Timothy Judd

A native of Upstate New York, Timothy Judd has been a member of the Richmond Symphony violin section since 2001. He is a graduate of the Eastman School of Music where he earned the degrees Bachelor of Music and Master of Music, studying with world renowned Ukrainian-American violinist Oleh Krysa. The son of public school music educators, Timothy Judd began violin lessons at the age of four through Eastman’s Community Education Division. He was a student of Anastasia Jempelis, one of the earliest champions of the Suzuki method in the United States. A passionate teacher, Mr. Judd has maintained a private violin studio in the Richmond area since 2002 and has been active coaching chamber music and numerous youth orchestra sectionals. In his free time, Timothy Judd enjoys working out with Richmond’s popular SEAL Team Physical Training program.

Ravel Writes the Blues

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1920's ParisFrench impressionist composer Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) found inspiration in the American jazz, which was sweeping Paris in the 1920s. At a time of prohibition and racial discrimination in the United States, many African-American jazz musicians settled in Paris, enjoying its liberating cosmopolitan energy. Additionally, Aaron Copland, George Gershwin and other young American composers came to study with eminent composition teacher Nadia Boulanger.

Here is what Ravel said about the potential of the new musical language of jazz:

[quote]The most captivating part of jazz is its rich and diverting rhythm…Jazz is a very rich and vital source of inspiration for modern composers and I am astonished that so few Americans are influenced by it.[/quote]

Let’s listen to two of Ravel’s jazz and blues influenced pieces from the 1920s:

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Piano Concerto in G major[/typography]

Here is the Piano Concerto in G major performed by Krystian Zimerman and the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Boulez. The piece opens with splashes of bright color. Pay attention to the way Ravel combines the instruments of the orchestra and the colors created throughout the piece. Around 0:45, you’ll hear blues chords which might remind you of Gershwin. In the opening of the whirlwind final movement, listen for the jazzy conversation between the screeching clarinet and the trombone. Do you hear comic elements in this movement?

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

  1. Allegramente (0:00)
  2. Adagio assai (8:38)
  3. Presto (18:09)

[/ordered_list]

Now that you’ve heard the whole piece, go back and listen again to the second movement. (8:38). In character, this Adagio assai seems far removed from the exuberant outer movements. The long, dream-like solo piano opening almost makes us forget we’re in the middle of a piano concerto. Consider how the music is flowing. The three simple beats in the left hand of the piano suggest Erik Satie’s static, almost expressionless Gymnopedies. But while Satie’s music remains a numb, out of body experience, Ravel’s long melody restlessly searches and builds expectation, offering up one surprise after another.

Can you feel a sense of tension and anxiety slowly build as the movement develops? Maybe something ominous and unsettling was lurking slightly below the surface from the beginning? Listen to the frightening chord at 14:53. It’s a glimpse of terror which forms the climax of the movement and then quickly evaporates.

At 16:54, think about where you expect to hear the music resolve and then listen to the resolution Ravel gives us. For a moment we enter a new world. What new musical colors do you hear and what instruments does Ravel use to create them? Does the music remind you of the hazy dreamscape of a Monet painting?

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[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Sonata for No. 2 for Violin and Piano[/typography]

The second movement of Ravel’s Violin Sonata No. 2 also is influenced by the blues. In the opening, it’s easy to imagine a sultry day in Louisiana. Here is a performance by violinist Janine Jansen and pianist Itamar Golan:

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

  1. Allegretto (0:00)
  2. Blues. Moderato (8:00)
  3. Perpetuum mobile. Allegro (13:20)

[/ordered_list]

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

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[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]La création du monde[/typography]

Ravel wasn’t the only French composer to be influenced by jazz. Darius Milhaud’s La création du monde (The Creation of the World), written between 1922 and 1923 is a ballet depicting the creation in African mythology. Here is a performance by Leonard Bernstein and the National Orchestra of France:

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

  1. Overture 0:00
  2. The Chaos before Creation 3:55
  3.  The slowly lifting darkness, the creation of trees, plants, insects, birds and beasts 5:32
  4. Man and woman created 8:48
  5. The desire of man and woman 10:48
  6. The man and woman kiss (Coda) 14:54

[/ordered_list]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3GPtgY9hSQ

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Tea for Two

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Tea for TWoYou may recognize the strangely catchy melody of Tea for Two by Tin Pan Alley songwriter Vincent Youmans and lyricist Irving Caesar. The song was written for the 1925 musical No, No, Nanette. One of its most interesting features is the sudden modulation from A-flat major to C major and the satisfying return back home to A-flat. The lyrics may have been intended to be temporary stand-in words. In the 1920’s and 30’s, shows were often loosely written around songs and comedy routines. The songs themselves were sometimes interchangeable. Later, Rodgers and Hammerstein would usher in a more plot-driven musical in which songs furthered the dramatic action.

