Tone Prose 61: A Quintet is Born
A Detroit “Butterfly”, a viral instruction pamphlet, and the debut recording of Will’s latest work
Name That Tune
This week’s Name That Tune was submitted by Listener Jeremy. Here’s your hint: The consonants in this composer’s last name are generally mispronounced by non-musicians and musicians alike.
As always, your goal is to provide as much accurate analysis as possible. First try to get the nationality, year, and genre, then make educated guesses about the composer and — if possible— the piece. If you know the piece immediately, send us an email at toneprose@substack.com instead of commenting so the rest of us can have fun guessing.
Last Week’s Results
Tone Prose 60
Anton Bruckner, Os justi
Well, just when I (Will) thought that no one was going to weigh in on this week’s stumper, good old Listener Jeremy texted me with an 80% confidence interval that this was a Bruckner motet, and boy was he right!
I guess that means we’re two weeks into a new streak of Listener success. May the odds be ever in your favor.
Think you can stump your fellow Listeners? Go ahead and try!
Head to our Google Form to upload a 30-second clip of an unidentified piece of classical music for us to try to identify.
Reorienting Madama Butterfly
This week’s New Yorker contains a review by Alex Ross of the Detroit Opera’s recent production of Madama Butterfly, of special note to Listeners because of its mention of Kensho Watanabe, former CGF co-host, and conductor of this production!
Ross was full of praise for the performances and he did a really nice job of providing background on the opera (much of which was new to me.) Here’s an excerpt:
Some operagoers will inevitably protest that “Butterfly” should be left alone, as an innocent artifact of its time. Yet a work that delves into late-nineteenth-century sexual colonialism and makes ironic use of “The Star-Spangled Banner” cannot be stripped of its politics. As Groos and other scholars have noted, “Butterfly,” especially in its original version, has an anti-imperialist streak; Pinkerton, who goes through the motions of marrying Butterfly and then discards her, is a devastating caricature of cultural arrogance.
After the opera’s unsuccessful première, at La Scala, in 1904, Puccini softened the Pinkerton character, but there remains enough of the initial idea for directors to run with. Butterfly, for her part, may be hemmed in by Orientalist stereotypes, yet she draws power from the opulence of the music that Puccini wrote for her. Grotesque in some ways, greathearted in others, “Butterfly” is the kind of piece that not only invites but requires reflection on the part of performers and spectators alike.
What To Expect When You (an orchestral conductor) are Expecting (to conduct a choir)
Last month, I (Will) wrote an article for EverythingConducting.com, a site aimed at providing useful information for young orchestral conductors. My article is a primer on how to work with a chorus and offers a few tips and best practices.
Now, I don’t even necessarily recommend reading the article, though if you really want to it’s here. Just be aware that my imagined audience was a collegiate instrumentalist just getting started in conducting, or maybe a masters student who had never been in a choral rehearsal before. Given the topic, the goal, and the publication venue, I did not anticipate that it would attract a readership of any breadth.
And this is why I’m flabbergasted at the article’s success as a Facebook link. OK, we’re not talking Taylor Swift numbers here, but it’s gotten more traction than anything else I’ve posted of late, and I only posted it out of a sense of professional courtesy toward EC.
So you’ll imagine my surprise when for the next couple days I had people coming up to me at rehearsals and concerts telling me they had read it, and that they had enjoyed it, no less! Interestingly enough, these readers were nearly all choral singers — not the young orchestral conductors I’d intended it for. I guess people always want to read about themselves, and this gave some people some validation.
Anyway, I think we actually picked up a few new TP subscribers along the way, so to those people, I say Welcome to the Freak Show!
A Weekday In the Studio
A guest essay by Listener Jeremy about recording Will’s new piece
On Monday, the 23rd of October, 2023, I had the privilege of attending the recording session for Maestro Will’s new — and great — Clarinet Quintet, Op. 55.
For me, this was the culmination of seven months of eager anticipation, ever since the score for the opening movement was presented to me as a birthday gift (commissioned by my siblings.) I had heard the first movement in Seattle at its concert premiere (Tone Prose readers with a keen memory may recall the photographic evidence of my visit with Will from this time), but this would be my first time hearing the remaining three movements. I’d read through the score, but my score reading can only take me so far, and though I dusted off my clarinet for the first time in many years to fumble my way through the rest of the music, my poor playing arguably hindered my understanding of the piece.
