David H. Thomas has been an orchestral clarinetist for 25 years. Additionally, he is also an experienced soloist, with numerous critically acclaimed performances.
Starting his performing career directly after undergraduate studies, he won a position with the Greensboro Symphony in 1982. The next year he was offered the principal position of the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra in Washington, DC. The grueling demands of opera and ballet repertoire honed his skills as a versatile player. In 1989, he won the principal clarinet position of the Columbus Symphony in Ohio.
A noted orchestra among several giants in Ohio, the Columbus Symphony had its Carnegie Hall debut in 2001. The review was glowing.
For the past 16 years David has impressed audiences with his music making, both as orchestral and solo performer. Columbus Dispatch chief critic Barbara Zuck offered these comments in a 1994 review of Thomas' rendition of Rossini's Introduction, Theme and Variations:
"Thomas, ...has steadily grown in stature and confidence. Even so, I'm not sure anyone was prepared for the absolutely bravura display of virtuosity Thomas delivered last night. Who would have expected him to emerge as the clarinet equivalent of Cecilia Bartoli? I don't recall a bigger or better reception for any artist, anywhere."
From an April 30, 2005 review of the CSO in a concert of opera overtures and tenor arias, Zuck noted: "(Thomas) had as many great lines as the singer, and his brilliant performances once again reminded us how his playing has spoiled us over the years."
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6/12/2005
Music Recordings Byte Reality
My housemate forwarded me an article that appeared last week in the New Yorker, titled The Record Effect, by Alex Ross. It is beautifully written and well researched. He explores many facets of the recording industry's influence on music of all kinds, including classical. Since I play in an orchestra, I thought I'd share my experiences as a performer, along with some comments on the article.
Ross cites two impressive works on the subject, among others. The first is Mark Katz's "Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music". The other is Robert Philip's "Performing Music in the Age of Recording".
I learned a few things from Ross' discussion of these. For example, I never knew that violin vibrato became more accentuated to accommodate bland sonic output unique to early phonograph recordings. Apparently Fritz Kreisler figured out that a wider, more intense vibrato gave a fuller, more colorful sound and also covered intonation problems on recordings. Before that, vibrato was used sparingly for color. The new practice became the norm. What I thought was a stable tradition in performance style was, in fact, created to fit the medium of recordings.
Technique and intonation changed with recording technology. In general, they were improved by it. Access to recordings of nearly any performance gave the players a valuable tool. Musicians are often their own harshest critics using recordings for feedback. I often review my own recorded performances, and I have also listened to countless recordings of other orchestras. Exposure to great recordings of great orchestras certainly helped me develop into the player I am. But should I just imitate them? Overall, I believe this pattern has greatly improved the "instrument" of the orchestra. After all, we are perfectionists, and recordings feed our hunger for self criticism. How could that possibly hurt the spirit of the music?
Up to now, I never questioned the validity of striving for the timeless safety of recorded perfection. Growing up, I would cringe at hearing old Toscanini recordings. They were horribly out of tune and had flabby ensemble. I thought they hadn't yet been guided, enlightened, by the instant feedback I have access to. These days, with more respect for older performances, I wonder how they would have sounded live, in a good hall. Maybe I would be blown away by the emotion and impact of a live Toscanini performance. Perhaps the roughness would add to the impact, would be a vehicle for the emotion, instead of just an annoyance on the recording. Ross cites some historical practices from before the advent of recordings, which tended to be much rougher and more raw than we are accustomed to. This begs the question, did technical improvements hamper the emotional impact of live music? Well, yes and no.
The idea of recordings being a mirror, a feedback loop of continual self-criticism, is very familiar to me. I now refer to recordings of our orchestra's live performances, which are broadcast later over radio. Could this helpful tool to improve technique also homogenize a player's expression in favor of precision? Could it smother the spontaneity? Persistent nit-picking of my own playing often bogs me down. I may dissect a musical phrase into a bunch of rules for improving the intonation, blend and color, even the phrasing. I may resign myself to all the "rules" I've created, and lose sight of the musical reason for the phrase. Constant polishing dulls the spirit of it. But it doesn't have to, if the tool is used properly.
