Category: Music

A Task
In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life
Only if I brought myself to make a public confession
Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch:
We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and demons
But pure and generous words were forbidden
Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one
Considered himself as a lost man.

                    — Czelaw Milosz, 1970
                    taken from text to John Harbison’s Milosz Songs
                    New York Philharmonic, February 24, 2006

The concert on Friday was spectacular.  Rather appallingly, Avery Fisher Hall seemed barely half full, and there were only 4 attendees in our row.  Even though the Harbison was difficult I would go almost anywhere to hear Dawn Upshaw, and I am surprised that the concert was not better attended.

The opening work, Bartok’s fabulous Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, was wonderfully performed, full of power and magic.  I don’t think the audience was thrilled.  A shame.  Perhaps I am biased because this is one of my favorite works,  it just makes me smile and want to dance.

The Harbison was beautiful and powerful, the music was well suited to the gripping texts, and Ms. Upshaw, as usual, gave an affecting, riveting performance.  One of the things I love about Dawn Upshaw’s performances is that does not only does she have a great voice, but she sings with such intelligence, control, emotion, and a great ability to act and to portray the music through her singing.   Here’s a link to the review in the New York Times.

That said, this work was difficult, or at least I found it so, and I tend to like difficult modern pieces  Of course the selected poems and fragments by Czeslaw Milosz are difficult in and of themselves.  The piece was beautiful, haunting, and very taxing.  I would not recommend it for anyone who wants to sit back and not think or feel strong emotions while listening to music.  I loved it but I don’t think I could listen to it often. I suppose that is why the concert hall was not full;  our last concert, an all Mozart program, was, after all, sold out.

I don’t know why, I knew the name of the work before we came to the concert, but it must have been a symptom of the general fog in my brain of late, but I had not connected the name of the work "Milosz Songs" with Czeslaw Milosz’s actual works.  Stupid I know.

The concert ended with Bernstein, some symphonic reworkings of dances from West Side Story.  I love West Side Story as a musical.  I have never developed a taste for symphonic renditions of other music forms and was not eager to hear this but we stayed.  It was nice enough, certainly a mental relief after the Harbison, and I suppose a nice way to send us off back into the streets and to bed.  No bad dreams after the Bernstein after all.

Dear RCA Classics:

We purchased your recording of  Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky, conducted by Fritz Reiner.  Much to our surprise when we put the disk on the stereo a completely different sound emerged.  We head piano music, with a touch of organ and some mysterious stringed instrument.  The work can be quite beautiful in parts, a little mystical and strange in others.  What is it?

Please advise.

I haven’t told you about our trip to New York on Thursday because I just haven’t had a few moments to compose my thoughts.   Thursday was not our normal subscription night but the Philharmonic was hosting a dinner for patrons with a concert to follow and, as we usually enjoy this event, we decided to go in.  George was especially happy as he actually finished all his work early and did not have to go in to the office on Friday to dictate.

Unfortunately the trip did not start out terribly auspiciously.  The train station was full – there was no parking – nada – nothing.  We were told we would have to wait for someone to leave, a surefire way to miss a train in my book.  The nearest metered or otherwise available parking space was about 4 blocks away, not option when the train was departing in 10 minutes.  George spotted a bunch of parking spaces for the neighboring pub and shops but they were limited to 4 hours, and did not become available for unlimited parking until 9 PM (it was fast approaching 3:30) I figured we would have 1 ½ hours where we would risk being ticketed and paying a $50 fine, or we could drive in.  George opted to drive.   Later, afer we were on the Taconic, he figured that if we weren’t lucky in finding a parking spot we may pay $50 in parking and gas.  We did find a spot.

In fact the trip down was uneventful and quick, downtown Po-town to Lincoln Center in about 1 hour and 40 minutes.   The trip back was slower.  We drove back up the Thruway as it is brighter and easier in the dark.   Unfortunately we did not anticipate construction on Route 17.  Since George took the driver’s seat for the return trip, it was a fine opportunity for me to knit in the bright lights of shopping-mall-alley.

