tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44496971402043771012024-02-29T01:49:13.021-05:00Liberated DissonanceA blog about music, mostly.Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.comBlogger337125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-12043928225808289012019-02-02T17:30:00.002-05:002019-02-02T18:56:53.361-05:00The War of the Romantics Is On<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY7PEYzqRa10z39nPLGwv8-GylantTUAxjhIQ80huF3Augnof0XN2NVAV3S_KVHOTVIHMGHegc_TITicgGwG3H4znjN7JH0K7CabIUwwckSoxYqzHmxaZmVUAkmE38wOIa3J8o_Ud_RDE/s1600/Robert_Schumann_1839.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgY7PEYzqRa10z39nPLGwv8-GylantTUAxjhIQ80huF3Augnof0XN2NVAV3S_KVHOTVIHMGHegc_TITicgGwG3H4znjN7JH0K7CabIUwwckSoxYqzHmxaZmVUAkmE38wOIa3J8o_Ud_RDE/s320/Robert_Schumann_1839.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Robert Schumann in 1839, <br />the year before is marriage to Clara.</span></td></tr>
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Robert Schumann wrote his sprawling Fantasy for Piano Op. 17
in 1836 out of longing Clara Wieck, whose father, Friedrich, furiously opposed his
intentions, no matter how honorable they might have been. Robert was 26 that
year. Clara was 17.<o:p></o:p></div>
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What some guys won’t do to get laid.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The message must have gotten through, however, because despite
an enforced separation that included several concert tours, Clara married Robert
in 1840 (at the respectable age of 21) and bore him half a dozen children.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The Fantasy, performed with passion and steely control by
Rollin Wilbur, was just one of many rich pleasures to be had at last weekend’s
dramatico-musical presentation by the Fine Art Music Company. Titled “War of
the Romantics ― Part 1,” the program focused on the first generation that
musical movement ― the Schumanns, Liszt,
Chopin ― with Beethoven included as their spiritual precursor and Brahms given
the last word as their successor. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The issue at stake in the war was the legitimacy ― even the
possibility ― of program music, with Liszt on one side, Schumann and Brahms on
the other, and Chopin somewhere uncomfortably in the middle, sneaking messages into his music that he then kept to himself. If the dispute seems pointless today, it was
no more so than the one that led to, say, the First World War, and it destroyed
far fewer lives. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It also left us with some extraordinary music.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Kasia Salwinski was riveting in Chopin’s B-flat Scherzo Op.
31 and Liszt’s Valee d’Obermann (whose program, I must confess, added nothing to
my enjoyment of understanding of the score.) She was more physically involved with
the music than I ever remember seeing her, and in a way that has nothing to do with
a performer’s trick of “selling” a piece. It seemed to take possession of her, although,
being a perfectionist and a wholly modest person, she told me afterward she wasn’t
fully satisfied with her outing in the Chopin.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Adelya Shagadulina brought an ethereal touch to the first
movement of Beethoven’s Spring Sonata (for violin) and Robert Schumann’s Fantasiestück
(for viola). We were also treated to Brahms’s own arrangement for piano four hands,
of the third movement of his Third Symphony and the second movement of his
Piano Concerto No. 2. The latter is a favorite of mine, with one special moment
I always listen for.<o:p></o:p></div>
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I could have done with less of Robert Edwin, who narrated
the proceedings (reading from a script by playwright Ella Remmings) as a
fictitious critic named Gerhard Denhoff. He was especially intrusive in the first
half, when he repeatedly interrupted the music to make some point, then browbeat
the musicians into starting over. <o:p></o:p></div>
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On the other hand, my companion for the afternoon, who hearing
much of the music for the first time, told me she was grateful for the context ―
and gossip ― he provided. <o:p></o:p></div>
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He was also a pleasant surprise as a singer in Robert Schumann’s
brief “Dedication.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In a clever turn,
the piece was repeated twice in arrangements for piano solo (by Liszt) and for
violin and piano (by Leopold Auer).<o:p></o:p></div>
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The program was presented Jan. 26 at Ivy Hall in Philadelphia
and repeated Jan. 27 at the Ethical Society Jan. 27. I saw it at the Ethical
Society, sitting in the largest crowd I have ever seen attend a Fine Arts Music program. Congratulations all around.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The next program in the series will be held at the end of
March.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-66868999599801225242019-01-19T13:18:00.000-05:002019-01-19T13:18:20.121-05:00ImpromptuI missed the Elysian Camerata's January 13 program at St. Asaph's, Bala Cynwyd. Somehow I got it into my head the concert was scheduled for January 27, the same day I was planning to attend Fine Art Music Company's second event in its "War of the Romantics" series.<br />
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Fortunately. the Elysians repeated the program last night at the First Presbyterian Church in Ambler, which is convenient to my new office in Fort Washington. I made a spur-of-the-moment decision late Friday head afternoon to stick around after work and head on over.<br />
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And it (the program, not my office) was a stunner.<br />
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The evening began with the charming but forgettable sonata for two cellos by Boccherini and ended with the charming but unforgettable Sextet Op. 39 by Brahms. In between was the evening's real highlight, the String Quartet No. 1 by Bartok, who at age of 27 had already come into his own as a composer. It's an astonishingly mature, confident piece, and the women of the Camerata matched that confidence note for note. The performance was extraordinary in itself, but all the more so for being so rare in the Philadelphia suburbs.<br />
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Talia Schiff, the group's regular cellist and one of its guiding lights, as well as a friend of mine, told me during the reception that while a complete Bartok cycle would be a daunting task, she would like to program the Fourth Quartet at least. Apparently, that's the one students spend the most time with, since it is the most exhaustively analyzed.<br />
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At last, a reason to live. <br />
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In retrospect, I'm glad I went to the Ambler performance. It was the first time I've heard music at that First Pres, which had comfortable, padded pews and bright, lively acoustics. Not to dis St. Asaph's, but at First Pres on can hear every note without sitting in the performers' laps. Ambler also has many fine restaurants. I won't need to eat again for a couple of days.<br />
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Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-86931336459387134772018-10-03T17:32:00.002-04:002018-10-03T17:33:25.376-04:00A Sleigh Ride Watch recordMy annual "Sleigh Ride" watch was jump-started unexpectedly yesterday, October 2, close to a month before it usually begins. <br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The immortal Leroy Anderson,<br />composer of the immortal<br />"Sleigh Ride."</span></td></tr>
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To recap the rules: Every year around the holidays, I note the first time I hear Leroy Anderson's "Sleigh Ride," in either its instrumental or vocal incarnation. The encounter must be accidental. I may not seek out a recording. I have to chance upon it, either in a public place, such as a supermarket or department store, or on the radio.</div>
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Late in September, I started a new job as associate editor at a trade publication, and one of the women in the production department likes to begin celebrating Christmas as early as she can. (Given a choice, she would celebrate it year-round but, apparently, co-workers have convinced her to suppress that particular urge.) Yesterday, at her computer, she was listening to a Google playlist of Christmas songs, and as I delivered a handful of documents to her inbox, I overheard "Sleigh Ride" sung by none other than Carole King. The number of artists who have covered the song is approaching infinity, but still, a recording by the woman who wrote "I Feel the Earth Move" surprised me.<br />
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So, with my one holiday tradition out of the way, there's nothing to do but await the new year.<br />
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<br />Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-90543387864299195512018-08-20T11:32:00.002-04:002018-08-24T14:47:03.301-04:00Masters of disorientation<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihephzRnxdOsXXJ5Wa5uahHILdwElMEqNvs_Qi2hlHQVOyYunDYNHPUMGLg2AoRrEkJ2OO2xyD-WgnH4vqb-WbeQjv_wJzODthDPjlVIUwAc2nVPWmPQ_DgMc9d4Y-hCgbvakUF3zGVbA/s1600/carter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="499" data-original-width="331" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihephzRnxdOsXXJ5Wa5uahHILdwElMEqNvs_Qi2hlHQVOyYunDYNHPUMGLg2AoRrEkJ2OO2xyD-WgnH4vqb-WbeQjv_wJzODthDPjlVIUwAc2nVPWmPQ_DgMc9d4Y-hCgbvakUF3zGVbA/s320/carter.jpg" width="212" /></a><span style="line-height: 115%;">One of the
joys of unemployment is the all the extra reading time. Recently, I’ve gone
