OF CLASSICAL MUSIC

by Stephen Fry

  WHIZZER AND CHIPS

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  ow, bearing in mind that opera has been seen by some as having had its day, Gluck's move is interpreted by some as a kind of 'so what?' move. But not by Gluck. And, to be fair, Gluck had the advantage over some in that he was a traveller. He'd been around, got ideas, nicked ideas: heard styles, nicked styles. He'd also married the daughter of one of the wealthiest bankers in Vienna - for love, you understand - and so could more or less sit back and write what he liked, anyway. And what did he like? Well, he liked realism. He wanted there to be more realism in music - less 'music for music's sake' and more 'this bit of music is meant to sound like this', or 'this section of music is meant to be imitating that'. He'd tried it in a ballet already, based on Moliere's Don Juan, and he'd rather liked it. So he did it again, this time in an opera.

  He got his mate, who ran the local lottery, to provide the libretto* and, well, Robert be thine uncle, as they said back then. He had a hit. Audiences had heard nothing quite like it before. It was real humanity on stage, real truth. And it all sounded much more dramatic than anything they'd heard before, mainly because Gluck of the Mildly Amusing Middle Name was trying out new sound effects, if you like, using the full orchestra. The audiences felt they could actually hear the thunder in the music, touch the wrath of the Furies, and almost see the beauty of the Elysian fields. Could opera be a hit, once again? Well, Gluck of the Mildly Amusing Middle Name certainly thought so. And what was this work that made the difference again for opera? Well, would you credit it, it was a reworking of the story that had become more or less the first ever opera hit, back in 1607. It was Orfeo and Euridice.

  ORPHEUS IN HIS UNDERPANTS

  ? rfeo and Euridice - Gluck. La Favola d'Orfeo - Monteverdi.

  Orphee aux Enfers - Offenbach. Even Orpheus and Eurydyke -Krenek. It's amazing to see how this story has been constantly recycled. As an opera libretto, it has been used more frequendy than any other and, on at least two occasions, was right there at the forefront of innovation in music. Unsurprising, then, to hear that the story is, of course, all about the 'inventor of music', Orpheus, who recovers his beloved Eurydice from Hades, only to lose her again in the moment fi Hence the now famous tenor love song cIt could be you!3 of reunion. Gluck, interestingly, gave it a happy ending - Amor appears and restores Eurydice to life - in sharp contrast to Monteverdi's tragic denouement, where Orpheus loses Eurydice but, by way of recompense, is transferred to the stars by Apollo. A classic story, making at least three classic operas, in their own ways. In fact, as we're talking about the inventor of music, let's just sit back and take stock a moment.

  YOUR NAME NOT BACH?

  ? ach has now got the job he'd finally been expecting -Kapellmeister to the Heavenly Host: which he would eventually job share with Handel. I imagine Big George would probably have been content to sit out rehearsals as long as there was roast chicken provided - liked his food, our Handel. In their place, Haydn was just beginning to make a name for himself/ Gluck's doing his bit for opera. But what of the time? What of the year? It's 1763. What's going on?

  1763, and the generals in the Seven Years War looked at the fourth official and, with no stoppage time to fight, blew the final whistle - the Peace of Paris, as it was called. In England we'd already had Pitt the Elder, we'd just got Pitt the Younger, but the latest thing to hit the news was Pit - the pony. 1763 saw the first use of these sad creatures down the mines.

  The travelling music man, Charles Burney^, was thirty-seven and was making Michael Palin look like a couch potato. In France, Rameau has just one year left in him. In Austria, Mozart is seven - no doubt about to retire already. You have to remember that Mozart years are rather like the inverse of dog years. So 'seven' is actually about twenty-one or so, as far as a mere mortal is concerned. Hence, 1» Knowing Haydn, if he were to make a name for himself, it would be out of macrame… not the most exciting man in the world, Haydn. Of course, you didn't hear it from me, OK? fifi Charles Burney was actually a doctor from Shrewsbury, who travelled extensively throughout Europe, writing up his musical experiences into a book, The History of Music. A case of 'right place, right time' made an otherwise minor doctor and music lover a must for anyone with more than a passing interest in the music of the time. -. lie was chucking out music like it was going out of fashion and making I mint with concerts all over Europe.

