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One of Canada’s unique
contributors to the world of classical and contemporary art music is accordionist,
Joseph Petric, the only accordionist in the world today who devotes himself
solely to concertizing, commissioning, recording, transcribing and writing
about the accordion. With twenty-one CDs to his credit and another on the way,
he has made a tremendous contribution to the discography of his instrument.
Even more significantly, he has commissioned many new works for the accordion,
in his words, “to fill gaps in the repertoire.” In the words of the
cognoscenti, he has “redefined the accordion canon!”
Joseph Petric was introduced
to the accordion at the age of five by his father. “Music-making in my family
and community was something used for social occasions. It was functional music,
so I got my start playing functional music.”
With an undergraduate degree
in music from Queen’s University and a master’s degree in musicology from the
University of Toronto, Petric is no stranger to art music. The aim that informs
his music making is to discover the common ground between music as an artistic
statement and functional music, regardless of the style or period.
“Bach’s music is functional,
music written for an occasion, for church or social gatherings. What I have
found playing this music on the accordion is the vernacular and dance elements
emerge, the harmonies trigger kinetic responses.” The cycle of 5ths in the
first movement of Bach’s c-minor suite, he told me, would do Piazzolla proud!
Another composition in Petric’s wide-ranging repertoire is Berio’s Sequenza,
which incorporates “nothing less than a non-measured prelude.”
Petric was fortunate to
study for a time with harpsichordist and early music specialist, Colin Tilney,
focusing on the challenges of playing baroque repertoire in an artistically
convincing way. “We discovered that the
accordion can do interpretive things that are not possible on the harpsichord,
adding levels of awareness to repertoire that is considered to be old. ...
Recent research suggests that J.S. Bach was a fearless explorer of new sounds.
His Goldberg Variations were the longest piece for solo keyboard written in the
eighteenth century.” Bach, too, embraced the interchangeability of instruments,
which is one reason that Petric is totally comfortable with playing his music
on an instrument that did not even exist in his time.
The Petric Bach project that
prompted this story is the endeavour under way to perform and record Bach’s
organ sonatas with Quebec oboist, Normand Forget. Both have similar interests
in both new and old music, but their meeting in 2000 was quite accidental, the
outcome of both participating in a concert given by Quebec’s Nouvelle Ensemble
Moderne of which Forget was a charter member and with which Petric was
performing as a soloist. The two worked initially on a transcription that
Forget had done of Schubert’s Die Winterreise. Their most recent offering is the Bach organ sonatas. They
emphasize the interpretive, developing new ways of engaging the role of the
listener as interpreter. “Contemporary audiences come better prepared to listen,”
Petric says.
The duo will perform the six sonatas at a
concert at Enoch Turner Schoolhouse on March 1. As enterprising as the folks
behind the recent “Mega Launch” I wrote about in December, they are using the
event as a fund-raiser to support the production of the independent CD of these
works. The price of admission includes a copy of the CD, which will be mailed
to ticket holders once it has been produced.
Recently In Town
Andrew Porter in converstion with Pamela Margles
Andrew
Porter is known and admired mostly as a music critic. But he was visiting
Toronto in December to direct Mozart’s The Magic Flute for the Canadian
Opera Company Ensemble Studio, in his own translation. I spoke with him in his
temporary home in an apartment near the Edward Johnson Building, where The
Magic Flute was being performed. He is unsparing in his opinions. But his
mellifluous voice punctuated by a gleeful laugh, his gracious manner, and above
all his matter-of-fact sensibility seduced me into believing he is not just fair, but largely correct.
We
talked the morning after the second of three sold-out performances. On the
coffee table in front of us was an oversized facsimile of the score in Mozart’s
hand. ‘I only brought it along to answer questions – I can’t say I directed
from a facsimile.’ I had brought with
me that morning’s Globe & Mail review. ‘Do you mind if I glance through it?
Is it a good review?’ he asked. Then ‘It’s a nice review – he really understood
what I was at.’
Porter
himself was thrilled with the
performance and its enthusiastic reception. ‘I’m very happy with this young
cast. They all projected awfully well. They’re not used to speaking in
theatrical speech, so I had to work on the dialogue very hard. I was very
nervous to begin with, thinking I wasn’t getting what I wanted. But when I told
them to be free, within a framework, they responded marvellously. Every
rehearsal was largely concerned with engaging the audience, right to the back
row. There are all sorts of little tricks.
I would say, “Sing that for someone sitting there. Just meet her
eye, and say, “That phrase is for you.”’
