The Independence Sinfonia presented a program of Mozart and Beethoven Sunday afternoon. I was unable to attend, since I worked weekends, but I was invited to the final rehearsal at a shoebox of a church in Wyndmoor Pa. It was a thrill to hear Beethoven's Fifth in such a small space, even when the orchestra consists of only about 40 musicians. The reading was taut, and the musicians played straight through: the only distraction was the occasional shout of encouragement from the podium.
The conductor, Jerome Rosen, who played violin with the Cleveland Orchestra years ago, told me that the one lesson he learned from George Szell is that musicians do not play better when they're terrified.
"Anything positive you can say, you have to say," he said.
Rosen spent all of his time tweaking details of articulation and phrasing, something he said he can do only when the musicians have mastered the score. As an editor, I know what he means: there is a big difference between a writer who needs help with mechanics, and one who simply isn't getting it.
"It's so satisfying to be able to nitpick," he told the group.
Besides the Beethoven Fifth, the program included Mozart's overture to The Magic Flute and his Sinfonia Concertante, with Rosen on violin and Xiao-Fu Zhou on viola. Zhou made it look easy. He was impassive through most of the run through, while Rosen, who told me he hasn't played violin in years, would grimace every time he made a mistake.
Several the musicians sat out the Mozart, but they were all up front for the Beethoven, leaving me alone in the pews. It was like attending my own, private concert.
Monday, May 6, 2013
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Look at all the pretty colors
The 100-year anniversary of the premiere of Rite of Spring arrives next month, and Stephen Malinowski has just sent me a link to the "animated score" he has created and posted on Youtube. It's rather like a kaleidoscopic "follow the bouncing ball." It gives you something to look at while all that great music is going on, and it beats the hell out of Fantasia:
Here is an excerpt from the press release that arrived in my email:
The ballet The Rite of Spring with music by Stravinsky was first performed in Paris on May 29, 1913.
In celebration of the centenary of its premiere, music synthesist Jay Bacal and music animator Stephen Malinowski have collaborated to create an animated, graphical score for viewers.
The animation, which you can watch and listen to on YouTube, is a musical score that nonmusicians can understand. It's a welcoming way to appreciate the structure of the work, and heightens your listening by enlisting the visual channel, which allows one to easily follow the different lines of the orchestration.
"The animation lets your eyes lead your ears," Malinowski says. Malinowski, based in the Bay Area, has created music animations for more than 200 pieces of music. He has provided animation for Björk and provided live animation synchronized to performances by symphony orchestra, chamber music groups and soloists.
Here is an excerpt from the press release that arrived in my email:
The ballet The Rite of Spring with music by Stravinsky was first performed in Paris on May 29, 1913.
In celebration of the centenary of its premiere, music synthesist Jay Bacal and music animator Stephen Malinowski have collaborated to create an animated, graphical score for viewers.
The animation, which you can watch and listen to on YouTube, is a musical score that nonmusicians can understand. It's a welcoming way to appreciate the structure of the work, and heightens your listening by enlisting the visual channel, which allows one to easily follow the different lines of the orchestration.
"The animation lets your eyes lead your ears," Malinowski says. Malinowski, based in the Bay Area, has created music animations for more than 200 pieces of music. He has provided animation for Björk and provided live animation synchronized to performances by symphony orchestra, chamber music groups and soloists.
An urban legend is born
In his hatchet job at the Huffington Post, David Asia says that, during rehearsals for the first performance of the Concerto for Orchestra, Elliott Carter did not notice that a clarinetist played the wrong transposition for uch of the piece, and that Bernstein, the conductor, was unimpressed with him (Carter). Asia thinks it’s a big deal, because Carter, as we know, was all about intervals. One of my correspondents, something of a Carter expert, emailed me yesterday, in part:
I wonder where he heard the Bernstein story from since he (Asia) would not have been at the rehearsal.
He cc'd another of my correspondents (also a Carter aficion), who replied thus:
I wondered about that too. I'm beginning to think that “can't hear the wrong clarinet transposition” story is an urban legend. I heard Richard Wilson tell it about Schoenberg yesterday on a panel. (Another good one is the "learn the piece on the train and play it for the first time at the concert" story, which I've now heard about three different pianists.)
In my initial post, I had planned to say that I saw no gross misrepresentations in Asia's essay, but I am revising that estimate.
