The organ

[AdamSmith]

Many composers were indeed not skilled as conductors.

 

As a prime example there is Stravinsky, about whom I think most would agree based on aural evidence was not the best exponent of his own compositions. On the other hand Mahler, at least based on contemporary writings, was considered to be a great interpreter of his own music. In fact Mahler was mostly renowned as a conductor in both the concert hall and the opera house in his lifetime. It was only after his death that his compositions were really given the recognition that they deserved.

 

Regarding Mascagni, in his lifetime he was highly regarded as both a conductor of his own music as well as that of others. He probably thrived on his conducting since while the operas he composed after Cavalleria Rusticana were indeed popular in Italy they never reached the word-wide popularity of his first operatic success.

 

Incidentally one of the operas that Mahler conducted was Cavalleria. It would be interesting to hear how that went as that verismo potboiler is not exactly like anything Mahler ever composed. Still, it might have gone well as Mahler, who never composed an opera, was quite active as a conductor of opera.

Ach! Where was my mind the first time I read your post? You remind that Mahler effectively invented modern conducting, with its understanding of interpretation.

 

"Conducting" before which had been not much more than beating time, while the concertmaster did the real orchestra leading.

[whipped guy]

Ach! Where was my mind the first time I read your post? You remind that Mahler effectively invented modern conducting, with its understanding of interpretation.

 

"Conducting" before which had been not much more than beating time, while the concertmaster did the real orchestra leading.

For a fleeting moment did Mr. Smith actually loose his mind!!!??? Scary!!!!!

 

Mahler was also one of he first disciplinarian conductors and especially in the opera house where standards often were a bit lower.

 

Now to one of my pet peeves about the modern orchestra, which is that both the first and second violin sections are always positioned to one side.

 

It must be remembered that Mahler always placed the violins across the front of the orchestra usually to give an antiphonal effect between the first and second violin sections. He preferred the sound of an orchestra where the balance of the instruments had to penetrate a wall of violin sound. The argument against this is the the sound boards of the second violins would be facing the "wrong" direction. Interestingly the other setup was to have the first violins in a row across the stage with he second violins lined up behind them. Such was the situation in many Italian opera houses in the 19th Century. However, in such a setup the antiphonal effect would be lost, but the wall of violin sound concept would be preserved. While that was the case at La Scala way back when, last I knew they are still using the modern setup.

 

Fortunately a number of years ago the MET seperated the violin sections antiphonally and the effect as heard on their broadcasts has been eye... I mean... ear opening! Run of the mill violin passages suddenly made sense and came to life with a stereophonic ping pong effect. Last year listening to the overture to Roberto Devereux I thought that the channels of the broadcast station were reversed. However, surprise! Donizetti scored one the main themes in the overture for the second violins. That's something that is totally lost in recordings with the violins placed all on one side! Later on in the overture when that theme again appears in the seconds and is answered by the firsts. Listening to Mozart and Haydn with the violins placed antiphonally is so much more fun.

 

It is interesting to note that the current (now hopefully going out of favor) setup with the violins en masse on one side is probably a 20th Century development most likely invented by the recording industry.

[body2body]

Ach! Where was my mind the first time I read your post? You remind that Mahler effectively invented modern conducting, with its understanding of interpretation.

 

"Conducting" before which had been not much more than beating time, while the concertmaster did the real orchestra leading.

Here is Depardieu as Marin Marais " Conducting" Lully in the manner described by Mr. Smith (at about :40) from the superb film Tous les Matins du Monde.

[whipped guy]

Here is Depardieu as Marin Marais " Conducting" Lully in the manner described by Mr. Smith (at about :40) from the superb film Tous les Matins du Monde.

Of course we all know what happened to poor Lully... Death by self inflicted wound while "conducting" when he injured his foot with the "big stick" shown in the video causing an infection... OUCH! He refused to have his toe amputated and paid the ultimate price!

 

Still it was many years before a traditional baton was used. I recall reading that Louis Sphor caused a gasp from the audience when he walked on stage with a stick in his hand. That was probably around 1820 give or take. Prior to that most leaders conducted from the keyboard or the first violinist chair.

[body2body]

For a fleeting moment did Mr. Smith actually loose his mind!!!??? Scary!!!!!

 

Mahler was also one of he first disciplinarian conductors and especially in the opera house where standards often were a bit lower.

 

Now to one of my pet peeves about the modern orchestra, which is that both the first and second violin sections are always positioned to one side.

 

It must be remembered that Mahler always placed the violins across the front of the orchestra usually to give an antiphonal effect between the first and second violin sections. He preferred the sound of an orchestra where the balance of the instruments had to penetrate a wall of violin sound. The argument against this is the the sound boards of the second violins would be facing the "wrong" direction. Interestingly the other setup was to have the first violins in a row across the stage with he second violins lined up behind them. Such was the situation in many Italian opera houses in the 19th Century. However, in such a setup the antiphonal effect would be lost, but the wall of violin sound concept would be preserved. While that was the case at La Scala way back when, last I knew they are still using the modern setup.

 

Fortunately a number of years ago the MET seperated the violin sections antiphonally and the effect as heard on their broadcasts has been eye... I mean... ear opening! Run of the mill violin passages suddenly made sense and came to life with a stereophonic ping pong effect. Last year listening to the overture to Roberto Devereux I thought that the channels of the broadcast station were reversed. However, surprise! Donizetti scored one the main themes in the overture for the second violins. That's something that is totally lost in recordings with the violins placed all on one side! Later on in the overture when that theme again appears in the seconds and is answered by the firsts. Listening to Mozart and Haydn with the violins placed antiphonally is so much more fun.

 

It is interesting to note that the current (now hopefully going out of favor) setup with the violins en masse on one side is probably a 20th Century development most likely invented by the recording industry.