through studies of two of my favorite postwar American artists – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hiding Man, </i>Tracy Daugherty's<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>biography of his friend and mentor Donald Barthelme, and David Schiff’s latest assessment of <i>his</i>
friend and mentor Elliott Carter. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Writer and
composer have now become linked in my mind, and not just because I’ve read books
about them in quick succession. For decades, they lived literally around the
corner from one another in Lower Manhattan -- Barthelme at 113 West 11th
Street, Carter at 31 West 12<sup>th </sup>– although there is no record that they ever met. We also don’t know if Carter knew Barthelme’s work, even
though Barthelme was a regular contributor to the New Yorker, and Carter a
regular reader. (He was not familiar with Woody Allen’s writings for the
magazine, Schiff says.) On the other hand, Daugherty informs us, in September
1962, Barthelme, then working as director of the Contemporary Arts Museum in
Houston, arranged a performance of Carter’s music. (I would really like to know
what the piece was.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Barthelme,
born in 1931 and raised in Texas, was a full generation younger than Carter, a
native New Yorker born in 1908. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In terms
of their intellectual pursuits and their efforts to expand the language of
modernism in their respective fields, however, the two appear to have much in
common. I got the feeling of covering much the same philosophical ground in
each book. Names of influential figures -- Beckett, Joyce, Pound, Eliot, Ashbery,
Philip Johnson – recur, and Schiff and Daugherty reach similar conclusions in trying
to pin down the meaning of “modernism” and “post-modernism.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Here’s
Schiff: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“The overused term Modernism
makes the most sense when it denotes an evolving, many-sided disputation about
the relation of art to the rapidly changing conditions of modern life, rather
than a coherent movement or body of ideas.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">And here’s
Daugherty: “’Post-modernism’ does not – cannot -- denote a single ethos. Nor is
it solely the province of artists, writers and academics; if by ‘post-modern’
we mean style over substance, a blurring of values, and vague historical
awareness, then the conditions for it are set by<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>lawyers, real estate developers, money
speculators, televangelists, and the nation’s professional political class,
along with its symbiotic companion, the professional media.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">“Remember
Don’s remark: ‘The disorientation in my stories is not mine. It is what is to
be perceived around us.’”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Even the
word “flaneur” shows up in both texts. I had never in my life encountered the
word “flaneur.” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Despite the difference
in their ages, Carter and Barthelme produced some of their most characteristic, innovative work in the
1960s, a time of political and cultural turmoil – and of violence -- in the
United States and abroad. Barthelme addressed the Vietnam War and the Parisian
Days of Rage explicitly. Carter disavowed any political programs in his music,
although the turmoil is certainly there to be heard. (Phil Lesh, bass player
for the Grateful Dead and a big Carter fan, once told me that as far as he is
concerned, the Concerto for Orchestra <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is</i>
1968.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">In the end,
too, both men saw their moments pass, their stars partially eclipsed by a more
self-consciously populist aesthetic. I found it poignant that the phenomenon known as “minimalism” dogged each of them. In literature, the minimalist par excellence
was Raymond Carver. In music, of course, it is Philip Glass.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Of the two, Schiff’s
book is harder to categorize. It’s not quite a critical biography (which Schiff
says has yet to be written), not quite a memoir of a friendship, not quite a
reception history, not quite an analysis of the music -- although it contains
elements of all of these. If backed into a corner, I’d call it a start in the
process of historical evaluation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">Carter’s death,
in 2012, seems to have freed Schiff to say publically things he must have kept
private while the composer was alive. He is more critical of some of the music
than he’s been in the past, offers interpretations and terminology at odds with
Carter’s own, and even makes a few good jokes. It’s clear he doesn’t care for Carter’s
only opera, “What Next?”, though his dislike seems to have more to do with Paul
Griffith’s libretto than with Carter’s music. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">(As an
aside, I’d submit that Barthelme would have made an ideal librettist for
Carter. He had just the knack for surreal comedy Carter was looking for, and
some of his all-dialogue stories have been successfully staged. Unfortunately,
he died – of throat cancer, at age 58, in 1989 – years before Carter ever
considered writing an opera. Life is full of tantalizing what-ifs.) <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">As with
everything Schiff writes, there are quotable insights on almost every page of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Carter,</i> but I must say I didn’t find his
comments on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Symphony of Three
Orchestras</i> as enlightening as they might have been. The decay of New York
in the ’70s (another occasional theme in Barthelme’s work) might provide a
plausible context for the descent from the soaring trumpet solo of the opening
to the “bludgeoning, mechanical ostinato of the coda,” but to my ear, it
doesn’t account for all that sumptuous stuff in the middle.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">The notion
that Carter’s musical personality may be divided into “Carter Light” and “Carter
Dark” isn’t quite fully developed, either, and, forgive me, it makes him sound
like a brand of beer. (Other product lines would include Carter Pale Ale and Carter
Winter Lager.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Hiding Man</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Carter</i> also suggest these New York neighbors currently occupy the kind
of critical limbo that often follows an artist’s death. Barthelme and Carter await
rediscovery and a cultural positioning that may be possible, if ever, only when
our current, partisan squabbles about modernism are over. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="line-height: 115%;">In the meantime, I read, I listen.</span></div>
<br />Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-39388301364330412872018-04-30T15:24:00.002-04:002018-05-02T15:16:55.171-04:00All roads lead to the G-Spot<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Every year, when the prospectus for the upcoming season of The Philadelphia Orchestra arrives in the mail, I leaf through it, looking for a program or a particular piece to get excited about. It rarely happens anymore. The big orchestras, especially on the East Coast, have become increasingly reactionary over the past few decades. I'd even go out on a limb and say Yannick Nezet-Seguin's repertoire is more limited than Eugene Ormandy's.<br />
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To maintain my interest in live music, I rely on chamber groups and ensembles like Orchestra 2001, which, under the leadership of the young and amiable Jayce Ogren, presented a pair of programs last week that I swear were put together specifically with me in mind. On April 22 and 28, the group celebrated the 25th anniversary of the release of Frank Zappa's Yellow Shark album, the last disk the composer issued in his lifetime.<br />
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The April 22 program, titled "Zappa's Radical Classical Roots," was held at World Cafe Live and focused on Zappa's musical heroes, with works by Edgard Varese (of course), Pierre Boulez, Stravinsky, and Anton Webern, as well as three brief selections from "The Yellow Shark." The April 28 concert, at the Fillmore Philly, presented the (almost) complete Yellow Shark. (Three pieces from the album, improvisations worked out by Zappa and the Ensemble Modern, have not been approved for performance by the Zappa Family Trust.) The second event was also preceded by a rare treat: a reading of Varese's Ionization for percussion, which I'd never heard live.<br />
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Both performances were uniformly outstanding. The musicians of Orchestra 2001 rose to every challenge the 20th-century avant-garde could throw at them. Of the two, however, I would say the first was the more deeply satisfying. The music Zappa wrote for classical musicians, or for the Synclavier, as attractive as they can be, often lack the cogency of "L'histoire du soldat" or "Density 21.5." Pieces like Times Beach II and III feel like fragments of larger works. They don't so much begin and end as they seem to materialize out of nowhere, linger in our plane of reality for a few minutes, and then vanish. The most successful of the lot were, for me, "None of the Above" for string quintet, in which the bravura lines for the first violin create an arresting point of focus, and "Ruth Is Sleeping" for two pianos, largely because Stephanie Ho seemed to be having such a ball.<br />
<br />
But then there was "G-Spot Tornado," the wild (and aptly titled) Synclavier piece, arranged for small orchestra by Ali Askin, that brought the second evening to a sensational close. Ormandy used to say the most sure-fire concert finale is Brahms' Second Symphony, whose last movement is guaranteed to send the audience home with a jolt. "G-Spot Tornado" is in the same class. There is just no resisting it. Before the last crash of the gong had died down, the Fillmore crowd was on its feet, calling for an encore, which, sadly, it didn't get. The piece has stuck in my head ever since.<br />
