In the world of entertainment, as all here know, this has been a terrible week, first with Robin Williams' suicide and then the death of Lauren Bacall the next day. Classical music likewise has its celebrities too, who mostly aren't that well known to the general public, and this has been a sad year for classical music fans as well, albeit not on the shock level of RW's death. This year has seen the passing of several notable artists from what might be regarded as "the greatest generation" of classical musicians of this century, those born in the 1920's and 1930's. The most recent loss has been this week, with the death of the Dutch recorder player and conductor Frans Brüggen this past Wednesday, at age 79. Besides his musical achievements, some aspects about him have interesting meta-ish tie-in's to long-standing DK memes, like ideological 'purity' and social hierarchy. More below the flip.....
First, a sampling of Brüggen's artistry off YT:
(1) As a recorder player:
(2) As conductor with the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, in a symphony by Franz Joseph Haydn:
(3) As conductor, in the final concert by the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra on July 14, 2013 before the dissolution of the orchestra (which is a separate story in of itself):
You can also find a selection of linked YT videos via the tribute from Tom Service at The Guardian's site.
On (2) above, a bit of back story, c/o this article from the Glossa Music website, an interview with the co-founder of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, Sieuwert Verster, the orchestra's co-manager. He and Brüggen co-founded the orchestra in 1981, with this thinking in the back of their heads:
".....from the beginning we intended it to be a kind of family band: we do not have auditions, we do not try to become younger than we are, the average age increases every year."
You then read the next sentence about long-term thinking of the eventual situation for the band:
"Since Frans is the eldest we just decided that we would go on for as long as possible. When Frans stops, we stop and we are all history from that moment onwards."
However, from a look at the orchestra's
pending itinerary (marked 'Future' from their page), they have dates scheduled into 2016. So one hopes that they're not going to 'stop' just yet.
Verster has this interesting comment about Brüggen's choice of repertoire, and how Brüggen deliberately limited himself to what he felt comfortable with:
"He has a limited range of scores that he feels professionally capable of conducting (from 1730 to 1830). But he really made his choice about where he feels at home and where he wants to know as much as can be known about some music."
Tied to this is the fact that Bruggen associated himself with what we now call the period performance movement, which was and is a long-standing attempt to perform music of the baroque and classical eras, and before, using instruments more attuned to that time compared to more modern, 19th-century and later instruments, and also using ensembles more in line with the smaller sizes of the groups way back then. One can argue that one aspect of that dedication to a certain time period of music was reflected in a notorious remark that Brüggen made in 1970, regarding the major orchestra in Amsterdam, the Concertgebouw Orchestra (now the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, or KCO to use its Dutch acronym), one of the world's very finest orchestras (if not
the finest in the world today), which the KCO noted in its
tribute page to Brüggen
"During a public debate at the Krasnapolsky Hotel in Amsterdam in 1970, Brüggen made the infamous remark that 'every note by Mozart and Beethoven that the Concertgebouw Orchestra plays is a lie from A to Z'. At the time, he was closely connected with a circle of young composers who would come to be known as the Notenkrakers (Nutcrackers), protesting against authoritarianism and conservative programming at the Concertgebouw."
Since that time, however, the standard symphony orchestras have incorporated, to varying degrees, aspects of the period performance movement with respect to Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, J.S. Bach, etc. in a number of ways, like using smaller ensembles, cutting back on the vibrato (string players' shaking their fingers of their left hands on the fingerboard in place. for those who might not know the term), and quicker tempi. And Brüggen perhaps mellowed, or learned to 'compromise', a bit:
"His attitude gradually softened, however. Brüggen first led the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1978, conducting works by Bach"
The other 'political' aspect that I wanted to note was the pay structure of the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century, as noted again by Verster:
"We are a strange society: we all earn the same, I pay the airplanes, hotels and dinners and the remainder is divided into 50 equal parts. So even Frans, or Thomas Zehetmair, or Simon Rattle (who once worked with us) they always get the same."
Very communitarian, that pay scheme. In other words, this isn't like the standard symphony orchestra set-up, where the conductor gets a lot more pay than the musicians, and the guest soloist likewise gets a huge fee (which tends to be underwritten by wealthy donors, rather than the orchestra themselves, at least here in the US).
It would be nice to say that I had the pleasure of once hearing Frans Brüggen live, but sadly that is not the case. From checking their archive of past tours, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century toured the US in 1984, 1987, 1989, 1992, 1995, and 2007. I assume that Brüggen was the conductor for all of those performances.
One touching perspective on the art of Frans Brüggen comes from Tom Service's blog tribute:
"He seemed to share the music with his musicians rather than lead them."
Pretty nice way to remember Frans Brüggen.
With that, you can discuss his work, check out the videos, or observe the usual SNLC protocol, if so inclined.