I selectively listen to myself on our recorded broadcasts. (sometimes my fragile ego just can't take hearing my flaws!) Each performance inevitably has limitations. Live performances are often battlefields, marathons, daring adventures. A good conductor will stretch the orchestra to its limit. Accidents happen. My best shot is my best shot. The key to using feedback is to tuck the critical impressions away let them spice the intent of future music making. Technical perfection is subject to musical intent. One might observe general patterns, such as a particular note often being a little sharp, or an entrance occasionally being a little late, and subject this knowledge to the raw experience of creating the phrase. The live phrase is still the master. The musical intent should be new, fresh each performance.
From the technical perspective today's digital recordings are amazing, but are still only a representation. On our orchestra's recordings of live concerts, the microphones are right above us, without the advantage of acoustical embellishment of the hall. (what little there is in our renovated 20's movie theater) So the tone, at least, is not the same on the recording as it would be to a listener in the hall. (This is probably not the case with every live recording, just the way ours are set up in our hall.) I am often crestfallen at the occasionally edgy or thin tone of my sound on our recordings. I have faith that live ears hear something sweeter. Either that or my friends are good liars.
As a performer, I thrive playing live in the orchestra. I stretch, finesse, dramatize, cajole and intimate through live interpretation in ways I often couldn't conjure in the comfort of my practice studio. Performing live has an edge. That edge is produced by the intense experience of pulling your rabbit out of your hat come hell or high water. There's a lot of pressure. You are naked. Everybody is listening. Somehow, knowing every heart hangs, trusts, on a phrase I create, gives me inspiration to go beyond the pale, to tap into something beyond myself, something from the ether. Or, I just pray and close my eyes and jump in. It's often my best playing.
Another aspect of live music which I only occasionally experience is the audience perspective. Watching the conductor, if he or she is charismatic, can amplify the experience. The gestures match the music, which helps the listener understand the composer's intention. Also, the feeling of being in a crowd focused on the same energy can be enthralling, a palpable force.
I love Ross's ruminations halfway through, how recordings transform music into a "collectible object, which becomes decor for the lonely modern soul. It thrives on the buzz of the new, but it also breeds nostalgia, a state of melancholy remembrance and, with that, indifference to the present." That along with the "mirror" effect, sums up the paradox of recorded classical music. I think recordings have helped improve the overall technique of performers. But a live performance is a subtle world of experience, encompassing visual input, physical sensation, and the communal experience of those around you. That cannot be trapped and boxed. (at least not yet)
I also enjoyed this marvelous quote by Benjamin Boretz (whom I've never heard of): "In music, as in everything, the disappearing moment of experience is the firmest reality." What a great quote. "...the disappearing moment... is the firmest reality". I often try to capture that paradox in my poetry, with obscure results. (glad I don't do it for a living) Ross then expands this, saying recordings preserve "disappearing moments of sound but never the spark of humanity that generates them." He broadens this boldly to claim: recorded music is "a paradox common to technological existence: everything gets a little easier and a little less real." Food for thought, but I don't plan to become a Luddite. For example, blogging is my way of reaching through technology to the world, and a way back to myself via the "unreality" of technology. Knowing others may be reading it gives me incentive to improve. Just like recordings.
I think live classical music will thrive as long as the human spirit burns. Recently, our orchestra had a taste of what live music can really do. Conductors like Junichi Hirokami, who reminds me of Leonard Bernstein (or Alessandro Siciliani, who built our orchestra on dramatic, passionate unpredictability) are vivid interpreters of a rich tradition. With them an orchestra has a chance to rise out of it's self-conscious "feedback" quagmire and be possessed by the composer's muse, to communicate viscerally, soul to soul. Live music doesn't byte reality, it creates it.
David H. Thomas
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