<br />
All hail Ogren and Orchestra 2001 for a pair of memorable performances. Thanks, too, to Joe Klein, professor of music at the University of North Texas, who spoke at both programs. Klein teaches a course on Zappa and was billed in the programs as a "Zappa expert," a title he said he didn't fully deserve. His classes are full of Zappa experts, he said, and the audiences in attendance at last week's programs probably also had their share. He was right. The pre- and post-concert chatter each eveninng was impressively well-informed. The second night's crowd seemed particularly devoted, with some audience members traveling from as far as North Carolina and New York State for the privilege of hearing The Yellow Shark live.<br />
<br />
I think I've heard more live Zappa in the 25 years since his death than I did when he was alive. With the dedication of groups like Orchestra 2001 and Andre Cholmondeley's Project/Object, his legacy seems secure for the foreseeable future.Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-10792034222636820252018-03-29T14:27:00.002-04:002018-03-29T14:27:38.857-04:00Heavy on the Brahms<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Don't want to let too much time pass before I mention a pair of morale-boosting concerts I attended over the weekend. On Saturday, pianists Rollin Wilber and Kasia Salwinski presented another of their signature theme programs at the gemütlich</span><span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> Ivy Hall in Philadelphia. The subject this time out was "musical fantasies," a catch-all that covers a lot of different kinds of music. </span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIgiPiSrjzx7jBn75OzvBsDnhwoXIHCvwHJ79eWb8-m7g8Tslm_3JXTnmU2cTdnVfDfTf3EUUAH18yN_dOKrmaGTeDc4hNwitq8TjHyf9sHuFso4FmRyATKFzQXsmkq6Fc1FBzvqrdVMo/s1600/FINE-ART-PIANO-SMALL.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="461" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIgiPiSrjzx7jBn75OzvBsDnhwoXIHCvwHJ79eWb8-m7g8Tslm_3JXTnmU2cTdnVfDfTf3EUUAH18yN_dOKrmaGTeDc4hNwitq8TjHyf9sHuFso4FmRyATKFzQXsmkq6Fc1FBzvqrdVMo/s320/FINE-ART-PIANO-SMALL.jpg" width="230" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Kasia Salwinski and Rollin Wilber <br />performed a program of musical fantasies <br />March 24 at Ivy Hall. The program was <br />repeated at the Ethical Society March 25.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(In her introductory remarks, Kasia said the fantasy has been a favorite form of hers since she was a student, though, really, the word refers to a lack of form. A fantasy is something composers of bygone eras wrote when they tired of limitations imposed by the sonata, which as early as the time of Chopin had come to seem somewhat academic.) </span></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The program began with Schubert's F minor Fantasia for four hands and ended with Mozart's Fantasia No. 2, also in F minor, also for four hands, a delightful work, yet surprisingly substantial for something originally written for a musical clock. (That's Mozart for you.) In between, we heard Chopin's F minor Fantasy Op. 49, Mendelssohn's F-sharp minor Fantasy Op. 28, Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata ("quasi una fantasia," in case you've forgotten), and Brahms's Fantasien Op. 116. The Brahms, sensitively played by Salwinski, affected me particularly, perhaps because I'm feeling rather melancholy these days. (Elliott Carter used to complain about what he called "the weepy side of Brahms." This is one of those issues on which he and I part company.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As always with these two top-notch pianists, the program was varied yet unified, with much to enjoy and much to think about.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Sunday afternoon, the Elysian Camerata offered still more music by Schubert and Brahms in Bala Cymwyd -- the "Rosemunde" String Quartet and the String Quintet in G Major Op. 111. The Schubert was touching, and the "Rosemunde" theme always puts a catch in my throat. The Brahms, on the other hand, was a blast to hear live and in close quarters. It's a big, dense work that, from a few feet away, in the lively acoustics of St. Asaph's Church, felt almost symphonic.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My spirits could use many more weekends like this.</span>Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-76407700714861227062018-03-23T17:03:00.001-04:002018-03-23T17:03:01.641-04:00Essays After a SonataFor the past few weeks I've been living with Kyle Gann's new book, <i>Charles Ives's Concord: Essays After a Sonata, </i>an exhaustive study that combines literary history, musical analysis, and aesthetic philosophy. It's an endlessly fascinating resource and a book I'll be returning to often.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWOJR8d43iybdoSHdlfqF_vpSO_2nrMslvIkXhRcuczGkrjo_sSpqlld1QjfF6wQeAkVu9ZHCaSX14M58PmYonfO1uEg-nIkO5VuN0zZs8iWBBcSVNbJakKO3nqzu1pA23wWWtRyZDENs/s1600/gann.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="302" data-original-width="201" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWOJR8d43iybdoSHdlfqF_vpSO_2nrMslvIkXhRcuczGkrjo_sSpqlld1QjfF6wQeAkVu9ZHCaSX14M58PmYonfO1uEg-nIkO5VuN0zZs8iWBBcSVNbJakKO3nqzu1pA23wWWtRyZDENs/s1600/gann.jpg" /></a>Analyzing a favorite piece of music is, for me, rather like describing a mental state in terms of neural activity. It's necessary, I suppose, but does little to capture the quality of the experience. As detailed and daunting as Gann's vivisections can be, however, they do us the service of exposing the planning and intelligence -- the artistry, if you will -- that Ives lavished on his Second Piano Sonata. The underlying unity if a composition is "not a selling point that would have impressed Ives," Gann says. Still, it impresses me. And although Ives downplayed the value of form -- what he would call "manner" -- in evaluating a work of art, it is also true that after self-publishing the Concord in 1920, Ives devoted the better part of three decades revising, editing, and tweaking the score until he arrived at a form that satisfied him. And even then it didn't, quite.<br />
<br />
Gann's chapters on the <i>Essays Before a Sonata</i>, the short volume Ives published as a companion to the Concord, are more fun, though less essential to understanding the music, and they go a long way toward rehabilitating Ives as a thinker and prose stylist. Ives was not the first to judge art from a moral standpoint, or in terms of a fundamental duality. In both respects, Gann argues, he owes a large, mostly unacknowledged debt to John Ruskin. Gann admits, however, that "in the end, Ives's treatise on substance and manner may have to remain for us, no practical typology or description." In other words, it doesn't offer much of a guide on the best places to spend our entertainment dollar. To my mind, dualisms like substance and manner can create a useless diversion, entangling the listener in endless parlor about which pieces conform to the standard and which don't. They also deny us our right to determine our own response to a work of art. A song or a symphony may be enjoyed for any number of reasons, no one of which is to be deeper or more authentic than any other. To paraphrase Ives's father: Don't pay too much attention to substance. If you do, you may miss the music.<br />
<br />
I've listened to the Concord Sonata countess times over the years, and I've seen it performed live more often than any other piece. Now I'm hearing it again with fresh ears, picking out details that had grown almost inaudible through repetition. I am grateful to Gann for reintroducing me to a piece I thought I knew well, and for loving Ives as much as I do.<br />
<br />
(I should also mention the book includes a concise, helpful chapter on Ives's First Piano Sonata, a remarkable work that is often overlooked beside the Concord. This week, I listened to it again, in Donna Coleman's fiery recording, and with Gann's notes in mind, I was able to navigate its conflicting cross-currents without once losing my bearings.) Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-7619635114563993842018-01-11T11:05:00.002-05:002018-06-20T14:21:23.001-04:00The Wreck of the InarticulateI wrote this after reading Longfellow's "Wreck of the Hesperus." It helps to have a dictionary handy.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjybUWxOTKJt090Q8sXVPzhT9St8io6UxUh-loUrTJev6cQ4dZGwbiE35XzNo1B6QKURzBauZAyzyuv-nD2_5Lu-4O6VW8Vepr9U3GhjUvK7pCpqg7PTXBz3nq1APw0zuWmkPUct2bkDX4/s1600/hesperus.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="433" data-original-width="633" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjybUWxOTKJt090Q8sXVPzhT9St8io6UxUh-loUrTJev6cQ4dZGwbiE35XzNo1B6QKURzBauZAyzyuv-nD2_5Lu-4O6VW8Vepr9U3GhjUvK7pCpqg7PTXBz3nq1APw0zuWmkPUct2bkDX4/s320/hesperus.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<h1>
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; font-weight: normal;">The Wreck of the Inarticulate<o:p></o:p></span></h1>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";"><span style="font-size: small; font-weight: normal;"><i>For Cal</i></span><o:p></o:p></span></h2>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif"; font-size: 34.0pt;">I<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">t
was the Inarticulate <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">That
sailed the ocean blue —<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">A
schooner, brig, or barquentine, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Nobody
really knew.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Skippèr
and crew were fearless men <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Whose
only major failing<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Was
total ignorance about <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">The
lexicon of sailing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Jibs
and stu’n’s’ls, martingales,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Gammon,
tack and luff, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Braces,
