Classical New Jersey Society - Reviews & Opinions

String ‘em up!
Chamber music within an orchestra concert
Saturday, March 6, 2004
By Robert W. Butts

The New Philharmonic Orchestra, Leon Hyman, Conductor. Arnold Steinhardt, violin, Michael Tree, violin/viola. Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 3 in G major, and Concerto for Two Violins; Mozart's Duo for Violin and Viola; Dvorak's Serenade for Strings. Community Theatre, Morristown.

Strings. Many strings in many configurations: each on their part; solo strings with string accompaniment (plus harpsichord, a string instrument of another sort); solo strings with no accompaniment; and strings in sections forming a string orchestra.

With a delightful evening of selections beautifully played, the New Philharmonic under conductor Leon Hyman displayed the wide range of possible sounds, timbres and textures that can be created.

Start with several strings, but each with its own part. For this combination, the orchestra used principal players to fill all the parts of Johann Sebastian Bach's Brandenburg Concerto no. 3. Though the sound was distinctly less than orchestral - to be expected with this scoring – the ensemble made up in warmth and intimacy what might seem lacking in volume. The thickly *contrapuntal texture flowed with surprising lightness, buoyantly moving through Bach's limitless explorations of combinations ranging from the entire ensemble to duets and trios.

Especially notable among the eleven already notable musicians were violinist Basia Danilow and violist Adam Hyman, both of whom played with a little extra edge when the themes were tossed their way. Harpsichordist Richard Wolinsky played with tasteful restraint, solidly supporting and becoming one with whatever combination was playing.

Next, we had two solo strings accompanied by string orchestra in Bach's equally popular Concerto for Two Violins in D Minor. For this, Mr. Hyman welcomed internationally renowned musicians Michael Tree and Arnold Steinhardt (members of the Guarneri String Quartet and Rutgers faculty members). While the now expanded orchestra played magnificently, once the initial *ritornello passed, the concerto rightfully belonged to the soloists. Tree and Steinhardt performed flawlessly. Tossing thematic material back and forth, they created an exciting spirit that never let up even to take a breath as they drove the opening *Vivace forward with force and momentum. Refusing to overly milk the *Largo, as some tend to do, they chose to develop the music's spiritual beauty as every line was carefully shaped and sublimely rendered. Most effective was their sense for the *movement as a whole, rather than as a series of emotional moments. Thus, at the final thematic statements, listeners were able to fully feel the expressive force of Bach's writing. The group concluded with a dynamically charged final allegro.

But what about simply solo strings? Tree and Steinhardt returned to an emptied stage for a very committed and thoroughly enjoyable performance of Mozart's Duo for Violin and Viola, K.124. The only problem here had nothing to do with the duo who successfully explored every nuance of Mozart's intimate scoring. In one sense, it was just a little too much. Despite the small forces, it is not a small scale work. Despite its size and depth, however, neither is it really a work for a large auditorium. Also, following the Bach Concerti, the inclusion of the duo made for a long first half of seventy plus minutes. Still, for those who don't mind lengthy first halves and did not feel the need to get up and stretch (after all, many operas run much longer first acts), the pleasure of hearing such wonderful music so impeccably played was highly rewarding.

The full string orchestra sound was warmly conveyed through Dvorák's melodically rich Serenade, op. 22. Here, there were no soloists and the audience could fully appreciate the sensual beauty of nineteen accomplished violinists, violists, cellists and bassist combining to produce one lush orchestral sound of unforgettable substance and beauty.

Music with a smile

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All Smiles
Another son of a famed father
Sunday, March 14, 2004
By Don Martone

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Stefan Sanderling (conductor), Marcus Groh (piano). Stravinsky: Suite from Pulcinella; Schubert: Symphony no. 3 in D major; Beethoven: Piano Concerto no. 5, op. 73 (“Emperor”). Community Theatre, Morristown.

Stefan Sanderling is the latest in the famous conductors’ sons “series” at the NJSO. His credentials are impressive, so it was with anticipation that I attended the event. The result was an extremely enjoyable afternoon.

