Angela's Horn Studio

One of the great joys of my musical life is hearing the perspectives of artists who work in other fields.  Painters, dancers, writers and actors have all enriched my own musical path.  Recently, my exploration has happily brought me to the theater – an area where my expertise is limited to roles in childhood Christmas plays and a high school drama class in which I screamed bloody murder during an improv exercise – because that’s all I could think to do. I am not a good actor, nor can I tell a good story or even a decent joke, but, like most of us, I am captivated by what happens when great actors act.

A few weeks ago, expression in music (of both the underdone and overdone varieties) seemed to be a constant theme.  At the same time I was struggling to help a couple young chamber music groups to understand and connect with music from the Renaissance, an era less familiar to them than others.

This is when I stumbled across a piece in the New York Times by Charles Isherwood entitled “What Makes a Great Shakespearian?”   He begins by stating how one identifies a great performance of Shakespeare.  He says he knows it’s great when “the language no longer feels remote, when the humanity of the actor and the character seem indivisible, when the emotion being expressed is no longer veiled by poetic phrasing but revealed by it, creating a shock of recognition in your own heart.”

This statement itself created a shock of recognition in me, articulating exactly how I feel when listening to a great musical performance, no matter the era. I am not distracted by the musical language (whether ancient or written yesterday) or by any affect of the performer.  I can hear the music speak and it just feels right.

Isherwood, in his article, went on to say that, in thinking about the qualities of a great Shakespearean performance, he dug out an old series in his possession called “Playing Shakespeare” by John Barton of the Royal Shakespeare Company.  He explains that Barton believes the answer to the question of how to “play Shakespeare” lies in Shakespeare’s own text, in the form of direction that Hamlet gives to his players.  He quotes the speech in part:

“Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance, that you o’erstep not the modesty of nature. For anything so o’erdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end both at the first and now, was and is, to hold as ‘twere, the mirror up to nature.”

I decided to find “Playing Shakespeare” and experience it for myself, and I encourage anyone interested to do the same.  The first seven minutes alone are jam-packed with extraordinary insight (and more of Hamlet’s speech) into how to begin to approach seemingly remote, daunting material both as an actor and an audience member.  Incidentally, watching Ian McKellan, Patrick Stewart and the other very fine actors on the roster read lines and perform scenes in this casual masterclass setting is riveting, as is the conversation between them and Mr. Barton.

As the masterclass continues, it becomes clear that the question of how to help the audience make that leap over time and place is intimately linked to expression.  Barton talks extensively about the dichotomy of naturalistic text and heightened text in Shakespeare as well as the natural (casual) ways that lines can be delivered versus the stylized ways.  He shows (through the actors on stage with him) several examples of both overly-natural and overly-stylized treatments of both kinds of text, and demonstrates just how powerful it is when the right balance is struck.

At the same time Barton is careful to point out that there is no one best interpretation and that very fine actors and directors passionately disagree on many points.  It is, however, important to do the investigative and exploratory work into the details of the text and the characters.

The questions raised by Isherwood and by Barton are not questions of how to reach a general public completely uninitiated or uninterested in Shakespeare, but rather, an investigation of what makes a truly great Shakespearean performance for the theater-going public.  For us in classical music, rather than helping us to address the issues of cultivating new audiences and increase the “relevance” to newcomers to music, these points are most illuminating for those of us who are already dedicated to the art form. Perhaps some of the correlations to be made are: to serve the music and our audiences by looking deeply, being intentional, and understanding our role; having a vivid idea of the character and colors we want to communicate; to not get caught up in the cheap trick of over-emoting or distorting for sheer effect.  (How easy it is to put the music into our service rather than the other way around.)

It also reminds me, despite the pressure to “make progress” and get through material, to not neglect the passing on of this deep, investigative approach to exploring and performing music that makes music-making (and listening to music) such a wonderful life-long pursuit.  Passed along from music lover to fellow music lover, from teacher to student, it is what will keep our art form truly vibrant.

When I think about the musical qualities I strive for, and what I hope my students will incorporate into their own approach, Isherwood once again sums it up for me so eloquently in a later article (“Your Favorite Shakespeare Performances”) responding to readers’ submissions.  Among his own favorites were several productions with Judi Dench.  He remembers, “her performances were marked by a clarity of thought, a simplicity of speech and a warmth of humanity that I still recall with wonder.”

Clarity of thought.  Simplicity of speech.  Warmth of humanity.

How perfectly beautiful.  What more could anyone want from music –  or from life?

I’ve been thinking about faraway places –  and trying to experience them via hot drinks.  At the grocery store the other day I saw a package of yerba mate, a deliciously earthy beverage from South America I used to drink quite often, and just had to pick it up.  Traditionally, a porous gourd is nearly filled with the ground-up leaves (and sometimes stems) of the Yerba Mate plant, hot water is poured over it, and a bombilla (a metal straw with a strainer at the bottom) is used to suck out the liquid.  Even if I’ve never been to South America, it reminds me of the friends I’ve made from that part of the world, and reminds me that I intend to get there sometime.

