La fee verte; For Mark; Nocturnal; Paris s'enflamme; Last Dance; Accent Grave; Dervish; Mushin; Little Waltz; TFV; transfiguration; Roses. Joep Beving, piano. Deutsche Grammophon 4862030.
By Karl W. Nehring
Dutch composer and pianist Joep Beving (b. 1976) has released a solo piano album inspired by an ancient philosophical movement known as Hermetism. Stemming from ancient writings attributed to the legendary Greek author Hermes Trismegistus, at its core are seven universal laws of nature (e.g., the principle of cause and effect and the principle of rhythm) that are said to be concerned with all finding a continuous balance in life and existence. “The teachings around these principles feel so truthful to me and I hope they will inspire others,” says Beving, who adds of his album that he hopes “it will have a comforting and communal effect on listeners.” The music on Hermetism is soothing and comforting, inhabiting a musical space somewhere between classical and New Age. Although the harmonies are relatively simple, the music sounds serious and thoughtfully composed. It is not mindless, nor is it repetitive minimalism.
Interestingly enough, after playing the CD many times both on my main system at home and by streaming it in my car, finding it quite absorbing -- indeed, the more so the more I listened to it – I found myself wondering how much of the music was truly composed as opposed to improvised. Then one day I sat at my computer getting ready to check email, scroll through Twitter, and generally kill some time, so I decided to put some music on and opened up Amazon Music, did a quick search for Hermetism, and was surprised to find that there were two versions of the album available to stream: the version with which I was familiar, with just the music, and a version that included an introduction to the album by the composer along with his commentaries about most of the compositions – and yes, compositions they are, not improvisations.
To hear a composer’s first-hand accounts of the inspirations underlying the compositions on an album is quite a fascinating experience. A couple of quick examples: The “Mark” of For Mark turns out to be Beving’s manager, who was stricken by cancer and required a dangerous operation. During the operation, Beving focused his concentration on composing the piece, For Mark, a stately, contemplative calming five minutes of music that in light of the background story sounds almost like a prayer. The title TFV stands for “thoughts for Vikingur,” a reference to the Icelandic pianist Vikingur Olafsson, whose playing Beving greatly admires. The compostion has something of a Bach-like feel to it; Olafsson is a master of Bach’s music. Beving says that the executive producer of the album, Christian Badzura, who also has a close relationship with Olafsson, had suggested to Beving that he consider writing some music for the Icelandic pianist. However, Beving did not feel that what he was able to pull together was appropriate, so instead he played around a bit more with some of his ideas and recorded the end result for his own album. The only piece that does not get any commentary is also the longest piece (10:29), titled Roses, with a simple melody, a feeling of farewell, of quiet, simple, serene beauty.
The engineering (by Beving himself, perhaps not the best idea…) at times captures some extra-musical sounds, and the piano sound itself is not always as luxurious as we have come to expect these days. But for fans of piano music with musical tastes that run toward simple, direct expression as opposed to cascades of notes from the keyboard, this is a release well worth an audition, and the commentary version is most definitely worth seeking out.
Bonus Book Recommendation:
Listen to This. Alex Ross, author. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2010. ISBN 978-0-374-18774-3
Alex Ross is the long-time classical music reviewer for the New Yorker. Listen to This is a collection of essays about music not all of it classical, but all of it well worth reading, both for education and for enjoyment. Listen to This begins with two essays that should prove to be of particular interest to classical music fans. The first, “Listen to This: Crossing the Border from Classical to Pop,” offers a critical overview of the place and perception of classical music in American society. Ross does not beat around the bush, as these excerpts for his first paragraph should make clear: “I hate ‘classical music’: not the thing but the name. It traps a tenaciously living art in a theme park of the past. It cancels out the possibility that music in the spirit oif Beethoven could still be created today…I wish there were another name. I envy jazz people who speak simply of ‘the music.’ Some jazz aficionados also call their art ‘America’s classical music,’ and I propose a trade: they can have ‘classical,’ I’ll take ‘the music.” The second essay, “Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues,” offers a fascinating overview of musical history that culminates in the following startling speculation: “If a time machine were to bring together some late sixteenth-century Spanish musicians, a continuo section led by Bach, and players from Ellington’s 1940 band, and if John Paul Jones stepped in with the bass line of ‘Dazed and Confused,’ they might after a minute or two of confusion, find common ground. The dance of the chacona is wider than the sea.”
Of interest not just to readers but also to contributors here at Classical Candor is his third essay, “Infernal Machines: How Recordings Changed Music.” We tend to forget that we are listening to recordings, and that recordings are engineered products that have typically been assembled together from different takes, have been equalized, mixed, balanced, etc. Not only that, Ross quotes scholars who have pointed out that the advent of recording actually changed the way that musicians played and that orchestras sounded. It’s a fascinating essay, well worth reading, and it ends with an uplifting story involving the critic Hans Fantel and a CD issue of Bruno Walter’s 1938 performance of Mahler’s Ninth. Perhaps “uplifting” is the wrong word, for there are certainly horrifying elements to it. Briefly, Fantel had attended that performance with his father. Soon after the performance, Hitler’s forces invaded Austria and many of the musicians were lost, as was Fantel’s father. But for Fantel, that CD was a precious treasure, for he said “I could now recognize and appreciate the singular aura of that performance. I could sense its uncanny intensity – a strange inner turmoil quite different from many other recordings and performances of Mahler’s Ninth I have heard since. This disc held fast an event I had shared with my father: seventy-one minutes out of the sixteen years we had together. Soon after, as an ‘enemy of Reich and Führer,’ my father also disappeared into Hitler’s abyss. That’s what made me realize something about the nature of phonographs: they admit no ending. They imply perpetuity… Something of life itself steps over the normal limits of time.” As I type this, I am listening to that very recording through my computer. It is hard not to be overcome. Maher’s Ninth. Hitler. The abyss. My goodness…
There are other treasures to be found in this book, with insightful essays on Mozart, Schubert, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Luther Adams, the St. Lawrence Quartet, Marlboro (the retreat, not the cigarette) among other things – plus a sprinkling of rock, jazz, and some thoughts on music education. The final essay is a gem, “Blessed Are the Sad: The Late Brahms,” which concludes with an analysis of his Fourth Symphony (reading it makes me want to listen to the recordings by Honeck, Stokowski, Solti, and Reiner). As Ross concludes about the finale, “the whole of it seems a convincing demonstration that without music life would be a mistake.” Appended to the main body of the text are some of Ross’s ideas for suggested listening. If you have a serious interest in music and an itch to learn more, this book will help you scratch it.
