Tilo MEDEK (1940-2006)
Cello Concerto No.1 (1978 rev.1982)) [42:24]
Eine Stele für Bernd Alois Zimmerman (1976) [9:08]
Schattenspiele (1973) [8:08]
Guido Schiefen (cello)
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Israel Yinon
rec. live, 3 February 2009, Cadogan Hall, London (Concerto), 5-6 May
2006 WDR Studios Cologne
CPO 777 520-2 [60:10]
It snowed in London on 2 February 2009. I wasn’t there, but heard reports
of how it had affected audience numbers and reviewer attendance at the concert
from which this recording of Tilo Medek’s Cello Concerto No.1 was
taken. By chance, I had only recently written in glowing terms of Medek’s
organ works on the Cybele label (see review),
and the family had been in contact to thank me for my positive response. So
it was Tilo’s daughter Clara, the artist responsible for the cover art
of this release, who pointed me in the direction of Bob Brigg’s review of
the piece - the only one written apparently, and one which was damning in the
extreme.
Admitting to an understandable bias, Clara’s opinion differed from that
of Bob Briggs in her perception of the concert. To be fair his criticisms were
almost solely on the quality of the music and not in doubt as to the commitment
of the players, soloist or orchestra. I won’t go much further into this
almost inevitable divergence of opinion, but have to admit the whole affair
did stimulate my interest, and I’ve been looking forward to hearing this
recording and making up my own mind ever since.
I had said I wouldn’t go further on the subject, but I do have the feeling
the difference between fighting one’s way to a concert through “adverse
weather conditions” and finding the music falling short of one’s
expectations may have had a different effect to receiving a CD like an unexpected
gift and listening to it in the comfort of one’s home, especially when
the first breath of spring has already turned the chill sky into a potential
ally, and the first shoots and flowers are reluctantly showing that winter
will have been beaten once again. Recordings have a way of flattering a performance
as well, and should by their very nature provide an ideal sonic picture which
will almost certainly be better than that of even the most expensive seats
in the auditorium. Once can reflect on a recording and re-play it, allowing
the music to take a more intimate hold on one’s memory, rather than keeping
it pegged to the associations of a single experience, positive or negative
- and this is a piece I would feel the need to hear more than once before
being able to pass considered comment. All I really want to say is that the
subjective variables between Bob’s experience and mine are immeasurable.
Nothing I will say need discount his comments, and as far as I am concerned
there is no conflict.
The literary titles for each of the four movements of the Cello Concerto
No.1, far from providing a source of mystification, in many ways hold the
secret to approaching this piece. As Andreas Dorschel says in his booklet notes
to this release, “Medek liked to keep his music poised between absolute
music and programme music .... one could speak of ‘poetic music.’” Without
hammering out an absolute programmatic plan, Medek’s idea is to allow
the imagination to play with literary images as well as the more abstract content
of pure music. Once you have the idea of a narrative, the cellist and orchestral
soloists in story-telling or conversational mode, then we’re away, and
this rather vast canvas can take on the qualities of an opera as well as those
of a cello concerto. Yes, there are numerous moments where the music of other
composers is brought to mind: Hindemith, Stravinsky ... my favourite moment
is the quasi-Mahler slow opening to the final movement, but I am a sentimental
old softie at heart. No doubt other ears would hear more or different composers,
but this is not particularly derivative music. It teases, asking us of what
we are aware, or whether we believe the composer is conscious of the associations
with which he is playing. This can be an irritating element in a piece, but
I can’t help feeling Medek is completely in control: inflaming our senses
with a similar kind of sardonic wit to that which both Shostakovich and Malcolm
Arnold used to poke pomposity with a sharp stick.
After years of censorship and hindrance from the East German state, Tilo Medek
was finally forced into exile in West Germany in 1977, and there is a sense
in which this 1978 concerto seems to be finding its feet, as if the composer
was still settling into a new life, and still on a search for a sense of stability.
There are some moments in the piece where we seem in a permanent state of transition,
or where the sense of drama sails close to a kind of dangerously unsettling
banality, but each time I go back and listen I can’t quite put my finger
on ways one might change things. Yes, you could probably cut the piece by a
good 15 minutes or so, but where - what are you going to lose, and what
would you be left with after your Brucknerian tinkering? No, take it or leave
it, this is a piece which will take you on a journey, and not one I find particularly
over-long or tedious. The road on which you travel might not always appear
equally interesting, but each time you stop off and get out of your Trabant
to look closer there is always something rustling away in the hedgerows, elusive
and sometimes infuriating, but always on its way somewhere.
The other two pieces on this disc are for cello solo, and are far more than
mere ‘fillers’. Stele, an ancient Greek word meaning ‘column’ or ‘pillar’,
is a kind of memorial for Bernd Alois Zimmermann, who had committed suicide
in 1970. Rather than a straight elegy, the piece is a kind of struggle, ‘difficult’ in
a technical sense, but also in the resistance one feels, the material emerging,
flowing, sometimes flying, but always with a sense of a dragging weight and
an undercurrent of solemnity and desperation. Schattenspiele or ‘Shadow
Plays’ is another nod towards pictorial imagery without specific references,
and the title has us noticing echo effects and theatrical gestures, and perhaps
calling to mind the wistful and sometimes violent narratives of the silhouetted
figures which form the tradition of shadow theatre from China and beyond. There
are five of these short and fascinating Schattenspiele, each exploring
different aspects of the cello and different dramatic and musical effects.
In conclusion, this, in my opinion, is a very worthwhile disc indeed. The live
circumstances of the Cello Concerto No.1 add to the energy and edge-of-the-seat
feel to the performance, while also revealing a few places where the ensemble
of the orchestra only just hangs together. The rewards in this music are those
which probably yield more over time rather than hitting one between the eyes
with promiscuous precocity, but this is true of much contemporary music and
not necessarily a reason for ejection. What brave members of the audience made
it to the concert were clearly hardy folk, and there is hardly any extraneous
noise in the auditorium, the acoustic of which is a bit boomy, but the well
engineered recording transcends any minor quibbles. The WDR solo cello recordings
are exemplary, and Guido Schiefen is a characterful performer: perhaps more
on the lighter and lyrical side of music which might yield a shade more to
some extra passion and weight, but one senses he feels a unity with the music
which is hard to criticise.
Dominy Clements