OF CLASSICAL MUSIC

by Stephen Fry

He was merely the bellows pumper on the organ at fifteen and yet composer to the King at eighteen. By the time he was twenty, he was the best-known composer in England. And his favourite colour was purple.© Well, sorry, but there's not much else we know about him. Let's see.

  He wrote a variety of different music, from lascivious rugby songs to music for Royal State occasions. (See, that bit's true.)

  What else? Well, he wrote music for three different monarchs: Charles II, James II and Queen Mary. Mm, right, well, he once wrote a fantasy based on a single note. And he had a pet rabbit called Keith.©

  Damn, sorry. Anyway, as I say, there's very little of his real life that we know anything about.

  Back to 1689, and the thirty-year-old Purcell unveils his latest creation - Dido and Aeneas. It's a superb addition to the blossoming opera genre, and it shows Purcell's ability to set words as being second to none. It contains one particular lament that is not just the high and low point of the opera, musically and emotionally, it is also all set over the same repeated set of notes in the low parts. It's called a 'ground bass', and is intended to be repeated, over and over again, with the tune and occasionally the harmony changing above it. Purcell's use of this is inspired. In comes this gorgeous, painfully sad aria sung by one of the opera's leads, Dido. She is sort of saying… 'I want to thank you, for giving me the best years of my life - remember me.' Now that's what I call a case of history repeating itself.

  If you ever see it on the bill, then go see it. What can I say? It's just fab. It might have been written some 313 years ago, but it's still one of the most moving pieces of music ever. And, of course, beloved, particularly, of schoolchildren, because Purcell sets the words so that they pause just at the right point to embarrass the music teacher: 'When I am laid… am laid in earth.' Cue fits of giggles from the back. 'OK, stop that, stop that, everyone, or I'm keeping you #//back.'

  Anyway, can't stay here, musing over Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. I've got people to meet, music to hear, wars to watch people being dismembered in.

  Here's a bracing thought. Despite the fact that we've only just gone past Purcell's 'When I am laid in earth', let me tell you: Bach is already four years of age, as is Handel. Despite their genius, though, we're not going to hear much out of them both for a good while yet. Lully has, by now, popped his clogs - almost literally, sadly for him. But what of the 'age', as it were. What is it 'the age' of? CiD

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  ell, how about 'The Age of Wren'? Christopher Wren is around and still building. Remember, it's only just over twenty years since the Great Fire, and, although the powers-that-be didn't go for his plan for a complete rebuild, he has nevertheless enjoyed a bit of a boom time. His legacy, as it were, will all have been built over the next thirty years or so - St Michael's, Cornhill; St Bride's, Fleet Street; the Sheldonian Theatre; the Ashmolean Museum; and, of course, due to be finished in a mere… twenty-one years, the big one: St Paul's itself. Running the country now are William and Mary, and the full list of their subjects runs to some 5 million names, compared to say about 58 million today.

  But, if you wanted to, you could focus in for a moment. It's also the age of a man called Johann Pachelbel. Now Pachelbel, despite sounding like the cheese from a child's lunchbox, was a composer from Nuremberg. He had a few minor jobs as… well, you know, organist of St Stephen's, Vienna, court composer to the Duchy of Wigan©, that sort of thing. But he merits his place in the history books for three reasons. First, Bach liked him. Well, to be fair, Bach would, wouldn't he? He's only four right now, and could no doubt do little more than smile and dribble on him. But give him time and Bach would draw a great deal of influence from Mr Pachelbel.

  Secondly, Pachelbel pioneered some musical stuff that we now more or less take for granted. Symbolism, for example, he invented ih.H. Well, more or less, with a prevailing wind, he did. He started doing things like minor key music means sad. (If you want to think of something minor key, think, say, the theme from Schindler's List.) And, consequently, major key music (try, say, Peter's theme from Peter and ilw Wolf) means happy. Sounds more or less obvious, now, of course, but, just like Everest, somebody had to get there first. Pachelbel even paved the way for Vincent Price, by deciding that the diminished seventh chord (think… well, Vincent Price, really) means evil. So, next time you watch the classic Masque of the Red Death, why not flick the mute on the remote control with your toe and lovingly whisper in your loved one's ear, 'Ah, yes, the broken diminished seventh, as pioneered by the seventeenth-century Teutonic music of the great Johann Pachelbel. Pass the Doritos, will you, love?'