Bela Bartók wrote very specific instructions (including a diagram) for the placement of the instruments in his astonishing Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta ( for my money one of the best pieces written during the 20th Century). Without the proper placement the piece does not work. To hear it in the Concert Hall with the string orchestras placed properly you get to hear how skillfully Bartók employs antiphonal effects in this masterpiece.

[AdamSmith]

For a fleeting moment did Mr. Smith actually loose his mind!!!??? Scary!!!!! .

It is the case 85% of the time! I just try but do not always succeed to keep quiet during those episodes!

 

[AdamSmith]

It is the case 85% of the time! I just try but do not always succeed to keep quiet during those episodes!

 

Seriously, there are just out a couple of interesting books (whose titles and authors of course escape me at the moment ) about how great producers such as Darwin, Beethoven, etc etc knew how to manage their concentration, working at the desk only when at their peak. Couple hours in the morning for Darwin, preceded and then followed by long walks outdoors, then just two or three more hours of desk work, followed by afternoons working in his gardens and experimental hothouses.

 

Likewise Beethoven furiously composing at the piano from five a.m. to noon, fueled by that famously precise 50-bean cup of coffee upon rising. Then lunch, followed by those long afternoon walks in nature with composition notebook stuffed into the big baggy coat pocket, frequently enough getting lost in the countryside and being mistaken for a beggar and sometimes manhandled by the local gendarmarie! Ending the day with dinner at whatever tavern he found himself at, after which port and a pipe, the day's newspapers, and finally reading in the German poets and philosophers of the time. (Almost said the great poets but then there was Schiller. )

 

I will hunt those book titles and post when found.

[AdamSmith]

Not to mention Chopin and Liszt who are often presented through the prism of Rachmaninov. Such excesses often work, but it would be interesting to know if that's how it was really done.

Rereading this just now, wracking my skull to remember who was the performer on one Chopin disc I heard many years ago, where the music leapt to life precisely from being played very literally as written, severely classically austere, absolute absence of Romantic slop.

 

It was a revelation. Alas no recall who it might have been.

[AdamSmith]

Many composers were indeed not skilled as conductors.

And of course stone-deaf Ludwig van's insistence on trying to conduct the premiere of his Ninth.

 

The Venue

 

If one had to guess which venue would premiere the 9th symphony, the Theater an der Wien would be a natural decision. This is where Beethoven had premiered many of his previous works such as the 2nd symphony (April 5, 1803), 3rd symphony “Eroica” (April 7, 1805), Fidelio (November 20, 1805), Violin Concerto (December 23, 1806), 5th and 6th symphonies, Choral Fantasy, Piano Concerto No. 4 (December 2, 1808). However, the previous manager, Baron Braun, was no longer working there. The new manager was Count Palffy. Palffy loved Beethoven’s music but unfortunately Beethoven did not love Palffy. Years ago, Beethoven was giving a recital to one of his patrons and Palffy was in the audience talking to a lady with a disregard for Beethoven who stormed out and yelled, “I will not play for pigs!” (Suchet). That being said, Palffy was extremely generous when he learned about the 9th symphony possibly being premiered at his theater. He gave into Beethoven’s demands to let Beethoven himself choose the conductor (Michael Umlauf) and his friend Ignaz Schuppanzigh to lead. Palffy even offered his theater, musicians, staff as many rehearsals as he wanted at the low price of 1200 florins allowing Beethoven to keep all of the profits (Suchet). Beethoven nevertheless turned it down.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/51/TheateranDerWienJakobAlt.jpg

Theater an der Wien

 

"Ludwig van Beethoven lived in the Theater an der Wien in 1803 and 1804. Parts of his opera, the Third Symphony, and the Kreutzer Sonata were written here. Fidelio and other works received their first performance in this house."

 

When the negotiations with the Theater an der Wien fell through, Beethoven entered talks with the Theater Am Kärntnertor. Upon hearing of this, Palffy upped the ante by offering his theater for zero cost! Beethoven’s mind would not be changed. The Theater Kärntnertor would be the final decision.

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/ac/Carl_Wenzel_Zajicek_025.jpg/220px-Carl_Wenzel_Zajicek_025.jpg

Theater Kärntnertor

 

Beethoven the Conductor. Beethoven the Tyrant

 

Beethoven, by now profoundly deaf, decided to conduct this grand symphony. Beethoven who could not carry on conversations or hear the sounds of music, decided to conduct his most radical of symphonies. Something had to be done, so the concert organizers told Beethoven that Michael Umlauf (Beethoven’s friend and renowned conductor) would be on stage with Beethoven but would not interfere too much with his direction. Surprisingly, Beethoven agreed to this plan.

 

There was only time for a mere two rehearsals, the singers complained to Beethoven that he did not understand the human voice and that their parts were almost impossible. Beethoven, true to character, did not compromise on his creation. He told them to sing exactly as he written. “Karoline Unger, the contralto, threw a tantrum. To Beethoven’s face, she called him “a tyrant over all the vocal organs”, and turning to her colleagues said, “Well then, we must go on torturing ourselves in the name of God!”” (Suchet). The four soloists decided that they simply would not sing the nearly “impossible” passages, what would be the harm? Beethoven wouldn’t be able to hear them anyway, they thought.

 

The Premiere

 

The official announcement of the 9th symphony is as follows:

 

GRAND

MUSICAL CONCERT

By

HERR L. v. BEETHOVEN

Which will take place

To-morrow, May 7, 1824

In the R. I. Court Theater beside the Kärntnertor

 

First. Grand Overture

Second. Three Grand Hymns, with solo and chorus voices.

Third. Grand Symphony, with solo and chorus voices entering in the Finale on Schiller's song, To Joy.

 

The Theater Kärntnertor was full but not with the usual aristocrats and nobility who usually filled the theaters of Beethoven’s works. They had all left Vienna for vacation in their country homes, enjoying the summer weather. Even Archduke Rudolph, Beethoven’s greatest and most loyal supporter was away in Olmütz. However, Beethoven’s close group of friends was there.

 

There is some cloudiness over some of the details such as when the uproarious applause took place. Was it at the end of the symphony or at the end of the 2nd movement scherzo? Schindler and Fräulein Unger say that it took place at the end of the performance. However, the pianist who was present, Thalberg, says that it was after the Scherzo. Even the attire of what Beethoven wore that evening is a matter of debate, Alexander Thayer, the great 19th century Beethoven biographer, says that in 1860 Thalberg told him that Beethoven was “dressed in black dress coat, white neckerchief, and waistcoat, black satin small-clothes, black silk stockings, shoes with buckles. He saw after the Scherzo of the 9th symphony how Beethoven stood turning over the leaves of his score utterly deaf to the immense applause, and Unger pulled him by the sleeve, and then pointed to the audience when he turned and bowed. Umlauf told the choir and orchestra to pay no attention whatever to Beethoven’s beating of the time but all to watch him.” (Alexander Thayer, Thayer’s Life of Beethoven). However, Thalberg apparently got Beethoven’s attire description incorrect. Schindler writes that he wore a green coat, “Oh, great master, you do not own a black frock coat! The green one will have to do” (Thayer).

 

I’ll end with the novel-like portrayal of the premiere from John Suchet’s Beethoven: The Man Revealed:

 

“The audience fell silent as the mysterious opening chords sounded, a floating cloud of sound, a sound world they had not heard before, yielding to huge affirmative chords from the whole orchestra. They watched, and listened, as Beethoven flailed with his arms to the sounds in his head, and Umlauf directed the musicians who were playing as if their lives depended on it… In unison, in harmony, faultlessly, the music drives to its conclusion. Umlauf held it all perfectly together, singers, chorus and orchestra giving the performance of their lives… Unlauf brought his arms down for the final great chord. It was over. The audience erupted, rose to their feet, cheered and shouted, handkerchiefs and hats waved in the air… Beethoven, oblivious to what was happening, continued to wave his arms, conducting the orchestra he was hearing in his head. Karoline Unger, the contralto who had so berated him in rehearsal, stepped forward. She turned him to face the cheering audience. At that moment, Beethoven knew the gift he had given to the world.”

 

http://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/diesiraecx/1702-may-7th-1824-premiere.htmlv

[body2body]

Rereading this just now, wracking my skull to remember who was the performer on one Chopin disc I heard many years ago, where the music leapt to life precisely from being played very literally as written, severely classically austere, absolute absence of Romantic slop.

 

It was a revelation. Alas no recall who it might have been.

Maybe Pollini? I adore his Chopin recordings, while my best friend calls his performances cold and lacking in " artistic interpretation".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWDi_ylvBcc

[AdamSmith]

Maybe Pollini? I adore his Chopin recordings, while my best friend calls his performances cold and lacking in " artistic interpretation".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWDi_ylvBcc

Thank you beyond saying! That mode of performance seems to my ear beyond perfect for letting out everything Chopin packed into his compositions.

 

Indeed it makes the usual moonlight-laden syrupy manhandlings seem downright brainless.

 

In fact it strikes me as very similar to my god Chapuis' approach to organ Bach.

[AdamSmith]

Katchen's Diabelli. Some have criticized the performance for "lack of surprise" but I quite like it.

 

One more thing I love is Katchen's sympathetic, caring rendition of poor dear old Diabelli's much abused "patch." He treats it tenderly and with respect and affection.

 

Every other performer I've heard at best tosses it around as a beanbag, at worst treats it like a hockey puck, acting out their aggressions on the poor thing.

[body2body]

Here is another example of Pollini's adherence to the score. The Nocturne no.8, here in Pollini's hands runs around 4:30. The esteemed master Claudio Arrau takes over 6 minutes to traverse the same score. Pollini is just about the only pianist who plays it at the tempo indicated by Chopin in the score (50 bpm in half measure). Again, my friend (an accomplished pianist and music arranger) says it is too fast, and Pollini should look beyond what the composer wrote.

I prefer it sans the additional perfume and languorous pauses.

[whipped guy]

Pollini is always accused of lacking emotion... or to phrase it another way he never gets excessively emotional... He sticks to the facts. It is interesting to note that he has conducted as well... mostly Mozart concerti where he directed from the keyboard. In that regard he always reminded me as the pianist version of Claudio Abbado with whom he has collaborated.

 

He made a foray into conducting opera in 1981 when he came across the score of Rossini's La Donna del Lago and fell in love with it, but said it would be a one time deal. However, he was convinced to do a revival in 1983 and the piece was recorded in association with those performances. He was likewise accused of being cool and overly literal with his come scritto approach, but it all worked as classicism was indeed the basis of the piece even though it is considered to be the beginning of romanticism in Italian opera. It was too bad that he did not have a better singer in the title role for the recording, but even though it has been surpassed by newer versions it has held up reasonable well. Along those lines, Bel Canto opera was the basis for Chopin. Indeed the aria that opens Act Two of La Donna del Lago has the feel of a Chopin nocturn years before the fact. In that regard Pollini was consistent in his approach!

[AdamSmith]

The estimed master Claudio Arrau takes over 6 minutes to traverse the same score.

THANK YOU again! Adulation of Arrau has ever been a mystery to me. Technically accomplished, but with zero discernable aesthetic. Where are ze ideas?

[AdamSmith]

Here is another example of Pollini's adherence to the score. The Nocturne no.8, here in Pollini's hands runs around 4:30. The esteemed master Claudio Arrau takes over 6 minutes to traverse the same score. Pollini is just about the only pianist who plays it at the tempo indicated by Chopin in the score (50 bpm in half measure). Again, my friend (an accomplished pianist and music arranger) says it is too fast, and Pollini should look beyond what the composer wrote.

I prefer it sans the additional perfume and languorous pauses.

After several listenings: this performance mode and understanding are just beyond extraordinary.

 

It makes crystal clear the aesthetic and emotional and above all intellectual genius of Chopin.

 

This makes so evident what an entire miscomprehension of C. has been foisted on the world through wrong performance.

[whipped guy]

Chopin's dates are 1810-1849. He never made it into the second half of the 19th Century. Yet his music is often performed as if it were totally influenced by Wagner's Tristan, which was composed a decade after his death. Add that his music has been since been seen through the prism of even later romantics and that is the reason for many of the distortions. Chopin was a composer of his times and his experiences. He was influenced by all sorts of Polish music both academic and rustic. His pianistic melodies were also a product the influences of contemporary Italian operas such as those by Bellini, not to mention the flights of pianistic fioritura also a characteristic of Italian opera during the first half of the 19th Century. While the romantic era was indeed begining to blossom, and Chopin's harmonic colorings became increasingly more complex and innovative, those two influences hardly would bring one to perform Chopin in a very late romantic manner.

 

I came to that conclusion many years ago and in a very strange way. I was with a very highly accomplished pianist who was practicing a Chopin piece. I don't even recall the composition, but he was having difficulty performing a series of trills. They seemed to make no sence as notated and were coming out sounding clumsy and totally out of place in the scheme of things. Having always been interested in historically informed performance even before it was in fashion, I noted that if the trills were performed in an 18th Century manner with the trill begining on the upper note it would do two things. First, it would make the passage less awkward to play and the emphasis on the upper note would emphasize a dissonance that would add character to the passage. It did not dawn on me at the moment, but I later reflected on the thought that all of Chopin's teachers had to be children of the previous century and as such had to have a certain influence on his compositions. Now I am not saying that his music should be performed as if it were by Papa Haydn, but the influence of Haydn etc. which after all was the revered classical music of Chopin's day, or even a rebellion against a Haydn would be closer to the mark than performing him as if it were by Rachmaninov. What is interesting is that the late romantic approach often works. Yes, it works for us because we have experienced verismo opera. However, Chopin never had the opportunity to do so and Bellini is not Puccini or Giordano.

 

Incidentally that pianist subsequently got a masters and a doctorate in music. As for myself, I went for the wrong type of degree. Unfortunately I lacked the requisite talent in this lifetime to pull things off. With any luck I'll get things right in the next lifetime.

[whipped guy]

Chopin's dates are 1810-1849. He never made it into the second half of the 19th Century. Yet his music is often performed as if it were totally influenced by Wagner's Tristan, which was composed a decade after his death. Add that his music has been since been seen through the prism of even later romantics and that is the reason for many of the distortions. Chopin was a composer of his times and his experiences. He was influenced by all sorts of Polish music both academic and rustic. His pianistic melodies were also a product the influences of contemporary Italian operas such as those by Bellini, not to mention the flights of pianistic fioritura also a characteristic of Italian opera during the first half of the 19th Century. While the romantic era was indeed begining to blossom, and Chopin's harmonic colorings became increasingly more complex and innovative, those two influences hardly would bring one to perform Chopin in a very late romantic manner.

 

I came to that conclusion many years ago and in a very strange way. I was with a very highly accomplished pianist who was practicing a Chopin piece. I don't even recall the composition, but he was having difficulty performing a series of trills. They seemed to make no sence as notated and were coming out sounding clumsy and totally out of place in the scheme of things. Having always been interested in historically informed performance even before it was in fashion, I noted that if the trills were performed in an 18th Century manner with the trill begining on the upper note it would do two things. First, it would make the passage less awkward to play and the emphasis on the upper note would emphasize a dissonance that would add character to the passage. It did not dawn on me at the moment, but I later reflected on the thought that all of Chopin's teachers had to be children of the previous century and as such had to have a certain influence on his compositions. Now I am not saying that his music should be performed as if it were by Papa Haydn, but the influence of Haydn etc. which after all was the revered classical music of Chopin's day, or even a rebellion against a Haydn would be closer to the mark than performing him as if it were by Rachmaninov. What is interesting is that the late romantic approach often works. Yes, it works for us because we have experienced verismo opera. However, Chopin never had the opportunity to do so and Bellini is not Puccini or Giordano.

 

Incidentally that pianist subsequently got a masters and a doctorate in music. As for myself, I went for the wrong type of degree. Unfortunately I lacked the requisite talent in this lifetime to pull things off. With any luck I'll get things right in the next lifetime.

[whipped guy]

One more comment regarding Chopin. It must be remembered that unlike other virtuoso musicians, Chopin was not a great showman. He actually gave very few concerts during his lifetime. He most often performed in salons for small groups of guests or in his own home. As such understatement most likely would be the best way to describe him as a performer. In that regard he was the exact opposite of the flamboyant Franz Liszt. It must also be remembered that Liszt lived much longer and had quite a few Wagnerian connections... and not all of them were of the musical variety. In any event his compositions definitely were influenced by more romantic gestures.

 

Getting back to Chopin and Pollini. Italians always exhibited a cooler less flamboyant romanticism... just compare Verdi to Wagner to get the basic idea. It can even be argued that the music of Puccini, Mascagni, and other Verismo composers still had its basis in early romantic roots and for all of its excesses was still quite reserved compared to its Russian, German, and even French counterparts. Just compare the orchestration of Semiramide (1823), Aïda (1871), and Turandot (1926) to see a certain basic consistency that lasted for 100 years with a clean, transparent, bright sounding orchestral pallate that has the bass drum at the bottom and the piccolo at the top. It is all a more restrained and conservative vision of romanticism. In that sense Pollini follows in the Italian tradition and as such could be argued as the perfect Chopin interpreter, or too put things as @body2body states it " sans the additional perfume" and as @AdamSmith references it without "the syurpy manhandlings".

[whipped guy]

One more comment regarding Chopin. It must be remembered that unlike other virtuoso musicians, Chopin was not a great showman. He actually gave very few concerts during his lifetime. He most often performed in salons for small groups of guests or in his own home. As such understatement most likely would be the best way to describe him as a performer. In that regard he was the exact opposite of the flamboyant Franz Liszt. It must also be remembered that Liszt lived much longer and had quite a few Wagnerian connections... and not all of them were of the musical variety. In any event his compositions definitely were influenced by more romantic gestures.

 

Getting back to Chopin and Pollini. Italians always exhibited a cooler less flamboyant romanticism... just compare Verdi to Wagner to get the basic idea. It can even be argued that the music of Puccini, Mascagni, and other Verismo composers still had its basis in early romantic roots and for all of its excesses was still quite reserved compared to its Russian, German, and even French counterparts. Just compare the orchestration of Semiramide (1823), Aïda (1871), and Turandot (1926) to see a certain basic consistency that lasted for 100 years with a clean, transparent, bright sounding orchestral pallate that has the bass drum at the bottom and the piccolo at the top. It is all a more restrained and conservative vision of romanticism. In that sense Pollini follows in the Italian tradition and as such could be argued as the perfect Chopin interpreter, or too put things as @body2body states it " sans the additional perfume" and as @AdamSmith references it without "the syurpy manhandlings".

[AdamSmith]

Another example of How to Do It.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmAPizn8MYs

 

The Madeleine main instrument, directed here by the beyond-divine Jeanne Demessieux. Her severe classicism and clarity in handling Franck is the definitive mode and sets the standard for all time, for my money. His music blazes forth and torches the ear and mind like only a very few others, when unencumbered by a performer's failings and diminutions.

 

Fairly immediately obvious which machine this is, to any who have made on-the-ground inspections to know the individual sound of the various great Cavaille-Coll organs. They are simply up there among the greatest productions of the hand of man.

 

To go up into the lofts and simply look and hear -- not dare touch -- have been among the highlights of a lifetime!

 

As noted before, this piece is a mess in almost any contemporary's hands other than the quite marvelous Michael Murray, here on C-C's St. Sernin masterpiece.

 

[AdamSmith]

I will hunt those book titles and post when found.

Aha!

 

Darwin Was a Slacker and You Should Be Too

Many famous scientists have something in common—they didn’t work long hours.

 

Figures as different as Charles Dickens, Henri Poincaré, and Ingmar Bergman, working in disparate fields in different times, all shared a passion for their work, a terrific ambition to succeed, and an almost superhuman capacity to focus. Yet when you look closely at their daily lives, they only spent a few hours a day doing what we would recognize as their most important work. The rest of the time, they were hiking mountains, taking naps, going on walks with friends, or just sitting and thinking. Their creativity and productivity, in other words, were not the result of endless hours of toil. Their towering creative achievements result from modest “working” hours.

 

How did they manage to be so accomplished? Can a generation raised to believe that 80-hour workweeks are necessary for success learn something from the lives of the people who laid the foundations of chaos theory and topology or wrote Great Expectations?

 

I think we can. If some of history’s greatest figures didn’t put in immensely long hours, maybe the key to unlocking the secret of their creativity lies in understanding not just how they labored but how they rested, and how the two relate.

 

Let’s start by looking at the lives of two figures. They were both very accomplished in their fields. Conveniently, they were next-door neighbors and friends who lived in the village of Downe, southeast of London. And, in different ways, their lives offer an entrée into the question of how labor, rest, and creativity connect.

 

First, imagine a silent, cloaked figure walking home on a dirt path winding through the countryside. On some mornings he walks with his head down, apparently lost in thought. On others he walks slowly and stops to listen to the woods around him, a habit “which he practiced in the tropical forests of Brazil” during his service as a naturalist in the Royal Navy, collecting animals, studying the geography and geology of South America, and laying the foundations for a career that would reach its peak with the publication of The Origin of Species in 1859. Now, Charles Darwin is older and has turned from collecting to theorizing. Darwin’s ability to move silently reflects his own concentration and need for quiet. Indeed, his son Francis said, Darwin could move so stealthily he once came upon “a vixen playing with her cubs at only a few feet distance” and often greeted foxes coming home from their nocturnal hunts.

 

Had those same foxes crossed paths with Darwin’s next-door neighbor, the baronet John Lubbock, they would have run for their lives. Lubbock liked to start the day with a ride through the country with his hunting dogs. If Darwin was a bit like Mr. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, a respectable gentleman of moderate means who was polite and conscientious but preferred the company of family and books, Lubbock was more like Mr. Bingley, extroverted and enthusiastic, and wealthy enough to move easily in society and life. As he aged, Darwin was plagued by various ailments; even in his 60s, Lubbock still had “the lounging grace of manner which is peculiar to the Sixth-Form Eton boy,” according to one visitor. But the neighbors shared a love of science, even though their working lives were as different as their personalities.

 

After his morning walk and breakfast, Darwin was in his study by 8 and worked a steady hour and a half. At 9:30 he would read the morning mail and write letters. At 10:30, Darwin returned to more serious work, sometimes moving to his aviary, greenhouse, or one of several other buildings where he conducted his experiments. By noon, he would declare, “I’ve done a good day’s work,” and set out on a long walk on the Sandwalk, a path he had laid out not long after buying Down House. (Part of the Sandwalk ran through land leased to Darwin by the Lubbock family.) When he returned after an hour or more, Darwin had lunch and answered more letters. At 3 he would retire for a nap; an hour later he would arise, take another walk around the Sandwalk, then return to his study until 5:30, when he would join his wife, Emma, and their family for dinner. On this schedule he wrote 19 books, including technical volumes on climbing plants, barnacles, and other subjects; the controversial Descent of Man; and The Origin of Species, probably the single most famous book in the history of science, and a book that still affects the way we think about nature and ourselves.

 

Anyone who reviews his schedule cannot help but notice the creator’s paradox. Darwin’s life revolved around science. Since his undergraduate days, Darwin had devoted himself to scientific collecting, exploration, and eventually theorizing. He and Emma moved to the country from London to have more space to raise a family and to have more space—in more than one sense of the word—for science. Down House gave him space for laboratories and greenhouses, and the countryside gave him the peace and quiet necessary to work. But at the same time, his days don’t seem very busy to us. The times we would classify as “work” consist of three 90-minute periods. If he had been a professor in a university today, he would have been denied tenure. If he’d been working in a company, he would have been fired within a week.

 

It’s not that Darwin was careless about his time or lacked ambition. Darwin was intensely time-conscious and, despite being a gentleman of means, felt that he had none to waste. While sailing around the world on the HMS Beagle, he wrote to his sister Susan Elizabeth that “a man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” When he was deciding whether or not to marry, one of his concerns was that “loss of time—cannot read in the evenings,” and in his journals he kept an account of the time he lost to chronic illness. His “pure love” of science was “much aided by the ambition to be esteemed by my fellow naturalists,” he confessed in his autobiography. He was passionate and driven, so much so that he was given to anxiety attacks over his ideas and their implications...

 

Cont.: http://nautil.us/issue/46/balance/darwin-was-a-slacker-and-you-should-be-too

[AdamSmith]

John Lubbock is far less well-known than Darwin, but at the time of his death in 1913 he was “one of the most accomplished of England’s amateur men of science, one of the most prolific and successful authors of his time, one of the most earnest of social reformers, and one of the most successful lawmakers in the recent history of Parliament.” Lubbock’s scientific interests ranged across paleontology, animal psychology, and entomology—he invented the ant farm—but his most enduring work was in archaeology. His writings popularized the terms Paleolithic and Neolithic, which archaeologists still use today. His purchase of Avebury, an ancient settlement southwest of London, saved its stone monuments from destruction by developers. Today, it rivals Stonehenge in popularity and archaeological importance, and its preservation earned him the title Baron Avebury in 1900.

 

Lubbock’s accomplishments were not just in science. He inherited his father’s prosperous bank and turned it into a power in late Victorian finance. He helped modernize the British banking system. He spent decades in Parliament, where he was a successful and well-regarded legislator. His biography lists 29 books, a number of them best sellers that were translated into many foreign languages. Lubbock’s output was prodigious, notable even to his high-achieving contemporaries. “How you find time” for science, writing, politics, and business “is a mystery to me,” Charles Darwin told him in 1881.

 

Scientists who spent 25 hours in the workplace were no more productive than those who spent five.

 

It might be tempting to imagine Lubbock as a modern equivalent of today’s hard-charging alpha male, a kind of steampunk Tony Stark. Yet here’s a twist: His fame as a politician rested on an advocacy of rest. Britain’s bank holidays—four national holidays for everyone—were his invention, and they sealed his popular reputation when they went into effect in 1871. So beloved were they, and so closely associated with him, the popular press christened them “St. Lubbock’s Days.” He spent decades championing the Early Closing Bill, which limited working hours for people under 18 to 74 hours (!) per week; when the legislation finally passed in April 1903, 30 years after he first took up the cause, it was referred to as “Avebury’s Bill.”

 

And Lubbock practiced what he preached. It could be hard to manage his time when Parliament was in session, as debates and votes could extend well after midnight, but at High Elms he was up at 6:30, and after prayers, a ride, and breakfast, he started work at 8:30. He divided his day into half-hour blocks, a habit he’d learned from his father. After long years of practice, he was able to switch his attention from “some intricate point of finance” with his partners or clients to “such a problem in biology as parthenogenesis” without skipping a beat. In the afternoons he would spend a couple more hours outdoors. He was an enthusiastic cricketer, “a fast, left under-hand bowler” who regularly brought professional players to High Elms to coach him. His younger brothers played football; two of them played in the very first FA Cup finals in 1872. He was also fond of fives, a handball-like sport that he mastered at Eton. Later in life, when he took up golf, Lubbock replaced the cricket pitch at High Elms with a nine-hole course.

 

So despite their differences in personality and the different quality of their achievements, both Darwin and Lubbock managed something that seems increasingly alien today. Their lives were full and memorable, their work was prodigious, and yet their days are also filled with downtime.

 

This looks like a contradiction, or a balance that’s beyond the reach of most of us. It’s not. As we will see, Darwin and Lubbock, and many other creative and productive figures, weren’t accomplished despite their leisure; they were accomplished because of it. And even in today’s 24/7, always-on world, we can learn how to blend work and rest together in ways that make us smarter, more creative, and happier.

 

http://static.nautil.us/12021_49ca03822497d26a3943d5084ed59130.jpg

[AdamSmith]

Darwin is not the only famous scientist who combined a lifelong dedication to science with apparently short working hours. We can see similar patterns in many others’ careers, and it’s worth starting with the lives of scientists for several reasons. Science is a competitive, all-consuming enterprise. Scientists’ accomplishments—the number of articles and books they write, the awards they win, the rate at which their works are cited—are well-documented and easy to measure and compare. As a result, their legacies are often easier to determine than those of business leaders or famous figures. At the same time, scientific disciplines are quite different from each other, which gives us a useful variety in working habits and personalities. Additionally, most scientists have not been subjected to the kind of intense myth making that surrounds, and alternately magnifies and obscures, business leaders and politicians.

 

Finally, a number of scientists were themselves interested in the ways work and rest affect thinking and contribute to inspiration. One example is Henri Poincaré, the French mathematician whose public eminence and accomplishments placed him on a level similar to Darwin. Poincaré’s 30 books and 500 papers spanned number theory, topology, astronomy and celestial mechanics, theoretical and applied physics, and philosophy; the American mathematician Eric Temple Bell described him as “the last universalist.” He was involved in efforts to standardize time zones, supervised railway development in northern France (he was educated as a mining engineer), served as inspector general of the Corps des Mines, and was a professor at the Sorbonne.

 

Poincaré wasn’t just famous among his fellow scientists: In 1895 he was, along with the novelist Émile Zola, sculptors Auguste Rodin and Jules Dalou, and composer Camille Saint-Saëns, the subject of a study by French psychiatrist Édouard Toulouse on the psychology of genius. Toulouse noted that Poincaré kept very regular hours. He did his hardest thinking between 10 a.m. and noon, and again between 5 and 7 in the afternoon. The 19th century’s most towering mathematical genius worked just enough to get his mind around a problem—about four hours a day.

 

The 60-plus-hour-a-week researchers were the least productive of all.

 

We see the same pattern among other noted mathematicians. G.H. Hardy, one of Britain’s leading mathematicians in the first half of the 20th century, would start his day with a leisurely breakfast and close reading of the cricket scores, then from 9 to 1 would be immersed in mathematics. After lunch he would be out again, walking and playing tennis. “Four hours creative work a day is about the limit for a mathematician,” he told his friend and fellow Oxford professor C.P. Snow. Hardy’s longtime collaborator John Edensor Littlewood believed that the “close concentration” required to do serious work meant that a mathematician could work “four hours a day or at most five, with breaks about every hour (for walks perhaps).” Littlewood was famous for always taking Sundays off, claiming that it guaranteed he would have new ideas when he returned to work on Monday.

 

A survey of scientists’ working lives conducted in the early 1950s yielded results in a similar range. Illinois Institute of Technology psychology professors Raymond Van Zelst and Willard Kerr surveyed their colleagues about their work habits and schedules, then graphed the number of hours faculty spent in the office against the number of articles they produced. You might expect that the result would be a straight line showing that the more hours scientists worked, the more articles they published. But it wasn’t. The data revealed an M-shaped curve. The curve rose steeply at first and peaked at between 10 to 20 hours per week. The curve then turned downward. Scientists who spent 25 hours in the workplace were no more productive than those who spent five. Scientists working 35 hours a week were half as productive as their 20-hours-a-week colleagues.

 

From there, the curve rose again, but more modestly. Researchers who buckled down and spent 50 hours per week in the lab were able to pull themselves out of the 35-hour valley: They became as productive as colleagues who spent five hours a week in the lab. Van Zelst and Kerr speculated that this 50-hour bump was concentrated in “physical research which requires continuous use of bulky equipment,” and that most of those 10-hour days were spent tending machines and occasionally taking measurements.

 

After that, it was all downhill: The 60-plus-hour-a-week researchers were the least productive of all.

 

Van Zelst and Kerr also asked faculty how many “hours per typical work day do you devote to homework which contributes to the efficient performance of your job” and graphed those results against productivity as well. This time, they didn’t see an M but rather a single curve peaking around three to three and a half hours a day. Unfortunately, they don’t say anything about total hours spent working at the office and home; they only allude to “the probability that” the most productive researchers “do much of their creative work at home or elsewhere,” rather than on campus. If you assume that the most productive office and home workers in this study are the same, this cohort is working between 25 and 38 hours a week. In a six-day week, that works out to an average of four to six hours a day.

 

You see a similar convergence of four- to five-hour-long working days in the lives of writers. The German writer and Nobel laureate Thomas Mann had settled into a daily work schedule by 1910, when he was 35 and had published the acclaimed novel Buddenbrooks. Mann started the day at 9, shutting himself in his office with strict instructions not to be disturbed and working first on novels. After lunch, the “afternoons are for reading, for my much too mountainous correspondence and for walks,” he said. After an hour-long nap and afternoon tea, he would spend another hour or two working on easy short pieces and editing.

 

Anthony Trollope, the great 19th-century English novelist, likewise kept a strict writing schedule. In an account of his life at Waltham House, where he lived from 1859 to 1871, he described his mature working style. At 5 o’clock in the morning, a servant arrived with coffee. He first read over the previous day’s work, then at 5:30 set his watch on his desk and started writing. He wrote 1,000 words an hour, an average of 40 finished pages a week, until it was time to leave for his day job at the post office at 8 o’clock. Working this way, he published 47 novels before his death in 1882 at the age of 67, though he gave little indication that he regarded this as remarkable, perhaps because his mother, who started writing in her 50s to support her family, published more than 100 books. He wrote, “All those I think who have lived as literary men,—working daily as literary laborers—will agree with me that three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write.”

 

Trollope’s steady working hours were matched by his contemporary Charles Dickens. After an early life burning the midnight oil, Dickens settled into a schedule as “methodical or orderly” as a “city clerk,” his son Charley said. Dickens shut himself in his study from 9 until 2, with a break for lunch. Most of his novels were serialized in magazines, and Dickens was rarely more than a chapter or two ahead of the illustrators and printer. Nonetheless, after five hours, Dickens was done for the day.

[AdamSmith]

While this kind of discipline might seem to be an expression of Victorian strictness, many prolific 20th-century authors worked this way, too. Like Trollope, Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz worked as a civil servant, and he mainly wrote fiction in the late afternoon, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Canadian writer Alice Munro, who won the 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature, wrote from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Australian novelist Peter Carey said, “I think three hours is fine” for a day’s work; such a schedule allowed him to write 13 novels, including two Booker Prize winners. W. Somerset Maugham worked “only four hours” a day, until 1 p.m.—“but never less,” he added. Gabriel García Márquez wrote each day for five hours. Ernest Hemingway would start work about 6 in the morning and finish before noon. Unless deadlines were looming, Saul Bellow would retreat to his study after breakfast, write until lunch, and then review his day’s work. Irish novelist Edna O’Brien would work in the morning, “stop around one or two and spend the rest of the afternoon attending to mundane things.” Stephen King describes four to six hours of reading and writing as a “strenuous” day.

 

Karl Anders Ericsson, Ralf Krampe, and Clemens Tesch-Römer saw a similar pattern in a study of violin students at a conservatory in Berlin in the 1980s. Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch-Römer were interested in what sets outstanding students apart from merely good ones. After interviewing music students and their teachers and having students keep track of their time, they found that several things separated the best students from the rest.