I wonder where he heard the Bernstein story from since he (Asia) would not have been at the rehearsal.
He cc'd another of my correspondents (also a Carter aficion), who replied thus:
I wondered about that too. I'm beginning to think that “can't hear the wrong clarinet transposition” story is an urban legend. I heard Richard Wilson tell it about Schoenberg yesterday on a panel. (Another good one is the "learn the piece on the train and play it for the first time at the concert" story, which I've now heard about three different pianists.)
In my initial post, I had planned to say that I saw no gross misrepresentations in Asia's essay, but I am revising that estimate.
Saturday, April 27, 2013
Carter Lives
Daniel Asia spits on Elliott Carter's grave this week over at the Huffington Post. In a piece titled "Carter is Dead" (evoking Boulez' famous pronouncement on the music of Schoenberg), he says, essentially, that the late Mr. Carter had no real talent and never did anything right in his whole life.
The essay is not interesting, but its timing is. Not only did Asia wait until Carter was safely out of the way. He waited until Charles Rosen was, too. At that point, he must have known the coast was clear, and he could safely to poke his nose out of his burrow. His little presumptions are exactly the sort of thing that Rosen, the Huxley to Carter’s Darwin, was so adept at skewering. He would have chewed it up before breakfast, then tossed off three thousand words on Mozart’s use of tonality.
I suspect that Mr. Asia produced his essay in a spirit of malicious glee, fully expecting a firestorm of protest and ready to declare that the anger and defensiveness of Carter’s admirers is proof that he had somehow touched a nerve. But there really isn’t much here to get upset about, and even less to argue with. The criticisms, such as they are, consist of simple assertions. One either agrees with them or one does not. I do not. Here are some counter-assertions, for the record: Carter’s piano music does not “pale” beside Copland’s; the Eight Etudes for wind quartet hold up quite nicely, thank you; and the finale of the Cello Sonata is hardly “cute.”
I have never changed anyone's mind about music through argument, and no one has ever changed mine. Sometimes, through repeated listening, I have learned to like something I initially found daunting or dull, but I've never stopped liking a piece of music simply because somebody told me to. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, of course, even Mr. Asia, but my listening habits remain unchanged. It's not a matter of "I'm right and he's wrong." It's more a matter of "I'm cool, and he's a doofus."
What I find heartening in Asia's piece, however, is that he really isn’t saying anything Donal Henahan and Harold C. Schoenberg weren’t saying forty years ago. To a man, the sages from our paper of record didn’t think Carter’s music had a future, either, and yet, here we are, forty years later, having the same discussion. If the future is anything like the past, the controversy will continue, and so will the music.
Now, to clear the air, I offer the Adagio of the 1948 Cello Sonata, one of my favorite movements in all of music:
The essay is not interesting, but its timing is. Not only did Asia wait until Carter was safely out of the way. He waited until Charles Rosen was, too. At that point, he must have known the coast was clear, and he could safely to poke his nose out of his burrow. His little presumptions are exactly the sort of thing that Rosen, the Huxley to Carter’s Darwin, was so adept at skewering. He would have chewed it up before breakfast, then tossed off three thousand words on Mozart’s use of tonality.
I suspect that Mr. Asia produced his essay in a spirit of malicious glee, fully expecting a firestorm of protest and ready to declare that the anger and defensiveness of Carter’s admirers is proof that he had somehow touched a nerve. But there really isn’t much here to get upset about, and even less to argue with. The criticisms, such as they are, consist of simple assertions. One either agrees with them or one does not. I do not. Here are some counter-assertions, for the record: Carter’s piano music does not “pale” beside Copland’s; the Eight Etudes for wind quartet hold up quite nicely, thank you; and the finale of the Cello Sonata is hardly “cute.”
I have never changed anyone's mind about music through argument, and no one has ever changed mine. Sometimes, through repeated listening, I have learned to like something I initially found daunting or dull, but I've never stopped liking a piece of music simply because somebody told me to. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, of course, even Mr. Asia, but my listening habits remain unchanged. It's not a matter of "I'm right and he's wrong." It's more a matter of "I'm cool, and he's a doofus."
What I find heartening in Asia's piece, however, is that he really isn’t saying anything Donal Henahan and Harold C. Schoenberg weren’t saying forty years ago. To a man, the sages from our paper of record didn’t think Carter’s music had a future, either, and yet, here we are, forty years later, having the same discussion. If the future is anything like the past, the controversy will continue, and so will the music.
