Maya Fridman: Prokofiev’s Fiery Angel with hardrock attitude

Abandoned Building. Toned Image, cd-cover The Fiery Angel.

The Russian-Dutch Maya Fridman (Moscow, 1989) plays classical and contemporary music as well as rock, jazz, folk and flamenco. Communication with the audience is her most important goal, so why limit herself to a particular style or genre? The website of the Dutch Cello Biennale rightly describes her as a ‘musical centipede’. In 2016 she was much lauded for her contribution to the music theatre production The Master & Margarita.

Recently she was selected as a finalist for the Dutch Classical Talent Award 2018-19. At Gaudeamus, Foundation for Contemporary Music, she is ‘music pioneer in residence’. As such she played and sang the premiere of Canti d’inizio e fine by Maxim Shalygin last April. The Ukrainian-Dutch composer wrote this Holocaust-inspired composition especially for her.

Fridman once more shows her versatility on her latest cd, The Fiery Angel, for cello and piano. The title refers to Prokofiev’s opera The Fiery Angel that he based on the novel of the same name by Valeri Bryusov. In five acts we follow the fate of the young Renata. As a child she fell in love with the ‘fiery angel’ Madiel, whom she thinks to recognize in Count Heinrich. After a passionate relationship Heinrich abandons her, after which Renata is tormented by demons. Knight Ruprecht tries in vain to save her; eventually she dies at the stake.

Reducing over two hours of music for orchestra and soloists to a version for cello and piano seems quite an unfeasible enterprise. Fridman acknowledges this in the cd booklet. ‘While working on the first part, it still felt like an impossible task.’ She felt trapped in the ‘delirium of Renata’, which prevented her from thinking clearly. But as time went on, the music was so compelling that she completed its arrangement like a madwoman. ‘It seemed as if the radiant image of the angel was fleeting from my hands, just as in Renata’s case’, she writes.

For Fridman, the essence of the story lies in the fusion of ecstasy and suffering. By her death at the stake, Renata sacrifices her own being in order to unite with the angel. Fridman has striven to capture this theme in her arrangement. ‘This music requires dissolution to exist, and faith to surrender. It is the celebration of the Symbolists’ idea that physical reality is nothing nut a distorted echo of another realm.’ High-flown words that Dutch people are wary of, but which are self-evident to Russians.

Fridman reduced the original opera to just under half an hour of music. In four ‘chapters’ she closely follows the original story. The dedication with which she shapes Renata’s obsession sparks from every note. Aggressive, percussive sounds depict her internal ordeal; lyrical, more reflective passages express her longing for love. Fridman plays with a hardrock attitude,  at times she seems to literally wish to shatter her cello. On the gothic cd-cover she poses in a black leather suit, like an angel with wings of fire.

Chapter I opens with strongly accentuated strokes of the cello and boisterous piano chords: the fiery angel knocks at the door. Renata’s anxiety is reflected in shaky flageolets and hesitant piano notes. Sultry piano chords and gently flowing lines of the cello capture the emerging love between her and Ruprecht. However, the idyll is soon disturbed by motoric rhythms and furious strokes of the bow on the cello.

When Ruprecht and Renata go in search of Heinrich, jumpy, expectant solo cello passages alternate with impressionistic piano tinkling and black despair. A loud knock on the body of the cello makes one’s hair stand on end: Heinrich does not (yet) show himself, but ominously makes himself heard. In chapter III he rejects Renata once more, whereupon she asks Ruprecht to kill him in a duel. Angry strokes and repeated, bouncing double stops of the cello are accompanied by an orgy of battering piano sounds.

In the fourth and last movement, Renata seeks refuge in a monastery. Melancholic sighing sounds from the cello and rippling piano runs create the illusion of regained peace. But instead of having been cured, Renata infects the nuns with her delusions. Fridman creates frightening whistling tones, makes her instrument sound like an accordion, and dances a short tango. A series of furious figurations of both instruments is suddenly smothered in a loud, droning cymbal: Renata ends up in the fire.

