Lubozhutz & Nemenoff, Tabuteau, and the Future of Classical Music Video by Thomas Wolf
Okay, I admit it. The title of this blog is more than a little misleading. If I had written, “The Great Oboist, Marcel Tabuteau,” my hunch is that many people would have decided to skip the entry. On the other hand, if the title was “The Future of Classical Music Video,” a rash of purist music lovers who have sensibilities similar to my own (I am not a great fan of musical videos) would think, “This is not for me.” So I combined both subjects in the title and added the duo-piano team Luboshutz & Nemenoff (my great aunt and uncle who are favorites of some of my readers) to provide a menu of possible attractions. So whatever your connection to music, interesting musical personalities, my family, or technology, I hope you will find what follows of interest.
The history of classical music and the advance of technology have always gone hand in hand. Just ask pianists how effectively they might be able to play Stravinsky’s “Petrouchka” Suite, let alone more contemporary works, on a piano made in Mozart’s time. The technical advances in piano building—as with many instruments—have made possible whole new possibilities not only in playing but in composing as well.
So too with technological advances in recordings. So much of the music we listen to today is pre-recorded that we take recordings and the ability to listen to them anytime, anywhere almost for granted. But imagine what it meant for music lovers in the 1930s and 1940s to be able to listen to great performers in their own homes any time they wished. It was a degree of control unimaginable a half century earlier. Looking at record advertising of the period, this was the great attraction promoted by companies like RCA Victor. Check out this ad from a 1944 program of the Brooklyn Academy of Music. It promotes records by my uncle and aunt, Luboshutz & Nemenoff. The headline reads “Luboshutz & Nemenoff…will play in your own home.” The ad copy follows with these words: “Enjoy a command performance by Luboshutz & Nemenoff whenever you wish in your own home!”
You no longer had to be a prince or a millionaire to have your own house musicians. Records were relatively cheap. It was an incredible advance for music lovers.
That level of control over the musical experience had many ramifications. I remember a story my father used to tell of an encounter he had with the widow of the great oboe player, Marcel Tabuteau. Tabuteau may be the musician with the most long-lasting impact on woodwind playing in America. His oboe students and the students in his woodwind class at the Curtis Institute of Music took principal positions in major orchestras and they and their students carried on his unique approach to phrasing and sound for three generations. Here is a photo of him conducting that legendary class.
Tabuteau was not only a great player and teacher. He had a wonderful sense of humor and one always looked forward to his bon mots. But in this case, it was his wife, Louise André Tabuteau, who produced the memorable quote. When my father met her sometime after the oboist’s death, he said to her, “You must miss Marcel very much.”
“Not really,” she answered. “When I feel like I will miss him, I put on one of his records. And when I get tired of him, I turn it off.”
There it is again. The listener having complete control over when, where, and how much music to listen to.
Unfortunately, though we have moved into the new technology of video, we haven’t advanced much beyond the ability to turn the music on and off. It is true that some creators have begun experimenting with visual images that are a direct response to the music. Here is an interesting example of a series of carefully color-coded images dancing to a Beethoven string quartet.
It was created by the American composer, pianist, educator, software engineer, and inventor, Stephen Malinowski It is certainly an imaginative novelty but I find it difficult to stay with it for more than about five minutes (though, to be fair, the acclaimed British music educator, Ann Rachlin MBE, who sent it to me, said she watched the entire video multiple times and enjoyed it.)
It is good to remember that videos of famous musicians playing go back to the silent film era and the earliest ones were without sound. Here, for example, is a short clip of the great Josef Hofmann from around 1910. When I first viewed it, I wondered why anyone would be interested given that there is no music to listen to. But the more I watched it, and especially when I compared it to a video of another pianist, I found it fascinating. One can glean a good deal about the musicians’ personalities and their different techniques just by watching. For example, compare the Hofmann video to this one of Leopold Godovsky. Note not only the different hand positions and touch but also the movement of the bodies and the expressions of the faces. Godovsky was famous for his sense of humor and it certainly comes across at different points especially at 2:25. If one subsequently listens to the two pianists on old recordings, these videos add much insight.
Popular artists have produced musical videos for years that often feature themselves in various exotic settings. These videos, with sound of course, sometimes include guests, unique costuming, dance sequences, and other exciting visuals. They are fun to watch but they often cost tens of thousands of dollars to produce. Nevertheless, some classical musicians have gone this route, featuring themselves in conjunction with video sequences that are creative and simple enough so as not to be cost prohibitive. Here, for example, is the Icelandic pianist, Víkingur Ólafsson (“Artist of the Year” at the Gramophone Awards 2019) performing the Andante from Bach's Organ Sonata No. 4, as transcribed for the piano by August Stradal. The video was directed by Magnús Leifsson.
With more conventional classical music video where we watch musicians playing, I would argue that the visual experience actually constrains our mind’s eye and stultifies our creative imaginations. When we listen to a recording, our eyes can look anywhere and our imaginations are free to roam. True we are not watching the musicians, but we are not visually trapped by the images on the screen. When we watch a video, the decision about what to look at is made by someone else – generally a video editor.
