. The
problem is that audiences, weaned on the synthetic perfection of
commercial recordings, tend to be unthinkingly intolerant of faults
in even live professional performances, let alone amateur ones. I
argue (long and hard) that audiences must tailor their expectations,
just as do those who tolerate the sound of ancient recordings, to
'listen through' the surface imperfections to the music that lies
beneath. The tolerant are richly rewarded. Enthusiastic amateurs,
perpetually striving against their limitations, restore to Music
what is lost to the prosaic professional: the elements of risk and
danger; the familiar becomes new, challenging, exciting!”
Because of the limited space of a paper publication, I necessarily
side-stepped a fair bit of reasoning. However, here I don’t have any
such excuse, do I? Right then, so now I’ll try to describe the
reflections and reasoning that led to that mini-pæan. We’ll start
with an analogy: think of technical ability as a ladder. Amateurs
occupy the lower rungs, professionals the higher, with a grey area
somewhere in between. So far, so good?
Whatever rung any given ensemble sits on, that rung and below
defines its “comfort zone”, whilst higher rungs represent areas
increasingly beyond its capabilities. Hence, the further upwards it
strives, the greater its risk of “failure”. This leads us to the
blindingly obvious conclusion that amateurs cannot afford to “take
risks”, for fear of transforming a potentially shaky performance
into an absolute shambles, whilst professionals are much better
placed to chance their arms, on account of their superior, or even
supreme technical assurance.
I called this conclusion “blindingly obvious”. Well, obvious it may
be, but, in my humble opinion, true it is not. If anything,
the exact opposite is true! Near the very top of the ladder,
virtually all is “comfort zone”. There is little or nothing
“beyond”, other than the green fields of Parnassus accessible from
the top rung. Hence, there is scant scope for taking any significant
risks. Correspondingly, the lower down the ladder you are, the more
headroom you have. So, what happens if an ensemble tries pushing
upwards, beyond its comfort zone, if it “strives against its
limitations”? Well, its “fault rate” increases: the performance
becomes increasingly “shaky” until, at some point, it crumbles
catastrophically into a “shambles”.
Any ensemble can, of course, opt to snuggle safely in its comfort
zone, so why take any risks at all? The crème de la crème can
certainly afford this luxury – after all, they’ve worked long and
hard for precisely that. An amateur ensemble, however small its
comfort zone, can also opt to play safe. However, in music as in
anything else, it’s the risks that generate the thrills. Moreover,
catastrophe will by no means strike the very instant you stick your
nose out of your comfort zone, and the more confident – or
“audacious” – you are, the further up the ladder your breaking-point
will be.
Ultimately it’s a matter of judging just how far the elastic will
stretch before breaking, or (better!) how near to the edges of their
seats the performers can get without actually falling off. The
better the balance they strike, the more the performers’ tingling
nerves will set their audience’s nerves tingling. This requires
nothing more than a bit of “risk management”, and that – need I say?
– is the conductor’s job.
Let me cite an example of a conductor “managing risk”. Whilst I was
balancing microphones at a SPO rehearsal, I heard an impressive
remonstration from their then conductor, Adrian Smith. I happened to
have the recorder running, so I was able to transcribe the incident
word for word: "NO!!! Somebody didn't WATCH! The very point I made –
you must watch – DON’T look at your music. I'd sooner you
play a wrong note, every one of you, in time, than a right
note in the wrong place. How many more times do I have to tell you,
there's more important things than notes in this business! So, WATCH
for that downbeat . . . [music starts] . . . That's it!
GOOD!!!"
Equally, Adrian was quite content to let players “skip a few notes”
if it preserved the music’s all-important vitality. Generally
speaking, Adrian was much less concerned with making “nice” sounds
than releasing as much as possible of the music’s inherent drama.
It’s a fact – I have recordings to prove it – that generally the
smoother and sweeter an amateur performance is technically, the less
spine-tingling it is for its audience.
Given what I’ve said already, this isn’t at all surprising, because,
at any level of expertise, sonic beauty is maximised by minimising
mistakes, that is, by keeping well within the comfort zone – and
hence not taking any risks at all. Turning that on its head
leads to a possibly provocative proposition – “Truly exciting
performance depends not on technical proficiency, but on willingness
to take risks”. Yet, surely, there
must be more to it than that? Plenty of professional performances
blow off our socks, don’t they? Yes, of course they do, and partly
for the same reason – professionals, remember, merely have less
scope for risk-taking. But it’s also partly because we,
the audience, are impressed – often far too impressed – by
sheer virtuosity of execution, which generally produces, not
excitement itself, but simply the semblance of excitement.
I’ll be the first to admit that these reflections are merely my own
musings, more a “first approximation” than a thorough thesis.