‘Ideally
I would have really liked the house lights up a little more so that there was
even more interplay with the audience. When Papageno sings, “I can see pretty
girls all around me,” I would like him actually to be able to see them. It
makes them feel that you’re not just addressing the drama within the proscenium
arch, but you’re actually talking to the people in the audience. That’s not
Wagner’s way, but it is very much Mozart’s and Verdi’s. I love the Macmillan
because it has a big forestage. Nowadays, they’ve all been destroyed. Early in
the 20th century, theatres were Wagnerized so that everything could be kept
behind the proscenium frame. We raised the pit a bit so there was interplay
between the voices and the instruments, which you don’t get in a deep sunken
pit.’
Mozart’s ensembles inspired
some of Porter’s most masterly touches. ‘The quintets are some of the most
wonderfully composed music in the world, I think.’ He carefully worked on
getting the singers to listen to each other and blend. ‘It’s no good having the
singers scattered all over the stage singing from different places. Those are
magic moments. It should be natural. The singer should feel comfortable.
Singers can, of course, sing lying on their stomachs, up on steps, or rolling
around, but - why?
On
the whole, I’m against additions to what the composer and librettist wrote
- unless they are by directors of
genius like Peter Sellars. He doesn’t actually add, he interprets. I love his
production of The Magic Flute, which couldn’t be more different from
mine. There are so many possibilities in the world.’
Porter’s
experience working at the COC was thoroughly happy. ‘It’s such a well-run
company. It’s been marvellous just seeing the mechanics of it. I just murmur to
the stage manager, Leslie Abarquez, that I’d like the curtain a little bit
quicker - and it happens.’
‘It’s
a wonderful orchestra – I’ve heard it a lot - and Bradshaw is a wonderful
musician. A friend said he heard things in the score he’d never heard before.
Bradshaw also seems to be a very good fundraiser. He’s managed to get the new
opera house built. The plans look wonderful.’
These days, writing mostly
for Opera and the Times Literary Supplement, opera is Porter’s focus. ‘I’ve
reached a point where I can pick and choose what I want to write about. I don’t
have to record everything that goes on, so I just write when I have something
to say.’ He devotes special attention to apprentice performances such as the
one he directed here. ‘I sometimes feel that I never want to see another Bohème
in my life. It isn’t true, of course. I go all the time, and I love it. But I
don’t bother to review another revival of Carmen unless a marvellous new Carmen
or José turns up. It’s much more exciting to review a college or conservatory
performance and discover singers who are continuing to discover themselves.’
The
New Yorker and the Financial Times no longer devote nearly as much space to
classical music as they used to, when Porter wrote regularly for them. ‘I’m
rather depressed about the state of reviewing now’. ‘Paper after paper has
stopped even employing music critics in London. They are now being dumbed down
like everything else.’
Along
with his own judgments, his reviews will include vivid, clear, and witty
descriptions of what he has heard, based on his authoritative knowledge of all
aspects of music-making. The audience’s
response often becomes part of that picture.
He once wrote about Peter Sellars’ Così fan
Tutte, “I can understand resistance to this Così as easily as my
surrender to it.” He comments, ‘I’m
rather proud of reviews when people say to me afterwards, “I can see why you
liked it and I can see why I would have hated it,” or the other way around.
What I hope to do is to give an accurate account of what happened and what was
heard, as far as possible. That is what reviewers should do - describe. Of
course it’s coloured by opinion all the time.’
‘It’s
very seldom that I say “Don’t miss this,” except by writing in such an enthusiastic way that someone would say,
“That is something I must go to,” or “That is something I would hate, even
though this chap liked it.”
‘If
something is a huge success for the public, that fact should be mentioned, even if I’ve absolutely hated
it. Yet I’m bothered sometimes when I go to Covent Garden, where the ticket
prices are so high that audiences
have to believe that what they have seen is worth it. You can get huge applause
that doesn’t seem to be discriminate.’
‘We had a Butterfly in London last month directed by film
director Anthony Minghella. It was a huge hit. I thought it was a travesty of
Puccini’s opera, and it didn’t move me at all. It was just a grand show. The
baby was a little puppet moved by two puppeteers. It just seemed to destroy the
pathos. I think my review was fair. It
said it was a smashing show, but didn’t get to grips with the spirit of the
opera.’
Porter has been a notably
strong advocate for contemporary music. ‘The really important composers I’ve
grown up with are Elliott Carter, Hans Werner Henze, Peter Maxwell Davies,
Harrison Birtwistle…Roger Sessions was
a voyage of discovery for me when I first came to America.’ The festschrift published
two years ago, Words on Music: Essays in Honour of Andrew Porter on the
Occasion of his 75th Birthday, features contributions by prominent
scholars, composers and critics. But he is proudest of the tribute from Carter,
a four-bar composition, For Andrew.