  But I did say he was in the history books for three reasons and here comes the third. For some inexplicable reason, despite the no-doubt hundreds of chorales, fugues and motets he wrote, he is, sadly, a one-hit wonder. The Joe Dolce 'What'sa-matter-you, HEY' of Nuremberg, the seventeenth-century St Winifred's School Choir. His one hit takes the form of a canon in the key of D. After years of research, scholars have proven, too, that it's for this reason that he gave it the name of 'Canon in D'. It is still a favourite today and is frequentiy given a rebirth in some TV commercial or other, making it the biggest thing that was going to happen to Nuremberg till someone at the back of a rally in 1938 shouted, 'Speak up!' Now, a brief round-up, if I may. TAXI! ? amp; H ? f course, you couldn't actually get a black cab back then, but, to be fair, sedan chairs were all the rage. They still wouldn't take you south of the river, but they did at least make you a little more mobile and they didn't cost too much. I could do with one right now, in fact, to take me to the… C18. Let's see, where is C18 on my map… Ah. Here. C18…the eighteenth century, here it is, just past Fulharn.

  What else is popular in the brand, spanking new, 'should auld acquaintance be forgot', crisp, shiny eighteenth century? Well, sad to say, war hasn't gone out of fashion. Never will, I suppose. The current one is the War of the Spanish Succession. I guess who succeeded in Spain was a fairly crucial point because you got some major heavyweights battling it out. In the blue corner, you've got Britain, Austria, the Netherlands and Denmark. In the red corner, there's France, Bavaria and, not surprisingly, Spain. It was Louis XIV who started it, when he was looking round for a present for his grandson. Presumably they'd sold out of Beanie Babies, because Louis decided to give him Spain. To be fair, it might not have been totally Louis's fault - maybe they'd positioned it far too temptingly at the checkout, and it was an impulse buy. Who knows? Anyway, it all caused a bit of a hoohah, I can tell you - fisticuffs, name calling, the lot. By the end of it - and I'm talking, what, 1714 here - Britain was better off to the tune of Gibraltar, Minorca and Nova Scotia, while Austria had ended up with Belgium, Milan and Naples. Was it all worth it? I wonder. Personally, I'd have made them just spud for it. You know… 'Five potato, six potato, seven potato, MORE. Yeah… I get Spain!'

  Other stuff of interest? Well, Captain Kidd has been hanged for piracy, back in 1701. What else? Oh yes, TAXES. Taxes, yes. If you thought we were bedevilled with taxes now, then just imagine what it was like back then. Taxes were the new rock and roll. So popular, it seemed as if there was a prize for the silliest thing you could introduce a tax on and still get away with it. There's the Salt Tax in England, obviously, as well as the Window Tax, which I think they should bring back for modern architects only. In Berlin, they came up with an Unmarried Woman's Tax. Nice! But the winner, and my personal favourite, has got to be Russia, which in around 1750 introduced a Beard Tax. What a great idea. Never did like getting too close to a man with a beard. Unless, of course, it was long and white and attached to a red man with knee-length black boots, as he hands over a Gameboy or an Action Man. But less about my parties.

  Other news. The Mary, of William and Mary, has now died, and so, as Richmal Crompton would have said, it was just William, who no doubt went through not only a period of mourning, but also a period of handing out cards saying 'William' with the 'and Mary' crossed out, while his new ones came from the printers. Queen Anne, she of the unfortunately shape
d legs, has also been and gone, and now we have George I. The recendy created Bank of England seems to be doing well, as is the Duke of Marlborough, or… The Butcher, as they call him. Pleasant. But for now, let's get on to some of the music of this time, and, in fact, to the big two, who really did dominate the age. Bach and Handel.