Fridman and her pianist Artem Belogurov cannot be accused of coquetry. They both play as if their lives depend on it. That Fridman’s intonation sometimes falls prey to her passionate performance is of no real consequence. Like Rostropovich she puts eloquence above perfection.

In the upcoming Gaudeamus Music Week she will present Me, Peer Gynt, a cross-disciplinary production she developed together with pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama. Something to look out for.

#ArtemBelogurov #GaudeamusMusicWeek #MaximShalygin #MayaFridman #SergeiProkofiev #TheFieryAngel #TomokoMukaiyama

Me, Peer Gynt: What does it mean to be oneself?

Pianist Tomoko Mukaiyama descends to the lowest registers of her instrument with some powerful bangs, then keeps the keys pressed down. She attentively watches Maya Fridman, whose fingers slowly creep up the A-string close to the bridge of her cello. The Winter Garden of Hotel Krasnapolsky Amsterdam is saturated with eerily abrasive flageolets. Half a step higher, and yet another half tone higher the cello mixes in with the angelic choral sounds in the background. The tension becomes almost unbearable, until Fridman throws back her head ecstatically while her last sounds seem to dissolve into nothingness.

Thus ends the Epilogue of Alfred Schnittke’s ballet Peer Gynt. With this haunting movement Fridman concludes her arrangement for cello and piano of some 30 minutes from Schnittke’s two-hour-long orchestral score, titled Me, Peer Gynt. At the premiere on Monday 13 August in the Amsterdam Grachtenfestival the audience is overwhelmed by her intense performance and striking musicianship. Fridman plays the entire score by heart.

Maya Fridman, born in Moscow in 1989, is quite dauntless. Earlier this year the young cellist presented a cd with an adaptation of Prokofiev’s opera The Fiery Angel. No wonder she was nominated for this year’s Grachtenfestival Award and is one of four finalists of Dutch Classical Talent. She is also music pioneer in residence with Gaudeamus, where she will perform Me, Peer Gynt in a multimedia version.  I asked her some questions about this production.

When & why did you decide to make an adaptation of Schnittke’s ballet Peer Gynt?

This work has always had a very special meaning for me. While I was studying at the music college named after Schnittke in Moscow, I could access his archives and had the opportunity to delve into his scores. The idea to create a dramatic multimedia performance based on Peer Gynt came to me gradually, and took off after I met Tomoko Mukaiyama.

Schnittke wrote Peer Gynt for John Neumeier’s adaptation of Ibsen’s play, and it is undoubtedly one of his masterpieces. Schnittke’s music is being rediscovered and widely performed today, but there are a few works that still remain in obscurity. Unfortunately this goes for Peer Gynt, too, for in my opinion it deserves to be much better known to a general audience. I hope our production Me, Peer Gynt can give this wonderful piece a new life.

Was Schnittke’s own version of the Epilogue for cello, piano and tape an inspiration?

It was a big help to have Schnittke’s arrangement of the Epilogue in front of me all the time. I am not sure if I would have considered re-working Peer Gynt for cello and piano if this version hadn’t existed. Schnittke’s arrangement is extremely refined and minimalistic. The insane intensity is transmitted through the unending cello line, while the piano part seems to live its own life, at the same time serving as a perfect accompaniment.

I learnt a lot from analysing it, but in my arrangement I decided to focus on creating a storyline and introducing the main characters and their drama. It became a sort of a counterpart for the Epilogue where all the themes return, but ‘as incessantly shifting, unstable forms’, as a sort of afterlife of the main character.

What do you consider the core theme of Peer Gynt and what is its relevance today?

Peer Gynt symbolizes a person who has lost himself in the world of appearances. Ibsen poses one of the most crucial questions in life: What does it mean – to be oneself? The subject of Peer Gynt is relevant today as a metaphor of a man who identifies himself through the mirror of the outside world. He loses his connection with his inner core. In the end of his life journey he realizes that he is nothing but an ‘onion’ deprived of individuality – therefore he must dissolve into nothingness.

