The magazine of the Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge

SCHOOLS EDITION - MICHAELMAS TERM 2015

“There’s a freedom of thought in Cambridge which makes it unlike anywhere else in the world”

Robin Ticciati, Conductor Contents “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe,

Primed for success 4 wings to the Alumni share their stories mind, flight to The low-down 10 Applying to Cambridge the imagination ,

A place to call your own 14 and charm and Choosing a college gaiety to life and Tradition and innovation 16 The Cambridge Music course to everything.” Performance in the Music Faculty 20 Plato The broader context

Best of both worlds 21 The CAMRAM scheme explained

Calling all composers… 22 Music@Cambridge New music in Cambridge Michaelmas 2015 Composing to connect 23 Music to change the world Published by Faculty of Music 11 West Road, Cambridge CB3 9DP Glittering prizes 24 Music awards at Cambridge

A society for all seasons 32 www.mus.cam.ac.uk A year in the life of CUMS [email protected] Joining Forces 33 Britten’s War Requiem remembered @camunimusic Bringing the experts on-side 34 Creative collaboration with the AAM facebook.com/cambridge.universitymusic

Different Strokes 35 Learning through lectures Commissioning Editors: Beyond the ivory tower 38 Martin Ennis, Sarah Williams The Cambridge outreach programme Editor: They shoot, he scores 39 E. Jane Dickson Music for film and screen Graphic design: Careers 40 Matt Bilton, Pageworks Life beyond Cambridge

Meet the staff 42 Printed by The Lavenham Press Ltd Arbons House 47 Water Street Lavenham Suffolk CO10 9RN

on the cover Robin Ticciati ©Marco Borggreve Welcome

usty folios, fusty But what’s so special about studying Music at dons. If that’s what Cambridge? The following pages will attempt ‘Cambridge’ means to provide a comprehensive answer. to you, please read on. The University The Cambridge Music course is one that certainly has history opens doors. One of the professors at the and tradition Royal Academy of Music in London recently Din abundance, but it’s very far from a remarked that Cambridge is the place where conservative institution. The Faculty of Music the next generation of musicians is forged. now has one of the richest and most up-to- date undergraduate curricula in the world, Could you be part of this? Each university and the opportunities offered to students in applicant has five choices on his or her areas such as composition and performance UCAS form. Why not take a punt, if you’ll are second to none. This magazine is excuse the pun, at Cambridge? It could pay designed to give you a sense of these dividends for life. opportunities. You’ll find details about course options, about the sort of teaching you might expect and, crucially, information about how to apply. If you have further queries, we’re always happy to hear from you. Just call the Faculty office on 01223 761309, and they will put you in touch with the right person to deal with your enquiry. Martin Ennis Cambridge is alive with music: during Chairman, Faculty Board of Music term-time, there are more concerts than in any other educational institution in the UK. And at the heart of all this activity lies the Music Faculty, which has almost 30 lecturers and affiliated lecturers, and around 200 undergraduates and 75 postgraduates. What can Cambridge offer? The Faculty has an outstanding research record, with special areas of expertise in • an exceptionally wide range of subject areas, with much of nineteenth-century music, composition the teaching led by experts in their field and contemporary music, music and • a unique performance environment science, analysis, performance studies, • an unusually thorough training in basic musical literacy, skills ethnomusicology and popular music. that serve our graduates well in a wide range of careers The Music Faculty also has exceptional • a deep concern for the individual; this takes the form of close facilities, including a fully professional concert pastoral care – each student has both a Director of Studies hall (easily the best in Cambridge), a very well and a Tutor – as well as a high proportion of individual and stocked library, and a Centre for Music and small-group teaching Science, with a recording studio and state- • a supportive collegiate system; as well as providing a vibrant of-the-art equipment. Specialist instruments, social environment, Cambridge colleges offer unparalleled from Baroque bassoons to a Javanese practical opportunities for its students (conducting is a case in gamelan, are also available for student use. point) And there’s lots going on in the colleges: • value for money; compared to most UK universities, many have very active chapel choirs, as well as music societies that put on performances Cambridge provides a very high number of contact hours; of all types. There are also University-wide also, Cambridge spends much more on each undergraduate arrangements for choral and organ scholars than it receives in fees and a flourishing Instrumental Awards Scheme.

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 3 Primed for success The Music Tripos paves the way for a wide range of musical careers. Here, five distinguished alumni share their views on the value of Cambridge.

© Marco Borggreve Robin Ticciati

(Clare, 2001) is Principal Conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Recent freelance projects include Eugene Onegin at the Royal Opera House, Hänsel und Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera, New York and Peter Grimes at La Scala, Milan.

“I knew I wanted to be a conductor at the age of 13. I was playing violin with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Colin Davis was conducting, and I remember sitting there right at the back of the seconds, and thinking ‘I’m desperate to be up there, telling those stories!’”

Of course, I had no idea what that really meant, but by the time I left school I knew that conducting was going to be about more than spending nine hours a day in a room, studying scores – it was going to be about drinking up life! I was lucky enough to be offered a place at Cambridge and it seemed to me then – and still seems to me now – that there was a magic about what was possible there. If you want to do something special in music – or in any field – there’s a freedom of thought in Cambridge which makes it unlike anywhere else in the world.

As a conductor, you must learn to think. You must learn what the score is, who these composers were, how they wrote, why they wrote, and everything that goes with that. My music degree didn’t teach me to be a musicologist, but it made a little space in my analytical brain which is still developing now, over time, and there were certain things about the course that really, really chimed with me; hearing Martin Ennis talk academically, and emotionally, about Sibelius and Schoenberg and the Expressionist movement in the wonderful nineteenth-century course was a fundamental moment. As I carry on, all the seeds sown in Cambridge, musicologically speaking, are the things that fire my work now.

You can live in your dream world at Cambridge or you can make music and make people stand up and listen. “The seeds sown in Cambridge, In my first year, someone approached me to conduct Così fan tutte; I just about knew it was an opera, musicologically speaking, are the but there was the opportunity to gather together things that fire my work now.” like-minded, or not at all like-minded musicians and basically throw the paint at the wall. There’s just something about Cambridge that allows one to be musically free to the point where it’s not about image, it’s not about status, or about industry, it’s about giving rein to your intuitive, often unformed, impulse. I think I understand the value of that more now, in retrospect, and in relation to what I do as a conductor. I see the Music Tripos as a wonderful meal; perhaps I didn’t always know what I was eating back then, but the flavours have stayed with me and I want, so often, to return to that food source.”

4 Sara Mohr-Pietsch feel tremendously grateful to have had that kind of practical training alongside the academic, and I still (Newnham 2001) is a Radio 3 broadcaster. She hosts sing on Sundays in a London church. The Choir, Hear and Now and Composers’ Rooms, as well as presenting live events from Wigmore Hall, A lot of the friends I made at Cambridge are now the Southbank Centre and the Royal Opera House. colleagues or they’re singers, conductors, répétiteurs etc, who I see around in my work. I worry slightly “I always knew I wanted to study Music about the whole Oxbridge privilege thing, it concerns academically, rather than as a performer. At school, me when I see too many of my contemporaries in I sang and played piano and I liked performing – but my world. On the other hand, I look back and there only up to a point; I’m not a practiser, and I lack were just so many incredibly talented musicians there a great deal of discipline. Yet I always felt like a at the same time, so it’s great to see those talents musician. I remember thinking very clearly, aged flourishing. 18, ‘Music touches me, and moves me, and changes who I am, and I want the science behind it, I want to Although I grew up listening to Radio 3, it never really understand how it works’. crossed my mind that I might become a radio presenter, or that my degree would facilitate a I’d have to come clean and say that I spent quite a lot particular job. What I do now doesn’t feel at all like of my first two years in the pub, but in Cambridge being a music academic. It’s important for me to the bare minimum of work you need to do is still know about music, to understand it, and if it excites pretty high: every week I had an essay, a piece of me, to communicate that excitement to listeners; harmony and counterpoint, and lectures, and by the but I don’t think it’s my job to reel off facts, because third year, I’d really got my teeth into critical theory, nowadays, by and large, you can find those facts on which I loved. Wikipedia. All the same, while I could do what I do without the degree, I regularly use and am grateful I’d say, too, that a good 50% of my musical for skills I learned at Cambridge – there’s a level of development at Cambridge happened not through working musicianship that has never left me. the university courses, but through being a chorister. I was the first Newnham choral scholar; there was Studying music felt to me like a chance to do a long tradition of Newnham students singing in something I loved passionately, to expand my mind Selwyn choir, because we shared a chapel, but I was and my horizons. I did it because I loved it and the first to be awarded a scholarship. The Anglican because it was what I did best. I’ve followed the choral tradition was a total mystery to me when I same principle throughout my career and it has arrived, but it was a wonderful thing to discover. I always taken me to a good place.”

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 5 Charlie Siem highlights of the Cambridge course for me, and if they haven’t made me a better player, they have (Girton, 2005) has an international career as solo certainly allowed me to enjoy music more. I’m violinist and recording artist, specialising in virtuosic afraid I was hopeless at keyboard harmony and Romantic repertoire. He has appeared with the writing fugues and chorales, but last year I was Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Czech National commissioned to write a piece for CBS, and oddly Symphony and the Moscow Philharmonic, and has enough, a lot of those skills came back to me. I must performed variations on popular music alongside have absorbed them by a process of osmosis! Bryan Adams, Jamie Cullum and The Who. His first composition for strings, Canopy, was recorded with Of course, the crucial thing for your development as the English Chamber Orchestra in 2013 and features a performer is the opportunity to perform. I’d say on his latest CD, Under the Stars (Sony Classical). there is considerably more scope for performance as a soloist at Cambridge than at a conservatoire where “There isn’t really a huge tradition of instrumental you have lots of people competing for the same spot. soloists going to Cambridge. A lot of great As well as the big university concerts, all the different conductors came out of Cambridge, and there’s the college music societies have their own concert series; choral tradition with lots of great singers, but there I could find myself giving a performance every week, aren’t so many solo violinists who go on to develop and it’s the most wonderful luxury, just to have that careers after university. It’s generally accepted that if time to broaden your base and prepare the ground you’re going to be a soloist, you can’t do much else, before launching yourself in the outside world. but I think there’s a balance to be found. During my I’m so grateful that I didn’t start playing lots of time at Cambridge I was able to carry on my studies professional concerts any earlier than I did. with Shlomo Mintz – I travelled round Europe to visit There’s the danger, too, that as a young performer him once a month for my lessons – and, obviously, you could end up in a bit of a bubble, just studying I had to practise a lot, but I think I benefited hugely your violin, with very little alternative influence. But from the broader-based musical education which in the collegiate system – and this was certainly my Cambridge offers. experience at Girton – your friends are studying all kinds of subjects at a very high level, and that can I always used to argue that having some sort of only be inspiring. historical context, or being able to analyse the music in the rigorous way you are taught at Cambridge, I’m now Visiting Professor at Leeds College of gives you an insight that perhaps makes your Music and that’s been the most fascinating thing; I interpretation more profound. I’m no longer sure never thought of becoming a teacher, but I’ve found that is the case; I’ve worked with many brilliant out so much more about the violin from having to players who have an intuitive response and they explain aspects of it to students. It’s another kind of are able to be musically very convincing. But I challenge, and a lovely way of keeping one foot in love the historical side of music; the nineteenth- academia.” and twentieth-century courses were definitely the

6 Anne Denholm

(Newnham, 2013) is part of the Hermes Experiment, a group of four Cambridge graduates specialising in contemporary and experimental music. Winners of Nonclassical’s Battle of the Bands 2014, the Hermes Experiment regularly commissions new music and has worked with organisations such as Kammerklang, Listenpony and Bastard Assignments. Anne also has a flourishing solo career and is official harpist to the Prince of Wales.

“There’s a ‘let’s make things happen’ atmosphere at Cambridge that is fantastically conducive to experimental music; the range of musical interests is so wide and the standard of playing is so high that you can make just about anything fly.

I’m a harpist, and the harp is generally seen as quite a traditional instrument, but I’m hugely interested in the experimental side of things, and I found plenty of options for studying new music within the Music Tripos. Our second-year analysis course was centred around more recent pieces, and in the third year you have complete control over which courses you want to choose. I did courses in World Music, Popular Music and Performance, as well as some more traditional options.

All of us in the Hermes Experiment [Denholm, Heloïse Werner, Oliver Pashley and Marianne Schofield] were in the same year, all but one of us reading Music. We played together in extracurricular projects, but the ensemble didn’t start until the September after we left. As a student, I played with the Cambridge University New Music Ensemble; we gave a concert which was a mixture of pieces by lecturers and students in the Music Faculty, and the music was very, very challenging but also inspiring. A lot of my friends were composers or did composition as part of their degree, but the community of music- making in Cambridge extends far beyond the people who are studying Music; it’s a real hub of different artistic talents, all sparking off and supporting each other. It’s a wonderful training ground for experimental artists, where you can always be sure of an interested and supportive audience.

As well as working with the Hermes Experiment, I’m pursuing lots of my own projects. I’ve been doing some work with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, and this summer I will be playing with “Cambridge is a real hub of John Eliot Gardiner’s Orchestre Révolutionnaire different artistic talents, all et Romantique. I’ve also done a bit of work with Sinfonia d’Amici, directed by Harry Ogg, who was sparking off and supporting a student at Cambridge while I was there. The each other.” ‘Cambridge Connection’ remains strong, but for me the value of doing music at Cambridge is, above all, the confidence it gives you to get out there and immerse yourself in all different types of music.“

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 7 Jen Hartley

(Magdalene, 1998) is Head of Music at Queen Elizabeth School in Kirkby Lonsdale, Lancashire.

“I think one of the things that makes studying Music at Cambridge unique is the sheer pace of everything; the pace of learning, the pace of conversation. There’s a new piece to analyse every week; if you’re in a choir, you’ll be learning new repertoire twice a week, so the speed at which you’re required to think is exceptionally exhilarating.