  Johann Sebastian Bach and Georg Frideric Handel were both born in 1685 - the year Judge Jeffries' Bloody Assizes dealt a gory blow for James II after the Monmouth Rebellion. Bach was born in a small place called Eisenach some 200 kilometres north-east of Frankfurt. His was a musical family and at an early age he would obsessively transcribe music scores for his own personal education. After a spell in a youth choir, he got the first of various organ jobs, at Arnstadt. From then on, in a career that lasted till he was sixty-five at Mulhausen, Weimar and Leipzig, Bach wrote acres of superb music. Despite most of it being devoted to the greater glory of God, he did have a few small weaknesses. Coffee was one. At that time, coffee was seen as almost a dangerous narcotic, but Bach indulged his caffeine passion to such an extent that he even wrote a piece of music about it/

  Another was numerology. Bach was convinced certain numbers were significant. If you give all the letters a numerical value pertaining to their position in the alphabet (so A = 1,? = 2, etc) then, as far as Bach was concerned, his second name added up to 14 (i.e. B2 + Al + C3 + H8 = 14). And so 14 became very significant for him, and he would write cantatas where the main tune had just 14 notes. One choral prelude, 'Wenn wir in hochsten Noten sein', has exactly 166 notes, which, if you care to add it up, is the numerical value of his full name. Look:

  J + 0 + H + A + N + N = 62' I

  10 15 8 1 14 14 J

  S + E + B+A + S + T + I + A + N = 90 I total 166 19 5 2 1 19 20 9 1 14 f

  B + A + C + H = 14

  2 13 8 I

  •PThe Coffee Cantata, 'Schweiget stillc, plaudert nkbt' from 1732. Handel was born not a million miles from Bach, some 60 kilometres west of Leipzig. His family was an entirely different kettle of fish. His dad was a barber-surgeon - the very mention of the phrase 'barber-surgeon' makes me wince: apparently it was a 'jack of all trades' mini-doctor who would pull your teeth one minute then amputate your arm the next (and you'd only come in to say hello) - and Handel had to go against his dad's wishes in order not to follow him in the grisly family business. Ironically, he eventually went to university to read law, but became an organist on the side, at the Domkirche in Halle, before eventually leaving for Hamburg and a job playing violin and harpsichord in the Hamburg Opera. Gradually he began to get more and more of his operas staged, and set off round Europe to play, compose and take in the music of the continent's greatest living composers.

  I think it's fair to say that, yes, although they did dominate the age -the age of baroque, that is - it was in very different ways. Despite the fact that they lived at exactly the same time, they were really like chalk and cheese. Handel was a great traveller who went all over Europe. Bach stayed at home. Maybe washing his hair. Handel was opera mad - in fact, set up the Royal Academy of Music specifically to promote opera and wrote operas till they were coming out of his ears. Bach wrote none.

  Handel was a shrewd cookie, a clever entrepreneur who always knew which side his bread was buttered when it came to the next commission, or concert series or cushy job - very much the smooth operator. Bach? Well, Bach was a bit hopeless with money. He never really felt comfortable in 'building his part up' as it were, and even went to gaol because he couldn't always bite his tongue when confronted by someone dangling a state job in front of his nose. And having a family the size of Bournemouth didn't exactly help much, either. I always had the image of the Bach family home as a bit like the one in the Monty Python film, The Meaning of Life - kids leaping out of cupboards and cries of'Ooh, get that for us, will you, Deirdre?' as another sibling comes into the world.

  Also, I imagine, and, true, I'm just surmising here, but I get the feeling Handel was a bit of a goer - liked to party, eat for both England and Germany at the same time, and generally live a little. Bach was more the pious, totally dedicated and strictly Lutheran artist, who worked to express the profound musical thoughts that were in his head, for the glory of God. It's said he once walked a round trip of some 426 miles and several pairs of boots, just to hear a recital by fellow composer Buxtehude. To be fair, that could be down to commitment, but it could also be just general 'organist madness'. Organists, see! Take my word for it - they're not normal.

  Bach's output, despite his dishevelled life, was staggering. The job of collecting and publishing all his music took some forty-six years.

  To get some idea of the similarities of Bach and Handel, and yet, at the same time, the amazing differences, you could do worse than listen to the Water Music back to back with the Brandenburg Concertos. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos are simply DIVINE, absolutely fantastic - I couldn't rave about them enough. And yet they have a general… seriousness about them. Alongside them, Handel's Water Music is overwhelmingly joyous and, dare I say it, almost light. In fact, even the genesis of the two pieces is typical of both composers. Bach's were a slightly desperate gift to the Margrave of Brandenburg, given to him in the hope of eliciting some much needed money - money which never came, sadly. Handel's, on the other hand, were light and fun - twenty short pieces written to accompany George I on a boat trip up the Thames. Indeed, their first performance was on a boat, rocking like nobody's business, with musicians desperately trying to keep their music on the stands/ Somehow I couldn't see Bach in the same role. That said, both pieces are brilliant and gorgeous, and I couldn't live without either.