Here is a 1924 recording of Tea for Two sung by Helen Clark and Lewis James:

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Orchestrated by…Shostakovich?[/typography]

In 1927, Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was challenged by conductor Nikolai Malko to re-orchestrate Tea for Two. Malko played a record of the song once for Shostakovich and then bet 100 rubles that he could not orchestrate it in an hour. Forty five minutes later, Shostakovich returned with Tahiti Trot which later found its way into his ballet, The Golden Age. Listen to all the different ways Shostakovich mixes the instruments of the orchestra and the contrasting moods which result. Shostakovich is clearly enjoying his opportunity to show off:

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Yehudi Menuhin and Stephane Grappelli[/typography]

…and here is Tea for Two from a 1978 album by jazz fiddle legend Stephane Grappelli and Yehudi Menuhin:

Brahms’s Waltz in A-Flat Major

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Here is a great 2011 concert performance of Brahms’s Waltz No. 15 in A-Flat Major, Op. 39. The pianist is Leopoldo Lipstein. Listen to Richter Haaser play the complete set of sixteen waltzes here.

Did you notice the way the melody reaches higher with each phrase, climaxing at 1:01 only to fall back? There are also some fun harmonic surprises as Brahms shifts briefly into minor (around 0:30) and sequences in the “B” section (0:52-1:06). It’s amazing how much drama and expression can be packed into two minutes and twenty seven seconds.

Suzuki violin students learn an arrangement of this waltz in Book 2. The piece is excellent for developing bow control. Varied bow speeds are required for the uneven bowing as well as the crescendo. It’s important that a long, singing musical line is created regardless of where we are in the bow or how much bow is required for a given note. Elbow and upper arm motion is developed as students push the bow to the frog throughout this piece.

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Tilting at Windmills

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tilting at windmillsThis week my orchestra, the Richmond Symphony, returns to work after a holiday hiatus with Richard Strauss’s tone poem, Don Quixote, Op. 35. Strauss wrote some of the most virtuosic and technically demanding orchestra repertoire and this program is a great way to get back into the swing of the season.

Richard Strauss was a master of programatic tone poems, music inspired by a story. In Don Quixote, a series of variations depict scenes from Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote de la Mancha. A solo cello represents the delusional Don Quixote who inhabits a world of knights and chivalry, hundreds of years after their existence, and fights noble but imaginary battles against giants and windmills. In his visions, Don Quixote defends the honor and earns the love of the beautiful Dulcinea. The solo viola, tenor tuba and bass clarinet depict Don Quixote’s comic sidekick, Sancho Panza.

Don Quixote is a powerful and fascinating character partly because of his mixture of delusion and nobility. He would seem pathetic if it were not for his earnestness and transcendent idealism. Strauss’s music captures these paradoxes.

Let’s listen to a great recording by David Zinman and the Tonhalle Orchestra of Zurich. Can you hear Don Quixote’s good-natured insanity in the opening? Musically, a sense of mental instability is reflected in phrases which suddenly and happily end in new and distant keys (0:27). Trumpet fanfares (around 1:58, and later in the fatal duel in Variation X) suggest medieval exploits. Notice sound effects, such as brass flutter tonguing (11:12), suggesting a flock of sheep which Don Quixote sees as an advancing army. The dissonances we hear in moments like this anticipate the sound world of twentieth century music. In the third variation, the dialogue between the cello (Don Quixote) and the viola (Sancho) is almost like an opera without words. At 15:43 Don Quixote angrily interrupts Sancho’s mindless chatter and changes the subject to the glories of knighthood (16:10).

Throughout the piece, listen to Strauss’s dense and complex layers of counterpoint (melodic material occurring simultaneously). At times, such as Variation VII, layers of background sound, including a wind machine in the percussion, combine to create strange new and unexpected sonorities.