Analysis was always my favourite thing, and the advanced analysis course in my third year was amazing. I also really loved learning how to write fugue. I’d say these have been the two things most useful to me in my career. As Head of Music, I’m often required to write stuff that has a specific mood, or a certain length or structure – stuff that 15- and 16-year-olds can play and dance to. Fugue teaches you how to handle harmony and modulation in a really structured context, and having been well-taught at analysis is invaluable when it comes to composition. You also learn how to work efficiently! (It’s fair to point out that teachers have a huge amount of admin.) Being able to understand what you’re expected to do and then get on with it is really “If it were a toss-up for an important; otherwise it can become incredibly onerous. If, as an undergraduate, you’ve always had to set aside A-level student between going an hour to practise, or sit down for three hours and to Cambridge and going to a write a piece of music, then sitting down for three hours conservatoire, I would advise to write reports doesn’t seem so difficult. them to try for Cambridge, My time at Magdalene went so quickly. After because the standard of graduation I applied for a PGCE, partly because I thought teaching would be a natural thing for me to performance is as high as you’ll go into, and partly because I wanted to stay on at get anywhere, but you’ll also Cambridge for another year, but I absolutely loved the way it changed my character. I stopped being quite have that academic stimulus reticent in public and came out of myself a lot more. I you wouldn’t perhaps get at a really enjoy watching people ‘get it’, watching the penny conservatoire.” drop, and sharing what I know. I teach in a large, comprehensive school with a wide range of ability. We have 20 extra-curricular groups ranging from a turn-up-and-play percussion ensemble to choirs who sing a cappella, and the school orchestra, which last term performed the Scherzo from Shostakovich 5. I’ve had two pupils go on to study Music at Cambridge recently and another applying next year. If it were a toss-up for an A-level student between going to Cambridge and going to a conservatoire, I would advise them to try for Cambridge, because the standard of performance is as high as you’ll get anywhere, but you’ll also have that academic stimulus you wouldn’t perhaps get at a conservatoire. I was always more on the academic side, but I ran the college music society, sang in Chapel Choir and still managed to do a lot of concerts and solo playing. I look back now at my time at Magdalene, and at some of the people I used to play with, and think ‘What a privilege!’”

8

The low-down: applying to Cambridge

What grades will I need? Do I need to have learned piano?

It’s a myth that you need an unbroken run of A*s The undergraduate Music course has only a small to get into Cambridge. One of the strengths of our keyboard component. However, progress in subjects interview-based admissions system is its ability to such as composition is certainly easier if you are able assess all applicants individually. While GCSE results to try out ideas on the piano. For this reason, it is are certainly looked at as a performance indicator, important that you have some keyboard ability – a our research shows that post-16 examination minimum of Grade 6 is generally thought desirable. performance is a much better predictor of degree success at Cambridge, and a strong performance in Years 12 and 13 can make up for a less stellar Where do I apply? performance at GCSE. All Music students attend lectures and sit examinations in the Faculty of Music. However, At A level, the standard offer is A*AA. The A* admissions are organized by the colleges. Most doesn’t need to be in Music, though on rare occasions candidates apply to a particular college, but you can a college may make this a condition of entry (if, also submit an open application (see p. 14). for example, they feel they need more information about your performance in certain aspects of the subject). Most Music students will have taken When do I apply? A level Music, but it’s possible to read Music at Cambridge without having studied the subject at The deadline for applications to Cambridge is A level; however, if you don’t have A level Music, mid October, which is much earlier than for most you will normally need to have achieved a Merit or other universities. You can check the precise dates above at Grade 8 ABRSM Theory to be eligible for on the Undergraduate Study website; see: www. a place. A level Music Technology is not normally undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/dates-and- a substitute for A level Music or Grade 8 Theory. If deadlines you have obtained other qualifications, such as the IB, you can find information on entry requirements If you are intending to apply for an Organ Award, on the Undergraduate Study website; see: www. please note that you need to submit both your undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/entrance- academic application and a special Organ Awards requirements/other-qualifications form (the COPA, or Cambridge Online Preliminary Application form) by the very early deadline of 1 September. Choral Award applicants apply in mid February, i.e. only after they have been awarded an

10 academic place (see p. 27). Those who are interested supply samples of written work prior to interview; in applying to the Instrumental Awards Scheme this usually consists of two essays and either an should submit the relevant form to their college by original composition or a harmony and counterpoint the end of February, again after they have secured an exercise. academic place. How will I know if I’ve got a When and where do interviews place? take place? You will be informed in writing of the college’s The majority of interviews take place in Cambridge decision before the end of January. If you have in the first three weeks of December (some may be already taken your A levels, you may be offered a little earlier). Interviews are usually held in the an unconditional place; if, like the majority of college to which you have applied. Should you need applicants, you are still studying, you will probably to travel a long distance, your college will usually be be offered a place conditional on achieving grades able to accommodate you for at least one night; this A*AA at A level, as described above. is normally free of charge. What happens if I don’t get into Will I have to sit a test? my first-preference college? The Music course at Cambridge is academically If your application is strong but your preferred rigorous, and you will need to prove that you are college is not able to take you, you are likely to be capable of working at a high level. All colleges put in the Winter Pool for other colleges to consider. include some kind of testing at interview. Most will Approximately 30% of all Music undergraduates gain ask you to discuss or write about a musical extract their place via this mechanism; pooled students often that you are given to study for a short period before go on to perform at the very top of their year-group. the interview; others may conduct simple aural or harmony tests. Some may ask you to do some elementary keyboard tests as well. You should check with each college individually about the exact requirements. In addition, colleges will ask you to I really knew nothing about Cambridge colleges came out, I was told I hadn’t met my offer from when I applied – I didn’t have family who went Robinson; however, Girton stepped in and to Oxbridge – so I applied to Pembroke pretty agreed to take me straightaway. much on a whim. My school, a comprehensive, didn’t think my AS grades were good enough, I felt very quickly that Girton was the perfect but my heart was set on Cambridge and I place for me. I really love to cycle, so I don’t was prepared to give it a go and, if necessary, mind at all that it’s not in the centre of town, reapply after A levels (Geography, History and and I have a bay window overlooking the Music) with my grades in hand. I didn’t apply orchard. Also, there’s a really strong musical for any other universities or conservatoires community here – there tends to be about four at that stage, but that’s not something I’d Music students per year – and I have the most necessarily recommend. amazing Director of Studies.

Saskia I was interviewed at Pembroke and didn’t get In retrospect, I completely disagree with my Bunschoten- in, but I was pooled to Robinson and called school’s advice not to apply to Cambridge. for a second interview there. That just felt like Schools often think that they ‘know the system’ Binet, 2nd-year such an amazing hour of my life; I felt a real and know what’s best for you, but if you want Music student, connection with the college. Robinson offered to apply, you should just go ahead – there’s Girton College me a place, and I asked for a deferred place and nothing to lose. got it. Then in the summer, when the results ­­­­­­­­­­­

Can I afford to study at first point of contact. They can provide you with advice on the accessibility of colleges in relation to Cambridge? the Music Faculty, and information on the support available to you; they may even be able to put you Tuition costs at Cambridge are in line with most in touch with a student who has a disability similar other UK universities; however, living costs can work to yours, so that you can find out about their out substantially cheaper. College accommodation experiences here. We recommend that you disclose represents excellent value for money, college catering your disability in your UCAS application so that you is flexible and well subsidised, and transport costs are can be contacted to arrange any special requirements negligible (most students walk or cycle). for interviews.

An extensive programme of financial support ensures our students can meet the cost of their Cambridge Will extenuating circumstances education, regardless of background. The Cambridge be taken into consideration? Bursary Scheme offers UK and EU students non- repayable bursaries of up to £10,500 spread over The Extenuating Circumstances Form (ECF) three years to help with living costs; please note that has been designed to ensure that the Cambridge awards are dependent on household income. Your colleges have the information they need for accurate college may offer additional sources of funding for assessment of any applicant who has experienced specific costs or to help in particular circumstances, particular personal or educational disadvantage. and you may also consider applying for a Choral, The information provided on the form – which is Organ, or Instrumental Award (see pp. 24–31). available at www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/ applying/decisions/extenuating-circumstances- Take a look at the finance section of the form – will help Admissions Tutors by giving context Undergraduate Study website to find out more against which they can judge the academic record of about financing your studies at Cambridge: an applicant; it will indicate whether the student has www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/finance excelled in spite of, or been hindered because of their personal/educational circumstances. The ECF will What if I have a disability? also provide information that is useful when assessing their performance at interview, should they be called Your disability will not affect your application to for interview. The ECF should only be used where an Cambridge and, should you be offered a place, applicant’s education has been significantly disrupted every effort will be made to provide a suitable and or disadvantaged through health or personal supportive learning environment. The Disability problems, disability or difficulties with schooling. Resource Centre – www.disability.admin.cam. ac.uk/students/prospective-students – is an essential

12 I had my interview on my eighteenth birthday, much about a candidate as ‘getting it right’. which wasn’t ideal! I came from a public school where the Director of Music was an Oxbridge I was apprehensive, but Andrew and Ben are graduate, so there was some understanding such great guys and – bizarre as it sounds – of what was expected. We were given ‘mock they really made the interview enjoyable. I’d interviews’ which, frankly, were a bit ridiculous. submitted two essays from my A level course I’m pretty sure the people who got in from my in advance – one was on Byrd’s Mass for Four school would have got in without the practice Voices and the other on Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ interviews, and those who didn’t could have Symphony. We discussed a few things from had all the practice they wanted and it wouldn’t my essays and some points from my Personal really have helped. Statement. Each question began with something I was familiar with, then Andrew Before my main interview at Trinity Hall I had a and Ben took it farther. I had a chance to one-hour test; we were given the whole melody argue some points that I felt warranted more Keval Shah, 3rd- and quite a lot of the bass-line of a Bach chorale discussion, but more than anything else, it year Music student, and asked to fill in what we could – tricky felt like a chance to learn a lot from two great enough, but it wasn’t very long, just about musicians who obviously approached these Trinity Hall eight bars. Then we had the first eight bars issues in a way that was beyond me. of a fugal exposition with some of the parts taken out, and we had to fill those in too. That’s My second, non-academic interview was with something I had no experience in at all – there’s the Dean and the Senior Tutor. They asked me really no preparation for counterpoint at A level ‘If you had a minute to convince someone it – but being a keyboard player, I had played was worth studying Music at university, how fugues before, so that kind of got me through would you go about it?’, which I found quite it. The last exercise was a five- or six-bar piano challenging; but I think that anyone who comes passage, where we had to explain the function for an interview here has to relish the challenge. of certain chords, and that was fine. You have to be prepared to think quite freely about things, and be daring, be willing to ‘go My academic interview was with the Director wrong’. When you come for a supervision at of Studies in Music, Andrew Arthur; because Cambridge, you’re not shouted at for getting Andrew is by himself at Trinity Hall, he always the wrong answers; you’re helped along in the likes to bring in a colleague from another right direction. It’s the same thing at interview; college, and I had Ben Walton. Before the if it’s not going very well, they’ll give you the interview I’d been given a passage of text to stepping stones to get back on the right path, read (Carl Dahlhaus on musical value) and an and then see where you go. They’re absolutely extract of music to look at (from a middle- not out to trip you up. They want to see you in period Beethoven sonata). For the first part of your best light. the interview, I had to summarise Dahlhaus’s argument and talk through the extract – what When my offer came through, about a month were the characteristic features, what was after the interview, I felt absolute joy and strange about it, which period was it from and massive relief. The funny thing is, though, who might have composed it? I happened to that even after I got my offer, I still thought ‘Is identify it correctly, but I don’t think it would Cambridge actually the right thing for me?’ But have mattered very much if I hadn’t. A friend it certainly turned out to be the right thing, and who was interviewed at King’s was given a that’s something I’ve really come to trust about similar piece by Beethoven and he said it was this place. They don’t make mistakes very by Strauss, but the reasoning behind his answer often. was quite sensible and, in a way, that says as

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 13 A place to call your own

Dr Ben Walton demystifies the Cambridge college system

hoosing a college when you first the college, and with a mix of students from various apply to Cambridge might seem quite colleges. In terms of facilities, almost all colleges are a challenge. There are lots of them well equipped for musical activities, and most have (31!), and reading all their websites can music societies, as well as spaces for performance and leave you wondering how to measure rehearsal and practice rooms. Cone up against another. At the same time, making the right choice feels crucial, since the college is So what are the differences? Location, obviously where you’ll spend a good amount of your time enough, though in a town as small as Cambridge, it as an undergraduate, eating, sleeping, socialising rarely takes long to get from one place to another. and learning. Your time as a Music student at History, too, with the oldest college founded in 1284 Cambridge, in other words, will probably be and the youngest in 1977. Teaching arrangements significantly shaped by your college experiences. can have a defining influence on a student’s experience of studying Music – you can clarify With a bit of background information, though, the these with individual colleges – and colleges differ choice is by no means as daunting as it looks. In the in size, both in terms of physical space, numbers of first place, two of those 31 colleges (Clare Hall and students, and accommodation arrangements, as well Darwin) are for postgraduates, and of the remainder, as accommodation costs – see: www.undergraduate. several fall into a particular category: some take study.cam.ac.uk/finance/living-costs mature students (defined as 21 or over in the year you start your course; these include Hughes Hall, Numbers of Music students also differ, with a few St Edmund’s and Wolfson), while others (Murray colleges taking as many as five each year, while others Edwards and Newnham) only take female students, might take only one or two. Full information about and Lucy Cavendish only takes female mature numbers of Music students at each college, by college students. And if you have no specific preference, you and year, as well as number of applications to each don’t have to choose a college at all, but can submit college, can be generated here: www.undergraduate. an open application, so that a college will be chosen study.cam.ac.uk/apply/statistics for you. At the same time, while music societies tend to vary In academic terms, meanwhile, almost all aspects only in levels of activity and ambition, there are some of the application process and the degree course in significant disparities between college choirs and Music are the same across the colleges. If you are organ scholarships in terms of level, expectations and invited for interview, all colleges will normally ask commitment – see: www.undergraduate.study.cam. you to submit work in advance (see The Low-down ac.uk/files/publications/choral_booklet_2015.pdf on pp. 10–13). On the interview day itself, there will typically be two interviews; for one of them, you will That leaves the less definable aspects, to do with the usually be given a piece of prose about music and/or people, surroundings and the general atmosphere. a piece of music to discuss in the interview, and there While each college has its own distinct character, will also be some short musical tests (more details can it’s the college experience in general that works, be found on individual college websites). both socially and academically. In fact, it works so well that whichever college you go to, you’ll almost If you receive an offer of a place, it will come from certainly end up feeling it was the right choice! a college, either the one that interviewed you, or from another following the Pool process – see: www. undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying/decisions

After admission, all students, regardless of college, follow the same degree course, and all attend the same lectures and seminars in the Faculty. In a relatively small subject such as Music (with an intake of around 65 students each year), the small- group supervisions that supplement the lectures will typically be organised by your college Director of Studies, but they will frequently take place outside

14 The choir was a big part of my applying to good meal, but you can do that as little or as Trinity. Anyone applying to Cambridge will often as you like. know that there are a number of choirs around, all of which come in slightly different flavours There are generally between twelve and fifteen – King’s and St John’s have boy trebles, Trinity Music students at any one time; we’ve got two and Clare have sopranos – and really the best full-time music staff – a Director of Music and way to find out what is right for you is to come a Director of Studies in Music – and the Music and hear them. Choose five or six that you Society is very active. The Chapel is the second might like, and go to services there. That’s biggest concert venue within the University – I what I did, and I was just blown away by the think only West Road Concert Hall can hold atmosphere and by the sound at Trinity. The more people – and there are at least three choir performed amazingly, and I thought ‘This events per week. Jack Butterworth, is something I’d really like to be a part of’, but 2nd-year Music I also really liked the general musical scene I’m quite involved with the Music Society, and within the college. I ran an outreach day at Trinity where we had student, Trinity about 75 kids from the local community and College Trinity’s a very friendly college, and it’s also a about 30 students all up on the stage, playing very academic college. I think over the past ten away together. It was probably my favourite years or so we’ve often come near the top in day at the University! Everyone talks about terms of final exam grades, so there’s a degree Trinity’s huge investment fund and how wealthy of pressure that I think might not be true of the college is. That really doesn’t permeate the other places. I’d also say that with a community culture, but it’s clearly a great resource. And of around 1500, we’re a lot less cloistered and it means that if I say ‘Can we try something tightly knit than some other colleges, but we’ve never done before?’, everyone from the we’re very, very accommodating; with so many Master and the Bursar down to the support different subjects and nationalities – and we staff is happy to say ‘Yes; we’ll give it a go’. really have absolutely all sorts of people – you There’s a degree of trust because you’re known have to be. It’s a traditional college, but it’s not personally by the college authorities. That ‘can particularly formal. There’s formal Hall three do’ philosophy is, for me, one of the very best times a week, which costs a tenner for a very things about the collegiate system.

