Cutting Room Floor: From The Minds of Babes

As we draw within a few days of our first Inside the Classics concerts of the season, Sarah and I are in our usual mode of painstakingly cutting material from the show that we desperately want to get to, but simply won't have the time for. And as we did last season, we'll be using the blog as a way of giving you access to some of these extra bits and pieces. (Click the Cutting Room Floor tag to see all the entries that fall into this category.)

Later this weekend, Sarah will be writing about Mozart's largely ignored sister, who by all accounts was nearly as talented a musician as Wolfgang, but who was expected at a certain point to give up her music and settle down to raise a family. (All three of the "Young Wonders" we're featuring on this year's concerts actually had or have similarly talented siblings, so this is a subject we'll definitely be returning to throughout the year.)

But for today, I thought it would be fun to talk a bit about just what defines a prodigy in the neurobiological sense. What was so different about Mozart's 5-year-old brain as compared with yours or mine at that age, and how do the extraordinary minds among us develop differently than those with more average intellects? To that end, I've sought out an expert in this particular field to help us out - an expert, it should be said, to whom I have a deeply personal connection. Listen in below...

More Copland Audio

Here are three more audio samples from our Inside the Classics season finale. First, a bit of history on Copland's political moorings, followed by a full performance of his immortal Fanfare for the Common Man...



Next, following our brief sample of the dense, intellectual music of Arnold Schoenberg, Sarah heads to the piano to break down just what serialists like Schoenberg were doing with their strange-sounding tone rows. She then brings the conversation back to Copland, and his innovative use of traditional harmonies...



Finally, our resident "eminent musicologist," Michael Steinberg, was on hand for the show, and he had some fascinating insights on Copland's place in the decidedly fractious music world of the mid-20th century...



I'll try to get some clips of our other two Inside the Classics concerts up in the coming weeks. If there's anything in particular from either the Stravinsky or Tchaikovsky show that you're dying to hear again, say so below in the comments, and I'll do my best to make it happen.

The Long-Awaited Copland Show Audio

So, way back at the beginning of this month, I promised that I'd put up some of the audio samples people had been requesting from our Copland show once I had a recording of the concerts in hand. Sorry to have taken so long - it takes a while for our library to get around to burning the CDs (they have a lot of other, more important jobs than making recordings of concerts that have already occurred,) and I wanted to find a good embeddable audio player before I started posting clips.

Anyway, I think this should work, so here's the most-requested part of the Copland show - the ending of the first half. Enjoy, and with any luck, there'll be more clips from our 2007-08 season to come over the next few days...

The Pride of Mankato

Continuing the runup to next week's Inside the Classics concerts, we wanted to take some time to introduce you to the guy who will be the star of the show: our violin soloist, Peter McGuire.

One of the tough things about preparing this show has been the realization that there's so much we'll have to leave out - with less than an hour to cover the history of the Tchaikovsky concerto, its reception by press and public, the musical ideas it contains, and the intricacies of performing it, it was inevitable that some things we wanted badly to talk about are even now winding up on the cutting room floor. In particular, we're not going to have a lot of time to chat with Peter onstage about just who he is and how he came to be standing there, which is a great shame, because his is one of the more fascinating life stories in the orchestra.

But for those of you interested in learning more than the program notes will tell you about one of the best violinists this orchestra's ever had (and one of the nicest guys, too, just for the record,) here's your chance. Peter and I sat down to talk over lunch this week, and you can listen in by clicking below...

Ask An Expert: Conductor Skill Sets

Our latest question comes from Don Picard, who asks...

Q: From your two perspectives, what skills mark the difference between an average orchestra conductor, a good conductor and a truly great conductor?

Don, you may or may not know it, but that is the kind of question that just begs a musician to give back a smartass answer. Honestly, I thought of six punchlines before I even began to consider that you might be serious! However, as part of my continuing effort to behave as if I am older than 14, I have searched high and low to find the definitive answer to your query.

To start with, we should let Sarah have her say, which is likely to be far more erudite and (let's face it) informed than anything I might come up with...

Sarah's Answer: Here are the essential proficiencies that any conductor must master to be able to conduct at any level at all: a strong background in theory and harmony; a highly developed ear (the ability to hear discrete pitches, harmonies and individual voices within larger textures); the ability to read and analyze a score (including score reading at the keyboard); mastery in one or more instruments and an excellent grasp of the mechanics and proclivities of all orchestral instruments; knowledge of the core orchestral repertoire and the stylistic elements contained therein; a gestural vocabulary that is reasonably clear and instructive; and an essential understanding of musical phrasing and the ability to communicate it. The average conductor would have all of the above skills and qualities.

Now here's where it gets a little more nebulous, for me, at least. A good conductor would fulfill (and really excel at some of) the above. In addition, they possess the ability to inspire (a real intangible!), a strong musical viewpoint (and not of the "because I feel it" variety - it comes from an intimate knowledge of the score), and leadership skills (another intangible - a good conductor can, in many different ways, coax and cajole an ensemble to their musical viewpoint - inability to do so means the inability to express that viewpoint at all.)

Even more ambiguous are those qualities that make a conductor great. For me, the essential element is the existence of an overarching individual musical aesthetic that comes from deep understanding of scores and the innate grasp of larger musical structure. The best conductors, in other words, have an incredible understanding of music and of the flow of music within the flow of time - they can take the audience (and orchestra) on a real voyage over the course of a piece of music. Many very good conductors will give you an exciting performance full of peaks and valleys, but for me, this is an episodic approach to making music that ignores the larger viewpoint, the one that makes it feel "right" when you reach the last chord, that takes you somewhere and brings you back.

It's all kind of ambiguous, isn't it? Great conductors have "It", and "It" is hard to describe. The greatest conductors aren't bound by some of the conditions of basic conducting, either - conducting technique itself seems less relevant when there is a truly powerful musical viewpoint behind it, because the force of that viewpoint can overcome any technical shortcomings. And then there is the tricky issue of charisma - some conductors are charismatic because of their musicality (usually in the "good" or "great" category) while others are personally charismatic (and musicianship can be anywhere on the spectrum), so this is not necessarily a good measure.

Okay, it's Sam again. Contrary to my earlier flippancy, it turns out that musicians have some pretty good answers to this question as well. So last week, while the orchestra was recording a couple of Beethoven symphonies, I began accosting people backstage more or less at random, and asked for their thoughts. The result, in podcast form, is here...

Podcast Launch!

Well, after weeks of promises, delays, and procrastination by yours truly, I'm pleased to announce the availability of the very first Inside the Classics Podcast! This initial effort consists of four short segments, in which Sarah and I and a few other Minnesota Orchestra musicians share stories, rants, gossip and other behind the scenes tidbits in an effort to give you a look at the chaotic and occasionally hilarious professional world we inhabit.

Bear in mind, this isn't a downloadable concert - in fact, there's very little music on it at all - it's essentially an audio extension of this blog. (It may also, in parts, sound to you as if it has been edited and mixed by an 8-year-old with a Fisher Price mixing board and a 1982 Sony Walkman. I'm really very sorry about that, but I'm new at this part of the job. It'll get better, I promise.)

We're hoping to make this podcasting thing a regular feature of the ItC site, and at the moment, we're leaning towards the idea of putting up shorter bursts of audio on a more frequent basis, rather than waiting until we manage to cobble together a full-length 25-minute program. But it basically all depend on you, so let us know what (and who) you'd like to hear, and what you could happily go without hearing ever again. Hit the play button below to listen to our inaugural effort, or just click the Podcast button at the top of the page to get access to all our audio content anytime...