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

  1. Introduction: “Don Quixote loses his sanity after reading novels about knights, and decides to become a knight-errant” (0:00)
  2. Theme: “Don Quixote, knight of the sorrowful countenance.” (6:06)
  3. “Sancho Panza” (7:11)
  4. Variation I: “Adventure at the Windmills” (8:11)
  5. Variation II: “The victorious struggle against the army of the great emperor Alifanfaron”) [actually a flock of sheep] (10:51)
  6. Variation III: “Dialogue between Knight and Squire” (12:29)
  7. Variation IV: “Unhappy adventure with a procession of pilgrims” (20:14)
  8. Variation V: “The knight’s vigil” (22:00)
  9. Variation VI: “The Meeting with Dulcinea” (26:05)
  10. Variation VII: “The Ride through the Air” (27:11)
  11. Variation VIII: “The unhappy voyage in the enchanted boat” (28:26)
  12.  Variation IX: “Battle with the magicians” (30:11)
  13. Variation X: “Duel with the knight of the bright moon” (31:18)
  14. Finale: “Coming to his senses again” – Death of Don Quixote (35:30)

[/ordered_list]

As an orchestral showpiece, Don Quixote demonstrates the wide ranging color palate of a full orchestra. The emotional impact of Strauss’s programatic music comes not as much from the literal representation of the plot as from metaphor and a range of feelings which cannot be put into words. Leonard Bernstein makes this point, discussing Don Quixote in his New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concert, What Does Music Mean? 

For me, one of the most extraordinary moments comes at the end of the piece when Don Quixote draws his last breath (the downward cello glissando at 40:35). The final two chords which follow are dominated by the bright, sparkly sounds of the upper woodwinds. The eternal spirit of Don Quixote, perfectly summed up in these two chords, has the final word.

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Musical Beginnings

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Unknown-30Think about the way your favorite piece begins. From the ferocious opening four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, which form the DNA for the entire symphony that follows, to the quiet, mysterious tremolos of Bruckner’s symphonies, to the attention grabbing (and audience quieting) opening fanfares of Rossini’s opera overtures, the way a piece starts tells us a lot about what will follow. As you jump, grudgingly tip toe or stride boldly into 2014, listen to three pieces with uniquely interesting openings:

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 4[/typography]

It’s hard to imagine a more powerful or majestic opening than the beginning of J.S. Bach’s Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D Major, BWV 1069. The first movement is a popular Baroque musical form known as a French overture in which slow, stately music is contrasted with a faster section. This is an opening which demands that you listen. It emphatically celebrates D major, building tension and expectation as it develops. The other movements are rooted in Baroque dances. As you listen enjoy the way the music flows. This would have been popular music in Bach’s time-joyful, sparkling and fun:

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

  1. Ouverture 0:00
  2. Bourree 8:45
  3. Gavotte 11:29
  4. Menuet I/II 13:31
  5. Réjouissance 17:15

[/ordered_list]

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[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]The Symphony that Starts With a Question[/typography]

You may hear the influence of Beethoven’s teacher, Franz Joseph Haydn in Symphony No. 1 in C Major, Op. 21. At the same time, the young Beethoven’s individual voice is evident. This symphony begins with a question. Listen to the first chord. It seems to be saying, “Where am I?” Can you tell where the music is going next? The chord resolves, but we still feel lost. When and how does the music confidently move forward?

Beethoven starts the last movement with a similar musical joke up his sleeve. After a dramatic opening octave played by the entire orchestra, the music seems as if it isn’t sure what to do next. Beethoven gives us a tentative series of notes…then tries again, adding another…then another…a scale is forming…Then he says, “Oh yes, now I know!” What follows is one of the most enjoyable musical romps ever conceived:

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

  1. Adagio molto – Allegro con brio 0:00
  2. Andante cantabile con moto 8:26
  3. Menuetto: Allegro molto e vivace 14:50
  4. Finale: Adagio – Allegro molto e vivace 16:15

[/ordered_list]

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[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Also sprach Zarathustra’s Unresolved Ending[/typography]

Our final “musical beginning” may be the most famous of all. Richard Strauss (1864-1949) wrote Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus spake Zarathustra) in 1896. The tone poem was inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical treatise. The opening depicts a musical sunrise. We not only hear but feel the pitch C, first as a deep, quietly ominous rumble in organ, basses, and contrabassoon and then expanding to other pitches built on the harmonic series (natural overtones). C, the purest key, with no sharps or flats is fixed in our ears, representing nature throughout Zarathustra. B with its five sharps (as far away from C as you can get, in terms of key relationships) represents the aspirations of man. The rest of the piece is a battle between C and B. Listen carefully at the end. Can you tell which key triumphs?