I’d heard of King’s Carol Service, so I thought one day, involving a forty-minute cycle ride ‘Right, I’ll apply there’. I looked it up, and from Homerton to Girton, which was a bit of they have about five students a year, which a stretch, but actually it’s a really nice way of was another point in its favour. I went for an dipping into other colleges. interview at King’s, but got pooled to Murray Edwards. At first, when I found out it was an all- People are always bringing up the question girls college, I thought ‘Oh, no!’, because I had of whether or not girls’ colleges are outdated. been at a girls’ school for seven years. I think I’m not sure where I stand on that, but it’s it’s fair to say that because of the all-girls thing, certainly not the kind of horrendous thing I first most people at Murray Edwards have been envisaged; it’s nice to be able to walk around pooled, and they really don’t know anything in your pyjamas, but it’s not in the least like about the college when they get the offer. school. It’s not like there are ‘no boys allowed’; Phoebe The really lovely thing about Murray Edwards, the college is very happy for you to have friends McFarlane, 2nd- though, is that they do an offer-holders’ round at any time. year Music student, overnight stay in March. That really helped because, just walking in, you can tell how laid- I wouldn’t say your college completely defines Murray Edwards back and welcoming the college is, and it also your experience at Cambridge, but there’s College means that when you turn up in October you’ll definitely such a thing as ‘college spirit’. For see some familiar faces. example – and maybe because it’s a newer college – it seems to me that there is much less I’m the only Music student in my year at pressure, exam-wise, at Murray Edwards and Murray Edwards, which means I get loads of more emphasis on your general well-being. attention from my fantastic Director of Studies. I do feel that without a collegiate system, if And because Music is such a small subject people were having problems, they could easily – there’s something like 55 of us in my year – be overlooked. In a college, you really feel like it’s quite usual to have supervisions at other people know you and care about you as an colleges. At one point last year, I had four in individual; it’s an added level of security.

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 15 Tradition and innovation

Dr John Hopkins details the structure and content of the Music courses at Cambridge

ambridge uses the word ‘Tripos’ to refer There are six papers in Part IA, all obligatory apart to an undergraduate course taken in a from the options mentioned above. specific subject. The word’s etymology is far from clear, but it’s thought to refer In the second year, you continue with your studies of to the three-legged stools on which history and analysis, looking at later nineteenth- and Ccandidates once sat to be examined. twentieth-century repertoire in the case of the latter. The tonal skills developed in the first year now broaden The Music Tripos, like other Cambridge undergraduate out to include options in orchestration and scoring for courses, has two Parts, of which the first is sub- film. These – history, analysis, and tonal skills – are divided: Parts IA and IB are taken in years 1 and 2, the three compulsory papers in Part IB; in addition, with Part II completed in the final year. In earlier you are asked to choose three courses from a wide days, examinations were undertaken orally, but range of more specialised papers. These include a today’s students are assessed through a mixture of dissertation (on a subject of your choice), a portfolio of coursework submissions, practical examinations and (free) compositions, a recital, notation (of early music), written papers. A particular strength of the teaching and keyboard skills. Alternatively, you can choose to methods at Cambridge nowadays is the combination of investigate further such topics as music and science lectures (which can involve a whole year-group, or be or ethnomusicology. Finally, there are a number of in smaller classes for more specialised topics) together optional history courses. These change regularly to with small-group sessions, called supervisions, provided keep them fresh; recent options include Soviet Music by the student’s college. In these, students are given and Power in the 1920s, Middle-Eastern Music, further support in each of their particular courses. For The Birth of the Orchestra, Carmen in Context, and composition and portfolio work, teaching is mostly Schubert’s Winterreise. one-to-one – but even so-called ‘discussion’ supervisions rarely involve more than three or four students. The range of choice increases further in the third year, where there are no compulsory papers. All the major Many important areas of study run through all three years of the Music Tripos – these include historical strands such as analysis, composition, performance, studies, performance, analysis, and composition. tonal skills, music and science, and dissertation can By the end of Part IB, most of the major periods of be taken on to an advanced level, and a wide range of music history, from medieval music to the twenty-first specialisms, historical and otherwise, is also on offer. century, will have been covered in three large courses Parisian Polyphony, The Keyboard Music of J.S. Bach, – currently, early music, the (very) long nineteenth Boris Godunov, Latin American Music, Sibelius, Miles century, and music since 1914. During the first year, Davis, and North Indian Classical Music are just some in a course called Music and Musicology Today, you of the subjects offered in the last couple of years. As will be given an overview of many present-day areas of with the second-year courses, these papers change the discipline; these include ethnomusicology, music as frequently to keep them lively and up-to-date, but a performance, composition, popular and world music, wide representation of history, genre and style is always music and science, and music and education. Within available. Part II students take six papers in total, in this paper, you will also be required to choose between this case from no fewer than 17 options. giving a short recital, submitting a composition, and writing an extended essay on a subject of your choice. Overall, the Music Tripos is designed to give the best During the first year you will also learn about various possible grounding in all areas of the subject. And Image, above: approaches to music analysis (focussing on Baroque and as the amount of choice increases from year to year, A postgraduate at Classical repertoire), study basic elements of harmony Music students at Cambridge have an unmatched work in the Centre for and counterpoint, and have your aural, practical and opportunity to tailor the course to personal strengths Music and Science. keyboard abilities boosted in special smaller classes. and enthusiasms.

16 Part IA throws you in at the deep end. We get so you get a sense of the forms of the period about two essays a week, as well as harmony and the various developments in compositional work – which might include string-quartet technique. writing, sixteenth-century counterpoint, piano variations, or fugal exposition. We get a lot of There are another two papers, in Harmony contact time in the week – which I think is great and Counterpoint and Practical Skills, and the – but it’s certainly a heavy workload. sixth paper is made up of lectures on Music and Musicology Today, plus an option for In first-year Music, we have six papers, of which composition, performance or an extended two are History papers. History 1 covers the essay. So, we have a tiny bit of choice in Music Medieval and Renaissance; History 2 deals and Musicology Today, in which we also write with the later eighteenth and nineteenth two essays about any of the topics covered in centuries, but it goes up to the beginning of the the lecture series. Personally, I think it might twentieth century. So, you get a very broad and be nice to have a little bit more choice in Part Marianne Schönle, comprehensive view of the history of Western IA; on the other hand , it’s important to have 1st-year Music Music, which I think is really important; often at a thorough grounding, and the fact that you school you get bits and pieces of music history, cover so much material in the first year means student, Girton but you don’t really have the chance to join the that you’re better informed when you come College dots. to make your choices in Part IB and Part II. Because if you’re never exposed to something, There’s also an Analysis paper, divided into two how can you possibly know whether you like parts. This year we’ve been studying roughly it or not? I know people, for example, who the first half of the Beethoven piano sonatas, had never really looked at early music before, which for me, as a pianist, has been fantastic – but now they’re really into it and will probably it’s such an important set of works, and it works continue with it. really well in relation to the history course; you can start drawing your own links, in a closer You can be a more dedicated or a less dedicated manner, and that’s really exciting. For the student, you can spend endless time reading for other half of the Analysis exam, you have to your essays, or not spend much time at all, but write about an unseen extract; in preparation Part IA does encourage a lot of work. It’s very, for that, we’ve looked at a lot of Bach, but also very demanding, but I think the best way to some Handel, Scarlatti, Couperin and Vivaldi, learn is to be completely immersed.

First and foremost, Part IB Music – as with all After the broad (and somewhat stretching!) scope years of all degrees at Cambridge! – requires a of Part IA, it was good to be able to specialise; real passion and interest in your subject. After all, some students will look to refine their skills in one you’ll be studying music full-time for three years area, such as history or composition, while others – you have to really love it! The Cambridge music will prefer to keep it broad. The choice of options course is very academic, and it has not only been a in Part IB is substantial, allowing you to select fantastic learning experience, but has also inspired modules that suit your tastes, interests and skills. me to explore new areas of music, while also Having greater control not only over the modules further refining my existing interests. you take, but also over the kind of assessment that you encounter means that you can tailor the In addition to the compulsory modules of course to suit you – it feels like it has been a good Historical Studies, Analysis and Applied Tonal preparation for my final year. Skills, I chose optional modules on Soviet Music and Power in the 1920s and Carmen in Context, I’m really involved with the music scene both Emma Kavanagh, while also writing a 7,000-word dissertation on within my college and in the University as a whole, 2nd-year Music Britten’s opera Peter Grimes. The compulsory and while it can sometimes be tricky to juggle modules seek to build upon your understanding deadlines with choir rehearsals and so on, I’ve student, Jesus gained in Part IA, and their breadth has really never found it too much to handle. Cambridge College complemented the more specific focus of my is an intense learning environment, but also an options. inspiring one. I’ve loved my time here so far, and the opportunities open to you here are unparalleled.

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 17 Part II of the Music Tripos is massively varied. I had I think you approach Part II with some trepidation; a list of 17 options, and while some papers such as it’s quite scary knowing it’s your marks from third Analysis, Performance and Keyboard Skills build year that count the most towards your degree. directly on what you’ve done in previous years, I Having said that, I enjoyed third year most, and chose areas that were mostly completely new to me. it’s the year I did best in, because I chose options which really interested me, and I didn’t have to do I did a course on Parisian Polyphony, looking all the technical things, such as tonal skills, which at sources from the thirteenth century. That were not my strong point. I also found that I had was very different to anything I’d done before more confidence in my own opinions than in because it was focused on codicology – looking previous years: even in exams, I was disagreeing at the actual manuscripts. I also did North Indian with things and bringing in my own ideas, and I Classical Music (which was an introduction think that really helped in terms of my marks. to the music, but also a social history paper), Rebecca Latin American Music and the Politics of It’s a good idea to spread the work-load. I read Whiteman, Representation, as well as The Shadow of Sibelius. around a lot for my dissertation in the summer, decided on my topic before Michaelmas Term, 3rd-year Music Perception and Performance was really and completed a first draft in the Christmas student, Selwyn interesting, because you learn how to use holidays. There’s a temptation, of course, to College statistical programmes and run your own choose all the Lent Term courses and have a experiments, which is great in terms of wonderful time in Michaelmas doing absolutely transferable skills. My experiment was on how no work, but working steadily means you have different genres of music affect what you might time for other commitments. My main instrument be prepared to pay for things in a shop. I think is cello, and this year I did the Instrumental Awards that, in general, you can tailor Part II options to Scheme. I also took up Chapel Choir for the first your particular interests – you can stick closely to time. You can’t work all the time, and actually [musical] techniques or you can branch off into I found doing something other than academic politics and psychology. This was particularly work helped to focus me, especially during Easter helpful for me, as I’m going on to do a Psychology Term, when I had no lectures or supervisions conversion course (MSc) at Nottingham next year. and could easily have spent all of my time in the library. I also chose to do a dissertation on a contemporary composer called Ivan Moody, who’s The courses I took this year have really broadened a priest in the Orthodox Christian Church, so I was my taste, and I’ve come out loving music even looking at Orthodox theology and iconography. more than I did before. Whether music leads I had a great supervisor who has been very to a job for me, or remains a hobby, it has been encouraging about potential PhD topics; I’m very wonderful to study it like this. tempted by some kind of PhD combining Music and Psychology.

Postgraduate Courses MMus in Choral Studies This course is for training in the art of choral In addition to the PhD, there are two postgraduate conducting. Its primary role is to enable students courses in the Music Faculty, each with a range of to acquire the technical skills necessary for working options. with choral groups of all types; however, there are also opportunities for concentrating on specific historical repertoires and for learning about the MPhil in Music Studies history and practice of choral music more generally. This is a one-year course combining structured Cambridge is unique in the number of international- teaching with supervised independent study, leading level choirs it supports; this makes the University to an extended coursework submission. There the ideal situation for a course such as this. MMus are common elements in the programme, but students are offered a placement with a leading you specialise in one of seven areas: Musicology; chapel choir as part of the course, and in this Theory, Analysis and Criticism; Ethnomusicology; context they have the chance to observe the choir’s Jazz, Popular and Media Music; Performance work and, occasionally, to direct services. The basic Studies; Music and Science; Composition. Many elements of the course are: Choral Conducting; students on this course go on to a PhD, either in Seminar Course; Options (two from the following Cambridge or elsewhere. list: Extended Essay, Editing Project, Performance); College Placement.