Last month, I was feeling the need for high mountain oolong tea, so I got out my Yixing teapot.  This teapot is made of a Chinese clay that absorbs the flavors of the tea, steeping after steeping.  My teapot is brown with a delicately sculpted red leaf emerging around the handle and coming to rest on the side of the pot.  If you rub your finger over a wet area of the clay, it feels as smooth as newborn skin.

I think this most recent strand of thought about faraway things started with the passing of Ravi Shankar last December.  I was introduced to the Indian films that make up the Apu Trilogy (which Ravi Shankar composed and performed the music for) when I was spending summers at Marlboro.  These were films made in the 1950s, starring untrained actors.  They are spare by modern, fast-paced, American blockbuster taste, and made with the equivalent of three thousand dollars. If there were ever an argument for the “less is more” crowd, this is it.  The stories are poignant, powerful, and so very human – no special effects needed.

Another story that captivated me was the one told  Pearl Buck in The Good Earth.  I had heard her name and knew of the book for years, but had no idea what was in store for me when I found it on our condo’s bookshelf during our travels this summer.  How could I feel such camaraderie with Chinese peasants living the early 20th century?

It is easy to become closed off and mired in day-to-day concerns.  What a relief it is to hear a sound that the ear is not accustomed to, the drone and riffs of a sitar beginning to play, and be transported to a land and culture that is not one’s own. Or to sink into a book and unexpectedly feel a kinship with those whose lives are completely other.

I will never forget the day I sat in a hotel room in Israel, Jerusalem on the horizon, a Muslim call to prayer from a nearby Palestinian town wafting through the window.  The realization that I lived my life under the same stars was a thunderbolt. The world became both smaller and larger. More known and more unknown. Complicated. Somewhat frightening. Beautiful.

As good as it is to live deeply where we are, there is something to be said for giving our brains a cold-water dip into something completely other, in whatever way is available to us – to let the difference fill us up and shock us.

I often suggest to my students that they spend some time listening to non-horn music.  In fact, to listen to great music and great musicians no matter the instrument and no matter the genre.  Only when I had spent some time listening to Balinese gamelan did John Cage’s prepared piano pieces come alive for me.  Neither of these things had direct influence on the way I played the Mozart concerti, but they did open my ears – the aural equivalent of a flight across the world.

My husband sometimes talks about the experience of seeing a work of art from afar, then very closely, observing each individual brushstroke, then taking a long view again.  I feel like this is a beautiful way of going about nearly everything in life.  Looking at it up close, living it deeply, and then finding ways to look at it from above the clouds or from the other side of the world, even if, sometimes, we only have a cup of tea to take us there.

One of my favorite writers is the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke.  I’ve alluded to his Letters to a Young Poet here in my blog before.  There is so much richness in those pages, especially to someone living a life in the arts.

Another of Rilke’s works is his Book Of Hours: Love Letters to God.  The title itself evokes monastic life, or at least, a devoted life. Traditionally, a book of hours was an elaborately illuminated.  The carefully calligraphed text would be accompanied by colorful illustrations of the characters, or decorative embellishments of symbols and flowers.  Rilke’s Book of Hours is full of word-images using nature, art, and religion.  There are ocean currents, storms, and the sap of trees; there are paintboxes and the Mona Lisa; there are vestments, cloisters, and Madonnas.  Rilke also uses images of movements such as enfolding, unfolding, weaving, soaring.  One of my favorite images is that of circling.  For instance, he speaks of living his life in widening circles, and:

To me it is as if I were at once

infant, boy, man and more.

I feel that only as it circles 

is abundance found.

It is appropriate that so many of the natural images used by Rilke are those that do not have a straightforward trajectory, but themselves are part of a cycle.  The seasons, the tides, the patterns that make up days and nights.  Though there is repetition, there is not a clear path or perfect order.  There are webs, chasms, darkness, vapor, and mystery.

So often, life’s path is visualized as a journey forward.  We’re okay with it looking maybe a little curvy, but less so when it goes sideways, back, or, worst of all, down. However, I think that the circle or the spiral is beautiful imagery for the rhythm and movements of life.  I certainly feel and see the circular patterns in my own life.  I move out, in, and back as much as I move forwards. To use one of my Southern-born father’s treasured phrases, I have been known to pass my elbow to get to my thumb.  I just happen to think that the elbow might have a little something interesting to say.

I was recently working with a student going through a major technical challenge.  We had started the process of working through the problem, but then found another tweak that seemed to be a necessary adjustment.  To her, it felt like moving backwards, perhaps even starting over. She was not happy. Having been at similar junctures in my own life, I know that it was just an encircling of the issue at hand.  It’s a way to discover more as she begins her spiral upwards.