Two of the works could serve as a template for the presentation. The first, which was the last played, was the Beethoven “Emperor” concerto. The orchestra was joined by pianist Markus Groh for the work. In press releases Groh is described as being “Idolized as a pop star in both Belgium and Japan.” Indeed, he looks the part: tall, thin, and young, with a flowing ponytail.

He also has superb classical credentials. At this concert, he demonstrated that any technical difficulty in the Beethoven simply did not exist for him. Of course, technique is pretty much taken for granted these days, but Groh backed up his technique with a fine conception of the work. Rhythmically this was a much studied performance and rhythm seemed to be at the core of Sanderling’s frequently punchy *"al la Solti" conception. Sanderling also placed a great deal of emphasis on differentiating *legato from detached playing in the winds. This led to a very nice over all presentation of a much played work.

If I had any negative criticism it was a lack of dynamic contrast. Groh seemed to play either *forte or *piano, but any of the gradations between those extremes were seldom explored. Of course, the score shows very few gradations, relying on an understanding that the performers will use their own tastes to make it more musical.

The centerpiece of the afternoon proved to be the masterwork. Schubert’s Third Symphony was given a performance that was magic from beginning to end. The Third is neither played nor recorded all that often.

As I listened and watched the performance I thought back to a time when CD’s first started appearing on the market. My uncle Frank was visiting me from Florida. Frank is a violinist who had lived with my family until I was a teenager. I was eager to show off both the new medium and my equipment. I put on a copy of the Schubert C major Cello Quintet and we listened for a while. I turned to him and said “isn’t this great to listen to?” He looked at me and quietly said, “It’s more fun to play it.”

As I watched the NJSO play Schubert this scene was brought back to me. As much as I was in heaven listening to them play this wonderful symphony, it was obvious that they were enjoying playing it even more. They were in a different place. Smiles lit up the faces of the musicians. Assistant Concertmaster Brennan Sweet and Concertmaster Eric Wyrick traded grins as they played. The wind players were beaming. The result was a performance with such verve that it was impossible not to regret that the work was finished so soon. The third movement *”Minuetto vivace” was played with such enthusiasm that it was not hard to hear in the vigorous *Ländler-based rhythm a direct line to Bruckner. Sanderling allowed the work to unfold with naturalness, treating the piece as the charming beauty that it is.

The afternoon began with the Stravinsky Pulcinella Suite in a performance that echoed the qualities of the other two works: Rhythmic control and wonderfully enthusiastic playing from the orchestra.

As a practicing curmudgeon I react to the current trend giving silly titles to classical programs as a dumb fad. This program, for example, was billed as “Clowns and Kings.” Who are the clowns and who are the kings? I know, Pulcinella is a clown figure and the concerto is the *”Emperor.” I get it, but does anyone really think this brings one more person into the house? Shouldn’t Beethoven, Schubert and Stravinsky be enough to bring us into the hall? I’m sure that no one out there reads such titles and decides to take in a concert rather than a wrestling match. The marketers are preaching to the choir and talking down to them at the same time.

Classicism with the gloves off
The “Golden Age Strings” payoff
Saturday, March 20, 2004
By Henry Wyatt

Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Lawrence Foster (conductor), Emanuel Ax (piano). Haydn: Symphony no. 88 in G major; Mozart: Piano Concerto no. 17 in G major, K. 453; Elgar: “Enigma” Variations, op. 36. Prudential Hall, Newark.

Last June the New Jersey Symphony unveiled its “Golden Age” string instruments to the public. It was an immediate triumph of high-profile philanthropy and, accompanied by much fanfare (so to speak), of high-power marketing. But mortgaging the orchestra’s future to a collection of prestige instruments was a risk, not only financial but musical. This writer opined in these pages that “It can take months, even years, before a musician learns to effortlessly coax a new instrument to reveal its wondrous secrets on demand. The NJSO’s fortunate string players are just at the start of the learning curve. Time will tell how the NJSO’s overall string sound will be changed, if at all, by having thirty Golden Age string instruments in the band.”