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Ralph de Souza violin Andrew Watkinson violin Garfield Jackson viola David Waterman cello Photo © Eric Richmond

The Endellion String Quartet celebrates its 36th anniversary in 2015. Over Advocates of education, the quartet has undertaken three short-term the years, the quartet’s schedule has included regular tours of North and residencies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA South America and concerts in Australasia, the Far and Middle East, South and, from 2001 to 2010, was Associate Quartet of the Royal Northern College Africa and Western Europe. Recent and future highlights include of Music. Since 2011 the quartet has been the ‘Visiting Quartet in Association’ appearances at Carnegie Hall in New York, Queen Elizabeth Hall in with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in addition to providing student London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Zentrum Paul Klee in Bern, coaching as part of its ‘Quartet in Residence’ at the University of Cambridge. International Festival of Music in Tarragona, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in ‘The Endellion is arguably the finest quartet in Britain, playing with poise, true Moscow, Montreal’s Pollack Hall and a tour of Mexico, including intonation, excellent balance and a beautiful tone performances at the Festival Internacional Cervantino and the Festival de .’ Musica da Camara de Aguascalientes. New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians

‘There’s always a feeling when listening to the Endellion Quartet that you’re Each season, the Endellion String Quartet gives six concerts at West listening to the Urtext method of quartet playing. Maybe 35 years of playing Road Concert Hall in Cambridge. For full details, please see: together has brought to them as a group a uniformity of thought and .’ www.cambridgelivetickets.co.uk. Tickets (2015-16 season): £27 (standard), instinct that allows them to play as a single entity Gramophone £6 (students and under 16s). Group discount: 20% for groups of 10+. The Endellion String Quartet thanks Lark Insurance for its sponsorship of their concert series in Cambridge and London. In Britain, the Endellion String Quartet has appeared at many major series Daily and festivals, and has frequently broadcast on BBC radio and television. Its The Endellion String Quartet ‘sets the audience ablaze’ ( presence in London has been marked by several series both at the Telegraph) everywhere they play, ‘captivating concertgoers with a Southbank Centre and Wigmore Hall in addition to its prestigious residency remarkable rapport, playing to each other with a sense almost ofGuardian discovery,). at Cambridge University and its ongoing series at The Venue Leeds. communicating to the audience on a level of unusual intimacy’ (

Lark Insurance Group is one of the UK’s Top The Endellion String Quartet is grateful to The Endellion String Quartet is represented by: 10 independent insurance brokers and Nigel Brown OBE and The Stradivari Trust Hazard Chase Ltd., specialist in musical instrument insurance. for their continuing support of the 25 City Road, Cambridge CB1 1DP We insure over 10,000 musical instruments Quartet and its recordings. Tel: 01223 312400 Email: [email protected] worldwide and are proud to be sponsors of the Endellion String www.hazardchase.co.uk Quartet’s concert series in Cambridge and London. The Stradivari Trust www.larkinsurance.co.uk (@hazardchaseltd) www.endellionquartet.com Performance in the Music Faculty

Prof John Rink explains the central role of performance within the Music Tripos

he performer, for all his intolerable the Faculty, students have the opportunity to take arrogance, is totally unnecessary performance for credit at every level, and one of except as his interpretations make the courses on offer – Introduction to Performance the music understandable to an Studies – brings together practical music-making audience unfortunate enough and scholarly enquiry into performance, embracing ‘Tnot to be able to read it in print.’ These startling historical, analytical and psychological perspectives. comments – allegedly made by the composer Arnold This interface between ‘thinking’ and ‘doing’ – to Schoenberg1 – are characteristic of a tendency cite Joseph Kerman’s2 tongue-in-cheek distinction in musicology over many generations to regard between scholars and practitioners – is avidly performers as ‘second-class citizens’. Their primary pursued in many contexts outside the classroom. task was to reproduce faithfully what was in the For example, the recently launched Centre for score and to obey the intentions of composers, who Musical Performance Studies,3 which plays a leading were deemed to have the upper hand. role in musical performance studies close to home and across the globe, supports a programme of Fortunately, a quite different way of conceiving what masterclasses, workshops, side-by-side events (in performers do has been gaining momentum during which student musicians play alongside high-calibre the past twenty years or so. For example, it is now professionals from Britten Sinfonia and the Academy possible to study music not only in terms of the great of Ancient Music; see pp. 33 and 34), and other composers and the works they produced, but also on ‘talk-and-play events’ such as the lecture-recitals the basis of the creative practices in which performers and open rehearsals led by Alfred Brendel, Robert are engaged, and the contributions they make to our Levin, Angela Hewitt and Murray Perahia during understanding of what music is and how it affects their residencies as Humanitas Visiting Professors us. This is true not only of popular music and in Chamber Music. Events like these shed light world music, but also of classical repertoire by great on the knowledge that is created and conveyed in composers such as Schoenberg. Think how different performance, and on how musical performance takes an approach to music history would be if it focused shape over time. not solely on composers and works, but on changing performance styles, on how performance has been The opportunities described here, along with the experienced over the ages by performers and listeners, successful CAMRAM scheme (details of which and on how performances have been produced are explained on p. 21), are one reason for the on different instruments and variably captured in ‘performance buzz’ in the Faculty and across the recording media. As for analysis, many would now University, which benefits hugely from the ambitious argue that, however enlightening it is to look at music musical activities pursued at the 31 colleges. There is in the score, one also needs to consider its unique almost too much on offer! But if there is an excess, it properties on particular performance occasions. is one with huge benefits for student performers at all levels and in all subjects. The world-class standards In recent decades Cambridge has become a major achieved by the best of our musicians, coupled centre for the study of performance. It is widely with the depth of knowledge and understanding renowned for its exceptionally rich and vibrant engendered by the academic study of performance performance culture: on any day of the week, there on offer within our curricula, knock on the head any might be ten or more concerts taking place in the claim that performers are ‘totally unnecessary’ in Music Faculty and a range of colleges, not to mention one or more ways. Indeed, the musical environment the wider community. An astonishing number of here is living proof that music cannot exist without ensembles – featuring professional and student performance, whether real or imagined, and that musicians – make up a performance scene that is there is much more to performance than people have unrivalled in the UK, if not internationally. Within often been led to believe.

1 The comments were attributed to Schoenberg by his niece, Dika Newlin, in Schoenberg Remembered: Diaries and Recollections (1938–76) (London: 2 Joseph Kerman, Musicology (London: Fontana, 1985), 196. Pendragon, 1980), 164. There is reason to doubt the attribution, however. 3 See www.mus.cam.ac.uk/about-us/music-environment/cmps

20 Best of both worlds

In 2013, Director of Performance Margaret Faultless set up CAMRAM, a scheme that allows Cambridge Music undergraduates access to instrumental lessons and workshops at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Here, three participants share their experience of this ground-breaking collaboration.

Raphael Colman (cello)

Extra-curricular music at Cambridge is nothing short of astonishing. The quantity and variety of productions and concerts offer opportunities to every sort of performer, and it is particularly amazing that students maintain such a high level of playing on top of their very demanding degrees.

For a Music student who wants to Michael Buchanan take performance seriously, it can be Eleanor Kornas (piano) (trombone) tempting to take part in everything, possibly at the expense of practice and I was thrilled when, in my second year at Cambridge, the opportunity came to study Conservatoire or university? This is the music lessons. When I started, that was piano with Rustem Hayroudinoff as part perennial question for music students. Like certainly my experience. Music lessons of the CAMRAM scheme. My teacher so many applicants, I was torn between are expensive and time-consuming, and was very flexible, and I was really pleased the two throughout my sixth-form days. on top of concerts and essays they seemed that we managed to arrange lessons The CAMRAM scheme, introduced in my an untenable option. I had come to around my full Cambridge schedule of final year, would certainly have made the Cambridge from the Royal Academy of lectures, rehearsals and choir commitments decision easier. The opportunity to study Music, having finished the first year of the (amongst other things!). I found it at Cambridge while reaping the benefits undergraduate course on the cello and, extremely useful to get different and even of a connection to the Academy was, for for me, the real benefit of the CAMRAM conflicting opinions on pieces I had studied me, extremely rewarding; it enhanced scheme was the stability it offered; that before with other teachers, as it helped me enormously the already rich musical guarantee of music lessons – I was able to think more about my own ideas and experiences enjoyed at Cambridge. to keep my teacher from the previous year – imposed necessary structure on what I wanted to do with the music. It was also simply very exciting and fun to One of the greatest (and perhaps an otherwise chaotic musical year. The go into the Academy and feel the ‘vibes’ unexpected) benefits I found was the scheme has allowed me to progress as a of such a place and to feel myself a part exceptional – and sometimes daunting – cellist, and it puts musicians at Cambridge of that. I would certainly recommend amount of musical freedom the University in an excellent position if, after graduating, the scheme if only because the experience allows you. Outside the degree course they intend to apply to conservatoire. encourages Music undergraduates to itself, Cambridge brims with opportunities consider options that may never have for ‘stage-time’, and these opportunities crossed their mind before. come at rapid pace. The vibrancy of this student-led musical life calls not just for self-sufficiency, but for ever more inventive and self-critical ways of rising to creative and technical challenges. INFORMATION While such a set-up is both exciting and effective, external and professional advice The CAMRAM scheme was set up in 2013 remains vital. Regular access to the and enables Cambridge Music students Academy’s ‘world’, with the peer-support and camaraderie of students and the to take lessons at the Royal Academy of guidance of knowledgeable professors, Music in London alongside their studies was, I found, the ideal complement to at university. The second- and third-year my university education. The more self- instrumentalists on the scheme are explorative aspects of performing at assigned a teacher at the Royal Academy, Cambridge and the clear, sometimes hard- and in addition to receiving individual line guidance I received while studying as an tuition on their principal instrument, instrumentalist at the conservatoire turned they are invited to attend a number of out, for me, to be the perfect combination. departmental performance classes.

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 21 Calling all composers…

Richard Causton, Reader in Composition, looks forward to a new generation of composers in Cambridge

© Katie VandyckKatie © to Cambridge as a composer, or to flourish as one once you’ve arrived here. That would be quite wrong: I have lost count of the students who arrived a little unsure of themselves, or uncertain as to whether composition was for them, and who left, after three years, with their own confident, secure and original musical voice. Every year, our third- year undergraduates go on to take postgraduate composition courses, to work on commissions for performers and groups of all kinds, and to have their music broadcast and recorded at the highest level. Very often it is those who were least confident when they first arrived who do the best in the long run.

This is partly to do with the unrivalled wealth of opportunities that Cambridge offers to student composers. The best composition lesson you can have is to hear your music performed live, and thanks to Cambridge’s extraordinary level of student music-making, even the most ambitious of pieces (including orchestral works and operas) regularly receive professional-level performances here. There are also fantastic opportunities to work with visiting professional musicians of the highest calibre: in the last year alone, our students have had their pieces performed by ensembles such as the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (conducted by Oliver Knussen), Britten Sinfonia, and the Arditti String Quartet. These opportunities are complemented by weekly Composers’ Workshops given by leading figures in the musical world, such as Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Cheryl Frances- Hoad, Julian Anderson, Trevor Wishart, and George Benjamin. But perhaps most important of all is the specialised one-to-one tuition in composition that Cambridge offers its students; this allows you to work over an extended period with a professional composer on developing your ideas and honing your own original compositional style.

Our students’ creative work is remarkably diverse; he creation of new music has always it includes concert music written within the Western been part of Cambridge’s DNA. Five classical tradition, electronica, jazz, and film music hundred years ago, Robert Fayrfax – the latter often composed under the guidance of studied at the University. He was Xiaotian Shi, who is Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in followed, about a century later, by Screen and Media Composition (see p. 39). TOrlando Gibbons, whose music still resounds in virtually every Cambridge college chapel. More Above all, Cambridge is a place where you can recently, Judith Weir (currently Master of the Queen’s experiment and explore your musical own ideas, Music), Thomas Adès, Errollyn Wallen and George surrounded by stimulating and like-minded people. Benjamin have all studied here. We pride ourselves on how friendly, welcoming and inclusive our new music community is here, and we In view of this overwhelming creative heritage, look forward to meeting our next wave of young you might think you have to be a genius to come composers!

22 Kate Honey at Kettle’s Yard Composing to connect

Kate Honey explains how Cambridge influenced her quest for a new music of engagement

t’s been over a year since I for a grant from the Performing Rights observe my contemporaries working out for graduated with a degree in Music Society’s ‘Women Make Music’ fund: themselves how to compose (and make a from Robinson College, and I’m this resulted in a new work for violin and living) in the 21st century. currently renting a shared house piano – Stay Together, Learn the Flowers, in North Cambridge. I made the Go Light – which was premiered at Kettle’s For myself, I continue to explore the Idecision to live in Cambridge since, despite Yard by Peter Sheppard Skaerved and question of contemporary engaged music. being expensive to live in, it’s a pretty Roderick Chadwick. I have also been When not writing or playing music, my unbeatable place for pursuing a musical collaborating with the Lucy Cavendish other passion is exploring the question of career. The amateur choirs here are as Singers, and hope to work with them again how to live sustainably and tread lightly skilled as professional ones elsewhere, through the ‘Adopt a Composer’ scheme. on the earth. I believe climate change to and I’m hoping to write for a large variety be an issue of enormous moral significance of ensembles in the city. I also look My time at the Music Faculty was and one that raises profound political and forward to collaborating with artists from wonderfully nourishing for me as a economic questions. My own calling is other disciplines: in particular, I hope to composer. The courses in Post-1945 Italian to explore in my compositional work the collaborate with a computer game designer Music, Britten, and Music and Science were questions that climate change raises. on a new rhythm-action game, and with constantly fascinating and introduced me to a playwright on a ‘play with music’ about some of my favourite pieces of music. I was Drawing on contemporary eco-philosophy fracking. also very fortunate to be supervised by three and psychology, I hope to create works of outstanding composers: Jeremy Thurlow, art (both purely musical and in partnership I also hope to develop my compositional Giles Swayne and Richard Causton. with other art-forms) that are ‘engaged’ in technique through further study. Following a new way. George Monbiot theorizes, in the release of my Free Composition Even more inspiring than the courses was the context of environmental journalism, portfolio results, I was awarded the Arthur witnessing the music-making of other that language which creates a sense Bliss Prize for Composition. I am using students. Various fellow composers of threat and induces fear is counter- the prize money towards funding further excelled in putting on rather crazy but productive; such emotions can cause composition study at the University of brilliant new music events at the last people to cling tightly to what they own. Winchester. minute: Joe Bates and Anthony Friend’s My own preference, in a world where Filthy Lucre nights; Gregor Forbes’s Nae isolation and individualism are the norm, Many of my current and recent projects Balls; Kate Whitley’s chamber operas. would be to use music to reconnect people were a direct result of my time at the Music to what they value and love. Faculty. Last year I was supported by I’m delighted, post-graduation, to see members of the Music Faculty in applying these initiatives continue, and inspired to MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 23 Glittering prizes

The University offers a range of awards for exceptional musicians. Could one of them be yours?

