Malcolm Miller

IN MEMORIAM MALCOLM MACDONALD: EDITOR AND FRIEND

Malcolm MacDonald was an inspiration and a beacon of light in the world of musicological writing, one of the best authors and editors in his field. To me, he was also one of the most supportive and warmest of colleagues. Though we did not meet face-to-face often (I recall one of the first occasions being a party in honour of his predecessor David Drew), our letters, email correspondence and phone conversations over nearly 30 years (since my first TEMPO contribution in 1986) remain in my memory among my most valued and enriching musical encounters. Our last exchange, just a few months ago, relating to the penultimate issue he edited, was lively and gave no inkling of the extent of his illness: it attested to his remarkable courage and strength of character. Whilst saddened by his untimely loss, I feel privileged to have known him, and to have the chance to contribute to TEMPO under his sage editorship. From the very start, I benefited from his guiding approach to both style and content; his nurturing hand stressed the virtues of clarity and logical argument and the importance of pursuing one’s interests. Indeed, he believed that if a critic was sympathetic to a composer or style, the response would be all the more fruitful and creative. Malcolm was an author in the deep sense of ‘authority’. His books, articles, reviews and especially programme notes (for instance, those wonderfully exciting essays for the BBC Proms year by year) are informed and informative, serious and often witty, exploring the human condition and character with common sense and treating complex analytical and aesthetic issues with clarity – qualities any writer, myself included, might strive to emulate. His seminal books on Schoenberg, Brahms and Varèse, and the championing of less mainstream composers like Havergal Brian and Ronald Stevenson, show him to be strikingly pluralistic and non-partisan. For instance: on the Shostakovich debate, I recall one BBC broadcast when he reminded one that, after all, Shostakovich’s works were still just ‘notes on paper’, a caution, perhaps, against over-interpretation. Over the years of his editorship, TEMPO’s scope reflected a wide range of international cross-currents that both reflected and shaped the rich discourse about new music, exploring the cutting edge and the coexistence of diverse viewpoints. As an editor and as a person, Malcolm was kind, generous and patient. I am grateful to have had opportunities to chat from time to time about his own projects, articles, books and compositions, his unceasing activity showing how he was never satisfied to rest on laurels. I had hoped his retirement would bring more occasions to meet. Yet suddenly, Malcolm’s kind, wise, often witty voice on the phone is no longer to be heard. TEMPO 68 (270) 72–73

Jerusalem, Music Centre: Andre Hajdu

An 80th birthday concert full of the spirit of youthful exploration reflected the innovative interactive aesthetic of Andre Hajdu, the Hungarian-Israeli composer, whose oeuvre is gradually gaining wider international exposure. Presented by the Jerusalem Music Centre on 29 March 2012, the programme featured works from the last quarter of a century for chamber duo and solo piano, including two premieres, culminating in an improvisational interactive jam session by an array of students and colleagues, joined by the composer himself at the piano. To begin was Hajdus Sonatine for Flute and Cello (1990) ‘in the French style’ performed with panache by the flautist Yossi Arnheim and cellist Amir Eldan. It is an elegantly written work radiating the spirit of Hajdus teachers Milhaud and (less overtly) Messiaen, with whom he studied in Paris in the 1950s and 60s. Beneath the light-hearted veneer of polyphonic textures is a serious, plangent expressiveness. The first movement, libre et gai , moves from the chirpy, Poulenc-like delicacy of a cat-and-mouse imitative chase, building tension towards a final stretto. In the second movement, molto moderato , Arnheim wove a lyrical cantilena for flute over gentle cello accompaniments, giving way to rarified high cello registers shadowed by eloquent lower lines of the flute. An exuberant dance-like finale, Libre mais un peu rythme , increased in drama before receding to a tranquil conclusion.

Psanterin: Anthology of Israeli Piano Music

Psanterin: Anthology of Israeli Music for Piano. Liora Ziv-Li, Allan Sternfield, Ora Rotem-Nelken, Herut Israeli, Tomer Lev, Michal Tal, Natasha Tadson, Yuval Admoni, Astrith Baltsan, Allon Goldstein (pianists). Israel Music Center IMCD: 104–112 (9-CD set) produced by The Israel Composers League and the Israeli Music Center (IMC), 55 Begin Rd, Tel Aviv, Israel. (Tel/fax:00-972-(0)3-562 1282. Email: icl@zahav.net.il