My prior experience with recording was in the distant past and limited to tapings of live performances (and a few audition tapes) from my student days. So in addition to my general excitement on the day, I was very interested to observe the recording process itself.
When I (and my family, who had all gathered for the occasion) descended on the Hallowed Halls recording studio in Portland, Oregon, Will & the cellist (AKA Listener Kevin) were there and the engineer and staff were setting up the recording space as a kind of sectioned-off area of the main room of the studio with microphones and baffles.
As the rest of the musicians arrived, I retreated to the rather spacious control booth with the entourage that is my family (comfortably seated on some nice couches). The engineer made the various adjustments that engineers do (and that I only vaguely understood) to the mics and to the recording equipment as the musicians were warming up and again after having the full quintet run through a few loud and soft passages to get appropriate levels. Then, they were off and running!
Will, producing the recording, took things in order starting with the introduction to the first movement. Everything was taken in segments, with Will calling out the sections by rehearsal letter or measure number (prompting a question from one of my family as to why both exist in the score.) Takes alternated with direction from Will, who was absolutely in his element here (and was positively joyful that the control booth’s talkback mic was operated by foot pedal.)
Control booth chatter was a delight to me. At one point early on, the musicians stopped a take early and the clarinetist (the esteemed James Shields) simply said “water” prompting the engineer to speculate “is that code?” Other secret (to the musicians) discussions about what we were hearing was then translated into prompts from Will to the players when the mic was opened for the next take (usually sandwiched, appropriately, between compliments.)
The absolute highlight of the recording for me was the third movement. Prior to beginning recording, Mr. Shields asked Will how “klezmer” he should play his part. The response, essentially, was “go for it!” and oh did he ever! Every take had a new flourish, a little more oomph, some extra schmaltz. I was in heaven listening to this.
That performance, and that of all the musicians (I promise I didn’t entirely tune out the string players in favor of the clarinet), was so wonderful. Professional musicians are impressive creatures of such great skill and artistry. Will apologized for something particularly “diabolical” he gave them while they tried to sort it out, and a metronome was occasionally brought out for spot checks, but it wasn’t until the very end of the recording session that they came to a passage that required actual rehearsal, accompanied by some joking about whether they were going to get it right (they did, of course, just a few minutes later.)
The end result is my new favorite piece of music (and I’m sure, dear Tone Prose Readers/Listeners, it will be yours as well.) Eternal thanks to Will, my family, the musicians, and the clarinet for making this happen!
Tone Praise
I (Joey) recently performed this set of songs by Tania León, at a concert that I co-organized with Listener Rebecca (more on that next week.) The poetry is subtle, fragmented, and often tender, and León’s thoughtful setting draws from eclectic musical sound worlds. I think it’s really excellent, alternately rhythmic and lush music.
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Tone Prose is a co-production of William White, Joseph Vaz, and the Listeners (i.e. you.)
Thanks so much to Listener Jeremy for his wonderful account of the Quintet recording session! Sadly, he neglected to include the best part of the day, namely, the two dozen baked goods that I (Will) brought for everyone from Shoofly Vegan Bakery in Portland.
NTT: I too am going to work from the clue, but I'm a little stumped here. Listener Tammy has a great point about Dvořak, but I feel like it's just one consonant that doesn't quite get the right pronunciation in his name.
The piece itself is clearly more modern than Dvořak by quite a stretch, but I could see it being Czech. Janacek? I just feel like with his name, anyone who would be in a position to speak it would know how to pronounce it.
I think it could be Russian, in which case I might propose Rodion Shchedrin. His name is tricky because it's spelled with a Щ, requiring one to pronounce BOTH the Sh and the ch, but they often get reduced to a simple "Sch".
The piece sounds a little Baroky. Maybe Kodaly? Do people mispronounce his name?
Wait, I think I've got it: Witold Lutosławski. It's gotta be. His name gets Anglicized all the time. In English spelling, you'd pronounce it "Veetold Lutoswavski".
And it's some kind of duet for clarinet and piano. I'll go out on a limb and say it's a sonata.