ratlines, shrouds and stays — <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">They
knew it all as “stuff.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Scuttle,
course, and mizzenmast, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">To
them, were all the same. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">They
cheesed a Flemish coil down, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">But
never knew its name.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">And
so, one bleak December morn,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">As
the gales began to blow,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">And
every blessèd man on deck<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Was
blinded by the snow,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">The
skipper called upon them all <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">To
save the found’ring rig:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">“Bring
the pointy part around, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">And
hoist the thingamajig!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Every
man looked back at him<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">With
vacant, blinking eyes, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Uncertain
what to make of his<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Obscure,
despèrate cries.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">The
skipper shook his fist and thundered, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">“Come
on! Do your job!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Turn
the what’s-is over there! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Raise
the thingamabob!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Every
man looked back at him<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Immobile
as before,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">As
swells and billows tossed the ship <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">And
drove her toward the shore.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">The
skipper gave it one more shot, <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">His
last ’twas ever heard:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">“Helmsman, grab those things and spin the —<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Darn
it! What’s the word?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Just
then a wave loomed overhead<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">And
with a deaf’ning roar,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">It
swept the skipper and his crew<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">From
what they called the “floor.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">At
last, the roll of breakers <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">And
the fifing of a gull<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , serif;">Played bourrées on the rocks that stove</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , serif;">What
real tars call the “hull.”</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">For
weeks thereafter, passengers <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Aboard
the island ferry<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Saw,
floating mid the ship’s debris,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">A
sailing dictionary.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">So
sank the Inarticulate<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">With
all her crew and cargo. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Lord
save us from chagrin like that <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Upon
the Reef of Argot!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">Joe
Barron<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
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<i><span style="font-family: "baskerville old face" , "serif";">January
9-11, 2018</span></i><span style="font-family: "bookman old style" , "serif";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-9241858010882119932017-09-06T13:55:00.002-04:002017-09-06T13:55:24.663-04:00Homage to John Ashbery Several years ago, after reading John Ashbery's "Some Trees," I wrote the following poem, which is a direct imitation. The subject matter is mine, as is the negativity, but the form is more or less Ashbery's, with emphasis on enjambment and near rhymes.<br />
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To -------<br /></div>
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The bee bumps against the glass again<br />And again, as though her brain</div>
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Takes direction from a satellite<br />That maps the shades beyond it --</div>
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Low light that skims the concrete stubble.<br />Her frustration becomes terrible,</div>
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A rattling like venetian blinds<br />Set in motion by the wind.</div>
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She wants only to rejoin the hive<br />Out there, somewhere, where you live</div>
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With my name a blister on your lips.<br />I raise the sash, and she escapes,</div>
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Off to add her fanning to the colony.<br />We share the impulse, she</div>
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And I, except no window blocks<br />My will, and I am never coming back.</div>
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Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-81576587049210031642017-09-06T13:49:00.001-04:002017-09-06T14:04:35.584-04:00John Ashbery (1925-2017)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSEvnqgHgnCMIXLNm37NMrjZv0l-u4o57nftlo-gqXrnCwsLhVNUHpA2A0cSrjBLIt7vmifObsDHW_TQEvBXuSC01hC1aj_5sqkeCJ9YbgiG27ouCU5BP4nVdoq1XGfsxOYQfsFZru1u0/s1600/IMG_4710.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSEvnqgHgnCMIXLNm37NMrjZv0l-u4o57nftlo-gqXrnCwsLhVNUHpA2A0cSrjBLIt7vmifObsDHW_TQEvBXuSC01hC1aj_5sqkeCJ9YbgiG27ouCU5BP4nVdoq1XGfsxOYQfsFZru1u0/s320/IMG_4710.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A compact, purposeful signature. John Ashbery <br />signed this copy of<i> Girls on the Run </i>for me <br />in Philadelphia in April 1999. </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
John Ashbery, the only contemporary poet I have read with any regularity, died Sunday at age 90. As with many other poets, I discovered his work through music -- in his case, Ned Rorem's "Some Trees" and of, course, Elliott Carter's "Syringa" from 1978.<br />
<br />
That one work spurred me on to read several of Ashbery's books, including <i>Houseboat Days</i> (in which "Syringa" appears), <i>Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, Shadow Train,</i> and <i>Girls on the Run</i>, a copy of which the poet signed for me April 1999 before a reading at the abandoned Barclay Hotel in Philadelphia. I mentioned "Syringa" to him, and he replied that while Carter was his favorite composer, he had never liked the piece until he heard <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SC0cwi0oacM">Katherine Ciesinski </a>sing it on the Bridge recording. I shouldn't have been surprised. Poets often react badly to musical settings of their work. They must have the sound of their words lodged in their heads, and anything that alters that sound is experienced as a jarring violation. (A composer has set my own "Sonnet: May 1913" to music. I have not heard the song, but I don't doubt I'll have my objections.)<br />
<br />
Carter returned to Ashbery's poetry in 2007 with <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euH_sq8SoTU&index=1&list=PLCeM7fER6lN9m-m4xB0KYKc4Zxv0y6XTo">"Mad Regales,"</a> a set of three miniatures for six voices a capella. Something about the verses must have inspired him, as "Mad Regales" was his first choral piece in sixty years. I have no word on how the poet felt about it..<br />
<br />
It's hard for me to pin down just what I like about Ashbery's work. Line for line, the cool, conversational tone seems lucid, but after just a few of these, cool, conversational lines, one begins to feel lost. The subject keeps changing, and the lack of context makes the referents of the pronouns hard to keep straight. This sense of disorientation seems to have been the point, as we read in the august pages of the omniscient <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/john-ashbery-changed-the-rules-of-american-poetry">New Yorker</a>: "a world that is complex requires a poetry that is complex." Fair enough, I suppose, though one could make the counterargument that a directness that makes sense of the complexity would be more helpful.<br />
<br />
At the reading in 1999, a beautiful young woman I spoke with briefly, who had never read Ashbery's poetry, told me she was surprised at how funny he was. She was right. He made excellent jokes, a point that has been lost in the barrage of encomia in the press. I'll end with my favorite here, from "Worsening Situation," the second poem in <i>Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror</i>: <br />
<br />
<i> One day a man called while I was out</i><br />
<i>And left this message: "You got the whole thing wrong</i><br />
<i>From start to finish. Luckily, there's still time</i><br />
<i>To correct the situation, but you must act fast.</i><br />
<i>See me at your earliest convenience. And please</i><br />
<i>Tell no one of this. Much besides your life depends on it."</i><br />
<i>I thought nothing of it at the time.</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-64347395261733066092017-05-10T13:06:00.001-04:002017-05-10T13:12:39.381-04:00My own Sunday rituals<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 8.5pt;">
<span style="color: white; font-family: "inherit" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Before another week goes by, I want to mention two
concerts I attended on back-to-back Sundays. On April 30, in a program at St.
