Between musical virtuosity, the perception of performance and the complexity of poetic language: when ‘difficult’ takes on a new meaning
The ultimate test for the flute: Ibert’s Concerto, a blend of technique and endurance
What’s so difficult about it? If I were to ask Silvia Careddu, she’d probably say Jacques Ibert’s Concerto for Flute and Orchestra, and she’s certainly not the only one who thinks so: every flutist grappling with this part knows it, as do the orchestra musicians. The difficulty is palpable even to the audience, and you’ll soon realise this for yourselves. To confirm this, a flute legend like Sir James Galway, in an interview, enjoys explaining how to tackle the concerto. The first movement, which is quite a challenge, should be considered merely ‘a sort of warm-up’ for the third, the real stumbling block: ‘It’s like a rather fast gigue in 4/4… assuming you can imagine a gigue in 4/4 played entirely in triplets’. And regarding the lightning-fast finale, referring to the stream of air that must flow from the musician’s mouth into the instrument, he confesses with candour and humour that one must “vibrate with everything, including the kitchen sink in there”. It is no coincidence that the concerto often features among the standard repertoire pieces for flute in competitions and auditions, comparable to the dreaded ‘Rach 3’ for piano, the quadruple axel in figure skating, or, why not, Cracco’s fried egg.
When difficulty is measured in interpretation, not only in execution
“Difficult” is a useful adjective for describing a demanding feat, something achievable only with skill, careful attention, and considerable effort. Easy to say, hard to do.
But what is more difficult: to perform every note exactly as written on the score, or to go beyond error and create something new and unexpected, as jazz musicians do? Hard to say.
And speaking of words, there is another way something can be difficult: hard to understand. An abstruse concept, the riddle of the Sphinx, a cryptic text, a poem… For years Velimir Khlebnikov (1885–1922) was considered an incomprehensible poet. The writer Paolo Nori recalls that when he was working on his thesis about him in Saint Petersburg, students he met in the library would be surprised: “How can you study Khlebnikov? Nothing he writes makes sense!” Later it turned out they had never actually read him, and did not even try, because he was considered unreadable. Khlebnikov was one of the major Russian Futurists: he experimented with language and even introduced mathematical symbols into his verse.
From sound to word: what really makes a work “difficult”?
From sound to word: what really makes an opera ‘difficult’?
But his reputation as a difficult poet comes from Mayakovsky, who, upon Khlebnikov’s death, wrote in his obituary that he “cannot be read.” Mayakovsky became the most important Soviet intellectual, and the equation “Khlebnikov = too difficult a poet” was cemented.
No one reads him anymore. Paolo Nori translated his poetry into 47 easy poems and one difficult one, which suggested a parallel with Ibert’s concerto, and in E questo cielo, e queste nuvole. 28 poesie russe e una italiana, from which comes this excerpt: “The girls who walk, / with black-eye boots / on the flowers of my heart. / The girls who have lowered their spears / onto the lake of their eyelashes. / The girls who wash their feet / in the lake of my words.”
Easy to say, hard to do.