Choral awards and organ scholarships Sarah MacDonald

There is no doubt that winning a Cambridge Choral humanities students, such as those reading Music, tend or Organ Scholarship holds a certain cachet. On to devote about 40 hours per week to their degree Google, images of candle-lit Gothic arches with studies; for scientists (Engineers, Medics, etc.), that cassocked choristers singing directly from mediaeval number can be more like 60. If you are a Choral or manuscripts are juxtaposed with reports of first-class Organ Scholarship applicant who is also keen to play flights to exotic tour destinations and nationally on the college tiddlywinks team, you need to consider televised liturgical feasts. In reality, there is rather less time-management when deciding where to apply. glamour and rather more ‘Wet Tuesday in February’ Cambridge offers several ways to help you choose the commitment involved in being a Choral or Organ best college for you, and we hope that the information Scholar, but the prestige of these awards is significant, provided over the next couple of pages will be useful. and the experiences on offer – the transferable skills, the discipline, the musical techniques and the close, social Open days and visits community – are well worth those treks to Chapel on dark, fenland nights. Organ Scholarships Open Day This two-day event takes place in late February or early Which college? March. Most participants for this come during Year 12 (i.e., the academic year before you apply), but you’re Choral and Organ Scholarships come in all shapes welcome to come during your GCSE year as well. and sizes: some college choirs sing seven services Activities include observing various choirs in action, every week, requiring a weekly commitment of up to trying out a number of different instruments, meeting 20 hours; others ask for just two hours on a Sunday several Directors of Music, discussing the application afternoon. Every permutation imaginable exists procedure with an Admissions Tutor, and generally between those two extremes. You need to consider the getting a glimpse into life as an Organ Scholar. subject you wish to read, how much time you want Participation is free, but booking in advance is required. to devote to singing/playing, individual practice, and You can find more information about the next round whether you also wish to pursue other extra-curricular of open days from the Organ Scholarships website at activities (drama, sport, etc.). Academic work must www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/finance/music- always, of course, be your first priority. On average, awards/organ

Organ Scholarships Open Day various steps involved in applying for an Organ Award, and the nature of the various academic The annual Organ Awards Open Day is held in interviews, musical tests and auditions that early spring and extends over a 24-hour period, take place during the Organ Trials. A panel beginning and ending in the late afternoon. of current organ scholars is in attendance in Meals and overnight accommodation are order to share their experiences as both organ provided for all prospective applicants in scholars and academic students. After an various colleges. opportunity to ask questions, lunch is taken in groups at different colleges. Everyone then has After an initial welcome and registration over the chance to meet two chapel choir directors coffee, the activities begin with an opportunity of their choice in the relevant colleges. This to observe either a rehearsal or an evensong is a good opportunity to find out more about sung by one of the University’s college the timetable and activities of specific chapel Andrew Arthur, choirs. Supper is then taken at one of the choirs, and will help candidates choose which Director of Music, colleges, followed by an organ workshop led colleges to apply to for an Organ Award. Finally, Trinity Hall by the Director of the Organ Awards Scheme. tea is provided in one of the central colleges. Prospective applicants start bright and early Although this marks the end to the formal the following morning in order to attend the programme of the Open Day, several choirs choristers’ rehearsal at either King’s or St John’s then hold rehearsals and services which you College. This is followed by a presentation may like to attend. You can move from college (at which parents are welcome) given by an to college, as desired, during the rehearsals, Admissions Tutor and the Director of the and it’s a great way to hear more choirs and Organ Awards Scheme. The presentation organists in action. covers general points about admissions, the

24 Choral Awards Open Day This one-day event takes place in late April or early May, and again, most participants come when they are in Year 12 (the academic year before applying); however, Year 11 participants are welcome too. An Admissions Tutor and the Director of the Choral Awards Scheme lead a plenary session. This is followed by a brief singing workshop, which gives a taste of the audition process. Participants are excellent opportunity for you to observe musicians in encouraged to visit colleges in small groups, meet action without missing lessons at school or college. Directors of Music, and ask lots of questions. Setting up a timetable of meetings is easy – simply Participation is free, but booking online in advance email the Directors of Music that you would like to is required; see www.undergraduate.study.cam. meet. ac.uk/finance/music-awards/choral-awards for more information. The application process – choral University/College/Departmental Open Days awards There are also plenty of centrally organised Open Days throughout the year; these provide you with There are three main stages to applying for a Choral the opportunity to look around lots of colleges, and Scholarship. many of the University departments. Just search the University website for ‘Open Days’. 1. September Vocal Assessment Days Potential Choral Scholars are encouraged to attend Individual Visits the Vocal Assessment Days (though those who do It can also be helpful for potential Choral and Organ not attend will not be penalised in any way). This Scholars to visit Cambridge independently. On an event is designed to ensure that candidates make a individual visit, Directors of Music can make time to sensible and realistic musical choice when deciding hear you sing or play, and then offer specific guidance which college to apply to academically. You can list on what you might need to work on in preparation up to eight colleges, in order of preference, on the for the audition. You should also try to hear one or online booking form for this event. Your college of more choirs in rehearsals and/or services. We don’t first preference will give you a mock audition lasting have a half-term in Cambridge, so that provides an about 15 minutes; other colleges on your list may

Choral Awards Open Day auditions. Lunch is taken in groups at different colleges, and then everyone has an opportunity One of the best ways of finding out about to meet up to three different choir directors of Choral Awards at Cambridge is to attend the their choice in the relevant colleges. This is a annual Open Day held each year in the spring. good opportunity to find out more about the The day begins with a presentation given by an timetable and activities of specific choirs, and Admissions Tutor and the Director of the Choral will help you choose which colleges to apply to Awards Scheme. This covers general points for a Choral Award. After this, tea is provided in about admissions, the various steps involved in one of the central colleges. Several choirs then applying for a Choral Award, and the nature of hold rehearsals and services which you may the audition itself, which normally comprises attend, moving from one to another as desired a prepared piece, ear tests and some sight- during the rehearsals. This allows you to hear reading. After an opportunity to ask questions, one or more of the choirs in action. Parents are everyone moves to a college chapel where one welcome to attend all events other than the Dr Geoffrey of the Directors of Music leads a sing-through of meetings with the choir directors. Webber, a short choral work and demonstrates the type of aural tests applicants should expect at the Director of Music, Gonville and Caius College

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 25 I did my audition three years ago, and it’s I think it’s very important to choose audition probably the most nervous I’ve ever been in pieces that don’t overstretch you, but that my life. Coming from a part of the world that show your instrument in the state it’s in. You doesn’t send many people to Cambridge and have to be realistic: ‘Do I feel confident singing that doesn’t have a great musical tradition of this piece? Does it show me in a good light?’ this sort, I was very intimidated by the place, It’s a good idea to choose a piece that’s a few and the people, and by how different it all it degrees below the top of the range of your was. Also, horrible rumours are spread about, ability, so that you can do it well, rather than such as young tenors being forced to sing top singing something hard that doesn’t show you Cs at nine in the morning. Really, nothing could off as well as possible. be further from the truth. Don’t think of the first audition as your only If you’re applying to, say, King’s or St John’s chance to impress, or that you’ve blown it if or Trinity, you’ll most likely be singing to it doesn’t go well. Even if you’ve sung badly, Toby Ward, 3rd- representatives from other colleges, too, you’ll nearly always get called back for a second year Music student, because they’re interested in people who are sing by your first-choice college and, normally, applying to the top colleges for choral singing. by your second- and third-choice college King’s College You can expect to have maybe fifteen people too. My second audition at King’s was with coming to hear your audition, and that’s very Richard Lloyd Morgan, the college Chaplain, much in your favour. who’s a former opera singer, and instead of it being a ‘stand up and sing without the copy’ I had fifteen minutes to warm up in the room experience, it was effectively Richard giving me next door; and that’s when it hits you that you a singing lesson. At the end of the day, I got a really have no idea how to sing in the way very good indication from Stephen [Cleobury] that these people are used to. But that’s fine, and Richard as to how I had done. They said because they don’t have those expectations ‘Well, just make sure you get your grades’. of you. It’s important to remember that at this stage, they’re not looking for more than good It’s worth knowing that you can always go musicality and vocal potential. They know that for an informal sing to your Director of Music the progression of a choral singer, from the first before the Choral Trials takes place, and they’ll year through to the end of the third year, is all give you frank advice. They might say ‘I think a period of training. Everyone is considered you have a good chance of getting in this year’ equally, and it’s very much a case of helping or ‘Maybe you need to think about a gap year’. people achieve their potential, rather than The main thing to remember is that they’re looking to discard the people who don’t show not out to get you, they’re out to help. There’s enough. nothing to lose – and the most wonderful experience to gain – by giving it a go.

I came from a state school, and got most of Selwyn. However, I got in touch with Sarah my choral training in a parish choir. I applied Macdonald, the Director of Music at Selwyn, initially to Selwyn, had my interview and got an and she said I could still sing at Selwyn as a offer. I then auditioned for a choral scholarship volunteer choir member. and was successful; but when the A level results came out, I discovered I’d missed my offer by I’ve got good friends at Homerton, and I’m about one mark, and I was summer-pooled to Treasurer of the College Music Society. Then, Homerton. four nights a week, I’m singing at Selwyn, so I can enjoy the whole musical tradition there It was disappointing, because I wanted a as well. It’s a lot of travelling, but it’s definitely college that was quite busy musically, and the worth it to sing with the choir of my choice. choir was one of the reasons I had applied to

Esther Nye, 2nd- year Music student, Homerton College

26 also attend. After the event, and well in advance of potential. Interviews for invited candidates (about the 15 October UCAS deadline, the Director of the 80% of applicants) take place in December, and Choral Awards Scheme will write to you, indicating results are announced in the second week of January. the college highest on your preference list which would be willing to consider you for a Choral Award, 3. Choral Trials were you to receive an academic offer from them in If you are successful in gaining an academic offer January. You are not obliged to apply to that college, from a college, you will be invited to apply for a but we do encourage you to use this guidance when Choral Award by the 15 February deadline. Only making your choice. academic offer-holders may apply for a Choral Award (NB: this change in the Choral Awards process was 2. Academic Application introduced in 2013). Your first-choice college for Potential Choral Scholars make a normal academic your Choral Award application must be the college application to their chosen college through UCAS, at which you hold an academic offer. You can also by the deadline of 15 October. Information about list other colleges on your application, in an order this process can be found on the University website of preference. In some cases, if you are successful – www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/applying – chorally at a college other than your offer-college, and you should read these pages carefully. In brief, you might be able to transfer your academic offer we are looking for students who have the most to another college on your preference list, in order academic ability and potential, who are motivated, to take up a Choral Scholarship there (since you independent, critical thinkers, who are best suited can hold a Choral Scholarship only at the college at to the course they have applied for, and who will which you are a student). most benefit from studying here. The bulk of your UCAS personal statement should be geared towards About 20% of academic offers at Cambridge are discussion of your academic subject, and extra- made through the Winter Pool (see p. 11 for more curricular activities should be kept to a minimum. details). If you find yourself in that 20%, this may Even if you are applying to read Music, your interest complicate your Choral Award application a little, in choral singing should only be mentioned briefly in especially if you had particularly hoped to sing in the your Personal Statement, as invitations to interviews choir of the college to which you originally applied. and offers of places are based solely on academic

Choir isn’t a massive time commitment at little bit of flexibility; they understand that for a Christ’s. We rehearse on Wednesday evenings Music student, the best way to get the most out from 6.00 to 7.30; on Thursdays we rehearse of your course is to do extra-curricular activities. from 5.45 with Evensong at 6.15; and then on Equally, if you’re really snowed under you can Sundays we rehearse from 4.15 until Evensong ask for a week off choir, but that doesn’t happen at 6.00. So, it’s three blocks a week, which I’d often. You get a lot of perks from being in the say was mid-range for Cambridge choirs. The choir – you get the singing lessons, and the repertoire is mainly sacred music; for Evensong formal dinners, and the tours – so it wouldn’t be we have the Mag and Nunc, responses, introit fair to just not turn up. and anthem; for concerts, and in the Easter Term when we start rehearsing the repertoire Some choirs in Cambridge are very cliquey, and we’re going to take on tour, we’ll do bigger if you’re in that choir, then that’s your social pieces. group. Christ’s is a bit different. It’s definitely a ready-made community, and that can be really Maisie Hulbert, It’s quite a lot to fit around your academic work, nice, especially in the first term, but we don’t 1st-year Choral particularly in the first few terms when we have spend ridiculous amounts of time with each lectures every day and lots of supervisions. You other. I have really good friends from choir, but Scholar and Music have to keep your diary in quite good order. they’re not the only people I see. Also, it would student, Christ’s You have weekly deadlines that you can’t do be so easy in Cambridge just to sit in your room College anything about, but with longer-term deadlines and work all day. Being in the choir is a lovely you learn to prioritise and organise your work way of knowing that you have to get out there around choir rehearsals. Supervisors allow a and do something you enjoy.

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 27 There is a variety of scenarios, some of which are within about six weeks of the audition process. If illustrated in current students’ contributions on these it’s good news, then congratulations! If it isn’t, don’t pages. Firstly, you might well find that the college worry: many college choirs will be looking for new which has made you an offer has a similar sort of volunteer members at the start of the academic year: choir to the one in which you had originally hoped choirs are full of people who didn’t apply for Choral to sing; in this case, you can confidently carry on Awards in the first place, or who applied but were with your application, listing the new college as your unsuccessful at one college, but successful in finding a first choice. If you find yourself at a college which volunteer place elsewhere. doesn’t offer Choral Awards, or whose choir sings either much less frequently or much more frequently The application process – organ than you had hoped, then you are advised to contact the Director of Music at your original college, to seek scholarships advice about possible ‘volunteer’ places. This is entirely different from the Choral Award The Choral Trials now take place in Cambridge application process. Organ Scholarship applicants in the third week of March every year. At your need to fill in the COPA (Cambridge Online formal audition, you will be asked to sing a solo Preliminary Application form), and make a full piece of your own choosing (lasting no more than academic and musical application by the early four minutes, and for which an accompanist will be deadline of 1 September; please note that this is provided), and you will be tested in sight-reading before the UCAS deadline for academic applications. and aural skills. Sample tests are available on Academically qualified candidates will be called for the University website so that you can practise in both audition and academic interview at the end of advance. Results will be communicated to candidates September, and results will be announced within a

I’d characterise an organ scholarship at John’s as It’s a huge amount to fit around academic high effort, high reward. The time commitment work. It used to be pretty much accepted that is colossal. I do seven services a week – every organ scholars at John’s and King’s didn’t really day except Monday from 5.15 to 7.15 pm, and do any academic work, but that’s no longer two services on a Sunday. On top of that, there the case. So, it’s pretty much ‘candle at both are morning rehearsals with the choristers ends’. It can be hard on your social life, but it from 8.00 to 9.00 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, gets easier. And you get to do some very high- Thursdays and Fridays – John’s and King’s are profile stuff. I’ve done lots of radio broadcasts unique in that the Organ Scholar gets to teach and performed in lots of the major European and work with the choristers in their choir- concert halls. On the seventieth anniversary of schools. Then there’s all the practising. So, in the D-Day landings I played the organ in Bayeux total the commitment probably equates to Cathedral in front of the Queen, Obama, Putin about three or four hours a day in term-time. and Merkel. It’s exciting, and the opportunities At John’s, services continue after the end of the are amazing; you’re working at a high level of Edward Picton- summer term; there are often CD recordings to professionalism and it’s enormously prestigious. Turbervill, 3rd-year be done in the vacation, and the Organ Scholar If you want to go on to a post in cathedral Organ Scholar and has to be back in September – that’s actually a music, there’s no doubt John’s is the right place Music student, St nice thing as you get to spend a few weeks in for you, but I’d advise anyone applying to think Cambridge not doing so much, but it means very carefully about the responsibilities you’ll John’s College that I end up with one month’s summer holiday be taking on. instead of the usual three.