Asaph’s Church in Bala Cynwyd, the string quartet contingent of the Elysian
Camerata introduced me to the music of Erwin Schulhoff, the Czech who died at
the Wülzbourg concentration camp in 1942. (My German-language music dictionary,
from 1973, does not have an entry for him. I wonder why.) Barbara Jaffe and
Dana Weiderhold, violins; Louse Jaffe, viola; and Talia Schiff, cello, performed
Schulhoff’s thematically rich, expressively complex String Quartet No. 2 (from
1924). The piece reminded me somewhat of Bartok, with its thick textures,
aggressive rhythms, and folk touches, although, in light of the jazz variation
in the second movement, no one would ever confuse the two. The performers
seemed quite at home with the progressive idiom, and I was came away wanting to
hear more of this neglected composer.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "inherit" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The Camerata’s concert began with Crisantemi and
Scherzo, two pretty, early works by Puccini, and ended with Mendelssohn’s
String Quartet in D Major, Op. 44 No. 1, a big, sunny piece without a shade of
darkness in it. Listening to it is rather like having a Labrador retriever jump
on your shoulders and lick your face.</span><span style="color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGFIkqeQiUTjhMfLQDhLsuZjVWLRXA343wJLWEUZMCHyfx_bHE2LLs9T0gZDqc27Co8QFsjvqyVT_bmLI6I_7vwnDgmLan_VUCJnzipjtFfqp8J_E_dY3QGsxi4SCr1t698exWQukyqJQ/s1600/IMG_2899.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGFIkqeQiUTjhMfLQDhLsuZjVWLRXA343wJLWEUZMCHyfx_bHE2LLs9T0gZDqc27Co8QFsjvqyVT_bmLI6I_7vwnDgmLan_VUCJnzipjtFfqp8J_E_dY3QGsxi4SCr1t698exWQukyqJQ/s320/IMG_2899.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Shannon Merlino, Silviano Reis and Chen Chen <br />perform Dvorak's "Dumky" Trio May 7 <br />at the Centre Theater, Norristown. Sorry, <br />but the photo was tkan directly into the light. </span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "inherit" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">Then, on May 7, the Centre Theater, Norristown, presented
what was, for me, a more familiar program, consisting of two flat-out
masterpieces: Dvorak’s “Dumky” trio and Schubert’s F minor Fantasy four-hands.
The piano in the lobby of the theater, where the first Sunday recitals are held,
has a bad reputation, but the kids made the best of it, and the small audience
was treated to a memorable afternoon of music. (The original plan was to move the
recital up to the theater on the fourth floor, where another piano had been
freshly tuned, but </span><span style="color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">―</span><span style="color: white; font-family: "inherit" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"> surprise! </span><span style="color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">― a rehearsal for the June musical, “Chicago,”
had been scheduled for the space at the
same time.)</span><span style="color: white; font-family: "inherit" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;"></span><br />
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</span><span style="color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "inherit" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">The concert began with a chestnut, the “Tzigane
Tango” by Jacob Gade, played by Steve Kramer, cello, and Maria Taylor, piano,
who seemed overqualified for such a little bon bon. This work is not much known
today, but it was big hit in the 1930s, under the title “Jalousie,” and was
recorded by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3ByUuF-_DA">the likes of Xavier Cugat. </a>I came across it in the old radio
programs of Bob and Ray, whose character Webley Webster (played by Ray
Goulding) would play it on the Hammond organ. Or rather, he would try to play
it. The gag was something would always go wrong, and he’d never get through it.
As a consequence, I knew only the first couple of bars. That is, until this
past Sunday.</span><span style="color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: "inherit" , "serif"; font-size: 16.0pt;">I played host at the theater, serving the wine and
cheese and making a few introductory remarks. My only regret is that I had to
miss the two-piano program presented at the same time by Rollin Wilber and
Kasia Marzec-Salwinski down at the ethical society. One has but one life
to give for music.</span><span style="color: white; font-family: "times new roman" , "serif"; font-size: 13.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-11395468887173474242017-04-11T11:51:00.002-04:002017-04-11T11:55:44.526-04:00London's dystopia <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9hZOIggFbJ9cWXVFarPXwyL9Mdr1eXJxuJtM_XPcFh5VaWYjHMYh-FU4XFBkCrAgF4n4RvY4mtapupzKaQUTm6VPFwIV_eQATNHpOyTZSQaPRJjSuMZcerCsY-G56Kqf1Rw4FnuGlccg/s1600/iron+heel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9hZOIggFbJ9cWXVFarPXwyL9Mdr1eXJxuJtM_XPcFh5VaWYjHMYh-FU4XFBkCrAgF4n4RvY4mtapupzKaQUTm6VPFwIV_eQATNHpOyTZSQaPRJjSuMZcerCsY-G56Kqf1Rw4FnuGlccg/s1600/iron+heel.jpg" /></a>My librarian tells me there has been a run on dystopian novels of late. The most popular is, of course, <i>1984, </i>with Margaret Attwood's <i>Handmaid's Tale</i> also high in demand. The reason isn't hard to discern, unless you've been on an interstellar flight for the past year, and I won't befoul this site by mentioning any names. For my most recent foray into the genre, however, I went back a little further in time to <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1164/1164-h/1164-h.htm">The Iron Heel</a>, by Jack London, which seemed to me more pertinent to our current situation than Orwell's projections regarding Stalinism or Atwood's world of sexual slavery.<br />
<br />
For <i>The Iron Heel</i> imagines life under the Oligarchy -- what we today would call the "1 percent." London writes from an unapologetically Marxist perspective, complete with a long chapter on the theory of surplus value, and what he describes is the last stage of capitalism, a state of affairs that begins in the early 20th century (the book was published in 1906) and lasts for three hundred years. In his telling, wealth has flowed to the top, just as it is doing now. The industrial trusts, which were real enough in London's day, achieve maximum efficiency through the "combination" of production and distribution, driving small manufacturers and independent farmers out of business, until nothing is left except the big corporations and the wage slaves who toil for them. Order is maintained through control of the courts and legislatures, as well as a private army known as the Mercenaries.<br />
<br />
The story is told by a bourgeois-turned-revolutionary named Avis Everhard, who is writing in the early 1930s (15 years after London died), but whose manuscript is being published 700 years in the future, about 400 years after the successful socialist revolution that establishes the worldwide Brotherhood of Man, This dual time frame allows London to insert retrospective editorial footnotes that comment on contemporary working conditions, pass judgment on historical figures or explain slang that readers in the far future would find archaic.<br />
<br />
It's a promising conceit, but the execution doesn't quite come together. The hero of the book is Avis' husband, the gabby socialist leader Ernest Everhard (what a wonderfully phallic name), who in the early going is an expository know-it-all, but who drops out of sight in the climax of the book, only to take a bow in the penultimate chapter. (When he's not talking, London can't think of anything for him to do.) For me the most appealing character was old Bishop Moorehouse, who is committed to an insane asylum for daring to follow Jesus's example and minister to the poor. He too pops up again near the end, but only for a line, and to no real purpose.<br />
<br />
In keeping with London's attempt at verisimilitude, the "Everhard manuscript" is incomplete. It cuts off in midsentence, as if Avis had to run out of the room to avoid arrest, leaving the editor to comment, in the last footnote, that we might never know how, exactly, Ernest met his fate.<br />
<br />
Damn you, Jack, You couldn't add another fifty pages?<br />
<br />
On the other hand, the climax of the story, the revolt in Chicago, is probably the most exciting thing I'll read all year.Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-19739832894622309432017-03-28T12:03:00.000-04:002017-03-28T19:28:29.791-04:00Brahms and friends<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjShEtpwCWlTo4kMyEuc3Q1G4WtAZtYs3hNYeN3Rz8dyQ8fmI0AZGkMfqczE7B2Jwf2lqVCEO3cnVxq2WGA0i4rYgNhSdoqZAek0peNpI-XoF9HLxMLOAn_A_O3DINVPMxa-APgQLuvSeY/s1600/IMG_2799.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjShEtpwCWlTo4kMyEuc3Q1G4WtAZtYs3hNYeN3Rz8dyQ8fmI0AZGkMfqczE7B2Jwf2lqVCEO3cnVxq2WGA0i4rYgNhSdoqZAek0peNpI-XoF9HLxMLOAn_A_O3DINVPMxa-APgQLuvSeY/s320/IMG_2799.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">The crew of the fine Art Music Company </span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">performs </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Brahms' Piano Quartet </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">No. 1</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> in G Minor </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Op. 25 Sunday </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">at the Ethical Society in Philadelphia. </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Playing are, from left, </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Jonathan Moser, violin; </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Kasia </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Marzec-Salwinski, piano; </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Adelya Shagidullina, viola; </span></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">and Michal Schmidt, cello. </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Rollin Wilber does </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">a yeoman's service t</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">urning pages. </span></div>
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I can't let too much time go by before I post something about the music I heard over the weekend. On Sunday, my friends at the Fine Art Music Company presented yet another well-thought-out and captivating program of chamber music -- this one consisting of works by Robert and Clara Schumann and their discovery Johannes Brahms. Then, on Monday night, I was invited to Opus Piano, on Ridge Pike, Philadelphia, where violist Adelya Shagidullina, who also appeared in Sunday's program, and pianist Kasia Marzec-Salwinski (whose husband, Piotr, owns the piano store) ran through a program they'll be playing Wednesday at the Rutgers campus in Camden. </div>
I don't want to get bogged down "reviewing" either event. I want to say only that I feel musically sated at the moment, as well as grateful, and that it's been only in the past few years that I've learned to appreciate early Brahms. Over the years, whenever I've been on the mood for Uncle Johannes -- which I am, frequently -- I usually choose something middle to late, say from the symphonies onward. Over the weekend, I was reminded just why that is. Fine Art wrapped up its concert Sunday with a fiery performance of the early Piano Quartet in G Minor Op. 25, and on Monday, Kasia and Adelya played his E-flat Viola Sonata Op. 120 No. 2. Now, Brahms is always recognizably Brahms. He's one of those composers who, like Bach, did not radically alter their language in the course of their careers, but as a young man, he stuffed his scores like sausages. There's so much going on, and the textures are so thick, I often feel the need to come up for air. Sunday's Piano Quartet was certainly exciting, and it brought the sizable audience to its feet, but the sonata Monday evening let me breathe.<br />
<br />
The young firebrand impresses me more and more, but it's the bearded, portly and dirty old man who warms my heart.Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-14158606299761265122017-03-06T12:50:00.004-05:002017-03-06T12:50:50.816-05:00Bach in Norristown<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuG-PK_Zl_PeaZVkLuFcH1uyPKCh04edYg3jXHYGxHfDr8QojRifMfWNR7V3dWV2YvwmU596U3nFN1AAUabg0QempdTkfAfcnXWv9z3uqsLruce3U2XnzfEeC4dc1Elu4dIQpJdncXw9o/s1600/IMG_2733.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuG-PK_Zl_PeaZVkLuFcH1uyPKCh04edYg3jXHYGxHfDr8QojRifMfWNR7V3dWV2YvwmU596U3nFN1AAUabg0QempdTkfAfcnXWv9z3uqsLruce3U2XnzfEeC4dc1Elu4dIQpJdncXw9o/s320/IMG_2733.JPG" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Steve Kramer performs J.S Bach's <br />Suite No.1 for Unaccompanied <br />Cello Sunday in Norristown.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Yes, it was everything I
thought it would be. The gifted young cellist Steve Kramer played three of J.S.