Here is a great recording by George Solti and the Chicago Symphony:

Did you hear the conflict at the end between B major in the highest instruments and C in the lowest? Nature has the last word, but in the end there is no satisfying resolution. In fact with Zarathustra, Strauss wrote a piece which ends in two keys at the same time. It’s a shocking and almost frightening ending, especially at a time (the late nineteenth century) when tonal relationships were beginning to slip away. In the twentieth century, after being pushed to the breaking point by composers such as Wagner, Strauss and Mahler, tonality would dissolve into the twelve tone rows of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern and others. In twelve tone music there would be no hierarchical relationship between pitches.

Leonard Bernstein made a reference to the end of Zarathustra in the final chords of West Side Story. In contrast to Zarathustra, in West Side Story light wins out over darkness in the form of a major triad.

Conductor Marin Alsop offers additional thoughts about Zarathustra’s powerful opening here. Program notes for the entire piece are here.

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[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]What’s Your Favorite Musical Beginning?[/typography]

Now it’s your turn. Do you have a favorite “musical beginning?” Tell us about it in the comment thread below.

[quote]Life without music would be a mistake. -Friedrich Nietzsche[/quote]

Waltzing into a New Year

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The Vienna Philharmonic began its tradition of performing an annual New Year’s Concert in 1939. Ever since, New Year’s Day and Strauss waltzes have become intertwined in popular imagination. In celebration of a new year, here is Johann Strauss II’s The Blue Danube from last year’s concert, conducted by Franz Welser-Möst. Austrian conductor Welser-Möst is currently the Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra. You may notice that in the Viennese style of playing waltzes the second beat comes slightly early and is stretched (One,TWO-three):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_-kBaIMvHw

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Shaping a Film to Its Score[/typography]

If you’re a film fan, The Blue Danube probably brings to mind Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, a work he described as “a mythological documentary” and “a controlled dream.” The film delves into issues of technology and human evolution. In one scene a tribe of early hominids discovers that an animal bone can be used as a weapon as well as a tool. It’s a crucial moment of uniquely human ingenuity. An ape-man throws the bone into the air and it suddenly turns into a Pan-Am spaceplane, cruising to a space station which is orbiting earth millions of years later. Both the bone and the spaceplane represent technology. Have we really come so far?

Typically, composers write film scores after a movie has been made. 2001: A Space Odyssey may be a rare example of a film which was influenced by its music. Kubrick began working on the film with a “temporary track” of existing classical music. Meanwhile, the respected Hollywood composer Alex North began working on the score. It wasn’t until late in the process that North realized, to his disappointment and frustration, that Kubrick had abandoned the entire original score in favor of existing music, which included Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra and music by twentieth century composer György Ligeti. You can get a sense of what the movie would have been like with North’s unused score here and here.

In Kubrick’s film the grace and elegance of Strauss’s waltz accompanies spinning satellites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqOOZux5sPE

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Like other aspects of 2001, there are many contrasting interpretations regarding how the music is functioning in the film. Clearly, Kubrick was looking for something more than background music. In many scenes dialogue takes a back seat to music and image. For a complete analysis of the role of music in the film, read David W. Patterson’s Music, Structure and Metaphor in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

[quote]Music in Kubrick’s films is used inventively and narratively and flamboyantly, causing the viewer to listen so that he can see. -Vivian Sobchak[/quote]

Oistrakh Plays Tchaikovsky

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Oleh Krysa and David Oistrakh (image taken from olehkrysa.com
Oleh Krysa and David Oistrakh (from olehkrysa.com)

What better way to end the year than with a few rare old recordings by the legendary Russian violinist David Oistrakh (1908-1974)? Listening to these clips, which range from solo to chamber repertoire, it’s easy to hear why Oistrakh is regarded as one of the greatest violinists of all time. There is a deep musical sincerity and a powerful sense of humanity in his playing which transcends the ordinary. In the fastest and most demanding technical passages every note sings with the most round, noble tone. Even now, his playing sounds strangely “modern,” uninfected with stylish mannerisms of any historical period. It’s just pure music.