28 We have two main services a week at Westminster Abbey in August. It’s fantastically Emmanuel: a Eucharist on Thursday and exciting to visit all these different buildings and then Evensong on Sunday. There’s also a try out their amazing organs. I’ve also had the rehearsal on Tuesday evening, and every other opportunity to do recitals around Cambridge Wednesday we have a service of Compline with and London. just two short anthems sung by the choir. Then there are cathedral visits and the annual tour. I’m a third-year Music student, and what I’m In terms of time commitment, it’s probably doing as Organ Scholar ties in with some of the middle-of-the-range for Cambridge. papers I’m doing for my finals. Performance is one option in the final year, and for my The Director of Chapel Music, Richard Latham, Keyboard Skills exam, I do gruesome tests in is in charge of running the choir in conjunction sight-reading, transposition and orchestral with me and the Junior Organ Scholar, and he’s score-reading, which really plays to the stuff very relaxed; there’s a lot of scope at Emmanuel I do in Chapel. But the people skills and the Adam Mathias, to do as much or as little conducting as you organisational skills you learn as Organ Scholar 3rd-year Organ want. I’m quite keen to do as much as I can, and stand you in good stead for any course. Last Scholar and Music I conduct a service at least once a week. I’ve year, my Senior Organ Scholar was a Natural student, Emmanuel also been organising the international tours Scientist, and he still managed to make it work and cathedral visits, but if I didn’t want to do with his very different academic responsibilities. College that, Richard or any other person involved in Chapel music could step in. It really is shaped I’ve had an amazing three years at Emmanuel, to what individual organ scholars want to get and I‘d recommend anyone applying for an out of the experience. organ scholarship, to any college, to email the Organ Scholar directly for advice and I had a gap year before I came to Emmanuel, information; contact details are on the various and I was the Organ Scholar at St George’s college websites, and you’ll almost always find a Chapel, Windsor. I’ve brought the choir friendly response. there two years in a row; we’ve also had a cathedral visit to Norwich, and we’re going to

Tours are one of the highlights of being in a far-flung. We’re going to Lille, in France, in the Cambridge choir. At Jesus they’re completely summer, and last December we had two weeks free. You’re never asked to make any in Sri Lanka. One of our tenors is from Sri Lanka, contribution towards travel or accommodation, so having that connection we were incredibly so it’s a brilliant deal. well looked after. We were taken round the entire island in about ten days, and it really I’m a fourth-year Languages student and I’d say was the most amazing experience. One of our that our choir tours have grown exponentially concerts was attended by the President’s wife, in scale and ambition since I arrived. In the and another was held in an outdoor chapel first few years, we went to Russia, Germany and up in the hills near Kandy. There was the most America, where we were singing to broadly spectacular thunderstorm, and I’ll never forget rich audiences. Then in 2013 we went to India, doing a concert with rain lashing down on all which was completely different. Our first sides. We also visited an absolutely brilliant workshop was in the slums of Mumbai, singing elephant sanctuary, where we got to walk with Thomas Rothwell, with the children of sex workers. These kids wild elephants down to the river where they 4th-year Medieval didn’t even speak any English, but it’s funny bathe. It was the most idyllic place and a lovely how far you can get in half an hour when you’ve way to relax amongst all the music we were and Modern got music to sing and songs to learn. That was singing. Languages student, a watershed moment. Since India, we’ve tried Jesus College to make outreach work a particular feature of When you’re getting on well and are relaxed Jesus choir tours. together, you will make better music. It’s not just a matter of building esprit de corps; touring, We have two college choirs, one with male and I really believe, makes you a better choir. And female undergraduates and a second one with when else in your life are you going to chalk up male undergraduates and boy choristers. Each experiences like these? year we try to have two tours – one where we can safely take the boys, and one that is more

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 29 week or so of the Trials (and well before the UCAS of musicians. The skills that you will acquire as deadline of 15 October, so that if you are successful a member of a Cambridge choir are many and in gaining an Organ Scholarship, you can put varied: you will learn everything from where that college on your UCAS form). This process to put your final consonants to how to interact remains unchanged from past years, and full details with an ambassador. Although you might not be and audition requirements can be found on the guaranteed first-class seats, you will get to travel to University website: www.undergraduate.study.cam. some exotic destinations, and although more often ac.uk/finance/music-awards/organ-scholarships than not, the proverbial ‘Wet Tuesday in February’ will feature Stanford in B flat, there’ll also be plenty Conclusion of opportunities for Herbert Howells’s Gloucester Service as well. So, if you’re someone who loves Although the application process may feel a little to sing or play the organ, and who is a high- complicated, the rewards that a Choral or Organ achiever academically, please consider applying Scholarship gives make it all worthwhile. If you for a scholarship; it will undoubtedly shape your are successful, when you arrive in Cambridge, you experience at Cambridge and possibly your life will come straight into a fully-formed community thereafter.

Recordings and broadcasts are a chance to director, Geoffrey Webber, has such an amazing explore repertoire away from liturgy and set of ears that he can hear the tiniest tuning evensong. I’ve done two CDs and several issue. You could be spending an hour on a broadcasts for radio and television, and we’ve couple of bars, but then you have a CD that covered everything from Celtic chants to a you can keep for the rest of your life. I had a Brazilian jazz mass and John Tavener. couple of solos on the last CD, which was really exciting. I do History, so for me it’s a very big It’s a different way of working, too. Broadcasts deal to be involved in music-making on such a are done all in one take; you prepare as much professional level, an opportunity I may never as you possibly can, but at the end of the day, have again! you’ve just got to get it right first time. There’s much more perfectionism with recordings. Our

Katie Braithwaite, 3rd-year Choral Scholar and History student, Gonville and Caius College

Concerts have a very different dynamic from the choral world – we’re the only college at either services we sing in Chapel. We sing different Oxford or Cambridge that has a little girls’ choir material, usually harder material, and we work rather than a little boys’ choir – and this year we on it for much longer. And of course you’re not did a concert of 20th- and 21st-century music standing in stalls; you’re standing facing the featuring women composers, with a special audience, engaging with the audience, so it’s a piece commissioned for National Women’s Day. very different atmosphere from Chapel, where people come to pray. There’s also the summer concert tour – I’ve been to Ireland, France and Croatia, and this There will usually be one proper choir concert year we’re going to Venice. The concerts are a term, and every year we sing at one or two the focal point of the tour, but it’s also a chance special dinners. Our choir director is particularly just to hang out and bond with other choir interested in the kind of sexism that exists in the members. Faith Barker, 4th-year Asian and Middle Eastern Studies student, St Catharine’s College

30 Instrumental awards Dr Sam Barrett

The Instrumental Awards Scheme for Chamber and John Wallace. The progress of each group is Music (IAS) was founded with the simple idea of monitored by the IAS’s Director of Performance, gathering the best chamber music players from across Margaret Faultless, who works with the coaches to the University in order to make music together. ensure that all groups perform to the best of their It also provides the opportunity to receive year- ability. round coaching and masterclasses from established professional chamber musicians. The opportunity The Scheme provides free high-level coaching, but to mix high-level ensemble tuition with full-time award-holders also receive financial assistance of up academic study in this way is unique to Cambridge. to £200 per annum towards individual instrumental For many, it is the beginning of a pathway to a lessons. Regular performances are important ways lifetime of chamber music playing – several of our for our students to develop musically, and groups are coaches started their careers as IAS award-holders. supported in giving recitals throughout the year. The best groups are selected through audition to perform Anyone who plays a chamber music instrument is at our annual Showcase Concert in West Road eligible to apply. It perhaps comes as no surprise, Concert Hall. given the nature of the standard repertory, that string and wind (including horn) players, as well as pianists, Entrance to the Scheme is highly competitive. Award- form the majority of award-holders. The Scheme holders are selected through annual auditions open is also open to other instrumentalists, who are on to instrumentalists at all colleges. The standards occasion invited to collaborate in specific projects, are inevitably high. All those who audition are e.g. double bassists in Schubert’s ‘Trout’ Quintet or required to be at least Grade 8 ABRSM Distinction harpists in Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro for harp, or equivalent standard, but the emphasis at audition flute, clarinet and string quartet. The IAS has also is not solely on individual achievement. What is recently expanded its scope to include an elite brass important is a commitment to chamber music and ensemble, whose members enjoy similar opportunities the ability to inspire other members of a group to under the title of the Cambridge University Brass reach the highest musical standards. Auditions are Ensemble. divided into two rounds: first, a solo audition with an accompanist; second, an ensemble round in which Ensemble-playing lies at the heart of the Scheme. individuals are placed in groups to work together. Groups learn through playing together on a regular The demands of the Scheme are high, but the rewards basis, rehearsing for at least six hours per week are extensive and for many last a lifetime. during term. Such an extensive commitment means that award-holders usually do not have time to be choral scholars at the major choral institutions – there are simply not enough hours in the day! INFORMATION Regular coaching is provided through sessions directed by invited professionals held three times per term (except in exam term). IAS coaches are leading Further details about the Scheme are available on our specialist chamber musicians; many also teach at website: the Royal Academy of Music. The current roster includes, among others, James Boyd (strings), Celia www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/finance/mu- Nicklin (woodwinds) and Andrew West (piano). Masterclasses are also a regular feature of the sic-awards/instrumental-awards-chamber-music scheme. Award-holders have recently participated in masterclasses with the Endellion String Quartet, the Enquiries are always welcome and are best directed to New London Chamber Ensemble (winds), Ian Brown the Administrative Assistant, Chloe Davidson (cnd26@ (pianist with the Nash Ensemble), Paul Archibald cam.ac.uk).

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 31 A society for all seasons

Ben Glassberg reflects on an extraordinary year as CUMS president

n 2013, for the first time in of the Concert Orchestra. Some its distinguished history, the ensembles are directed by our top student Cambridge University Musical conductors, whilst others (notably CUCO Society (CUMS) decided to appoint and the Symphony Orchestra) regularly a student to the role of President. I welcome world-renowned visiting Iwas delighted to fill this new role and was conductors. Recent guest artists have very excited about what the Society – run included conductors Sir Mark Elder and by students, for the students – is now able Sir Richard Armstrong and pianist Peter to achieve. Our aim is to provide a world- Donohoe. class, extra-curricular musical education for all members of Cambridge University, The 2013/14 season was one of the regardless of their academic discipline. most successful and creative in CUMS’ history. November saw a DVD recording Within CUMS there are several different “The ensembles of The Epic of Everest, a reconstruction ensembles, each run by a dedicated of the original film score to the 1924 committee of students supported by provide something for black-and-white epic. A screening was industry professionals; these teams govern held in West Road Concert Hall and everything from the programming for the everyone, whether you CUCO, conducted by Andrew Gourlay, year (very exciting), to the nitty-gritty performed the soundtrack live. They of budgeting (less exciting, but a great want high-intensity then recorded the score, which has since skill to develop). The ensembles provide been released by the British Film Institute. something for everyone, whether you professionalism It was certainly a unique challenge for want the high-intensity professionalism of or a more relaxed the musicians. In December, we were CUCO (our flagship chamber orchestra) joined by Cambridge alumnus Sir Roger or the more relaxed, weekly commitment commitment.” Norrington for a performance at Kings

32 Place, London. The flagship event of our year, however, remains the January concert in King’s College Chapel. Last year, the combined forces of CUCO, the Symphony Orchestra and some of Cambridge’s top college choirs were joined by conductor Nicholas Collon and top professional soloists, including Sophie Bevan, to perform Tippett’s astonishing A Child of Our Time, alongside Vaughan Williams’s emotionally devastating Sixth Symphony.

My personal highlight of the year, however, was the CUMS May Week concert, which marked the end of my tenure as CUMS Conducting Scholar. Conducting Elgar’s Enigma Variations with the Symphony Orchestra, in the glorious setting of King’s Chapel, was something I shall never forget. The performance of Janáček's Glagolitic Mass (with the CUMS Chorus, Stephen Joining forces Cleobury and four top soloists) was another masterful event to witness. CUCO President Harry Hickmore recalls a landmark The season ended with two overseas tours. CUCO travelled to Bordeaux performance of Britten’s War Requiem for the Orpheus and Bacchus Festival to perform Beethoven’s third and fifth symphonies, and the Symphony n November 2014, the Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra Orchestra took part in the celebrated (CUCO) took part in a unique collaboration with Britten Sinfonia and Ghent Festival in Belgium. over 150 singers, drawn from CUMS Chorus and the choirs of Girton and Jesus Colleges, to perform Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem in The 2014/15 season was equally Ely Cathedral. The Requiem, a spectacular finale to the ten-day-long exciting. We were incredibly lucky ICambridge Music Festival, was conducted by Stephen Cleobury and featured to perform the Requiems of Britten, internationally renowned soloists Evelina Dobračeva (soprano), John Mark Brahms and Verdi over the course Ainsley (tenor) and Neal Davies (bass-baritone). of the year. In November, our very own Stephen Cleobury conducted Whilst members of CUCO are no strangers to working with professional musicians – their is to give five or six concerts with world-class CUCO (side-by-side with the Britten raison d’être conductors and soloists during the academic year – the War Requiem project Sinfonia) in Britten’s War Requiem, at was unique insofar as the orchestra would also be playing side-by-side with Ely Cathedral In January, combined some of the country’s leading instrumentalists. choirs and orchestral forces performed Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem under The War Requiem was first performed in 1962 to mark the consecration of the baton of Howard Shelley. And in the new Coventry Cathedral (the earlier structure was destroyed in World June, the great David Hill joined us for War II). The music is difficult and, with only two three-hour rehearsals with a performance of Verdi’s magnificent full orchestra, the rehearsal period was intense. For many, this was the first Requiem, rounding off what proved time they had played directly alongside professionals; indeed, very few such to be a phenomenal season of music- opportunities exist for students. The performance drew a standing ovation, making. and the experience was both enjoyable and beneficial, providing insight into the professional orchestral world – a world which many members of CUCO www.cums.org.uk aim to inhabit in the future.