Bach's six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello -- Nos. 1, 3, and 6 -- Sunday
afternoon at the Centre Theater in Norristown. It was the first of a series of chamber
concerts planned for the first Sunday of each month, and the project couldn’t
have gotten off to a more auspicious start.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Only about a dozen
people turned out, but they were enthusiastic, and most were knowledgeable. The
group included a music teacher, a family with a small daughter, and a young
volunteer firefighter who said he was taking a course in classical music at
Montgomery County Community College. I was flattered to speak to three people
who said they learned about the concert from my <a href="http://www.timesherald.com/arts-and-entertainment/20170302/concert-series-at-centre-theater-in-norristown-begins-with-bach"><span style="color: blue;">preview article</span></a>, which appeared on the front page
of last Friday's Times Herald.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">But enough about me. The
music was thrilling. Steve seems to favor extreme tempi: The fast movements
were very fast, and the slow movements, especially in the minor-key Suite No.
5, were lingered over, caressed. As you can see from the photo, I was sitting
close enough to see the strings vibrate on the cello. In an intimate setting like this,
the low growl of the instrument seems to flow through your bones.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">In such an informal
setting, ordinary concert protocols were dispensed with. There was no printed
program, so Steve named each movement before he played it. The audience also
applauded lightly between movements. The effect was a break in the continuity
of the music, but that was easily forgotten during the actual playing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">Since the Suite No. 5
ends somberly, Steve sent everyone home with for a brisk encore -- "The
Star-Spangled Banner," in honor of his adopted homeland, or perhaps
Phillies spring training. It was the loveliest arrangement of that overly
familiar tune that I can recall.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />
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<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: 13.5pt;">One personal note: During some extemporaneous remarks about his role at the Centre Theater Music School,
Steve used the expression "don't paint the devil on the wall." He is
only the second person in my life I have heard say that -- the first
being my mother, who died in 1999. When I was a kid, she often said it as a way of warning
not to invite bad luck by talking about it. I so taken aback when I heard again it again yesterday that I
actually clapped my hands to my face. Steve is from Denmark, and my mother's
mother's family was from what used to be known as the Sudetenland (the region Hitler
and Chamberlain haggled over in Munich). I'm sure now <a href="https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/den_Teufel_an_die_Wand_malen">that there's a linguistic connection. </a>Mom never told me where she hear it first (or if she did, I have forgotten), but I'm sure now she must have picked it up her mother.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-77850908103123278772017-03-03T11:00:00.002-05:002017-03-03T11:10:27.939-05:00Steve Kramer to play Bach<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEc4ShgGSjRhzp5K4aOfIXTmxXacQfUPKGmMf6WhjJq5C9KjVn3lZSt1LwD9zjrDnqXcZyzJOnkV5ROTCVycH9mPOsnrCEyL5JEAnFbW-vGiQxixQeYzojdPJLIfYEPoQuXEc32aZMsXM/s1600/kramer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEc4ShgGSjRhzp5K4aOfIXTmxXacQfUPKGmMf6WhjJq5C9KjVn3lZSt1LwD9zjrDnqXcZyzJOnkV5ROTCVycH9mPOsnrCEyL5JEAnFbW-vGiQxixQeYzojdPJLIfYEPoQuXEc32aZMsXM/s320/kramer.jpg" width="320" /></a>The cellist Steve Kramer will perform three of Bach's cello suites Sunday in Norristown. <a href="http://www.timesherald.com/arts-and-entertainment/20170302/concert-series-at-centre-theater-in-norristown-begins-with-bach">Here's a link </a>to my article previewing the event. It was written for a general readership, so there isn't too much about the music. Yes, the guy on the theater board is really hoping one day to bring a symphony orchestra to the county seat. That's an expensive proposition, and I doubt it'll happen, given the theater's limited resources, but a series of chamber concerts is exciting enough.<br />
<br />
<br />Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-45054203916545918732017-02-20T11:31:00.000-05:002017-02-20T13:09:50.084-05:00Ives Uncaged<div class="MsoNormal">
The microtonalist composer and theorist Johnny Reinhard
invited me to his New York apartment Sunday to hear a new recording, which he is
producing, of Charles Ives’s Concord Sonata. There must be dozens of recordings
of the piece. What makes this one unique is that it involves two pianists ― the
young powerhouses Gabriel Zucker and Erika Dohi ― playing separate instruments
tuned according to what Johnny calls an “extended Pythagorean” system, or “the
spiral of fifths.” <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The tuning creates 24 tones per octave and, Johnny says, comes
closer to what the composer must have had in mind when he wrote the sonata. In this
score, as in others, Ives distinguishes between tones that in equal temperament
are enharmonic ― placing, for example, an F sharp beside a G flat in the same
measure. To his copyists, this was just bad notation, and it drove them batty. In
the Pythagorean system, however, the tones are distinct, and Johnny insists
that with his version, he is merely taking Ives at his word. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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He also finds justification for his approach in this
paragraph from the Epilogue of Ives’s <i>Essays Before a Sonata:</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>In some century to come, when the school children will
whistle popular tunes in quarter-tones ― when the diatonic scale will be as obsolete
as the pentatonic is now ― perhaps then these borderland experiences may be
both easily expressed and readily recognized. But maybe the music is not
intended to satisfy the curious definiteness of man. Maybe it is better to hope
that music may be a transcendental language in the most extravagant sense. Possibly
the power of literally distinguishing these “shades of abstraction” ― these
attributes paralleled by “artistic intuitions” (call them what you will) ― is
ever to be denied man for the same reason that the beginning and end of a circle
are to be denied.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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The century Ives predicted, Johnny said, is now. The circle
has been broken, swept up into a spiral of fifths. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Of course, the proof of any theory is in the listening, and I
have to say, there are many stunning, ear-stretching moments in this recording.
The word that kept recurring to me throughout the 40-minute running time was “liberated.”
The dense, complex “Emerson” movement, in particular, gains a new power and
resonance. The music seems propelled by a long-pent-up energy, like a tiger suddenly let loose from a cage. The fresh charge comes at a cost, however, as the last two
movements, in which Ives progressively thins out the textures, lose some of
their accustomed flavor. “The Alcotts” sounds less naive, “Thoreau” less transparent,
with the flute solo at the end (performed sensitively enough by Erin Keppner)
struggling to break through the haze. But these are initial impressions, derived
perhaps from a lifetime of familiarity with standard performances ― if any performance
of the Concord may be called “standard.” With repeated listening, I expect I might find
new values to replace the old.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The two-piano version did not require any form of re-arrangement,
Johnny said. All he did was take two copies of the score, black out some of the
notes in each, and highlight others. The problems of coordination for the two musicians
must have been staggering, but Zucker and Dohi rise to the challenge with astonishing
precision. The performance is seamless. <o:p></o:p><br />
<br />
---------</div>
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Tuning for the two-piano, microtonal Concord Sonata:<o:p></o:p></div>
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Piano I (Zucker)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
C# D# F#
G# A# <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
C D E F G A B<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Piano II (Dohi)<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Db Eb Gb Ab Bb<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
B# Cx Fb E# Fx Gx Cb<o:p></o:p></div>
Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-13861369316476770152017-02-13T16:39:00.000-05:002017-02-13T16:40:37.250-05:00A Thought for the Day The most redundant phrase I know<br />
Would have to be "the winds that blow."<br />
For if the wind's just standing there,<br />
Then what you're looking at is "air."Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-6865964237807925892017-01-31T10:20:00.000-05:002017-01-31T10:21:25.020-05:00The New New ColossusThe Lady with the Lamp looks out to sea<br />
And tells the world, "I'm changing my criteria.<br />
Send all your homeless, tempest-tossed to me,<br />
Unless the little bastards come from Syria."Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-41476290645599837022017-01-23T11:51:00.001-05:002017-01-23T12:57:38.542-05:00Oh, how these people have suffered<div class="MsoNormal">
Russia went through hell in the 20th century (at present it
appears to have graduated into purgatory), and its many great artists bore witness
to its suffering, either by confronting it directly; or by dreaming, like the
early Christians, of the peace beyond the apocalypse; or by simply getting out
and moving on. The Fine Art Music Company, a
too-well-kept secret in Philadelphia, presented a taste of that survivalist spirit
over the weekend with perhaps the strongest program we’ve had from it -- two hours music
and poetry that was rooted in Russia’s so-called Silver Age and carried over
into the Stalinist era and beyond. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The composers on the bill were Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Scriabin,
Rachmaninoff, Pärt and Schnittke. The poetry, read sometimes in Russian, sometimes
in translation, by mezzo-soprano Tatyana Rashkovsky, included the work of Osip
Mandelstam, Alexander Blok, and, most prominently, Anna Akhmatova, whose biography reads like a summary of what befell the country at large.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Performances at the Ethical Society Sunday were uniformly excellent. Rollin Wilber was in
top form in three of Rachmaninoff’s Preludes from Op. 32, as was Kasia
Marzec-Salwinski in Scriabin’s Sonata-Fantasy Op. 19 and four early Preludes by
Schnittke, which have been discovered published only recently. (For all we
know, Wilber said during the Q and A, it might have been a US premiere.) <o:p></o:p></div>
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Cellist Yoni Draiblate added sensitive readings of Schnittke’s
Musica Nostalgica and Pärt’s Fratres, though I found the pieces themselves unremarkable.
Rashkovsky, in songs by Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff, was thrilling.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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It was a heavy afternoon, but Draiblate and Wilber ended it
on a hopeful note with Rachmaninoff’s touching Vocalise, which, in context, felt
like a pale ray of sunshine breaking through the gloom. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The poetry of oppression raised inevitable comparisons to current
political situation in the US (the woman sitting in front of me wore a pink
pussy cap), but Rashkovsky put it in perspective after the concert. She began
life under the Brezhnev regime, she said, and very little can scare her now. While hardly a ringing endorsement of our new chief
executive, it makes one grateful for large mercies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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One side note: Kasia and I had a disagreement over the meaning
of this verse by Akhmatova, written in 1921:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i>Don’t torment your heart with earthly joys,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Don’t cling to your wife or your home,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Take the bread from your child<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>To give to a stranger.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>And be the humblest servant of the one<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<i>Who was your bitterest foe,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>And call the beast of the forest brother,<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>And don’t ask God for anything, ever.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
Kasia saw it as advocating an otherwordly, Christlike ethic
of selflessness and renunciation. I took it to be an ironic manifesto of the revolutionary regime, stating, in effect, that from now on life will be miserable, and one
has no choice but to submit. I am strengthened in my opinion by the poem’s
timing: It was written the same year Akhmatova’s former husband was executed by
the Bolsheviks. One the other hand, I must admit my understanding of poetry has
often been wide of the mark. I have a talent for missing the point. My college essay on Robinson’s “How Annandale Went Out,” for example, remains one of the
signal embarrassments of my life.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-19345882726282462322017-01-21T16:00:00.002-05:002017-03-20T11:31:44.075-04:00Oh, How Do You Feel About Schoenberg?<i>For Marjory</i><br />
<br />
Oh, how to you feel about Schoenberg?<br />
Please tell me in ten words or less.<br />
I'll need your opinion in writing<br />
Before this affair can progress.<br />
<br />
And how do you feel about Webern,<br />
And Carter and Ives and Varèse?<br />
Would you tolerate Boulez and Babbitt<br />
Despite what the Times critic says?<br />
<br />
Because if we move in together,<br />
You're going to hear them a lot,<br />
And the last seven women I lived with<br />
Ran out of the house like a shot.<br />
<br />
They took all the money and children.<br />
They transferred the cable connection.<br />
They took all the furniture, china, and books,<br />
And left me my record collection.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />
<br />Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-39152067599233407642016-11-07T11:56:00.003-05:002016-11-07T15:37:41.598-05:00Shall we gather at the river?Congratulations and thank you to the Fine Art Music Company for its exhilarating program of American music this weekend in Philadelphia. The performances, held Saturday evening at Ivy Hall and Sunday afternoon at the Ethical Society, were timed -- intentionally, I am told -- to correspond with Tuesday's general election. I joked, ruefully, that it might be the last time I feel good about being an American for a long time to come.<br />
<br />
But feel good I did. The program was well-chosen and lovingly presented. I was familiar with most of the music, but two pieces -- Paul Bowles's Six Preludes for Piano and William Grant Still's Suite for Violin and Piano -- were new to me.<br />
<br />
Bowles's Preludes are short, finely etched studies that the pianist, Kasia Marzec-Salwinski, compared to the character pieces of Schumann. Still's Suite shoehorns elements of jazz and spirituals into rather a conventional framework.<br />
<br />
By contrast, Charles Ives's Fourth Violin Sonata, which opened the second half of the program, does away with frameworks altogether. Subtitled "Children's Day at the Camp Meeting," it is not one of Ives's more avant-garde works, but it bristles with mischief, and Jonathan Moser, the afternoon's violinist, navigated the mood swings with remarkable clarity of tone, while Kasia, on piano, more than held her own in a piece that mocks the very notion of holding your own.<br />
<br />
The Ives was one of two high points of the afternoon for me. The other was the finale, Gershwin's ubiquitous "Rhapsody in Blue," in Henry Levine's arrangement for piano four hands. This is not a piece I need to listen to a lot, though I certainly don't avoid it. Gershwin's concert music is often better remembered than heard -- that is, the melodies are so good they stick in the mind long after you've forgotten just how clunky the structures are. But any doubts as to the music's ultimate value were banished here. Kasia and Rollin Wilber breezed through it with an enthusiasm that proved infectious. It was obvious they were having a high old time.<br />
<br />
I don't want to leave out flutist Elivi Varga, who performed Copland's Duo for Flute and Piano and Samuel Barber's Canzone (with Rollin on piano in the former, Kasia in the latter). These are relatively minor works, but they are pretty, and Varga gave a radiant luster to both of them. She was especially effective in the Barber. <br />