My former teacher, Oleh Krysa, was a student of Oistrakh for seven years. In Book 14 of The Way They Play, Krysa sheds some light on the qualities which set Oistrakh apart as a performer and teacher:

[quote]In the first place, it was about developing musical sincerity, which is probably of utmost importance. He was absolutely intolerant of certain things: it refers primarily to ethics and taste and as a consequence to such aspects as style of playing, choice of repertory, attitude not only to music, but to art in general…Harmony was really striking in him-I mean both his human charm and performance. Oistrakh’s creative work, at least for me, associates with Raphael’s paintings. In his playing there had never been any pointedness of expression or sugary sentimentalism, there had never been a trace of affectation aimed at winning over the public. And his pedagogical activities were also aimed first and foremost at guarding his pupils against such “extremes” and at teaching them to express themselves naturally and sincerely on the instrument.[/quote]

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Violin Concerto[/typography]

Here is Oistrakh’s 1962 recording of the Tchaikovsky Concerto with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra. The warm, rich Philadelphia string sound is on full display in this recording. Oistrakh chose to perform his own edition which is closer to Tchaikovsky’s original text than the edition by Leopold Auer. Tchaikovsky originally dedicated the concerto to Auer but withdrew the dedication after Auer’s criticism. The first performance was given by Adolf Brodsky in Vienna in 1881.

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

  1. Allegro moderato 0:00
  2. Canzonetta. Andante 18:54
  3. Finale. Allegro vivacissimo 25:35

[/ordered_list]

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[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Piano Trio, Op. 50[/typography]

Now let’s hear a 1948 recording of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Trio in A minor, Op. 50. Oistrakh is joined by pianist Lev Oborin and cellist Sviatoslav Knushevitsky.

Written around 1881, the piece is in two large movements. In the second movement a series of contrasting and far reaching variations (including a fugue) spring from a simple melody. Tchaikovsky worried that it was too symphonic, writing to a friend:

[quote]The Trio is finished … now I can say with some conviction that my work is not all bad. But I am afraid, having written all my life for orchestra, and only taken late in life to chamber music, I may have failed to adapt the instrumental combinations to my musical thoughts. In short, I fear I may have arranged music of a symphonic character as a trio, instead of writing directly for the instruments. I have tried to avoid this, but I am not sure whether I have been successful.[/quote]

Symphonic or not, the music embodies a sense of raw emotion unique to Tchaikovsky. In the heroic major section between 2:55 and 3:41 it’s hard not to hear a hint of Russian nationalism.

[ordered_list style=”decimal”]

  1. Pezzo elegiaco (Moderato assai – Allegro giusto) 0:00
  2. (A) Tema con variazioni: Andante con moto – (B) Variazione Finale e coda 18:00

[/ordered_list]

Despite its many spirited adventures, the music seems to give up at the end with the same tragic acceptance we hear at the end of the “Pathetique” Symphony. Tchaikovsky builds our anticipation around 44:35 by prolonging the dominant (V chord), but listen to way he avoids a clear, satisfying resolution at 45:08. The remaining music melts away into the gloomy hopelessness of a funeral dirge.

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[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Sérénade mélancolique, Op. 26[/typography]

Here is a 1948 recording of the hauntingly beautiful Sérénade mélancolique. Notice all the little Tchaikovsky-isms: the structure of the melody and the way it restlessly develops, the off-kilter rhythmic complexity in the low strings around 3:45, the counter melody scale line (beginning at 6:28) which begins in the low woodwinds and rises dramatically, passing from one instrument to another. Around 8:05 this passage comes again with the violin and woodwinds reversing roles. Listen to the bass pizzicatos providing a rhythmic foundation under the melody. Tchaikovsky is never far from the world of ballet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9E2CFuCvNI

[typography font=”Cantarell” size=”28″ size_format=”px”]Andante Cantabile[/typography]

Here is the second movement of Tchaikovsky’s String Quartet in D Major, Op. 11. The melody is based on a Russian folk song which Tchaikovsky apparently heard whistled by a house painter. Oistrakh performs with Pyotr Bondarenko, Mikhail Terian and Sviatoslav Knushevitsky.

Yehudi Menuhin on David Oistrakh (Great Masters of the Violin, Boris Schwartz):

[quote]I loved him immediately. Not only was he the gentlest, staunchest, most warm-hearted of men, but he was also simple and ingenuous. He never felt the need to appear other than he was…but presented himself candidly, without second thoughts or self-consciousness or doubts about his reception, a complete human being.[/quote]

Christmas at King’s College Chapel, Cambridge

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King's CollegeHere is Jan Sandström’s atmospheric setting of Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming, performed live by the choir of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, England on Christmas Eve, 2009. Sandström is a contemporary Swedish composer and for me there is something about this music which captures the bleak, desolate Scandinavian landscape in December. It also has a unique flow. When the sun sets at 3:00 in the afternoon for part of the year, do you develop a different perception of time?

We’re used to hearing Lo How a Rose E’er Blooming in relatively simple four part harmony as it’s sung here by Chanticleer. Listen to the more familiar chorale version first and then contrast it with Sandström’s 1990 setting: