Steven Isserlis

Now, I know that I’ve ranted about this before; but – listening to the radio these days more than I used to during civilian life – I hear the clichés bouncing off the airwaves alive and well, untouched by the virus. In fact, that’s not surprising, since clichés are a form of virus themselves, spreading and taking hold in a seemingly unstoppable way. The ones to which I’m referring are not so much those of interpretation (although they are also omnipresent – threats against which we all have to guard constantly), but those that wind themselves around the perceptions of the lives/characters/music of the great composers. People love to pigeonhole – Bach becomes (in this cliché world) academic, Beethoven stormy, Schubert charming, Schumann mad, etc. Of course, these descriptions are not utterly baseless: Bach is the master of academic forms, Beethoven can be stormy, Schubert is frequently charming, Schumann did, alas, suffer from mental illness. But – and it’s a major ‘but’ – that’s just one aspect of their life and music. It’s like looking at a photograph of someone, and deciding that that photograph contains their entire character. In short – it’s dangerously close to rubbish.

In a way, it doesn’t matter much what people think of the composers as people; but the real problem is that these clichés spill over into performances of their music. I’ve heard performers playing the most joyous or serene works of Beethoven with grim determination, their brows furrowed, mouths set, rather like the expression on the famous mask of Beethoven (which is apparently also misleading – he just hated putting that mask on, which is why he was frowning so much!). And similarly, I’ve heard performances in which all Schubert’s considerable – sometimes terrifying – anger is submerged in smarmy cream, Schumann’s most tender love-music is distorted into a peculiarly nonsensical neurotic mess, Bach robbed of all his dance-energy and glorious humour, etc.

Shostakovich is another prime victim of these shenanigans. Yes, he suffered terribly under the Soviet regime, and there are certainly works in which he expressed, more or less overtly, his furious resentment; but there are also so many pieces in which he escapes from that grim reality into pure music, into which one shouldn’t read extra-musical associations. But, especially since Testimony (the authenticity of which is highly doubtful) was published, it’s become almost de rigueur to treat his humour as invariably sarcastic, the beauty as frozen despair. It’s not! Not always, anyway. I like to relate the story of my friend Olli Mustonen visiting Moscow, during which he had dinner with the composer Rodion Schedrin and Maxim Shostakovich. At one point during the evening Maxim proposed a toast (a Russian propose a toast? Unheard of): ‘To joy! Because my father was a joyous man.’ And he should know, after all…

So – yes, it’s enthralling and enjoyable and at times useful to read about the lives of the great composers; but we have to get to know them, both as people and as musicians, in three dimensions, as the invariably fascinating beings that they were, with faults and virtues and joys and sufferings – qualities and experiences that often come through in their music, true; but in an infinite number of ways, and by no means always tangibly. The music should teach us more about the lives than the other way around, in fact; the scores are the true autobiographies.

Therefore, the next time you’re listening to the radio and hear someone say, for instance, ‘this piece is typically angry for Beethoven’ or ‘this work betrays Shostakovich’s bitterness’ – either switch off the radio, or listen carefully to the music and decide whether the description fits – which it may – or whether the announcer (and/or musician) is merely flailing within a vat of cliché.

Here endeth today’s rant.