As the final concert of this year’s South Bank Summer Music season, on August 24th, Andre Previn and a ten-piece band were advertised to perform rags by Scott Joplin from the ‘Red Back Book’, Gunther Schuller’s re-working of the contemporary orchestrations. Also listed to appear were Cleo Laine and John Dankworth.
When we opened our programmes it became apparent that only eight Joplin items were to be performed, and the bulk of the music-making was to devolve on Cleo Laine. In his introductory remarks Previn then announced that only six rags were to be performed; not included was The Ragtime Dance (to which most space was devoted in the programme notes). Previn’s explanation that these were the only orchestrations available did not hold a lot of water, since all eight numbers were performed in the same hall, by another group, last January.
Previn’s band included the Cleveland String Quartet, and members of the Barry Tuckwell Wind Quintet. Good enough credentials, one thought. They read their way through the music without any sense of style, but accurately enough, except of course for the difficult bits. Thus Previn started off Cascades at a cracking tempo: clarinettist Jack Brymer (no less) tried to play the theme of the first strain staccato but couldn’t quite get all the notes in; then they had to drop to slower tempo for the third strain anyhow, since it was too fast for the trombonist to play the bass runs. The trumpeter at all times proved incapable of playing a solo passage without a high proportion of cracked notes. The tuba was accurate but flatulent, entirely without bite. Throughout there was no suggestion that this was the music of a Negro composer, and no sense of period. The musicians gave the impression they had never played Joplin before, or any other ragtime.
I wondered why. One would not expect to hear a professional performance of a Mozart serenade by musicians who had never tried to play Mozart before, but were ready to have a bash.
Philip Jones is professor of trumpet at the Royal Northern College of Music at Manchester. I would like to think his students could get hold of his attempt at the chorus of Easy Winners on tape, loop it, and play it back to him at frequent intervals. This might well have a salutary effect on the training of our next generation of brass players.
Trying to find something to praise, I would mention that the piccolo parts were very well played by Peter Lloyd; the piccolo-and-clarinet duet passages were often pleasing. Of course, one doesn’t look for much subtlety of intonation from the piccolo.
A ludicrous aspect of the proceedings was the sight of a musician of Previn’s ability carefully sight-reading the vamping from stock orchestrations. Anyway, the band all seemed to enjoy it. Jack Brymer played throughout with the happy grin of one who thinks ‘I know I’m a good musician, and I’m sure you do too, so it really doesn’t matter how I play’. The lead violinist tried very hard.
But music of this lightweight quality demands impeccable performance, if it is to be worth playing at all; performance, shall we say, of the standard Willi Boskovsky gives to his Viennese bon-bons. It did not get it. The performance in no way approached the quality of the same orchestrations played by unnamed American studio musicians in The Sting soundtrack LP. This was sad testimony to the inflexibility of the over-trained musician.
It occurred to me that the evening’s music would have been more rewarding if at the run-through – I suppose they had one – Previn, as artistic director) had sent the musicians home and had the Joplin items played by Dankworth’s pianist Tony Hymas, who played most sensitively in the second half of the programme. Or perhaps Previn couldn’t get to the run-through; we know how busy he is.
As it was, the Joplin part of the advertised Joplin programme was over in less than half an hour. The second part was occupied by a wholly professional performance by Cleo Laine and John Dankworth’s Quartet that, by contrast, was a great pleasure.