  ANT AND HIS SISTERS

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  uick update, if I may. Technology, first. Technology is coming on in leaps and bounds. Someone, for example, makes a bid to be forever remembered in the history of music by inventing the piano. The guy's name was Cristofori. I repeat… Cristofori. You see, I can't .0 Mmmm, lean see the school essay subject now: 'HanAel was not so much a composer as a Royal Ghetto Blaster - discuss. Not more than 1,000 words.' help thinking that he missed a trick, really - more or less blew the 'history' bit. He should have taken a leaf out of, say, Biro or Hoover's book, and called it the Cristofori. That way, today we would be quickly nipping over and playing scales on the 'Cristofori', or listening to Cristofori concertos. Even watching tea commercials on TV where performing chimps said, 'Eh, Dad. Do you know the Cristofori's on my foot?' 'No, but you hum it, son, and I'll play it.' As it is, he called it a 'piano', and, so nobody knows his name.

  What else? Well, Handel and another of the big, young composers, Domenico Scarlatti, have had a piano duel. That's just like a real duel, only you're expected to kill your opponent by throwing a piano at them. Not surprisingly, it was declared a draw, and they both lived/© Elsewhere, we've had the first cricket match - Londoners versus Kentish men - and also in England banknotes are now in. Only a matter of time, I suppose, in that snuff had been around since 1558, so… well, sooner or later you were going to need a banknote, weren't you? All this AND the Prussian army introduce pigtails as their standard haircut, beating the corporate Britain of the 1980s by some 270 years.

  Now, I want to introduce you to Antonio Vivaldi, the man who wrote 400 concertos. Or, as Stravinsky said, wrote one then copied it out a further 399 times. (Saucer of milk for the Russian - he was expressing the not uncommon view, it has to be said, that many of Vivaldi's concertos can sound a little… well, samey. At least after the first 200.)

  Vivaldi was born in Venice just three years after? amp; H and was lucky enough to have a rather musical dad - a fiddler at St Mark's. At the age of fifteen he entered the priesthood, and was ordained fully some ten years later. The combination of his holy orders and his mop of Chris Evans ginger hair led to him being nicknamed Hlprete rosso the red priest, although having a special dispensation that allowed him not to say Mass, I'm not sure quite how much of a priest he could have been. It's a bit like being a rugby player, but not actually playing any m
atches. (So, Jonny Wilkinson at the moment, then.) Vivaldi spent most of his professional life as music director of a girls' fi amp;OK, that's not what a piano duel is at all, I know. But it does sound more fun. The real duel saw Handel playing organ and Scarlatti playing keyboard, and each was adjudged to be the best on their respective instruments. «»rphanage in Venice, the Conservatorio dell'Ospedale della Pieta -or, often, the Pieta, for short.

  His priesthood was called into question, again, when he was rumoured to be more than just good friends with not just one soprano but two: sisters, Anna and Paolina. Eventually he, too, like Handel, I ravelled all over Europe, but precious little is known about what he got up to. He spent the last couple of years of his life in Vienna, where, sadly, he pulled off the Composer's End No 207 - the so-called 'Death in Poverty' position - perfectly. He was sixty-three. Thankfully, he left behind him some fifty operas and 400 or so concertos (or just one if you agree with Stravinsky), the most well known, now - almost to the point of distraction - being part of Tl cimento dell'Armonia e dell'in-ventione' Opus 8. That is, The Tour Seasons: not just a beautiful series of concertos, but also not a bad hotel and a fine pizza.

  THE PACKAGE HOLIDAY

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  ell, it's 1725 already. My word, doesn't time fly when you roll it up and throw it at somebody. 1725. The year of The Tour Seasons. The year that Peter the Great became less so, in that he died. The year that Bach, in a breathtaking display of foresight, wrote the music for a mobile telephone incoming call alert, although he called it the Anna Majjdalena Notebook.

  The year the Italian adventurer and author Casanova was born and, very soon, became the next big thing. But where exacdy ARE we? What age is it now? Who's in, who's out, who's up, who's down? And why DO birds suddenly appear every time YOU are near? Well, let me try and answer some of those questions, starting with the easiest first.