 

First, the great students didn’t just practice more than the average, they practiced more deliberately. During deliberate practice, Ericsson explained, you’re “engaging with full concentration in a special activity to improve one’s performance.” You’re not just doing reps, lobbing balls, or playing scales. Deliberate practice is focused, structured, and offers clear goals and feedback; it requires paying attention to what you’re doing and observing how you can improve. Students can engage in deliberate practice when they have a clear route to greatness, defined by a shared understanding of what separates brilliant work from good work, or winners from losers. Endeavors where one can have the fastest time, the highest score, or the most elegant solution are ones that allow for deliberate practice.

 

Second, you need a reason to keep at it, day after day. Deliberate practice isn’t a lot of fun, and it’s not immediately profitable. It means being in the pool before sunrise, working on your swing or stride when you could be hanging out with friends, practicing fingering or breathing in a windowless room, spending hours perfecting details that only a few other people will ever notice. There’s little that’s inherently or immediately pleasurable in deliberate practice, so you need a strong sense that these long hours will pay off, and that you’re not just improving your career prospects but also crafting a professional and personal identity. You don’t just do it for the fat stacks. You do it because it reinforces your sense of who you are and who you will become.

 

The idea of deliberate practice and Ericsson et al.’s measurements of the total amount of time world-class performers spend practicing have received a lot of attention. The study is a foundation for Malcolm Gladwell’s argument (laid out most fully in his book Outliers) that 10,000 hours of practice are necessary to become world-class in anything, and that everyone from chess legend Bobby Fischer to Microsoft founder Bill Gates to the Beatles put in their 10,000 hours before anyone heard of them. For coaches, music teachers, and ambitious parents, the number promises a golden road to the NFL or Juilliard or MIT: Just start them young, keep them busy, and don’t let them give up. In a culture that treats stress and overwork as virtues rather than vices, 10,000 hours is an impressively big number.

 

But there was something else that Ericsson and his colleagues noted in their study, something that almost everyone has subsequently overlooked. “Deliberate practice,” they observed, “is an effortful activity that can be sustained only for a limited time each day.” Practice too little and you never become world-class. Practice too much, though, and you increase the odds of being struck down by injury, draining yourself mentally, or burning out. To succeed, students must “avoid exhaustion” and “limit practice to an amount from which they can completely recover on a daily or weekly basis.”

 

The best students generally followed a pattern of practicing hardest and longest in the morning, taking a nap in the afternoon, and then having a second practice.

 

How do students marked for greatness make the most of limited practice time? The rhythm of their practice follows a distinctive pattern. They put in more hours per week in the practice room or playing field, but they don’t do it by making each practice longer. Instead, they have more frequent, shorter sessions, each lasting about 80 to 90 minutes, with half-hour breaks in between.

 

Add these several practices up, and what do you get? About four hours a day. About the same amount of time Darwin spent every day doing his hardest work, Hardy and Littlewood spent doing math, Dickens and King spent writing. Even ambitious young students in one of the world’s best schools, preparing for an notoriously competitive field, could handle only four hours of really focused, serious effort per day.

 

This upper limit, Ericsson concluded, is defined “not by available time, but by available [mental and physical] resources for effortful practice.” The students weren’t just practicing four hours and calling it a day; lectures, rehearsals, homework, and other things kept them busy the rest of the day. In interviews, the students said “it was primarily their ability to sustain the concentration necessary for deliberate practice that limited their hours of practice.” This is why it takes a decade to get Gladwell’s 10,000 hours: if you can only sustain that level of concentrated practice for four hours a day, that works out to 20 hours a week (assuming weekends off), or 1,000 hours a year (assuming a two-week vacation).

 

It’s not just the lives of musicians that illustrate the importance of deliberate practice. Ray Bradbury began writing seriously in 1932 and wrote 1,000 words a day. “For ten years I wrote at least one short story a week,” he recalled, but they never quite came together. Finally, in 1942, he wrote “The Lake.” Years later he still remembered the moment.

 

“Ten years of doing everything wrong suddenly became the right idea, the right scene, the right characters, the right day, the right creative time. I wrote the story sitting outside, with my typewriter, on the lawn. At the end of an hour the story was finished, the hair on the back of my neck was standing up, and I was in tears. I knew I had written the first really good story of my life.”

 

Ericsson and his colleagues observed another thing, in addition to practicing more, that separated the great students at the Berlin Conservatory from the good, something that has almost been completely ignored since: how they rested.

 

The top performers actually slept about an hour a day more than the average performers. They didn’t sleep late. They got more sleep because they napped during the day. Of course there was lots of variability, but the best students generally followed a pattern of practicing hardest and longest in the morning, taking a nap in the afternoon, and then having a second practice in the late afternoon or evening.

 

The researchers also asked students to estimate the amount of time they spent practicing, studying, and so on, and then had them keep a diary for a week. When they compared results from interviews and diaries, they noticed a curious anomaly in the data.

 

The merely good violinists tended to underestimate the amount of time they spent in leisure activities: they guessed they spent about 15 hours a week, when in reality they spent almost twice that. The best violinists, in contrast, could “estimate quite accurately the time they allocated to leisure,” about 25 hours. The best performers devoted more energy to organizing their time, thinking about how they would spend their time, and assessing what they did.

 

In other words, the top students were applying some of the habits of deliberate practice—mindfulness, an ability to observe their own performance, a sense that their time was valuable and needed to be spent wisely—to their downtime. They were discovering the immense value of deliberate rest. They figured out early that rest is important, that some of our most creative work happens when we take the kinds of breaks that allow our unconscious minds to keep plugging away, and that we can learn how to rest better. In the conservatory, deliberate rest is the partner of deliberate practice. It is in the studio and laboratory and publishing house, too. As Dickens and Poincaré and Darwin discovered, each is necessary. Each is half of a creative life. Together they form a whole.