<br />
I also want to thank the musicians for inviting me to join them onstage for the Q&A session after the concert, when I was asked to say a few words about Charles Ives. In gratitude, I kept my comments short.Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-30169777615977775472016-11-05T22:44:00.002-04:002016-11-08T12:04:47.079-05:00Another mystery solvedIn an earlier post, I mentioned that the director of Choral Arts Philadelphia was at a loss to explain the presence of the sopranino recorder in Bach's Cantata BWV 96, <i>Christ her einige Gottessohn</i>. Bach always assigned extra-musical meanings to his instrumentation, of course, and the director couldn't determine just what the recorder was supposed to symbolize.<br />
<br />
Well, inspired by Choral Arts' performance, I purchased a CD of the piece (Bach-Ensemble, cond. by Helmuth Rilling), and found the following in the booklet: "This cantata is one of those compositions, starting with BWV 94, where Bach accorded the modern flute a major role. In aria no. 3 it provides the 'bonds of affection' by which Jesus should draw the spirit. Inn the opening chirus the same player probably had to use a sopranino recorder to convey the light of the morning star mentioned in the text in a suitably high register."<br />
<br />
The complete text of the chorus is as follows:<br />
<i>Lord Christ, the only son of God,</i><br />
<i>Father's eternally,</i><br />
<i>From his own heart descended,</i><br />
<i>Just a scripture saith;</i><br />
<i>He is the star of morning. </i><br />
<br />
People try to make this stuff hard.<br />
<br />Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-77279886471697039612016-10-29T19:42:00.004-04:002016-10-29T19:42:59.794-04:00Meine LieblingsmusikWer sagt, die Deutschen haben keinen Sinn f<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; text-align: center;">ü</span>r Humor?<br />
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<br />Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-7583706909565974162016-10-26T13:32:00.003-04:002016-10-26T19:19:59.334-04:00"Like a complete unknown ..." I suppose I'm going to have to weigh on on this whole Bob Dylan-Nobel Prize thing, but since Dylan himself hasn't acknowledged it yet, I haven't felt too much pressure. According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/opinion/the-meaning-of-bob-dylans-silence.html?_r=0">Adam Kirsch</a>, our latest laureate isn't even returning the Swedish Academy's phone calls, and now the Lords of Literature are getting all huffy, accusing their newest poster boy of being "impolite and arrogant."<br />
<br />
They're surprised? The guy has <a href="http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/dont-look-back-1998">made a career of being impolite and arrogan</a>t.<br />
<br />
The truth is, I'm neither outraged by the prize, nor am I raising huzzahs, as some have. I'm just not that into Dylan, and the Nobel is not a ticket to immortality. Every year when the prize is announced, we recall the greats who were never named -- Proust, Tolstoy, Conrad, Joyce, Nabokov, Auden -- and we overlook, yet again, the many mediocrities who were. Every Novel, every Pulitzer, every Oscar, every Grammy is a reminder, as if we needed reminding, that life is unfair. <br />
<br />
And then there's the question, is what Dylan does literature? I'd say yeah, sure, why not?, but that admission doesn't make me prouder to be an American living at this particular time.<br />
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<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2016/10/13/bob-dylan-nobel-prize/">In the New York Review of Books, </a>Luc Sante argues that while Dylan's lyrics, on their own, might not scan as well as those of Cole Porter or Smokey Robiinson, he added a new dimension to song: "As great a Porter and Robinson were as songwriters, they were working in -- and profiting from -- the air of frivolity that attended lyric-writing by the mid-twentieth century, an era that prized verbal dexterity and rapid evaporation. Dylan, through his ambiguity, his ability to throw down puzzles that continue to echo and to generate interpretations, almost singehandedly created a climate inn which lyrics were taken seriously."<br />
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In other words, Dylan is more pretentious. What, one may ask, is un-literary about lightness and frivolity? And I hardly think Porter's lyrics have evaporated.<br />
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But Dylan was not awarded the Nobel Prize for his lyrics. He was given the ward for his songs: the combination of lyrics and music. Anyone who recalls "Like a Rolling Stone" or "When I paint My Masterpiece" doesn't recite the words. They sing them to themselves, and it is this mutual dependence of words and music that led <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/bob-dylan-as-richard-wagner">Alex Ross to compare Dylan to Wagner</a>.<br />
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I don't think the comparison quite holds, since Wagner is regarded primarily as a composer. The music, without the words, is still ravishing. Gershwin's melodies, too, stand on their own and have become standards of the instrumental jazz repertoire. Dylan's have not. <br />
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Give him his due, though: There may be better lyricists, better guitar players, better tune smiths -- heaven knows there are better singers, but few others have combined their talents into something so memorable. He is one of the few cases where the overused word "synergy" is appropriate.Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4449697140204377101.post-25374763662515664372016-10-21T21:00:00.001-04:002016-10-21T21:18:42.923-04:00The holes are very small<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP2HOylcmUdH-xVjdKBjbe9rVSe8Q_6WRZzJfLXyKQsPACTx_o6LsAkkMxNmq7BDuONtBjbvL94mTyElq1CGrqn9L3O_XNhM9Nkf4XgDskemKfTCYDWjmEXhgYeXE1rE4Q8O7mUZj33hY/s1600/FullSizeRender.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP2HOylcmUdH-xVjdKBjbe9rVSe8Q_6WRZzJfLXyKQsPACTx_o6LsAkkMxNmq7BDuONtBjbvL94mTyElq1CGrqn9L3O_XNhM9Nkf4XgDskemKfTCYDWjmEXhgYeXE1rE4Q8O7mUZj33hY/s400/FullSizeRender.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">Conductor Matthew Glandorf gestures for a soloist to take </span><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;">a bow </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">after The Choral Arts Society's </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">performance of J.S. Bach's </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Cantata BWV 80, </span><i style="font-size: 12.8px;">Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott.</i></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I didn't need an excuse to blow off
Wednesday night's debate between the presidential candidates, but if I had, I
couldn't have asked for a better one than the hourlong "Bach at 7"
concert by Choral Arts Philadelphia. This season, the choir is working though
the cycle of 18 of J.S. Bach's cantatas from 1734-35. Wednesday, it presented
BWV 80, the familiar<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Ein feste
Burg isst under Gott,</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and BWV
96,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Herr Christ, der einige
Gottesohn,</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>which I had not
known, despite my great affection for Bach's cantatas. Of late, they have
absorbed me more than any other aspect of his work, but there are 260 of the
things. There are only so many hours in a life. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;"><i>Herr Christ</i> charmed me with its prominent part for
sopranino recorder, played in this performance by Rainer Beckmann, who must be
at least 6-foot-2. (It's always the biggest guys who play the tiniest
instruments. In every bluegrass band I've ever seen, the mandolin player is a
giant.) The sopranino is the dog-whistle of the recorder family. Its lowest
pitch is fˊˊ,<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>and the
holes are quite close together. Modern instruments, like my little plastic job,
are tuned at A=440, but Choral Arts uses the Baroque tuning of A=415. (The
string players also use old-style, convex bows, which produce a softer sound
than modern, convex bows.) Because of the lower tuning, Rainer explained, the
finger holes are very small (though he didn't say why). Then he took his
instrument out of its case and showed it to me: The holes were like pinpricks.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">One mystery of the cantata concerned the symbolism of the recorder
part. In Bach's religious music the instrumentation always carries
extra-musical connotations, Matthew Glandorf, the Choral Arts conductor, told
me, but he has been unable to turn up any information on just what the recorder
is supposed to stand for in this work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">"The Holy Spirit," I offered. "Flutes are always
the Holy Spirit."<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Unfortunately, the Paraclete is not mentioned anywhere in the
libretto. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">I also asked if there might have been practical reason for the
scoring: The sopranino's piercing sound should guarantee that it can be heard over
the chorus and the orchestra -- although in the cavernous nave of St. Clement's
Church, that was not always the case. No, Matthew replied, mere practicality
was not an issue for Bach. There is always a spiritual justification for the
choice of instruments. If anyone has any ideas, now's your chance to show off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: large;">Rainer also said Wednesday night was his first professional gig as
a sopranino player. In that, I have him beat by 20 years. I played the
instrument back in the late 80s in a production of Jean-Claude Van Italie's<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>Mystery Play.</i> It drove the other actors crazy.</span><span style="font-size: 9.5pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
Joe Barronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16638252347181688694noreply@blogger.com0