|
Today's Featured Biography
Jan Gippo
In the world of classical music, old notions die-hard.
Some would say a 6-foot-tall, 270 pound man has no business playing a 9-inch, 12-once piccolo; that the piccolo itself, generally known as the ear-splitting junior sibling of the flute, has no business in a chamber concert; that chamber music, the often challenging work devised for smaller ensembles, takes some esoteric knowledge to understand and appreciate.
Jan Gippo says "nuts" to all three.
With his guest performance Sunday with the South Bend Symphony Chamber Orchestra, Gippo - principal piccolo of the St. Louis Symphony and, in more ways than one, a towering figure in the woodwind world - intends to prove that big guys can play the piccolo; that the piccolo can gently seduce, rather than offend, the ear; and that a chamber concert can be an absolute blast even for someone who knows nothing about classical music.
As a piccolo advocate, Gippo consider himself on a mission.
"It's very much like how women (in the feminist movement) wanted words to change because they were a form of denigration," the musician said in a recent phone interview. He cited some widely used reference books that continue to promote misconceptions about his beloved instrument.
"For two generations now, people have said: 'Oh, yeah, the piccolo is
shrill.' Well it isn't. It's no more shrill than a violin if played properly, and it's not nearly so loud as a trumpet. I've had to change the view of how the piccolo could be used for very lyrical, expressive music."
South Bend listeners are apt to be converted when Gippo performs Lowell Liebermann's Piccolo Concerto, a piece Gippo commissioned himself with seed money from his parent's second mortgage and a backstage salespit out of "glengarry Glen Ross."
"I did kind of a number on him, a 20-minute where I was just way over the top," said Gippo, recalling the day he'd buttonholed Liebermann after a masterclass in St. Louis. Gippo had been floored by Liebermann's Flute Concerto, just premiered by James Galway, and knew Liebermann was the man to rescue the piccolo from its second-class concert hall status. "He just kind of looked at me and said, 'If I had never thought of doing a piccolo concerto, I now must.'"
Largely through Gippo's efforts - and on the strength of Liebermann's vastly appealing concerto, which to date has been performed some 75 times around the world - the piccolo is in the midst of a rediscovery. This little instrument, long associated more with marching bands than with symphony orchestras and largely neglected by composers (at least as a concerto candidate) since the baroque era, now has composers knocking down its door. And Gippo is at work on a textbook that should help fill another gap in
piccolo appreciation.
"There was never a pedagogy for piccolo," he said, explaining that flutists have generally been expected to pick up the instrument on their own and figure it out. Contrary to conventional wisdom and the instrument's original Italian name ("flauto piccolo"), he added, "it's not a small flute. The fingering is not the same. Because the people were playing the instrument, it was often out of tune, which is why it sounded raucous."
Not only has Gippo been the first to compile fingering charts specifically for piccolo, he's also discovered, thanks to the rigorous demands of Liebermann's piece, some tricks for getting the best possible sound out of the instrument even under tough conditions.
"I was astounded at how non-technical it was," Gippo said of the concerto. "It has these beautiful melodies and long lines, which is wonderful. ... But he has written a piece whose musical difficulty is ENDURANCE. It's a 25-minute concerto, which might not seem long by the standards of a modern concerto for piano or violin, he added, but in most symphonic settings, the piccolo is hardly ever played more than a few measures at a time.
"It's an amazing tour de force, but the audience - they never realize the panic and the terror you're going through,” Gippo said. "I play from measure 69 to 195 before I get one measure's rest - and then I go another 48 bars." He laughed. "The next movement needs to be soft and supple - the lip really gets beat up. ... He's pushed the instrument to the limit, but there isn't a gratuitous trill or technical passage in the entire piece."
Like a weight lifter Gippo had to build up to performing the concerto, gradually moving back the threshold of his own stamina. He later found that resting up before a concert - which seemed like a logical strategy – only made the work tougher.
"You would think you would have to save the muscles, but that's not the case," he said, explaining that he now practices hard for about 45 minutes before taking the stage. "You have to get the blood going and the sensitivities going."
Paradoxically, all this heavy lifting comes in service of a piece that ends on a surprisingly funny note, as Liebermann quotes several recognizable melodies in an ingenious way.
"You need to laugh in music," insisted Gippo, adding that the third movement always inspires chuckles from the audience.
VIEW ALL BIOGRAPHIES
|
Indicates an included photo