Of course this is a simplified way of describing such a philosophical parable. Nevertheless it allows me to draw a parallel between Ibsen’s Peer Gynt and many of us who, as Peer Gynt, are absorbed in phantasmagoric adventures and are swamped in social media realities. For me Peer Gynt embodies our constant attempts to identify ourselves as something we are not.

In truth we are nothing, and no knowledge can redeem us from understanding this very emptiness. The inner pain and frustration that drove Peer Gynt so far away from his beloved Solveig is something that touches me deeply in Ibsen’s story. Schnittke’s music is so descriptive and theatrical that it expresses this much more profound and pungent than words can ever do.

Schnittke composed for a ‘continuo’ of two groups of instruments: bells, glockenspiel, vibraphone, marimba on the one hand; piano, harpsichord, celesta, and harp on the other. Have you tried to capture these contrasting sound worlds?

In my first version I employed snare drums, timpani, cymbals, glockenspiel, and even tubular bells. Tomoko and I were preparing to surround ourselves with all these instruments and switch in between to create sonorities close to the original ones. But as our work progressed, our perception of the music changed and we dismissed this idea.

In this regard, Schnittke’s arrangement of the Epilogue was my best teacher and guidance: it doesn’t sound any less intense than the densely scored original version. Cello and piano tell the story in their own language, which naturally differs in colours and dynamics. But this is ultimately the goal of any arrangement: to translate the narration into a new form while staying true to its essence, preserving its melodic details and musical monumentality.

How did your collaboration with Tomoko Mukaiyama come about?

For a long time I have been much inspired by the works of Tomoko Mukaiyama. Since the idea to arrange Peer Gynt popped up, I couldn’t have conceived of realizing my project without her. She has a unique ability to create an utterly stunning music performance in which the visual medium becomes an extension of the music while retaining its own presence and reality. I am deeply grateful and honoured that she warmed to my idea enthusiastically.

We met for the first time in April 2017, at her house. Two months later we played our first concert together, during the Japanese Erotica Film Festival at the EYE museum. It is a great joy to play together with Tomoko and I sincerely enjoy our working process.

From the start we decided to split tasks. Tomoko would be responsible for the visual part and direction, I would be responsible for the musical part (arrangement). Naturally we would discuss all our decisions and I am super grateful to Tomoko for all her insightful and wise comments on the arrangement.

Tomoko made an installation/stage design using large pieces of fabric. She worked together closely with Ting Gong, with whom she realized several projects before, and with light designer Pavla Beranova and technical director Yutaka Endo.

I am deeply grateful to Gaudeamus for supporting me in this project and look forward to our performances of Me, Peer Gynt in September, when music, light and installation will unite into a whole.

Me, Peer Gynt, 6 September Korzo Theater, The Hague; 7 September Gaudeamus, Utrecht

#AlfredSchnittke #GaudeamusMusicWeek #Grachtenfestival #HenrikIbsen #MayaFridman #MePeerGynt #TomokoMukaiyama

Gaudeamus nominee Kelley Sheehan: ‘I enjoy an open dialogue with the performers’

From 4 to 8 September the Gaudeamus Music Week presents state of the art contemporary music, performed by a plethora of ensembles and musicians. Five composers compete for the coveted Gaudeamus Award 2019: Stefan Maier (CA, 1990); Nicholas Morrish (GB, 1989); Scott Rubin (US, 1989); Remy Siu (CA, 1990), and Kelley Sheehan (US, 1989).

Kelley Sheehan

The festival will be opened on Wednesday 4 September in TivoliVredenburg, with the world première of W.A.L.L. by Aart Strootman, winner of the Gaudeamus Award 2017. He composed this for his own ensemble Temko and Slagwerk Den Haag.

Sheehan is a composer and computer musician moving between acoustic, electronic, electro-acoustic, and performance art works. In any medium, her work centres on noise, performance, and interaction. Her music has been described as “Full of discovery, collaboration, and unpredictability” (Gaudeamus Foundation), and was lauded for its “woozy electronics” (LA Weekly).