However, they at least table a few ideas for further discussion,
ideally over a pint or two. It behoves me to close the loop on
“explaining myself”. The “truth” is that amateurs indeed do not
sound as good as professionals but, for that crucial “whole
truth”, we must recognise that they are far better placed for
producing thrilling – both exciting and moving –
performances. This is an enormous advantage, and in my opinion
that’s ample reason for preferring an amateur performance to a
professional one – provided, that is, the amateurs are eager to grab
the gauntlet so conveniently dropped before them, and give it a
damned good shake!
So, let’s put this to the test. I just need an amateur orchestra
that’s new to me – and the NSO will do nicely. It’s basically a
“large chamber orchestra”, on this occasion comprising 17 strings
(5-4-3-3-2), 3 flutes, 3 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 1 horn, 2 trumpets,
2 trombones, tuba, tympani and percussion. Nobody knows exactly how
long the NSO has been around, because no records were kept until, as
the Whangarei Municipal Orchestra, it first performed in public,
over 70 years ago.
In 1988 it dropped the “Municipal”, tempting me to think it might
have “enjoyed” civic support similar to that of Barbirolli’s Hallé.
In 1999, adoption of the present name acknowledged the true
geographical distribution of its playing membership. I gather that
the NSO’s repertoire is fairly modest, at least when compared with
the likes of the SPO. Nevertheless, last year, in conjunction with a
local choir, Consortium, and pianist Atsuko Fukuoka, it performed
Beethoven’s Choral Fantasia – hardly what I’d call blushingly
“modest”.
In the mid-1960s, Adrian Smith dragged a dying SPO – reduced to a
mere dozen playing members! – back from the brink of extinction.
However, although the NSO has similarly had its back to the wall, it
has never subsequently flourished to the same spectacular extent.
This is partly because Fortune hasn’t favoured it with a messianic
conductor, but more because Northland is at a demographic
disadvantage. Huddersfield is more self-sufficient and has a much
higher population density. By comparison, Northland has nowhere near
the same amount of budding talent, whilst both higher education and
the job market continually strip the bush of buds just as they come
into bloom. Well, you have to play the cards you’re dealt. On the
whole, the NSO seems to be playing a pretty fair game.
Their “afternoon of light music” began with Beethoven’s Egmont
Overture. This isn’t really what you’d call “light music”, but
provides as good a test as any of an orchestra’s mettle. The opening
grim, gruff phrases elevated my eyebrows: the richness of the
strings’ sound was striking. Because of the modest overall numbers,
this cannot be due entirely to their relative numbers slightly
favouring the bass end. No, credit is mostly due to the conductor
and the players for taking advantage of their current good fortune.
here were glitches in the wind playing sufficient for professionals
to have been shown the red card (or simply be given their cards).
However, these were a far cry from poor playing, because otherwise
they gave me much pleasure. Moreover, they’d compensated admirably
well for the lack of oboes – whose absence, if I can put it this
way, was never intrusive. The firm and accurate tympani sounded
splendid. Sometimes they seemed overly forceful, which I suspect was
due to a minor misjudgement of the performing environment – the
church hall was, admittedly, too small and acoustically cramped.
So far, so good! However, when Egmont got moving, the NSO
didn’t. Not even the ageing Otto Klemperer took Egmont’s
quick bits this slowly. To me, they seemed to be playing far too
carefully – those menacing crescendi didn’t so much surge as
ascend serenely. In the final item these symptoms were less
pronounced, largely due to the more lyrical and less aggressive
strains of Schubert’s Rosamunde Overture. Here the NSO’s
performance was both elegant and enjoyable, and would have been
entirely so – I am duty-bound to say – had it not been for the
gratuitous snare-drum that did Schubert no favours whatsoever. By
and large, the bits of genuine “light music” went splendidly. John
Dylan, a former NSO conductor, has arranged the Helston Furry
Dance (otherwise known to Terry Wogan fans as the Floral
Dance) for double-bass and orchestra. This proved to be a
thoroughly charming miniature, in which Alanna Jones’s gruff yet
genial double-bass, perhaps a tad quietly, formed an admirable foil
for the cheerful orchestra.
In the orchestral version of Vaughan Williams’s Greensleeves
Fantasia, the opening woodwind phrases lacked something of the
composer’s characteristic “misty distance”, but the strings
compensated by caressing the ancient melody with all due fondness.
In spite of being billed as “No. 1”, a Brahms Hungarian Dance
turned out to be none other than the famous “No. 5”. Although,
again, it should ideally have been rather quicker – and a good deal
coarser! – Atsuko Fukuoka coaxed some fine gradations of tempo from
her players.