But back to the concert.  Dinner was fine as  always.  The Philharmonic is not going to skimp on its Patrons; after all it needs us to shell out the bucks.  The concert was also nice although the beginning was less than promising.  The first work, the Bartok Dance Suite was downright boring, a surprise for that piece which has wonderful folk-inspired melodies; it usually makes me feel like swishing away.  Noseda may have been dramatically conducting but he was not moving the orchestra out of somnolence.  The Britten, Sinfonia de Requiem, was better, but still not up to the quality that I would expect of an orchestra like the New York Philharmonic.

The second half of the concert was spectacular though, at least to me.  I have read the review, although I was not waiting for it, and I was apparently one of those audience members who was swept off their feet by Simon Trpceski’s playing.  I thought he was spectacular.  Yes it is true that the Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto #3 was not as lush and romantic as it could be, probably here a combination of the youth of the pianist and the “play it safe” attitude the conductor seemed to be taking with the evening.  I don’t tend to expect great emotional depth in young performers, probably a great shortcoming of mine.  Still he made the piece seem easy, as if he could do it in his sleep (maybe he was asleep) and it is not an easy piece to play.  And he still had force and character, he did not just hit the notes.  The audience at the Philharmonic does not usually leap to its feet en masse, but it did that night; maybe we are all just swayed by a limp wrist, fast fingers, and a pretty face.  If so,  I joined them.  I truly enjoyed the concert and it was an evening I will remember.  If I was “seeing only the trees and not the forest” I don’t feel as I missed much.  The evening was worthwhile for what it was and that was pretty spectacular.

I probably need to learn a lot more about music.  I hope that in doing so, I don’t lose the joy of listening.

19 years ago today I married my true love, snugglewumpus, and very dear friend.  Happy anniversary George!

Many flowers arrived (among other things), unfortunately all photographed at night:


from Miriam and Rich, whose anniversary is also today.

More orchids:

Orchids two years in a row.  Perhaps a collection is beginning.

Walking through the kitchen, I caught the light behind the orchid, lighting the blossom so beautifully:

I have not been writing about the South Mountain Concerts performances we have been attending every Sunday.  I feel I have no constructive or interesting criticism or insights, just mindless adoring blather about how much I have enjoyed the concerts and the musicians.  Needless to say September Sundays are a joy that I look forward to throughout the year.

This Sunday however was entirely special.  The piano quartet, Opus One, was spectacular the performances of the Mozart Quartet in G minor and the Schubert Trout Quintet were both wonderful.  But these were not the high points of a spectacular performance, which came in the middle of the concert with the performance of the “Piano Quartet No. 3" by George Tsontakis.  This piece absolutely blew me away.  It was an intense piece, densely packed with themes and musical ideas, yet there was a flow and a sequence to it that the mind could follow and retain.  The ear could follow the progression of the music and almost anticipate what might come next, or at least be prepared for what might come.  There were melodic vignettes and moments that stayed in the mind, to be hummed or relived later, something that cannot always be said of some modern composers.  I was entranced.  The piece was a times fierce, perhaps barren (as the first movement is titled), despairing, desolate, uplifting, tender, heart-rending, sweet and disconsolate.  I was literally at the edge of my seat.

I am not the most sophisticated listener of music and I have never heard pieces by Tsontakis before.  You can be sure I will seek out his music in the future as this is something that absolutely need in my life.  I think it is rare that I have heard music that has really touched me so deeply and profoundly.  I must admit that my heart was all aflutter for some time afterwards and I babbled like a giddy schoolgirl.

It struck me that we often discuss modern music and how the ear might need to listen to something new a few times before it begins to appreciate the quality of what is being heard.  I have subscribed to this theory as well, sometimes giving things more than an adequate chance to worm their way into my affections.  Perhaps the ho-hum is simply that, ho-hum, and the great is there waiting to strike you if only you are willing to listen.

As usual, I am too overwhelmed by Bard Music to keep up with everything.  I obviously have a long road before I get up to journal-keeping-par.

Saturday is already fading from my mind, of course it was fading before it began as I was very tired that day and was not impressed with the offerings.  Whether that is a statement on the quality of the program or the depth of my exhaustion, I haven’t a clue.