‘I think Carter is the greatest living composer. He writes such
emotional music – his Piano Concerto is wonderful drama, filled with
passion.’
‘I
remember the premiere of Carter’s third String Quartet. It was a
terrible night in New York, yet Tully Hall was absolutely thronged with people.
Carter had the New York Times against him for a long time. The Times said, “It
has to be admitted in the end that Carter remains a cipher.” That was for the
very performance that packed Tully Hall!’
‘Yet
you could say that same thing against me when I write about, shall I say,
moments when John Adams seems to be just too soggy. Younger people love it. I
admire the operas rather a lot. But my ears are not young enough or fresh
enough to understand this new thing he’s bringing. It doesn’t seem to be new –
it just seems old.’
Porter has always been
a passionate advocate of period instruments. ‘There’s something about the sound
of original instruments that is very communicative. I love
Furtwängler’s performances, although no-one would think they were in authentic,
historical style. They were just great interpretations. And of course I want to
hear Alfred Brendel play Beethoven on a modern piano. But I also love the sound
of the instrument Beethoven wrote for. I’m not only for one or the other. I’m
not an either/or person in that way – I hope – because each has
different merits.’
‘Period
instruments have now influenced the way that modern orchestras play, so that
you get conductors like Charles Mackerras taking certain kinds of timbre,
phrasing and lightness learned from using early instruments, and applying them
in the correct works. We don’t get a Furtwängler or Karajan kind of performance
any more. I remember a sublime performance of Bruckner’s Eighth in Carnegie
Hall with Karajan. It’s one of the big performances of one’s life. I heard a
wonderful Flute in Salzburg conducted by Furtwängler. It was the longest
– but it didn’t seem a minute too long.’
Porter
is also a famously keen advocate of performing opera in English for
English-speaking audiences. His own thirty-five translations are widely
performed – Opera Atelier uses his Flute translation.
‘In
every production you look at your cast, your audience, the number of
performances, the hall, then decide specifically in each case which language to
use. The quality of the translation available is another factor. For my
translation of the Flute I
worked all the time to get as close to the sounds of the original as you can
get. It’s gains and losses. You get the
merits of communication in the one, and the sounds of the original language in
the other. It’s perfectly right for the COC to do the Ring here with an
international cast in German, and for the English National Opera to do the Ring
with a British cast in English.’
‘But
would you have had this Magic Flute in German? There’s not a
great composer who hasn’t wanted his works to be done in translation. Verdi,
Wagner - they wanted the audience to understand what was being said because the
music makes sense when you know what it’s expressing. It’s a word perfectly
sung that gives you a sudden pang. Singers nearly all say that the most
important thing is to express the words. There was a little moment last night
where Miriam Khalil sang the word “joy” in such a way that it produced joy in
one’s heart. If the word had been in German, it wouldn’t have made that kind of
particularly thrilling moment.’
‘A
director like Peter Hall works so much to get the singers to express the words
to the audience. I admire his work all the time, including his Flute.
Jonathan Miller produced an Otello in my English translation that was
moving. A lot of Verdi’s beautiful sounds were changed, of course, because that
always happens in translation, but the directness of what they were saying was
superb. People respond to the drama.’
For
the future, he says, ‘The opera I long to direct is Fidelio. Flute and
Fidelio are the two operas closest to me. If we had the cast and a
theatre small enough that you could hear the spoken dialogue, I’d love to do Fidelio
- in English, of course. I’d have to
translate it first.’
PUBLICATIONS
Words on Music: Essays in Honour of Andrew
Porter on the Occasion of his 75th Birthday, edited by
David Rosen and Claire Brook; Pendragon Press 2003
Verdi’s
Macbeth: A Sourcebook, edited by David Rosen and Andrew
Porter; Norton 1984
Many
of Porter’s reviews from his twenty-year stint at The New Yorker were published
in five volumes: A Musical Season: A Critic from Abroad in America;
Viking
Music
of Three Seasons 1974-1977; Farrar, Straus, Giroux
Music
of Three More Seasons 1977-1980; Knopf
Musical
Events: A Chronicle 1980-1983; Summit Books
Musical
Events: A Chronicle 1983-1986; Summit Books
A
number of his thirty-five opera libretto translations are readily available. Hushion
House publishes many of them in their series of English National Opera
Guides, including Otello, Tristan
& Isolde, The Force of Destiny, and
Don Carlos. Pendragon Press has published Turk in Italy. Porter’s
translation of The Ring of the Nibelung is published by Norton.
Porter has written opera librettos for The
Song of Majnun by Bright Sheng (recorded on Delos with Ward Holmquest,
conductor) and The Tempest by John Eaton