So I said last season. Ten months makes a difference. The former NJSO string sound was then undistinguished and lustreless. Now, with the players well on the way to mastering these fine instruments, it is firmly and complexly textured, sufficiently flexible to fulfill the demands of many styles. The NJSO’s string sound is, in a word, remarkable. In the lush Romantic soundscape of Elgar’s “Enigma” Variations it’s easy to lose even the first violins, but all the string voices were full without running to fat, arching over the chattering woodwinds and harrumphing brass. Credit must be given to conductor Lawrence Foster’s peerless musical intelligence, keen on every level of structure, from the subtlest gesture or dab of color to the overall design of the work. Elgar composed “Enigma” knowing that his expansive language needed the discipline of variation form, and Mr. Foster supplied the discipline necessary to elicit all the intimacy and charm of Elgar’s musical portraiture of his wife, friends, and finally himself.

But in Classic-era music, the NJSO’s new string persona and Mr. Foster’s musical focus were an even better match. The accustomed and much-abused G-major geniality of Haydn’s 88th Symphony was less in evidence than a sinewy string quality and sharply-chiseled rhythms. Some of this is probably due to our changing reception of Haydn: no longer the chuckling Papa with his simple witticisms, but the restless intellect of literary depth and subtlety with a profound sense of irony and an acerbic musical idiom worthy of a Bartók - in short, a composer of unimpeachable artistic integrity. In this spirit Mr. Foster and the orchestra took heed of Haydn’s musical topics, highlighting (for example) the *sarabande meter of the slow introduction, and the raw-boned cross rhythms and tangy raised fourths in the minuet-trio. No faux rustic this tough and flinty-eyed Haydn, riding across the sun-baked plains of Hungary with three days’ stubble on his leathery face.

For all its Italianate tunefulness, Mozart’s piano concerto, K. 453, also G major, benefited as well from tough love - no Rococo cherubs smirking in this performance. Rather than the usual G-major sweetness and light, the glare of high noon was blunt but refreshing. Emanuel Ax was the clear-headed, no-nonsense soloist, making the slightest broadening of tempo at the beginning of the first-movement recapitulation or some other structural juncture. This is vintage Ax, relentlessly probing the darker, more momentous aspects of Classic-era music without indulging Romantic excess. Firm leadership from the podium showed Mr. Foster of the same mind; the opening march rhythms had a hard-edged swagger. And the newly-invigorated sound of the NJSO's fine string band was prima facie evidence that the eighteen-million-dollar risk was worth taking.

New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Young Artists Auditions 20th Annual Awards Concert. Thomas Wilkins (conductor), Kyung-Jun Kim (violin), Sung-Chan Chang (cello), Sang Jun Yhee (cello), Esther Jung-A Park (piano). Rossini: Overture to Il barbiere di Siviglia; Sibelius: Violin Concerto in D minor, op. 47 (1st movement); Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme, op. 33; Shostakovich: Cello Concerto no. 1 (movements 1, 3, and 4); Prokofiev : Piano Concerto no. 3 in C major, op. 26 (movements 2 and 3). State Theatre, New Brunswick.

The third time was the charm for pianist Esther Jung-A Park. She had already been a finalist in 2002 and 2003, placing second and third respectively. But when she played the final crashing chords of Prokofiev’s Third Piano Concerto very few in the State Theatre audience placed her anywhere other than in first place. Well, we don’t know for certain how the judges felt, but we can only imagine that the longish time it took for the final decision to be made was a matter of sorting out the other three awards. As it turned out , this was a matter of great dispute in the audience as well – nothing new there!

Park’s performance was brilliant in its technical mastery while it flashed iridescently between gossamer delicacy and driving forcefulness. It was also a demonstration of the adage that experience tells, for she walked on stage firmly and took gracious command.

The other three players entered the stage tentatively, even when their playing proved them to be highly skilled artists with technique at a very high level.

Second prize winner was violinist Kyung-Jun Kim who played the first movement of the Sibelius concerto alternating between gusty aggressiveness and long-limbed lyricism. He began the afternoon’s competition by setting a high standard. In my own ranking I placed him second because I simply wasn’t fond of the generally slow tempo. Before next year, when I hope he returns, perhaps he’ll get a more lush sound out of his instrument.

Third place went to Sang Jun Yhee who played the first, third, and fourth movements of the Shostakovich Cello Concerto no. 1. His playing was muscular and lively in the outer movements. The long unaccompanied lament, which is a cadenza so long it is listed as a separate movement, was given a great deal of expression.

Fourth place was thus given to cellist Sung-Chan Chang (the winner’s cousin) for his trip through the treacherous Variations on a Rococo Theme by Tchaikovsky. His *tempi were on the money and his technique was in fine shape. Until the nasty passage in octaves in the coda I sat there amazed at the maturity of conception and honest musicality. But that passage in a competition betrayed him. Had this been a non-competitive performance it would not have mattered a bit; I’ve heard worse in that passage from fully-fledged “name” artists.

Sang Jun Yhee also foundered on *intonational trouble in crucial spots - some of the dissonant double-stops - and this no doubt tipped the balance. His high level of visceral excitement alone could not carry the day.

In both cases these were details hardly representative of their whole performances. Indeed, the playing this year was at a high average level. But when the competition gets tight it is those little details which loom large. Within the orchestra special mention must be made of hornist Lucinda Lewis, the sole brass player in the Shostakovich concerto. Her playing was secure, accurate, and well matched to the aggressive style of the soloist.

The concert began with Rossini’s Overture to Aureliano in Palmira. Mr. Wilkins took the familiar work so slowly and with such purposeful *legato that it certainly felt like an *opera seria must follow. Had it been faster and more lightly detached it would have felt much more like the Overture to Il barbiere di Siviglia, which is how it was listed in the program and how we all know it. Because it felt so heavy the patented *Rossini crescendos did not materialize. The remainder of the afternoon Wilkins did what he had to do and let the soloists shine. If he became a momentary leaning post for Mr. Yhee when the young player nearly collapsed at the end of his performance, he was genial and supportive about it. He refused to take a bow with winner Park, kissing her hand and stepping back instead. At the conclusion of the concert Wilkins motioned for the orchestra to stand, then left the stage so they could receive the applause alone.

With all due respect to those who through the years have come out to speak to the audience while the judges deliberate, would it not be appropriate to have the Honorable Mention winner play for the audience in a non-competitive environment? It be an encouragement to that young person and give the audience a sense of who is up and coming. It would also lessen the necessity of having a speaker awkwardly try to kill time if the judging takes awhile, as it did on this occasion.

This year we would have loved to hear pianist Sun-A Park, particularly because she is the younger sister of the first place winner.

Visiting L. A.

The Myth of the Walt Disney Concert Hall
Should you end up in L. A. …
Sunday, March 28, 2004
By A. Michael Noll

The Walt Disney Concert Hall opened last year as the new home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Designed by Frank Gehry, the hall has been acclaimed by critics for its fine acoustics and also for its impressive and novel architecture. Although the architecture is indeed impressive and the hall looks quite nice, the acoustics are not good, in my opinion.

The Walt Disney Concert Hall cost nearly one-quarter billion dollars, and for this princely sum the sound should be excellent throughout the hall, with no excuses. However, the sound quality is not good and has harshness in the upper frequencies, while the lower frequencies seem missing in some portions of the hall. The music sounded worse to me than at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion just across the street, the former home of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

The audience surrounds the orchestra on the stage of the Disney Hall: front, sides, and behind. I was able to sit in two different locations during two separate concerts. Both locations would normally have been expected to have excellent sound, but did not. One location was in the rear center of the first balcony. In this location, the lower frequencies of the double basses, bass drum, and timpani were missing, while the violins had a very harsh, strident quality. The other location was on the right side, nearly above the double basses and celli. Here the lower frequencies of these instruments were quite strong, but the timpani were weak and the violins still sounded harsh.

Wood, we have been told, is good for concert halls made of wood. Wooden floors can add resonance to a hall, but not when the wood is installed against concrete or in strong curved structures, as in the Disney Hall. In this case, the wood simply acts as a highly reflective surface, making sound waves bounce around and impact against the surfaces, thus creating a harsh acoustic environment. The curved flat wooden walls and ceilings might look nice, but it is a myth that they create a good acoustic environment.

We attend concerts to hear the performers whispers, candy wrappers, and feet shuffling are amplified and heard throughout the hall - by other audience members and also by the musicians on stage. This is because of all the hard wood floors. And that is why carpets were invented and used on the floors of most halls - namely, to absorb audience noise. This kind of blunder is not what one would expect from an experienced acoustician.

On a positive note, the hall itself is absolutely quiet, with no noise from the ventilation system or from outside traffic, although one feels air moving through the hall. The public spaces outside the auditorium are intimate with many fascinating nooks and crannies, although the large gathering space of a formal lobby is missing. But there is a fine space for pre-concert talks, and the ushering staff is friendly and helpful. One little nook is called the “student listening room” and is located within the auditorium but behind the huge reflective walls. The sound there is impressive in the lower frequencies, although the highs sounded distant, as one would expect, and there was nothing to see other than the back of the walls.

There is also a subjective dimension: how a hall looks can affect how many people believe it sounds. The light-colored wood walls and ceiling of the Disney Hall thus can make some people believe it has a warm wooden sound. There are some who believe that the change in paint color from a white undercoat to the final dark blue decades ago somehow affected negatively the early reviewers of New York’s Philharmonic Hall’s “ill-acoustic”. Thus some of us close our eyes while judging the acoustics of a hall.

What can be done about the Walt Disney Concert Hall? Unfortunately, the design of concert halls seems to be more of an art than a science with much good luck required for success. New York City’s Philharmonic Hall opened in the 1960s and was immediately cursed with acoustic problems, although some seats had fantastic sound. A lengthy series of renovations, including a renaming as Avery Fisher Hall, compounded the problems until the hall became uniformly bad.

We do know that the uniformity of the decay in reverberation is probably more important than the actual reverberation time. We know to avoid parallel surfaces that can create standing waves. We know that concave walls can focus the sound-creating echoes. We are learning that the surface of the walls and ceiling should disperse the sound, and large highly reflective surfaces should be avoided. But we know much less about how to repair poor acoustics in an existing hall, and we are very nervous about making even the smallest change in a hall with good acoustics. And the New York experience shows that poor acoustics can actually be made worse through tinkering. In the case of the Disney Hall, clearly the aisles must be carpeted and vinyl tiles used under the seats to absorb audience noise. This might also reduce the overall harshness. Some of the low frequencies are being absorbed by a reflective wall behind the orchestra and also by the surrounding audience. Reflective clouds over the orchestra might help here but would create serious issues with sight lines. We did notice that the auditorium itself is a huge cube with sloping walls, almost as if expecting that some day the seats and reflective walls would need to be changed. That day might be sooner than later, once Los Angeles gets over the Hollywood excitement of the visual impact of the new hall.

When you are next in the Los Angeles area, do visit the Disney Hall, at the very least to see an impressive work of architecture. The Los Angeles Philharmonic is one of the great orchestras, well worth hearing, even if the acoustics of the Disney Hall are not that great. The musical performance quality of the Shostakovich symphonies that I heard was superb. Visit too the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, two blocks up the street, where a very fine pipe organ awaits you.

Copyright © A. Michael Noll, 2004 All rights reserved.

A response to Mr. Noll's Disney Hall review by
David Kahn, Founding Principal
ACOUSTIC DIMENSIONS
New Rochelle, NY
www.acousticdimensions.com

Dear Editor:

I read with interest Michael Noll's comments on the acoustics of the Walt Disney Concert Hall in the 4/15/04 issue of CNJSJ. While he is entitled to his subjective assessment of the sound quality, I do feel obligated to correct some technical errors.