Mike Seeger was interesting and enjoyable but by the end of the hour it was all sounding a little monotonous to me.  Peggy Seeger was a little too cute and folksy and I would have appreciated an intermission between after the first hour.  On the other hand the fact that there was none was probably good as I might have left.

The afternoon concert was more interesting.  The high points were Walter Piston’s "Three Pieces, for flute, clarinet, and bassoon" and Stravinsky’s "Suite from L’Histoire du Soldat".  The Irving Fine and Eliot Carter woodwind quintets were marred only by the performance, which I found to be rather pedestrian, surprising since Marc Goldberg and Randolph Bowman are both such excellent musicians who seemed to work well in other groups.   Perhaps I was too tired, I cannot put my finger on the exact problem, but the Bard Woodwind Quintet did not seem to work well as a group.

The evening program did less for me.  For the most part I could have skipped the entire first part of the concert.  I enjoyed Samuel Barber’s “First Essay, Op 12" but otherwise thought the rest of the program was a waste of time.  George liked the Chavez though.

The second half of the concert more than made up for the first however.  In an all-Copeland program, the orchestra played, Statements, Quiet City, and Billy the Kid.  All three were excellent.

This morning I was mentally more awake, and if I had not been, the absolutely wonderfully stimulating and charming panel discussion by contemporary composers would have woken me up completely.

The afternoon program was wonderful:
    Lukas Foss    Capriccio, for cello and piano (1948)     beautiful
    Arthur Berger  Duo, for cello and piano (1951)            a little boring but well played
    Benjamin Britten    Folk Song Arrangemenets, "The British Isles"  neither George nor I liked the                                     tenor, Philippe Castagner but the songs were nice.
    Ned Rorem    Echo’s Songs, Stopping by woods on a Snowy Evening     same as above
    David Del Tredici    I Hear an Army (1964)    Awesome, specatuclar, beautifully sung.  Frightening.
    John Cage and Lou Harrison    Double Music (1941)    What a great piece, really cool.
    Pierre Boulez    Flute Sonatine (1946)   Outstanding performance of a difficult piece.                Unfortunately   Boulez leaves me cold every time.
    Aaron Copland    Piano Quartet       lovely, well done.

The evening concert was also a rousing success and great conclusion to the festival.  Botstein played the original version of Copland’s Third Symphony and it seemed perfect to me.  I am not familiar enough with the work to remember the fourth movement without the 10 bars that have been eliminated.  I think it must be a shame.  Too much is never enough, after all.

No chance of recovering my thoughts on Bard Weekend one.  I have notes but my thoughts are lost forever.  Music, lectures and bed pretty much summed up my weekend.

Weekend 2 has begun and Friday night’s concert was wonderful. The concert opened with Copland’s El Salon Mexico, as scored for two pianos by Leonard Bernstein, played by Richard Wilson who is a good pianist, and Blanca Uribe who is an excellent pianist.  Wonderful, wonderful work.

The remainder of the first half of the concert did not do as much for me, the performances were excellent for the most part, the works less than inspiring.  The content is already sliding into oblivion.

The intermission served as a much needed stretching-break and wake-up-call for the second half, which was spectacular and well worth waiting for.

Mario Davidovsky’s Syunchronisms #9 was wonderful and fascinating even if the computer generated portion was a tape and therefore dictated the pace of the concert — George’s main objection.  Something always dictates the pace;, in a purely human concert it might vary more, but the interaction of man and machine generated music is still fascinating and the work was melodic, complex and interesting.  This was a tour de force and Curtis Macomber was spectacular.

He was followed by more spectacular playing by  Blanca Uribe, who performed the Danzas Argentinas by Ginastera.  The audience was on its feet. 

Villa-Lobos string quartet #17 was incredibly beautiful and the closing Ginastera songs were wonderfully performed by Lauren Skuce, whom we heard last year at Shostakovich, and who still strikes me as excellent, although her facial expressions somehow seem to be not in concert with the music she is singing some of the time. 

Odd thing to notice.