  Elsewhere - and as they say in some very strange places where you have to know Otto to get in - 'Bach is dead, long live the Bachs!' OK, no one actually said that. I made it up. All I mean is that 'Bach' Bach - Johann Sebastian, the big one - is dead. But there are still two other Bachs knocking around, somewhere, keeping the brand name going, as it were. Operating out of England, there's JC Bach - known accurately, if somewhat unspectacularly, as 'The English Bach', while in Germany, there's Carl Phillip Emmanuel, CPE Bach, known as… well, known as CPE Bach, actually. The English Bach is said to have visited London and loved it so much, he bought the company - that is, stayed. He became friends with Gainsborough, went to posh parties, everything. In fact while I'm about it, let me round up that list of the Bachs in full. /5 Bach - Daddy Bach JC Bach - The English Bach (youngest son of above) CPE Bach - The No Nickname Bach (second son of above) LBWBach - The Cricketing Bach © SAS Bach - The Daring Bach © TCP Bach - The Gargling Bach © NCPBach - The 'Oiyou can't park there' Bach® HSBC Bach - The Listening Bach © You see: 1763 -positively dripping with Bachs. But as for the rest of classical music, if I were to step back for a moment, to have a sort of musical 'out of body' experience, what would I see? Well, classical music as we now know it is more or less 'in'. Baroque and rococo are still around, but very 'last year' - or very 'week one', as they say in Big Brother. Going, going, gone is the 'diddle-iddle-iddle-iddle' contrapuntal stuff, and coming up now is a more pared-down sound, albeit with much more intricate forms. Of course, they didn't just happen - 'Yawn… mmm, I think I'd like to invent… a symphony' 'And so you shall!' said the Fairy Godmother, with a PING! and a whoosh - no, they sort of evolved, all Darwinesque. As the Bible would have said: Opera begat the opera overture, opera overture begat the stand-alone overture, the stand-alone overture begat the sinfonia and the sinfonia begat the symphony. After that, well, it was a bit like teams of Arctic explorers all working separately to conquer the pole - all the composers working in different camps, each tweaking a little here, or sticking an idea in there. And not just with regards to the symphony, but about all music. Music as a whole is getting go-faster stripes.

  You've got a Bach in England, a Bach in Germany, a Haydn in Austria, and of course, a Gossec in Belgium.

  I say, 'You've got a Gossec in Belgium!' Tell you what, nip to the top drawer of the sideboard, get yourself that pen that doesn't really work and leaves inky blotches yet you still keep putting it back in the drawer, and write down the name Gossec. Keep it handy in the kitchen, perhaps on one of those magnet sets based on Michelangelo's David. Then next time you're playing Ten Famous Belgians and you've reached Jean-Claude Van Damme and stopped, run to the fridge, memorize the name between the kitchen and the living room and coolly lob in the grenade 'Francois Joseph Gossec'. Nice.

  GOT ANY GOSSEC?

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  rancois Joseph Gossec was a Walloon - what a lovely word: Waaaaalllloooonnnnn. Lovely. And even nicer when spoken like you are winding down. To be precise, Gossec was a Walloon who moved away from Antwerp, where he was a boy soprano, and went to work in France. If you were 'the Music Business' in 1763, then he was 'our man in Paris', developing, in his own special way, his symphonies, his string quartets, and all manner of other stuff. In fact, he was the first real symphony man in France, and he wrote hundreds and hundreds of different and, at the time, important works. But now? Well, now he's remembered pretty much for one work. It's not a symphony, sadly, considering that he was a bit of a pioneer in this area; it's not a string quartet. It's a piddly little piece of flute music called Tam-bourin, the favourite of novice flautists the world over, because it's not
too hard and it makes them sound like James Galway for just a few minutes, instead of the soundtrack to the Clangers.

  It's a tough one, this. What can you do about the fact that numerous composers have written masses and masses of great work - or at least, totally pleasant work - and yet for some reason, history has chosen, in some instances, to remember them for only one work in particular. They're often called 'one-hit wonders', but this isn't quite fair. A one-hit wonder is literally that - someone who wrote or sang one hit, and then couldn't repeat the success. As we mentioned before, Joe Dolce 'What'sa-matter-you, HEY', Renee and Renato, those guys who sang that bloody awful 'Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs'. But the classical guys, well, they did write lots of other hits. It's just that cruel fate has decided that the others won't get a look in. Having said that, at least they get one piece remembered, I guess. There are those who wrote some of the most popular pieces of their day, only to be totally erased from the history books. People like Paisiello, for example, who was massive when he was alive. Now? Well, lucky to get a rare aria included as a filler track on the latest Cecilia Bartoli album.