London, St John's Smith Square: Malcolm Singer at 50

For a composer to be able to have a fiftieth birthday concert of his own music is an achievement, but to have those works performed with dedication and enthusiasm by a host of different choirs, ensembles and soloists, including many children, students, as well as colleagues, and enjoyed by a capacity crowd, is an even greater tribute. Malcolm Singers 50th Birthday Concert on 13 October 2003 was just such an occasion, featuring as it did a world premiere and second performance, in a programme that spanned from an early graduation work to recent choral and instrumental commissions. What emerged was a stylistic thread and aesthetic integrity, a predilection for quasi-minimalist processes, energetic rhythmic polyphony, and a keen sense of expressive shape that gives Singer a unique place in the pantheon of postmodernism. Above all the works radiated a practical expertise that derives from Singers experience as an all-round musician. Currently Director of Music at the Yehudi Menuhin School, Surrey, he is an accomplished conductor and teacher who has produced a large oeuvre in almost every genre, including childrens music.

BETWEEN TWO CULTURES: A CONVERSATION WITH SHULAMIT RAN

Although Israeli performers are widely recognized in the international arena, serious music composed by Israeli composers is far less well known. Yet, throughout Israels 55-year history to date, contemporary music has attained a remarkably dynamic, thriving impetus despite (and perhaps partly as a consequence of) the harsh realities of daily life. The works of four generations (and a rising fifth generation) of composers in all genres and instrumental combinations may still be known far less than they deserve across the world, yet the amount of new recordings, published studies and performances is encouraging evidence of increasing interest. This article-interview is intended to deepen appreciation of an important repertoire through an introduction to the music and ideas of one of the foremost Israeli composers, the Chicago-based Shulamit Ran, whose unique outlook is influenced by two cultures, those of Israel and America. The pioneer generation of composers who emigrated from Europe to Palestine in the 1930s to escape persecution (Paul Ben-Haim, Alexander Boskovich, Josef Tal, Od6n Partos, Menachem Avidom and others) sought to forge a new national style distinct from European (and notably German) modernism. Yet a deeper, subtler East-West synthesis was achieved by the second-generation composers (including Tzvi Avni, Ben-Zion Orgad, Yehezkel Braun, Noam Sheriff, Ami Maayani and Mark Kopytman) through a rapprochement between European tendencies and radical research-based interest in Middle Eastern idioms. The younger generation (Oded Zehavi, Yinam Leef, Haim Permont, Gil Shohat, Lior Navok) achieved a postmodern balance of international and regional tendencies and several of them pursued graduate musical studies in the USA or Europe, some choosing to stay abroad to further develop their careers. Amongst them are two women composers who have achieved significant international recognition, Betty Olivero (b. 1954), a former student of Berio in Italy, and Shulamit Ran (b.1947), a unique force in new music. Shulamit Ran studied in Israel with two of the leading pioneers of Israeli music, Alexander Uria Boskovich (1907-1964) and Paul BenHaim (1897-1984), but already at the age of 14 she went to the Mannes School of Music in New York to study piano with Nadia Reisenberg. Since then Ran has maintained ties with Israel while based in the USA. At 16 she performed her Capriccio for piano and orchestra (written when she was 14) with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra on one of Leonard Bersteins televised Young Peoples Concerts, then played the piano solo of her Symphonic Poem with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra in 1967 and Concert Piece for piano and orchestra with the Israel Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta in Tel-Aviv in 1971. Her song cycle O The Chimneys, settings of Nelly Sachs, was performed in New York in 1970 and it was this work which stimulated

Recent Cello Music by Graham Whettam

The recent spate of world premieres, concerts and several newly-released and imminent CD recordings have indicated a renewed interest in the music of the British composer Graham Whettam, who celebrated his 70th birthday with a concert in 1998 (see review in Tempo 206 ) and is still busy producing new works. As recently as February he completed his Fifth Symphony, for chamber orchestra (a Sixth is in progress) and his String Quartet No.4 is scheduled for a premiere later this year.

From Liszt to Adams (II): ‘The Black Gondola’

The Black Gondola , John Adamss transcription for chamber orchestra of Liszts La Lugubre Gondola II , composed in 1989 for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, Minnesota, shows how – as in the case of Wiegenlied (discussed in an earlier article, Tempo 175 ) – the composer has been attracted to those aspects of Liszts late style which inter–connect with minimalism: regular, and fluid, rhythmic textures; economy of thematic material which undergoes ‘minimal’ transformation; extensive phrase repetition in a ‘sequencing’ structure; harmonic ambiguity and elusiveness. In addition, in this case, a strong programmatic element is evident in the symbolism of the original piece which is heightened considerably within Adamss transcription: an expression of the dramatic style which has influenced his recent stage works, Nixon in China and The Death of Klinghoffer .