Now, to clear the air, I offer the Adagio of the 1948 Cello Sonata, one of my favorite movements in all of music:
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Talk with Jerome Rosen
Last week I interviewed violinist and conductor Jerome Rosen and violinist and violist Xiao-Fu Zhou for this article on the Independence Sinfonia's May 5 concert. It was my first talk with Mr. Zhou and my second with Mr. Rosen, and I enjoyed both interviews.
I don't mention this in the article, but it turns out that Mr. Rosen and I go way back, after a fashion. He played with the Cleveland Orchestra back in the 1960s, under George Szell, and his violin enhances the textures in some of my favorite recordings, including the Bruckner Third (my favorite single Bruckner recording), the two Brahms Piano Concertos, and highlights from the Ring. I also used to own Szell's recording of the Beethoven symphonies, but I gave it to my mother-in-law years ago when I switched over to CDs.
Rosen also told me he is the pianist in the Boston Symphony's recording of the Ives Fourth Symphony. The part is fiendishly difficult, he said, and it took him four weeks to learn. I listened to my cassette transfer of the LP today on the way to work. The Ozawa-BSO recording has been overshadowed by others in my estimation, and I hadn't listened to it for years, but I was surprised by just how exciting it is.
Inevitably, the question arose: How does a musician with such a rich career behind him end up conducting an amateur orchestra in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania? The answer, of course, is love. Mr. Rosen's first serious girlfriend plays with the Sinfonia. He lost touch over the years, he told me, and, like many couples who lost touch in the years prior to the 21st century, they reconnected via the Internet. (Hi, Lynn.) They have not reunited in a romantic sense — her "guy," as he put it, is the Sinfonia's first clarinetist — but the orchestra needed a conductor, and when she asked, he couldn't refuse.
"The rest is history," he said.
I have to work May 5, unfortunately, but I’ve been invited to the May 3 dress rehearsal.
I don't mention this in the article, but it turns out that Mr. Rosen and I go way back, after a fashion. He played with the Cleveland Orchestra back in the 1960s, under George Szell, and his violin enhances the textures in some of my favorite recordings, including the Bruckner Third (my favorite single Bruckner recording), the two Brahms Piano Concertos, and highlights from the Ring. I also used to own Szell's recording of the Beethoven symphonies, but I gave it to my mother-in-law years ago when I switched over to CDs.
Rosen also told me he is the pianist in the Boston Symphony's recording of the Ives Fourth Symphony. The part is fiendishly difficult, he said, and it took him four weeks to learn. I listened to my cassette transfer of the LP today on the way to work. The Ozawa-BSO recording has been overshadowed by others in my estimation, and I hadn't listened to it for years, but I was surprised by just how exciting it is.
Inevitably, the question arose: How does a musician with such a rich career behind him end up conducting an amateur orchestra in Wyndmoor, Pennsylvania? The answer, of course, is love. Mr. Rosen's first serious girlfriend plays with the Sinfonia. He lost touch over the years, he told me, and, like many couples who lost touch in the years prior to the 21st century, they reconnected via the Internet. (Hi, Lynn.) They have not reunited in a romantic sense — her "guy," as he put it, is the Sinfonia's first clarinetist — but the orchestra needed a conductor, and when she asked, he couldn't refuse.
"The rest is history," he said.
I have to work May 5, unfortunately, but I’ve been invited to the May 3 dress rehearsal.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Tortured lede department
Look, I get it. I edit a daily newspaper and I churn out a lot of music previews, and I know what a challenge the first paragraph of a story can be. You want to be vivid, you want to be creative, and you want to use the active voice (or, depending on your journalism professor, you have to use the active voice. Even so, I can't quite forgive comparing Charles Ives to Harry Potter, as Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim does in her review of the New York Philharmonic's performance of the Fourth Symphony:
There were moments during Wednesday evening’s New York Philharmonic performance of Charles Ives’s “Symphony No. 4” at Avery Fisher Hall when I felt like a spectator at a Quidditch match. It’s true that neither the Philharmonic players nor their conductor, Alan Gilbert, were riding on broomsticks. But with 14 airborne players, four balls, six goals, and a winged target, Quidditch, the sport central to the Harry Potter novels, is a lot like Ives’s music. Things come hurtling at you from unexpected places. Players are chasing a zigzagging target. The laws of physics don’t seem to apply.