  It's 1764. Here is the news. Buildings are going up like there's no tomorrow. Just finished last year in Paris was La Madeleine, and, this year, Adam's finest, Kenwood House in Hampstead - lovely tea rooms. Talking of all things London, the chattering classes are all abuzz about the latest wheeze - house numbers. Anyone who's anyone has got one, and, indeed, many people who aren't anyone have one too. And what a good idea they are. I mean, London has had post boxes for 120 years, now, and the 'penny post' system for over eighty years, so why not house numbers?

  Actually, wait a minute, that doesn't make sense. Why did they have post boxes forty years before they had the penny post? What did they have to collect in the post boxes? Just imagine, forty years of unlocking post boxes - 'Oh, empty again… that's odd.' Still. Mine is not to reason why. Anyway, they've got house numbers now, so somewhere to stick their penny post, as it were. Next year, too, they even get pavements, so the guy delivering the mail looks more like a postman and less like Swampy the Eco-Warrior. But I digress a little. Over in America, they are just coming to grips with the taxes on the colonies and it's not looking good, if you ask me. As Foghorn Leghorn might have said, 'There's troub - ah say, there's trouble a-brewin', boy, and it's git - ah say, it's gitting worse bah the cotton pickin' minute.' Sorry. I'm OK now.

  THE PRODIGY

  T

  he big thing in 1764, musically speaking, was the lhtle thing, as it were. The first offerings of the eight-year-old Mozart. You can just imagine him being patronized by people who didn't quite realize the genius they had in front of them. 'Awwww, little Wibbly-Wobbly Amipoopot Mozart… aww… have you got some music for the nice people… have you?… have you?… Oh, it's a full symphony, right. In, er, four movements. Good. For full orchestra. Right. Good. Well. Let's hear it then.' Then, quietiy, under their breath, 'Clever little sod.'

  I don't know if you've ever heard Mozart's First Symphony, from 1764, written when he was all of eight years old. By his standards, it's quite a simple thing, certainly compared to the majesty of the 'Jupiter', the originality of the 40th and, my own personal favourite, the brown-ness-" of the 29th. And yet, despite it being simple, small even, it is perfectly formed. And it is easy to just pay lip service to the fact that it is by an eight-year-old boy. EIGHT YEARS OLD! Mums and dads, just think - that's only Year 3. If your Year 3 infant came home one day with a picture of the sky made from cottonwool, a papier-mache Hallowe'en mask and a four-movement symphony, just think how you would feel! Exactly. You'd be shocked, wouldn't you? And you'd have every right to be - making cottonwool collages of the sky is for nursery school - what the hell are they doing sending your eight-year-old home with it? And, of fi If you haven't listened to the 29th, then try and hunt down a recording. The first movement is, quite simply, brown! Gloriously brown. I don't know why, it just is. This is probably one area where I'm up there in agreement with Seriabin or Bliss -1 think certain sounds surest certain colours. Don't know how they could, but they do. And the 29th Symphony by Mozart is most definitely BROWN. Good. Just wanted to get that off my chest. course, in addition to that, you'd think, 'Jeepers, she's written a symphony!!' I'm only labouring this point because I think, to some extent, the notion of a child prodigy has lost its impact today. The Charlotte Churches, the Hayley Westernras, even, to some extent, the Ruth Lawrences - they don't mean 'child prodigy' in quite the same way that Mozart was a child prodigy. A fully scored symphony in four movements at eight years of age was even astounding then, in the eighteenth century, the very era of child prodigies. It certainly makes me put things into perspective.

  We'll get on to Mozart properly soon, but, for now, I want you to forget about 1764. It's dead. It's gone. It's history. Well, obviously it is, but you know what I mean. It's a mere memory. Instead, now, I want you to think the season of 1772-73.

  Are you there yet? If not, let me help you place it. It's a bright, sparkly new time. Captain Cook has just discovered Botany Bay, and, as his diaries from the time show, it was not quite as they had expected: Day 13. Sighted land. After weighing anchor, I led an initial party of brave men in a rowing boat in an attempt to befriend the natives. Once on shore, we gave them gifts - gold, silver, the pennant bearing the coat of arms of our good King George? and some mirrors. Thejj in turn, gave us fresh water, some much needed food and a barbecue.

  (Not sure what to do with the last item. Have given it to Mr Banks.) In addition to Cook discovering Down Under, the Encyclopaedia Britannica had been published for the first time and things are generally starting to feel a little exciting - new worlds, new learning, better understanding of the old learning. And, of course, the old guard die off and get replaced. So, Canaletto is gone - or should I say gondola?… no, OK, gone, then - and Gainsborough is gone too. The frisky Frenchman, Fragonard, is still putting out the eighteenth-century version of the saucy postcard, and the French nobility are lapping it up. Just a few years ago, he painted a suggestive little number called The Swing, and found he had quite a hit on his hands. In fact, France is a swinging place in 1773, all in all. Choderlos de Laclos, another little goer, has just published his Les Liaisons Dangereuses, and very steamy it is too. I can't say the words, myself, without thinking of John Malkovich writing on MicheUe Pfeiffer's back. Best say no more. In fact, when all's said and done, life in France couldn't have been better - /^ It

  I you were on the right side of the tracks, that is. (And that's a pretty big if.) Quite. Yes. Indeed. It's a case of'Reveille et sentir le cafe' - wake up and smell the coffee.

  HAYDN - ESTERHAZY DOING?

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  aydn isn't having too bad a time of it, either. In fact, to be fair, he had it cush! None of the starving artist, garret flat and pauper's grave for him, thank you very much. Oh no. He ran his composing less as an artist's life and more as… wefl, an insurance firm, or something. He got himself a nice litde deal as composer-in-residence for Prince Esterhazy at his residence in Eisenstadt not far from the Austrian capital, and then, well… simply kept it. All his life. True, he did work hard and he had to churn out music at a rate of knots. But as far as living on the edge was concerned, well… lion-taming wasn't for him.

  He did, though, once write a symphony where he instructed all the orchestra members to walk off the stage at the end, one by one, after their bit had ended. So you had the effect of, one by one, a gradually emptying stage, with the music being played by just the last person remaining - he wrote diem a special 'staggered' ending to do it. Eventually, the last person left the stage and stopped playing, too. It was meant to be a bit of a gende dig at his boss, who hadn't let the composer or the musicians have a holiday in ages. He labelled it his Farewell Symphony - farewell in the sense of the orchestra buggering off, not in the sense that it was the final time he was going to play Wembley. Mmm. Interesting stuff, eh? I don't know, these musicians. Have you in stitches, wouldn't they? It's his 45th
symphony. 45! Can you believe that? And before he's finished he will have more than doubled that count. Of course, he is, by then, forty-one years of age. W(»lfgang Amadeus Theophilus P. Wildebeest Mozart©-", his partner in crime in the Classical-R-Us® chain, was only coming up to seventeen at this point.

  Still, youth never held Mozart back, and in 1773 he came up with the simply exquisite three-movement slice of heaven, Exsultate, jubilate. It's for soprano and orchestra - well, that's not strictly true: it was originally for castrato and orchestra. Mozart had, not long ago, made the acquaintance of one Venanzio Rauzzini, a noted chanteur sans balswho had taken a starring role in one of his early operas, Lucio Silla. Mozart was clearly impressed and set to work on a new piece using Latin text. It includes one of the most gorgeous bits of composer showing off since Hildegard of Bingen learnt to play mouth organ while riding a bike. It's the last movement. Mozart decides that he can set the entire last movement to just the one single word -Alleluia. Clever clogs, he is. In fact, this gives us a perfect chance to take stock and survey how far we've come musically.

  Because if you think about this one-word setting in the last movement, and you think of someone like, say, Johann Sebastian Bach when he wanted to do some showing off, then you realize just how poles apart they are. If Bach had done some showing off on this scale - and he frequently did: setting his name as the theme of a piece of music; working out double and quadruple fugues which then went back on themselves^ fi - well, it would have come out as a largely academic exercise. Superbly executed, correct down to the 78th decimal point and yet somehow… not particularly… emotional, as it were. I know I'm on dodgy ground here, for some, because Bachophiles''^ love their favourite composer with a passion - no pun intended. And I, too, love the man to bits. But with Mozart, working only some twenty-odd years fi amp;This is only partly a joke. Mozart's full name - the one that would have appeared on his birth certificate - was Johannes Chrysostomus "Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart (the 'Amadeus' was a later substitution, a Latin finessing of the Greek word Theophilus). So I wasn't simply making a gratuitous benny Henry reference. fi fi Which, I believe is called a 'crab' formation. fi fi fi Bachophiles are not to be confused with the wrappings for cooking turkeys, which go by a similar name. after the death of the great man, you get a joyous, uplifting movement that sounds like… well, that sounds like freedom, in a way. It sounds as if Mozart is just improvising on paper - 'Ooh, I could go here, now. I know what, I'll go there after that', a bit like you imagine the mind of a jazz player to work - whereas, only twenty or so years earlier, you could almost smell the working out. Am I making sense? I hope I am. And if I am, then it just proves there's a first time for everything.