Her music was performed at prestigious venues such as Disney Hall (LA), Experimental Sound Studios (Chicago), and The Banff Center for the Arts (Alberta). She was awarded residencies and fellowships to MISE-EN Place Bushwick, the National Composers Intensive with the LA Phil, Nief Norf, wasteLAnd Summer Academy, and the Banff Center for the Arts.

Sheehan regularly performs with The Plucky Plunkers, an improvisational duo focusing on works for toy piano and multimedia collaborations. Her work and research has led her to study composition with composers of various interest and background such as Sivan Cohen Elias, Marcos Balter, and Fredrick Gifford. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Composition at Harvard University, studying with Chaya Czernowin and Hans Tutsku.

How did you know about the Gaudeamus competition?

A teacher of mine had recommended looking into the festival so I’ve kept tabs on the competition, but this was my first year applying. I wanted to experience the concerts and witness everything the festival and a competition like this has to offer.

What do you expect from the Gaudeamus Music Week?

I’m really looking forward to hearing new exciting music, hearing all the new works that will be premiered, as well as meeting a ton of people with whom I share the love for contemporary music – that’s very exciting for me.

I’m very happy with the three works I submitted for the competition: Talk Circus; Four Sharp Corners, and 3 Movements.I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH3kxga4_JY

I interviewed the nominees on the opening night of the festival on 4 September 2019.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/3XcUwC5aN4dpCIiQtqYDdu

Much to her own surprise, Kelley Sheehan won the Gaudeamus Award 2019.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWrAoroTa6s

#AartStrootman #GaudeamusMusicWeek #KelleySheehan #NadarEnsemble #TivoliVredenburg

Moritz Eggert on Hämmerklavier XXXIII: ‘Does music become less interesting the fewer people are listening?’

On Sunday 14 September, composer and pianist Moritz Eggert will premiere Hämmerklavier XXXIII: ‘Ultra’ (Part 1) in the Gaudeamus Music Week in Utrecht. He is one of the jury members of the present issue, and this is the latest addition to his ever-expanding cycle for solo piano. He will play the first hour of what must eventually evolve into a 12-hour piece for one pianist – performing with or without audience.

Moritz Eggert (c) Mara Eggert

Eggert was born in Heidelberg in 1965 and played as keyboardist in rock and jazz ensembles before undertaking studies in classical piano and composition. He is famed for pushing boundaries and challenging the (physical) stamina of performers, often with an ironic or humoristic twist. He also hosts the ‘Bad Blog of Musick’, one of the best read platforms about contemporary music. I asked him about the ideas and intentions of his Hämmerklavier series.

You started the cycle Hämmerklavier in 1994. What was your intention at the time?

I had avoided to write for the piano until then (as a pianist I always felt somehow inhibited). But one day I found myself at a Mexican music festival, and a piece of mine was cancelled because the US String Quartet was detained at the Mexican border for having no work permit (this issue works both ways). So in a nightly action before the concert I wrote a piano piece, because that was the only thing I could realise on short notice, this was Hämmerklavier I: ‘Ins Freie’. In the concert I improvised part of it, but later I wrote everything into a clean score and the dam was broken. That was the start of the cycle.

https://youtu.be/MNjr8Hee_Iw

Why is it called Hämmerklavier, not Hammerklavier?

In German you can differentiate between ‘hammer’ (Hammer) and ‘to hammer’ (hämmern). When I hear the word ‘Hammerklavier’ I always also think of the pianist hammering away at the piano, not only of the hammers inside the piano. Therefore I created this title, as an accurate description of some of the more percussive pieces in the cycle, in which the pianist is often quite literally hitting the piano.

I also liked the concept that each piece was intended to be like driving a nail into the wall (also ‘hämmern’): you have to concentrate on hitting the tip. I therefore made a point that each piece concentrated on one aspect. This helped my focus. As mentioned, my past as a pianist made me sometimes too aware of the possibilities of the piano, and I feared to be too conventional. By limiting myself to one particular theme I tried to create more intense pieces.