KWN
By Karl W. Nehring
Interestingly enough, after playing the CD many times both on my main system at home and by streaming it in my car, finding it quite absorbing -- indeed, the more so the more I listened to it – I found myself wondering how much of the music was truly composed as opposed to improvised. Then one day I sat at my computer getting ready to check email, scroll through Twitter, and generally kill some time, so I decided to put some music on and opened up Amazon Music, did a quick search for Hermetism, and was surprised to find that there were two versions of the album available to stream: the version with which I was familiar, with just the music, and a version that included an introduction to the album by the composer along with his commentaries about most of the compositions – and yes, compositions they are, not improvisations.
The engineering (by Beving himself, perhaps not the best idea…) at times captures some extra-musical sounds, and the piano sound itself is not always as luxurious as we have come to expect these days. But for fans of piano music with musical tastes that run toward simple, direct expression as opposed to cascades of notes from the keyboard, this is a release well worth an audition, and the commentary version is most definitely worth seeking out.
Bonus Book Recommendation:
Listen to This. Alex Ross, author. Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2010. ISBN 978-0-374-18774-3
Alex Ross is the long-time classical music reviewer for the New Yorker. Listen to This is a collection of essays about music not all of it classical, but all of it well worth reading, both for education and for enjoyment. Listen to This begins with two essays that should prove to be of particular interest to classical music fans. The first, “Listen to This: Crossing the Border from Classical to Pop,” offers a critical overview of the place and perception of classical music in American society. Ross does not beat around the bush, as these excerpts for his first paragraph should make clear: “I hate ‘classical music’: not the thing but the name. It traps a tenaciously living art in a theme park of the past. It cancels out the possibility that music in the spirit oif Beethoven could still be created today…I wish there were another name. I envy jazz people who speak simply of ‘the music.’ Some jazz aficionados also call their art ‘America’s classical music,’ and I propose a trade: they can have ‘classical,’ I’ll take ‘the music.” The second essay, “Chacona, Lamento, Walking Blues,” offers a fascinating overview of musical history that culminates in the following startling speculation: “If a time machine were to bring together some late sixteenth-century Spanish musicians, a continuo section led by Bach, and players from Ellington’s 1940 band, and if John Paul Jones stepped in with the bass line of ‘Dazed and Confused,’ they might after a minute or two of confusion, find common ground. The dance of the chacona is wider than the sea.”
Of interest not just to readers but also to contributors here at Classical Candor is his third essay, “Infernal Machines: How Recordings Changed Music.” We tend to forget that we are listening to recordings, and that recordings are engineered products that have typically been assembled together from different takes, have been equalized, mixed, balanced, etc. Not only that, Ross quotes scholars who have pointed out that the advent of recording actually changed the way that musicians played and that orchestras sounded. It’s a fascinating essay, well worth reading, and it ends with an uplifting story involving the critic Hans Fantel and a CD issue of Bruno Walter’s 1938 performance of Mahler’s Ninth. Perhaps “uplifting” is the wrong word, for there are certainly horrifying elements to it. Briefly, Fantel had attended that performance with his father. Soon after the performance, Hitler’s forces invaded Austria and many of the musicians were lost, as was Fantel’s father. But for Fantel, that CD was a precious treasure, for he said “I could now recognize and appreciate the singular aura of that performance. I could sense its uncanny intensity – a strange inner turmoil quite different from many other recordings and performances of Mahler’s Ninth I have heard since. This disc held fast an event I had shared with my father: seventy-one minutes out of the sixteen years we had together. Soon after, as an ‘enemy of Reich and Führer,’ my father also disappeared into Hitler’s abyss. That’s what made me realize something about the nature of phonographs: they admit no ending. They imply perpetuity… Something of life itself steps over the normal limits of time.” As I type this, I am listening to that very recording through my computer. It is hard not to be overcome. Maher’s Ninth. Hitler. The abyss. My goodness…
There are other treasures to be found in this book, with insightful essays on Mozart, Schubert, Esa-Pekka Salonen, John Luther Adams, the St. Lawrence Quartet, Marlboro (the retreat, not the cigarette) among other things – plus a sprinkling of rock, jazz, and some thoughts on music education. The final essay is a gem, “Blessed Are the Sad: The Late Brahms,” which concludes with an analysis of his Fourth Symphony (reading it makes me want to listen to the recordings by Honeck, Stokowski, Solti, and Reiner). As Ross concludes about the finale, “the whole of it seems a convincing demonstration that without music life would be a mistake.” Appended to the main body of the text are some of Ross’s ideas for suggested listening. If you have a serious interest in music and an itch to learn more, this book will help you scratch it.
KWN
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