Schubert, Bach or Gounod? - PHH 025

Welcome to Practicing Harp Happiness, the Harp Mastery Podcast. My name is Ann Sullivan and I'm a harpist, teacher, and founder of Harp Mastery. I'm all about creating more harp happiness in the world by helping harp players like you play the music they want the way they want. But as a harpist who nearly flunked out of one of the most prestigious music schools in the world, I, although later not only graduated, but I went on to teach there. I know from personal experience that learning the harp is way harder than it looks. Here, each week on the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast, I show you how to solve the challenges of practicing and playing the harp. Whether it's about making your fingers behave or learning music faster, or getting your piece's performance ready, or just learning to enjoy your playing every day. Sounds great, doesn't it? Let's get started.

Welcome to the show. Today's show is all about the Ave Maria. Or maybe I should say the Ave Maria, because there are many settings of this prayer, two of which are on the most requested list of every wedding harpist. Now, I remember being a young harpist playing weddings, and a bride would call me to go over the music for her wedding and we'd get to the end of the conversation and then she'd say, oh yes, and my mother wants you to play the Ave Maria. Well, after a few weddings, I knew enough to say which one. And after a somewhat awkward silence, the the bride would usually say, let me check. And of course then you know, the Sometimes the mother would know which one she wanted. Sometimes they'd have to listen to me play both so that she would decide. It's a lot easier now, of course, in the Internet age because you can just share links, but we often get requests for the Ave Maria and it's important to know which versions that we play. It's especially important for Christmas because the Ave Maria often comes up for Christmas Eve services. So I thought this would be the perfect time to share some of the backstory of each of the two most common versions that we play. I'd also love to talk a little bit about the similarities and there are a number and the differences between the versions, and we can go over some of the playing issues for each the hands together coordination, the the working of the accompaniment versus the melody. And I do mean versus, because sometimes they're at odds with each other. And I want to share some practice tips whether you're playing the piece as a soloist or accompanying a singer. So there's lots to talk about. But before we get to that, I Want to give a quick shout out to of our podcast listeners, Nell, who emailed me with a wonderful harp happiness story that I wanted to share with you. Now, this was in response to the podcast episode number 23, which was called Practice it or Personalize it, how to know if a piece is really too hard for you. And Nell sent me this lovely email and I was so excited I just had to share it. She wrote, thank you. Thank you for the wonderful podcast. You gave me permission to leave out some notes that are preventing me from being able to play a difficult harp part with a community orchestra at Christmas. I don't even think anyone will notice, but I've been slaving away trying to get it as written. Thank you. My practice changes today. And that's in capital letters with an exclamation point. Well, congratulations, Nell, on taking action on what you heard on the podcast, for sure, but also for just being the kind of harpist to get in there and get it done and not get stuck in the weeds. To having the courage to take my permission. Right, and to personalize the piece so that you can play it and can enjoy playing it. So great job, Nell, and thank you so much for taking the time to email me. I so appreciate it. I'd love to have any of our listeners, and that includes you, share those harp happiness stories with me as well. And you can email me@podcastarpmastery.com that address will will let me know that you were responding to something you heard on a podcast or maybe you have suggestions for a future topic. So once again, that's podcastarpmastery.com and I'd be happy to share your harp happiness story with the other listeners too. We can all use a good dose of harp happiness any day. So thanks again, Nell, and let's get on with today's topic.

Now, I've been talking about the Ave Maria as if it's a piece of music, but of course, really the Ave Maria is a prayer. Ave Maria translates as Hail Mary, and it is a Christian prayer that is a prayer to Mary, the mother of Jesus, and it's both in praise of her and as a petition to her to ask her to pray for the person who's praying the Ave Maria. So it's a devotion that has been part of Christian worship since at least the 11th century, if not before. And of course, it's had some additions and modifications through the centuries, but it is regularly used in Catholic worship and used in worship of other Christian denominations as well. So it's the words that make it an Ave Maria. And there have been countless musical settings, early settings by Renaissance composers, Mozart, lots and lots of people that, you know, we don't necessarily think of as the Ave Maria composers. The ones we most commonly think of are the Ave Maria in the setting by Schubert, Franz Schubert, and the one that is music by Bach with a melody by Charlguno. Now, we're going to talk about each of those a little bit more specifically, but I just wanted to take one second to point out that what's interesting about those two versions is that neither one of them is a complete or exactly accurate version of the traditional Ave Maria prayer. The Schubert words were nothing like the Ave Maria. They come from a poem by Sir Walter Scott. And the Gounod melody leaves out the words Mother of God, which is traditional in the prayer. So just a couple little interesting factoids there before we dig into the weeds. But let's talk a little bit more right now about the Schubert Ave Maria. Now, Schubert's Ave Maria is actually one of a set of seven songs that Schubert composed to lyrics from the narrative poem by Sir Walter Scott, the Lady of the Lake. And it is sung by the main character named Ellen, who is at this point appealing to the Virgin Mary for help. She's in a cave, there's a battle going on. There's. There's all kinds of stuff going on. And she hears a harpist in the distance, the harpist, Alan Bane. And when she hears his music, she sings to that music and asks the Virgin Mary for help. Now, the words that Schubert used are a German translation of Sir Walter Scott's poem. They are not the traditional Ave Maria prayer. It was later, after Schubert's melody had just, you know, captured the imagination of listeners everywhere, that the Latin Ave Maria words that are the traditional prayer were set to Schubert's music. So it didn't start out life as a traditional Ave Maria, but it has certainly found, found a niche for itself as that. So just to let you know, then the words were something else entirely. But now I think that that's the piece that more than any other, is identified with this particular prayer. It's a beautiful melody, and because it was originally conceived to go with sort of a harp accompaniment.

In the legend that Sir Walter Scott's poem is talking about. So in that, you know, it has that wonderful arpeggiated accompaniment that sounds very harp like, and you'd think it would be so easy to play, and of course it's not, and we'll talk about that in a moment. But it's interesting to sort of think that the Sir Walter Scott poem that came out in 1810, Schubert did his music to it in about 1825, and it wasn't long after that before the Latin words were set to it. So it's had a long life as a traditional religious Ave Maria. Something interesting to think about.

Now, the other most common version, aside from the Schubert, is what we call the Bach guno. That would be like Bach, as in Johann Sebastian with a slash after it. And Charles Gounod is the second composer. It took two of them to write this as an Ave Maria. And this is why Gounod took the familiar Bach prelude. This is the Prelude in C from Bach's well Tempered Clavier. And he took that prelude and actually improvised a melody on top of it. And the melody was written down, interestingly enough, by his future father in law, who transcribed that improvisation. And in 1853, it was published as an arrangement for violin or cello with piano and harmonium, like an organ. Later that same year, it appeared with words, but not the Ave Maria words. Words from a poem by Alphonse de Lamartine called the the Book of Life. It wasn't till six years later that it was published with the Latin Ave Maria words. So, you know, once again, this started life not as an Ave Maria, started as a Bach prelude, became a Gounod improvisation, took on words from a poem called the Book of Life, and then later took on the Ave Maria words. This particular version also has.

A little musical oddity about it, and that has to do with the Bach prelude. In the 19th century, the Bach prelude was played with a measure that scholars believe was never written by Johann Sebastian bach. It's measure 23 in the prelude. And this was a measure that was added by a composer at the time, and the composer's name was Schwenke. And he added this measure. He believed that Bach had.

An improper harmonic progression. And so Christian Schwenke was his name, and he decided to. To correct this faulty harmonic progression that Bach wrote. And so he inserted a measure. And you'll be able to see it easily because probably your version of the prelude has it included it's measure 23, and it starts with a G natural in the bass. Scholars since have determined that Bach was right in the first place and that that measure doesn't belong there. But that measure was quite commonly added in Gounod's time. And so when Gounod improvised his melody over the top of the Bach prelude, it included this Schwenke measure. So the melody requires the addition of this measure. You will occasionally hear the Bach prelude played as a solo composition without that measure, and it may sound unfamiliar to you. It may sound like the pianist skipped something, but they didn't. They're playing Bach's original without the Schwenke measure. So not only does this version of the Ave Maria have a history of changing lyrics, but it also has a slight musical adaptation that is a little bit different. So that hasn't, of course, prevented it from becoming just as popular as the Schubert Ave Maria. And it shares some wonderful musical qualities with it. It has that same beautiful arpeggiated accompaniment that makes this sound so calm and so flowing. Both of these versions have that same calm, arpeggiated texture with a beautiful, long, arching melody over top of it. So both of these share those musical qualities. And of course, from our perspective, they share the same.

Logistical difficulties playing that arpeggiation and keeping that smooth and liquid and just absolutely seamless while trying to create this arching melody over the top. So let's talk about some of the real logistics of playing these two wonderful pieces of music.

There are really three key factors in playing either of these pieces. Well. One is that your arpeggios must be even. Both of these pieces rely on an arpeggiated texture, and so your arpeggios really need to be even. That's what gives these pieces their calmness and their beauty and that little steady flow that underpins the melody. So even arpeggios is one. The second is that it needs a steady flow. We need your tempo to be consistent, to not have holes, not have pauses between measures. It needs to sound steady. That's that sense of inevitability, that constancy, once again, gives. This sets the meditative framework for these pieces. And then you need to be very conscious of the phrasing of the melody. We harpists often think vertically. We think in terms of chords and in terms of lining up our two hands. But both of these pieces are all about the melody, despite the fact that all the notes are in the accompaniment. We need to keep our ears on the melody and on shaping the melody. So let's talk about how we do those things. Let's start with the Schubert. The Schubert has this beautiful rolling arpeggiation in it.

It's in sextuplets, so there are six notes to every beat.

And it has that beautiful arch just in the arpeggios. It's lovely. Now, the Bach sets up the arpeggios a little bit differently. All Those arpeggios are sort of one direction this way.

Now, those first four measures of the Bach Prelude actually serve as the introduction to the Gouno Ave Maria. You play those measures twice, once as an introduction and then once as the beginning of the Ave Maria itself. But the arpeggiated texture, once again, it's got to be steady. It's got to be even. Now, there are a couple of things that you want to do when you're practicing these arpeggios and playing them. First of all, remember to stay rel.

Tension in your hands will help. Well, it won't help your notes be even. For one thing, it. It can create stumbles and fumbles and finger freezes and all that stuff. So you want your fingers to be relaxed. Stay breathing while you do this. Don't hold your breath. Sometimes when we're playing softly and when we're trying to, you know, create that very special atmosphere, we forget to breathe. Breathing is important, so be sure that you're still breathing. Do stay relaxed. Then when you're practicing, be sure that you're not accenting the beats. We don't want these arpeggios to sound accented.

Right? We want them to sound flowing. They need to sound arched, right? Like, they just have gentle little hills and valleys.

Instead of being quite so rhythmic. Same in the Schubert arpeggios, right? We don't want.

We're not really looking for that quite so much, are we? So even though practicing with a metronome is an excellent idea, and of course, I'm such a metronome fan, it would be my always my go to practice strategy. But you're going to want to do some practice without a metronome so that these arpeggios sound smooth.

And of course, there's a little bit of rubato that you can put in there as well, right? A little bit of ooh, just stretch a little. Give and take. And you can do that. Once you have your arpeggios under control, that is, it's easier to do that. So be sure that your arpeggios are nice and even and calm. If you have trouble making your fingers do those arpeggios evenly. My favorite go to exercise is what I call a long, short drill. Practice the arpeggios in rhythms like long, short, long, short, long, short, long, short. Like a little dotted rhythm.

And of course, you can move it, too, so that instead of starting on the long note, you start on the short note.

It will help make your placing more accurate. It will help even out your arpeggios I know it seems like you're working at making them uneven when you do that, but it's amazing how much easier and how much more even it will make your arpeggios after you've worked on a drill like that. So that's a, an excellent practice technique for either of these. But that really takes care of only the accompaniment, right? Yeah, we're going to have to get to the melody, but not yet. First, we're going to talk about flow, and that's really making sure that one measure flows to the next. And to do that, you want to not just be thinking of one measure and the next measure and the next measure. For instance, the Bach works pretty much that way, where it uses one chord for an entire measure, and then the next measure does something different. Well, be very careful that you keep each measure constant, but also get to the next measure on time so that when you switch groups.

You do so seamlessly. This will require you to practice in groups of measures, you know, two measures, or even better, four measures, so that you're linking those measures together so that that can be absolutely seamless. Now, for that Bach prelude.

Anything that you can do to make those measures flow seamlessly is going to help. For the Schubert, it's going to be even more essential because the melody is a little bit more complicated. For that Bach guno melody.

You know, you have just sort of one note here.

Right? So I'm playing some extra notes in my left hand. Sorry about that. But the, the melody is less complicated, the Schubert melody a little bit more intricate. And so to keep the flow, you're going to have to be very, very careful, and it's going to take some accompaniment only practice. Now, the Schubert, the introduction's not, you know, not so difficult because it's just the simple arpeggios. But once you start adding the melody.

The flow is trickier because you really need to work at making that coordination totally seamless. This is why I would suggest thinking about your practice not so much in terms of left hand and right hand, but in terms of accompaniment and melody. In both of these pieces, the right hand is taking over a dual role. The left hand pretty much is just accompaniment, but the right hand is doing some accompaniment and all of the melody as well. So practicing the right hand by itself could be helpful, but practicing the accompaniment with the left hand and such of the right hand as is necessary can be very helpful in helping you hear the different roles that the right hand plays and in helping you separate out the right hand melody. From some of the other notes and that the right hand might have. For instance, in this first phrase of this version of the Ave Maria, the Schubert, the right hand plays here's the melody with some accompanying. Well, here's the melody without the chords, right?

And the second measure going on.

Now, that's the melody by itself, the melody that a singer would sing. But my right hand's actually doing quite a bit more. It's playing chords, and it's helping out with some of the left hand notes. So my right hand is actually playing this.

So my right hand is actually playing quite a bit more than just the melody. So practicing the melody and the accompaniment, as well as the separate hands will help. The Schubert also has quite a bit of rhythmic complication to it. I told you that the general rhythm is in sextuplets, right? It's in this 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 1, 2, 3, 4,. 5, 6. 1, 2', 3. Which is fine. But the melody line isn't written that way. The melody line is written not so much in sextuplets, but in regular old 16th notes. So the melody line is 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, and a 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and E and a 1. And that's when you run into trouble. 4 E and a 1. You're playing two against three, that most fun and very common rhythmic syncopation, right? Your right hand is playing 16th notes, your left hand's playing sixtuplets, and they need to line up. There are two ways of thinking about this. One is to be very correct and play it exactly the way it's written. 1, 2, and 3, 1, 2 and 3, 1. And we'll talk about those kinds of syncopations another day. But to work on those and to get those right, that's fine.

But there's another thought that is, a singer often takes liberty with.

That kind of a line, and you can do that, too. And if it means that instead of trying so hard to line up this syncopation, if you just let your right hand go with your left hand and let the notes line up.

There'S nothing so very wrong with that.

It's nicer to have that. That syncopation. It's a different color and it's clearly what Schubert wrote. But if that's too much of a stretch for you, then just have your right hand line up with your left hand, and we'll call that some. Some singer's license. We'll call that some melodic interpretation. And you can do that. So don't stress about that.

But working on your two against three syncopations will be necessary if you're going to play the Ave Maria exactly the way Schubert wrote it. And as I said, rest assured, very few singers sing it exactly the way he wrote it. So you can take some license there, I think, and be perfectly justified.

But where the melody is concerned, you really do need to think about it. I would strongly advise that for both of these.

Ave Maria versions, you practice the melody by itself. And you can, if you want to put, as in the Schubert here, if you want to put the whole right hand chords with it, that's fine. But think about the melody the way a singer would sing it.

Listen to it, breathe it the way they would breathe it.

Think about where they phrase it.

And let the words and that melodic phrasing guide your expression as you do.

Will help. If you listen to some recordings of these and listen to singers singing it, it will help you understand where the phrasing is, perhaps even more than looking at the printed page will. It will get you used to where the singers breathe. It may even help you to know the flow of the words, which can help you understand a little bit more about how to make that melody sing. But that's really where you want to go with the melody. So when you're working on these things, it's all about those, even arpeggios, creating the flow so that the accompaniment flows smoothly and seamlessly as we go through and then projecting that melody, making sure that the melody breathes and is phrased well. Now that's for working on it if you're just playing by yourself. But what if you're accompanying a singer or. Well, then you have an additional level of responsibility, don't you? Because you need to support the singer and to be prepared to go with their interpretation of it. So I suggest that if you are going to do this with a singer or with an instrumentalist doing the melody, that what you should do is listen to quite a number of different recordings of it. And of course, as always, when you're choosing recordings to listen to, choose the, the very, the very best artists that you can right, and listen to the recordings, listen to their breathing. Because you are going to need to be sensitive to where the singer that you are working with is going to breathe. So listen to how they're phrasing and think about what you need to do, how your playing will need to adjust to match that, to coordinate with it. You can play along with those recordings if you want. And what's interesting is that if you do, you'll find that playing along with the recording of this singer is very different from playing along with the recording of that singer. Not only will you find a wide range of tempos, but you'll find a very wide range of expression as well, of rubato, of where they speed up and slow down, where they breathe. But that's what you need to be sensitive to if you're accompanying. So do your due diligence and do your research. But then also pay attention to the tempos because you will have to play the tempo at which your singer wants to sing. And remember they, you know, it's all about breath control for them. And these phrases are long, so they will likely want to sing it faster than you might be comfortable playing it. So prepare to play it at a much faster tempo than you might play it if you were just playing it on your own. Once again, check out those recording tempos and see the range of tempos where people are. Remember also that while you're listening to those very fine artists, they're likely to want to take slower tempos than your average church musician is going to want to sing, just because they want to prove how you know, what kind of breath control they have.

So, so the church musicians that most of us run into regularly might choose slightly faster tempos. So just be prepared for that and, you know, don't be the one holding the singer back because that's no fun for either of you.

Then one final piece of advice. If you're accompanying a singer, know your piece inside and out. Know your accompaniment very, very well, so that you know it so well that you could almost sing it. Sing their melody while you're playing your accompaniment. Know it so well that their singing won't distract you, but that you can pay attention to it because you'll want to be sensitive to what they're doing.

It's a very good idea, in fact, to practice singing and playing, even if it means you're just kind of humming the melody to yourself. Being very conscious of it that way, preparing for it that way will make that first rehearsal you have with the singer much easier. So those are some few, just a few quick tips for preparing this if you're going to play it with a singer. Now I have one more Ave Maria I'd like to share with you.

Several years ago I recorded a Christmas album called Break Forth. And it is an album composed entirely of my own arrangements of different Christmas carols and winter related music, all this sort of thing. And on that album I included an Ave Maria, not Schubert, and not Bach Gunno, but one by Saint Sans. This was originally written for piano and two women's voices, and I transcribed it for solo harp. It's interesting to note that this has the same sort of arpeggiated accompaniment and kind of a floating melody that both of the other Ave Marias we've been talking about have, but I thought it just might be nice to share my recording of that with you now. Now you'll also find a link to the to the CD if you care to purchase it. You'll find that in the show notes, but I'd like to just share the Ave Maria with you right now.

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I hope you enjoyed that nice peaceful Saintson Ave Maria. As with all the Ave Marias, it's just a lovely piece, but you can see how it is tied to the other versions we were talking about today in terms of its arpeggiation and its melody and it's just serene sense of meditation and calm. So thank you for listening to that. As I mentioned before, you'll find the link to the entire CD if you're interested in the show notes today. You'll also find the link to a blog post that I wrote some time ago with a little bit more background on the Schubert Ave Maria and a link to a set of Schubert Ave Marias that I have published. It's a set because there are three different versions. There's one for there's an easy one that is suitable for lever or pedal harp. There is an intermediate version for level for lever harp and an intermediate version for pedal harp as well. So you'll find those links in the show notes. In case you're interested in just a little bit more Schubert.

Do join me on next week's show for a discussion about memorization. Yes, memorization is possible, even if you're the sort that can't remember where you put your car keys and can't even remember what you had for breakfast this morning. Memorization of your music is still possible, and if you're finding it difficult, it's likely because you're going about it the wrong way, particularly if it's the way you used to do it when you were a child. Guess what? Things work differently when you grow up. I know you've noticed that, so let's grow up your memorization strategies with that too. There are three common methods of memorization, but really only one of them works, so let's figure out which one it is. I certainly know, and I'm willing to share it with you and give you my best practice strategies for working at memorization and for memorizing your music, and we'll do that when we talk next week. In the meantime, have a wonderful rest of your week and I hope you have a day. Great. A lovely, meditative and calm week to go along with what we were talking about today. I look forward to talking with you then. See you. Thanks for tuning into another episode of the Practicing Harp Happiness Podcast. I release a new episode every Monday morning so you can hit your practice week running. Until then, remember to practice your Harp happiness every day. See you next time.