The impact of wood on the sound quality in concert halls is misunderstood by many, and there are certainly misinformed myths regarding the relationship between the use of wood and the resulting acoustics in concert halls. Wood is not directly responsible for creating a harsh acoustic environment. It is true that when wood or other lightweight materials are used as a finish material, the opportunity exists for excessive absorption of bass frequencies, resulting in a lack in warmth of tone. Some of the great concert halls do not have any wood on the interior, other than on the stage floor, while other great concert halls use wood as a finish material extensively. For example, there is no wood on the walls or ceiling of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, but almost every wall surface in the new Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas is finished in wood. The acoustics impact is a function of the thickness of the wood, and how well it is bonded to a heavier material behind it. One easy test is to place your hand on the wood (or other finish material) while the music is playing. If you can feel it vibrating, that means it is absorbing the bass energy of the music. Any lay person interested in this issue can use this technique to discover for himself that halls with good bass response have walls (and ceiling) that are massive and stiff, and therefore do not vibrate when the music is playing. Halls lacking in bass response usually have areas finished with lightweight materials that vibrate when the music is played.

Mr. Noll would be hard pressed to find any experienced acoustician who would agree with his recommendation to carpet the floors of a concert hall. None of the concert halls with a reputation for great acoustics, new or old, contains carpeting in the performance space. Carpeting not only soaks up sound from audience members who are not well behaved, but also absorbs sound from the orchestra. [Carnegie Hall has carpeting in the aisles - Ed.] Perhaps the audience at the Walt Disney Concert Hall needs to learn to concentrate more on the music and to appreciate the opportunity provided by such a quiet room, devoid of noises from the building ventilation systems, lighting systems, outside noise, etc. The acoustician's job is to enhance or provide the optimal environment for listening and not to put aural band-aids on noisy audiences, compromising the quality of the acoustics for listening to music in the process. I have been in other very quiet concert halls where an audience of 2,000 will literally all hold its breath, waiting to hear, for example, a cellist barely touching the string with the bow, or the last little bit of sound energy dying away at the end of a work like Holst's Planets. The concept of compromising the dynamic range of expression of the musicians in an attempt to compensate for a poorly behaved audience seems preposterous to me.

I strongly disagree with Mr. Noll's statement that the design of concert halls is more of an art than a science. There may be an art to convincing an owner or architect to follow your advice; any science practiced at the highest level, can be considered art. But the acoustics of concert halls is no mystery. In the case of Philharmonic Hall, the acoustician's design concept for a rectangular hall with a smaller seating capacity, correctly modeled after other successful concert halls including Symphony Hall in Boston, was fundamentally violated by the architect and owner. This is well documented in the literature.

All concert halls lack uniformity of sound. Every hall has better and worse seats. The seating under the balconies will never be the same or as good as the seats in front of the balcony overhang. The balance will be better in the center of the orchestra than in a box off to one side.

Mr. Noll's discussion of technical matters such as reverberation and reverberation time is erroneous. He is incorrect in his statement on the importance in the uniformity of the decay in reverberation. Many of the world's great concert halls have parallel side walls, including Symphony Hall in Boston. Similarly, there are abundant examples of acoustically superior concert halls that debunk some of his other misinformed statements about room shaping.

Toward the end of his review, Mr. Noll appeared to acknowledge the potential conflict between acoustics and architecture. Perhaps he should interview the architect and acoustician for the Disney Hall on subjects such as reflectors suspended over the orchestra. This may give him and his readers a greater appreciation for the art of great concert hall design, and the need for architect and acoustician to work together from the very outset of a project (which was not the case on the Disney Hall). Success stories about new concert halls usually result from projects in which the owner's representatives controlling the design process are knowledgeable and place great value on acoustical quality, and where architect and acoustician work together as a team from the outset of the project.