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 33 Bringing the experts on-side

Rachel Stroud is studying for an MPhil in Music Studies at Christ’s College. After graduating from Cambridge with first-class honours in Music, she studied Baroque violin at the Royal Conservatory of the Hague. A member of the Council of the Academy of Ancient Music, Rachel took part in AAMplify’s side-by-side workshop with Cambridge University’s Collegium Musicum. Music@Cambridge asked for her impressions of the event.

Q. What is AAMplify?

A. The AAMplify programme was introduced by the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) in 2010 to help young musicians – and their future audiences – further their study in Baroque music and historically informed playing.

Q. What is your previous experience and involvement with AAMplify?

A. In my first year after graduating from Selwyn College I worked as an administrator for the Cambridge University Collegium Musicum (CUCM) and was closely involved Performers from The Academcy of Ancient Music perform alongside Cambridge musicians with the organisation and development of the inaugural side-by-side workshop at the University. It was a very exciting project to be involved with, and I remember being very Q. How do AAMplify side- in greater detail, and we benefited from the impressed by the enthusiasm and dedication by-side workshops develop more personal and specific advice from the of the members of the Academy of Ancient section principals in a smaller setting. The Music team who helped to make the dream your playing? focus on sectional rehearsal also changed the become a reality. The day itself was a emphasis of the workshop. For example, storming success, and a very experienced A. The side-by-side workshops offer an the previous year’s workshop was a ‘crash colleague of mine described it as ‘absolutely unparalleled opportunity to learn first-hand course’ in the French school of baroque the best musical experience of my life’. Now from the best period instrumentalists in playing: this style was completely new in its fourth year, the side-by-side workshop the profession, and to gain insight into the for many participants, and a lot of new has rapidly become the most exciting event life and work of a professional orchestral information had to be learned and absorbed. of the year for CUCM! musician. It is inspiring to be able to play This time, by playing more familiar alongside some of the players my generation repertoire, the focus was more on achieving of young performers have been watching in the highest standard of performance Q. How is the event concerts for years, and it is also a powerful possible. It was an experience I would structured? way to absorb and internalise a playing style. recommend to any young period performer. I should also point out here that the benefits A. Our annual workshop showcased of the workshops are not only directed at Handel’s wonderful Concerti Grossi, performers: the participation of the audience Op. 3 No. 4 and Op. 6 No. 10. The was also a crucial ingredient in the original afternoon began with sectional workshops conception of the workshop. Audience INFORMATION with principal players of the AAM, before a members are included in the rehearsal process and are able to sit and move about full tutti rehearsal with Richard Egarr. We AAM works in partnership with the Uni- rounded off the day with a performance on stage, giving them a unique opportunity versity of Cambridge, Guildhall School of of both Concerti, followed by a drinks to observe the inner workings of the group Music & Drama, and Royal Northern Col- reception in the Faculty where we were at first hand. able to meet and talk to members of the lege of Music to provide opportunities for orchestra. their students, ranging from master­classes Q. How was this workshop with AAM Music Director, Richard Egarr, different from previous and guest artists such as Richard Tognetti side-by-sides? to side-by-side ensemble workshops with AAM musicians. A. A fantastic development in the structure of the most recent side-by-side workshop AAMplify members are eligible for £3 was the inclusion of sectional rehearsals. tickets for AAM concerts in London and This enabled us to approach the repertoire Cambridge. 34 Different strokes

The Faculty’s lecture programme is designed to open and expand undergraduates’ critical perspective. Here, as a taster of the approaches that new students might encounter in Cambridge, three lecturers consider one of the most famous twentieth-century chamber works from very different angles.

of the genesis and meaning (for him) of his Eighth Quartet. There was no mention of ‘fascism’ or ‘war’. The Quartet, Shostakovich claimed , was entirely autobiographical, a kind of ‘memorial to himself’. He created it at a low point of his life, suffering pangs of conscience after agreeing to join the Communist Party – some say he was even haunted by suicidal thoughts. The process of composing this Quartet, however, cheered him up, and he was able to retell the story to a friend with a great deal of self-mockery, even referring to the Quartet as a ‘pseudo-tragedy’. Reading this, I realised that the autobiographical programme could easily be matched to the music: even without the composer’s letter, there are clear signposts: the obsessive use of the DSCH monogram and the multiple self-quotations from Shostakovich’s landmark works – namely, the First Symphony, the Fifth Symphony and the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

The autobiographical evidence was compelling, but Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8 this interpretation of the Eighth Quartet would not have gone down well in the Soviet Union of the mid- An historical perspective 1980s. Instead of a great anti-Fascist work by a civic- minded composer, we would have had self-obsessed Many years ago, still in Soviet times, when I was a outpourings hiding behind a fraudulent dedication. student in Moscow, I gave a talk about Shostakovich’s This would have amounted to an abuse of the Eighth Quartet (1960). I spoke about the genesis of ‘war theme’, which was a sacred subject the work, which was allegedly conceived in Dresden, in a country that had lost 26 million a city still rising from the rubble after Allied bombing people in the Second World War. during World War II, and I spoke about the work’s dedication ‘to the victims of fascism and war’. I took I’ve shared this story to this dedication as a programme for the Quartet, and it highlight the hazards of seemed to fit beautifully, turning it into a kind of war memorial. The arch-like five-movement construction ‘definitive’ history. How seemed almost architectural, while echoes of do we find meaning in an Beethoven’s late string quartets (in the beginning and instrumental work? How in the final fugue) provided the specifically German do we interpret pieces of context. The terrifying moto perpetuo of the second intra- and extra-musical movement, featuring a ‘Jewish’ theme, seemed to paint evidence that may fit scenes of Nazi concentration camps; the sinister waltz together badly, or even of the third movement, based on Saint-Saëns’s Danse contradict each other? macabre, a dance of death, also seemed to fit with the How is our listening dedication, and so on. I commented on the fact that affected by our own the Quartet was tied together by the four-note D-(e) experiences, our outlook, S-C-H motif (D-E- -C-B in English spelling), which our social conditioning? was Shostakovich’s musical monogram, and I chose to Can we establish any interpret this motif as playing a structural, rather than ‘absolute’ truths, or are such a meaningful role – a kind of cement for the musical hopes simply deluded? These edifice. I was aware that Shostakovich quoted some of are all questions my students his earlier works in the Quartet – but since this would have enjoyed debating, and you have contributed nothing to the programme, I didn't shouldn't be surprised to discover have much to say about it. that the answers can’t be found at the Above: Caricature of Shostakovich back of the book. and Stalin by Nathan Jensen Imagine my embarrassment – which I carry with me to this day – when a few years later, a letter was published, in which Shostakovich spoke frankly Prof Marina Frolova-Walker

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 35 An analytical perspective of Shostakovich’s ‘basic theme’). Admittedly, this approach leaves the G minor and C# minor of ‘A motive,’ wrote Schoenberg, ‘is incomplete Movements 3 and 4 unaccounted for; but both and depends on continuations: explanations, pitches are themselves semitonally related to C and clarifications, conclusions, consequences, etc.’1 It G# /A- ... is a provocative thought, and one which, if taken as advice to the analyst rather than the composer, The G-G# shift is something else that is highlighted warns us that worthwhile motivic analysis needs to at Figure 4 (viola); and its reverse, A- -G (exactly the do more than simply list the appearances and various same pitches, but now in Violin 1), will be the last transformations of a given motive across the course pitch motion we hear in the Quartet. The conjoining of a composition: the question ‘what is happening (Figure 72 onward) of the end of the ‘basic theme’ here?’ is less interesting than ‘why is this happening?’ with the C-G-A- -G motive first heard at Figure 3+5 or ‘how is this happening?’. perhaps hints at a suppressed motivic ‘answer’, B-C-A- -G, to the ‘basic theme’ itself, while the The point is all the more significant in the case of recomposition here of the end of the first movement, a work such as the Shostakovich’s Eighth Quartet, so that this material now appears in Violin 1 and whose ‘basic theme’, as we have seen, has strict not Violin 2, might prompt an analysis in terms of autobiographical reference, spelling out his initials narrative and instrumental personae or agencies; but D-S[E-]-C-H[B] (in scale-degree terms, 2-3-8-#7). Of that is for another day ... course, a perfectly worthwhile analysis might well result from the pursuit of the composer and his own Prof Nicholas Marston and others’ music (again, Shostakovich pointed the way) throughout the score; equally, there is much to ponder in considering the Quartet in the context of A performance-related perspective its forerunners, not least some of Beethoven’s late quartets: Op. 131 in C# minor, with its opening fugal A search of the literature on Shostakovich’s Eighth movement and semitonally rich subject (G# -B# -C# -A, Quartet reveals relatively little material on its or 5-#7-8-6), which reappears transformed in the performance history, and even less on the performance 2 finale, is especially relevant. issues confronting ensembles keen to play the music. It goes without saying that performances do not come But to return to Schoenberg: one ‘consequence’ out of the blue; nor are they confined to the time it flowing from the ‘basic theme’ can be seen in some takes to give them. Instead, a typical performance harmonic shifts: the striking reharmonisation of the reflects many hours of preparation, not to mention final B in the context of an E-minor chord at Figure years of more general training during which one’s 1 (the moment is ‘marked for consciousness’ by the musical abilities are developed and refined. dynamic indications) is a local example which will have further longer-term consequences (the E naturals The Shostakovich Quartet poses innumerable from Figure 4 onward, or the long E-based passage performance challenges. First of all, the fact that at Figure 44 in the third movement, for example). the five movements are played without interruption Meanwhile, the outer limits, B-E-, of the motto theme requires an ensemble to decide how they should relate are ‘rethought’ enharmonically to yield the upper in terms of character, length, and so forth. This is third of the G# minor triad of the second movement. especially important given that the first, fourth and fifth movements are marked ‘Largo’. The last thing A different, non-motivic explanation of one would want is for the music to sag and cause Shostakovich’s harmony could be adopted from listeners to lose interest. the work of Richard Cohn on parsimonious voice- 3 leading: But decisions about such matters as character and length are by no means straightforward: the information in the score about these and other musical features is incomplete at best. Among other things, this explains the wide disparities in the lengths of recordings of Shostakovich’s Eighth Quartet – length obviously being determined by the tempo at which individual movements are taken. For example, the Major and minor triads of C, E, and A- /G# – keys 4 which appear distant from one another if plotted premiere performance by the Beethoven Quartet in around the circle of fifths – emerge as closely Leningrad on 2 October 1960 lasted 18’50”, related through semitonal shifting (itself a feature which is about the same as a live performance by the Borodin Quartet in 1962 (18’37”)5 but a good deal faster than many recordings, including others by the

1 Arnold Schoenberg, ‘Folkloristic Symphonies’, in Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg, ed. Leonard Stein (London: Faber, 1975), 164. 2 For an exhaustive study of the Quartet from multiple perspectives, see David Fanning, Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). 4 A recording of this performance is available on YouTube at www.youtube. 3 The example is adapted from Richard Cohn, ‘Maximally Smooth Cycles, com/watch?v=YS0MVtC6wZ4 (accessed 8 June 2015). Hexatonic Systems, and the Analysis of Late-Romantic Triadic Progressions’, 5 Available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwostsHeRdw (accessed 8 Music Analysis 15 (1996), 9–40. June 2015).

36 Borodins. David Fanning has described the tempos to determine how tempo and dynamics change as taken at the premiere in 1960 as ‘among the swiftest’; the music is unfolding; it is also possible to reveal he also refers to the Beethoven Quartet’s ‘remarkably the distinctive acoustic properties of, say, a violinist’s romantic’ phrasing and ‘lush’ colour.6 It is not clear vibrato or a cellist’s portamento. One such tool is whether these characteristics reflected Shostakovich’s Sonic Visualiser, which is freely available online. By preferences or the ensemble’s. Fanning does note that using this ingenious software, you can discover how the edition prepared by the quartet’s first violinist different elements of particular performances have Tsïganov states, ‘dynamic marks and nuances been shaped. Of course, you then have to decide approved by Shostakovich during rehearsals’,7 but this what the data you’ve collected mean. This is not easy: may not be accurate. studies have shown that what listeners perceive may or may not match ‘the facts’ of a performance. So, any It is fascinating to study individual performances of conclusions that you reach after studying recordings this piece – and indeed others – ‘on their own terms’, of Shostakovich’s Quartet with Sonic Visualiser would by which I mean not as projections of the composer’s have to be weighed up very carefully. On the other intentions or as more or less faithful reproductions of hand, the potential insights on offer are enormous: you what is in the score, but rather as a reflection of the may end up with a better sense of what is happening in decisions taken by the musicians responsible for them. the performances than your ears alone could achieve. For example, some recently developed analytical tools and techniques help one drill down into a performance Prof John Rink

6 David Fanning, Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 161. 7 Ibid., 161.

Below: D. Shostakovich, String Quartet No. 8, Op. 110. I. Largo, bb. 124–26 and II. Allegro molto, bb. 1–5. Spectrogram, waveform, and tempo curve in the performance by the Beethoven Quartet (1960). The waveform shows fluctuations in loudness over time. By depicting the changing frequencies, the spectrogram provides information about overtones (and the intensity thereof), articulation, vibrato, etc. (Diagram prepared by Ana Llorens using Sonic Visualiser, based on a measurement unit of one minim.)