Uh, OK. When critics resort to this kind of extended conceit, it's a signal to me they don't really know what they're talking about, and they bury their ignorance in verbiage. My impression was confirmed by the rest of the review, which offers only sketchy descriptions of one or two outstanding moments and doesn't even attempt to assess either the music or the performance. OK, so Mr. Gilbert seemed relaxed under daunting circumstances. I'm relieved for him.
Vivien Schweitzer does a somewhat better job in her preview of the performance, though at times she sounds as though she's regurgitating program notes.
There were moments during Wednesday evening’s New York Philharmonic performance of Charles Ives’s “Symphony No. 4” at Avery Fisher Hall when I felt like a spectator at a Quidditch match. It’s true that neither the Philharmonic players nor their conductor, Alan Gilbert, were riding on broomsticks. But with 14 airborne players, four balls, six goals, and a winged target, Quidditch, the sport central to the Harry Potter novels, is a lot like Ives’s music. Things come hurtling at you from unexpected places. Players are chasing a zigzagging target. The laws of physics don’t seem to apply.
Uh, OK. When critics resort to this kind of extended conceit, it's a signal to me they don't really know what they're talking about, and they bury their ignorance in verbiage. My impression was confirmed by the rest of the review, which offers only sketchy descriptions of one or two outstanding moments and doesn't even attempt to assess either the music or the performance. OK, so Mr. Gilbert seemed relaxed under daunting circumstances. I'm relieved for him.
Vivien Schweitzer does a somewhat better job in her preview of the performance, though at times she sounds as though she's regurgitating program notes.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Old York Road Symphony premieres overtures by Peter Hilliard
I spoke with conductor Yoon Jae Lee and composer Peter Hilliard for this article, which discusses an upcoming performance by the Old York Road Symphony. In addition to Hilliard's "Old York Road Overture," the program will include music by Paganini and Saint-Saëns, with Philadelphia Orchestra violinist Jason DePue as soloist, and Beethoven's freaking Fifth Symphony, which I have not heard live in years. Once again, I have to work that night (the 27th) and will miss the concert.
Saturday, April 13, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
The Tenth Muse
When I was a little boy, I wanted more than anything in the world to be funny. It took years to realize I'm not, but before I finally accepted the truth (after the usual five stages of grief), my heroes were the great comedians. Groucho was one. The other was Jonathan Winters, who died Thursday at age 87.
I watched Jonathan's CBS television show religiously, as well as his syndicated show, neither of which lasted very long. He also enlivened the last, dreary season of Mork and Mindy. His compilation album from Verve, Movies Are Better Than Ever, spun endlessly on the turntable in the family dining when I was in my early teens, and it may is still in my vinyl collection. Any guest appearance on any TV show was, for me, an event akin to a presidential election.
Winters had an extraterrestrial sensibility that came across best in small, sudden bursts. He never seemed at home in series television, and he was wasted in the movies. He appeared in no great pictures, and he never gave a memorable screen performance. Pauline Kael once said of him that he "never found his forms." That may be true, and in retrospect, I have come to believe that even the greatest comedians are funny only about half the time. With Jonathan, one had to wait for inspiration to strike, but when it did, he seemed to tap into a metaphysical realm normally reserved for bodhisattvas.
I offer this clip as a sample of the weirdness:
I watched Jonathan's CBS television show religiously, as well as his syndicated show, neither of which lasted very long. He also enlivened the last, dreary season of Mork and Mindy. His compilation album from Verve, Movies Are Better Than Ever, spun endlessly on the turntable in the family dining when I was in my early teens, and it may is still in my vinyl collection. Any guest appearance on any TV show was, for me, an event akin to a presidential election.
Winters had an extraterrestrial sensibility that came across best in small, sudden bursts. He never seemed at home in series television, and he was wasted in the movies. He appeared in no great pictures, and he never gave a memorable screen performance. Pauline Kael once said of him that he "never found his forms." That may be true, and in retrospect, I have come to believe that even the greatest comedians are funny only about half the time. With Jonathan, one had to wait for inspiration to strike, but when it did, he seemed to tap into a metaphysical realm normally reserved for bodhisattvas.
I offer this clip as a sample of the weirdness:
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