Hämmerklavier XXXIII: ‘Ultra’ refers to your own ultra runs and swims. What is the relationship to you between physical exercise and music?

Historically there has always been a connection between body and music. For instance, Italian terms like ‘agitato’, ‘animato’, ‘amoroso’, or ‘appassionato’ are all connected to bodily expressions. And we know that performers such as CPE Bach, Paganini or Liszt purposely made their performances very physical – either by showing the emotions on their face like Bach recommended, or by performing crazy feats of movement such as fast scales or arpeggios, to show off their virtuosity.

In Covid times – when we all suffered because there were no concerts and there was no contact with an audience – I completely reassessed my values and goals as a composer. I thought a lot about the question when music actually becomes music. Does it need an audience, does it ‘exist’ without one (a dangerous question, I realise…)? Is a performance of a Schubert sonata better if 2000 people are listening or is it also successful if I play it alone, or only for a friend?

Does a piece become less interesting the fewer people are listening? There is a lot of fantastic music that was mainly written for private entertainment – the sonatas of Scarlatti, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, madrigals by Monteverdi… the list is endless. All these pieces are now being performed in smaller or larger halls, but they began their life as something that was enjoyed mainly by the musicians playing them.

Extreme sports events

So I thought about a piece that would combine my passion for extreme sport events with music. I wanted something that is exhausting to play and will bring me to my limits. This I enjoy, because it transforms being alive as a human being into sound. I think that it is a real challenge for a pianist, and it is fun to overcome challenges. – At least to me.

Hämmerklavier XXXIII: ‘Ultra’ (Part 1), is not ‘difficult’ in the traditional sense (overly complex, many notes), but instead it is really physical in the strict sense of the word. It involves straining movements like repeated wide jumps and playing with your feet, therefore it also takes a lot of concentration to play.

There are repetitions, but it is not simply repetitive minimal music: they are all part of processes that may span dozens of pages, and are never regular or easy to play. Performing the piece is like a trail: you must always be on your guard, as something unexpected might happen. You might go up a mountain, thinking it is always ascending yet there might suddenly be a steep downhill, as every hiker knows.

And if something is fun to do it also becomes fun to watch, otherwise we wouldn’t watch sport events or follow the exploits of climbers. So this is my hope for this piece – that people will play it for themselves, and that others might enjoy it like a sports event.

You’re investigating the importance of the listener, what if no one turns up?

It may well happen that I perform this piece while nobody is in the room. Perhaps somebody shows up later, perhaps someone leaves. Or maybe somebody is having a conversation during the piece, another is checking Instagram, perhaps even somebody falls asleep. I don’t mind. This piece is not about a conventional concert situation, it’s more like a happening.

We have seen this work in performances of Satie’s ‘Vexations’ (Satie is my hero), which may last up to 21 hours. Compared to this my piece is comparatively short, but the difference is that it is really exhausting to play, and that you have to physically train to be able to perform it.

The pianist has to be absolutely fit. I might include running around the piano or doing squats at some point later in the cycle. I did the former in Hämmerklavier IX: ‘Jerusalem’. However, I want it to be accessible, I don’t only want sports people to perform it, anyone should be able to take up the challenge. – But they do have to train.

https://youtu.be/BrX0PaAy0iw

Will Hämmerklavier XXXIII: ‘Ultra’ be the conclusion of the Hämmerklavier cycle?

I’m not one to make big announcements that I then can’t keep. I might want to make it a 24 hour piece, who knows? Also there is the idea of audience participation interludes to cover toilet breaks – nobody wants to see a pianist peeing at the piano, I suppose.

You’re planning to complete a 12-hour cycle. Will there be 12 parts of one hour?

That is the plan, yes. I have no idea how long it will take eventually. I only know that nobody will commission a 12 hour piano solo piece, so I have to do it in chunks. It might take a long time, but I hope I won’t be too old to play it once it is finished.

#GaudeamusMusicWeek #HämmerklavierIInsFreie #HämmerklavierIXJerusalem #HämmerklavierXXXIIIUltra #MoritzEggert