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 37 Pianos in the streets of Cambridge as part of the Play Me, I’m Yours project in 2012 Beyond the ivory tower Recent graduate, Jonathan Schranz, describes the work of the Music Faculty’s outreach programme

have a background in jazz and the instruments, whether performing, songs before tackling more challenging orchestral youth outreach projects, observing or listening. A number of repertoire. By the end of the workshop, through school and my local music Cambridge music students were filmed two participants had stepped forward and service in Devon, and Cambridge improvising on the pianos for a video volunteered to sing solos in the afternoon Music Education Outreach which synthesised performances from concert performance. There was a real I(CaMEO) was an important factor in all over the city. Other recent CaMEO sense of togetherness as singers from my choosing Cambridge over other initiatives include the staging of interactive Cambridge chapel choirs stood alongside universities. In an institution so often musical theatre and opera as well as visits prisoners and made music together, and criticised for being insular, it is refreshing to local schools, care homes and hospitals. the experience has had a long-lasting to know that the Faculty of Music has impact on all involved. such a commitment to taking its musicians The striking thing about CaMEO is that to work with the community in ‘the real it’s so open to new ideas. Students here I feel that there’s only so much one can world’. As rewarding as it is to strive for are imaginative and, when a department learn from slaving away in the library technical excellence in performance, I have is as keen as the Music Faculty to support without actually going out and engaging found that it is very often music-making at its students, nothing is beyond the realms with people on a musical level; my grassroots level which touches people most of possibility. The main CaMEO event involvement with CaMEO has contributed deeply. I’ve been involved with has been the choral singing project in HMP Bedford. just as much to my development as My first involvement with CaMEO took The initial idea of performing at a prison a musician as my studies have. I can place a few weeks into my first term as carol service has developed into a series honestly say that teaching a room full part of the 2012 Festival of Ideas. Upright of workshops in which the prisoners of prisoners how to sing Lady Gaga was pianos were decorated by various local themselves form a choir and perform to one of the most memorable, surreal, and organisations and placed in public areas other residents and prison staff. A team of transformative experiences of my life. throughout the city centre. The project, music students led a morning workshop, replicated around the world, encouraged beginning with gentle vocal exercises More information is available on the CaMEO anyone who walked by to engage with and teaching familiar pop and folk website: www.outreach.mus.cam.ac.uk

38 They shoot, he scores…

Xiaotian Shi, Postdoctoral Fellow in Screen and Media Music Composition, welcomes students to the Faculty’s newest initiative

into a sea of a million different tracks. On the other hand, production libraries have tens of thousands of composers working for them, so it’s something that opens a lot of doors for many people.

Recent advances in technology have made writing for media much more accessible, and the lines between music and ‘sound design’ are becoming increasingly blurred. Music for video games is a huge growth market. And it can be interesting work, because the music for games is not linear – there’s a lot of looping and layering. Gamers play at different levels; one may be stuck on a level for hours, another will go through it in five minutes, and you need to write music that deals with both of these eventualities and everything in between.

During my fellowship at Cambridge, I hope to establish a flourishing screen and media department in the Faculty. I have set up a series of talks, running every two weeks, with professionals in the industry, from Hollywood orchestrators to music librarians and commercial producers, and I am always pleased to share my own experience. There are so y background is in Writing for film is like writing a many opportunities for young musicians classical music and the symphonic suite. You have to consider the in media music, and I hope to inspire crossover to writing whole structure, leave room for the music students to step into this thrilling area of for film was gradual. to grow organically throughout the film. composition. As a teenager, I was Of course it’s lovely to write wonderful, Mcaptivated by John Barry’s scores for films rich, lush themes, but the challenge is not such as Somewhere in Time, Out of Africa simply to write the most beautiful and and Dances with Wolves. I was training complicated music you are capable of, but to be a concert pianist at the time, and to work towards a shared creative vision INFORMATION I was given the very good advice that with the director, producer and director of if you want to be a film composer, you photography. You need to be flexible and Xiotian studied composition at the Royal first need to learn to compose! As a film develop your people-management skills. composer, you will be composing in very You need to know how to deal with the Academy of Music, London. He won First many different styles, so you really need fact that your writing is just not ‘clicking’ Prize at the 2008 International Composition that secure grounding in harmony and with the people who hired you. At the for Orchestra Competition in Los Angeles and counterpoint and all the traditional tools same time, your music must have its own at the Transatlantyk International Film Music of a classical composer at your disposal. integrity and stand the test of time. So it’s Competition, held in Poznan, Poland in 2013. not the job for a composer with a raging I have always been a very tonal composer ego! In early 2014, Xiaotian scored the British film and I love the power and drama of film. Unhallowed Ground, starring Poppy Drayton, There are so many subtle and creative For TV series and programmes, over 75 Morgane Polanski and Tom Law. He is current- ways in which the score can support a per cent of the music you hear comes from ly completing an LA-produced sci-fi adven- film. You can either go along with the production music libraries. It’s something ture film, Synkhole. Xiaotian’s recent work flow of images, or you can work against that has changed over the last five or six that to create an ‘underscore’ hinting years and, speaking from a personal, includes original music for NBA, Branston, Fox, at different scenarios; the ‘action’ may professional point of view, I don’t think Destination America and National Geographic. not be telling the truth, and it is the film it’s a change for the better; it can be His music was also recently used in the inter- composer’s job to keep the audience frustrating when you spend all this time national trailers for FX Channel’s Tyrant and the abreast of these narrative shadings. writing a piece of music which will just go TV series Houdini starring Adrien Brody.

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 39 Careers

Music graduates are a lot more employable that you might think. The skills developed in the course of a Music degree are varied and extremely attractive to employers. A Music degree doesn’t tie you to a career in music, and it might just give you the edge in an increasingly competitive employment market.

94% of Cambridge Music graduates are in work or further study six months after completing their degree. This is a higher figure than for English, Maths, History, Classics and Philosophy, and more, even, than for vocational courses such as Architecture, Engineering and Computer Science.

80% of those Music graduates in employment are in a professional or managerial job.

In 2011 the Confederation for British Industry (CBI) The list below shows the wide variety of employment pinpointed seven key skills that define employability. found by recent Cambridge University Music A University of Nottingham study concluded that graduates. Music students develop all seven of these skills in the course of their studies and related musical activities; this helps explain why they are so successful in the Non-Music careers employment market. The seven skills are: • Goldman Sachs: Analyst • communication • Foreign & Commonwealth Office: Diplomat • self-management • Baker Tilly: Chartered Accountant • teamwork • Lloyds TSB: Credit Analyst • problem-solving • Self-employed: Barrister (family law) • application of IT • Procter & Gamble: Brand Manager • business and customer awareness • Barclays Capital: Analyst • application of numeracy • Department of Work and Pensions: Strategy Team Leader Additionally, Music students develop skills such as: • Church of England: Vicar • Sport England: Head of Growth • performing under pressure • University of Cambridge: Development and • planning Alumni Relations Officer • technological skills • IBM UK Limited: Publishing Specialist • critical reflection • MC2 (Manchester): PR Consultant • powers of memory and concentration • Children’s Society: Trustee • physical dexterity • MP (specializing in Human Rights and International Development) 30% of Music graduates decide to continue their • Self-employed: Conference and Exhibition studies at postgraduate level, some choosing to Producer study an area related to their first degree such as • King’s College London: Programme Director in composition or musicology, with a significant number going on to a music college or conservatoire, where Child Studies they specialize in areas such as music performance • Clon Communications: Technical Leader or conducting. Of those starting their careers, 25% (software development) become teaching or educational professionals, and • Hammersmith & Fulham Borough Council: 25% find employment in artistic, literary and media Team Support Officer occupations. Perhaps surprising, though, is the 50% • Dorling Kindersley: Editor who go on to careers in completely different fields • Naxos Audio Books: Publisher – science, IT, welfare, business, administration or • Jack Wills Graduate Scheme: Retail Manager public service.

40 Music-related careers

• North London Collegiate School: Director of Unsurprisingly, many Cambridge Music graduates go Music on to perform as soloists or conductors at the highest • EMI: Audio Restoration Engineer level. There are too many of these to list individually, • Glyndebourne: General Manager but they include: • Philharmonia Orchestra: Concerts and Tours • Sir Roger Norrington, conductor Assistant • Sir Mark Elder, conductor • Imagen: Music Producer • Sir Andrew Davis, conductor • Aldeburgh Productions: Director of Artist • Robin Ticciati, conductor Development • Thomas Adès, composer • Cheltenham College: Director of Music • George Benjamin, composer • Lichfield Festival: Festival Director • Judith Weir, composer • Opera North: Music Director • Simon Keenleyside, baritone • BBC: Radio 3 Presenter • Robert Tear, tenor • BBC: Producer • Mark Padmore, tenor • British Library: Curator of Music Collections • John Butt, organist, conductor and academic • Royal Opera House: Opera Director • Joanna MacGregor, pianist • Academy of Ancient Music: Tour Manager and • Tom Poster, pianist Administrator • David Pountney, opera and theatre director • Hazard Chase: Artist Manager • Gabrieli Consort and Players: General Manager • South Bank Centre: Artistic Programmer • Askonas Holt: Artist Manager

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 41 Meet the Staff

The Music Faculty’s ‘establishment’ is made up of lecturers with different titles – Professors, Readers, College Teaching Officers, University Teaching Officers etc. Some of the lecturers hold permanent appointments; some are in Cambridge on short-term contracts. Together, they are responsible for delivering the lectures and seminars that all Music undergraduates attend, and they cover an extraordinarily diverse range of sub-disciplines and historical areas; this exceptional reach means almost any specialism or area of interest can be accommodated. Furthermore, as much of the teaching, especially in the second and third years of the Music Tripos, is ‘research- led’, Cambridge students are exposed to cutting-edge teaching in most of the courses they take.

University Teaching Officers

Dr Sam Barrett (Pembroke) Dr Kariann Goldschmitt (Girton) Reader in Early Medieval Music Lecturer in Music Medieval Latin song; transmission of Popular music, especially from Brazil; early medieval music; jazz world music

Dr Stefano Castelvecchi (St John’s) Prof Sarah Hawkins Lecturer in Music; Director of Director of Research, Speech and Undergraduate Education Music Science 18th- and 19th-century opera; textual Human communication via speech criticism and music; perception; acoustic phonetics; phonetics Richard Causton (King’s) Reader in Composition Dr John Hopkins (Homerton) Composition; Italian contemporary Director of Practice-Based Studies music Composition; 20th- and 21st-century music Prof Nicholas Cook (Darwin) 1684 Professor of Music Prof Nicholas Marston (King’s) Multimedia; performance studies; Professor of Music Theory and music and cross-cultural interaction Analysis Theory and analysis, especially Prof Ian Cross (Wolfson) Schenkerian; Beethoven; Schumann Professor of Music and Science; Secretary of the Degree Committee Prof Susan Rankin (Emmanuel) Music and science; music cognition; Professor of Medieval Music psychoacoustics; music and Chant; early polyphony; medieval computing source studies

Dr Ruth Davis (Corpus Christi) Prof John Rink (St John’s) Reader in Ethnomusicology Professor of Musical Performance Ethnomusicology, especially the Studies Mediterranean and Middle East Performance studies; 19th-century piano music; digital musicology Dr Martin Ennis (Girton) Senior Lecturer in Music, Chairman Xiaotian Shi of the Faculty Board of Music Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Screen Analysis and history, especially of and Media Composition 19th-century German music; tonal Composing for film and TV skills; keyboard skills Dr Benjamin Walton (Jesus) Prof Iain Fenlon (King’s) Senior Lecturer in Music, Director of Professor of Historical Musicology Graduate Education European music, 1450–1650; 19th- and 20th-century opera; opera Monteverdi; codicology in South America; cultural history

Prof Marina Frolova-Walker (Clare) Professor of Music History 19th- and 20th-century Russian music; music and politics

42 Affiliated Lecturers Directors of Studies

Andrew Arthur (Trinity Hall) Directors of Studies are responsible for overseeing the studies of all English music of the Restoration undergraduates studying Music at their college(s). They arrange period; 17th- and 18th-century North supervisions (small-group teaching) in the various papers that German music students take, and they advise their pupils on everything to do with their academic progress and, often, a lot more besides. Prof Jeremy Begbie (Wolfson) Theology and the arts, especially Arrangements at individual colleges change quite frequently, as music Directors of Studies take on new responsibilities or go on academic leave. Accordingly, the list below does not represent the position at any one point in time; rather, it is intended to provide prospective Margaret Faultless (Girton and St students with a first point of contact in a given college. Should the John’s) person listed below be unavailable for whatever reason, they will Director of Performance normally pass your enquiry to someone better able to respond. Historical performance practice; performance studies Christ’s: Prof David Rowland; [email protected] Churchill: Dr Delphine Mordey; [email protected] Dr Matthew Pritchard (Jesus) Clare: Prof Marina Frolova-Walker; [email protected] 19th- and early 20th-century cultural Corpus Christi: Dr Ruth Davis; [email protected] history and philosophy of music Darwin: Dr Chloe Valenti; [email protected] (ext.) theory; aesthetics Downing: Dr Chloe Valenti; [email protected] (ext.) Emmanuel: Prof Susan Rankin; [email protected] Dr David Skinner (Sidney Sussex) Fitzwilliam: Francis Knights; [email protected] Early music research and Girton: Dr Martin Ennis; [email protected] performance Gonville and Caius: Dr Geoffrey Webber; [email protected] Homerton: Dr John Hopkins; [email protected] Hughes Hall: Dr Nigel Yandell; [email protected] Dr Jeremy Thurlow (Robinson) Jesus: Dr Benjamin Walton; [email protected] Composition; analysis King’s: Prof Nicholas Marston; [email protected] Lucy Cavendish: Dr Jeremy Thurlow; [email protected] (ext.) Magdalene: Dr Daniel Trocmé-Latter; [email protected] (ext.) Murray Edwards: Dr Chloe Valenti; [email protected] Tim Watts (St John’s) Newnham: Dr Delphine Mordey; [email protected] (ext.) Composition; analysis Pembroke: Dr Sam Barrett; [email protected] Peterhouse: Dr Jeremy Thurlow; [email protected] (ext.) Queens’: Dr Alan Howard; [email protected] (ext.) Robinson: Dr Jeremy Thurlow; [email protected] Dr Geoffrey Webber (Gonville and Selwyn: Dr Alan Howard; [email protected] Caius) Sidney Sussex: Dr David Skinner; [email protected] 17th- and 18th-century German St Catharine’s: Dr Edward Wickham; [email protected] music; church music of the English St Edmund’s: Matthew Schellhorn; [email protected] Restoration period; choral studies St John’s: Prof John Rink; [email protected] Trinity: Dr Paul Wingfield; [email protected] Dr Edward Wickham (St Catharine’s) Trinity Hall: Andrew Arthur; [email protected] 15th- and 16th-century music; history Wolfson: Dr Delphine Mordey; [email protected] (ext.) of musical notation; choral studies NB: ‘ext.’ indicates that the lecturer in question is an external Director of Studies – in other words, the lecturer’s principal base is Dr Silas Wollston in another college. English music of the Restoration period; choral music

MICHAELMAS TERM 2015 43 “Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy.” Beethoven

“Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.” Jimi Hendrix