The problem is that the decisions that an editor makes are not necessarily the ones ours eyes and brain would choose if we were sitting in a concert hall and, frankly, I often find those selections downright frustrating. For example, if orchestra musicians play solo lines in a symphony, when do you want to be watching them? For me, I want to watch an instrumentalist when he or she starts the solo right through to the end so I can get a sense of the whole musical line. I don’t want the camera to focus on that individual well after the solo has begun (as is so often the case in musical video) or depart before the solo is over to capture an interesting shot of someone else. Or perhaps at that point I would prefer to watch the conductor. I might even like a close-up of a musician who isn’t playing. How many times in a concert hall have I thought, “I wonder what that tympani player is thinking about in this slow movement when he is not playing? I think I will watch him for a bit and see if he does anything besides sit there with his arms folded.”
In 2015, the LA Philharmonic launched an interesting experiment with its “Van Beethoven” Mobile Virtual Reality Orchestral Experience utilizing Oculus technology. Visitors were welcomed aboard a customized VAN Beethoven truck, complete with carpet and seating from Walt Disney Concert Hall, where they put on an Oculus headset and were transported to the venue. The immersive visual private experience was augmented by a soundtrack that adapted to the viewer’s perspective; whether the viewer was in front of the orchestra, behind, or standing amidst the symphony, the music subtly shifted to reflect listener-specific positions and enhanced the feeling of being up-close-and-personal with the orchestra. What was also interesting was that the performance was captured with state-of-the-art 360° 3D cameras and binaural audio recording that transported the viewer to various vantage points to experience the performance. In this video, the viewer is able to move around the orchestra looking at different musicians in real time and the viewer is somewhat in control. One can only imagine how far the technology has advanced in the five years since this material was produced.
For a music lover at home watching this on his or her computer, the video is more of a novelty than a satisfactory musical experience. One is still dependent on video editing for a more conventionally pleasing concert. Of course, there are better and worse examples of music video editing. Here is one that is better than most. As you listen to Mozart’s Symphonie Concertante, the editor gives you various views that I would argue are well timed to reflect Mozart’s musical ideas and many are the ones I would have chosen. The video begins with a view of the charming conductor, gradually panning to the whole orchestra and soloists as they play the introductory section together. But as different solo lines emerge, camera angles are chosen to capture them and it feels almost like a music class in which the musical work is laid out for you. Even if you only watch a little bit, notice when the oboes and horns are featured near the beginning. A good example is at 01:33. Your eyes help your ears know that they are playing important lines. And happily, we are shown them as their solos begin, not half way through. And so it goes throughout the piece with excellent views of the violin and viola soloists when their turns come.
Still, as good as this is, there is still a problem. We are only given one view at a time and the view we are offered is the one chosen by the editor. Frankly, there are moments when I would have liked to go back to watching the conductor and, at other times, as good as the selections are, sometimes I was not especially interested in what the editor chose. Do I really want to have my view of the violins interrupted during a melodic crescendo to watch double basses playing staccato bass notes at 02:03? I suppose the editor can be forgiven for sometimes opting for a photogenic rather than a musical choice or perhaps the thought was that it is the double basses that are underlying the crescendo. At any rate, it wouldn’t have been my choice and that is the point.
What’s the alternative to this single image choosing? What if there were multiple images on the screen that I could look at? For example, here is a fascinating (and humorous) example, beautifully edited and clearly created for these pandemic times, of a multiple view video. Since the musicians were each individually filmed, we have been given a screen that sometimes features all of them individually at the same time and sometimes selects groups or individuals, roughly following the music itself in deciding who to feature. True this may be a little much for our relaxing pleasure, but it does move us toward what I believe should be the future of music video.
And what would that future involve? Before I answer the question, I want you to think about what your eyes do at a live concert. If you are at an orchestra concert and you have a good seat, you may be looking at the whole group of musicians or at the conductor or at an instrumental section or an individual player. You may be reading the program notes, checking out the biography of the soloist, or reading about the music you are listening to. Or if you are a musician, you may have brought a score along and you may be following along with the printed music.
The point is that you could be doing any of those things and you get to decide. Imagine if a screen offered the same choices. Suppose all those options were available in real time and whenever you decided to, you could simply touch the screen image on which you wanted to focus and watch whomever or whatever you wanted. Or maybe you might want to watch two things at once—the conductor, say, and a soloist simultaneously. No problem—just touch both at the same time. Do you want the biography of the conductor? Quickly double touch the image of the conductor and up comes the biographical entry from the printed program. Finally, for you musicians reading this blog, you may be interested in following the musical score of the piece being played. No problem—here is an example of what that looks like from a YouTube video (this one is the “Romance” for violin and piano written by Reinhold Glière that just so happens to be dedicated to my grandmother, the violinist, Lea Luboshutz). In this case, you even have a virtual page turner to make sure you stay in the right place.
Is this simply a fantasy? Consider this fact. All of the technology to make this happen exists. There is nothing suggested here that would not be possible if there was a commitment to develop this format and these options on a commercial scale. Until this becomes a reality though, I am going to stick with live performances and recordings.