Concertos don’t usually feature in light music concerts, but this
programme had one. It came in the delightful form of Leroy
Anderson’s Sandpaper Ballet, which occasioned much inventive
humour. Two “sandpaper soli”, Naotake Fukuoka and the orchestra’s
percussionist, Jason Wordsworth, appeared wearing appropriate
costume – grubby overalls, tee-shirts, baseball caps and so on – and
bearing a table that held a full panoply of “instruments”. Although
they took an unconscionable amount of time tuning up (!), it was
well worth the wait for the ensuing bravura performance.
The extravagant gestures normally associated with flashy showmanship
were here employed effectively, demonstrating to maximum advantage
the full range of expressive subtlety of these rare and delicate
instruments, and facilitating appreciation of the comparative
capabilities of the various members of the instrumental family.
Those who were not completely transfixed by this extraordinary
exhibition, of which I seemed to be one, enjoyed the additional
delight of an NSO, laid-back, positively beaming, clearly revelling
in its tuneful backdrop to the up-front shenanigans.
There were two embedded diversions. The Kotare Ensemble, comprising
two NSO players – Emily Thompson (viola) and Nigel Harrison
(clarinet) – and Atsuko Fukuoka (piano), played Mozart’s
“Kegelstatt” Trio (K498). Quite coincidentally, only a few weeks
previously this very work had been played locally, by the Tawahi
Trio (see
review). Good as that was, I think this was better, yielding to
the Tawahi only in terms of refinement.
Nowadays, to my mind, attitudes to Mozart tend to be far too
reverential. Even when the music begs to be belted out “gustissimo”,
it still ends up with an odour of ecclesiastical mothballs clinging
to it. Notwithstanding the venue, the Kotare players were
refreshingly profane. Putting classical elegance firmly in its
proper place, they restored a degree of earthiness, reminding us
that, in its day, this sort of thing was popular music – you
didn’t kneel at its feet, but revelled in it. These players
were having fun, and their fun was infectious.
The other diversion was a “guest appearance” by the Whangarei Youth
Orchestra conducted by Naotake Fukuoka, minus his best DIY bib and
tucker. This was particularly interesting, not only in its own
right, but also because the WYO, in some respects, is the major
“nursery” for future NSO players. I wasn’t over-impressed by their
outer items. Video Games Live and Klaus Nadelt’s hum-drum
music for Pirates of the Caribbean were nothing more than
“merchandising” products – musically speaking, all icing and no
cake. The centrepiece, however, was Smetana’s Vltava.
Alright, so it was a “junior edition”, reduced to the Big Tune and
the village dance, but it sounded pretty faithful to the original.
So, I found it useful, because through the familiar music I could
fairly gauge the youngsters’ playing. It was astonishingly good –
smooth-sounding strings simulating the stream, and village dancing
that tempted your toes to tapping. Here were high hopes for the
NSO’s future, if only some of them could hang around long enough!
Applying my detailed deliberations about amateur music-makers to
just this one concert, what can I – relatively briefly! – conclude
about the NSO? Quite simply, it possesses far more potential than
it’s presently using. Take the most obvious symptom: that
over-cautious Beethoven suggested a lack of confidence allied to an
overriding desire not to make mistakes.
In my book, such a timid approach, selling themselves short, is
probably one of the biggest mistakes that amateurs can make. For,
although they do indeed play a bit more cleanly, they thereby deny
themselves the golden opportunity to invest the music with real,
nerve-tingling excitement. As I implied above, the ability to
generate excitement by taking risks is an amateur orchestra’s
greatest asset. The NSO looks ripe for a bit of the old
elastic-stretching, leading to a corresponding lift in the fun
factor, for both players and audiences alike. The evidence? Read on!
Firstly, a general audience could cheerfully tolerate quite a lot
more glitches than they produce. In fact, most of their glitches
weren’t even “stress-related”. Secondly, even the sharpest ears
would be hard pressed to take even mild offence at their intonation.
Thirdly, the smiles exchanged, even whilst playing, demonstrated
evident enjoyment. Fourthly, there’s no lack of ability – as witness
the Kotare Ensemble and, for that matter, I didn’t notice anybody
else patently struggling! Fifthly and, for now, lastly, the “easier”
pieces tended to come off better
All this just goes to show that there is indeed a “comfort zone”,
within which the NSO is nestling cosily, and hence there’s a big,
fat “envelope” just waiting to be given a jolly good push! In
sporting fraternities, there’s a well-known – or maybe just
“well-worn” – saying that could apply equally to amateur
music-makers: “Feel the fear, but do it anyway.” I sincerely hope
that they do do it anyway. I’ll try to keep you posted.
Paul Serotsky