Of course, even after “settling” certain issues, sometimes there are things we must revisit again and again.  Since we will never be rid of some of these “themes” that keep popping up, we might as well find the poetry in it.  One of my very thoughtful fellow musicians once said to me, “we have to start over every day, don’t we?”

How often (in music and in life!) have I gone in circles until a clear path out of my “rut” was revealed to me?  Countless times.  Only when I look back can I see that the time I spent in that rut was a time of gathering information and experience that would help me see my way clear when the time came.  It was the start of a spiral.

I think also of ideas and ideals that I’ve rejected, going as far from them as I could, only to circle back around, perhaps years later, with new eyes.  What was previously stale becomes relevant, vibrant, and so very rich.  Only as we circle is abundance found.

My 15-month old Andreas is a child of many obsessions.  He’s obsessed with oranges.  More commonly known as azas.  We keep clementines around (calling them “oranges” for ease of use with him) and  he takes every opportunity throughout the day to go to the kitchen demanding an “aza! aza!”  If he can have one in each hand, all the better.  After holding an “aza” for a while, he’ll bite into it, the juice all oozing down his arm.  He grimaces at the bitter taste of the peel, but can also taste the good stuff inside.  That’s usually when I intervene and peel the orange and give him a wedge or two, then try to hide it and distract him with something else.  (Good luck to me with that!)

He’s obsessed with trucks, cars – anything on wheels – although firetrucks are especially exciting.  Who needs television when the busy street in front of the house is entertainment enough?  Tut!  Tah!  Wheel  Fast!  Van!  And if a REALLY big and impressive vehicle drives by, he growls the word and says it extra loud.  “BUUUSSSSS!”

He is obsessed with his older brother Abe.  “Aba! Aba!” he says, whenever he hears the door open or someone come down the stairs. He asks for him dozens of times a day, and when we pass the door to his room we have to go and look and see if he is there. And when Abe finally gets home from school and sits down to build with blocks with him for a few minutes, you have never seen such glee come from such a little guy.

One of his other obsessions is the pet.  That does not mean our tortoise, Dasher, but rather the trumpet.  I assure you that we’ve done nothing to encourage this. “Pet!”  he says when Dave picks up a trumpet.  He’ll say “horn” when I get out my horn, but it’s more like “oh, you’re getting that thing out again….”  Although he does like my stopping mute because, to him, it looks likes a little trumpet.  When Dave plays, the real joy comes, and when Dave takes a little break we hear “Pet! More!”

We have a trumpet calendar that showcases a famous trumpet on each page.  We currently have hidden it because, if we don’t, we would be reading it like a book all day long.   “This is the Vincent Bach trumpet in C that Adolph “Bud” Herseth played.”  [turn page] “This is the Kruspe Bass Trumpet in F played by Ernest Andauer of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.”  [turn page] “Here is a Schilke B-flat trumpet played by Bill Chase, one of the most famous lead players of all time….” Each page gets exuberant kicks of joy out of him and more shouts of “pet!”

All of this got me thinking about my own early obsessions, some of them sentimental and a little weird. For instance, after reading Anne Frank’s Diary in elementary school, I started keeping one myself just in case I died a tragic death.  And then there was a prominent presence of the color purple in my wardrobe in the 7th grade.

Other fixations were less quirky:  Laura Ingalls Wilder (I owned a prairie bonnet – and wore it), Mary Lou Retton (I was one of the countless girls who started gymnastics because of her influence), and Anne of Green Gables. These were a few of my childhood heroines, and, perhaps, obsessions.

The writer George Saunders recently visited the St. James School, a school in North Philadelphia (one of the most challenged areas of the city) attended by a small group of 5th and 6th graders from the neighborhood.  I was unable to attend his talk, but read about it later.  One girl asked him his opinion about why you have to go to school.  His answer was, “Because there are people inside you who want to come out.”  He went on to explain the importance of teachers and how they can help to shape the future of the students.  He also talked with the audience about the question of why one reads books at all.  In part, it’s to go back in time, he said, and to seek an alternate experience that makes us larger human beings.  It’s to help us find our place in the world.

Is there are truer way to describe what books do for us?  And what school can do for us?  His description fits one of the things that music does best for us, too. But that is another blog post….

Saunder’s comments also reminded me that the expansion of experience was precisely the role that my early attachments played (perhaps excluding the color purple). Passion, resilience, and determination are just a few of the lessons that Laura, Mary Lou and Anne taught me.  Though many heroes have been added to the ranks since I was in elementary school, these women were key in helping me start to figure out who I was, who I wanted to be, and what kind of possibilities life might hold for me.

I know Andreas’ obsessions will no doubt change very quickly, but I wouldn’t have a problem with him always loving his older sibs, music, and citrus fruit. Methods of transportation are fine too, especially since we’ll be on the go this summer.  A fascination with planes could be a very good thing.  It’s not such a bad start to a life’s line-up of heroes that will fuel his imagination.