Conducting in the shadow of German history

The Student Conductor, a novel by Robert Ford.
Putnam & Sons, New York. 289 pages. $24.95 list.
By Paul M. Somers

Robert Ford’s The Student Conductor reads right. Far from being an instructional manual, the novel nevertheless opens to the reader the real world of conducting: the discipline, the constant study, the mythology, and the building of the necessary connections to allow for the “big break.” Ford’s fictional musicians say and do the things real musicians say and do. Beyond that the book’s feel for Germany in the period when the Walls came down has the ring of political authenticity.

Cooper Barrow, a 30-year-old who dropped out of Juilliard eight years before, comes to Karlsruhe, Germany, to take up conducting studies again. Karlheinz Ziegler is the magnet, a demanding teacher in his 80s with often surprising and challenging lessons. He seems to know everything about Barrow and makes him face his musical and personal weaknesses by providing dramatic - some would even say sadistic - conducting and life lessons. Barrow also falls for oboist Petra Vogel. Whether he has fallen in love or into something else is one of the engrossing themes of the book. Fräulein Vogel is, it turns out, a defector from East Germany who has left behind ghosts which can no longer remain hidden when the Walls fall. This event, unforeseen when she defected, results in a crisis which illuminates a part of German history understood by few non-Germans. The third protagonist in the novel is Johannes Brahms. Ziegler is known as a Brahms specialist, and we learn the Symphony no. 2 from a conductor’s point of view as he works his American student through the piece. Later the focus shifts to the choral works Nänie, Song of Destiny, and the Alto Rhapsody and how the texts reflect German history. But it is not only the technical conversations which illumine Brahms’ music; the book is also rich with conversationally presented biographical material, artists’ attitudes toward him, and discussion of how those attitudes are brought to bear on a performance.

Throughout the book real people are named and discussed. Wilhelm Furtwängler looms particularly large as we learn how he affected the young Ziegler, placing the musical politics of Nazi Germany in a shattering personal context. Real events are also present as the Walls come down and mention is inevitably made of Bernstein’s landmark Beethoven Ninth using “Freiheit” instead of “Freude.” Some judgments on these historical people are also passed in just the artsy-catty way musicians would deliver them. The book, were it to be rated in the manner of movies, would be a solid “R,” maybe even a “17,” for language and sexual content. It was in Ford’s liberal use of one specific sexual vulgarity that I found the only out-of-place element of the book. It’s not that musicians don’t use the word, perhaps as frequently as in the book. Were this a book about war or sports, its presence would hardly bear notice. But in this instance there is no characterization forwarded by its use. The underlying thrust of the book, even when it is about personal relationships, is really about finding the restrained art of Brahms balanced between heart and mind with not a wasted note. Yet the author wastes a single monotonous word again and again with no redeeming artistic value other than a supposed realism, hardly an example of following the artistic model being presented in the story itself.

Beyond that, the word and its constant use may be real in English-speaking lands, but a large part of its false ring in my ear is that German vulgarity is much more focused on bathroom than bedroom. So on the few occasions when a certain well-known German scatological word is used (always in German) it makes complete sense, sounding real. Indeed, it even raised a smile of recognition.

With that artistic/cultural caveat aside, this is the most musically literate fiction book I’ve read since Thomas Mann’s Doktor Faustus. And whereas Mann tended to be accurate in an academic manner and was writing about a composer, Ford’s great virtue is his ear for real “musician speak” as well as his understanding of how the academics play out in life and relationships and the actual making of music. Some of Ziegler’s strange teaching tactics are certainly not a regular part of a conductor’s training. But their presence in the book becomes a tool for the author and reader to better come to grips with the psychology of the job and the art.

Finally, the book withholds background facts about the characters, allowing truth to be seen as evolving with the characters’ understandings of each other. Just as one keeps peeling back what is in Brahms, so Ford keeps uncovering for his reader more and more personal histories with surprises which never feel contrived. It would be a grave disservice to reveal any of these in a review, for it is the process of the unpeeling which is most satisfying.